Monthly Archives: August 2007

Wonders In The Desert

I am so envious when I see all your green yards and beautiful flowering gardens, it is so hard to have it here in the desert. So, you can probably imagine my joy, when I looked out of our office window and spotted those:

My cactus has a little pink crown

and then I realised there is some more to look at a bit further away, the second one was amazing, the flowers were almost larger then the little cactus they grew on:

Pale pink flowers on the smallest cactus

I spotted quite different wonders in our desert when we visited Tucson, Arizona this week.

The first one was The Kiwi Knitting Company This shop is in a lovely small house and consists of many rooms each dedicated to a certain yarn type and then there is one (or maybe 2) with patterns, books and accessories, it also has a very large inviting room with a sofa and a big table, I guess this is where they have their classes and other activities. The yarn selection was impressive with a few things that I did not see before, the one that stuck in my memory is a beautiful hand dyed alpaca of the Frog Tree. The yarn that I could not resist this time was the new Regia Design Line by Caffe Fassett , the colour that made me succumb to my weakness is: Regia Mirage Earth 4254 (it is already on the needles so it did not change the status of my stash, right? sort of,,,). The owner was friendly, informative and not pushy at all and I really enjoyed chatting with her. She made Joe really happy by having a wireless internet connection so he sat in the big room and I was free to do what I like to do in those stores (I can’t tell you what exactly it is but I think you can guess). While I was browsing the shelves another client came in and the owner told her: oh what a nice work (she was wearing a beautiful light blue top in some lacy design) and the client responded: it is so nice to be between knitters, all other people want to know where I bought it!

The second one was Purls, it is a Tucson establishment that from some reason I did not check before, apparently the ownership changed recently, the new owner (or one of them I don’t know) was there and was very helpful and friendly with a little bit of a sales person pushiness but not enough to make it a bother. They have an impressive collection of yarns with Habu and other special goodies. Myra the owner introduced me to the yarn that I had to have in this store, it is called Lacey Lamb of Jade Sapphire Exotic Fibers, it is a very fine lace weight yarn and so soft one must have some of it. I chose a beautiful gray colour and thought it will look great in anne hanson’s Japanese Feather Stole. I wonder how I will manage to knit such a delicate thread but I am not starting it at least until I finish my personal Honey, I am knitting it in the other Anne’s Buckwheat Honey and enjoy every second of it. I almost bought an Habu kit as I am really interested in trying to knit with their unique yarns but decided to postpone this purchase when Myra told me she will have a trunk show with better selection in October, I am so good.

Wrong Side? Why Wrong?

Can someone please explain to me why you call that side of our knits wrong?

As the title of my blog suggest, I am knitting in translation, and it goes further then me knitting in English (which is not my mother tongue) now. But this is the subject for another post.

Today I wanted to understand something that baffles me every time I hear it, see it or read it, the wrong side of the knit?!?

I don’t regard this side as wrong and can’t use this term, no sir! (or madam for that matter). I call it the back side or the left side as opposed to the front side or the right side of my knit. The right and left come from the names of the basic stitches in Hebrew, we call the knit: right and the purl: left!

Anyway, I can’t see anything wrong with that side of my knits, actually in many cases I quite like the looks of that side especially when the knit is done with many different yarns like fair isle. When it is done right, the back side of such a knit looks to me like the true manifestation of the piece of art that shows the skill level of the knitter.

Also, if something was wrong on that side of our knit, the whole thing would be wrong, no? as those sides are very strongly connected,,,, so I really don’t understand that term and don’t like it either.

And I wonder, is it only me or is there something wrong with that term?

Oh and by the way, I don’t understand why people don’t like to purl, actually I think it is my preferred stitch, maybe this is why I have such a problem with the name of it side of our knits!

The 3rd Pair is Done

I am so pleased with myself, I finished the third pair of socks for Joe as I promised when I put them with the needles on his birthday presents:

Pair 3 is done

So now I am swatching with this beauty(Hand Maiden Sea Silk in a very bright colour combination):

My very bright Hand Maiden Sea Silk

I bought it in the legendary Lettuce Knit while our travels brought us to Toronto this last March. Do you know Toronto is a dream city for any lover of yarn shops? they have so many lovely places, just a treat to a simple girl like me.

Can anyone tell me why I always fall for these bright colours, they are pretty but when I knit with them the result frequently ends up in the wicked girl possession, oh well.
Yesterday I tried to knit one of the spades from Anne’s beautiful Casino Shawl
to check how this variegated yarn will look in lace, I did not see much but the girl loves it,,, hehehehe