Tag Archives: shawl

I Am Gartering

 

One of my favorite Israeli authors is David Grossman, in one of his first books: The Book of Intimate Grammar: A Novel he describes the fascination of a young Israeli boy with the present continuous tense (we don’t have it in Hebrew). The boy keeps using it in his head with Hebrew words. Ani kofetzing = I am jumping – is the one stuck in my head from some reason.

To borrow from this lovely kid, these days I am gartering.

After finishing the Candy I made for our Cookie*:

Which was the third finished (I have a fourth waiting patiently on the needles,,,) Different Lines going off my needles almost in a row (I knitted a few holiday gifts between the second and third).

I planned on knitting a cardigan (this is in my plans for the longest time,,,) but alas, I came across the latest creation of Veera Välimäki – Color Affection and had to knit it NOW!

The only problem was that the pattern is not published yet and the only way to get it is to buy a kit from The Plucky Knitter but alas, all the kits were sold, oy!

In my despair, I bought some alternative yarn, Tosh Merino Light and went on a mission to get my hands on that pattern,,, Luckily, it took me only a few days to find a raveler who wanted to sell her kit and since then I am gartering away on this lovely creation:

After getting well into the third section, I decided my esdges pull too much and I ripped it off and started again. I am now almost at the end of the third section and the rows are long (over 300 stitches and growing rapidly) but I can already see it is going to be an excellent shawl and I am going to knit a few more of it and may try some personal variation or two (I said that about the different lines and never did it,,,)

One useful thing I learned in one of Ravelry’s groups discussion is how to avoid the pulling of the edge when you have a lot of increases near it (I am going to apply it in my next pogona and other Stephen West patterns too):
Do a yarn over on the needle before the first stitch and drop it when you get to it at the end of the next row, it takes a bit getting used to but it makes the edge really nice and loose. It works nice with one or 2 colors. When I got to the 3 colors section I decided to do the YO with the thread I just used and the one I am going to use next then I knit the first stitch with both threads and after dropping the YO I pull lightly on the thread not in use right now – I think it will give me a nice edge but will give you my final verdict on this one after blocking.

I think I am doomed. I think I am going to garter to the end of my knitting life!

Oh and I really have to hold my horses not go into the longest rant about the GOP primaries in general and the Newt in particular!

 

*  Photo taken by Cookie and used with her permission.

Me? Gardening?

Unlike some people I know (my mother in law and my sister – to name a few),
I have brown fingers.

When I tried to raise plants in my apartment in Tel Aviv, they always looked miserable (I think there it was mostly a matter of not enough light, although a more diligent watering plan woudld most probably been helpful too…)

In Arizona, we tried to raise vegetables with very little success, the only thing that grew was some catnip oh and some parsley too (a few basil plants managed to survive but those were planted by Joe),,, and except one variety of small roses that caught up and resist dying despite all my efforts, we mainly had wild desert vegetation in our yard.

I really like those colorful flowers they offer here in Toronto, all over town these days,  and I want to have my own herbs but seeing the little strawberry plants in one of the stores the other day, made it for me:

Planting My Strawberry Patch

Planting My Strawberry Patch

You see,  looking for the first fruit in my mother’s  strawberry patch in Shoresh so many moons ago, is one of my fondest childhood memories.

Do you think the greenness of everything here in Toronto will catch my fingers too?

And on the knitting front – I am 17 rows from finishing my Dandelions/Ulmus shawl but the yellow yarn is runing out faster than those rows.  I just received an email today from the Green Mountain Spinnery that my other yellow skein is going to be shipped today, so I hope it will arrive on time and that the color will be close enough so I can finish that shawl before the birthday girl arrives home and this present will  be all ready for her (aren’t I lucky she is not going to be here for the actual birthday?)