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.