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1/9/2006 9:24:08 AM
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Completely OT, but ...
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Sorry to hear about your mother, Barbara. Do take good care of yourself so that you can be supportive to her.
Alice
Salt Spring Island.
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1/10/2006 10:02:09 PM
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Another Shawl contest question
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Benne, you who wear shawls, what is the best length?
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/14/2006 9:25:44 AM
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Happy Birthday Cheryl (clk) !
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Happy Birthday!
I know you live well below the dangerous mud zone in N. Van, but do be careful if you venture upwards.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/15/2006 10:59:27 AM
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Did something new
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Technique is great for adding length to kids` sweaters - little or big. Cut a stitch, unravel, put the live stitches back on a needle, knit down to the length you want. Works on cuffs, too, either way - too long or too short. Yarn doesn`t match - go for stripes.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/15/2006 11:13:07 AM
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Sunday`s verse
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Alice is still trying to decide just what to do. I`ve got some BS in Raspberry and some HW in Deep Blue Sea plus lesser amounts in other colours. Black in Alpaca and Connemara. The Raspberry BS is crying out to be a shawl, but it`s not really a "West Coast" colour. Trying to decide between stitch pattern or colourwork if I use HW.
Decisions, decisions, decisions.
As to "Go Ask Alice" I used to teach the book for a few years and then it became a catch phrase at my school for monkeys that were dropped on my back.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/15/2006 11:20:18 AM
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What a great reception!
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As to that multimedia degree - look into university distance programmes. You`ll be amazed at the variety offered by `name` universities. For some courses, you do all the work at home, for others you attend one or two weekend seminars/workshops a semester and do the rest at home.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
who is plodding away at her MA thesis
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1/16/2006 9:28:40 AM
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Sunday`s verse
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I`m still thinking about it. Enough changes should blur the edges. This needs to be simple, too, as I am knitting my top-down samples with "non-raglan" sleeves.
What I really want is to make something simple but spectacular with a West Coast theme.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/16/2006 9:34:32 AM
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Socks with todays yarn?
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Socks in this one would be really cosy on Salt Spring in October, Chris. Can you picture yourself in the corner of the sofa with your feet up on the shingler`s bench with a roaring fire in the stone fireplace and your feet admired by all. Naomi is just great at keeping that fire going.
I think they might be a trifle warm for Texas, though.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/17/2006 10:47:52 AM
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What`s on Needles II? What`s Finished this Month?
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Decided to start a new chain as the last one is getting very long.
1) finished 2nd sock for DS for Christmas
2) finished knitting top-down saddle-shoulder sample cardigan, but not blocked yet
3) on needles - top-down yoke sample cardigan in HW is now down to 10 inches below the underarms. Used Sweater Wizard to design the pattern, and then tweeked the back neck with short rows, but it has knitted up much too big for me - will look great on Jenny. I seem to do much better when I work sizes out on paper - the programme is putting in too much ease (will fiddle with it when I have more time).
4) socks for ferry knitting
5) assorted `other`
6) swatches for the contest.
Figure I have used up about 700 yards so far this month. Of course, I have to confess that I bought yarn for the sample cardis at the end of December.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/17/2006 12:01:28 PM
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What`s on Needles II? What`s Finished this Month?
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We slept right through the earthquake. Last night`s storm was another matter! DH slept through it, but Desdemona, the little black cat, and I kept watch. The wind actually howled - I remembered that happening in the mountains in Alberta quite a lot, but it`s rare here. No real damage near us, but someone is using a chain saw down the hill this morning.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/17/2006 10:31:19 PM
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Here`s the poll of the month-tweaking vs. time-
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Definitely in the 60+ group. I know I could knit before I started school, and that was in 1949, but I really can`t remember a time when I couldn`t knit. I follow charts carefully for lace until the pattern is established, fairly carefully for fair isle colourwork until I can see the pattern forming, and if I`m working out a pattern for someone. Otherwise, I look at a picture, drawing, or schematic, read my knitting, and tweek it here and there. I knitted animals and doll clothes when I was quite young, by matching the knitting to a shape drawn on paper. Always being good at math, I could figure out how many more or fewer stitches I needed and how to get there.
I find following a pattern stitch by stitch with no changes is difficult for me to do. I hate instructions like: ROW 52: K2, P3, (K1, T2L, P2, YO, SSK)[repeat 3 times], *K1, P2, S1, K1, PSSO, K1, YO* [repeat * to * 17 times] K3, P1, K2. ROW 53: Repeat ROW 37 from two pages back. You get the idea. I either chart it or flip the page and do something else.
I do try out instructions for classes - usually in bed with my first cup of coffee - but I am quite content with students varying them once I know the concept works.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/18/2006 5:15:39 PM
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Opinion Poll~ knitting status
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I highlight the addi with the curser, press Ctrl + C, move the curser up to the address line at the top of the screen, and press Ctrl + V. Voila, you get the new site.
I`m sure that there are more scientific and purist ways to do it, but that works.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/20/2006 10:19:51 AM
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Completely OT, but food related . . . . . . .
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Those of us who grew up on this part of the West Coast have this firmly engrained concept that salmon is the ONLY fish to eat. Pacific salmon is different from Atlantic - it`s milder.
Smoked salmon is easy to get, as is `candied`. BC Ferries often feature salmon with dill sauce on their buffets on the big ferries.
I wonder how easy it would be to knit a salmon - I have knit starfish.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/22/2006 4:36:51 PM
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Top down construction question---
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Will work starting with the neck ribbing, but you need to short row to raise the back. If you are doing raglan sleeves, knit a couple of short rows from the centre of the sleeve stitches, across the back, to the centre of the other sleeve, as well as short rows on the back. Keep looking at the shape as you knit, to judge how far apart to put the short rows. Depending on gauge think about 4 to 6 rows apart.
If you are knitting set-in or drop sleeves, knit the ribbing, then short row back and forth across the back, knitting up a front stitch or two on the front end of each row, until the neck is deep enough, then knit across the remaining front stitches.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/24/2006 8:32:43 AM
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Really useful techniques, tips and tricks-
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If you knit a round yoke (visualize an Icelandic sweater) instead of raglan, AND make the increases/decreases on a one colour row, or better yet, the middle or last row of a band of plain colour, they just fade into the background. Your yoke grows or shrinks as if by magic.
Mem will wear yokes if the pattern is bold - DH`s most admired sweater is in French blue lopi with gold, red, and black yoke.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/24/2006 5:36:04 PM
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Bets - Yoke vs Raglan
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I`m writing this separately so that it doesn`t disappear way down the list.
If you are increasing/decreasing 8 stitches every 2 rows, then you accomplish the same thing on a yoke if you increase/decrease 40 stitches every 10 rows. Just spaces them evenly around the needle. ie If you have 160 stitches, increase after every 4th stitch. 10-12 rows between increase rows will lie flat in DK or worsted, but no more; 4-8 is fine. You can figure out how many increase/decrease rows you need from the difference between the total stitches at the neck and total at the bottom of the yoke taking the raglan 8 to every 2 rows as a guide - 8 rows = 32 stitches
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/26/2006 9:58:14 PM
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Oh, Help, Please!
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Barbara, you`ll have a great time! Thinking about Salt Spring this year? You, your Vancouver friend, and Uleta could all come in October.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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1/26/2006 10:04:10 PM
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Westcoasters -- have you received your VK yet?
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I picked one up at the drug store here on Salt Spring this afternoon, they had a stack of them - AND they don`t usually have knitting magazines. Must admit that the melting tree is a bit surreal.
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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2/2/2006 5:17:45 PM
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More silliness-other non-knitting stuff!
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That was fun, but somehow the test doesn`t quite fit me. I came out 45% Yankee, which must be from living in Ontario (Toronto area) for nearly thirty years and picking up certain words and expressions. Back East, though, I did not sound like people born there. Came back here in 1998, after having lived in Alberta, Quebec, and Ontario since 1964, and several people asked me if I were a `lifer` on Salt Spring. I`m from Vancouver Island, just across the narrow part of the channel between Salt Spring and the Big Island (Vancouver Is)looking south from my house, so very similar culture.
I`ve never seen a drive thru metal building that sells beer. When I lived in Alberta, you had to sign for it AND give a street address, in Quebec you just phoned the corner store and a kid delivered it on a bicycle, Ontario, at least in the Toronto area, had a curious store called Brewer`s Retail in the shopping centres, strip malls, which only sold beer and accepted empties, here in British Columbia it comes from the government liquour stores and various other premises with licenses to sell beer, wine, etc. In Scotland, the grocery stores sell all types of liquour and you just put your wine or whiskey in the shopping cart as you go up and down the aisles along with your lettuce, cheese, fish, and laundry soap - very civilized.
Here`s one for you - what are GUMTUCKIES?
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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2/3/2006 10:06:03 AM
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ecasey & Libby
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Take really good care of yourself, lots of pampering. Get all the rest your doctor thinks you need and then some. I had a miscarriage the year before DS was born, somehow the kids at school found out why I was away, and it was just amazing how supportive teenagers can be. I still have the puppy-shaped bowl that three boys chose to go with the flowers they sent me. So I know knitting the bag is a really good idea. It`ll help you to focus your racing emotions in one place. When you feel stronger, you and DH should try to go to somewhere for a weekend where you haven`t been before.
My thoughts are with you
Alice
Salt Spring Island
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