For the Love of Wool

It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention. Just look at history. Mr. Whitney invented the cotton gin to make the production of cotton in the South more profitable. Mr. Franklin had poor vision and he got tired of constantly taking his glasses off and putting them back on again, so he decided to figure out a way to make his glasses let him see both near and far. He had two pairs of spectacles cut in half and put half of each lens in a single frame. Today, we call them bifocals. And thank God for Alexandre Godefoy, the inventor of the electric hair dryer. Without which my current project would have been ruined.


My current project, which as been dubbed Knitting-that-shall-not-be-named by JuniorGoddess, has taken a turn for the worse this weekend. First off, let me explain a few things. I have been commissioned to knit a jacket out of some new yarn which has not yet been released by the manufacturer. Toni and Jeanie, you know that stuff I'm talking about, its the scrumptious yellow stuff I have been knitting with the last several weeks. Well the bulk of the knitting is done. The back, the left and right front as well as the sleeves. All Done. Now its time for the blocking. I gather all my pieces, take it to the bathroom for a nice good soak. You know the kind, where you rinse it real well with some water then fill up the sink again and let it marinate. Well a half hour later I go to retrieve my pieces, squeeze the water out and then roll it up in a towel so I don't allow my pieces to grow. I get out my foam blocks for the blocking process and start to pin.

I started with the back and pinned the one end of the bottom, measured the width its SUPPOSED to be and GOODLORDBABYJESUS the damn thing grew 5 inches....ohmygodohmygodohmygod.....ohmygodohmygodohmygod.....Did I mention that I'm getting PAID to knit this? It HAS to be perfect. NOT 5 inches bigger than its supposed to be. Calm down Libby Grant, calm down. I'm almost in tears at this point. I had just spent the last 6 weeks knitting all those pieces right smack dab in the middle of prime Christmas knitting season. I then had an epiphany and thanked the Good Lord Baby Jesus for giving us Mr. Godefoy.

I pinned the back to the dimensions it was supposed to be knowing that the scrumptious yarn mentioned above is half wool. Betting on the fact that wool is well known for its memory characteristics and hoping that the makers of THIS particular wool told the wool itself that it is SUPPOSED to have a memory. I got out the hair dryer, set it to the hottest setting possible and started to dry the pinned out back. Right before my very eyes the damn thing started to shrink!!! Exactly to where I needed it to be. ThankyouGodThankyouGodThankyouGod. My heart stopped racing and my pulse slowed down and I got back to blocking the rest of the pieces. Tomorrow I will sew it all together.

Snowflakes

I'm hoping that everyone had a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving. My family and I went to visit my cousin and her family across town. Can you even believe that it was snowing over there? A good 1 inch was on the ground and it had not yet melted! WOW...... I'm so incredibly excited about this.

I have had snow and snowflakes on the brain for awhile now and came up with a new design.



The hat looks harder to make than it really is. The main color is a cream wool while the contrasting color is simply a variegated yarn of the same weight. I used Elann.com Highland Wool for the cream and some birthday yarn from Betsy for the snowflakes. What was my birthday yarn you ask? Cherry Tree Hill possum blend yarn. I felt pretty special when I opened that up! I still have some left overs and I want to make some matching mittens but have not gotten around to it yet. Can you hardly even stand it? A classic intricate look for no work? I'm loving it!

Ravelry

Ravelry ~ What is it? I have been asking myself that very same question for quite some time now. Then I received my invite a little bit ago and I'm still trying to figure it out. From what I gather, its a bunch of stuff all rolled into one.

Its a hang out place for knitters and crocheters. Groups galore. Friends of Delores group, Friends of SK group, Lace knitters group. There was even a Battlestar Galactica group! And if you can't find what you want? Well, just make up a your own group.

Its a place to catalogue your stash. Books AND yarn. You can even take a pic of your yarn and then put its picture next to how much of the stuff you have in your stash area. It would be easier if they had the yarns that the different yarn manufactures make and then have a drop down menu of pics and the like. Then you just have to click away. But for now you have to manually enter the data. Have I manually entered the data? Hell no.....I'm still in denial as to the amount of stash I have. Some of the books I have entered as it was just a click and save method.

Its a designers hang out. This is one of my favorite features because I'm a designer. You can see pictures of your design in different yarns AND as variations on a theme!!

Its a project provider. You can get inspired just by looking at all of the millions of pictures of everyone's knitwear. And its not just on skinny model types either. You can see the great design on a skinny body, fat body, long waisted or big boobed body. WONDERFUL!!! Now I can see what the great pattern in the magazine is gonna look like on ME before I cast it on and then am disappointed with the final result.

Again I'm still scratching the surface of the wonderment of Ravelry but so far so good. I'm LibbyKnitKins over there in case you want to know.

SCUBA Diving in Lake St. Clair

I know that I promised some wholesome knitting but there has been an interruption to the regularly scheduled program.

Ray went diving this weekend in Lake St. Clair on a shipwreck that has yet to be determined. This is his very first video production. Enjoy!

Monday's Funnies!

A friend of mine sent this and I though I would pass it along!

Two Eyes Really ARE Better Than One

Feedback is wonderful. I totally love it. Hearing from people that I may or may not have met and having them tell me what they do or don't like about my patterns/ blog.

Today I received a wonderful email from a lady asking about the Garmisch hat listed in the side bar. It seems that she was having some trouble understanding what it was that I was trying to relay via charts and patterns. First she tells me that there seems to be a problem with the ribbing chart and then asks if it is correct that in chart 2 rows 8 and 16 that both cables supposed to be crossing in the same direction.

Well the first thing I did was pull up the pattern as posted on the website, and wouldn't ya know it, she was completely correct. There sure does appear that I messed up the chart for the large sizing. Of course the first thing I did was email to let her know she was correct. The second thing I did you ask? Well I fixed it!

As far as her second question was concerned, the cables are indeed supposed to be crossing in the same direction.

She emailed me back again to ask about the hat shaping and how she is supposed to go about decreasing the stitches. Again I re-read the pattern. It turns out that I did mention on how to decrease the top portion in the beginning but fail to mention it in the part of the pattern that deals with that very thing. So naturally I had to add some clarification under the charts that deal with decreasing.

The revised pattern is now available on the side bar with the corrections.

Thanks Constance for the sharp eye and for letting me know about the issues I was having! I greatly appreciate all the feedback I get so if you see something that is just not quite right, let me know and I'll see what I can do about it.