06.02.10
Craft Update
Originally I was planning on blogging about The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Hooman Majd since I finished reading it last week. Which, by the way is a pretty good book. But with all the distractions on the news lately I almost forgot about it. I’ve been keeping an eye out on the BP Oil leak, then I came across this article, “Niger’s Agony Dwarfs the Gulf Oil Spill.” Oye. . . too much depressing stuff happening together. Too much, too much! I need a break from all this depressing news, so thought I’m just gonna blog about my crafts right now.
I’m one of those people who likes to do two things at one time especially crafting because I don’t want to feel like I’m wasting all my time crafting. So, I generally read and craft/knit at the same time. Well, there has been a lot to read recently, so I’ve been cross stitching like crazy. Plus I’ll add that it’s all my friend’s fault because she got me back into cross stitching, and now I’m hooked again. I think she and I are going for broke cross stitching Christmas things. Between the two of us we have lots of patterns to work from, but could we settle for that? Sadly, no, and just recently we received our shipment of new patterns to work on, ha, ha! She called me late one night to share a link on cross stitch kits, and so we went online shopping. Here’s what I’ve done so far using our old patterns.
Yep, being the rug rat that I am, I’m still using up old supplies that my friend and I bought years ago hence the “wrinkled aida cloth,” heheh. I’m hoping they iron out okay. . . I did try to put a few of them together to see what they would look like stuffed. They’re the ones in the clear plastic bag. It’s kinda hard to see them well in the above pic, so here’s a closer look at some.
And while I’m at it, I also finally got to work up some of the organic Peruvian cotton my sister and her hubby gifted to me a couple Christmases ago. . . Here are the lovely skeins.
Oh wait! I have to back up a bit to tell my story. . . 
A few weeks ago I was diving in my yarn stash hunting for my next project. I found some yarn and a lace book that I had purchase a year prior. Yes, a “year” prior. I decided I was in the mood to learn how to do this lace pattern in this book. So I wound up the yarn. Then, the following morning I tried to knit. For some reason I was having the hardest time. Things were not going well. I knit, ripped back, knit, ripped back, knit, ripped back, I don’t know how many times! Then I decided that maybe the yarn wasn’t right for the size needles and such. So I dove back into my stash and found another very old skein that looked like it would be suitable. So back again, I knit, ripped back, knit, ripped back, knit, ripped back. . . Oye! Something was wrong! I looked over the pattern and counted, and lo and behold, the cast on instructions were wrong! Grrr. Just looking at their graph, instead of 49, I should cast on 52. So back I went knitting and when I got to the fourth row when things went wrong again. . . I thought, I must have knit something wrong again, so back again ripping it down to the start. Knit it again, and again, and again. Finally I decided maybe there’s a list online for errata on this book. Sure enough there was errata, but not for this pattern. Hmmm. But I “know” there’s a mistake because I had just found the cast on was the wrong number. So I looked on Amazon for reviews on this book, and what did I find? A few comments stating that this book was “rife with errors!” Argh! I just went blind trying to work that thing up! Okay, so now my ego has been battered that maybe I can’t really knit after all. I dug around trying to find lace patterns that I liked, but nothing was working up to my liking. Here’s a sample of “some” of the things I tried working up and then abandoned.
Yes, there was more than this. But while straightening out my pattern folder, I came across a pattern from Lace Style by Pam Allen and Ann Bud. It was a cute little shrug that had open work. Hmm, I thought, I just may have the right yarn for that. And so I pulled out my Peruvian cotton. Once I started to work it up, I felt that this pattern and yarn were going to work. Here’s what it looked like in the process.
Ah, yes! This would be perfect for California weather. And with the big loose knitting it worked up really fast. I was done in no time. Here’s the completed shrug.
I will vouch for this organic Peruvian cotton yarn. It drapes well, and it’s very soft. I think it only took three skeins, so I still have about 7 skeins left to work up another project, woo hoo! I will also vouch for Pam Allen and Ann Bud patterns because this is the second pattern of theirs that I’ve worked up that worked beautifully. Good instructions! Which is much appreciated by hopelessly addicted knitters like me.
Marlakins
