Monday, January 18, 2010

Proportions

Or, you just might use that math you learned in high school.

I am currently working on the Tudor Grace pattern by Anne Hanson. It is the January KAL project for The Loopy Ewe's Spring Fling. I was fortunate enough to get a spot at this year's Fling, to be held April 22-25 in St. Louis. I didn't get to go last year, but I did attend the first one the year before. I was the last person to arrive, Friday evening. This time, I'm skipping school on Friday and going to St. Louis on Thursday evening.

Back to the title of the post: the pattern calls for 43 6-row repeats. I would like to use as much of my yarn as possible. So I have been weighing the yarn ball & counting the number of repeats that I have completed. Using proportions, I can figure out how many more repeats I should be able to do.

I have been teaching proportions recently, in fact, in one of the courses I teach. Now, when students ask when they're ever going to use this, I'm just not sure the knitting-to-the-end-of-the-yarn example is going to do anything for them. Probably just result in a bunch of blank stares.

My yarn is Socks That Rock Lightweight in the Lenore colorway.
The scarf is now about three times the length shown in this picture.

I meant to do 2 6-row repeats per day, so I would finish well before the end of January, but I'm behind already! It's still do-able, though.

I just realized this picture was taken one morning after the chocolate lab puppy had apparently tried to knit while I was asleep. She chewed the cable of my needle in two. I repaired it with electrical tape. Not a good repair, but I'm knitting back-and-forth, so it hasn't really affected me. I will probably never be able to use this needle for a circular project again, though. The bit of yarn above the needle in the picture was very stiff and smelled like dog breath. I removed it.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Winter Lace Project

I am working on approximately a dozen or more projects, as usual. I just dropped in to invite anyone reading this to join a new Yahoo Group; Andrea of BadCatDesigns is going to do a KAL for a Pi shawl (circular, using Elizabeth Zimmermann's Pi shaping). The charts will be posted at SnowQueenShawl. She'll be closing the group when membership reaches 400, so get over there! Description from the group site:
BadCatDesigns Winter 2010 group project! This project uses Elizabeth Zimmerman's formula for a Pi shawl construction and original charts designed specifically for this project. This project is going to be technically advanced for lace knitters looking for something fun and a bit different.

I have ordered yarn from ColourmartUK, a cashmere/silk/merino blend in light grey. Seemed Snow-Queenish to me. Who knows if I'll actually knit along or not? I have joined so many knit-alongs over the years, and I'm not sure I've ever completed a project with a group. Some never even got cast on. But I do have intentions of eventually making most of these projects. Eventually. Ha. Did I mention eventually, or some day? Notice the lack of explicit time reference in there.