Monday, July 19, 2010

New Podcast Episode is UP and Brandywine Question Answered

There is a new episode of Knitting Pipeline Podcast here or on iTunes.  If you listen from the blog, just click on the title of the episode.

Sandy, I can't figure out how to respond to you personally about Brandywine, so here is my answer.  Yes, there are YO's on the center stitch in Chart A.  That threw me a bit at first also, but plough onwards.  Those are meant to be there.  The only glitch I found was on Row 37 where it seems to me that a YO/SSK is missing from the top of a diamond pattern. 

We've been having a busy week with family.  My husband's sister and 3 of her children have been here from the Southwest.  The 20 year old and 10 year old wanted to learn to knit.  THEY asked me!  We started on hats.  Youngest Niece was so cute as she chose some vibrant colors from my basket.  I thought her hat might end up looking like a gang hat.  When she added the green stripe it seemed to come together.  I said, "You  had that planned all along, didn't you?"  She replied, "No, and knitting with the green made me feel weird."  After the stripes I had to take over and finish up the hat as she was rarin' to go on Project #2.  I told her that was not a good idea to start another project before finishing the first one, but we would make an exception since they were leaving town.  Last night we started on her Tooley Owl.  It turns out her mother has a friend who is a knitter and general all-round crafter, so Marni will have some help when she gets home.  She was so happy with her hat that she wore it yesterday and today--in 90 degree heat!  What a great little gal.

Meanwhile Elysha made a lot of progress on her hat with a color pattern.  I'm proud of her!  She is definitely going to be a knitter!


While teaching them to knit I came up with a memorable way to illustrate gauge.  That seems more like podcast fodder than blog fodder, but here's a shot at it.  The basic idea was to have all three of us stand at the same point and take 10 steps forward.  We all ended up in different places.  I explained that is what it would be like if our steps were stitches.  One knitter's 10 stitches would be bigger than another's.  Then I explained that the needle size is just an average, a guideline, and they should experiment with different size needles to get the recommended gauge rather than change their knitting to be looser or tighter.  I hope I got the point across.  At any rate, we all needed a stretch and a wiggle at that point so it was a fun exercise.

I like it that they call me "Tante Paula".  "Tante" is Danish/Norwegian for "Aunt".  Yesterday we made lots of bubbles in the back yard.  That was so much fun!  It has been a long time since I've blown bubbles.  We had the big wands and lots of strange-shaped wands also.  I think bubble blowing should be a regular activity.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Brandywine and Butterflies


Our very hot weather does not seem to deter the butterflies that come to the front garden.  This Eastern Tiger Swallowtail enjoyed feeding on our buddleia.
I can't seem to get decent photos of the Brandywine Shawl.  Neither the lace nor the wool is properly portrayed in the photos but it is too hot to wear it outside for the proper photoshoot.I think there might be an error in the pattern here.  Within all the diamond shapes, this particular diamond seems to be missing its top.  It seems there should be a YO/SSK here on Row 37 of Chart A.  I have now started the same shawl in red and added the YO/SSK.  It looks better...at least to me.  And isn't that what counts?

Thursday, July 8, 2010

I Have a Podcast!

I haven't update this blog in a while because I've been busy with another knitting venture...producing a knitting podcast. I've been wanting to do this ever since I began listening to podcasts nearly 3 years ago.  On May 26th some kind of a catalyst prompted me to move forward.  I had a long, steep learning curve to figure everything out and I'm sure it will be an ongoing learning process.  There are two episodes up now.  Several ways to listen:

My plan is to put up a 30 min show weekly, at least for now.

I still plan to keep this blog going.  The other blog will be mostly for show notes.

I hope you give Knitting Pipeline a listen!  Listener feedback is welcome!

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