FO: My brother's Pi Blanket

Today, I was finally able to present my brother with the pi blanket I made for him as a 30th birthday gift. He loves knitted goods. Last year I gave him a vest, not the one pictured below. He apologised when he arrived for not wearing my vest. His exact words were, 'I'm sorry, I've been seeing other vests.'

We were visiting our sister Fee and so decided to have a photo shoot, including Baby Alice, on the lounge room floor.

It was too good an opportunity, really. Here is Keith, with Alice, who decided to wear the cardigan I made her for my visit today. I think this photo will make Keith's girlfriend melt.



And here they are again. I'm pretty sure Fee saw the great potential in a pi blanket as a play space for a baby.



So this is my second Pi Blanket (pattern from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac, which features a laceweight pi shawl). 

The first, for Sean, was finished almost exactly a year ago. This time, I went for 12ply (worsted weight) Bendigo Rustic (in Red Tweed) instead of 8ply. This one took me exactly a month - April 24 to May 24. It's really so fast, all that going round and around.

As earlier stated, I ran out of wool. Thanks to a helpful Raveller, I managed to get a little extra and it is so close in shade you can barely tell. I thought I had lost the yarn label but I found it today and saw that the donated wool is only one dyelot away from the original. No wonder it's a good match.

Here's me with Alice. Note the hair. It's getting the chop tomorrow. Can't wait.



And a final shot of Alice pointing at her mummy. Too cute huh?



I really can't recommend pi blankets enough. They are pretty, they are fast, they are clever. They grow like the clappers and are wonderfully versatile. Two of these is not enough. There will be more, and of course, no doubt made from the Bendigo Woollen Mills staple, Rustic. It's such a great wool for blankets. Sturdy, warm, washes up beautifully.

Oh and on the washing issue, I really needed this be dry quickly and at this time of year, when it's cold, that's easier said than done. A bit of twittering on Sunday morning when I was contemplating what to do lead to a great tip from Julie. I had always thought that putting woollens in the washing machine on the spin cycle was a recipe for disaster, but apparently not. Think about it, how much movement actually happens once that item is plastered to the side of the barrel? Practically none.

So I washed it in the bath, rinsed it and tossed it into the washing machine. It emerged much less waterlogged than if I had just squeezed it out in a towel. Overnight, in our study on towels, it was totally dry. Can't beat that! 

Bells

Averting Disaster

At some point over the weekend, one of the nightmares every knitter experiences started to loom frighteningly on the horizon. I saw it coming and for a day or two I lived in a state of denial. I tried to knit faster - because we all know that helps.

It became apparent on Sunday that was going to run out of yarn with well over half the border of my brother's pi blanket left. To refresh your memory, I am knitting a fairly wide garter stitch border onto the blanket. It's taking FOREVER.



It turns out I'm knitting it wider than it needs to be. I'm doing eight stitches, which is what Elizabeth Zimmermann recommends but she's also talking about a laceweight shawl when she recommends that. There's a fair bit of difference between laceweight and the 12ply I'm using here.

Duh.

But then, RoseRed, genius that she is, came up with a brilliant idea, one that would save me from having to buy a whole 200g ball of Bendigo when in reality I'd need a lot less than that. I put the word out on Ravelry for someone to let me know if they had any scraps of this yarn left over. Within an hour I had an offer from a kindly knitter in Sydney and tonight, it arrived. Two days after I put the call out.

Here's what I had left tonight. Just a measly 4g.



I was disappointed to think that I might not be able to knit on it any more tonight because I'm truly buggered at the moment and not up for anything more complex than garter stitch.

Then, because Sean had suggested we get takeaway for dinner, I discovered there was a parcel at the front door. I'd missed it, getting home after dark and going in the back door. But there it was, as I handed over the cash for dinner, sitting there on the front step waiting for me.



A whole 118g of Rustic 12ply in Red Tweed. I might just get this finished in the next day or so.



And yes, for the observant among you, I have indeed missed the deadline for my brother's birthday. It was this weekend just gone. He knows there's something coming and I reckon next week, he'll get it.

So thank you to my donor. I am unspeakably grateful. And I reckon she ended up happy to with the little arrangement we came to as part of the deal. But that's another story.

Bells

Nibble nibble nibble

After a rather inelegant fall down some restaurant stairs at SnB a couple of nights ago (thanks to new black heels (not high) and a shiny wooden floor), I'm a little bruised and sorry today and so have not done an awful lot in the way of movement.

This is all very convenient, because, you see, I have a rather large task ahead of me. My brother's pi blanket, which has been growing rather rapidly in the last week, is near the end.



I am quite literally nibbling away at the 576 stitches of this blanket, adding a garter stitch edge by knitting together the eighth stitch of the edge with the last row of the blanket. Doesn't make sense? No it didn't to me before I did it for the first time either.

I'll tell you one thing, in Knitter's Almanac, Elizabeth Zimmermann says, 'You will think at first this is going to be an infinite job....' and well, yes, I do think it will be. The knitting itself is straight forward but it's the huge turning and lifting of this massive blanket every time I complete an 8 stitch row that makes this arduous.

Still, my brother's birthday is a week away so I'm well on track. Sometimes, I stop and look at the blanket unblocked and think it looks like some kind of weird lunar landscape.



But this isn't bad for two weeks' work. A day trip to Sydney last week really knocked over the last part of it.

And so despite the finger-numbing pressure I've put myself under to complete this before my brother turns 30, I've still managed to cast on a couple of other smaller things to relieve the monotony of a plain blanket.

Ishbel was in fact begun, despite trying to talk myself out of it. I chose some beautiful alpaca/silk which was a gift from Julie a couple of years ago. I think it's a perfect match. So far, given it's largely stocking stitch, it's been good for bus knitting.



And for fun, I've cast on another little baby project for my niece, Alice. It's the Seamless Baby Kimono from The Complete Fabrication.



I think I've broken the spell of dark colours I was under for a while there, don't you?

Bells

Knitting Camp 2009

As you may well imagine, a weekend of knitting, talking, eating, drinking and more knitting is pretty fabulous but also pretty bloody exhausting. When Sean picked me up from Wollongong mid afternoon today, I believe I sank into the car and sat staring comatose out the window for a fair whack of the journey home.

Between late nights, early starts and an extensive amount of talking and knitting, often at the same time, it's enough to wear a girl out. Still, I have had dinner, changed into PJs and had a glass of wine so I am suitably refreshed and able to cobble together some sort of picture of what a wonderful weekend it was.

Here's a mosaic of some photos from the weekend. As usual, click on the hyperlinks below to see any of the photos properly in flickr, with descriptions etc.



1. pi blanket, 2. lynS, 3. Myrtle Shawl At Camp, 4. Ailsa and Donna - dinner, 5. Knitting in the Sun, 6. Knitting camp - outside, 7. Knitting camp - Saturday morning, 8. Rainforest Chapel at Mt Keira, 9. Playing Dressups - Saturday night Hawaiian Dinner, 10. Matchy Matchy, 11. Bells & Jejune, 12. Bells & Kylie

Arriving at camp late afternoon and Friday, Jejune and I set up our room and waited for others to arrive. And arrive they did. Hoards of knitters, refugees from the working week, arrived bursting with excitement. Those girls (and Lee*) sure can talk! We were raucous. I think there's no other word for it.

There were people to meet. This weekend, although there were vast numbers of knitters I already knew from blogs or Ravlery, there were still more to meet. It's wonderful, and sometimes a little weird, to meet complete strangers and be known as Bells, not as Helen. I'm sure we all have that experience. A person might introduce you as their real name but until you place them by the name they use online, you're all at sea.

And really, the rest of the weekend was much of the same. Raucous, incessant chatter. An endless parade of knits. We had two Tangled Yoke cardigans; three February Lady Sweaters in progress (and a baby version); one Eastlake jumper; two complete Autumn Rose jumpers (photo #10 above) and more socks than I can list. Sometimes I just sat back and watched people diving on each other's ankles, guessing at patterns and yarns and making all the usual noises of praise and admiration.

Honestly, there are few greater treats in life than to spend a weekend with your dearest friends, doing little more than the very thing that brought you together in the first place. Sometimes I am gobsmacked by the notion that years ago, when I thought, hmmm, maybe I'll take up knitting again, it opened up the world to me.

If that moment hadn't happened, I wouldn't have spent the weekend high up on Mt Keira, surrounded by rainforest and sharing a weekend with friends I adore and knitters I got to know a little better.

It is possible, though, that there is such a thing as too much knitting. I worked extensively on a gift pi blanket - 12ply yarn, 6mm needles and a lot of stitches. That much heavy weight knitting can make a girl's fingers throb, ever so slightly.

Bells

* this refers to the fact that this year, we were joined by a solitary man, Lee. Each time the organisers of the camp addressed the entire group, they would begin, 'Ladies! And Lee.' It made us laugh. Maybe you had to be there. I had to share at least one in joke.

From the archives

Busy day today so I'm digging into the archives for a photo of something I thought I'd lost! Going through some old backed up discs last night in search of something, I found this.



This is a blanket I crocheted in 2004, when my lovely nephew was still in utero. It was hugely ambitious for me at the time. Back then I was still crocheting as a preference over knitting and I didn't have an awful lot of time, once I decided to make it. I recall it took about three months, give or take.

The pattern is from a Leisure Arts leaflet I picked up in Spotlight, my main source of patterns in 03-04. I didn't even really know patterns were on the net back then.

The yarn is Merino Bambino and yes, it's got love hearts on it. Not so keen on making things with love hearts these days but it seemed fitting for a baby.

I loved making this. Really loved it. We were all so excited about the new little life, the first grandchild, coming along and when I presented this to Adele at her baby shower, she adored it. Sometimes you can just tell when something you've made is really loved.

It was used, I believe, as a pram blanket mainly and when I was pregnant, Adele said I could have it for my baby. One day, maybe. I love the idea of it coming back to me.

Don't forget the contest from yesterday's post and my shameless call for post topics. Some lovely ones have come in already and yes, Sean has agreed to judge!

Bells

FO: Hemlock Ring Memory Blanket

I know I posted photos of the Hemlock Ring Blanket blocking a few days ago, and lots of people said lots of lovely things, but there were questions about how what the specifics were with regard to modifications. 

Now that it's off the floor and ready for use, I thought it was only right to do a proper write up.

It all came together so well. I had never thought really of doing this pattern - not sure why. I think I thought it was too hard to bother with, though I admired it. Where I got that notion from, I don't know, since I've done harder stuff and I'm not afraid of blanket weight lace. 

A few weeks ago, at lunch one day with Quilting Mick and Bec, all that changed. Bec said she was working on a version of her own and it was so fast and so easy. A lightbulb flicked on for me, and I knew it was the blanket I had to make.

As I've said previously, during my brief pregnancy, I was planning blankets but hadn't yet cast on. I wanted to wait until we were more certain things were safe. Sadly, we weren't safe at all and in the blink of an eye, all my baby knitting plans came to an abrupt halt. The blanket was a big plan and to have that taken away was devastating, in amongst everything else.

And so on the recommendation of someone who had been through this same painful situation, I started a memory blanket, something tangible to remember our lost little one by.

Pattern: It's BrooklynTweed's pattern, but thanks to Jejune, I used instead the corrected pattern by The Rainey Sisters.

Yarn: Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic in 12ply. Colour: Sandstone. 600g (3 balls). Just. I very nearly ran out.

Needles: Knitpicks Options 7mm (10 3/4). This is a big deal for me. I'm a fine gauge girl at heart. Chunky needles and chunky yarn is outside my comfort zone, but I settled in very happily.

Time: Started Wednesday 24 September. Finished Wednesday 1 October. Pretty much everyone gets through this quickly. I attribute my speed to being on holidays, away from home, and needing in my sadness something all consuming to focus on.

Modifications: None, strictly speaking. But I did do a magic loop cast on instead of Emily Ocker's cast on as recommended. I also knit one repeat beyond the 63rd row (as indicated on the chart by a gold line), taking it finally to 536 stitches. It's made it a really nice size. Not too large, not too small.  

I also chose to do the crochet cast off, instead of the knitted cast off which many seemed to suggest on Ravelry was a time and yarn suck of extreme proportions. I cast off, did one round of Single Crochet and then one round of the loops, each of which is 7 chains, with 3 single crochet between. That's a double crochet, if you're American. Single for everyone else.

The middle is my favourite part. It wasn't hard and it wasn't until I'd finished that bit that I realised what I'd been doing. I'd worried the flower was difficult but I stopped, looked and realised I'd done it. Easy peasy.

Also, the feather and fan part is good TV knitting. I'm not usually keen on feather and fan but this sucked me in. 

One evening while on holiday, Sean did about half a row of this blanket. It seemed like a nice way to include him in the significance of it. I gave it to him on one of the plain rounds and away he went. He was worried you'd be able to see which bit was his, but you can't. I was so proud! 

Come next winter, this will be so lovely and warm. In the meantime, I like it decorating the back of a chair, where I can see it, and remember.

Bells

Oh My.

My Hemlock Ring Blanket is blocking. I think I'm in love. It's turned out far better than I dared hope.

Here is how it looked when I got home from work.

And here's how it looks now, all pinned out on the lounge room floor. The lighting is bad but you get the idea. I'll do proper photos when it's dry.

Ball of cotton included for scale. It's quite large! I haven't measured it yet. But 7mm needles clearly do the trick.

Isn't the middle part pretty?

The feather and fan part is also quite lovely.


And here is how much I have left of 3 balls of Bendigo wool, at 200g each. I ran pretty close huh? At the point where I decided to cast off, I was in two minds. I thought maybe I could keep going but I just didn't want to risk it. So I quit and did the crochet cast off. Phew. I'd forgotten how hungry crochet stitches are.

I just love this blanket. One week's work. Well, really it was because I was on holidays and could devote hours a day to it, but even so, I still think it's a damn fast project. 

Thank the Knitting Goddess for BrooklynTweed. He's a clever guy. 

I like to think that this officially kicks off my Summer of Lace. Anyone else kicking off yet?

Bells

Contest Winner and a blanky story

I'm very excited to announce my 2nd blogoversary contest winner. People went to town leaving comments a few weeks ago so there were quite a few entrants. I loved all the readers who came out of the woodwork. I got to check out lots of blogs I hadn't read before.

And so, the winner, as selected by a random number generator is

TERBY!

Terby lives in South Carolina and I've been reading her blog for quite some time now. We correspond a bit and happen to share an uncannily similar cardigan wardrobe!

So Terby, drop me a line telling me where to send your gear and I'll get to it. I wanted to wait to see who won before I decided on the prize, but I did manage to collect a few bits and pieces when I was visiting the Southern Highlands with RoseRed last week.

****

I promised to tell the story of Sean and his blankie, if he'd let me. Quite rightly, he pointed out that as I'd already mentioned it on the blog, he really had no choice. Oops!

Anyway, last night I finally gave him his pi shawl blanky and he was very, very happy with it. There was a freakishly early snow fall on the ranges last night so it was very timely.

So the story is this.

When Sean was a wee little boy, he had a blanky that he loved (his mother told me this story). He carried it everywhere and, as well loved blankies are wont to do, it got dirty and needed washing from time to time.

There was one time (I don't know if it happened more than once - not the washing, but this particular occurrence), Sean's blanky was hanging on the washing line, blowing around and around and he was so attached that he followed it around as it spun around in the breeze, longing for it and waiting for it to dry.

Was he watching for it to make sure it didn't blow away? Who can tell. But eventually, it was dry and returned to him and I imagine he was one happy little boy.

The pi blanky will, under no circumstances, be hung on the line to dry. Ever.

Bells

Easy like Sunday morning

A funny thing happened this morning.

I woke up early and set about trying to finish the pi shawl blanky in bed, having been up 'til midnight the night before getting most of it done. My God does a shawl edge take forever!

Sean was beside me, reading, and it was a lovely, peaceful Sunday morning.

Then, the worst happened, I ran out of the purple wool I've used on the bigger rounds of the shawl. Just like that! All gone.

In an instant, I remembered that many moons ago, I started a jumper which I abandoned about half way through. It had some of the purple (or Damson, as it's actually called) in it. It looked like this -

Pink and purple stripes? What WAS I thinking?

So with mere inches to go, Sean unravelled part of a sleeve as if his life depended on it (well, the peace of his Sunday morning did, at any rate!) and I knitted it into the shawl. All before breakfast! He's a good husband, huh?


Soon, the shawl was in the bath soaking and not long after, at Sean's suggestion, I pinned it out on the lounge room floor. The only other room in the house with enough floor space is currently being painted, so that wasn't gonna work.

Having it pinned out on the lounge room floor has been fun today. I've sat with a cup of tea and admired it. I've pondered the blocking issues (note to self: double size of pin collection. Soon!) and I've stopped to adjust pins on my way past.

The first photo I took of the whole thing really didn't show the scale. So I called on The Yarn Harlot for help. She's even the right colour! Elizabeth Zimmerman wasn't wrong when she said that 576 stitches is enough. I almost kept going for another few rounds, thinking it wasn't big enough. I was even tempted to go as far as Brooklyntweed did - he made it to over 1000 stitches! But actually, it's huge. In a good way.

I'll do a proper write up when it's dry and a certain husband has finally got to snuggle up to it. He's pretty taken with it and if he'll let me, I'll tell a cute story about him and his childhood blanky

Bells

The colours of autumn

So today was the first day of my week's leave from work. Ok, it was Saturday, and I'm not the kind of crazy person who'd work on a Saturday anyway, but that doesn't take away from the fact that I have days ahead of me stretched out, with no work.

Well, not the paid kind.

We've got a running joke about how we have so many 'jobs' to do that the list is just too long and we'll never get them all done, which is probably true, because when it comes down to it, on any given day, if offered the chance, I'd plonk myself down on the couch with the knitting in a heartbeat.

No doubt, that's exactly what some days will amount to because dammit, I'm on some not particularly nice drugs right now and I think I'm going to have days when I just don't feel great.

Today was a gloriously grey day.

We've had so few of them so far that it just feels wonderful. We've had no chance to get over them yet.

In strange contrast to the greyness, I ran around the yard capturing the last of the colour.

We've got purple brachyscome.


A yellow flower I can't identify, but it's something native.


The last of the roses against autumn leaves.


I took my pi shawl blanky outside. It was the first time I'd seen it in proper daylight since I added the purple ring. I like it!


This is great dinner party knitting. I can chat and focus on my guests and keep knitting happily for hours, which is exactly what I did tonight. Nice.

Oh, someone, I can't remember who, asked in the comments how the increase rows happen. They're just Knit 1, YO all the way around.

The eyelet rows, every sixth row between, are Knit2 tog, yo, all the way around. The effect is the same, so you don't notice the difference between the increase rows and the eyelet rows. Still loving it. Ever single stitch.

Soon, I'll draw a winner for the blogoversary contest. Stay tuned. It's just one of my many jobs to achieve this week.

Bells

It's magic, you know

Here's how Sean's pi shawl blanky is looking.

This has been the most incredible project so far. I've been reading about Elizabeth Zimmerman's pi shawl pattern (that's a Ravelry link) for so long that when I finally decided I was going to do it, I just launched in.

For the last fortnight I've knit this almost exclusively, apart from socks on the bus. So simply wonderful - this round and round and round idea. It's marvellous.

And last night, magic occurred. If you haven't come across the concept before, it's very straight forward (and beguiling to someone like me who has nightmares about numbers).

Start with 9 stitches. Knit three rounds plain.
Double the stitches (18)
Knit 6 rows plain.
Double the stitches (36)
Knit 12 rows plain.
Double the stitches (72)

And so on. Last night, after 48 rounds, I doubled to 576 stitches. The sheer wonder of this really blew me away, so much so that I got to work and emailed RoseRed immediately to tell her all about it (by the way, check our her gumboots if you haven't yet - they've got knitting on them!).

In the time it took me to knit one row (I can do 576 stitches in approx. 15 minutes) the blanky went from looking like an oversized beanie, to looking like a small blanket! True, it's still looking slightly dog's-breakfastish, what with not being blocked yet and all, but you get the idea. And last night I started a purple round, because I love purple and grey. And now, it's big enough to be warm on my lap.

Seriously, this thing is so cool. Make one! In any yarn! In any weight! Lacy or heavy, whatever you like.

Oh, and today is officially the blogovesary. 2 years. I've come a long way from acrylic ipod cozies. A long, long way. When I started, I could never have imagined I'd be doing things like steeked jackets and lace blankets. Just goes to show, doesn't it? Hanging out with people who inspire you, even if it's online, is just so worthwhile.

Don't forget, leave a comment, go in the draw. I can't say what the prize will be yet. I'm going to figure that out once I see who wins!

Bells

All good things

We're all about comfort here at the moment. Whatever feels good. It's not indulgence. It's just self care, I guess you'd say. Soon, we're both going to have a week's leave and we can't wait.

In the meantime, the weekends are for good things, like the chicken that's roasting in the oven (practically a Saturday night tradition now) and the wine I'm drinking and the tiny little trees we had delivered today.

All good things.

Since Sarah asked, here's how the Elizabeth Zimmerman Pi Shawl Blanky is looking. It's plain, yes and all curled up on the circular needle, it's not resembling anything like a blanket yet, but it's a good, straightfoward, and yes, comforting, knit.


It's officially a week old today and growing all the time. I figured out pretty quickly I was going to grow decidedly bored with just endless stockinette stitch so after the first few circles, I started adding in a k2tog/yo row every sixth round. I can't claim this idea as my own. Full credit to Brooklyntweed. Although he used this pattern for the whole blanket, not just the bigger circles.

I've gone from the 9 stitch beginning to 288 stitches in next to no time. I highly recommend this pattern - or really, it's a recipe more so than a pattern. Take a basic concept and let your imagination go wild. Or keep it simple, like this one. Either way, I think it's pretty hard to go wrong.

This morning, we took RoseRed's Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn to the Belconnen markets. Sean and I shared a lemon and raspberry tart for morning tea.


And at the post office were several parcels for me, including my winnings from a recent contest. A few weeks ago I promoted a store, GingerKnits. In doing so, I won a $50 voucher. It was very generous of Meg to offer this prize! I had trouble choosing my prize but eventually settled on two skeins of Meg's handspun.


They're both a little more green than the blue they look here and they're lovely.


I have some nice ideas for them, like maybe some wrist warmers or a hat or something else that's a small, satisfying project.

Thanks Meg. I'm thrilled with my winnings.

There's the timer going off. Time to go eat that bird.

Bells

Mistakes, a blanky and some sock yarn

Thanks for so many lovely comments about the modelled jacket! Nettie amused me by commenting with the following:

You do know that every lurking knitter in Canberra is going to walk up to you in the street when you wear it to tell you how fabulous you look. (Oh, did that sound a bit spooky? I didn't mean it to.)

I laughed out loud. Not spooky. Just funny. It's kind of distinctive looking, isn't it?

As far as mentioning the mistakes goes, I really only did so because that project was such a steep learning curve, and took up so many months, that I hope not to forget the mistakes because they'll stand me in good stead down the track when I use any of those techniques again. To say it's perfect means denying that I messed some things up through lack of knowledge or just plain frustration and confusion. They're all things I want to get right next time!

And I still have so much to learn. I looked at other such projects on Ravelry on the weekend, all projects tagged with the word 'steek' and wow, it's among some excellent company. There's an amazing array out there of incredible work and I got a little kick out of seeing my jacket listed there. Not only that, but I felt little tug of longing to make some of the items I saw. I mustn't be too scarred by the process if I could feel that!

In the meantime, I started Sean's pi blanky.

It's much bigger than this now - but this is how it looked when it was born on Saturday morning.

Elizabeth Zimmerman has you do what she called Emily Ocker's Beginning. No idea who Emily Ocker is but it's a pretty cool little cast on she does.

I couldn't get my head around it from the line drawings in The Knitting Workshop. I could see it used a crochet hook, some single crochets and that you moved onto needles after that but it felt clumsy. So that link above is a good one, if you're keen to see it.

And how this thing grows! For maths dummy like me, it seems like pure magic that in the space of a couple of hours, increasing at specified rounds, you could go from 9 stitches to 144 and then 288 and so on.

It's quite plain so far but I'm adding in some simple lacey bits to open it up a bit and really, it's the best TV knitting I've ever seen. It's gonna be one warm lap blanky when it's done.

Finally, here's what RoseRed's Cherry Tree Hill yarn has been up to. She took the comments on board and hung out in the veggie patch on Sunday afternoon.

Here she is with the Thai Bird Chillies

She chose this spot. She thought the red and purple suited her nicely. Not that she'd eat them. She's RoseRed's sock yarn, after all.

And here she is with the now quite enormous Chinese Cabbages. Don't worry RoseRed, I didn't let any of the cabbage moths near her. And there were a few.


And yes, she did go to the pub last week but it was a work do, with only four people there, so she kept herself hidden and there were no photo ops. We decided my team weren't quite ready to deal with the notion of a misbehaving skein of sock yarn!
Bells

EZ as Pi

You know, I thought I was so clever for thinking up that title. Then I googled it. Turns out many have been there before me and written things about our beloved Elizabeth Zimmermann using that very same title.

Let's just say, as EZ herself would, that I unvented (discovered for myself something already thought of by someone else) it. That seems to fit nicely.

Anyway, the reason for the Elizabeth Zimmermann post is this.


This is just 200g of the almost 2kg I have of this wool. It's from Bendigo Woollen Mills and I bought it some time in the last two years from ebay. The intention was always to knit a jumper for Sean out of it but that hasn't eventuated. We could never decide on the right jumper for him.

A few nights ago, we were watching TV and noticing a distinct chill in the room. No, not the tension between us. But the arrival of autumn! We both love cold weather so much so we are naturally delighted at this most welcome change.

Sean mused, 'I'd love it if you'd knit me a blanket.' (I think maybe he said blanky, but that'd be too embarrassing to put in print. Oops. I just did!)

Now, he has one already. It's a crocheted granny square lap rug from the turn of the century (I love saying that). It's perfectly serviceable (as my mum would say) but I guess we're probably just both a bit bored with it.

I grabbed the laptop from where it sat at my feet and headed, of course, to Ravelry and soon had in front of me the perfect project.

An Elizabeth Zimmermann Pi Shawl - but knit as a blanket. I've been reading The Knitter's Almanac as my sleep-time reading on and off for a while and I always linger over the Pi Shawl pages.

I showed him some photos from BrooklynTweed's blog where he did a Pi shawl blanket in a nice, manly, tweedy sort of yarn. He was happy.

Soon, I shall cast on. Soon.

And if the idea of knitting a heavy blanket doesn't herald the arrival of cooler weather, I don't what does. Except for maybe soup.


Off to Sydney this week to shop for buttons for the Steeked Jacket in Newtown, with RoseRed. And to attend Willem's fourth birthday party.

Stay tuned for a complete and detailed run down of the entire weekend of fun. Next week.

Bells