Tunisian Pax Scarf

I've made a rip-roaring start to this Deep Stash Marathon thing.  It's been fourteen weeks since my last post, the one announcing my marathon aspirations, and I have used up not quite a quarter of a mile of yarn.

Yep.  A .21 mile stretch or 377 yards.  Just call me The Flash.

Yet the project which used such a staggering amount didn't disappoint me, in the end.  Along the way, I met with a setback when I ran out of the deep stash yarn I'd begun with.  The completed Pax Scarf projects in Ravelry mostly indicated I'd have enough yarn in one Ella Rae Lace Merino hank to finish it.  Uh, no.



What you're looking at in the photo is the main body of the scarf completed and most of the lace border at the point where I discovered I had about a foot of yarn left in my project bag.  And this scarf was a class I was taking.  Days of work went into the border, and only a few days remained until the next class session for which I was supposed to have the border done.

You know, eventually after shock comes the anger stage, yet I had to speed up the process and skip right to the grumbling since I had so little time to figure out what I was going to do.

I knew I would have to rip out the border, no matter what.  So, I took a breath and did that deed.  Then I went searching for replacement yarn.  Naturally, I didn't have the right color in the right weight already in my stash.  When I scoured the fingering weight section at my local yarn shop, however, I had another moment of shock.  In a good way this time.  Because there, with a multitude of hanks in a glass cubbie, sat a dead ringer for the blue shade that's in the Elle Rae.  I sang hallelujah (yeah, you know, I probably did).



It is Araucania Nuble. I snagged a hank of it and started off again.  Once the border was done, I edged the scarf in the Ella Rae, blocked it, and voila!



I think it looks better with the blue Araucania as the lace border than it did with the Ella Rae as the whole thing.

Oh, and I'd like to place a wee review in here about the new blocking wires by Lazadas I used on this project.  They are F l E x I b L e--twisty, curvy, bendy, and they didn't get stuck in those shapes once I was done with them.  The Pax Scarf is actually the second project I blocked with them, and I am a fan.





I bought the set of three 70"-long and four 35"-long wires, the "Mixed Set."  The set comes with a packet of 30 T-pins.  Oh, and I'm not getting a single perk from plugging these wires, just so you know.  I bought the set outright on Amazon.

I've already started the next project with deep stash yarn.  Hopefully, this one will dispense with way more yardage.  In the meantime, an artsy, parting photograph...

Another reason to love yarn

I'm learning how to crochet. As in, learning the stitches by heart rather than being led step-by-step like I was with the Bucket Bag last summer.*

A week ago, I made this washrag of beauty.



It had all the basic stitches I needed to commit to memory: how to chain, single and double crochet, and slip stitch. There was even a little half-double crochet thrown in for a bit of whiplash. The pattern is called My Fave Dishcloth by Kathy North.

All that basic crochet swordplay was needed as a prerequisite for a second-level crochet class I signed up for at my local yarn shop. I took the class. I learned not only how to crochet in the round…



A coaster!

…but the pièce de résistance was a beloved Granny Square.



On just a mechanical level, I see how these things could be addicting. Granny squares are super easy and fast. However, I'm a child of the '70s, and my recollection of granny square blankets is ablaze with harvest gold and avocado green acrylic yarns. And a kind of whimpering orange. The colors make me itch, to say nothing of the petrochemical fiber itself. So, I have this mental block when it comes to a full-on addiction to granny squares. Maybe if I used something like Noro Kureyon or the Lion Brand look-alike, Amazing, then I could crochet piles of squares.

In the meantime, I began a crocheted shawl. Elise Shawl, by Evan Plevinski. I'm using a bamboo yarn called Happy, and that's how it makes me feel because it's lusciously soft.



Oh, yeah. And it's pink. Normally, not so much my color, but this skein seems to have more power than prissiness in it, so I've made an exception.

I'll post updates to the shawl's progress.

* The crocheted bucket bag from last year. The pattern is in a booklet entitled Enviro-Totes
by Leisure Arts.

What a bargain! I think I will buy some. (Part 1)

When the stepmother of a friend passed away, she left behind an impressive collection of vintage linens. They weren't her family's heirlooms; they were simply pieces she'd accumulated over the years from estate sales and the like. My friend has been entrusted with the task of sorting through the stash to sell it, so she asked those of us in her small quilting group if we would like first dibs on what she and her dad had found so far.  (Yeah, so far.  Apparently, my friend's stepmom squirreled away things everywhere, so they're not sure when they will find it all.)

I went to take a look at the assortment last weekend. All the linens are in a spare bedroom, in boxes and on tables and the floor and overrunning the bed. Dresser scarves, table cloths, dish towels, napkins, doilies, hankies (the reasons why I was there), and gobs of other embroidered, embellished, and otherwise spiffied workaday fabric finery were all over, though each and every one of them were arranged in an orderly fashion.

I took home two (2) grocery bags worth of stuff. All for $20. I'll show my hanky haul in a later post, but in this one I want to share what was in a box of handmade trims my friend threw in for thirty cents. There are a few mystery pieces, which I show at the end. If you know what they are, please leave me a comment giving me a heads up.

First, some long pieces of filet crochet.



I think some of these are meant for pillowcases. The top, thinner one actually rests better in a circle, so I'm guessing it was meant for a neckline. The two trims wrapped around tubes are tatted. The filet crochet piece between them, with the ribbon running through it, looks like it could be a sachet since it has a front and back and is stitched together around the bottom.

A close up of the tatting.





What does one do with filet crochet butterflies?



This isn't the mystery piece, but I was puzzled by it. It looks like it could be a bikini top, huh? I wonder if it more likely came from an era when lace adorned dress bodices. Or maybe it's the top of a nightie. Was there a bride somewhere down the corridor of history who didn't get this in her trousseau? (I'm talking out of my ear, of course. I have no inkling what kind of clothing this beautifies.)

Finally, the head-scratcher.



I arranged these four things in a cross just to take the picture. I don't know how they're actually put together. Each one appears to have an upper tab, whether it be pink, blue, or white. One of my friends suggested they are scallops in a larger and never completed piece. She also wondered if they're dresses for a kind of filet crochet Sunbonnet Sue. It all sounds good to me because I am clueless. What do you think? If you don't know, make something up and jot it down in the comments anyway.



I've posted this to

• The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday
• Debbiedoo's Garage Salen

From The Year of the Blanket...

In 2009, I knitted six blankets (well, the Lizard Ridge was mostly done, I just finished it this year). I also knitted as many pairs of socks, but they didn't take nearly as much yarn as the blankets.

New techniques I tried this year:

• Tunisian Crochet on a big scale (a big, fat failure)
  
• thrummed mittens (a big, fluffy success)
  
• knitting cables without a cable needle (link is to a video)
  
• kntting strung beads
  
• CROCHET
  
• blocking lace
  
• (my most awesome and scary accomplishment) writing a pattern for my Off Road Socks as well as a square shawl still being tested. I never in a million years thought I'd DESIGN knitwear.
  

After doing the math, I figure I burned through 15,791.6 yards of yarn in 2009. Some of this yardage did not come from stash I had on hand at the beginning of the year. So, as far as living up to my 2009 Yarn Consumption Plan (I can buy one yard of yarn for every two yards I use from stash), I was a failure. I kept to the plan for several months...until sometime in the summer, I think, but then I began to BUY. So, yay for me that I lasted as long as I did.

...to The Year of the Sweater

According to the patterns I have waiting in my Ravelry queue, it looks like 2010 will be the Year of the Sweater. I've got a lot of sock patterns in the queue, too. THOMY may even get something this time around the sun.

I don't have noble pledges to knit only from stash in 2010, but I do plan to keep an account of what I buy and use. I've got a ledger book for that purpose. I'm in the process of recording ALL the yarn in my stash, whether or not it's labeled, so I can have a full idea what there is to work with. The yardage count is staggering. In one lace weight yarn alone, I have almost 23-thousand yards. Yep, I sure do.

I don't have resolutions for any other area of my life, either. Not that I'm aimless concerning the coming year; I have a few goals, just not the kind I want to blog about yet. Maybe after the fact.

So to you and yours, please have a safe, happy, and productive new year.

2008 DIY Retrospective

I had no idea sitting on one's tush could get so much done.




1. NM needle case--closed, 2. New Moon Swap stitch markers, 3. Cherries Pendant, 4. Scissor Fobs, 5. Walls of Volterra bag, 6. Almost Amish Puzzle, 7. THOMY'S hat, 8. Fall 2008 Chatelaines, 9. October notecards, 10. PIF stitch markers for Denise, 11. Water drop stitch markers, 12. Fire on the Waves Throw, 13. Tunisian Simple Stitch Scarf, 14. Ravelympics Clapotis closeup, 15. Wavy Scarf, 16. Tunisian Trivets, 17. Bottoms Up Bottle Cozy, 18. Dad's House, 19. Helmet Liner , 20. Lizard Ridge Blocks DONE, 21. Lightning Lace Jacet, 22. Cattycorner Tunisian Washcloth back, 23. Too Much Work for Dishes, 24. Primordial Fish 2, 25. Leftovers Felted Pincushion, 26. Washcloths, 27. French Market Bag, 28. RPM socks, closeup, 29. Inside the Box Bag, 30. Christine & Albert 2, 31. CD Coasters 1, 32. Tray Slippers Felted, 33. Cobblestone sans Man in it, 34. Medallion Mitts, 35. Fuzzy Feet Soy Wool Stripes, 36. Hot/Cold Therapy Bags

The Pink Ribbon Socks, among some foodstuffs, didn't make the cut in the mosaic above because the mosaic maker doesn't create a 4 X 10 photo grid. So here's their picture, below. It's the first time a pair of my knitted, unfelted socks fit me. I was just the working model, though; they're not for my feet.

May they give you cheer, Tana.



And may all of you have a safe, productive, and blessed year ahead.

Common Threads

I attended my guild's bienniel quilt show this weekend at which I knit for five hours (in a guest exhibitor booth for the local Knit in Public group). But what I really got done this weekend was a pair of crocheted washcloths.

Quilt, knit, crochet...I guess it's a good thing the show's theme was Common Threads.

I am learning Tunisian Crochet. It's amazingly simple...in fact, the first stitch I learned is called the simple stitch. Tunisian Crochet is also known as the Afghan stitch. I like its dense weave, but it curls like a possum's tail. What I really want to learn is a kind of Tunisian Crochet that involves two yarns and a double-ended crochet hook. I hear it doesn't curl as badly, and it looks the same on either side.



My first washcloth has tire tracks running across it. They're due to crocheting into the back horizontal bars along the row instead of the vertical bars (which is the traditional simple stitch). Crocheting into the back horiz. bar pushes the row into a ridge along the front. All in an attempt to reduce the curling.



The second cloth I like best, although it's far from a polished project. I fashioned it a la Grandmother's Favorite washcloth (a knitting pattern), increasing and decreasing from corner to corner to create horizontal lines. Then I hooked a half double crochet edging around it. The edging didn't really relax the curl, either, but that's probably because I didn't turn the corners correctly. So now they pooch up.

Oh well. At least the Pakucho cotton is sooooooft. If you want to know a little more about these washcloths, I've got them on my Ravelry page.