Catching up

Reports from this week's Stitch'n'Bitch and City Knits class...

Stitch'n'Bitch was great. Three former regulars showed up, so with Julie and myself and Julie's mum, we had quite the crowd. Though I missed Coley. And one of the former regulars was Suzy from City Knits, who was suitably impressed by my progress.

Another was Jen, who was kind enough to show me how to pick up stitches around the edge of my booga bag. It's now definitely bag shaped, though I'm a tad concerned by how small the base is looking. Before felting (which will shrink it), it's only just the dimensions that the pattern says it should be at the end after felting and blocking. We'll see how this one goes, and I might try adding more stitches and rows to future bags. It's all a learning experience, right? As a plus, I'm loving knitting in the round, and the bag is growing quickly. No photos right now, but expect some in the next day or two.

Then at class last night, I was introduced to the intricacies of matress stitch, and I sewed up the seam in my hat, so it is now officially finished, and documented in my Finished Objects blog. Here's front and back views of Terry wearing it.

Please ignore our cluttered kitchen, and focus instead on those beautiful, even, swirling decreases in the back of the hat. Please also ignore the circles under the eyes and general weary look of my beautiful wife. It was late. She's been working hard. She's usually much more gorgeous than these photos suggest.

So I then started the City Knits "Aggressive Beginner" scarf. I feel like I want to go "grrr" while knitting it. Actually, the frustration it's causing me, that isn't much of an exaggeration. Warning! Knit Speak Ahead! It starts with a crochet cast-on, which was entirely new to me, as I'd never crocheted before, but does make a very pretty edging, that is matched by slipping the first stitch of each row purlwise, and knitting into the back of the last stitch in each row. Then there's a seedstitch border for 8 rows .. and then the fun starts. On each row we have: 5 stitches in seedstitch. Followed by 4 stitches including a yarnover and a ssk or p2t decrease to make a lacework pattern. Then an 8 stitch crossover cable, which I've not quite reached yet. Then another repeat of the lacework, then finishing with the seedstitch edge border. I'm knitting it in a beautifully soft 100% baby alpaca worsted weight from Misti Alpaca in colour 7820 which is a deep forest green. Again, picture to follow, which will hopefully make all this knit talk slightly clearer.

OK, best get back to work now... Happy almost-memorial-day-weekend to those celebrating it!