Sunday, November 18, 2007

Progress on the Nordic-style stocking

I'm not sure that black and green are traditional Nordic color choices, but this is turning out pretty well. I've finished the first chart and figure I'll need 3 1/2 repeats of the second chart before starting the heel. The pattern refers to a decrease every 5th round 8 times, so we'll see how that works out.
In real life the knitting is a little lumpy; I'm hoping that it smoothes out after blocking.

I finished the alpaca scarf, but haven't blocked it yet. Since it looks just like the previous post, I didn't bother with a picture. The scarf for my MIL is started from DH's handspun. This is the first large quantity of spinning that he did, and it's interesting to see how far he's come since. It's like knitting with two strands held together, as the plying was pretty loose. I still need to come up with something for my mother - not quite sure what at this point. Off to work on the loom, as I'm winding replacements warp sections for the cotton flake yarn that started breaking when winding the warp onto the back beam.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

It's too dark out!

When am I supposed to take pictures? I got home early today because I had my yearly mammogram and then worked from home. As usual, it was uncomfortable but not painful. I've always had lots of cysts, and last year they were more pronounced, so I had an ultrasound to investigate further. Well, one was more suspicious, and though I could've waited to see what happened, I had the cyst aspirated. The most likely outcome was that it was a normal, if bigger cyst with clear fluid. Less likely was a "dirty" cyst, with debris(?) in it. And least likely was that it was not a cyst. It was a dirty cyst. And if anyone is facing the aspiration procedure, don't worry, it doesn't hurt. There is a little pinprick when they inject the anesthetic, and that's all you feel. I believe I was knitting a sock in the waiting room. We'll see what happens this year.

My Christmas knitting is making progress:

This is the start of the black and green Norwegian-style stocking for DS. I'm getting the hang of the stranded knitting, though I'm holding both strands in my right hand. I'm using David Reidy's video as my guide, scroll down to the notes for Show 33.
I'm very pleased with the alpaca scarf for my SIL. Through no fault of my own the colors are spiraling around the tube. I'm almost to the end of the yarn, so this will not be a terribly long scarf, though very soft and cuddly. I'm going to block in severely along the length and see what happens.