Knitting bee .... or a bee in my bonnet.
Saturday was such a lovely day. My family got together to celebrate my father's 85th birthday, which is a milestone in itself, but follows on the heals of my parent's 60th wedding anniversary, my mother's 80th birthday and my own 40th birthday.
My family has many talented people in it. The first picture shows my dad holding up a card given to him by my cousin Sandy, who made it for him. The second picture is the card my aunt Josie (Sandy's mother) also made for him.
When dad isn't on the computer, he is often sketching or painting in water colours. Josie's card is a nod to this well appreciated talent. Dad also likes to make birthday cards and write humorus poems, but his old software wasn't working with his new computer. So we got him the latest and greatest program so he can get back to writing up cards.
It was a wonderful day, and a wonderful party, and I was happy to capture this picture of a bumble bee with my mother's garden bee. Sandy and I took quite a few pictures, I was lucky enough to have a picture with the bee's tongue (for lack of a scientific term) sticking out.
With all the excitement of the day, and all this creative talent, I decided to start on the Baltic Sea Stole with my Sea Silk yarn. The pattern calls for a yarn that has 7 sts/inch, and Sea Silk is 4 sts/inch. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how I would get the gauge to work (I wanted to knit a stole, not a scarf) and finally decided on knitting with a 4mm needle instead of 5mm as the pattern indicates. It gave me a 5 sts/inch gauge, and I started merrily along. I was confident that I would have no problem with this pattern.
Then came day two of this weekend. Hot, humid, and oppressive. I promised myself to try to finish the ballet wrap sweater that I had been working on, but the heat made it a less than enjoyable task (we do have air conditioning, but it doesn't seem to make much difference to how I feel about wool in the heat). I switched over to the Sea Silk, and started the first row of the lace pattern.
Last time I tried to knit lace, I gave up and handed it over to my mother. She has been knitting since she was quite young and I believe she can knit anything, and in this case she did. I thought this time would be different, but I am coming across a similar problem. At the end of the first row of lace knitting, I didn't have enough stitches at the end. I counted, recounted, went over each stitch, tried a bit of backward knitting but nothing was working. I undid the row of lace knitting and 9 rows of seed stitch border, and have decided to try again tomorrow. So this happy 'knitting bee' has become a bee in my bonnet. I will find a way to overcome this roadblock, there is no way I am giving up my Sea Silk for mother to knit.
Saturday was such a lovely day. My family got together to celebrate my father's 85th birthday, which is a milestone in itself, but follows on the heals of my parent's 60th wedding anniversary, my mother's 80th birthday and my own 40th birthday.
My family has many talented people in it. The first picture shows my dad holding up a card given to him by my cousin Sandy, who made it for him. The second picture is the card my aunt Josie (Sandy's mother) also made for him.
When dad isn't on the computer, he is often sketching or painting in water colours. Josie's card is a nod to this well appreciated talent. Dad also likes to make birthday cards and write humorus poems, but his old software wasn't working with his new computer. So we got him the latest and greatest program so he can get back to writing up cards.
It was a wonderful day, and a wonderful party, and I was happy to capture this picture of a bumble bee with my mother's garden bee. Sandy and I took quite a few pictures, I was lucky enough to have a picture with the bee's tongue (for lack of a scientific term) sticking out.
With all the excitement of the day, and all this creative talent, I decided to start on the Baltic Sea Stole with my Sea Silk yarn. The pattern calls for a yarn that has 7 sts/inch, and Sea Silk is 4 sts/inch. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how I would get the gauge to work (I wanted to knit a stole, not a scarf) and finally decided on knitting with a 4mm needle instead of 5mm as the pattern indicates. It gave me a 5 sts/inch gauge, and I started merrily along. I was confident that I would have no problem with this pattern.
Then came day two of this weekend. Hot, humid, and oppressive. I promised myself to try to finish the ballet wrap sweater that I had been working on, but the heat made it a less than enjoyable task (we do have air conditioning, but it doesn't seem to make much difference to how I feel about wool in the heat). I switched over to the Sea Silk, and started the first row of the lace pattern.
Last time I tried to knit lace, I gave up and handed it over to my mother. She has been knitting since she was quite young and I believe she can knit anything, and in this case she did. I thought this time would be different, but I am coming across a similar problem. At the end of the first row of lace knitting, I didn't have enough stitches at the end. I counted, recounted, went over each stitch, tried a bit of backward knitting but nothing was working. I undid the row of lace knitting and 9 rows of seed stitch border, and have decided to try again tomorrow. So this happy 'knitting bee' has become a bee in my bonnet. I will find a way to overcome this roadblock, there is no way I am giving up my Sea Silk for mother to knit.
posted by shyknitter @ 9:42 p.m.
1 Comments:
At Tuesday, 18 July, 2006,
Eden said…
WOW -- What a shot of the bumblebee! I have never seen a bumblebee's tongue. It has been a great year for friendly insect garden visitors; I've seen more butterflies in my front garden this summer alone so far than over the past five years. I took a photo of a Monarch on the weekend, but don't think it obligingly had its tongue out. :D
Regarding your troubles with the lace, I also had trouble the first time (for the Knitting Olympics) with not having enough stitches. It came down to the increase method I was using. Not sure if this is the case here; bring your pattern to work tomorrow and I'll take a look. It might be an easy fix.
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