Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Midweek post!

Yes, a midweek post, which means that life seems to be in control enough to allow a breather midweek! I can't tell you how relaxed that makes me feel, today its a quick post, I've made progress on the Spiral bound sock, and I'm charting and knitting my first lace design .. in a small way.Yes laugh if you will, this is the knit-blogger who once said that she didn't understand lace, and if she wanted holes in her knitting ... well that actually she didn't want holes in her knitting. And here I am now playing with lace and charting it to extend to the edges ...... how things come back to haunt one.

So the sock, Spiral bound, grows, slowly. After the weekend I had a day in Auckland, leaving in the morning and returning late that night .. and while there was reading about textiles, and I did take my knitting with me. My visit was to look at a students work that was a masters on knitting in the round (Whole garment technology), with all that I didn't actually knit, the day flew past and there was lots of talking and note making, and walking, and meeting and greeting, and shuttles here and there, and those airplane seats are so narrow ... well you know. So here are the socks, really only a days knitting, Tuesday, and nearly at the point of working the heel. I know from the photos that the spiral twists up the middle of the heel in an interesting way .. so I'm looking forward to working that.

Then there is my foray into lace modification, and charting. Oh I'm a long time chart user, loving the way that charts allow a visual representation of the pattern. I've made my own colour work charts, and re-charted lace with its repeats in so I could understand how it fits. This time I'm charting a lace pattern and extending out the pattern at the sides to fit into the increases at the corners of my blanket. I feel so pleased with myself that I understood the principles of yarn overs adding stitches and being paired with k2 and ssk to balance out the lace. I know that is all very obvious, but to me it seems a real step in my understanding to be able to chart it all and be fairly confident it will work - (of course it could all go pear shaped and I don't have a life line in yet). I'm two rows in and so far so good, the holes line up and the stitches fall as I expected them to in the corners.

So there is still work, but the marking has mostly moved from the to do to the done pile. I so enjoyed using Diamine Pumpkin ink to record my comments in their workbooks (do more of this, extend that into some of this, what do you think of what you have done ....and where is the rest of the work?). Now I'm wondering what of the colours I have I can use to write my final comments for my graduating students - they go in with their degrees - last notes from all of us which is a nice tradition. The show is in a few weeks (if you are local ring the school if you want tickets - should be fun and will be the first time in a new venue), then we have graduation on the 10th of December (Jenni as a perpetual adult student myself I'll be cheering you on - you have to be there - its a great day, bring your knitting), them I'm on leave ... in a little over a month.

Which leaves me wondering where did the year go?
Take care
na Stella

2 comments:

Knitting Linguist said...

Congratulations on getting through the marking! That's always a good feeling. (I, too, find that a good fountain pen makes marking feel a bit nicer.) Also congratulations on the lace charting - one of the wonderful things about knitting is the feeling that there's always something more to learn and try.

Now I just can't wait to hear what you think of your reading :)

Nilda said...

I love that about life...something so stubbornly against our nature becomes a curiousity and then sometimes a passion, or at most something to achieve. Ironically I was reading some old blogs last week by Wendy Berhard (?) from www.knitandtonic.net in which she advises against anyone ever knitting a skirt, and then makes a few that she loves. I swore that to make socks was an insidious waste of time when at a $1/pair I could spend the time knitting hats, sweaters, gloves...on WIP today...two-at-a-time socks for my 4-year old. eheu