Storage Solutions

The snow has turned to rain (for the most part) and that can only mean one thing: Spring Cleaning!

Since I started knitting waaay back when, I've stored all my notions in old shoe boxes under my couch.  Classy, right?  I've looked for other storage solutions but never really found anything I liked or wanted to afford.  I came across these while shopping for a friend's birthday at Global Gallery.

They were $8 each (I bought three) and remind me of the grass baskets women wove while waiting for customers at the roadside fruit stands in North Carolina.  They're woven tight and smooth with no snags to grab the yarn, and they even smell a little bit like seagrass!  There were several sizes and shapes, from trashcans to little fingerbowls, and why am I telling you all this? 

Because I was chatting with the manager and business has not been great, which I'm sure is not unique with the downturn in the economy.  But I think stores like the Global Gallery, "a non-profit volunteer run organization dedicated to promoting fair trade and cultural enrichment in the Columbus community" should get our business.  Aside from all the socio-political reasons, which I don't know enough to talk about intelligently, their products are unique, well made, and fairly priced.  In the era of the big box stores, this is rare indeed.

I can dooo eeet! But should I?

While knitting my Noro Striped Scarf I paid a lot of attention to the slipped stitch edges since that's how the color changed for the stripes. Also I thought that little detail made a big difference in the finished look of the scarf, perhaps slightly less homemade. I was very happy with how it turned out!

However, it made me realize I've been knitting the slipped stitch edge on my Trellis scarf wrong. But just one edge.

Here is the correctly slipped edge (shown from the wrong side due to not having blocked yet):

And the other slipped incorrectly: 

And both for comparison (can you see it?):

The pattern instructions "slip first stitch purl-wise with yarn in front on both right side and wrong side" make a nice edge on the wrong side since the following stitch is a purl, but not so much on the right side where the following stitch is a knit, requiring you to wrap the yarn to the back for the knit.  The stitch should have been slipped purl-wise with the yarn in back ready to knit.

And really I don't mind the look of the "wrong edge", it's actually kind of interesting and I'll make a note for future reference, but it bothers me that the two edges don't match.  

So I got to thinking ... always a bad idea, I know ... could I drop the "wrong edge" stitch all the way down, and pick it all the way back up correctly?  Could I?  Is this a crazy idea?  Craz-eee?

The current consensus from the Wed Night Knitting Group is yes, yes this is most definitely a crazy idea.  Do not dooo eeet!  For one the difference in the edging is not very noticeable, and for two with blocking (or lack thereof) I could make the edge stitches sit toward the wrong side of the scarf and let the first row of (matching) knit stitches be the edging.  And for three, after doing all those knit 7 togethers do I really want to mess with this?

But then I keep thinking, if I pin the first row of knit stitches down so they don't stretch out, could I unravel and pull up the edge slip 1, knit 1, all the way up?  Everyone agrees if I am going to try this I need to do a test run on a swatch.  Because I would be inconsolable if all those knit 7's were for nothing. 

What time is it?

It is the end!  The end of time!

That always freaks me out ...

  

Echo gets adopted!

Edited to add: Okay ... maybe not everyone watches as much teee-veee as I do.  Here's the link to the first Echo commercial.

Look at that smile!  Breaks my heart every! time!

Yay ... he's home!

Noro Striped Scarf

I bought the yarn for this project two seconds after I saw this project.  Who could resist?!  

 

This was a thrill to knit, k1p1 all the way through, but never boring thanks to the magic of Noro!

Tubular cast on and bind off ... 40 cast on and 38 bound off.  On purpose.  

Overall there were 39 stitches allowing for a slipped stitch edging.

 And as always, a kitty to supervise.  

So what's the catch?  

I'm not sure I like it.  The colors just don't speak to me.  They kind of just say blah blah blah. Maybe we just need some time apart.  Noro definitely needs a good soak to soften up a bit and for the stitches mellow into place. 

In like a lion ... RAWR!

I think I'll have my dinner on the lanai ...

Or maybe not.  The birdies won't be getting their dinner at all ...

Sorry!

I'm lame.

I really hate when bloggers apologize about being too busy to write.  (Hee hee -- the first time I typed that I wrote too busty to write.)  Well, neither of these apply to me ... I just don't feel the urge to blog.   Or I didn't anyway, until I got hooked on the Ravelry.

Now I want to have a blog.  A good blog.  So new content is coming!  You know ... as soon as I knit some.