Persephone & Osiris

Just some scarf photos...

This is my Persephone Scarf knit with 5 balls of Elann Highland Silk, Dusky Lavender. Yup, it pretty much looks like the original one you saw last December, in Ruby Red. This is one of my favorite cable patterns, I loved it when I saw the stitch pattern in Harmony Guide 5. There are times when I will look at a stitch pattern which doesn't do anything for me, but then I am pleasantly surprised when I knit it up. My Utopia Hat is a perfect example of this. I wasn't wowed by the pattern when I saw it in Harmony Guide 5, but decided to play around with it, and then the Utopia Hat was born. I really like how that hat turned out. And of course there were some stitch patterns which looked great on paper, but I did not like it when I knit it up, so those got frogged.

This dusky lavender scarf is about 6 ft long and 6.5 inches wide, unblocked. Yes, I still need to block it. I was a bit disappointed when I reached the end of the scarf cuz I was enjoying the rhythm of the pattern and could easily watch TV while knitting it. This scarf is for V.

There was a bit of an Uh-oh while knitting this scarf. I was inches away from completing it when I somehow dropped a stitch. And the stitch unraveled several rows down. Eeks! I had never had this happen so badly in cable knitting. My first thought was would I be able to recover? The pattern has cable crossings on every other row. I don't use lifelines (read more about lifelines here, and here) in cable knitting, so I didn't have that to fall back on if I could not recover. Fortunately I was able to recover with a crochet hook and lots of patience. But what would I have done if I couldn't figure it out? I suppose I could try to thread a lifeline through a row somewhere below the mess and hope that I got it right. Of course that would be worth a try (or several tries) before frogging the entire thing.

I have to admit that I'm not that good about inserting lifelines in my lace knitting either. I probably should. I know that. However I get into my knitting rhythm and can't be bothered to stop and thread a lifeline through a row. And of course it's only effective if you move the lifeline up as you knit. A lifeline doesn't really help much when the distance between the cast on edge & the lifeline row is a small fraction of the distance between the lifeline row and the current working row.

A while back, I mentioned here about some foam mats I picked up at Costco thinking I could use them for blocking. Well, I was right! They worked perfectly. At only $12, it was not a bad deal for a package of 8 squares (each 2 ft square). As you can see, I managed to block this small scarf using only 4 mats. I haven't tried it for a large shawl. I think that 8 square should be fine, but it might be pretty close if the shawl is very very large. If I run into that scenario, I certainly hope I can find another package of these mats at Costco. You never know with Costco, they're always changing the items they carry.

I couldn't believe I used most of my T-pins on this one scarf. I think there were 150 pins in the package and I had about 4 left when I finished pinning it. I should probably pick up some more to have on hand just in case.

I'm not a very good blocker. I pretty much eyeball it and wing it. If you look carefully, you can even see the scarf curving a bit (far end of photo). I have learned that it is better to place the pins closer together.

I don't remember if I ever mentioned that this scarf is going to my Mom. I hope she likes it. When I started the scarf, I thought the yarn was more green. It certainly looked greenish next to the blue Baby Cashmere balls. However by the time I finished the scarf, I thought the yarn looked more blue. So I'm not sure what color it is.

This is me wearing the scarf. The Elann Baby Cashmere yarn is lovely, very lightweight and warm. But I have to admit that this is not the ideal yarn for this pattern. I think a yarn with more "body" would make the pattern "pop" more. Pop? Gosh, I think I've been watching too much Spice Up My Kitchen..

I mentioned here that I was working on a chart (for this scarf) and some of the challenges I had in doing this. Well, I've given up on wrestling with Microsoft Word. I can't get the entire chart to fit on one page. And I can't figure out how to merge the two Word documents into one, when one document is in Portrait mode and the other is in Landscape mode. I will update both files and make them available for download soon, perhaps even this weekend if I find the time.

DMIL reminded me that I need to sort through Miss M's photos and send them to her so she can print out what she wants to take with her to Taiwan when she visits her Mom. I'm hoping to get much of this done this weekend. I haven't been very good at doing this, mostly due to the house move, so have several months worth of photos to sort through. I'll try to get started on that tonight. I probably won't have much time tomorrow. DH & I will probably take a scenic drive down to Monterey/Carmel tomorrow... :-) Oh, did I mention that Miss M is spending 2 nights at the grandparents this weekend? :-) :-) :-) It's our anniversary weekend, so it'll be nice to have some couple time.... :-)

Miss M enjoyed her first Halloween dressed as one of her favorite characters, Pooh Bear. I think the time change thing, or rather lack of time change last weekend, screwed things up since it meant it got dark later rather than earlier. She was impatiently waiting to go Trick or Treating. It was fun watching her empty a BIG bag of chocolates into a bowl and then watch her hand candy out to visitors at our house. We visited 8 or 9 houses before she got tired because it was getting close to her bath/wind down/bedtime. She did manage to say, "Trick or Treat!" and, "Thank you," at some houses. :-) And she enjoyed ringing the doorbells.

I enjoy seeing the changing colors of the trees in our neighborhood, but NOT the endless raking. I am convinced that the wind blows all the leaves from all the trees on our block towards our house. I will rake/sweep them up one afternoon, and by next afternoon it will look as if I hadn't raked/swept at all the previous day. It is a losing battle...

I kinda miss the near treeless street at our old house.

We finally finished putting together Miss M's big girl bed. The drawers were assembled the day after (last Saturday), and the trim along the upper edge of the sides were put in earlier today. We also assembled a small table for her this afternoon, so she'll have a nice surprise when she sees it on Monday.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I knit a toddler size Pythagorean Hat for Miss M. She had been saying, "I want a purple hat," for quite some time. Purple seems to be her favorite color. So now she has her own, which means I can wear my purple hat this winter. Her purple hat is knit with DK weight Cleckheaton Country 8 Ply, which worked out perfectly for toddler sizing. I wish I could find this yarn in the United States.

And this is Miss M wearing the adult size hat. She always has to check out the hats I make, and she doesn't care if they're too large for her.

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