Twisted Ropes

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Pattern: Twisted Rope Scarf from CatBookMom
Yarn: Elann Highland Wool, Blue Vista, 4 balls
Needles: 4.5 mm

Here's my Twisted Rope Scarf, a CatBookMom original design, knit with 4 balls of Elann Highland Wool. The scarf came out to almost 6 inches wide and a little over 5 ft long. The first three photos were taken in the daytime, which means you get the Miss M special of "helping" to pat down the knitting and moving it around while I'm trying to take the picture, but it does show the scarf details and color much better than the 2 nighttime shots in the last two photos below which are sans Miss M. It's more convenient for me to take photos at night, after Miss M has gone to bed, however I haven't yet figured out how to get daytime effects when taking photos at night.

This is a great mindless knitting project. I worked on it while watching TV. Most of it is just knitting the pattern as established, knit the knits, purl the purls. Easy peasy. Out of a 48 row pattern, you only have to concern yourself with cable rows on rows 3, 9, 15, 21, 27, 33, 39, and 45. So 8 cable rows out of 48 total rows is not too bad (unlike some patterns that have cabling every other row!!!). I did not make mine a seaman style scarf, I just knit from one end to the other. At first, I was worried about it not being long enough because I was working the cable pattern where the ribbing would be. I have to admit that I was a bit slow on knitting up that 4th ball. I really did not want this scarf to end. Then I would have to find a new TV knitting project, and finishing the scarf would give me less excuses not to get back to my mom's vest which I have been avoiding for quite some time.

After working the first repeat of the pattern, I started to notice a similarity to the Utopia Hat. I remember Barbara mentioning that she took the Twisted Rope pattern and added an extra cable in the center for more width. I didn't recognize the stitch pattern similarities until now. Her Twisted Rope Panel came out of Harmony Guide 3 (which I don't have), and my Utopia Hat is based on "Pattern 36.2" from Harmony Guide 5 (page 81). I have to wonder why the Harmony Guide people chose to give the same stitch pattern different names in these two volumes. Any thoughts on why they would do that? I love how Barbara designed her pattern so that the extra center cable alternates directions.

Added note for future reference: Started on Row 25. Ended on Row 48. This is to get the 3-cable section at both ends of the scarf (instead of the 2-cable section).

Yarn info:
Fibre Content: 100% Highland Wool
Made In: Peru
Care: Hand Wash/ Dry Flat
Gauge: 19 st/4 inches 4.0 - 4.5 mm (US 6-7)
Yardage: 100 m (109 yards)
Size: 50g (1.75 oz) ball
Price: $2.38 USD

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I stumbled upon a cool little deal on the Elmore-Pisgah site, they're the people who make Peaches & Creme kitchen cotton yarn. They're offering pre-packs of yarn for the Monthly Dishcloth KAL Yahoo group. I've been so busy lately that I haven't been able to keep up with the MDKAL group (or any other Yahoo group I belong to) as I did in the past. I haven't done much dishcloth knitting lately. And I still have several BIG boxes full of kitchen cotton yarn that are feeling neglected. I would jump at this new pre-pack deal in a heartbeat if I were knitting more dishcloths and didn't already have 100+ balls of the stuff in my stash. The balls in these pre-packs work out to be about $1.12 each. Pretty cool, huh?

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I guess I'm out of the loop when it comes to anything trendy, but I have recently discovered the Hemlock Ring Blanket which is gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! Brooklyn Tweed has a version that is based on this doily. I'm thinking of doing this in Elann Highland Wool or Elann Lara. Although I do wonder whether I would get the same results by following the original pattern instead of Jared's chart, because I am not good with reading charts at all. :-(

Gosh, I seem to always mention Elann yarns, you must think I'm advertising for them. LOL. I love their yarns. And I get 99% of my yarn from them. It's very convenient when you have an infant/toddler around who isn't as interested in going yarn shopping. Online shopping is the way to go.

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Let's see... I've got 4 balls of Austermann Mayfair (60% viscose rayon microfibre / 40% acrylic worsted weight -- 20/4 - US6 (4mm) - US8 (5mm) -- 131 yds / 120 m per 50 gm ball) that I don't know what to do with. I'm not sure I have enough for a scarf. And if it becomes a scarf, it would probably have to be a lacy design since I don't have a lot of this yarn. I'm not even sure this would make good scarf yarn. I picked up this yarn aeons ago without any real project in mind. In retrospect I think I should have passed on this. I'll have to find some time to play around with it. Perhaps the yarn will surprise me.

Sorry, another bad photo due to nighttime lighting. The easiest time for me to take photos is at night, after Miss M has gone to bed. Unfortunately I can't take advantage of natural daylight which makes photos come out better.

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I think this Caterpillar Toy is so cute! I'm thinking it's a small enough project that even *I* can finish before the next Ice Age. And it would be a great way to use up little scraps of yarn. A squeaker and bell are mentioned under Optional Element 2, and I have to wonder where you would go to get something like that for this toy. It would have to be something that is also washable. Of course, I'm thinking baby toy, thus it MUST be washable. I really hate when baby toys are labeled "surface wash". What are they thinking when they design these things? Don't they know that babies are gonna put things in their mouths, drag stuff across whoknowswhat, etc?!?!

Check out the rest of her designs. They are way cool. I love the little people. I'd love to make The Wiggles (Miss M loves them) but I'm afraid knitting something that small will drive me batty.

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And if you're looking for a way cool cable scarf, take a look at the Secret Admirer Scarf. I like this binary pattern way more than the Binary Hat and this other Binary Scarf. The scarf on Knitty looks cool, but OMG, it would take me forever to knit with 2 colors. The hat has its limitations in how long your message can be because you can only go down so far in yarn thickness to squeeze everything in before the hat becomes too long. The example in the pattern to spell "hat" is in lowercase. You can refer to this chart if you want to spell "hat" in uppercase or you can refer to it if you want to compose a different message. The only thing I would omit in the hat pattern is the "checksum". I think I like the Secret Admirer Scarf more because I like cables (had you noticed?). And I do like how she represented the letters as 5 bits instead of 8 bits. Makes it possible to do the scarf in worsted weight yarn. With 8 bits, you'd have to cast on 60 stitches which would make a very wide scarf in worsted weight yarn or you would have to bring it down to fingerling weight yarn to compensate on the width.

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Well lots has been going on in my corner of the world, or not a lot depending on how you look at it. Never enough time for knitting. I've been experiencing hand/wrist pain lately and knitting doesn't help it. I've also had "tired" eyes that have a hard time focusing on the needle tips.

Miss M is potty training. We've been trying on and off for the past year(!) and haven't actually made much progress until the last month or two when we went with no diapers. Just panties during the daytime, and pull-up diapers during nap & nighttime. She clearly gets the concept. We're still refining her ability to let us know before she needs to go potty. Gosh, I can't wait til she's completely out of diapers!!! I am a bit concerned about what we will do in public restrooms where the toilets are so big that she would clearly fall through. Using pull-ups when we go out would be counter productive to the potty training effort.

DH has been sick for over a week. I was busy taking care of him and trying to keep Miss M quiet and out of his hair so he could get some rest. It took him a week (including 3.5 sick days from work) before he decided to see a doctor ... never mind that I had been urging him to do so early on. Of course you can't make a same day appt with a doctor. (We also recently moved to a new city, so we have to pick new doctors) Fortunately the Camino Medical Group has an Urgent Care Facility at 701 E El Camino Real (Mountain View) where you can see a doctor on a first come first served basis. He's so funny. He was about to walk out the door without any waiting room material in hand. I suggested he take a book and/or laptop with him. Fortunately he did follow my advice cuz he ended up waiting 1 hr 45 min before getting to see someone to check his vitals, another 10-15 minutes of waiting before seeing a doctor for another 10 minutes. Silly DH though he'd be in and out quickly. Haha. BTW, would you believe they have free wireless internet in the waiting area? Cool, huh? He has the flu and a sinus infection. I hope it was the sinus infection that was causing the sharp pains on the back of his head, and not something else. He got some antibiotics for the sinus infection. Taking phenylephrine(sp? it's the stuff they use in Sudafed, Robitusin CF, etc) for his nasal congestion symptoms during the week had caused his blood pressure to skyrocket. I didn't know that this drug could do that. He was advised to stop taking that drug, and to take Benadryl or Claritin instead for his congestion. He had picked up his prescription antibiotics on the way home, but didn't think to pick up Benadryl or Claritin, so I went to get that for him in the evening. Did you know that Claritin only comes in a "non-drowsy" formula? I went with the Benadryl, nice drowsy formula that will knock him out and let him get some sleep at night.

I've found my new reading love. I first got into mysteries by reading Elizabeth George novels. Then I branched out and tried Laurie R. King, Minette Walters, Martha Grimes, Val McDermid, and Ruth Rendell. Love them all. I just finished The Distant Echo by Val McDermid which I enjoyed very much. I'm trying to read other novels by these authors, but I am also looking forward to trying other mystery authors as well.

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Let's see, what else... oh, I may need to re-image my laptop hard drive after doing the really sloppy thing of clicking on a link that was in someone's blog comments. I should have looked where it was going. It didn't look suspicious, it was a link to someplace.blogspot.com. You'd think it was a link to someone's blog. However the blog comment was unusual and should have raised red flags ... it only said "see here" where the word "here" was the link to the blogspot URL. Plus the commenter's name wasn't one of the usual suspects you run into who leave comments on knitting blogs. Upon clicking on the link, pop-up windows appeared, some message about anti-virus, one window showing a status bar for something being installed(!). It was not a feel good moment. It's like those times when you push the car door shut and realize in that split second that the car keys are inside and there's nothing you can do to stop the motion of events. Ok, not a good analogy since most cars these days are idiot proof and won't let you lock the car with the keys inside, but you know what I mean. I don't know what malicious things were done to my computer from clicking on the link. The only thing I notice so far is that my Norton Anti-Virus no longer works. Anyhow, there's an unclean feeling on my laptop and I'd feel so much better after it is wiped clean and we start on a clean slate.

Fun fun fun... this is going to be a multi-day project. On the upside, thank goodness I have USB 2 to backup data onto an external hard drive. :-)

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