Le Grand Tour d'Europe!

We're back! It was amazing!

I won't bore you with all the details, but list the cities and then get to the imporant part - YARN!
We flew into Zurich, took the train to Milan, Lake Como, Florence, and Venice. Rented a car and toured Tuscany: Siena, Volterra, San Gmignano, Montelcino, Monsumanno Terme, Montecatini Terme. Returned the car and took a train from Pistoia to Pisa, Genoa, then Nice, France. We flew from Nice to Dusseldorf, Germany back to Zurich. 17 days - a fast-paced, independent trip!

Orange is VERY popular in Europe, this is a cell phone network (throughout Europe) sign in Zurich :



We arrived in Europe right at the Easter Sunday weekend. There were bunnies in all the advertising. This is a display at a store in Bellagio.




Spirals are very popular in Europe!

An antique lightbulb in Milan store window:


Iron work in Milan:




Stone work:


Mosaic tile on a Montecatini Terme sidewalk:



Color is very different in Europe.

The Mediterranean Sea, Nice, France:


Pebble walkway at the Sant' Ambrogio Basilica in Milan:


Buildings in Milan:


Produce at a Milan Saturday morning market:


Building, water, and boat in Venice:


This is where the color Siena comes from.


These two buildings at El Campo in Siena.


This is a handmade finely crocheted scarf that I saw in Bellagio. It's little squares, different yarn, all connected together:


This is a sweater that was for sale at a Florence flea market, I liked the detailing:



We went to a HUGE flea market in Lucca, where I found these three prints from the 1930s. I will frame them and make an ensemble:




My favourite one, hands and sheep!


I went to the yarn store in Milan, and it was very small, with not very good yarn. I forgot to take a picture of it because we were in a hurry to get to the train station.

This store has been in Florence for 40 years! It's in a great part south of Florence, called Oltrano.


I bought this yarn there, enough for a scarf! It's 100%, shrink resistant Merino wool, about $10 for both.


The woman who owns the store said that she could tell that I worked in a yarn store because I looked at all the labels. I wanted to find yarn that is not readily available here in the US.

We met a couple traveling from Highland Park, CA, on the train from Milan to Florence. They stumbled upon a yarn store in Florence that I had not heard of called Mirko Filati. I forgot to take a picture of the store, it was a basement store underneath the street!

This is a cotton/linen mix, I bought 10 skeins for about $20.



This is Grignasco Extrafine Merino yarn with colors that you would not believe. It has 1635 yards, about $8. I hope to have enough to make the Knitty Clapotis or the Sheer Poncho.


It was very hard to find the yarn store in Siena. It was supposed to be in an area that used to be in the section where stores used to sell chicken. We finally found the address. Two months ago it became a cafe. :-(

This was a really lousy acryllic yarn and all-purpose sewing store that we stumbled upon in Nice.


We were walking to buy bread in Nice, when Dave said, "Don't look up!"
The Anny Blatt store.


I bought 12 skeins of this 100% wool yarn (960 yds total), made in France! It was on sale and cost about $50, and had the same name as Dave's mom, I HAD to get it!


While I was gone, I took one project with me, the ultra-long knitted Swedish pattern that becomes a spiral top. Pictures tomorrow of the new length! I knit on all of our train rides. People would walk by and stare - they were mesmerized!

I'm happy to be back and get started knitting my ISE4 pal's scarf!

Ciao! Au Revoir!

I'm on vacation!

While I'm gone, check out all the beautiful scarves and ongoing posts here:



Happy Knitting!

what to get while I'm gone

I passed up an opportunity to shop a yarn sale this weekend.

Delaying gratification for yarn shopping in Italy.

Look how close this store is to our hotel in Milan!

Melissa said, "Oh! You're going to where the yarn comes from!"

I said, "Well, what should I get while I'm there?"

She said, "Get as much as you can!"

Spoken like a true yarn addict.

when two worlds merge

I love when this happens.


While surfing the internet at work, reading about Business Intelligence, I spied this



Not just a hobby - a metaphor!

maybe they're an indie band?

Yarn Stores in Italy

Many months ago, I started searching for yarn stores in Italy.

I read about Amy's adventures and noted the stores she found in Florence.

And I just found this list of yarn stores in Italy.

I especially am interested in the store in Siena.

*sigh* I wish could visit them all.

Yesterday I finished the very long cashmere scarf. It had just enough yarn left over to weave in the tail!

Moebius complete

I wish that I had had this book when I was knitting Glee!

The moebius is finished.

And I have a scant amount of yarn left on the cashmere scarf - almost done. It's very long, but since it's so skinny it's a good length to wrap around my neck a few times.

I also purchased yarn yesterday for the ISE4 scarf! It's Atacama 507.

This picture really does it no justice at all. Once wound up in a ball has a lot of red - which surprised me! It's got beautiful light blues and specks of green in places.

READ?!

Why do that?

When I can drive myself bonkers and knit and rip and knit and curse and rip and curse and knit and rip. This picture is from a month ago.

On Monday , when I was perusing all of my magazines for the perfect pattern for the green yarn, I stumbled across a VK pattern for a moebius capelet.

Having a tendency for masochism, I decided to pull out the cashmere yarn again and see if I could get a better result with their cast on technique.

I definitely liked the backwards cast on method. The problem came when I needed to knit into the stitches I had cast on. My working yarn was on the other end of the needle. I sat a minute and wondered if maybe I shouldn't be casting on with working yarn (leaving a small tail that is never touched). So I ripped out the cast on stitches and tried again. This allowed me to knit into the cast on stitches and it began to look as it had in the past with stitches on the needle and stitches on the cable below.

So I began to folllow the pattern again. By this time Dave had come home from work. We went to dinner, came back, and both picked up our knitting. {Never thought I'd write those words in my lifetime.} The moebius was starting to look exactly as it had each time before.

And I began to turn it around and around in circles trying to understand why it didn't look like the one in the picture. I have not been able to understand why half of it is stockinette and half of it is reverse stockinette.

Dave said, as he usually does, "Let me look at the instructions."

He looks at them, and then says, as he usually does, "Did you read this?"

Silly man.

Read?!

"...a diagonal becomes a chevron, and that plain knitting creates a “two-lane road” of stockinette and reverse stockinette."

So the good news is that I'm almost done with the moebius. And I think that through my trials and tribulations (or rather my inability to read) I can now be considered an expert at this project.

I think that the chevron part of the diagonals may be off, but I don't care. I'm not ripping it again. The person I'm making this for won't know the difference.

No, I take that back, I do care that the diagonals are off. But I can't tell from the other pictures in the pattern if they are or not.

I just found this blog which has great pictures of her progress and the diagonals match up for the chevron.

I don't know what's more frustrating - that I didn't find this blog before or that my diagonals aren't matching up.

I'm looking at the pictures of the previous attempt and the diagonals match up.

Well.

I need to stop typing and start ripping.

couldn't resist

I saw this at the fabric store today and had to get it.

It's two sided - it's sort of like a clip on a spring. I think that it's supposed to be painted/decorated or something?

Spirals! On a sheep! C'mon How cute is THAT?!

This is for my ISE4 pal that I will be knitting a scarf for. I hope to hear back from her soon!

I've been contacted by the person who's knitting for me - and she asked me all kinds of good questions! I *heart* questions!!

I went on and on about the kinds of needles I use. Blah blah blah Addis blah blah blah bamboo. Probably WAY more info than she expected. :-)

no vista for knitware

Just a quick obituary for glee. Glee has been sent to the knitting drawer to think about what it did wrong (1. yarn substitution, 2. gauge schmage, 3. improvisational decreasing, 4. boring stockinette, etc.). It's too bad, the yarn is such a pretty color orange. It just can't seem to find its pattern home. This will be the second project from which it will have been ripped.



So I picked up my cashmere scarf and got some satisfaction from knitting on that for awhile.



I am still trying to figure out what scarf I want to make for my ISE4 pal.



And I also picked up my own design project again. When I got to the armholes, I realized I needed to print out information from the pattern that I had created as a guide on Knitware.



After scouring the entire house and garage for about 45 minutes looking for the software to install it on my new laptop, and then my husband coming home and finding it in 2 minutes, I discovered that Vista is not compatible with the Knitware software. I sure hope they fix that soon...

A pleasant surprise awaited me on the main computer, when I opened up the application - I had saved the pattern, so I was able to easily print what I needed without having to re-enter all the data.

Also in the que is this yarn (not a great photo...)






I went thorugh all of my magazines and books out the other night and decided to use it for this pattern





It's from IK Summer 06. I won't be doing any of the embroidery embellishment. There's a better picture of the back of the sweater inside the magazine where the the lace detail can be seen better.

I just noticed the girl in the picture is wearing low rise jeans, and the sweater falls nicely at the top of them - so the length will be great!

boring? or bored?

I am struggling to finish the very boring glee.

Round after round of stockinette - long enough to cover the top of my low rise jeans.

On and on.

I am anxious to get to the ribbing at the bottom, for the sleeves, and the neck - then I can be done.

I finished Wendy's hat in two days and Dave is making great progress on his!

Yesterday VK arrived. I am not impressed.

I skimmed through the articles, glanced at the patterns, so much lace, so little patience.

I finally found a pattern that I thought - "Hmmm, I could see myself possibly knitting and/or wearing this."

I turned the page, and there were no more patterns.

Only one pattern sparked my interest - the last one!

I look at this piece and it looks so boring.

or is it that I am getting bored with my knitting?

the temptress

A.K.A. Argosy Yarn
She calls this Siena.
I call it the yarn I was meant to knit with on my trip to Tuscany next month.

at least someone's knitting

we're both going to do a hat for his sister
she wanted a hat done in black, that wasn't tight like a beanie, that was wavy
she also said that it could look like a sun hat or beret

the yarn for my hat was ordered from elann today

Dave found some soysilk in my stash that he swatched and liked for his hat

yes you read right, we're both going to do a hat

all about the world

Since we're traveling internationally this year, I decided that it was only proper to sign up for the International Scarf Exchange. I read about it on Kristen TenDyke's blog.

Also, this is my first post from my brand new laptop.
The old one was VERY old and slow. The only thing that I miss is the little red nose button that sat in the middle of the keyboard. I am having a challenge with the slidey spot that I am supposed to maneuver.

I'm still working on glee, and have bound off the armholes. I'm transferring onto a long cable so that I can try it on and see if I need to make any decreases for a waist. Also, I didn't continue the 'V' as far down as the pattern states. I decided I wanted it shorter. Because it's knit in cotton, I probably won't wear anything under it, so didn't want everyone staring at my bra through the eyelet closures.

Moebius cowl has been ripped for the fifth time. Sitting in the bag waiting for dear Alice to call and walk me through the MCO.

knitting glee

I finally, after deliberating for at least two months, bought this pattern


it's ridiculously easy to download from them. I *heart* PayPal.

the deliberation was mostly over the yarn I wanted to use.
I searched for a picture to show here but couldn't find one - the yarn is an Elann 100% mercerized cotton.

I bought it to make a sweater over a year ago that was really difficult to make. I even had the knitwitch help me with it.
She gave me the nicest compliment when it was finished, she said that the seaming was impeccable. *sigh* :-)
But the sweater never fit well. It wasn't long enough. The sleeves were way to tight at the wrist and up to the elbow. And as beautiful as the design is - I ripped the whole thing out.

It took four hours to unseam, rip, and rewind. Then I thought that maybe I could get the kinks out of the yarn if I soaked and dried the yarn in hanks.

It didn't really work. But doesn't matter anyway, because it's knitting up just fine.

The strangest thing with the yarn substitution is the size/gauge. I first cast on for the XS or S - I can't remember. It's top down and I could tell right away that the neck ribbing was too small. So I ripped and started again in a size L. It seems to be better - but no real way to tell because they don't provide length or width schematics with the pattern.

I also started my moebius cashmere cowl. Five times. Five times I cast on for that thing. I had trouble getting the correct cast on. Then I realized my cable was too long.
The third time I actually had a great deal of knitting done on it and I looked at it and heard my inner knitter say, "This doesn't look right." It looked like two separate pieces were being knit - one side with the yarn over pattern, the other half with stockinette or reverse stockinette, depending on how you looked at it.

I really am not enjoying this project and have said so outloud now several times.

It is so perplexing and impossible to explain to others why it is so perplexing and what it is I'm actually doing (or think I'm doing, or even what I think I should be doing). I think it's all better now, but fear I won't really know until I cast off and take a good look at it. It's very hard to make sense of it while it's curled up on itself on the cable - wrong side? right side? the answer to those questions is "yes."

the man with one green sock

poor davey, wiped out from a hard day of golfing
and a long week of insomnia
we actually had a guest over and this is when we knew the evening would soon be coming to an end
he said he was cold
so I said, "that would be because you're not wearing any socks and you're lying on the floor."
so he said, "give me my green sock."

custom socks

I have gotten a lot of knitting done on Sock 1 of Dave's Second Pair of Socks.

He tried it on (b/c it looked so big after I turned the heel) and suggested that b/c his foot is so flat after the arch that I start decreasing so that the sock fits more tightly.

The bottom of the sock is stockinette and the top is the ribbing - so I am decreasing every 4th row - sort of playing it by ear.

I was worried about it last night and looked in my SKS book but didn't find any instructions on doing such a thing.

Have you ever decreased stitches in this way? Did it turn out OK?

fashion

I love reading stuff like this
did you see this coat:

now check out the coat I just bought for my trip to Europe:

As for colors, you'll see black and brown, with pops of purple, cobalt blue, dark yellow and blue, and lots and lots of gray. "Gray - I don't know when that became a color, but it did and it's a very important one," said Candy Pratts Price, executive fashion editor at Style.com.

This is a closeup of the scarf that I'm bringing to Europe.

The article also says, "This fall, look out for architectural shapes, tailored suiting..." and "polished and chic clothes."

Now check this out:


And last but not least, Little Miss Thousand Names Sweater that was mailed this week:

free math

I have finished the eyelet blouse - I haven't decided if I like it or not yet...

I'm not really working on anything that I'm in love with right now

the baby sweater is finished and needs to be mailed - hopefully I can do that today
the cashmere scarf is unfinished
I'm not really feeling the crazy mohair project - size 13 needles are so cumbersome and slow me down
I've picked up the green socks for dave again - they looked they like cold be future wrist warmers

check out this free wrist warmer calculator

I have a project that I want to design that involves cables
I may take my borders GC and 20% discount coupon and see what they've got

I really want to get this book

the only time I'll drive and knit

what a gorgeous day - 85 degrees - sunny with a delicious breeze

I spent a few hours on the golf course today

I made my husband very happy by joining him

I chauffeured him and put a lot of mileage on my cashmere scarf