Light at the End of the Tunnel

Hello,

Another quarter gone by and semi-good news from my company. No more 25% time (and pay) reduction, but 10% pay reduction across the board! Could be worse … could be worse. Whether this is temporary or permanent we don’t yet know – they will decide quarter-to-quarter. So we’re looking at it as a 15% pay increase compared to last quarter :-)

I haven’t seen the new Star Trek movie yet, but I’m reading the reviews which are mostly positive. One of the more entertaining ones is here: – this review covers an aspect that never occurred to me: Twinks and Bears. After reading it my husband declared that now he can never look at Star Trek the same way again! Ach – and don’t make an extra effort to watch Angels and Demons – it’s pretty mediocre. If I hadn’t read the book, I would have had trouble following the “plot” which has some major holes in it, anyway. The da Vinci Code was much better. But you do get to see some of Rome’s art treasures!

During the last few weeks I ran into Borders and/or Barnes and Noble every few days so I would not miss the next issue of The Knitter – it’s a UK knitting magazine NOT aimed at the beginner, unlike the majority of other knit mags – I love it. Instead of just showing you some glam photos, they actually have photos of details! Unfortunately, you cannot subscribe to it here in the US, the link only gets you to a page where you can sign up to receive updates about the magazine.

A short while ago I received a pattern update for the Rosebud Neckwarmer designed by Grace Mcewen ... you can also find it on Ravelry. Very nice. It now includes charts, which is a huge Plus in my book. I hate reading written row-by-row instructions, because I have to *read* them … a chart, on the other hand … I can just *look* at it and see where I am (or should be). That’s the same reason I like analog clocks better than digital ones – I look at an analog clock and can *see* what time it is … a digital clock I have to first read, then translate what I read to the actual time. Anyway …

My next larger project after the Funnelneck sweater will be from the latest PieceWork magazine (May/June 2009): Olga’s Indiski (Indian) Shawl to Knit by Galina Khmeleva. This shawl was originally designed by the late Olga Fedorova, Galina’s mentor, and expert Orenburg Shawl knitter, and modified a bit by Galina. I’m thinking of knitting the original pattern also shown in the magazine, to fill the large “empty” squares. I had a Russian colleague translate the writing in this picture, but it didn't contain any interesting info.

Regarding the Funnelneck Sweater: I’m working on the bottom band right know, about 2 inches done, which seems sufficient … the pattern calls for 3 inches, but I’ll try it on and see how it looks with 2. So I am finally seeing the light at the end of the knit-reknit tunnel for this sweater.

The feral rooster is gone now. Poor fellow – he was just being a rooster. But the neighbors became more and more annoyed with him, and since he and his girlfriend spent a lot of time in our yard, we had the best opportunity of catching him. There is a slim chance that he might find a new home on a farm somewhere, but it’s not likely. Sigh. It’s too bad that there are not enough no-kill shelters like Best Friends. After a few days of extreme caution towards humans, the chicken is her old self again and happily scratches around in the neighborhood yards – I’m really surprised she is still alive. She’s been around for several years now.

Take care!

Lace-Making Retreat at Lacis Report

Whew! It was a busy week!

Galina Khmeleva kept us occupied knitting samples day and night (homework!), and I learned a lot from her. I took all of her classes: Orenburg Shawl Fundamentals (knitting a gossamer web shawl), Knitting a Warm Shawl, and Dimensional Knitting (spiders and bobbles). Of course, there were the other classes on lace-making: Needle Lace, Bobbin Lace and Tatting. Since the Dimensional Knitting classes were repeated, I was able to take a sniffer class in Bobbin Lace which was interesting, but it's not my cup of tea at the moment. Here is the result of an hour's worth of effort:

Beginner's Bookworm - I did most of the top half, then the instructor
(a very patient Maria Provencher) finished the bottom half, because
I was running out of time.

There were 2 classes per day: one morning and one afternoon session (10:30 to 1:00 pm and 3:00 to 5:30 pm), which gave us a rather long lunch break, but enabled us to catch up on our sample-knitting. This was our workshop area (former software office):

And one dedicated lunch-break knitter:

You can see Galina's sampler hanging from the shelf.

Orenburg Fundamentals Class: Galina took us through the making of a sample gossamer shawl, as described in her books, but with more information and tips.

Orenburg Gossamer Shawl sample

She started out by making us knit samples of the basic Orenburg patterns (Strawberries, Honeycomb, Peas, etc.) in yarn she provided - I found out that I had been knitting with needles too large (2.5 mm) and she made me switch to 1.5 mm (US 000) needles, because the holes should not quite be big enough for your pinkie to slip through. Using the smaller needles indeed made my stitches more defined and neater (see bottom, green portion of the sampler - unfortunately, the picture is not that great - the difference is actually visible):

Orenburg stitch sampler, and grafting sample

To the left of it you see two squares grafted together on two sides using the Russian grafting method.

Warm Shawl Class: In contrast to a gossamer shawl, a warm shawl is knitted in pieces: You knit 2 (for a triangular shawl) or 4 (for a square shawl) trapezoid border pieces; you pick up stitches on the short side and knit a "bridge" on each piece; then you graft 2 (for a triangular shawl) or 3 (for a square shawl) pieces together and start knitting the center (picking up border stitches as you work), then you attach the top trapezoid border (for the square version) or a border (for a triangular shawl). The bridge (not in the sample pictured) gives a warm shawl more stability, so it keeps its shape better than a gossamer shawl, which would have to be blocked more frequently with wear.

Three trapezoids for an Orenburg Warm Shawl.

To make a triangular shawl the pink and yellow pieces one have been grafted together; then the stitches on the short pink one were picked up, and the center (turquoise) was knitted up from the pink, decreasing stitches on its left side to produce a straight line for the triangular shawl's long (diagonal) side. If you wanted to knit a square shawl, you would graft the taupe trapezoid to the yellow one, pick up the yellow top stitches and knit straight up, picking up stitches from both the pink and taupe pieces as you knit up. Then attach another trapezoid piece on top to finish the shawl. Galina will have a pattern for a triangular warm shawl in the next issue of Piecework magazine (May/June 2009).

We also received plenty of good information on yarn characteristics. For instance: Alpaca wool (I had considered it for my first real O-shawl) is not a good choice for shawls and tablecloths etc., because it has almost no memory. Also, a very fuzzy yarn like 100% Qiviuk or cashmere is not good for gossamers, because the fuzziness will cover up the holes which you want visible ("Don't cover up your hard work!"). It should be knitted together with some silk, so it keeps its shape and stitch definition better. 100% cashmere and quiviuk are better for warm shawls, because warm shawls have a less lacy (= fewer holes) design, in order to ... keep you warm.

Galina also showed us howe to properly block an Orenburg shawl (it was a method new to me), and entertained us with lots of stories from Russia (even what to do, Russian-style, with an unfaithful husband!). To top it off, she had boxes and boxes of beautiful yarns, and cloud-soft shawls on display for us (no photos of these, but we were allowed to take notes of the patterns). The most spectacular one was knitted by her mentor Olga Fedorova, who passed away last year.

Galina's class was very good and enjoyable - if you have a chance, take a class from her! Next, she will be at Stitches West in Santa Clara, California and then at the Black Sheep Gathering in Oregon, where she will teach Orenburg-style spinning.

The only negative thing I have to report is that the Lacis Museum was hospitable only in so far as providing a venue was concerned. On the first day, when I signed up for all of Galina's classes (which were the only reason I signed up for this retreat), Mr. Kliot gave me a somewhat disapproving look, because apparently his vision was that everyone should be taking classes in all types of lace-making. Well, I do not have any interest in the other forms of lace-making at this time, because I am just starting to explore lace knitting. It would also have been nice if the museum had provided a little welcome package - maybe with a map to the locations mentioned on their website, since many participants were not local ... or ... dare I say it? ... a coupon good for xx% off something in the store?

In the morning of the first day there was a "Round Table" - which I expected was where the instructors would be introduced and maybe give us a little overview of their particular craft. Instead Mr. Kliot, who did not even bother to introduce himself, only gave a little talk about how we should try out all the different methods of lace-making. Anyway, the round table turned out to be tables set up by the instructors:

"Round Table" - Left foreground: Galina's table with some of her scrumptious shawls, left background: bobbin lace, center: needle lace, right: tatting.

So I felt that a good part of the first day (the first actual class did not start until the afternoon) was wasted - additionally, no spaces were assigned to the different instructors, so you had no place to put your bag(s). Oh well ... But, all in all, the classes and instructors were great, and that was the reason I went.

And this is what you see on entering the workshop area:

Inspiration

Take care!

Orenburg Shawl Samples - the beginning

Yesterday I started knitting my first Orenburg “Sample Shawl”, and finished it today. (The sample shawl pattern is in both the Gossamer Webs Design Collection and in Gossamer Webs - Orenburg Lace Shawls both by Galina Khmeleva). I made some errors, but I got the basics down. I did not bother to correct them since for this first sample I was mainly interested in the border technique.

Orenburg Sample Shawl 1 - plain center

If you look at the picture you can see that up to the yellow line, I kept slipping the first stitch of the inner border. Sometimes I knit 3 stitches from the outside border when I was supposed to only knit 2 and vice versa. If you look at the 2 holes traversed by the yellow line on the left side you will see that in that area the sequence of holes is incorrect. Every now and then I was in a knitting trance and forgot the last YO of the center stitches ... which is why I lost one stitch in the top center row, so I had to fudge the top border.

The grafting technique was new to me: Slip one stitch to the left needle, slip the second stitch on the left needle through the slipped stitch and slip to right needle, then do v.v. for the second stitch on the right needle, and so on, until you only have one stitch left, which you then tie off with a knot. I’m not fond of knots, so will have to ask Galina at the upcoming workshop whether there is an alternative.

On to the next sample - I want to try out as many of the traditional patterns in the book as possible before the workshop.

Till next time.