Newest Challenge--as if I didn't already have enough!

     Here is my latest challenge: A shawl knitted in cobweb yarn. I'm not sure if it will actually pass through a wedding ring when I'm finished, but it may come close. I can't imagine knitting with anything much smaller than cobweb, altho' I did knit two doilies with size 30 thread once. They were gorgeous (one was the Azalea pattern in Marianne Kinzel's Modern Lace Knitting book), I loved the way they looked but two things became very clear after I had finished them: I don't decorate my house with things like antimacassars and doilies (they tend to get covered up by whatever makes its way to the table), and knitted doilies are very needy items. As long as they stay undisturbed on the table top, they behave beautifully. If they need washing, they get very unhappy and refuse to go back to their pre-wash loveliness by sitting in a sullen, shrunken lump. They must be severely disciplined with pins or blocking wires--lots and lots of pins, much time spent attaching every point on the edge to the cutting board with all those pins and waiting for it to dry.
     I solved the problem of my needy doilies by giving them to a friend and a sister and undoubtedly, they have been sitting in a drawer somewhere, languishing for attention, because the new owners didn't want to spend all that time on them either. That was my last attempt at fine knitting but in the intervening years (30+) I have never lost interest in working another project--I just had to solve the problem of what to do with it after the project is done.

     I believe I have solved much of the problem with blocking wires, which I bought from Knitpicks a few years ago, and have tried them successfully on other lace knitting. So the new shawl is a go.
    
     There are better than 350 stitches on the size 3 needle (Knitpicks needle because it has awesome lace tips, and when the pattern calls for purling together four stitches, you want awesome!). Whenever I mention that there are over 350 stitches on the needles, I hear groans coming from the listener. But my philosophy is this: No matter what you are working on, it is knit one stitch at a time; whether it is eight stitches or 800 on the needle, you are still doing one stitch at a time. You just don't get a finished product as soon as if you are knitting on 85 stitches. It all depends on what you want. I want a challenge project, not an easy one (I've been knitting Entrelac chemo caps all summer; very easy and done quickly) and maybe just to see how long it will take to finish it. My target is a shawl about five feet long by three feet wide. I manage to get two to four rows done in the morning, which seems to be the only time I can really work on it. It is slow going, not only because of time restraints, but hand restraints as well. An entire chemo cap amounts to less than 500 stitches (if my figures are right); one row of the lace shawl is almost that, in one sitting, so I am knitting a cap and a half every time I knit two rows on the shawl.

The picture shows the shawl about a fourth of the way done. Can you notice a faint blue line running through the work? That is a lifeline, absolutely vital in a pattern like this. If the design should ravel down, there would be no saving it except to un-knit to the point where the run stopped and with 350 stitches on the needle, I think I would throw it away and start over!

This one is going to take a while, so will report back when it's done.

No, It Couldn't Be Five Months!

Five months is way too long to let a blog go begging for a new post, but too many things interfered: Busyness with the holidays, most of January spent getting over bronchitis (including coughing so hard I was practically paralyzed by the pain in my back), pneumonia, other problems not easily mentioned and, again, too much busyness.

I have tried to keep up with the spinning without a whole lot of success. I believe it was a mistake to buy almost a pound of the same roving because it truly becomes boring spinning an almost monochrome fiber, bobbin after bobbin full, then plying. It is a lovely heather color somewhere between blue and purple and I like the finished result--but it is hard getting there, and I tend not to be terribly disciplined when to comes to boring.

In addition, when I came down with the bronchitis, I had to stop weekly injections of Enbrel, which I had been taking for rheumatoid arthritis. Over the course of weeks from early January to now, I have noticed a return of the pain I had in my hands and other body parts as the "benefits" of Enbrel wear off. I have to guard now against using my hands/wrists/elbows/shoulders too much, lest I trigger an inflammatory response which prevents me from enjoying my usual activities. Of course, one could question why I simply don't go back on the Enbrel. Well, there is a problem: Insurance copay for Enbrel is close to $300 a month (total price for Enbrel is somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,300 a month), and without financial assistance from a foundation somewhere, I can't begin to afford it. My doctor's assistant has been working on finding that assistance since last Fall and so far, I've heard nothing regarding her finding it. I can go each week to pick up one injector, but that is not a long-term solution. And quite frankly,  I have never been comfortable taking a med that costs that much because the perceived benefit to me is not all that great. When I was on the Enbrel, my hands felt pretty good, but the rest of my body continued a slow, downward slide and I felt worse on it then I did prior to starting it. Since being off the Enbrel, I have felt better than in a long time. But I do have to deal with the pain in my hands and not take on as much as I once did. So my production output is slower.

But there is good news as well: I have begun making Entrelac chemo caps. In a way, the pattern is becoming more and more my own, because I have adapted an Entrelac pattern to my own way of working. All the directions I've found so far for working Entrelac require you to turn your work after each row--eight or so stitches--and purl back. I find that tedious, time consuming and clunky. For years I have knitted Entrelac by knitting a row, then reverse knitting a row. In other words, I knit across and without turning the work, I knit back. In fact, I am in the process of teaching some others how to do this type of Entrelac knitting and have come to the conclusion that I won't teach anyone to knit Entrelac unless I first teach them to do Reverse Knitting (RK). It is surprising how easily the skill is picked up, once the principle is understood, and how freeing it is not to have to purl back! I RK on almost everything I knit that requires a return purl row. I just don't turn the work. One of my students grabbed hold of the skill right away and took off knitting hats for donation to Babies in Need.

We use a very soft yarn to make the hats for obvious reasons and all hats must be acrylic (I once swore that I would never knit with acrylic again, but that was before they began doing some pretty good stuff with the yarns. Not as good a wool, ever, but better than before). I also used bamboo for a hat and that was very soft, but I think that with wear, it will get looser and looser and have to be tossed in the wash to make it tighten up again, like cotton. Oh, yeah, I did a few hats in cotton as well.

Pictured is the current hat, knitted with Deborah Norville Garden yarn. It is Draylon microfiber (no clue as to what that is!) and is very soft, but I think it will come out wearing like the bamboo hat, getting looser and needing to be tightened up by washing/drying. And notice that cable sticking out of the work? It is a Knitpicks Harmony cable needle with interchangeable tips. I absolutely love working with it. The tips are lace tips (sharper), not regular tips, and that makes a great deal of difference in picking up stitches. I highly recommend their Harmony needles.

I will definitely work harder at keeping this blog more updated than once every five months! I do have a life to report on.