Mossy Cottage Knits

Cootie Catcher!

Due to vacation, no postings on Friday or Monday, Dear Readers, but it'll be bloggin' as usual when next Wednesday rolls around!

Feeling a little punk today, sort of as if the dryest and hottest of desert winds are sashaying up and down the back of my throat, with an occasional side trip into my ears and sinuses. I think I contracted some cooties from the baby at the Buffalo Meat Hoedown so right now I’m thinking sullenly and petulantly, “Babies! Who needs ‘em!,” but this is the same pink-cheeked punkin’ I keep maniacally knitting things for, so my grumpiness should be taken with a grain of salt. What this does mean, however, is that I don’t feel like thinking much, so I think I’ll just segue straight to the knitting stuff.

First, the Baby Norgi body is off the needles! A big thank you for the much-appreciated encouragement from Dear Readers and Feral Knitters. You'all were instrumental in helping me keep going on this although, in and of its own, it’s been loads of fun.

Now, on to the sleeves, now that I am the proud owner of some size 0 dpns.

In other projects, since our friend’s vision quest is on June 10th and it’s already May 26; since she has been blessed with industrial-size feet and ankles; since she requested long-ish, foldable cuffs; and since I somehow have to beam the socks to her before the 10th and she lives waaaaaaaaaaay out in the boonies (Snohomish, for you locals, which is a fer piece from where I live), I’m knitting like a maniac on the Vision Quest Socks. I am, however, improving my odds of finishing on time by using Cascade 220 (in the juiciest, most energizing bright red) and size 4 dpns. Thank God for my favorite sock pattern, Evelyn Clark’s Railroad Track Socks, which is easy-peasy but still gives the socks abundant personality, and which calls for ribbing from cuff to toe for a better fit. (We are blessed to actually have Evelyn as an active member of our Guild. You may know her from some of her other exquisite designs like her new Spirit of the Southwest Shawl, the Estonian Garden Scarf, the Seascape Shawl, the Pacific Northwest Shawl, and too many others to mention.)

In the only other vaguely interesting news, I find myself in knitting design purgatory right now, going neither up nor down, backwards nor forwards. I have A Plan, A Pattern, and a Potential Color Design, Period. The Plan: Knit Janine’s beautiful Fair Isle “sampler pillow” (which I don’t have a link to yet but which rumor has it may be available the next time I post), but using my own design. The Pattern: The iris picture I posted last time, with maybe some wrought iron curlicues thrown in for good measure (thank you to Charlotte and my self-titled "stalker" Angie for some great links to wrought iron sites!). The Potential Color Design: A dark background, maybe midnight blue, three colors of green for the leaf area of the iris, and three colors of light blue/aquamarine/light purple for the flower part, and who knows what’all other colors if I add peerie*-type accent bands to the pillow. What’s missing is (a) a yummy new box of colored pencils so I can sketch out the pattern to see if it will work and (b) a visit to Sheila’s Two Swans Wall O’ Yarns (which I keep hearing in my head as Two Swarns Wall O’ Yarns) to see if all these pieces will actually come together. The good news is Sheila is having a Soiree on June 13 so I have a ready-made opportunity to visit La Wall. The bad news is…the Soiree isn’t until June 13. I will be patient; I will be patient; I will be patient, written 100 times on a chalkboard.

Still in design vein—and, come to think of it, still in “waiting” vein, dang it all—inspired yet again by Janine, this week I ordered these books from Dover Publications:

Charted Peasant Designs from Saxon Transylvania (no vampire jokes from the peanut gallery, especially from The Mysterious K who is on an Anne Rice/Vampire Lestat reading kick right now)
Celtic Charted Designs
101 Folk Designs for Counted Cross-Stitch

Any chance they’ll arrive by this afternoon so I can lie on my fainting couch, hand delicately resting on my forehead, weakly but determinedly willing myself out of design purgatory?

*In Scotland, "peerie" means "small." In the knitting context, it means the small, simple (two- to five-row?) accent bands used in Fair Isle.

Posted by Ryan at May 26, 2004 11:05 AM