Mossy Cottage Knits

Tuteurs, Part Tu

Monday afternoon, after my posting, TMK and I had a heart-to-heart about the abrupt and spontaneous manifestation of tuteurs and she has now agreed to, at the very least, give a shout-out before new tuteurs appear. We’re thinking she should holler, “Fore!,” like golfers, or maybe, “Look out below!” or my personal favorite, “Fire in the hole!!!” Any other suggestions, Dear Readers?

And, Sweet Caroline, thanks to your enthusiastic demand for more, more, MORE! information, TMK has agreed tentatively do a "tuteur tuteurial" but it may not happen for a while because she wants to document the A-B-C of it as she builds a new one. She says she can’t give instructions on how to build this one from last year (which long-time readers may remember)…

…because it’s from a magazine and all copyrighted and stuff—and we understand how that is, don’t we, knitters?—but she will give instructions on how to build this one, because, although it’s based on last year’s, it’s different enough and has been TMK-i-fied:

In the meantime, to tantalize you, here is one thing she did which I thought was just genius. She built only three sides of the tuteur, then she put it around the very unruly honeysuckle vine, and then she put the last side on. Me, I woulda put the whole thing together and then thrown my back out trying to lift it up over the top of the vine, and then I woulda crushed all the new spring growth on the vine as I lowered the tuteur into place.

For those Doubting Thomases among you who find it hard to believe that my knitting guild is as large as I say it is, I bring you proof:

Yes, that is a typical meeting: 70, 80, 90 women in one swell foop, all plying needles and string...and that’s only a third of the actual members.

One of the spiffy things about Guild is that they are always coming up with creative things to do during our meetings. Last Wednesday’s event, during which the above photo was taken, consisted of mini-classes conducted by Guild members. This year’s topics included, and I paraphrase the titles here, Crocheted Edges, How to Use a Lucet, Mosaic Knitting, Magic Loop, Different Ways to Cast On, and more.

I sat in on Karen’s Fair Isle knitting class, despite the assertions of the other Feralites that I was taking a Mickey Mouse class to get an easy “A.” I say to them all, au contraire, mon frère (or mes soeurs, in this case)! I learned a lot at Karen’s session like: How to use a 16” circular needle to make a swatch with a test steek to cut; that knitting in the round makes your stitches more even because you never purl, so your stitches are always consistent in size and tension; knitting the edges of your steek in the same color as the button band so the button band and the steek edge blend together; and more about why it matters which hand you carry your colors in. Thank you, Karen, for such a fun class, especially since, amazingly, you had just gotten off a flight from Florida a few hours before! And, ahem, I could hear you fine, wink, wink.

And, a shout out to all the Guild-ers who came by my table to find out how they could get ahold of the Cloud Hat pattern. Thanks for your interest in Dulaan, and I hope you enjoy knitting the pattern!

P.S. I've already received one inquiry about Dulaan as a direct result of the article in Vogue. Way cool.

Posted by Ryan at March 22, 2006 10:48 AM