Not in Kansas Any More

I present: The Oz Quilt

You can't see the little tornadoes I quilted on the sashings (the downside of invisible thread, I guess), but I am very proud of them.

Next up in the quilting dept: My daughter in law asked me to make a very special quilt from The Grands' baby clothes, and so I spent some time cutting 6" and 4" squares from rompers and dresses and shirts (what an odd experience that was- I remember almost all of those outfits, and bought several of them). I think I'll turn them into simple pinwheel blocks (with white)- that'll keep the project from becoming boring, while still not overshadowing the fabrics themselves (which are the reason for the quilt in the first place).

I also finished the Entrelac Socks (Twisted Fiber Arts, Kabam, Leisure). The Entrelac portion is a little loose, but the bulk of the design itself holds the cuffs up. If I knit this pattern again, especially from heavier yarn, I may drop to 7 rectangles (42 sts) rather than 8 (48 sts). But otherwise, the socks are lovely, and I am glad I reacquainted myself with Entrelac (I took a class once, but forgot all of it. Sort of like the 2 years of Russian that I took in high school).

This week's knitting is already planned- I'm starting Orion's Socks (the official Sock Summit sock pattern), and I am the South Dakota knitter for The Traveling Shawl, which should arrive today or tomorrow, for my portion of the knitting. I have 2 newspaper interviews and a TV spot lined up for publicity for the shawl, so if it's here, my next couple of days will be pretty busy. Check out the Shawl and it's travels here : http://www.traveling50statesshawl.blogspot.com/ . It's a pretty amazing project, and I am proud to be participating.

So I'd best go swim my laps and head to the Post Office.

Strangely Apropos

Yesterday, as I was sewing little tornadoes on the Oz quilt, there were tornadoes on the ground everywhere, including one less than 10 miles from where my husband and son were working (a farm house with no basement. And no root cellar). It was a hairy afternoon, one of those Interesting Weather We're Havin' kind of days that South Dakota specializes in, with storms popping up on top of storms popping up on top of storms, for about nine hours straight. Over the last two days, we got about 3" of rain (so the soybean pic tomorrow should be good), and a whole lot of rumble, boom and flash.

Though I had the laptop, flashlight and cell phone handy, with the TV on for constant weather updates (they do that here, when it's stormy), ready to make a mad dash for the basement if the sirens went off, I (mostly) calmly worked on the Oz quilt. I got the final borders on, the backing/batting sandwiched and pinned in place, and the entire top quilted. I am thrilled with how it turned out. I will never be a machine quilter's machine quilter, but my skillz have improved steadily with each project. I was able to make little faux tornadoes on the vertical sashings, and outline the rainbows on the squares, and highlight the faces and figures on the panels. All in all, I am happy with it (and I remembered to straighten the edges afterward).

Last evening, I worked on the Entrelac socks- I have about 1 1/2 rows of rectangles left on the second cuff. I no longer have to look at the instructions, which is nice. These cuffs are going to be a little loose on me, though the ribbing is tight enough (and the bulk of the entrelac itself will stiffen the sock). I think if I make another pair (and it's probably safe to say that I will), with the same size yarn and needles, I'll drop down to 7 rectangles (I'm doing the Medium size with 8 for this pair). And I'll definitely need to drop down if I knit entrelac socks with a heavier fingering weight yarn.

Today I plan to get the Oz binding assembled, pressed, sewn on, and tacked down. I shouldn't have to duck any more storms until this evening. I hope.

Entrelac

I would have made a pun on the word entrelac (I was thinking of something along the lines of entre vous et moi, but my French is nonexistent, and I don't want to look more stupid than usual). So, no puns this morning.

But I do have a finished entrelac sock cuff to show you all. Once you get going, the process is almost mindless- fiddly but not complex. The color changes in the Twisted Kabam Leisure yarn aren't quite matched to the rows, so here and there we have matching colors together (especially where you have to turn and work back the other direction at the end of a round), but the tones are subtly mottled and they all look so good together, that it doesn't really matter.

The instructions are a little sketchy (pattern link in yesterday's post), and I'm still not sure that I did the ending triangles properly because I worked an additional decrease in each triangle beyond what the pattern called for because it seemed like they each needed one there. But they look okay, and I don't want 66 sts on the foot/heel anyway (I knit my socks on 2.75mm needles with 56-60 sts). The foot will be striped, which will play off the entrelac nicely, I think. (note: the colors in today's scan are closer to the actual yarn colors than yesterday's pic).

I finished the heel (with the coordinating yarn) of the first sock, and then decided to cast on the mate while the process was fresh in my mind. I intend to take/wear these at the Sock Summit (despite the fact that August in Portland can be searing) (I have never been so excited for August to arrive).

I Can't Believe I Did This

Normally, I can live with mistakes and bloopies. I ignore them really well. But the *wide spot* in the border on the Merry and Bright table runner just would not allow ignorance (heh). So I gave up and ripped the binding off, trimmed the edge, and stitched it back in place. It's still not perfect, and the other edge (with the narrower border) is simply not fixable, but it's much better. I can safely ignore it now.

In between dips in the pool (it finally turned Summer-like), I started a pair of Entrelac socks. I was going to use my precious Twisted Playful Netherfield yarn, but it's a heavy fingering weight and the pattern I'm using was written for Noro sock yarn, which is very fine (which yarn I do not love, by the way). So I went with Twisted Kabam (wool/bamboo) in the Leisure colorway, with coordinating heel and toe yarn.

I took an entrelac class a few years ago, from Rick Mondragon no less (editor of Knitter's magazine), at the North Country Fiber Fair. The entrelac part didn't stick, but I did come away knowing how to knit back backwards, which has served me very well. But enough of the entrelac process came back that I was able to use this pattern: http://buttercupia.blogspot.com/2008/04/noro-entrelac-socks.html to get my socks started. It's a bare bones pattern, and if you've never done Entrelac before, you might want to find a tutorial for the basics.

At any rate, I got about 4 rows of squares done before I realized that I was using needles that were too big (2.75mm) and the sock was huge (I had already modified the ribbing because I knew that I did not need 72 sts for the upper cuff, but the entrelac portion was way too big as well). So I sighed and tore it out to the triangle row, and dropped down a needle size (to 2.5mm). I'm much happier with the size and texture now, and am becoming re-familiar with the whole Entrelac notion. Twisted yarn is perfect for this kind of pattern- it really shows off the beautiful color changes. The process is fiddly (though knitting back backwards makes it so much easier and faster) and fun, and I love love love the look.

I hope to get more done today, in between laps.