Ripple Stitch Morning

Ripple stitch swatch that I completed this morning. 3 rows.

Don't even ask me how  I figured this pattern out. I'm actually still in the process of memorizing it and I've only just started. I actually have Mikey to thank for making this youtube video tutorial. I can only learn knitting and crochet patterns this complicated by watching a live process. I have to see someone's hands and they have to instruct in a clear, comprehensive, patient and if possible pleasant voice.

I'm not sure what I'm making yet. I just wanted to see if I could get the hang of this. I've had to look the video over several times and probably will several times more before I can just write the pattern down myself and try to memorize it. I'm at the third row now I think. In the next row I will be adding another color! Wee! I'm so glad I stuck with this. I was starting to feel like like giving up. It's kind of messed up but I can never really believe it when I finally get the hang of something I percieve to be as difficult. I always think, oh there's no way I got this! I must have mucked up somewhere! Then when I do get it I get all over confident and obnoxious! So get ready for some serious gloating entries if this success continues! LOL!

No seriously, I'm going to be unbearable.

Puff Stitch is a Fun Stictch

Puff Stitch Crochet Scarf

So I finished crocheting my dad's Christmas scarf last night and then I wore it for about half an hour because it is so soft and warm and wonderful I just couldn't resist. I just love it. He's really lucky this isn't my color, otherwise I would have a hard time giving it over. LOL!!

I actually used two entire skeins of worsted wool yarn I picked up at the Yarn Company for this project. I've been making several puff stitch hats but this is the first scarf I have finished. I like it a lot. The way the puff stitches line up on the scarf make it hold it's shape in a really nice uniform way. And with a stitch like this, a little error here and there is hardly noticeable and actually adds to it's uniqueness.

There are ten puff stitches in each row for this scarf but don't ask me how many rows there are. I just keep crocheting until the yarn runs out. I've already picked out yarn for my own puff stitch scarf which I will hopefully get started on sometime today. I'm really excited to make a few more with yarns of different textures. Stay tuned. 

The Brushed Suri

The Brushed Suri
Originally uploaded by Zanalee
Took a little trip to a place called "The Yarn Company" after work today. It's a place I've seen a bunch of times but have never gone in. It's one of those shops that is just above a street level store so you have to buzz in before you go up. I was just desperate for more yarn and looking for a store that was not too far from midtown.

The store has a really nice layout, a veritable fine yarn haven, mercifully quiet and relatively spacious. The women there were super helpful and nice. I took a long look around, taking photos and touching several things before I settled on two skeins of brushed suri so unbelievably soft, it's just crazy and two skeins of worsted wool to make something for my dad.

I thought it would be harder to work with the suri but it's really not that bad. I was very careful with unraveling it though. These kind of skeins always worry me. I would never take it out of the apartment to work on which makes me a little sad because I love working on these at "work."

Knit 1 Purl 1 Row 1...

One summer, years ago, I did an internship at Harper Collins. In their basement they had this great big bookshelf with a bunch of books you could take for free and I would be there browsing and stocking up every week. I remember finding and reading a small book called "The Knitting Sutra," which was about one woman's passion for and study of knitting in different cultures. The idea of knitting as a Sutra or prayer and meditation really appealed to me. I imagine that because of the repetitive nature of knitting, it has been interpreted in many cultures as sort of a silent chant. For myself, it is often a way to center and focus my mind away from troubling thoughts, from a cycle of disturbed contemplation spinning out of control, seemingly with no end. To me knitting is a prayer that manifests itself in my hands immediately. Knit and purl are the only building blocks for knitting and hundreds of combinations result in as many patterns. To make something functional with your own hands is to truly feel some measure of control over what you produce, something which our society has rapidly lost all touch which. We would sooner pay hundreds of dollars for something handmade than make it ourselves. And I'm not judging. I consume way more than I create no matter how much I wish it was otherwise.

 I usually start knitting  for the purpose gaining some much needed equilibrium than that I need one more scarf. Although this fall, I fully intend to commit myself to learning how to crotchet and to make something seamless or knit in the round.  I deeply admire people who make things with their hands that we use in everyday life whether functional, ornamental or both. Even if it takes me a while to complete, I want to at least know that I have the ability to complete a hat or sweater or a pair of mittens, something to wear or give a a gift to keep someone warm with intentions and well wishes as well as wool.