Prime Time Knitter

Making the Cut

I began this weekend with the goal of steeking Sirdal—to my mind, the knitting equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest.  I knew others have tried and succeeded, but I wasn’t convinced that I’d prevail.  After all, I could follow in the footsteps of Sir Edmund Hillary and still fall thousands of feet and crash to the ground.  What was the first knitter who attempted thinking? “I just spent months knitting this really complicated tube—so now let’s cut it up and see if I can do that without destroying it.” 

I prepared myself for the occasion by reading the Dale of Norway instructions I found on the web.  I also watched a bunch of videos. I'm not sure I could have managed to steek in the pre-electronic era.

Norwegian sweaters differ from Fair Isle sweaters in that you leave fewer stitches in the front where you cut for the button bands.  And there are no extra steeking stitches left at the armhole.  It seems that it is actually easier to cut into a Fair Isle sweater, but it was a bit late in the game for me to figure that out. I had a body tube and sleeves for Sirdal, and the die was cast.

I had a fairly large swatch, and I used it to practice on. 

Things went quite well.  I’d considered that the floats might catch on the machine feed dogs, but no such problems arose.  I fiddled with the tension and stitch size, and I was able to get stitches that grabbed the knitting securely.

The Dale instructions tell you to use zigzag machine stitch, but when I sewed the first row of zigzag stitches, I really wasn’t happy with their appearance. 

I went back to the many web videos showing steeking, and none of the knitters who used a machine did anything but straight stitch.  So back to my swatch I went, and I practiced straight stitches—they looked much better.

I considered picking out the zigzags, but, like all Norwegian stranded sweaters, Sirdal will have facings to cover the cut edges, and there seemed no need to mess around with the stitches I had sewn.  The zigzag was sturdy, and it was the innermost row of stitching.  So on the second row of stitching, I used straight stitch, and my steek seems none the worse for it.

The sleeves are a bit trickier.  The instructions tell you to measure the top of the sleeve to decide how long the slit on the body that accommodates them ought to be.  My sleeve tops measured about 10 inches (the pattern specified 9-7/8 inches for my size, which I thought was a bit silly for something as bulky as stranded sleeves).  I had already marked the side “seams” when I knit the tube, so finding them wasn't a problem. To mark the cut line, I ran a row of running stitches from the top of the tube to a point a bit less than 10 inches down.  Although the sleeve is 10 inches, the cut part should be less because there will be around ¼ inch used up for the rows of machine stitching.  At this point, I sewed my two rows of straight stitch around the running stitch, and the results looked just like the picture in the Dale instructions (except that these aren’t zigzags). 

By time I had to cut, I was no longer fretting about the steeking process.  From my experience with sewing, I’m in the habit of pressing after stitching.  Even though steeking instructions don’t tell you to do that, it flattens the sewn rows and makes them easier to cut. 

So here is where I am now:

The steeks are done and cut, and it is now time to proceed with the assembly.  There are a lot of steps left to be done, but this is just the sort of sweater construction challenge that fascinates me.  As I sat there smiling at my work, I thought of all the things that could go wrong.  I came up with just two:

• I could swap the left and right sleeves, so that the cuffs wouldn’t close properly. 
• I could put the buttonholes on the wrong side. 

But they are small potatoes compared to the disaster that would have resulted from careless cutting.  So for now I’m basking in the glow of steeking correctly, and I’ll save sewing the shoulders together, inserting the sleeves, knitting the button and neck bands, and attaching the facing for this week’s nightly knitting.

 

Making the Cut

I began this weekend with the goal of cutting into Sirdal—to my mind, the knitting equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest.  I knew others have tried and succeeded, but I wasn’t convinced that I’d prevail.  After all, I could follow in the footsteps of Sir Edmund Hillary and still fall thousands of feet and crash to the ground.  What was the first knitter who attempted thinking? “I just spent months knitting this really complicated tube—so now let’s cut it up and see if I can do that without destroying it.” 

I prepared myself for the occasion by reading the Dale of Norway instructions I found on the web.  (Clicking the link to this site doesn’t work, but you can find them by pasting this into your browser: http://www.allegroyarns.com/dale/cutting_instructions.pdf.)  I also watched a bunch of videos. I'm not sure I could have managed to steek in the pre-electronic era.

Norwegian sweaters differ from Fair Isle sweaters in that you leave fewer stitches in the front where you cut for the button bands.  And there are no extra steeking stitches left at the armhole.  It seems that it is actually easier to cut into a Fair Isle sweater, but it was a bit late in the game for me to figure that out. I had a body tube and sleeves for Sirdal, and the die was cast.

I had a fairly large swatch, and I used it to practice on. 

Thing went quite well.  I’d considered that the floats might catch on the machine feed dogs, but no such problems arose.  I fiddled with the tension and stitch size, and I was able to get stitches that grabbed the knitting securely.

The Dale instructions tell you to use zigzag machine stitch, but when I sewed the first row of zigzag stitches, I really wasn’t happy with their appearance. 

I went back to the many web videos showing steeking, and none of the knitters who used a machine did anything but straight stitch.  So back to my swatch I went, and I practiced straight stitches—they looked much better.

I considered picking out the zigzags, but, like all Norwegian stranded sweaters, Sirdal will have facings to cover the cut edges, and there seemed no need to mess around with the stitches I had sewn.  The zigzag was sturdy, and it was the innermost row of stitching.  So on the second row of stitching, I used straight stitch, and my steek seems none the worse for it.

The sleeves are a bit trickier.  The instructions tell you to measure the top of the sleeve to decide how long the slit on the body that accommodates them ought to be.  My sleeve tops measured about 10 inches (the pattern specified 9-7/8 inches for my size, which I thought was a bit silly for something as bulky as stranded sleeves).  I had already marked the side “seams” when I knit the tube, so finding them wasn't a problem. To mark the cut line, I ran a row of running stitches from the top of the tube to a point a bit less than 10 inches down.  Although the sleeve is 10 inches, the cut part should be less because there will be around ¼ inch used up for the rows of machine stitching.  At this point, I sewed my two rows of straight stitch around the running stitch, and the results looked just like the picture in the Dale instructions (except that these aren’t zigzags). 

By time I had to cut, I was no longer fretting about the steeking process.  From my experience with sewing, I’m in the habit of pressing after stitching.  Even though steeking instructions don’t tell you to do that, it flattens the sewn rows and makes them easier to cut. 

So here is where I am now:

The steeks are done and cut, and it is now time to proceed with the assembly.  There are a lot of steps left to be done, but this is just the sort of sweater construction challenge that fascinates me.  As I sat there smiling at my work, I thought of all the things that could go wrong.  I came up with just two:

• I could swap the left and right sleeves, so that the cuffs wouldn’t close properly. 
• I could put the buttonholes on the wrong side. 

But they are small potatoes compared to the disaster that would have resulted from careless cutting.  So for now I’m basking in the glow of steeking correctly, and I’ll save sewing the shoulders together, inserting the sleeves, knitting the button and neck bands, and attaching the facing for this week’s nightly knitting.

 

Getting Even

Too many years have elapsed since I first learned to knit and purl, and so I don’t remember if there was an aha moment when my awkwardness morphed into the smooth rhythm that produces even stitches.  But going by my more recent experiences in learning new techniques, I assume there must have been.  I also assume that, back when I was 13 and knit my first simple practice squares of stockinette under the guiding eye of my grandmother, I must have caught on to things a lot more quickly than I do now or I might not have become a knitter in the first place.

It seems to have taken me forever to manage grafting, and the pain of learning how to do it still gives me a moment of pause as I thread the yarn needle to close a sock toe or some other opening that needs to be invisible.  When I started to knit socks on dpns, there was a noticeable loose stitch at the point where I changed needles.  This persisted for some time until one day it simply disappeared and the stitches in the circular tube were as even as those I could manage on straight needles.

I didn’t think that it took me too long to manage stranded knitting, with one color in each hand, but the stitches produced from the yarn I held in my right hand, knitting in unfamiliar English style, did seem bigger than the stitches knit from the yarn in my left hand, knit Continental style.  I thought this was “normal” because, according to the rules of yarn dominance, those right-hand stitches should pop from the fabric.  It was only when I began to work Sirdal’s second sleeve that I saw that my two-color fabric on the body and first sleeve was lumpy.  And something in my hand-brain coordination must have finally clicked because Sirdal’s second sleeve looked wonderfully even—as even as my knitting in one color, in my preferred combined style.  You can see the difference here: the sleeve on the left has nice, even stitches; the sleeve on the right doesn’t.

Unfortunately, this epiphany took place after I had finished the first sleeve.  I have one beautiful sleeve, and one that isn’t.  And to make matters worse, the first sleeve I knit is looser than the second, making it somewhat larger and longer.

The instructions I’m following for knitting Norwegian sweaters recommend blocking the sleeves before cutting the slit in the body that will accommodate them, and blocking did improve things—but not completely.  There is about a quarter inch difference between the sleeves, and the second sleeve is still tighter than the first.  Having ripped and reknit parts of this sweater more times than I like to think about, and because Sirdal is now a bit more than two years in the making, I’m going to assemble the sweater pieces as they are.  This was my “practice” stranded sweater—a preparation for my future knitting on my Philosopher’s Wool and Alice Starmore sweaters.  And as a practice sweater, it has worked out just fine.

I’m now ready for the supreme challenge of steeking—scheduled for Saturday morning (if I’m not shoveling snow).  And maybe if I can accomplish that, I can go on to finish Sirdal and actually wear it before spring, perhaps standing at an angle so that the differences in the sleeves aren’t as obvious to an observer as they are to me.

 

 

Duty Calls...Or Not

I haven’t needed a lot of reasons not to blog or, over the past month, not to knit, but I faced the mother of all excuses in November.  After receiving a summons for jury duty, and postponing it twice, I decided to bite the bullet and agree to serve.  Lest I sound unpatriotic, let me point out that I have been summoned as a juror three times before, and I have served on juries each time.  This summons was different, however, because it was for federal court in Manhattan—a two-hour ride each way, with the specter of being impaneled for an unspecified time.  I’d have to be on a 6:30 AM train to arrive at the court on time. A perk of freelancing is not getting on commuter trains before the crack of dawn, and at that time, I am typically sipping chamomile tea and reading the newspaper.  And as a freelancer, I receive no income except for the pittance that compensates jurors.  All in all, the prospect of losing the income and having my routine turned upside down for weeks on end threw me into a tizzy.  Things seemed even more discouraging when I called the court to see if knitting needles, like cell phones, laptops, or any other electronic devices, were prohibited—and they are.  So even my most positive fantasy of knitting on the train and during the countless hours waiting around for the court to be in session was dashed.

Before I learned about the knitting needles, I went through a series of mental projects that would be ok for train knitting, and I finally settled on hats.  All members of my household need them, especially Ed.  I had knitted Ed a ribbed watchcap some years ago, but it never fit him right.  It always popped up in the center in an unattractive way.  As a replacement, I decided to make another hat that had more fabric around the crown, selecting the plain watchcap from Charlene Schurch’s Hats On! book.  I also had the perfect yarn in my stash—undyed, handspun gifted to me by my Ravelry pal, Chere.  (Chere and I had actually worked together on a book—she was the staff editor and I was the freelancer—long before we knew that we were both knitters.  We “met” in the Knitters in Publishing group.)  Even before jury duty started, I finished the hat:

 

It is everything Ed could want—yet another gray garment, something warm and comfortable.  It was a joy to work with the yarn, and I think that the plainness of the hat shows the handspun look of the yarn at its best. 

I received the new summons to appear the Monday after Thanksgiving, but surprisingly enough, when I called in to see if I had to report to the courthouse, the message said to call in Tuesday.  On Tuesday, it said to call in on Friday for the following week, and on Friday, it told me not to come in at all!  So this year, the gift of time is something I'm truly thankful for, and I can get back to knitting as usual.  If I'm diligent with this week's knitting, I’ll finish Sirdal's sleeve and be ready to steek. 

Of course, I now have to do all the things I said I’d do “when jury duty is over,” but I think I can deal with that.

 

Righting a Wrong

I have been in a state of knitting inertia that has lasted about two weeks—and is not completely over.  It started the weekend of Halloween, when I took out Sirdal’s sleeve so I could finish it quickly, get to the steeking, and complete the sweater.  I want to spend the next several months on new and more interesting things, but I also want Sirdal to be an FO.  I’m eager to work on the Philosopher’s Wool sweater I had started, not to mention one of two Alice Starmore sweaters (either Mara or the Oregon Cardigan).  I left off on Sirdal in the spring after I had knit the cuff. 

Sirdal does not have a ribbed cuff.  It has a cuff that is closed with buttons. 

The buttons I chose are designed specifically for this sweater, and I wanted to knit my first stranded sweater according to the directions.  But if I did that, the cuff would have been huge because I have very thin wrists, and my woes started when I tried to make them narrower.  Rather than recount my sorry efforts here, I’ll direct you to my earlier description.  But I can summarize by saying that four tries were not enough.  Try #5, intended to get a right cuff, only ended with a second left one, and I don’t know how this happened.  I have sewn dozens of blouses that have cuffs, and I know the drill—the cuffs have to be mirror images of one another.  But this is what I saw just before the lights (heat and hot water) went out—for three dark and cold days.

 

Until that point I was congratulating myself on being done with the backward stranded knitting.  The cuff is knit flat, and I’ve had to knit some of the rows backward.  I can now do stranded knitting backward, but I’m painfully slow at it—and the thought of doing it yet again is what has caused me to actually stare at the TV without knitting or spend a fitful hour on my “traveling” projects while I knew I should be using the cool weather to get on with sweater knitting.  This weekend, I finally mustered the effort needed to cast on for the right cuff after constructing some new, large charts with what I hope are goof-proof markings. 

Only time will tell if these charts will guide me to a successful cuff, but I’m at the point where I might defy the local ordinance against bonfires and set the sweater pieces ablaze if I don’t get it right this time.

I must say that the nor’easter did not contribute to my eagerness to frog and cast on anew.  After our nearby transformer exploded, the business of living in the dark seemed to consume all my energy.  We got only six inches of heavy, wet snow, and sustained no damage, unlike my neighbor who is now restoring his fence. 

Our main concern was keeping the birds warm, which we can do by keeping pots of water simmering all day and night on our gas stove.  This practice, however, requires that someone remain awake at all times to be sure that our house wouldn’t catch fire.  So we took turns watching the stove at night. Also, by Monday, we could no longer sleep in our 50-degree bedrooms, and had to move mattresses nearer to the upper floor, where the water was providing heat.  I felt incredibly grubby after just three days of this, and I don’t know how our Connecticut neighbors managed in 7 to 10 days without power.  I had enough by day 2.

I can now say with certainty that any attempts to grow fall vegetables are pretty much over. I never expected my garden to look like this at the end of October:

With that potential distraction removed, I should be able to focus on the right cuff—and I hope I can finally manage it.

 

Summer Wrap Up: Part 2

Although I started Anne Hanson’s Wing of the Moth shawl back in June, it was the second shawl I finished, just a few nights ago.  The main reason is that I used a sport-weight yarn, and when the temperatures became sultry, I found it easier to work on Fiori di Sole.  Also, I’ve worked with sport yarn before, but not true lace weight, and so I was more captivated by the Exquisite merino-silk yarn than by the Fibre Company Canopy Sport.  This is no reflection on the Fibre Company yarn—it is a lovely mix of baby alpaca (50%), merino (20%), and bamboo (20%).  It is just that when it is beastly hot and humid, the thinner yarn doesn’t get stuck in my sweaty hands. 

So here is the finished Wing of the Moth modeled on my bannister, enabling you to have a good look at the border pattern and, I hope, the drape of the yarn. This is an accurate reproduction of the color (rose hips) too.

And here it is on me.

It is a big shawl, but one that I think suits the yarn.  I now have to pull out some Liberty of London challis to make the skirt that is supposed to go with it.  My hope is to have an outfit of that skirt (a circle or half circle—depending on the yardage), a simple scoop-neck top, and the shawl. 

The pattern is an easy and clear one, but it doesn’t give any specific hints on what kind of bind off to use.  I’ve not been terribly happy with the bind off on many of my shawls, and I started searching for a “suspended bind off” that wouldn’t look like a messy chain at the bottom of my work.  I was very pleased with the one I found and chose for this shawl.  The method I used combines the description of the “Icelandic bind off” in Myrna Stahman’s marvelous Shawls and Scarves book (available from Schoolhouse Press) and Lucy Neatby’s Knitting Gems DVD #4.  Myrna Stahman recommends using a larger needle, and to do the bind off I went up from the U.S. 5 (Addi lace) that I used for the shawl to one Brittany Birch U.S. 7.  I think I might have experimented with U.S. 8s, but I was far enough along to not want to start over. (You may even want to go larger--I'm a very loose knitter.)

The Knitting Gems DVDs are wonderful.  After borrowing one Lucy Neatby DVD from the library (and there is just the one in our system, alas), I have slowly acquired most of the others, and I consider them a highlight of my personal knitting library.  If you really want to see how this bind off is demonstrated, I suggest you try to view her video, where it is called the suspended bind off.  Because I didn’t find much description of the technique in my web search, I asked Ed to photograph the process.  Here is how it works (the stitch mounts are shown in Continental or English style):

Step 1: Insert your right needle into the first stitch as if to purl.

Step 2: Continue to keep the needle in the first stitch as you insert the same (right needle) into the second stitch on the left needle, as if to knit.

Step 3: Pull the second stitch through the first and knit it. 

You will be left with one stitch on your right needle.

Step 4: Replace that stitch on the left needle and keep going until you’re done.

This is how my finished border looked, and I will use this bind off for any garter stitch edge that I have in the future.  It just blends in and looks as if the knitting magically ended.

The only difficulty with the method is that it is a pain to rip (ask me how I know), so you may want to practice on a swatch to get the rhythm going before you tackle your edge.

Now that summer is officially over for me, it is on to sweaters, socks, and hats.  I hope Mother Nature and the knitting gods cooperate and give me an extra month next spring so I can knit my winter projects into June.

Note that Lucy Neatby’s DVDs are available from many sources, but if you want to see an example of her videos, check this link.

 

Summer Wrap Up: Part 1

I somehow imagined that on the first day of fall it would be cool enough for me to immerse myself once again in knitting with heavy wool and resume my stranded knitting—specifically, Sirdal’s second sleeve.  But my summer knits were far from done, and aside from one wonderful fall-like week in September, the temperatures have been so warm that I was glad that I still had lightweight projects to work on.

And, in fact, Rhinebeck came and went this year without a Rhinebeck sweater.  The forecast was for rain, and I wore a light jacket that would repel any raindrops.  It did not rain.

But this week promises to cool down (and be rain-free!) and I can resurrect Sirdal and the other projects abandoned last June.  In the mean time I’ve converted two WIPs to FOs.  Fiori di Sole is finished:

Here are some details of the motifs:

I’m not a gifted crocheter, and the edging pushed the limits of my ability (and vocabulary).

The pattern is by Rosemary Hill (Romi), and it was a pleasure to work with.  The charts are error-free, and the instructions are clear.  I also loved the Exquisite merino-silk yarn, available from Fiddlesticks Yarn.  I have enough left for a small scarf, and I will take advantage of that once I’m done browsing the shawlettes on Ravelry.  Now that it is stash yarn, I won’t feel so guilty about knitting with it.

Shawl #2, Wing of the Moth, is off the needles and ready for blocking, and modeling shots will be forthcoming. 

And I’ve already planned ahead for next summer.  I have some true laceweight in my stash (Baruffa cashwool will probably be my yarn of choice for a shawl from Victorian Lace Today).  But the silk content of Fiddlestick’s Exquisite yarn really captured my heart because it makes the shawl glow.  One Rhinebeck purchase was this hand-dyed, all-silk cobweb yarn from Long Ridge Farm:

 

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night...

Hurricane Irene did not fulfill the dire forecasts, at least not for me.  Although it rained steadily through the night and morning, the winds never picked up sufficiently for the nearby trees to fall—although they did fall across some of our major roads, and there was flooding for lower elevations.  I took in the jar I use as a rain gauge to avoid having it blow around, so I’m not sure how much rain we got, but I’m guessing it was around 6 to 8 inches.

By 11 am the sun peeked out, and I was able to check the damage to the garden. 

Although there are puddles everywhere, the dry and beautiful weather we’re supposed to get for the rest of the week ought to perk up nearly everything (except my newly emerging spinach, which may need replanting). And by next weekend, I hope to pull the broccoli (back left) and put in my transplants. 

Some plants seem as if nothing happened.  My beans appeared to enjoy themselves, and there’s enough to pick for another dinner should the leaves dry out today.

The peppers are regrouping for another crop, some of which will join the 37 stuffed peppers now in my freezer.

And I will have more tomatoes.

I don’t know why the vines grew so high this year.  Those cages are 6-feet tall.

I should enjoy my first row of carrots soon, but those soaker hoses won’t be put to much use. 

It is too wet to take any outdoor knitting pictures, but my shawl, Fiori di Sole, is about half done, and there are assorted UFOs that need attention. Knitting content will return shortly.

 

Taken by Storm

I’m sitting here, now that I’ve made all the preparations I can think of, waiting for the arrival of Hurricane Irene. I’ve lived through other East Coast hurricanes but not in the era of 24-hour news shows and web coverage.  So although this one seems worse than most, the sense of impending doom is much greater than in the past, when we simply knew “it would get here.”  In fact, my first memories of a New York hurricane have almost nothing to do with the hurricane itself.  When Hurricane Hazel hit back in 1955, I spent the night with my grandparents.  I was only 7 or 8, but I remember it being very dark and rainy, with windows rattling.  The image that has stayed with me was my midnight trip to the bathroom, when I saw a small, pink, cylindrical container on the sink.  Not satisfied to leave well enough alone, I opened it to find my grandfather’s teeth—and I was so scared that I ran back to bed and hid under the covers.  And I never mentioned this to anyone, until years later, well into adulthood, when I confided it to my mother. 

The constant coverage of Hurricane Irene, along with clips of winds damaging houses and trees falling on roads and cars (along with the specter of the far more powerful Katrina), has gotten me spooked a bit.  My house is on a hill, and although I’m not looking forward to the predicted 10 to 12 inches of rain, I should experience little flood damage.  But the winds could cause havoc because of the many tall trees.  We removed some dying locust trees like these:

but my next-door neighbor has not.  Now when I wake up at night, I think of the damage those downed trees can cause, and the forthcoming days with no power.  It takes a lot less than 50- or 60-mph winds to knock out our power, and restoring it to such a huge area after Irene will take time.

So for now, I seem to be obsessing about the damage I can imagine—and it too is about as serious in the scheme of things as my grandfather’s dentures.  My poor garden, which I’ve coaxed and nurtured since the spring, may succumb to the wind and rain.  It is ironic that this is happening just as my tomatoes are ripening en masse.

I’ve picked all I can, even the not really ready ones, because I think those may be all I get.

The growing season was a challenge.  Cucumber beetles destroyed my cucumbers and most summer squash.  Only one yellow squash continued valiantly to bear, and to give us a small but regular supply, despite its powdery mildew affliction.  But I think the squash I picked this morning will be the last. 

The 100° heat at the end of July caused my broccoli to turn yellow before the heads got very big, but the side shoots that are still coming have been quite delicious.  I have new broccoli transplants ready to go in, but the last few weekends have been too rainy.  The July heat also delayed my peppers and eggplant, but we did get beautiful peppers after all, as well as beans and more beans. It has been a great bean year.

Before that really hot week, we enjoyed our Chiogga beets and the greens

and picked a great crop of onions.

If the hurricane damage is not as bad as I fear, I’ll be planting that fall broccoli, chard, and lettuce.  And the carrots that are looking good, but not ready yet, should get us through September.  And this might be the first year I get successful Brussels sprouts.

So for now, I’ve got my fingers crossed that I’ll make it through, and it is time to check again (for the hundredth time) to see if there’s a change in the computer model that has the storm going directly over my patch of the world.

 

Thinking Outside the Box

One, but certainly not the only, reason I’ve been on a bit of a blog hiatus is that I’ve been organizing my spare bedroom as a knitting/sewing room. The room contained a miscellaneous jumble of stuff before and during our siding and window replacements, and I want it to be cleaned up and usable.  The first thing I’ve done is to place my fabric and fabric that I inherited from my mother into Rubbermaid tubs.  Much of it was stored that way—but much wasn’t. And when I collected everything in one place, I had more tubs than the nine I thought.  There’s actually a 12^th in the attic, with fabric that I thought I’d give away, but may now use for some practice pieces.

In going through the fabric, I came across some surprises, and fabric that I had forgotten about. 

The first surprise was this bit of Disney-branded cotton with the treasure map from Peter Pan, because I don’t remember it at all.  I date it circa 1953, when the movie hit theaters and I was about 6 years old.  I was totally captivated by that movie, and I guess my mother intended to make me something from this piece (which I expect to put up for sale on eBay quite shortly).  This attempt at Disney marketing seems so quaint compared to the blitz of branded items that accompany today’s movie releases.

 

Among the forgotten fabrics were Moygashiel Irish linens, like the blue on the right, Viyella, like the flowered fabric in the middle, and the pink crepe de chine.  I googled Moygashiel and found that it is no longer in business and these linens are prized.  I have many pieces in solids (and one in a print that will probably find its way onto eBay before long because the print is too big for me), and I’ll happily sew up the solids into dresses or skirts.  Viyella, which is a remarkable fabric, is a mix of cotton and wool, and also seems less available than in the past, when you could buy it in fabric departments of department stores like B. Altman in New York.  I have solids and some prints, and I’ve always wanted a Viyella bathrobe, in addition to dresses and skirts.  The fabric sews up like challis, but I have more challis than I’ll ever use.  So eventually I’ll cull through the light wools and keep some and try to sell others.  I don’t have much silk, and I do like that pink print, so it is a keeper.  It came from a store in New York, located south of Houston Street, a short distance from my Greenwich Village apartment.  It existed for just a short time in the mid- to late-70s and had deals on designer bolt ends.  I have some cotton jacquard blouse fabric from that time too.

A gap in my sewing skills is working on knit fabric.  The main reason is that my machine really couldn’t handle knits.  But my new machine can, and I discovered some not-so-great pieces that I can use as “muslins” to try out the stitching for knits and to test patterns that I’ll make by tracing T-shirts that fit well.  I was delighted to discover these wool knits among my mother’s fabrics:

 

The pieces are all interchangeable, with the stripes matching both the blue and the rust solids.  Unfortunately, the yardage is skimpy, so the solids might have to end up as gathered skirts, but the stripes can be Ts. 

I had to curb my urge to play with the fabric because I also wanted to consolidate my yarn stash.  And this is embarrassing:

Once I collected it in one place, I realized that buying more yarn was just silly.  I’ll be stash busting for years to come (although I do have some strategic acquisitions in mind for this year’s Rhinebeck trek).  I had thought that sock yarn was under-represented, but in addition to this box, there are two more of equal size:

I’ll be adding stash pictures to Ravelry once I’ve done a little more decluttering, and some will be posted for sale.

I’m working now on creating a database listing of the fabric and organizing the sewing notions and supplies, after which time I’ll see where bookshelves can fit so I can get my knitting and sewing books and magazines into the room.  Then it will be on to better lighting, a dress form, and mirrors.  And, of course, the best way to get some of those stash boxes out of the room is to actually make something. 

I discovered that I already have yarn for the monthly colors in the Ravelry Solid Socks group KALs for 2011 and 2012 (how surprising is that?), and I may cast on for the September red challenge using this: