Last week I sent the Colorado HRS a check for $134.75 from the Lulu sales of the booklets Stranded Color Knitting and Wild About Color Knitting Patterns. That amount was for the sales from December. The next time they send me a check (in May) it will be for much more. I will have the ruffled colorwork sock pattern available for purchase or download by tomorrow. I knit the sock up in another color combo because I like to show different options. It was also helpful because I found a mistake in the chart.

Speaking of pattern mistakes, there is a second mistake in the Maarja's sock from Folk Knitting in Estonia. The first row of the heel it says K2 green when it is supposed to be K2TOG green. I decided to rip out the sock because it just wasn't working for me, no matter what modifications I tried. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

I'm usually so far behind whatever is going on in the world of knitters it is pathetic. I do, however, have photos of my front door and the view outside it from back in July.

Here's my lovely view. It is hard to see but there is a huge steep arroyo/ditch between us and the other house. The coyotes like to hang out in there.




Here's the front door itself. DH likes to make Adirondack chairs as you can see.




I am going to offer the ruffled floral sock pattern for sale next week to benefit rabbit rescue. I need to knit up another prototype this weekend just to make sure the pattern works first. And I should finish the Nancy Bush socks - currently I think they're ugly but perhaps the fancy toe will redeem them.

I've been meaning to post a photo of my usual knitting spot complete with Ott lite. I keep my current knitting project in a basket nearby.



I really like the view from my knitting spot. I see squirrels and cottontail rabbits and occasionally red-tail hawks and coyotes. Once I looked up and was surprised to see three horses in our yard. Fortunately their owners were quick to lead them back home.

I'm not liking the textured part of Maarja's socks with my thicker gauge so I'm only going to do it on the top. I do plan to do the cute toes she uses though.

Alert the media! I've found an error in a Nancy Bush pattern. I've knit a zillion of her patterns and this is only the second time I've found an error.

I'm making Maarja's Socks from Folk Knitting in Estonia and the chart diagram says purl when they really mean YO. To make these in an adult's size, I'm using size 2 dpns and Knitpicks Merino Style yarn. I'll get a scan of the sock in progress tomorrow.

Bosco is greatly enjoying the special treatment and lots of yucky canned cat food. The other two pets are a bit jealous and are ignoring me as you can see in this photo.

Here are the Dad's Easy Cable Socks from Socks, Socks, Socks. They're knit with Peruvian Highland wool and I had to go up to a size 6 (US) needle to get them to fit.

Here are some more photos to show the difference between Fair Isle knitting and other types of stranded color knitting. I'm trying not to get too complicated but purists only consider a garment to be Fair Isle if Shetland yarn is used and the pattern has no long floats (spots where you carry an unused yarn for a long time). Fair Isle charts are usually very symmetrical as well.

It does get confusing because there are similarities between Fair Isle colorwork and other types, especially other types of European stranded color knitting which evolved at the same time. I've even seen traditional Fair Isle patterns that did not use the color changes between the foreground and/or background patterns. Fair Isle does use the X and O patterns pretty exclusively and they often intersperse these with smaller patterns called peeries. I've never seen a Fair Isle garment that only used two colors.

Fair Isle Chart (Look at the large X at how the background colors change symmetrically)



Not a Fair Isle Chart (Estonian) even though multiple colors are used

Fair Isle Tams with lots of beautiful subtle color gradations

Not Fair Isle tams - although multi-colored each chart pattern section has only 2 colors

Stranded Color Knitting has as an in-depth annotated bibliography but I'll briefly recommend 4 books.

Sheila McGregor's Traditional Fair Isle Knitting (very inexpensive Dover reprint)
Carol Rasmussen Noble's Knitting Fair Isle Mittens and Gloves (easy to find although some chart errors in the patterns)
Ann Feitelson's The Art of Fair Isle Knitting (probably out-of-print by now??)
Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting (excellent book on the subject but you'll most likely have to sell one of your children to get a copy)

Margene asked me to do a blog entry discussing the difference between Fair Isle knitting and other types of stranded color knitting. I've talked about this here several times before and I discussed it in the Stranded Color Knitting booklet.

I'll use the analogy of bread baking. The French are master bread bakers and take their bread very seriously. Some American sourdoughs and supermarket breads call their products "French" bread. They use the term because the bread is crusty or shaped similarly to traditional French breads. But calling all stranded color knitting Fair Isle knitting is more like calling a Jewish challah or Indian naan a "French" bread.

Fair Isle is the southernmost island in the Shetland Islands and is between Norway and Scotland. In the distinctive style of Fair Isle knitting the foreground and/or background colors often change in a single pattern chart. This usually doesn't happen in other types of stranded color knitting. (An exception is the cover purse on Andean Folk Knits, where the foreground color changes from red to orange to green.)

Fair Isle:



Not Fair Isle (Latvian):



Fair Isle:



Not Fair Isle (Norwegian):



Fair Isle:



Not Fair Isle (Peruvian):

The heart theme sock is stalled because I can't decide on what colors I want to add. I am also working on one of the Great American Aran Afghan squares done in the round but I have to rip out a few rows and figure out a mistake I made.

So what do you do when all your knitting is stalled? Start something new!


Here is the beginning of the Dad's Easy Cable Sock pattern from Socks, Socks, Socks. I am using size 4 dpns and Peruvian Highland wool but I'm not completely positive they will be wide enough for my narrow feet. This pattern has no purl stitches so it is much less stretchy than most cable patterns.

I'm starting a sock with a heart theme (a little late I know). I need to add more colors and I may do a lace foot. We'll see...

Peaches wishes everyone a belated Happy Valentine's Day! DH brought me flowers and she felt it necessary to attempt to eat some of them. Bosco is still hanging in there and enjoying lots of TLC although we still have no diagnosis.

I'm just about finished with the second sock. It seems like it took me forever to finish them but I'm looking forward to my next project. I don't actually know what my next project will be but I'm looking forward to it anyway.

I recently googled the word "color" and found some interesting web sites.

Color Psychology This web site goes beyond the usual stuff and tells you that opera singers have meltdowns more often in yellow rooms and that weight lifters can lift more in blue rooms.

Causes of Color If you have a child who asks a lot of questions like "Why is the sky blue?," you need this scientific web site.

Online Color Scheme Generator Pick a color from the large grid and you'll automatically get a selection of many colors that work well with it.

Test for Color Blindness

Color Lab Select a few colors and see how they look together.

Color Matters This is a comprehensive web site on everything color-related including a bulletin board.

Here's what my shortened version of Liivi's sock from Folk Knitting in Estonia looks like. I'm doing the colorwork on the second sock and am leaving the plain part for this weekend when I can't concentrate.




Not being able to concentrate seems to be a theme for me lately. I keep telling DH I'm losing brain cells on a daily basis. I'm dying to come up with a Valentine's sock with red and hot pink and purple in lace and colorwork but I'm not sure if I can manage it this weekend with a sick cat and a husband who is home for 3 days. I still hope to get to work on the Starmore pillow but I have to change the number of pattern stitches first to accomodate for my gauge.

Here's the Lace Arrow Sachet (scroll down to link to pattern) done in fingering weight pink wool yarn with a 4 stitch I-cord tie. I'm going to have to find some loosely woven fabric to wrap the lavender in before I fill it but it should do the trick. I may come up with a smaller sachet pattern of my own if I have time this week.

Last month I was working on an herb article and I had to buy lavender flowers. I bought a huge amount so I thought I'd knit up a few sachets to stuff with lavender and stick in the dresser drawers and in the yarn stash. Trader Joe's even sells nifty little dryer bags full of lavender. I'm either going to make up a pattern or use THIS one. Probably both since I have so much lavender.

Thanks so much for the comments about Bosco the cat. He is much better today and here is a better photo than yesterday's.



Here is a photo from when we adopted him as a kitten 12 years ago. He was such a runt!

My Himalayan cat Bosco is very ill. (photo above with Peaches) A month ago we took him to the vet and said he was acting strangely by sleeping in the bathtub and licking the brick floors. He'd also lost weight even though he was eating more than usual. The vet could find nothing wrong.

He went again today as he's lost even more weight and having some hind leg stiffness. I'd done some reading and thought it might be diabetes. The vet ruled that out but thinks it may be a brain tumor or his liver. We have to wait for the blood test results. For some reason he started howling and became kind of paralyzed when I went to take him out of the carrier. He seems more alert now and I'm hand-feeding him every few hours.

I really hope they can figure out what is wrong quickly and treat it. At times like this I suppose the best thing to do is be optimistic. In the meantime, I'm trying to get some knitting done. Fortunately I'm at the easy part of Liivi's socks.

Linda's blog has inspired me to do a better job of storing color cards. I need to order a few new ones for yarns I work with a lot like Wool of the Andes and Peruvian Highland wool.

I do have some pretty cool color cards though. Check it out:

These are the Alice Starmore/Virtual Yarns color cards. I believe they are no longer produced and are probably going for a zillion dollars on Ebay. The four cards show yarn colors inspired by Sea and Shoreline, Birds, Moor and Mountain, and Summer Isle.

Lisa has produced a beautiful Pi Shawl. Now we need her to start blogging again more often.

I'm always trying to get better scans of the process of working in yarn ends at the end of a stranded color knitting project.

The first thing I do is move each yarn tail in the direction it came from (on either side of the row join).




Now I start doing reverse duplicate stitch on the back of the work. I always make sure to pull the yarn tail in the OPPOSITE direction it was coming from to help match up the joins on the right side of the work and get rid of any holes.

Reverse duplicate stitch on the back of stockinette is two diagonal actions with a tapestry needle threaded with the yarn end. Each diagonal action catches two purl bumps and as you go along the row you go through each purl bump twice which makes it virtually impossible for yarn ends to work their way loose.

Here is the second action. It is hard to show this properly because the various yarn floats at the back of the work get in the way. I just weave around and over them as I can but I suspect you could make this process completely invisible if you meticulously did reverse duplicate stitch UNDER all the floats.

You really don't have to do this for very many stitches as it does an excellent job of securing the yarn ends. I generally cut the yarn tails pretty close to the work as I'm confident they won't work their way loose.

Voila! You're done. There are some sections where you can see the yarn tail diagonally crosses some yarn floats but the actual reverse duplicate stitch isn't noticeable. Even better, it isn't noticeable from the right side of the work.

Theresa has done a great job of using both a photograph and some computer magic to show reverse duplicate stitch on stockinette HERE.

Inspired by the Tharp book, I decided to put photos of most of the items I've knitted in the past 7 years online at a free photo hosting service. If you go to http://photobucket.com/albums/e181/nanetteblanchard you can see 20 photos of hats, 32 of mittens and gloves, 48 of socks (2 pages), 19 of sweaters and 30 of my designs. It was definitely interesting to see everything I have knit together like that. I had no idea I'd knitted so many things of my own design and I saw clearly how much I really like bright colors.

In doing this experiment I also realized I had knit a 9th project from the Estonian book. I completely forgot I had knit Liidia's gloves. I have no clue what happened to them.

Here are the colors I'm using for Liivi's socks from Folk Knitting in Estonia. I'm making mine shorter without the calf shaping but I still think they're going to be pretty nice.

I'm currently reading an interesting book called The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life by choreographer Twyla Tharp. She includes many interesting creativity exercises and questions for your journal (she calls it your creative autobiography).

She includes some interesting info about Mozart. She doesn't believe in "natural" genius and points out that Mozart was schooled by his musician father from an early age. Mozart's hands were deformed by the time he was 28 because of excessive practicing and writing with a quill pen. So although creativity and inspiration may be considered spontaneous or a special gift from the heavens, there is still a lot of hard work, preparation, and routine that goes along with it.