Our wonderful new brown bunny has arrived. DH has renamed her Peaches and I've never seen such a large rabbit. I think she is close to 15 lbs. She adores the cats and has already been doing binkies/bunny jumps (it sounds like a herd of elephants!) and flipping onto her side - two signs of bunny contentment. I'll take photos tomorrow - I'm in heaven with a new lagomorph to love.



I wanted to add some tubular cast on info I received in the Squawkboxtv comments which didn't show up on the blog again. Kerstin says the tubular CO looks best with K1,P1 rib and it slants for K2P2 rib. Kerstin - the half hitch cast on is the same as what VK calls the Single Cast On. JBB says she used the tubular cast on for a ribbed hat in Charlene Schurch's Hat's On book - that seems like a neat place to use it. She points out that this book contains some other neat cast ons.

Robin says she watched an EZ/Meg Swansen video and they were using the tubular cast on for a ribbed gansey. Sandrine says she does the tubular cast on for both K1P1 and K2P2 rib including in circular knitting and she used it for her beautiful Kongle - check her blog entry for 1/18/04.



Here are my new Bernat Aero circulars and dpns. For some reason you can only buy these from Canada. Also, the smaller sizes of dpns give you 5 needles but you only get four with the larger sizes. They're quite inexpensive - prices shown are Canadian.

This is the Multicolor Earflap hat from Vogue Knitting Caps & Hats Two in various stash yarns. I added the duplicate stitch rabbit on the earflaps because I've got bunnies on the brain. Our new gargantuan bunny girl arrives on Sunday.



Have a great weekend!

I've purposely been knitting with thicker yarn. This means I'm less happy but the projects get finished faster. After getting to the thumb increases for Merike's Gloves (Folk Knitting in Estonia, size 0 dpns) and noticing a huge mistake on the cuff, I came to the conclusion that I need bifocals. I've been putting this off for a while because obviously I'm way too young for bifocals. Ahh, vanity. So the bifocals have been ordered and I'll continue doing some thicker knitting until they arrive. I figure I can get some HRS knitting done in the meantime.

Melissa reports that Piecework has a Nancy Bush glove pattern and will continue to offer a Nancy Bush pattern in all the issues for 2004. This alone is enough to make me consider subscribing. I hope to find the current issue this week.

Anne sent me this photo of her s-curve mittens from the first Elsebeth Lavold book done in some pretty heathery Marr Haven yarn. The pattern is Harald I believe. Thanks for sending the photo Anne! I really have to try some Marr Haven yarn myself. Anne is currently working on some Norwegian mittens from Arnhild. I'm just about to order a mitten kit from Arnhild myself.

Note To Self: Never again order a yarn color named shrimp.



This is the Blackberry Ridge Farms pet socks pattern although I substituted a different rabbit chart. I think the rabbit is a bit large for the sock and I'm now working on a second pair with yet another rabbit. The yarn is Country Garden DK (the shrimp color actually looks more "shrimpy" in person) and I used duplicate stitch for the rabbits. I'm not a huge fan of duplicate stitch - on these socks it feels almost like a patch and affects the elasticity. Plus duplicate stitches are always larger than the surrounding stitches if you look closely.









In the comments Kerstin asked about seaming two different knitting patterns. In that situation and also in a pattern where you have those annoying stair-stepped bindoffs for the shoulders I like the slip stitch crochet seam. It is one of the few seams done on the reverse side and it looks best if done a bit loosely.



Also, devBear asked about attaching yarn ends. I essentially do a reverse duplicate stitch on the back of the work with the yarn ends. I'll see if I can't get some sort of photo of this process next week.

Here's the Multi-Directional Scarf again - this time blocked to be quite narrow, about 3 inches wide. It is for a high school girl who likes her scarves narrow. It is my Easter egg rainbow-dyed spindle spun kid mohair.



I received an order today from Smiley's Yarns and I added some plastic Susan Bates pins, called Luxite Seaming Pins, which are quite a bargain compared to the Lollipop pins I bought previously at Patternworks. Ahh - only the most boring of knitters can get excited about plastic pins I guess.

Tacking down floats is really a simple process of just doing whatever you can to sew long floats on the back of the work so your fingers won't get caught in them. The photo of the back of my Halloween socks kind of shows how I did this with sewing thread. If I had to do it over again I'd do it with a thinner wool yarn which is more elastic. However you do it just remember to do it loosely.









I figured this blog needed some more bunny photos so here is Rusty. A rescuer found Rusty in a small cage at a feed store with another unneutered male who kept attacking him. The vet estimated Rusty had over 100 bite wounds and gouges at the time of his rescue. It is truly amazing his fur has grown back so nicely. Rusty is quite curious about everything and he really loves having his picture taken. Isn't he handsome? He is available for adoption to a really good home.





I wish I could adopt Rusty but I think I'll have my hands full with the arrival of the oh-so- enormous female rabbit arriving here in just 10 days. I can't wait!

This is the multicolored funnel hat from Vogue Knitting Caps & Hats Two in various stash yarn. There is an error on rows 7-9 of Chart 1 - the center yellow cross is one column off skew in the chart.



I've received a bunch of Squawkbox comments which aren't showing up on the blog so I'll answer them here.



Robin commented about Nursery Rhyme Knits. Robin - the hats and mittens in the book are done in the round but the scarves aren't. I definitely think the book encourages figuring out different ways to accomplish the designs. For three and four color rows, I generally carry all the yarns although some knitters slip one color and then go back again and do the same row over again, knitting the slipped stitches and slipped the already knit stitches. Or you could certainly just introduce the colors where you need them and then cut the yarn and start over on each row. I don't mind working ends in so that would work for me. Robin, I do think you could figure out a way to knit the scarves in the round and then steek them.



Michelle asked about the lines on the argyle - yes those are duplicate stitch - the diagonal lines going through the center of the diamonds.



Lisa asked about the seam in the argyles - I'm not sure if you can feel the bulk of the seam when you wear the argyles because I've never tried one the one argyle I made. I'd have to finish seaming it first. Someone asked me a while back about the bulk of that seam and I said it is normal to have some bulk when you do mattress stitch. It is invisible on the outside but not on the inside. Also, Lisa, about Nursery Rhyme Knits - I think I will just try a pair of the mittens and just do it my usual method of fair isle in the round and see how that works. I'm too impatient to see the color progress to wait until the end to do duplicate stitch.



Aarlene asked about the Philosopher's Wool technique of weaving in unused colors and how that would work with three or four colors per row. That is a good question Aarlene as I've wondered about that myself. Does anyone know how the PW technique works in that situation?