Sunday, June 29, 2014

Here I Go Again

Last week I finally figured out how to knit the Bold and Blended Striped Wrap.  Fortunately there wasn't a setback at all when the seat of my chair ripped right across when I was at the knitting group and I fell through it.

I knitted at least three inches of the pattern when I decided I didn't like the way it was coming out.  The designer may like the contrasting border with the pattern from the opposite side, but I don't and it makes the pattern more complicated.  I feel that when I knit a pattern, I'd rather have it the way I want it than put up with a version I'm not happy with.  What's three inches of knitting versus the entire garment anyway?

Yesterday I spent watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets while I knitted the shawl.  Today I will watch Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban while I unravel it and start over.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Beginning the Bold and Blended Striped Wrap at Last!

I've wanted to knit Lara Neel's Bold and Blended Striped Wrap for quite a while. 



I struggled with the directions, though.  Maybe I hadn't knitted enough projects with short rows to intuitively understand them.

I had a epiphany when I went to the Periwinkle Sheep's open house.  A young woman and I looked at the directions together.  I studied the second photo to see which way the stripes were going and how they should be knit when the pieces slid into place.  My thoughts were further confirmed by the directions for the basic knitted mandala on the blog The Knit.  



The main difference is the shawl has a border.  I just compared the two patterns.  It seems I just needed the border stitches pointed out to me, as well as the right and wrong sides during the course of the pattern.  I thought that was a standard procedure in writing knitting patterns, but maybe I'm wrong.

I will be using yarn from the Periwinkle sheep to knit the shawl as well. I guess that's fitting. I had gotten a light blue skein at my knitting group's Christmas party.  At a local farmers' market I  bought two more skeins, a reddish purple one and a darker bluish purple.  Then I won a light gray skein from the Periwinkle Sheep blog.  I didn't like the two shawls I tried to knit with it.  Then this pattern was added to Ravelry and I thought the four colors would look good in it.


Here are the four skeins.  You can't really see the difference between the purples but there definitely is one.  I haven't knitted in a long time.  The beginning of summer or not, it will be a relief and a pleasure to have something to knit.

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Another Movie With An Area Connection

Tonight I was watching the movie Sneakers.  It was released in 1992 and starred Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley and Mary McDonnell, and also featured the late River Phoenix.  Right after the plot took a turn for the worse, I recognized the anchorman on the television set pictured, Capital Region WRGB anchorman Ernie Tetrault.  Why would a movie in Southern California feature a newsman from upstate New York?  It was directed by Phil Alden Robinson who was once an intern at WRGB.  


Ernie Tetralt in Sneakers