Stained Glass

After finishing the rainbow hat yesterday, I still had close to half of a skein of the crayon colored variegated yarn left to make another hat. I wanted to stretch it a bit to make sure that I could finish (variegateds come in smaller skeins than solids, 3 oz in this case), so I decided to add more black to the mix. At first I thought that after the ribbing, I would add a round of black every few rows and keep it interesting by working the next round with every 6th stitch slipped to pull the black up into the rainbow. As you can see below, that's the first 4 rows. Then, I started browsing through Modular Magic, by Ginger Luters, in which the CC slip stitch was carried up several rows to form a grid over the MC. I was worried that slipping a stitch over two or three rows would scrunch the knitting, but I had to try it and it worked! I probably should have frogged back to the ribbing and reworked the first rows, but...... I still like the results which remind me of a stained glass window with the sun shining through.





I finished one other hat yesterday and started yet another while I read most of the way through The Widow's Tale. With mostly football or reruns on the tv tonight, it will be a knitting and good book evening. We made another library run on Friday so I'm well stocked with reading material. Besides the above mentioned Modular Magic, I picked up The Elle Knitting Book, published in 1984 but with some nice classic patterns that wouldn't look out of place today, twenty years later. The Cute Cable vest on page 66 would be nice for my grandson and the Laplander cardigan on page 102 would be a challenge. None of the patterns call for a particular brand of yarn, only a weight such as "double knitting" or "bulky" along with the quanity in grams. It would be nice if the yardage were included or if there were a chart estimating how much yardage there is in 650 grams of DK. Looking at the Laplander again, the neckline is obscured by a scarf - it makes for a fashionable photo, but am I the only one who gets nervous when photos don't reveal the whole sweater? What strange shaping is that scarf hiding??

The third book I picked up is Stitch 'n Bitch Nation, by Debbie Stroller. I love the first section, "I Knit It My Way" as it sort of encompasses the "Wing-It" philosophy I've developed about knitting. However, most of the fashions are a bit too young for a grandmother no matter how young at heart I may feel - the bod isn't young anymore {sigh}..... The how-to sidebars scattered through the book have some good ideas, like how to make a nostepinne (p. 77). I wish my granddaughter was still young enough for the Little Devil Pants on page 204 - I'm sure her Mom would agree that there are days they'd be very appropriate garb for this little darling {g}... Anyway, back to the charity hats.. time is awastin'