The Knitting Pirate

Lately I have been spending more time on Ravelry than actually knitting. This is because I have internet access from work, but I can’t sit at my desk and knit. Yesterday I re-organized my stash by breaking apart an entry that included several colorways of the same yarn, and re-listing them separately by colorway. Today I did some queue re-arranging. For those of you without Ravelry accounts, you poor things you, the next few projects include plain brown socks for Pirate-Husband, Clessidra socks for myself, and a Napramach bag (here’s a picture of someone else’s) for a gift.

I do plan to finish the four projects I have on the needles first, of course.

Then I’d also like to do some work on the progress bars that appear in the right column. There’s lots of help available and some wonderful examples of what can be done. I just haven’t had the time to work on them yet.

Tonight I’m going to SnB for the first time in a while. I’m meeting another knitter who also recently moved to Haymarket, and I’m quite excited to be seeing everyone again! It’ll also be nice to get some work done on the Garter Rib Sock. I’ve not touched it since I started the Baby Surprise Jacket, which has taken priority for knitting at home. The Sock-in-Progress, whatever it is, is always my traveling project.

There’s been so much going on lately that it’s keeping me from making significant progress on any of the knitting or spinning projects. I did get a lazy kate but I haven’t even taken it out of the box yet. Now that the bedroom is finished (with paint, if not with furniture) I think I’m going to haul the spinning wheel up there. It will make the room seem less empty, and I’m much more likely to spin if it’s upstairs, rather than hiding in the basement!

I was reminded recently that I’d promised to knit a bag for my friend Riya, who made me the most gorgeous dress I’ve ever owned. It’s gold velvet and brocade, and I need the help of two people to get dressed, and it requires a hoop-skirt underneath it to look right. I wore it last Pennsic to the Hoity-Toity Party at Casa Bardicci, and I have never had so much fun at that party because always before I felt under-dressed. Anyway, I said to myself that I would knit a bag for Riya. I even told her that I was going to do it, because that way I’d be held to my statement. I picked out the bag (shh, it’s a secret as to which one), bought the pattern, and tried to find the yarn at one of the LYSs here. No luck!

Well, Friday night I talked to Riya on the phone and that reminded me of this bag, and I said to myself, “Self, you’re going to have to order the yarn online or you’re never going to get it,” so I went to WEBS and ordered it. I was a few cents short of the cutoff for the 20% discount, so I ordered some sock yarn with Pirate-Husband in mind, which saved me almost $14, or just the price of a ball of Trekking XXL… I consider this to be a free ball of Trekking, and let no one say that I could have saved $14, because I already know.

Today I spent some time with Pirate-Mom, who was putting the finishing touches on a lace-ish cardigan for her granddaughter/my nieceling. “You really oughta knit something for yourself some time,” I said, and she agreed – she wants to knit a lace stole to wear at fancy events. She’s always getting dressed up and going somewhere. So she inspected my Ostrich Plumes Scarf, and decided she really liked that stitch pattern. We checked out some yarn online and she ended up ordering three hanks of Alpaca Cloud in “Smoke Heather” from KnitPicks. It’s inexpensive enough, she says, that if she doesn’t like it, she won’t feel bad (and she’s sure I would volunteer to buy it from her).

After some trial and tribulation with the postal service losing the package, they finally found and delivered it to me. The latest additions to the library are Folk Bags by Vicki Square, and Richard Rutt’s “A History of Hand Knitting”, which should be helpful if I ever want to do any documentable knitting for the WEBS in June.

I’ve also ordered two FiberTrends patterns, both lace washcloth/soap sack sets. “Bathing Beauties” and “Bathtime Blossoms” will make wonderful Christmas gifts for my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law, who seem to like such things. It seems like a quick and easy way for me to get into knitting lace – or is that lace knitting?

Once I get the hang of it, I have some beautiful coppery-brown silk and cashmere laceweight yarn that will one day be a beautiful coppery-brown silk and cashmere lace scarf. I’m almost scared to touch it; it’s so beautiful in the ball. I admit, sometimes I take it out of the yarn basket just to pet and admire it for a minute or two.

Pirate-Husband says that if I really want to knit lace, I can knit cuffs for all his SCA shirts. When I pointed out that knitted lace isn’t documentable for his time period (mid-1500s), he counter-pointed out that neither is the machine-produced stuff he has sewn to his shirts now. I looked briefly at bobbin lace, which *is* documentable to the mid-1500s, but decided that there was too much fine thread there for me to enjoy playing with it as much as I enjoy knitting with yarn. So he’s going to get knitted lace, if he gets any lace at all. I’m sure he won’t complain.