November 11, 2008
everybody’s happy after all

for janet, there is alhambra. and for the others, there was cake.
yesterday was a busy class day; everyone is ramping up their knitting of small projects to stockpile gifts for the holidays. i finished my brown sock and a hat, several people were working on mitts (i think it’s safe to say that delicato is a class favorite).
during the afternoon class, a few of us stretched and pinned susie’s casino shawl in my blocking living room.

look at the beautiful late-autumn palette in that yarn . . . this is fearless fibers laceweight cashmere (sadly not being produced at the moment, but we keep hoping) in colorway exotic wood. sigh. it feels just as yummy as it looks.

susie’s favorite part is the top edge with its gently scalloping border. here’s a nice shot of the whole corner, where you get a little taste of everything—top edge, side edge and body stitch

we were just so excited to get this thing on the wires and pulled out so we could get our first look at it’s final beauty. we did the sides first and were pinning the scallops along the top border when we found a nasty little surprise

i think susie would have had a complete meltdown if she was alone. but she was with janet and me and we were all over that puppy . . . “we can fix it!” (like it’s some kind of prize); “aw, that’s nuthin suze!” (like we see torn shawls every day)—it’s not exactly rubbernecking if you know how to fix it . . is it?? there we were, bent right over it to get a closer look while susie turned toward the bathroom, deciding if she would be sick right this second—or not.
i put a few pins in to secure the loose sts—it turned out it not to be a tear, but a dropped stitch in the knit-on edging. i told susie i wanted to wait til it was dry to fix it; she said she’d bring the leftover yarn by in the morning.
once i’d finished my pattern writing for the day, i set to work on the hole

i figured out what happened and which sts were affected (only a few as it turns out). the good news was that it happened on the knit-on edging, where it attaches to the base of row 1 of the shawl body, so a couple of the loose stitches were the base of that row and those can’t run very far. i gathered up the loose sts row-by-row on my pins and figured out how to knit them back together into the pattern

i had to back up twice to look at the same thing which wasn’t going back together quite right, but eventually i solved it.
once i had it down to the last ssk, i pulled a 6-inch piece of spare yarn through those loops and sewed them down to the stitch they should have originally connected to

then pulled the ends of that to the wrong side and wove them in.

a little spot-blocking and stretching should make the whole thing match any other equivalent section. here’s a shot of the adjacent, intact section that did not need repair

the only thing i couldn’t manage was working the joins from the wrong side, as it would have been done originally; i just couldn’t seem to operate without seeing the face of the fabric. so there is a very slight variation in how the join looks in the repaired section. i’m ok with that, though.

all’s well that ends well. this is going to look beautiful on susie—brown is her color. i made her promise to do some modeling shots when she picks the shawl up (and don’t think you can get away with coming after dark susie!).
last night i started my second woodsmoke sock (that’s the sock i showed the other day) and the wiggle scarf

the scarf is wide-ish which i wasn’t sure i’d like, but i do, because the yarn is SO very comfy. i’m planning on devoting my late-night knitting time to this one for a while.
today i also did some cooking because we were getting so low on made-ahead meals. we’ve eaten sandwiches several times since friday—oops. david doesn’t care, but i get tired of a steady diet of meals that aren’t well-balanced. so i made soup

using the last of the fresh greens from my garden. i went out sunday and cut down the remaining chard and spinach that were growing (bright green against a sea of brown), so i could make a pot of greens and beans. we like ours with chick peas.

then i baked a big batch of macaroni and cheese—enough to put several casseroles in the freezer for another time. mmm, and that’s what we had for dinner.
ok now, time to get away from this darn computer and start my evening knitting.
see you tomorrow.
Filed under: food and garden, lace/shawls, projects
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