Let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible future with Him. (Oswalt Chambers)

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Three Excuses . . .

. . . for not having Autumn Song sewn together yet.

It's Thanksgiving.

I needed something simple to knit so I can jump up to prepare food and/or eat more food.

I took advantage of the season to get a good start on dog trainer Gail's Christmas socks.


Pattern: Basic socks on 64 stitches with k1p1 cuff and k7p1 leg.

Yarn: ON-line Supersocke, 75% wool 25% polyamide, fingering weight.

Color: Afrika, 992

Needles: 2.50mm circulars

Gauge: 8 stitches/10 rows per inch

It's Sale Time.

Amoung the many emails I've received from companies wanting my holiday dollars was an offer of "$0.00 Standard Shipping On $55 Orders - 4 Days Only" from Patternworks.

I am was considering Bretton, one of their house yarns, for the Set-in Sleeve Aran. In order to make the Sunday night deadline on the shipping offer, I had to stop all other knitting to quickly knit a gauge swatch to see if Bretton would work.

The required gauge for the sweater is 5 stitches/7.5 rows over sand stitch filler. My preliminary swatch, filler stitch only, was perfect gauge on #5 needles after being washed. I got very excited and knit the second, larger swatch over half the front pattern. It was an inch and a half too big.

Just goes to prove that gauge swatches only done on the filler stitch aren't worth a hill of beans. 1.5 inches on 1/4th of the sweater is 6 inches on the whole sweater.

I'm thankful I swatched this before ordering the yarn, but not happy I have one more swatch for this sweater that isn't close to the right size. Maybe I should think about knitting something else?

There will be no Patternworks order from me this weekend.


The birds must be fed.

It took me a while to identiy this unfamiliar visitor to the feeder. It's a Vesper Sparrow (Pooecetes gramineus).

They migrate late in the season. This one was probably just passing through.

The camera makes bird watching so much more fun. I can shoot pictures of the unidentified and compare them to the bird books until I'm sure of the name.

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