A Field of Sweaters

The tie of friendship connects our hearts.  It's a real thread that runs through us, a fiber similar to wool.   Friend Karen who loved everyone deeply has left us yearning for her and found us filling in the absence with each other.  What a miracle that we are all now richly committed to holding the wider circle of friends in the same precious aura that she held each of us.

Unmade sweaters gazing and grazing

Driving one more time to Eugene to connect with those same, dear people is one of the Things I get to do today, and I'm basking in the birth of this vigorous season.  The Willamette Valley is filled with fields, many of them dotted with sheep.  Lambs are all over the place.  My wandering mind reviews the reasons for raising sheep: food and fiber.  The wool is friendly, cozy, comforting.  Karen and her knitting come back into focus, and I see now the immense green pasture as a field of sweaters, perhaps made from the fiber of friendship.  And speaking of dear friends, Happy Birthday, Therese.

Cranberry Sauce in April

Things are all mixed up.  This post is for Tuesday, and you thought cranberry sauce went with Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey. Welcome to my world.  4/11/12 post will be up later today, and cans of cranberries are part of a new tip on making your clothing fit better.





I love "hand-me-ups." My daughter's closet has a seasonal shed, and I come home the richer.  One new-to-me item is a sweater that will be perfect for the yard but is not so perfect in length in the body.  It is also a bit on the wide side.

It was still damp for its trip through the wash as I stretched out the body.  With knits it's magic that one can make a garment longer and narrower all at the same time.  The only problem was that the Things I get to do today did not include holding the sweater in its new, longer shape until it dried.  I had to get going on the kiwi trellis before the rains came again. Who can I hire to hold the sweater?







Handy Andy's brain was on a buzz.  I saw some big clamps:  Old-style pant hangers!  I saw weights: cans of cranberry sauce.  I saw them working together: cans in a recycled plastic bag tied to the hook on the hanger.  I saw a nice long sweater. Hooray!

Simple Instructions

Follow simple instructions.  Long pause, here, for reflection.  I guess that would also involve reading them as well.  And here I find myself saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I have a contraption that knits.  It's not technically a knitting machine.  It's called a knitting frame.  You can knit an inch or more in one minute.   It has been years since the frame was out of the box and actually used for anything.  That's where the "little knowledge" comes in because I just knew that as I set it up, it would all come back to me about how to use it.  And it didn't all come back to me.  One piece was missing.

Perfect first row

If you've read past blogs, you know that I finished a sweater a couple of months ago that was three-years in the making!  My dear Auntie, who is a frail 92 years old, was so thrilled by the pictures that she put in a request for a sweater for herself.  So after doing the arithmetic in my head,  I told her, no, you can't wait that long.  After some thought on the subject, I recalled the knitting apparatus .  It seemed that the time line for a sweater of the sort she wanted could be reduced from three years to maybe three days.  In that case I would be happy to create a sweater for her.

Second row obviously NOT knitted at all.  Repeat ten times.

Last night I set about getting started on this project.  The first row knit exactly the way I remembered it.  The second row would not knit at all.  Period.  After no less than ten attempts at a second or third row, I was reaching the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results).  Bed seemed then next best step.




Today through brighter eyes and mind, cleaning up the litter from the adventure into relearning the use of this knitting device, I picked up a wire-type piece for the "carriage".  Quickly turning to the instruction booklet on "getting started", I found where the piece belonged.  The missing piece.  The solution.

Carriage with metal wire "fabric guide" properly installed.  This guide
forces the previously knit row to be held so that the needles can move
back and forth through the previous loop and knit the next stitch.
No fabric guide--no knitting.

Things I get to do today: read simple instructions all the way through,  follow simple instructions, knit a test swatch for Auntie's sweater, follow simple instructions, follow simple instructions.