The long and winding yarn

Ben came up over the weekend to ride with Jim.  Good exercise and a fun time together.

I finished the Sinopia shawlette from Curls.  I confess to a bit of whining during the process.  I found the chart difficult to read.  I prefer uncluttered charts for knitting.  Checking through  my books I could see the difference.

This was a great one skein project.  Baah Aspen was lovely yarn to work with and the color is just gorgeous.  

I pulled the points down to give the edge a nice shape.

Comparing the symbolcraft in this chart to the others below, notice the long vertical lines representing the k on rs/p on ws blends in with the grid lines.  

The smaller vertical lines fit into the grid and the horizontal dashes are bold making this easier to read.

The easiest chart for me to read has blank grid squares for the k on rs/p on ws.  

On Sunday I took the sock blank dyeing class at Anoka Fiber Works.  Carole and her son from Rocking Horse Farm in St. Cloud taught the class.  Since I rarely knit socks the stripes did not appeal to me so I chose a free form approach.  It was fun!

Everybody had fun experimenting.  (Photo from Rocking Horse Farm)

Distinctive striping and dragon scales.  

I opted to go freestyle with vertical stripes so the color would be more random.

I did the second one before class ended.  I used leftover colors.  I was happy to have lots of green!

I purposely did not allow the color to saturate the scribbly blank because I wanted more of the white to show.  

The two strands separated easily while winding one on the ball winder and the other by hand.  

I love this one!  Lots of green with white peeking through.

All wound and ready to knit.  I wound the skeins so opposite ends would show.  

TBT and Thursday things

Throwback Thursday.  I can remember this--oh my how young we are!  Living in Alabama, I was working in Ozark and teaching art lessons.  Jim was working at Ft. Rucker with the helicopter simulators.  Soon we would return to Germany on our next life adventure!

Jim and I in 1984

Lace knitting is not something I do often and that is why I chose Sinopia, a one-skein project, for my latest shop sample.  It is from the book, Curls.  Baah Aspen is gorgeous yarn and is holding up well to the knit a few rows frog a few rows type of knitting.  Thankfully I am nearing the last of the repeats.  It will be nice to see the piece blocked.  As with any project blocking improves the fabric and drape.

There are more repeats since this photo was taken.  

Bobbi's monkeys joined in for the class photo.

Monkey was happy to knit himself some pants.

Coming down the pipe...

This week I joined the Boston Scientific team for a charity boxing event.  It is quite a workout and as always so much fun with the usual suspects.  We went to the Vad afterwards for drinks.  We were starving and the burgers tasted so good after the workout.

Boxing buddies

Suretha and I give it our all--I have a good left hook.

Team BoSci!