I just listened to a "KnitCast" about two knitters who are also biologists and find that fungi and bacteria inspire their knitting!  Whoa!  Now this may be an interesting avenue for me to pursue...what other knitting/science links are out there?  I know of one more off the top of my head--the DNA scarf pattern is pretty well-known, I think.  Check these two items out, and please let me know if you know of others.

 

I just read a good review of Yarns to Dye For, the book on dyeing your own self-patterning yarns that I wrote about on February 14.  It looks like I was correct--the trick is that you have to get your yarn into a very large skein (great big loops held loosely together) in order to dye the long, detailed repeats usually seen in self-patterning yarn.  It still sounds fascinating--I wonder if I can pre-order this book from Amazon or Borders?

I've been thinking about color combinations for self-patterning yarns.  I think my favorite idea so far is to use colors from my kitchen, which we've just finished painting (completely, and I do mean COMPLETELY).  Here's a photo of a small corner of the kitchen that was the "demo" for how the colors would work together.

Here's a closer look at the border (just a small swatch is shown in the top photo).

So you could choose one color to focus on...probably green, to start with, and then use the other colors (pumpkin, frosty gold, and an eggplant-ish purple) in smaller fair isle bands.  I don't know if other people would like such socks (actually, I can see making a sweater in these colors too!), but I sure would.  I already have a couple of t-shirts with those colors (and people always notice that I match my kitchen when I wear them).  I'll just have to wait for the book mentioned on 2/14 to see more about how to do it.

 

Still OTN are the jacquard socks for me.  Knitting not proceeding too fast, but I'm getting a lot of reading in.  I'm trying to work on how to balance the two in whatever free time I have.

Charlotte got the best Valentine card of all yesterday.  You can see it at the bottom of the Pet Page.

 

We had a great Valentine's Day dinner last night at Firefly, a nearby restaurant that's a favorite.  Not much knitting done, a little reading.  I'm reading a thriller about an evil empire trying to use gene therapies to control the world.  The technical information is interesting but the page-turning excitement took a long time to develop.

 

Today more on the Regia jacquard socks.  I do love the colors in this yarn (see the photo from the Feb. 8 entry below).  They looked kind of bland and boring in the ball but with the pattern coming out they're just lovely and sort of calming.  This might be a color combo I would knit for other people if I wasn't sure just how they'd react to very visible jacquard patterning in their socks.

I read about a new book coming out in May that I can't wait for!

It's about dyeing your own self-patterning yarns, the way Regia and many other companies do now for sock yarns.  I'd love to do this for sock yarns but also for sweaters.  I can imagine how to do it, but it seems to me you'd have to have your yarn wrapped into impossibly large...hanks?  Is that the word for big loops of yarn not yet twisted into a skein or wound into a ball?  Your "loops" would have to be as big around as your color pattern repeat length, I think.  As I said, I can sort of imagine how to do it, but I'm wondering if this book will have some clever ideas for making it less awkward.  Anyway, I can't wait to get it!  What a great idea!  (I only wish I had known 18 years ago, when I first wanted to try knitting socks but there were no really good yarns easily available, that the current flood of great sock colored and patterned yarn was coming!)

 

Working on the jacquard socks for me.  I finished organizing my patterns and such, and they now occupy about ten binders.  Whew.  Also I'm reading some good non-knitting stuff--more back into my biotech area of interest.  I may add a "Biotech" page to this site eventually, if that doesn't seem too weird.  I like to keep track of what I've read, what I want to read in the future, etc.

Here finally is the Jamieson's pullover sweater I made a couple of weeks ago.

The yarn was brought by my husband from Scotland last summer.  It's a color I love (it's in my kitchen!), and this is just the style of sweater that works for me--conservative and comfortable in style and fit, but a sort of interesting (I think, anyway) color.  You can see more pictures here if you'd like.

Not a lot of knitting today, but some excitement.  We bought a new car today--a Toyota Prius for my husband.  He drives an awful lot for his busy and crazy work schedule, and looks forward to getting really good gas mileage with this car.  Also it's very nifty and high-tech.  I feel like I'm playing a computer game when I drive it.  (I haven't knitted in it yet, but maybe this weekend...)

 

Here's what I'd like to have been doing today but couldn't as I had to go pick up the dog from her boarding kennel:

I've also been spending some time organizing patterns, notes on techniques, stuff printed from the internet, etc. in a collection of looseleaf notebooks.  I have an awful lot of papers but can't usually find what I'm looking for quickly.  I have sort of a thing about organizing papers, I guess.  I get great satisfaction from it.  But I have also been doing some actual knitting, and am making progress on the new pair of Regia jacquard socks for me.  They're a lovely color combination, greys with stripes of brick and brown, with surprising lavender patches thrown in just to make you look closer.  It IS lavender, I swear.  Here's a photo, but I don't think it does the colors justice.

A little bit of time for relaxing tomorrow, I hope.

We got back from NYC yesterday.  We had a great trip, including visits to several yarn stores (more on that later), a couple of museums, some evening swims for the kids in the hotel pool (always a big hit!) and great meals.  It was a lot of fun, though a bit tiring due to lots of walking and also quite a bit of homework that the kids had to do (and homework supervision for me).

 

The most fun yarn store we visited was Knit NY.  It's a small store, but has a very fun cafe right in the store where we had lunch.  Here's a couple of shots of it:

None of the stores we visited had much in the way of the yarns that I like, which are generally rather conservative, standard wools and wool blends.  Also sock yarns were not much in evidence.  There was lots of frou-frou, some of which I could imagine making lace scarves and shawls out of, but much of which I just wouldn't be likely to use.  Also we ran into customers talking about several interesting or controversial issues, such as 1) lack of pricing on yarn displays; 2)  finishing services and how expensive they were (one lady said, "Well, I mean, what choice do I really have?" and I thought, uh, one obvious one would be to learn to do it yourself...you knitted the sweater parts, didn't you?); 3) store knitting instruction and how much of it a customer was entitled to; and 4) use of a store swift and winder and whether it was difficult and arcane or a simple thing anyone could do. 

I think all these yarn store visits confirmed my ideas that I don't fit well into most yarn store cultures--I'm more into the knitting guild concept, and learning things from books, and buying yarn and supplies from local stores when possible but online when needed.  I'd like to find a store where I really feel comfortable hanging out a lot, but I haven't found it yet.  But that doesn't seem to keep me from knitting!

I've got a few more photos coming to add later, including, I think, one of the new Jamieson's sweater.  It really turned out great, and was very comfortable and nice-looking.  I've worn it twice now, and I'd like to make more like it in other colors. 

I'm on my way to NYC this evening with my DDs, to meet DH who is already there with his orchestra.  We're looking forward to some fun museum visits, good meals, swimming in the great hotel pool, and a general good time.  Also some yarn store shopping!  I'm afraid to raise my expectations about that too high, however, as tired kids and schedule unpredictability make it likely they won't be met.  This seems true of most things for moms (I guess for dads, too).  I'd love to spend a lot of time browsing, drinking coffee (OK, all decaf, I admit), and doing coffee shop knitting.  We'll just do the best we can to keep everybody happy.

The Jamieson's pullover came out beautifully.  That yarn just blooms and gets so nice with washing!  It fits great and I think looks good.  I'll get photos of me wearing it on our trip and post them when we get back.

I just read a reference on the Knitlist, I think, to a seaming technique that I call lace-up seaming.  It's one described in the most basic Bond instructional book, and on the Bond you generally use it by leaving extra loose stitches on the edges to be seamed and then sort of lacing them together with a crochet hook.  I used it on all the ponchos I machine-knitted for Christmas (you can see it very clearly on the doll poncho).  You could certainly use it on handknitting, too, however.  It does give a very nice-looking, flat, subtly decorative look.  To read a description of how to do it, look at "Putting the Strips Together" in my Double-Stuff Baby Blankie pattern.  Here are a couple of pictures of how the crochet hook joins the pieces and what the seam can look like (the openness of the look will vary considerably depending on how loose the edge stitches are and on how you block the finished piece):

I'll write again on the 6th or 7th!  Have a great weekend and knit something interesting!