startitis, mid-january edition
I have two finished items to share and quite a few works-in-progress. I am sick and on Tylenol Cold and did something evil to my back this morning yet spent 5 hours at the office and am currently lying in bed with a heating pad and a stuffed nose and a laptop to snuggle with, so if this is more random and wacky than normal… that is my explanation why.
I’ll start with the finished items.
First is the helicopter for mum’s partner A. He was in the Navy (way back when) and I believe served on a Carrier in the Pacific. He then went to work for a few airlines (at Idlewild). In the early 60’s he moved out to the end of the Island [where he lived near my parents for a while, yes it’s weird if i put too much thought into it] to work as a Navigator for Grumman and stayed there until his forced retirement when I was in High School. He’s been building model RC airplanes since he was a kid (and since he’s over 70.. he has some experience). A few years ago he added helicopters to his repertoire. As a male he is difficult to shop for. He has quite the fleet of aviation-themed gifts. I’ve not been able to knit or crochet him anything and finally realized that I could make him either a plane or helicopter. E decided that a helicopter would be better and I set to work. The first one looked like a flying toaster. This one looks like a submarine until you add the tail. I’m not completely thrilled with it but A likes it. We added a flashing LED and wanted to put the rotor on a motor but E couldn’t slow it down (it was at several thousand RPM). Lastly, please keep A in your thoughts on Monday. I believe he’s going in for “a procedure” and I’ll be sending him good thoughts…
I am awaiting photos of various views of the same ‘copter at which point I’ll write up a recipe/pattern for it if anyone is interested.
I have discovered that the way to get me to use up a yarn is to put it in my line of sight and have me constantly think about it. A while ago I bought a gorgeous skein of Merino Worsted from Lavendersheep in Purple Blackberry (a colourway which I believe is now renamed). I had no idea what to do with it but loved the colours and would pet it often. I frequently browse around the patterns in Ravelry and finally decided that I, the one who doesn’t like dropped stitches or really wear shawls, wanted to knit the Sunday Market Shawl by Vanessa Carter. It’s a really simple pattern and it was nice to have some mindless knitting (thus my naming it “relaxation shawl”). HOWEVER, because the drops are next to regular stitches it has a tendency to morph back into regular stockinette. I reblocked it with a very liberal hot steam application and it seems to be keeping the drops better, but next time I knit this (or something similar) I will take the design element I learned in Miriam‘s wrap and twist the stitches next to the drops. In any case this is a super fast knit and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the skills of Yvonne. Now I just need to make a shawl pin.
The wips are linked to startitis which are linked greatly to the pile of work I have and the knowledge that the semester starts next Tuesday. In the world of spinning I’ve been going slow and sadly have missed a few days. I’m taking a short break from crochet as I gave mum the nice light crochet hook I’ve been using. In knitting, I am picking up Seraphim again and hope to work on Miriam’s River Wrap as well. I’ve frogged the wedding afghan and am attempting alternate patterns and just want to have the bloody thing done. I’ve not spun much this week but it doesn’t mean I’ve not dreamt of it and am happy I only have one wheel and one spindle I want to spin on so I don’t have extreme startitis there.