http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/LanamFacio.html Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:43:30 -0400 60 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc278707287.html http://web.me.com/nikandre/lanamfacio/blog/



Happy Halloween! It’s amazing how much more quickly knitting goes when you use worsted yarn than lace weight. This is the first ball of yarn. It calls for around ten or eleven, and I’m leaving off the hood, so I’m one tenth of the way through. It’s a glorious fall day today. My father-in-law is visiting, and he and my husband are at a Brown American football game. (They’ll be going to soccer football ones later in the weekend.) The air is crisp and beautiful, and the colors of the leaves all but pop against the blue sky. Starting with the next entry, I’ll be keeping up the version of the blog at http://web.me.com/nikandre/lanamfacio/blog/; the older version will stay up, but won’t be updated. ]]> Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:41:27 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc278389122.html http://web.me.com/nikandre/lanamfacio/blog/



It’s been a long and frustrating day, so this seems to be thematic. I had gotten so excited about the Nutria/Nubia. I was picturing it keeping me all nice and cozy, and worked busily on it as my mom drove us back from Rhinebeck. Then, disaster struck. The right hand needle is pointing to the dropped stitch. I merrily started picking it up, weaving it back up through the garter. I then realized I’d shortrowed. To make a long story short, as Venus said to Aeneas, I ended up ripping out the six inches (full five percent!) I’d knit so happily. This is in timeout, and I’m working on my brown hoodless hoodie. It’s amazing how much more quickly progress becomes visible when one is working in worsted weight. ]]> Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:18:41 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc278128216.html http://web.me.com/nikandre/lanamfacio/blog/







Pattern: Standard toe, with the heel of the Toe-Up Socks with a Difference. Standard stretchy bindoff.
Yarn: Ellen’s Half Pint Farm Merino/Nylon Sock
Needles: Size 1
Size: 16 toe to 64 foot
Amount of Yarn Used: 72 g
Source of Yarn: Booth at Rhinebeck 2008
Modifications: Standard grafting of the two patterns.
Thoughts: I finished them one week too late to wear a year after I’d gotten the yarn, but the knitting was all done in time for Sunday of Rhinebeck 2009.
I like the look of it; I can’t wait to see how it will wear. ]]> Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:50:15 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc277952420.html
The building is the Flavian Amphitheater, aka the Colosseum. It’s amazing; it’s just casually hanging out in Rome, at the end of a street. It does have its own park, but it just amazes me how it’s there, part of the fabric of the city. The sock is one of my normal socks, started on 16 stitches on each needle, going up to a total of 64. I’m using the Anastasia Socks pattern, centered on the top 32 stitches. This was a good trip. ]]> Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:00:19 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc277550099.html http://web.me.com/nikandre/lanamfacio/blog/





On Friday, I was in three different countries (Italy, France, and the U.S.) and three states (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York). I woke up in Florence, Italy and went to sleep (OK, it was technically Saturday when I went to sleep) in Saugerties, NY. There will be extensive pictures. I’m just a little discombobulated now; it was an intense week and my internal clock is a bit off. (Hence my writing this at 5:14 AM while sitting on the bathroom floor of a HoJo’s [I don’t want the light to wake up my mother.) ]]> Sun, 18 Oct 2009 05:14:58 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc276393494.html http://web.me.com/nikandre/lanamfacio/blog/




One good thing always comes out of long meetings, no matter what the discussion is about or how it goes: socks.


I’m a bit over the halfway point of the rib of the second sock. There were three of us knitting at the meeting; one on a baby blanket, one on a sweater, and me on these. Sometimes I think meetings would greatly benefit if everyone were issued knitting at the door. People would certainly be calmer, and there would be more warmth in the world.

(This meeting was a good meeting; there were many more useful things besides the socks that came out of it. Some of the things we talked about just got me in a ruminating mood and made me compare it to less useful meetings where the socks are the only good bits.) ]]> Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:58:13 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc276039851.html

That is the nubia (the 1860s scarf) that I'm making. It will end up being nine feet long if all (for once) goes according to plan. It'll only be 77 stitches wide; the nine hundred some are the yards in the first hank.





I had a long and complicated dream in which I was knitting it and not making any progress.
I'm going to be switching the blog over to new software, which makes me use a new address: http://web.me.com/nikandre/lanamfacio/blog/

I've been double posting over there for a while to make sure the software works. I'll keep both up until the end of October, but then only the new one will be updated. ]]> Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:44:11 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc275878263.html Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:51:03 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc275712670.html Happily, the Wedding Embroidery is coming along well. I finished their first names:

(Because his first name is longer than hers, his last letter is below the center mark. Her names are more balanced in length, so her middle initial went in the top half.) ]]> Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:51:09 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc275183224.html A lot of the trail was built by the CCC, but, at the top of the mountains, there were inscriptions all over from the 1920s (1924 was a popular year) and going back as far as 1858.
There were a lot of small children and one purse dog climbing it, which did tend to make us feel rather less rugged about the hike.
After the hike, we went to King Arthur, where we got flours, chocolate chips, bread dough improver, little cake pans, bagel toppings, and lots of free samples.
All during our jaunt around New England, I worked on the Orange Aran. I actually got a good chunk done; I made my way to the armhole shaping and beyond, starting another ball of yarn. The sweater won’t be finished by Rhinebeck, but the front might be.

]]> Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:47:04 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc274929753.html

I finished up the date and am now working on my sister-in-law's name.

I feel as if the end is in sight!]]> Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:22:32 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc274848368.html Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:46:08 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc274411474.html
]]> Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:24:33 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc274039233.html Smith's Castle, one of the early European settlements in RI. The grounds are beautiful; it overlooks a bit of harbor and has some lovely gardens. They also had two nice samplers on display, one from the 1760s and one from the 1820s.

I'd love to become a docent at a historic site someday; it strikes me as possibly one of the best things in the world to get to dress up in historic clothes and teach people cool stuff about history. It's too bad that the Romans never made it too New England.

I worked on the sock there and back, as well as while we were walking around the house:
]]> Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:00:32 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc273854514.html


I'm now working on the date, and I'm hoping to do a character or so a day for a while. This should be easier than the borders;progress will be much clearer for me. ]]> Sat, 05 Sep 2009 10:41:54 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/nikandre/blog/ilc273544471.html Of course, the curse of lace means that the difference is hard to see. ]]> Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:34:30 -0400