Winemaking in California began more than 240 years ago, when in 1779, Franciscan missionaries & Spanish Father Junípero Serra planted California’s first sustained vineyard at Mission San Diego de Alcalá, then continued on to found eight other California missions, earning … Continue reading
What has been bound together while knitted for the last three weeks,
has suddenly been unfurled!
A little slide-show of cutting the steeks…
Now open, flat, and ready to knit the bands on and make into a three-demensional thing!
If you are curious about the photos, this is what I am doing: 1. Shaggy yarn ends on the wrong-side of knitting are cut off (they are the color changes centered in the middle of the steek in front). 2. With the small brushes (one is plastic sewing machine lint brush, the other a brass eyelash comb) I am experimenting with felting the steek (only the stitches down the middle of the steek) with hot water and agitation before cutting. I have never heard of this but wanted to try it out, rather than my usual crochet reinforcement. 3. I cut front steek, then armholes, and the whole thing opens up flat.
Then, a quick three-needle bind off to join shoulders, and now I am ready to pick up the stitches for the bands, nicely folding in all those (slightly felted) raw edges, which will get an additional trim and whip stitched down into back of work.
Watch this space for a finish very soon!
I see no reason not to post a sneak preview at what I’ve been working very laboriously on, since its first mention back in this post. Something which I have had to do a colossal amount of drawing, of math, of experimentation, ripping out & knitting over. Oh, right, that is called designing….
I am so absorbed in this project that entire days are droning by, so still & quiet, with nothing but the ticking of the clock and Emma’s occasional rustling about, and then of course, very brief strolls in the cold winter outdoors. Papers are strewn everywhere! And I have been sitting in my knitting chair far too much in the last two weeks. Far too much.
None the less, I am very pleased with myself and am certain that any day now it will be all finished and I can celebrate by revealing what this is, my greatest knitting and design accomplishment ever. Until then, I hope you enjoy the mystery!
new year design swatch!
Tumbling into the new year, with ideas ready for action and a new calendar hung on the wall! Earlier in Autumn I began to work on a new colorwork design, but I had to put swatches and yarn out of sight, to quiet that vision while other things were necessary to complete first, and so I worked like an ox all Autumn on all those other things … knitting up to and through the holidays, knitting which demanded all of my time.
But now those things are finished and there is a new open stretch on the calendar, and I am going out into that field for a major knitterly frolick !
Oh the joys of a new calendar!! I hope everybody is enjoying a positive fresh beginning of the new year, as I am ~ xx