A View from Sierra County

Small town life and politics, lots of knitting, and travels with and without my five burros

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Location: In the Sierra Nevadas, United States

I blog about rural living and social issues, and the creativity that comes from knitting, as well as post random pictures of the Sierras and my burros. "In order to be an artist, one must be deeply rooted in the society" - Simone de Beauvoir


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Sunday, April 16, 2006

300th Post Contest

Happy Easter to everyone! This is also a significant personal milestone for me, as this post marks my 300th blog entry. Blogging has brought me lots of personal fulfillment, strengthened my writing skills, and given me wonderful, new friends I never would have known otherwise. I was so heartened by the response to my Friday post; it is an excellent example of how blogging allows us to connect with each other across the miles and trials of our lives. Check below for details about my 300th post contest.

First, a bit of knitting news:

As you can tell from the button over on my sidebar, I have been participating in the Mountain Lace KAL. While Mountain Peaks has been a challenge, and is currently languishing, here's the latest on Mountain Stream:


Mountain Stream only needs a top border!


Here is a close-up of the unblocked scarf; I love this pattern and will probably make it again in a different yarn, once I figure out why I can't get the top border chart right.

I have put out a call for help to my fellow KALers and to designer Susan, but HAD to keep knitting something:


These are two samples I made last night to check for gauge before starting my ruana. This pattern is in Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawls book, and is a great exercise in color creativity.

Cheryl gives a very precise formula to obtain the correct number of stitches based on the length you want and the gauge you get out of these trial samples (which is good, since I am shorter than average and needed to modify the pattern so it wouldn't drag on the ground). From there, you are pretty much on your own color-blending, which I absolutely love.

I am a fan of stripes in plain knitting. Over the years, I have made a feather and fan afghan, a circular calf-length skirt, a vest, and my felted traveling bag, all in stripe variations derived as I knit, pulling from a bag full of yarn selected to meet a specific color scheme. The results are always delightful and the knitting entertaining, as I can't wait to see what will happen next.

The piece is made all at once, a 45' by 70" rectangle in the end, with waste yarn used midway along to be opened back up into the neck/front edge while finishing, so there is a LOT of plain knitting ahead. The fringe technique employed has you cutting a specific amount each time you change colors, and that avoids tying on a lot of fringe at the end, but also will relegate this project to a knitting-chair one, with quilt ruler balanced on one of the wooden arms, ready to measure each fringe, which is then tied to the previous one. I finished my calculations last night, and decided that I preferred a varying, somewhat random row sequence of 1-3-5-3-1-1-, etc., rather than a three-row sequence or something more precise. The colors blend better together that way, and keep with the tonal, light-purple-as-a-neutral, effect I am going for. I have a great collection of various types and weights to work with and got off to a flying start this morning. This is not a project that will lend itself well to pictures, so I doubt I will be posting much about it... just the same, old rectangle, slowly getting bigger, but I will share the results when they start becoming something noticeable.

If you live in California, you don't need me to tell you that it is STILL raining, and even snowing in lots of the state for Easter Sunday. A few weeks ago, I decided one sure-fire way to get it to stop, and finally become spring, was to order the rainboots I had been admiring in Smith and Hawkin's garden catalog. If I started wearing them, it would stop raining for sure:


I was happy to get to wear these great new boots yesterday and today!

300th Post Contest

I wanted to commemorate my 300th post by holding a contest all week. The prize is this lovely, spring/summer-colored Cotton Fun sock yarn by Lana Grossa. Just send me an email to knitinhiding@hotmail.com sometime before midnight next Sunday (note: modified late tonight to explain this means Sunday April 23rd), and you will be entered to win!


16 Comments:

Blogger Emma said...

Love, love, love the boots! And I entered your contest. How fun, and how generous.

4:44 PM  
Blogger Ruinwen Dagorielle said...

Love the shawl! It really is lovely!

The boots are so adorable! They must be so great to wear!

Happy 300th post!

Ruinwen
:)

5:07 PM  
Blogger Tactless Wonder said...

Yippee contests! You're are so very easy too, no funky questions to answer :).

On the Ruana, have you considered a fibbonacci sequence? (0,1,1,3,5,8...the previous two numbers' sum is the next number (5+8=13)) It throws in a bit of the natural world into your patterning :). Your choice in rows is so close as is, just a thought :).


Happy 300th!

5:37 PM  
Blogger Jenn said...

I love your Mountain Stream, and your boots.... I LOVE THEM.

The Easter Bunny had to put his chains on this year....no was he was geting here without them.

This weather is crazy!

Happy 300th post!

11:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hehe, I would HOPE for rain just to get to wear those boots! Your Mountain Stream is looking really nice. I'm sure Susan will help you figure out the top!

5:22 AM  
Blogger Laura said...

Those boots are the best!! I love S&H and was just thinking to myself that I need to check out their catalog for some garden shears.

6:24 AM  
Blogger Jennifer said...

I love the boots! It's supposed to stop raining (finally!) so I'm not sure how much you're going to be able to wear them.

7:59 AM  
Blogger Nana Sadie said...

Those boots are a HOWL!!! I love them...Isn't it wonderful to reach a "certain age" and feel such things are the PURRFECT statement to make? (The Meezer agrees) And I do hope I "embarrass my child(ren)." So excited that you've started your ruana...how much shorter did you decide to make it? Did you shorten the fringe? And Mtn Stream is gorgeous!
(((hugs)))

10:34 AM  
Blogger Bear Knits said...

Those boots are made for walking! So cute!

11:45 AM  
Blogger Carol & Christine said...

I feel your shivers. It hailed here in Washington State off and on all day yesterday.

I believe I need some brightly colored boots myself! Love yours!

The lace looks fab!!!!

12:28 PM  
Blogger createwithme said...

Just found your blog through Margene's. Love the boots and the Mountain stream scarf! Nice work!

3:26 PM  
Blogger moiraeknittoo said...

Those boots are *awesome*! Mountain Stream is pretty darn beautiful too. I wandered in from Margene too. :)

3:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I like those boots :). Happy 300th post!

6:06 PM  
Blogger Chris said...

Congrats on 300 posts! And on those spectacular boots - how fun!

6:21 PM  
Blogger Stacie said...

300 Woo Hoo! I looooove them boots, it'll be a shame to get 'em muddy!

6:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Happy 300th post! I love the boots, and if I read correctly, you are making a shawl that is 45 feet by 70 inches. (See, I didn't even skim this time!) That will be some shawl!!

So, I won the HUGE teapot. I bid low and didn't look until it ended, I didn't want to get sucked into a bidding war wherein I end up spending way too much (I know this happens from experience), and nobody bid against me. So, I am spending just a bit more, maybe, than I would have let myself spend if I found it in a store or at a festival. Actually, maybe not. It isn't a bad price for a HUGE teapot that I know I will love everytime I have friends over and need to make a HUGE pot of tea. Let me know when you are in town, we'll brew away!

(BTW-cotton sock yarn isn't my thing, so you can leave me out of the draw.)

7:17 AM  

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