This is my foot...

I'm finally finished the socks that jessica "rejected" and am ready to send them off to my friend Joe, for his friend Donna! They came out pretty well, except I suck at finishing the end of toes with that nice Kitchener stitch, so one looks like it has a bite taken out of it! This yarn is the wonderfully soft Louisa Harding Yarns (she has a knitting booklet out called 'A Gathering of Roses'). The pattern is just an ordinary simple sock...



Well, I'd better get these in the mail today!

GoF - Not just a movie!

When I got home from seeing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, my head was swimming with all the knitted garments I saw! The creative center of my brain kept urging "remember these remember these!" so I quickly sketched out the ones that I remembered best and noted all the details of colour and stitch. This is what I did:



The first one was Ginny Weasley's hooded sweater. It was done in grey wool in garter stitch, had a zip-up front, and a hood. The point of the hood, the zipper pull, and each cuffless sleeve had a fat tassel of grey and orange threads. Around the neck, little orange flowers were embroidered in 'lazy daisy' stitch.

The next one I saw was a hat on a girl in the stadium. It was tan yarn (sorry, I didn't have a tan coloured pencil) - fairly fine - and seemed to be in a smooth knit stitch like stockinet. There was no brim, just a very narrow rib around the edge. Randomly around the hat were little bobbles in tan and green.

I also noticed Ron's winter hat with ear flaps. This was a complicated intarsia pattern which I didn't see closely enough to copy. The designs were in black yarn and the hat background was deep blue - like Maxfield Parrish sky blue. The ties that dangled sown from the triangle ear flaps seemed to be just a simple chain.

Ron also features in one of his Mom's goofy knits again: a raglan sleeved pullover. This sweater was done up in what looked like brown/cream "rag wool". The term rag wool doesn’t refer to anything bad, its a kind of yarn where two colours are spun together for a kind of heathery look. This sweater had buttons on the front shoulders where the raglan sleeve seams were - I couldn't tell if the sweater actually opened on these seams. The sweater also had a big felt "R" appliquéd to the front. Very cute!

Cho's house scarf caught my eye also - I loved the midnight blue (it looked black at first on the dark screen) with thin silver stripes! The scarf was a very fine 1 X 1 rib - probably done on small needles with sport yarn.

The other house scarves had this same very fine rib stitch and did you notice that the gold of the Gryffindor scarves was a gold heather this year? It seemed to be gold with a very light black heather. Cedric Diggory's was gold with fine black stripes and Harry's was Burgundy with thin gold stripes - both golds used that heathery wool.

The last sketch I made was a pink sweater that Hermione was wearing under a coat (sorry I didn't have a pink pencil either) - so all I saw was the top part and neck. From the little I saw I tried to imagine what the style was like. It seemed to be a funnel neck raglan sweater in fine yarn - probably sport weight - but it was done in a very interesting and complicated-looking diagonal stitch.

I plan to see the movie a few more times while its still in the theatres and my eyes will be glued to the screen to get more and better tips about all the knitted goods in Goblet of Fire!!

Goblet of Fire day!

As you all know, the fourth Harry Potter movie is out today and we’ll all be attending wearing our school scarves and other identifiers, such as capes, hats, insignias, House-striped socks, sweaters, ties, etc. etc….. If only the Hogwarts feast would magically appear at the theatre! But this film should be feast enough, we’ve waited so long for it… I’m the Hermione type, myself, so of course…Gryffindor…

Now that all that frantic GoF knitting is over, I’ve discovered another obsession ~ Amigurumi. The problem is, that I don’t read Japanese well enough to translate these myself. Luckily, I know someone who does…


birds


dachshund


fat cats!


Mushroom house


Fish (I love Goldfish!)


Sushi…


and Hamtaro!!!!

Now if only they had the little Burnt Loaf and his Muffin friend!

Here in the Northeast we are on that uneasy edge between Fall and Winter. Weeds at the edge of the road are a startling russet, not meekly going down in brown but shouting their defiance to the end – appreciated by the wild birds who hop madly about gathering seeds before they're covered by snow. Some pre-winter bushes wear red wedding-dresses in the midst of this season’s preoccupation with decay.



I’m off into this world now for a few hours…

Scoring Northern Yarn

My friend Lori and I took a drive to the New Hampshire mountains yesterday - a beautiful 72 degree sunny Saturday - just to look at the brilliant leaves and hills, and maybe see a moose. The sad part is that we both forgot to bring cameras, so I can't show you the nature views, which were spectacular. We did see LOTS of hills - Mount Washington covered with snow! The red rock where the Old Man of the Mountain used to be (sad). And red, gold, russet leaves... No moose but a Whole Herd of White Tailed Deer! And.... a local Diner sign shaped like a Big Red Teapot...

We found ourselves in Littleton NH, just before noon, and after grilled portobello mushroom, spinach, and feta sandwiches, wandered the whole length of the main street which was in the midst of a big pre-holiday sale. As we passed the three-storey brick mansion that is the Post Office of this tiny town, my friend told me that when that building was built, the Federal government insisted that it be built to these certain huge proportions and when the town protested that they only needed a small building for their relatively few citizens, they were strongly told that these were regulation proportions for a town of that size. After the huge building was up, the feds discovered that they were insisting on the measurements for Littleton, Massachusetts, not New Hampshire! So now little Littleton NH houses the Post Office, the Court House, and other municipal offices in the biggest building on Main Street. (Just a little local history for you)

Lori was very indulgent about the stores I wanted to visit and of course Pearl's Yarn Shop was the first. I scored a whole flock of Frog Tree Alpaca - 10 balls for $32! I know, I was lucky! This photo darkens the colour somewhat - its the most beautiful mellow coral. I'm not sure what I'm going to make with it yet.



The book is Cool Socks by Lucy Neatby - she was actually at one of the stores autographing copies, as you see:



This next is of some woven labels I found to sew into my knitted things along with the Silver-Apples label.

These say: "hero, honor, be proud, remember, legacy, believe, secrets, inspire, love, je t'aime, embrace, and romance". I thought they'd be cute - like a secret message inside...

A couple of days ago I offered to make a pair of beautiful cashmere socks for a woman I know who has a spiritual calling. She totally rejected them! "I don't wear socks" she said...:( But my friend Joe in California asked if he could have them for a friend of his who is hospitalized with MS, so that is all good now. I'm using the lush Louisa Harding yarns, because his friend loves blues. This is what they look like so far:



I so wish I could work on knitting instead of classes today!!!!