Launch

Hello, people of the internet.  I know absolutely nothing about blogging.  I just knit, and I own a camera, and I need something to keep myself busy and stave off the PPD while I wait out my maternity leave.  Welcome to my recovery.

Currently on my needles:

Ballybeg Homeworker's Gloves to Knit, by Elizabeth Cobbe, from the September/October 2010 issue of Piecework.  They're based on the kind of gloves that would have been knit for sale by women in Ireland, circa 1930, inspired by the play Dancing at Lughnasa, by Brian Friel.

The yarn is Serenity Sock Weight by Premier Yarns.  The color, for some reason, is called Jasper.  I would have called it Halloween.  Both the magazine and the yarn were given to me by my friend Susan at my son's memorial service.  I don't think she intended me to use this particular yarn for this particular pattern, but I needed to knit, and the gauge was right.  It's a nice wool/bamboo/nylon blend.

This was my first time making a picot edge, and I have to say I'm charmed.  Very elegant, very simple.  It's also my first time working with a fingering weight yarn, but it's progressing faster than I thought.  If not for my attention span I might have a few fingers done already, but my mind tends to wander and then it's off to a different pattern.

Such as:

A Bookmark to Crochet, by Julia Baratta, from the same magazine.  For those unable to read the small print in the picture, it's based on an afghan in the children's book Esperanza Rising, by Pam Munoz Ryan.  I'm using Aunt Lydia's Crochet Cotton, color Mexicana, but the only difference seems to be the name; I'm almost positive that it's made by the same company anyway.  I am also using a size 7 hook instead of 9 - I can't speak for the rest of the crocheters in the world, but it's inevitable that to achieve gauge I have to use a hook at least two sizes larger than the pattern calls for.  I don't have the knack of crocheting loosely.

There's a joke in there about not being a loose hooker, but that would be silly.

I haven't read either of the literary works that inspired these projects, because the tiny library in this tiny town doesn't carry them.  I love my husband dearly, and I understand why we had to move here, but I'm not sure he understands the cruelty of taking a bibliophile away from her beloved WELL-STOCKED library.  Alas.

Another trial of living in this town is that the only place to buy yarn is Ben Franklin's.  I'm still new to the world of internet shopping, and the closest yarn shop is forty-five minutes away.  Tune in tomorrow, when I travel an hour to an actual CITY to discover a new yarn shop, and raid a Hobby Lobby or possibly Jo-Ann's Fabrics for Wool-Ease, because two projects are never enough.