nonaKnits

Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit is at the bottom -- way, way, down at the end  -- of my game list.  I'd much prefer a rousing game of Cribbage, Sequence, or Rummy-Cube.  My dislike for this classic American favorite stems from the inevitable moment when the reader of your question sighs, rolls his eyes, and exclaims how unfair it is that you get all the easy questions.  At which point he reads a question for which you have no earthly idea what the answer might be.  I suppose a twinge of public humiliation is good for controlling one's ego, but it sure ain't fun. 

Perhaps Trivial Pursuit would be more enjoyable to me, nona, if one of the Popular Culture categories was changed to Knitting.  Then I could be the one to roll my eyes and declare, "Too Easy!", when reading questions such as: 

Question:  What happens when the yarn-overs in a lace pattern are not immediately next to their paired decrease?

Answer:  Click Here

As fate would have it, I was just thinking about undulating, rippling lace fabric while stewing over Veronik Avery's Woolen Gloves pattern.  I love these gloves, but want to modify the pattern so I can knit the gloves from the top down -- fingers to cuff.  The long lace cuff, however, features just such an undulating lace fabric and I'm afraid knitting it in the opposite direction would ruin the effect.  What's a girl to do?  I-cord fingers on one hand -- pun intended -- and proper looking lace on the other.  Since my Grafting Epiphany eliminated all fears of grafting, I'm planning to work the gloves in both directions and graft the halves together at the wrist.  Who knows if my approach will work, but the attempt will certainly be more fun then a snoring game of Trivial Pursuit.

Working up from the cuff and down from the fingers.
Here's to meeting in the middle!

Under Gloves & Over Mitts

It was love at first sight.  The perfect mix of color, lace, fingers, and thumbs -- practical and versatile, yet fun loving.  Have you seen Veronik Avery's Woolen Gloves and Latvian Fingerless Mitts from her new book, Knitting Classic Style?  This dynamic duo has been designed to be worn separately or in combination -- mitts over, gloves under.  Come on, my friends, this is too cool to be resisted.  I've ordered the yarn, knit the gauge swatch, and am poised to cast on.  For those on Ravelry, I'm using these projects as my first foray into the mix -- check them out here.

I've found through experience that I'm one of those knitter's whose gauge differs when knitting in the round verses knitting back and forth.  It's most certainly related to my tendency to row-out and to purl purls slightly bigger than I knit knits.  One advantage of my self awareness is that I now know to knit my gauge swatch in the round for in-the-round projects.  The gloves and mitts each call for a slightly different gauge even though they use the same yarn.  In an attempt to front load my swatching, I knit this swatch for both project using three different needle sizes -- US2, US1, and US3.

Swatching in the round on US2, then US1, then US3.