It has been quite a while since I featured this kind of post, but Bruce and I got to meet a very special family this last week when I brought yarn I had collected to our new Ukrainian friend, Lydia.
Lydia now spends much of her time knitting and crocheting, working with patterns she keeps in her head. These socks are a traditional design found throughout Central Asia, the Mediterranean and Middle East, with a pointed toe and afterthought heel. It is a style I know well from Turkey and Iran, with the name of Jorab (Çorap in Turkish). These, however, are crochet rather than knitted.
Lydia has been making hats, slippers, booties, and mittens that our mutual friend Elena (left) markets at various wool festivals along with her own felted boots (you can see them at Baah Boots). Right now Lydia is working on a sizable commission to knit mittens for a woman’s entire office staff. She was really happy to get different kinds of wool from me that are going to be perfect for that job.
Lydia and her daughter made us a lovely lunch of a vegetable stew and we finished off with an incredible banana/blueberry cake brought by Elena. It was such a memorable visit that ended with hugs all around and a promise of more yarn when Lydia tells me she has room for more.
Meanwhile…
I made great progress on my sweater last week, only to discover that I’d made a serious mistake right in the front that couldn’t be hidden with a few well-placed duplicate stitches. That pile is the rip back of a full week of work. This sweater now sits in the Time Out box for later in the fall.
I’ve picked up work on the Rosetti cardigan by Fiona Ellis. I took a cable design class from Fiona not that long ago…she is an excellent teacher and designer. I’m enjoying working from someone else’s pattern for a change rather than one of my own designs. Summer isn’t a good time (for me) to work on anything too complex — although this is a somewhat challenging pattern, if only because the back is very wide and later gets folded into the pleats.
My garden continues to be a distraction. With the cooler than normal weather and abundance of rain, my deck garden has become a jungle. Each plant seems determined to out-do the others. The orange flowers are edible nasturtiums that actually don’t taste like any I’ve tried before. These are actually a bit hot and spicy. I’m going to have to think about what I can use them for, since I don’t think they will be a good addition to a salad.
The front garden has surprised us with a huge number of money plants (Lunaria Biennis) that produce spring flowers to attract butterflies and bees. I harvested a large number of seeds to put into the wildflower bed I’m planning for next year.
The other standout is a patch of stargazer lilies. I picked these and brought them inside before remembering that these are highly toxic to cats, so whisked them outside to the back deck where I can still look at them from where I sit to knit. Lyla (one of our cats) is very interested in flowers, and likes to get up on the counter after we’re asleep to have a little plant snack, so this could have turned out very poorly.
Neither the lilies nor money plants have bloomed in the 9 years we have been here, so this clearly is an unusual summer.
A New Tool…
Bruce found a new tool for me that is really nice. It is a plexiglass magnifier with a yellow stripe down the middle to highlight the row I’m knitting.
I’ve often used a magnetic chart keeper (mine is from Knit Picks), but the magnet bars sometimes get in the way depending on where I set it down next to me.
I’m also a big fan of highlighter tape to focus on specific rows.
Here I’m using the new magnifier between the magnets on the board, but it has since been modified to add 2 small magnets – one at either end – to use alone with the chart keeper. This new tool replaces both the magnet bars and highlighter tape, PLUS magnifies the line I’m working on. It’s so great to have an engineer around the house!
There’s not much news from here at Lake Wickaboag where the days are quickly getting shorter and I’m already looking forward to the fall. Although the temperatures are cooler than expected, I don’t think that we’ll get away without another blast of hot and humid summer, so no getting out the woolies yet. So until the next time, stay cool and calm and craft on.