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I read a letter from LaLaLand
Needle Notes
If you are doing stripes you can decide to slip a stitch at regular intervals and it looks a bit like stranded work. On the next round, try purling your slipped stitch for a completely different effect. It is fun to play around with color and slipped stitches.
Socks
Music
This show by sponsored by my Longaberger Home Business and Quince & Co.
The folks at Quince & Co believe that businesses can be good citizens—should be good citizens—without making too much a fuss about it. So, they have created a line of thoughtfully conceived yarns spun from American wool or sourced from earth friendly overseas suppliers. Find them at www.quinceandco.com and while you are there, sign up for their free e-newsletter.
I enjoy your feedback, comments on the blog, and questions. Feel free to write to me at Paulaef@aol.com or on Ravelry as PrairiePiper. My business site is longaberger.com/paula
Pipeliner Notes
Carol asked how to distinguish yarn weights. I talk about wraps per inch tool. The best way is to do a gauge swatch.I read a letter from LaLaLand
Nature Notes
Spring Beauty aka Claytonica virginica Closes up at night or on cloudy days.
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| Spring Beauty |
Shepherd’s Purse is the flower/weed of the week. Botanical: Capsella bursa-pastoris
The Flowers
by Robert Louis Stevenson
All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,
And the Lady Hollyhock.
Fairy places, fairy things,
Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
Tiny trees for tiny dames--
These must all be fairy names!
Tiny woods below whose boughs
Shady fairies weave a house;
Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,
Where the braver fairies climb!
Fair are grown-up people's trees,
But the fairest woods are these;
Where, if I were not so tall,
I should live for good and all.
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| My bench in the woods, surrounded by spring beauties and other fairy things. |
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| Clever use of the slipped stitch...and that got me thinking about slipped stitches and how they are unsung heros. |
Shetland wool fingering weight from Schoolhouse Press.
Knit Stitch is like the good well behaved child. Purl is rather like the black sheep of the family, in some circles anyway. The Slip Stitch is like the forgotten wall flower or perhaps the one we wouldn’t miss until it was gone.I talk about some of the ways that the slip stitch, if it can be called a stitch at all, is used in knitting.
Edges, SSK and other decreases, colorwork patterns, texture patterns, slipped stitch heel flap, brioche, and mosaic knitting are some of the occasions when slipped stitches are essential.
Barbara Walker is probably the Queen of Slipped Stitches with her invention of Mosaic Knitting. I believe she is the inventor of it and certainly the mistress of it. One piece is a tea cozy that is done in mosaic and then lined in red wool, a most effective way to keep a pot warm.
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| Faithful mosaic knitting tea cozy and faithful teapot. |
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| It has at i-cord piping along the edge. |
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| Inside lining is also mosaic knitting. |
If you are doing stripes you can decide to slip a stitch at regular intervals and it looks a bit like stranded work. On the next round, try purling your slipped stitch for a completely different effect. It is fun to play around with color and slipped stitches.
The Blethering Room
Story about neglected wildflowers Bastard Toadflax and Hoary Puccoon
In the Pipeline
Watching
Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables
ReadingMaisie Dobbs #3 and #4 Pardonable Lies and Messenger of Truth
Listening
Louise Penny Still Life
KnittingSocks
Cardigan (in the planning stages)
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| Quince & Co Finch in Icelandic colorway. Waiting to become a sweater. |
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| Quince & Co Tern in Boothbay Blue, a potential sweater for me. |
Music
Lydia McCauley
Hawthorn from Quieting
