Stitches West

I could not afford not to go to this event, considering I live in the area. I took a class taught by Ginger Luters, called Module Magic: Triangles. I had lots of fun. Note that I had previously made a multidirectional scarf, but I still learned new ways of acheiving a similar effect. And there were also new things I hadn't tried before, so it was all very interesting to me. I was not very satisfied with another class I took, but I know my classmates did enjoy it so I will not complain. And then there was the marketplace: a mind-blowing amount of fibery goods. I tried my best to restrain myself, but I was weak:



These are all going to be "first projects" for me in different categories. The lace tee kit is the only kit I've ever bought in my life. Then there's the Bamboo yarn, a fiber I've never tried. The skeins are a bit messy but I got them with a 30% discount. There's also some Crystal Palace kid merino which I will use to make a lace shawl. Lace is not new to me, but shawls and mohair are. And finally, silk hankies: I've never spun with real silk before, only soy silk. Not included in this picture are the buttons I got for an old jacket of mine.

So, feeling guilt-ridden after all this splurging, I knitted like crazy to finish the baby blanket, and I almost finished the socks for my friend:



I will soon start one of the new projects. Which one? Hmmmmm..... tough choice. Any suggestions?

A sock and a half

Little by little I'm making progress into the second sock: notice that I've turned the heel. I'm getting distracted because I got the yellow yarn I needed to finish the baby blanket:



Sigh. I will still have lots of horrible yellow bouclé when I'm done. Another thing that came in the mail recently was a CD from Pilar.

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She didn't want it anymore so I agreed to exchange it for a book I didn't want anymore. Now, I love Spanish sonnets and I thought that turning them into songs (having tried that myself) was a huge challenge. Mariñas (whom I'd never heard of before) does manage to spoil two of the sonnets by Gala with too much noise, but he did a beautiful job with the rest.

One sock

I finished the first sock with tubular bindoff, and I have both ends woven in. I already casted for the second one. Sandra wanted to know if these socks were for the spouse, but they aren't. They're for a friend who kindly watered my plants while we were away and also picked us up at the airport. She chose the yarn herself.


I'm looking into buying a knitting machine. While on my search, I found this link which I think is awfully funny: a lego icord machine. I found another video of the same machine in in you tube, in case the first link takes too long to upload. This lego machine only makes a four stitch icord, but it really knits!

Sock knitting

I had forgotten to show the spoils from my trip to Germany, where sock yarn is cheaper than in the US in spite of the weak dollar:



Notice that the Lia yarn I got in Spain is included in this picture (top left).You might have guessed that I have, by now, begun knitting another pair of socks:



As for the baby blanket you see under that sock, I tried in vain to find the same yarn and tried a substitution. I am not pleased at all with the results, so I ended up ordering the original yarn by mail. I now have to rip a little:

Socks and yarn

I finished the tubular bindoff of the second sock, again following the tubular bindoff tutorial from Jody. I love the results, but I noticed that when doing this on socks, the first two stitches leave an irregular gap on the edge. You can see it on the top of the first sock.



That's becausethe yarn has to go through all stitches twice, but the first two are dropped after going through them only once. Without a second pull, that little hole remains. For the second sock, instead of dropping the first two stitches in the beggining (after going through them once with the yarn), I placed them on the last needle and went through them again after I had gone all the way around. I think it looks better.

Finally the skein of yarn is dry and ready to ship:



I also need to get back to Michaels and get some more of that yellow bouclé. Thanks for the advice, but since this blanket is knitted diagonally, I cannot stop now or change yarns.

Baby Blanket

I have a very dear friend who is very pregnant (28 weeks). I've been meaning to knit her something but I've not been in the mood for knitting baby stuff. Still, she's a very good friend and I do want to knit her something. I thought a baby blanket would bee fast enough and would also let me get rid of that boucle acrylic from last year's baby cardigan.



Well, it seems that I'm running out of yarn and that I will need another skein. Which means I will later have to find some use for the extra boucle, since I will definitely not want it in my stash. This is already a small blanket (21 x26 in). If I had known I was going to need another skein I would have made it bigger.

And no, ripping is not an option.


The second sock is still awaiting my bravery. The skein of yarn is still a little moist. I'm hoping to mail it tomorrow.

Bindoff Angst

Now that things are back to normal, I have finished the second sock, but I need to relax and gather strength to do the kitchener bindoff.  What better way of gathering strength than spinning  a little green hank?


This hank will travel to its final home in the Canary Islands once it's washed, blocked and dried, along with Anne Modesitt's "Confessions of a Knitting Heretic" (which I never took the time to return). In exchange, I will get a CD with Antonio Gala's Spanish sonnets sung by a guy I'd never heard of. Putting music to a Spanish sonnet is quite a challenge, I can't wait to hear it.

Summary of my trip

I am very grateful tho those of you who sent me such supportive messages regarding my grandfather's death.

I'd like now to comment that, in order to visit my family, I keep going back to the same cities over and over: Frankfurt and Madrid. Do I ever get tired of those two cities? Nope! There's always something new going on. I don't feel like writing extensively about all that I did, but here's a brief table with pictures included:

	This whas a temporary exhibit in the Palmengartenin Frankfurt.
	Another temporary exhibit: Picasso and the Theathre in the Schirn Museum in Frankfurt.
	This is the Crystal Palace located in the Retiro Gardens in Madrid. This park is not far from where my in-laws live and I always return for a walk. It is a very peaceful place.
	Another temporary exhibit with more than 130 works by M.C. Escher, in the Centro de Arte Canal in Madrid. A very complete exhibit and entertaining visit. I can't believe they don't have a website. I'm linking instead to an article in the press.
	These looms belong to the Real Fábrica de Tapices, which more or less translates as the Royal Tapestry Factory. This is a wonderful place to visit, especially if you're in love with handmade textiles.
	This is the St. Paul Church in Frankfurt, which was the seat of the first German Parliament. It was almost destroyed during the war. I'd been there before but my husband hadn't.
	A temporary exhibit called "The Painter's Garden" in the Städel Museum, Frankfurt.

There is, of course, so much more that we did that is not included in this table. For example, we visited my sister in law who now lives near Benidorm (she used to live in Guatemala). Also, we spent a lot of time playing with our niece and nephew, and that included sliding down a snowy slope in the Taunus near Frankfurt.

My grandfather

He had a hard life. His parents migrated to the US when he was a very young child. His mother died in Brooklyn when he was nine years old. His father brought him back to  Mexico, only to die a few years later. By the age of thirteen, my grandfather was an orphan with no one to take care of him. Out of pity, a local bishop in the state of Veracruz took him in and tried to give him an education. The Cristero revolution made him flee to Mexico City, where he strived to make a living, mostly as a salesman. He seldom spoke about his past, or about anything else. In spite of his detachment, he was a kind man. He passed away this Saturday, while I was still in Germany.



He will be missed.

Meeting new people

I'm knitless in Madrid, which is normal because I'd rather not bring my knitting whenever I'm traveling. Nevertheless, I went yesterday to a knitting group that gets together in Madrid once a month. I hadn't bothered to check if they were going to meet while I was here, but I had a sudden inspiration and checked their website yesterday, only to discover that they were meeting that same evening. I didn't know any of the members of this group. I had exchanged comments and messages with Urraca in the past, but I knew she didn't live in Madrid anymore. I hesitated, but decided I had nothing to lose and nothing else to do, so there I went. There were about eleven people, all of them very kind and cheerful. Sadly, I cannot remember all their names, but I befriended Marida, Cannela and Alex, who were sitting near me. Thanks to their projects, identifying their blogs was not that hard. I also met Lía, who is setting up her internet business with a very soft alpaca and merino mix. Go check her website, her colors are lovely. I could't resist the softness of the yarn and bought two skeins in different shades of blue. I pulled the pictures from her website because we still don't have a camera.

              

Once more, I could confirm that my knitting method is very unusual, whether here or in the US. I made a small demonstration with Marida's scarf and a swatch from Cannela. Both agreed that it's a fast way to knit but it takes more than one evening to get the hang of it. This was a very positive experience. It's wonderful when you can talk about your hobby in your own language and I'm very glad I went.