“A number 6 aluminum needle has been known to furnish an excellent emergency shearpin for an outboard motor.”

- Elizabeth Zimmermann

 

Business stuff:

1. Apologies to those who had trouble opening the audio link to last week’s blog. Maybe it needed a number 6 aluminum needle. There is an mp3 download available; here’s how:

you can download the show here: www.ckdu.ca

simply click on ‘program archives’

scroll down and enter the date (March 30, 2010) and time (13.45-.14.30pm)

then download as an mp3 to your desktop.

 

 

Now for the blog:

I’d been wondering for weeks what to do about the border on The Blob (also known as a circular blanket). Dire reports on Ravelry about casting-off trauma – too tight, always, and curled edges, to do with the way a circle works (pi, and all that), and the way casting-off pulls at the stitches. I mulled and mulled, all the while doing Clever Things to maximize the yellow, incorporating it in the purple so as not to look too obviously as though I had not enough yellow, despite the fact that I didn’t have enough yellow… Finally the time came, and I had to decide how to end the damned thing.

Page 74 of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac describes a most bizarre technique, the sideways garter-stitch border. It involves knitting on eight stitches, and going back and forth, knitting two together on alternate rows. There was no picturing it in my mind, and I couldn’t find anyone on YouTube who wanted to show me. I consulted Friend S, who taught me how to knit in the first place, and who has a much more organized mind than I. We both squinted and puckered and wrinkled our noses, until finally we agreed I should simply go ahead and try it.

Guess what?

It works! As promised by EZ, “an elegantly simple but solid border of garter-stitch which will wear excellently, and which will not curl.” AND it gave The Blob an extra two inches (four inches in diameter) I hadn’t expected, but am glad of. Yes!

It’s taking awhile, and I’m only about 1/12 the way there. But I can tell it’s going to be just the thing to transform The Blob into a thing of beauty.

(Update: Finished!! Indeed, a thing of beauty. It’ll be a hard act to follow…)

 

 

 

2. I’ve got a few Harbour View readings coming up next week, information for which can be found here. Please introduce yourselves if you’re able to attend; I’d love to meet you!