A Day at the Fair, Miscellany
At the Lane County Fair, I saw:
A dress suited for Miss Frizzle:
A Whale Made From a Twinkie:
Ferris Wheel:
Twinkle-y Lights:
A Day at the Fair, Animal Edition
At the Lane County Fair I saw:
Alaskan Racing Pigs (these are babies in training):
Stubborn as a Goat (or a little girl in a tutu):
Fancy Lady in a Bonnet:
The goats are from the Goat Gala, or the dressed up goat parade. My family raised dairy goats when I was a child so I have a soft spot in my heart for the horizontal-pupiled creatures.
Using my Powers for Good
It sometimes surprises people but the boarding school I was lucky enough to attend during my final two years of high school was focused on math and science. While I did not love calculus, I generally love numbers and math and puzzles and figuring out how things all fit together. When I'm knitting lace patterns I tend to set up spreadsheets to calculate my progress through the project and my recent project--Clothilde, a Knitting Kninja pattern--was no exception. This came in handy when I was trying to decide if I had enough yarn to add a second repeat of chart two to the edging.
Using my spreadsheet I calculated the number of stitches in the first repeat. Before I began knitting this repeat I weighed my ball of yarn, finding that I had 33 grams left. I knit the repeat and weighed again. 20 grams. The number of stitches in the remaining repeat and the bind off was approximately 135% larger than the first repeat. 135% of 13 grams is 18 grams, so the math told me that I'd have enough yarn to finish the shawl the way I wanted. Because I am cautious, I inserted a lifeline in my knitting and forged ahead. And wouldn't you know it? I ended up with 2 grams left over, a whopping 7 yards of yarn. It's like magic when the math works out like that, only you know, with proof and reasoning to back it up.
Next to an out-of-focus quarter for scale. I don't normally like to cut it so close with my yarn remainders but I love using up all of my yarn. It's so gratifying.
Passage of Time
Nanie loved the hummingbirds. It's been two years now. I still miss her every day.
A Strawberry Handkerchief
One of my big knitting projects this year has been the Desdemona Shawl designed by the super talented Miriam Felton of MimKnits for Wooly Wonka Fiber's Shakespeare in Lace club. The square shawl was inspired by Desdemona's strawberry embroidered handkerchief in Othello. The yarn is a merino/tencel blend which blocks to a soft, drapey, wonderful fabric--although I didn't love knitting with it. The shawl is a gift for my friend Rachel and will be delivered to her at Rhinebeck come October (don't want to trust these 62,000+ stitches to the US Postal Service!)
This shawl is a gift, but it's also number 50 on my 101 in 1001 list. I submitted it for competition in the Lane County Fair (which opened yesterday) and I am super pleased to say that it won a blue ribbon! I am thrilled.
Unfortunately, whomever set up the display for the fair was clearly not a knitter as almost all of the lace knitting was displayed purl side up. So, this is the back side. A small issue in the grand scheme of things since most people won't know the difference. I'm looking forward to seeing the judges' comments when I get this back, to see what I can do to improve my knitting.