I picked up my knitting needles last week for the first time in about a year and have been on a bit of a knitting binge. Scrounged through my wool scraps and made this basket weave tea cosy (pattern here) adorned with a pretty eccentric rose garden (patterns here and here). I am happy with the way it turned out. I like it's slightly mismatched garage-sale chic. It's my first ever. And it really does keep the tea warm.
...Speaking of which, it's time to put the kettle on. Be right back.
Ahh. Much better.
So the tea cosy project got me hooked on the whole knitting thing again.
Maybe it's the fall season.
Even though we've been having our usual San Francisco Bay Area fall heatwave with temps in the high 80's to low 90's (Fahrenheit), the Canadian girl in me (who still can't discuss temperatures below freezing in anything but Celsius) thinks of fall as a time of crisp days and blustery nights, a time to make stew, bake pie, drink tea and knit.
So I scrounged around in my knitting bag some more and discovered I had just enough super bulky left from last year's xmas stocking project to make this cute braided cable headband.
I had about a half to two-thirds of a ball left and got eleven cables out of it, just enough to fit round my rather small head. I used Lion Brand Thick and Quick in Starlight and while you can't tell from the photo, it has a strand of gold going through it that sparkles in the light. Snazzy.
I found the headband pattern on Ravelry, this awesome knitting/social site my sister Jayne turned me onto last summer. Only it took me 'til now to check it out because while our summer is arguably much more of a sweater weather season...Mark Twain apparently said the coldest winter he ever spent was one summer in San Francisco...it wasn't officially Fall with a capital 'F' and lacked the associations described above.
The headband was a snap took to make, took me all of an evening. Which was great, except that meant my needles flew through my last usable wool scrap, leaving me jonesin' to knit more with nothing in my stash. What to do? Well, it's still FALL, so why not find a NEW PROJECT and order NEW WOOL?!
That got me to thinking it might be time to finally make something for my husband. Before you start thinking I'm a terrible wife, I have tried making him things in the past, but they never quite turned out right - sweaters are hard, man, especially when the recipient is 6'4" and long of arm. It takes a lot of knitting, which is actually the pleasant part, but when it doesn't work out and you have face going back again and again, well, best not go there.
So, a scarf, a nice simple scarf. One size fits all, no sewing, can't go wrong - I hope. After a pleasant evening of searching patterns on Ravelry, I found a simple, herringbone pattern, ordered some beautiful looking merino/silk yarn from Jimmy Beans Wool, and now I wait.
And wait.
Since yesterday.
And while I'm waiting I've been browsing around Ravelry, checking out all the nifty stuff you can do there, most of it way over my head. It seems kind of like a Goodreads for yarn crafting types. One of the things that you can do, like most everywhere online, is create a profile and one of things you can put in your profile is a link to your blog. I clicked the 'blogs' button thinking it might take me to a list of blogs, but instead it said:
"You have no blogs."
Which bothered me for some reason, but just for a second.
Then this morning I was about to step into the shower after my run, after re-organizing my knitting needles and figuring out which of my two sets labeled '6' was US6 and not 6mm, a funny thought dawned on me: "If I had a knitting blog, I would call it "The Wool Truth"...BWAHAHAHAAA!"
And then I thought, why not? Why not have a knitting blog called "The Wool Truth?"
But do I really have enough to say about knitting to blog about it?
...so maybe it's not just a knitting blog - maybe it'll be about knitting and other stuff too, like maybe baking, maybe running, maybe tea, maybe life, the universe and everything, all credit to Douglas Adams and whatever powers there be.
Whatever it is, I promise:
To tell the wool truth and nothing but the truth, so help me sheep.
And the wool truth is, I am not a great knitter. I'm not likely to invent any fancy new patterns for ya, or provide much expert instruction. But I am a great muddler and a great liker and a pretty good thing finder, to quote Pippi Longstocking. So I will try to pass along my experiences, my enthusiasms, and share any 'purls of wisdom' I come across.
Oh, and yes, there will be puns.
That's the wool truth.
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