Wednesday, February 25, 2009

a crumby start, now i'm on a roll

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Beginning of Swirl . Not looking...right. There are extra wraps and crosses going on. If you stretched that swatch, you'd see X's between the not-quite-ribs.

A few attempts later, I gave up and worked the almost version , the fisherman's rib, as in Bounce and Fourteen.
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Still not right, now my needle is too small for the stitch in this yarn.
It bugged me that I was unable to get the pattern going as written, I mean, I do not have trouble knitting basic stitches and it's just yo's and K2 togs so what in the name of french buns is the problem?

I kept starting over, so many times the first few yards of the buttery Peruvia wool yarn was felting from the friction and palm sweat. It seems that in this stitch, the YO is more of a yarn forward than a full wrap. The K2tog is a half stitch from the yarn forward with the stitch it crosses. Sounds more complicated than it is.
I had a pep talk from the designer Sarah Chilson (rav link) herself (blog link). (Knitting world trivia: it was Sarah's fabulous dragon scarf that inspired the Red Scarf project for OFA. )
Then! A small success following the Purl Bee directions , ripped out because I didn't want a selvage edge, and some viewings of this demo video put me over the top.
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I got it.
Brioche stitch. Simple. Really! Now I'm jammin'.
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talk about feeling crummy, try having this in your tummy:
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Postcards from an interesting museum we visited in Philly last week. Yup, that is an enormous colon, the real thing. We started out fascinated but after an hour the place really got to me. Even my horror movie loving 15 yo son was put off his feed, for a while. A must if you have a thing about siamese twins, horrifying skin diseases or were wondering where to see the exhumed body of a woman turned to soap. yeek.

9 comments:

Carole Knits said...

Brioche stitch can definitely be tricky. As for the museum - no thanks!!

Anonymous said...

That is going to be one seriously cool neck warmer. Congrats on mastering the Brioche stitch. I've not attempted that one...yet.

Baby Beth said...

I loved the Mutter Museum!!! But yeah, it can get a little.....strange after a bit. hehe

Ellen Bloom said...

Ugh! The same thing happens to me with yo's and K2tog combo stitches. My yo's keep slipping down the needle and all of my so-called lacy holes end up in the wrong places. I'm probably knitting too loosely.

LOVE the color of that yarn. The brioche stitch looks great.
The museum....not so much.

Mary Lou said...

I love brioche, and I think I learned it from EZ's first book. Excellent directions that clear up the YO question. But if you make mistakes I haven't figured out how to fix except for ripping down all the way. Nice neck warmer.

gayle said...

I keep reading the (conflicting) instructions for Brioche st, and deciding I'm not currently patient enough to attack it. It's on my list of mountains to climb, but not today...
The museum sounds intriguing. Odd, but intriguing.

Archiknist said...

I went to a museum in Petersburg, Russia, where it turned out (when someone fainted) the docents in one room had smelling salts--the objects, plus the not-so-great air circulation and overactive heat were NOT a good combination.

Mary Alice said...

Ah the Mutter Museum. It is a strange place housed at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Philadelphia. I went to a lovely reception there once, stayed out of the exhibit halls and loved the garden. It is not for the faint of heart.

Cristina said...

You came to Philly and spent time with a giant colon instead of with me? I'm feel degradatated (cf. Kirsten Dunst as Amy in Little Women). You didn't go whole hog, so to speak, and eat scrapple, did you?

The photos of your parents are wonderful!