Time flies

I have a tendency to collect old boyfriends which is to say that even though for one reason or another we didn't end up as the forever after couple, we're still circling around each others' lives.

Sometimes that's not the best thing. Sometimes it has been down right scary but mostly it is a good thing . One of the benefits is that some of them have this habit of remembering things I've long forgotten.

Last Wednesday's voicemail included one of those great examples. The usual make me laugh motivation to call involves Sand Run park, the stream that crosses the road and a Volvo.

It's the usual because the driver of the Volvo in question still lives in the general area and drives through there from time to time. And yes, all these years later, I still remember and still feel more than a bit smug about the he should have listened to me aspect of the whole thing.

Wednesday's voicemail was a bit farther afield and something I had completely forgotten. In and around Columbus, Ohio, the Ohio Historical Society has a place called the Ohio Village. It's the usual give history a daily life perspective theme thing with volunteers (I think) reenacting.

I always liked the place and since Columbus was not an unusual outing it often made the itinerary. I have a vague memory of trooping around with this old flame. The more vivid memory has to do with family restaurants and feeling decidedly less than corn fed and wholesome, but I digress.

It seems that on one of our visits they were putting together stuff/messages to the future for a time capsule. After a consult, we agreed on a common message that we both wrote and sent forward into some future time. Our well considered message? "We're dead." Yes, I was a smart ass in college too.

I have no idea when that capsule is slated to be opened. At 19 or 20 it seemed forever in the future but then again. so did a Summer.

The stars and pentagons project which was to be a knit block for the fair has been spending quality time in the knitting bag. It even has a few needles and some stitch holders attached. What it hasn't had is my attention because that was all later and could wait.

Later is tomorrow -- oops. I suppose I could shift gear, hope for a stroke of knitting genius and make it happen within the deadline but I think it's unlikely. Another not going to happen plan.

It did occur to me that I'd probably need to combine short rows and increases to make it morph but I haven't been inspired to put needles and yarn to the puzzle.

I have have a number of other pentagon projects that aren't quite on target. The 2xtwine bag's handle straps (now a unistrap) were supposed to come out of a two sided pentagon that would not only join handles to body of bag but also act as change purse, cell phone pocket or some such.

Still like the idea, but the implementation continues to have issues.

My runagogo mileage is 29-30 miles shy of my personal goal of 400 miles for rounds 1 & 2 combined.

My 11 miles on the weekend is a pretty pathetic showing -- at least as pathetic as me losing focus so that I'm once again losing the same weight I lost in February -- pish.

Various and Sundry welcome to Summer

Now that the day job deadline is history there may be a bit more blogging. Writing for a living really does get in the way of writing.

Today several of the women in my work group/team did a lunch thing with our visiting software engineer from India. She, yes, she, is away from home for the 1st time and India to the US is a pretty big step. Luckily or not for her, not only do we have a fairly good number of women in our work group/team but many of us are active in organisations designed to promote women in industry.

Since I've been driving the van while waiting to have the truck's weird noises diagnosed, I cleared out the van's clutter so I could play chauffeur for the group. That worked really well and let everyone relax and chat during the whole outing.

My take with knitting included a heptagon swatch and the 2x twine bag. That bag is very popular and I may need to track down some more of that safety orange hemp twine just in case I need to make a second one for me if my giveaway gene kicks in.

I had to promise to bring the 07-07-07 ring bearer pillow back into work on Monday to show it round to those who hadn't seen it completed.

So this post will be another light on pictures but heavy on knitting with liners, decreases and perhaps even embellishments.

If you're going to knit a liner life's easier if you use a yarn of roughly the same gauge to make your heptagon come seven sided star. For the liner you aren't making the bump outs so the knitting goes faster. Use a knit into front & back for your increase rather than a YO.

Details/line by line instructions are as follows:

Cast on 7 stitches onto a dp.

Row 1: (k f&b, k1) onto a dp. (k f&b, k1)3x.onto a 2nd dp, (k f&b, k1)3x. onto a 3rd dp. 14 stitches on three needles.

Remember, you are knitting a spiral heptagon and the 1st dp has one of the seven sides, the other two dps three sides of the heptagon on each. If it helps you, place markers to delimit the virtual sides of the heptagon on the 2nd and 3rd dp.

Row 2 (1st round) Join do not twist 3rd needle stitches to 1st needle stitches -- (k1, k1b) 7x

Begin increase rounds:

(kf&b, k1)7x (21 stitches -- 3 per side of the heptagon)
(kf&b k2)7x (28 stitches -- 4 per side of the heptagon)
(kf&b, k3)7x (35 stitches -- 5 per side of the heptagon)
(kf&b k4)7x (42 stitches -- 6 per side of the heptagon)
(kf&b, k5)7x (49 stitches -- 7 per side of the heptagon)

Continue as established until you have 147 stitches (21 per side of the heptagon) on the needles.

Work the following steps seven times (once per side) to form a seven pointed star:

k21, turn (do not bother to wrap), p20
k19, turn, p18
k17 turn, p16
k15, turn, p14
k13, turn, p12
k11 turn, p10
k9, turn, p8
k7, turn, p6
k5, turn, p4
k3, turn, p2
k1 turn, p2
k3, turn, p4
k5 turn, p6
k7, turn, p8
k9, turn, p10
k11, turn, p12
k13 turn, p14
k15, turn, p16
k17 turn, p18
k19, turn, p20
k21

Next purl one round to form a turning ridge. Following rounds knit plain, no increase, to desired depth/thickness. This should match your topper. Next purl one round to form 2nd tuning ridge.

For both your knitted liner and your topper, there's another round of short rows to form your star points before the decrease rounds. So repeat the short row instructions above.

Onto decreases. I always say that it is knitter's choice which decrease by one method you use. For the instructions I've used ssk. You decrease every round.

(ssk, k19)7x
(ssk, k18)7x
(ssk, k17)7x
(ssk, k16)7x

Continue as established. Ultimately you're going to end up with 7 stitches on the needles that you will secure by cutting the working yarn and running it through those stitches before securing the whole bit with a looped knot.

Before you get there you will need to deal with your liner.

If you are knitting your liner, you can work down to a relatively small number of stitches on the needles for both topper and liner before putting liner inside the topper and filling the pillow with fibre fill.

When you're happy with the pillow's fill, finish the decrease rounds of the liner before finishing the decrease rounds of the topper.

If you are using some other type of liner, you may well need to stuff the topper sooner and mimic my stupid knitter trick of knitting around a form. Like a total idiot, I finished and filled the knitted liner before inserting it into the topper and doing the topper's decrease rounds.

Truth? My thrift shop Knit-Cro-Sheen liner was almost too pretty to cover. I also decided to make the "right side" of my liner the reverse stocking stitch (aka bumpy) side rather than the smooth for a subtle texture interest.

Father's day at Whistlestop and more 07-07-07

The theory, once again, was that I'd be meeting up with a knitting friend who'd be going to The Whistlestop knitting Sunday for the first time. That theory is still a theory.

Some time back, having actually met a knitter at the Whistlestop that knits with yarns with as fine a gauge as I do, I said I'd bring her some bamboo to play with.

Ever since then it seems that if I remember to bring the bamboo she's not there. If I forget the bamboo I'm rewarded with her good company. At one point I wound off some of the bamboo from a cone and put it in my knitting bag -- that sample of bamboo has gone to ground. My theory is that I should find the yarn, put it in the knitting bag and just maybe if I forget that it is in there we can trick the fates and get bamboo and knitter together.

Said knitter is not only crazy enough to knit with fairly fine gauge yarn but also like me she's nuts enough to tackle the Breast Cancer 3-day. So between knitting chatter, I also offered some advice tips and general support. The walk in San Diego isn't until November but I offered some training walk routes so you may see some walkabout knitting posts with hills and strange sights of San Diego between now and then. I figure that even if we can't walk them together, I can suggest some challenging walks with interesting locations.

I was a bit delayed heading out the door and walking over as I was trying to get a couple of small posters for the Stitch N Pitch event (Sunday 22 July at Petco Park) printed up and in my bag to put up at the bar and/or distribute to knitters to post wherever.

Not a bad turn out, probably a dozen or so and while the 07-07-07 ring bearer pillow was well received, the 2x twine into 5 bag was my knitting star of the day.

07-07-07 Instructions continue from the 13 June blog entry. There are 56 stitches (8 per side) on the needles.

Repeat the following steps seven times to extend each of the seven sides to form the 1st sculptural seven pointed star as follows:

k7, turn (do not bother to wrap), p6
k5, turn, p4
k3, turn, p2
k2, turn, p3
k4, turn, p5
k6 turn, p7
k8

Next round, begin increasing again:

(YO, k8)7x (63 stitches)
(YO, k9)7x (70 stitches)
(YO, k10)7x (77 stitches)
(YO, k11)7x (84 stitches)
(YO, k12)7x (91 stitches)
(YO, k13)7x (98 stitches)

Repeat the following steps seven times to extend each of the seven sides to form the 2nd sculptural seven pointed star as follows:

k13, turn (do not bother to wrap), p12
k11, turn, p10
k9, turn, p8
k7, turn, p6
k5, turn, p4
k3 turn, p2
k1, turn, p1
k2, turn, p3
k4, turn, p5
k6, turn, p7
k8 turn, p9
k10, turn, p11
k12, turn, p13
k14

Next round, begin increasing again:

(YO, k14)7x (105 stitches)
(YO, k15)7x (112 stitches)
(YO, k16)7x (119 stitches)
(YO, k17)7x (126 stitches)
(YO, k18)7x (133 stitches)
(YO, k19)7x (140 stitches)
(YO, k20)7x (147 stitches)

Work the following steps to form the final seven pointed star:

k21, turn (do not bother to wrap), p20
k19, turn, p18
k17 turn, p16
k15, turn, p14
k13, turn, p12
k11 turn, p10
k9, turn, p8
k7, turn, p6
k5, turn, p4
k3, turn, p2
k1 turn, p2
k3, turn, p4
k5 turn, p6
k7, turn, p8
k9, turn, p10
k11, turn, p12
k13 turn, p14
k15, turn, p16
k17 turn, p18
k19, turn, p20
k21

Next purl one round to form a turning ridge.
Following rounds knit plain, no increase, to desired depth/thickness. My prototype is about 1 inch deep.
Next purl one round to form 2nd tuning ridge.

At this point, you'll need to decide how you will be filling the pillow. If you will be sewing or cutting foam (a really good cheat) to form your lining this is the time to create a template/pattern for your liner.

If time is running short, work the pattern out to the turning ridge, omit the straight knitting for depth bind off, embellish and attach the topper to a plain ring bearer pillow. It's still special but it is also done!

Next time we'll talk liners, decrease rounds and embellishments.

With today's 6.58 mules, my Runagogo total mileage is 354 miles from 1 Jan to date. I was hoping to make 400 miles by the 1st but it's looking less and less likely, If we keep the thing going maybe I'll tack an extra 150 miles onto my next round personal goal.

Bloomsday now and then

Today is Bloomsday and my fave Irish associated holiday.

There's a lovely restaurant and bar in Cleveland Heights called Nighttown. It was named for the red light district from James Joyce's Ulysses and it (Nighttown) was and is a great place.

Once upon a time back in my law school liquored lost years of the late 70s/early 80s Bloomsday at Nighttown was not just a Joyce-ian homage but a customer appreciation event.

On the day, the place closed to the public for a bit and it was ticket only admission thing for regulars.

Somewhere in my stuff I've hung onto for no sensible reason, I've an admit one ticket for Bloomsday at Nighttown.

And even with all the rivers of Scotch and washes of wine I consumed in that place, I have wonderful memories of both the place and the date. Scotch, a good wine list, great house salad and oh those ribs, did more to make me a James Joyce fan than a required reading list.

While I've never really been up for a marathon Ulysses reading and kicking my see less of me more often effort back into gear made a pub crawl not a brilliant option, I decided that I'd been too long away from The Field. So walkabout sent me toward the Gaslamp and Guinness.

I rolled in ahead of the Bloomsday bus pub crawl crowd and in time for a pint on Saturday happy hour pricing. I was lucky enough to also arrive during our Lisa's shift and it was really all good. The trek and drink wasn't really on the see less of me more often effort that got a bit derailed (read re-losing pounds) in the last few months but it was worth it.

The down and back route was 7+ miles and even though I did have a bit of jostle and such from the perhaps too regulars and the Bloomsday bus brigade, my conversation with the oh so very charming, funny, interesting and entertaining visiting Ian was just a total delight.

Okay, so I suspect that others overhearing a conversation that touched on, among other things GPS, GIS, geography, programming and meta data might have done an eyes glaze over egg head episode had I not been burning daylight and other commitments I could have continued the conversation long after we parted company.

And just to throw some knitting into the mix, I was working on the decidedly orange (Bloomsday is a secular holiday praise be) 2x twine bag , out back and while at The Field.

07-07-07 The ring bearer pillow

Pattern basics begin as follows.

I used some mystery thread from my guild's stash sale and size 1 US needles for the cover. I used the same size needles for the liner using Knit-Cro-Sheen.

You could also use the DMC Senso I used for the Lilies (there's a white with a bit it sparkle) and Twilley's Goldfingering (again used with the lilies) another option would be Brilla from Filatura di Crosa.

I am a very loose knitter and gauge is not that critical. You do need to use dps to begin and end unless you are a magic loop savant and can translate my instructions into magic loop speak.

Cast on 7 stitches onto a dp.

Row 1: (k f&b, k1) onto a dp. (k f&b, k1)3x.onto a 2nd dp, (k f&b, k1)3x. onto a 3rd dp. 14 stitches on three needles.

You are knitting a spiral heptagon and the 1st dp has one of the seven sides, the other two dps three sides of the heptagon on each. If it helps you, place markers to delimit the virtual sides of the heptagon on the 2nd and 3rd dp.

Row 2 (1st round) Join do not twist 3rd needle stitches to 1st needle stitches -- (k1, k1b) 7x

Begin increase rounds:

(YO, k2)7x (21 stitches -- 3 per side of the heptagon)
(YO, k3)7x (28 stitches -- 4 per side of the heptagon)

Add a bit of lace to the mix:

(YO, k1, YO, ssk, k1) 7x (35 stitches -- 5 per side of the heptagon)
(YO, k5)7x (42 stitches -- 6 per side of the heptagon)
(YO, k4, YO, ssk) 7x (56 stitches -- 8 per side of the heptagon)

Next up some short row bumps to extend and create the stars. Find this in a later posting

I used a length of the Kristha ribbon I'd picked up from the sale bin at The Grove for the bottom of the pillow (the better to secure pillow to little paws).

If I'd done a simpler top I might have also used the same ribbon there but it seemed too wide and fussy so a quick run to JoAnn's turned up a suitable organdy ribbon with just a touch of gold.

I raided my bead stash for some small gold beads to lightly tack down the points on the top of the pillow.

If anyone opts to knit a lining like I did, please be smarter than I was and don't totally finish and stuff the liner before finishing the cover.

A not totally stuffed pillow is easier to work with and you don't need a large hole to push the polyfil through.

Remember, this is closed loop knitting starting and ending with a small number of stitches.

Logos, liners & day job deadlines

My goal of having my decks clear of day job deadline stuff got detoured by one of those dreaded last minute process changes. I'm still not wholly convinced that the effort is needed and even if needed that the timing isn't ill timed and introducing more problems than it will solve.

This sort of decision is one of the reasons why I often think about going back into training, programming or just launching yet another career and leave the joy of tech writing behind. So today was another one of those oh so fun days with "extended" hours.

While that last minute shift of plans meant I didn't meet my personal goal of everything done by Wednesday, I did have my decks clear enough to be available to help the rest of the team get their projects ready for a beta delivery and not have too much stress about getting mine done too.

In a related goal, I was in the finishing stages of the thrift store Knit-Cro-Sheen heptagon/star liner for the 07-07-07 ring bearer pillow project when I went to Knitnite on Wednesday. I did manage to get it done and stuffed (dumb move btw) shortly after so I could finish knitting the original outer layer.

So I'm peppering this post with the in process photos of it. Frankly, it ended up being almost too pretty to cover and if I wasn't in a must have a finished item to show/share for people to use it for their own weddings, I might have reconsidered, dug into fabric stash for that sage green satin and sought a sewn lining solution.

On the logo front, I decided that it made more sense to take a snap of my hoodie than to link to web pages that might or not continue to have the FDWSB CWRU retiring logo displayed. While I was delighted to see that the new logo is one of the ones I liked the most I'm still really fond of FDWSB

Since I'm still trying to be a team player on the local Stitch N Pitch committee, I'm planning to take some mini-posters along to the not-sports-friendly Knit together in Balboa Park tomorrow. I still haven't purchased my ticket even though I will be going, be stuffing goodie bags before and teaching at the event. 22 July, day game against the Phillies, Tony Gwynn weekend, be there aloha.

Russian Grafting a mini lesson

Last night at Knitnite I did a mini lesson on Russian grafting. I love this technique so much that not only have I made it a major part of my knitting tricks but I've also taught it to anyone and everyone who asks ever since I took the class with Galina. BTW, if you get a chance to take a class with Galina just do it.

I haven't taught a group in some time and while I think I did a pretty good job, I did come away with some room for improvement notes to self. Things I did right included bringing extra swatches for me to use and for people who didn't have time to do their homework and having finished examples of how I've used the technique. In the room for improvement column, larger needles for the sample and turn my back to the audience to demo. The turn the back to an audience is pretty alien but helpful when showing a technique to a group.

Begin with two small pieces of knitting similar gauge, same number of stitches, different colours.
Leave the stitches on the needles. Cut your working yarn after leaving a small tail. Ideally your swatches will be on dps or circs but it isn't critical. If you swatches are on single pointed needles have your yarn tail at the non-working end of the needle. For my example, I just used some swatches I had at hand with 16 stitches on each needle. Position your swatches facing each other. You should have a tail of yarn to either the far right or far left.

I promised the group that I'd do a write up of the technique for future reference so I'm sharing the wealth beyond the guild.

Once the set up stitches are complete the technique is pretty intuitive and easy to follow.

Since you only do the set up once that's the part that's easy to forget.

Begin the set up by transferring the 1st stitch on the left needle (the 1st white stitch in the example) to the right needle.


Next, insert the left needle into the 2nd stitch on the right needle (the 1st red stitch in the example) as if you were binding/casting off and draw it up and over the 1st (white) stitch on the right needle.


Drop the red stitch off the right needle.

Transfer the 1st stitch on the right needle (the white stitch in the example) back to the left needle.

When you finish the next step of the set up you will not be transferring stitches from needle to needle again because once you have manipulated the stitches as directed in the technique the stitches will be exactly where they need to be to perform the next step of the technique.


Insert the tip of the right needle into the 1st stitch on the left needle (as if to purl) and into the 2nd stitch on the left needle as if to knit.

Draw the 2nd stitch through the 1st stitch. Drop the 1st stitch off the left needle. This ends the set up.

This is also the only time when you will be manipulating two stitches of the same colour.

The 2nd stitch on the left needle is now the 1st (and only white stitch) stitch on the right needle.

Insert the tip of the left needle into the first stitch on the right needle (the white stitch) as if to purl and into the 2nd stitch (the red stitch) as if to knit.


Draw the 2nd (red) stitch through the 1st stitch and drop the 1st (white) stitch off the right needle.

The 2nd (red) stitch on the right needle is now the 1st (and only red) stitch on the left needle.

Insert the tip of the right needle into the first stitch on the right needle (the red stitch) as if to purl and into the 2nd stitch (the white stitch) as if to knit.

Draw the 2nd (white) stitch through the 1st stitch and drop the 1st (red) stitch off the left needle.

These four steps comprise the technique. You will alternate left to right until all stitches are consumed.


Because the red and white swatches are just sort random, you can clearly see the zippered seam created with the technique.

If, after the set up, you work two stitches of the same colour you will end up with a vertical button hole which is quick sanity check to tell you that you've done something wrong.

When you are grafting garter stitch to garter stitch the zippered seam will disappear into the garter stitch ridges on the right side and only be visible on the wrong side. The photos below of my original swatches from Galina's class are a perfect example of how invisible the join is when working in garter,


The reason for making sure you have at least one tail of yarn available at either the far left or far right comes in at the end of the technique.

Because the technique is basically binding/casting off using the live stitches and no working yarn, you will need some working yarn or other stitches to secure your last live stitch.

You work your last two stitches just as they present and when you have one stitch remaining, draw the available tail of yarn through the last stitch and draw it up to secure the stitch.

Cables, dye lots and more on a Rock n Roll marathon weekend

Rock n Roll marathon woke me up around 6am but I managed to block the noise and catch a few more hours of sleep before facing the day.

On the Casual Cables front, I found the Berber Cotton cache in the STASH room. In finding it I also uncovered a familiar but not terribly welcome twist to the story -- dye lot issues.

Yup, this one just like the pentagon sleeves project has a dye lot issue.

I have two different dye lots of that particular Berber Cotton and nothing to indicate which I used originally. The remaining centre pull don't have the ball bands hiding at the their core (note to other knitters don't neglect this step -- stuff your ball bands).

I worked the sweater with the yarn doubled so I could resolve the issue by just blending the two dye lots by winding one of each into a single centre pull (courtesy of my trusty GoKo).

Another option is to frog back a bit more to the point where I untwisted my stitches (twisted stitches in cables -- another post for another time) and just go with my instinct about which dye lot was used.

Regardless of the choice I will be making my centre pulls from two hanks combined rather than individual centre pulls. And that's one of the places where my GoKo shines. Unlike a traditional umbrella swift, I can put several different hanks on the swift at the same time. Whether I'm staging them to wind them into individual balls or, in this case combine the only restriction is having hanks of the same size.


I staged the two hanks of dye lot 24 (as opposed to 22) before getting ready to walk over to Whistlestop knitting. I won't really be ready to start the reknitting process until I swatch to figure out what needle size matches up with the original knitting.

On the 07-07-07 front. The heptagon was waiting for a liner solution and today I decided that the solution was going to be a knitted one. Suitably enough a knitted one that combines something old (vintage Knit-Cro-Sheen from a thrift store) with the new mystery yarn.

The metallic Knit-Cro-Sheen is somewhat thinner than the cream coloured thread of the topper so I'll be knitting more rounds to get the right dimension.

The sharp points of the needles are taking their toll on the tip of my left index finger so even though the hemp of the 2xtwine project is rough on the hands, the blunt Addi Turbo tips will be a relief on my finger tips and let them heal up enough to get back to another project pending on sharp needles.

June and logos

This weekend was supposed to be my 25th law school reunion. That's not exactly remarkable and, since I've never been to any of my other reunions (law school or otherwise), perhaps not even worthy of note.

But there are some additional factors that make it worth at least a blog entry.

Perhaps because I didn't go there as an undergrad, or more precisely as an undergrad to any of the blended schools that became the university, I'm not very emotionally connected to the university and its "branding". Other people are and there's been a bit of a controversy over a logo.

A few years back the university spend a bunch of time and bucks to rebrand and come up with a new logo. It probably took me a while to even note the change but I never saw the fat guy carrying a surf board that others saw and objected to.

Not, that is, until an alum event this Spring. Now, of course, I've not been able to look at that logo and not see fat guy with surf board heretofore known as FGWSB.

Byt the time I saw the logo as FGWSB he/that logo was already on death row with the university again spending time and money to make more changes.

After 20-something years in Southern California, the FGWSB holds a certain charm so when the commencement committee of the student bar association of the class of 2007 started selling Case Law hoodies with the FGWSB logo, I had to have one (or two).

MY FGWSB hoodies arrived the other day and I've been wearing them proudly while checking out the alum emails about the final four replacement logos. I took a look, got too busy to cast a vote, and had a bit of hope that the logo adopted would match my personal preference which is totally an aesthetic opinion.

Hoodies and logos aside, the originally scheduled reunion falls not on the anniversary of the graduation (that was May) but on 1 June which has always had a rather special place on my personal calendar.

Had I been inclined to attend for some mad reason it just couldn't have happened with day job deadline hell.

I've been considering a move, or at least another visit back to Ohio, for a bit now and while the reunion would have given me an excuse the calendar wasn't working and most of the people I think I'd want to see at such an event, I've either seen since or would, like me be disinclined to make the journey.

But then stuff happened and I'm inclined to make the journey for other university/law school time line associated reasons and it would be nice if somehow it could all come together.

Looking good for the home team on that front since apparently my 25th reunion is pushed back into October, at least some of the people who wouldn't otherwise even consider attending are thinking about it.