Back to knitting

(Lots of blue and pink on the NWS prediction map this morning. This is NO BUENO seeing as I give an exam Friday, and also my last four students present. If campus is closed, I'll either have the students take the exam in their final (there might not be time, though), or reschedule it (ugh) for the following Friday (and be prepared for the "But I already had plans to leave campus!!!!"). For the talks, I will probably ask them to do them after the final exam.)

I pulled out the simple lace scarf (one of several I have going; this is one using "Paton's Lace Sequin"). I'm using something called Turkish stitch, which is knit over an even number of stitches: knit one, *yarn over, slip, knit, pass slipped stitch* to the end, then end with knit 1. So it's a same-pattern-every-row stitch, which is actually kind of unusual for lace. (Most of the traditional lace I know, is "purl on return" - that is, the wrong side rows are purled. Or, in some Shetland lace, knit, so the lace is on a garter-stitch background).

It makes an interesting mesh like pattern. But it takes forever to gain any size on the scarf, because, while Paton's classes this yarn as CYCA "2" (which would be sportweight), it's really more like a light fingering, or it seems to knit up as such. (I suppose it's the "halo" on the yarn - it has a bit of mohair - is why they justify the sportweight rating; if you were knitting it up in stockinette, you would probably get a denser fabric)

The yarn is purple and fluffy and has sequins in it. This pleases me. I like yarns like that. (As I've said before, I think I may be more "stereotypically girly" now than when I was a bit younger. Though that may have been because I felt more of a need to prove myself, and, at least back in grad-school days, I was in more of a "man's world," where looking "girly" might be a drawback. Here, half of my department is women, and also, I figure once you reach Full Professor probably a little girliness won't hurt you.)

I also have the Pocketses vest with me; I give an exam today. So I will knit and invigiliate. I'm working on the left front right now and am less worried about running out of yarn. (I am less than midway through the second of four balls, and the fronts have a deep v-neck on them, so even though they're double-breasted, I think I should have enough.) This is just all stockinette (except for ribbing on the bottom and the armhole bands), but there are increases and decreases and shaping to be attended to. (At least the pattern author wrote out the shaping for both the fronts, and didn't do the ominous, "Work right front as for left, reversing shaping." I can DO that, it's just, it's easier not to have to)

I also saw an interesting little craft idea in the new Country Living - a twist on embroidered handkerchiefs, where you put sayings on them.

One of them said, "Bless your heart" which made me laugh. "Bless your heart," in the South, really has one of two meanings. When most of my friends say it TO someone, they mean something like, "Oh, I'm sorry" or "poor you." But "Bless your heart" can also be used to preface your saying something not entirely nice about a person: "Bless her heart, she just doesn't have any fashion sense" or "Bless his heart, but he doesn't have the smarts God gave a goose." Or, allegedly, some people use it as a version of "Forget you" (but with a stronger word beginning with F in place of the Forget). I've never heard that usage right around here, but then, most of the people I know who use it are church ladies, who would probably only go as far as saying things like, "Bless his heart, but he can't be on time for ANYTHING"

But I like the idea of sayings on handkerchiefs. And I bet there are some literary ones referring to handkerchiefs (In fact, wasn't there something about Bilbo's handkerchief in The Hobbit?) that you could use, if they were short enough.

A quick websearch only turns up a few quotations about handkerchiefs, and they are mostly long. But apparently there's a tradition of using embroidered handkerchiefs with sayings in weddings. I didn't know that, never having been that intimately involved in a wedding. Or the weddings I've been tangentially involved with were less fussy and didn't have so many trappings....I guess most of the wedding handkerchiefs were machine-embroidered; the Country Living idea was to hand-embroider them. Which takes longer but requires no expensive technology - just a skein of floss, a hoop, and a needle. And I admit, I prefer hand embroidery, how it looks and feels. Sometimes I think using a machine to do stuff, even if it's faster, it sucks some of the soul or the human involvement out of it and you're left with something that feels less "real," somehow.