Hairy Math

The Large Rectangle in leaf and trellis pattern with trellis border in Victorian Lace Today calls for 1200 yards of fine weight yarn.

Many people have found that they require more yarn than called for in VLT patterns.

I have three skeins of a fine weight Domy Heather, 100 grams, 475 yards each. A total of 1425 yards, 19% more than the requirements from the pattern.

Will I have enough?

You can skip the math and go right to the conclusions if you wish.

The main body is 94 stitches wide. 30 pattern repeats, 16 rows per repeat. Plus 5 set-up rows.

The border has an 18 row pattern repeat. There are 24 repeats on the long sides, 9 repeats on the short sides and 4 repeats at each corner.

The number of stitches in each row of the border varies, from 19 to 24, averaging 21.9 stitches per row. Not including the spit splicing, the ends woven in or the grafting of 20 stitches to finish the shawl:

Total number of stitches in shawl is 77,914

94 x 16 x 30 + 5 x 94 + 18 x 21.9(48 + 18 + 16) = 77,914

My first skein got me exactly 17 pattern repeats (plus 4 initial rows).

17 x 16 x 94 + 94 x 4 = 25,944

Therefore, I have enough yarn for 77,832 stitches.

25,944 x 3 = 77,832


I am 82 stitches short on yarn. But the border is done on smaller needles. I will optimistically knit on.

Getting Thing Done

Don't you just love getting things accomplished? Especially the small niggling things that have been on the To-Do list for ages. Like this stack of Tupperware with cracks that has sat on the pile of crap behind my computer monitor for at least a couple years. Lifetime warranty and all that, I could not find the address to return the items on their website. So I had to sit on hold for 30 minutes waiting for that nice polite young man with the thick Indian accent to provide it to me.

There's still a pile of crap behind my monitor (and next to it as well!) but every little bit helps.

In knitting, also some accomplishments. In the airplane heading east, I finished knitting two socks. All I needed to do afterwards was graft the toes. Anyone with experience carrying a tapestry needle on board? I didn't try. Neither did the two knitters I accosted en route. But you know, tapestry needles aren't sharp or anything. And they are pretty cheap, so losing it at security wouldn't have been the end of the world. Maybe I should acquire a plastic one, but I just don't fly very often. Regardless. They were both second socks, so after the grafting session in the hotel, I had two new pairs to wear. Alas, while Seattle weather has been in the wool sock territory for a month now, DC was still pretty warm.



BFL DK weight, hand-dyed by me. Top-down, garter rib leg and stockingette foot, US2 DPN, 48 stitches wide.



Knit Picks Fingering hand-dyed by me. Monkey Socks from knitting.com. Us2, pattern followed except I did a slip stitch heel flap.

More fun than socks that were too hot to wear, I finished a shawl in time to wear it to my niece's wedding. Zephyr wool silk lace, hand dyed by me. Luna Moth pattern (free on elann.com). US4 needles, who knows what gauge (I knit tightly in general). I did 7 full pattern repeats, plus the extra half a repeat to get the scallops on the end to point in the correct direction (following the pattern instructions). This blocked out to be almost 60 inches wide and 30 inches from top to bottom. It weighs exactly 50 grams, which means about 600 yards.

My blocking tools were limited, just my container of coil-less safety pins and a hotel carpet, so I didn't get the scallops as open and pretty as the ones on the elann site, but it still looked nice and I can always block it again.

high score

Instead of me talking about my trip, reunions, wedding or my numerous FOs, how about I wow you with my vocabulary prowess?

Your Vocabulary Score: A+

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

Only thing is, I found this on someone's blog who had gotten a B+, and the wording said "Don’t fret that you didn’t get every word right, your vocabulary can be easily ameliorated!"

Ameliorated didn't look right to me. Yes it means to make better, but I thought only in a specific way, as in, to improve from dreadful to not-quite-so bad. So either the quiz writer does know more vocabulary than me, or is being snide or is a poser.

sponsored by the letters C and K

pictureless post from the east coast.

I am halfway through my week on the east coast which is bookended by my 30 year high school reunion and my niece's wedding. One of the last minute tasks for the trip was to make sure I had phone numbers for all the folks I needed to contact.

Kathleen: high school friend and organizer of the reunion
Kathy: college roommate and organizer of a lunch gathering with some other college friends
Cathy: the college friend who couldn't attend lunch, so I am meeting her for dinner separately.
Katharine: my sister, with whom I am staying the week

On the airplane I sat near another knitter. She was just returning from a sock knitting class in the San Juans and had the new sock knitting book written by the conference teacher. She let me look at the book , which was written by

Cat (Bordhi, of course) who had personalized and signed it for:
Katherine