Tag Archives: plant fibers

WIP Thursday?

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Thursday, January 15, 2026

It’s foggy today! You can just see the ice fishing shack that was left out on the ice yesterday. I doubt there are any fishermen out today. The ice in front of our house, at the shoreline, is scary today and I imagine there are other spots, too. But yesterday there were cars and pickup trucks on the ice. What a difference a day makes.

I may be coming out of this flu thing a little bit. I slept last night about as well as I have for the past two weeks. Only one brief coughing jag at 1:45am that lasted about 15 minutes. I’m counting it as a full night’s sleep. I slept until after 8 this morning. That’s a miracle.

I am going to attempt an hour out of the house today. I had promised to teach a mini-class for new knitters who are taking a Jan Plan class at Colby College with a fiber artist friend as their teacher. I’ll have 16 students, ten of whom don’t knit at all. Thankfully, one of my co-worker friends is coming in to help teach/support because learning to knit in an hour is a lot! This seems like a good opportunity with a limited time frame for me to “do” something after two weeks of inactivity. Thanks to this flu bug.

Meanwhile, I picked up my Jelly Roll blanket yesterday for the first time in ages. It had been enough time that I had to go back to my notes to see how I had done it. But once checked, I knitted along through a sweater class with Carol Feller (a year-long class on sweater construction) and a Maine Charter Schools Commission business meeting. I have decided I love the virtual option for meetings and classes. There’s so much you can learn without ever leaving your chair!

Jelly Roll blanket with Carol Feller teaching class

I also worked on my Ranunculus sweater in the evening. I’m making good progress and enjoying the pattern. It’s a neck down construction which will be nice so I can try it on as I go. The yarn is deep stash that I believe I bought in Mississippi at a shop that we found traveling from Louisiana to Florida over a decade ago. The yarn has been sitting quietly in my stash for years. I think I tried to make it into something once and didn’t like it so I frogged it and put it back in my stash. This Ranunculus seems to be the perfect excuse to pull it back out. The yarn is by Shibui called Heichi and is now discontinued. The color is called lichen and that’s a pretty perfect name for the color. I have never been a “green” person but it’s growing on me.

Ranunculus in Shibui Heichi

Ranunculus starts with a choice of cast ons and I want the neck of my sweater to be narrower so I chose the provisional cast on. It’s an interesting process learning or re-learning cast ons. I find it’s a cast on that I always forget because I don’t use it very often. And this one was a challenge even on 16″ needles because the fiber is not at all stretchy. I finagled it though and it’s moving along nicely. The sweater starts with a yoke that is described as a multi-stranded necklace and I think that’s an apt description. There are several rounds of lace or textured stitches and then a few rounds of stockinette. The stockinette gives you a break from counting stitches and makes a new blank slate for the next “strand”.

There is no swatching for Ranunculus. It’s written for any weight yarn from lace to worsted (mine is a worsted) and knitted on US 10 needles. I’m intrigued to see how the fit works. It’s meant to be a very boxy, full shape which is supposed to make the swatch unnecessary. We shall see. I don’t want to have 10+ inches of ease so I’m knitting the 4th size that should knit up to be 52.75″ around the bust which is over 8 inches of ease. Enough for me. Stay tuned.

My Gansey Afghan has been sitting idle as have my husband’s Christmas socks. While I’ve been feeling under the weather, I have found that I knit for a bit and then just sit and rest so I’m not getting as much done as I might like considering I’m home all day but I have to remember that I am allowed to just rest.

This morning I finally took the time (and had the energy) to water my orchids. They’re amazing to me because despite being quite nearly neglected for the past 2-3 weeks, they’re all doing well and three of them are ready to bloom!

The photo on the left has two plants ready to bloom one in the front and one back by the window. The front one belonged to my husband’s mother before she passed away. When we moved to Maine from Florida, we brought it with us (in flower). It’s been flowering almost constantly since. The one in the back and the one on the right are “new” plants that I bought on sale at our local nursery. They were past blooming when I bought them and this is the first time they’ve bloomed for me. Yay! I two more orchids not shown; one was a gift from my daughter one year for my birthday or mother’s day and it’s leaves are super healthy but it has no blooms happening right now. The other one is one that was given to my daughter by her agent and I am not holding out much hope for it. It is not thriving at all and I am unsure as to why. My neglecting it may have helped it along but I’ve given it a good soak today and we’ll see what happens.

Gone knitting.

The Miracle of Blocking

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Sunday, July 9, 2023

Let’s talk about the miracle of blocking hand knits. There are a bunch of different ways of blocking your knitwear and sometimes, I’ll admit openly, I don’t block things. I seldom block socks, for example. They get all stretched out when I put them on my feet. If I’m gifting socks, I may lay them flat in a nice way and hand “press” them. But some things really benefit from a true process called blocking – steam blocking, wet blocking – often it depends what I’ve knitted that decides how I block it.

The Arne and Carlos Mini Nordic Jumpers that I’ve been chipping away at over the last couple of years are a good example of how blocking changes the look of the stitches. In the first three photos below, you can see that the stitches as I’m knitting them are a bit wonky and not all the same size.

But the last photo, above, shows how they look after a good steam blocking. In this instance I used my steam iron, on the linen setting, and a damp white hand towel to gently steam the stitches. I place the damp towel on top of the little sweater and then gently press with the iron to apply wet and heat which tames the stitches. I always feel so accomplished when the stitches are all the same size and look so orderly.

All of the little items above were made for my granddaughter. I didn’t block these the same way at all. These garments are all cotton or cotton blends and as such need to be handled differently. I hand washed them and then lay them flat to dry. In reality, when her parents wash them, they can be machine washed and dried flat. It’s just easier for me to wash them as I finish … and I may be a little less busy than Kate and Spencer. The lace romper I stretched out a little bit so that the lace and bobbles show off appropriately.

My lace shawl, was wet blocked. Left to soak for 15-20 minutes so that the yarn is soaking wet all the way through. It’s then gently squeezed dry, dried more by stepping on it while it’s wrapped in a cotton bath towel and then stretching it out aggressively and pinned into place. When it’s totally dry, the edges are so stretched that when I unpin them, they don’t bounce back at all. They stay where I put them. It goes from being a mangled mess to a stunning pattern of lacework and the textured stitches are clearly visible. It’s a miracle!

Gone knitting.