Knitting With Granny LJ

Good morning:

I had a phone call from my son, Ian, from Nashville, this morning.  He has made an offer on a house in Nashville.  His first ever, very  own house.  He was pretty excited about it.  In fact, it is hard  sometimes  to think of him as an adult.  I have called him “my kid”  since he drew his first breath. 

In fact, one of the early knitting projects I did after the sweater from Seventeen magazine, was  a little sweater for him when he was a year old.  The body was a sea green with a white yoke.  The sleeves were also the sea green and had white cuffs.  He looked so wonderful in that sweater as he explored his world as only a 1-year-old child can do. 

After I started knitting the caps, I  made two for him.  They were just simple rolled brim caps made from some dark, almost black, Galway, 100% wool.  Recently, I asked him about the caps, and he assured me that neither of them fit ( too small) so he gave them away.   Now that I have the guy-size figured out a  bit better, I’ll rummage the stash this morning and get going on a cap for him. 

I think I am on the downside of this cold and casting on a guy-cap for him might be something I can do without having to take out assorted  errors, which is how I spent yesterday –  working on something, making a mistake and taking it out or tinking it out.  Finally, I just said that I would just do take-outs, because that is something that it hard to ruin.  So I got the pink EB taken out, and I will be starting on a Noro cap that I thought would be ready for Christmas, but the yarn frayed at the very top of the top-off and so it all has to come out and be redone.  And then there is the red and white one that is so ugly that I don’t even want to look at it as I take it out.

Well, aside from the cold, which lingers,  and my son who is beginning a great adventure, and all the things I need to take out, I really don’t have much to natter about.

I  will go  rummage the stash and see what I can find for a yarn for a cap for my son.  Then do the takeouts.

I hope you all have a great Chistmas and that the new year will be a great one for you all. 

Keep knitting,

Granny LJ

Good morning. 

Sorry about the bit of break in the notes on this site.  But my neighbor, Karen, got a very  bad cold from a customer at Shorebirds and then she shared it with me.  It is a real humdinger and I will be glad when it is finished its tour of duty in assorted parts of my head and chest. 

I was able to get out for the market on Saturday.  Thought we would have a lot of people in, since it was the last show before Christmas and we had hoped to  have a few Christmas shoppers.  But we had about half the number of people coming in to shop than we have had Saturdays prior to this one.  I heard rumbles when I was grocery shopping yesterday that a lot of people were making a quick run to the Valley to get last minute shopping done. 

So it was a quiet day at the market.  I started a new cap from some Noro yarn that I found when I rummaged the stash.  It was slow enough that I got the base and the increases done and so got it to the point where it is knitting around and around and around.  I love circular needles.  All those years ago, when I did the caps for the Women’s Crisis service, I was working on straights.  I never could figure out how to do that back seam without having it show like something from Ringling Brothers circus. 

The only place where the seam shows, when I use the circulars, is on the base but that is such a modest display that I hardly even know that  it is there.  It really does feel good to get a problem figured out that makes the cap better made.  When I started doing the caps on circular needles there was a little  blip in the base that I asked my mentor, Dodie, about.  She showed me how to move a stitch from the right hand needle to the left and then knit the two stitches together.   No more little dip in that first row.  Even now, when I run into a problem, I contact Dodie to get me back on the track. 

Well, that is about all from here for today.  It is very difficult to  be creative and energetic when there is so much problem breathing and dealing with the coughing.  Next time Karen gets a cold, I am going to tell her to share it with someone else. 

Good knitting and merry Christmas.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

Well, we are having our day or two of winter right now.  I will bet that the people who walked past all my caps, at the market, are, right now, wishing for one of them. 

We don’t really get winter here on the coast.  We get rain, usually.  But a cold front wandered in and now we have cold and ice on everything.  There is even snow up the Alsea River at Tidewater.  Mostly a winter here is rain, and rain and then some more rain.  Last winter,  by this time,  we had had a major storm blow through with the  necesssary  power outages and leaky roofs. 

While the weather was working up to this cold, yesterday, I sat and knit.   I worked some on the new, pink EB, but mis-knit on one row and did not find it until I was about 4 rows further along.  So I had to tink those rows and find the error and correct it.  I don’t mind tinking on a cap because the caps are done on circular needles.  But tinking on straights is a real challenge.  It’s that business of trying to figure out which side to tink on.  I finally figured it out and tinked those 4 rows and then did a knit row to see if I had really gotten to the mis-knit place.   I had.  Then I put the EB down on my works-in-progress table, and went to work on the cap from Saturday.

That project is going along well.  I thought I would not have enough of the red  background  yarn to do the whole cap.  I am almost done with the fuzzy yarn  skein,  and it looks like I won’t have to figure out how to get it topped in another color yarn.  I think it is going to be a very striking looking cap and,  so far,  am pleased with it. 

I really miss having another knitter close at hand.   When I first started on the caps, if  I struck problem, I could  take the work to my yarn shop and the owner of the shop would look over what I was doing, figure out what I needed to do and then I would do it.  Sort of like a high wire walker has a net down below,  just in case.  Now, when I hit a snag on something, I usually end up tinking or just tearing the whole thing out and starting again. 

What  is tinking, you ask.  Tinking is knitting backward.  Both the skill and the name. And, truthfully,   I am almost as fast at tinking as I am at knitting.  Have had a lot of practice at it.  It is a highly difficult skill and can only be learned with diligent practice because if you tink the purl stitches like  you tink the knit stitches,  the tinked purl stitches get smaller and reknitting that area is not a great deal of fun. But on the whole, tinking can be a time-saver, at least for someone like me who is well-practiced in skill.  Otherwise, the whole project has to be ripped out and started again. 

Well, I am hoping whoever knit this winter weather here on the coast will decide to tink it out and we can have some normal winter weather starting about 5 minutes ago. 

Happy knitting and tinking.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

Yesterday was the next to the last indoor market at the Community Center for this year.  We had 10 vendors.  And about 100 people came through.  There were   lookers and the buyers yesterday. Up to now we have had mainly the lookers. 

There was one woman who was clearly  doing her Christmas shopping.  She had come to the market with the intent to do as much of her Christmas shopping as possible with the 10 vendors who were there, and I think she ended up buying something from each one of us.  Including a cap from me  — for her husband.  I hope he gets as much enjoyment out of it as I had making it and she had buying it. 

Later in the day, a friend of one of the vendors came in and the two spent good deal of time talking.  The vendor brought her friend to my space and showed her a cap that she had tried on and would have to wait to get until the next show.  All three of us agreed that the cap looked wonderful on her.  It was done in an pale orange base yarn with a secondary design made in a thin multicolored yarn in blues, purples, yellows and oranges.   I had done the cap base in a  pattern  but it had a tendency to not show up  very well, for some reason.  So when I topped it, I restarted the multi-colored yarn and worked it  so that it looked like something liquid, multi-colored had dropped on the top of the cap and then ran down. 

I know, I know my description is not all that convincing.  In fact,  I really did not like the cap until that vendor tried it on yesterday. 

At any rate, the vendor tried it on for her friend and then put it back.  They visited a little more and then the friend started making the rounds of the other spaces.  When she got to my space, she bent over the table and asked me if I could get her the cap her friend, the other vendor, had liked so much.  So I took it and put it aside.  Later in the afternoon the friend came back and we ended up having something of tete-a-tete in the hallway, while she  bought the cap for her friend.  What a neat thing to do.

The people who came into the market and were buying were doing Christmas shopping —  and  for this Christmas season, shopping at craft markets or shows seems to be a good way of getting an excellent gift for your special folks.  And at a reasonable price.

I know some folks who have to  buy big expensive, high-end things for Christmas giving.  But I applaud those who give  the gifts  that are homemade/handmade.  A lot of love goes into that work.  And I have to imagine some of that love goes along with my caps, another vendor’s crochet or quilting or jewelry or whatever.

Hope you all have a great Christmas, filled with the love of the season that will last year round. 

 Good knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

Here it is so close to Christmas you can almost smell the mistletoe and pine needles.  We have 2 more Saturdays at the market before it shuts down for the winter.

I have had an allergy  that is trying to turn into a cold.  I picked up one of the to-be-finished caps   yesterday and found that I did not feel like working on it.  Then I picked up another project and went to work on it, and promptly found that I had made a mistake big enough to warrent taking the cap out and starting again on it.  Finally, I grabbed up some yarn and a pair of size 8 straights and started working on an EB. 

This EB is being  knit  according  to a  pattern I got from a generous lady at last week’s Saturday market.  She gave me the pattern and showed me the winter scarf she is knitting using the  pattern.   Her  scarf was beautiful and felt good to the touch and was elastic enough to  really fit the person wearing    it.  You know, sometimes you knit something and find out that the yarn did not prove as soft when it was made up as it did when you saw it and fell in love with it in the shop.  This scarf was yummy to touch and is going to feel wonderfully soft on the neck of her granddaughter.

Well, yesterday, I decided to dig out that 3 x 5 card and start a new EB.  I followed the directions carefully.  And did I get a repeat of the knitting work that she showed me?  Nope.  I kept looking at the card and kept trying to follow it and make the EB look like the way her scarf looked.  Am not sure what is wrong:  the pattern or the my understanding of it.  

I think she left out a step in the instructions when she wrote them down.  I have decided to continue on and knit it the way I did yesterday.  

The   EB   looks good despite my obvious mis-following the instructions.  Will spend the day working on it and see if I can get it finished before Saturday.  Maybe she will come to the market and maybe I can figure out why my EB looks completely different than her scarf. 

Good knitting to you all.  Merry Christmas.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

Christmas always kind of surprises me here on the coast.  In the Valley, everything lights up a day or two after Halloween with Christmas lights and gift wrap and ribbons and all the things to temp you into buying something that someone will enjoy and be glad to receive.

Here on the coast it is a little more subdued.  We have Thanksgiving  before the Christmas lights go up.  And there is, I think,  more of a celebratory mood.  Last week at the market one of the vendors had Christmas swags that she had made and she had folks excited and buying them.

This year, I decided that I would do some ”seasonal” caps for my space at Shorebirds.  To kind of test the market, I did 2 caps that could be regarded as Halloween oriented.  The cap I had done for Thanksgiving, sold in the November show.  I have 2 Christmas caps at Shorebirds. I did not anticipate a winter show opening here in Waldport so I really don’t have seasonal caps for Saturdays. 

But what I  have learned over the years of knitting caps and marketing them is that you cannot predict what will sell and what will not.  Who will buy and who will not.  It is just a matter of who walks in and when and why. 

That is why I decided a long time ago, that I will pretty much make whatever cap that  pleases me and if one of them is something that someone cannot live without, that is good.  I have had caps sit in the sale  bin for a couple of years before the right person comes along and gets it.

I knit for the enjoyment of it and the sales really are seconday.  I started a cap yesterday that is going to be interesting to make.  I am doing it in a rich pale blue wool yarn and a wool and synthetic speciality yarn in blues and whites.  It is going to be a wave cap.    What could be more appropriate for a cap from the coast.    I have figured out a pattern that will, I think, look like waves hitting the shore.  I will  be doing the waves in the blue and white.  I got it cast on yesterday and have about 4 inches done.  And  so far so good. 

Well, that is about all from here for today.  I need to get at the knitting.  The olive green cap?  It is about ready for topping.  The mushroom cap?  Well, hit a snag with that one.  I  have learned that if I hit a snag it is better to put it aside for a while.  So the mushroom cap is sidelined for now. 

Hope you have a good day.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning. 

I was looking at my work area this morning.  On top of the stack of caps to take out is one done in a very vivid yellow-green and yellow.  It is one of those caps I look at and wonder how in the name of knitting could I have picked out that yarn and made it up and then had the nerve to put it out where people could see it. 

I have to admit:  My favorite color is  blue, followed by the close second of lavender.  So I try to get colors that are ones that others would like instead of having a table full of blue and lavender caps.  Well, I really picked wrong on that yellow-green and yellow yarn.  It is loud and crass  and I cannot think of anyone in their right mind wanting to wear it. 

Well this morning I was contemplating that ugly colored yarn and as I took a sip of coffee I looked at my work table and saw the rich olive green cap that I am currently working on.  I was thinking that I could get  another whole cap out of that yarn (which I got at a garage sale this fall ) and an EB as well.  Then I looked back over at the gastly cap in front of me.  I think the colors of the two would go well together.  Amazing. 

And that would mean that I could get a two color pattern and soften the intensity of the yellow-green and yellow with the rich olive green of that other yarn.  I could hardly eat breakfast, I was so excited.  I do have the slight problem of getting a pattern that would work for it.  I wonder if there is something in one of my sock books, or one of  the magazines. 

Some of the yarn companies put together colors that I would never think of combining and they get away with it.

Well,  I just took the two yarns outside to check and cannot be sure.  Will have to think about it a little more I guess and get a second opinion on the two yarns. 

Will keep everyone up to date on the color issue.

Good knitting and good day,  Granny LJ

Good morning.

Went to the market at the Community Center yesterday.  It was a good day, on the whole.  I met some people that I liked, and some who probably will never be my best friend.  Also got a bit of information.

Information:  Regarding the bobble on the top of the tams from Scotland.  I was advised yesterday that the bobble is done in the main color of the clan tartan.  So I am backed down a little from the “bobble on the top of the tam issue.”  It is good to know and it also reinforces my decision to not do the bobbles.  If any one in my family history hales from Scotland it has been so many years ago that, I guess, it does not matter any more.  As a result of this information I have also decided to keep on doing my berams as before.  If someone wants a clan bobble on the top of one, I will make it and give it to them.

We had a lot of customers yesterday at the market.  People are thinking of Christmas and stopping by to see what the market offered in the way of presents.  So I got to talk to a lot of people. It is always an amazement to me what people reveal about themselves at a market like that.

We had a mother and daughter duo come in.  The mother is older but spry and sweet tempered.  The daughter probably has not seen 35 yet, well, maybe 40.  This is about the 4th or 5th time they have stopped at my table, both here at the Community Center and at the shows in Yachats.  The mother loves to look at and try on the caps I make.  While she pauses to look over what I have on my table, her daughter stands beside her and delivers a monologue  that tells her mother that she has too many caps, does not need any more caps. does not wear the caps she has.  You name it.  I have been told that the mother is a bit senile.  I have not seen anything that would make me think she has a problem.  With the exception of her daughter.

Yesterday, the two ladies came to the market.  Mother stopped at my table, as usual, and started looking at the caps.  The daughter started her monologue, which yesterday included that she (the daughter) had not even brought her purse to the market.  The mother tried on a cap made from some lovely Mano yarn in a rich purple and lavender combination. The daughter’s monologue continued the whole time.  By the time, the mother gave up and walked away, I was almost ready to whump the daughter upside the head for being so rude to her mother.  It seems to me that if the daughter did not want her mother looking at and possibly  buying things at markets, she should NOT bring the mother to one, or stay off her mother’s case. 

The next customer who stopped at my space, grabbed up a blue and white cap I  had made from hand-spun yarns.  She looked at it and tried it on and took it off and looked at it again.  She said, “I wonder if this would fit my mother.”   We talked about her mother who lives in Lincoln City.  She ended up getting the cap for her mother.  I said, “If she decides she does not want it, bring it back and you can trade it for another one for yourself.”   She smiled and said, “Yes, I”m interested in the cap you are working on.”  She liked the color.  I assured her that I would have it waiting for her if necessary. 

The cap she was referring to is one that is going to be a beram.  It is made from some gorgeous olive green yarn I got at a garage sale.  The yarn is a little thin, but I am doing it on size 5 needles.  I got it cast on and the ribbing and all the increases done yesterday.  It is a little lighter weight than the yarns I normally work in, but I am sure that it will be a good looking beram when I am done. 

Well, that is about all from here for today.  I hope you have good knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

The subject of tams came up recently in a conversation.  Specifically, the little bobble of yarn on the top of a  tam.  The question was:  Is that bobble of yarn really a part of the Scots tam. 

To date, I have been knitting a cap I call a “beram.”  That is a cross  between the words tam and beret.  The basic design is the same.  And, I have not been putting on that bobble of yarn on the top of my work. 

For some reason I have a thing about those cap-top bobbles.  I think that, by and large, they look rather juvenile.  So I have never put one on any of my caps.  I figured that any adult wanting a nice warm, woolen beach cap, would not want the bobble.

Well, when the question came up in conversation the other day, I decided to check into the bobble and prove that the  Scots did not use bobbles on their tams.  But after reading several sites on the internet, I have learned, to my dismay, that a real tam from Scotland DOES have that bobble of yarn on the top of it. 

I checked several sites that are in Scotland and sell tams.  And I checked an information site, as well.  The consensus is that the bobbles are part of  a Scot’s tam. 

This bit of information had me wallowing for a few mintues.  I could just see myself with a room full of yarn bobbles trying to match a yarn bobble to a tam of my own creation. 

And yesterday, I cast on a new cap that is a wonderful heather green and had planned to do it in my beram pattern and, this morning I was mentally trying to figure out how much yarn would be needed to make that darned bobble.

Finally, I remembered that I don’t do tams.  I do berams.  I created them and it is certainly my  decision to make one with or without bobbles.   I voted and the non-bobble beram won. 

It was a bit of a frantic moment or two for a while.  But the berams win and berams do not have a bobble of yarn on the top of them.  Just thought you would all like to know.

Good knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

The weather continues wonderfully sunny and cold here on the beach.  Yesterday,  I walked to downtown (2 miles one way) with the December caps for Shorebirds.  It was rich walk.  The tide was in and the waves were crashing up against the sea wall.  I got to Shorebirds and got the caps traded  — the new ones for the old ones — and then walked on home. 

While I was on the walk home, I got to thinking about all the left over yarn I have stashed in boxes and baskets and assorted plastic bags and  things.  For a long time, I have had an idea to take that left over yarn and made ear brassiers (EBs).  That is the long straight thing that is fastened together in back to keep the ears warm and the top of the head exposed to the weather.

I have  thought the EBs would be a good way to use up the left-over yarns and give me a lower end item to take to shows and markets.  About a year ago, I did one on circular needles.  It turned out great for a person with a head shaped like a cone.  So the EBs went on the back burner for a while longer. 

The other day as I was doing finish work on the caps in  the basket, I had one of those “Well, No Duh!”  moments.  It occurred to me to do an EB on straight needles. 

So after my walk to town and back, I cast  22 stitches onto a pair of straight, double point, size 8, needles.   I thought the 8’s would be big enough to keep the finished product  tight enough to protect the ears  from  the wind and yet the stitches would be big enough to keep the project from being too time consuming. 

I got the EB done about dinner time.  I knit a simple K2, P2 rib stitch, and worked the ends together with a crochet hook.  I  had measured a head and thought that 25 inches would be about right for the length,  but I discovered that 23 inches was much better.  There is enough stretch in the yarn that 25 inches would have been too long.

Hooking the ends together was a bit problematic.  The stitches stretched as I was working the ends together and that back seam looks pretty lumpy and ugly.  It fits though.   And I wore it this morning, after I got up, for a while and it does keep the ears warm. 

But it has fallen into that category of “Not right.”  I have not figured out why it is “Not right.”  Certainly the seam is an ugly problem.  And the size is a bit long. And the stitches are lumpy   because I have not worked on straight needles in years.

I know that there are folks out there who are asking, “Why didn’t you get and follow a pattern?”  And if my Aunt Marie were still alive, I know  her voice would be hitting that C above C note, saying, “Why don’t you follow a pattern?”   I guess I have no good answer except that I do enjoy the exploration and trying to make that picture in my mind a reality in yarn. 

Now that I think about it, I have some good sized crochet hooks.  I have not crocheted since my son was starting grade school.   But I think I can remember enough crocheting to make a test EB.  Better get started. 

Have a great day.  And good knitting.  Granny LJ