Knitter, Will Cronk, emailed the following after he bought a copy of my new pattern book, …and a time to knit stockings on CD:

I just received your book and it says to open your browser, which for me is internet explorer. I opened it and then the directions say to click on file. Well, Windows XP Pro udated version of the browser doesn’t have a “File” in any of the drop downs. I am not sure if you are able to do this anymore.

I replied with several suggestions and he wrote back with this successful resolution to the browser challenge:

Just in case others write to you about the same problem, in Internet Explorer XP Pro that has the latest updates, you can click on tools at the right side of the screen and select menu bar. That is where File – Edit – View – Favorites – Tools – Help is listed on the menu bar. Click File and then Open and select file, “a time to knit”.

I wanted to share this in case someone else has encountered the same technical challenge.

Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.
[Oliver Wendell Holmes]

Patricia sat across the table from me at the Dayton Knitting Guild retreat last week. As we worked on our knitted quilt blocks she said, “I saw a scarf that I’d like to knit. Do you think you could work it into a pattern?” She described it to me adding that she liked the fact that she could wear it to keep her shoulders warm. This image fits her description. The pointed part hangs down the back.

Over the past week, I’ve been working out a pattern for her and decided I’d share it with everyone as it was a work in progress. I’m using a light DK/heavy sport-weight yarn and US size 3 needles (I’m using circular so I have room to knit the two long tails side by side).

GENERAL CONSTRUCTION—The scarf starts at the bottom front. The two long tails are worked up to the neck ending with 4 mirrored increases on each side to shape the neck slightly. Then back-of-neck stitches are cast on and the two tails are joined to form the basis of the back collar. Decreases on each side shape the back.

Actually, this is a blank canvas for a knitter’s creativity. The back could be squared off like a sailor’s collar. The long pieces can be any width or length a person desires. The pattern could be a cable, lace, texture or multicolored. I chose a simple texture pattern to test the idea, and will include the charts I’m using as I knit. Right now, I have the long pieces about half done. I’ll post photos and a printable PDF pattern of it when it is finished. Meanwhile, the following will get you started if you’d like to knit along.

BOTTOM of LONG TAIL

READING the CHART:

• Start at lower, right and read back and forth as you knit back and forth.
• The half-circles are cast-on stitches. Cast on 35 sts.
• The empty squares are knit sts on the right side and purl sts on the wrong side. Purl 35 sts on the first row.
• The edge stitch is slipped at the beginning of each row to form a tidy chain edge.
• The squares with the dots are purl sts on the right side and knit sts on the wrong side. This version creates a two-row seed stitch.

PATTERN REPEAT for LONG TAIL

READING the CHART:

• This chart is repeated lengthwise until the long tail is about 3 inches short of the desired length.
• Continue knitting back and forth, reading the chart the same as the first chart.
• The right side of the knitting will look similar to the chart.

PATTERN for NECK SHAPING

READING the CHART:

• This chart shows the shaping for the left long tail. The shaping for the right long tail is a mirror image of this set of increases.
• Continue knitting back and forth, reading the chart the same as the first chart.
• The little symbol shows that the increase is worked in the first stitch in from the border.
• Ignore (skip over) the blank space between the border and the rest of the chart. It just allows a place to show the increases but still keeps the border in pattern.

As soon as I start working on the back collar and see how the decreases look, I’ll post the rest of the pattern.

We shall find peace.
We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
[Anton Chekhov]

Dayton Knitting Guild hosts a retreat every spring at the Bergamo Center in Dayton, Ohio. This is the loviest of settings for such a warm gathering of people. I am looking forward to this event with great excitement. Not only will there be workshop presentations and a yarn market, but I’ll get to visit with folks I don’t see often enough. This is one of those places I can go and let my soul catch up with my body.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.
Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
[Samuel Johnson]

My daughter, Ellen, hand spun two and a half pounds of Marbled Moorit (Icelandic-Merino-Alpaca blend) roving that she purchased from Tongue River Farm. Then she knit this poncho on US size 9 needles. Pictured here with her son, Owain, Ellen is not only diligent and skillful, she also gives the word perseverence a whole new meaning. I’m proud of you, Ellen.

Love,
Mama

That which we persist in doing becomes easier,
not that the task itself has become easier,
but that our ability to perform it has improved.
[Ralph Waldo Emerson]

You can imagine how excited I was when one of my blog readers knit the sock pattern I recently posted. She not only knit the pattern, but she knit BOTH socks in the past two weeks. If I could hand out prizes, I’d give her two—one for trying it out and another for knitting BOTH socks. Those of you who suffer from the “second sock syndrome” understand what I mean. She sent me these photos and wrote the following:

Well, with your wonderful example, pattern and help I finished the red and gray socks.

I realized after I completed the fist heel that you had done a 2 stitch x 2 row check and I did a 1 stitch x 2 row check… but it still worked out. I did have a problem with the two sides of the heel looking identical… on one side the gray border of the gusset is more ponounced and the red line along the short row join is more pronounced… but otherwise, it worked very well.

I’m fairly new to two color knitting, having done several hats this winter using this technique and I still struggle with tension, but it is getting better with practice and these socks were great practice with much needed plain knitting inbetween for a nice break!

I did forget to use double gray on the toe but felt it wasn’t worth redoing. I will make more socks using this idea of smaller amounts of color work mixed with some plain ribbing for a good fit.

Thanks for sharing your pattern and help. Fran

Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit,
and it doesn’t hurt the untroubled spirit, either.
[Elizabeth Zimmerman]

For many years, I only knit lace. For the price of a ball of bedspread cotton, I could buy hours of fun and produce a window curtain, pillowcase edging, or a table cloth. For under five dollars, I could make a gift that would become a family heirloom. There were other assets to knitting lace. Fitting wasn’t the problem it is with knitting garments. Also, I lived in a warmer climate so I had no need for wooly mittens, breeze-busting hats or ski sweaters.

During my teen years, I knit many leprosy bandages (leprosy is now known as Hanson’s disease). These were similar to Ace bandages. They were knit 3 inches wide and 4 feet long in garter stitch using U.S. size 2 needles and a ball of white bedspread cotton. I met a fellow knitter while I worked in a nursing home. She was blind, and she knit leprosy bandages by feel. I told her I also knit bandages and she replied, “Oh, my dear, knit lace while you can see and save your bandage knitting for the time when, like me, your eyesight fails.” I took her advice and discovered I just had to add a few yarn-overs, and knit-two-togethers in strategic places to my bandage pattern in order to produce a pretty lace insertion. I’ve knit lace ever since.

My knitting friend, Jolene Treace, knit the swatch in the photo above.

Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning.
The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.
[Eugene S. Wilson]

Last weekend, I taught a sock-knitting class at the Temptations knitting retreat near Columbus, Ohio. Not only was the event well organized and I met many lovely people, but I also learned a lot by teaching. I always learn a lot while teaching.

Each time I’m in a class setting, I’m reminded that the main task of teaching is helping overcome obstacles to learning. Everyone in the class knew how to knit and purl. My idea is, if you know that, you can knit anything that fascinates you enough to motivate you to persevere. My job is to convince you that, yes, you really can do it.

Also, it gives me the opportunity to see how my patterns look through other people’s eyes. I can come home and refine the project pattern based upon the places where people encountered problems. I’d not want to write patterns in a vacuum, never knowing if they worked for other people.

Temptations is located at 35 S. High Street, Dublin, Ohio 43017