Tuesday, October 2, 2007

A day's work on Venezia:



I didn't do much else on Sunday, though... The pattern is a lot of fun, once you get past the first few natural mistakes. I even made mistakes I don't normally make, like dropping stitches (in the single color part, fortunately). And there is the magic of fair isle, with its instant gratification qualities: you can actually see progress, even if it's just a few rows!

One of the "perks" of growing up in a Communist country is that you learn to do everything by hand quickly and efficiently. I can sew buttons on all sorts of fabrics, and I can sew clothes. I can put in zippers, including in pants (fun stuff, let me tell you). I can make mayo by hand and peel potatoes without a peeler, and if you ask me children would be much better off helping in the kitchen instead of watching TV or playing computer games all the time. I can darn socks, and I've actually darned socks a long time ago. These days I have perhaps more money and less free time, but the old darning skills still come in handy:



When you kitchener stitch together the arm openings for Tangled Yoke, you get two little holes. It is easy to sew them shut, but you do need to be careful not to pull on the existing fabric because you will end up with holes somewhere else!

The cardigan is currently taking a warm bath, because the knitting and the finishing are both done. I haven't had time to buy buttons this week, but I can already tell this will be a gorgeous piece.