Knitting on the go

Being away from home for a month involves planning. Not just an itinerary but for me, my hobbies tag along. My knitting was carefully chosen for air travel. It has to be only one skein and complicated enough to make boring hours pass quickly, and yet easy enough to be followed in a cramped space. My solution, was to start something just before I left: A vest where each row has a complicated border along one edge which needs a chart, followed by stockinette for the remaining 7/8 of the row.

The vest is knitted starting at the front edge opening (left) and around the back ending with the other front edge. Each row is vertical instead of the expected horizontal bottom to top. The pattern is really more complicated than I remembered. It's from a sock pattern, asymmetrical, and a long repeat that uses an A B pattern repeated as B A and repeats over and over until...it reaches around my girth. The pattern is further complicated by knitting it flat instead of circular for the sock. Cables, twisted stitches, one 2-cable-needles cross-over, and well, I can't memorize it. I love the colors. I got the idea from the Not Just Socks book which uses self-striping yarns. It's very low on my priority list but perfect for now. You may not see this finished until I take another trip!

Knitting in Patterns

Here's my final picture with model included:
I'm quite proud of this one.  It took a re-think of another pattern, some teeth gnashing, Ends and finishing, and more finishing. But the icing on the cake is when you see it 'in (on) the flesh'!
Ta dah!

Luckily, she likes this pose... Perfect show off the sweater pose!
The Pattern is from Rauma 093R, Design Baby.

And the Pattern is called "Helmønstret genser" or Fully Patterned Sweater.

The one on the right, but how cute is the one on the left???

Yarn:   Lanett by Sandnes Garn, Fingering / 4 ply, 100% Merino 213 yards / 50 grams

Other details on Ravelry.

Luxor Blog Five

Luxor:  Random notes
Traffic barriers:  Lanes were often blocked partially by metal barriers which made for a slalom type drive over most streets and roads, city or rural.  I discovered that some of them were for check points, and others were in place of signs for intersections.

Along the Nile, with mixed traffic.

No rules for driving...nor walking.  The streets are filled, no lanes, just fit yourself through, and act like you don't care!  I was with a Finnish family of four, and a guide, for an evening stroll through the streets and bazaar.  The first thing I noticed as we crossed the street in front of the hotel was no crosswalks.  None.  No markings on the street pavement nor signs.  A few flashing arrow lights at round-abouts, or maybe they were just intersections.  No one seemed to pay attention, plus, as we took our first steps into the street, there was NO traffic!  I had watched from the hotel balcony, as the streets were jammed with cars, trucks, and horse drawn carriages...and the cacophony of voices and horns.  But at 6:15 PM, it was surprisingly deserted.  I remembered then that the sunset call to prayers was about 15 minutes previously, and sure enough, 5 minutes later, it was jammed with traffic again.  We didn't use the sidewalk, since most vendors and most people were camped out in chairs, and going about their business.  My Finnish family was horrified that they were expected to follow our guide into traffic with little hesitation.  It was a great experience
Driving out of Luxor, barriers were placed where any side road activity might be, slowing traffic in case a sugar cane wagon, pulled by donkeys, needed to make a turn.

Narrow rail line to collect wagons of sugar cane crossing the main highways.

What I saw:

• Ibis picking face of cow
• Donkeys. Carts. 
• Sugar cane. It's mandatory to grow sugar cane in this area. Cotton in the north.
• One bridge over the Nile.  ONE!  Opened in 1998...ferries used exclusively before then.
• Wheat three crops a year.

Load of sugar cane

Families can be self sufficient.  Most people have access to a family plot for growing food, like tomatoes and for grazing.

Sent from my iPod

Luxor blog four

Who would believe that I could be sitting on a deck chair on a floating pool on the Nile? Of course I'm knitting. The sky is cloudless, the water is bluer than the sky, there's a chilly breeze, and everyone is more tan than I.

I've seen pictures of this place but now I see it as true. Ships are passing. Big tour ships of three decks and sail boats looking suspiciously Egyptian.
We tourists on this float are relaxing from the chaos outside on the street. The vendors and horse and buggy rides. A woman pulls out cross stitch while her husband is reading the last pages of a James Patterson novel. I feel colonial.

Mid-afternoon call to prayer erupts first behind me then another and another up and down the river. A great sing song bouncing off the water.
I'd like to think that I have paid attention in geography class, and know:  Egypt would be a desert without the Nile, and it's the only source of water.  Somehow, the full meaning of those statements was never impressed on me.  I now know that there is NO rain, and therefore, the Nile IS the only source of water.  Yes, wells can be dug, but very deep ones.  We drove from the east coast on the Red Sea to the Nile and there was nothing growing until we got within 10 miles of the Nile.  It's all watered my canals.
The similarities of Egypt and the desert Southwest where I live are many.  Shocking!

Blog Three

Egypt.
Days on the Red Sea coast with a toddler

Our days revolve around a lazy schedule of going to the beach: dig in the sand, look at what is at the water's edge, a snorkel tour for me, knitting a few rows under the parasol. A stroll back to the room for lunch and nap time. Most days we all nap. Then a trip to the hotel pool. Sometimes we reverse the order to combat boredom. Oh yeah, we aren't bored! The sun and wind have been perfect most days. Sunny enough to make the temperature rise, and windy enough to keep us from baking. Our pasty white skin has a beige cast that is only discernible when we strip down. Otherwise we are looking healthy. Tanned? No, but what most white people look like in the winter months. (I come from pale Irish stock.)

Snorkeling is definitely my entertainment. I'm tickled that the Makadi Bay has reefs and beautiful fish right off the beach. There are three areas that are roped off, so that boats don't run into them. Several days I went in at low tide. It's a pleasure to just put on a mask at the shore and go. Even though I've gone six days in a row, I love swimming with the fish, noticing a particularly colorful big one, or dozens of black and white zebra stripped ones, or the many sting rays that shuffle along on the bottom. They can be a bit spooky, because they appear so menacing. Their bright blue spots look lethal, and I try to avoid passing right over them, if I can. Today I saw an eel, and yesterday there was a puffy unattractive guy lurking around a rock. I was passing him when I thought I'll circle back and have another look. When I did, he had circled around the rock too and was facing me as I approached a second time. He was watching me!

Knitting! Just you wait! I'm knitting the craziest little pullover, with faux layered sleeves in orange and yellow stripes, and purple trim. Yep! Just imagine.

Blog two

Egypt  A desert adventure for all my sweethearts! Wow! Sore legs. Tomorrow I expect I'll be really stiff getting up and down.  For being the typical athletic knitter... Know anyone? (a new oxymoron) ... In one six hour period I stepped up into the back of a jeep 80 times (or at least a few dozen), I was jiggled for hours over sand washboard non-roads, hiked my leg up well above my waist to get on top of a camel, bobbed and lurched to hold balance, climbed a rocky out crop to see the sunset a second time, took amazing pictures, and fell into bed.  I still have no solution for sending and applying photos to this blog at this time.  Didn't feel too bad this morning, so I took a swim and snorkel in the Red Sea bay. Fascinating what is just under the surface. All kinds of excursions are offered and few mention that it's not THAT cold. The water is about 21 C. I don't use a wet suit and have great faith in the buoyancy of salt water. What about sting rays? With blue spots. How dangerous are they? They look pretty menacing. I try to quietly glide by. Took some pictures. You can find three good sized reefs right from the beach and lots of individual small ones.  If I can get up tomorrow, I'll have another look. 

Is it silly to fix?

Is it silly to spend ... time on fixing one stitch?
Does it really bother you? Will you look at that stitch and seek it out? Stare at it and point it out to other knitters so they will know that YOU know it's there?
Answer: you should probably fix it sooner rather than later. Usually it takes me a row or a few dozen before it becomes like an ache you can't ignore.
I just had one of those moments. Happens all the time, really. I'm knitting 2 row stripes. I'm trying to be super careful about the "jog" and the disguise thereof. I have seven stripes, plus one row of new color and I'm admiring how well it's turning out. I'm thinking, "This looks dang good!" Why haven't I been doing this slip one stitch technique before? And I've been admiring every row all along. Then I notice at this eighth stripe that ONE stitch looks larger than the others. It's the last stitch of the previous color and it looks ... BIG. Some of the other "last" stitches do too but not like this one. So I begin to work it down to size. Ah! Perfect! But now I have an extra hunk of yarn on the backside just hanging there and taunting me with it's potential to go back where it came from. It could work its way back and become a big stitch again or worse, make my first stitch, which will be slipped, into an Enormous stitch.
I'm feeling pretty good right now. I ONLY had to rip back one row. I feel that's such an improvement on previous behaviors, I didn't mind it at all.
(Again, I have beautiful photos, which will appear in a later blog.  Give me two weeks! Then check out Ravelry.)
Sent from my iPod
J