March 3, 2004

Happy Birthday to Ken

I was going to write a big long touching thing about who Ken is, why I adore him and why you should all worship him as I do. Since there is no way I could ever hope to write of all the wonders that are Ken and do him real justice, I've decided to leave it at this. Ken is my best friend.

kensteph

That's us (or it's mostly us...I don't know who's nose is on my face). We are wearing matching sweaters, (Alice Starmore, "Little Rivers") that we knit as wedding gifts. Ken learned to knit several years ago...for the singular purpose of knitting me socks. He wanted me to have the pleasure that I'd given him. (I don't worship people for nothing)

Once Ken decided to move on from socks, he showed unusual focus by choosing to specialize almost completely in the "little rivers" pattern. There was the one above, then one for himself, then one for Lene. At this point, subjected to what you can only imagine was merciless teasing from yours truly, he took a brave leap away from knitting "Little Rivers" sweaters and knit this for me...

littleriverswrap

It's Alice Starmore's "Little Rivers" WRAP. He also spent some time trying to work out "Little Rivers" socks. He's knit other patterns since, but I think it's safe to say that he is still quite fond of that pattern. Happy Birthday dear one, and thanks for all the knitted stuff. (Your cake is in the oven)

The Scarf, ratses and other questions...

A few things from the comments yesterday.

Melissa asks where ratses come from, and what I do with them. Rats are the by-product of my own particularly anal retentive form of lock washing. I like to preserve lock structure, and I'm way past anal retentive and into obsessive about having all the locks point in the same direction when I'm carding. Usually I card the rats, but with this lovely shetland I could just flick open the tips and cut end and spin from the lock. For the record (Ken, I'm talking to you) the "tails" are naturally occurring, there's always part of the lock that I don't quite manage to hold onto in the water and that slips down when I lift the rats out of the water. While I really liked being called "tricksy harlot" I don't deserve it this time. I'll try harder.
Julie, you have sharp eyes, part of the scarf is yellow. This was some of the first yarn that I spun and I thought that the yellow colour that was in some parts of the fleece would wash out. Not only did it not wash out, it's never going to. I'm using it for test driving patterns. Speaking of the pattern, does the "lopsided" nature of the bottom lace bother anybody other than Ken? (I can ignore Ken.....)

Posted by Stephanie at March 3, 2004 10:42 AM