Fisherman's Rib?

Yesterday, when at the Brooklyn Museum of Art with Jess, we spied a woman wearing a gorgeous scarf in what we believed to be fisherman's rib. We were stuck in line for nearly an hour, so we had ample time to examine her sky blue neckwarmer from afar and though we never did tackle her and ask whether or not she's a knitter, and if indeed she is, did she knit her scarf, and if she did, what yarn did she use and was that indeed fisherman's rib. Though Jess's husband did make a humorous suggestion that we merely walk up to her and say, "k, p, k, p, k, p" and if she responds in like, then she must be a knitter and we could go forward with our questions.

The reason we were so curious whether or not it was indeed fisherman's rib is because I was trying to do fisherman's rib about a month ago (before the knitting retreat which, yes, I still need to blog about...) at Jess's house and we were so confused by the directions (knit 1 below? huh?) that we looked it up online and numerous bloggers were posting about how much yarn it took. Apparently the pattern eats yarn like Cookie Monster (or my cat Atari who before my holiday party decided to slurp a six inch piece like spaghetti which sent me into panic mode for nearly 48 hours as I feared she would die from swallowing it.)

Blue and Green Birthday

For my friend Jess's birthday yesterday, I started knitting her a blue and green scarf. It's in a feather and fan pattern that really just looks like a chevron, and I think it's nice, but I think that it would look better in a different type of yarn. This is mainly because the two yarns I'm holding together don't have a great drape to them and the result is a pretty bumpy scarf. I'm thinking of ripping it out and redoing it with some other yarns, but I need to take a trip to the yarn store to see what's available.

Also, I already went up from size 8 needles to size 10, but I think I might need to go up even higher. The unfortunate result of this will be that the scarf is even wider (it's a 38 cast on and there's not really room for budging) and I don't think that will end up looking very feminine. Hmm...to the yarn store it looks like I'll be going tonight to explore!

Knitting Cranes for Peace

I often read knitting blogs during lunch, and today I stumbled across an interesting project. Portland knitter (and partner of Decemberist guitarist Chris Funk who challenged Stephen Colbert to a shred off on the awesome Colbert Report) Seann McKeel is calling for knitters to send her knit cranes for Universal Peace Day based on her pattern. Knitters can use a variety of yarns or embellisments, but the basic pattern is pretty easy - only 53 rows per crane, then felting.

Because the project is an homage to Sadako Sasaki, a girl who developed radiation poisioning and folded over 1000 paper cranes in the hope that the gods would make her wish of running again come true, McKeel wants to have more than 1000 (10 from each knitter) to send to Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park after she displays them in Portland on August 5th.

I'm going to be taking part in this project and I encourage everyone who might be interested to join in. If you're interested in making your own cranes, you must RSVP by March 1 and send McKeel the cranes by May 1. The pattern can be found here.

...I wonder if I could get Cranbrook involved considering their mascot is the crane and the art academy does have a fiber program...