Friday, January 14, 2011

Easy knitting that looks hard, Dollivers claim it




I'm trying out a new knitting thing, having swiped the idea from a knitting book, which I will credit if I can possibly remember the title and author (!) and which I undertook to celebrate the abatement of pain in my hands.

Wonderful Emil, HP's physio, was very concerned because my hands are so necessary to the everyday life around here, and showed me some wrist exercises using handweights, which have proved very helpful, and yesterday showed me specific thumb ones using a rubber band as a resistance band.

So, all in all, much more cheerful around here! and celebrating with another knitting experiment. Yet another scarf, and this one I'm not sure yet of the destination, but it will end up around some friend's neck, at least that's the plan.

Anyway, here's the thing: the Dollivers claim to have invented this, they did not, and that it's very hard to do, it is not, but what you do is take a laceweight yarn, this happens to be lambswool, harvested from a beautiful thrift store sweater, of course, and do in this case plain knitting.

All garter stitch. But the trick about making the pattern look airy and interesting is that you use two different sized needles, so in this case one row size 15, one row size 7. This gives you an internal stripy effect, and it feels very good in your hand. I expect you can fancy this up even further with yarnovers and things, but I hesitate to make it too fussy and knitty.

So that's where we are on the knitting front! the days are getting longer and brighter, the houseplants are perking up, and it's starting to look like a new year, yay.

5 comments:

  1. Looks a bit like something Mason Dixon would do. Like you am enjoying longer days and plants
    perking up. Mind if add, er, thumbs up!

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  2. Btw, I have created a second blog for just the bits of writing I do without all of the "woe is me" parts.

    I Shall Never Forget the Russian Salad

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  3. Neat. I like that. Of course, you have to have tension control to knit like that. I don't have tension control yet. More practice is need.

    Glad about the exercises.

    Has anyone sat the Dollivers down and said that they tend to be just a wee bit grabby? They remind me of Chekhov on Star Trek who was so proud of his Russian heritage that he claimed the honor of every invention, every great great writer for Russia, e.g., the great Russian playwright Villiam Shakespeare.

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  4. Would you email me the thumb exercises with the elastic band? I'd appreciate it.

    I made scarves for the girls when they were little exactly like you describe - one big needle, one little one!

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  5. hmmm - must see how the 'm' got there!!!
    signed annie

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