layover

what will several hours in the San Juan airport get you? A spindle full of silk thread, and lots of funny looks from Carribean-tanned vacationers returning to the US. My featherweight Bosowrth spindle was in my purse with a bunch of tussah silk top (metal knitting needles checked to avoid hassle). Using the Bosworth I was struck again by what a pleasure it is to use a good tool. And I'm not even ordinarily a top-whorl girl! I love this spindle. I'm picky about where I spend my money but I'd definitely buy another Bosworth. (You can never have too many tools. Even tools that to the uninitiated look the same. You can remind me of this if I ever have a husband who collects fishing rods, or rototillers or bandsaws or whatever.)

Vacation knitting was Orenburg-- ahh, very relaxing. While knitting I listened to a Ngaio Marsh mystery and I suspect that when I wear this shawl I'll always remember the atmosphere of the story. Words and music seem to get embedded in my stitches. Years later I can pick up something I made and remember what my favorite CD was at the time I was working on it. I also started another bit of lace with a tiny silk-wool yarn, just because I wanted to feel the luscious softness through my fingers. It's also garter stitch, shetland style lace, and the pattern is written in what I suppose is a tradidional manner: make one mitered border, knit central square; make three more mitered borders and sew them all together. Right. I don't want to do that much seaming on a shawl, so I figured, knit the central square first, pick up the borders all the way around on a long circular needle, and knit them all at once outwards. Replace decreases at the miters with yo's, and read the border charts upside down. No problem.

Only after getting several rows into the central square did I remember that if I knit in the round, the borders will be stockinette. To make them garter stitch I'd have to purl every other round-- not as much fun. So I'm beginning to wonder if there's a way to knit back and forth, but link the threads together at the join so you don't have to sew up one corner seam afterwards. I think this can be done, but I haven't *quite* worked it out in my mind... has anyone else done this? Or know of a reference?

Another niggling irritation in this lace is that it's patterned on every row, and I find that I have trouble when I have to knit together a stitch with a yo. I don't usually have trouble getting my rh needle through stitches, so I wonder if I'm missing something....