Q & A Time

Wendy asked, "What is a Petoskey stone?"

Julie is right, exotic is wherever you aren't.

In this case, a picture is worth the proverbial thousand et cetera.

This is a petoskey stone, a type of fossilized coral, and the state stone of Michigan.

Lake Michigan beaches are a great place to find pre-tumbled stones of various kinds. The sand and the waves pound the stones smooth, and when they're wet, any fossils stand out.

Petoskey stones are more common north of here, but I do find them on our beaches once in a while.

Jayme asked the dimensions of my LeClerc Artisat floor loom. I replied privately, but in case you are wondering, folded up it is 44" tall, 44" wide, and 14" deep. I have folded it up and transported it with weaving in place in my 1996 Honda Odyssey, but I had to lean it in diagonally for it to fit, and I took out both rear seats to get it in there.

Tatt3r asked (in the scroll I received with my AoA) " . . .what is the middle one? Are you carrying water? What does that represent?"

The very faint pencil caption says "drawing water" (at a well). I'm not sure what it represents. Maybe a symbol of service to the canton? Maybe a filler so there would be three pictures? (If you know, I'd like to know, too.)

And Julie asked, "Is that on real vellum?"

I need my smiley emoticon . . . no, it's on real 11" x 14" card stock.

I said,

"We had a dog-saster Monday evening when we went out to buy strawberries to can -- Ajax the neurotic "You're leaving me forever, so I better feed myself" dog took the plastic bag containing the dragon skin bag off the table and chewed the plastic bag open!

He's alive.

The knitted bag itself had one tooth hole and broken thread. It is sitting, stabilized with knitting needles through the stitches above and below it, while I recover my temper enough to repair it."

Coffeelady said, "(GASP!) The dog did WHAT?!! Ouch!"

Yes, he did, that bad boy. After I was calm enough to face the repair, I found he had only broken the one thread and not pulled out any stitches. I was able to take a piece of matching thread and a needle and repair it from the back.
When I got back to knitting on it, I discovered he had also bent several of the needles.

And Eva asked, "Do you have a pattern for the Dragon Skin Bag?"

I can't really give one out, because it is a combination of patterns that are in print and under copyright. The bottom is from an old pattern leaflet called "Patterns for the Art of Lace Knitting," copyright 1959 by Rachel Schnelling.

The Knitted Heirloom Lace website, which sells a collection of these leaflets, says, "Rachel Schnelling spent a summer translating these patterns. She was subsequently credited with creating the patterns. I believe them to be the designs of Christine Duchrow."

Lacis has two volumes of Christine Duchrow patterns available in German.

And the Dragon Skin pattern is straight out of Barbara Walker's A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns, page 136, enlarged to fit my stitch count. Second Treasury is in print and available from Schoolhouse Press. Your library might have it.

This seems like a good time to mention the Walker Treasury Project, an effort to illustrate all the patterns in all the Barbara Walker Treasury books in color, and put photos of them on the internet.

I'm glad so many people found the sock post useful. I have an analytical brain that wanders off, figures this stuff out, and comes back and hands it to me, and I think I tend to forget that stuff that is easy for me is not easy for everybody. Truthfully, I feel guilty that I don't sit and pore over it!

Amy asked, "Is there a % [of negative ease] you use for socks?"

Ummm, probably. Me, I tend to knit and rip until I get one that works, and when I knit more socks with similar yarn, I pull the old ones out of the drawer and count stitches.

No help, I know, sorry. I love to knit, but I'm just not a pattern writer. I tend to moosh stuff together, keeping cryptic minimalist notes that make me tear my hair years later when I want to reproduce something.

I did receive an email asking, "What the heck are you talking about with that Michigan roads post?"

We went to Ohio, and when we came back, we drove under the big "Welcome to Michigan - Great Lakes - Great Times" sign, and shortly thereafter came to the road construction I took pictures of.

I am always amused at the incongruity that leads the powers-that-be to simultaneously promote Michigan as a tourist destination and tear the roads out when most of the tourists are trying to get here. I mean, I understand, you have to do the work when the weather allows. I even worked on a county road crew one summer to help pay for college.

But I still think it's mean to invite people over and tear out the driveway. "Come here -- ha ha ha, but you can't really get here!"