The littlest peach tree is quietly growing away, and we have dubbed her “Princess.” She seems to be getting enough water, and every day I make sure to open the curtain and let her get some sunshine (well, as much as there was to have in this rainy week).
I just love the way she’s coming along, particularly with so little assistance from me. I’ll leave her at home sitting in the big window in the library, unless it becomes obvious that she needs to be in the light from the lounge at my workplace.
This week I acquired two more typewriters. One is a Smith-Corona electronic that came with its own table and some supplies: typing paper, sheets of carbon paper, and the backing from a package of the ribbon cartridges that it takes. We plugged it in, and it works just fine. It’s not the same model of electronic typewriter that I had in the mid-80s, but it’s close. I didn’t do a photo shoot (but I could, if anyone wants to see it).
The other typewriter is a Royal HHE manual that was manufactured in late 1952. It’s in pretty good shape except for a missing key, and the ribbon is almost perfect. I’m not sure that the last owners knew that they had to press a special button to open the cover. After I opened the lid and un-jammed the stuck keys, it typed beautifully. I did buy some compressed air this weekend to help me blow out the dust and crud from underneath all the moving parts.
As I putter and play with these new toys, I’m getting story ideas. We’ll see what becomes of it all. Right now it’s hard to keep up with just the books that I’m reading, but the stories I want to tell are insisting more strongly that they be told.
In the meantime, I have a lot to learn about repairing, cleaning, and maintaining these old typewriters. I now have nine unless there are more in the basement.
Knitwise, I made some progress on Stripe Scarf this week, and I cast on for another scarf project.
The stripes of Stripe Scarf are about 20 rows deep. I’m not counting the rows as I knit — mostly because I’m knitting while doing other things — but it’s not hard to tell when I’m getting close. At that point I fold the work over so the current stripe is directly on top of the last stripe. Then I ask myself, “Do I need to knit 2 more rows or 4 more rows?” The answer should be fairly obvious. As of this evening, the total length of the work is 14 inches.
Un-woven ends are tucked under the work in these photos.
Two weeks ago at my musical night out, I discovered that another attendee and the owner of the bar were both knitters. I resolved to bring a project the next Wednesday — but which one? Stripe Scarf was too dark and fussy to work on in a dim bar, and the skinny purple shawl was really a project to work on as I relaxed in my bedroom.
I put together a project bag of some Lion Brand Homespun that I had recently picked up at a thrift store. There were two partial skeins; I didn’t weigh them (what do you take me for?), but one of them seemed to be about half the size of the other. I decided to make a scarf with shallow stripes: two ridges (four rows) of the main color and one ridge (two rows) of the secondary color. I forgot to check my needle inventory before I headed off to work, so I was stuck with starting the work on a pair of straight aluminum needles in size US15.
These needles may be the reason you can’t take knitting needles on airplanes. On the other hand, nobody messed with me at the bar.
I have no idea what colors are in each skein, so it may be interesting to see what emerges as I knit along.
I’m not worried about the ragged-looking edge. This is [3 dollars’ worth of] acrylic, and it should work itself out when it’s washed and dried. I have the same number of stitches on each row, so it’s probably just a tension issue.
I’ll make some progress on the skinny purple shawl when I can sit in my bedroom chair again; it’s covered in two weeks’ worth of clothes that I haven’t hung up yet. I can only get so much done in a week (or two).
Chocolate Sheep 