Junkie

So, the Shetland Triangle is really lovely, but sadly, I was short a mere few yards required to bind off. It was close, I unraveled my swatch and everything. It is bigger than I thought it would be, it hits the small of my back right now, which is really nice. However, if it were just the tiniest smidge bigger still, it would be a true thing of beauty....

So, instead of just ripping back to my handy lifeline and ending it slightly shorter (still bigger than I had hoped) I have begged and pleaded with my sister to get me just one more skein (include a desperate and whining "come on man" here and you get the picture of how dirty I feel even asking). I sent the wrap off to her to match as best as possible, complete with return postage because I am certainly not waiting until I see her in a few short weeks to get cracking (crack, get it? oh, I see... of course you did....) again.

In the meantime, I am keeping busy with my Vogue Stitchionary concocting a scarf for the WBBF. How did I get so lucky to find a man who likes to pick out yarn? It's a mystery....

Knitting Therapy

Things being what they are these days, I have not been the most fun as of late. I was getting kind of down and feeling a bit sorry for myself, so I decided to go for some knitting therapy. I figured if I committed to a really big, totally beautiful project just for me, I would feel great satisfaction, a sense of pride in accomplishment, and be using too much of my brain (which is not a large capacity unit) to think about the stuff that is bothering me and largely out of my control. Seemed like a really good idea.

So I picked the Midsummer Night's Dream Shawl by Judy Anderson. Multiple charts at the same time, beads, the works. It is completely beautiful and I absolutely love it. Normally it would sit on my "to do" list for "someday" as I would probably not devote that kind of time to knitting something just for me for fun. It was, therefore, perfect for my purposes. I even have yarn for it.

But, this kind of backfired as my swatch (which I cast on when I was very tired, bad idea) just frustrated me further. I think that is what I get for casting on late at night without a good plan and a needle that is so long I was wrestling with it instead of knitting with it. All the sudden my great plan to boost myself up was looking a little more like "what the f*%# was I thinking?"

New plan: Evelyn A. Clark's Shetland Triangle from Wrap Style knit out of the really lovely Manos Silk Blend I bought at the Ravelry party at Unwind in Burbank. Easy, beautiful, and still all for me. Should be done in a matter of days.

I've said it; now let's see what kind of fallout that brings!

Uh oh, I think I feel the wind picking up. I hope it isn't the s*#% storm starting already....

Up & Running!

It has taken me a good long time, but I have all my ducks in a row and am very excited to have my first pattern actually available for sale!

I originally wrote about this little project here.

But here is another gratuitous picture and a preview of the pattern, just because I love this little hat so much.



The pattern for this hat is available for $5.00 through Ravelry, though you do not have to be a member to use their nifty PayPal hookup:



Enjoy!

Love Hurts

Oh, how I love this hat, but it is treating me badly. The WBBF asked for a hat for Christmas. He picked out the yarn on our trip to Ashland, saw a hat he liked at the outdoor theater, then picked the stitch pattern from my Vogue Stitchionary (I am one lucky girl, I tell you). The half of the hat you see below is great. Love it. Was such fun to make, enjoyed every stinking minute and was almost sad when it was over.

Dale of Norway Falk, Vogue Stitchionary "Butterfly Effect"

It is lined to make it nice and cozy and compensate for that whole less-elastic side effect of stranded color-work. It fits. No, it doesn’t just fit, it fits perfectly. And he professes to love it.

The crown? Oh yeah, the part that isn’t there anymore? Did I forget to mention that in my hat love-fest?

Ripped out.

I think I hear the ode to my socks playing in the back of my head…. It was too small (short, actually, left his poor little ears exposed in a very unfriendly fashion). Happily, the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants pattern came together well, and I was not all that satisfied with my work on the crown anyway, but still, the holidays are no time to be spending time ripping back and starting over. There are deadlines, people, deadlines! And I was almost thinking I was ahead of schedule (pride goeth before the fall), ah well….

Composing a little song to my socks

It goes:

Tink, Tink, Tink, Frog,

Tink, Frog,

Tink, Frog,

Tink, Tink... Tink, Frog....

I bet you get the picture.

But, like someone with a sensitive stomach that still eats spicy food, I keep coming back for more. I love these socks.

I have ripped the toe out (because I wasn't paying attention and shot way past the cable twist), the entire foot (because I was impatient and didn't check my gauge), the heel flap (because I didn't like the way I was twisting the stitches), and most recently, about half the leg (because I (once again) wasn't paying attention and went way off the pattern, apparently intending to make a sock for a much taller person). I have tinked back more than I would be inclined to admit, if I could even recall. Almost always for really dumb things, too.

Through it all the yarn has remained resilient, springy, not fuzzed up one little bit and is still treating me like a queen. After all I have done to it. I can not say enough about how wonderful the yarn is, oh, and the color, soooo beautiful!

This pattern is quite well written, and very engaging. I wish I were a little more disciplined, then I might, oh, read it? Yes, I think that would help immensely.

Thank goodness I am thoroughly enchanted with the yarn and pattern, I am sure I would have given up otherwise. I am a very slow learner, apparently.

But I am so completely happy with my single, finished sock that i could not care less about these little disputes the sock and I may have had in the past. That is all behind us. The sock fit is amazing, the yarn is not only beautiful to look at, it is a soft treat for my feet.

I fear I may need to wait to knit the second sock until after my holiday knitting is done, and that makes me very sad indeed.

For now, I am just wondering if this is too odd a look to finish out my workday with. Probably.

Sottopassagio, knit in Black Sheep Dyeworks Fig Multi

Just returned from a wonderful weekend up in the Great Pacific Northwest (GPNW to me). We went to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and saw some really beautiful plays. Perfect, gorgeous fall weather: cool, light breeze, sunny, and all the leaves beginning to turn. I did not know this, but apparently there is a misconception that they only have evergreens in the GPNW. I have been told by more than one person that it is a pity there are no deciduous trees, it would be so much prettier in the fall if there were (but they are sure I will have a good time anyway). So, just to clear this up, there are both. And it is hard to beat for a spectacle as the deciduous trees start to change color, as they are all mixed in with the beautiful shades of the evergreen trees.


These are not mine, wish I were so talented. I found them here: Travel Lane County, Girl Behind the Lens (Flikr: Oregon Girl), and The Oregon Bed & Breakfast Guild

But I digress.

We drove down from Portland and stopped along the way at the Rogue Creamery and picked up some cheese, next door there was the Daisy Creek Vineyard and Madrone Mountain winery tasting rooms, so we grabbed a bottle of wine, too, and headed to Ashland.

I think it is so beautiful there, and the WBBF found us a great place to stay that were wee little cabins and an easy 20 minute walk to the theaters. Perfect! There was even an amazing breakfast place called Morning Glory practically next door. Between our wine, artisan cheese, the Farmers Market, the plays and the outdoor gear required to sit through the outdoor plays in the evening, we had a lot of laughs about being straight out of a collection of Stuff White People Like posts (yes, we do have allergies, why do you ask?).

I scanned the crowd every night for handmade hats. Sad, but true, and found one in particular that was inspiring. we'll see if I have luck creating something like it for the WBBF. Sat next to a family of knitters (one rogue crocheter) at a couple plays, they examined my sock in progress, and generally had a lovely time.

And there was yarn. Oh yes, there was yarn.



This gorgeous undyed handspun mohair from Frolic 'n Fibers that I bought at the farmers market



This lovely merino laceweight (Baruffa Cashwool) from The Web*sters

And handcrafted soap from really nice people who used to live in San Diego. And used books. It was wonderful. I want to go back next year.

Coming soon to needles near you!

If, you know, you wanted to knit this, anyway....

Pictures taken at the Botanical Gardens in Tilden Park

I am not a big tooter of my own horn, but last year I knit this hat for myself, and I loved it. While I love to knit, love to knit hats (or just about anything) and think that, empirically, hats are a really good idea, I also think I look pretty stupid in them. But I love this hat. I even think it looks cute on me. My knitting pal Jenny who claims to not like to wear hats because she says she looks silly (she is way too pretty for that, you can see for yourself below) "appropriated" the sample I knit for the shop and wore it every day. In the summer. In Southern California.

Pictures of Jenny taken at Balboa Park by the amazingly talented Trevor Cornell

And it was fun to knit, kept me interested but was not so challenging as to make me curse at myself and let me play with some new (to me) ideas.

When I was home in December my sister and the WBBF encouraged (or badgered, depending on your point of view) me to write it up.

That is harder than I thought, so just about in time for the fall weather this year, I think I have it all done. Final formatting and proofreading approval pending, there will be a hat pattern coming soon!