stitch marker

february lady sweater

Going great. I've done 11 lace repeats of a potential 20, then I'll get back to the sleeves.

I soooo won't have enough yarn.  Just one more 280-yard ball after this one. So on Monday I'll be heading to Knit/Purl for more of this Schaefer Miss Priss (the colorway is called Margo Jones.) Don't you head over there for it! I need it!

still

The Twisted Float Shrug. I'm past the armholes, and I need to knit for a couple more feet in diameter (aka a f***load more.)

It's still either the ugliest or the prettiest thing I've knit. So not sure.

if you are eden, don't click this picture

Unless you want to see your baby's finished sweater before I mail it!

Pattern: Elizabeth Zimmermann's February Sweater from Knitter's Almanac.
Yarn: Dream in Color Classy, in Petal Showers colorway.
Vintage buttons from Button Emporium in Portland, OR.

do you know about the twisted float shrug?

I didn't.

I didn't really know what I was taking a class to learn. I just knew I wanted to experience a class with Annie Modesitt, and I was offered the last space at Abundant Yarn's all-day shrug workshop. (I wondered how a shrug workshop could even take a whole day, but I found out soon enough.)

First, Annie is just awesome. I love her no-nonsense yet utterly creative approach to knitting. It is so effortlessly both of those things, it's amazing to experience. If I had known Elizabeth Zimmermann, I bet I'd be saying "Annie reminds me so much of Liz!" or something like that. She's funny, too, and a total genius.

The shrug pattern...well...it's so cool.

The shrug pattern was first published in Vogue Knitting in 2005, then republished in their 25th anniversary issue last year. The twisted float method is very much like the braids on Anna Zilboorg mittens, and since I've done those braids I took to it without any mind bending.

But the shape of the shrug is just a thing to behold and was so enjoyable to discover as we students realized bit by bit how it was going to happen. It begins at your back, in a tiny circle. Annie dispensed immediately with any thoughts of difficulty about starting a tiny circle, and we were off. Strangely, the knitting you do is the "private" side and you need to flip over to see what you're creating.

I will not tell you how it's all going to happen. But I can tell you you start with measuring your own body, and you make calculations based on your body that tell you when certain things occur, such as when you put in your threads for afterthought sleeves. The entire thing is an eight-slice pizza, and the sleeves fit in two of those slices. It ends up 100% reversible both in an inside-out sense and because it can be worn as a shrug or turned upside-down and it becomes a longer jacket. As Cara would say, "Dude."

The math of the whole thing is elegantly simple, as most math is.

I've made four swatches now, and can start one of these puppies in my sleep. I think the one above is "it," and I swear on all that's fun and good in this world that I'm going to try to really make this thing. It's too amazing not to.

blue v finished

Pattern: The Spicy V-Neck Fitted Tee from Fitted Knits (ravelry link; membership required)
Yarn: Cascade Eco+  Wool, 1 skein would have made the short sleeve Large. I added longer sleeves and had to just barely break into a 2nd skein. Amazing.
Size: Largest, but I was getting a denser gauge than called for. I am a 38. At 3.25 spi the "42" fits exactly.
Started: February 24
Finished: March 5
Yes, even I finished it that fast.

The pattern took a bit of doing for me to get, but then I had an aha moment. (The rounds that say "work straight" mean for you to make the holes, but not the shaping. Got it.) Then I flew along. I added some more shaping and length to the bottom because it looked just wrong, and I'm so glad I did because it is barely long enough. Also, I lengthened the sleeves. The pattern is short sleeved.

I will surely knit this again. I love the style, and now that I totally understand what I'm trying to do I'm excited to try a different yarn.

You can see more shots here. Check out the back - the best part of all.

where's my cheese? do i get cheese now?

• Ellie is in remission!
• Sebastian had to get 3 stitches in his forehead this morning!
• Later today, not only did he poop in the potty for the very first time!
• But also he did it while watching The Osmonds for the very first time!
• And besides all that
• and working
• and food shopping
• and visiting with the neighbors for a while
• I even knitted a couple rows on my spicy v-neck tee in the lovely blue Eco+ Wool.

Those people who say they can't find time to knit? They just don't need it bad enough.

martin, and my knitting

Photo by Sebastian.

I wasn't intending to write about how Martin thinks I knit too much. No, I was just going to give a nudge for everyone to go visit his Tabletop Shrimp Support Module, which is now available as a free tutorial from MAKE magazine. (I'm so proud.)

But then I realized, Martin has been asking lots of questions. About whether I think knitting is really fun, or if it's just making me anxious. Whether there's anything wrong? I knit so much there must be something wrong.

There isn't anything wrong. It's just that I'm on a roll. I finished my Double Chocolate Waist Cincher Top, and am not happy enough with it to take finished photos yet. I think it needs a hard, wet blocking. It's tight, and, as I told Rodger the other day, my titties don't fit in the titty slots.

Not to worry. I moved on quickly. Rodger sold me on Eco+ Wool being a good choice for the Spicy Fitted V-Neck Tee, and so finally, finally, after about a year of mulling, I cast on for that sweater. It's dark blue. And after a good bit of reading and re-reading I got the idea of how the pattern works after the armholes and now I'm flying, making those pretty corset-y things down the back. I hope to get a decent picture soon.

I've also been knitting a secret project to submit to knitty for the Summer issue (due Saturday.)

So much knitting!

And more yarn arrived today. Several luscious dark blue bulky skeins from handpaintedyarn.com. I think that was supposed to be for a Cherie Amour? I don't know. I was in a trance when I ordered it.

Now I think it will be a Nella. Check out those sleeves! They are for me!

As long as I can keep up the knitting, and convince everyone that, really, there is nothing wrong.

n x nw

I feel like this blog post should come with a table of contents. Or a map. I'm all over the place. No pretty writing, no nod to the beginning-middle-end thing. I apologize for my brain today.

A little business, first. I've changed my checkout service to e-junkie (no longer payloadz). If you happen to attempt to buy one of my scarf patterns and you get sent to payloadz, or you have any kind of problem, please email me at dumbmail AT larissabrown DOT net.

Also, if you are anywhere near Portland and are interested in the Book Release Party, please save the date of March 15. We'll be celebrating with cocktails, food, prizes, knitalongs, etc., at Abundant Yarn in Sellwood. I'm trying to devise some kind of online party, perhaps at ravelry, for those who are not in the area.

And then lots of knitting. I've working on both sleeves of the Waist Cincher Top at once, and they look dreadful. They're actually fine, it's just that I have so many strings hanging from the needles at once, it's sort of gross. I haven't been moved at all to take a picture of it. I've also made a lovely swatch of the Sweetheart Socks by Chrissy, and started a 70s hot dog ski hat for Martin.

In reality I have probably a dozen or more projects that were cast on at some point with great hope and enthusiasm. I'm starting to think of some of them as big old swatches. Others as very very slow projects that I still love. And myself as a bit spasmodic right now, starting things every day, knitting crazily on them for a couple hours, then setting them down to start something else.

How about some nice breathing? Ahhhhh.

I cleaned my yarn room a little, so I have a tiny space where I can see the table. (I'm not just a pig, the room is seriously tiny and I have too much stuff for anyone to keep neat in there.)

And hey, I got a couple of Make My Day Awards! This gives me the opportunity to think about 10 blogs that make my day. ("No, you rock! And you know that!" A little Cars joke for the parents out there.) Anyway, I may not be thinking in a good strong line today. Here are a few that make my day. Maybe not 10.

Christy at Neither Hip Nor Funky. I got to meet her the other night, and I was utterly boring and weird. I've gotta get over that phenomenon.

Alicia at Posie Gets Cozy. Alicia and I have become friends in real life, and I love visiting her every day since we don't really get to do that.

Heather at The ADD Knitter.
Siri at Knitting Iris.
Leslie, A Friend to Knit With.
Adrian, Hello Yarn.

My mind is full now. And probably you're nearly asleep or have started wandering your living rooms and work cubes, those who've joined me on this mini-epic and directionless journey. Thanks, and have a nice day.

rain rumbling

We've had brilliant sunny days, to play and take pictures. Martin & I ran into Alicia at a cafe the other morning, proofing her book (gorgeous!), and it was so bright we were all shading our eyes talking to each other. Ridiculous. We are like animals that live in a cave.

But tonight, tonight the rain is rumbling around the house. It's not a pitter patter of drops, it's more like a wet rocking sound, so comforting even though it's wet. Those of you who have this kind of rain will know what I mean. We all know our little peculiar weathers, don't we?

I finished the back of the waist cincher and I have to admit I think it's really beautiful. I started the front, but I had to take some time off to finish a baby sweater that is so small it's not even going to fit the little one, who is now a couple weeks old. Must mail that sweater!

Today we took Ellie for her second chemo. She's sleeping right now, a little wobbly this time. But good news! She is at 50% remission after only one week of treatment, and her calcium levels have completely gotten better. It's complicated, but the main thing is that she's responding very well to the treatment, which bodes well for how long we can keep her happy and alive and sniffing, eating, camping, taking hikes, getting the paper, salivating at donut bags.

So, a few bits of here-and-there news. It's nice to not have Big News all the time.

knitting @ playgroup

There are babies. There are 2.5 year olds. There are boys. There are girls. Books, toys, a tent, a hot bubbling foot spa for the grown ups. Coffee, tea, sandwhiches, cheesey bread, fruit. Depending on your child and your level of comfort with him or her running around the store, you can actually knit.

Come on, Friday. What's not to yearn for?

While I sit here and work in the middle of the week, and Sebastian is at school, I can dream of a nice day together with everyone at Abundant Yarn and with my little guy. 

(We had a great one yesterday, too. We went to the park and it was soooooo cold we were the only ones there, him in his little snowsuit. So I played. We were airplanes, buzzing around the park. We ran over all the bridges, and walked all the brick walls.)

(Playgroup's at 10:30, btw, and all are welcome.)

(And that's my Drops cardigan, which I'm still making though it's fallen back to about third or fourth place in my heart right now.)

i want to talk about knitting

And just knitting. Just for a free, blank moment, a moment of not being sad, for myself and for everyone, because we are all so tender and there's so much danger. (In fact, with her first shot of chemo Ellie has been feeling so much better that it's been obliviously happy times for her.)

(And thank you so much for all your kind words. I read them and cried my way through all the sweet notes and wishes of encouragement. Thank you.)

So, knitting. I think it must be a comfort spasm or something, but I started a new project. I didn't even have to think much. I copied my friend Heather (who owns Abundant Yarn.) She's knitting this same thing, too, but in totally different yarn and colors. I hauled out stash yarns and just started and kept going and going. (Sebastian slept from 3 pm yesterday to 5:45 am today.  Free knitting time!)

Thing is, it's gorgeous, and I can't get a photo of it. Not one good one. Nope.

It's the Waist-Cincher Top from Joan McGowan-Michael's Knitting Lingerie Style. I was given this book at TNNA, and Joan signed it for me, her signature alone being a work of art I'd seriously frame. The book is really lovely. There is more here than I thought I would knit, thinking it was all bras in elastic-y yarns, which it's not. The waist-cincher pattern so far hits that sweet spot, memorizable but not boring. That's about 7" of it there, made with Louisa Harding Fauve for the ribbony bits, and Elann Peruvian Sierra Aran in Walnut for the main body. I'm knitting it on size 6s and 4s - one size down from the needles called for if you make it with Lush.

Back to that, then.

all systems normal

So says the MRI. This is wonderful news, just in time for party season, so I can go out and have a great time knowing I'm not dying. I can't tell you how much this means to me, being an Olympic worrier, especially on the topic of disease and dying.

Thank you all for suffering through the MRI preparations with me. It's all for the best! And another great letter has been put in my file from the doctor. This one says I have "no brain abnormalities" but I do have "extensive sinus disease" that needs to be dealt with. I knew that. The pressing, wrenching, pulsating headache each afternoon was my daily reminder, but I was waiting to deal with one illness at a time.

Now I will be completely well! And I'll know, for a brief time with great certainty, that I'm not dying of an aneurysm. I'll feel free for a good long while.

That yarn there is part of my new lease on life. It's Abundant Yarn & Dyeworks sock yarn in the Heather's Baby colorway, and I'm swatching with it for abotanicity. (Some of the people who work at Abundant Yarn will be making this, too, so I'll have some friendly pushing along.) Heather is the owner of the store, and one of the dyers, and she has a beautiful little girl who is Sebastian's friend. Heather and I have become friends also, and it's so nice to go there every week and have such loving people around me. What a sweet store.

And I'll have half a sweater to honor it. Just kidding, maybe I will really finish it.

goings on

Okay, for the people in my neighborhood these may be old news, because I'm tremendously slow with this sort of thing. But:

• Saint Cupcake on SE Belmont? Across from Zupan's? They now sell individual cupcakes (not just the $14 boxes). And they have day old cupcakes for $1.50!
• Powell's on SE Hawthorne, the 'books for cooks' & crafty Powell's, has soak for half price in their clearance area at the back of the store. But not the Aquae flavor. I got the flora one for $8.50 a bottle. Woohoo. Goodbye smelly dirty sweaters.

Also, Friday 10:30 playgroup at Abundant Yarn gets more and more fun. Sebastian is totally in love with Rodger. Starting on Thursday he starts to talk about how we'll take two buses and then Rodger will be there. And Rodger will give him pink milk. And it's all true.

Also, I'm on my second front of the drops cardigan. (I took a break to make a calorimetry for cold running ears and to start a Noro scarf no less than 5 times and still I'm going to rip it again.) I'm knitting the cardigan on size 8 needles that Mama Urchin sent me as a gift (thank you, lady!). I love using gift needles. It sounds cloying, but it really does make the knitting more fun somehow.

When I finished the first half of the cardi, shown up there, I laid it out for this picture and Sebastian said, "Mommy knitted a driveway!"

up to my eyes

In everything, and yet I did, yes, cast on for the Drops Cardigan 103-1. It seemed like such an innocent and good thing to do. I'm using this Debbie Bliss Donegal Aran Tweed in black. It's a Halloweeny yarn, and I'm using size 8 needles and doing the smaller gauge of the two offered in the pattern.

It's cold fall now. Wettish to wet, and really chilly. It's time for such a sweater, a dark and warm thing. Today Martin and I went downtown to Spella, a little coffee cart in the midst of corporate lunch hubub, and ordered poured machiattos. The Spella man is careful making his espresso, and he serves the drinks in ceramic cups. We stood with our tiny drinks and shivered, under some graffiti that said BONUS. It was so nice to have a break together, even a tiny huddled one. As usual we are up to here in work, child, laundry, yard intentions, unfinished quilts, unfunded car dreams.

And now I add another project. But hey, I like it. And speaking of my eyes, as my late Nanny would say I'm going to "rune" them by knitting with black.

who's your buddy?

It makes a person realize what a good friend they have. When they're out of yarn on a project, and their friend casually says, Oh, yeah, I have a skein of Malabrigo in Glazed Carrot. Do you want it? Martin seemed frankly amazed by this exchange. Glazed Carrot is not exactly what most people have lying around. It's not quite like borrowing a cup of sugar. And yet, the exchange was made at a public park in broad daylight, and here I am--done with the knitting on my Two Tone Ribbed Shrug.

I haven't tucked in the ends yet, but preliminary trying on suggests it's going to be very cute. Not a word I use often in a serious way, but this shrug really is adorable. It looks like some old-time movie jacket, like I'm going to put this on and whip out my long cigarette holder.

The sleeves need some thinking on. They either need to be longer or shorter, right now hitting at an odd place right past my elbow. But I think this will be very good, and that I'll make another for sure.

onto something

Something else from Fitted Knits - the Two Toned Shrug. It's going lightning fast and it's soft and lovely. I'm knitting mine in Malabrigo worsted in Pearl, and I'm thinking about Glazed Carrot for the edging. I love the combination, I'm just wondering if I'll want to wear it when I finish it, or if it will be too cool for me to pull off. Maybe I should stick with some other colors I have? Simply taube. Black forest. Marron oscuro. But the carrot is so vibrant and thick.

We had fun birthdays here, mine as well as Sebatian's. I got to go to the farmers' market with my whole family and then out to dinner with girlfriends for delicious buttery mushrooms, goat cheese laden beet salad, red velvet cake, and watermelon sorbet with cracked pepper and cloves.

I'm getting fully into running training, and I'm timing myself running from my house to the top of Mt. Tabor and touching the statue. I'm up to 26 minutes 19 seconds, but I'd love to get to 20 minutes flat.

I have 4 donors for the Run for Congo Women - thank you thank you thank you! It is a hard thing to write and think about, and no doubt hard to be faced with on a blog that you come to for knitting. It's been probably my least popular blog entry ever, as in very little feedback either way. I  appreciate those of you who commented and donated.

And in fact, I should make that 5 donors, because I asked Harrison down the street who is about 6 years old and whom we've sponsored for Run for the Arts before.  I asked him for $2 and after his head about exploding at the thought of him sponsoring me he said yes to the 2 bucks and then added "Maybe I'll do more." Like, We'll just wait and see  how you do, Missy. Hilarious.

it very much fits

I finished this at night, so the photos are quite moody. It fits! I didn't make it too big, like I  have been doing with every sweater this past year or two.

The pattern is the Perfect Periwinkle Turtleneck Tube Vest from Fitted Knits by Stefanie Japel. I used Cascade 220 Heather in Lavender and sizes 5 and 7 needles.

I was frustrated to learn about the pattern errata after I'd already cast on and knit the turtleneck, because the cast on number is the error for my size. Rather than rip out, I made the back one ribbing repeat smaller than the front, which led to some issues that propogated through the sweater. It would have been better even a bit smaller, which it would have been had I read the errata, dammit.

Otherwise the pattern is fun as can be, with a lull in the gaiety during the very long stretch of  ribbing at the end. I made mine about 2" longer than called for, which is odd since I am the shortest-waisted person ever and am just 5'3" tall and it is still short on me, yet looks longer than this on the tall model in the book. I guess lots of mine is taken up by my gigantic size Cs? But that should be built into the pattern for my size bust, so I guess I really don't understand. My advice is to try yours on, though it be a pain in the ass to put all those stitches onto waste yarn. I am so glad I did.

I actually wore this to work yesterday. No one said a word. Is it weird?

still

I'm going strong on the fitted knits turtleneck, and I can't wait to wear it. I'm planning about 6 more projects from this book.

And we've come to days, two in a row, where we don't have anything we absolutely have to do to survive and continue our jobs. It's amazing. I worked on the garden yesterday and knitted on this top and slept for three hours in the afternoon.

This morning Sebastian was getting his stuff together to go to GG's house (ask a 2-year-old what he wants to bring for the day: "rubber shoes!" "diapers!") Martin said, OK say bye bye to mommy and he waved to me. I said I love you, and he said as he breezed out the door clear as day "I love you Mommy."

too many spoons in the pot

My little Drive Thru sweater is almost complete, and will fit Sebastian for about 2 weeks. But a cute 2 weeks!

I often have too many things going on, creatively, physically, every which way. I've been like this so long, it's almost a joke. My husband makes signs with slogans like "No New Ideas!" and posts them around the house.

But with the first draft of our book due in a couple days, and with just so many many things I love being interested in and tapped into, I've hit a soft and unmoving wall.  The tempurpedic version of the wall.  When I sit to create something -- written or knitted -- half the time my mind responds with a dull no.  I love all the work I'm doing so much, my baby, my book, my house.  It's all exactly what I want out of life.  It's less rebellion, more drowning in marshmallows.

Mom said it well the other night. She meant to say something about too many cooks and something about too many irons in a fire, but it came out "too many spoons in the pot."  For me that's totally, totally it. 

I'm keeping keeping on until April. I used to think March was going to be the great time when a lot was done and I'd have fewer spoons in this pot. But now it's April.  Come on, April.  We can make it.

cave woman progress

I think it was Ursula LeGuin, but I'm really not sure and can't find a source, who wrote that it was easy for cavemen to tell exciting stories about the hunt, but that it wasn't so easy for the cave women who did repetitive work to tell stories about wrestling berry, after berry, after berry from the bush.

That's how I feel about any knitting I might show you tonight. It's good, I did it, and it's likely dull as hell to look at. If you're really curious, it's 5" of All Seasons Cotton in stockinette stitch on the little man's Drive Thru sweater.

Some more exciting things came to pass, though. M learned to knit! He's been threatening to do so for many, many months. I guess he thought with the book due in a few weeks this was as good a time as any. He went to Abundant Yarn's drop-in class tonight and Pat got him to make this. "It was going to be a washcloth...It's a bookmark."



And in the mail today, we got 4 more squares! I have to admit that I was a bit surprised at the fewness of them. That brings us to 27 total in hand, and we have about 400 people signed up who are ostensibly making them, with just 2 days left to get them here. I'm thinking either we're going to have a very high non-completion rate, or the UPS store is going to be reeling tomorrow.

However, even though they were few they were mighty. Very very pretty squares and all four went together and matched my coffee cup. Thank you Dana, Jenn, Michelle, and Beth.

p.s. Despite the truly wretched nighttime photos in this post, I do think I have a couple sources of photo tips and one or two of my own amateur insights to share about taking knitting photos for blogging. I'll write a post about that to answer a question or two I've gotten about photos. But please note, a lot of the good photos I use are credited to Sarah, who takes gorgeous photos and shares them all with me because she's a generous and kind person. She wrote here about her film camera, and about not taking digital shots. She takes no digital photos. None.

an ideal situation

Sarah took this photo of me back when we were on our way to the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival. It's got my car, which I have a sweet little love affair with, and it's got me ordering Burgerville. Oh dear delicious slightly-greasy Burgerville!  This is what I consider to be an ideal situation.

So is starting a new sweater for a little boy. Another diversion, after working on the book for a couple days. Wendy of Knit and Tonic designed it, and she says it is so quick to knit up she calls it the Drive-Thru I'm making it in Rowan All Seasons Cotton and I got almost a quarter of the way through the body last night.

11 and rising

That's the square count as of today, what I have in hand. Every day Mom goes to her mailbox to pick them up and it's like Santa coming all over again. I have squares from Oiyi, Siri, Chawne (that's her square above), Katie, and Jessica (we sound like a private school cheerleading team).

I had a date with a neighbor today to block a shawl for our book. Erin has a whole room with a whole bed in it that no one is using, something that sounds strange and wonderful and far off as we are still living four humans and four pets to a tiny house during our construction. And Erin doesn't have as many creatures crawling and sniffing around her house. Anyway, her place is good for the shawl blocking. But. She wasn't home during nap. So I got to "sneak away" from my obligations for a few minutes today and I got to do some knitting. For myself.

I actually finished and bound off the front piece of my klaralund...

...so now all that is left is the back. I felt awfully guilty, but also realized I needed a break from thinking about more complicated patterns, where I am in charge and peoples' future project success is depending on me. Enough of that sort of pressure happens when I open the square envelopes and realize I have a lot of blanket making to do in the next week and a half.

But I'd almost forgotten how very nice it is to get all the notes and little presents that come along with such squares. Siri sent me a thrifted camo shirt that looks oddly like this fabric (which I never did get). Very cool! And she sent six squares, all gorgeous.

(She is seriously contending for the most squares prize, so anyone who has a few done you might want to crank it up, honey).

2006, the knitting

Adrian has a quite inspirational list of her 2006 knitting posted today. I liked the way she gathered it all - I'm a great lover of lists. So I thought I'd do the same. These are my finishes for 2006. There were many more starts, believe me.

January 2006

juniper bonnet
kepler

February 2006

gg's shawl

March 2006

zimmermann bonnet
another juniper bonnet

April 2006

seal rock ankle socks

May 2006

sebastian's birthday hoodie

June 2006

tiny wrap sweater

July 2006

emergency baby hat

August 2006

wrap sweater for davis

September 2006

charlie's angels wrap sweater for me

October 2006

candy cape

November 2006

a meathead hat
and two secret book projects

December 2006

socks 101
and another meathead for the book

Not counting all the false starts, the work on projects now placed in cryogenic stasis, and single socks, I'd say I knit about 4 baby bonnets, 2 adult hats, 2 baby wrap sweaters, 2 adult sweaters, 1 toddler sweater, 2 shawls, 2 pairs of socks, and a few miscellaneous secret things. Plus I did a whole lot of sewing that I'm not sure I can quantify this cleanly.

Stitch marker celebrated its 2000th comment, and I added riveting hopefully-at-least-somewhat-fun categories such as favorites, thrift & vintage, phone blog, and the homemaking hall of fame. You helped me through the dark Boob Nazi times, cheered me on while I ran, and celebrated with me as Binx grew and as we celebrated knitting together. Thank you for being my friends and co-knitters.

Oh, and whatever I may have lacked in wit and quality? Sorry 'bout that. But I made it up in volume! According to the kind and no doubt accurate people at typepad, this is my 500th post.

oh so finished!

Aahhhhh. I feel so good that this one is finished. It was a tough slog at the end, as I worked the 1o0 kilometer death march 53 inches of i-cord. And I wove in a lot of ends on the garter stitch borders for my self-designed 3/4 split sleeves.

The sweater pattern is the Knitting Pure & Simple wrap sweater, and the yarn is two colorways of Blue Moon Fiber Arts superwash worsted (Lagoon and Lucy in the Sky). It fits fairly perfectly. In fact, I should lose another 5 pounds because it is soooo perfectly fitted. The hemline falls in a very good spot indeed. Now for some cold late summer nights out in the yard and a white t-shirt for underneath...

sweater for davis

Last night Sarah and I met to do some last-minute finishing of items that are going to the state fair. Forms were due earlier in the month, but actual items are due tomorrow.

Sarah wasn't home yet when I got there, but her husband Jonathan greeted me with pink wine. Then he strapped Truman on his back and went into the kitchen to cook. First he came out with chips and artichoke dip, then sliced avocados sprinkled with rice wine vinegar, salt & pepper. Finally, a ragut with sausage meat and angel hair pasta. He also kept filling my wine glass. What service!

Somewhere in there, Sarah came home from her emergency trip to Jo-ann and we started earnestly crafting. The husbands took one boy each leaving us with just Truman (who likes to eat scissors, it turns out). I fixed up my trellis sweater with some re-seaming, checked over my leaf shawl for a few fixes since it's been worn and washed repeatedly, and then finished the little sweater you see above even though it's not going to the fair. When I left around 11 pm Sarah was working on a gorgeous miniature quilt involving strips of her wedding gown fabric and bits of all the other sewing projects she's done this year. I'd given up on finishing a knitted baby bonnet that is only halfway done.

The little sweater is a wrap sweater mostly done with the pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting, though I made straight sleeves instead of the several decreases and increases in their pattern. There was something wonky about the way mine were folding up when I did it the way they say to. Oh, the yarn is of course Blue Moon Fiber Arts superwash worsted. It's the Marbles colorway, same as Sebastian's hoodie, but this skein is dyed softer, more muted.

deer in shade

While knitting continues all around me, and in my own hands, I'm so hot and exhausted I have nothing much to say about it. I did work on my Lorna's Laces Shadow jaywalker sock today, while wilting in the park. And I've begun another new sweater in Cleckheaton's mohair blend. It's lace on size 13 needles and going fast. So that's nice. I just have a general hot malaise that's not getting better with every new project I start without finishing a current one. I hope to have better news by Monday. Maybe I'll finish something and get flooded with glee!

Kathy McCann - a fair knitalonger - came to our meeting the other night with her own pear preserves and pumpkin confiture for everyone to take home. That was a beautiful thing.

Another beautiful thing is our boy. As I changed his diaper this morning, Sebastian looked at me and said in a clear, determined voice as if he'd been rehearsing it and dreaming about it all night..."Bobby." Then he thought a second and tried again. "Mommy." It was so lovely! I've realized that there's no first word, and no first time he's said something. It's like a flower opening, and each day it's a little more open, and while it started as a bud there comes a day that suddenly it's definitely a flower. And you're not sure when that happened.

Oh that shirt up there is something I sewed, a patch on a thrifted baby tee. I'm not sure what it has to do with all this.

Cheers!

neck edge in

Click the photo for pattern and yarn details.

best case scenario

I will look like one of Charlie's Angels in this wrap sweater. But for that to happen, I'll also have to lose 15 pounds. Better get started.