What's my favorite knit?

My own. Only one like it.

Bramble Cable & Seuss Sock, sans toe

That's as far as one skein of Jawoll took me. I forgot that I'd purchased three of one (an early sock knitting expedition) and two of this one. And then there would have been those who might have read labels to confirm. Not I, evidently. Stay tuned for the toe solution.



The Bramble Cable is comfortable. Curiously, even though I was convinced I might be close to having just the right yardage, I ended up with two balls of the Rowan untouched. Happily, a colleague happened to exclaim (as she gushed over the sweater) that those were her colors. Guess I might do a little holiday knitting - or non-holiday - for her!

Did I mention?

I finished the Bramble Cable. Sweater there. Camera here. Picture later.

Side note: I'd have a Seuss Sock finished, too, had I paid attention to the amount of yarn the first pair of Jawoll socks took. Those were made in pre-journaling, pre-knittyboarding, pre-blogging days. Yarn was purchased in Maine. Seems I bought three skeins of one colorway and two of another. I have knit a nice leg length, a satisfactory heel, and skein one ends nicely RIGHT before the ball of the foot. There will be creative solutions to the rest of the foot. Not sure if I want to introduce another color or stick with the colors in the rest of the sock. At least the matching reinforcement yarn will add some continuity to the whole handmade and handknit affair!

Since I bought some Jawoll recently in Wisconsin in the same 2-skein portions, I thought about contacting the shop there to see if they have remaining skeins of the yarns I picked up. Or not. It would be wise, after all, to use what I have. If not, I'll be having a lot of creative socks. Maybe these will go Toe up and have substantial and contrasting cuffs. I'm just not much of a short sock person. One of a kind socks for me!

Meanwhile, I've started the second Seuss Sock. Thank goodness for all those thriftstore sock needles.

Flash & Use

Seems like a match.





I have acquired plenty. I'll acquire again.
For April?
Form and function to follow Flash.

One person's beach vacation

...is another person's stop at the yarn store sale.**

YUM. I'm going to have a productive spring break, I tell you. I can't write more now. I'm at the heel point for each of my carry-along socks.

Here's to Spring Break!

**(No, I didn't spend THAT much. It's the indulgence metaphor, natch.)

Knitting and naming

Last night? I stood in as a dresser, so I had backstage knitting progress on the self striping sock up until the point where I wished I had the reinforcement yarn with me. Ah, that striped Jawoll reinforcement yarn makes me smile!

Moved along to the brown sugar walker, which had had a frog back of two inches the other day for a couple misplaced decreases and increases. Only so much zigzagging that sock needs.

Oh. And I was told the self striping sock looked like a Seuss hat. You guessed it. They are now officially Seuss socks. You've just attended the naming ceremony.

This morning I undid the Bramble cable sleeve stitching, undid the bind offs and knit longer cuffs.
I kept myself steady as I started to consider the wisdom and longevity and trendiness of the flared cuffs. I did not frog back. Tomorrow, the last of the stitch up, I'm thinking.

Steps forward, Steps back

Picture updates didn't include an actual update. The pewter project is done. It's scarf scale - only two skeins of the yarn, over a foot wide and over 7 feet in length. Picture later, but I've worn it for a few days. Lovely and understated.

Stitched up a sleeve of the bramble cable this morning and discovered that the sleeves really should be longer.

Will undo tomorrow or Saturday so I can undo the bind-offs and lengthen the cuffs. SO glad I did the provisional cast on with the sleeves so I could tackle the cuffs in this manner. The real bother will be the spit splices. For each join there are three - one for each color in the twist.

Not happy about this extra snowy stretch of Winter to Spring, but it'll make for nice knitting time.

Pictures v. Words, or that Knitting Olympics Certificate of Participation

(Sorry I don't have time to resize the rest of the photos just now.)

So for starters, I did finish the Christmas grab bag socks. They've been mailed and received and approved.




Naturally this means commencing with a pair pour moi, the web-touted-walkers.




I thought this was a closeup of the above picture, but it's really mostly cropped. Still, the Wildfoote in Brown sugar is quite lovely. The light punches up the yellow and orange. In life, the browns and rusts speckled with purple and tiny hints of green are quite lovely.




Here are the sleeves from the Bramble cable. I did flare the cuffs a wee bit.
Funny, only YESTERDAY did I notice that my Midwest Ring blog neighbor did the same sweater, only in warm reds. She, too, dispensed with the contrasting mohair flounce at hem and cuffs.




I really enjoy this yarn. Pretend you're having a yoga moment where you let your eyes go soft.




PS. The longish strays above ARE the alpaca. On the sock? Yes, a cat hair.

I did haul this sweater out to tackle it. Worked up a little bit more here, and then tackled the sleeves. They're both at armlet stage, but no pics.




And then there's the LLLLemming scarf.





I used stitch markers briefly until I decided that this would be better with quiet, non-dropping, tactile markers, so I purled the to-be-dropped rows.





I really liked looking at the yarn, even peeking out of the small project knit bag.




This is one of the Lorna solids: pewter.




Great lesson in tones and color theory.




I left a length of this, as if a rose, at my grandmother's grave. Silk and wool and all the qualities they carry. Grey and understated and rich with color.
Yarn for a story teller and an unassuming caregiver.
This would have been hers, had things been different.

Absence

I've been absent from the blog.

Work life was demanding, although there are some photos coming of things knit during the Olympics. Think back. It was only a month ago. Work life has been highly productive, although that's not kept me from some steady knitting progress.

And my grandmother passed away. She was a sometimes knitter, a pragmatic quilter and crocheter. Everything was useful. I shared my knitting with her on every visit - naturally I'd have some along.

And I'm knitting like a fiend. I miss her. We all miss her. She was surely loved and surely loving.

Finishing & trying: Win and Win

My day has finished up earlier than expected, so I'm heading home to knit.

I didn't finish my abandoned sweater, but by knitting along with the knitting olympics, my oh my did I win anyway.

The first week of the Olympics saw the finishing of two gift projects (photos/links to be inserted here later), as mentioned in the last entry. I made headway on two new pairs of socks, zipped halfway through an indulgent bit of scarf for myself, AND that was the portable knitting.

I finished knitting the single cable sweater with Rowan Bramble and had it blocked and half seamed by the closing ceremonies (Torino time).

AND by the end of NBC's late night Sunday broadcast, I had reclaimed, as self-challenged, the peace fleece & Noro sweater. Both sleeves have now progressed up through to the elbow, the body is within two inches of the underarm. Today I found some good resource patterns on Knitty for working out the shoulder questions (raglan, drop, etc.)

These weeks could not have seen any other type of knitting challenge in the home of towering textiles, but this indeed was the perfect match. I did finish things, and like walking the marathon, I'll enjoy finishing the rest while I get there.

The packages landed, I'll wear the Bramble this week, and I can't wait to get home tonight to get over the elbows on the Peace Fleece. Congratulations to the knitters who gave it their all. I'll enjoy admiring the projects and stories I'll find over the next weeks. And I'll enjoy that kind of knitting intensity when school is out. The past 16 days I gave the knitting what I had to give, and that suits me just fine.

Can't post - Must knit

What a crazy week it's been. I've done a little mid-day blog hopping to see the Olympic projects and updates. Impressive knitters, the lot of them!

Me, I'm tooling along. Worked a bit on a sweater. Finished up a pair of socks since I couldn't be at home with the sweater on opening weekend. Packaged up the kid poncho and the grab-bag socks for mailing. (From the sounds of it, I could be keeping fine company with the assortment of FO and UFO knitting teams!) Did some other small knitting on jury-duty day. (Knitting in the assembly room only, but since that's the ONLY place I WAS, I got a bunch done.) Since I couldn't be at home to see much of the Olympics this week, either, I soothed myself with a little extra sock knitting, two types, both (ahem) for me.

No pictures today. Must grab a bite to eat and then go to a rehearsal where I will be knitting one of those portable projects, WISHING I could get home soon enough to work on the sweater.

Can't stay. Must knit.

Remembering and forgetting

Such a goofy day today is.

I left home feeling like a packhorse, toting everything I needed to transfer to work today hoping I was remembering everything. I remembered the tote bag with work projects needed for the day, vowing to remember not to take so much tomorrow if I won't actually use it. This was the case last evening, and the bag was impossibly heavy. SO.

I remembered the items I promised I'd photo for some knittyheads. I remembered my lunch and supper, packing a lovely thermos of squash soup and a container of two not-quite-ratatouille filled spinach tortillas. On my mother's recent visit, she brough leftovers of some basque influenced recipe using thin slices of celeriac. We tote food a lot. (Hey, she was going to be away from home for more than a week. Waste not, etc.) I must say it made a lovely little lunch, now that I've wolfed down the tortillas and saved the soup for supper.

Where was I? Oh, I remember.

I remembered to bring some knitting for some between things waiting I have later this evening. Remembered to turn off the stove, lock doors, etc.

Forgot to dress for winter. Hat? Scarf? Boots? Snow?!?

But I do have the moment to act upon remembering to post this yarn for a knitty's perusal. Extra bonus? I actually have yarn pR0n for a Wednesday.
This would be CTH Glitter Alpaca Java:



This would be CTH Glitter Alpaca African Grey



And I was careful to be candid with another knitty about whether or not she'd want these very small metal dpns. She's declined and was glad for the candour which helped her determine her needs - but I'm posting them anyway - because I couldn't BELIEVE how tough it was for me to consider parting with them. I am SUCH a keeper and rememberer. I like that these vintage needles lived for a long, long time in Minnesota. They probably heard a lot of Swedish or Norwegian. (Found them in St. Peter.)

They also serve as an interesting and stained reminder of exactly why stainless steel was such a big deal. (That's a half strip of staples, snagged for hasty effort to provide scale...)

And I've remembered to bring the niece poncho to mail, but I've forgotten the card. Ugh.

Athletic metaphors on my terms

I've been bemused by the swoosh of activity to prepare for the Knitting Olympics. Nothing like a finite time-table for a creative challenge. Heck, that's why I like the regular rhythm of theatre tech weeks. I was hesitant to jump in, though, as I DO have a tech week that will overlap the first week of the Olympics.

What to do? Look for more athletic metaphors.

Yoga's my kind of athletic engagement. Hiking ranks there, too. I am a process fiend. So an Eddie Along is my kind of Team Olympic participation.

I'll be tackling, then, an abandoned sweater. This will be a sweater I started a good while back. It will be a sweater which had the challenge of an engaging process. It will have been put aside long enough that it has been moved into safe keeping - a plastic box or a large zip bag - and stored temporarily with the stash. I have four candidates. There's this bit of beaded Cambio, for which the knittyboard KAL has been deleted for want of recent activity. This photo was in May. I'm twice as far, or more.

There's this monster. Training will call for frogging and swatching. It may be an over-reach.

There's this little friend from the summer. I'd puzzled over stripes through chest, armscye, and sleeve, so I paused to puzzle more.

And there's an aran sweater of long-ago frogged for re-sizing delphinium blue Galway. The pattern has been lost in the boxes I must purge, through two moves, mind. I'm starting to lean toward using this vintage Brunswick pattern. This could be a mighty two week goal, but I'm worried about the time available in that one tech week.

In the spirit of the Olympic endeavour, I'll pick up with the flame and go for the 16 day stretch. In the spirit of Eddie-ing along, I'll enjoy the process and knit as I'm able.

Here's to all the teams and the pursuit of so many grand goals!

A blogger's (silent) poetry reading

My mother will be sharing these words aloud this week with children.
I hope they have snow.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

- Robert Frost, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Found this at My Fashionable Life.

Hot Water Bottle Happiness

This December saw the demise of my faithful red hot water bottle. It had to have been 15 years plus. The rubber gave out. Fortunately the water disaster was in the kitchen, after filling, rather than in the bed! But do you think I could find a replacement? I ended up caving and purchasing a microwavable bag with a stretchy interfacing-type fabric with a strip of hook & loop tape for closure. Not fully satisfactory, although I have worn it around my head on a dismal sinus day or two this week.

After seeing a post at yarnstorm, I was determined to try again to find one. My local family pharmacist (whose store is quite anti-chain, I should mention) was delighted to hop to and seek one out for me. They found two. I was torn. Red economy with a 10 year warranty or for 3 dollars more an awful tan with a lifetime warranty. I left aesthetics at the door and plunked down the extra 3.

So now....where does one find a pattern for KNITTING a COVER? I'm forever using a towel wrapped around it. Something to look for in weeks to come. Years to come - it is a hot water bottle with a lifetime!

Bramble Cable

I'm on to the sleeves. This is front and back. I stitched up the shoulders, as I wanted to get the yarn free from the neckline addition. The hem and cuff detail may be an interesting experiment, as I probably won't have very much extra yarn to fuss over.

I've included both photos, as monitors vary. All I did was zoom in a little, I swear.

Men have big feet. Well, some.

Yes I am soldiering on with the grab bag socks. Nearly done with the heel. I was distracted. (Don't tell!)

One more niece knit

Sh. Whisper. It's a poncho. A few inches away from a nice three needle bindoff to connect the side edge with the live edge.

Hey. It's for a kid. She wants it.

Here's to a hasty knit

I think this little bit of bramble on the great big bamboo needles should be pretty zippy.
I've done a provisional cast-on and will knit an alternate, same-yarn version of the lightweight ruffled edging from the bottom down. Same will be done with the cuffs. Choices may depend upon the amount of yarn I'll have left! It will be close, but that's the thrill of the sale purchase.

I think I'll like this choice of sweater longer in this yarn than I would have done with the T.D. corrugated sweater. I'll save that one for a different yarn.

PS. In the end, it wasn't horrid thoughts of aging that finally changed my mind. I decided I didn't want that asymmetrical neckline to go with a wintry sweater that might require a layer. Neckline dilemmas galore on that one!

Happy Middles

I'm in the middle. There's no denying it.

I'm old but not.

I'm back in town but not fully unpacked.

There are pics in the camera, but the camera's no here.

I have 5 things on the needles but I really want to work on the 6th quick knit project that I started just for me. Might as well BE in the middle of more.

And as much as I think I might be able to carry off the assymmetrical corrugated rib in the Teva Durham, I'm just not sure. I may be too old.

I'm frogging the start (despite last night's contented approval of the swatch) and moving on to the quick knit that I found in a back issue of VK with the nice red v neck, the big clean cable. I'll be doing something different with the designer's kid feather weight ruffle at the hem and cuffs.

I can still do a nice v and a bit of a flare (and a bit of flair!), but assymmetrical AND chunky AND offbeat colors? (Yes, I found some Rowan Plaid locally at half price. I caved.) I'm too {(old)}.

Eek. Happy Middle-Aged Day to me! There shall be wine and dine and knit. Still chunky and fun but maybe not TOO off beat here in the middle.