Sasquatch Day 1: Sunburn > Cold Wind Storm

Oh, Sasquatch--why did I ever doubt you? Why haven't I been back sooner? O.K., I'll tell you why--camping and freezing cold wind when I went in 2007. This year, I'm not camping, and the weather was ideal yesterday, and I knew to bring extra clothes for when it cooled down after sunset. My biggest problem was totally missing my chest when applying sunscreen, so I've got a bit of a burn (after silently mocking people with sunburns all day) that I will need to keep covered.

Here's what's in the photos, left to right, starting with the top row:

Row 1: Laura Marling, Fool's Gold, The Gorge
Row 2: O.K. Go, Ken Stringfellow of the Posies, the Blue Sea Sock
Row 3: Broken Social Scene, The National, the Hold Steady
Row 4: The Gorge, two Vampire Weekend photos

My clear favorite of the day was Vampire Weekend, who I haven't seen before (but will be seeing again in August). Very high energy set, high energy crowd, and I was able to get right down front. Dear Vampire Weekend--maybe it wasn't nice to say you're the new Haircut 100. I apologize, I love you.

The Hold Steady also impressed me--I really like their album "Stay Positive," but wasn't sure what to expect live. Also very high energy & crowd friendly, they really perked me up after seeing a different band that I had high hopes for that were kind of boring. It was nice to see the Posies, it's probably been 10 years since I last saw them (and 22 or 23 years since I first saw them).

I would like to have gotten a better look at Mumford & Sons, but their stage was mobbed and I couldn't see a thing. I definitely liked what I heard from afar.

Time to start getting ready for Day 2 of Sasquatch. Item #1: better sunscreen coverage!

Let it Grow, Now

I've found that the best time to work on a really boring stockinette project is when there are plenty of good distractions, instead of sitting in any easy chair, all sleepy-like. I knit at least an inch over coffee with friends on Saturday, up through the third row of increases. I'm on my third color now, and even though there are now twice the number of stitches I started with, I'm starting to feel like I'm going to be able to finish this before J____'s birthday party.

On Sunday, I dug into the third section at Safeco Field. The game was the second blowout we've seen this month, and we've yet to see a win this season. Not encouraging, not even a little bit.
At least the weather was pleasant and I'm more than an inch into the section:

Second Inning (Padres 1, Mariners 0):



Fifth Inning (Padres 2, Mariners 0):



Eighth Inning (Padres 8, Mariners 1):




Unless I can miraculously whip through the rest of the skirt this week, I'll be taking it with me to the Sasquatch Festival over Memorial Day. I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of great bands (all three days), but am not sure I'm prepared for three days at the gorge with tens of thousands of dirty hippies hipsters. Its very possible that I will be seen as the crazy "you-kids-get-offa-my-lawn lady", or that I will hear a lot of "hey, you must know my mom!". I'm not sure that knitting a skirt for a five year old is going to reduce the likelihood of either one of those scenarios.

As boring as this stockinette has been, I have my eye on Olive (Rav Link), an adult-sized sweater that's a bit of yoke and then pretty much all stockinette. It's such a pretty pattern, though! It's queued up, and I'm trying to figure out what yarn to use, and whether I should start it immediately instead of finishing this skirt or any of the other projects I have underway. Maybe it's time to fix the problem with Passiflora, and wrap that up first? Or to keep up with Kira, which is about 30% complete? Maybe start more medallions for Blue Celandine? Too many options, but fortunately or unfortunately the yarn I'd like for Olive isn't carried by any of the local stores I frequent, so I'll likely hold off for a little bit at least, unless I decide that something in the stash would work out. Hmmm, there's a thought.

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"Let it Grow, Now": Pianosaurus, "Let it Grow".

Sheep to the Slaughter, Oh I Thought This Must be Love

Another project from my flurry of startitis in March / April: Celandine (Rav Link) from Twist Collective, in Halcyon Yarns fingering weight silk. It's a gorgeous little tank that is stockinette built off of the leafy medallions. So far, what I have done are the two swatches, and that may be where I stay for awhile. The designer (Jennie Pakula) has an interesting approach to incorporating the tendancy of silk to stretch lengthwise. The approach is to use it instead of fighting it, which is why the stockinette swatch is really important. You knit a swatch, and then hang it vertically with a knitting needle weighing down the bottom, so that you can measure based on the drape that you will end up with. It's pretty cool to see what was a squat swatch stretch out so much. I think that my gauge is o.k., or will be if I get a lot of stretch out of the final product. The fabric is a little on the sheer side, but I think that I can deal with that with a dark silk lining if my pasty white belly shows through. I have a feeling that it may be awhile before I really need to worry about it--those medallions use 000 needles, so they require a lot of concentration!

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Sheep to the Slaughter, Oh I Thought This Must be Love: Elvis Costello, Big Sister's Clothes

Underneath the Purple Rain

It's only raining normal rain here, but I am being crushed under the weight of tedious purple stockinette:

I've got close to six inches of J____'s Super Purple Girl skirt knit, and although I love the way it looks, it is mind-numbingly dull to knit. I made a ton of progress on Sunday, but I had to pull out a bit of lace to work on for awhile on Monday night to avoid snoozing at the needles. I wasn't sorry at all that I didn't have time to knit last night after getting home from yoga class, and tonight I am turning in early instead of pushing through a few more rows. I do look forward to the next color change (and am hoping that I've got enough yarn!), but it hardly seems fair that the yarn for Inamorata is now wound and taunting me. Here's a solo shot of the yarn, since the stockinette has totally numbed my brain, leaving me with nothing else to say:

I'm So Sweet, Like a Nice Bon Bon

I've started the Super Purple Girl Twirly Skirt (that needs to be done in three weeks), and although I think it's going to be adorable, there's bad news and there's good news:

The Bad News:
I twisted the cast on row when I joined it, and didn't notice for the first, oh, thousand stitches. I've had to rip out everything you see above.

The Good News:
I measured my gauge before ripping it out, and I was getting 4 stitches to the inch instead of 5. That means that I was on track to knit a 28 inch waist for a 5 year old, which is about 6.5 inches too large. I probably should have noticed that it was huge independently of the twisted edge, but wasn't thinking about it.

The Even Better News:
At 4 stitches to the inch, this yarn makes a nice fabric that is neither too dense nor too open, so I can just cut the number of stitches by about 20% to adjust. 20% fewer stitches = faster knitting!

Now I just have to hope that the gauge I was getting on what I've knit so far is representative, at least until I start the ridiculous increases.








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"I'm So Sweet, Like a Nice Bon Bon", The Beastie Boys, "Body Movin'". I'm listening to it right now, to encourage faster blogging.

Don't You Let Me Make You Blue, Too

Ack! I haven't even written about all of the blue projects I have underway, and today yarn for (at least) two new blue projects arrived. The blue hank in the upper right corner is Kitchen Sink Dyeworks Silk Linen Lace to make the Inamorata published in the latest Knitty. I can't wait to get started on this, I've been eager for this yarn since the pattern was published. The rest of the yarn is Cascade Cotton Club, which is for a certain young lady's 5th birthday--I'm planning to knit her a Twirly Skirt (Rav Link), but am not sure if I bought enough yarn. And I just realized that her birthday is in three weeks. I'd better get cracking!


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"Don't You Let Me Make You Blue, Too": Lloyd Cole, Perfect Blue

Bad Night at Safeco Field (but at least there was knitting)

Truly lousy game. Mom and I left in the fourth, with the Mariners trailing 8 to 0. Sure, Jered Weaver had a no hitter going for the Angels, but that would be more impressive if the M's weren't hitting so poorly. They've practically been no-hitting themselves over the past week.

I did knit a bit on Kira. It takes a little of the sting out of it. Thanks for the long tail cast on suggestions--I've heard the use two yarns suggestion before, that would totally have worked. I just ripped back and used a longer tail--it was much easier to get the right length, having gotten so close the first time!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The Problem With The Long Tail Cast On

208 stitches needed. 192 stitches cast on, with about three inches left. No way that's going to work out for me.


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I Loves You Until I Hates You

I mentioned in my last post that I've started a few new things, and the black sweater above is one of those things. It's from the awesome new Twist Collective,the pattern is Passaflora by Julie Turjoman, and it's a super cute sleeveless top with lace insets on the sides and at the neck. I'm using the recommended yarn, Incense from Elann. I worked on this on my recent flights, and have a few inches left, but it's about to go into a serious time out. It turns out that the pattern charts were incorrect in the first version, so my insets don't look right-- see how the solid part jog a a little instead of looking solid like in the pattern photo? I've got to rip back about 2/3 of what I've knit, which is a total drag because there are 236 stitches that I'm going to have to pick up I can't believe that I didn't notice that the pattern didn't look right earlier. I've got the corrected charts now (and no hard feelings or actual knitting hate--it was an honest mistake) but I don't have the will to rip just yet.

I will say that one thing I really like about purchasing patterns in electronic form is that when there are corrections, its super easy for companies to redistribute full, corrected patterns. I recently purchased another pattern from a company that only distributes hard copies, and happened to notice yesterday that errata was published in a blog post that I would totally have missed if I wasn't browsing Ravelry. I don't routinely search for errata before I start a project (I suppose I should), and I really appreciate it when a company automatically emails me an updated pattern.

So if I'm holding off on Passaflora for now, it means I get to start something else, right? Honestly, that was the first thing I thought when I realized how much I have to rip back, which could explain why I don't feel like doing it right now. The bit of purple you see above and below is indeed something new.

It looks like a swatch, but it's really a pocket! I'm starting Kira (Rav Link), in St. Denis Nordique. I checked out this pattern after hearing about it on the Doubleknit podcast, and my only regret is that there wasn't enough Robin's Egg Blue at the Fiber Gallery by the time I got there for the yarn. No matter--the eggplant was a close second place. I'm hoping that this is a project I can get started on and then just work and work on it when I want something fairly straightforward to knit. I've been jumping around between a few projects with vastly different attention requirements, and when I have a few minutes to knit but don't want to drag out a pattern or have to focus too deeply, I've been at a loss about what to work on (though the Carrieline does fit that bill--I need to put that on top of my knitting basket).

So I composed most of this post using my new iPad, and it worked a little better than I expected. I'm hoping to find a good blogging app, but in the meantime just used the web browser. I had to go back and center the photos and add the links from my desktop, although if I had HTML skillz I could have done that from the browser without a lot of trouble. I will entertain all suggestions about alternative ways to blog via the iPad!