Something Blue is Done

I've worked on a lot of in-progress projects this summer, but until this past weekend, I haven't finished a thing. Seriously, I had to scroll back to April 30 to find a finished item on this blog, and it's not just because I have three sweaters in progress.

I am not really a fan of headless torso shots, but I can't quite bring myself to post the hideous faces I was making while taking these with a tripod. Really, hideous.

Now that fall is in the air, I've finished my first sewing project of the summer. I'm not counting the dress I made in the 90's that I had my mom make into a skirt (the dress was an age-appropriate length in my 20s, but I'm not in my 20s anymore), because I didn't actually sew that myself. This is a simple shirt, with an elastic gathered neck. The pattern is Built by Wendy for Simplicity (pattern 3835), and after having it cut out over a month ago, I finally found the hour or so it took to sew. This was a test run for some special Japanese double-gauze fabric that I plan to use for a summer shirt, and it works well enough. I may wait to cut out another one, though, because I think that I might still find a better pattern to use, and since it's almost September, it's unlikely that I will get much use out of a summer shirt this year. Back of the queue, Japanese fabric! Back of the queue!

Long Time Gone!

Well, I didn't really mean to let a month go by without a single post, but I spent three long weekends in a row at three music festivals in three different states. I'm pretty happy to be home this weekend (and likely every weekend until mid-October), but I saw a lot of great music, ate a lot of great food, and spent time with some pretty great friends. And took a lot of crappy photos.

Here's what's in the photos above:
Top Row, Newport Folk Festival: What Cheer? Brigade waiting for a boat, Andrew Bird, Scenic View from beer pier, Avetts in a golf cart.
Middle Row, Solid Sound Festival: Wilco sign at Mass MoCA, knitting Blue Monday on the train to western MA, Jeff Tweedy, Wilco.
Bottom Row, Pickathon: Langhorne Slim rocking the barn, Frank Fairfield, Woody Pines

Bumbershoot will be the fifth and last festival of the summer, and thankfully it's on my home turf. In between now and then, I've got some knitting to work on, some sewing that's been neglected, baseball games to attend, and a whole lot of other stuff to catch up one. Busy, busy summer!

I'm So Tired, My Mind is on the Brink

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the reason I'm so exhausted is due to the following schedule. Times are Pacific (though I start out on East Coast time):

Sunday, July 18:
4:00 am: depart hotel for airport
6:00 am: depart DC for Los Angeles (cheapest routing home)
11:30 am: after sleeping very little, but knitting a bit of Kira sleeve, arrive LAX
2:30 pm: depart LAX
5:00 pm: arrive Seattle
6:00 pm: arrive home
7:15 pm: depart home for Avett Brother concert (see top right and bottom left photos)
9 - 11 pm: rock out!
midnight: arrive home

Monday, July 19:
6:00 am: wake up
7:30 am - 6:30 pm: work
7:10 pm - 9:30 pm: watch baseball game at Safeco field & work on Kira sleeve (see top left and bottom right photos)
10:30 pm: arrive home

In other words, this week is a little more jam-packed that I'd like it to be, although I wouldn't give up the trip, or the concert (it was really, really good, and my seats were really, really great). I should probably have skipped the baseball game, but didn't have time to trade in the tickets before we went to DC. Boo. The weekend isn't looking a lot better, nor is next week or the week after. Man, I've got to schedule some sleep sometime!

Back from DC (but I left my knitting there)

As the blog title states, I'm back from vacation. I made an excellent start on Blue Monday, but left it (and my beautiful new Signature needles) at my brother's house. When his wife called to tell us, my brother wondered what I would do on the plane--he didn't know that I brought two extra projects to work on. Hopefully, I will have the sweater back soon, because I'm making two more trips to the east coast in August and it turns out that it's a great travel project, and it will be at least until I get to the waist shaping.

My brother's family took the visiting folks (my mom, another brother, and me) all over to see the sights, we really crammed a lot into the four full days we had in the greater DC area. We also experienced some of the nastiest summer weather you could hope to find, high 90s every day and really, really humid. And a thunderstorm that knocked out power (i.e. air conditioning) for 8 - 12 hours and shook loose a tree limb across the street from their house, falling on and crushing a neighbor's brand new Volvo. A lot of excitement!

It was honestly too hot to take a lot of photos, but here's what I've got above (all left to right):

Row 1: Monticello (the best tour we took, well worth the heat & long drive), and a gorgeous plaster ceiling from the Kenmore Plantation in Fredericksburg.

Row 2: The Capitol building in DC (we went to the National Gallery, which I love love love), and a carved fireplace from Kenmore Plantation.

Row 3: The Mariners flag in the outfield at Camden Yards in Baltimore, and former Mariner Adam Jones batting. I know that I'm complaining a lot about the heat, but it was 95 degrees at gametime, and 91 degrees when the game was over. That's too hot, people! We had seats that were 15 rows behind the Toronto Blue Jays' dugout, and I'm really glad we went to the game. The only other time I tried to go to Camden Yards, the game was rained out, which was a huge drag, so this was a great treat.

Maybe next year, we should think about visiting earlier in the summer or during the spring (or Christmas 2011?). My brother and his wife have three school-aged kids, so it's hard to find a time that works for everyone--maybe just Frieda and I should make a special trip out there one of these days, I know she'd like to meet the rest of those kids!

How Does it Feel to Treat Me Like You Do?

I'm leaving to visit my brother's family in VA in a couple of hours, and although I didn't start packing until this morning, my vacation knitting plan has been in action for a few weeks. I've had Sabbatical in my queue since February, and somehow a long, complicated lace sweater converged with a yarn and needle buying opportunity and a little extra cash in my pocket, and I took the plunge. I bought my first pairs of Signature circulars (they are awesome), and beautiful Madelinetosh pashmina yarn, and got right to it. The swatch? There in the upper right? It's not very good. The gauge is too big, the color is too dark to show off the lace pattern. Also, the yarn is so dark that it makes it hard for me to read my lace, resulting in some errors. Or maybe not--it doesn't look quite right to me, but I can't really tell where I went wrong. This yarn and this pattern are not going to work for me, so that relationship is over. I will find a plain sweater for the yarn, and maybe I'll start saving up for the recommended yarn, which is gorgeous but even more pricey than the pashmina.

Since it was Sunday by the time it became clear that the Sabbatical wasn't going to work, the new-project alternative was to pull something out of the stash & give that a try. So I swatched for the Monday Morning Cardigan (Rav Link) in Dream in Color Classy that I've had for a year or so, using US5s. It looks good! I got gauge!! The downside? I need to alternate balls of yarn to blend the skeins, so I'm carrying two skeins with me--it didn't occur to me before I cast on that I should wind off smaller amounts, and now the project is packed. The upside is that after running out of tail during the long-tail cast-on, I remembered the advice that I should cast using two skeins. No way to run out, and since I need to alternate yarn, there isn't even any extra ends to worry about.

It's going to be hot in VA, so in addition to this big project I'm bringing the Iris Waves socks, and the second Kira sleeve. Let's hope that there's some relaxing knitting time in store--I could really use it.

Jump! Jump! Jump Around!

It occurs to me that except for multiple posts about the Super Purple Girl skirt (which still needs finishing), lately I've been writing about a different project pretty much every time I post on this blog. I really do jump around from project to project a lot, and although it means that I rarely finish anything, at least the knitting stays interesting & I don't have to make any quick decisions. For instance, after knitting an inch or so of the Inamorata tank earlier in the week, I completely lost interest in it just as I am getting to the point where I can determine whether or not my gauge / sizing will work out. Maybe the reason I've set it aside is that I suspect it won't, or maybe that it's just been too hot to focus on cables. I'm tempted to just rip the whole thing out, which could still happen. The yarn is too beautiful to waste on something that isn't going to fit, or that will never be finished.

Another old project that was set aside because I was worried about it is Carrieline. It's probably doubled in length since the last time I wrote about it (months ago), a few rows of straightforward stockinette at a time with a few stitches of i-cord edging on each side. I'm alternating skeins of Sundara Sport to keep the sweater from pooling, which is working beautifully except that when I switch the i-cord edging has tightened up in places. Especially in a place where I knit four rows of one color instead of two. See the puckering here:

So for months, whenever I've picked this up, all I can think about is whether or not I should really rip back hours and hours of work to the puckered spot, or whether I should plan to pick up and knit a buttonband (and somehow cut and tack down the tight spot). All the while, it's gotten more difficult to think about ripping out, because I'm getting farther and farther past the pucker. Recently I realized that before I do anything drastic I should just block that edge and see whether the problem works itself out. So last night, before settling in on the back porch with a glass of rosé, a purple sleeve, and a movie, I soaked that corner. After the movie ("An Education", which I highly recommend), I pinned it out, and here's how it looks this morning:

No ripping back required, no need to plan post-finishing surgery--definitely flat enough for me! It's such a relief that the simple solution, requiring the least amount of effort and intervention, is the one that worked out. This is also good news because this is the only knitting I've got going right now that doesn't require a chart or keeping track of rows or any patterning. I will measure my gauge in the blocked section against the pattern & use it to make sure I'm still on track. I think that I swatched for this, but it can't hurt to use a "real" row gauge to double check that I'm getting enough length.

I am still really loving this yarn, even more so now that I see how beautiful it looks when it's all nice and blocked out. The three photos above, taken in different light at different times of the day, shows how the color shifts from blue to grey in an interesting way. It makes me wish a little that I'd taken a bigger color risk when I bought this yarn (bright red, anyone?), but this is a color that I will wear a lot and that isn't a regular boring grey. Now I just need to knit the other 70% of the sweater, and I'll be all set!

Hot in the City, Hot in the City Tonight!

Summer's really here, and the Iris Waves socks are back! Too bad the baseball is so, so terrible.

Oh when I look back now, that summer seemed to last forever

This is the summer that Seattle folks will remember as long. . . a long time coming, that is. Coldest summer I can remember since moving back here in 2002, that's for sure. But rumor has it that it will maybe be 80 degrees this week, so I've finally started Inamorata from Knitty as my new summer project. It's the third tank top I've started in recent months, and I'm not sure I like the odds that I'll finish in time to wear it this summer, but at least it's something a little different (i.e. not purple) and in a beautiful yarn. I'm using Kitchen Sink Dyeworks' Silk Linen Lace, and it's really nice--gorgeous color, nice and cool feeling to knit with. The yarn is 35% linen, but hasn't felt too rough on my hands so far (although now that I think about it, maybe I can feel it in my fingers a little). I'm altering the cable pattern slightly, by not filling in the loops with garter stitch, like this one on Ravelry. I like the original version, too, and really should probably gave swatched both, but didn't.

Unfortunately, the skein of yarn is gigantic, so I'm not sure if this will be a great project to take on an upcoming family trip to Virginia, even though it's very climate appropriate. I should start thinking about what else I should take, so there's time get it together. Any suggestions? I could also use summery reading suggestions--I just finished the Dragon Tattoo series, and nothing else I've started has been as gripping.

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Excuse Me, While I Kiss This Guy

I've not been blogging a lot, but I have been knitting a lot of purple stockinette. No, not the Super Purple Girl skirt (cast off this weekend! tons of finishing left!), but Kira, which I haven't posted about since early May. I've knit the body (all in one piece) up to the armholes, and am about halfway through the first sleeve. I lengthened the body by about an inch, which I'm usually too impatient to do, and I knit all of the waist shipping, which I usually avoid in favor of obscuring my fattest parts. We will see how that works out. I suspect that it may still end up shorter than I like (it's meant to be a short cardi), and more shaped than I like, but I'll deal with that when I know for sure.

For some reason, this project was what I pulled out whenever the purple skirt got to be too too boring to work on. It seems odd, given that it's also stockinette, with only the purl rows and waist shaping to add interest. Given that my knitting time has been a little limited in recent months (work pressure, starting yoga, & continuing to run are all interfering), that little bit of interest has been plenty. Time to adjust to slightly more stimulation, though--take a look at that sleeve:

I'm really pleased with this project so far, despite my various doubts and complaints. I've definitely made a lot of progress in a fairly short period of time, while having less knitting time than usual and not working on it exclusively. And maybe by the time it's ready to be finished, summer will have arrived and I will be able to put that part off for while. Wouldn't that be nice?

Hope Your Fourth is Jam-tastic!

It struck me earlier this week that if I didn't get cracking on making some jam, the local berries would be gone. It was a hard realization, given that we've only had a handful of days over 70 degrees this summer so far, and I've been spending way too much time working to see July coming. It's here, though, and after a long afternoon of canning, I've got 18 jars of jam. I wish that I'd remembered that I linked to recipes LAST July, because I winged it a little. I made Strawberry Lime using a recipe that came with the box of pectin, and then I made raspberry-strawberry without pectin. Both are delicious, but the rasp-straw is a little bit runny. Live and learn. And if I can still get raspberries next weekend, maybe I'll try the recipe I made last year again--it's hard to have too much homemade jam on hand.

Happy Fourth!

So Sorry, Super Purple Girl

J____'s birthday has come and gone, and her skirt is still not quite finished, along with my blog posts about Sasquatch, and some baby gifts that really need work. I'm not finishing much of anything these days, because I'm spending a lot of quality time with some Excel models & in a ton of meetings. I'm hoping that this lighten up a bit in July. Really, really hoping. Just like I'm hoping that this

is enough yarn to finish. I've knit a picot row & 3.5 rows afterward, and should knit a few more rows before binding off. I may just knit to the beginning of the round, though, and use another color in the he, to make sure I've got enough of the dark blue to sew the hem (or tack down the live stitches). Wish me luck!



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Note: Not one to disappoint a 5 year old, I found the perfect baseball hat for her. Purple, sparkly, and with (I kid you not) a big purple unicorn next to the Seattle Mariners' logo. Only available in youth sizes, unfortunately.

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!

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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!