I wish I had taken a picture of my most recent quiche — it would be perfect for my cheesy blog post title. Stripes! is the first bottom-up, yoked sweater I’ve ever knitted, and thus I rarely type “yoke.” “Yolk,” however, is a word that gets a lot of play here at chez rooster. Aside from the obvious rooster-chicken train of thought, eggs are a staple in my kitchen. (In fact, fried eggs, homemade toast, and some avocado slices comprise one of my favorite pre-seminar lunches.) Therefore it should come as no surprise to you that every time I sit down to label photos or type about my stripey sweater, my fingers seem to want to refer to the upper portion of this sweater as a yolk, rather than a yoke.

No more. Why, you ask? Because I have actually gone and knitted a YOKE. See?

[Boh still can’t work the camera; forgive the dirty mirror and awkward self-photography above and below.] Here is the yoke mid-decrease, and here are several photos of the yoke as it exists at this very moment:

One more:

I love love love this sweater. (You will too.)

I knit this with an inch and a half of ease, which seems to be the right fit for something I intend to be worn over a layer or two. I knit the sleeves to be a bit long for pulling down over my wrists — in these photos, they look a little baggy, but I think once I graft the underarm seams that won’t be a problem, as I was happy with the fit on my arms before I joined the sleeves to the body.

I have been knitting on this nonstop: several hours when I got home from a barbecue last night, and then for about 3 more hours this morning. I just couldn’t put down the yoke. I’m hoping to bind off, graft the underarms, weave in the ends, and get this baby blocking by the end of tomorrow! I’ll do a real FO post with measurements/specs/details once it is ready to wear.

On a note entirely unrelated to sweater yokes or egg yolks, except maybe that the activity I’m about to describe occurred in the general proximity of chickens, here’s a photo of today’s haul:

My CSA does a bunch of u-pick produce, and with all the rain we’ve seen this week, the farmers sent out an email saying that the season picking quota thus far had been upped to 5 quarts! I picked up the owners of that lovely greyhound pictured earlier in the week (they are also members of my csa), and we spent an hour or so in the strawberry patch, picking and eating, the sun shining and a slight breeze blowing. All those strawberries had us thinking about ice cream, and we headed up along the lake a few extra miles to a local creamery for a treat. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon…