Monthly Archives: September 2012

double garter stitch and grading.

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And new glasses! These are also from Warby Parker. A few weeks ago, in the middle of lots of stuff that was making me cranky and stressed out, I ordered some frames to try on at home. I totally fell in love with these red ones — Marshall, in Rum Cherry — and decided that a new pair of glasses might make everything a little better. And they did.

This is the outfit I put on to wear my new glasses to an event on campus. My dear friend Eileen, who stayed with me while in town for a conference this weekend, even noticed (without prompting) that all these blues made my glasses look even more red and fabulous. Hooray!

In other news, I finished one side of the front edging of my Kerrera! This is what half a sweater looks like. (Please ignore all of those ends waiting to be woven in.)

And here’s a side view. The double garter stitch edging is worked perpendicular to the body, which adds some structure and helps with sagging and stretching. I’m so close — just the edging on the other side and all of the finishing to go!

One more shot. I dug out my favorite rugby sweatshirt to watch the team from my alma mater play the team from my current institution. I’m super active in alumnae stuff, but I don’t get to watch the team play very often, and I had a lot of fun cheering on a group of fabulous women as they rucked and mauled and tackled on a gorgeous fall afternoon. (WRFC = Women’s Rugby Football Club.)

I’m a bit under the weather today after a busy week and weekend, and I finally gave in and took some cold medicine an hour ago. I’ve got a little bit of grading and some class prep to do and I’m aiming for an early bedtime. I can’t believe tomorrow it will be October!

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i heart patch pockets.

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Of course, they are harder to see when Boh gets in the way of my photo shoot.

There. That’s better. Because I shortened the cardigan, I decided to shorten the pockets, so I only did a few rows of the double garter instead of the full edging. I’m hoping I can seam these well enough to make these pockets look as lovely as I know they can.

I ripped out the wonky cuff and reknit it — can you tell? Unfortunately, I realized that I must have done a few extra decreases that I didn’t write down, because the first sleeve fits well, and the second sleeve feels a little bit loose. It is possible that I will rip out and reknit the lower portion of sleeve number two…sigh. I should’ve been better about taking notes about my modifications. Good thing I’ve got plenty of yarn, especially now that I’m not knitting the hood. Ripping out the wonky cuff meant cutting my knitting, as the alpaca yarn is very sticky, and the garter rib is tight. These factors combined to form lots of knots. It wasn’t until I ripped back to the regular stockinette that I could just tug and unravel.

Good thing I heart those patch pockets. (And really, I heart this sweater. Which is good, because that double garter border is going to be a pain in the ass to knit.) You know what else I heart?

Grilled cheese. Especially with black olives and arugula. And a mug of tea. Okay, back to Tuesday. I’m spending the morning getting the house ready for a dear friend who will be back in town for a conference on campus this weekend. Boh and I are very excited that she’s staying with us!

break out the alpaca.

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Also known as the answer to evening and early morning temperatures in the 40s. Fall is here, and to celebrate, I’ve been working on my Kerrera. I finished the second sleeve this week, and aside from realizing that I did something wonky on the first sleeve and should probably rip back the double garter on that one and do it again, I’m pretty happy with how it is coming along.

Can you see that the sleeve on the right in this photo has a shorter cuff than the one on the left? I can, so I’ll probably attempt to fix that. Here’s a side/back view:

Something I noticed while snapping these pictures: this sweater is pretty heavy, and the drapey gauge I’m knitting it at isn’t necessarily helping. To counter this — and to increase my chances of actually finishing this before another winter goes by — I decided to look for alternatives to the large hood. I found this version by ravelry user belletrism, and I really like the wide collar. I knit the first few hood increases and finished off with some double garter. What do you think?

I really like it, and I think it will be cozy and floppy once I knit the double garter band along the fronts and the outer edges of this collar. I am a little worried about the sizing, as the weight may cause this to really stretch out as I wear it, so I’m already thinking about tossing this in the dryer after I block it (and it dries completely) to snug everything up a bit. I’m nervous about the idea, but I’ve read that a lot of people do this with handknits. Do you?

I hope you all have a fabulous, cozy Sunday. If I can get everything prepped for my class tomorrow, I’ll be spending my afternoon curled up on the couch with Boh and my Kerrera!

troublemaker singles.

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Don’t be alarmed; that’s just what this colorway is called: Troublemaker. I grabbed this off the shelf because I wanted to be spinning something, anything really. No project in mind, no particular goal save working at my wheel. This mixed BFL from Hello Yarn felt like butter, and at least in my hands, it wanted to be singles, so that’s how I spun it. When I was just starting to spin, everything I read said that once I got the hang of this, that it would be really hard to spin thicker yarns, especially thick and thin singles. They weren’t wrong. I was going for something a bit more uneven, but these singles look a lot more uniform than I was intending. I’ll keep working on it.

Hangers on the heating pipe. (Don’t worry. I’ll figure out something else once I turn the heat on.)

And from the other side. I snapped these late last night, and the colors are so much more beautiful and vibrant than even that first close up shot. Stay tuned for FO pictures once these skeins are dry!

FO: peace fleece pinwheel.

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A lot of Friday Night Lights went into the making of this Peace Fleece pinwheel blanket. I ran out of yarn with about half of one wedge to bind off, and managed to use some handspun in a similar color. I used up all of my remaining Peace Fleece in this colorway, and if I were to knit this again in the same yarn, I might consider going up a needle size, more for comfort while knitting than anything else. I’m really happy with the way this pattern looks in a tweedy/flecked woolly yarn. The weather is turning cold, and I’m excited to get this belated wedding gift in the mail!

Cool weather means it is time to break out the knitwear. I wore my whisper cardigan with jeans and a scarf for a lunch date with friends last week. I really like this sweater, and I’m thinking about knitting another in fingering weight yarn.

Aren’t the zinnias I picked at the farm last week lovely?

One more: Boh being silly under the porch table. I brought this weekend’s pile of grading out here this morning, and Boh insisted on keeping watch from this position while I worked. Happy weekend!

can’t lose.

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I spent the whole weekend on the couch with Boh waiting out some food poisoning or a stomach bug. There was a lot I was hoping to get done this weekend that did not get done. But on the bright side, being a knitter means that even when I feel terrible, I can still make progress on something. My Peace Fleece pinwheel blanket is much more blob-like than it was before I got sick. (Can’t lose.) Plus, I finally let myself begin a full-on Friday Night Lights binge. It’s going to be sort of tough to get back into the pace of the week after a very quiet, sedentary, bland-food-filled weekend. Before I head to campus, I thought you might want to see a couple of pictures of just how sweet Boh can be when I’m feeling lousy.

He is such a good boy. Happy Monday, everyone! More soon.

worst of all, you never call baby when you say you will.

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Yep, I just found the song in my iTunes library to accompany this morning’s blogging. Just picture me sitting here with my cup of coffee doing the “wooowooo” section that comes right before the big build up to “Why do you build me up, buttercup baby, just to let me down…” It seems that I typed “butter” into the iTunes search field, so now we’ve got The Band doing “Mystery Train” with Paul Butterfield. I’ll take it. Anyway, despite the obvious connection to “Build Me Up Buttercup,” bits of the song do seem relevant to my feelings about this sweater. I’ve got lots of pictures today of me in the sweater in various stages of the rest of the knitting.

Here’s Buttercup after binding off the body. In this picture you can totally see when I put it away for several weeks — that line around my middle is not my shorts showing through; that’s a crease from where my circular needles lingered for all too long.

Here’s a close up of the neckline. I picked up stitches as directed, but knit a few extra rows to bring the neckline in a little bit. I love this neckline, and I think it is pretty flattering. The challenge will be what to wear underneath it because of how open some of the lacework is.

In this picture, I think I’ve got one of the sleeves finished, and I’m wearing the top over a black dress with a fairly deep v-neck.

Here’s a full length shot, over a long-sleeve tee. I’m hoping that blocking will take care of that wavy bit near the bottom, and I’m hoping to get just a little more length out of it so that the finished sweater will be in between a regular sweater and a tunic.

Yay! I like this one.

And here it is, blocking on the dining room table. I’m not really sure how this fabric will behave. I’m pretty sure I blocked my swatch, but such a small square of knitting doesn’t really offer a lot of certainty when I want to know how a whole sweater of cotton-linen yarn is going to act. I’m a bit worried that the  weight of the sweater will drag down the neckline as I wear it. Have you guys ever put a cotton-linen blend in the dryer on low? If this opens up too much, I might attempt that.

I’m happy with the choices I made to knit a slightly more fitted version of this sweater, as I’m not sure I can pull off any more yellow. Also, I like a gentler A-line shape, and this way, I had plenty of yarn. I sort of can’t believe that this only took 6.5 balls of Cotolino. (I had 8, and was worried I wouldn’t have enough to knit the sweater as written. Each ball is 105 meters.)

Oh, and Boh says hi. Stay tuned for some FO pictures after Buttercup is blocked. Fingers crossed!

into the woods.

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The wild flowers along the lakeshore looked particularly green and vibrant yesterday.

Boh and I veered off a regular loop we tend to do at a park near our house. Instead of crossing a lovely wooden bridge, we took a small set of stairs off the south side, and found ourselves in the woods!

Boh loved our detour, and so did I. I’ve been walking in this park regularly since we moved to the lake house at the start of last summer, and this is the first time we’ve wandered along this path. We’ll be back, maybe even this afternoon!

While Boh snored, I dug out my languishing Buttercup. I knew I was close to finishing up the body, so I tried it on. (I debated whether to post this picture of myself on the internet because the neck is still too low and the body not quite long enough — both of which will be addressed before I’m done with the pattern — but I think this is okay to share.)

After snapping this picture (and measuring to determine how much more to knit on the body), I added a few more increase rows and another couple of inches of knitting. This morning I’m planning to listen to podcasts and finish up the feather and fan border. I will wear this sweater this fall! (Famous last words?)

I’m not sure Boh believes me. Or cares. I haven’t been knitting a lot lately, and I want to change that. I really enjoyed working on Buttercup last night — so much so that I worked until my hands were a little bit sore. I wasn’t quite ready for bed yet, so I sat down at my wheel.

I finished up spinning the first bobbin of Kitsune, a polwarth-silk blend from the Hello Yarn Fiber Club. I started this ages ago — maybe at the start of the summer? I’m not sure if this will stay as singles or if I’ll spin the second bobbin and ply them together. Either way, this will probably turn into a drapey shawl or cowl.

Boh and I are planning a quiet Labor Day — some knitting, some work, and a nice walk. Hope you have a lovely day!

love in a jar.

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I spent a couple of days at my parents’ house this week celebrating my dad’s birthday and canning peaches with my mom. We canned 37 jars (quarts and some 1.5 pint jars), and my mom let me have 18 to hoard savor here at the lake house. (We ate the contents of one of the jars with breakfast on Friday morning.)

Because we don’t have class on Labor Day (which hasn’t always been the case), I was able to hop in the car on Wednesday afternoon and be there in time for dinner! Boh and I returned on Friday for an afternoon meeting, and because I don’t have to get all of my grading and prep done for Monday, I still have time to enjoy the sunshine AND get both dissertation and teaching work done before Wednesday. Or at least that’s my hope.

Happy Labor Day weekend, everyone! (And stay tuned for more knitting!)