Pretty straightforward stuff here today. Boh and buttercup. Together.
I’m done with the feather and fan neckline, and I’m working on the body. Here’s a picture I snapped when I was trying it on to decide whether to do the A-line body increases or not. (I decided not, for fit as well as yarn quantity reasons.)
A stripey apron that I adore. (It came from my friend T.’s kitchen.)
And we’re back to Boh and buttercup. So sweet. Happy Friday, everyone!
Boh and I took a long, meandering walk with M. this weekend. This spot was new to me, despite being just a few miles from my house.
We walked through meadows, shady forests, and then with our feet (paws) in the creek. Boh loved it, and we’ll definitely be back.
That put Boh to sleep for the rest of the afternoon!
Which allowed me plenty of time to keep working on Buttercup.
I’m really enjoying this, and if I bring this with me to the lectures of my summer TAing gig (planning to check that the prof I’m working for is okay with this, but I think he will be), I think the stockinette portion will move right along.
This book is significantly larger than Boh’s head. Not that anyone is measuring. I’m off to campus for a couple of meetings today. And later, I have a date with the lake. (It’s a standing date, really, for any days where the temperature is supposed to reach into the 90s.) Stay cool!
Forgive me. I’m doing that thing where I try to link all the things I want to tell you about in a phrase. It’s okay if you want to roll your eyes. But when you’re done with that, look at this:
After I posted about recap mason jar lids for narrow mouth jars, blog friend dearmary offered to order me a cuppow coffee lid for wide mouth jars as part of an order she was planning. We met on Thursday, and talked for an hour. (And she not only brought me the cuppow; she also brought me a jar and a sweet, stripey handknit mason jar cozy!) All of this affirmed what I already knew to be true: blog friends are the best. Also, the cuppow has my highest recommendation. I filled it with a latte right away, and when I was done, I flipped the lid inside out and put the regular mason jar lid disc over it, sealing in any remaining coffee drips and making it possible to toss the whole thing in my bag. I am going to use this ALL THE TIME.
I finished blocking my lilac wine cowl and snapped a few FO pictures.
I ended up using between 2/3 and 3/4 of my skein of Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 sock yarn. I could have kept going; I intended to, even, but I developed some sort of lilac wine fatigue last week and was ready to bind off.
I think I’ll get a lot of use out of this — in overly air-conditioned lecture halls and during in-between seasons, especially.
I took a few photos of the cemetery on my walk down the hill from campus. I’m captivated by the house-style mausoleums built into the hillside.
Can you tell we’re onto the random pictures from my iPhone segment of the blog? I’ve been eating strawberries twice a day this week. (I picked a gallon last week at the farm, and I’ve managed to eat them all. So good.)
More pesto, this time with garlic scapes and farm basil.
And then there’s Boh and his pile of paws. I’ll post photos of the weekend adventures that prompted such deep sleep soon.
Yesterday morning, I swatched for Buttercup with my coffee. I bought the yarn for this three summers ago, when I was back in the southwest the summer after my first year of grad school. It’s Queensland Cotolino, and I’ve got 8 balls of it. 8 balls x 105 meters = roughly the amount required for the XS size. Good thing I’m not working on a Ph.D. in math…
So I swatched on 5s, and got gauge. But then I went down a needle size, because I know that this is going to grow when I block it. I like the drape with 4s, and it isn’t so tight that I will hate knitting it. Decision made. So I unraveled what I had, because I’m going to need every last inch of this stuff. Normally I swatch — for real — and wash and block the swatch to make sure I’m happy. This project officially goes in the “by-the-seat-of-my-pants pile.” I don’t think I’m going to go as A-line flowy as the pattern suggests, though I do want some of the increases. Also, everything I read on ravelry suggests that I should go down a size so that the neck isn’t too low and open. I’m knitting the small, and we’ll see what happens. Worst case? Someone I know will get an adorable summer sweater.
Then I had radish toast for lunch. (Radish toast, in this iteration, is toast, butter, arugula, radish slices, and salt and pepper. It is even more delicious than you think it is. Trust me.)
My progress right after lunch, strawberry smoothie in hand. (Note: I picked a gallon of strawberries at the farm on Tuesday, and I’ve already managed to eat 3 quarts. I’ll probably polish off the last one today.)
No, I do not normally stand like this. But these are the jeans I bought to replace the ones I ripped. And they are straight — or even tapered — at the leg. And that wasn’t clear in the pictures I snapped where I was standing not awkwardly. So here you go. I think I like them.
Boh and I took an afternoon walk with our friend J. and the dog she is taking care of this week. It was lovely.
More buttercup. I’m really enjoying the feel of this yarn, at least right now. And the stitch definition makes me swoon!
So does this sunset — truly the golden hour.
I did some great work on my latest pinwheel blanket yesterday — and I’m really excited to finish this because I can’t wait to send it off to the newlyweds I have in mind. (There are, in fact, three recently married friends of mine who are also sometime-readers of this blog. They know they’ll be getting something hand-knit, so I feel like it is okay to share this stuff. If I kept my wedding-gift-knitting secret, I’d have nothing to share on the blog! If you’re reading right now, this may or may not be for you! There. Now we’ve got some suspense.)
Now, on to the simple rib blues. Ever get those? When all of a sudden you feel like something is taking forever, and you just need to finish it now? That’s how I felt yesterday. I was catching up on Stash and Burn, and realizing that I haven’t done very much Rooster knitting, so I picked up my Lilac Wine cowl. During the semester, this was exactly the kind of knitting I needed — soothing and satisfying. But last night, I needed to finish it. Maybe it has to do with the fact that it is summer, and I’ve got fewer things (okay, right now I have one huge dissertation-shaped thing) on my plate, but all of sudden I was so sick of this ribbing! I had been planning to knit until I ran out of yarn, but I looked at my never-ending ball of Fleece Artist Merino and decided that I couldn’t wait that long.
So I slipped my cowl over my head, needles and all, and took a look in the mirror.
And I decided that it was big enough. So I went back to the pattern to look at the instructions for the tubular bind off, only to discover that it is super tedious: four set-up rows, and then kitchenering all the way around the 180 stitches of this cowl. Nope. Not happening. So I looked at some other projects on ravelry, and decided to do Jenny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off instead.
And now it is blocking on the dining room table. It feels so good to have this off the needles. I’ll post FO pictures once it is dry.
Unrelated, but here’s what I ate for dinner the other night: a spinach and arugula salad with beets and carrots, all from the farm, plus a fried egg. Yum.
And then there’s this guy. This is the face he gave me when I tried to convince him to get off the couch and go outside before bed last night.
And here are his ears, flopping in the wind. Sweet, sweet dog. Happy Wednesday!
I picked this peony at the farm last week when I went to pick up my first summer share. It is almost ready to bloom. (And I appreciate that it is taking its time. It’s the perfect company for me as I wrestle with writing a conference panel proposal this week.)
Sweet, sleepy Boh.
New dress and scarf! I wore these to campus on Friday. So comfortable and easy. (And all because I dragged myself to the Gap to replace the jeans I ripped a few weeks ago.)
I had Tango again this weekend. The dogs played so hard that they were happy to hang out with me as I worked on the couch.
And then yesterday we had a last-minute visit from my brother — and his sweet dog, Dexter! We went to the farmers’ market, ate strawberries, olive bread, and french radishes on the porch, and took a nice long walk.
And then I finally transferred my pinwheel blanket in progress to an appropriately sized needle. I’m almost through the first skein of Cascade 220. (And I’m planning to knit it to a 3-skein size.) So far so good! Now, back to Monday!
This is my neighbor’s dog, Tango. Tango loves Boh’s bones. He hung out with us yesterday because his person had an all day event. When his person came over to pick him up, Tango began to gather and chew on all the bones.
See? So very sweet. Boh didn’t seem to mind at all.
We’re working backward today, folks. This also happened yesterday. (My pinwheel is growing.)
Also, this. Boh is asleep on my leg. So much playtime!
And here’s a sunset from earlier in the week — maybe Wednesday?
Boh and his bone. (And nails in need of a trim.)
And just because, here’s a photo of my living room looking extra neat and clean. I snapped this picture before I headed to the wedding in Ohio last week. I rented the house to friends for graduation weekend, so I did some serious cleaning to get ready.
Time for dinner and some knitting while the dogs play. (Tango is here today, too!)
I don’t remember which morning I took these pictures — early last week, I think. I remember taking Boh out first thing in the morning, and going back for my camera. I love it when the fog rolls off the lake and hangs low.
Also last week: a claw! On a train! I was stopped for construction when I noticed that there is work happening on the train tracks. The claw was picking up new railroad ties from inside the car it was mounted on and slowly placing them along the tracks as the train chugged along very slowly. So cool.
Also cool? Prescription sunglasses! I cannot tell you how excited I am about these. Last week I went running without my contacts! I took long walks with Boh and didn’t squint! I even indulged in a bit of people-watching from behind my new shades. These are going to make it so much easier for me to work outside — at coffee shops and on the dock. Hooray!
And this? This is the cowl that will not end. (Also, the sweetest dog.) I really want to knit until I run out of yarn, but I am also ready to be done with this project. I’ll probably split the difference and spend a few more evenings on it and then just bind off.
Boh says hi. And that he loves belly rubs.
I love this mug. It’s filled with honey and a splash of apple cider vinegar dissolved in hot water — a remedy for a super sore throat, which is what I was dealing with on Friday. I thought I was massively allergic to something that just came into bloom, but I actually think I came down with an end-of-the-semester malady. It morphed into a full-on head cold yesterday, and I think I’m past the worst of it now. The good news? My grades are done, and I’m planning to drop them off on campus first thing this morning! (Which means that my summer starts today! Not vacation, exactly, but I’ve got a month before my summer TAing gig starts, and I’m looking forward to settling into a sustainable rhythm with my dissertation research and writing. More on that soon, I’m sure.)
Happy Monday!
I snapped these photos with my phone on my walk from the coffee shop to my car last week — before the snow, sleet, and coldness that blew through here over the weekend. I do love spring. (Also, I love that purple paint job in the first picture!)
And here’s my sweet dog, keeping me company as I knit around and around on my lilac wine cowl. I could probably bind off anytime, but I sort of want to use up all the yarn. We’ll see…
Apologies for the radio silence over here, folks. It’s been a crazy week or so — getting that draft of a chunk of the first chapter of my dissertation “ready” for a departmental colloquium happening later this week, teaching, and even a research trip (which, happily, meant not just super busy days at the archive, but also time spent hanging out with Mick of Much-Adored).
The only pictures I’ve been taking lately have been of documents, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been knitting — and I’ve got significant progress on my Lilac Wine cowl to prove it. I thought the 1×1 rib of this pattern would be annoying to knit, but instead I’m finding it incredibly soothing. It goes slower than stockinette, of course, but I don’t think I mind!
Here it is on a pile of books I should read. (For scale.) I can’t believe it is already almost mid-April. More soon!
barefoot rooster 