Tag Archives: knitting

28thirty weather.

Posted on by
3

I had forgotten what a tease spring can be in certain parts of the country. Clearly I need to just enjoy sunshine and flip-flop weather when it comes, and stop expecting that it will stick around. The only positive thing I can see in today’s rainy yuckiness (and the week’s similarly cold and rainy forecast) is that I may actually finish my 28thirty in time to have a weather-appropriate day to wear it out of the house. I’m past the left elbow now, and steadily approaching the wrist!

leftsleeveclose

leftsleevealmost

Soon. Very soon. I still haven’t found my reading mojo, and I wonder if this sweater is holding it hostage. I mean, I’m getting my regular reading done for class, but it is time to tackle my writing projects for the semester, and while I’ve acquired quite the pile of library books, I seem to find other things to do (like scrubbing the top of the stove) when I should be systematically note-taking in order to get a handle on my papers.  Sigh.

As part of yesterday’s “cleaning trumps reading” mentality, I washed a bunch of handknits, and thought you might like to see them drying all over my apartment — above dog level, of course.

washing-handknits

washing-handknits21

Also, while making a quick, mission-driven stop at my LYS to pick up a specific yarn for a future project, I impulsively snatched up a copy of the Spring IK, as the Whisper Cardigan has been calling my name on Ravelry. I dug through my stash, and discovered some gorgeous Knitpicks Shadow in Redwood Forest that I bought on sale last year sometime.

whisper-excitement

This will be perfect for spring! I’m not quite ready to cast on yet, but when I do, I think I’ll be using some of the more popular mods — ribbing the sleeve cuffs and keeping an eye on sleeve and body length, and ribbing the lower edge of the body to limit the rolling. I have a few other projects to focus on before I start this, but I am excited about this sweater!

Time to devote my attention to (a) my mug of coffee and (b) preparing for my first class. Hope your week is off to a good start!

friday.

Posted on by
2

bohbone1

bohbone2

Just in case it was unclear, that is Boh’s bone. Let’s move on to my sweater:

sleeve2-28thirty

I can already tell that this sleeve is going to move much faster. With the right sleeve, I was trying it on after every couple decrease rows (see my modifications in an earlier post) in order to find a sleeve circumference that worked for me. With the left sleeve, I know to work down to 44 st and then work even until the wrist, where I did a few more decrease rows and then the basketweave cuff. I’m not the only one around here who is excited about 28thirty!

bohinvestigates-28thirty

Remember my Sunday Market Shawl? I dug it out this week because I had a few lectures to attend, and I am almost through the first ball of yarn.

sms3

I’ve been rather appalled at the disrespect for the person at the front of the room at the larger events and talks I’ve attended this year, and I certainly don’t want to be lumped into the category of undergrads who stay only long enough to write a response, or who text and facebook/watch movies through most of a talk, only to make lots of noise while leaving during the already harder-to-hear Q&A. I understand that sometimes people need to leave early, and if you’re thoughtful about it, there’s absolutely no problem. It is this consumption mentality, the idea that these opportunities are bought and sold and thus devoid of the need for basic courtesies, that has been driving me nuts lately.

ETA: There are lots of thoughtful, engaged, respectful undergrads here, and I do not mean to suggest that the behavior I’m responding to is universal. I’m ranting about the handful who seem to think that basic courtesies do not apply in university lecture halls. (Hey, you! You’re making your friends look bad!)

I write all this to say that I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to knit at a lecture, and I’ve settled on sitting further back in the room, bringing only mindless knitting, and making an effort to connect to the speaker through eye contact, to make it clear to him/her that my hands are not distracting me from the content. So far, this feels like a reasonable approach.

One last photo:

bohgreenfleece

This guy is paying attention!

Hope you have a great weekend, and that spring weather makes an appearance wherever you are.

resistance = futile.

Posted on by
5

This applies both to massaman curry and the WEBS anniversary sale. First, the curry:

curry

curry2

curry3

The boy has been raving about this particular massaman curry paste from one of the Asian grocery shops near his house. Last week he brought me my own container. Yum. I made a regular four-serving batch, as directed by the instructions on the curry paste, complete with tofu, potatoes and onions, and these are my leftovers! I have been eating this all week, and it is delicious.

Today marks the start of April, but it also (and more importantly?) is the first day of the WEBS anniversary sale. As this blog post’s title implies, I’ve already clicked the “complete purchase” button, and a healthy dose of eco-wool (for a hemlock ring blanket, an owls sweater, and maybe linden or shalom), as well as some classic elite silky alpaca lace (ishbel is building my lace confidence) and some jo sharp dk wool (for bracken) should be en route to my doorstep soon.

Speaking of ishbel, my version has graduated to “blob” status. It is too big to stretch out all pretty on its circular needle, so here it is in a big heap.

ishbelblob

I’ve finished the stockinette portion for the large size, which means it is time for lace. Wish me luck!

ishbel.

Posted on by
4

ishbelprog

ishbel-prog-2

The stockinette portion of Ishbel is absolutely flying! Talk about a satisfying knit. No visible progress to report on my 28thirty sleeves, but I am dutifully working on it at home.  It has taken me twice as long to upload photos for this post because I’ve been simultaneously eating half of one of these espresso banana nut muffins:

muffins

Soon I’m going to heat up some cheesy Sweet Potato Spoon Bread leftovers for lunch:

sweetpotato-spoon-bread

Both of these recipes are from Supernatural Cooking, the most recent cookbook from Heidi over at 101cookbooks. My kitchen binder of internet recipes has a healthy selection from her blog, and this cookbook does not disappoint — I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve made from it, and the book itself is gorgeous. Also, one more plug for those muffins — they use white-whole wheat flour, natural cane sugar, less butter than you’d expect, and yogurt. I was expecting the white-whole wheat flour to yield a pretty dense, dry muffin, and I was happily surprised with the result. These are light and moist, and I will certainly be making them again!

Boh is pouting because he can’t have either of these treats. I promise I’ll take him on a longer W-A-L-K today to make up for it.

Have a great weekend!

longer…

Posted on by
4

sleeve-is-longer

This sleeve is slowly lengthening. Why is it that the closer I get to completing this sweater, the slower my progress looks to me? This project is no longer appropriate for bringing anywhere except a designated knitterly gathering, both because of its size and because of the way I feel like my arms flail about as I tug on cables and untwist the sleeve along my way towards magic looping to the wrist. Whining aside, I love this and cannot wait to prance about in it. (Yes, I said prance.)

Because I have a serious problem with project monogamy, and because I had a lecture to attend yesterday, I cast on something new.

ishbel

It is true; I’ve caught the Ishbel bug. I’ve been resisting the urge to knit this for some time now: Lace is hard! Another fingering weight project when I still have socks on the needles? And then, after viewing many a lovely Ishbel, I saw this one over at brokeknits. I bought the pattern immediately.

I’m using some gorgeous slightly variegated deep purple Yarn Pirate fingering weight, and I’m hoping to successfully combine the small and large sizes — large st portion, small lace version, to use all the yarn. We’ll see how that goes!

A few more Boh pics that are too sweet and silly not to share:

boh-under-blankets

We may have fallen asleep here together on Monday night…

boheyesclosed

Someone is very pleased with his cookie. Time for me to get back to work!

becoming an armadillo.

Posted on by
2

mirror-close-up

dirty-mirror

sleeveinprogress

upclosesleeve

I am loving this sweater. Have I said that yet? LOVING. Now that I’m making progress on the right sleeve, I’m seeing the armadillo comparisons I’ve read mention of on Ravelry and the broader interwebs, but I think this is a good thing. I’m contemplating working the ridges as directed until mid forearm, and then going for straight stockinette until the cuff, but we’ll see how I feel when I get there.

Notes/sleeve mods:

As others have experienced, the sleeves for the non XS and S sizes do seem overly large. I’m knitting size M, and the 59 st sleeves were very blousy on me. I picked up 3 st to close the gap, and then knit as directed to the next purl ridge. I then skipped ahead to the decreases, and worked them every other row (including the purl ridges) until I got down to 44 st (close to the st count for an XS sleeve), which seemed snug over a button-down shirt-sleeve. I’m working the sleeve straight until my repeated trying on/admiring myself in the sweater seems to suggest that I need another decrease row.

I realize you may tire of pictures of this guy (or that it may appear as though I take the same photos of him each day), but I never do. Check out the posing I witnessed this morning:

posingdog

posingdog2

Sigh. I must admit, I did more knitting than reading today, and I really should try to get in another chapter before bed. I’m hoping for more signs of spring this week…

28thirty.

Posted on by
2

Boring blog post title, yes. Boring sweater? Nope!

28thirtyprogress

28thirty-closeup1

Other things that are not boring:

flowers

Homeless flowers from my neighbors’ wedding that I get to enjoy because they are honeymooning.

biscuits

Biscuits.

homeandtired

This guy. Also, I’m healthy. Finally. And today I have class and some meetings that I should’ve had last week. It will certainly feel good to cross those things off the ever-looming to-do list.

Happy Friday!

improving?

Posted on by
4

I am by no means healthy, but progress (in the form of a hacking cough) is occurring. The good news is that my nose no longer begins to drip the second I look down, meaning that yesterday I was able to do some of my wallowing in illness while knitting.

28thirty-close-up

28thirty-to-sleeves

Sickness trumps gift-knitting, so even though there are a few more WIPs to finish in the Christmas pile (Thuja for my uncle, that acrylic scarf for my mom), I decided that I could knit a few rows on my 28thirty yesterday. As you can see, I knit until it was time to separate the sleeve stitches from the body, and then I let my sniffeling self try it on before bedtime. I love how this is coming along, so much so that I think I am going to take it with on my mini-spring break weekend adventure to the Catskills. (Fingers crossed that my health is much improved by the morning.)

boh-and-couscous-soup

Yesterday I made a very simple couscous vegetable soup — saw this post over at everybody like sandwiches and decided that it was just the thing my sick self needed.

silly-dog-on-bed

This guy has been a huge help to me this week. Dogs know when you don’t feel good, I think, because Boh has been extra kind in the cuddling and quiet time department. He has certainly earned some frolicking time in the Catskills!

cable appreciation time.

Posted on by
2

ulsweaterclose

ulsweater2

Nope, I didn’t knit this — but someone did. This slouchy, sheepy cardigan is a find from my new favorite thrift store in town. The sweater has been clearly loved — a few small holes, some evidence of repair, a missing button, but I just could not leave it to languish on the hanger. This sweater is perfect for reading, tea-drinking, and crafting, don’t you think?

servicelge-sweater

And it cost me 9 dollars. Crazy. While wearing this sweater, I made some progress on my toe up socks at a lovely craft night/This American Life radio gathering hosted by a dear friend. Here’s the Monday morning kitchen photo of how sock number 2 is coming along:

sock2

I can’t wait to wear these. Maybe by the end of the week?

Also, we enjoyed more “Deb appreciation time” this weekend, in the form of smitten kitchen recipe preparation. On Friday afternoon, I made her key lime coconut cake. I halved the sugar in the frosting, but otherwise, followed Deb’s instructions. This is a a fantastic dessert — light, citrusy and a little sweet, with the added bonus that it is easy to rationalize eating a slice for breakfast.

coconut-cake-1

coconut-cake-2

We also made a recipe from Deb’s archives for dinner on Friday night: the indian-spiced vegetable fritters. These were absolutely delicious, and the process was just what we needed. Nice to be in the kitchen together chopping, frying, stirring, etc. after a long week. We were too busy eating to take lots of photos, but I do have one of the final batch of fritters in the frying pan:

vegetable-fritters

Again, yum. I ate the last few fritters for dinner on Sunday straight out of the fridge, and they were just as tasty!

How did it become March? As seems to be my blogging/morning routine, it’s time to pour a second cup of coffee and continue reading. Have a great day!

process.

Posted on by
Reply

Wednesday is the day I get to stay home. I have no obligations calling me to campus, but I tend to have the most important book of the week to read — often for a meeting Thursday morning one-on-one with my advisor. These are the books that tend to speak to me, and these meetings, while often incredibly challenging, leave me with a feeling of affirmation that this is what I want to be doing. That part feels good.

The actual process of reading a book for a Thursday meeting? Time consuming, because it needs to be read carefully  (and should be, given that it is more relevant to my fields than most of what I read in my other classes). It is so easy to read 20 pages, only to realize that your mind was wandering, and you didn’t really catch what so-and-so was getting at in chapter 3. That does not quite cut it during Thursday meeting, so I’ve taken to using Wednesday to get other things done during the reading process in order to make sure I’m paying attention. All this to say that, despite the fact that I have no actual pictures of the reading process, I  can show you lots of the things I got done yesterday, in between chapters:

Hung out with the dog:

dog1

dog2

Baked oatmeal-cranberry-walnut cookies, based on Deb’s recipe from earlier this week:

oatmeal-cranberry1

Worked more of the foot of the sock, in 5 or 6 row increments throughout the day:

toeup2progress

After a particularly long chapter, I took this guy to the dog park:

dog3

What a ham. I also managed to do laundry, bake a loaf of bread, and have an ichat knitting date with a dear friend. I realize that this post makes grad school look like a piece of cake, but I stand by this particular approach to Wednesday: solid, focused reading, a chapter at a time, interspersed with productive tasks (laundry, errands, food prep) and fun (knitting, playing with dog) helps things to stick better, and means I don’t waste as much time losing focus/drifting off/etc. Note to self — do this more!

Apologies if the blog is getting a bit repetitive! These days I feel like my schedule looks a lot like this:

Read (a lot). Knit (a little). Repeat.

Time to pour another cup of coffee, read the epilogue, and make some thoughtful notes for my meeting.