Exactly what it sounds like: the first bobbin of 2-ply Hello Yarn polwarth-silk in Kitsune, and another pinwheel blanket in Peace Fleece on the needles. Both of these things are making me happy today.
plied yarn and peace fleece.
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Tag Archives: knitting
worst of all, you never call baby when you say you will.
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.
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!
on a joyride.
I’m a couple of repeats into Joyride, this fabulous testknit beret by foxflat. I was initially worried that the colors would be a little bit too busy for the pattern, but so far I like the way it looks! The lace repeat holds my interest without requiring my undivided attention, which is just what I need this week! (All of my knitting seems to be taking place during lecture.)
And then there’s this guy. I rolled over this morning after my alarm went off, and this is what I encountered: Boh, fast asleep, his head on the pillow. Sweetness.
FO: another wedding pinwheel!
Pretty soon I’m going to have to make one of these for myself. I’ve actually lost count of how many pinwheel blankets I’ve knit. And I’m fine with that. I’m looking forward to putting this in the mail and sending it off to dear friends/newlyweds. Hooray!
This is what has been happening around here. Boh sleeps, I comment on papers. I’m into the last week of my summer TAing. Almost there.
Here’s where I ate my lunch yesterday. Isn’t it lovely?
Today I wore my whisper cardigan. It was cool this morning, so I wore it to the bus stop. And then I took it off, and thought to myself that I’d just been looking for an excuse to wear handknits, and that I didn’t really need it. And then it was extra cool in the air-conditioned library atrium, and I was happy to have it. (I realize none of that is really necessary information. Still, we all have those days where we wear handknits because we want to, even if the temperature isn’t quite right. The chill in the library made me happy today because I had just the thing to put on!)
One more picture: A blurry self-portrait that I snapped because I wanted to text a friend to show her that I was wearing the earrings she gave me several years ago and thinking of her. Now that I look at this picture, I realized I’ve captured my favorite element of my whisper cardigan: the neck/collar section!
Okay…back to commenting on paper drafts! Happy Tuesday to you.
buttercup update (and other stuff, too).
It is time to increase a little bit so that the top is a little bit swingy. (Due to yarn concerns, I omitted the body increases earlier in the pattern, but I think I’ve got enough to start adding a few more stitches.)
I made some potato salad last week. And then I took it with me to campus, and enjoyed it with last week’s New Yorker.
Raspberries from the farm. Yum.
This is how I dealt with Saturday night’s power outage. Not a bad way to keep cool. (I was worried that this chardonnay was going to warm in my slightly-less-cool-by-the-second non-electrified fridge.) The power was out for about three hours, and I was able to get some grading done as the sun set.
I snapped this while dashing down my steps to get to campus on time. So lovely, and I almost missed it.
Somebody was afraid of the fireworks on Monday night. Poor Boh.
Remember these socks? I turned the heel in class on Tuesday. Thus concludes today’s installment of show and tell. More soon!
knitting in class.
I was knitting on my Buttercup when I took this picture. (And we were on a break. Don’t worry; I don’t play with my phone during class.)
And here I am today, also knitting in our lecture hall. (Also on a break.)
And here’s the gin and tonic I made on Monday night. I’ve got a great bunch of students in the intensive summer session for rising high school seniors I’m TAing, but the schedule is exhausting. Yoga, a drink, and a front-row seat for sunset was exactly what I needed last night.
Look at my pretty swatch! It’s for a testknit for foxflat — a summer-weight, super sweet beret called Joyride. The yarn is a merino-tencel blend from back when I was a member of the Yarn Pirate Booty Club, with a bit of shine and lovely colors. In a sock pattern, it would be stripey, but in a slightly larger project, the first few rows are suggesting to me that it might look a bit colorblocked. I need to knit a little bit more to see what I think. If it’s too busy for the lacework, I’ve got a solid yarn that I think would be lovely in this pattern. More soon!
boh and buttercup.
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!
weekend frolicking. also, buttercup.
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!
cup(pow) of lilac wine?
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.
barefoot rooster 