Tag Archives: pinwheel blanket

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!

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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.

first tomato of the summer.

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I broiled half of it on toast with cheese and basil, and I ate the other half with my hands. Hooray for the first tomato of summer!

Also, hooray for whisper! I’m starting to think I might need another. I absolutely love the neckline, and I’d love a longer version…

Here’s another knit in action: my very first wedding pinwheel blanket. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing this particular knit in all kinds of use — as a lap blanket, as a spot for a catnap, as a baby blanket, and last night, as a pillow for my favorite greyhound. The Cascade 220 I knit it out of seems to be holding up quite well, as I knit this during the summer of 2008.

Here’s another sleepy dog. I bet he wishes he had a pinwheel blanket for a pillow. Someday, Boh. Someday.

I’m gearing up for a research road trip, so yesterday I began the process of cleaning out my car. I don’t think I’ve ever actually emptied my car of cds. (I normally stick to clearing out the back, not all of the little compartments.) Anyway, it was fun to see just how many mixes I’ve received from friends since I bought my car six years ago. I spent some time trying out and then labeling all of the unmarked cds, ditching and re-burning the scratched ones, and putting them into books and cases. (I’m super glad that I import mixes I get in the mail to my computer before playing them over and over and over again. That way I don’t worry about breaking the cd!) That is the fun part of research road trip prep.

Lots more to do this week before I hit the road: finalize what I want to look at, confirm travel/housing plans, buy more dog food, pack…and grade the term papers from the summer course! Happy weekend to you!

FO: another wedding pinwheel!

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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.

simple rib blues.

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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!

peonies to pinwheels.

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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!

 

all the bones.

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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!)

FO: wedding pinwheel #4.

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As you may have gathered from these pictures, I finished the pinwheel with enough time to block it out before I headed home for my cousin’s wedding. (Hooray!) I’m really happy with how this turned out — and I haven’t forgotten my daydreams of knitting one (out of handspun?) for me! It took about 2.5 skeins of Cascade 220 on size 7 needles.

I decided not to worry about my citron, and instead, I spent my non-work time last week with the boy. He left this morning to spend the month at home across the Atlantic, and I returned from visiting my family this afternoon.

Stay tuned for some spinning — it is Tour de Fleece time, and I’m planning to spin as much as I can (while still getting my reading done!) on the days I’ll be in town.

bachelor buttons and wedding pinwheels.

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Bachelor buttons in the late afternoon.

One and a half rows to go on the wedding pinwheel. (I will finish it today. I must, if I’m going to block it before I head home for the wedding!)

Tuesday = farm day. Thus, my kitchen overflows with flowers.

If I were to hang this photo on the wall, its caption would read: Pesto. Soon.

The boy and I picked about 12 pounds of sugar snap peas today…and ingested another pound or so, I’d imagine. After a string of hot, humid, sticky days, today was perfect. Breezy, partly sunny, and cool. An afternoon in the pea patch followed a morning spent with my friend T. picking strawberries on the second last day of the season.

A perfect day. These are destined to become jam.

I love summer.

And now, back to that pinwheel.