Tag Archives: sunday market shawl

pie and plying.

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First of all, thanks for all of your input on my handspun blanket. This time around, the oranges have it, and I am hoping to make some time to wind yarn later today!

I wore my Sunday Market Shawl yesterday, and it was just the burst of color I needed. I reach for this far less often than I thought I would — maybe because of the colors — but it certainly brightens my day when I wear it out of the house. Someday I’ll get around to actually blocking this…

Meet the first pie (for me) of fall. Pears from the tree in the yard of friends, plus one apple to fill out the pie pan, and a crumb topping. Delicious. In fact, this is reheating in the oven right now.

I plied most of my SCF bfl in the reflection colorway while the pie baked, and today I have plans to wash the yarn and set the twist.

Okay, time for pie!

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stress knitting.

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I finished my Sunday Market Shawl tonight. It is way past my bedtime, but it was such a slow, unproductive day of writing that I just needed to make progress on something, you know? Ends aren’t woven in, and it could use a good blocking, but here it is.

sms-done

sms-done2

I love how vibrant this is! Originally, I thought I’d make this huge, with 2 skeins of Fleece Artist Somoko (or a yarn named something close to that) in the Masala colorway, but this is exactly one skein, and it is plenty large!

Also, here are a few more silly pictures of Boh. He just has to be on the couch with the boy. He makes room for himself:

bohcouch1

bohcouch21

Also, I have been seriously internet-stalking spinning wheels. I imagine I’ll take the plunge this summer. It is now wayyyy past my bedtime, and tomorrow I am planning a VERY productive writing day. Good night!

friday.

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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.

startitis is to stress…

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as actual knitting progress is to the beginning of fall break! The sun is shining, beets are roasting in the oven, and I have a long weekend to take a few deep breaths, read more slowly, and enjoy the colors of fall. Here’s what I’ll be working on this weekend:

This is the beginning of a sunday market shawl for me. I cast on a few extra stitches to make it a bit wider/more shawl-like, and I’m planning to just knit until it is super-long for wrapping around myself a gazillion times. (Fleece Artist Somoko in colorway Masala.)

Another boy hat. For a boy. (Malabrigo, colorway Forest.)

Progress on Clue #2 of the Through the Loops Mystery Sock (in Sunshine Yarn). I love this — and I’m getting past the mental block I’ve had on non-stockinette socks!

Totally unrelated, but this pooch loves laundry. All he wanted to do was roll around in the clean sheets. Finally, I had to make the bed, and Boh was sad. Seems he likes the laundry better when it is in a big clean pile.

I’m heading north to hang out on a friend’s farm. We’re planning to knit on the porch, throw down at a barn dance, and give autumn the attention it deserves. To accompany me on the drive, I purchased Telltale Signs, Vol. 8 of the Dylan Bootleg series, and the new Jolie Holland album. I’ve given both a preliminary listen, and for what it’s worth, I highly recommend them.

winding.

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No new knitting progress to share, but I did manage to wind all of this yarn over the weekend — no small feat, given the number of tangles I encountered. Luckily, the colors are so deep and vibrant that it was worth it. Yarn is Fleece Artist Somoku, in colorway Masala. I ordered this (from yarn4socks, great service!) with the intention of using it to make myself a Sunday Market Shawl that would be a bit wider and longer, more airy shawl than scarf — something to cram into my bag for class, where the temperature seems to range from stuffy and overheated to incredibly over-airconditioned. Other patterns I should consider?

Happy Monday!

sunday market shawl — and snow!

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I know it is a little blurry, but there is just something I like about this picture, so it’s what you get. I am very happy with how version 2 of the sunday market shawl (Dream in Color Smooshy, size 10 needles) turned out, though I must say, it grew tremendously in length, but not so much in width. I may make a massive version of this for myself someday — maybe double in width?  It is way longer than I am. (Note: the lack of growth in width could be related to the way I blocked it — sans pins, on a beach towel on a backyard table with the ends draped over chairs because it didn’t quite fit on the table…) I can’t wait to give this to the friend who has been waiting ever so patiently for her birthday scarf — I’ll do that the next time I’m in town.

This is what I woke up to yesterday, here at Base Camp. Crazy — but lots of fun. Fires were built, layers were donned, and the dog frolicked. It melted by mid-morning. The fact that I am posting today means that I finally got everything networked (hooray), so it looks like I will be able to blog this summer, though it will likely be far more sporadic than my almost daily posts of the last few months. I am certainly knitting — more of the yoke of the gathered cardi to share soon!

goodbye, little house.

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On our last morning in my casita, Boh and I woke to a red sunrise:

And then we packed and packed, took a trip to the dump to get rid of some unsalvageable oversized things, made one final run to the storage unit, and handed in the keys. Goodbye, little house!

I’ve moved in with dear friends here in Albuquerque for the weekend, and though I am still recovering from all of the early morning moving I’ve been doing, there has been a bit of time for knitting.

This is Sunday Market Shawl #2, and it just needs to be soaked and blocked — a bit of a challenge when you are no longer in your own house — but I am very happy with how this has turned out. Dream in Color Smooshy is magical, and I look forward to making socks with it. I’m excited to see how big this becomes after blocking. Right now, it is probably just under 66 inches, and about 16 inches wide.

In other news, finishing the knitting portion of the Sunday Market Shawl meant that I could cast on for a new project! Though I really should’ve started a third pinwheel blanket, I couldn’t help it. I have been thinking about that Gathered Cardi from Knit.1 since I purchased the magazine, and the yarn was right on top in my Base Camp yarn bin. Last night I did a cheater’s swatch (not quite 4 inches…) and cast on. (It should be fine — I’ve used this yarn before, and my needle-size guessing seemed to produce gauge. Famous last words?) I’ve got about an inch of the seed-stitch collar:

I have one more day here — heading to Base Camp tomorrow. Though I am technically homeless right now, I am enjoying a pretty luxurious life. Check out my morning set up here:

I haven’t quite figured out a plan for posting this summer, as my internet access will be slightly limited, and I’m not sure if I am going to hook my laptop up to the office network out there. At the very least, you’ll get updates when I come into town. Please know that even if my own posting is rather sporadic, I will still be reading!

Happy June!

a sock story, revisited.

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Morning, folks. I think I posted about this when it actually happened, but as last night was likely my last regular attendance at weekly knitting night, allow me to tell you a brief sock story. Back in the fall, my internet was down for at least a week. My ISP couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and I was frantically working on all of my graduate school applications, so I was spending an hour or so every night at the coffee shop closest to my house. One Tuesday evening, when I stopped in to submit some forms and check email, I noticed a table of women who looked incredibly fun doing something with their hands — I had to look again to confirm that they were actually knitting! I introduced myself and asked if I could join them. Luckily for me, I had one of those fleece artist yellow tiger socks in my bag. They welcomed me and encouraged me, and soon I was knitting with them every Tuesday night. I’m heading to Base Camp next week, and then off to New Home for graduate school, and while I am going to try to meet up with them whenever I come into town on a Tuesday, yesterday was the first of all of my goodbyes. They marked (ha) my departure with an incredibly sweet and unexpected gift: gorgeous sock-sized stitch markers from Hide and Sheep (on etsy).

See how the marker itself isn’t simply circular?

It was all I could do to keep myself from casting on another pair of socks at 11 PM last night, just to admire these on a sock in progress. I am plugging away at Sunday Market Shawl number 2 — brought the remains of the one the dog gnawed through to show and tell last night, and am slowly adding length to its replacement. Here’s a rather blurry picture that shows the gorgeousness of the purples in this Dream in Color Smooshy yarn:

You’d think stockinette wouldn’t be tricky, but when I yanked this out of my bag last night, I managed to pull out a bunch of stitches and picked them back up all weird. Ramona to the rescue!

I feel incredibly lucky to have found such a wonderful “real life” knitting community — I will be thinking of you guys on Tuesday nights this summer — and I will particularly miss the “mommy” talk.

beet the system.

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Thank you for all of your kind comments regarding the carnage my Sunday Market Shawl suffered last week. I did a little bit of pouting, but ultimately decided to look through my stash and begin again. I’m using Dream in Color Smooshy in Visual Purple. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Also, I have a new tote bag, doubling as a purse these days. (www.blacksheepheap.com)

Perhaps this should be my new motto. I feel sort of ridiculous making such a big deal about the shawl carnage, given the fact that my car window was smashed this weekend and my big red bag stolen. (In the parking lot of a Catholic school on a Saturday afternoon, no less.) Luckily, I had my wallet and phone with me. I have some calls to make to the bank this morning regarding my checkbook, but mostly, whoever destroyed my car window is enjoying (or not) several knitted items: my hurricane hat, my nutkin mitts and a half-finished dishcloth. It could have been much worse, but I am sad that my knitted items are gone.  I also lost my calendar and to-do list (I wonder if the culprit is interested in crossing a few things off?) and my sunglasses case. Certainly not the treasure I imagine was expected.

Anyway, I’m off to get the glass replaced, file a police report, sort through insurance info — and drink some coffee.  More knitting to share soon, I hope.

carnage.

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This guy:

Saw this, a bee-yoo-ti-ful Sunday Market Shawl, blocking:

and, in the middle of the night, decided to do something like this:

A few more pictures of the carnage:

I stayed up REALLY late trying to finish this for a dear friend’s birthday — unraveling the dropped stitches took forever. This is beyond repair — or at least my capacity for repair. There are at least four shredded sections of the shawl, and I can’t bear to unravel what’s left right now. Back to the drawing board? I still need a birthday present — was hoping to give this to her over the weekend.

Hard to stay mad at this dog. Sigh. At least today is Friday.