skulking around in the heat
freow. it’s HOT!
I made the best of it: sent Amber the (finally completed) Josephine-knot paracord bracelet (Amber, I hope it fits!), schlepped my one item to the dry cleaners’ (I am 98% opposed to dry cleaning, and this is the only jacket that gets to go), bought bug spray (ah, New Jersey!), finally remembered to go to the bank, and went to Purl Jam, for pleasant conversation, great yarn, and refreshing A/C. If she had a coffee bar in there, I’d probably never get any work done AND I’d have no money left. I urge you to visit…it’s worth it. Buy some yarn!
It’s so miserable out that all the garden work’s been curtailed for evenings only (if at all), and I’ve mostly just been overseeing progress: the pumpkins and golden purslane are the stars of the summer, although I know that the kale can’t help it: it’s just too damn hot for kale to be happy. Last summer, the kale rocked, but we had really no tomatoes to speak of, and I can always plant kale as a fall crop: you certainly can’t do that with tomatoes!
Progress and no progress
The penultimate week at work: I made no progress on my Noro jacket project, and spent about 3 hours a night with my homework assignments, so the week whizzed by, and now only 1 week remains. Wow.
It’s a massive leap of faith, but I guess…what isn’t?
Finally got out to the apple trees today, but the ground was a bit too soft for stomping around, so we just marked the branches we need to cut & headed back to the balcony to sit in the sun for a little while. As difficult as it is on our desires to ski, prune trees, and revel in snowfalls, the January thaw does have its benefits.
Busy year so far & a new knitting project
OK, so school started on Wednesday & it’s a little intimidating, but I think I’ll be ok. Thankfully, there aren’t any papers due for a couple of weeks. I’m taking Moral Philosophy right now, and my classmates (or their virtual selves, rather) seem a pretty interesting group.
I’m knitting something pretty ambitious right now: a Central Asian coat: it closely resembles a Turkoman or Mongol style of coat, with the doubled fronts, and I’m developing it off of the way that the woven coats were traditionally made.
So, this works out to: the central back and front are made from a continuous piece of fabric, the arms are made by splitting another piece of fabric, and the rest of the garment is constructed by using the leftover bits as gores (flared or triangular pieces that add ease or volume).
So far, it’s working out exactly to spec. I credit this to:
1. Actually measuring my gauge exactly.
2. Using inches AND rows in determining when to do decreases.
3. Dumb luck.
The stitch I’m using is linen stitch: it makes a flat, non-curling fabric, and it showcases Noro Kureyon’s color shifts really nicely (I think).
I’m documenting it all, and will block & measure & photograph each piece, so that anyone who wants to try it out themselves will be able (hopefully) to follow the pattern.
Check out the picture below on click on it to see the others @ Flickr:
Chickens on the brain
…or egg yolks, or something.
I’ve always liked the color yellow in small doses. I think one of the most appealing things about farm eggs (as opposed to storebought eggs) is the insane color of the yolk in summertime. It verges on an orangey hue that weirdly reminds me of salmon roe, for its vibrancy.
I set out to make sock yarn that reminds me of summer & marigolds & sunflowers & eggs. And I think I pulled it off.
a lot more knitting, not much else
handspun hat for Jemma
I did a custom-ish hat that came out really well: I did the Baby Chullo pattern that I found here, and it was really fast/fun/fabulous. I wanted to cheer it up a bit, since I’d knit it in a pretty plain grey and blue handspun that I spun as a single-ply last year, so I added a pair of ears and a tiny bow…I’m thinking that the bow can be snipped off, if Jemma (the cute baby recipient) gets a younger brother, or if her parents just tire of the bow.
It was well received…now the big hurdle. Does it fit?
I’m waiting with bated breath.
Baby Surprise Jacket….is Done!
I made a BSJ for RJ & Melissa’s little boy, RJ, who’s not even a month old, as of today. It was only my second one ever, so I was a little nervous, especially because I hadn’t tried striping before, and my weaving-in is usually abysmal.
I think it came out really well, though! I did a rolled stockinette edge, that I did by picking up edge stitches and stitching down the cast-off edge back to where I picked up (if you follow me…). It’s like i-cord, in appearance, but it’s actually a rolled edge that can’t unroll.
I was sweating my yarn amounts, because I had hardly anything left over when I cut the final strand…I used 2 skeins of brown, 1 of light blue, and one of navy, and all from yarn.com’s Valley Yarn (Superwash DK) collection.
The placket for the button was another invention of mine. (My previous BSJ has hand-rolled buttons that work like duffel-coat toggles, which I made from crocheted discs of yarn & then rolled/stitched into toggles.) I was going to make it with two buttons, and have only one of them operational & the other as decoration, but eventually felt that the symmetry would be less pleasing than trying to figure out which was the “live” button, whenever the parents put the sweater on lil RJ.
And now…back to making paracord bracelets & waiting for the yarn for all of the other Christmas gifts I have yet to do (just little, quick ones this year). Woohoo!!
Waiting to knit
…sounds weird, right?
I have a new project started, Clementine’s Cardi, and I’m waiting for my extra yarn to come in from Yarn.com….I can’t keep knitting unless I change colors, and they’re in the mail. Quel drag.
phat fiber September sampler hat
I signed up for one of the Phat Fiber (etsy:PhatFiber) sampler’s, and was very blown away by all the fun stuff in the box.
So, I set myself a challenge to spin all the fiber into one yarn, and then knit that up into a hat with the yarns that were also included in the sampler.
The theme was fairytales & folklore: the yarns & fibers were beautiful.
It was a fun project & it’s a very smooshy, soft hat.
This is a great creative mood enhancer; I tend to have very rigid plans for fiber, so it was fun to have a very loose idea of what to do & just flow with it. I definitely recommend signing up for Phat Fiber’s monthly sampler, if you’re a knitter or a spinner. There’s so much great stuff out there that isn’t really known about. I think I found out through a banner ad on Ravelry, and I’m really glad that I did.
A spinning FOOL
I recently saw a vest that someone on Ravelry had knitted, and it really grabbed my attention, but the recommended yarn (Noro Kochoran) is reputed to be very…shed-dy…that can’t be a word. The yarn sheds mightily. So, I grabbed my giant tumbleweed of stashed roving, got out the Blue Steel (4 oz.) and Camo (4 oz.) blue-faced leicester wool from Zarzuela’s Fibers, and went to town.
I’ve been spinning ever since, and just finished setting the twist in the wool long enough for the stupid rain to come back AGAIN, and drive me inside to dry it over the fire. I’m more appreciative than ever of the wood-burning stove.
In other news, key lime cupcakes were baked & consumed…and the lime/cilantro coleslaw was shredded, mixed & consumed…and now I’m looking for a few more recipes, so I can use up all of the organic lime juice, because it’s just that f***ing good.
And I’ve been installing more garden fencing…we’re looking even more Englishy-cottagy, now that the rains have increased our green lushness to at least 400%. I mean, it’s usually very verdant and pretty around here well into fall, unless we get a drought, but this year, it’s vivid & dark & amazing.
We also have mushrooms coming up everywhere:
Unidentified mushroom
I really wish I knew what some of them were: I’m too afraid to eat any of them, though.
Tomorrow holds much of the same glorious boring stuff: spinning, knitting, cooking, garden work, walking…I have no complaints at all.
My Dad’s Pet Fig Trees
real food challenge
my awesome cousin