Ponder Dusk

I’ve been trying to be very selective on my sock yarn purchases. Really! But when the October shipment of the Dream in Color Dream Club appeared at the store, there was no way I could pass this one up.


It’s part of Dream in Color’s new base yarn, Smooshy with Cashmere and the colorway is called Ponder Dusk. It really just feels divine. And the purple? Well, it’s so rich and has so many tones that it was just plain impossible to leave behind.


I managed to get another skein in this base with my Anniversary kit from The Loopy Ewe, so I’m pondering making another Daybreak shawl with that skein and this one. We’ll see if that’s actually what I do. If you have suggestions, fire away! Meanwhile? I’m just going to enjoy petting this skein every so often. Yum.

Project Monogamy

Pretty much all of my crafty time this week has been spent on Nonpareil. Back is done. Almost halfway through the second front.


I cut the first three dishtowels off of the loom, and sadly they are NOT giftworthy. Back to the drawing board. Here’s hoping the next attempt turns out a little better!

In honor of the pathetic quantity of content, here is a gratuitous puppy photo

Hi, Sydney!

Rescuing an Orphan

It all started when our MadTosh shipment came in to the store. There was this purple-ey green colorway that I really loved, but one of our customers snatched up seven of the eight available skeins. (which was fine. I'd just finished a MadTosh sweater. I didn't need another one)

But I couldn’t let that sad little orphan sit all alone in the store.

So I decided to knit a Daybreak shawl.


I like Stephen West’s shawls because they aren’t lace. I had a decent idea of the blocked shape, but since I couldn’t really find a picture that showed off the crescent, here’s a semi-crappy shot of the shawl, flat, in its natural state after blocking.


When it’s worn, it’s very easy to tie the thin corners in lieu of a shawl pin and it sits nicely on my shoulders. Yeah, I didn’t manage to get a modeled shot. You’ll get over it.

There were a few minor hiccups (reading comprehension errors, the pattern is/was fine) as I embarked upon the two-color section. But I decided I didn’t care and soldiered on.


If you’re really sharp, you can see those “hiccups” down the center spine. The lavender blended perfectly with the green. At times I thought it blended too perfectly. I kept hoping to catch a really dark chunk of green on a stitch that would be slipped the next time through. That almost never happened.


The lone swear-inducing moment of knitting this shawl happened in the border section. I was knitting the small size with DK-weight yarn, and I knew this was a distinct possibility. It's why I chose the color placement that I did. But I was still peeved as all get out when I ran out of yarn roughly three rows away from bind-off. Too far away to just quit and bind off. But if I was going to purchase a second skein of Logwood, hell if I was going to bind off immediately after the fifth purl ridge. So I kept going until I knew I could go no farther without dipping into yet another skein. I’m glad I did it that way. So this shawl has a much larger outer border than “normal.”


Blocking-wise, I did my best to get a non-pointy smooth edge. But I only had so many pins in the house. I think it turned out just fine and will be comfy to wear.

Daybreak Shawl

Pattern: Daybreak by Stephen West
Yarn: MadelineTosh, Tosh DK
Colorways: Lichen and Logwood
Yardage: Golf ball-sized chunk of Lichen left over from the single available skein. Just scraps left over from the two skeins of Logwood.
Needles: US 8 KnitPicks Options
Started: 18 August 2010
Finished: 10 September 2010
Mods: Extended border to eat up the non-optional second skein of yarn. Used Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off.

I’d Be Farther Along, But …

It’s been a two-project week. 95% of my knitting time spent on Thing A, and 5% on Thing B. Then there’s the weaving I’ve been ignoring and the sewing project that Must.Get.Done.Today. that I haven’t started yet.

Don’t worry. Should only take me a couple of hours to knock that one out.

Oh, and I’m blogging for pennies again. ::sigh:: It’s a good thing. I hope.

Onward!

The 5% project is my poor Musique socks. They got a few rounds of air time during CelticQueen’s birthday dinner last Thursday night and that’s it. These poor socks may be on the needles until we ring in the new year.


And, hogging all of my crafting time, has been Nonpareil.


It’s the store Knit-A-Long at Bloomin Yarns. The KAL officially starts today. As a store employee, I need to be a little ahead of the curve so I can help our knitters as they move along through this project.

I’d be farther along, but last night I realized a pattern-reading fail and had to rip out about 3” of knitting over 100-ish stitches. I got back to where I started with the correction (re-knit all the yarn I ripped out) but it took a while. ::sigh:: That probably means I should be done with the back of the sweater by now. Oh well.

The weaving is moving along. Not as quickly as I’d like, but it’s moving


And that’s about it. FO post tomorrow, I hope.

Oh! And Happy Birthday to my favorite brother!

Blackstone Tweed

The more I peruse my LYS, the more impressed I am by Berroco’s line-up of yarns.

We’re starting a new Knit-a-Long next week for Nonpareil, a sweater knit in Berroco’s Blackstone Tweed. It’s been about a year since I participated in a store KAL, so I decided to jump in on this one.


Despite the fact that there are some amazing blues and greens in Blackstone Tweed’s line-up, I made a point of stepping out of my rut and picking something different. This is the “Atlantic” colorway.


It has a great texture and the tweed flecks work really well. It’s 65% wool, 25% superkid mohair and 10% angora rabbit. I was the tiniest bit worried that it would be itchy (I’ve had angora problems in the past) but it isn’t bothering me one little bit.


And I’d know, because I cast on for my sweater on Wednesday at Hurricane Knitters!


Loving it so far. Here’s hoping this sweater flies along!

It’s Still Wednesday …

Since the cottage was going to be empty for more than a few days between my departure today and when the next human arrives, I had lots of little stuff to take care of today and ran out of time to blog. But I have authentic “as I started this Wednesday” footage of my knitting, so here you go.

My Manos möbius is excruciatingly close to finished. I’d say 60-65% of the attached I-cord bind-off is finished. But take a look at the bottom edge of the möbius in this picture:


Yeah. I’m out of yarn. Thankfully, the generous and talented CelticQueen has some of this very same yarn and is going to let me mooch what I need. Thanks, birthday girl! (her b-day is Thursday)

In other news, the Musique socks are getting some knitting time


Sock #2 is nearly to the point where I’ll begin arch increases. Yay!

I did manage to wedge a 90-minute walk into my day, and once again the pickings were pretty darn good. As cruddy as the weather was this week, it’s tempting to stay because there was so much good glass to find on the beach. Even with the Lake pretty high today, I still got some really good stuff


Some of the cooler pieces, quarter for scale

Yes, that's a badly-focused neck of a bottle. Probably a Coke bottle. Cool!

So that’s it for 2010 at Van Buren Point. Here’s hoping I get more time up there next year.

Fake-ation For the Win!

It’s been a good final stay at the Lake for 2010.



As you know, I got here Sunday night shortly after sunset.

On Monday, it rained for a good chunk of the day, and it was relatively cold out. I took a walk anyway.

I think it was “Top Gun” where Tom Cruise described a “target-rich environment,” just before she lost that lovin’ feelin’. That has pretty much described both of my walks on this trip as it pertains to beach glass.


Some of the highlights:




And a marble!


I woke up to some pretty heavy rain this morning, but it cleared up a bit this morning, and I zipped down to the beach for a few minutes. I finally remembered to take a couple pictures of the where I walk when I’m up here. I walk to Lake Erie State Park, which is where the tiny green patch and white dot are in the following photo


Can’t see it? I don’t know why not. But I’ll help you out a bit


Yeah. It takes me between 60-90 minutes to get there and about the same to get back. I’m guessing it’s about three miles one-way.

We had rain for good chunks of the morning, but things finished up around lunchtime. I went out and walked the whole way to the park and back. The weather was getting crazy on the walk back. Major wind and the Lake was getting much higher (rougher) as I walked. No matter. I still got an impressive amount of glass today.


The plan tomorrow is to wake up, take a walk then head down for Hurricane Knitters. Here’s hoping for good weather in the A of M.

So Far, So Good

As planned, I left for the Lake shortly after the Steelers victory in Tampa Bay this afternoon. I didn’t make it in time for the “official” sunset, but as I was bringing stuff into the house from the car and getting settled, there were some great colors going on from the “afterglow” of the sunset.

Oh, and I remembered ALL of my power cord. Like I said. Progress.

Enjoy the photos.




And, about 10-15 minutes later …






As I was snapping away from a neighbor’s seawall, I kept noticing the beautiful reflection in the picture window. My shutter had to be open for so long, it was difficult to capture the image. This was the best I got.


I hate how early sunset is now (thank you, autumnal equinox!) but all in all it’s OK. Now I’m looking forward to a nice relaxing 2.5 days up here, finishing with Hurricane Knitters down in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night. Then it’s back to reality. Can’t wait for that, either!

Best Laid Plans …

Hi there!

I had all kinds of stuff I was going to share with you last week. Beach glass, a finished project, a great rainy day at the Lake, sunsets …


But first this happened


I left half of the power cord for my laptop right there, plugged in next to the loom. Oops.

My mom’s laptop was available for some basic internet usage while I was there Monday AM-Wednesday early afternoon, but any photo editing or downloading just wasn’t going to happen. I figured I’d catch up on Wednesday evening when I got home from the Lake.

Yeah.

I got home shortly after sunset. And this had happened


Wide view:


That’s parallel to our back fence, over the hill in our gully. We’ve called for estimates to get it cleaned up. Fortunately, if it falls between now and then, the worst thing it could take out is the actual fence. No biggie.

But the bigger deal was this


Don’t see the problem? How ‘bout this view of the same tree


Yeah, those are our power lines (and the power lines for Sydney's humans). Just below the large branch that's horizontal to the ground.

Our power was out when I got home on Wednesday at 7 p.m. (storm had gone through around 4:30 p.m.). We were still dark on Friday afternoon when the power company made it to our neighborhood and started chipping away at our problems. The second tree I showed you was taken care of by these guys


And we had power by around 8:45 p.m. on Friday night. Hooray!

We were fortunate that we had no actual property damage. Just about 52 hours in the dark. We lost the full contents of the fridge and it got a little toasty in the house, but otherwise no actual complaints. As I said to KnitN’at on Friday, the annoyance level was around 12, but the actual danger/damage level was zero. We were pretty fortunate, all things considered.

Meanwhile, we moved some furniture around and are test-driving a different room as our TV room. So far, so good!

I’m headed back up to the Lake Sunday evening. My last trip of the year.

I promise to take all of my power cord this time. You’re welcome.

Happy Friday!

A week ago, I wandered into Bloomin’ Yarns for work and there were two boxes from Manos sitting there on the floor. I immediately saw a bundle of a new Manos base yarn, Maxima, and decided I’d call it George.

I had a class to teach, and while that was going on, a customer found a different color of the Maxima and bought half of it. On Saturday, Celtic Queen came in and bought three skeins of that same color, leaving just two in the store. I couldn’t leave them behind, sad and lonely.

Meet my Maxima


This base yarn is just lovely. It’s a single, and as soon as I touched it, I immediately though “Look out, Malabrigo. There’s a new kid on the block with better colors.”


This particular colorway is called Beehive. It’s 219 yards/skein, worsted weight and listed as 100% extrafine merino wool. As you saw on Wednesday, it jumped onto my needles right away. My möbius is coming along nicely, thanks!


Now I just need to resist the “original” George. Wish me luck!

This-n-That

I would have had a nearly finished Imperial Stock Ranch shawl to show you, but when my KnitPicks cable separated last night, I accepted what had been obvious. It was gonna be too small on the needles I had picked. I’ll try it again in the semi-near future.

Meanwhile, after spending two full days last week warping the loom, I have one towel finished


And a second one in progress


And HOLY COW, do I ever need to work on getting a consistent beat. That’s the weaving version of a consistent tension, and it’s why you can see major differences in the fabric. In stripes. Oh well. These towels will still go out the door as gifts, and I’ll improve. They’ll dry dishes just fine even if they don’t look perfect.

When I ditched the Imperial shawl last night, I did what I should have done on Saturday when I started that. I cast on for a möbius.


I’m teaching the möbius cast-on Thursday night. The samples I had last time around went out the door as Christmas presents last December. It won’t be done in time for class, but hopefully it can give the students an idea of how this thing works.

And, on a final note, any ideas on how to make some chipmunks scram?


They make a gigantic mess on the front walk and I’m sick of them digging in this particular spot. And no, I haven’t tried a damn thing to make them go away.