Blog Hiatus

My suitcase is packed. I'm tremendously worried about the fact that it closed easily, and I didn't even need to use the front pouches. The last time a miracle like that occurred, it turned out that I had forgotten to pack shoes. But my shoes are in there this time. So what am I forgetting? Something enormous, obviously. I'm not packing any evening gowns this time, but I can't believe that would make such a huge difference in my suitcase.

Special note to Red: Pete and Trudy Campbell not being able to have children -- I called that one! Yay me. I was disappointed in last night's season opener of Mad Men, though. They dropped the plotlines from last season, and this whole episode did little more than hint at resolutions to old problems. And not much new happened. They got a xerox machine and Don mailed a book to someone. O-o-o-o-kay. Here's hoping the next episode isn't such a wheel-spinner.

I've planned a stash enhancement expedition in SF along with some of the other ravelers who will be at this conference. It will be cool to meet this people in person, and the shop looks promising. It's called ArtFibres, and apparently, they make all their own yarns. Should be good. I don't plan on spending much money, but souvenir yarn is never a bad thing. It reminds me of the old days, before Nana's Knitting Shop opened, when the bulk of my yarn shopping was vacation yarn shopping.

About two weeks ago, I put a small box on the floor and started using it as a catchall for things to take to SF. Last week, when it was overflowing, I checked to see what was in there so far.

It was all yarn. Plus two sheets of paper about a shuttle bus.

Even I don't need an entire box of yarn for an 8 day trip, so I pared it down. I'll be taking a skein from the Handpainted Yarn Company -- the flecky blue and green stuff from Stitches last year -- and a skein of Filatura di Crosa's striped sock yarn from Nana's. That's enough to make three socks. It would normally take me a couple of weeks to knit three socks. Plus, I will be going yarn shopping. So why am I sitting here, debating whether to pack more yarn?

It's a disease, and I've got it bad.

See you all next week. As the SnBers gather, I will be tasting the marvels of an Emperor Norton at the Girardhelli shop. :)

Three Reasons to Tackle the Mailman

Nathalie Gray may bill herself as "Author, Goof, Chocoholic, and Future Empress of the Galaxy," but the truth is, she is a goddess. Who else but a goddess would take a family vacation to Finland, and remember her poor overworked editor when she sees the yarn shop? The woman is not even a knitter, and yet she had the genius, the extraordinary genius, to look at this yarn and recognize what an exquisite find it is. I mean, look at this--


















That's three precious hanks of Icelandic wool weighing in at a combined 56 grams. It was hand-dyed using things like mushrooms and beets and flowers. The depth of color is astonishing for vegetable dyes. The yarn has the feel of a Shetland or Lopi--a bit crunchy, a bit lofty, and something that will unquestionably wear well and soften up over time. I'm guessing it will knit up at a DK-to-worsted gauge.The colors are so beautiful together that I can almost see the stranded pattern they'll make. Can you?




















Nathalie got the card of the woman who made the yarn, and I've already been to this blog several times. Each post is written twice, once in English, and once in whatever language that is on the business card. Finnish? That's my guess, but I can't tell Finnish from Swahili, so I could be wrong. Nat said that they talked for a while in a mishmash of broken English and other languages, and that the woman was very gracious about helping her pick out something good. Mission accomplished. This yarn is fabulous.

I've been on such a kick with hats and gloves lately that I can't help but envisioning this yarn used as a fair isle banding on a hat and mitten set. Wouldn't that be pretty? Imagine a winter white hat with a deep, turned-up cuff banded with this. But it couldn't be peerie patterns. This has to be an eight-pointed star to honor the country of its origin.

Or should it be something else? If you had these three beautiful, precious hanks, what would you do with them?

And while you ponder that very important question, go check out Natalie's website. She's an up-and-coming author whose books have been on the bestseller list both at our proprietary site and at Fictionwise. Her books are sort of like a cross between Star Wars and a roller coaster with a whole bunch of smokin' hot sex thrown in. She will leave you breathless, in more ways than one. ;)

Greensleeves

(To the tune of Greensleeves)

At last, my sweater's been cast on
The sleeve's in progress at the cuff.
And I will be so toasty warm
If ever I finish the thing.

Greensleeves will keep me warm
Greensleeves will be fun to knit
Greensleeves is more than half done...
And what but my sweater Greensleeves.


I finished my secret knitting project (viewable under my ravelry profile, if you have access), and I won't be able to show it her until August. But now the Catherine Parr sweater is underway again, and what better way to celebrate that than by ripping off a song allegedly written by her whoring murdering husband Henry? Heh.

Random Friday

This is a new sock I cast on last week at the lake house. I didn't do much more than cast it on then, because I was still hot and heavy on the windmill beret. But it is living on my desk now, and thanks to the miracle that is voice recognition software, I'm making pretty good progress on it without even making time for it. I just pick away at it while I'm working on other things. Nice and easy.

In other news, I cast something new on Thursday afternoon during the open knit. I can't show it here yet, because it's a surprise, and showing it might spoil the surprise. Enough said.

I'm more than a little bit obsessed with new projects right now. This is all Tricia's fault. She told me that she's going to be getting in a stock of Spindrift this fall, and now I can't stop thinking about stranded cardigans. And stranded pullovers. And stranded hats, gloves, socks. The girls around the back table at Nana's Knitting shop are all talking about knitting the endpaper mitts by Eunny Jang. Those could be fun too. But at the moment,I'm torn between a pattern from the Ann Feitelson book, an Alice Starmore cardigan, the cardigan on the cover of Meg Swanson's knitting book, and the fair isle cardigan in the Veronik Avery book. It's a tough decision, and I'm sure I will change my mind several more times before the Spindrift actually arrives. Yet I can't stop thinking about what I'm going to make.

It doesn't stop there though. The Olympic knitting poll is closed, and the winner is the fliptop mittens. I'm excited about knitting them, but I also want to knit the other items on the poll, too. I keep thinking I should cast on the lace T-shirt now, even though it's about 97° outside right now, and you know what the heat does to knitting with mohair. It's not good.

A big thank you to dreamsweaver who has been such a big help in trying to plan a long-distance party in San Francisco at the end of the month. She's familiar with the city, and I'm not. Plus, it's 2000 miles away, so I can't exactly get familiar. My knitting group between them seems to know everything. I love that. Whether I need to check a Spanish swear word or figure out where to have dinner in San Francisco, they have great advice for me. Talk about a smart bunch of women.

I intend to spend this weekend playing catch up. I have so much to do in order to get ready for this conference, I don't know how going to get it all done. So I've canceled all plans for this weekend. And unlike a couple weeks ago when that meant I could sit and knit for the entire weekend, this time I'm working. I've already rocketed through two manuscripts today, wrote a newsletter, and responded to about 50 e-mails. All this while the cleaning ladies were here. Not a bad start for a working weekend.

However, when I take my breaks, I will be watching reruns of Mad Men. They've got the whole first season up on On Demand right now, so for those of you who've been hearing me talk about this show nonstop, you might want to check out a few episodes. The show was completely addictive, and that's despite the fact that there's not a single decent human being in the cast. They are all despicable, and I love every single one of them. And I can't wait for them all to get what they deserve.

So there you have it. A totally random post for a totally random Friday.

Presto, Change-O!

Once upon a time in a land quite near to here, the permanently befuddled Knitterary cast on a sock and started knitting in a slanted lace pattern:

























And it was not good. Hard to say why. Just didn't feel like the right pattern and yarn combo. So, as any knitter would do in her situation, our knitter shoved the lot into the back of the closet, where the most secret of all knitting magic occurs.

One day, the yarn quite clearly piped up from the back of the closet, "I know what I want to be now." So with a wave of the needles and a carefully articulated incantation ("Malabrigo-Malabrigo, Rowanorowan, Addilicious!"), a cloud of frogged green yarn appeared where once the not-so-good lace half-sock used to be. And mere hours later, this appeared:


























Much better.

Raspberry Beret

This is the top of the hat. I love the way the colors flow. It feels almost too bright for summer, but come winter, when the clouds blanket Chicago in gray for 45 consecutive days, I'm betting these colors will be just right.


























And the inside. All I have left to do is the braided bind-off. I will have plenty of yarn leftover. My hat is running smaller than expected, certainly smaller than some of the other hats my SnB group is making. It measures about 10.5" in diameter, and my plan is to keep knitting in blissful ignorance of whether that's large enough.

I took this hat to the lake house this past week -- as a matter of fact, knitting and the beach DO go together ;) -- and Miss Seven dubbed it the Rainbow Stripe hat. If it turns out to be too small for me, then I will probably give it to her.


In other news, I taught her how to make a chain loop with a crochet hook this weekend. She had a lot of trouble with it, and thought it was way more fun to try to turn my Fulmar gauge swatch into a wristband. But she did manage to make a couple of loops, and she proved to be a true adept at dropping stitches -- talk about talents that run in the family!

I've always let her play with my little tools. She loves tape measures and, oh!! best ever is the metal plate with the little holes that you can use to check needle size. She tests all of my needles over and over again. And we talk a lot about what I'm making and how it all works. She's full of questions, and some of them are surprisingly penetrating design and technique questions. Of course, most of that conversation stems from the fact that she loves to talk and will talk about anything at all. It doesn't seem to matter what we do -- flipping pancakes, folding laundry, and knitting a murderflocking brioche beret can all stimulate her chatter.

So I haven't pushed her to learn. I've let her play, and this weekend, I showed her the chain loop thing to see how she would take to it. She fought it until she made a couple of loops, and then went back to measuring my stitch markers.

But it's a start. Today, chain loops. Tomorrow, p5tbl!