Off the Needles, On the Wires

Look what fell off my needles and onto the blocking wires. Ishbel! I decided to finish it because I want to wear it at my conference next week. I put my zebra bag in the photo frame so you can get an idea of how I plan to wear this scarf. Black trousers, black turtleneck, Ishbel, and that zebra patterned Liz Claiborne tote. Normally I wear business suits to conferences, but in this case, given that this is the "party conference," I can get away with something more casual as long as I still look pulled together. And that combo of scarf and bag are pulled together without being all matchified. I hope the resulting look will be slightly Euro/urban, which works better for a business casual atmosphere than just your ordinary pants and shirt.

I love this yarn, the Cherry Tree Hill Possum Sock. Lovely stuff, very soft, almost furry. It was wonderful to knit, too. I've heard some complaints about splittiness, but that was not my experience.

I did, however, have one slight problem with it. Look in the photo at around 5 o'clock, on the blue mat. You should see a fuzzball there. I can't tell you how many of these worked free from the strands during the blocking process. Granted, this is going to happen a little while handling a wet, short-staple yarn. But even so, even allowing for wet handling, there was a lot of shedding. I hope it stops after the yarn dries, but just to be on the safe side, I'll be spritzing that shawl with hairspray before I remove the pins and wires. That should cut down on the potential for shedding.

My only other news to report is that I decided to cast on another pair of socks to travel with me next week. I want something simple that won't require a lot of thought. And lo and behold, right on top of the sock yarn heap was a skein that mimics the Ishbel yarn. It's sort of splotchy with black and cream, but where Ishbel is tinted slightly blue, this sock yarn is tinted slightly green. It's an Opal yarn, and I can't read German to save my life, but the word "Oscar" appeared on the label. So I'm dubbing these socks "Oscar Loves Ishbel."

We're Seeing 2FOs!

Look up in the sky! What is that? OMG -- brace yourselves! We have 2FOs!



















This is the pair of Mountain Colors Bearfoot socks in 2x2 rib I started last October. I used to knit a pair of socks about every two weeks or so, every ten days if I really tried. These? Six months. But at least I'm knitting again. That's a big happymaker. (As is my crabapple tree. It's spectacular this year. Warm springs do make a difference.)


























And here's the finished hat for the Good Guy. This one took a month to knit. Very easy pattern, lovely result, but I have to say that the best part was the yarn. Cascade Lana D'Oro -- a little on the dear side at about $9 per skein or so, but it is really, really lovely stuff.

Ishbel is also off the needles, but not yet on the blocking wires. May I say what a pleasure it is to be finishing up objets tricoteuses again? After about a year of chaos (13 months since my car wreck, which started the whole tailspin of crazy), things feel far more normal and controlled again. I'm still not knitting every day, but I am knitting at least a couple of times a week, and that feels huge. There's still a lot of room for improvement in my daily schedule, but that's okay. There's always room for improvement, isn't there?

My World In Color

You would think that I hate this house what with it being broken in half and everything. (New crack discovered in bathroom wall yesterday. Cry.) But really, I love this house. And here are a couple of reasons I love it despite its deeply flawed foundation.

Hot purple rhododendrons blooming by the wrought iron garden gate. This shrub dazzles me every spring.
























The forsythia hedgerow along the east side of the house. The early morning sun shining through those windows turns everything gold from the blooms.

























Of course, the bushes are even prettier with yarn in them. These are my two precious new babies gained via a dispensation at the Beverly Hills Art Center yesterday. On the left, STR Silk Thread II in color Lunasea. If you look closely, you can see the very subtle variations in the color. On the right, Roxi by the Grinning Gargoyle, a super cool indie dyer who I plan to stalk until she agrees to be my new BFF. This yarn is spectacular. Her color work is beautiful, but the quality of the yarn and the friendliness of the lady herself was what really won me over. I might have to cast this on next. Or right now.

Prepare for a Shock!

I caved. Spring fever got the best of me. There's no vaccine for startitis.

This is the mandatory Ishbel. Mandatory because every knitter on the planet apparently must knit it to retain knitter cred. I'm not a big fan of groupthink in any form, but even I can't resist the pull of mandatory knitting. (See also, mandatory monkeys, mandatory clapotis, mandatory jaywalkers, etc.)

My general response to mandatory knitting is to resist until the initial craze is over. Makes me feel like less of a joiner somehow. So everyone else knit their Ishbels last year, but I'm just getting to it now.

Cathy asked to knit this with me. She's interested in learning lace, and this was one of the two easy patterns we picked out together. I figured I ought to look at the pattern before she and I tucked into it, and next thing you know, I'm almost halfway through the easy stockinette portion of the pattern. I won't go too much farther without Cathy casting on, though. So now that I've started, I might just tuck it away until she can catch up.

The yarn is the Cherry Tree Hill Possum Sock, and I adore it. It's pooling in an almost zebra-striped way, and this will inevitable make me want to carry my oversized zebra bag when I wear the shawl. The scarf is just off enough to avoid being matchy matchy.

The Kittawake Hat

In case you haven't already seen it, here's Panera Erik wearing his woolly crown. Well, he says it's his gangster hat for when he wants to rob places, but we all know it's impossible to feel like committing felonies when wearing Starmore designs. Or misdemeanors. Bad language, on the other hand, can still flow pretty freely. Ask me how I know.

He's been very good to the knitters, and, well, we all know how knitters show their appreciation.

Aleta took this picture and I swiped it from her.

And that's about all I have to say about the hat.

Spring Fever

I've got the worst case of startitis. Making myself even crazier than usual. I've spent hours and hours this past week browsing ravelry and my extensive magazine collection. (Side note -- hey! Did you know you can log your magazines on ravelry now? I've already logged two out of my nine boxes of magazines and have added patterns from them to my favorites list. Love it!)

So, to begin at the beginning of my almost crippling case of startitis, one week ago tonight I was struck with a wicked urge to start something new. Never mind that I have lots of great projects already OTN. I finished something on Monday, and therefore my crazy knitter gene went into overdrive on Tuesday.

I spent most of the afternoon staring longingly at a couple of bags of yarn clearly visible from my desk. They're stashed behind a piece of furniture, so you can't see them from almost anywhere in the room except my desk.

I stared at pink yarn for a bohus.

Silvery blue yarn for the Mendocino cardigan by Alice Starmore.

Shetland yarn for the Fair Isle cardigan by Veronik Avery.

Stared and stared.

By 7 p.m., I was ripping apart my bookshelves in a quest for patterns. I think if I could have found the bohus pattern, it would have been on the needles. Took me two hours to find the copy I made of Mendocino, and by that time, to be candid, I was overwhelmed by the urge to cast on every single pattern in my collection. I was almost paralyzed by it.

I decided to stall and keep working on the OTN patterns for a little while longer. I knit a few rounds of the lace blouse, a few inches of a ribbed sock leg, and a few more rows of St. Brigid. The more I knit, the more the urge to start something new faded. I saw this as a good thing.

Then two funny things happened. Two people did something unexpectedly nice for me over the weekend. Without getting into detail, one involves someone who really helped my family in a way I'll never forget. My family has been in turmoil for months, and this woman -- who knows nobody in my family except me -- has blown me away with her kindness and generosity.

She needs a white hat. Good guys always wear white hats, right? So back I went to the startitis frenzy, until I found this gem of a pattern in ravelry. I already have the right yarn in my stash, and so this will get cast on as soon as I can locate the yarn. It's here somewhere! But seriously, how adorable is this hat?

Eye Candy and Brain Food

Dear Tricia,
You can look, but you can't touch.

That's the Eye Candy. Now for the Brain Food. I just heard of something really wonderful started by a pair of college girls who are tired of bad behavior being left unchallenged. They want to make a difference in this world, and they've found a way to do it. It's called Nickels for Change, and in their words,

Every time we hear something sexist, rape-defending, victim-blaming, or flat-out misogynistic (an also just plain prejudice - whether it be sizeist, classist, racist, ableist, or anything else), a nickel goes into Our Jars. We plan on doing this for a year. At the end of the year, the money will go to a charity that works towards ending violence.

This sounds like a fine idea to me, and I've already added two nickels to the jar. The first is in honor of our friend Catherine who, as I heard it, responded to an anti-gay rant with grace and dignity. The second is due to the comment on the blog where the Nickels for Change initiative was announced. You'll know the comment when you read it. It's the one that says Indian men would stop raping if they got laid more often.

In other news, I spent the afternoon knitting the lace skater's top at Nana's with a table full of people I want to see more often. Great time. Any day now, I should be able to actually share knitting content. Shock, right?