I'll have Drake take some photos this weekend of me and the sweater I finally, finally finished. Darn that looped crochet trim almost had me beat. But I would not surrender. Not to the looped crochet trim!
Up next is a shorter, summery project:
The yarn is beautiful mix of silk, linen, rayon and nylon (I'll be making it in a denim blue color):
I wanted to get a better picture of this before I shipped it off to my mother-in-law, but I was busy making the pom-pom for the hat right before I needed to get everything wrapped up:
The pattern is one I've made before, but I decided the hat, for Lorna at least, really needed a pom-pom. I've had poor luck in the past with pom-pom making (and have vague memories of pom-pom-related trauma in girl scouts) so I armed myself with the best pom-pom making tool I could find: the Susan Bates Pom-Pom Maker, the procedure for which is nicely illustrated here.
In the end, the pom-pom turned out OK, but I really needed to give it a haircut to even it out.
Once I attached the pom-pom to the hat, though, it looked fine. Whew!
But my heart sunk when they suggested we do the
research at an upcoming convention. A great idea -- but the timing of
the convention (in Vegas) is in direct conflict with my plans to attend
a knitter's retreat at the beautiful seaside resort Semiahmoo. And so
there it is: what was planned as a relax/renewal weekend will be spent
instead among the clanging slots and neon lights of Vegas.
I know, I can plan my own little retreat. But, it wouldn't include the friendly folks from my local knit shop, the instructional sessions, and the company of other knitters. Guess I'll hope for next year...
]]>Yesterday was Drake's birthday! We keep birthdays kind of low key, but we did enjoy a nice evening of Brahms at the symphony. When we got home, I gave him the secret knitting I've been working on for him - a Debbie Bliss Millford. He had admired the sweater in the pattern book.
It's not done by any means, but I've got a good portion of the back done. Now I can finish it "in public" and also make sure it's fitted to him. I'm excited to be able to spend more time on it.
I working on some other secret knitting (not secret from Drake, though) that I won't be able to reveal until after Christmas. I am on the home stretch of that project.
And odd convergence of information.
I'm reading about Britain's role in WWII in Empire.
And then I stumbled across "Essentials for the Forces" British knitting patterns, which were distributed during WWII to those at home to encourage knitting items for the armed forces..
These original patterns are available to download for free at the Victoria & Albert Museum web site.
Last night we made a nice dinner, got a fire going, then settled into our respective positions (Drake with the libretto, me with some knitting) to listen to Seattle Opera's live radio broadcast of Iphigenia in Tauris.
The production is a big deal for Seattle Opera, since it's the first time the Met has done a co-production with a regional opera company. As soon as the Seattle production ends next week, it's being packed up and shipped to New York, where Placido Domingo will sing the role of Orestes. Interesting choice of role of Domingo, because even though Orestes is a baritone role, it's very high for a baritone. And even though Domingo spent most of his career singing tenor roles, I read recently that he's gone back to singing baritone (which is how he started his career). So a high baritone role is probably perfect for him.
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Anyway, I must have gotten overly involved in the broadcast, because I was knitting a sleeve and kept goofing up the final shaping. I finally did get the sleeve done, so now all the knitting is done on the sweater I made using some beautiful Donegal Tweed yarn sold by my cousin Chris (who lives in Northern Ireland). I still need to weave in the ends, sew it up, and add the crochet trim, so the sweater's hardly done, though. But, since it's a deep red color, I hope to have it finished in time to wear for the holidays.
I'm not a football fan, but I certainly know some big fans (my brother Paul for one). This week, I came across the uber-handy yarn-color reference for all the NFL teams. The yarn colors are for Cascade 220 100% wool.
For example, here are the Seattle Seahawks colors:
Here are the Chicago Bears:
My cousin Elise and her husband Gordon are Packers fans:
My goal with joining the yarn-of-the-month club was to gain some experience knitting with different fibers. Each month I'll receive four different yarns - enough to knit a standard 4" by 4" swatch with each. Below are the swatches from the July shipment.
These all had some amount of linen in the fiber content - summer yarns, except for the first swatch, which is KidLin, a blend of kid mohair, linen, and nylon. This would make a nice scarf, shawl, or shrug. But it struck me as definitely a wintery yarn--warm and cozy.
The second swatch is Cinnabar by Louisa Harding. I wasn't much on the color combo of the sample, but there are some softer colors that would be more my style. I loved knitting with this. There is a bit of a shiny strand running through it that gives it some depth. A summer V- neck pullover out of this would be lovely.
The third swatch is Damask by Rowan. This was a bit harder for me to work with - it's 30% viscose and pretty slippy.
Again, the color wouldn't be my style, but there is a more subtle combination of blues (Basalt 047) that I like a lot.
Rowen 41 has a couple of patterns using Damask: Tulip and Bonita.
The last swatch is Korella by Gedifra. This didn't hit me one way or the other. It seemed like a decent enough basic yarn (linen/acrylic blend) for summer.
So now I am waiting to see what August will bring...
]]>Looks like a weekend for inside activities. That's OK, I've got lots of little household things to get done. I'd also really like to finish the booties. These are turning out (for me) not to be such a quick knit. The first one I knit in the larger of the two sizes and decided it was too big so declared that a "test
I also recently joined the yarn-of-the month club and got my first shipment this week - four yarn samples - just enough to do a 4 x 4 swatch. I think this will be a good way to get some experience knitting with different fibers and try something I wouldn't normally pick up. So when I need a booty-break I'll knit up some of that.