Camping

It had been disgustingly hot all day and we’d been standing in line in the sun or standing on ship decks in the sun.  The only shade was what was created by other people standing near us or the brief darkness as we slipped below decks on the HMS Bounty.



But very cool, all that rigging and the sails and the guy dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow.



Upon returning to our campground I bicycled up to the bathroom, eager to shower off the sweat and grime of the day.  The showers require quarters.  8 of them, for three minutes of water.  I soak my washcloth in the sink and scrub the important parts.  Then I stick my head under the faucet and shampoo my hair in the sink.  Take that, stupid campground.

***

We head north to Gooseberry, set up our tent, crack a couple of beers, and char some hamburgers over the fire.  Ahhh, perfect. 

Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening! 

We sprint with our deck of cards and our annual camping Rummy 500 Tournament to the campground shelter where I proceed to beat the mister rather soundly.  This never happens. 

We later discover that our tent is waterproof to a point.  That point is 3 hours in to an all-night thunderstorm.  The tent springs a leak right over the mister’s head. I find this hilarious.  The mister does not.

***


We’ve spent a day hiking and walking and dipping our toes in the Gooseberry River.  We’ve had our beers and our charred hot dogs and played our nightly game of rummy, where I lost.  I knit on the sweater I brought, the only knitting I packed to make sure I would FINISH IT, as it was supposed to be a 30th birthday gift for the mister.  His 31st birthday is in a month.

We’re in bed in our tent and the mister is sound asleep.  So soundly that he doesn’t hear the clankity-bang of critters getting into our trash because we forgot to tie it up and put it in the pick-up.  I get up and scare away a pack of raccoons.

He sleeps with noise canceling ear plugs when we camp.  I’m not that brave.  I’m afraid that I won’t hear the creepy serial killer sneaking up on us.  Because serial killers totally hang out in state parks on the North Shore. 

***


It’s a foggy morning and we’re strolling along the shore, watching the fog eddy and flow over the rocky outcroppings.  The mister spots something in the distance.  One of the tall ships we’d toured earlier in the week, sliding out of the fog on the lake.  Eerie and awesome.  We sit for the better part of an hour, watching the ship.



***

We’re touring Split Rock Lighthouse and suddenly I look at the mister. 
“Hey,” I say.  “It’s our anniversary.”
“Happy anniversary,” he replies.
We forget again ten minutes later.




***

He goes mountain biking.  I do not.  I hate mountain biking and, frankly, am eager for a little respite from the run-go-do-see-hike-busy-busy-busy approach the mister has to vacations.  He’s not much for relaxing, that one, and I am.  So I stick my knitting and a granola bar in my pack and hike up the river for a mile or two until I find the perfect ledge over-looking the river, with a flat spot for sitting and a rock perfect for resting my back.  I settle in, pull my knitting out of the bag, and have a glorious hour of peace and calm. 




***

We sit in traffic on 35 southbound, sunburned and tired, our gear packed and stuffed in the bed of the pickup. 

He rolls his head towards me, “Good vacation?”
I grin and slip my fingers into his. “Great vacation.”

Photos

I am still rocking the writer's block and nursing a deep-seated hatred of any time spent in front of a computer screen after the 40 hours I spend in front of one at work.  But I've been out and about and remembered my camera, so here are some recent pictures.

Feeding the new lambs on the in-laws' farm.  Ignore my double chin.


The mister competed in a mountain bike race and did fabulously right up until the bike broke.


You can't see where it broke because it was COVERED in mud.



My younger brother taking the mister's 30 year old moped for a spin.  He's single, ladies, and does his own laundry!


Artemesia in my garden.
 


The mister and I took a stroll at Minnehaha Creek.


We brought the dog.


We also brought him on a bike ride.




I learned to spin yarn on my new spinning wheel.  (I'm still learning.  I suck.)


And I knit.

Done like dinner.

My darling friend K got married. I cried, but only a little bit. It was beautiful and perfect and I'm so delighted with the whole affair that despite my aching feet, I'm still grinning.

She is one of a couple of my friends that acts like my knitting is AWESOME and totally not a strange thing for a twenty-something woman to occupy herself with. (MJ is also on this list.)

It’s incredibly gratifying to knit gifts for people like this. First of all, they understand that I’m not just giving a pair of socks, I’m giving hours of time and skill. Second, they tell me about how my handknits are doing. K, for example, wears the hot-pink socks I made her when she does yoga and emails me once in a while just to let me know she’s wearing them.

That, folks, makes my little knitter's heart light up with glee.

So when her wedding date approached, I took on three projects.

First, something for her to toss over her shoulders, something soft and delicate and cozy.

Project: Lady’s Circular Cape from Victorian Lace Today.



This project is by far the most beautiful thing I have ever made. It had its challenges, including techniques I hadn’t tried before, patience-testing yarn prone to knots and tangling and felting in my hands, and a husband hell-bent on getting in my way. There was an incident involving a jar of salsa. There was another incident involving a sharpie. One came out okay. The other resulted in tears.

But the yarn is velvety soft and shows the lace pattern so well and the end result was totally worth the work.

I figure if this shawl can withstand my marital disputes and still be that pretty, it’s got “good luck” written all over it.

Second, something for the new couple to snuggle under.

Project: Girasole by Jared Flood.

Great fun to knit and a very satisfying end result. Originally a much darker green, almost a gray with a hint of green, this puppy took nearly a dozen wash-and-rinses to stop turning the water a muddy shade. It lightened several shades after its baths. Whoops.



Third, and least important, something to toss over my matron-of-honor dress.  The day ended up being so warm (and PERFECT) that I didn't need it.  In any event, K gifted her bridesmaids with buttery soft pashmina stoles in a lovely parakeet blue that totally trumped my little shawl.

Project: Citron by Hilary Smith Callis.



I added an extra repeat of the pattern just because I am so very long and tall and I didn’t want a bib, I wanted something I could actually wrap up in.

I learned a new technique on this one, too, which was AWESOME. I normally purl slowly. It’s not hideously slow, but on rows of 500+ stitches (see: the last 1/3 of that wedding shawl, above), my pokey method really sucks. One of the women I knit with during Sunday Knitting at my favorite shop taught me the Portuguese method of purling, though, and it is so much faster. Plus, the distraction of learning and practicing a new technique was diverting enough to make those last few soul-sucking rows of the ruffle less daunting.

Also, the yarn for this was simply delicious. Alpaca and silk, buttery soft with a little bit of sheen to it, it was wonderful to knit with. And, bonus, it was $20 for nearly 900 yards. I still have somewhere between one-third to one-half of the ball left.

After these projects, I am a little burned out on lace patterns and skinny yarn on tiny needles. I think I’m going to knit something small on big needles, like baby sweaters. A couple of instant gratification projects are definitely in order!

A Excellent Start to the Day

The perk of my current work schedule is that I get to start every morning in an unhurried manner, with a leisurely pot of tea and my knitting.

(And yes, my coffee table has paint on it. I blame the mister.)

It didn't come out.

Kate, your shower gift might be a little late depending on my ability to reknit your wedding shawl in the next couple of days.

I was going to post photographic evidence of the ink stain, but my heart just can't take it.  I couldn't even bear to focus the camera on the large blob of black floating in the middle of that lacy blue sea.

My Greatest Skill is Denial

I go to the doctor. Every winter I get horribly dry skin on my hands. This year, it’s even worse and I look like I have the stigmata. I don’t, FYI.

The doctor thinks it’s eczema.

“It’s probably made worse by wool sensitivity. Do you wear wool mittens?”

I pause, thinking of how much wool I come into contact with on a daily basis.

“Um, I knit. Kind of a lot.”

“With wool?”

“Yes.”

“That might be your problem.”

“I don’t have a wool allergy. “

“What you really mean is: I don’t care if I have a wool allergy, I’m going to knit anyway, right?”

“Pretty much.”

(Turns out it’s probably not my knitting – she watched me knit and noted where the wool runs over my skin. The worst areas on my hand don’t actually come into contact with my knitting, so in this case, my denial was well placed.)

---

I’m knitting a wedding shawl for my friend Kate. It is, if I say so myself, beautiful. Buttery soft luscious Malabrigo lace-weight yarn, a floaty, delicate pattern that she chose out of an incredible book of designs, hours (upon hours) of work. It’s well on its way to stunning.

It also has an ink stain on it.

An uncapped pen came into contact with it and bled like a son-of-a-bitch. This happened about 2 hours ago. The shawl is 90% finished. If the ink doesn’t wash out, I will need to rip back about 45 rows (of 600+ stitches each) slice off the offending ink stained yarn, and start afresh. With 10 days left before her shower.
I’m going with it will wash out rather than the screaming, panicking and tearing around with tears in my eyes that I want to do.

---

I seem to be deluded about my ability to handle sleep deprivation as well. My new hours at work involve staying until 11:30 or midnight.

I get home by 12:30-ish, read for a little while to wind down, and get to sleep by 1:30. The mister’s alarm goes off at 6:30.

I’m an 8-9 hours of sleep a night kind of girl, but I keep thinking I can operate just fine of 5 hours of sleep.

WRONG.

I could carry groceries in the bags under my eyes. I’m bitchy, snappy, and irritable. After 6 months of greatly reducing my caffeine intake, I’m back up to 6 or 8 cups of coffee a day, most of them well after noon.
I keep thinking I’ll get so much done if I get up when the mister does. What really happens is that I get up, slouch my way to the couch and sit there, vegetable-like for several hours, maybe getting up to walk the dog or toss in a load of laundry, but mostly, sitting. Then the mister comes home for lunch, we eat, I slouch my way to the gym where I half-ass a workout. Then I slouch my way home, shower, and sit my ass on the couch for another hour before heading to work.

I’m trying a new thing this week. It’s called ignoring the mister’s alarm clock and sleeping for another couple of hours after he leaves. I’m going to follow this with getting up and actually moving around instead of laying on the couch reading trashy books and eating cereal straight out of the box.

On Knitting

My mother knit and crocheted. I have two brothers and a father and we were a busy household, so my mother was a busy woman and rarely had time to just sit. Even when she could, though, she wasn’t still. Her hands were always in motion, needles flashing, while blankets and sweaters appeared out of thin air.

She would tell me stories of sitting on the porch with my father’s mother, my grandmother, and knitting while they talked. My mother is one of those rare women who found a mother in law she loved, perhaps more than her own mother. My grandmother passed away when I was only a few days old. I never knew her. But my mom spoke of her warmly as she knit sweaters.

Mom taught me to knit when I was very young. I completed about 2 feet of a very ugly yellow scarf and didn’t pick up the needles again until I was 19.

Sophomore year of college knitting was suddenly a fad. Everywhere on campus, girls (and the occasional dude) churned out scarves and hats and mittens. I remembered how to actually knit, but I couldn’t remember how to get the stitches on the needle (casting on). So I cornered one of the girls from my Spanish classes and had her teach me how to cast on. I filched some yarn from my mom when I was home one weekend, and made a scarf. I finished it and cornered someone else in the dorm to help me get the stitches back off the needles (casting off).

I mailed it off to my then boyfriend, only to have my heart broken a few weeks later. I still wish he’d give me back that scarf.

I was briefly put off from my knitting, nursing my broken heart with copious amounts of alcohol, bad music, and friends.

A year later, though, I went to Mexico for a semester. I had a wonderful time, five months full of sunshine, laughter, food, dancing, staying out too late, going to the beach, siestas, and the occasional class.

I was homesick, though. I emailed people frequently, called home on Sundays, talked to the mister (who was then just “the boy”) when I could, but I was homesick. Somehow, I found myself at a Wal-mart one afternoon (yes, they have them in Guadalajara) with a friend and I wandered into their craft section. Yarn. Knitting needles. They came home with me.

I knit the world’s ugliest scarf out of the world’s ugliest acrylic yarn and I left it in Mexico when I came home. But the flash of the needles, the gentle clicking sound as I turned out row after row, the familiar-yet-foreign movements of pulling yarn from the skein…home.

When I returned to college my senior year, a new yarn store had popped up in my college town. Row upon row of beautiful colors, soft textures, fun patterns. I was hooked. I made scarves and hats for friends, who were very kind to indulge me and pretend that those things were nice when in fact they were crap.

The mister and I spent a lot of time together in his workshop, me sitting on a ratty garage chair, my feet propped on the warm edge of the woodstove while he tinkered on work equipment or car parts, talking the whole while.

I went to law school and the knitting kept me sane. I would reward myself with a few rows in garter stitch after briefing a case. I started mittens to soothe my mind into sleep during midterms my first year. Socks appeared shortly thereafter, during finals. Learning to turn a heel was a welcome distraction from fee simple determinables.

The mister and I bought our house and I settled my meager yarn stash onto the lowest shelves of our linen closet with excitement. We’d spend our evenings in domestic bliss, my feet in his lap on the couch while he read and I knit.

And slowly, the knitting improved. There were fewer dropped stitches, more intricate patterns, finished products that were actually wearable. I made shawls and scarves and hats and gave them to people who actually wore them in public.

I had knitting in my purse the day I got married.

I graduated and began working full time and the knitting came with me on public transit. I knit socks and hats as the light rail whizzed down Hiawatha, taking me to and from a job I loved at first but grew to detest. I would knit on the train, sick to my stomach with worry and stress over that job.

The knitting sometimes distracted me from my misery and stopped me from breaking into sobs on the train when I couldn’t time my commutes to coincide with my friend B, who also kept me from crying. At least something good came of those commutes.

Knitting kept me company through the months of unemployment, when I spent my days alone. You can only send out so many resumes and receive so many rejection letters before you start to take it personally, to sink into depression and wonder what it is that makes you so worthless. Knitting helped counteract that. At least I had something to show for my time. Hats, scarves, and shawls for friends, socks for the mister, sweaters for my mom, mittens for the homeless shelter. I knit.

I sent my darling friend MJ to International Falls with a huge, warm shawl I knit for her to wrap up in. I began stitching a wedding wrap for my friend Kate, thousands of tiny stitches on tiny needles (a task I’m still working on now) and I cannot wait to give it to her. Even if it’s not warm enough for her to wear it on her wedding day (she might have to resort to a coat), I know she’ll treasure it. The mister got several pairs of new socks, my mom got a sweater, and I spent my meager disposable income on yarn.

Sometimes seeing my yarn shop owner was the only human contact I’d have before the mister came home from work. I wonder if she knows how much her welcoming smile and genuine kindness helped me.

And now I’m working again. Sure, it’s not my ideal job, but I am so stupidly happy to go there every day, so delighted in the 8 hours of honest-to-God work, even as I curse the really awful hours and the occasional moron caller, that it’s nauseating. And I’m good at this job, really good at it, and that makes me feel better. I am not worthless or awful or incompetent, as I thought I was after my last job and the seemingly unending months of unemployment.

And, bonus, during downtime at this job, I can sit with my knitting and crank out a couple of stitches, maybe even a whole row, as I wait for another call. No complex lace or difficult patterns, but a simple sock, around and around on double-pointed needles, occupies my slow moments, just as it has occupied my hands through so many other moments.

It's the Little Things

It’s been awhile. I’d apologize, but I’ve been busy!

First, foremost, and most exciting, I got a job! It’s a 4-month temp job that should get me through the end of the year, with the potential to be extended or maybe (hopefully) go full time. It’s not precisely the kind of job I was hoping to get, more along the lines of pitching in the minor leagues than starting in the majors, but it is a JOB, with a paycheck and self-worth. I’ll take it and be glad for it!

Second, my little Neon, faithful as it was for the last six months, is going bye-bye. It needs some work, none of it cheap, and I don’t feel like dealing with it. So, I’m going to sell it. I picked up a used Jeep Cherokee that’s a vast improvement over the neon – it shifts into reverse and third without me muttering prayers from the driver’s seat.

Third, I got my hair done. I keep thinking my hair is either wet or greasy because it’s usually only this dark when it’s one of those two things, but I do like the darker color. More natural, less brassy.

Fourth, the mister has been wearing the socks I made for him. As the temperature dropped he dug them out of his dresser and started wearing them. He refers to them as his “real socks.” Darling man.

Why we have weekends apart sometimes.

The mister went out of town for another four-wheeling weekend with his buddies. He has a different Jeep (the man changes Jeeps like I change my socks), but still had a glorious time. They went off-roading, mudding, and rock-crawling.

I did not go. I was invited and I declined with snorting laughter. No, no thank you.

I’m not a girlie girl. I don’t mind getting dirty. (I mind BEING dirty for extended periods of time, but I don’t mind GETTING dirty.) I change my own oil and I know how my engine works. I will dig and garden and shovel shit out of the horse pasture if I have to (see Thanksgiving with the in-laws). I can run a chainsaw, I don’t faint at the sight of blood, and I have a total potty mouth. Sure, I like nice clothes and perfumes that smell good, and I have screamed at the sight of a rodent, but I like to think of myself as well-rounded, easy-going, and up for adventure.

That said, I hate four-wheeling.

Vehicles are for roads. I understand driving off road if it’s necessary for some sort of work thing or hunting, but taking a perfectly good Jeep off of a perfectly good road just for the fun of zipping around the woods and through mudholes makes NO SENSE to me at all.

I don’t like smacking my head against the door, the window, the dashboard, and the frame because we’re ricocheting over a rock field. I don’t like smelling like gasoline and exhaust (though the mister seems to find nothing sexier). I don’t like winching or pushing vehicles when they’re stuck. I don’t like riding in the passenger seat but being unable to knit or read.

Actually, I don’t like being in the car. As long as we’re going somewhere, I can handle it, but I get bored and fidgety easily, so the whole “drive around for the fun of it” thing is lost on me, even more so when I cannot occupy myself with something else because the driving around is accompanied by big hills, loud noises, and unceasing, unpredictable movement.

I don’t like the way welding smells, I hate having to pee while being bounced around, and I have no interest in conquering Horsepower Hill.

I would have been miserable all weekend, and misery for me most often lead to bitchiness, which leads to misery for the mister.

So, while the mister invited me along on his little red-necked adventure, I happily gave up my seat to my younger brother and had myself a little hen weekend, full of pizza and beer with friends, enjoying the last warm weekend of the year, cruising top-down in my dad’s convertible with my friend to our old college stomping grounds, watching whatever I wanted on TV without having to wrestle someone else to the ground for the remote, trying on various first day at the new job outfits, knitting without being mocked, and not having random men appear in the house while I am pants-less.

And on Sunday, when he came back from his weekend, we were both happy, content with how we'd spent our time, and not angry at each other.

Projects

Hat for the Mister's Birthday



I ended up ripping out the socks I was planning on making for him. I decided to tinker with the pattern and ended up rendering it impossible to deal with, so I quick-fast knit him a hat instead. I bought this wool on our camping trip to Mille Lacs in the spring and it was fun to work with. The color are natural and the yarn was sort of roughly spun, with little ares of unspun or overspun yarn, which would annoy the crap out of me in a bigger garment, but I found really charming in this little hat.

Pattern: Tychus
Yarn: heavy worsted weight from The Tinshack Co.
Needles: US size 8, bamboo straights

Shawl for MJ


(Charlie included for scale, and because he wouldn't got off the couch) (Edited to add: blogger crops pictures strangely, so it turns out that a couple of Charlie's feet are included in this shot and his whole body is included on the full size version)



My darling friend MJ moved to International Falls for a job. While I am delighted she got this great job, where they're already using her brilliance, close to her family and in a part of the state she loves, I am very sad that she won't be close by any more. Our pad thai lunches will be so much harder to schedule now that there's a several hour commute separating us.

I had been wracking my brain for something to give her as a going-away present. And I landed on this. There are patterns in knitting for prayer shawls. While I didn't pray as I knit this shawl (other than Please, God, let me find that dropped stitch) I did think about our friendship and all the things we've done together and been through together and of all my good wishes and happy thoughts for her future. I hope she can cuddle up in it, way up there in the hinterlands, and remember that I love her.

Pattern: Icarus from the Best of Interweave Knits
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed, 4 skeins and a little bit of the 5th
Needles: Addi Lace US size 8

Patio!

It's not all the way done, since we ran out of bricks and still need to do the edging and put new grass seed around it, but most of the work is done and I love it!

Another sweater

I knit this sweater for my mom's birthday (in September - I am SO ahead of schedule. Unemployment has its perks.).



Ravelry Link

I’m very proud of it. Almost as proud as I was when I knit a pink sweater for myself.

I don’t know why I’ve avoided knitting sweaters for so long – there’s something very satisfying about them that I just don’t get from socks, hats, shawls, and scarves. I mean, those things are lovely and wonderful and I will always enjoy knitting them, but sweaters are kind of exciting, with their little pieces that have to fit together and that moment when you slide your arms into the sleeves for the first time and the thing actually fits.

Anyway, this is the February Lady by Pamela Wynne, knit out of Cascade 220 Heathers in Caribbean Heather. I knit it on 5 mm needles, a 32 inch circular for the body and a 12-inch circular for the sleeves. I knit 23 repeats of the lace pattern for the body and 15 on each sleeve. I found the buttons in my button box in the basement.

(What, you don’t have a shoebox full of random buttons in your basement? You should. It’s great. When my husband or I lose a button off a shirt, odds are I’ve got a close match downstairs. When I babysit, the big ones, the 3 inch in diameter ugly plastic ones, those make GREAT toys to entertain a baby. And when I knit a sweater that only needs three buttons, it’s pretty easy to find some nice ones down there. I inherited the box from my mom, who picked it up at a garage sale for a quarter, and I’ve added to it over the years.)

The only annoying part of this pattern was the instruction to “work 38 yarnovers evenly among the center stitches.” My number of center stitches did not divide nicely by 38 and I had a terrible time working that one stupid row. Eventually I cornered the mister and made him do the math and then sit next to me while I knit that row, counting stitches as I knit them and making sure I didn’t mess up.

Other than that, it was a great knit, nice and fast and with just enough style that I think my mom will like it.

Local woman asaults people at grocery store, forcing them to admire her handknit sweater

I made it! And it fits!



Other recent knitting projects:



I'm knitting a wedding shawl for a friend, but I wanted to get some lace-knitting practice in before starting, so I cranked this out. Only the two ends were complicated; the long middle section was a very simple drop stitch pattern.



This is my favorite sock knitting pattern and I love the rich pink color, even though the slight color variations in it pooled into different colored patches instead of disappearing in the pattern.



I actually knit these about 8 months ago, but either the mister was wearing them or they were in the wash until it got too hot for wool socks. Then I could get a picture of them.



I finished these about two months ago. I added length to the leg portions so they'd be tall enough for the mister to wear with boots.



Knit out of leftover sock yarn and posed on a baby quilt.

Upset

I keep all my knitting stuff downstairs on a wire bookshelf - all my stash yarn and books.

I mowed the lawn a few days ago and forgot to put the gutter back on the downspout. Then it rained, heavily, all the water gushed down the downspout, and without the gutter to guide it away from my house, it poured along my foundation, soaked through the walls and puddled on my basement floor.

All my yarn is soaked, but it's wool and I laid it over my clothesline in the sun, so it will all dry just fine. But the books! They're all soaked, ruined. Ones with my favorite patterns, dog-eared and post-it-noted. Ones I used for reference, with instructions and photographs of techniques. Ones from my grandmother, with her handwritten notes in the margin. Ruined.

I'm very sad and pissed at myself for being so stupid.

The Unbearable Cuteness

I love to knit socks. They're portable, there's an infinite variety of patterns and styles to make, and a ball of sock yarn is much more affordable than buying enough yarn to make a sweater.

The problem is that when I finish a pair of socks, I always have yarn leftover. Not enough yarn for another pair of socks, but too much for me to just chuck it. I asked one of my knitting pals what I should do with the leftover yarn and she suggested knitting a bunch of squares out of it, and then, when I had enough squares, sewing them up into a blanket. Meh, no.

Then she suggested baby booties. And a few days later, I spied on Janet's blog two pairs of the most adorable baby booties ever. I found the pattern and whipped out a pair. Now I just need to find someone that's having a girl.

Lesson of the Day

I’m knitting a pair of socks for the husband. I’ve knit socks for my mom, socks for some friends, socks for my father in law, never socks for the mister. In fact, the only things I’ve ever knit for him have been hats. (His little balding head gets chilly.) He’s got several hand knit hats from me, ranging from lightweight cotton to a double layered alpaca hat that would keep you warm in the arctic. But I figured it was time for socks. Particularly since he’s begun pointing out patterns he likes.

So, I got a skein of some of my favorite yarn in a manly mottled black with 450 yards in it. I cast on and began knitting the cuff of the first sock. I finished the cuff and started the leg. And then I saw it. At the top of the pattern (the part I should have read right away but didn’t). Required yardage: 550 yards.

Shit!

It’s too late to get more of the same yarn, so I think I’m going to have to pick up a complimenting color and knit the cuffs, heels and toes with it and hope that this will leave me enough of the main color to knit the body of the socks.

Lesson of the day: read the instructions. Apparently I missed this lesson in elementary school.

Recent Knitting Projects

Girlie socks for me. I made this pattern for my pal B for her birthday and loved it so much I’m making it for myself now. Admittedly, I loved her socks more (they were pink) but these are a close second.

Specs: WendyKnits’ Double Eyelet Toe-UP Socks, made in Dream in Color Smooshy, Giant Peach on size 1 needles.

Koolhaas hat for my younger brother. I had a hard time with the beginning of this pattern (I'm kind of slow) but once I figured out which cables were supposed to go which way, it went nice and quick.

Specs: Koolhaas by Jared Flood, made in Cascade 220 on size 6 and 8 16" circulars.



I made this shawl for my sister in law's wedding. It was in Bemidji and I was afraid I'd freeze to death without something to wear over my bare-it-all bridesmaid dress. Turns out it was warm enough that I didn't need it for most of the day (though perhaps I should have draped it over my chest to hide some of the cleavage I was flashing). I didn't block it very aggressively because I ran out of blocking pins at 11:30 at night the day before the mister and I were supposed to leave town for the wedding and didn't have time to wait until the next day when I could buy more pins, but despite that, this thing is huge. It's 42 inches deep and a more thorough blocking could probably get me another 5 or 6 inches in depth.

Specs: Flowerbasket Shawl by Evelyn Clark in Cascade 220 knit on size 10 needles. I used the leftover yarn from this shawl to make the hat above.