maggistitches

New Year's Ruffle

We popped over to Virginia Beach for a change of scenery with our friends Barbara & Gillian on Thursday the 30th, so I looked around for a simple knitting project to take along. Even though I wouldn't have car-knitting time, I anticipated pool knitting and new-year-countdown knitting. I have a couple other shawls in the works but they involve charts; I really wanted something sort of turnkey that I could associate with our New Year's getaway. When I attended (my LYS) The Yarn Lounge's October workshop with Anne Hanson in October, the shop had a Churchmouse Yarns display of patterns and samples and Barb's Koigu Ruffle caught my eye. With plenty of KPPPM in my stash, I eagerly grabbed a copy ~ and found it just the thing to take to the beach as 2010 came to a close.

 It's pretty simple: cast on many hundreds of stitches, knit a few rows, then a few decrease rows. A center section of plain stockinette, then back to increases and longer rows. I finished in nine days, five of which were back to regular workaday life. The pattern suggests an option of pressing the ruffles out, but I think I like the curlicue version just fine! 

Yes, I knit this fall

 When I told people yesterday that my new shawl took six months to knit, they believed it, what with its 77,000 or so stitches.

But I also finished a skirt, a sweater, a sock, six baby booties, two coffee-cup cozies and a pair of fingerless mitts since my last post three and a half months ago. Still, let's start with the wrap, Grace Anna Farrow's Volt from A Fine Line.  I noted in a prior post how Kay helped me find a better project for the four skeins of Tess' Merino Lace I bought at MS&W in 2009, intending them for a Spectrum Scarf. (I may actually have leftovers to knit a variation on that scarf, but I decided I have plenty of scarves already, including a really special pink one. ) I didn't mention in my previous Maine post in September that we actually visited Tess' Designer Yarns, where I swapped out my fourth hank for a more solid and bright pink, the darkest one. What a lucky happenstance that was, to be in Portland! So I worked on this project in Virginia, North Carolina and Maine, from June to December, from the beach to the mountains. And it was worth it! 

When I came back from Maine I finished Lanesplitter, and posted a photo on Facebook and Ravelry, so this may seem redundant. I used three balls each of two colorways of Kureyon, the blue-gray 91 and black-brown 55 that had been in my stash for ages, never becoming Booga Bags for my friends. I'd never imagined knitting a skirt, but this rectangle was quick, fun and easy.

I've been using up the leftover Noro bits just this month; the mitts are for me and the coffee-cup cozy for Wee C's 4th-grade teacher. Another cozy went to Little B's kindergarten teacher. 

  
What else? I still need to sew the buttons on the sweater, so that can be a new post when I've done so. The sock is one of a basic ribbed pair; its mate is on the needles. And the booties [Rav link] have been delivered to Hank, Emerson and Latane! 

Made in Maine

Two years ago I bought the most luscious silk yarn at The Yarn Lounge and started knitting a free pattern I found on Ravelry, the Drop-Stitch Scarf. I have no idea why I took two years to finish. Well, that's not true: I always start new projects before the WIPs are complete! But I spent last week on vacation in Maine, from which this purple stuff (Halcyon Yarn Gemstone Silk 2/5) originated, and found it fitting to finish it there. 

 

Have a look at that porch from the other side: 

Much knitting occurred, as well as reading, sleeping, eating, drinking, boating, walking, swimming, shopping and Mad Men-watching (Season 3). And moose! I nearly drove into a mother and calf as we crossed the state at midnight; they were magical in the moonlight. I knit the bulk of Lanesplitter's rectangle and am working on the waistband as I blog; I also added another good chunk to my Volt shawl. In case you haven't guessed, this was an adults-only adventure, for which I was long overdue!

 
 

 
  

Jo's Jacket

A few months ago I posted a gigantic iPhone picture of a little embroidery I was working on. The entire project was revealed to the world when my workplace's annual faculty/staff/board exhibition opened on June 25: a jacket made as the staff's gift to our retiring CEO. My friend and colleague Betsy designed and led the project, completing all of the sewing by hand, but I was pleased to be asked to help with the embellishment. Here's the recipient admiring the finished product when we presented it to her in the gallery:

The labyrinth medallion pictured previously is stitched in the center of the upper back. Here's a better view of the front; I also stitched one of the sides but I don't know which!

 

Another cool development from this effort ~ her third such jacket ~ is that Betsy will be an artist in Quirk Gallery's Craft + Design Show booth in November, taking custom orders for jackets like this and offering some smaller items as well. She is our business manager, but has found her medium in fiber!

Hedera at last

I started these socks last summer, and didn't take my usual route of knitting the first sock of a second pair before knitting the second sock of this pair. I know I knit (undocumented) scarves for each of my girls since finishing the first one, not to mention the two sweaters. For me, socks are just a carry-along project for the playground, the carpool line, the knit-lenient meeting. 

I'm pleased with how they turned out, and I'll look forward to wearing them soon, since they are the lightest weight of hand-knit socks I have, what with the lacy pattern and the wool/soysilk/cotton/chitin blend from Ellen's Half-Pint Farm. 

Now I'm working on another pair for the family member who so graciously received the Nutkin socks last year. When we visited over Memorial Day she requested a second pair and I am happy to oblige, trying some of the self-patterning Opal for the first time and using Ann Budd's Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns as my guide. How about a 5 x 2 rib?

Volted Upstairs

Well, I'm still knitting a shawl. (Two, actually. And a skirt. But that's another post.) As you'll see below, in May I searched and settled and started to make a rectangular lace shawl that was knit the "short" way. I worked a couple of repeats through Memorial Day, to the tune of about 8,509 stitches. And then I checked some blogs.  

I love Kay Gardiner. Of course I do. I met her in Manhattan in 2004, supped with her in Alexandria after the first Mason-Dixon Knitting book came out, and knit with her again in Central Park last summer. I made a mitered-square blanket thanks to her, and have another cotton concoction on the needles now. Along with my local pal Heilbron, she reignited my quilting flame, and I'm glad for it. 

And she made me stop knitting Upstairs and cast on for Volt. I'd already started Upstairs when I read her post extolling the virtues of Volt. She was practically begging me to make the switch. "Dang, now that I just started my second 32-row repeat of the Upstairs shawl, I'm thinking I could've made a Volt!" I commented on that post, and then ordered the book with the pattern. Just in case. 

And it was a good thing, because I couldn't stop thinking about Volt, event as I made it through two full repeats of Upstairs. I came home from our Memorial Day holiday and cast off, so I could begin again. So now we have this delicate neck wrap to share en famille, because I was not going to rip out all that lace. Having seen how the pattern blocks out, I'm betting I will still knit the pattern, but with one color rather than four. 

I'm using the four pinks in Volt (instead of the spec'd five) with a contrast of gray ~ from a project that I did frog, the Swan Lake Mystery Stole 3 of  2007. (I just never made it past the second chart in three years, so completion seemed unlikely. The rest of the Malabrigo laceweight will more happily become a Citron in future.) 

 To compensate for the missing fifth color, I'm adding a pair of rows to every section, and I may take Kay's suggestion that the i-cord on the sides match the stripes. With its 395-stitch rows, this isn't a quick knit, but it's good TV knitting, and the color changes and little garter stripes motivate me to keep stitching. All in all, I say, Thanks, Kay! 

Close Encounters of the Sheep & Goat Kind

On Sunday I braved the heat and visited some wooly friends who were surely a lot hotter than I: the flock at Juniper Moon Farm. I recently discovered Susie on Twitter (@shepherdsusie) and, reading through her blog archives, learned that she had landed not so far away from us. As I was returning from a mommy-getaway overnight trip to Charlottesville, I wrote and asked if I could stop by on the way home ~ not knowing the temperature would be well over 100 degrees on the day of my visit! 

Susie was a great and gracious host despite the weather, and introduced me to the sheep and goats huddled in the shade. The three farm dogs greeted us enthusiastically, but I missed photographing them -- or Susie herself! And I left the equine newcomers to their new pasture since they had only arrived hours before me. I'm nowhere near the photographer Susie is, and I can't tell you their names, but here are some faces. 

 

 

 

If you don't know, this was the first farm to offer CSA shares ~ I'm going to buy one for 2011. I love my food CSA and my meat buying club, so why not support someone else who's doing good farm work relatively locally? Juniper Moon also hosts farm stays, so I'm checking the calendar to see when the girls and I might spend a weekend there. My grandfather had a farm property in addition to a home in the city; although it stayed in our family into my childhood, the only time I remember visiting was to relocate some kittens my mom couldn't handle. I want my girls to have a better sense of where things come from ~ 

New Project

When I look at my Ravelry queue, why can't I see that I have a silk scarf, a Koigu shawl and a log-cabin blanket each in the works? And the Scarf of the Rat, purchased from Morehouse two years ago in the year of the rat, and not yet complete. Surely the purple drop-stitch one could be done darn quickly, if I made it my TV knitting in this sweeps month. Yet I spent more than an hour last night searching the free patterns on Ravelry to find something to do with the four gradient skeins of Tess' Superwash Merino Lace I bought at Maryland a year ago.  

At the time I was plotting Eunny's Spectrum Scarf, free via Knitting Daily. But when I go back and look at it, I can't get enthused about holding four strands of laceweight at once. I have many scarves I love already, and at least one other I bought delicious yarn for also last May. So, after lots of browsing, I settled on the wrap called Upstairs.I think this pattern will be interesting with my four gradient colorways. We'll see! I'm casting on wider than the pattern, which does nine repeats across; I'm thinking of 11, which will mean starting with 127 instead of 105 stitches. Stay tuned ~

Secret stitching

Here's a peek at an embroidery project I'm collaborating on. I'm 90 percent sure the person it's a secret from doesn't read the blog, but I'm not taking any chances!

I have done some embroidery in my past, but not in ages ~ seriously, I'm thinking back to the 1980s. So I'm actually having a lot of fun revisiting the stitches. This couching was a new one - I think!

A Little Fame

See that magazine I'm holding down there in the prior post while modeling my new sweater? I was featured in the My Style column of a local bimonthly magazine, R-HOME, and I worked on Rooibos when the photographer came to shoot me and some of my treasures. Of course I would wear something I knitted, but I'd actually started the day in my Tempest cardigan . . .

 

. . . but I changed into my good old Sitcom Chic in order to match the chair, newly upholstered in some Amy Butler fabric. She's one of my faves, a fondness I share with Karen of Darling Octopus Decor, who also used Butler fabric on the rehabbed table beside me. My friend Patience, a/k/a Kindnessgirl, brought me the orchid in December 2008, after I let her know I'd dreamed that she gave me an orchid. I ordered the rug from Home Decorators Collection when they sent me a hefty discount coupon (because, y'know, I do like to shop local at La Difference!).

The large print behind me is by Tanja Softic, who was born in Bosnia and teaches at the University of Richmond. The smaller piece is an oldie but goodie: a serigraph by Juan Logan from an edition of 100 printed in 1996 to support the U.S. Senate campaign of Harvey Gantt, who unsuccessfully challenged the late Jesse Helms in my home state.

I'm flattered to have been included in the magazine, although it was rather close on the heels of a November spread on my monthly Stitch & Bitch in Style Weekly's monthly Belle. I tried to postpone, but editor Brandon would have nothing of it. And so not only it is an arts issue, it's a VisArts issue, since my colleague Aimee's sweet loft building in Petersburg gets a big article, as does the bungalow of Pam Anderson, an artist on our board.