Summer Sweater-along

I think May and June will be known as my Blue Period. I'm working (still working, slowly working) on Bill's OXO Gansey in deep blue denim. I have about 5 inches of sleeves for Cotton Candy completed in a lovely light blue and ecru - I have maybe another 7 inches to go, plus button band and collar. And I've just finished the gauge swatch for Sally's Favorite Summer Sweater from the Knit Stitch in a nice blue grey.

When last we heard about the Summer Sweater-along, I was leaning towards Rowan Handknit Cotton in several bright colors, including FLAME orange. In fact, I bought 17 skeins of Flame in Ashland, but I chickened out. Have you got any idea how much acreage you can get out of 17 skeins of Flame. Nope, too scary. Janice suggested trying something a bit smaller, maybe a tank top, in Flame and looking for a more Mary, more muted color for the Summer Sweater. I like this idea a lot! I want that orange in my life, just not that MUCH orange. I swatched up the slip stitch pattern for the Lots of Choices Top in Ms Melville's The Knit Stitch and I believe the Flame has found it's destiny.

On Tuesday night, I visited Knitting Arts to look for a less frightening color. Jen helpfully checked the stock of all colors of Handknit Cotton. I really didn't love any of the colors and was sort of moping around the shop until Michelle pointed out Filatura di Crosa's Mirto. I chose a blue/grey color, #35, and was able to swatch with the other two Summer Sweater-alongers on Wednesday at my work knitting group. I love the results:

I am just loving the fabric - it's drapey, a bit shiny, and slightly mottled with white. And it's right on gauge at 22 sts/4 inches. So I'm all set to start the Summer Sweater knitalong next Wednesday.

Wash on Tuesday

Hah! I'm back. We flew home from Texas Sunday night (epic journey, rain, delayed planes, new tickets, baggage routed via Timbuktu...) with a trip list of 180 bird species and lots of lovely bird photos to remind us of a very fun trip.

I guess being on vacation provided some unexpected energy, because Tuesday night after choir rehearsal I washed up 5 items. Clockwise from the upper right, we have Diamond Seed Baby Jacket (FO 2005-07), Cindy of the Loopy Edges (FO 2005-08), a little lace hat in Rowan Wool Cotton (FO 2005-05), the little Baby Surprise Jacket (FO 2005-06) and running through the middle is Bias Betty (FO 2005-09).

Their fates are now sealed. Cindy is going to a baby shower today. Diamond Seed Baby Jacket and the lace hat are being mailed to L.A. The BSJ has a known destination here in town, and Bias Betty is for me. Me, me, me!

Wednesday night I sewed the beads onto Bias Betty:

and I was able to wear it to work on Thursday. This scarf was a fun, quick project and the colors are fabulous. I didn't think I was a pink beads kind of gal, but I really love the results. I wore it to work on Thursday and got lots of props. Hey, it's kind of fun to knit for yourself!

Knitting in the field

Here we are 2 days into our 5-day birding trip to Texas. We've seen about 120 species of birds, with 9 new "life birds," as we birders call them. My darling spouse-o has posted notes about our trip on his blog.

Birding in south Texas is a rather mind-blowing experience. There are so many amazingly cool birds, like Groove-billed Ani, Least Grebe, and Plain Chachalaca* (all specialties of the area) and in spring there are also the migrants, like Rose-breasted Grosbeak,* Black-throated Green Warbler,* and Worm-eating Warbler who are just passing through on their way to eastern breeding locations. For a west-coast birder like myself, practically every bird is unfamiliar. The birding is intense, with the ears, eyes and brain working overtime to isolate interesting sounds, locate all the proper field marks and integrate the pieces into identification and understanding of the birds. Phew!

(by the way.. we saw all 6 of those species today. Links marked with * are to photos taken by my darlingest spouse-o, mostly from last year's Texas trip and one today. Photographing birds takes a lot of patience, luck and photo skills. Have I mentioned lately how amazing Bill is? He has photographed 67 species in Texas to date - 1 of every 4 birds we've seen here.)

To see these birds, we travel long distances through some pretty economically-challenged areas, looking at tiny scraps of undeveloped land which are often surrounded by run-down homes, strip malls, and beach-front condos. Inside a refuge, you can sometimes forget how close to civilazation you are, but soon you are dumped right back into the "normal" world of south Texas.

There are *lots* of other birders at the locations we are visiting, because the concentrated nature of the birding brings many visitors from all over the world precisely now -- during spring migration. On the other hand, there are lots of people who live in the area who have zero awareness or appreciation for the natural treasures of the area, and we get a lot of funny looks wearing our full REI regalia, dorky hats & binoculars into the ice cream shop.

So this trip is an experience of contrasts. Wonderful natural resources crammed into a hot, humid, bug-infested, untidy suburban landscape. A feeling of being exactly where we belong as birders but being total outsiders. Intense activity vs. long stretches of drive time.

For the down times, I bring my knitting along each day when we pile into the van. Here's what I accomplished with my travel time yesterday and today: fronts for Cotton Candy!

I'm in love with this little sweater. The cotton hasn't been too hard on my hands so far. I think the fabric is very even without much difference between the knit and purl rows. I love the neatness of the edges and the raglan shaping. It's also spot on gauge, giving me hope that the finished cardigan will fit properly, assuming whole 15% shrinking thing is going to work.

Tomorrow's knitting will be very boring: 120 rows of seed stitch over 6 stitches to make the button bands. Actually, it's perfect birding knitting: requires no thinking and can be put down at a moment's notice when the next great bird shows up by the side of the road. I figger it's button bands all day tomorrow and maybe even a start on the sleeves.

Now it's bed time - it's nearly midnight here in Texas and I need to be in the van tomorrow morning at 6:25 to start our drive to Santa Ana NWR. At least I'll be able to sleep in the van until dawn and save the knitting for the daylight hours! Nighty night.

I'm off!

... for 5 days of hot damp birding fun. My lovely spouse and I are off headed to McAllen Texas for a weekend of birding along the Rio Grande. We'll be "in the field and not to be disturbed", which is an awesome place to be.

The weather forecast for McAllen is 90's and cloudy. I always wonder how I'll do when shipped from the mediterranean climate of the SF Bay to places where they have actual weather. I'm predicting quite a muggy time in Texas. Hope all my REI clothes will keep me cool & bug-free.

We were in Texas last year for a much longer trip to many more locations, and my DH took lots of fabulous photos. We'll have a much shorter trip list this year, but it's always fabulous to see these birds that you have to travel to see.

So, bwahaha, I'm on vacation AGAIN

Very Nearly F.O.'s

Saturday afternoon my spouse-o and I held Reading Group at my house. Reading Group is a gathering 3 couples plus offspring of one couple for the purpose of reading out loud to one another from our favorite books, magazines, web sites... even my guilty pleasure, small-town police blotters. This week we heard from Bailey White, Anne Lamott, the magazine Brain Child, Douglas Adams and Arthur Conan Doyle.

I was not feeling especially hospitable on Saturday and I didn't have anything special I wanted to read. So while I listened, Iused the time to finish the last niggling details of three Nearly Finished Objects. I won't call them completely F yet, as they still need a wash and in one case a bit of steam, but I hereby present VNFO's number 6 thru 9:

      

Phew! 3 of 5 unfinished baby sweaters have nearly crossed the finish line. Just a little bit of hand-washing left to get these all ready to be given away, leaving just Narcisse and Dale Baby 1006 languishing in finishing land.

Also over the weekend, I made good progress on the new "Cotton Candy" project. Here's the completed back:

The back looks extra tall and skinny because all pieces of this sweater are designed to shrink approximately 15% in length. Now that the whole piece is assembled, I can really tell that the lighter blue is the right choice for this sweater - the dark blue of the swatch was too nautical.

I've decided that knitting this **little** sweater is good practice before I commit the pieces of Bill's **large** OXO Gansey to the wash, so I'm really pushing to finish Cotton Candy quickly. Tonight I've been working on the fronts - I might get as far as placing the pockets later tonight. If not, this will be my plane knitting on Wednesday when we dash off for 4 days of birding in Texas.

What? Another new project?

I swatched on Friday for a toddler sweater for my goddaughter who is outgrowing this cute little green cardigan I knit her two years ago. I'm going to make Cotton Candy from the Rowan Babies book of designs by Kim Hargraves. I am not sure why this denim cardigan pictured in light blue and ecru is called Cotton Candy. Don't you associate cotton candy with pink? I'll have to think of a new name for it. The floor is open for nominations.

For swatching, I used some of dark blue Rowan Denim from Bill's (yes, unfinished, thanks for asking) OXO Gansey and got gauge perfectly on the suggested needles the first time. A sign from God, as the Blues Brothers would say. Here's the swatch, before washing:

Thanks to the shrinking properties of Rowan Denim, the stitches will tighten and pack in a bit more when this is washed. After swatching, I decided I don't like the dark blue/ecru as much as the lighter blue/ecru, so I got MORE YARN at The Websters in Ashland to make the sweater Just Like The Picture (boring, I know, but it's so cute!)

I think Cotton Candy and a new pair of Lorna's Laces socks will be my travelling knitting when I go birding in Texas next week. I have other news on the finishing front, which will wait for tomorrow so I can show pictures of Cindy, Bias Betty, and the DSBJ in their completed forms! I'm so excited, I can barely stand it!

Something for me!

Since I need a break from the UFO baby sweaters of doom -- none of which are finished since last we spoke -- I decided I need to do something quick for me. Knuknitter was working on her Bias Betty scarf on Wednesday at Santa Clara knitting meetup as I was attempting to finish the loopy loops on Cindy. (With a borrowed crochet hook that turns out to be *slightly* smaller than the one I was using and the loops aren't right. Jen, remind me to return your hook!)

Knuknitter & I both got our Bias Betty kits at the Foxyknits booth at Stitches West - their web link seems to be broken today. The kit consists of 1 skein Koigu KPPPM, beads for the end of the scarf and a pattern. I love the colors of the Koigu color P105L - yellow and terracotta, soft green, lilac, a mushroom brown, and teal. I started yesterday on our drive to Ashland for a weekend of theater. Here's yesterday's progress - click the preview below for a bigger version with somewhat less color banding:

So far all you can really appreciate is the color - the lace pattern will require some strech to be visible. I don't think the "zig zag of pink thru a field of yellow" effect is as strong in person as it is in the tiny photo and I think once it's blocked the holes will help break up this impression. The ends of the scarf will be beaded, which I think is a cool way to add weight to a short scarf.

Today I'm planning an outing to The Websters yarn shop - I'm looking for the pale blue Rowan Denim for a sweater for my goddaughter which I swatched in the car yesterday and a DK cotton for my Sally's Favorite Summer Sweater project. I'm taking Bias Betty with me, to look for colors that match the springy P105L colors. Maybe a crochet hook to finish Cindy with.

Also: bwhahaa. I'm on vacation.

Time to choose a yarn for my work knitalong

I'm going to knit a sweater for me! At work, 3 of us have been meeting to knit on Wednesdays at noon. We're planning to make Sally's Favorite Summer Sweater together as a knitalong project - it's good for beginners who haven't made themselves any garments yet and it's in a nice summery weight.

I went to the yarn shop tonight and looked over their supply of Tahki Cotton Classic and Rowan Handknit Cotton. I think I like the Rowan yarn better.. it's not mercerized - or at least not to the same degree as the Cotton Classic.

This is the e color I brought home to swatch with - "311 Nautical" - which according to this page is discontinued. Other colors under consideration.. (Images from http://www.wolleunddesign.de/)

           312: Rosy:
        254: Flame:
219:Gooseberry:

I haven't tried the gauge swatch yet, so I don't know if this yarn will work the way I want it to, but these sure are some yummy colors. Anyone got any opinions about summer sweater colors?

Noun the work

I was suckered into opening a piece of spam today and I was amused by the randomly generated text the spammer had used to sneak by my corporate filters. It's practically poetry!

Spam #1 is my favorite:
Never how, her color. Song we bat, back. Wheel have, stand. Dark
show divide. Bank still wide night much say. Jump state ready
skin place never. But, family was my rule. Well and three cry
some. Whether well by, better. Look glass that fish. Noun the
work. Warm of river once

Spam #2:
Grow, ]total, city buy. Does early sleep quite strange coat.
Fine, table, part write fruit. Ride don't hard see. Cry down
sentence. People, cool, board class is, cut. Whether fall for.
Thing give too energy. Felt no, chair two why among. Cross was
mine red contain by.

... but why do you suppose it doesn't want me to felt? Oh well, noun the work!

Total progress: approximately zero

Ugh. Next to nothing accomplished in like two weeks. Here's the best thing I have to show for myself - 27 cm of the front o the OXO gansey and blue hands:

All other projects are in "challenging" states just now. A new 2 socks 2 circs project was stymied by the wrong needles and possibly the wrong yarn. Cindy ran out of yarn with one cuff worth of loopy loops left to go. I made backwards progress on the Fog Chaser by taking the seams out, but I haven't re-installed 'em yet. Apparently my actual hobby is looking at half-finished knitted objects.