Fiori Di Sole - Chart E - Finished

Five repeats of Chart E completed, finally.  Actually it wasn't too bad, the chart was pretty easy to memorize, but wasn't too boring.  Now on to chart F (and then G, H, and I and then it will be done).  I started this shawl on January 1, 2011 and it has been sitting around far too long.  I need to finish it so I can cast on another lace shawl.  I think the next one I knit will be Moonfleet, which is the first Unique Sheep KAL that I signed up for.  The yarn is all wound into a nice cake and the beads are sitting with it, along with a knitting needle.  The yarn and the beads have actually been sitting in the same spot for months.  Now that I have knit so much of this shawl, I am a little sorry that I didn't add beads, some nice red beads would look great accenting the points of Chart E, and maybe outlining the petals of the flowers...

Images in the Mind

In a green pasture with gently undulating hills sloping up towards the trees stood a lone dead tree, its limbs straining towards the sky.  On the tips of two of those branches perched vultures, their wings outstretched in the gentle rain.  They could have been part of the tree, seen only in silhouette, dark as the branches that they perched on.  I wished for my camera, but there would have been no where to stop and pullover (Virginia doesn't believe in shoulders on their roads, and this was a country road near Charlottesville).  Times like this I wish I had a camera in my eye, so I could capture these images.

We were driving to Charlottesville to move our daughter into her apartment (she is a first year medical student).  I am the master packer in the family, the queen of loading stuff into vehicles.  It was a long day and her apartment was on the third floor of the building with no elevator.  As we carried things up those stairs I was reminded of all the times that my parents had helped me move, and I suddenly understood how my mother felt when I would breeze buy with an armful of things with a seemingly boundless energy.

At dinner at the Mellow Mushroom (a pizza place within walking distance of her apartment), Amy mentioned that one of the activities that she would be going to next weekend was a wine tasting and a polo match.  So I told them about the time when I was a little girl in Pakistan and my father played polo. I ran out onto the field at the end of the match, and he lifted me up to sit in front of him on his horse.

During the drive home we were treated to spectacular displays of lightning from a nearby storm.

Tiger Lily Pullover - Redux - Body Finished

I finished reknitting the body of the Tiger Lily Pullover this week and have started on the sleeves.  Easy, mindless knitting.  It is amazing how much difference changing the gauge can make in the pooling.  Here is what the sweater used to look like.

The striping of the green, pink and red of the new version, as opposed to the pooling of those colors on the old version, really tones down the wild colors.  The scale of the pooling is also more consistent in the reknit version, which just makes the sweater look more like, well, a sweater, instead of some psychedelic hallucination.  It also fits much better.

Bavarian Tulip Mittens - Finished!

Camp Loopy Project II finished!  Well ahead of the deadline and they even fit.  I am amazed out how quickly I finished the second mitten.  One thing that I have noticed is that my gauge tightens up when I knit the thumbs.  The same thing happened on the Athena fingerless mittens.  I think I also tend to knit tighter when working on these smaller items.

Bavarian Tulip Mittens - One Done!

So the second Camp Loopy 2011 project is socks or mittens or gloves with cables, and it has to be knit between July 15 and August 15.  I already have a sock on the needles, and I am not really a fan of knitted gloves, so I went for the mittens.  This pattern is Bavarian Tulip Mittens from Interweave Knits, Fall 2010.  The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted, knit on size 3 needles.  Now knitting a worsted weight yarn on size 3 needles results in a pretty dense fabric, which is actually what I wanted, but this yarn is not very tightly twisted and can be a bit temperamental, especially when I have to make corrections.  I knit most of the mitten last weekend and finished up the tip and the thumb this morning.  The fit is snug, but not tight.  I did make a few slight modifications to the pattern.  I mirrored the side cables, and trailed the cable pattern off at the top rather than just cutting it off after 4 repeats of the pattern.

Papeete Tahiti Pullover - Finished!

I actually finished this sweater up this past Tuesday, but had to block and then get a picture.  I have almost finished the body of the Tiger Lilly Pullover Redux.  I need to skein the yarn for the sleeves and get it soaked and hanging.  I did Elizabeth Zimmerman's sewn bind off on the cuffs and the body, and did a Kitchener rib bind off for the neck.  I knit this one on size 6 needles instead of size 7 (the fabric with the size 7 needles was just a little too open) so it fits a little closer than the other three pullovers that I have knit with this pattern.

I have also been working on cataloging my yarn stash and am almost half way done.  There is still a lot more organizing that I have to do in my studio, but I am steadily chipping away at it.  I also volunteered for a transcription project being done by William and Mary.  I transcribed my first document last night, a letter.  I love history and reading a letter - even a scan of one - from 1866 was just so cool, a little glimpse into a life.  I will be doing more.

3 skeins Fiesta Yarns Boomerang in Papeete Tahiti
size 6 and 7 needles
Sweater Wizard software, top-down raglan knit in the round

Marigold Pullover - Redux - Finished!

I also finished re-knitting the Marigold Pullover this morning.  Given that it is already 86 degrees out there (on the way to 100) there is no way that I am modeling this on our back deck.  For this sweater, I used a size 7 needle (size 6 for the ribbing).  I have already started re-knitting the Tiger Lilly Pullover.

3 skeins Fiesta Yarns Boomerang in Marigold
Needle size - 7, 6 for the ribbing
Pattern - top down raglan from Sweater Wizard Software