Beach Day || August 27, 2003 ||6:15 pm

I have reawakened my love of the beach. Today I took the LIRR to Long Beach. It was lovely. The weather was so mild - partly sunny, warm but not too hot or sticky. I went all by myself and just read and wrote and chilled. It was such a good day.

I took for the train ride my red Merino Lace shawl - I hadn't touched it in weeks. It has gotten somewhat tedious -as circular shawls are wont to do by virtue of their increasing stitch counts every few rounds. I'm up to 904 stitches per round! But it's also sort of nice in a brainless way, and I like the color so much I find it very pleasing to look at.

Sitting on the train on the way in, knitting away, I came up with a satisfactory solution to a problem that has been haunting me with this project: I'm going to run out of yarn. The thought had previously crossed my mind that I could use some white Merino Lace that I had leftover from another project - but I didn't like the idea of a white border with this dark red, so I had resigned myself to seeking more of this dyelot or taking my chances with another one. But it occurs to me that charcoal grey would look nice with this color, and as I will not use very much to finish this, I can use the rest for a scarf or something. I think that will be fine.

In other knitting news, after wearing my cotton top that I just finished, I decided that something had to be done about the curling edges (I had done a few rows of garter around the arm and neck holes, but apparently not enough). And then I was wearing another top that I have, a V-neck tank with thin shoulder straps, and I decided that that shaping would look much better on this sweater. So I ripped out down to the armhole shaping and am proceding with the new shaping. I don't feel bad about it at all, because it will also fix the problem that I started the armhole shaping too soon; there's not enough of the stockinette stitch to cover my bosom, which I have a tendency to underestimate. (I don't know when I became this big - I was a B cup for the longest time!)

Oh, and before I go, can I just say I've developed a huge crush on Howard Dean? And he's not even tall.

The Doctor is In! || August 26, 2003 ||11:35 pm

I just got home from a Howard Dean rally. It was awesome. I've never been to a political rally before, and in fact, I've never really been excited about a candidate before. But I found myself fantacizing on the way home about what it would be like to have Dean as president. He's a real breath of fresh air.

If you're interested in learning more about Dean, check out his website Dean for America. His campaign also has a blog, Blog for America.

An FO to report || August 21, 2003 ||11:52 pm

This is my cotton top. I'm still quite new to designing, and I learn something with every piece. Actually, I'd say I learn something with pretty much everything I knit, including the things I didn't design myself. Anyway, what I learned here was that with this yarn I should have done more than 4 rows of garter to trim the armholes and neck, because it's curling annoyingly. I wore it to the store today and my boss suggested using a crochet hook to slip stitch around the edges. I'm going to try that. It also would have helped if I had made the shoulders a little narrower, but it's much too late for that now.

After I finished that I had a day of not knowing what to knit on next. Remember that pile of UFOs I photographed a few weeks back? I didn't really feel like working on any of those sweaters. But I did remember a Koigu sock that was in that pile. I stopped before kitchener stitching the toe of the first sock. So I did that last night. Here it is:

You can't tell in this picture so well, but there's a pretty little cable running the length of the sock. So now I'm working on the mate to it.

At work today I was working with Berta on a pattern for a capelet in brushed alpaca. She offered me the yarn to test the pattern by knitting one for myself, so I'll be working on that this weekend. The number of stitches for the entire capelet (worked in the round) is very close to the number of stitches for my sock! The capelet is on size 15 needles, which I usually dislike, and the sock is one size 1. Variety is the spice of life!

Slip slidin' away... || August 19, 2003 ||10:37 am

I can't believe my summer is nearly over. I feel like I really haven't done much of what I'd planned, especially designing. But I was inspired by Annie Modesitt, who posted on her blog an example of what she puts together for her magazine submissions. I found it a little intimidating, frankly, but it definitely gave me a standard to work toward. One thing that concerns me about my own designing is that I'm not very good at drawing. I'm thinking of taking a class at FIT (the Fashion Institute of Technology). It's not very expensive for NYC residents, but I can't really afford anything right now. Perhaps my dear dad will chip in for my birthday, which is one month away.

The good news is, I'm nearly finished with the tank I'm making out of Italian cotton that Berta gave me. I'll post a pic tomorrow when I should have it done.

And I remembered that I never did post a pic of the finished Forest Path Stole. Sorry! Here one, though it doesn't quite show it's full splendor:

I just wore it to a play; it's a very elegant way to fend off the air conditioning!

The Blackout of 2003 || August 15, 2003 ||1:25 pm

Last night was quite an interesting adventure! I've got to hand it to New Yorkers for being so calm in the face of what could have been a huge crisis. To me it felt more like a block party. I think there was a general sense that we've dealt with much worse than this, and a few hours with no lights weren't going to make us freak out. (Okay, more than a few - there's still no power in some areas.)

My own journey was like this: I was at the store, getting ready to leave, when we lost power. We figured it was just the building. Then I got outside and realized the whole block was out. Soon after that I learned that all of Manhatten had no power. It wasn't for a while that I heard the news that it was most of the eastern seaboard... that freaked me out a little. I mean, we all had that moment, right? of thinking such a huge outage had to be the work of terrorists. Fortunately there were people with radios out on the street, and I heard that there was no suspicion on terrorism.

So I had no choice but to walk all the way home. That was pretty bad. It took me over 3 hours in my not-so-comfortable shoes. And I couldn't reach my husband to tell him I was going straight home instead of 20 blocks out of my way to meet him (we'd previously had plans to meet up before going to a party). So he waited there for quite a while, didn't get home until a few hours after me. Poor guy was afraid I was stuck in a subway tunnel somewhere.

Some of the cool things I saw:

-Civilians directing traffic

-A young man guiding 2 blind women

-One stranger helping another whose car had run out gas on the Queensboro Bridge

-A nail salon selling flip flops for $3 to women who wore heels

-Lots of people sitting out on their stoops playing cards and stuff.

On the radio, a woman from Long Island commented that this is the best quality time she's had with her family in a long time! They joked that we should turn off the power for 2 hours once a week around dinnertime.

I'm off to soak my feet (again) and get back to my knitting... better get something done on this unexpected day off!

zoom zoom! || August 11, 2003 ||12:03 pm

No more dial-up for us, we finally joined the 21st century and got DSL. And it is such an improvement. I don't have time to knit while pages are loading anymore!

Forest Path Stole is done except for blocking. When I do that I'll take a photo of the finished shawl. One complaint I have about the pattern is that she has you do a sewn bind off. I suppose this is because this bind off method is much stretchier than the usual one. However, I really don't like the look of it very much, and I found that it was nearly impossible to undo once I'd started. Oh well, live and learn. It doesn't look bad, I just like the look of the normal bind off better, and if I were going to do it again I'd probably just do the normal one using a much larger needle than I knit with.

As I'd feared, I couldn't resist my new cotton yarn. I designed a lace top and started knitting it last night. Here's a progress photo:

The lace pattern is one I did in a swatch for the store a few months ago, and managed to remember based on a similar pattern in one of my books. (We sold the book it was from, and I couldn't find the exact pattern in any other ones.)

In the section in the photo, I've tried out a picot border, picked up from the bottom. I learned it from a Debbie Bliss pattern that I'm finally finishing (started last summer). I think I'll do this border on this top, but do a couple rows of garter first, as it's still curling a bit. But it's very cute, no?

My idea for this top is to do the lace pattern on the bottom, then stockinette starting at the bust - I'm not a big fan of showing bra through the eyelets. And I discovered in swatching that the lace pattern produces a tighter gauge than stockinette, so I can just switch to stockinette and it will give more room at the bust on its own. Oddly enough, it worked out to be exactly the right proportion according to my calculations. I hope it will work out the way I expect. I figure I'll have to put some kind of horizontal break between the lace and the stockinette - I haven't quite figured out what that will be yet. Maybe just a row of eyelets. More swatching is in order.

Temptation || August 08, 2003 ||5:19 pm

Okay, I know I said last week that I was going to finish a pile of UFOs before starting anything new. But really, how am I supposed to stick to that with my boss throwing new beautiful yarns at me? Today was her anniversary of buying the store, and she was in a very generous mood.

First she gave me a cone of the beautiful French mohair I was swatching for her website. Then we were unpacking new yarns that she bought in Italy, and I was admiring all the gorgeous colors of fine Italian cotton she got. So at the end of the day she gave me a cone of that as well! What's a girl to do? I also have the space-dyed cashmere that I bought a couple weeks ago, which is calling my name while I sleep.

Boy my life is tough.

Pictures-a-go-go! || August 06, 2003 ||11:29 pm

Ah, a clean slate. I've been forgetting to start a new page for a long while now, but finally I've remembered.

I'm back from Massachusetts, and fired up the camera for y'all.

First, as promised, pre- and post-felting pics of the Fiber Trends Felt Flock lamb:

Ain't he cute? I'm so glad to have made Julia another present that was a big hit. (The first being a lacy baby blanket, which she carries with her everywhere. I had to make her a smaller "travel blankie" so that her mom could wash the thing.)

I've made lots of progress on the Forest Path Stole, and will certainly meet my goal of wearing it to a wedding reception next week. I'm done with all the lace units, and the top triangles. I also completed the left border on the train back to NYC. Here's a pic of the whole thing laid out:

The way the border is attached is very interesting. It involves pulling a long loop of yarn through the slip stitch edge of the side triangles on every other row, and using that loop to knit two rows. Okay, I'm not describing that very well. At first it seemed cumbersome, but I got used to it quickly. I thought it would take a lot longer than it's going! But I guess if I think about how quickly I could make a 15-stitch strip on its own, it makes more sense.

While I was in Massachusetts I visited Wild & Wooly in Lexington - my first yarn shop from when I learned to knit in high school. I've always been very spoiled with yarn shops. First Wild & Wooly, which has a lovely selection and helpful staff, and then when I went to college at Vassar, Patternworks was my LYS. When I moved to NYC I was very disappointed in the yarn shops I found! Of course, this is in large part due to the snottiness of most of them. Good thing I found (and work at) School Products and a couple of non-snotty ones opened. (I like Downtown Yarns and Purl quite a bit.)

Anyway, my trip to Wild & Wooly was fruitful - I bought some yarn for a couple Christmas designs I have in mind, plus I enjoyed talking with the staff - one of whom I discovered that I've e-mailed with before, when I was a member of KBTH. Too bad I got sick of all the in-fighting on the list (and others) - there were some really great people there. Maybe I'll re-subscribe. But probably I won't.

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