I woke up to this beautiful fog this morning! I love fog…it’s so peaceful and mysterious. (I don’t envy Carl having to drive through it, however!)
So, today is the first day of “Back to Normal” for me as you can probably tell by my recent silence. I’ve had a long, lovely chain of houseguests, visiting friends and family, for about three weeks. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it! I love the cooking and cleaning and the happy anticipation of folks arriving. I only regret not taking more pictures. Why do I never have my camera at hand when I really need it?
Early fall is such a busy time…classes to plan, soft wooly knitting to be done, patterns to write. As much as I love knitting with cotton and linen, I’m always happy to see the return of yummy merino and alpaca. I’ve made some fairly good progress on The Birthday Sweater. This is loosely based on Christina Wall’s Moss Henley because I love the way she’s used the moss stitch. As I mentioned before, I am augmenting the pattern with a teeny bit of colorwork inspired by some work I saw over at Loaves and Stitches. By and large, I’m pleased with the pattern except that it contains absolutely no stitch counts. Mostly, I’ve been working out the details using “The Knitter’s Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters”. I love the way Christina’s worked the Henley placket, though…brilliant and so easy.
I’m loving the Malabrigo Rios. It is big and plump and bloom-y. I have noticed something a little weird though. When I’ve left stitches on my nickel needle tips overnight, something in the dye leaves a strange tarnish on the needles. I was worried that some chemical in the dye had actually etched into the needle surface, but found that a vigorous cleaning with Twinkle silver polish shined them up again, leaving only a slight shadow on the needles. How odd.
I’m doing an interesting little custom job for a friend-of-a-friend. Barbara wanted an exact replica of Danny’s sweater from “The Shining” for her little boy. Writing and then working this intarsia chart has been fun! I’ll needle felt the black details later. A somewhat strange choice for a kid’s sweater but…kinda cute, no?
My beloved co-worker Amy referred one of our customers to me for a custom hat. She fell in love with the Malabrigo Silky Merino in Bobby Blue. It really is gorgeous to knit, but works to a very curious gauge. Like most single-ply yarns, the gauge varies wildly depending on the needle size. Here’s a peek at the brim pattern. Pretty color, isn’t it?
That’s all the news that’s fit to print for now. I’m taking a leaf from Elizabeth McCarten’s book; I’m trying to limit my WIP’s a little so I don’t lose focus. (We’ll see how long that lasts 😉
