I’m not moving a son to college, I’m gaining pattern repeats…

At least, that’s what I kept telling myself weekend before last. This is a scarf based on the Meandering Vines shawl and knit of The Road to China Light in the Silken Jewels colorway yarn. The yarn is scrumptious, by the way. A soft squishy blend of alpaca, silk, baby camel and cashmere. Just the thing for a distraught mother to find comfort in fondling. I expected to get many pattern repeats done, (500 miles worth, one way) but didn’t count on how much time I’d spend coaching the boys on safe road trip driving. The 2 of them did just about all the driving up to Davis, and if you asked them I’m sure they would let you know how diligently I coached, but they might have a different name for it…
The Central Valley of California is a tremendous growing region, and from the highway we could see hay and various fruit orchards and almond trees and grape vines and trucks carrying loads of garlic, onions and tomatoes. I imagine them all going to a big salsa factory, or maybe spaghetti sauce. We also saw cotton on the hoof, er leaf. And I didn’t pick any. Now I wish I had.

The Drivers; Son #1        , and Son # 2   .
We drove up on a Saturday and stayed in Sacramento, no lodging in Davis imagine that, and moved Evan and his gear into his dorm room on Sunday.  I started to help him unpack, and then thought better of it and decided to head home. He is capable of figuring out his own unpacking, Ryan had homework waiting at home, and the longer I hung around, the more likely I’d be to cry. And it is a long haul home.
   
I didn’t cry. Not one bit. Not until Monday. Wednesday. Maybe Thursday. Not all day, just once in a while.
In between not blogging and running around on college packing shopping trips with Evan, I did finish the sweaters.
The Garter Stitch Baby Kimono for new grand nephew Dameon who arrived just Friday.  I steeked the armholes for this sweater, a first for me, and knit Chinese knot style buttons.
  And the Daisy Cardigan for grand niece Kamea.
  The purple creature, who languished whilst the sweaters progressed.
And some spinning, hooray!
Four ozs of silk/cashmere blend  singles, one ounce of organic cotton single ,
and I’ve just started on 4 oz. of Gotland lambswool. . I’m so happy to be spinning again!

And… What I did

I bought another skein of the same color. I sort of remembered seeing one more skein of Plymouth Happy Feet DK at the LYS when I purchased the (should’ve been enough) first 2 skeins, so I trotted myself down to the store to check. If I remembered wrong (my kids tell me I do that sometimes, but I don’t believe them) I was sure I’d be able to find some contrasting color to work with. There was no way I was going to rip back and adjust the stitch count. No Way.

There was a contrasting color that would’ve worked well too, but I didn’t want to leave that single skein stranded without any of its color way mates. I always feel a bit sorry for single hanks, no dye lot siblings for company, no joyous union of purpose and form in a single garment… That yarn needed to come home with me.  Call it fate. As I was winding the hank into a ball, I found a join in the yarn. I didn’t like it much so I cut out the join and set aside the small ball I had so far and started another ball. The small ball could’ve set inside the top of a shot glass, like a scoop of ice cream in a cone.

I thought, “Maybe that small ball is just enough to finish the job. I’ll try it.”

And it was.  And I have about 230 yards left. I wonder if that is enough for some footsies? For me, I mean. I really like this yarn. I know it would be enough for some fingerless mitts.

Now the Daisy Cardigan needs blocking, and I get to pin out all those cute little pointy picot edgings. What was I thinking? I could’ve just finished the hems with a nice, non-curling garter stitch or seed stitch. Oh well, its not often I knit for a little girl.

Since I don’t have a picture of a blocked sweater, here is a picture from my visit last month to Davis, California. Davis is a college town, and bicycles are a common mode of transportation. I saw this bike (below) as we left a restaurant.

Notice the canine buddy waiting patiently in the basket. I wish I had time to get a better picture of him.

What Would You Do?

I took my car to the mechanic today, to have the A/C system recharged and the driver's side window fixed so it would go up and down again. It's been stuck in the closed position since June.
I didn't know how long the fixing might take, but that's ok, since I've 2 sweater wips to keep me busy. Both are very close to finished, the baby sweater just needing some fastenings and the Daisy Cardigan some bind-offs and neck bands.
I decided to work on the Daisy, thinking I had just enough yarn for the picot edge body bind off.
I had completely forgotten about the front edges and neck bands. Yup. Those are going to need finishing too.
How did this happen, and where or how do I come up with enough yarn, just a few yards really, to properly finish this little sweater?
I checked my gauge, (mind you, I'd checked this earlier) the stitch count was off a bit, 22 sts per 4 inches instead of 21. I measured the sweater at the chest and recorded 28 inches instead of 26. Wow, 2 inches larger is a lot!
So here are the choices I considered;
Do the math and rip the sweater back to mid chest and re-knit, including the sleeves. (top down, one piece raglan construction.) Really, I should have enough yarn, the pattern calls for 450 yards and I have 526.
Make the sweater a cropped version.
Check my stash for a contrasting color in superwash DK and use that for a border and trim.
Check my LYS for more of this yarn in the same or contrasting colorway, because a bigger sweater can be grown into.
How would you handle this?

Still not caught up...

And I won't be anytime soon if I don't blog more often!

I can't believe it myself, but aside from last Friday, which was the monthly spinning meet up at a LYS, I have scarcely touched my spinning wheel for more than a month. It sits there, patiently waiting, while I knit away on little sweaters and deal with family life. I walk by and notice that the pale maple treadles now bear marks that resemble my feet, and can't decide if I'd rather be spinning, or cleaning the treadles and adding more finish. Then I go back to what needs doing.

The little sweaters are coming along. I decided to try a new technique, and use steeks to create the arm holes for the Garter Stitch Baby Kimono. I hand sewed the steeks and the first sleeve is started and so far so good. The Daisy Cardigan is knit top down and has raglan sleeves, and those are finished and now its just stockinette until the proper length, and then the picot bind off.

the old Underwood

I have no new pictures of either project, but here is a fun picture of something completely different. My Grandmother's typewriter.  She always enjoyed writing, and in her later years started submitting articles to magazines. Once I finally get the old roll top desk back together, the typewriter and desk will be reunited. I really thought I'd have that desk fixed up long ago, but I haven't touched it since moving it into the garage last fall. I can feel the restoration muse prodding me, and think the desk will get some attention next month, after we get Evan moved into the dorms.

Here and There and Here Again, repeat

I've run into that place where I've been away from the blog so long, and now have so many blog-able items that starting up feels daunting. And I've finally realized (not for the first time either) that the only way to fill a hole is to start throwing dirt into the bottom. Or something like that.

Last post; something about the weather, my dad and my son. We'll start there.

During the cool weather, I noticed that quite a bit of my hand spun stash was undocumented. No notes as to yardage (is it meterage in the metric system? the spellchecker doesn't think so) or weight. I probably thought I'd remember all that stuff when I needed to... right. So I started weighing and winding onto the niddy-noddy and making notes and taking pictures, with the goal of adding all the information to Ravelry.  The notes are right here in front of me, and I am pretty much adrift in making sense of at least half of it. I've decided its easier to get the blog caught up than figure out my notes.

Evan finally did wake up, and I've heard some of the stories and yes, it was a great trip. I'm very glad he went.

My dad never did get that MRI. The short story is that Dad doesn't tolerate the confines of the MRI very well, so arrangements had been made for him to be sedated for the procedure, one of those "twilight sleep" type of things. Dad wasn't sure that would be enough (he wanted the full knock out) but in the end it didn't matter because nobody told him he wasn't supposed to eat for 6 hours before the MRI. Whilst working to schedule another MRI, the good doctors decided the CAT scan was sufficient after all. During all this, I did manage to cast on the garter stitch kimono baby sweater, but not much else.

here fishy, fishy fishy

But I knew I'd have lots of time for knitting in the next week because I was going on a trip with Dad and some other family members, down to the Los Cabos area of Baja California. Dad wants to catch a dorado, also known as Mahi-mahi. We went fishing one day, and didn't even have one bite. But I do love being out on the ocean, and at one point we saw hundreds of young Manta rays leaping from the water. Some were trying for style points and would even somersault (wow, I wonder where that word comes from?) in mid-air.  And towards the end of the boat ride we saw some dolphins, always a treat.

Other highlights were lots of family time and a para-sailing adventure, which turned out to be even cooler than I expected. But I didn't try knitting while para-sailing. Or knitting in the pool, near the swim-up bar where we spent most of our afternoons . Which is a sort of silly name because nobody swims up to it, they wade up. I know, I spent hours researching this. We spent all that time in the pool because while the hotel is on a lovely beach, the surf conditions were black flagged - considered dangerous enough to be fatal. Even though most of our group is very ocean savvy, growing up in coastal Southern California, we didn't test the waters. During this trip I worked on a Simple Lace Scarf using my hand spun silk/cashmere yarn, the baby kimono sweater and packed the yarn for another project that I didn't start.

I came home on August 1, 2010. I want to remember this date for something I saw, that I don't expect to see again. But, if I could have called everyone I know at the same time, I would have. I saw a shooting star in a still blue sky. Not dark twilight blue but regular daytime blue! I was standing out in the driveway, facing east just before 8 p.m. when I saw a meteorite streak across the sky from northwest to southeast, burning white and then a flash of green before disappearing. It happened so fast that the only thing that escaped my mouth was "ohhh, oh" and it was gone. As far as I know, nobody saw it but me, and I wish I could show it to everybody.

hair cut prep

I had enough time to pay some bills, buzz Evan's hair, do laundry and repack, this time a road trip (more knitting time) to Davis for Evan's freshman orientation.. Evan starts school there next month.  The good administrators of UC Davis wisely include a full program during orientation for parents of incoming freshmen, and I enjoyed the experience very much.
I like it so much I want to go to school there. And maybe I will one day. During the trip I finished the Simple Lace Scarf, just about finished the body of the Garter Stitch Baby Kimono sweater and cast on the Daisy Cardigan in Plymouth Happy Feet DK. I love this yarn, btw, but went up 2 needle sizes to get the right gauge and drape.

Once we were back home, I took a good look at the baby sweater and decided I'd like it better on bigger needles, so I ripped everything back and started over on US #4. Its simple knitting, but very boring. There is still more to tell, but this is enough for now. Happy Tales!