Friday, December 28, 2007

A Post Several Days in the Making

I started writing this on Friday, but didn't have photos ready to go and didn't have enough undisturbed time to put two thoughts together coherently. So, am finishing, editing, adding pictures today (Sunday).

Current Knitting
I started knitting Mr. SABLE a version of of the Iron Mountain Hat (v.2) with slightly fatter yarn, in blue and black
SNAFU

Still working on Mr. SABLE's Adirondack Pullover Adirondack Pullover, more progress

Still working on the Tahki Tweed version of the One Row Scarf
onerowscarf2S

In addition, longer standing WIPs include
Constance Shorewood about 98% done
The very long-standing tweedy slipstitch sweater for Mr. SABLE
Some miscellaneous socks

Finished a few weeks ago:
soft hat
A quick little hat from Knit Picks Panache. Not sure I like how it looks, but it feels very soft and warm on my head, which counts for a lot around here.

Meanwhile, I've made plans to make another Iron Mountain v.2 for my friend Jim, for whom I made the brown fisherman's knit raglan last year, and a pullover for my brother's wife. I'm hoping to match both these projects up with stash yarn.

Family Life
Maybe part of why I'm so determined to match projects to existing stash has to do with our pre-holiday preparations. Mr. SABLE's brother and his wife came for a short visit on the 26th, which was great fun. There was a lot of hilarity and fun and games. But before they arrived, Mr. SABLE was driven to clean as I haven't seen him in at least 15 years. He purged and cleaned and filled garbage bags and recycling bins. He scrubbed the bathroom. And now our house is further from the brink of chaos than it has been for some time. So that's part of my motivation to reduce stash: having come this far in our house-normalization process, it seems like a good thing to continue.

The other thing is that on Christmas Eve I had to retrieve some "Santa items" I had hidden in my lair. It took me a full hour of dedicated searching, moving, and organizing to find the bag'o'goodies in a bin I thought I had searched early on. D'oh. And through that, I kept finding yarn I'd forgotten I owned. So I had a moment of clarity where the truth of my sickness was made quite clear.

Christmas Day was quiet. The Little Emperor came into our room about 10 minutes before 7, which is amazingly accurate. We had told him that nothing was happening until 7 and he doesn't have a clock in his room. We tried to doze the last 10 minutes then he gleefully announced that it was time. The morning went well. My brother made one of Owen's wishes come true by sending along an electric guitar that he owned but doesn't play these days.


In the early afternoon, The Little Emperor started to act a little sick. He fell asleep on the couch, spiking a fever of 103 F. In the evening we got a dose of Tylenol into him and got him up to bed. He woke us up at 3:30 a.m. saying he felt hungry and also unwell. Then he had big gastro-enteric symptoms (both ends), several bouts, pretty much keeping us up until 5:30. This was the day that R & C, the relatives, were coming, and we worried about them walking into a house of contagion. It seemed like the little guy was pretty much on the mend by late afternoon and was able to eat a good dinner (pizza) that night with no consequence. Still, I worried a bit, because I know gastro-enteric viruses can stay contagious for a few days after symptoms have passed.

R & C were supposed to stay two nights, but we all had an eye on the weather forecasts which were uniformly grim. They decided to return to C's cousin's in Chicago last night, so they were sure to make their flight back to NJ this afternoon. As it turned out, the flight was canceled, along with all the other flights to NJ on United today.

Finishing Post on Sunday Afternoon
R & C were able to get home, albeit, in a very Planes, Trains, and Automobiles kind of way. They got a flight on a different airline out of Midway, instead of O'Hare; to Philly instead of Newark. Then a rental car to to retrieve their car from Newark Airport, and eventually home to Summit.

BTW, here's one of a series of group pictures we had been ordered to produce for that side of the family:
MFamily7S
C., manning the camera, had successfully gotten a laugh out of the kids by asking, "What kind of bees make milk?"
Answer: "Boo bees."

Happy New Year to one and all. Stay safe. Friends don't let friends knit drunk.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Beatrix Hat & Cardigan Pattern



The Beatrix Hat and Cardigan are worked in Dale Baby Ull in bright vivid colors. Of course, you can easily substitute a pastel palette. Or swap out the magenta main color for a more masculine choice to suit your favorite boy.






Pattern worked at a gauge of 7.5 stitches per inch, but don't let that scare you. It goes fast on such a small project. This set would make a perfect first Fair Isle project. The motifs are simple and fun. Worked in round with cut steeks at front and arms.

Pattern written in three baby and toddler sizes.

Available for immediate download $5 US
Add to Cart View Cart

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Winter is here.





The weather says "Winter" and so does the calendar. No doubt about it.

Knitting pictures coming soon. I promise.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

WIP Progress Pics

Recent photos of my two biggest WIPs:
Owen BW1
Taken last night because he was dressed up. Long story, but it's a rare occasion.

Colin park 4S
Taken earlier in the fall at a local park.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Gingerbread Tam

I just made one of the Three Tams by Angela Sixian Wu, from the Winter '07 Knitty. This was a quick fun knit and completely up my alley.

Gingerbread Tam 3
This is the expression of a woman standing in her front yard when it's 14 degrees F, with no coat or gloves, in shoes but not insulated boots, fiddling with a camera and wondering if the autotimer will work.

Gingerbread Tam 2
The back view. Notice all the snow? This is not typical this early in Wisconsin.

Gingerbread Tam 1
The detail.

I used some ancient brown worsted wt wool yarn I picked up at a thrift shop and Knit Picks Bare that Shelagh gave me when we met in NH in summer '06. The kids and I dyed it with Wilton's paste and koolaid. I think the hat looks like a gingerbread house or some other brown confection sprinkled with colorful candy bits. Yum.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Scott's Adirondack Pullover update

Scott's Adirondack Progress
Sorry, it's a little fuzzy. Winter light and too cold outside for pictures in full daylight. I added light grey stripes to this one because I don't have quite enough yarn and Mr. SABLE is a big'n'tall kind of guy. And he liked the stripe concept enough that he said he would want them even if I did have enough dark grey. He's really living dangerously with his wardrobe choices these days!

I had an assistant helping, too:
Adirondack Progress 2

More gratuitous cat pictures:
Hailey2M

hailey1sepiaM

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Should We Call the Experts?

I was unpacking my 6 year old son's backpack from school last night and found this art project:
CsnowmanM
Should we call a child shrink for an evaluation? Or just apprentice him to Tim Burton and call it good? (click it for a closer view.)


Here's the Solstice Tree '07
xmas tree 07
The kids put tinsel on after this picture, so now it sparkles a lot more. Every year I have to remind them that we are looking for a Charlie Brown kind of tree, because our living room is not that big. And the trees always seem much bigger when you get them in the house. This one is not very tall, but has a nice shape. The Little Emperor, artist of the work above, chose it. I think he did a nice job.

A note about the painting on the wall above the mantle on the upper left of the photo. This was done by my late grandmother, who was a watercolor painter of some local renown in western Illinois. She gave it to me years ago. It's not particularly one of my favorites of hers but I like the story that goes with it. She called it "Forgotten Landmark" or something kind of sentimentally evocative like that. My dad always comments, whenever my parents visit, "Oh, it's that old whore house down by the river." Somehow, I trust his interpretation more than hers.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

A Slightly Sinking Feeling...

I sent a submission packet to a magazine late last month. Their deadline was Dec 7. I sent my submission Priority Mail and requested delivery confirmation. I know that the magazine in question usually sends receipt confirmation pretty quickly, too. And I just realized that I've received neither of these. And it's Dec 9. Hmmm. Must find my postal receipt, but checking back in my blog posts, I know I sent it before Nov 29. Well, as much as it's a drag to get rejected, it would be an even greater drag to never even get in the running because of a postal glitch.

How long does the postal service usually take to deliver the confirmation? I've never paid for that before and don't know what to expect.

edited to add: the confirmation postcard came from the magazine the other day. I just didn't know it because someone else carried in the mail. So, it got there. And now the waiting resumes.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Some Recent Knitting

Scott's Adirondack Pullover
Scotts Adirondack
Any color, as long as it's grey.

Gift Scarf 2
gift scarf 2
Not sure yet just who will get this one.

Gift Scarf 1
gift scarf 1
The Universal Yarns wool/dralon blend. This feels nice for 70% synthetic. The color sequences were messed up at the factory a bit, but I don't mind too much.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

My life in list form: no time for a proper blog post.

  • Machine conspiracy: one vehicle in shop with unknown malady.

  • Tomorrow's scheduling complications: re dentist, kids, schools, cars.

  • Today's expected snow on top of

  • All the other snow and ice we already have, and

  • It's cold. It was 1 degree F at 7 a.m. today. (or is that one f'in' degree?)

  • current knitting: another gift scarf.

  • Seasonal rant: Maybe this can hold off til around Dec 22?


  • I hope to make a proper post with pics and fun stuff soon. But my BIL and his wife, who are very nice, but childless and tidy and earn about 10 times (not exaggerating) what we live on are coming to visit the day after Christmas and I'm not sure how we can get ready for that.

    The good news is, my sister phoned the other day and we chatted for over an hour. We haven't really talked in about 15 years, so this was interesting.

    More anon. I'm off to pick up Thing 2 at his school. Later, will (I hope) be able to pick up Huz-beast, Thing 1, and my car on a subsequent outing. Otherwise, I'll have to get creative.

    edited to add:
    My vehicle was ready. Whatever made the Check Engine light come on was self-limiting for now. So, I don't need a new transmission today. (Whew!)

    Which means tomorrow will be relatively easy in terms of picking up both kids from school and getting them both to the dentist for their appointments.

    Whatever snow we're supposed to get tonight hasn't started yet, so I didn't have that added complication to my late-afternoon errand-running.

    Thursday, November 29, 2007

    Project Reports

    I'm in a project starting frenzy lately

  • Scott's Adirondack Pullover

  • A hat from Knit Picks Panache, like Solstice, only with a different design motif and adult size

  • The Gift Scarf

  • Another scarf I may frog, only 2 inches in, so not a big deal


  • I thought I might get some pictures of the projects, but it's cold here, so I wimped out. And the hat didn't turn out very well, so I need to do a bit of frogging and reknitting on that.

    I did get my submission stuff done and sent with a comfortable amount of time for meeting the deadline. Now it's Wait and See time.

    Meanwhile, I still have more finishing work to do on Constance Shorewood, mostly the zillion and one ends. The collar and band settled down nicely with aggressive steaming. I do think I need to do a bit of something around the buttonholes (like buttonhole stitch, maybe?), to give them a bit more structure and tidy them up.

    I've discovered the joy of tormenting my almost-teenager. Last night we were sitting on the couch near each other while he was doing math homework. I was helping intermittently, and flipping through Knitting for Him. There's one model in that book who I think is really hot. I mentioned to Owen that I was enjoying looking at that model and he was very disturbed; like moving as far away as he could without leaving the couch and saying, "Ew!" disturbed.

    Did you know that if your almost-teen is playing loud music that annoys you, you can trick them into turning it off in under 5 seconds? Just start dancing. No kidding. First he'll say, "Stop it." Then he'll say it louder, with more emphasis: "Stop It!!" And then, he'll turn off the speakers and put on headphones. Ah quiet.

    Tensions seem to be building at Chez SABLE as we head into the December Gift Grab Frenzy. I hate what Christmas has done to our culture and the effect it has on my kids. I find it disturbing and perverse that so much of our retail economy rests on the buying frenzy of one month or so out of the year. I'm sure I'll have a rant or two on that topic before we're done.

    Sunday, November 25, 2007

    The Gift Scarf so far

    Approaching the end of the first ball of yarn:
    one row scarf 1

    one row scarf 2

    This is a very fast project; perfect for a respite from projects that take a million years to finish.

    Friday, November 23, 2007

    The Week in Review

    Tonight I am staying up late, guilt free! Indeed, I'm required to! Owen and his friend Josh have gone to the local laser tag place where they have a Friday night deal that goes until 12:30 a.m. And I'm to be the designated driver when it ends. Often, I have an urge to stay up late and have to drag myself away from the computer or my projects because my more sensible self knows I'll regret it if I don't. But tonight, I'm on duty. And tomorrow morning, when the Little Emperor awakens, I'm not!

    Thanksgiving
    Our Thanksgiving was pretty low-key, which is the way we like it. No travel. No company. No big pre-party clean-up. No panic. I did cook the meal and it all turned out ok. The funny part is that I don't particularly like traditional Thanksgiving food. I don't dislike it: just not anything I lust after all year. We had a 12 pound turkey, boiled potatoes, baked sweet potatoes with brown sugar and butter, broccoli, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie. Nothing came from a can. Mr. SABLE made the pies from a pumpkin Owen grew last summer. I did provide him with frozen pie crusts, because neither of us has the crust-making gene dominant. Tomorrow, I turn what's left of the turkey into soup and clear a little space in the fridge.

    Knit Night
    A week ago I went to Late Night Knitting at The Sow's Ear and had a little session of the Hog'n'Blog gang. So named by Dale's Mr. Dearling. Members thus far are Dale, Chocolate Sheep, Molly Bee, and me. Honorary member: Dale's Lovely Daughter. I had Owen in tow, which worked out ok. He practiced some of his magic tricks on the assembled knitters and was mostly well-behaved. When I got out my camera to try to take pictures, though, he put his hand in every one! Eventually I gave up, so, sorry, no photo documentation of the momentous occasion.

    Current Projects
    I've been working on a submission for a big time print magazine. I have no idea how it will turn out. I'm not expecting too much, not because I think my submission is lacking. To the contrary, I'm quite excited about it. I just find that it's better to approach it all with a bit of detachment. And I have a bit of dread that it might get accepted, because it isn't a quick'n'easy little project. The hard part, though, is getting all excited about a project but then, not actually making it right away! You make the swatch, you draw your sketch, you maybe do a schematic, and write a few descriptive words. Then put it all in a big envelope and send it off. After a time, you either get your submission back or a contract. If you get the contract, then you knit like the dickens for 3 weeks to make the deadline. And then, as far as I can tell, half the knitters in the world post online why your pattern sucks. Or not even the Why, just that It Sucks: no further explanation is forthcoming. So, detachment is in order. I do the footwork, I send it in, I see what happens next. If they don't want it, I'm going to make it anyway; it's just that cool.

    Black Friday
    I'm proud to report that no one in my family did any Christmas shopping today. Or shopping of any kind. The boys all went to a movie while I stayed home and enjoyed the quiet. I did a bunch of spinning, without too much aggravation to my left hand or carpal tunnel. After a little random Ravelry cruising, I figured out the appropriate use for some yarn that sneaked into my stash about a month ago, so I cast on for that and started. Pictures of that tomorrow. I'm making the Yarn Harlot's One Row Scarf from Universal Yarns Classic Shades. This is a 70% Dralon/30% wool blend, with gradual subtle color changes: very like Rowan Tapestry but much cheaper. I don't know what in the world Dralon is. Sounds like Dacron meets rayon, but whatever. It feels nice and the colors are lovely. The yarn has a nice sheen, no doubt from all that dralon.

    (A quick search reveals that Dralon is a type of acrylic commonly used in upholstery. Maybe the yarn in question will wear well. Doesn't look like it will, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.)

    Monday, November 19, 2007

    Maybe Not What You've All Been Waiting For...

    But it's what I have ready. This is the Iron Mountain Hat.

    ironMtn5

    Iron Mountain Hat

    IronMtn6

    It's a pretty easy knit and a great way to dip your toes in the water if you're working up to trying some simple Fair Isle accents in your knitting. Iron Mountain is a reversible, double-layer hat, with fold up brim for extra warmth. Shown in my rustic handspun 2 ply fingering weight yarn, it would work quite well in any number of commercially available yarns.

    Pattern available for immediate pdf download. $4 US

    Tuesday, November 13, 2007

    November 13, 2007

    Constance Shorewood Yolanda Twatt Catfirth Wadbister
    Just odds and ends to finish up here:

    What's left:
    finish sewing in sleeve
    darn in a million ends
    reinforce buttonholes
    buy and attach buttons
    Steam the hell out it.

    Here's a closer view of the collar:


    I might wish I had made it more generous, but I'll have to decide after the steam the hell out of it step. If it wants to stand up, thus exposing the wrong side to scrutiny, I'll probably redo it. If it lies down and plays nice, I'll keep it as is.

    The naming:
    It sounds like Shorewood is the preferred choice by the majority, with Constance running a strong second. The other women's names were never seriously in the running; I was just playing with the alphabet after my bedtime.

    But I think Constance Shorewood sounds like the name of a soap-opera character. Maybe she once did a stint as a pole dancer in a boobie bar, 20 years ago, under the name Yolanda Twatt. But since then, she's married up in the world, is active in the Important Ladies Who Lunch League in her fictional city, and looks elegant on the arm of her oh-so-important husband, Charles Shorewood, MD. But then, she receives a message from someone who knew her back in the day, who has a photo of her at her old place of employment, and wants $50 grand to keep quiet. How far will Constance go to protect her reputation and standing in the community? Tune in tomorrow.

    Meanwhile, I've had lots of other bloggy ideas running through my brain, but they all leave when I sit down to type.

    On Saturday I went to see The Wallflowers in Milwaukee with my neighbor A.P. We had a great time. (You can see A.P. modeling the Autumn Walk Scarf over at TGB.) It was one of those kind of concerts that just seems magical. The band played forever. The encore was as long as the main set. That was my birthday present to myself.

    Mr SABLE left on Sunday for a work trip to NJ, leaving me to figure out how to get both kids to school in the morning, get Owen to his mandatory band concert tomorrow night (after The Little Emperor is supposed to be on his way to bed), attend both parent-teacher meetings, while providing proper childcare for the young 'uns, and generally just muddling through my week. Not even getting to the birthday issue, which isn't that much of a big deal. It can shift around as needed.

    My folks phoned earlier and my dad asked, as he's been doing since I can remember, how it feels to be (fill in the blank). This year it's 46. Chatted with my mom a while and had a good laugh or two.

    My folks are at my grandmother's house now, overseeing the removal of most of her stuff to be auctioned off at the end of the month. My mom said it was quite a spectator event for the neighborhood as the stuff went out to the trucks. Yes, plural. It took a fleet of trucks to do it. Read all about it and go buy stuff if you're in the area.

    Last night my boys and I were driving past the Culvers on the beltline in Madison, and as usual, they were scoping out the Flavor of the Day. (Culvers is a fast food chain, with a different frozen custard flavor each day.) Owen reads aloud, "Cinnamon Bun" and we both burst out laughing. If you don't get the joke, listen to this, especially pay attention at time 4:31 on clip.

    Friday, November 09, 2007

    More cardigan names

    Yahara
    Lake Mendota
    Sand County
    Trempealeau
    Shorewood (a twofer: ritzy neighborhoods in both Madison and Milwaukee)
    Vilas
    Bayfield

    (I just took a quick look at the Shetland Islands on Google maps. There are some delightful place names there: Twatt, Bixter, Semblister, Catfirth, Freester, Wadbister, Huxter, Flugarth, Swining, Busta (that means "enough!" in italian! Oh, wait, that's basta!))

    Then there's the female names approach:
    Adrienne
    Bonita
    Constance
    ...
    Xaviera
    Yolanda
    Zelda

    Constance might work.

    I got waylaid from finishing tonight because Owen insisted on playing Monopoly with Mr. SABLE and me. I trounced them! In record time! First, I commandeered all the railroads on my first pass around the board, then I bled them dry. In the end, I owned everything except Park Place. And I didn't even really feel like playing. Go figure.

    Thursday, November 08, 2007

    The Name for the New Fair Isle Cardigan

    Regular readers know that I struggle with naming my patterns. Some of them come together pretty quickly and others require input from my readers.

    To that end, here's where I stand on choosing a name for the new Fair Isle cardigan.

    The colors in it remind me of the play of light on leaves in late autumn, with a steely grey-blue sky. So many of the names that could go with that have been done to death; Autumn Leaves kind of stuff.

    So, here's a list of ideas I have so far. I'm happy to hear other suggestions, too.
    Prairie Road
    Fond du Lac (the Wisconsin place names theme)
    Merrimac County (where I grew up in NH)
    Cedar Grove (back with the Wisconsin place names)
    Sugar Maple (there's a color way in Cherry Tree Hill yarns with this name, but I didn't stumble on any knitting patterns with the same name in a brief search.)
    Maple and Birches

    The place names theme seems promising, though I think one has to be careful. How would the Beloit Cardigan differ from the Door County Cardigan? :)

    If you have any great ideas, let me know. It's going to be a complicated one to write for multiple sizes, so we've still got a while. I've started playing with the numbers and I think I'll have to offer it in only 4 widely-spaced sizes. This is due to the 28 st. repeat in the largest motif. I'll probably include brief directions for fine-tuning size with small changes in gauge.

    BTW, for those of you who wonder what the sleeve looks like before I cut the steek on the cap and sew it in, that's it on the right.

    Tuesday, November 06, 2007

    So this is the month when...

    we're all supposed to blog every day. As if that's gonna happen! I could do it, but I think it might cost me readers.

    Anyway, it's just out of some kind of guilt-inducing group-meme menatality that I'm posting this right now. Because I don't have anything interesting to say or show you.

    OK, well, maybe this...

    After reading more about Ravelry on the designers' lists that I subscribe to, I thought maybe I should get on the list. There's a lot of potential for self-promotion, which is pretty much what monetary success rests on. I was kind of curious about how many people are making my patterns, since I don't turn up a lot by googling. So, I got my invite yesterday. After poking around a bit, I couldn't figure out how to get set up as the designer of the patterns of mine that were already listed there. Eventually I figured out that I had to request this, and did. 24 hours later, the email comes back that they can't find any designs by me in their system. ?!?! When I searched my name, I found 25 of them! Pretty much my whole body of currently available patterns. It took a couple emails to straighten that out, but we did.

    The upshot of all this is that I've been doing some poking around in there and putting in pictures of my patterns. My original reaction when I first heard of Ravelry was that I had no need for the data-base function, personally. What I didn't consider was that I might benefit from supplying the data to others, rather than using the data myself.

    Meanwhile, I've been formatting the next TGB newsletter. It's really coming together. I'm proud of all the new stuff coming up, though most of it isn't mine. And I'm proud of the job I'm doing putting it together as design/layout job. So, go sign up!

    Thursday, November 01, 2007

    Hey! It's November!


    This is one of the two squirrels who have been feasting on our jack-o-lanterns in the front yard. They are very forward.

    Thank goodness we got through Halloween. Both kids are still alive and, although they are living on candy, they are calming down because the anticipation is behind them for now. Until December...

    I got a wonderful package in the mail today. Well, they attempted delivery yesterday, but I went off on errands and wasn't home to sign for it. Today I trotted off to the P.O. and retrieved it.

    Both of these pics get bigger if you click, for that total yarn pr0n experience.

    Feel the Kauni love!




    Don't they look happy together? I have plans for these two. I also have a cone that turned out to be camera-shy, of mixed dark blues and purples, very lovely stuff. When I was ordering, I couldn't decide from the online photos if the pale yarn would want to marry the browns or the midnight blues. I think she wants the browns.

    Today I finished the front of the long-running WIP, Scott's Tweedy Sweater.

    This photo is strange looking because I was standing on a bench and at a weird angle. Front and back are joined at shoulder seams. I must be more than half-way there if there's just the sleeves and finishing to go. Let's see, look for the FO pic in about 2009. This is really an easy-peasy knit. I just need to be in the right space to work on it. It frees my brain to write essays in my head while the hands do their thing.

    Sunday, October 28, 2007

    Gone To Seed



    This is a photo from earlier in the fall. I'm pretty sure it's the dill by the back step: it looks like dill to me. But there are some other things around that look similar in the seedy stage.

    I spent the whole day in the basement lair wrestling many yards of moss colored fabric into the shape of a long hooded robe/cape kind of garment for Owen's Halloween costume. It really ought not to have taken so long, but my serger is giving me all kinds of grief, which really slowed things down. Bah. And it was a glorious day here. I did get out of the house, to the supermarket, but somehow, that didn't really count. I planned to get out and take pictures, but somehow, never got to that. Tomorrow, the knitting updates and the costume, for certain. And maybe some more scenes from a late autumn garden.

    I'm in some kind of strange funk the last couple of days. When I was in college and tried to run with a cool crowd, there were times when I had a sense that everyone else was at the party without me. It's like that. That vaguely dissatisfied sense that my whole lot in life is not quite what I planned on, and not really in a good way. Which is a lot of hogwash. Yes, not what I planned on, but really, that's good. What I planned on was dying young from the fallout of my extreme lifestyle, not living to be fat, middle-aged, and a mom. So, I'm suffering from what my sane self thinks of as high-class problems. This is kind of a late autumn thing for me. My birthday approaches and I get that melancholy reflection on time and mortality and all that angsty stuff. It seems a little worse this year, maybe because 46 is the entry point to the Late 40s. Really, still the Mid 40s. and really, still pretty young in the scheme of things. But knowing 50 is just around the corner kind of freaks me out.

    I'm becoming vaguely anxious about my parents as they get older. They're in great health, but they're starting to talk about the end times of their lives. I still think of my mom as about the age that I am now: how can she be 21 years older than that?

    When you're 25 and have all those infinite years stretching out ahead of you, it's hard to imagine how quickly they start to pass, how soon they start to seem finite.

    So, enough of all that. Good thing Thanksgiving comes soon and I can be prodded toward gratitude.

    Friday, October 26, 2007

    Autumn



    It's been a busy time here lately. I've been doing a bit of knitting on the Fair Isle cardigan, making headway on that second sleeve, but mostly been doing other stuff that involves making blocks of text and pictures fit together in pleasing ways.

    I spent Tuesday morning with my friend Cindy, taking pictures of a lot of her FOs, which was great fun. While we were out at the park doing that I got the picture of the sumac above. It's one of my favorite autumn trees.

    There's going to be a new TGB newsletter coming out in mid-November, so make sure you sign up for it! Lots of stuff going on that you won't want to miss. We're all excited about what's to come

    Saturday, October 20, 2007

    Morgan Cardigan Pattern Available



    Autumn's in the air and you need a warm cardigan to chase away the chill. Morgan features an easy-to-wear zipper front, raglan sleeves, generous collar, and traditional fit. The color pattern was found on a sweater in the Shetland Museum's online photo archive. Made in a rustic, worsted wt. yarn, with a cut steek, Morgan is an excellent choice for the knitter who has done some stranded work and would like try something a bit more challenging. Click to enlarge pictures.

    Difficulty: Experienced



    Finished measurements:34, 38, 42[46, 50, 54] inches

    Yardage: worsted wt. wool,
    MC 800, 800, 1000[1000, 1200, 1200] yards
    CC 400, 400, 600[600, 600, 600] yards

    Gauge: 20 st and 24 rows = 4" or 10 cm in Fair Isle stockinette st.



    Price $6

    Add to Cart View Cart