Goodness, Time Flies

When you have pneumonia. Sorry for the long absence, but shortly after the last post, I got pneumonia and my Spring disappeared from me and now here it is Summer. At least I could see my peonies from the window and enjoy their splendor this year. We really had an awful winter, but the payback was a glorious load of peonies.

As for the pneumonia, it hit fast, hard and kept me down. You know you are really, truly, see-the-light-sick when you don't even feel like knitting for several weeks. Yeah, that sick.

But once I got to the point where I could knit, my Dad had come to stay with us and help take care of me. I was knitting this pair of socks at the time:



And he would take the kids to school or run out to get groceries and all that other stuff I couldn't do, and when he got back, he would check for progress to make sure I had stayed on the couch and wasn't getting up and doing stuff. Like I really I wanted to. He made me laugh as he counted rows and nagged at me to take care of myself. Yes, Dad! He was so good to come up from Southern Oregon to spend a week with us. We really didn't want him to go.

BTW, the socks are from Cat Bordhi's book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters, using the Riverbed architecture. Which, come to look at them, I did wrong. But here is the joy and beauty of Cat's sock philosophy--they still worked out just fine.



Being housebound, I've been forced to knit from the stash, but I've found a real joy in using what I have. Odd as it might sound, getting this sick has turned out to be a blessing in many ways. It brought a lot of things into focus, including giving me back a real joy in using what I have.

My mom had been with us the week earlier when I couldn't knit, and she brought with her some knitting (she likes to make premie hats to go with the quilts she makes and donates) and I accused her of taunting me with knitting. She laughed and kept on knitting. But huge props go out to both my folks for jumping in with both feet without even having to be asked. That's why Terry and I love them so much. That and they both are great cooks and good company. What more would you want when you are sick? Or well, for that matter!

Not to be outdone by Mom's charitable endeavors, I worked on my Warm for Winter hats. I felt the need to give thanks for feeling better, and what better way is there than some charity knitting. I like to knit at least 12 hats each year for this wonderful endeavor, and so I knit these two:





This is Elizabeth Zimmerman's A Very Warm Hat. I love it because it is fun to knit, a great way to use up leftover stash and makes, just as the title implies, a very warm hat for someone who has to be outside all day. I also make sure to always do these in wool, since wool stays warm even when it is wet, and in Seattle in the winter, it is hard to stay dry, let alone warm.



This hat, the Swirled Ski Cap, from Knitting for Peace, is also from leftovers and was intended to go with a baby present, but the hat is more large toddler sized, so it is going into the Warm for Winter pile, since sadly, kids end up out there as well.

Seems funny to talk about knitting for winter in the middle of summer, but I find I like knitting these sort of smaller projects this time of year.

Stops and Starts

I've been knitting. Really I have. Just not as much as I would like. Or rather not on the things I want to be knitting on.

That is my own fault. I went on a test knitting jag, and knit two different items for people developing patterns. One is already available on Ravelry as a download pattern and it was fun to make, mostly because I knew Matthew would love it. Here he is modeling Baxterknits' Aegean Vest. I do like this pattern and it is a great way to use up leftovers.

I decided to do this test knit because Matthew loves wearing vests. Go figure. The kid who usually wears only pajamas, adores putting on a vest. If he's going anywhere special or just wants to "look handsome" he pulls on his vest. So I knew he'd love have another one.

The two disadvantages of test knitting are being a deadline and having to stop whatever else you are knitting. Like this post heading, I've been knitting in stops and starts on two pairs of socks. I love socks for travel because I can tuck them in this fancy pencil bag I got last fall at Target. Fits in the purse and sits happily on the tray table so the yarn doesn't end up rolling down the aisle.

On this last journey (to Wichita) I ended up having a hellish trip back--what was supposed to be about six hours of travel turned in 17 hours of airport delays. And I worked on my socks, read a little Georgette Heyer, and worked on my book which has a May 1st deadline. I really like airplane knitting cause it does make me a calmer and less obsessed about the flight. But when you are in the middle seat it is darn hard to try on the sock you are knitting to see if you've got it right.

I think on my next flight, I'll just make sure I am at the heel turns so I don't have much to try on. Which if you are wondering is Seattle to Orlando. So I could probably do several pairs of heel turns over the course of that 5 hour flight. Well, let's hope it only takes 5 hours. I've seen quite enough of airports lately, thank you very much.

If Spring is here, Why am I still wearing Wool?

So today is the first day of spring and I can't wait to leave this winter behind, but instead of daffodils blooming in my yard and my primroses blooming happily in my gardens, the yard is much as it has been all winter.

So I continue with the Winter Knitting. I've been working through some projects and UFOs per my desire to get some things off the needles this month. And first up is my Harmonia's Rings, a cowl/shoulder wrap Cat Bordhi and the designer, Sivia Harding were wearing at Madrona--not at the same time, they each had their own--which was tempting to just corner one of them, rip it off their shoulders and run. But then again, I can knit my own. And I did.

I used two skeins of See Jayne Knit's hand dyed merino in the colorway Chocolate Truffle Berry. Okay, she had me at "chocolate." The yarn is wonderfully soft and cozy and I've been wearing this constantly.

Sivia's pattern for Harmonia's Cowl gave me two challenges, knitting a moebius for the first time and doing a moebius cast on. Thank goodness for Cat Bordhi's excellent youTube video, I was up and running in no time and it is really addictive knitting.

The pattern repeat is easy, but lately I've found that I can't follow a chart or even simple row repeats to save my life--just way too much life filling up the bandwidth and remembering what row I am on seems impossible--so I've come up with a solution. My own sort of cheat sheet that I make for each project using Excel, and making a small chart with the rows and repeats and just check it off at the end of each row. Then when I come back to it, or forget halfway through the round where I am, I can just glance over figure it out without doing a bunch of frogging back. This is the chart I used for my Veste Everest.

I hadn't planned on doing the beaded picot bind off around the neck, but then as I was looking for something else, I found a tube of beads I'd bought years ago for something else and never used, so the beaded edge it was.

I loved knitting this so much I plan on making two more for Christmas presents, I have the yarn for one, and am keeping my eyes peeled for the perfect yarn for a second one, though I may just use some stash yarn.

The other project that found its way onto my needles after Madrona was a pair of Toast. Again at the Cat Bordhi class (that was just a day of inspiration in so many ways) I was sitting next to Kari, who also spins for her Etsy shop, Mud.Creek, and she had knit a pair on the plane up from Arizona. I was immediately enamored and when I got home, cast on. I know some people don't "get" fingerless gloves, but I adore them. My hands get too hot in gloves or mittens but fingerless? Oh, they are perfectly toasty without getting too hot.

These are modeled by one of the boys, so they are a little large on him. Again I used a skein from See Jayne Knit, a handspun silk and merino blend in Watermelon. I have another skein in another colorway, which will probably get used for yet another Christmas present.

I also finished up a small shawl on the plane to Chicago this week, which I'll get blocked this weekend. Then it might be a bit before I finish anything more because I had to sign books for two days straight, now it is my wrists who are toast and I have to take a few days off of knitting to rehab them. Stinks, but I knew that would happen. Instead I'll keep enjoying my new FOs, and dreaming of Spring.

And Spring knitting . . .

Randomness

I've been starting and stopping projects for the last two weeks and can't say that I have anything to show for it. I'm nearly finished on two projects inspired by some wonderful items I saw at Madrona, but not quite done.

With so much going on around here--I've had five books I had to read for my working life, two test knit projects I'm working on, a book due next month, two books coming out in the next two months, and more travel over a three month period than I have done in like the last three years. I've been to Madrona, then last weekend went to a romance reader's conference in Portland, Or. Next weekend I am off to Chicago to sign books at the warehouse. Which means NO KNITTING for like three or four days. I need my wrist in top form to sign about 8,000 copies of my next book, CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE BLACK GOWN and be able to keep typing on the book that is due. Yes, you read that correctly. 8K. Sigh. The glamorous life. Two days in a warehouse signing books. Actually, it is kinda fun, a sort of marathon adventure but the no knitting part stinks.

Then off to Wichita for the Midwest Plains Librarian Association conference, where I speak and do a booksigning at Barnes & Noble. Then it is off to Disneyland for spring break -- which neither of the kids have on the same week, so we are going the week in between when they both have school. We figured two wrongs make it all right. Then I get a breather for like three weeks and then I am off to Orlando for the Florida Librarians Association where I speak again and sign again, this time at the Borders in Clearwater, FL.

I was invited to another conference the week after, back again in Orlando, but twice across the country in two weeks? Uh, no. Because in July I go to Washington DC for a week for a big writer's conference. Then the Sock Summit is lurking on the horizon. I actually have a hotel scoped out, and my escape plans for that one in sort of a sketchy, hazy outline. Really, honey, I know I've been gone a lot, but this is a very important knitting event . . .

So with all this on the horizon I can't really get excited about knitting something big, like I did in February with the Vest-uary KAL. I got my Veste Everest done, which I've been wearing daily. But right now, I don't have the bandwidth to cast on a big project. So it is small, packable, easy on the wrists projects for the foreseeable future. And hopefully I can get some of my UFOs out of the stash and into the world being useful before some new wonderful can't resist, time-consuming project hits the radar.

So here is the critical question for all of you. Because when you travel you need one key piece of advice: What are the good knit shops in Wichita, Orlando, or Washington DC? Anyone?

The Dye Class

I told someone I went to a class on dyeing last week and they became alarmed that I was sick. Non-knitters! Whatever are we to do with them? But I have to say the most fun class I took at Madrona was Judith MacKenzie McCuin's Just Dyeing for Socks.



Nothing like being given a room protected in industrial strength plastic and being let loose with a boggling range of color possibilities and told to "have fun." Here are the advantages of dyeing at Madrona:

1) Not in my kitchen.
2) I don't have to prep it all.
3) I don't have to clean it up.
4) And best of all, I don't have to clean it up.

So I repeated the last ones, but come on, those need to be repeated. Special hurrahs to Judith and her pair of helpers who did all the grunt work so the rest of us could play.

We started out with skeins of Worsted/Mohair mix. Mine turned into a clownish mess, but that is how it is supposed to be your first time out. I listened to other students worry over not getting it perfect, but for me, it was the lessons of doing it all wrong in the first skein that helped me with my next two: a sock blank and a skein of merino/silk blend.



Isn't this silk blend beautiful? I just love how the greens and blues and yellows blended. I'm thinking of making a lacy little scarf with this skein. The clown yarn will probably get knit into something to felt, but I have to decide whether or not I want to risk hives over knitting with mohair.

After all the painting, the skeins went into ziploc bags and then into the pot to cook. Oh, yum, Mom! What's for dinner?



Now the only downside of all this, is that we also dyed sock blanks, but mine somehow went missing. They were left on tables in the back of the classroom over the next few days for all of us to pick up, and mine got lost in the shuffle or someone just picked up the wrong one. But even if I hadn't come home with anything, I would rate this class an A+ for fun. Like being allowed to color on the walls and outside the lines all at once.