Warty Bobbles

July Knitting And Adventures

For the past three weeks it has gone like this:  teach knitting class Thursday evening, then pack up Friday morning and head out for 2-4 day trip, come home, unpack and deal with “home stuff” (and maybe go to a baseball game or the circus), get ready for Thursday class – and repeat the cycle!

We had a great time camping with the kids (I knit beside the campfire).  We enjoyed our get-away to the Mountain Home Lodge in Leavenworth (I knit on the deck in the mornings!).  And we had a good time visiting my parents in Oregon (I knit in 90+ degree heat on a pavilioned platform built out over the Willamette River ).  I did get some good car-trip knitting time, too. 

Mostly simple knitting – the kind that travels well.   I knit and knit and knit on the two blankets I am making for Gwen – and yet they do not seem to be any bigger!  I also finished the skirt for the Joyful Ferocity (jacket) – which, in itself, is an accomplishment as it is the size of a stole is knit at 6 stitches to the inch.  I also completed Gwen’s Sacque – which is kind of like pink frosting!  (I will post photos soon)

I spent several hours un-knitting and re-knitting the face of the Hansigurumi owl one afternoon when I discovered that I had attached the right side of the facial disk askew – and while a cock-eyed owl might be endearing, the fact was that that there were not enough stitches to make the rest of the head correctly and it would probably make the whole thing wonky.  So, our came the stitches for the beak and the neck.  Re-do.

I also ripped back and re-did the sleeve gusset for the Joyful Ferocity because of a single column of stockinette stitches that made the right side border obviously wider than the left side border (another “right side gone wrong” – more than a coincidence?).

Sarah (and Gwen) and I attended the Tacoma Raniers Stitch-and-Pitch night.  I discovered a charming yarn shop in Leavenworth:  Wooly Bully Yarns (and bought some gorgeous kettle-dyed alpaca yarn by Araucania and Rachel Matthews’s highly hilarious Knitorama -- oh, knitters, let us never take ourselves or our Hansigurumi owls too seriously!). 

But many of my July adventures have been of the non-knitting variety:  hiking, swimming, tube-floating down the Icicle and Wenatchee Rivers , blubbering rather too loudly at the movie Up, hooting the Mariners to a slump-breaking victory at Safeco Field just the other night….

And now I have written a rather long-winded blog post – that would probably have been more welcome as 3 or 4 separate pieces delivered in a timely fashion throughout the month of July!  But now we are caught up -- and I am ready for quieter days with fewer adventures (of the non-knitting variety) and more knitting (of the adventurous variety!).

Matinee Jacket

I finished the Matinee Jacket (and booties and bonnet) a few weeks ago, but it has taken a while to get photos of Gwen wearing it!  We had quite a heat wave (so she was not sporting woolies for a couple of weeks) and then it was a matter of working around naps, feeding, fussing, etc.

So, we used a stand-in:

But Sarah finally did manage a proper photo shoot:

Okay, how cute is that!!
Thanks, Sarah!  And additional thanks for updating my sidebar photos.

July Fourth

July Fourth dawned bright and beautiful (unusual for us) and I told myself that since it was a holiday I would knit only “for fun” projects that day.   I do not know why I thought I would have time to knit!  Family badminton tourney, family bbq, family fireworks in the cul de sac. 

But before everything kicked off, I did a little swatching.

My skein of Green Cay Calypso (from Creatively Dyed Yarn) had been calling to me for days.  It was my last yarn purchase at Stitches West this year (I had already surpassed my budget): 510 yards of gorgeous variegated merino sock yarn (like a handful crayons from the 64 box – all the really interesting colors).  I had planned to make it up into a summer top of some sort.  All those shades of green spiced with berry hues.  Mmmmm.   Especially appealing since I have been knitting lots and lots of pink yarn….

So, when we needed a skein of yarn to wind as a demo in our knitting class Thursday evening, I brought the Calypso (Sarah said, Mom, I know what you are doing – you are planning to swatch!).  It wound up into a most enticing cake of yarn and I carried it around with me for two days.  Thinking, thinking….

So, the morning of July Fourth found me playing with these delightful baby cables in my delightful summer-green Calypso yarn.  It actually took me a couple of days to decide on a sweater design – partially because I realized that 510 yards might not be enough and I would need to supplement it with another yarn.  I let my mind wander a bit as I studied the yarn.

Linen.  And since there are undyed stretches in my Calypso: natural-colored linen.  In a lace pattern – maybe Fir Cones (one of my favorites).

So, I ordered some Euroflax from Paradise Fibers (Spokane). 

And I am back to my pink baby projects.  The Calypso dangles tantalizingly in my thoughts – and I take it out and pet it every now and then.  But I can wait – until the Euroflax arrives…

Portable Projects

During the summer months, I appreciate being able to take my knitting with me (beach, park, festival, car trip, etc.).  So, I make sure to have a couple of portable projects going at all times.  Only certain projects make the cut.

Not every project can be stuffed inside a bag – if it requires frequent color changes and has an entourage of yarn balls, for example.  Or if there are lots of notes or books that go along with it – so most designing projects stay home.  Or if it might not survive being dragged through the sand by a 2-yr-old.  Or if it is genuinely irreplaceable (yarn I will never find again, perhaps, or if the design is undocumented) – because what if the parking garage exploded?

I try to keep my portable projects in a certain bag, so I can grab-and-go (the family sighs nosily if I shout “oops, wrong project!” and leap out of the car just as we are driving off).  Actually, the whole bag issue has its own issues, too.  I worry that a knitting bag looks temptingly like a purse left on the seat of the car.  So, I either have to be able to stow the bag out of sight or I will drag the innards (yarn, needles, etc.) out and display them in an obvious manner that says: I am a knitting bag not a purse.  Sometimes, I just bring my knitting in a Ziploc bag (by the way, there are terrific ones with expandable bottoms that are fabulous for knitting projects) and avoid the whole knitting-bag/purse confusion altogether.

My portable projects are usually simple ones – or the simpler stages such as a stockinette sleeve with an obvious increase (such as “every right side row”).  Something I can pick-up-put-down-pick-up-put-down-pack-away-mid-row is good.  The less keeping-track-of-rows the better.  Actually, something with little patterning is beat of all since I will probably be knitting amid distractions or might be expected to watch for freeway exit signs. 

On a true road trip (when I will be spending several hours in the car at a stretch) I will take something more ambitious – and generally a lot of it since I apparently (ambitiously) assume I will be knitting 60 mph! 

Airplane travel, while offering good blocks of knitting time, has its own constraints – mostly dealing with security regulations and my slightly manic fear of having a pair of expensive needles ripped from my work-in-progress at the passenger check-point.

And now just as I figure I have the whole portable knitting thing strategized, a new challenge arises:  for the first time since I was about 6 yrs. old, we are going camping!