I Find Wisdom on the Inside of a Juice Bottle

It was a really. Long. Week. Tucson was absolutely awesome, my class was awesome, most of the people *in* the class were awesome, but ye gods. Eight hours of information a day for seven days straight is a *lot*. So long that when I tipped back a rawther nasty juice I bought on impulse at the campus convenience mart, I thought putting a quote on the inside of the label was so terribly clever and insightful that I had to have a picture. In retrospect, I find it random, but the quote still holds.

I've been home a week, but it's taken this long to get myself organized again, so let's take a quick recap.

The construction workers made a really nice hole under my window by the end of the week.



Mum's Swallowtail Shawl is done, and she loves it. Evelyn Clark, you rock.



I learned Tucson is not the only city in the U.S. that paints their fire hydrants silver. (Quick poll: what color does your city paint its fire hydrants?)

And the second sock hit a snag.



It didn't occur to me to try the thing on until I was nearly done with the leg, and at that point a) I discovered it was not just a titch smaller than the first, but considerably smaller than the first and b) I broke one of my needles trying said too-small sock on. Augh.

I'm pretty put out with myself for having done both things. However, stubborn perfectionist that I am, that's given me the determination to get that sock started right back up again. (That, and I have a million and one things to be doing besides knitting socks)

Like a Vacation, but Not at All

Hello from hot, humid Tucson, Arizona!

I am currently entrenched in the middle of a week-long intensive--all libraries, all the time. The mountains are what I see when I look out the window at my dorm...

Here's what's underneath my window. Every day starts at 5:30...



Thank goodness I brought my sock...



And for some unfathomable reason, all of the fire hydrants are painted silver.

On a Roll

Shoulder-Warmer update: I gave it its first washing, and although a bit of the color bled onto my drying towel, the sweater itself is none the worse. Le amo.

Now in focus is a Swallowtail Shawl, the occasion Mum's birthday.

I'm really enjoying the pattern--it's the same basic body+fancy border as the Icarus. Any of you who have delved into lace before know that half the fun is watching the pattern take shape. It's both math and art at the same time. Unfortunately, I just can't get that into pictures of lace. I think part of the problem, particularly for shawls, is that the pattern is designed to be seen 1. blocked 2. as a whole, worn across the shoulders. On the needles, it's both unblocked and bunched up. I have tried a variety of shots, but none seem to convey the excitement that is a shawl-to-be.

There's the classic flat-on-the-bed shot:



Or the lace-stretching-to-the-horizon shot:



And then, it's-a-nupp!:



None of which I find particularly scintillating. Alack. I'll blame my camera and instruct everyone to follow the link above to Jared Flood's amazing rendition. Just picture mine like that, except pink. And possibly a shade less perfect.

But just a shade ; )

Alive and Knittin'

Wow--I am sorry for the dead silence that has prevailed here for the past three weeks. I have been distracted from all bloggy pursuits by the demise of my freedom. In short (as Mr. Micawber would exclaim) I have begun graduate school.

I don't know whether to be thrilled to dickens that I've entered the final stage of my academic career (end point: Master's in Library Science) or utterly incensed that all my knitting time has gone the way of the continential glaciers.

Either way, I will not be one of those librarians famed for her ugly, unflattering sweaters; I finally finished the Top-Down Shoulder Warmer!



Mahvelous, dahling. I don't know how many times I had to frog this silly thing--three?--but in the end, it all came right.



Specs!
Pattern: Top-Down Shoulder Warmer, by Laura Chau
Size: Large back with modifications for effigy-pot arms (see below)
Yarn: 3.5-ish skeins O-Wool Balance
Needles: U.S. 8 (5 mm)
Modifications: I had to sub out the sleeves as written for sleeves that would fit me. To do this, I kept the number of sts cast on for the back, cast on fewer sts for the sleeves, and worked the same number of increase rows.

This was the first time I'd worked with the O-Wool, and it receives an A+ on two counts: holding up to a lot of ripping out and being soft and comfy in the finished product. Hurray for organics!

Now I'm off on two different projects at once (one for me, one as a gift), and my biggest job over this next week will be figuring out how to balance school and knitting.

Brown Paper Packages

Receiving mail is so fun. It would be better if packages still came in brown paper tied up with string, but still. And packages with yarn? The best.

Way back in December, I had convinced Mum that a share in the sheep from Grand View farm in Vermont was a good graduation gift. Doubts about my sanity were aired, explanations of Community Supported Agriculture were given (Twist Collective's article does it best), and I ended up with the very last share in their Cormo sheep. I waited, and waited, and gasp! last week, my package arrived.

Stella inspected it thoroughly for me, just in case:



I knew that I'd get four skeins of yarn, 16 ounces total, but I didn't expect it to come so beautifully packaged: the box was lined with tissue, topped with a thank-you note bearing a picture of the sheep and a "knit local" sticker.



As I unpacked the softly spun, chubby skeins, I uncovered a little sachet of herbs to keep out the bugs and--



Is that just not the coolest thing ever? Kim, the woman who runs Grand View, knows how to do things right.

What about you guys? What was the best package (fibery or not) that you've ever received in the mail?

What the Dickens!

(I'm not sure why, but Stella finds this a comfortable style of repose)

The new season of Masterpiece Theatre is in full swing, and it's the perfect opportunity to get working on my Top-Down Shoulder Warmer. The "Classic" portion of the season--Tales of Charles Dickens--has just ended, and although I knit my way through both the end of Little Dorrit and The Old Curiosity Shop, frankly, I'm looking forward to a good, wholesome murder or two on the "Mystery" leg. It's not that I don't love Dickens--David Copperfield is one of my favorite books and has an awesome Masterpiece adaptation--but these two did not end on the note I was expecting.

I saw the way The Old Curiosity Shop was going when I realized they were cramming the whole thing into one and a half hours. A Christmas Carol fits into one and a half hours. Anything else, forget it.

But Little Dorrit... We pretty much sat there staring at the screen after that one ended, all thinking, did that really just happen? I will not go into detail, for those who have not yet been floored by this one in print or picture form. Suffice to say I didn't know that sort of thing flew in Victorian England.

In the same vein, I am a little puzzled with my Shoulder Warmer. The first thing I realized when I was trying to figure out which size to knit was that my back size (16" or L) had no correspondence to my bust size (34, between S & M). A review of the pattern and a modicum of common sense told me that in a sweater without a front, the back size is probably the way to go. So I went that way.

I think part of my dissatisfaction at the end of The Old Curiosity Shop was that at that point, I discovered that my trim, snug little shoulder-warmer-in-progress was neither trim nor snug about the shoulders. The sleeves, and the shoulder region they grew out of, were too big. Apparently my back size has no correspondence to my arm size, either. I tried the nascent shoulder warmer on three times, deliberated, went through the notes on all the Top Down Shoulder Warmers on Ravelry, deliberated some more, and decided there was nothing to be done but rip the whole thing back to the beginning and fudge it.

The back size had to stay, but none of the sizes written give a a sleeve with a 10-11" circumference, which is what I wanted. Careful perusal of the pattern revealed that the different sizes were achieved in part by working more or less increase rows. Another trying on of my sweater revealed that the armholes were a little deep, so I decided to attempt a custom fit by combining strategies.

First, I cast on more back stitches and fewer sleeve stitches, and now, I will work fewer increase rows. This will produce the right stitch counts and hopefully will *not* throw the design out of whack. I was quite pleased to have figured something out for this conundrum, but all the same it makes me wonder if I'm shaped like an effigy jar.

*Sigh* Nothing to do but continue knitting and keep our fingers crossed for a nice murder this Sunday night.

Changing Gears

We in the desert have lucked out with an exceptionally mild spring. Only now is it beginning the transition from gloriously pleasant to hotter than the dickens, which means it's time to transition into a new phase of knitting projects.

My hands were getting sore from all the projects I'd be doing on tiny needles, so I took a break from that branch of crafting and zipped up a recycled materials tote bag.



I am thrilled to death with it--this is exactly how I envisioned it turning out. Big deal, you say, it's just a square of jersey fabric sewn on a bag. Scoff not:the last time I tangled with the Funstyler, it won.

The knit-free day lasted just that long--a day--and then it was back to the needles. I finished up my Pinwheel Shawl, and am similarly pleased with the result:



The pattern is incredibly simple, and as promised in Knitalong, shows off fancy yarns to great advantage. The two I used were Malabrigo (left over from Hermanita's Firebird) and Parisienne (purchased during my post-semester meltdown). For being so little, it's incredibly warm, and will serve me well during the months of freezing A/C.

Now I'm ready for something on bigger needles, with bigger yarn, so the Top-Down Shoulder Warmer may finally get its turn!