Moving Shop

Hello everyone! Sorry for two weeks of radio silence; I have been moving over to a new blog! From here on out, I will be blogging at Anti-Quotidian. I hope to "see" you there!

Mad as a...

As soon as fall peeks around the corner, the first thing I want to knit is a hat. A little hat, to ward off the gentle morning chill and keep my ears from getting cold (oh, how I hate it when my ears are cold). In the Phoenix area, this reflex is perhaps maladaptive: last week's flirtation with 70s has been shoved aside this week for what I hope is the area's last fling with triple digits.

But I am still in hat mode. I finished the Vega beret, but my initial attempt to block it tam-style turned out slightly wonky. Actually very wonky, and the wonkiness was only made apparent by the FO photo shoot images. So alack, everyone will have to wait for the next round of temperate weather to see the results of my attempt to Knit American.

The hat theme continues, however: Querido received for his birthday a Sun Devils Hat!

Specs! Pattern: Bonnet 20, available on Ravelry
Yarn: Cascade Eco Alpaca in light gray, Blue Sky Alpacas Melange in Currant and Saffron
Needles: size 3 and 4 dpns
Mods: at 48 sts, began decreasing for crown every row for a traditional beanie shape, rather than the design's intended point.

After a few false starts resulting from my Gauge Issues, this pattern knitted up wonderfully quickly, and the yarn is oh-so-ever-so soft. The idea is that my dear one, a hard core Sun Devils fan, can wear the hat to football games. You never know, there might be a freak snowstorm in Tempe one Saturday night. It would be irresponsible not to prepare for such a contingency. And as a backup plan, he can wear it out of town, and be wonderfully visible in a snowdrift...or at the center of a crowd of fans of some other PAC-12 team. Erm.

I would like to point out that this hat also used very little yarn, a smidge more than 110 yards, so I now have maroon and gold yarn in my stash. In other words, varsity colored yarn in my stash. Enough for at least two more hats. Such is the madness of knitters with romantic attachments.

Welcome Fall

Yesterday, a stiff south wind blew a storm through the valley. We got a nice, heavy soaking, and this morning the air was cool and clean. Fall is finally here, and it is glorious.

Proof

Knitting is happening. I swear it. I know; anyone who has been following along has been expecting a status report on my quest to Knit American, or at least, some evidence that I have been knitting, not just eating.

 

 

So here is exhibit A: sleeves, knitted in New York City. They will eventually belong to an Owls sweater. The success of my Lyttelton has stoked my ambition to knit more Kate Davies designs.

 

 

Exhibit B: a Brandywine Shawl. Chart 1 of this shawl did not click. I was reading the directions rote, not giving myself the opportunity to really watch the pattern unfold row to row. Upon hitting Chart 2, I finally did, figured out the flow of the pattern, and it took off. A large garter stitch center section helped move things along. If homework in the form of virtual repositories does not get messy as it did last week, more knitty posts will follow anon!

Home Again

I should have given you all fair warning that blog silence might be coming; I was positive I'd have time to blog on the road. Clearly not, so let's catch up a bit!

Mousie and I traveled east, spending time in NYC and Ocean City, NJ.

We saw knitbombing in Chelsea,

took a ferry to see the Statue of Liberty,

drank lots and lots of coffee,

saw Broadway shows on Broadway (!)

visited the New York Public Library (gasp!)

played in the Atlantic,

and came home with lots of Schriver's candy.

Improvising

As summer's bounty starts to fade, the amount of iffy fruit in the fridge is rising. I seized on a smoothie as the perfect way to use up some of this waning produce without having to think to hard about how it looked in the package, and was really warming to the idea of a peach-raspberry-strawberry combo when I discovered we were out of yogurt.



So I had to do some creative substitution. Oh, darn!

Calloo, Callay

This morning I woke up to rain. Oh frabjuous day! I needed this break from the heat, the sun, the muggy air, and more sun.

Don't palm trees look nice against a backdrop of clouds?

The morning had a very back-to-school feel: me, tromping through the rain with a fresh haircut, wearing stiff jeans and yet-to-be scuffed sneakers. Fingers crossed this the beginning of the end of a frumious summer.