I'm Going, and the Sweater is Coming

Big excitement: for months I have been plotting and planning to join a study abroad for Library and Information Science students. I kept it under wraps, because nothing is done until it's done, and I believe that fate can be tempted. But now that I'm 24 hours away from takeoff, I think it's safe to announce:

I'm going to England for a month. (!!!)

Thanks to an education that deemed world history unnecessary past 6th grade, all I know about the country comes from a strange admixture of literature, pop culture, and extensive readings on the history of the English language. So I'm going to the land of Wallace and Gromit and Chaucer, the venerable Bede and Harry Potter, Miss Marple and Adele, a Little Princess and the Young Victoria, Darwin and the Arctic Monkeys. It will be similar and utterly different. And I couldn't be more excited.

Mousie is coming with me, and of course the Pimlico Shrug. Everyone cross your fingers that all volcanoes stay dormant and no freak storms develop in the Western hemisphere between now and tomorrow. After that, let the heavens open up--I'll be in England.

(!!!)

Lace Leaf Pullover Reveal

When I said I was on a wooly wool kick, I meant it--my latest FO, as the temperatures begin pushing past 100 with depressing regularity, is a 100% merino pullover:



The Lace Leaf Pullover!

Started in a moment of possession by EZ, finished in a few days of marathon knitting, the Lace Leaf Cardigan is the latest installment of what is shaping up to be a line of sweaters that I've heavily modified/improvised to get them to fit the way I want.

First was my Undercover Cardigan, its pattern copied off a vintage sweater before I had any knowledge of pattern design or the fear of attempting it. Then, the Graphite Shrug, which I had to modify to fit my wonky effigy jar physique. As you'll remember, the inspiration behind modifying the Lace Leaf was the need for a sweater that I could wear in a place where it never gets very cold (not to mention the desire to not look like a caterpillar in a cocoon). I won't say I'm an expert now at pattern modification--the Lace Leaf has a few wonky bits, especially in the yoke area--but I am pleased to report I'm getting a better handle on it with each modified pattern.



Specs: 7 skeins Twisted Sisters Jazz in Olive Gold and not quite 1 in Chocolat.
Pattern: Teva Durham's Lace Leaf Pullover
Needles: Size 5 circular and dpns
Modifications: Lots. The two main ones were adapting the pattern to be knit as a standard bottom-up round yoke sweater, and in a light worsted/DK yarn



The color change was not planned--I started running out of Olive Gold yarn and elected to stripe in the Brown so it looked like I'd meant to have it there all along. One of the elements of the pattern I did not change much was the detailing--the lace rib up the side of one sleeve, the leaves on another sleeve and the body. I only omitted the leaf at the collar because I didn't want to mess around with a pattern among decreases, but I made up for it with a button. In my opinion, all these elements were improved by knitting with a relatively fine yarn: it rendered all the decorative elements both subtle and detailed.



My current sweater is keeping up the wooly vein, but is at the other end of the spectrum in terms of construction. Post to follow as soon as I get enough knitted as to be photogenic!

Finishing

Hello all! I'm still here, still taking random pictures of flowers in my neighborhood like a crazy person. These yucca are in our yard, which mitigates the crazy factor.

Classes are over, most of the grades are in, and now I just have to finish the many things that went unfinished during the semester. Topping the list are The Secret Life of Words, which I have been relishing with all the zeal I normally only feel for novels, and the Lace Leaf Pullover. Co-workers who have seen me knitting on it have identified it as a sock (sleeve) and a bag (body) but my hopes remain high. And then there's some new stash to show off...I have a feeling I will have enough posts coming to more than make up for my absence!

Week 13: The Universe, Simplified

That little message when I opened up the packet containing the instructions for my new MacBook Pro. I love it--your set-up booklet is not thrown in among packing peanuts, it comes in its own little sleeve tucked in a recessed section of the tray holding the computer in its box. And when you open it--a little assessment of the universe. That is what I love about Apple.

So yes, my computer did arrive, Mum and Hermanita did have to wrest the frothing Stella away from the door to retrieve it, and although I am not yet over my beloved PowerBook, I have to admit that Snow Leopard is pretty spiffy.




In other news, the profusion of blooming things has shifted: the wildflowers are all but done for, the oranges blossoms have faded, and the puff-balls are disintegrating, falling off the mesquites to drift in dirty golden clumps in the gutters. Just getting started are the hesperaloes, aloes, and cacti.



In keeping with the season, my knitting has been all leaves and flowers. Above is the left sleeve to my Lace Leaf Cardigan, just a few inches short of being ready to join with the body. I still love that leaf motif.



And there is my coveted Flower Basket Shawl. Both projects have been traveling around with me in my bag, and I've been bouncing back and forth between each one as the situation dictates. Last week had a spate of trips to the car mechanic's, so I had a lot of time to peg away at the shawl. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the flower basket pattern is very simple. And addictive. That's my favorite part of these top-down lace shawls: adding just one more row. And another. And then finishing the repeat. And then holding it up and seeing all that crumply lace on the needles, knowing how it will block out into amazingness--!!!

But this week looks like it'd going to be heavy on final semester projects, so it will be back to the sleeve, which is excellent company while staring at a computer screen and racking your brains for what to write next.

Week 7: Leaves

Saturday, I went for a hike with Hermanita. The day was damp and overcast--we got rain the next day--so all the leaves were at their best. Everything was so fresh and alive that I went a little crazy with the macro setting on my camera.

We caught the little green fuzzies--I don't know what they are, but they have carpeted the mountain--in the act of blooming:



There was the obligatory creosote...



And brittlebush, soft and sage-colored:


The ocotillos, which are usually only spiky stems, had gorgeous, emerald green leaves...



Even the leaves on the bursage, which are normally sad, crumply little things, looked quite vivacious.



And let's not forget the lace leaves! The body has been worked up to the armholes, and is now waiting patiently as I figure out how many stitches I need for the cuffs of the sleeves.

Week 6: Rain, Rain

A persistent rain kept me from a walk this morning, but I wouldn't trade it for all the sun of summer. It made hunkering down with a cup of coffee, the dog, and some Death Cab (perfect rain music) all the cozier.

And knitting--can't forget the knitting. I retrieved the Lace Leaf Pullover from my knitting basket on Saturday when I ran out of yarn on my commissioned project (remind me to reveal that), and I'm already past the little leaf motif (which I am quite taken with) and on to the rounds of plain stockinette for the body. When you've got a mountain of discussion posts to read, it's nice to have something simple in your hands. If I had the time to watch my knitting, the yarn (Twisted Sisters Jazz) would be entertainment in and of itself. It's been a while since I've worked with a handpainted yarn, and it's fun to watch the color variations come into the fabric and layer atop the shades from the previous round.

But I'm going to have to forgo knit-watching for a while here--we've just passed the first quarter of the semester, and things are starting to speed up!

Week 11: Elizabeth Zimmerman Made Me Do It

For all I've been blogging about it, one would think I wasn't knitting at all. Au contraire, my dear readers.

First came the Mousie.



Knit out of small amounts of Blue Sky Alpacas Sport Weight and my all-time-favorite stash yarn, Lamb's Pride Worsted for a little instant gratification, my Mousie got me thinking about my other stash yarn and the joy of knitting something for oneself.

Not that I don't like knitting for other people, but sometimes it's discouraging to only knit what others will like rather than what makes *you* happy.

So I started daydreaming about Teva Durham's Lace Leaf Pullover, a sweater I've wanted to knit for eons. Since it came out in the Spring '05 issue of Interweave Knits, as a matter of fact. I'd bought the yarn and swatched it in April:



...but then my library classes started, and I had two summer sweaters going, and so I set it aside.

The pattern calls for a bulky, and my yarn is DK, so I'd have to do some fiddling with the gauge. I looked on Ravelry to see if anyone else had tried this. I never found out--I got sidetracked first by the neck. It looked wonky in just about every single one of the pictures. A dozen Ravelers can't be wrong, so it had to be the pattern. I could fiddle with that, too. So I pulled out The Opinionated Knitter and Knitting in the Old Way, decided to scrap the bottom-up-meets top down approach and do the whole thing in the round bottom up, and to scrap the raglan for a better-fitting round yoke...

And then I just cast on. Finals? Unfinished Thundercloud Cardigan? Another Christmas gift in the works that is most definitely going to need the same size 5 circular? The fact that I have only the gauge and the barest idea of how I am going to execute my sweater? I generally consider myself a practical person, but for this sweater, I threw practicality out the window. I have been inspired (possessed?) by the spirit of Elizabeth Zimmerman, and I'm going to go for it.