two knits of ivory

It's December 23rd and I know where my happiness is. I've got 178 days to the longest day of the year and the beginning of the heat. Yeehaw! The sky was pretty gray this morning as I walked the dogs and cat. Yet it was awesome not wearing socks and needing only a light jacket. I look forward to this time of year when the days start to get longer and the ground freezes so that the animals don't track in muck. Oh, here's to the simple pleasures in life: a little less muck. Malabrigo Worsted in the Applewood Colorway It won't be long until I'm despairing the lack of vibrancy and color in the outside world. Until then I will extol the freedoms that winter brings: Remarkably less feelings of guilt while sitting indoors watching movies/knitting/playing video games. The 45 minutes it now takes to blow my hair out will be wasted 5%, rather than 95% of the time. Woolly socks and sweaters every day if I want! Yeah! And Christmas. It's almost Chri...

(Me and the swift and winder aren't on the best of terms.) Several variables of the Evenstar project have fallen effortlessly (cough, cough) into place. One of these is the yarn I have chosen to use, Madelinetosh's Pashmina . Pashmina is a fingering weight yarn in an intoxicating concoction of 75% superwash wool, 15% silk, and 10% cashmere. I am using the Filigree colorway. How I became the owner of six skeins of this yarn is a tale as old as Christmas. I purchased a crapload of Pashmina from Kaleidescope Yarns - the most excessive being three skeins of the Filigree - on September 5, 2010. On September 11 I began an Ishbel with a skein of the Filigree and became so intoxicated with the yarn and the colorway I was moved to buy the three remaining skeins they had in this colorway. Now was three all they had left? I think so, but my memory is shit. I just remember thinking that I had to have enough of this yarn and 1080 yards wasn't enough. Not enough. 2160...

So I'm finally doing some "real" knitting (pronounced like the real part of realpolitik ). And I think I'm going to do some "real" knit blogging about it. I'm challenging myself after a long, long period of comfort knitting. I have begun my Evenstar and it has returned my Christmas joy. In the past week I have a) chosen the pattern I hope to enter into the 2011 Topsfield Fair b) knit two (read it and weep lazy knittahs! not one but two!) swatches of the star pattern c) found the perfect yarn in my stash!!! (Ergo, I'm frugal AND I can start on the project while my excitement burns brightest!) d) analyzed my yarn for the optimal order in which to knit the skeins e) begun project; and finally f) continue to bask in the glow of my accomplishments to date! So first up in this "real" blogging event: the swatches. Swatch 1: The swatches are knit in spare Lana Grossa Meilenweit 50 Seta/Cashmere , leftovers from my first p...

Madelinetosh Vintage in the Fragrant Colorway You know I've been dying to talk smack about Elizabeth Zimmerman. I have such a well of resentment towards the Zimmerman-industrial-knitting-sycophant-complex, it overfloweth. I need to drain it. But. But. But. But. It's not ready. Not yet. But I'm hoping to be. Some day. Either that or I'll get over my desire. And I'm kinda positive that either prospect will work for me. What I'd rather talk about is the opposite end of the spectrum, a knit designer worth underwriting. I don't read her blog or follow her on ravelry or elsewhere, but I've been drawn to her patterns time and again and this week I finally got off my duff and purchased three. The designer is Susan Pandorf . That patterns I purchased are Evenstar , Rivendell , and Snowdrift . Temperamentally, I am more like the matter-of-fact Zimmerman than the unicorn and rainbows Pandorf, but when it comes to getting you're m...

Ishbel of the Sea Madtosh Pashmina in Filigree Somewhere along the line I learned how to feel superior to things. A long time before that I learned being superior was superior. Somewhere in between I learned that feeling superior is bad for my soul. It's only been the past few years that I even questioned whether or not it is bad for everyone's soul. I assumed it was. ASSuME. And knowing this I feel superior. It's a fucking labyrinth. Where's the exit? The Periwinkle Sheep Watercolors Worsted Superwash in Truffle I am lucky. I could have fuckin' lupus. I'm lucky. I found out I had Lime Disease because the tick was still attached to my arm and my arm had the tell tale physical symptoms, a nasty infection and a rash. I am lucky. Two weeks of antibiotics and I will be cured and maybe even now immune to Lime Disease. The CDC isn't 100% sure about the latter, but the former? Fuck yeah. I am lucky. If it's one think I hate. HATE. ...

It seems like I've stopped treading water and am know swimming somewhere. Where, I don't know, but a place other than where I am at. Metaphysically speaking. (I just looked up metaphysically and metaphysics on www.m-w.com and I'm not sure it's the right word. It feels right, though, so I'm sticking with it.) I feel impelled to blog, to take hold of the moment, to remain someone who is doing something, rather than someone who is weathering something. Above is a lovely skein of Madtosh sock in the Fragrant colorway. (One of my WEBS purchases.) I picked up a couple of skeins of the colorway in her Vintage line that just screamed my name. Unfortunately my photos do not capture their magic. A few weeks ago I saw a photo of a WIP in a fellow knit blogger's Flickr photostream, Peaknit . OMG! To die for project in such a beautiful medley of pea and teal greens and blues. Her rav project page noted she was undecided if the WIP was for her or to be C...

I'm embarrassed. I used the Joe DiMaggio title twice of recent. Today's three times a charm is intentional. Is that something you remember as a child, adults repeating the same thing, and you looking up at them in impatience wondering how one could forget they've already said that umpteen times? I remember having a sharp mind as a child. I have a vague and consistent memory of thinking forlornly about losing said sharpness of mind around age 16 and onwards. These days I am on theory number three or four or five of why this happened. I think, now, it happens primarily because older folks have more memories the more we age. More traumas, more joys, more people we've met, more jobs mastered and forgotten. More detritus, to be blunt. Life is overstimulating. Maybe holding on to the core things is how our brain stabilizes us in time and place. So the title to this post has some significance to my own mythology. One that I fall back on in comfort. Comfort is...

Another musically inspired title. It's been a month? Life spins me right 'round baby right 'round . (I remember loving to hate that song. My best friend loved it. I loved the send-up to the singer, and the era's fashion, in The Wedding Singer. Great movie.) But this har joint is a knitting blog. Knitting. Yes, I have been knitting. Not as much, not as often, but with great enjoyment. And I have a little photographic proof. (Just a little.) Above is my Rambling Rows afghan, or should I say lapghan. It will be pretty small, and that's okay. I've been meaning to knit this for a couple of years and well, now I am. I bought the yarn as an impulse buy from Knitpicks this summer. I'm a sucker for tweeds. I had no plan for it, and then the yarn arrived and the colors weren't as dynamic as I had envisioned. After the initial disappointment, I realized the yarn would be a natural fit for this mosaic tiled afghan. In August, I used MSE...

Here's an oldie but goodie. 100% Superwash Merino fiber in the Day Tripper colorway. I purchased this from the Woolen Rabbit how many years ago? A smattering of a single has been wound dolefully, (because fiber can be doleful, it can), on the active bobbin of my neglected wheel for a long, long while. Monday and Tuesday I spun up the remainder of this braid. Lighting fast. A note stashed in the bag indicates I spun somewhere in the vicinity of 28 grams. Has my spinning mojo returned, or is this a fluke? Details at 11. Last Friday the Madelinetosh Pashmina purchases arrove (proper English - arrived). It is gorgeous, fantabulous, stuff. Norway Spruce Terrarium Filigree The Shetland Triangle I had begun in the Sundara ASM was tossed aside (and later, frogged) in favor of knitting up another Ishbel with the Filigree. The name of this project? Ishbel of the Sea. The colors of this yarn are so beautifully dyed, the yarn shimmers iridescent like the scales of a fi...

Madtosh DK in Logwood Okay, so yarn can't jingle or jangle. But these are the words that my muse calls forth. She speaks, I write. "So sue me," as we used to say back in the day. I've started my ninth Shetland Triangle...in Sundara ASM. Sundara ASM in Marina over Icicles Yum Yummity Yum Yum, Yum Yum Yum Yum. I didn't get any conventional shots of the last two shawls I finished, my Fjording Shetland and the Mint Chocolate Chip Ishbel. Here's a pic of the latter taken by muse: I bought this ridiculously expensive purse back in June or July and so I've spent the summer saving my pennies up again, with nary a skein stashed in e.o.n.s. After finishing up this merino/cashmere blend Ishbel I fell off the wagon and bought a six pack of Madelinetosh's Pashima , which is merino, silk, and cashmere. Ooh la la. I've got a motif design bonging around in my brain. It refuses to coalesce. That's why I started the Shetland. I need ...

My thoughts come to me in song. Why is that? Lots of bibble babble (w)rankling around in my noggin'. The irony of Keanu Reeves in the Matrix trilogy, starting from the first moment of the first movie, is that his character, Neo, has a preternatural love connection to mankind. Yet Keanu, the actor, has a notoriously blank visage. I guess that allows the viewer to project their own selves onto the screen. Is that genius or accident? Watched The Runaways . Not sure if I like it yet - opinion still in the computational phase. I lurv when I knit a hole in my cake: I knit an Ishbel in eight days. Eight days. Booyah. Hubby offhandedly commented on the fact that I have a lot of shawls, as if to say "umm, do you need more shawls?" What I see that is different about me is that I like to do the same thing over and over again. Knit the same pattern, listen to the same soundtrack, rewatch a season of a TV show, reread/relisten to the Twilight series. My in...