Venti!

The other day I finally had a tattoo touched up that I'd been meaning to fix for...oh...12 years now. Yes, that means I was 13 when I got this tattoo, my first. I was living in Germany and went with my mother to get it (long, sordid story). This is really the only picture I could find, it's a tiny lavender rose (barely visible):


Anyhow, it's better now! I love the three yellow pistils...stamen? Plant sex organs. I pretty much let the artist do his thing. It's slightly more open now (appropriate, I'm older, more in bloom) and has more thorns (also appropriate!). I asked for what I thought was an impossible color (light burgundy) but he pulled it off very well and updated the green, which was a very dated shade of jade. I was very impressed with the work (Timmy at Holeshot in Amherst).



In case you think I haven't been knitting...you're wrong. I'm still ignoring my Blood Orange cardigan (the yarn really resembles the flesh of a deliciously strange blood orange) but I've been churning out small projects here and there. I have three baby sweaters on the needles and a half finished Tilted Duster (all it needs is the skirt, a collar and buttons). BTW, Norah Gaughan is about to unveil a pretty bitchin' FO/WIP, keep your eyes peeled!



The color isn't anywhere online (a seller on eBay calls it "Abusar" but that isn't it's given name) and it reminds me of the main color of Reynolds Whiskey in Enid...my poor, ignored Enid. Maybe I can take that to Baltimore and finish the yoke in my hotel room? Working at Stitches always gives me a knit fit (like a nic fit...). It's puckering ever so slightly, some of the floats span 5+ stitches so I've been 'catching' them as I go in using directions from Montse Stanley's Handbook. I think it will block flat.




I finished Foliage, my first top-down hat. I'm blocking it on a dinner plate so it'll be more snood-ish. I love snoods! I double stranded Malabrigo Worsted in Bobby Blue. It reminds me of a vintage bathing cap and was a fun knit. I used twisted ribbing and bound-off purlwise, other than that no mods. Clearer pictures at Ravelry.


I made a few adorable and goofy coffee cardigans. These are wicked fun and I actually have been using it, it makes baristas smile. This is knit with Valley Yarns Superwash (LOVE how it looks knit at this tight gauge) and features three corozo nut buttons from the Creative Needle in Amherst, which happens to be owned by the mother-in-law of a professor in my department. I love corozo nut buttons almost as much as I love shell buttons. And Moving Mud buttons. And horn buttons. And...oh, I'm a button whore, are you surprised??



I just purchased a kit to make this Greek Deli version by Jennifer Reichert, it's hysterical! This embroidered grocery purse of hers is 2 parts hysterical, 8 parts amazing.

Brain food, mmmm....I don't eat much fruit but I loves my vegetables (this site makes me drool). I have many ways of preparing them so that they taste very, very decadent. This was today's lunch, an old favorite (recipe here):




My next treat is butternut squash roasted with maple syrup and cracked peppercorn (something about the hot/sweet combination is very soothing). I do a mashed cauliflower with cream and asiago that would make you disown potatoes forever.

Meet Irma the Owl, a friend who is staring sternly down from her perch. I met her at Starbucks where she was deeply discounted and deeply adorable. She looks like an Irma, and when I looked up that name I learned that it is an Old High German/Hoch Deutsch word for...word! Perfect patron (stuffed) saint for a communication scholar, no?




Speaking of that. I have a 12-page paper to write. Probably why I suddenly felt the urge to blog. I'm going to try to link the practice of blogging to early 20th-century language theories (using some key works from Saussure, Nietzsche, Boas, Sapir, Malinowski, Jakobson, and Bakhtin...among others).

WUNSCH MIR GLUCK, BITTE!

P.S. FYI, funniest Fug I've seen in awhile.

Gallery Jacket!

Phew, I can post a finished object! The new Valley Yarns catalog is in the store which means it's also making its way to everyone on the mailing list. In it you'll find the sweater I mentioned in my (woefully pictureless) last post. This is something I designed and knit for Valley Yarns Sheffield, a gorgeous new yarn with amazing colors that feel new for Valley Yarns--deep teal, espresso brown, etc. This is the Gallery Jacket, named for Arts Night Out, a Northampton institution that I have sadly never participated in (Mexifest ladies, maybe on the 14th?)

Tell me, what is wrong with this picture? Why should you never trust the "I'm just fixing my hair pose"?


Because the great Maggie Righetti says you shouldn't, in Chapter 1 of "Knitting In Plain English" titled: You Can Always Tell What's Wrong With a Garment By The Way a Model is Posed, or Slender Five-Foot-Ten Inch Models Look Good in Anything. See for yourself!

The "problem" in this case is the sleeve. I intended this to be a long sleeved sweater (full-disclosure, I was trying to recreate this sweater, purchased at a Marshall's, no discernible designer) with a modified drop shoulder. I couldn't knit the twisted ribbing fast enough and was on a somewhat scary deadline for a relatively slow knitter. The twisted ribbing takes FOREVER, but I really think it was worth it in the end.



Back to the point, I decided to pick up stitches and knit down in the round, so that no matter where I was when I ran out of time, I'd a least have a sleeve! I got about 2.5 inches done on both and tried the thing on. Somehow I forgot that the beauty of a drop shoulder is that it forms the top of your sleeve! It looked just fine with the stubby sleeves, in fact, many people thought it would've lost cuteness had I continued knitting.


The Sheffield is quite warm so it was actually nice to have a mostly bare arm. I've tweaked the pattern and incorporated some decreases to take care of the pooching (technical term?) that occurs under the arm in these pictures. I think that would've been weighted down with a longer sleeve, but here it's a bit obvious. A short row cap sleeve would've been nice, but I still have my training wheels on when it comes to designing!

One last note--this was modeled WET--I blocked it about 10 hours after I finished it and in a humid July, the water barely budged. When the sweater dried it looked a lot less saggy under the arm area, I promise. It'll be in the store and again, the pattern was revised after knitting. I'll have to test knit a second version when more Sheffield arrives because I really want one of these in my wardrobe.

CR

P.S. The shawl pin in the catalog pictures and the design inspiration picture is the same, made by Moving Mud. I think I might purposely design sweaters that require these, they're beautiful!

P.P.S. More credits, the most important: these pictures are the product of Penny and David Michalak, a local couple who between them have too many design related talents to list!

Let's get ripped.

I've been knitting a lot lately. If this semester was about collecting yarn this summer is about knitting it up. I find it hard to sleep in the summer so late-night/early A.M. knitting is the name of the game. I'm re-watching some gems, including the LOTR trilogy and Clarissa Explains it All.
I WAS Clarissa growing up, from the crazy ensembles to the mom enforced tofu and brewers' yeast laced diet. The only trouble with my knitting is that it's been a total RIPFEST. Things are going wrong left and right and to be honest, I haven't minded the ripping one bit. It'll all be worth it in the end.

Next in the to rip pile is Coachella:


I tried it on this morning and the armholes are reeeeeeeeeeeallly right. I think Suede might stretch a bit but I was planning to neaten the edges with a crochet border but that would make it unwearable at this point. I'm planning to lengthen the racer back strap and change the rate of increases before re-joining in the round.

Also ripped, a store sample, Grumperina's Art Deco Beret (pre-beaded chart knitting, so no big loss):

Knowing myself I didn't knit a gauge swatch (ahem) but just dropped my usual needle size. This made the cool (tubular-ish) cast-on ribbing too small by a few inches.

Also being ripped a decent amount for minor tweaking is Bamboo Grove, a cleverly constructed top-down henley in the works for the fall catalog. Kirsten in customer service is the queen of top down!


Last but not least...my summer job rules. People ask me if I'm getting sick of yarn and the answer is "HECK NO." One of my tasks is writing descriptions of nwe yarns, which puts me in a really good mood. After awhile you sort of feel like you've seen it all and it's easy to slam a yarn or pattern book but the description writing requires a sort of Pollyanna, best case scenario outlook. It carries over to other things, which is awesome! Oh, and today I arrived to find a big sack of new Rowan yarns on my chair. There are some fantastic new colors of Kracksilk Haze and one of Kid Classic that I'm over the moon for. Kidsilk Aura (the heavier version of KSH) promises big things, and it was a long time coming. So many patterns for KSH start "with yarn doubled..." Love the fabric is produces, but it can be annoying.

Speaking of color, I've been obsessed lately. This day at the printers only added to it! This is Kathy and Penny checking color accuracy with total focus!

This was so fun, it was straight out of another childhood favorite, Reading Rainbow.



Rememeber Color Me Beautiful? I'm trying to purge my closet (and yarn stash) of colors that don't agree with me and I've finally submitted to reading this book. According to some online quizzes I'm a Deep Winter! I can live with that =) I hope this Shi Bui color will be okay. If not, hey, it's for feet!

CR