i was bad this weekend and i know it—i didn’t blog, i didn’t work on secret projects—but it was sooo good.

i knit all friday afternoon and evening on my little rose shawl while it snowed and snowed outside and a big pot of soup bubbled on the stove inside. they only predicted 1-2 inches, but by nightfall we could see we were in for it.
and on saturday i woke to this

and this

the back yard transformed into a seussian world, decorated everywhere with blobs of soft, white snow, piled high to form all manner of sculpture.

it’s hard to tell just how much came down overnight—certainly over two feet in the back yard, but more like 15 inches out front. i shoveled for several hours just to get the walks cleared (i like shoveling, actually), while david put in another couple to get the snow off the roofs and driveway.

today there is more evidence of life out there than on saturday; the squirrels are finding their way around after all.

it’s the strangest day for weather; the sun is brilliant in the very cold air, but it must be pretty humid, too—a coating of hoarfrost covers every little crooked tree branch and twig, long into the day.

add to the picture a sifting of very light, crystalline snow flurries—just barely there, but enough to catch the light so that it looks like shaved glass flying in all directions.

it’s really magical; i’m so lucky i’m not stuck in an office where i’d miss the show.

we did manage to pull together a spinning class yesterday morning—hey, when you need to hang with your girls, you need to hang with your girls, snow or not.

i worked on my blue border leicester fiber—i’ve got half of it spun and plied and in class, i got the other half nearly spun up. i can ply it in wednesday evening’s class and then wash it. it’s a rather surreal spinning experience after all that fine stuff i worked with during the summer and fall. luxury fibers may have ruined me for this . . .

i’ve got to skein up what i have to empty these bobbins, before i can continue. somehow, in the scurry to empty my old workspace during the week before christmas, my numerous spare bobbins got packed away somewhere and i cannot find them. all i have are what’s in my work basket—mostly hi-speed ones, since i’ve been spinning more laceweight in the last year. and when i spin laceweight, two or three bobbins is almost more than i need for any single project. however, this chunky yarn is eating up bobbins like crazy and it’s becoming inconvenient (especially when i know how many empty ones i own). david may actually be able to locate what i need, but for now i’m making do with spinning a bobbin and emptying a bobbin as i go.

so the weekend was lost for all the usual routines as we huddled indoors to stay warm, then unburied ourselves as needed. i threw caution to the wind where my deadlines are concerned and did mostly selfish knitting.

. . . it was totally worth it.

i finished my shawl before going to bed on saturday night

after everyone went home on sunday afternoon, i put it on to soak and threaded it up for a good blocking.

you can see a lot more of the detail now, especially in the shoulder and back area

i always love the way all the patterns come together at that outermost corners—the scarfy part that you flip here and there when you wear it

or at the center back hem

once i had it all threaded and pinned out, i got the money shot

it was completely dry in just a few hours, but i let it sit til this morning. i was anxious to unpin it, so i didn’t stop to steam the fabric beforehand, but now i wish i had—i think this cashmere/silk might possibly look even better with the cashmere fiber bloomed out and fuzzing a bit over the surface (and i’ll certainly take the time to do that on the one i’m knitting in my cash/silk handspun).

i took a little time this morning to play with it on the dress form so you can get an idea of what it looks like on the body.

just a little shoulder shawl with a victorian flavor (but not too, too victorian). it is constructed like a faroese shawl with some shoulder shaping, but the back panel is less pronounced, so it fits more like a triangle shawl with neck shaping—a sort of hybrid, maybe?

the pattern will have three sizes; one even smaller than this to wear as a scarf, and one larger, but not too large; i don’t think the hem motif will hold its impact if the body area gets too big (it could always be knit in a heavier yarn on bigger needles to make it larger, too).

i like this size a lot—it’s about 64 inches across the widest part and 21 inches down the center back. perfect for scarfing up around my neck or to cover my shoulders when i need it, without trapping my arms underneath. i love it.

this size uses approximately 525 yards, i think. the yarn, by the way, is discontinued, but you can purchase a nearly identical yarn at zen yarn garden; jade sapphire cash/silk is also the same. and of course it would be gorgeous in any number of lovely laceweights that we talk about here.

in fact, we will be using woolen rabbit tranquilo as the official sample yarn for this pattern. it knit up equally beautiful in my sample swatches

for me, the hem is spectacular—i just love the way this motif knits up in laceweight yarn, so dramatic, with its contrasting foreground and background; the solid areas appear to actually float when knit in such fine yarn.

the best news of all is that it looks like i can knit an identically-sized one from the supply of handspun cash/silk i have, yay. in fact, i did not stop at merely getting the rose shawl done and then going back to my deadline projects—yesterday i stayed in “bad girl” mode just a little longer to cast on for the next one.

after all, sundays are for rest and recreation, right? there’s always monday just around the corner, for getting back to the grindstone . . .

and with that, it’s time to locate my secret knitting and get ready for my class to arrive.

Filed under: designing, lace/shawls, projects, spinning and fiber
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thank you everyone for sending so many good birthday wishes—i was flabbergasted by how many i received. i hope you’ll forgive me for not answering on this one day—i decided to try to knit and relax instead.

in between eating cake, that is, heh.
actually, i had a bit of a cake hangover yesterday—my own fault for not eating enough real food. turning 50 doesn’t prevent me from behaving childishly once in a while . . .

but can you blame me? starting with an italian “love” cake from janet during monday’s class, we had three big tempting cakes at our house in three days. the three-layer chocolate cake is from barb (the spinners came for a make up class on wednesday evening) and then there was david’s carrot cake. all delicious, all very much appreciated.

i just need to learn to pace myself a little better—i’m a fan of generous slices.

as it turned out, i didn’t get a whole lot of knitting done on wednesday—just a few rows while waiting for the our spinning class to gather (though i did have very nice leisurely day).

yesterday i needed to get some pattern writing done and had to be out in the afternoon and evening, so i wasn’t able to make it up then, either—i was completely beat when i got home and went to bed at 10:30.

which means that i was up before dawn this morning and finally, i had the hours of birthday knitting i promised myself. it’s growing . . .

i’m finally into the shawl enough to have worked through all the charts except the shoulder shaping at least once. designing with the body motif is tricky—there’s a lot of overlapping in the motif that creates a wonderful (but tricky) asymmetry. what looked mathematically correct on paper, needed quite a bit of tweaking as i worked through the charts the first time.

but now i have a much better understanding of how this motif behaves on the needles with the shaping. the charts are shaping up i think, so that on this second time through, i expect everything to go smoothly. i should be able to finally put together a pattern for the test knitters next week, yay.

and—my cake hangover is gone.

i’m really glad i did a test knit with another yarn—first of all, i will love owning one in this color and secondly, when i finally start the second one in my handspun silk/cashmere, i’ll have a much better idea of which pattern size to knit.

meanwhile, the rows on this one are definitely feeling shorter and going faster; once i get through this current repeat of the body charts, i’ll be able to start the shoulder shaping. maybe two or three more night’s work and i’ll be finished.

i may be compelled to infringe on time that’s supposed to be devoted to secret knitting . . . hmm, should i be “good” or give in and be “bad”??

i love how the finish really speeds up on a shawl that starts out so big.
i’m totally psyched to knit a second one . . .

more amaryllis growth has been spotted as well—i’m finding the bulb completely fascinating to watch day by day. tender green shoots are sprouting out of places that look way too wooden to have generated them

the leaves stand up one day and flop over the next, then stand up again.
why? i have no idea, but it amuses me to think of reasons . . .

my friend kris gave me a rose scented geranium yesterday, too. i haven’t had one since the year before last, when the ones we had succumbed to old age. i have hope that this one will survive longer, now that i know how to take better care of it.

have a good weekend; i’m going to see if i can add a few more rows to that shawl before i go get my hair cut this afternoon.

Filed under: designing, food and garden, lace/shawls, projects
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whatever did david do before he had post-it notes?
(although, looking at the date of its invention, he probably never knew a life before them. and i have fun collecting them over our years together . . .)

each year since we met, he has baked a homemade cake for my birthday—my favorite part of every year’s celebration (and i do celebrate; i love my birthday!).

this time, he made a carrot cake with orange and lemon zest from my friend kim’s orchard—the last of the fruit we brought home form california, yum. we’ll cut into that tonight . . .

it’s also my blogiversary, so the sentiment in that note goes out to you from me, too; thanks so much for four years of fun and chatter about knitting and so much more!

now, i have a date with a yoga tape and after that, to my knitting chair for the rest of the day to bond with my little shawl project.

Filed under: events, food and garden, projects
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ok, yes, i’m coming up on a BIG birthday, with a zero attached to it, but come on—an AARP membership?? did they have to deliver it on my last day in this decade? hahaha, life just has the most uncanny sense of humor, doesn’t it?

i can laugh about this because i’m still too young to join, heh, but not for very long.

i’m going crazy from too much secret knitting and too many socks on the needles, but i’m determined to finish some of them off so i can move on. i mean, i like socks—i do; i love knitting them. but all socks, all the time—that’s too much of a good thing (david may beg to differ).

it’s my own fault and i know it.

actually, it’s not all socks, but there are quite a few more than usual. something tells me that my olympic project could end up being a heap of second socks . . . between what i have on the needles now and the pile of single socks sitting near my end of the sofa, i could cloth the whole family if i’d just turn them all into pairs.

so let’s take a look at some of what i’ve got here

the longjohn sock is shaping up just as i’d hoped—it looks like the sleeve or leg of a real set of longjohns. the thermal stitch will trap heat to keep feet warm and cozy without bulk, which is just the sort of sock i need.
this is an easy-going, take anywhere, don’t need a chart (don’t need a brain, practically) project. it’s the one i can drag around everywhere with me for something to do if i have to wait.

and good thing too—i have enough yarn to knit four of them. beautiful shalimar zoe that is bouncy, soft, hardwearing, and comes in myriad fun colors, both variegated and semi-solid. later tonight, i’ll cast on the red version of the sock so we can see what it looks like.

here’s a peek of one of my secret projects—not telling what it is or where the yarn is from, though. just a little taste, ok?

here’s another little glimpse of something i’m making—gorgeous color, gorgeous yarn, not a sock, but i’m not telling what, either . . . it’s almost done, too, yay.

here’s one that we can talk about and i’m really happy to be able to, because i love the way it’s turning out. this sock is knit using woolen rabbit kashmir, an incredibly lovely yarn with all good points from our friend kim. it’s got bounce, it’s got sheen, it’s got cashmere, for heaven’s sake—and as if that wasn’t enough, it’s got nylon, too, so it won’t wear out the minute you start walking around in it.

i’m trying to decide on a name for this one—at first it seemed obvious to pick a name based on how the patterns intertwine, but now that i’m down the leg and into the heel, it’s starting to remind me more of a beautiful gilded picture frame or birdcage or an antique wire cage dress form. hmmm . . . i might go with something like la cage d’or instead.

more secret knitting (see? i told you there was a lot). this one has a sibling in a different color, too, so they are double the fun. it’s knit in one of my favorite affordable yarns, so i don’t mind at all knitting it twice.

in other news, david is making great progress in demo-ing the second half of my studio space

a couple of the walls have three layers of drywall to take down and discard, plus the dropped ceiling and some plaster—many bags of debris are exiting the house this week. pretty soon he’ll be able to start rewiring (thank goodness).

i think that’s about it for today—i probably won’t be here tomorrow, because hopefully i’m taking most of the day off (and hopefully, spending it on my little rose shawl, which i’ve been denying myself), but i might post a festive photo or two if the opportunity arises.

see you on the other side of 50!

Filed under: designing, projects
83 Comments