gypsy life

We've been like gypsies the last couple of weeks, traveling up and down the East Coast visiting friends and relatives. Summer has been a pretty dismal affair in the North East this year, but it cooperated with us when we really needed it to. There has been a lot of car knitting but I haven't had much of a chance to post about it. In some places there was no internet connection at all, or there was just too much going on. Now we're back home, fat, ragged, and dirty but happy, and I can sit down to post. A good friend who I didn't know was a regular reader admitted that she checks in all the time and said that I didn't post often enough for her, yeesh. Sheila if you're reading this is for you, pffffft!, the Bronx Cheer.

I finished my Eyelet Front Vest and it has been so ridiculously cold at times that I've been wearing a bulky wool vest in July. No pictures yet, go ahead and shoot me. I'm also mostly done with one purl-free Monkey sock and have been making some pretty decent progress on my Super Secret Mystery Project.

On the way home we hit a serious patch of night paving on 495 in Massachusetts. As if that stretch of 495 wasn't tortuous enough, the night paving added on at least an hour and a half. I got ToyCamera for my iPhone and was playing with it. It randomly simulates the effects of a Lomo or Holga style shot that have been so coveted by arty photographers. I love this app, I may never take photos again any other way and am considering getting OldCamera which is another app that simulates old black and whites. Check out some of delicious highway shots I got with ToyCamera. (click on images to see bigger versions on flickr)

happy 4th! lobster and knitting, the way life should be

Here's an all-American beast from the deep for you.

This lobster is close to 30 lbs. and guesstimated to be around 80 years old. It was caught by a lobsterman on Chebeague Island, Maine. When you get a close look at it, the shell is a rainbow of colors with the areas around the joints a beautiful blue. Don't worry, it's safe, the plan is to release it back to the ocean. Below Beetle is posing with it for size.

In knitting news I've finished my Eyelet Front Vest and like it. I knit a whole new left side. No photos the vest yet, hopefully they will be in the next post. I've also gone back to working on my super secret mystery project and am finally making some progress with it. It had to be completely re-charted since I got hung up on the proportional difference between the graph paper and the actual stitches and got the sizing utterly wrong. Three cast-ons later I figured that out and re-charting took me almost two weeks. It's lobster for dinner tonight though not the 30 pounder, hope your 4th is just as delicious.

what in davy jones' locker is going on?

I've been zipping along on my eyelet front vest and have the fronts and back done and just need to block them. This morning I laid them out to be blocked and what do I see, the two fronts look very different, one has 6 repeats of the lace pattern and the other 7!!! So much for my quick and easy project. I've tried counting the number of stitches on both of them a couple of times but I think I might be too pissed to figure out where I went wrong, time to walk away for awhile and blog instead. I do have an extra skein of yarn so I could make a funeral pyre like Yarny for one side of the front and knit another, but dang this was not what I had in mind.

It's been raining here day after day after day, quite a start to the summer. When do I get to send the kids back to school again?

We went hiking last Sunday, in the rain of course, and I saw this lichen growing on a large rock. It has an amazing lacy texture, I could picture this made out of chiffon on a ball gown with a punkish edge maybe by Alexander McQueen. The silk and chiffon dress below with incredible texture is designed by him and is in the permanent collection of the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan.

We also counted 203 salamanders on our hike. Or maybe it's a newt? I'm very confused about the difference between salamanders and newts. The bright orange phase is only one part of its life cycle I think, and then it turns brown. I'm glad we caught the bright orange phase, it made our day and gave the kids something to be excited about. Instead of whining about being wet and tired they could try to outdo each other in finding the next salamander.

a hooded bsj and wwkip day

It's the last day of school, it's raining heavily, in the mad dash to make it to school I yelled at the Huz, Aunt Flo should be here soon, not a good combo.

Photos are much better. Here are pictures of the BSJ (Baby Surprise Jacket) that I finished last week and gave to my friend who will have her baby at the end of the week.

Vital stats: Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket with Tomten hood added.
Both patterns by Elizabeth Zimmerman from her book The Opinionated Knitter.
Needle size 7.
Yarn: Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Superwash (50% Merino 50% wool).

I added the Tomten hood to this BSJ and made absolutely no mods to it as described in The Opinionated Knitter. It seems like the right size, but only time will tell. Applied I-cord was a new adventure for me too and I found a great video on how to do it that made it seem easy: click here.

Next time I will probably go up a needle size when I do the applied i-cord because I think it was a bit tight and tended to gather the edges. Most of that got smoothed out in blocking. My only beef was that I was not so good at hiding the ends of my yarns after switching colors, must figure out a better way.

Last Saturday my friend and I drove up to Portland for a yarn crawl. Lucky for us it was also World Wide Knitting in Public Day. We stopped by the Portland Fiber Gallery where they were very warm and welcoming. But we really landed in a pile of brownies and good cheer at Knit Wit, I love that place. After much deliberation I bought a bunch of Manos, theoretically to make Sage Remedy, but even while I was buying it I knew that it probably wasn't a good fit. Call it yarn blindness. I'm making Eyelet Front Vest from last year's Vogue Holiday Knitting instead. The nice thing about this pattern is that it is a bulky knit that doesn't look bulky.

shawl, sock creatures, and food on a tray

And here is the lady herself with her new shawl. It took me almost a week to pry this photo out of the Huz, apparently the idea of downloading a picture from his phone was immobilizing. She loves her shawl.

She has had her casket outfit, the leopard print dress, picked out for years and usually reminds us of it every time we're there. So it is quite an honor for her to add the shawl to that. The next time we go down to visit her she says we won't have to drive, but can just fly on my angel wings. It sure is nice to be appreciated.

Girl Thing, Boy Thing and I have been making sock creatures from Miyako Kanamori's book Sock and Glove. The Things did some of the sewing but also struggled with it, so it involves a lot of input from me. Above is Girl Thing's completed sock cat, Buttons. She loves it and takes it to bed every night.

I went to my high school reunion over the weekend and got to enjoy cafeteria food again. It was an odd experience, other than my three friends who I knew were going to be there, I really didn't recognize anybody, just total memory blank. I feel much more attached to my college and not so much to my high school. It was interesting though that my friends felt the opposite way. I chalk this up to the fact that they went to big universities in big cities, and I went to a small college. There was also the high school yearbook and other photos to look at, I was such an unformed person still back them. I think I'm a late bloomer in almost everything I do. I loved seeing my three friends and don't feel like I need to go back to another high school reunion. Next time it's a weekend away with my girlfriends.

This chair made out of hockey sticks was on the school grounds. Now that's crafty.

adventures in shawl blocking

Thank you all so much for all your helpful advice. The shawl is done, blocked, and on its way to be delivered.

I was very tempted to buy the large Sew EZ blocking board from the manufacturer for only $60. What appears to be the same blocking board is $82.99 at Patternworks. But I didn't want to spend the money and wait for the board to be delivered and wonder where I was going to stash it afterwards. My main plan for awhile was a big piece of cardboard covered with towels to slide under the bed, and Ann is right, I would have to vacuum up some serious dust bunnies. The carpets were out of the question since they're in high traffic areas. There is a nice post on Knitting Daily about alternative blocking board options.

Then I found these locking foam mats at Toys R Us for only $22 for four of them. They give me a total of 48 x 48 inch surface to nicely pin into. There was no real label on them and I don't see them on the website. I asked an employee if they had them and they were in the bike and scooter section for whatever reason. Knitpicks sells something similar, the blocks are smaller though you do get more of them. Below is my shawl pre-blocking and during blocking on the blue mats.

Vital stats:
Pattern: Wool Peddler's Shawl from
Folk Shawls by Cheryl Oberle
Yarn: Cascade 220 Wool, color #7827, 3.5 skeins
Needle: size 8 bamboo

Deborah wondered if the pattern was written correctly because she was struggling with it. There is errata on this pattern here. Beyond the errata the pattern was not clear to me too, I didn't understand until I ripped back a few times that when I made the yarnover increases on the center spine and either end, the yarnovers should remain outside of the pattern repeat areas. Then when there are ten additional stitches added to the ends and either side of the middle spine, the markers are moved over to add a new repeat. Lace knitting kicks my ass there's no question about it, give me colorwork any day.

Michelle and Mary Beth both warned me that Cascade 200 is tough to block and would sproing back, and I could definitely see how that might be as I was knitting with it. Resorting to steam blocking sections on the ironing board was definitely a back up plan but it blocked out better than I hoped for. Skipping the spraying it down blocking method, I opted for soaking the whole thing in the sink and then pinning it. I didn't go crazy with the pinning but mainly just pinned the sides.

The Huz just called from his grandma's and she is very happy with the shawl. She said no one has ever made anything like this by hand for her in her whole life, she's going to wear it until she dies, and then it will go in the casket with her and will match her leopard print dress. I think I did good.

shawl blocking advice needed

The shawl that I'm making for the great grandma is moving along. This is my first shawl and as I'm working on it I'm having waves of feeling like I hate lace. All the counting and oooo, what happened to that stitch is getting to me, and then everything will seem fine. The pattern is from the Folk Shawls book and is the Wool Peddler's Shawl, the yarn is Cascade 220.


There are only a couple more repeats of the pattern before it's done, but they are very loooong rows. I would love to have this thing done by the end of the weekend so I can move on to other things, plus the Huz is going down to visit her next week.


Could I please have some improvised blocking advice from you shawloholics? I know lace shawls need the have the hell blocked out of them. I don't have a blocking board and have toyed with the idea of buying one, but I'm not ready to commit. Is there something that I could put over my bed for the day that I could pin into that would work? The rest of the house is overrun with children and a dog. Any advice would be appreciated.



The weather is crazy gorgeous, it's time to start eating out on the deck.

TV: I'm very disappointed that Adam Lambert did not win American Idol, it's almost as bad as if John McCain had won the election. Oh well, on to So You Think You Can Dance, which I think is a more interesting show anyway.