Quick Trip and a New Skill

Keith and I had to make a quick trip to Chicago earlier this week so I could have my interview for Global Entry with U.S. Customs. I don't think I've mentioned this here yet, but I am traveling with my daughter this summer.

The Free Your Fade Shawl is perfect car knitting.

Early in the year, Rachel called me up, told me she was going to be a bridesmaid, and asked if I would be her date. Of course, I was thrilled to be invited and said, "Yes!" Then she told me that the wedding is in a small town outside of Lviv, Ukraine. So we are going to the Ukraine in August.

A couple months ago, I was browsing the stacks at our main library and came upon a book from the 1970's titled "Ukrainian Embroidery." 

I found a pattern that didn't seem too insanely time-consuming and decided a Ukrainian wall hanging would be the perfect wedding gift. Much of the traditional Ukrainian embroidery is complex, dense cross-stitch, but there is also a tradition of free-form flower embroidery.

I have a ways to go, but I think I can finish it by the end of July. Ideally, I'll take the finished hanging with me to Miami and leave it with my daughter. The bride is in grad school with my daughter in Miami, so I suspect she'd rather not have to carry it with her back to the States after the wedding.

Amazingly, the cheapest flight I found to Budapest (where Rachel and I are going to hang out before the wedding) left out of Miami. Traveling is rarely so convenient!




results.

About That Sweater

Way back on May 20, I went to a nearby coffee shop/yarn store, the Sow's Ear, with a friend. The point of the trip was to sketch, and we did indeed sketch:

Of course I had to wander through the store and check out the goods. I stumbled on the spring issue of Knitscene, which I hadn't looked at before.

I flipped through it and fell in love with the sweater, that looked both cute and easy.

The pattern, Fullerton Cardigan, is made with Brown Sheep Worsted, but I don't like mohair, so I bought an armful of the wonderfully affordable Berroco Vintage. Now I have this:

I think that someday it really will be a sweater!

And what is it about sleeves? They are so boring to knit!

A Different Kind of Stash Busting

While I'm healing quite well, I am still home much of the time. One of the things I'm doing is going through old craft magazines to tear out the few articles I really want to hang onto and then to discard or donate the magazines.

In one of my jewelry magazines, I saw some cute earrings made with acrylic flower beads. I decided that I should I try to use up my little stash of such beads.

The results are fun, I think, but I didn't use up as many beads as I'd hoped. So many beads, so little time.

I did go into work for part of the day on Monday. It was a staff day, so it wasn't too stressful. On Sunday I was able to make my Urban Sketching group at a cute coffee shop in an old train depot.

For once, I finished it in the allotted two-hour time. Usually I have to do the finishing touches at home. I've switched from using Derwent Inktense pencils for the color to watercolor, and I do like the results. Watercolors are more flexible, at least for me.

This is the first formal day of summer vacation, and I have to say that it feels good! 

Two Finishes

I think this took me about a year, but I finally finished my Spindrift Shawl by Helen Stewart. I have no idea why it took me so long. It's a simple and elegant pattern.

Here it is, unblocked. I'm sure that lace will really open up after a good soak. 

The yarn is a speckled fingering weight from KnitCircus. I seem to have lost track of the ballband. And I had barely enough yarn to finish the picot bind-off!

I also finished this Fair Isle hat of my own design. It came out huge, definitely a man's hat! I'm going to make some changes, downsize it and write it up as a pattern, I think.

It feels good to have accomplished a few things in the past week and a half since my surgery. I'm going to have to work quite a bit in the next weeks. Most of it will be on my own schedule, which makes it feel less onerous.

I hope most of you are having summer. It is so cold and rainy here that I am wearing jeans and a wool sweater!

What I've Learned in the Past Week

1. It is amazing how much more knitting I can get done when I'm not working full time! (See sweater below.)

Flowers from my sweet Mom.

2. Any surgery than involves anesthesia is exhausting.

3. You can't hurry healing. In fact, it's the opposite: You have to slow down to heal. This is a challenge for some of us.

This is the body of a cardigan. More in future posts.

4. Knitting is the absolute best thing to do when you're recuperating, especially mindless stockinette.

Another hat in my effort to stash-bust.

5. You should not check your email when you are sick leave. You just end up working for free. Ask me how I know!

Recuperating

The recuperation from my surgery is not as painful as the doctor had predicted, so of course I'm relieved about that. I am housebound and not really up for visitors, but I can manage knitting. 

I pulled out these three colors for my Free Your Fade shawl. 

I'm not sure if I'll use all three or just the gradient and the blue. I'm going to see how it looks when I get to the first "fade." So far, the gradient is just gorgeous! And it matches the project bag -- one of the many that my sweet MIL has made for me.

I set up another Tchaikovsky Hat before my surgery. It's such an easy pattern and I had the perfect yarn: a skein of Casual Fashion Queen in Bohemia. 

This might be my favorite colorway of all time.

While I'm not up to visitors, I do appreciate it when Nagi and Kola keep me company.

It's actually been cool here so I've enjoyed having them on my lap.

At the rate I'm recovering, I'm going to have to start doing useful things soon, but I'm trying to enjoy this "vacation" while I can.

The Day Before Surgery

So, the timeline here is a bit wacky. Surgery will do that to you. I had my surgery yesterday and it went well. I'm home recuperating, but on quite a few pain meds -- so you can't hold me responsible for any spelling or grammar errors!

I did some yarny retail therapy on the afternoon before my surgery. Knit Circus has a new retail shop, which I hadn't visited before. As I told the clerk there, "I figured this was a good time to buy some yarn because my husband can hardly complain when I'm about to have surgery."

Of course the new store is bigger and thus better than the original. So much amazing yarn! Owner Jala Spiro and her crew have amazing color sense and they come up with the most surprising and beautiful gradients. I was only going to buy one, but ended up with two. I justified this because I'm using both in shawls that will also eat up some stash yarn. I know: I'm way too good at justifying yarn purchases!

The skein on top is going to be part of a Free your Fade. I've been wanting to do a Fade. A completed Find your Fade was on display at the store and it is more blanket than shawl. The Free your Fade suits my taste better. The second skein is going to become an On the Spice Market, like the one here.

Although, the more I look at the finished shawl, the less sure I am that my skein is right for the project. No problem. I'm sure I can find a pattern for that beautiful skein. 

Knit Circus has an online store, too, so don't feel left out because you're not here in Madison.

Before I left school Wednesday, a couple of my students came to say goodbye to me Wednesday afternoon, and they brought me this:

There are some things about work I don't miss. But I do miss "my" kids.

The View From a Disappointing Weekend

It's a three-day weekend in the States, so of course I had plans. Not a lot, but there were a few things I was really looking forward to. Instead, my weekend looks like this:

I've been braving the 97-degree weather to try to heal on the lawn chair in our backyard. I was in Urgent Care this morning -- after a week of feeling under the weather -- and it turns out I have a sinus infection. As if it's not bad enough to have a sinus infection on a holiday weekend, I am worried this will mean postponing the surgery I have set for Thursday. Here's hoping the Amoxicillin does the job!

I have spent quite a bit of time dozing, but I have made some progress on my Campside shawl. This was a splurge purchase at the April meeting of my Knitting Guild. I think it will be an excellent travel shawl, as long as I finish it in time. The yarn is a cotton-linen blend, a bit hard on the hands. I can only do a few rows at a time.

I finished The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes, a novel about the composer Dmitri Shostakovich. It's about his struggle as an artist in a totalitarian country, the USSR. It's very interesting, but not a page turner. It took me a while to get through this very short novel.

I'm thinking of launching into The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein about the role of the federal government in segregating America. Not sure I'm up to it, though.

My daughter cheered me up with a phone call and this photo:

She's in Denver for a wedding, and while visiting the state capital today, she ran into her cousin Jennifer, who had made a last-minute weekend trip with her boyfriend.

Jennifer lives in Los Angeles and Rachel lives in Miami, so this was very unexpected. Sadly, Rachel was on her way to the wedding so they couldn't even have a coffee together.

I hope you are healthier than I this weekend!

P.S. Did I mention that we do not have air conditioning? 

It's All About Curious Handmade

I have managed to finish Magnolia, the second pattern in the Secret Sock Society, and I'm very happy with them. This pattern was a lot harder -- for me, at least -- than the first pattern in this year-long KAL from Helen Stewart of Curious Handmade. There are a lot of cables, and I cannot cable without a needle on fingering-weight yarn.

I think the yarn is a bit too busy for the pattern. Still, they are very pretty. This is the second pair I've knit from Great Lakes Tweed yarn, and they slide on like butter. This is truly a luxurious yarn!

The next pattern should come out in early June, and I'm looking forward to the next challenge. 

In the meantime, I'm working on another Helen Stewart pattern, the Spindrift Shawl. It's hard to believe that such a simple pattern can yield a stunning shawl.

Ok, so this picture doesn't do it justice. But I'm on the bottom lace now, and it is very pretty. I started this a year ago and somehow it got buried in the knitting basket. 

Thank you for all the comments about Magic Loop. I am relieved to find out that I am not the only one who struggles with this technique. A number of you suggested starting on DPNs and then shifting the stitches to the long circular. I am definitely going to try that!

A Fail, A Finish, A Feline & Flowers

Have you ever dropped a Size 1 DPN on an airplane and found yourself crawling around on the floor to find it? Well, I have -- and more than once. Since I've got some travels planned for this summer, I determined to learn the Magic Loop method.

I spent (wasted?) an hour trying to get a pair of socks started. I couldn't even get the first sock going. At first, I spit out a few bad words in the direction of the book. But I know a lot of people have used this book. I think we may be talking user error here. Maybe some You Tube videos would help me more.

This failure was balanced by the finish of my mindless knitting project, a pair of self-striping socks in the Hermoine's Everyday Socks pattern. 

I bought this yarn at 50% off and it worked out be much prettier than I expected. Into the gift box they go.

 I have to throw in this photo of Kola. I love making their heads look too big for their bodies. Makes me laugh every
time. If that seems odd, remember that I work with teen-agers.

And last, but not least, we finally have flowers around here. I love spring flowers, especially the early ones like lilacs.

Wishing you a productive week!