Annie Knits

Summer Pictures

What a beautiful summer we've had here.  Low to mid 80's all the time -- I bet I'm the only person in St. Louis who wishes it'd warm up!

Oh, all right.  I guess it's been warm enough!

I gotta say, I love my pool.

There have been lots of knitting classes, too.  We've re-worked the back room at the shop to include a dedicated class room.  Yay, Knitorious!  And, as the saying goes, "If you build it, they will come."  Classes are many and full -- all the time.  So fun!

Hubster and I have been trying out new restaurants.  This goofy picture, which I love, is at a new local place, the Purple Martin.   Good drinks, growing menu, local.

I wrote a fun pattern for the Summer's Last Blast St. Louis area yarn crawl.  It's arch-themed... ; )  It's called Parabolic Hat on Ravelry.  PM me if you want the coupon code to get it for free.  You have to make it yourself, though.

I'm growing basil and mint and lots of other things in a new little garden plot.  I use the herbs this way, mostly.

 

The fall knit along starts in a month.  I better get cracking!

 

What I Do When I'm Not Here

Shamelessly stole that from the Bloggess... it seems apt.

This summer I'm teaching two classes at the shop.  Wednesday evenings, I have 12 knitters knitting Heidi Kirrmaier's Chance of Showers, and Saturday morning sees another 13 ladies knitting Hitofude by Hiroku Fukatsu.  

Many of my Hitofude knitters finished their sweaters in time for the last class last weekend, and we had a fashion show of shorts.

    

The gray one is made of Shibui Knits silk and merino, the blue is Madeline Tosh Lace.  Look at those smiles!

    

 Just look at these ladies!  One more beautiful than the next!  On the left is Berroco Folio, lovely and slippery as all get out, and on the right is Madeline Tosh Merino Light.  I'd make one of each of these if I had time enough.  

Each woman is wearing a hand made sweater of which any knitter would be proud.  For one of these ladies, this is a first sweater.  

Ever.  

I can barely stand it, I'm so proud.  

     

This linen Hitofude is so classy!  And she loves it, as she should.

The Chance of Showers class is mostly finished -- everyone is on or near the last lace repeat and all of the sweaters fit.  Look at all that color!

 

My own Chance of Showers looks like this:

It's one sweater that I wear and don't get asked if I made it... I have to tell people.  

Anyway, you're thinking:  So you teach a few knitting classes a week, so what, you can't blog?

Apparently, I cannot.  My brain gets clogged up with thinking about knitting and patterns and my next classes and there isn't room in there for the composition of blog posts.  

Next week, I start both classes again with a different crop of knitters.  And in two months I'll have more pictures of beautiful ladies modeling gorgeous sweaters that each made herself.  

And I couldn't be more proud than if I'd made each myself!

It's All Good

I'm sitting in my great room this morning.  It's a beautifully sunny morning here, just getting warm and breezy.  There aren't any workmen outside, but there soon will be.  Dear Son is studying for his finals today in the other room.  He'll leave soon and it will be quiet here.

I have new stone pillars:

Later this week there should be a gate and fence installed.  None too soon -- there have been lookey loos so bold as to ride their bikes up the driveway and look into the pool.  

Speaking of which:

They'll be plastering this puppy the first of next week and they'll fill it as soon as I have a fence.  Yay me.

Indeed, I have a pressing need for a privacy fence, not only around the pool but for aesthetic reasons as well:

Bless their hearts, I don't know how many cars they've got back there.  Pretty soon, I won't care.

Within the month, there will be Knock Out roses and Siberian pines and all manner of bushes and trees and bed plantings and sod installed to cover up all this dirt.  Monte and Bacon say, "Not soon enough".

Here in the great room, though ...

... I'm sitting and contemplating the globe.  This morning, there were several text messages waiting for me when I woke up.  One was a selfie Hubster took yesterday of himself and two cohorts atop the Eiffel Tower.  Following that one was a picture Dear Daughter sent of herself in front of a museum in Berlin.  

Heavy sigh.

Also yesterday, Dear Son landed himself his first job.  He'll work food service this summer at Grant's Farm.  It's a good gig and I think he's excited, but it's hard to tell with 17 year-old guys.

And my youngest brother's wife had cousin number 21 yesterday morning -- that's counting my kids and both sides, but Hello Nurse, that's a lot of cousins.  Baby girl and mom and sibs and brother doing well.  The knitting was finished and mailed as soon as I heard the good news.

Remember these cuties?  They have a sister!

There is so much going on around here, I feel like I'm in the eye of a hurricane.  Where it's calm and quiet and boring.  I dare not stick my finger into the wall of the thing or it might get torn off!  I'll just sit and knit with my coffee friends this morning.  How about that.  

What am I knitting?  I knew you'd ask.

For the fun of it and for no other reason than, "Because I can," I'm knitting Joji's Boxy.  I show these 23 and a half inches of stockinette on size 5 needles to other knitters and they groan.  Boring!  I'm finding it soothing.  Dude, I can read a book on my iPad while I knit this.  Very relaxing.

The stress level has been further reduced by the needles I'm using.  NOT my Signatures interchangeables, thankyouverymuch.  But some lovely FIXED Karbonz.  I have to say, I wasn't sold on them, even though I sell them (get it?), until I used them myself.  Grabby, good tip, smooth going.  And I could buy 3 sets for what one set of Signature tips costs.  And they don't fall apart.  Because they're FIXED!  Oh.  Sorry.  Ramping up.

And finally, the stress completely eliminated by the truly lovely yarn.  Rachel, you know Rachel, has found a new base.  Don't know if she'll stock it, but I'm outing her right here and now.  Silk, merino, yak.  Fingering.  Grayish taupe to begin with, over dyed with deep, rich blue.  Yowza.  Dream to knit, drapes like Heaven.  Sometimes a boring knit is just what the doctor ordered, isn't it?

Also on the needles is a second Hitofude -- one I'm working at the same pace as my class at the shop so I'll have show-and-tell at critical points.

The yarn is MadelineTosh Merino Light from my stash in the Forestry colorway.  The color is a show stopper, I have to say.  I need to join the sleeves today and work up the ribbing.  

If you haven't attempted a sweater before and you can knit simple lace, I can't recommend this pattern enough.  It's elegant, simple to fit and knit, and very flattering on the body.  There's a reason it's been in the top 20 on Ravelry for months.  And if you don't feel like you can knit it without help?  There are still a few slots open in my July/August Knit Along.  Just saying.

So, see?  I'm making myself useful.  Chugging along, so to speak.  Very fortunate.  Not bitter at all.  It's all good... ; )

It's The End of an Era

In August of 1997, I drove my Dear Daughter to full time pre-school for the first time.  I and a neighbor split time driving -- I drove mostly afternoons as I wasn't working outside the house at the time.

Yesterday, I drove two boys home from high school at 3:30.  It was the last time I'll drive a scheduled carpool.  

Let that sink in... carpool and school driving from August 1997 until May 2014.  

My kids have always attended schools to which they had to be driven.  It's a consequence of living in an urban neighborhood in our very Catholic school oriented city.  Often, I was able to finagle a carpool, but when I wasn't, I drove every day, both ways.  We had to explain to the French kids what a carpool even was.

We've shared driving with neighbors and folks who'd been, up until then, complete strangers.  Some carpool friends we still see, some not so much.

When I mentioned that I was driving what was likely my last carpool run yesterday, most people kind of awed and ohhed and were sympathetic.  I responded with suitable faux grief, I think.  After all, it means that my chicks are growing up and they're not little any more and maybe they don't need me like they used to.  

Outwardly, I was suitably somber.  Inside there were margaritas and sombreros!  Yay me.  I'm not tied to 3 o'clock in the afternoon any more.  I don't have to get dressed and out of the house at 6:45 a.m. any more.  I don't have to wait in parking lots in storms or heat or frigid temperatures.  I don't have to sit in afternoon traffic.  Dobby is freeeeee!

Ahem.

With freedom comes responsibility.  Now that both kids have cars, I'm assiduous about demanding details about where and when they will be driving these cars.  I text and chat and generally bug them about where they're going, when they'll be home, and with whom they'll be tooling around.  Without carpool bookending my days, I'll have to be attentive to getting dressed in the morning.  Hee hee.  

The down side might be that during all that waiting, I got quite a bit of knitting done.  

Like my Chance of Showers knit along sweater.  The Knit Along began this week at the shop.  10 ladies and I are knitting this Heidi Kirrmaier design, which is reminiscent of Vitamin D in shape, but gets to this shape in a whole different way.

I'm pretty happy with the outcome, actually.  I used Rowan Panama in a pale aqua.  Drape and shape and fit are just right.  

See the radial shoulder increases?  Part and parcel of the fit, I think.  The shaping works really well with my shoulders.  

So, if I apply the 8 hours a week I've spent driving kids during the school year to knitting sweaters instead, that gives me about 288 extra hours a year to knit.  That's 3 or 4 more sweaters or 14 more pairs of socks or 28 more hats or scarves.  

I may just use up my stash within my life time after all.

Hitofude

Hee-TOE-foo-DAY is how I say the name of this sweater, but I might be putting the emphasis on the wrong sylLAbles.  Ha.  Remember that one?

This cardigan was a pretty quick knit and one with very few mis-steps.  There isn't much to it, really.  The shaping happens as a result of folding the thing -- almost origami, but not that involved.

The cast on happens across the wingspan and is provisional.  You knit the around the arms, bind off the under arms, cast on a few and keep going.  Increases happen in the stockinette portion of the lace.  Easy peasy.

The real story here is the yarn.  I used a lace/light fingering weight hemp yarn from Lucci.  The yarn I bought is a pretty rustic two ply yarn.  You can kind of see the structure of the yarn in this picture.  No loft or elasticity whatsoever.  Super drape, nice light yarn for summer.

As I've decided to use this sweater as a knit along this summer, we ordered more of the yarn.  What came in was a surprise.  Three of the new colors match my yarn.  Same ply structure, same wound-cake put-up.  

Three of the new colors do not match my yarn at all.  They are wound onto a cardboard toilet-paper-tube type core, but more egrigious is the fact that the yarn is a totally different yarn.  4 ply, thicker, perfectly spun and symmetrical with some loft.  Yikes.  The labels on these core-wound balls are the exact same labels with the same information as the yarns that match mine in structure.  It's a connundrum. 

The yarn I bought makes a lovely sweater.  The other?  I don't know yet.  I'll have to try it out.

Swimming pool construction continues apace.  The storms that carried tornadoes through St. Louis twice yesterday did stop the guys from working any during the day -- wimps...

Today is supposed to be sunny and windy.  Today, there is a fish fry at St. Pius on South Grand -- I'll be there.  I might be wearing a blue sweater.

What a Difference a Day Makes...

Twenty-four little hours.

 Yesterday?  Snow, and no hole.

This morning?  No snow, but cold... and a giant hole.  More on this later.

Did I say cold?

Luckily, while we were away last week in Florida for Cardinal baseball spring training, I knit a scarf.

It's Brickless, by Martina Behm, in Madelinetosh Sock, Rhubarb colorway.  The scarf is bright and airy, but warm.  See that puffy coat?  Not in the closet yet.

Brickless was my baseball knitting last week -- we attended three games plus batting practice.  The pattern is interesting to knit, but I don't have to look at my hands much which qualifies the pattern to be baseball knitting.  I'll make more of these.

There was lots of sitting in the Florida sun and knitting.  That's my idea of a vacation.

We rented a beach house outside of Vero Beach, and there was literally no one else renting along our stretch of beach.  At least not anyone who actually came down to sit on the beach.  So I had the sharks (yes, I saw a largish -- at least 5 feet long -- black tipped shark amble past my beach chair) and the jellyfish ( lots of little clear lunch-baggie sized balloonish things with blue edges and tips which, it turns out, are the part of the Portuguese Man O'War jellyfish that floats on top of the water) all to myself.  Yikes.  Too cool to swim anyway -- mid 60's to low 70's.  Lovely, actually.

At the baseball games, there was knitting...

And eating, ... (that's a fish taco that was yummy!)

And ogling... Mike Matheny is a great manager, yes, and he really appreciates fans -- he chatted up this kid and signed a ball for him ...

But you've gotta admit, that is one fine... manager.  Hottest in baseball I think.  : )

But enough about that... What else is going on in my world?  The pool/patio referenced above.  Today, the pool guys are installing the rebar that will reinforce the pool's walls.  Good.  

Also today, I'm working toward the shaping on one of my spring/summer knit along sweaters, Hitofude.  

I'm using a laceweight hemp by Lucci yarns.  It's very drapey and soft.  The swatch on the right shows how this stuff blocks out... opens up beautifully.  I kind of love it.  

I'm knitting this sweater with needles that I do not love, however.  The Signature interchangeable needles that I got relatives to get me for Christmas?  Not happy at all.  First of all?  You have to buy cords by length and by needle size.  In case you can't wrap your brains around that, it means that you buy size 5 tips and size 5 16", 24", and 32" cords that can only be used with size 5 tips...  Now, I don't mind expensive tools and I love my fixed Signature needles.  The middy point is a perfect fit for my knitting style.  The interchangeables come unscrewed very easily though, as you hand tighten them, and this hemp is constantly catching in the ever widening join.  Boo.  

I sent the Signature folks an email about this exact issue and got back a lovely letter saying that discontinuing their fixed needles and offering only interchangeable needles is what their customer base has asked for.  Chopped liver over here... I politely responded that I won't buy them again until I can get the fixed version.  Boo again.

Reading today:  The Atlantis Gene by A.G. Riddle ( Michael Crichton meets Dan Brown scifi conspiracy thriller about how the increasing incidence of autism is the harbinger for an evolutionary leap for humans the likes of which we haven't seen for 50,000 years... so fun!)

Watching today:  Shameless season finale.

Finally, a gratuitous dog picture. While we dig the hole, Bacon and Monte have been relegated to the west side of the house.  Doggie sad face.

Playing in Traffic

As you know, this sweater idea came to me about a week ago.  I had to drop everything, blogging included, and make it happen.  Whew, glad that's over.

 

I call the sweater Playing in Traffic for the obvious reason... the highlighter yellow yarn is growing brighter with each wearing I think.  It's my new favorite sweater.

 

I wore it to the Yarn Harlot event in St. Louis earlier this week.  It's a flattering shape for sure, but the color is what gets the most comment.  Like, "Wow... not many people can wear that color."  

I happen to disagree.  You might not be comfortable wearing this color; I mean you have to own it not let it own you, but I haven't held it up to anyone that it didn't flatter their coloring.  Seriously.

Thanks, by the way, to Kara for taking a few pictures.  It being my new favorite sweater, my inclination is to wear it every day.  It being a color you can practically see from space makes wearing it every day a little conspicuous.  If it was, say brown, I could wear it all the time and no one would notice.  

That's the only downside I can come up with in regards to this color.  

You'll remember the idea behind the piece?  Executed fairly accurately, I think.  The difference between my sweater and Boxy is that the back of my sweater is about 7 inches longer than the front so I had to create side sections that transition between those lengths.  It's pretty easy, when you have a large gauge swatch, to create shapes out of a given yarn using math and stitch counts.  Knowing how different stitch types behave is helpful too, as well as knowing how this yarn will be have.  It's pretty drapey so I had to use a slipped stitch edging on my garter border to pull the hem in slightly.  I wouldn't try this with a yarn that isn't either superwash or has some silk or rayon content.  

Will I write out the pattern?  No.  I am not a pattern writer.  Would I help you create your own version?  Absolutely.  It'd be a fun class, wouldn't it?

Did I mention that I love this sweater?  Oh, I did?  Well, then.

Make like a Traffic Cone

Earlier this winter, Amy, one of my shop crochet gurus, sent me the picture of a sweater that combined crochet and knitting (in a meaningful way, not just edging or a neck band).  It wasn't something either of us wanted to make, but she wondered if it wouldn't be fun to work together on something and then teach it. 

I've been thinking about Amy's suggestion and watching sweater trends.  So many sweaters that combine the two disciplines graced the runway for winter and spring.  I hunted around on Pinterest (what is 'knitcrochet' anyway?!) and googled designers.  

I made a crochet piece, or most of one, in a class I took with Amy last spring.  It's this Swing Jacket from Interweave Crochet and I finished most of it and realized that the construction emphasized, even embiggened my caboose... not necessary at all and certainly not desirable.  

See?  Miles of crochet.  And it's pretty even and I used Rachel's highlighter yellow Polwarth silk.  Yum.

Hmm, I thought.  2 crochet rectangles (if I pull this jacket apart) , one embellished with burlap colored inserts.  What to do?  What to do?

In my Pinterest diving, I came across this Helmut Lang pullover from Bergdorf Goodman's collection, maybe last winter?  I like the asymmetry here.

 

Isn't it interesting?  That's the back of the sweater you can see there through her legs at the bottom.  It's about 10 inches longer in the back than in the front and the juxtaposition of openwork and knitting is kind of what I was thinking might be fun in a transitional season pullover.

More shaping inspiration from Joji's Boxy and I have the germ of an idea.  It'll be up to Amy to tell me if we can duplicate it.

Meanwhile, I've been knitting miles of stockinette too -- trying to get a handle on Dahlia for the spring knit along.  It's easy to forget how satisfying it is to knit with your hand spun yarn when you don't do it too often.  

I looked up the Hello Yarn club colorways for about the time I spun this (hip replacement/Vicodin fog) and I've decided I must have combined the April 2011 colorway Sprout with the January 2011 club colorway called Shaking leaves.  I had 8 ounces of each.  This is one ball of three.  See how the collar folds down at the top right hand of the photo?  And the stitch marker marks the placement of the afterthough sleeve. 

Kind of rustic, but mine.  All mine.

Decisions, Decisions

I've got to make a choice.

I need to submit my spring Knit Along proposal this week.  Usually, I offer two sessions, each focusing on the same sweater.  This winter, the sweater has been the Pumpkin Ale cardigan, as you well know.

The sweater choice for spring has stymied me though, and for 2 reasons.  

First, I have at least two spring/summer cardigans in my Ravelry queue which I'd like to knit, but neither is particularly worthy of a knit along.  What I mean by that is that neither is sufficiently complex to warrant 2 months worth of help/encouragement.  At least I didn't think so with my first run at them both.

Second, I think I need to make myself and my groups attractive to the beginning sweater knitter as well as to my intermediate to advanced knitters.  There is a wide range of knitters with a wide range of skills who are interested in the knit alongs.  There aren't many sweater patterns that encompass those ranges.  The audience is more suited to two different types of project.  One that reinforces or teaches the basics of fit and construction and one that pushes at the edges of an accomplished knitter's skill set.

Ah me, what to do?  What to do?

I think I'll do what any self-respecting blogger would do.  Let her readers decide.   ; )

You've seen the Dahlia sweater I've worked up in my hand spun.  The center back lace piece is a challenge and there is a sufficiently complex chart to work from.  But...

(Don't you love the color combination that's landed right by my face?! )  Here's the rub.  Once the center back is done?  Miles of stockinette.  Miles.  In it's favor?  A relatively complex construction and afterthought sleeves -- an interesting technique.  Especially if you remember to put in the waste yarn.  Which I did not.  I'll have to pick out my afterthought sleeve hole... I blame Homeland.

The other choice is the Hitofude Cardigan by Hiroko Fukatsu.  Hitofude is pronounced HE-toe-FOO-day and means 'single brush stroke' in Japanese according to the pattern page.  

The cardigan is knit in one piece beginning with the neck and arms.  Here are my first several repeats of the lace pattern.  The bright yellow provisional cast on will end up as the under arm seam.  I think.

I'm using Lucci Hemp lace yarn in the Ocean colorway.  The hemp knits into fabric with an interesting combination of drape and crispness that appeals to me, especially in a summer cardigan.  My blocked swatch doesn't retain nearly the dimension of the above knitted piece, but the lace blocks out nicely.

As a knit along cardigan, Hitofude has interesting construction and seasonality going for it.  New skills for many would be the provisional cast on and perhaps the lace chart.  Other than that, though, it'd just be a lot of lace knitting.  A lot.  

Which is more interesting than a lot of stockinette, I guess.  

I'm stumped. One option is that I could offer both, one Wednesday and one Saturday mornings.  That doesn't really solve number 2 above -- neither of these is really suited to a beginner unless that beginner is a good lace knitter and just hasn't approached sweaters.  

Another option is to choose one of these and also offer a knit along using perhaps Ann Budd's book of Sweater patterns which contains simple patterns suitable for all levels.  

A third option is to offer one of these, likely Dahlia, as a kind of truncated workshop, not the full blown thing and just help folks get started and figure out sizing (thanks for that idea, Jennifer!).

Ah me.  What to do?  What to do?

Shooting the Messenger

I've been have a shoot the messenger kind of week.  I'm not proud of it, either.  I've had several run-ins with the administrators of our new health care HSA.  I'm probably not smart enough to be managing all of this, frankly, and I'd like to abdicate if anyone's willing.

First you have to contribute.  Then you have to call the number on the card once you get it in the mail.

Then you have to try to use the card for various and expensive pharmaceuticals only to get it declined.

Then you have to try to transfer funds into it so you have enough money to cover the expensive pharmaceuticals.  Then you have to wait on the phone for awhile and talk to someone about why you can't transfer money only to have the nice lady tell you that you have plenty of money in your HSA to cover said expensive pharmaceuticals.  

Then you have to open an account on line with the bank holding the HSA credit card so that you can wait several days for them to transfer $.41 into your checking account to assure themselves of your identity.

Then you can use the card.  

Because all of that is easier and cheaper than just handing someone your insurance card -- the possession of which I am fully aware is a huge blessing.  Blerg.  First world problem.

Also, for some reason, my knee swelled up to about the size of a grapefruit this week and I've been on the RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) regimen.  Not my favorite regimen.  But the knee's better, and the HSA card worked when I got an x-ray yesterday to make sure it's nothing to do with the hip -- the titanium one -- on that side.  Just a random injury, one I'm not aware of having gotten.

Just venting.  I've done remarkably well in not shooting any of the messengers this week, I think.

The windstorm we had here yesterday knocked power out all over the area.  Luckily, I just had all of the leaves from the common ground to the west of my patio blown up onto it and piled up around the house.

Lot's of leaves and trash blown around here yesterday.

At least the sky is blue and clear today.

So, I'm sitting in my sunny great room, with my knee propped up, and working on a few things today:

 

This is a crochet afghan using the Catherine wheel motif.  I thought Catherine wheels were fireworks and I love the graphic nature of this pattern done in high contrast colors.  The Cascade Pacific yarn colors are perfect in the room, aren't they?  Turns out that Catherine wheels, the fireworks, are named for Catherine wheels, the torture device used to punish and execute St. Catherine of Alexandria.  Yuck. While I still love and will finish the afghan (it's about 30 inches wide and 4 feet tall at this point, on its way to 6 feet tall), I won't make it for, say, a baby.  Or a wedding gift.  

And Pumpkin Ale is about 85% complete.  Here, a roll of paper towels models the top-down, seamless, set-in sleeve.

It's a trick of the light and the different directions of the knitting -- the color of the sleeve is not so different from the rest of the piece in person.  

Nice, though, huh? This second picture is a better representation of color.  

I would have to say, though, that I don't mind sewing in sleeves.  At least I mind sewing in sleeves less than I mind flipping an entire sweater around over and over in order to knit a sleeve onto it seamlessly.  

Now, I have to go.  Monte wants to come inside for his nap.  

** Listening today:  Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Call Me Irresistible.

** Watching today:  Season 2, House of Cards