Lime Street Knits

I'd like to send a big "Thank you" to Ms. Prolix. I've just received the fiber that I won during her Socks-y, Spinny, Sheepless or Silly Contest. If you haven't checked out her blog yet, I highly recommend that you do so. She has fabulous taste in music.

The pictures really don't do the colors in the wool justice. The blues are a beautiful, rich shade that make me think of swimming.





And now for something completely different... a picture of my freezer.



What's that on the bottom shelf?



Noro Kureyon, of course! This is my plan for finishing Grace during the summer. The wool from the freezer stays cool in my hands far longer than I ever thought it would. I also have a Plan B; my boyfriend just put in our air conditioner.

Too hot to knit in Boston today and yesterday as well. Last night, on impulse, I strolled to my newish gym to check out their pool. In a nutshell, it's brilliant. (And you should see it out of the nutshell...) It's indoors, on the top floor of the building and encased in glass. So as you swim you can look up at the sky or out, over the square. And if you go at night, like I did, odds are you'll only have to share the pool with one or two others.

My intention had been to do a few laps to cool off, but I found myself primarily floating; enjoying the sensation of the cool water on my skin and marveling at how remarkably silent the room was.

I work downtown. I live on a very busy city street. The subway passes immediately under my apartment building. I am surrounded by loud, jarring noise all day long. So much so that I rarely notice the sirens, cars, screaming people, etc anymore. I only notice their absence. And they're absent so rarely that experiencing quiet, genuine quiet, awakens something in me that I can only compare to the feeling I used to get in church as a child.

So I floated.

I've taken next week off from work. This may not seem like a big deal, people take vacations all the time. But I've never taken a whole week off with the intention of doing nothing in particular before. It feels... not quite right. Like I'm playing hooky, but with prior planning. And I realize that this mindset is not at all healthy. So my intention for next week is to reclaim my daytime hours. To remember what people do (and what I did) before I fell so firmly into the 9 to 5 routine.

I had a bit of a heart-to-heart with myself while photographing Dead End and came to two not entirely surprising conclusions:

1. My love of knitting stripes and my laziness about weaving in ends will probably be engaged in an epic battle my whole life.

2. I own too many scarves. I love scarves, it's true. I start wearing them as soon as the leaves begin to change colors and don't put them away until the wee daffodils are blooming. But I did a mental count of the contents of my scarf drawer and... You know, I'm not even going to finish the sentence. The fact that I have a "scarf drawer" says it all. Suffice it to say, it may be time for me to take a break from scarves.






Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 Wool in Russet, Macaw, Dijon, Rhubarb & Earth

Needles: Size 8

Pattern: Shimmer Chevron Scarf , modified so that it's only 30 stitches wide

I helped my little brother clean up his new condo this weekend and tried my darnedest to wrap my mind around the fact that my little brother is a home owner. So lots of painting was achieved this weekend, but unfortunately there's very little to report on the knitting front.

I did get a chance to take a few Habu pictures on my Mom's porch. And speaking of my Mom... It's official, she's a knitting convert. I taught her to knit a little over a year ago. And although she took to it very quickly, her eyes certainly didn't light up when when she picked up a new project. Until, that is, she learned how to cable. We had our first cabling lesson about a month and a half ago. Now she's already three-quarters of the way through the most lovely Irish Hiking Scarf you ever did see. Now she's got lists of new cabling projects that she wants to try and yarns that she'd like to use. My heart is very full.

As a little experiment, I showed her the Habu and the light showed up in her eyes again.

I predict good things from this one.

Here's a little Habu for you too:

Sound the trumpets! The Habu has arrived! And after all of my hemming and hawing over it's weight, it's completely fine. I knit up a swatch of it sans silk and it's fabulous all by it's lonesome.

At some point last night (while trying diligently to concentrate on my UFOs), I realized that if I created a stash entirely of Habu, all of my storage space problems would be solved. I could easily fit 50 tiny balls of Habu in just one of the many, many baskets that currently contain my stash.

Of course, if I were to build a stash entirely of Habu I wouldn't be able to pay my rent. Which, I suppose, would only create more of a storage space problem.

Here's a quick flash of the silk that I'll be using to bulk up the Habu Cashmere:



The more I read about Habu cashmere, the more concerned I am about combining it with silk. Apparently, wet blocking it significantly improves it's look and feel, as it eliminates the traces of oil that are intentionally left in the yarn. However, I've never wet blocked silk. And have been told on numerous occasions that you should never wet block silk (in the same tone usually reserved for "you should never touch the third rail"). I considered washing the Habu before knitting, but I'm pretty sure that will only lead to a great big mess.

I firmly believe that these two yarns would look gorgeous together. But I'm not sure if there is a blocking solution. It is a conundrum.

Just considering this new project is leading me astray. I've spent the morning mentally constructing a list of my next projects. They are, in no particular order:

-The silk/Habu shawl
-Basic socks made out of the adorable self stripping Lorna's Laces at Purl
-Christmas stockings for my family
-A cabled blanket for my little brother's new house
-At least five baby hats for all of the bambinos-to-be that my friends are expecting

Sigh. Must be vigilant. I only managed to kick out two rows on Little Mistake last night and twelve on Grace. And I still haven't touched Evil Twin.

Deep breaths have been taken and perspective has been gained. At least a little. It is hard to shake the fact that a national quasi-news organization has set up camp outside of my building and is pressing my co-workers for statements.

My response of course has been to buy more yarn.

The more I considered what I would make with the Habu Cashmere Nep, the more I thought it would simply be too light on it's own. So I hustled right over to my LYS and purchased some lace weight silk that I can knit along with it. I actually am fine with this purchase as it was to solve a knitting problem. Rather than a yarn purchase to solve any old problem.

I thought it might be time to give you a peek at a few more of the Magnificent Seven. (Although now that two have been completed, I suppose they're the No -Less-Magnificent Five.)

Here's Johnny Cash:




I know that using Rowan Felted Tweed on the Cozy pattern is a bit unusual, but I wanted it to be earthy rather than ethereal and a little... meatier.

And here's the elusive Evil Twin:




In the interest of full disclosure, I should confess that I haven't worked on Evil Twin since early April. I don't know what my problem is. I'm a Noro junkie. You normally can't keep me away from the stuff. And I really enjoy entrelac. Maybe Grace is already fulfilling my Noro needs.

Progress report: I've completed about three more inches on the second panel of Grace and managed to get through four rows of Little Mistake before my arms fell off.

And on the book front, I'm re-reading The Toy Collector, by James Gunn. It's one of my favorites. I read it at least once a year and it breaks my heart every time. It's out of print and a little difficult to get your hands on. If you're interested in picking it up, I'd recommend Alibris. Honestly, it's a crime that this book is out of print.

In a fit of anxiety due to some extreme badness at work, I ordered a few skeins of Habu cashmere from Purl. It was not a healthy purchase. It was an impulse purchase. A pricey one. And although the yarn is gorgeous and I'm sure that I would have ordered it eventually, I don't like spending money as a knee-jerk response to any news, good or bad.

So my goal is this, to be able to take a few deep breaths and mentally take a step back from work. Because it's very easy for me to lose perspective when it comes to my job. And I don't want to start mixing yarn and anxiety. I want knitting just to be knitting.

On the knitting front, Grace has grown by about seven inches. Dead End is completely blocked. I was only able to complete a few rows of Little Mistake yesterday before my arms started shaking like a weight lifters. On the reading front, poor Antoine has flown his final mission and disappeared. What a very sad book.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the knitting portion of Dead End is complete. I was knitting while watching Pretty in Pink last night and at some point post-"What about prom, Blaine?" I looked down and noticed that I was on the final stripe. I managed to weave in about one-third of the ends last night. But as I have about sixty remaining ends to weave in, to say that Dead End is finished seems a bit presumptuous.

While I'm riding this good Pretty in Pink karma, I should probably tackle Pink (the scarf, not the performer). But it's still so... pink. Maybe I could run some ribbons through it or felt something onto it to counteract it's mind numbing pinkness. Any suggestions? What have you done to spice up a plain jane k1p1 scarf in a solid color?

Maybe I'll add some polka dot fabric and lacy appliques and kick it Molly Ringwald style.

Wicket is finished! I'm absolutely amazed at how quickly she went once I switched to the non-sticky skein. I'll post a picture once she's blocked. I suppose the next logical project would be Pink, but I just can't bring myself to work on it. It's just so darn... pink. So I've selected Dead End as the next unfinished object of my affection.

After two days of consistent work on Wicket, I was ready to throw in the towel again. The pattern is t-e-d-i-o-u-s. And this is coming from a girl who thinks that knitting a blanket in stockinette is just dandy. Also, the yarn is so intolerably sticky. It's perpetually catching on itself and you practically need to pry it off of the needle after each stitch. Until... I changed to the last skein.

All of the skeins that I used were (obviously) from the same dye lot. Their labels are identical. They should all have the same wool to silk ratio. And yet, this final skein is a dream to knit with. No sticking, no bunching, it glides off the needles with the greatest of ease. This must be my month for inconsistent yarn.

After the Wicket incident, I took another look at Little Mistake:



Now I think that the white skein looks fine.

As promised, here are some pictures of my gray and white version of the Matey hat from Rowan #34. (Previously known as unfinished object #8):





And before you all get wise, I may as well fess up that I have a bit of a thing for striped hats. Which is why I made this one as well:



And this one:


(I also made the sweater... to compliment the hat.)

All together now:



The red hat, baby hat and sweater were all completed just prior to my "no scarf left behind" campaign. Don't worry. I haven't fallen off the wagon. (Although it's tempting. Have you seen the new Summer Knitty?)

Although I spent the bulk of this weekend helping a friend shoot a trailer for the Brattle Theater 2007 Trailer Smackdown, there has been knitting progress. The first panel for Grace is complete and I've started the second. I've also done a bit of triage and determined that it will be easier to complete the projects with no ends to weave in first. So I've turned my attention to Sticky Wicket. I completed a good five inches on her yesterday and plan to dedicate my lunch hour to her today. I am embarrassed to admit that when I discovered poor Wicket, her live stitches were being held by a safety pin. I had hijacked her needles several months prior to work up a baby sweater. In my defense, she was taking up a pair of Lantern Moons. It seemed an awful waste.



All told, the most difficult part about resuming work on Wicket was remembering the pattern. Whenever I start a new project, I make a note of it in one of my two knitting notebooks. (I have one for projects from published patterns and one for patterns that I work up myself.) I note the type of yarn, (colors, dye lot, etc.) pattern and any modifications I make along the way if it's a pre-existing pattern. If it's something I'm making up as I go along, I just use my design notebook to document the process. But after rifling through both notebooks several times, I was forced to admit that Wicket must have slipped through the cracks. (Surprising, considering how sticky she is.) I had not recorded her information anywhere. So it took a little working backwards to remember her pattern. This mild sleuthing actually reignited my interest in Wicket, at least temporarily. I'm hoping that I can finish her off by Friday and present her to my Mom this weekend.

There was also cooking this weekend, of the healthy variety. I made this wonderful Fresh Pea Soup with Mint, courtesy of Ms. Sarah Moultin. I actually made a second batch, but added one clove of garlic to the onions about a minute before they were finished and upped the amount of mint to one and a half tablespoons. If you plan on giving the recipe a whirl, I highly recommend these modifications. I also prepared a large jar of Summer Fruit with Wine and Mint, courtesy of Giada De Laurentis. Little modifier that I am, I used strawberries, blueberries and red grapes instead of the fruits indicated and used Sauternes with a quarter cup of sugar.

I appreciate that this may sound a little strange, but when I started the latest row on Mama's Little Mistake, the yarn didn't feel quite right. I double checked the label to confirm that it was, in fact, the right type of yarn. It was. I compared it to the yarn for the other stripes and it is definitely less... full (for lack of a better word). Slightly thinner, less elastic… just not quite the same. Last night I convinced myself to try a few more rows in it, to get a better sense of whether something was actually wrong or if I was just being weird. I'm still not sure. Has this ever happened to you?

In not-at-all-related news, I think that my "no scarf left behind" campaign is having a positive affect on other aspects of my life. I just re-started a biography of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry that I put down about two years ago, when grad school kicked into high gear. I should explain that, as a rule, I never put down a book without finishing it. It's something compulsive in my nature. I can walk out on movies that I'm not enjoying. I can even walk out on theatre. (As someone involved in the theatre, I acknowledge that this is a very bad thing.) But it is near impossible for me to put down even the most absurd or mundane book once I read the first page. So Saint-Exupéry: A Biography, by Stacy Schiff, (which is neither absurd nor mundane) is kind of my albatross. For the last two years, while scanning through my bookshelf for Miller or Ibsen, I would encounter it and be hit with the full weight what the full-time school/ full-time work combo had done to my life. Very little leisure reading, very little knitting, very little time for my family, friends, etc. And even though I finished with school in December, I still hesitated to pick up the book. It had become too... heavy, too intrinsically linked with a time in my life when I was too exhausted to know that I was exhausted.

So I'm not quite sure why I strolled over to my bookshelf and picked it up so easily, so lightly, the morning after I started this blog. Maybe because it's spring. Maybe because the sun is shinning. Or maybe it's because my unfinished objects are leading the way.

It occurs that I've purchased a fair amount of vacation yarn lately. I've only gotten into the idea of vacation yarn recently. My friends and family would have you believe that this is because I've only become completely compulsive in my fiber purchasing habits recently. Don't believe them. I've been completely compulsive in my yarn purchasing habits for at least three years.

In all seriousness, I like purchasing vacation yarn because each time I work with it (or even just pick it up), I can reflect on the trip in which it was discovered. And there's something about the journey that the yarn went on with me that gives it a little extra character in my book. About two months ago, I visited Ireland with my family. While in Galway, I picked up some beautiful Donnegal tweed that l and plan on knitting it into Christmas gifts for everyone who was on the trip. And although I'm sure that my family would appreciate any handknit gift I give them (precious cherubs that they are), I think that when they learn the origin of the yarn, they'll be touched.

Enough mulling. Here's my wee parade of vacation yarn:

This is the Donnegal wool.


Some Lorna's Laces purchsed somewhere in the wilds of western Pennsylvania. Less vacation yarn and more "oh my god a knitting store, turn the car around!" yarn.


Some hand dyed spinning fiber from Stowe, VT.


And some very special handspun from New York.


Special enough to deserve a close-up. So pretty.

Not knitting related, but has anyone else picked up a copy of Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking? My goodness, it's a beautiful cookbook! More importantly, it's a beautiful cookbook that explains the derivation of and uses for all of the grains, oils and natural sweeteners that I'm always afraid to purchase at Whole Foods. And the recipes are all vegetarian! My boyfriend is vegetarian, which makes me a de facto vegetarian for the most part. And although I support his choice (and was never a big meat eater to begin with), I've had a hard time transitioning into the vegetarian lifestyle. I don't like fake meat. I enjoy tofu, but really only know a few ways to prepare it. I didn't grow up eating a wide variety of grains and legumes, so I hesitate to purchase them. Consequently, we eat a lot of pasta. It's a lazy habit that started while I was writing my thesis and has unfortunately continued well past my graduation. But after reading Ms.Swanson's book, I'm ready to kick the habit. I think that tonight I may try to prepare her Spring Minestrone with Brown Rice. All of those green, spring vegetables look so glorious in the photo. Honestly, I almost ate the page.

And lest I forget, there has been knitting! As seen below, I spent a fair bit of time with Grace last night. But I also knit a few rows of Mama's Little Mistake before bed. This might not sound like much, but keep in mind that each row is 530 stitches and she's getting awfully heavy. I'm afraid that by the time I finish her, I'll have Popeye arms and need to turn sideways just to fit through doors.

Here's she is, after last night's workout:



And a close up of Grace, just because her colors are so purty:

Grace is growing. And I've got proof!



The eggcrate-like texture of the pre-blocked Lizard Ridge reminds me of my playwriting professor, who used to knit topographical maps. She also knit islands, bacteria and on one occasion, a Ouija board.

Last night, after publishing my enthusiastic "no scarf left behind" post, I was abashed to find an almost complete hat at the bottom of my knitting basket. It's a gray and white striped, Rowan wool-cotton number that I started in December and can't even remember why I put it down. It's a hat, for Pete's sake! It should have been done in a day or two! Sufficiently chastened, I finished ole' stripey and will post a picture once she's been blocked.

On the bright side, my WEBS order, containing the Noro needed to complete Grace, arrived today. Before the hat incident, I would have thought that the universe was rewarding my sudden unfinished object accountability. Sigh.

While trying to impose some order upon my stash earlier this week, I was forced to confront the fact that I have seven unfinished knitting projects in my apartment. Seven. I would like to clarify that many of these projects were begun earlier in my knitting career and left to linger while I moved on to more challenging, interesting projects. So while I might not mind seven recent projects that I was slowly but surely making progress on; I am distinctly unnerved by seven… er, mature projects that haven’t been touched in a few years.

I’m not hard pressed to justify why I abandoned each, the silk tweed was too sticky, the cashmere too pink, I was bored with scarves, etc. But when confronted with all of the projects at once, I felt responsible. Like a knitting Daisy Buchanan, recklessly tearing through sweaters and clapotis and casting aside any knit that failed to amuse her. .

In response, I am imposing a “no scarf left behind” policy. No new projects until my seven babies are off the island of misfit knits.

My charges, in no particular order:

Randall “Pink” Floyd – Cashmere, K1P1 ribbed scarf. Soft, yes, but also the color of my stomach lining.

Sticky Wicket – Silk tweed, lace scarf. Lovely color. Nice drape. But touching it is not dissimilar from touching the floor at CBGBs at 2 a.m.

Evil Twin – Noro Silk Garden, scarf variation of Lady Eleanor. I actually really like this one. But, unfortunately, I started her immediately after finishing a lighter colorway version of the exact same scarf in a surge of entrelac enthusiasm. In truth, I prefer her colorway. But to me she will always be “the other”.

Dead End – 1824 Mission Falls Wool, chevron scarf. Again, I like this one. But another scarf? And all of those ends to weave in. Perhaps finishing this could serve a training for…

Mama’s Little Mistake – I had this great idea that I would test my knitting endurance by knitting an adult-size blanket for myself. In stockinette. Kind of like the knitter’s version of running a marathon. A really boring marathon. I carefully selected my colors and painstakingly created stripe pattern that I thought would make Kate Spade jealous. Then I made my big mistake. (Although, after typing out the whole plan, I can’t help but feel ridiculous saying that this step was the mistake.) I ordered thirty skeins of KnitPicks merino without consulting a color card. Yup. So when thirty skeins of circus-colored yarn appeared at my doorstep I decided to use it to knit a baby blanket in stockinette - as punishment.

Johnny Cash – Rowan Felted Tweed, Cozy. Lovely yarn, lovely pattern. I call this one Johnny Cash because it makes me hang my head.

Grace – Noro Kureyon, variation on Lizard Ridge. I’m knitting her in panels and, ahem, making her larger. If you cried “shenanigans!” when you saw the words Lizard Ridge, you were right. Grace is not a finely aged project. She was only hatched two weeks ago. And while I love the yarn and the pattern, I cannot help but look at her and then back at the pile of unfinished objects and think, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

So now that you’ve been properly introduced to my motley crew, wish us luck. We’ll need it.

Cheers!