Bye bye Summer...

Alas, the days are slightly cooler and the evenings come just a bit sooner. Tomorrow is the first day of school around here, so that means Summer is over. I managed to snap some photos of Fuchsias at my local Plant Nursery, as these are a much better match for the pattern in my sweater. I was thinking of Tulips, but since the sweater is worked top-down, the image is reversed so the flowers hang downwards, just like these Fuchsia flowers. Finally I had  photos to share.

Meanwhile, my Summer Swatch Sampler Sweater is done. I got the buttons on and took some photos. It is as yet unblocked, which I will save for another day. I think Andrea of BadCat Designs(http://www.badcatdesigns.blogspot.com/ ), who designed the lace which I used to make the sweater, did an amazing job, don't you? Each pattern was such fun to knit. I managed to get all 9 patterns on the sweater, but unfortunately, ran out of yarn before I could do the edging, so that will have to appear somewhere else.

Now I must start to think about wintery sweater knitting...but I still am enjoying the final bits of summer...

Buckyball Day

As today is the 25th anniversary of the Buckyball

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullerene

I thought it would be fun to share my month-long obsession with making beaded beads, using wire or fishing line to string crystals in various configurations. You can make dodecahedra, icosahedra, octohedra, etc very nicely using Czech crystals or Swarovsky crystals, and weaving them into Platonic or Archimedean solids!

Here are some of the ones I've made this month:

I first learned how to make these from this website: http://mydailybead.blogspot.com/

and then have been playing with this idea for a while. It is very addicting!

I also finished a vest:

Harvest Time

Finally, the sweet smell of pineapple in the greenhouse lets me know the fruit is ready. That and the fact that the stem has drooped under the weight of the fruit! Fun fact: apparently Victorian greenhouses were specifically introduced to allow folks to grow pineapples! Who knew? 150 years later, I'm growing some, too.

Meanwhile, as I cannot grow tulips outside anymore because of the voracious deer, I've designed a sweater with tulips in mind.I wanted this to be more of a knit/purl design rather than openwork lace, so I closed all of the yarnovers by knitting into the back loop. I really like how this came out.

Dear Deer Deer

Last Thursday, the cats and I were mesmerized by this baby deer who hung out in our back yard for several hours.

It was accompanied by its mother, a considerably larger creature!

They were amazing to watch.

Their ears swiveled with the slightest sound, and they stood still as statues. The cats were very intent on watching them, and so was I. Eventually they ran off , and I could finish my sweater:

Now I have to block, obtain a zipper, sew it in and all will be well!

Summer Swatch

St Margaret is coming along nicely. I decided to try the braid cable on the bottom, and figured I'd have enough yarn with my last skein....drats! FOILED AGAIN!

I started the edging with an I cord cast on of 17 sts, then began working braid cable, attaching it by SSSK on every RS row. I was moving along pretty well, but ran out of yarn 8 inches before the end! Luckily Ravelry has a stash feature, and generous folks who want to sell or trade their orphan balls sometimes list them in the database. So, I got really lucky, and found someone kind enough to trade a ball of yarn ( same dyelot! Joy!) for a copy of my Ingrid Cardigan pattern....so now I wait until it arrives...

Meanwhile, what to do? I finished Cosmos Cardigan.
I decided to cast on for The Summer Swatch Me Sampler, hosted, created and devised by my friend Andrea of Bad Cat Designs, who blogs at http://www.badcatdesigns.blogspot.com/ . This is an amazing knit- along, with a sampler stole as the focus of a 9 week extravaganza of lace. There is a Yahoo group for it here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SummerSwatchMe/

So I collected all of the laceweight and sock yarn I had and petted it and thought about what I wanted to knit. But, knowing me, I would never really wear a stole, nor a shawl. I'm currently focussing on sweatery things, as you know....So, what if I knit this as a sideways cardigan, and added sleeves along the way? I found 2 lovely skeins of Great Adirondack laceweight Egyptian cotton that I bought last summer. 1000 yards in total.That might be enough for something lacey...So I cast on provisionally as directed in the project , thinking 5 horizontal repeats on a size 5 needle might give me enough width for something useful. Three vertical repeats ( 25 rows) into the lovely pattern, however, I had about 14 inches in width and 2 1/2 inches in depth.Even with a deep border, this wouldn't be enough to make the 24 inches I'd need for a sideways cardigan.So, hmmm...it would be enough for the back of a top-down, set in sleeve sweater, however. I pondered this idea, not wanting to cut the yarn, as each skein was 500 yards and the knots would be difficult to hide in laceweight. And if it didn't work out, I would be sad to have cut the yarn...
So, here goes craziness! I put in a lifeline, and picked up 12 sts along the 2 garter stitch edge, which brought me back to the provisional edge. I picked up 25 live sts along the provisional edge, being careful to capture the stitches, and leaving the provisional yarn in place in case I need to rip the whole thing back to the lifeline.

Now I worked 25 rows, following the pattern, but adding a stitch at the outside edge, and increasing every 4 rows at the neck edge, so when I was done with the 25 rows, I had 12 edge sts already picked up.This left a bit of a lacey edge, which in retrospect I probably shouldn't have done, as I could have just picked those up, but no matter. I placed an orange marker, and knit across the 24 edge sts which formed the top of the sleeve, around to the back, worked across the back, and then picked up 12 along the other side. Then worked 25 sts across the provisional cast on, and so forth. Voila! Now I had 2 fronts and a back, and sts picked up along the top of the armholes. Not exactly symmetrical, but one row extra isn't going to matter much in this busy yarn and lace pattern. Now, I proceeded to add one stitch on each side of sleeves every RS row, and one every 4 rows to each front, keeping the stitch pattern when possible. Here are some views  to row 48:

I am having too much fun! On a hot summer day, playing with cotton lace is wonderful. Thanks, Andrea!

Wild Life

We have had a lot of visitors to the back yard lately! One morning we awoke to the sound of crows cawing, and looked out to see this beautiful red fox in the yard:

And of course, it is deer delivery season

This was a very wobbly speckled baby, and it was adorable to watch it try to follow the mother, until you think of the devastation of the gardens and the rampant Lyme disease in our area...Sigh. What is one to do? Knit!

Here is progress being made on St Margaret, which will be ready for publication on Ravelry by the end of the month! I can hardly wait to wear this cardigan especially since I thought it needed pockets. I used an I-cord cast-on across the held 30 sts, and it looks like a continuation of the cable, so I am pleased with this result.As I only have one skein of yarn in the right dyelot left after this one, I will use the non-matching dyelot for the inside of the pockets so I can get as much length as I need.I'm still mulling over whether to put a braid cable around the bottom or finish it with ribbing. I love the top down process, where I can adapt the knitting to my wishes! 

Cosmos Cardigan part 2

So, after a few days of knitting, and 3 balls of yarn, I have reached the magic row 51, and divided for sleeves. This involves knitting across the front, putting sleeve stitches on a separate holder ( in this case, a cable from my Denise set), casting on 10 sts under the arms, knitting across the back, putting other sleeve on holder, casting on 10 sts under the other arm, and knitting across the other front. I'm pleased with how this is coming along, and I'm glad I chose this type of construction, as the gauge changed as I knit. Now I'm at about 6 rows per inch and 4.5 stitches per inch.Knitting in aggregate sometimes differs from swatch gauge, and luckily, I can try this on to check as I go. Here is the back view:

I'm liking this a lot. I think I will put a single vertical buttonhole in the front, so I can use a large decorative single button for a simple closure. And the 4-stitch purl column will allow some tapering in the back for the waist shaping further down.

Now the questions are: Short, long or medium length sleeves? And, cropped, long, shaped, peplum or what kind of body? I have a lot of yarn, and so I have a chance to play around with the design, according to what this sweater wants to become. I think I'll taper down to the waistline, and see how it goes from there.

Sometimes I like to knit about 4 inches on the body and then do sleeves, so I can get a better sense of how the sweater will hang, so that is probably what I will do.