Flint Knits

Congratulations to Ebony! She won yarn!

Ebony, you just have to choose whether you want the green Knittery sock yarn, or the stripey Vesper. Send me an email with your preference and your address, and the yarn will be headed your way toot sweet.

Thanks to everybody who entered my little blogthday contest! Your answers were funny and kind and helpful.

And the results are this:

1. I’m SO gonna cut that sweater.
2. re: lifelines, Laziness trumps fear. For the moment. Until I have a major catastrophe and am scarred enough to pull out the dental floss.
3. You suggested a number of really useful sources for learning Intarsia, as I knew you would.
4. I’m going to make two small, lacy neckwarmers from my grandmother’s angora yarn (one for each of my sisters).

And, since I’m giving yarn away, I had to replace it twice over. Not my intention, but that seems to be how things work, stashwise.

Some friends and I are leaving tomorrow morning on a road trip to Minnesota, for a wedding and some serious reunion-ing. And since complicated charts don’t make for good car knitting, I’m setting aside the Peacock shawl and the autumn aran socks (now past the heel on sock #1), and bringing a new project.

Joy, by Kim Hargreaves, from Rowan Vintage Knits. My first fingering-weight sweater, knit on US3 needles. I’ve knit about 2.5 more inches on the back since this photo was taken.

The yarn is Rowanspun 4 ply, and it kicks ass.** I’d heard about breakage issues with the 4 ply weight, but so far have had none. One great thing about Rowanspun in general (besides the fact that all the weights of it transform into a supersoft, lightweight, cohesive, highly snuggleable fabric upon washing), is that it spit-splices like a dream. (Classier knitters may call this a “felted join,” and suggest using tap water, or fresh morning dew collected from faerie wings. I use actual spit, and see no reason to sugar coat that fact.)

My very ambitious goal for the weekend is to finish knitting the back of Joy. I’m a slow knitter, but it’s a 12-hour drive each way, and I’m only responsible for 1/3 of the driving. And I intend to selflessly volunteer for all of the nighttime driving, which will both please my friends and maximize my daylight carknitting hours.

**of course this means that it’s been discontinued.

It was a busy first week of teaching, but now I’m free until Monday. Woo hoo!

I’m hoping to get some serious work done on the chunky sweater/jacket thingamabob. I’m using Rowanspun Chunky in the color Fern. Looks more like moss to me.

And the winner, randomly selected by my favorite random number generator, Scraps-N-Hat, is …

BRAINYLADY/Alison, whose blog I only recently (and happily) discovered, and who also showed up on the list of most awesomest summer projects (her adorable first quilt was recommended by Jodi).

Alison is the lucky winner of this supersoft skein of handspun merino from Green Apple Yarn, to which photographs cannot do justice.

Alison, send me your address and I’ll ship it off to you toot sweet.

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions and links and heartfelt “welcome home”s. I’m still sifting through all the links, but will post a best-of list very soon, with my Top Ten Favorite Most Awesomest Summer Creations.

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I finally finished and blocked the Summer Lace Shawlette for my friend to wear (or maybe just keep on hand in case of chill — no pressure, A) for her Sept 15 wedding. (That’s right, Sept 15. I am SO ahead of schedule!)

Although the pattern was fairly straightforward, Interweave (as far as I can tell) hasn’t provided any photographs of the front. Although I could guess from the pattern, I didn’t know for sure until the very end what it would look like.

It never ceases to thrill me what blocking can do for lace, as a rumply crumply ball of fiber and empty space is transformed into a fancy finished piece.

The Henry’s Attic — a brand that some of your favorite indie dyers probably use as a base — was lovely to knit with. Super soft, with a slight halo and only a tiny bit of silk smell. (Please ignore the lumpy sleeves of my dress mucking up the lines in the above photo. The drape really is perfect.)

I realize it’s probably supertacky to model a shawl you made for someone else’s wedding, but the hanger shots were not doing the thing justice, and I couldn’t wait to show it off.

I do promise to share photos from the actual wedding, where it will be worn properly by the bride with a 40s-style dress of ivory silk, instead of my lumpy brown cotton and (speaking of supertacky) mint green asphalt siding.

I’m back! Well, sort of — I’m still adjusting to life off-the-road. Mostly, I’m catching up on work and on all the teensy mundane household and personal things you forget that you even do on a regular basis until you don’t do them for 6 weeks. You know, like washing your clothes, or feeding the cat — whoops!**

And I finally had to bite the bullet and hit “mark all as read” on the 1441 posts languishing in my Bloglines. So, in the interest of catching me up, please take a moment to comment to this post with a link to the most awesomest crafty creation you’ve seen in the blogging world since July 1. I’ll choose someone randomly from the comments to win a teensy knitterly trinket.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention a deadline for the contest! I’ll draw a winner from all the comments left before Sunday, August 26, at 11:59 Eastern time.

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One of several exciting packages I came home to after my weeks away was from Ann-Marie, my generous, talented Sockapalooza pal.

Not only did she knit some of the most perfect, precise socks I’ve ever seen, but she did it with her own hand dyed merino/tencel yarn! (Yes, it’s beautiful and soft and I want to touch it all the time.)

The yarn — her “grass” colorway — is dyed in springy shades of aqua and lemony yellow. And I especially love how the leaf pattern extends down the heel flaps.

For pattern details, check out Ann-Marie’s post about these socks.

And, as if the hand-dyed, hand-knit socks weren’t enough, she included a cheery pink/grey skein of her own wool/nylon sock yarn for me to play with. Yes, the colors are that vivid and gorgeous in real life. Thanks Ann-Marie!

**This is a joke. Wilma the Cat is actually safe and sound with the lover’s parents, where she’s been getting all the snuggles she deserves, and eating fancy canned food like it’s her job, for the last 6 weeks.