Flint Knits

Wow, you guys are cluing me in so much fabulous craftiness that I missed while away — keep it up! I’ll post a list of my favorites after the contest is over on Sunday night.

And see if you can sneak in before the end of Nova’s Blogiversary contest — she needs pattern ideas for her 550 yards of Wollmeise Poison Nr 5.

I’ve added another single sock to my pile, along with Tiffany and Zokni — I finally found a use for the Koigu from my Dead Baudelaire:

Child’s First Sock in Shell Pattern
Nancy Bush, Knitting Vintage Socks

I did 6 repeats instead of 7, because I was short on yarn. I used an eye of partridge heel, because I felt like it. The shell pattern is easy to memorize, and perfect for road-knitting.

Less appropriate for road-knitting is Sandi Wiseheart’s Summer Lace Shawlette, which I’m making for a friend to wear in her September wedding. I may have to break down and buy a longer needle to finish this one out.

The yarn is Henry’s Attic undyed silk/merino blend, and is lovely to work with … except I’m a massive klutz, and am thus totally paranoid that I’m going to muck it up with sticky fingers or grape juice or something. I took it on tour, but was too afraid to bring it out of its freezer bag. So I’m plugging away at it now, on account of the upcoming deadline, but am already getting distracted by Fall sweater lust.

And remember my stunted Elizabeth Zimmerman baby jacket? The one where I couldn’t find the second skein of yarn, and which was almost certainly going to get frogged or become some sort of bizarre Baby Bolero?

I finally decided to just buy another skein of the yarn, alternate rows between the two skeins, and hope the lots weren’t too different (yes, I know, this is no minor risk when it comes to hand dyed yarns).

But then I had a minor crisis regarding the colorway — I had lost the ball band. Was it Lipstick Lava? In Vino Veritas? Cool Fire? Ruby Road?

So I sent an email to Dream in Color, and within the hour they sent a response — Veronica had looked at the photos of my half-finished sweater, and informed me that I was without a doubt using Cool Fire.

Oh, and if you haven’t knit with Dream in Color, you should. Their Smooshy sock yarn is heaven to knit with, totally squeezable and beautifully dyed.

My collection of Dream in Color “Smooshy” sock yarn:
Happy Forest, Chinatown Apple, and Blue Lagoon.

Spent the weekend in upstate NY visiting my new itty bitty niece.

Thanks for all the advice and kind words about the baby sweater yarn trauma. I’m way behind on everything, so I’m truly sorry if I didn’t get to responding to your comment. It’s not because I don’t love you.

I’ve ordered another skein of the yarn, and will wait and see if the color matches up well enough. Some of you suggested just changing colors completely, which I would totally do on most sweaters. But the semi-solid yarn and the lace pattern on this one are so lovely together, I don’t want to complicate it with stripes or a color change.

I mean, she deserves the bestest little sweater I can give her, right?

In the meantime, she can grow into her BSJ and her new sun suit.

Pattern: Simplicity 3808 dress; McCalls m5303 pants
Fabric: American Jane Building Blocks by Sandy Klop
Mods? I made my own coordinating bias tape for the legs, instead of using store-bought.

I loved making this! The patterns were both pretty simple, although I have no idea how real sewers get elastic drawn through the wee channels where it belongs. I ended up applying some ghetto technology to a knitting tool:

Yep. It’s a length of elastic taped to a long circular needle. Worked like a charm.

And just one more gratuitous baby shot before I go.

Okay, maybe two.

Yep. I was sure I had a second skein of this lovely Dream in Color yarn, but it’s nowhere to be found. Sadly, I also can’t find the label to this one, so I’m not even sure what colorway it is. “Lipstick Lava” maybe?

Anyway, I’m going to sit on it for a while before I frog, because it’s so damn pretty and squishy.

In lieu of real knitting content (as I curse the yarn gods, as well as my own shortsightedness), please enjoy last night’s dinner:

Throw a few handfuls of arugula in a food processor or blender with garlic, basil, and a bit of hard cheese. Blend it up. Drizzle in some olive oil as you keep processing. Stir in salt and pepper.

Cook some penne in lots of boiling salted water. Throw in some chopped green beans (same size as the noodles) for the last 3 minutes of cooking time. Put it all together with some fresh chopped tomatoes on top.

Those of you in the US, enjoy your day off! I’ll be spending mine at Flint’s 2nd annual Lumberjack Fest. I missed the flapjack breakfast, but am hoping to arrive in time for the live music and feats of strength (log rolling, log splitting, log tossing). It’s really just a bunch of my friends having a cookout with a theme, but it’s tons of fun.

First of all, thanks for all the great comments on the last few posts. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, work and life-wise, so I wasn’t able to respond to everybody. But thanks!

My sister had a giant 9-pound baby on June 22 — I’m an Auntie! Baby Claire is already wearing the 3-month-old sizes, so it’s apparently a good thing I was so negligent with the gift-knitting. She may even have outgrown the Baby Surprise by the time Fall weather arrives.

Ooh, and check out the first of two Monkeys for my Sockapalooza pal.

My pal requested both “crazy colors” and “lacy patterns.” Thanks to everyone who weighed in with pattern suggestions for this lovely yarn — when Cookie herself suggested Monkey, who was I to disagree?

That bit of pooling on the sole was the only thing that made this yarn anything less than heavenly to work with. Do you think my pal will mind it? Would you?

(And, speaking of socks, have you seen Domesticat’s Drunken Bee socks? I love them. So much.)

But Monkey is about the only knitting I’ve gotten done with all the business and craziness and travel and whatnot. Usually, Wilma the Cat, Queen of Placidity, keeps us sane and calm.

My sister is due in less than 2 weeks with our family’s first baby, so we’re all tremendously excited. Our super-talented mom has been registering her excitement by knitting up a disturbing storm of easter-egg-colored synthetic fluff. What to do?

Ah, what better antidote to the frilly pastels of the infantwear mafia than the classic clean lines of Elizabeth Zimmerman? I figured I could count on Adrian to bring some crayon-bright cheeriness to the party, and she didn’t disappoint.

Thank you to Julia, who encouraged me to do the i-cord bind-off and add applied i-cord around the neck. And how could I not, after seeing how beautifully hers turned out?

And much love to Ange for lending advice and putting up with my frantic indecision as I picked up one contrast yarn after another at Imagiknit. And a good thing we settled on one, since I’m not sure 2 skeins of Fat Sock would have quite done the job. And Louet Gems is always a joy. I’d intended to do more stripes, but the variegated was so pleasing (really? variegated? pleasing? who AM I?) that I couldn’t bear to break it up any further.

I used the Addi Lace needles because I was dying to try them out, and they were perfect for picking up stitches and doing all the paired M1 increases. I don’t know nothin’ about dressing no babies, but I’m hoping this will fit the little creature come fall/winter time.