Bringing New York "Down to Date"

To prepare for our week in New York, I've started reading H. Allen Smith's Rhubarb and E.B. White's Here is New York. Rhubarb is the story of a cat who inherits a baseball team. The book jacket claims the author "has batted out a double-header of a novel-every inning loaded with laughs." 

Here is New York was originally written for Holiday magazine in the Summer of 1948. The essay was published again as a book the following year, and in the forward White apologizes for "certain observations to be no longer true of the city, owing to the passage of time and the swing of the pendulum." He ends with, "I feel that it is the reader's, not the author's, duty to bring New York down to date; and I trust it will prove less a duty than a pleasure." 

I'm bringing my copy along as a travel journal so I can bring New York down to date in the margins and back pages and inside covers. I am looking forward to this.

The moebius cowl is my current obsession. I cast on 200 stitches using Cat Bordhi's cast on and two skeins of aran weight Malabrigo, then seed stitch until the yarn runs out. Sometimes when I am wearing it I like to take it off so that I can feel for a moment how chilly I would be without it.

Avery cowl

This is the Avery Cowl by Melissa Labarre from Quince. I used two skeins of Osprey in Fjord and came in just a row short. The yarn blocks really beautifully. I have two more skeins in Malbec to do another, but it's that honey color they use in the photo that is calling me!

The runcible bin is sitting under my table mostly empty. There are a few books from Shakespeare & Co., some muslin scraps from a skirt template, and leftover bits of elastic from a costume. I need to start feeding it again!

BT Men's Redford

I've been knitting away at Julie Hoover's "Redford" from the BT Men's collection. I tried on the sample at the trunk show Verb hosted, and I love how simple it is. I changed the shape of the side panels, making them slightly hour-glassed. I also dropped the neckline a tiny bit and finished it with a crochet stitch. I picked up stitches around the armhole and I'm knitting the sleeves on double points. The yarn is Geilsk Tweed in a lovely wine color. I don't usually knit things in pieces, but this has been a nice project, easy to cart around. I would like to make another. 

I've been thinking about combining knitted pieces with cloth after seeing this Bonnie Cashin piece. Maybe silk or linen knitted sleeves and yoke and then add a linen front and back? Redford would be interesting with side panels in wool or sewn with wool and add knitted panels and sleeves. I like this fiber Frankensteining, but I want to keep it all the same color.

Boardwalk top in Habu silk

This is Heidi Kirrmaier's Boardwalk top from Brooklyn Tweed's Wool People vol. 3. I knit it with  Habu's Tsumugi Silk held double. I began the neck shaping 1.5 inches lower for a deeper neckline. I think I will make another of these in wool, maybe one in linen too!

This seed stitch scarf is my mindless knitting, four skeins of Malabrigo on #8 needles. I am trying to work out the ingredients to a perfect scarf for myself, and I am beginning to think it may be a cowl. I like a very wide scarf that gets some structure from being folded in half. I like a stitch that looks good on both sides. I may embroider this with a map, like the walk to school, annotated with our snack stops.

A Handknit for Ft. Ross

My son asked me to knit this for his class overnight at Ft. Ross coming up next week. I started this at the beginning of the playoffs and here we are at the end of October getting ready to watch the Cardinals take on the Red Sox in Game 6 of the World Series. Oh this is not World Series knitting here!

The pattern is Dr. G's Memory Vest by Kirsten Kapur. I substituted some seed stitch for the side panels and sized it down a bit to fit my little guy. The problem is, he's not so little and now I have to rip back and size down a little less! The wool is Quince Yarn's Lark in Gingerbread.

Fernfrost

There is 15 inches left on my Evelyn Ackerman rug and I just can't lift it. I am resting with Anne Hanson's Fernfrost and some Fibre Company Meadow. I did not even realize it was lace weight when I bought it. I just loved the color, Larkspur, and the feel of wool and silk and linen. 

More Any Way You Slice It

For those interested, Denyse Schmidt's pattern is in her book Denyse Schmidt Quilts. I used her suggested fabric color palette and chose worsted weight yarn from Harrisville Designs. I blew up her template to 10" and used it for my blocks. They are knit point to point just like the ones from the Community Afghan in Handknit Holidays. I threw in short rows where needed. The Harrisville yarn blocks beautifully which is wonderful since my blocks are all wonky and different sizes.

Any Way You Slice It

This is my next blanket project - a knitted version of Denyse Schmidt's Any Way You Slice It quilt. I am obsessed with this pattern. I am putting together a cafe curtain in this design using muslin and linen in creams and whites. I am thinking of doing one out of paper to cover the transom in the kitchen now that the morning sun is so bright at breakfast.

Counting Pane

The Counting Pane by Wooly Thoughts just needs two borders and it's done but it has already gotten a lot of use. We've had a lot of discussions about the patterns that are visible when integers are represented by color. We used the colors of the Montessori bead chains so red, the color of ones is dominant and contrasts with green, the color of twos.

Counting Pane

Old picnic tins are great for organizing large blanket projects like our current "Counting Pane" from Wooly Thoughts. Inside we have yarn and three sets of needles. On the lid we keep scissors and darning needles and a picture of the blanket. We are using the same colors as the Montessori bead chains.

Birch mitten

I made this second Birch mitten more like the original in the picture. I love the woven single strand of white all up the cuff to mimick the trunks of birch trees. Next time I'm going to continue the weaving to the end of the cuff. I am eager to block these and embroider the bark with black yarn.

Devon socks

I have finished one Devon sock from Cookie A's Sock Innovation. I'm using Socrates which is an alpaca sock yarn. I'm looking for a great sock yarn - sproingy, wool with a little nylon, nice solids or semi-solids, a lot of yardage. I am thinking again of dyeing some of my own using those fancy food coloring gels.

Dragon mittens

Here's my first dragon mitten - a request. It's a pattern by Barbara Gregory here on Ravelry. My sock/mitten stragegy is to knit one and then switch to another project and knit one of those and then switch back. So far it's working.

True Brit Knits

Belinda over at True Brit Knits recently put her pattern for these Charleston cushions up for sale. The green and pink version in the back there has me hooked. The originals are knit in sock yarn, but I am thinking of using a heavier weight and using some chenille for the pink bits.

Totoro mittens

I made the Totoro mittens in good old Cascade 220 for a quick worsted weight mitten needed for a snow trip. After reading Anna Zilboorg's introduction to Magnificent Mittens I became addicted to the idea of lining mittens in angora.
"Since you're putting so much labor and love into them anyway, and they'll be so beautiful, you might as well use the best lining material. This is either angora or alpaca or even kid mohair...All these are worked up loosely, so the lining doesn't take forever to do...With time the lining felts into the mitten a bit making them virtually waterproof and windproof."
Something happens inside your head when you puick up a wool mitten and then slip your hand inside and feel angora on the inside. I do not know the scientific term but it feels like ahhhhh.

Mitten binge

Here is the latest in my mitten binge. I read about the hand dyed Riihivilla yarns and mitten kits a few weeks ago on Knitters Review. These remind me of pressed wild flowers. I think I'm ready to create a Berkeley mitten. I'm going to throw all these very different mitten traditions into the runcible bin with some Berkeley history books and postcards and see what bubbles to the surface!

Beaded knitted capelet

This photo of a Brunello Cucinelli beaded knitted capelet from today's Financial Times has me thinking I need to knit something similar. I have been working through my stash, my pottery, my books, my clothes - a long drawn out clean out. I will root through the remains this weekend.

Fish sweaters

Mr. Lear saw this little exhibit in the Southwest Airline terminal at LAX. The theme was non-functional clothing. In addition to the bog large fish, there were little minnows that had sweaters too.

Bookshelf

This Fall I am thin-skinned. I strive to be 'even-tempered, prudent and resolute' and so I am reading Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf with Tolkien's essays. The introduction alone is wonderful. I am also paging through my old favorites in the housekeeping and parenting category, but I am haunted by images of swimming in chainmail and magic swords that are powerless against monsters, and Grendel's patchwork pouch of dragonskin. Perhaps you have some interesting leftover skeins of metallic this and that that could be swatched up into all the stitch patterns resembling scales? Then you could wear your pouch 'intracately strung and hung at the ready' for marauding farmers' markets!