why do my fingers ache for the cold?

Here's some actual knitting for the knitting blog.  When I stumbled upon a skein of the Plucky Knitter's much-beloved and now-discontinued Well Read colorway, I couldn't help but finally knit something for someone who has been pestering me for handknit goods since, oh, approximately our fourth date.   Knitting for him does, of course, break all of my rules about who I'm willing to knit for: he isn't another knitter, a small child or an elderly relative.  (Truth be told, he did briefly learn to knit so that he could gift me the world's most ridiculous scarf and then declare that he was now a knitter so he fit within the categories of people I was willing to knit for.  But I had a hard time thinking of him as a knitter when I couldn't get him to start a second project.)

However, he has made up for it by showing a degree of appreciation that I never expect from people who don't fall into those categories, and, until we hit a spell of 80-degree weather, was pretty much wearing this hat every day.  Even if it made him look a little bit crazy, it did mean that I got to look at this pretty yarn every day, so I didn't argue.  And when he brought the hat back out for our trip to Madison last week, I realized that I had missed seeing it a little bit in our unseasonably warm weather.  (I know, I know, I could still live on the East Coast if I wanted to have snow showers over Easter.)

It's the One Bourbon pattern from Thea Coleman, knit with six pattern repeats rather than seven, and ravelry details are here.  Here's hoping that you all have non-hat-wearing weather soon!

and if I haver, well...

A bit of a crafting hijack here, which will almost certainly continue in future posts.  I was the lucky recipient of a rigid heddle loom for Christmas (the Glimakra 19" Emilia) and I've been working on getting my selvedges to be decent, so that's taken up a good chunk of my crafting time.

I had planned to weave a long strip and then sew the ends together to make a cowl.  Unfortunately, I'm also still working on figuring out how to estimate the final size of a weaving project correctly and my first piece definitely came out too short.  Since I still had plenty of the warp and weft yarns left, and since I had wanted to see what it would look like if I reversed them, I wove a second piece and sewed them to each other to form the cowl.

Here you can see the original piece: with a warp of some random yarn that I think is probably Madelinetosh DK or light worsted and a weft of Plucky Knitter MCN Sport in Jewel of the Nile.  (The colorway has certainly been discontinued and I think the yarn has, too, but, oh, are they lovely!) 

Here's the piece with warp and weft reversed.

Here's how I finished it: sewed two seams, pressed them flat, sewed them down with two lines of reinforcement stitching, and chopped off the fringe.  It was mildly nerve wracking to cut, but probably not as bad as steeking.  You can see the warp yarns more clearly in the photo with the seam.

I'm looking forward to making a dent in the yarn stash with a few more weaving projects.  I've got one more that is ready to be blogged, and a project that is halfway through heddle-threading right now.  And then I have big dreams of creating a woven version of this knit vest, since it is fundamentally just three rectangles.  (Shhhh... if I'm successful at that, it will be a gift, but for someone who I'm confident will never read this blog.)  And maybe a table runner or two? 

Blog reversal

Hello! Since we acquiring scads of baby stuff by the week for our 6 month old adorable babe, Riya, we are working on keeping up by getting cleaning out and rid of stuff. I found my old tub of yarn I haven't touched in years in  a closet! There is some quite lovely yarn that was making me feel knitting nostalgic. But I have zero recollection what projects the yarn was intended for.

So I wonder... if I post a picture of a skein of yarn or two (in some cases), can you all give me ideas what to knit with it? Simple patterns required since I have yet to sleep more than 3 hours since June, and most nights it's more like a max or 1 or 2 at a time!

hope it don't fall into the sea

 It's been much too long since I've visited these parts.  I've still been knitting, but somehow lost blogging inspiration.  To ease myself back in, I'm going to try to write a few short blogs about knit-goods finished a long time ago.

First up: a Rocky Coast Cardigan that I finished in February 2013.  This was one of the projects that came across the country with me, rather than in the Pod, but I didn't really start working on it until late fall 2012.  It was a pretty fast knit, partially because I decided to ignore the places where I messed up the cabling and to just keep knitting.

The yarn is Plucky Knitter Rustic in Gray Goose, and I'm quite fond of the color.  It's held up well, too, despite frequent wear when it's cold enough.  (The cardigan had its first debut on a trip to Montreal when it was, for sure, cold enough.)

More details here on Ravelry.

I've missed you all, and the blog!  Hope to see some of you around here in 2015.

Knitting Frenzy

I knit these two shawls for a silent auction for Choralis, the auditioned chorus I sing with. They both sold, though of course not for what I thought they were worth! I bought this yarn (Brooklyn Tweed's Shelter, in Fossil) on one of my June expeditions looking for judges for the fair. I used the gift certificates my office mates gave me on my retirement. The pattern (Currant Cardigan) was from the cover of Interweave's Spring 2013 issue. My current project is a sweater dress from the Vogue Holiday 2012 issue, of Madelientosh Pashmina in a purple called Flashdance. We'll see about that!

Three button cardigan

Finished one of my four open projects - a three button cardigan from yarn I bought at Frivolous Fibers during a weekend at St. Michaael's, Maryland, where John ran a 1/2 marathon in May. I had bought yarn there when we visited ten years ago or so. I altered the Drops pattern by adding a garter ridge at bottom, shortening the sleeves, and removing the flare at the cuffs. I like the way it subtly fitted with decreases and increases, but if I had it to do over I might pick the next size up, even though it knit true to guage it is very close fitted. The color is more deep teal than it appears in the pictures. See on Ravelry at http://www.ravelry.com/projects/mmchurchman/97-18-tailored-cardigan (still trying to figure out how to insert the Ravelry link - sorry)

2012 finally on Ravelry

After much procrastinating, I finally posted four 2012 projects on Ravelry this morning http://www.ravelry.com/projects/mmchurchman - Original Design, Cozy Green Cables, Necktie Christmas, and Pashmina Sweater. Some of those might really have been 2011. Not that being mother-of-the-bride took any of my time or emotional energy in recent months. It was great to see you all at the wedding. I also posted one of my four projects in progress - Three Button Cardigan. I really thought I would spend more time knitting after I retired, but it didn't work out that way. For the first six months I hardly knit at all. But now I'm going gangbusters. It doesn't help that I agreed to be superintendant of the Art Needlework and Wearing Apparel department of the competitive exhibits at the Arlington County Fair, which has required me to visit yarn and fabric and needlepoint stores in search of leads for qualified judges. The only judge last year was in advanced stages of Alzheimers - except for brief flashes of lucidity when she could spot the microscopic flaws in only my entries. I love handpainted yarn. Have you all discovered Freia? I haven't tried the ombre colorways yet, but they look like fun for self striping.