sat-upon

Over the last few days, I did all the tedious finishing details on Mountain Man's situpon.

I decided I didn't like the original cast-on edge ...


So I carefully unpicked the long-tail cast-on, picked up the live stitches, and bound off again, with some k2togs along the way to tighten up the edge. Much cleaner and tidier.


Next, I cut a square of wood grain oilcloth and went around the edges with my small hole-punch. You can sew right through oilcloth with a sharp needle, but holes are necessary for either blanket-stitching with a tapestry needle or crocheting.


Finally, I crocheted the backing to the situpon using contrasting dark brown yarn (actually, the same yarn for Mountain Man's sweater). I did it in a way that looks just like blanket stitch but was much easier (since with regular sewing, I would have needed to be drawing a long length of yarn through each hole, and with crocheting it's just a tiny loop to pull through).


And now it's a sat-upon! We took both sit-upons out climbing yesterday and were very happy indeed on the rough rocks.


Isis feels a bit left out, though, can't you tell?

golden cables

We were down in Cochise Stronghold, camping and climbing for the weekend, when I finished the knitting for Mountain Man's situpon. I stuck it on a barbed wire fence. It was magnificent in the morning sun, with the golden-green grass lighting up behind it!


The original situpon had an 8-stitch ribbed cable, which makes for a great fabric but is interminably slow and boring! For this one I did cables that were 6-stitches wide but twisted only every 8 rows. Still boring, but marginally faster without the ribbing. And I like the big, lush cables that result.


Here's what the camping scene looks like, by the way. This was just as I was finishing .... knitting by the morning campfire ... drinking coffee and keeping the strong, slanting morning sun out of my eyes.


And a few snapshots from the rest of the weekend: climbing up "Ewephoria" ....


Cairns, lovely little cairns, marking the trails ...


And a refreshing dip in a shady rock pool for Isis ....

back again

And now it's back to the desert ...

back to climbing

back to Isis

heh heh

Isis knows what I'm knitting .... she keeps trying to steal mine!

knitting about Cambridge

Quick jaunt back to Cambridge for a few days. Brought along a skein of aran weight wool, naturally dyed with African Sumac leaves from my backyard to a sunny, canary yellow. As is my customary manner, I pulled it out whenever possible.

On the plane, casting on in the intense morning light

On the T, near midnight

Harvard Yard, lunchtime break

Subway again, heading home

Can you guess what it is? I'll give you a hint: it's a densely cabled square ...

weekend repeat

Another weekend of climbing ....


Means more progress yet on the baby blanket ....


It's so big now that I broke the 16" circular needle that it was all scrunched up on before! Now on a 24", to give you a sense of scale.

It's getting too big to travel with, too cumbersome to haul around. So, it's being put away for a few days while I'm on the road again now, but when I get back there will just be a few rows to finish up! And then the big reveal :)

there and back again

This baby blanket has been keeping my hands busy, keeping me steady, through my back and forth journeying.

September 10.
Pine, AZ.

September 19.
Cambridge, MA

September 23.
Pine, AZ.

Arizona to Massachusetts, rocks to grass.

wedding shawls

Went to a wedding in cool, drizzly Chicago last weekend. It was a college buddy's wedding, and Amy was there, too. You know her. She's the one who taught me to knit. We've held chickens together. I gave her the glorious, pink Vermont shawl. And guess what? She wore it to the wedding!


We were so pleased that the drinks matched the shawl ...


And she was such a good sport about taking copious knitting blog photos.


But enough is enough!!

Seattle

I spent several days in Seattle for a conference. What a beautiful city! I saw all the sights ....

The Space Needle

Pike's Place Market

City Lights

Maritime Sunsets

Mount St. Helen's (on my flight home)

It was a grand trip. Intellectual stimulation. Catching up with old friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in a decade. Falling under the spell of Seattle in the summer.

There was no knitting, as you might gather. But my knitting life did profoundly color the trip, as I stayed with a friend who used to be in my knitting group in Phoenix. Actually, she moved to Seattle just before I moved to Phoenix, so we never overlapped. But she's a fantastic virtual member of the group on Ravelry, and she still visits from time to time, and she generously opened her place to me even though we hardly knew each other in real life. Isn't the knitting community awesome?

old, new, traded, blue

Last summer, after I finished the pattern for the Sagebrush Shrug, I set to knitting a second one. It was last seen during a climbing trip last August. But after finishing the body, I ran out of the yarn, and I just paused on the whole enterprise.


For a while I thought, heck, I've got gobs of yarn hanging around, why don't I knit the ribbing in something else? And so the unfinished shrug and a spare ball of black yarn were toted to my Cambridge apartment (evidence: here) where they sat untouched for an entire year. Truth be told, I didn't want to do it that way. So, I finally got myself together enough to just go on Ravelry and trade with another knitter for the right yarn.


In no time at all, I've finished the ribbing around the body opening. Looking good. Now I just have to pick up and knit the ribbing around the arms.


I'm really a terrible procrastinator, but it always does feel so delicious when I finally face the music and get things done. In that vein, there's always mowing the lawn ...

Cliff Dweller Chalk Bag

I don't know how many other knitter-climbers there are in the world ... but this pattern's for you! It's a densely cabled chalk bag, inspired by the sinuously layered sandstone spires of Sedona.


It has a rigid rim, constructed by sewing in a circle of tubing underneath a turned hem.


And a fleece lining, which closes snugly with a hidden internal drawstring. You can see it pinned in here, in preparation for the hand-sewing (basic, I promise!). Makes it a great bag for carrying anything small and precious.


The hemp-blend yarn is pretty tough-wearing, especially when knit up at such a tight and sturdy gauge, though I still probably wouldn't take it into any crazy off-width granite action! :)


The pattern has both charted and written knitting directions, with a detailed tutorial (lots of photos!) to walk you through the sewing and construction.

For more details or to buy the pattern, check out its Ravelry page: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/cliff-dweller-chalk-bag

collection of colors

Colors collected on a weekend trip to Northern Arizona ...

Red rocks of Sedona, reflected in Oak Creek

Cathedral Rocks at sunset, with shadow of a tree

Golden sunset over Oak Creek

The Grand Canyon.

Such a breathtaking landscape, in color and texture. Happy to be here.

white lotus shawl

Delicious yarn, copious knitting time, and a desire to finish a pattern (inspired largely by all your lovely comments!) meant that I was able to knit, knit like the wind, and finish the second lotus shawl.


Do you like the lace stitch that I used for the body of the shawl? I wanted to find patterns that would evoke different elements of a lotus pond. For the first one, I picked a subtle wave pattern. For this one, I was trying to create a sense of lotus pods. I played around with different eyelet arrangements until I found one that popped the way I wanted.


I tried out a different fiber and texture, too. This one is knit in the heavenly woolen-spun laceweight cormo from the Elsa Wool Company, which I picked up at the Taos Wool Festival a couple of years ago.


As much as I love the drape and luster of the silk-wool yarn, I think that this bouncy, lightweight wool shows off the lotus flowers even better. It has a lot of energy to it.


Yay!