steamed coasters

Last time I was at A Verb for Keeping Warm, I picked up a remnant of yarn.  They sell these little bags of remnants so you can take a taste of them.  I went for a rustic silk yarn, Shibui Knits "Heichi," in a beautiful, tweedy persimmon.

What was I to do with this taste of yarn?  Well, what I really needed in my new cottage was a set of coasters.   I wanted something clean and minimalistic, and this is what I improvised. I cast on 17 stitches and knit 24 rows of stockinette.  Can't remember the needle size -- maybe a 7 or 8?  Enough to make a square roughly 4.5" wide and tall.  And then I knit another one, and another one.

They rolled up, of course. Stockinette does that.  I tamed them with a quick steam blocking, following the sensible guidance of Annie Modesitt.  I only have a tiny travel iron, not a steamer like she has, but it worked just fine.  I steamed one side, gave it a stretch, steamed the other side, gave it a stretch, and steamed the front side again. It went from lumpy and stubborn to satisfyingly flat and limp.

The textural effects of the steam blocking are even more apparent when you put an unblocked coaster next to a blocked one.  I can't believe I've been spending all this time wet blocking things over the last decade when I could've been giving things a quick steam instead.

I've been using the coasters every day.  They're cheery and serviceable, and they make this cottage feel more "mine."

Little things, big difference!

sunset in my new stomping grounds

Life keeps moving on.  This is where I live now.  A land of hills and bay views and glorious Pacific sunsets. 

Over the past month and a half, I moved from Boston back home to Arizona and then onto California to start a post-doc.  It's been a whirlwind transition.  Good thing I have the beauty here to sustain me. 

Above shows the sunset one evening from Cesar Chavez Park, looking over the San Francisco Bay to the Golden Gate bridge.  I'd gone on a run, exploring my new neighborhood, and happened on the sunset.   Below is the sunset from another evening, when Mountain Man was visiting and took me up to Tilden Park for a walk. The soft glow of the sunset over the bay was breathtaking. 

And here's the citylights on our drive back down into Berkeley.  

Another upshot of this move is that it brings me close to a yarn store that for years, literally years, I've been wanting to visit. A Verb for Keeping Warm.  I've admired their natural dyeing and read their blog for ages.  What a treat to finally visit and have this be my local yarn store.

I picked up a remnant of yarn in rustic textures and earthy orange tones.  New little project to come soon ...

bonnet-making

Last time I showed you a snippet of red ribbing. This time I thought it'd be fun to show you how it turned into a baby bonnet.  It's a simple and clever pattern -- Pixie Hat -- that I knit up in superwash worsted wool.  You start by knitting a rectangle that has vertical ribs transitioning into horizontal ribs.

(Here's the behind-the-scenes staging, by the way. It was on a short circular needle that wanted to curl in. I was holding it down with whatever was sitting on the patio table, which happened to be hand-clippers and a ramekin dish of cat kibbles.  Cracked me up.)

Once you have the rectangle done, you're supposed to bind off, fold it in half, and sew it up the back. Some people have instead done a three-needle bind-off. I did one better, I think, by NOT binding off and instead grafting the back seam together.   I put the stitches on two dpns and folded the rectangle in half:

Here's what the bottom tips of the dpns look like at this point:

You start grafting those lines of stitches:

Here's what it looks like if you were to spread the back flat. You can see how the grafting blends in to make it look like continuous ribbing:

Once it's done, you have a very stretchy and hilariously pointy bonnet.  The pattern ends there -- without any ties.  Some folks have added a garter band that buttons under the chin.  I decided to do an attached I-cord band along the bottom.  It looks so streamlined and ties easily (though perhaps a stretch garter band would be more functional?).

Since it's hard to see it when it's flat, I grabbed the only live "model" I had hanging around.  She was too wiggly and had inconveniently pointy ears. Did not work out so well.

But here you can see it on a very, very large ball of bulky yarn. Turned out adorable!

primary color

I'm back in Phoenix now.  After a dark, damp, and stressful fall, it's time to recharge on sunshine and vivid color -- all from the comfort of my backyard. 

blue sky

yellow grapefruit

 

red knitting

I can't tell you how much I needed this recharge.  That last semester in Cambridge was triumphant at the end -- I'm now Dr. Evergreenknits, thank you very much -- but it drained every last drop of energy out of me.  Happy to be home and resting up before the next big move. 

autumn in nature and knitting

This fall moved so fast that I've hardly had a chance to catch my breath.  I still don't have time for the full catch-up, but here's a whirlwind tour of colors and textures ...

Late September.  Damp chill. Raindrops on juniper.  Wet ivy leaves around a weathered wooden fence.  Cabled baby vest in blue-green wool.

October.  Crisp air. Fall colors. Maple leaves. Baby sweater being worked in bright red wool.

November.  Bleak sky. Bare branches.  Lace shawl in heathered gray alpaca.

moonbeams in the park

I was back in Hartford, my hometown, this weekend.   It really feels like fall in Connecticut now.  Brisk temperatures. A dampness to the air. An aroma of fallen leaves and earthiness.  The last of the flowers shine so brightly at this time of year, don't they?

What I'm saying is that it was perfect shawl weather!  And I happened to have two shawls that got their first outing during a walk in the park with my mom.

They're two versions of the Moonbeams Shawl (You see, I've been keeping my hands busy even though I haven't had time to blog about it)

The one on the right is the shawl I started in Taos over the summer.  It's in "Silky Alpaca Lace" -- the same as the silver moonbeams shawl I knit in the spring.  I'd run out of yarn with the first one, but since I suspected I'd had less than a full skein to begin with, I wanted to knit a second one (with a few minor improvements) and see if I could get it comfortably within one skein. Success!

The one on the left is knit in DK-weight mulberry silk.  I wanted to experiment with a heavier yarn, and also using yo's for the increases instead of m1's.

To be honest, as I was knitting it I thought the lines of eyelets looked hokey.  I also feared that they detracted from the moon-quality of the original shawl.  But blocking worked miracles!  I love how it turned out in the end.

That silk yarn has been sitting sadly in my stash for the last four years, ever since I bought it with the idea of knitting a last minute wedding shawl for my sister-in-law. It's such a pleasure to see it used up.

Now I have one last version of the shawl to work up -- this time in a gorgeous gray alpaca -- before I'll be ready to polish and release the pattern.  I loved the silver laceweight version so much that I wanted to do a silver DK weight one, too.  (As beautiful as the ivory shawls are, they are a wee bit wedding-ish for daily wear.)

I'll leave you with a last blast of color.  Anyone know what kind of tree this is?

Lotus Shawl Pattern

Tra-la, the pattern for the Lotus Shawl is now available on Ravelry!

The Lotus Shawl is a triangular shawl with a lush and dramatic lotus flower lace edging.

The pattern has two versions with different stitches for the shawl body.  "Pods"  has openwork inspired by the texture of lotus pods. "Waves" has ripples of eyelets, evoking the waves on a lotus pond.

The pattern has line-by-line AND charted instructions for both versions.   I'm very pleased with the clean layout and clear directions ....

The shawl knits up in 450 yards of a heavy laceweight or fingering weight yarn.  For the pink version ("Waves") I used Henry's Attic Carrera, which is a silk/wool blend with a gorgeous drape and sheen. It comes in an undyed ivory color; I naturally dyed it a light lavender-pink.

For the white version ("Pods") I used a laceweight woolen spun cormo wool from Elsa Wool Co.  It's lofty, sproingy, and delicious.

The pdf pattern is now available for purchase on Ravelry!