harvest season

Late September is an exquisite time to be back in New England. It's so rich with earthy aromas, deep colors, heartier food and drink, and soft air. It triggers all kinds of memory and nostalgia for me. Yet I'm happy to be discovering new experiences here too -- like the grape harvest.


I went back to Connecticut to visit family and friends last weekend, and one of our adventures was a jaunt out to the splendid Jerram Winery to help with their harvest. It was an overcast day, but really so lovely. The foliage is already beginning to turn, but the air was still warm enough to have bare arms.


It was a wonderfully fun and casual affair. We each grabbed a pair of orange-handled clippers from the bucket on the porch


and walked out to the grapevines, heavy with fruit. We'd set up on either side of a vine, place the cartons below, clip off the grape clusters there, and then move along down the row.


The hours went by quickly, with laughter and conversation and sticky fingers. And before long, the end of the afternoon was upon us. The grapes went into the crusher ...


and we retired to the front porch for a celebratory tasting!


The wine was delicious, and the Jerram family was super warm, welcoming, and just plain fun. Who ever knew that the Connecticut grape harvest could be so amazing?

Industrial Revolution

I had a secret this summer, a secret project that I can exuberantly share with you at long last! It's a circular shawl, designed to look like a fanciful, fantastical, brass gear.


The pattern -- "Industrial Revolution" -- is part of The Sanguine Gryphon's brilliant Steampunk pattern line for Fall 2010. It's knit in her Sappho II yarn in "Gold Crowned Aphrodite," which is a gorgeously soft fingering-weight merino yarn in a deep, brassy color.

My favorite way to wear the shawl is slightly folded, wrapped around my shoulders, and fastened with a vintage kilt pin.



You can also fold it in half and wear it draped over your shoulders ....



or as more of a shrug, with the ends secured in back (I was able to tie it in back, but you could also secure it with a length of ribbon or that kilt pin again) ...



Doesn't it positively glow in the sun?

In terms of construction, it's cast on at the center and increased like a pi-shawl, with a variety of simple lace and bobble stitches. The turreted garter stitch edging is knit around the edge of the shawl at the end (the garter stitch makes it a good introduction to knitted-on edgings, I think).

You can get the pattern, which has both charted and written-out directions, from The Sanguine Gryphon. And even if you're not interested in this particular pattern, you should check out their Steampunk line -- the cool styling and photography definitely makes it worth a visit.

quick cali jaunt

This past weekend, I made a quick jaunt out to California for a fabulous family wedding. The setting was gorgeous: overlooking the Pacific ocean on a high bluff, with a lighthouse in the backdrop and the late afternoon sun setting everything aglow. I brought my own wedding shawl out for the occasion:


And naturally, I had a new knitting project tucked into my purse so that I could get in a few rows while the post-wedding pictures were being taken. Can you guess what it is?


It's mighty hard to believe, but I am FINALLY getting myself around to knitting another Vermont shawl. I tried to go for warm, autumnal colors, since the first one was in cool greens. I chose the color poorly, though, so I am afraid that I will have to knit yet another one after this to really get it right. If this shawl pattern ever gets written and released, it will be a miracle!

back east

The last two weeks disappeared in the blink on an eye. I moved back east, set up my own apartment, started a fellowship, and dove back into the urban, scholarly life.

Then I went back to my beloved Vermont, where I dove back into something decidedly more refreshing.




My energy had been sapped by all this life-transitioning, but I think it's coming back now. I did just cast on for a new shawl, after all.

Cactus Wren

On my last night in Phoenix, Mountain Man and I took a sunset walk in the desert. And out came the alpaca shawl, finished at last. It was beautiful in that dry desert wind!


The yarn - a soft, light-as-air, 3-ply alpaca -- has had a long journey to this place. I bought a full bag of this yarn from a small, cramped shop in Cusco, Peru some 7 years ago. It traveled with me to Massachusetts, Vermont, Arizona, waiting for the moment to be plucked out of my stash and knit up into something momentous.


I'd had an idea brewing for a shawl with an unusual deep-crescent, almost winglike shape ... started in the center with just a few stitches, increased initially in six sections (8 make a full circle) that are split on either side of a center line, and with a couple more sections added towards the end to make a very dramatic swoop.



The first test that I did with this increase pattern was the ill-fated blue shawlette from last April. I couldn't figure out the edging for that one, but I kept on with the idea. And as I was playing around with motifs and natural representations, I kept coming back to the winged shaping.

I thought of the humble cactus wren, sometimes called the "voice of the desert," and the beautiful nests that it builds within tangles of cholla cacti. That image led me to an adaptation of the intricate Mexican lace edging.


I couldn't be happier with how it came out in the end. And I do feel like I have a bit of the desert wrapped around me when I wear it.

llama beauty

What knitter could fail to appreciate the beauty of a llama at sunset?

Llama at sunset, Lake Titicaca

This magnificent photo was taken by a friend of mine, Rebecca Meyer, who is an immensely talented San Francisco photographer. It was taken on a South American sojourn. I fell in love with it the minute I saw it.

If you like it too, would you take a second and vote for it here, in the National Geographic Traveler photo competition? We knitters should do all we can to encourage the appreciation of fiber animals :)

unravel/reknit

We made it back to Phoenix about a week ago, and as soon as it got to the weekend we were outta there again! Mountain Man and I headed north to Isolation Canyon to escape the heat. It was a splendid weekend of climbing and carousing, with a bit of knitting thrown in.


On the drive northwards I started another Sagebrush shrug, this time in deep, saturated blues.


You may recognize this yarn as the Cash Iroha that I'd knit up into a cursed shawlette last spring. I'm unraveling it now and re-knitting it into a shrug, and I'm happy to get this yarn off my back (figuratively) and onto my back (literally).

knitting and the iphone

The other afternoon, I spent a lovely half hour sitting under a tree with my cat, my knitting, and my new iphone. I turned my attention to the phone at one point, and when I turned back around, this is what I saw ...


Apparently kitty wanted to make a statement about my knitting, or perhaps about the attention I was paying to my knitting but not to her. I snapped a photo with my iphone and gingerly removed my knitting from her talons.

And just what was it that I was knitting? A case for my iphone, of course!


Knit up with the leftover silk/wool yarn from my Sagebrush Shrug. Very simple patternless pouch. I see many more of these in my future ...

Wheeler Peak sheep adventure

Wheeler Peak (13,161 ft/4011 m) is the highest mountain in New Mexico. Mountain Man and I picked a gloriously beautiful and blustery day yesterday to hike it. I don't have a good photo of the peak itself, but I do have a photo of myself knitting there!


The most exciting part of our 16-mile hike was my encounter with a bighorn sheep. Last year, we saw nearly a dozen sheep and even found tufts of their fiber in a high mountain meadow. This year, I just saw this one sweet young sheep ...


But it let me get incredibly close. Here's Mountain Man's view of me walking up to the sheep. It was one of those animal encounters that leaves you breathless and in love with the natural world.


As for Isis, it was the fat, furry, squeaking marmots that made her day.

Sagebrush Shrug

The Sagebrush pattern is up!


Pattern is available as a free downloadable pdf on its Ravelry page.


I'll post more about it in the next couple days ... but I'm running out the door and just wanted to let you know that the pattern is ready!

Taos magic

Back to Taos ... magical land of rainbows

and alpacas

and knitting and rock climbing

and heavenliness all around.

I was working intensively on another secret shawl project for a while (revealed soon!) so I still haven't finished the sagebrush shrug. But I picked it up again on yesterday's climbing trip to Tres Piedras, and I expect to finish it up this very evening!

steamed and seamed

I blocked out the sagebrush lace and seamed it for an inch or two on either side, and this is the state of things now:


Looks a lot different, doesn't it? Blocking is truly magic for lace.

I could stop now if I wanted to keep the scalloped edging, but I think a couple inches of ribbing around the edges will make it more wearable for me (longer and less granny-like). I'm going back to Taos next week, so it'll be the perfect place to celebrate its finishing.

progress

I'm almost done knitting the main part of my sagebrush shrug. It's in a stitch pattern that I half made up, combining the increase/decrease patterns of Crest of the Wave with the staggered, half-drop repeats of Fir Cone.


It looks so strange and misshapen now that it's hard to imagine what it will become. But the lace pattern will bloom once it's blocked. Then the rectangle will be folded into a cylinder and seamed for an inch or so at either end to make armholes. The last step will be to add ribbing the openings.


I should have just enough yarn (I hope!) to get it where I want it. It's always kind of an adventure that way.

muslin & lace

I'm back in Phoenix now, back in the land of staggering heat and sun.

All I want is to retreat to the interior of the house, pull the shades, and wear something so light and loose that it barely touches my skin. So, I pulled out my sewing machine and made a mid-thigh muslin muumuu.


It's totally unflattering but just the thing to wear when it's 114 degrees out there in the desert.

If I'd had a finer fabric, I might have used it. But I had yards and yards of this muslin and didn't feel like venturing out. Anyways, I like it. It's crisp, clean, old-fashioned.


The construction was simple, although it did take some time to figure out the sizing. The body is just two trapezoids - a slimmer one for my back and a wider one to be gathered for the front - with a wide band and crocheted cotton trim for the straps. I do especially like the straps.


In other cool white cotton crafting news .... I finished a project that I'd been secretly working on for some months. It's an organic cotton blanket, circular, with a dramatic lace edging.


I'm writing up the pattern and will release it, oh, I don't know, in the next couple of months. It's definitely a summery pattern, although it could be a wintry pattern in a fine white wool.

swatching for sagebrush

When I talk about being inspired by sagebrush, this is exactly the blue-gray-green palette and undulating texture that I want to capture:


I've been thinking a lot about how to turn this into a knit fabric. Remember, this is the yarn I'm starting with: a tussah silk and wool blend from La Lana in subtle hues of sky blue and celadon green. (The colors change dramatically with the light, so it's rather hard to photograph.)


You might be surprised that for a "sagebrush" inspired project, I haven't picked something more intensely green. Truth is, there's rather little green in the Taos sagebrush, at least to my eye. It's often more of a soft, milky blue-gray, depending on the light and the particular plant. Put a few sprigs of sagebrush next to the true greens of cedar and yarrow, and you can really see that ...


(And admittedly, I would've picked something with a little less blue and a little more gray, but this was the best yarn color in the shop that I found at the time.)

So now I've been swatching, swatching, swatching. Crest O' The Wave, Ostrich Plumes, Fir Cone, and several variations. Trying to find something that speaks of coarse, woody shrubs that at a distance blend into a soft, rippling sea.


After two feet of swatching, I think I've finally figured it out ...

Taos fibers

I can't stand having my hands idle. After prematurely running out of yarn, I skipped off to the yarn shop, thrilled to have an excuse to treat myself to La Lana's luscious naturally-dyed Taos yarns. I bought a tussah silk and wool blend yarn (Tussah Phat Silk Fine) to make a sagebrush-inspired shrug:


And a few skeins of their wool-mohair DK yarn (Dos Mujeres), along with a skein of Lupine-dyed silk-wool, to make an artistic colorwork hat and mittens set for the winter. (Have I mentioned that I'm moving back to Boston for a year, starting in September? I'm not excited about it, but it does give a reason to knit mittens.)


I haven't cast on for anything yet -- still in the dreaming, sketching, and planning stages -- but I had one more fiber-related activity to fit in last night. My friend and I sat out in the evening, watching the thunder clouds over Taos Mountain, drinking wine and carding alpaca fiber.


It's no wonder that whenever I come to Taos, I never want to leave!