Something New

I've been a busy bee on the knitting lately. It's too hot to do much other than sit in an air-conditioned room and knit. So that's been great for my knitting progress... and really bad for all the other random tasks that are piling up around me. But look:

This shot is a few days old... it's actually put together now, and a certain angel wove in all the ends for me after I seamed it. I just have one last finishing detail to tend to -- sewing down all the picot edges. Next time you see Sea Breeze, she'll be done!

So, I'm turning my mind to what comes next. I have a little project I'm working on designing, which is a new challenge for me. It alternates between being fun and being a task.... so I cast on last night for a new sock to keep me entertained when I don't feel like task-knitting:

That's Child's French Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks. The yarn is scrumptious--Claudia's Handpainted Yarn in "Butter Pecan" that Maeve and Erin picked up for me at MDSW this year. It's a perfect buttery color -- and it's so soft! And you can tell how much I'm loving it by the fact that I'm more than halfway done on the leg after just one night of knitting:

That's all for now, and for this week. I'm heading to the balmy plains of Wichita tomorrow to visit with my grandparents. Grandpa's been under the weather lately, so feel free to send any happy healing thoughts our way. I expect to eat my weight in tomatoes and cucumbers from their garden. Yum.

Have a good week!

Ooopsy

Seems like I made a big oversight for yesterday's entry. That first sleeve done took TWO AND A HALF skeins of yarn, not one and a half. Yikes! That means that I'll use up almost all of my remaining yarn on the second sleeve. Good thing I set aside an extra ball while at the happy place last week. I'll pick it up tonight so this sweater will get a neckband after all!

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Last night I spent some more quality time with the KitchenAid mixer.... if you show up at late night, you'll see what became of it. The occasion? A certain fantastic friend's MILESTONE 30th BIRTHDAY!!! Happy birthday Holly!

Yay Sleeve Fairy

So, it looks like the yarn fairy is on my team after all. I frantically knit on the sleeve all weekend -- finished it at the Nationals game on Saturday. Paint the town Red- woot!

Final verdict: It takes just under 2 skeins to do a Sea Breeze sleeve:

So the 5 skeins I had left for the two sleeves should be enough for the neckband and both sleeves. Might cut it kinda close on the seaming, but we'll see. The next challenge will be to sew up the picot edging. I think I'll actually have to pull out THREAD for that -- I fear the yarn will make it too bulky. A trip to the fabric store in my future!

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Like other bloggers, I am so ready for fall. Aside from how empty Washington is in August, that month is a wasteland to me. It's all just one big obstacle to September, month of many great things: fall, football, my birthday!

It cracks me up that stores are already running fall sales. [Who wants to try on sweaters in July??] But I'm thankful--my patience and restraint last winter meant that I got to score these fabulous cowgirl boots on sale this week! Now c'mon, Mother Nature, give me cool weather to wear them!

And I love fall knitting. I'm reminded with Sea Breeze how fulfilling it is to knit pieces of a sweater and watch it come together. Stay tuned for what's next....

Movies = Knitting

Well wouldja look at that -- it's a finished Sea Breeze front!

The knitting for this went MUCH faster than anticipated. It's an easy pattern, and I loved watching the stitches form on the lacy bits. Progress shows so much more quickly on size 6 needles than on socks! It helped, too, that JT wanted to watch a couple of really long movies over the past couple of weeks. We watched X-Men 1 and 2--I'd never seen them, and he wanted me to before seeing the third. And over the weekend, watched Pirates of the Caribbean, so we can go see the second one soon. [Love that movie! So delightful.]

I cast on for sleeve one this morning. I admit to feeling a bit anxious about the sleeves here -- I think they'll knit up fairly quickly, since they're only 3/4-length sleeves, but I'm really worried that I'm going to run out of yarn. The front and the back each took up nearly 5 balls, and I only have about 5.5 balls left to do both sleeves and the neckband. Send in the yarn fairy, okay?

One more item to note -- I've said it before, but I really can't believe the difference in the Natural Silk Aran blocked and unblocked. It becomes so much drapier, and wearable. Right now, the sweater front feels like a straitjacket. So I fished out the back, which has been blocked, and reminded myself how gorgeous and light it feels. [I'll bring both to the happy place tomorrow so irregulars can see the difference in person -- it's remarkable.]

Small Projects

With the basement turned inside out (but dry and non-stinky, thankfully), I've only been able to really wrap my mind around small projects lately. With all the chaos around me, I find myself turning more to little manageable nuggets -- it's easy to see progress quickly, with fairly quick gratification.

For instance, these socks are finished and I never even blogged about starting them! THAT'S gratification, mi amigas.

I'm calling these the Hurry Up and Wait socks since I knit more than 70% of them while waiting on something. Waiting in line places to change my name.... DMV, Social Security, on hold with the credit card people.... Waiting for contractors to show up and do work at the house.... Thankfully, the pattern is cute and the yarn is scrumptious. I highly recommend scrumptious yarn to counteract annoying long waits.

Hurry Up and Wait Socks
Pattern: Little Shell Socks
Yarn: Ellen's Half Pint Farm, bought at MDSW06 by Maeve and Erin (great job shoppers!!) There was no colorway on the label.
Needle: Addi Turbo 1s, done on 2 circs
Gauge: 8 stitches = 1"
Modifications: I added a pattern repeat on the ankle (63 sts total). Then I added a ton of stitches over the gusset to make sure that it would slide over my ankle, and decreased back down to a 60-stitch foot.
Comments: LOVE the yarn (wish the Ellen's Half Pint Farm site was a little more user-friendly -- they would have a hard time keeping it in stock -- it's fantastic!). I've had this pattern in my mind for a while -- it works really well with a variegated yarn and helps break up the yarn that would have spiraled more noticeably.

Close-up of the ankle detail:

And the heel:

[Thanks to Mother Nature for giving me a full day of sun to take these photographs!]

What's next on the needles? Well, I finally made a path to the yarn closet, so have picked up Sea Breeze again. (I had no idea where the right size needles were, so I had to stop by the happy place on Sunday to get a spare set.) And while I was looking for the needles, I came across a design I had concocted but stopped midway through, so I've picked that up again too. (If it works, I'll share the results here!)

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There have been little projects of another variety, too:

This is hands-down my favorite wedding gift to date. I LOVE IT! It sat in the box for a few weeks while I figured out where it would live, and then had to clean out the cabinet to give it a home. But as soon as it came out of the box, I put it to work:

First up: Banana bread with chocolate chips (and no nuts). I melded recipes from How to Cook Everything and Cook's Illustrated, and took a deep breath because I was also adjusting some of the liquid ingredients -- always a risky bet in baking. But it turned out delicious! The fellow knit-n-noshers on Friday were lucky enough to get some while it was still warm.

Then, yesterday, I wanted to really see what this baby could do:

Strawberry Angel Food Cake from The New Basics Cookbook (their recipe calls for raspberries; I swapped out strawberries). It's an amazing thing to see 10 egg whites go from liquid to soft peaks in 60 seconds. Unbelievable! (And it tastes fantastic, too--especially with fresh strawberries on top!)

There's definitely more baking and mixing in general in my future. Maybe this will be the fall I finally learn how to make bread?