It’s been a long week. I celebrated my birthday Wednesday night with some very good friends and lots of tequila (mixed with plenty of harmless fruity slush), came home and made myself brownies while listening to The Clash because I realized that I couldn’t let a birthday go by without blowing out a candle and making a wish.
I finished these socks early in the week and promptly started on another pair. I have plans to knit more complicated things but it’s just not happening right now. Don’t know why.
I finished a book this week too. Only 45 or so to go.
A few weeks ago when I was in the US my mother and I went out to the yarn store together with some specific projects in mind. When we couldn’t find yarn we liked in the weights we needed, ended up buying yarn to make the projects for each other.
I started a High Line Shawl for her in this crazy colored Malabrigo.
But I didn’t quite have enough yarn to knit the last few rows, so I unraveled the whole thing into a ball the size of my head (not the easiest thing to travel back home with) and started up a new design last night.
Oddly enough, my mother ran out of yarn for her project too, but I’ve been told it’s now finished.
Someday I’ll get a crocheted shawl out of this yarn. Someday…
The sun was out briefly this morning but not nearly enough for my liking. I realized a bit too late that I should have been taking picture of some knit things while I had the light for it.
Instead I’ll show you some things I finished a while ago. I the first one was finished so long ago that I can’t really believe I haven’t talked about it yet.
I made this Lacy Baktus out of some Noro Kureyon that I got for Christmas in 2005. I made the skeins into legwarmers, which I wore a few times. Then I ripped them out and knit them into a Meret in the fall of 2008. There are no pictures of that project because it was hideous. I found the Lacy Baktus pattern just before leaving Canada for the holidays this year and I thought it would be a perfect use for those wayward skeins of Noro and the perfect travel knitting since it was pretty straightforward.
This was the best thing I could have done for this yarn. I wore this so much while I was in the states. It was perfect for the very chilly day I spent walking around NYC (sometimes with the scarf over my mouth), Boston and everywhere in between. I love wide scarves, but I didn’t have the yardage for something wide and long. The pointed ends solve that awkward and annoying problem of having bulky rectangles of wool hanging over your chest which is something I really hate about most scarves. It’s also why I prefer triangular shawls to rectangular scarves. I liked this so much that I cast on for another immediately in some Pigeonroof handspun I brought with me for just that purpose.
I knew I had even less yardage for this one, so I started the two points at the same time and grafted them together at the center just before running out of yarn. It’s a smaller scarf and not one that I can wrap around my mouth but it does keep me warm and looks pretty.
Because this one is smaller it works better with a pin to keep it closed. It seems every time I go back to NJ with a new piece of knitwear the perfect pin is waiting in my aunt’s box of thrifted treasures. Looks like she found the perfect one for me again.
I’m slowly putting up the photos of my time in Boston. While I was there I bought so much yarn and I also finished up my Citron out of Sundara FSM. I still don’t have any photos of me wearing it, but here’s a good idea of what the colorway looks like.
I blocked it the other day. I’m as behind on blocking as I am on photo taking but I’m thinking that there’s nothing wrong with a bit of a break between the taking of a photo and its debut into the world, or between the knitting of something and its final blocking and wearing.
At any rate, I’m not in any rush.
I’ve been back in Montreal for a few days now and I’ve mostly been catching up on laundry, watching YouTube videos of Elvis Costello, Jesse Malin, Billy Bragg & Graham Parker (music is both my very new and very old religion) and pursuing my career as a housewife and mischief maker.
I need to catch up on talking about many of the knits I’ve finished since the holidays began. These hats were gifts for my cousins. I asked them in advance which colors they liked and ended up choosing shades and styles that complimented their personalities perfectly, which is pretty funny because the end result differed so much from the original ideas I had for the hats.
This is Foliage, knit in some leftover Malabrigo from my Star Crossed Slouchy Beret.
And this is Mayrose, made with Cherry Tree Hill Charmed, which is alpaca and shimmery bits. Lovely stuff to work with.
These photos are some of the first ones taken with my new camera. I’m much better with the camera now that I’ve had a few weeks and several cities to try it out in. A new camera was the one big gift I wanted this year and was the last one I opened (on the 29th!) It came in a box which I thought was much to small for a camera, so imagine my surprise when I realized what it was. Best surprise ever.
I intended to make a lot of new year posts and lists for the blog as I intend to do every year but it’s looking more and more like it’s not going to happen. I’m traveling and away from my own computer and the things that make home home and as a result I’m terribly unfocused at the moment. I was feeling really down about this for the past few days but then I realized that I don’t have to feel that way, so I’ve decided to just deal with the traveling and the unfocused thinking and get back to blogging, etc. when I’m home and feeling normal again.
I’ll be in Boston next week for the first time ever and I plan on looking for some yarn and enjoying time spent with one of my favorite people.
I can tell you that I’m contemplating this and this right now. Anyone want to weigh in on which color I should get?
Here’s the last batch of Flickr faves from 2009. I plan on keeping the tradition for 2010.
My plans to make a decade in review post have fallen by the wayside since I’ve been so busy this week. Things should be a lot calmer next week and I may end up doing some sort of look back, but I promise nothing.
Being in the US makes me feel very unbalanced, probably since I’m so far from my routine at home. I have some new knits to show (gifts, mostly) in the coming days, but for now, Happy 2010. I hope you take some time to think about all the positive and negative things that happened in your life this year and what you’d like the next to bring. I’m keeping it in mind all day.
Somehow I knew as soon as I said I had a hard time starting my Holiday knits I’d start them, and I was right. I now have two hats done (and blocking) and two scarves in progress. I knit many of this year’s gifts from my stash and it’s prompted an idea. I think I’ll be proclaiming 2010 the year of the gift knit. I have so much yarn and so many knitted objects. I’d like to share the warmth a bit by knitting up my stash (especially the odds and ends) and giving it away.
We’re expecting family here tonight and I expect they’ll keep me busy for a few days so don’t know when I’ll be posting again. Merry Holidays, Happy Everything. Hope this time of year is quiet and beautiful for you and that it yields lots of time for reflecting on the past and contemplating the future.
I’m having a hard time focusing myself enough to make Christmas gifts. I’m kind of out of touch with how much (or how little) time I have. In fact I can’t even fathom it, so I haven’t even started some of the holiday knitting I wanted to yet. Instead I’ve been thinking about how to spend my post-Holiday holiday in NYC and what my resolutions will be. I guess these are good things to think about, but there’s a huge disconnect between then and now. So I’ve started on a knitting project that seems to be for someone I wasn’t even planning on exchanging gifts with. I guess it just turned out that way.
There seems to be a lot of ‘00 flashback stuff going on lately. I guess it makes sense since we’re so big on defining decades. I seem to have inadvertently done my own little flashback on the reading front by picking up Wicked again, which I read for the first time back in 2001.
- homemade cookies involving molasses and various spices
- fancy holiday parties with puffy skirts and fur stoles
- snow!
- mulled wine
- handmade gift shopping (and making)
- less and less light outside
- perfume that smells like plums, caramel and oranges (but not all at the same time)
