bella begun

This is the beginning of the sleeve on Bella, which you can see here, but I'll be doing a cardigan version like this (slide about 2/3 of the way down the page, to May 4, 2004 entry). And the sleeves will be full length, not 3/4 as in the pattern. And I'm knitting it in the round, not flat as in the pattern. And I'll leave off the tie things around the neck and steek it and also probably add a button band and picot trim everywhere to keep the edges from rolling.

That lacy stuff down at the bottom was a little fiddly because I had to actually pay attention to the pattern for a little while to get the spacing right, but now I'm up to the easy peasy part of the sleeve, which means I can work on it during the snippets of knitting time that I'm getting lately. Yeah!

gonna wash that sweater right out of my hair

The workload of the past couple of weeks has left me with tired arms and tingly fingers come evening, so there has been no knitting whatsoever. Still, I was watching South Pacific with Leah last night (hey! leisure time at home! I remember that!) and had to do something, so out came this old sweater.

It's the Bella cardigan that I blogged about in 2006, which has just never been right -- too drapey, too short, neck too wide, sleeve shape uncomfortable. The color is more accurate in the photo below.

Now it looks like this and by the end of today, the remaining knit portion will be returned to its former status as a ball of yarn. I had a new project in mind for this yarn, but now I don't think it's right for that one either. Hm. The knitting is clearly in a holding pattern, but that's okay because absolutely nothing else is. This too shall pass.

wouldn't that be uncomfortable?!

See this sweet fuzzyface? Her name is Kodi. She's a Great Pyrenees and collie cross who came to us from a rescue place. It was a nice rescue place, but certainly not the kind of home you'd expect for a princess. Oh, yes, Kodi fancies herself a princess, for sure. Evidence of this would include the way she daintily plucks one morsel of food out of her bowl at a time and carries it to the middle of the living room to eat it, and then returns to pluck another morsel to eat in the living room, and so on. This would be after she waits patiently for us to add nibblins from our own meal to her regular food and then sighs pathetically when we don't. And how when it's raining outside and we open the door to let her out before bed, she stands in the doorway and looks up at us with those big beautiful brown eyes and bats her white eyelashes at us as if to say, "You want me to pee out there? But it's raining!" And then she trots back inside for the night.

Well, apparently the princess also thinks herself well suited for a doggy bed. Nope, no fleece or flannel for this special girl. She chose a lace doggy bed. A burgundy silk/wool handknit lace doggy bed...

One might think that the pins around Bella's circumference would dissuade a princess from choosing this bed of nails during the night, but no. The allure of silk and wool belonging to the humans was just too much for her to resist. And after a restful night, a nice doggy wake-up stretch was just too much for the lace to handle. See those criss-crossy pins? That's where I'll be repairing the lace later today.

Did I mention that this was a WHITE furball princess sleeping on BURGUNDY lace? So, yeah, there will also be lint brushing and rewashing and reblocking soon.

:::sigh::: Good thing she's so darn sweet. 

if you insist

I said I wouldn't bore you with inch by inch progress pics of the Bella cardigan as I work it up, but Lori asked nicely, so I'll play along. :-) The sleeves are finished and I have a few inches to go on the back before armhole shaping. Here are the pieces, on a boulder near the stream at Cotton Hollow, where we spent yesterday evening picnicking, swimming, and visiting with three families of friends.
Here's a close-up of the pattern. I messed with the color and lighting on these photos, but no matter what I do, it looks purple/eggplant-ish on my monitor. It is, in fact, burgundy. A deep, rich, silk-wool blend in burgundy. And I like it a lot.
I just started the back on Friday and got a bunch done while camping this weekend, so it's coming along really fast now. Again I had to concentrate for that lacy 7" at the bottom, but from here on up it's an easy knit. I decided not to do the body in the round because I read that some knits need the extra structure that seams provide and this seemed like it might be one of those, with the softness of the silky wool and the looseness of the lacy pattern.

split personality

A couple of people have asked what projects Leah's working on lately. Mostly she's been sewing, some by hand and some by machine. She's been dabbling in a bunch of little things that have given her good practice and plenty of room to explore, but hasn't really focused on anything in particular. Last week, though, she scored her first stitch-for-pay ($2!) job and she is oh so proud. Here she is with the pair of shorts she hemmed for our neighbor. Coincidentally, she's wearing the dress that was made as a gift for her by the owner of this darling, tiny coffee and ice cream shop, who we met in Alaska last summer. This dress is actually what spurred on the Goob's interest in sewing.

The title of this blog entry refers to the weekend's split personality, partially spent in VT and partially in CT. We did this shucking and jiving to minimize exposure to water from the sky and maximize exposure to water in natural pools. There was knitting (and fishing) on the shore of Lake Champlain while Jesse was diving...
and more knitting on (and fishing from) the boulders at Cotton Hollow while the kids sat in waterfalls, climbed rocks with friends, and explored our favorite natural playground. Fresh trout for campfire dinner...mmm. I'm about 15" up the back of Bella and Leah is now nuts about knitting mittens. She's more than halfway done with her first mitten and can't wait to make more. Jesse is researching Bushnell's Turtle because he remains fascinated with methods of staying underwater. And no, he tells me, scuba lessons are not nearly as enticing as coming up with his own ways. 

snippets

Can you find the knitter? No, not me. The other knitter who was at the Rock Cats baseball game last week.
It was from this distance that her daughter spotted us across stands before the game started! Luckily, the other friends we were meeting also found us easily and much fun was had by all.

Leah ended up with a cold at the end of the week, so we bagged our camping plans. Much of the weekend was spent happily homebound, weeding the flower garden, playing games, and doing much canning. Peaches, peach jam, salsa, tomato sauce, peach chutney...yum!

Had a great dinner with friends last night, one of whom I was meeting in real life for the first time, but I've known of her for years and we greeted each other with a big hug and conversation flowed easily for hours, so she's a friend, as far as I'm concerned. On the way home, I saw a fiery glow and lots of smoke. As I approached my street, I knew the fire wasn't at my house, but definitely close. The firemen were staging at the intersection just past our house and I could hear their radio communication. It ends up that the VFW hall ~5 buildings away from us was thoroughly destroyed. This is what's left of the building as of this morning.


Bella's sleeves are done and I'm ready to cast on for the body, but I need to do a little checking to see if I can safely steek the wool/silk yarn I'm using. In the meantime, I started a pair of mittens from Mostly Mittens, Traditional Knitting Patterns from Russia's Komi People. Seems like a good fit, since I received an email from Gram this weekend, midway through her cruise on the Baltic Sea, including stops in Sweden (where she celebrated her 87th birthday!), Latvia, Russia, Estonia, and other fascinating places where people might wear exactly this style of woolens.Jesse and Scott are down with the cough and crud now, so we'll gladly spend a few more days laying low and enjoying home. Thank goodness for a lifestyle where we can ride the waves like this and all the options are good ones.

coming up for air

Yup, it's been a little toasty 'round here. We handled this by staying in air conditioning or water. Jesse and Leah generally came up only long enough to get a fresh breath of air and then were back in again via another route. Here you see their holding-hands-dock-jumping entrance to our favorite swimming hole.

I know the pic is dark. That's because it was evening, our favorite time to be there. We often have the place to ourselves and stay until it's too dark to see. Other bodies of water this week have included the ocean, pool at a friend's house, a state park pond, and a most excellent time in a local stream with climbable waterfalls, rapids, and many interesting spots to explore.

I too have come up for air, when I pop my head out of work mode to see what's up in the rest of the world. Public service announcement to the cubicle dwellers: Those of us who cover your job while on vacation would appreciate if you didn't all schedule your vacations in the same couple of weeks. Please plan accordingly.

You know how the past month or so has been kind of hectic with the workload? Well, I didn't see it coming, but apparently all of that was just a warmup for this week. It's like we've gone from the pzzft, pzzft of a one-at-a-time lame-o fireworks show to the grandest of fireworks spectacular finales. Because, you know, covering three full-time jobs plus the usual workload will make for a mighty interesting week coming up.

In preparation for the upcoming insane-a-thon and while the boys were gone fishin' with one of Jesse's pals, last night was spent enjoying the comfortable breeze and bright moon in the presence of knitterfriends.
Leah alternated between working on a knitted rug for her doll and a poncho for herself. I continued on Bella and am now ready for the shoulder shaping on both sleeves. (I will spare you the agony of multiple pictures as I inch along on this project. But, Sandy, you're still going to need to tolerate an occasional photo of the results of our recycling efforts. ;-) Knitting content will likely be sparse over the next week or so as these fingers are otherwise occupied, but we'll catch you again on the flip side.