Whoa! Fewer than Two Months til Monhegan Island! Woo-Hoo!

Hey Y'all,

Well dang! Another year is just whipping by. I was just up in Fort Worth visiting with Lisa and her mom, and we were talking about how it's just about time to head out to Monhegan Island. I can't wait. I wish I could spend entire summers there.

I also caught Lisa up on my latest projects. Looks like I will just barely have time to finish the sweater I'm knitting to take on my trip to London which comes before my trip to Monhegan (I know, I know-- poor me). The bad news-- the London sweater is not looking as hot in real life as it does on the skinny model in the issue of Vogue Knitting from which I grabbed the pattern. The good news-- Lisa tells me I can just block the heck out of it and make it be anything I want. All right then! Good advice.

After the sweater, I need to kitchener stitch one sock, finish its mate (just about to the heel flap) and then... And then... well for those of you new to this blog, let's just say that I sometimes take on (or invent) interesting projects for myself. This time around, it was my friend's idea. She contacted me to say she has a big grandfather clock and wouldn't it look great if I knitted it a big sweater. Really. 

I showed her the yarn I was using for the Cowichan sweater I made for Bart, my tattoo artist, and she loved that. So I emailed Carol, the nice Canadian woman from whom I get my pencil roving Cowichan yarn, and I told her what the plan was-- a sort of cross between a huge sock and a balaclava to be worn by a large clock.

Carol replied that yes, she could supply the yarn and also boy, don't I have interesting friends. Can't deny that. So I think I'll try to knock out that sock post-London and pre-Monhegan so I can force y'all to admire pictures of it. You have been warned!

See you SOON!
Spike

The Dog-Eared Days of Summer

Hey Y'all,
Well I'm down here in Texas where it's a balmy 100 degrees today. Not exactly conducive to knitting some big project that covers one's lap and causes one a big perpetual hot flash. But it is a great time for small projects-- I'm working on a little sock right now. And it is also that delicious time of the year when one of two biannual ROWAN issues arrives. I just got mine and can't wait to dive in and start dog-earing all the pages with patterns I swear I'll make.

Pictured along with my ROWAN mag above, is a cable hat that I really enjoyed making, so much so that I almost didn't mind when I had to frog a few rows. But there was a sad side-- the hat was part of a gift kit ROWAN sent me, which is part of the excitement of being a member. Allegedly three balls of yarn, which they included, was enough. But no. I got to the end of ball three and still had about six rows to go. I tried my LYS and they didn't have any of the yarn. I went online looking and couldn't find anyplace that listed the dye lot number. So I had to take a guess.

Well guess what? The color was off just a bit, but definitely noticeable. So yeah, the top of that hat looks like one lone stripe. But there was a lesson in that-- I sat there looking at the difference, debating if I should just keep trying to find the right yarn. And then I decided I'd just go for it with what I had.

Which for me calls to mind those lovely ways we console ourselves when our projects don't turn out precisely as we imagined. I said to myself, "It's a prototype!" and "The kooky little stripe is a design element!" and -- a favorite fallback -- "Who cares-- it'll still keep my head warm."

I did worry that once I was done I'd change my mind and wish for a do over. Nope. I like it just fine. And I really will make another one. Super groovy little pattern and making cables always makes me feel kinda smart. One of these days I'm going to go for it and make a cable sweater.

Hope you're doing lots of cool little projects.

See you on Monhegan Island in two months and change!
Spike