She Knits By The Seashore

Vogue Pink A-Line Skirt Update

Pedal for Paws is this Saturday, and I'm doing final errands and have lots of little slips of paper with notes on them, in addition to all the reminder notes in my phone. Crazy! But very exciting. As is the fact that my pink skirt is nearly, finally done!

 

I put on a little half slip for the photo, but I'm hoping that a full slip will keep the skirt from sagging in the back.

I've finished all the knitting and tried it on for the first time. I'm really happy with the fit so far. It's a little longer than the pattern (25" vs. 21") so I think I'll fold over the top to make the waistband, rather than do the purl/turning row and add more rows for the inside part of the band. I just need to find some elastic waistband. I hope it will be OK if I hand sew it together; I don't have a sewing machine. Since I knitted the skirt in the round, I think I'm going to knit down the waistband to the skirt rather than stitch it together with a needle. I did this for the hem of a mohair shawl and it looked pretty.Thoughts?

There's plenty of room on top to fold down for a waistband on the inside.

This skirt has a ton of finishing to it even after the waistband is done...embroidered daisies and outlined stripes and a crochet trim, so I can't say that it's done-done yet. But it's close!! Epic indeed.

Pink Skirt Progress

It's looking more like a skirt now!

 

I want to work on this more often, so I can wear it this season, but right now the garden projects and cycling are taking most of my free time. Our weather is still not as wonderful as it usually is in May (it feels more like late March), so when the sun makes an appearance, we drop everything and run outside.

I've really been missing all the knitting blogs that used to be part of the knitting community. It seems so many have disappeared since I began my own blog five years ago. I miss the inspiration, the energy, and seeing all the great projects that everyone was working on. Do you notice this too? I'd love to discover some new ones. If you have a favorite knitting blog(s), particularly those that feature sweaters or shawls, please share in the comments. I'm also interested in gardening blogs, or anything artistic & creative with wonderful photos that will help motivate me to finish this skirt!!

 

Knitting and Reading Updates

Thank you for your kind comments about Pedal for Paws. It was an amazing experience, but I'm grateful to have more time now to catch up on other things. I'm slowly re-organizing my desk and office. It's amazing how the paper piles up! I've finally gotten my winter clothes out of the attic, and stored the summer things. And I'm getting back into the knitting groove. The top panel of the pink skirt is coming along nicely so far.

 
Rainy and Rosie check out my progress.

One of the things I do enjoy about fall, though the allergies are kicking up madly and the temperatures are dropping, is a good road trip. When Chris and I were first married, we would travel north to Massachusetts and Vermont, and visit antique stores and used book stores. And though we don't collect little vintage finds any more, we are still very much excited to visit favorite used book shops, and discover new ones.

This past Saturday, we met our friends Dorothy and Hobgoblin for a three-state book crawl. It is so fun to have friends who are fellow book enablers! Our first stop, in CT, was an old favorite, Barbara Farnsworth. (Interesting trivia: her shop is in the same area where Michael Pollan, the author, resides). I found one sweet book not even on my list:

 

From there, we went north to MA. One of our regular stops, the Berkshire Book Co, seems to have closed. We think the store owners retired. But in Great Barrington, we found the Yellow House book shop, and I discovered something I've wanted for a long while: the Janson's History of Art book that all art history 101 students use in college.

  

My copy is the 4th edition. The newest available is the 8th, which is over $130. I don't think that there are too many updates between them for me to justify the steep price of a new copy.

I also bought two mysteries, Murder is Binding, and The Case of the Caretaker's Cat, in the photo below.

After a quick lunch, we crossed the border into Hillsdale NY for Rodger's Book Barn, a new favorite that Dorothy and Hobgoblin introduced us to last year. This is a dangerous place -- all the books are $2.50ish and it is so easy to come home with an armload!! I narrowed it down to five.

 

So, for the week's total: eleven books. The top two were bookmooched, and then the remaining nine I found on Saturday.

This does not include books that I bought when Chris and I took a day trip to Cape Cod a few Saturdays ago, and when I visited our local Book Barn with friends:

 

It may save shelf space, but somehow I don't think a Kindle is nearly as much fun!!

One other thing I've had a little more time to do is to experiment with recipes. I am in no way more than a passable cook but I do appreciate the creative aspect of cooking and baking. As I have become a vegetarian, I'm looking for more of those kinds of recipes too. With the deluge of apples this time of year, I made this applesauce cake for Chris:

 

The recipe I used, from Everyday Food April 2010, uses an 8" cake pan, and the linked recipe uses a tube pan. Also, that recipe uses prepared applesauce, where the magazine edition uses fresh apples boiled down in a sauce pan. Depending on your time and how many apples you have to use up, you can follow either method, and it will taste delicious.

How are your fall knitting and reading projects going?

Pink Skirt Math and New Books

Are you having a good week? I hope so!

Last Friday night, my friend C and I went to the Sting Symphonicity concert in Bethel, NY. It was the first time I saw Sting in concert, and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra behind him, it was the most amazing music I've ever witnessed. It was simply electric, in an open air pavilion high up in the hills with the sun setting in the background. C gave me one of the very best birthday presents ever when she presented me with the ticket back in February.

A photo of the pavilion before the concert started, the best I could do with my phone. I love the evening sunlight. The stage is to the left.

I've knitted up to the third ivory stripe in my skirt, so it's decision time: do I knit the ribbon panel and then the fourth stripe, risking it falling across the most unflattering part of a person's backside (mine), or do I skip the ribbon panel and stripe and begin the stockinette early? I think I'm going to opt for the second and see how it goes.

I've got 300 stitches on the needles, and the pattern has you decrease to 210 by the time you get up near the waist. (I added back extra stitches to be able to knit the block rows in the round). So I'm thinking 300 stitches - 210 = 90 stitches to be decreased. 90 stitches divided by 4 stitches per "side" (one left and one right side on both front and back) is 22 with 2 left over.

There is 18" over which to do these decreases. The gauge is 10 rows to the inch, so there are 180 rows to work with. My gauge is actually 9 rows to the inch, but this is a rough estimate. Sooo...180 rows divided by 22 decreases from above is roughly a decreasing row every 8 rows. (For the mathematical purists: 18" x 9 rows to the inch = 162 rows, divide by 22 decreases is 7, with 8 left over. I think.) Does this make sense? I've never done well with "Train A leaves the station at 11:00am..." -type word problems, so I always like to have other knitters check my math to make sure I'm figuring things out correctly. There will certainly be an element of "try it on; adjust accordingly" but I am open to suggestions! My email is scarlett22770 at yahoo dot com if you'd rather not deal with the comment box.

Also, is there some trick to doing decreases in the round, like make them one or two stitches in from the marker so that they line up vertically? I tried to google that but couldn't find anything.

This year, I've tried hard not to buy any new books. It's taking me forever to finish what I start, and my shelves are already overflowing. But every so often something comes along that I cannot refuse. One of my latest was a book of Sea Poems I saw in a bookstore on Block Island. I've also mooched a few others:

Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, A Hopeless Romantic by Harriet Evans, and I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What It Was. A strange mix to be sure! Have you read any of these?

How is your summer reading and knitting going?

Returning from Cape Cod

 

We visit Cape Cod often; it's close enough to drive to in a day, and far enough away from home that we can get some rest. As many times as we've been there, we still discover new and different things to do, depending on our mood and the season.

With high summer weather and the Tour de France on TV every day, we spent this week-long trip with Mr. & Mrs. SDC mostly on our bikes. We had such a great time! The Cape has a fabulous rail trail to keep cyclists away from the crazy tourist drivers (scroll down to see how close a truck got to Chris on a main road!), but there are also a lot of small residential streets to explore, with beautiful gardens and ocean views. Blue, pink, and purple hydrangeas were in bloom everywhere. Here we are in Chatham, (at the "elbow" of the Cape) across from the lighthouse. 

 
Chatham Light.  

 

Tired but happy riders. Mrs. SDC and I match only by accident. The guys match on purpose.

When we weren't riding, Mrs. SDC and I did some recipe experiments. My favorite was a version of the Everyday Food's grilled pizza. We stayed in a rented house with a fully stocked kitchen, and though the outdoor grill itself was not great, we had some delicious, healthy dinners. Mrs. SDC also made a version of these blueberry muffins. Yum!

I did a little shopping; bought a pretty scarf at Violet's and a daisy bracelet at Bella. Mrs. SDC and I enjoyed manicures and pedicures at Le Petite Day Spa, and also discovered a new knitting shop called Black Purls. I couldn't resist the heathered pink Cascade yarn for the Betty Minisweater. (I still haven't decided on a shawl pattern for my dress).

Though I didn't get nearly as much reading done as I'd hoped, I am loving the Whole Living/Body + Soul magazine and website. I read so many great articles on health and wellness last week, which was really inspiring. Do you read this magazine?

I did rip and re-knit the block pattern on the Vogue Pink Skirt (sitting in traffic for an hour on the way home makes for lots of progress!). I increased two stitches on each side (for a total of four) so that every block has 10 stitches, including the ones where the seams would be. I'm at the beginning of the second round of blocks.

Version 2.0: no funky block seams where the stitchmarkers are. 

It's still very hot and humid here in southern New England, for which I am deeply grateful. Real summer at last. Lots more beach days ahead, and it's even hot enough for me to go in the water!

Blue hydrangeas from our backyard. These are lacecaps, but the "mop-head" style are everywhere to enjoy too. The blues and purples are so brilliant. 

Summer Solstice and Skirt Seam

Help.

 

The pattern for this skirt is written with a front and back, but I am knitting it in the round. It has been going swimmingly until I got to the block pattern, and I need your input.

Picture an imaginary line coming down from the blue stitchmarker; that's the half-way point or side seam. The pattern is written as P4, knit block pattern (k10, p10, repeat to last four stitches) and then K4 (for both the front and back pieces). But seam or no seam, where the front and back sides come together looks wrong. 

Vogue is no help: every picture of this project in that issue is the exact same one, so you can't see the side seams of the skirt.

I've emailed two very kind knitters on Ravelry who made this skirt, and one sent a photo of her side "seam," and it looks as if there is no differential at all -- the blocks go all the way around without this K4P4 block. Obviously I need to rip it out; I think I'm going to have to figure out how to do K10P10 blocks all the way round, and ignore the seam part. What do you think?

For the gardeners, I am excited to post my first-ever window box-grown lettuce:

 

Unlike my poppy seeds, which didn't make it, the lettuce is a success! I'm encouraged about trying other container-grown vegetables next year on the deck, and maybe someday building a fenced-in garden so that I can really do it right. Guilty secret: I don't like tomatoes, except in spaghetti sauce, so I won't be growing those. Garden fantasy: a raspberry patch!

In my last post, I mentioned summer solstice. The longest day of the year is one of my favorites, with its soft summer evening light, and this year's solstice did not disappoint.

Beach chairs, books, and dinner in a bag, as we watch the sun set...all photos (c) Chris.

 

Families enjoying the evening.

 

Yours truly, walking along the beach.

 

I don't have words for this.

 

 This either.

 

It was amazing to be still, to watch the sun slip behind the sea before our eyes. It made us breathe a little more slowly and deeply, forget all the day's clutter, and simply savor this shared beauty. It is so healing. We need to do that more often. What part of nature has slowed you down and helped restore you this week?

Knitting to the Next Level

In the Knitting & Crochet Blog Week posts, we were encouraged to answer questions about skills we'd like to learn, projects we hope to make, etc. Over and over my answers revolved around learning to modify patterns.

When Shirley Paden's new book was announced, I knew this would be the answer to all of my questions about modifications: how do you lengthen a waist (I'm long-waisted and short-legged)? How do you change three-quarter to full length sleeves? How do you change a neckline? Knitwear Design Workshop does all of that and more.

 

What made me finally click the "place order" button for the book was the section on skirts, for both straight and A-line styles. I've just finished the first lace stripe pattern on the bottom of my pink A-line skirt, and completed the first decrease row. I'll knit 7 rows of the ivory stripe, and then begin the block pattern -- no problem. The questions begin after that block pattern. The skirt decreases a little more, then increases as it goes up to the hips, and then decreases again from the hips to the waist. If you look at the finished skirt on Ravelry in photos where it lies flat (i.e. not modeled), it has a sort of bubble shape with a ruffle effect at the bottom. This is not shown in the schematic. Not good.

What I want to do is to do decreases every so often from the hem to the waist, without that increase-then-decrease again bit, to get a straight A-line. I also want to remove the ivory stripe that would otherwise sit right on the widest part of my backside. Egads. This book provides a chart for a "Hip to Waist Taper Schedule" with decrease row, garment row, and stitches remaining. It assumes you have a hip measurement, which I don't -- the pattern I'm using gives the hem measurement (45") and a waist-before-elastic-is-sewn-in measurement (33"). So I'm going to have to do some ugly math. But the author breaks everything down into step by step instructions that even I, math phobic that I am, can understand. With lots of cups of tea and a good night's sleep beforehand.

If you already know how to do these modification tricks, I think you'd still appreciate this book for the design aspect. Perhaps you've seen a ready-made sweater in a store you'd like to make. Or you want to design your own item from just an image in your head. This book will tell you how.

Two quick things, one related, one not:

Vogue Knitting sent an email today advertising their "early fall" issue. I about had a fit -- it's not even Memorial Day yet! Do they want to strike me down unconscious and have to send me to a Facility?! We are *all* about the long hot summers here; fall is a four letter f-word only slightly more tolerable than things like death and taxes. :)  When I recovered and looked at the patterns, I realized a clever marketing trick. They've been reading all the blogs that say "Spring/Summer issues don't do anything for me" and decided that if they put mostly light-weight garments in an issue called Early Fall, they would get your attention. Several of the pattern stories have lacy or short-sleeved garments knit in pink, lavender, and yellow -- not exactly fall colors. Whew. 

In an earlier post, I mentioned my foot pain, and received a lot of helpful comments. I went for my first therapy sessions this week, and was happily surprised. Instead of just hooking me up to the machine that does the medication patch, the therapist manipulated my foot in all sorts of ways, and decided that some of the muscles are tight and are causing the problem. So he gave me fun exercises to do to stretch them, like picking up marbles with my toes (for some reason this makes me laugh; I feel like I'm five!) and I'm off to get a shoe insert to support the arch of my foot. I am so happy that for now, the cortisone shots don't seem to be in my future, and I can get back on my bike without pain!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

 

 

And So the Epic Begins

I didn't quite make my self-imposed deadline of finishing the purple Mr. Greenjeans cardigan before May 1st, but I'm close. A cuff on one sleeve, the other whole sleeve, and the ribbed trim, and I'll be there. Ran into a little delay when I realized that the sleeves require double pointed needles (rather than circulars) and I don't have size sevens for the cuffs or trim. Off to the LYS.

 

This did not prevent me from starting my Epic Summer Knitting Project as planned.

No, it doesn't look like a skirt at the moment. But I'm so thrilled to be knitting something springy and pink that these long rows are going by pretty fast.

After a couple of weeks of pain, I am finally going to see a doctor again about my foot neuroma (basically, an irritated nerve). Back in 1997 or so, my foot got very sore from standing on my feet all day at work, and when I rubbed it enough, it would go numb. A visit to the orthopedist identified the neuroma, and I had some physical therapy in the form of iontophoresis (sadly, no weekly foot massages, which would have felt so much better!). It was fine for a while after that, but on and off through time it has been acting up again. I have managed to mollify it with magnets for the most part, but now, even they are not working as much as they used to. It's been difficult to keep to a regular bike riding schedule and I am frustrated losing time by staying off my feet.

I have a pretty good sized fear of injections, and I've heard cortisone injections are not the most pleasant, which is why I have been putting this off. But I survived a tetanus shot last summer and so I'm wondering if the cortisone would be much worse? Personally I'm hoping for sclerotherapy, to just shrink the nerve altogether and get rid of it, but we'll have to see what the doctor says. I just want to get this over with and get on with my bike riding!

I found a couple of interesting sites to share with you. First, Queen Anne's Lace Knitting. I'm not sure what the designer means by "aristocratic" knitting and crochet, but the idea of patterns inspired by poetry is cool, to me anyway. Second, I do not sew (or cook, really...), but a number of my blog friends do, and when I saw this site, it reminded me of the Amy Butler-type of designs and fabrics they like to use. So if you like these hobbies, you may want to take a look. I do not know anything about these companies nor have I purchased anything from them, they just reminded me of things that knit blogging friends like.

As to books, I haven't done lots of reading lately since I've been trying extra hard to finish my sweater, and I'm reading the new May magazines -- I love some of the fashion and home decorating ones, and summer knitting magazines are out now too. Lots of knitters dislike the spring/summer issues but I find them most inspiring, with the lighter colors and patterns and all those pretty shawls. The beaches and exotic locales for background scenery are not to be missed either! When I do make time to read, I'm going over some of the sections in Too Perfect. And, I just received Moon Spinners, the next Seaside Knitters mystery!

Give Me Liberty

of London! A fun irony I couldn't resist. :)

Here are some pretty things I found from Target's new collaboration with Liberty of London:

 

Two pink and green pillows, a set of bowls, a sun hat, flip flops, a file box (in back), and some files. The gardening tools and sundresses were so cheery too, but I stayed strong!

I'm working away on finishing my current knitting projects, while dreaming of starting something very summery and girly. (Hi Dorothy!) We have had May weather this week and it feels as if someone is pouring Vitamin D and endorphins by the bucketfuls into my being. In anticipation of my favorite season of the year, when Life Begins Again, I want to knit something -- to use a cycling race term -- epic. 

There is only one project currently in my queue that I consider epic:

The A-line skirt from Kim Kotary in Vogue Spring/Summer 2006.

I have wanted to make this since I first saw it four years ago. I bought the kit from my LYS last fall. It sort of scares me to death, knitting an entire skirt on size 3 needles with sock yarn, and then having all the embroidery and finish work, including a crochet hem, which I do not know how to do -- yet. But what is life without challenge, and the thrill of seeing if you can do something beyond what you thought you could do? It's like the Tour de France for me, only without the [physical] crash factor. 

I need to buy new circulars this weekend, and will allow myself a swatch for this while I'm finishing the other projects. The anticipation of this skirt and the warm weather to come is so sweet it almost makes me ache.

Let the summer begin!!!

 

My first outdoor bike ride of the year. A little beach to keep me going!