This sounds silly, but I was going to be very disappointed if those huge buds on my peony plants didn't open before I left for France this week. And as if on cue, they started to open yesterday. I had to cut a few for the table. There won't be any perfume in Paris that will smell better than these blooms. Les fleurs sentent bon.
Ahhh, wool. It's the best. I just cast-on the Double Knit Mittens from The Knitter's Book of Yarn for a little summertime challenge. As much as I love multi-color knit objects, I have never been very happy with my own projects. (It's the reason I bought a knitting machine.) I thought this pattern would be a good way to try again since most of the time you are knitting with two strands of the same color. I figured my mistakes could be camouflaged, and if they weren't perfect, what the heck, they're mittens. Right?
So far so good. I've got the cuff knit on one and a few rows of the solid. I've experimented with different ways of holding two strands of yarn at once. One in each hand. Both in one hand split over two fingers. Throwing. Picking. I've decided that there's just no two-handed knitting for me. Being left-handed, I'm usually pretty flexible, but it's not going to happen. On the two color knitting, I ended up picking up each color, one at a time. (I know, lame.) On the single color, 1x1 stranding, I've worked out a way of holding both yarns in my left hand over the same finger and picking up the strand I need. We'll see.
This afternoon I got the buttons on my completed Sideways Cardigan, and I think I'll enjoy wearing it this summer--if it ever warms up around here. It's just enough to cover your shoulders on a chilly evening or in an over-air-conditioned restaurant.
What a gorgeous morning! The lilac bushes are in bloom, the birds are singing, and the sun is shining. We haven't had too many days like this so far this spring, so we've really come to appreciate them when we have them.
My Sideways Cardigan is on the blocking board this morning and is almost dry. Not much left to finish it off: sew some seams, pick up a knit an edging for the neck, and knit on a buttonhole band. Since this is a cotton yarn and the pattern for the yoke is so lacy, I think that I will crochet the shoulder seams together to add some stability. This was a fun project--slightly more of a challenge than I anticipated, but that's not a bad thing. The challenge is all in the yoke shaping, but once I got the hang of the yoke pattern and how it worked in the decreases, it was fine. I did have a blonde moment when I knit the last front piece while watching the Twins the other night and neglected to reverse the shaping. (Ever knit two mittens for the same hand?) It was easily corrected--not so for the Twins.
It's the big day. High School graduation. (Cliche alert!) It seems like he just started kindergarten. It went so fast. I can't believe he's going to college in a couple of months. I can't believe it's been thirty years since I did this. (A little moment of selfishness.)
Check out my rhubarb plant this year! It's taking over. I baked a coffee cake with it last week , and it barely made a dent. The guys aren't that crazy about rhubarb, so you-know-who ends up eating the most, and I'm not a big lover of sweets. I have a recipe for a sauce for fish that I might dig out--in my free time.
This project is a little more challenging than I anticipated--not a bad thing--mostly due to the shorthand instructions that are demanded by the lack of space in a magazine. The shoulder shaping is tricky to maintain in pattern and is made much easier by accessing the PDF file on the Vogue Knitting web site. I think I finally got it right, or at least in the "close enough for me" range.
Next month at this time, we will be getting ready to board our plane for Paris. Instead of having to run errands, I will be sipping cheap wine from a plastic glass while I in a cramped plane watching a movie on the two inch screen of my iPod, but I won't even care, because I'm on my way to France.
