One Crazy Fiber Lady

Have I mentioned before how much I love summer?  It stands repeating.  I love summer!  I love going barefoot.  I love not wearing a jacket.  I love the water.  This weekend was spectacular (apologies to those in the hurricane zone) after that tropical depression passed here Friday night dumping loads of rain and colder temperatures, Saturday dawned bright and warm with promises of a beautiful day.  The twins and I headed for my parents’ boat docked in upstate New York on the Hudson River.  The River is just a gorgeous place and someday I’ll get some pictures that do it justice.  In the meantime, this picture is one I found on the ‘net taken from the back deck of the restaurant at the marina looking out at Haverstraw Bay, a point where the river expands to 3 miles across.  My nephews were still with my parents and my sister and BIL met us all at the boat.  We spent the day sitting in the sun, nibbling and taking turns with the new JetSki that my parents purchased during the off season.  My sister, BIL and I wound up taking the Power Squadron’s Basic Boating Safety Course so that we could legally drive the JetSki.  Fortunately my parents are both accredited teachers so they could admin the course and then proctor the test.  We all passed with flying colors so now I have a boating license.  Woo.

The twins did wonderfully on the boat, slept very well on Saturday night and showed Grandma and Grandpa how nicely the can climb steps and just about everything else they encounter.  The last trip to the boat, my techie geek in training son managed to reprogram the radio so that the left side speakers no longer worked.  This time the folks turned off the power to the bridge radio   Other than a quick 30 minute for Kat, 15 minute for Alex nap on Saturday during the drive up, they didn’t nap at all.  This did make for some tired and cranky babies.  Alex started to nod off at dinner on Saturday night.  He’s never done it before and it was the funniest thing.  He didn’t stop eating, though I was pretty sure I’d have a kid asleep with his face in his spaghetti.  Dad gave him some lemonade and he perked right up.  They did sleep well that night! As did I.

Did I knit?  You betcha.  Nice thing about being on the boat, with my folks and my sister and her family was that there were plenty of hands to help with the twins.  What did I knit?  Oh the DDD Shawl (or Birchington as I’ve been thinking about it recently) for starters.  I started it twice in as many days.  Friday night, after getting home from work, I looked at what I had done with the white mohair/nylon blend and was happy.  I had picked up the edge stitches and futzed around with a couple of lace patterns.  I did some surfing online, searching through the collection of lace books and came up with a bunch of different motifs.  I started one but wasn’t overly happy about it.  But part of the discontent was the fabric itself.  While the kid mohair was heavenly cushy, it just didn’t seem "right" for a shetland style shawl, which is really what this was turning into.  I figured that since this was a really a rework of Stonington, that I should use a more traditional yarn, and really, I should use the yarn I was using for Stonington.  I frogged Stonington and reclaimed the Handpainted.com laceweight in the Bergamota and recast on my design after the twins went to bed.  By Saturday evening, I was a quarter of the way through what I’ve set for the center square.  There’s a but.  NO surprise, eh?  The but is that the yarn bled terribly.  Everytime I worked with it, it looked like I had been eating those darn red pistachio nuts, except it wasn’t just my finger tips, it was wherever I had touched the yarn.  I got tired of pink fingernails, wrists, back of hand (yarn runs a corkscrew around index finger, around hand, then wrist.. yes odd) and just having to deal with this mess.  I’ll wash the yarn at some point and see if I can get it to quit shedding dye on me.

You counting?  That’s two Birchingtons started and discarded.  Yup.  Nothing new here.  Okay so last night I pulled out a few more yarns as contenders to replace the Kid Mohair and the Handpainted Yarn laceweight.  Good thing I have a serious stash.  I found a bunch of skeins of Nandia Cashmere/Silk Laceweight.  I have two skeins in each of White, Royal Blue and a Lt. Grey (which doesn’t appear on the site right now) that I bought last year.  I hope like hell I have enough of one color and haven’t just made a huge mistake.  Anyway, I selected the light grey and started that.  As of this morning, I’m a 1/4 of the way through the base square, still giving thought as to the lace for the sides.  The fern pattern would fit beautifully in the trapezoidal side sections as they would both increase at the same rate but I think that would be a bit much of that pattern for even me.  I could do strips of it, set of with something much simpler, maybe Cats Paw or Strawberries.  Or do I go with a theme of lace patterns as this is Fern, I use the Pine Cone, Pine Tree, and other outdoor related motif. 

Choices choices.  I do like how the yarn is knitting up and it isn’t a solid color.  It is a pearl grey with some darker colors interspersed.  It is making for a nice effect.  This picture was taken this morning on the train and you can see the color variations pretty well.  I’m very pleased with how it is progressing and I do think the third times the charm in this case… well as long as I don’t run out of yarn.  I think if I make it lacy enough, the more holes the less yarn necessary right, I should be able to squeek it out with the two skeins.  I guess I could do the center in this and then the sides in the white. Now that wouldn’t be bad, would it?  I’ll reassess this when I get through with the center and see if I’ve dipped into the second skein.  Never easy is it?  I do have to admit that I’m very much enjoying this challenge and designing it myself.

I might be posting a bit less this week and I have a decent sized project and a deadline to contend with.  I’ll leave you with my goofball son and his antics this morning in the car as we headed for grandma’s daycare center.

Craft on.