an assist

iphone photo

I put three little pumpkins on the mailbox. The wind must've grabbed a leaf off the lawn and stuck it in the handle. I've been Martha'd by Mother Nature.

If she could upgrade those ugly house numbers, that'd be a Good Thing. I swore I'd do that right away when we bought the place. 17 years ago.

p.s. file under: There's A Website for Everything, subfolder: lose 30 minutes browsing house numbers here

pps If you haven't already entered, the giveaway for Harry Potter on audio book is till open, on yesterday's post.

and, ummmm, also the dog ate it

Just yesterday morning I fully committed and put the NaPoBloMo button in my sidebar. I put a stickynote on my monitor with a list of blog post ideas flitting through my brain. On top of things , was I ! Then I headed north to Boston for the Common Cod Make Mine Local fiber fashion show, with a stop enroute in CT for a meeting.
The event was fabulous. But I didn't get home till the wee hours of this morning. And never posted for Friday the 13th. ooops. Ironic, eh?

You know what helped my tired ass self drive back here ? A terrific audio book. Random House Audio Books asked if I'd like to review one of their titles. I have to admit I've fallen out of the habit of listening to audiobooks. Back in the (way back) darkroom days of black & white film, I discovered audio books as the perfect accompaniment to the task. I was a finicky listener- anything too literary and metaphor-laden needed too much concentration. Anything twee- like charming vignettes of life in Provence- made me feel like gagging. Mysteries totally worked. Lots of plot, one strong main character to bond with, entertaining.

Anyhoo, sorry, got lost in my old silver chemical fumes there for a moment. The lovely PR person sent me Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I am partially through ( it is 16 cd's of story). I cruised over the rainy dark roads lost in this fabulous Swedish mystery, read in sonorous tones. If you click the link above (you need to go to my blog for real, if you're using a blogreader, the clip is missing) you'll hear a snippet. Highly recommend. I woke up wondering how Lisbeth Salander was going to deal with her guardian and when she'd cross paths with the Vanger mystery & Blomkvist. (and do not tell me if you know)

To celebrate my renewed fondness for listening, Random House gave me a gem to give away: one brand spanking new copy of Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone unabridged audio cd recording to a randomly chosen comment on this post, open till midnight Wednesday November 18th.
Mention an audio book you recommend in your comment, if you can think of one. Or not. All comments will be entered.

Just remember to leave your email address or link to your blog, since I'm on Blogger a lot of the comments don't link back to you.

goings on of note

This Friday evening (tonight!) in Boston, the Common Cod Fiber Guild is putting on Make Mine Local, a fashion show of area indie fiber fashion design. Shannon Okey was the juror and will be there in person to emcee.( Her blog. ) There'lll be some live music and plenty of interesting knits.
I'm going to head up there to photograph and wallow in fibery creativity.

It'd be great to see you there, its at MIT, 50 Vassar Street, 7 pm.
But if you can't make it -- you can see us thanks to a live streaming feed.
That should be nothing to yawn at!

help wanted

Joan & I are seeking an intern - an editorial assistant- to help us with our new book project.

Details here. Interested? We can't wait to hear from you.

Order is the shape upon which beauty depends.- Pearl Buck

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.--Eleanor Roosevelt

*apologies for cross posting with the Shear Spirit book blog, for anyone who visits both.

a net

is not as slimming as one would hope for a sweater fabric. But I'm still happy.

I like a rumply cardigan I looked too buttoned down when I had it buttoned up.

pattern: Annette from Knitty Summer 2009
yarn: the lamentably discontinued Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed
(that there is a link to a place that seems to have it in stock. Pounce!)
needles: size 6 us
notes: I started this in the sunshiney days believing I was knitting a sweater a month in 09. In late July I thought it'd be a wonderful cap sleeved little cardi to wear over a black tank top. It became an autumn knit and long sleeves were obviously the way to go. First I knit a long sleeve using the diameter of the short cap sleeve in the pattern. It was wide & blocky. Starting over wanting a fitted sleeve, I cast on 41 stitches and knit it up from the cuff, increasing gradually until I'd reached the cap sleeve diameter in the pattern.

Funny yet embarrassing story: I was seaming the sleeves at SnB, and my friend the Archiknist, who designs fabulous sweaters & has an analytical eye, wondered why the sleeves weren't designed to be knit in the round. I agreed with her, and then said I wish I'd thought of that, and we even had an extended conversation on how lazy designers could be, not wanting to write out a 4 row lace stitch pattern in the round vs back & forth as in the cardi body, tsk tsk tsk. I was looking at the seams and the way the increases on the sleeve row edges were forming solid little stockinette islands along the inner arm seam, I was thinking that the designer could've maybe been more clever with that, too.

Then it struck me. She didn't design any long sleeves at all. It was my idea to knit them flat and to increase on the seam. Forehead smack. Thwack!

And, Ok, Lulu was right about the buttons.I guess she saw the writing on the wall. Very smart.

If you are coming to Make Mine Local in Boston Friday night, the indie fashion show put on by the Common Cod Fiber Guild, you might just catch me wearing this. See you there?

Sweater photos posed by my new favorite coffee shop. Vegan BLT's? what is not to love?

bit of red

I can hardly comment on the collections I found at my aunt's home on Friday. She had a thirty year headstart on me. I'm no slouch. The next generation will have plenty to work with here.

Speaking of red & the work of another generation (smooth segue, no?)...

photo courtesy of Rita Zucker

My mom sent me this shot of scarves she & her friend Claire knit for the Red Scarf Project of the OFA. Deadline's December 15th to donate a handknit scarf for a former foster kid now in college. If you start one soon, surely you can finish it in time for this very worthy cause. It means more than you think. And, go check out the contest Norma's running for contributors.

My mom's been a supporter of the Red Scarf project ever since we learned about it, in 2006. She's helped out when I've done photo shoots for them in the DC area. The first year she had a college student run up & hug her to thank her and say how much it meant, and she saw "red scarf kids" volunteering as packers get all excited picking out scarfs. She's been knitting, spreading the word & recruiting knitters ever since. Like her senior center gym buddy Claire. Claire's scarf is on the left (pattern unknown). In the center, is my mom's Luna Lace Scarf from Shear Spirit, (yeah, nepotistic choice, nothing wrong with that, right?). She modified for DKish weight yarn, knitting it over 35 stitches. On the right, she knit a checkerboard textured pattern (generic pattern here). I saw that one in person, it looks...dare I say? very smart.

Funny, yet awful, story: Claire had knit a fourth red scarf, she'd blocked it, folded it carefully and put it in a box on a shelf by her front door to bring to the gym to hand off to my mom. Her husband, being a helpful sorta guy, thought it was a trash box and took it out. Not to a garbage can. He threw it down an incinerator chute in their building.

Can you feel her pain? Claire didn't talk to him for almost 2 days.

on second thought

My new hat. When I put it on my head I thought this is IT, this is what I want in a new hat.
Pattern: Felicity
Yarn: Sport weight- 1 skein of Six Paca Farm alpaca (description here) , and 1 skein of Frog Tree alpaca in gold. I am crazy about these colors together. I'm tempted to add a small amount of bright red stitching embellishment. For some reason this color combo speaks to me this week.
Needles: sizes 3 & 5 US
Notes: Ok, this is such a cool hat if you look at it on Ravelry , mostly knit in worsted weight. Or here's a good example.There are, like, hundreds to admire.This is a lighter weight yarn so I modified the pattern , by casting on 96 stitches to start and increasing starting with K6 M 1, until I worked up to K12 M1 .
Since the yarn is thinner, I worried the hat wouldn't be long enough. A baggy beanie? No thanks. I added 8 rows before starting the decreases. And I knit 3 rounds between each decrease row.

When I first put it on my head I thought I was all that. I had the slouchy hat I wanted.

Now, I'm thinking maybe too much volume. At some point slouch just becomes...pouf. So this may get a restructuring. Or I may just be lazy and wear it.