Yarn Along: A Tale of Two Knits

Linking up with Ginny for Yarn Along today; please keep Ginny and her family in your prayers, as well as the family of her best friend Sarah, who passed away last week.

It's been a while since I updated on my knitting, mostly because I've not done a lot of sustained knitting this summer.  High heat and humidity = no tolerance for wool between my fingers.  But we've had a little break in the weather recently, so I made some good progress made on the mushroom sweater, and during our family reunion two weeks ago, I got started on a little project with lace weight yarn.

So, the mushroom sweater.  I finished the other front side piece, and now am working on one of the sleeves.  The pattern makes it fairly easy to remember the increases (since they are in fourths and the pattern is four rows wide), so that is nice at least.  I'm a little nervous about the button band, but hopefully it will all work out okay.

The other little project I started is a lacy bow headband.  I've been wanting to experiment with fingering weight yarn for a while, but was hesitant to commit to a larger project on the (likely) chance that the weight of the yarn would drive me bonkers.  This pattern showed up in my inbox as a promotional offer earlier this summer, and it seemed like the perfect project to try it out, as well as being something small that I could tote along with me on our various travels.  

There were two problems right off the bat, namely that the yarn came in a twisted skein rather than a wound one, so I had to wind the yarn, and I made a mosh of it.  I'm hoping I don't need the whole skein for this headband, as there is a bit of yarn that I lost in the process of winding.  I did get a decent size ball, but oh, the pain of it.  The second problem was in the beginning of the pattern, which was fiendish in terms of the increases.  I redid the first six rows about four times before I got it.  Now that I'm past the initial increases, it isn't too bad.  I just have to keep the pattern in front of me and a pen to mark my rows as I do them.  I also don't mind the fine yarn--not quite enough that I'm ready to commit to a whole sweater in it, but I might be willing to try a project in something less than worsted soon.  I definitely have to give this project attention, so it isn't quite the mindless project I was hoping for, but I think I will wear it when done (and I have a sewing project in the hopper for the fall that will coordinate perfectly!)

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In other news, I finished Written in My Own Heart's Blood (for some reason, abbreviated MOBY by Herself, so who am I to argue?)  It was a lovely read, but sad to finish, and I wandered about for a few days, looking for something new to read.  It was unfortunate that I also finished Season 3 of Game of Thrones (so shocking!) at the same time, so I was really bereft.  I rewatched the 2011 version of Jane Eyre this week (Fassbender never disappoints), and started watching Hex on YouTube (an older, slightly cheesy Gothic sci-fi series) so I have something to watch while I knit in the evening (I have to have something on, or I get sleepy)

 

But about MOBY.  I was quite pleased with the ending on this one, as I feel I can wait another four years for the continuation of the story, unlike Echo in the Bone, which really left us all hanging!!  I also liked that this one took less time on journeys to and fro and more on what happened when they arrived where they were going.  As much of the book took place in Revolutionary-era Philadelphia during the summer, it was an interesting parallel to read it during a modern Philly summer.  Her descriptions of the weather and the city during the summer were pretty much spot on.  Bonus treat for us wordsmiths: the only book I've ever read that used the word absqualating.  

I received the Collette Guide to Sewing Knits from my husband for my birthday, and have been poking through it the last few days.  I remain intimidated by knits, but might have to give the Bronte a try one of these days.  Preferably in a stable knit like ponte.

I also picked up Cheap again this week, and am pondering further the lessons of discount retailing.  After reading the latest chapter, I'm just upset about the ways that retailers psychologically manipulate us as customers.  I realize they have a business to run, and need to make money to survive, but the tricks feel cheap and I don't like feeling commodified.

And finally, some bloggy housekeeping: I cleaned up my labels this week, so posts should be easier to find by topic now.  When I migrated the stamping blog posts over here last year, a lot of labels came with it, and until recently, it was hard to delete labels from the master list.  I consolidated some of the original labels from early in this blog's history and got rid of all the stamping-specific labels (like "Thank You Cards") and just grouped most of the stamping posts under the label "Stamping-Cardmaking."