Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I fall in love with a new man or woman. This is one of the great pleasurable freedoms of seeking an education in art history. Unfortunately, they’re all dead; this is one of the drawbacks. In the past six months, my amours have included Gilbert Stuart, John Kensett, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux, and John Singer Sargent. Along the way, I’ve developed serious crushes on Childe Hassam and Julian Alden Weir, although we haven’t studied them yet. But today I’m the love slave of George Inness. He was a nervous and tempermental little fellow, plagued by epilepsy and debilitating ill health, and he seems to have been convinced that he was a reincarnation of Titian. Okay, so he was a little eccentric. But he painted these:

I’m writing a term paper on him, and my professor gave me an extra copy he had of the catalog from a major Inness show in Los Angeles. I opened it up coming home on the bus, wandered into my local coffee shop with my nose still between the pages, and wallowed in the glorious color prints for an hour and a half. I emerged with my perception of color and light effects still heightened, and all along the four blocks home I was arrested by the red-tipped new growth on trees, the chartreuse buds on the rhododendrons, soft grey and mauve bark, a blaze of magenta heather, a spangling of snowdrops.

When I look at paintings now, there’s a part of my brain that catalogs possibilities for knitting colorwork. I itch to work fair isle in those yellows and russets and whale-skin blues. Absorbed in color as I am right now, it was appropriate that this arrived:

Mmmm…nine hundred yards of wool/camel blend Caravan from Just Our Yarn. Do I really need another sweater’s worth of yarn? Let’s not answer that. I’m weak. I couldn’t resist. Let’s focus on the deliciousness:

Mingus gives it the cheek-rub of approval.

Even on the days when living in New York got me down, I always felt it would be a fantastic place to visit. Turns out I was right. Best of all was the time spent with loved ones: my brother and his girlfriend, Mr. Garter’s godmother and her husband, my pals at The Point, and of course my dearest Spiders. (Psst…check out Steph’s gallery for pictures of me holding Little Miss Adorable herself, baby MJ! And Lisa has a picture of MJ sporting the little ribbed jacket I made for her.) I even got to watch the World Cup in Spanish, thanks to Steph’s mad DVR skills. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

And ultimately, New York came through for me on everything but the weather. That’s right, I bought yarn and jeans! Steph, Lisa and I took a little field trip to School Products, where I snagged a couple of lovely gunmetal grey skeins of Italian laceweight merino. Never mind that I already have two of these little babies in a stormy blue still waiting to become an Ene’s Shawl for my mother. I also couldn’t resist the ridiculous 50% sale The Point was having on Jaeger Siena cotton, so I grabbed five balls of a very springy green. It should be enough for a tank, so who’s got suggestions for me? What are your favorite summer top patterns that might work for a yarn that knits up at 28 x 38 on US 2-3’s? I’m thinking I’d like a camisole with a lace element. I really love the one Becky made, but I don’t have an easy way to get my hands on the Phildar pattern.

And the jeans, did I mention the jeans? The stars were finally aligned for jeans shopping on Thursday, and I made out like a bandit at the Macy’s sale. I collected so many promising pairs to take to the dressing room that I thought I’d better take notes. You see, I’m terribly picky about the way jeans fit. If you’re like my mother, who steadfastly adheres to the L.L. Bean model with the high waist, full seat, and tapered legs, jeans shopping is never a problem. But I’m still a relatively svelte young thing, so I figure I might as well enjoy sexier jeans while I can. And a good pair is much harder to find. The current fashion for long pants generally suits my leggy 5’11” frame, but if they’re four inches too long on me, who exactly are they supposed to fit? And can we talk about low rise for a minute? I’m totally happy to see waist lines move south of the belly button, but the general public does not need to see my hip bones, nor the foothills of my gluteus maximi. I like to perform the squat test to see what I’ll be baring should I need to bend over or sit in the course of the day. Affiliated with many low rise jeans is a troubling phenomenon I like to call the Stand-Up Comedy effect, in which the waist band doesn’t curve back in with the body after the hips, but projects laughably straight up from the fullest point of the pants. Exactly what shape would I have to be to fill such trousers, particularly above the buttocks? No belt in the world is going to cinch all that in comfortably. Finally, there’s the issue of the jodhpur region. You know, that area on the upper outside of the thigh that’s a little troublesome for those of us who don’t have model spaghetti legs? Many pairs of jeans actually accent any bulginess there, and that is no good thing. A little extra compression in the jodhpur vicinity is a little more flattering to most of us. So here’s what I found:

Wranglers: unkind jodhpurs, and too long, producing a strange baggy knee effect.

Earl Jeans: (My most fashionable cousin, Rachel, looks great in Earl Jeans. She claims they lift and separate.) But these are too flared at the cuff, too much compression in the behind, and too distressed. (Did I mention how stupid I think it is to pay money for something that’s already been artfully shredded? I can wear my pants out just fine by myself, thanks.) Very poor performance on the squat test.

A.B.S. Jeans: decent all around, good waist. Slight damage to one knee; only $15!

Buffalo: (Oh great, I thought. Just what a woman wants to feel like when she pulls on her pants in the morning.) But sexy! Nice contours in the back, and now I see what Rachel means about the lifting and separation. Perfect length. Try to remember that 29″ x 33.5″ is the perfect size on future shopping trips.

City of Angels: good overall, but a little more distressed than I’d like.

Mavi (2): (My previous jeans were Mavis, so I had high hopes.) But these displayed poor gluteal shaping, with stand-up comedy. One pair was extremely low rise – no muffin top effect for this girl, thank you very much.

Indie: comfy stretch, appealingly dark color. But wide pockets spoil the rear view, too low rise, worst in squat test. Next!

Born in California: (My northwest prejudices make me disinclined to like them already.) Good length, but fail the squat test. And only middling in the lifting and separation departments.

The final choices? Buffalo wins – they’re more expensive than I’d like, but for 20% off I can stomach the price. Especially when I threw in the A.B.S. for good measure. If I buy two pairs, I won’t have to do this again for a long time! And when I average the prices, I’m only paying $35 for each pair, and that’s within the limits of what I’m willing to spend. Woot!

Now I’m back in Portland, being thoroughly perforated and drool-bespeckled by my happy cat. Fingers crossed for the job interview I had this morning, okay everybody? This afternoon I have to meet the appraiser and let him into My Soon-to-Be House so he can do whatever it is appraisers do. Yes, we’re buying the house! When Mr. Garter gets back from New York next weekend with the camera, I’ll show you some pictures of it. I think you’ll agree it’s absurdly cute.

Huzzah! All is restored Chez Garter. So without further ado, here are the projects you haven’t seen yet. Click for bigness:

A Conwy sock! How I love Knitting on the Road. I’ve been wanting to make these for a long time, and my mother has a birthday coming up. Blue is her color, so I think these will be a hit. But I’ve also offered them up for sockless Sockapalooozers, if there are any neglected souls out there with size 9 feet and scrawny calves. My mum’s the best to knit socks for because our legs and feet are the same size. We watched a lot of episodes of 24 the past two nights, so this sock’s mate has most of a leg already. This pattern isn’t a quick knit, given all those little micro-cables, but it’s pretty mindless once you’ve done a few rounds. Perfect television knitting, unlike this:

I give you a partial sleeve of the Viennese Shrug from last summer’s Interweave Knits, modified for Noro Cash Iroha. As I mentioned before, I’ve had to do some creative work with the lace chart and some heavy-duty frogging, but I think we’re on the right track now. The lace is intentionally 3-dimensional so it’s difficult to see the form of the pattern, but I’m liking it. I love the color, and the smooth action of the Cash Iroha. This piece is knit from the center back with a provisional cast-on so you can pick up and work the second sleeve. I dig the seamless knits, especially after the Rosalind debacle.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t confess to this:

Oops, I stashed.

The Lake Oswego Farmer’s Market opened up the Saturday before last. No one told me there was yarn. I traipsed merrily in expecting vegetables, baked goods, flowers – the usual. But the folks from SuDan Farm weren’t just selling their lamb – they had a wheel set up to crank out the handspun, too. How was I supposed to resist a chocolate skein of Coopworth from a lamb named Macaroon, I ask you? I pointed this out to Mr. Garter:

Me: Look, it’s from a sheep called Macaroon! How cute is that?
Mr. Garter: You took his underpants.

Ever the realist, my husband. Whatever, I’m making Macaroon mittens. But right now I’m off to Jim & Patty’s coffeeshop to finish the Viennese Sleeve. And then it might be naptime. I was rudely wrenched from slumber at 3am when Mingus, who was sleeping on my legs as always, suddenly hissed and flew about six feet through the air to attack another cat that was in our bedroom. Or it may have been a raccoon – it was dark, and I wasn’t wearing my contacts. But there was a big fight going down and I’d just been asleep. We’d left the door ajar for ventilation, and someone who didn’t belong had waltzed right in. Fortunately, my brave kitty sent him packing. Three cheers for Mingus!

Last weekend Mr. Garter and I took a jaunt up to Seattle to visit friends and relatives. I had an ulterior motive, too – the Seattle Knitting and Fiber Arts Expo was in full swing, too, and I wasn’t about to miss that. I didn’t know what to expect: the only knitting festival I’d attended previously was New York Sheep & Wool at Rhinebeck, and clearly an event held in the Seattle Marriott wasn’t going to be featuring quite so many wooly beasties. And while sheep dog trials in a hotel sound like a pretty good time to me (certainly the dog would be required to load the sheep into the elevator and bring them up or down to the correct floor), I didn’t get my hopes up. Sure enough, the Seattle Knitting Expo was a smaller and tamer affair. I hadn’t signed up for any classes, so I just browsed through the twenty or so vendors’ booths. Blue Moon was there, rocking their famous sock yarn (I didn’t buy any, since I stocked up at Knit Purl a few weeks ago and I still have a huge stash of it from Christmas), but I was disappointed not to see Brooks Farms in attendance. I did do a little stashing at Pat Fly’s Angora Valley booth – I picked up an 800 (!) yard hank of 3-ply wool in “Tartan”, a mix of berry tones, and a 650-yard skein of Fly Super Sport Monarch (formerly Happy Trails 3-ply – a dead ringer for the midweight STR at a much more generous yardage and better price, and superwash to boot) in shades of teal. By the time I had finished shopping, it was raining buckets and the temperature had plummeted. The weather had been so mid-summer glorious all week that I hadn’t even packed a sweater for my trip. So I sat in the lobby shivering in my Clapotis and knit like a fiend on Hourglass. When the rain lightened up a little, I fetched a car for the woman I’d been chatting with (an awesome green Buick with the vanity plate “I KNIT”) and then made my way back to the relatives’ house.

On Monday we drove up to visit my parents for a few days. And of course there was the Sockapaloooza deadline to meet. I almost got the Dalarnas in the mail for Tuesday. Sometimes I forget that when you’re on an island things work a little differently. It turns out the airline that used to carry our mail got all delinquent with their rent payments to the airport and lost their accreditation, so they aren’t allowed to carry the mail anymore. This means the mail has to go out by boat, and that means the post office has changed their hours and now closes at 3:00. Not 3:00:27, which is approximately when I turned up at the door with my package. Alas, my most pathetic appeals could not sway the man locking said door. So the socks had to wing their way to my pal in the other Washington Wednesday morning before I boarded the ferry for a day hike on a neighboring island. But I’m pleased with them – thanks to those of you who suggested blocking on coat hangers. (Click for big!)

Specs:

Dalarna socks from Nancy Bush’s Knitting on the Road

Dale Baby Ull in cherry red

US#0 Addi circs

As I mentioned previously, I modified the pattern to replace the leg shaping with ribbing. Otherwise, I followed it as written. It has the swirling toe decreases that many people seem to dislike, as they produce a somewhat pointy toe, but I decided to trust Nancy. The blocking rounded out the toes a bit.

I really did knit these babies on the road – in Friday Harbor, WA; Portland, OR; Alpine, TX; Big Bend National Park; and Kansas City, MO. I just hope they fit my pal.

And now I get to await the arrival of my own socks. One of the perks is that I have an actual mailbox to watch. It’s my very first mailbox. Okay, it’s really Mr. Garter’s parents’ mailbox. But my mail comes there, too, and it’s a real novelty for me. Growing up we had a post office box because packs of rowdy boys tend to play mailbox baseball from their trucks. (We’re a little short of teen entertainment in my home community. At least we haven’t resorted to wholesale cow tipping.) Lots of people have mailboxes anyway, but my parents didn’t want to deal with one. So it’s quite a thrill for me to put the electric bill in the box and tip up the little red flag. And it’s totally fun when the postmobile heaves in sight.

Next up: Hourglass sweater!