My server has been unusually fritzy this week, so I apologize for the length of time since the last post. I had things to show you, too – I really did! Like this:

Delicious Fleece Artist sock yarn in the colorway “Jester” arrived on Saturday, kindly donated by the lovely Allison of the Simply Sock Yarn Co. for a Socktoberfest prize. Go visit her – she’s got some seriously great sock yarn, and she included a very nice hand-written note with the yarn. Norma mentioned the excellent personal attention many small yarn stores give, and SSYC is definitely among them! This yarn couldn’t be a more glorious autumnal range of colors. I’m extra glad to have it, as you can see the pathetic effort my tree has made thus far.

And then there’s this:

This is the Twisted Float cardigan by Annie Modesitt from Fall ’05 Vogue. I began it in my class (we interrupt this message to let you now that it is doing lightning and thunder and rain outside right now. Thunderstorms in November? Huh?) with Annie at The Point on Friday night, and on Saturday I could hardly put it down. The construction makes it a totally fascinating project, and it’s as good a use of variegated yarn as I’ve seen. I’m making a child-size version and eliminating the boucle trim in favor of a simple picot edge. I love the yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted in “Seaside” (and it really does make me nostalgic for the sea – these are the colors of my home) and the sea green remnants from Lisa’s beautiful clapotis.

And I did this:

Yep, that’s me with a drop spindle and some forebearing Romney! Marie very kindly loaned me her extra spindle and a little pile of roving to practice with, and then she showed me the ropes. The “yarn” I made is utter crap, of course. But I’m learning, by golly! Soon I’ll get the hang of it…not that I have time for another addiction, especially with Christmas looming so menacingly and so much gansey left to knit.

We’ll end with a gratuitous cat picture, just because. It’s knitting related, though: we’re reading our new copy of Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks. Ah, happiness.

Yes, my friends, here you see the maiden voyage of HMS Swift, winding her very first 500-yard skein of Brooks Farm Duet. As this operation went swimmingly, she proceeded to wind the rest of the Rhinebeck haul and then all of Lisa’s Rhinebeck yarn. Swifting is so pleasurable that I would have gladly wound about eight times as much yarn for Lisa free of charge, but she traded me the Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted she had left over from her Clapotis. I’d been eyeing it for the class I’m taking tonight – my very first knitting class, and it’s with Annie Modesitt! I’m going to learn combination knitting and how to create circular fabric. The project is the circular cardigan on the cover of the Fall issue of Vogue, which I quickly dismissed as Not My Bag. But then I got to thinking that the construction was really pretty neat and easily applicable to other garments, so I started imagining a toddler-size version in entirely different colors with a simple picot edge instead of all that boucle. So I’m going to see what I can do with Lisa’s sea green yarn and a couple of beautiful skeins in the colorway Seaside. Wish me luck!

Few posts would be complete without a gratuitous sock picture, so here’s the second Bearfoot feather-and-fan sock romping at The Cloisters in the beautiful weather we had last weekend:

I had high expectations for Rhinebeck. It surpassed them. It was glorious. There were sheep

puppies

sheep dog trials (yes, that’s a Border Collie, a handler, and three sheep in the distance)

featuring Joy and Amanda

and plenty of yarn.

Let’s take a closer look at the haul:

This glut includes three 500 yard skeins of Brooks Farms “Duet”, which is single ply of the world’s silkiest mohair and one of wool twizzled around each other, and three skeins of Blue Moon Socks That Rock. This picture also shows off my snazzy new leopard-print galoshes, which weren’t needed at all because the weather turned out to be gorgeous. But they made me easier to spot in the crowd and drew several compliments – one gentleman told me I ought to be in Vogue magazine. I hope he meant Vogue Knitting. Not pictured here is a luscious skein of Maple Creek DK weight silk/merino that came home with me, and seven skeins of Morehouse Merino 2-ply in “Sienna”, a pumpkin orange, for a husband sweater. O bountiful day. O meager bank account. It’s a good thing Rhinebeck is only once a year. Send a yarn swift!

What with the holiday and a lovely knitterly afternoon at Lisa’s apartment yesterday, I was able to finish up Lightning’s primary body parts and toss her in a lavender Eucalan bath this morning. Here’s the cat examining my blocking job:

I forgot how Rowan Plaid grooooowwws when it’s wet – that’s alpaca for you! So I patted it back into shape and left it moisten the couch all day. Then I started on the collar, which I hope to finish tonight. Lightning doesn’t make anything easy, so I’ve had to do considerable frogging on each piece. Just when I think I’ve got her figured out (and I can “read” the pattern in the knitting perfectly at this point), she hexes me with mysteriously incorrect stitch counts. I have to go back and add in extra-pattern increases or decreases any time there’s shaping, and count each row as I go along. So she’s been a loooong time in the knitting – you’ve seen her lurking there at the top of the list of projects on the needles for the last ten months, after all! But the end is in sight, and I plan to have her ready for Rhinebeck next weekend. (Whether or not it’ll be cold enough for bulky weight alpaca blend sweaters is another issue, of course.)

So what’s next? I spent a good few hours this afternoon working out the pattern for my father’s Christmas gansey. (And by the way, some of the Spiders told me they had no idea what I meant by a gansey: it’s traditionally a seaman’s pullover sweater that originated on the Channel islands of Jersey and Guernsey, hence the name. It has patterning – cables, raised stitch patterns, etc. – over the chest and upper arms.) I still have a couple more inches of dull-as-dirt stockinette-in-the-round before I get to begin…Garter Welts, Ripple Stitch, Christmas Trees, Raindrops, Gull Stitch, Willow Buds, Twisted Tree, and Scotch Faggoting Cable(!). Don’t it have a kind of poetry to it? It was a hoot poring over Barbara Walker’s First Treasury of Knitting Patterns to choose the different elements, and then arranging them so that the stitch counts would work together properly. I tried to select patterns that remind me of something about my dad, and it’s going to be an engaging puzzle trying to put them all on one chart.

I have further design inspirations, too. I’m not going to share them just yet, but this beautiful Rowan yarn I got from Amanda at our impromptu yarn swap is fuel for the fire: