Nothing like opening with a complete nonsequitur: Dang, this site looks bad in IE. Get thee another browser if you’re still using it – there’s a brave new world out there!

Ciao from drippy, dismal New York. I surely picked the wrong week to visit, weatherwise. And also cultural events-wise – Shakespeare in the Park opens with the Scottish Play, featuring Liev Schrieber and my personal heroine Jennifer Ehle… the day after I leave. I am heartbroken. If I didn’t have a job interview (for a job I really do want) in Portland on Tuesday, I would absolutely change my ticket. Who doesn’t want to see Lizzy Bennet become Lady Macbeth? It’s like a twisted fantasy in which life at Pemberley goes horribly awry. But back to the weather: nothing but clouds and rain and sodden tennis shoes for the past three days. And my one mission (to find a new pair of jeans that fit, for cheap) failed completely. Sixteen pairs I tried on, and the only one I liked was missing its metal fastener. Had they been even cheaper, I would have bought them anyway and come up with a creative solution. But they were so Haute Designery that even with the massive Century 21 discount, they weren’t quite attractive enough. Sigh. Mr. Garter doesn’t understand what could possibly be so difficult about finding a decent pair of jeans.

Knitting-wise, progress is steady on the Viennese Shrug sleeve. I think I’ve finally found the perfect combination of ignoring and not ignoring the pattern. No more batwings, and although the sleeves may come out a little longer than the designer intended, I think I’ll like them that way. And I should have just the right amount of yarn (knock on wood). (Nonsequitur number two: We knock on wood so that the naughty spirits who live in the wood won’t hear us and thwart our plans and assumptions that all will be well. If there’s no wood nearby, you don’t have to knock.)

I’ve also taken on a deadline project, for actual money. I don’t think I ought to say much about it here, but it’s a sample scarf for a magazine that I’m knitting up for somebody else. Anyway, I get to use Rio de la Plata, a yarn a little outside my price range that I’ve coveted for many moons. Awesome yarn, and cash? Sign me up, baby. These days I’m all about the freelance work, which is why I’m spending valuable knitting time proofreading young adult novels (okay, that’s something I love doing, so the fact that it requires my full attention and precludes knitting doesn’t chafe too badly) and summarizing legal depositions. So how much the merrier if I can freelance knit? Rosalind is tapping her foot and still waiting for that crochet edging, though, and Conwy#2 still needs a foot.

But I think I may blow them both off and head to Macy’s. I’m not in New York too often these days, you know? And I do have a credit there from the return of a bridesmaid’s dress. Tomorrow I’m meeting Steph and Lisa for a yarn crawl to School Products and Habu, so it’s just as well if I save my real money. Just don’t be too surprised to see me in the same shabby old jeans for a few months. I promise to knit patches if they develop any holes that compromise my virtue.

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!

I had a nice post ready for you, with pictures and everything. But sometime yesterday morning the big black box, which Mr. Garter likes to call the “Ready NAS”, went rogue and devoured half the contents of the computer – all the movies, pictures, music, etc. – and we don’t yet know if any of it’s retrievable. These inevitable bouts of indecent comportment in one’s computer help to keep us from getting too attached to material (or digital) things. But they sure do mess with the blogging. And I’m beginning to think we’re reaping a little bad karma this week: we’ve had two flat tires (and what’s the probability of running over a huge nail that destroys the tire, replacing said tire, and then picking up another nail in the new tire the next day? It’s not as if we’re driving through construction sites for kicks), the knitting has gone all ahoo with wonky sleeves and lace that needs ripping (more on that in a moment), and now this. The constant rain I can’t blame on anything but the Pacific Northwest climate – it’s par for the course.

But it’s been an interesting week, overall.

1. On Wednesday I did my first volunteer day on the farm for the CSA we’ve joined (CSA, for those who don’t know, stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It’s a produce co-op.), and I met some delightful young farmers. We transplanted hundreds of squash, cucumber, and melon starts. We also pulled thistles in a thunder-and-hail storm. I felt very dedicated to the agriculture as the rain drenched my cotton pants and the hail spattered mud up under my enormous rain jacket as I wrestled the slippery thistle roots, let me tell you.

2. I wrote letters to the city government protesting the possible conversion of some of the best farm land into a dog park.

3. I re-learned to change a tire – yes, I’ve changed tires before, but I haven’t had to do it in many years, and I’ve never used the kind of jack our new car uses.

4. I went to Mr. Garter’s great-uncle Wilbur’s 90th birthday party.

5. I even made a new knitting friend: Jen and I finally met in person yesterday at Abundant Yarn for a few hours of knitting, yarn fondling, and coffee. We both like children’s literature, Corgis, and Trekking sock yarn, and we want to learn about plant dyes. We also share a desire to be Nancy Bush’s personal servants, but who doesn’t? I’m going to see if I can’t talk her into going down to the Black Sheep Gathering with me next month. Anyone else want to go? It sounds like the Rhinebeck of the West, y’all!

And finally, we turn to the knitting itself. I’m waiting for my friend Rosa to come visit this week and buck up my courage to tackle the crochet edging of Rosalind, so I went ahead and cast on something new – the Viennese Shrug from last summer’s Interweave Knits. I do have a stash of the Morehouse Merino the pattern requires, but it’s for a Teva Durham sweater. And it’s orange. I really wanted this shrug to be a deep, sultry boysenberry color… just like the Noro Cash Iroha that Mr. Garter bought me for my birthday last summer. Of course, the Cash Iroha is a heavier yarn and knits up to a totally different gauge, so I just made some rough calculations and cast on to see what would happen. Overall, I think the experiment will work, but I need to rip back part of the sleeve I knit yesterday and change the rate of the decreases, because currently there’s some rather ’80s bat-wing action going on. I could base-jump off the roof wearing this thing if the lace didn’t let so much air through. (It would be a lot easier to understand if you could see a picture, huh? Pray for the recovery of the Ready NAS, my friends!) Part of the trouble is that there’s no schematic for this pattern – not even a picture of the finished garment that really shows what shape it’s meant to be. Usually IK does a pretty respectable job of this, so I’m a little disappointed. But oh well, I’m chalking it up to Experimental Knitting. If I want to develop my skills as a designer, there’s a lot I need to learn about shaping, so this is just practice. And if the shrug goes completely awry, I’ll just have to cast on for the second Conwy sock. Yes, there’s a first one! It looks great, and I’d love to show you a picture! Sigh. I think I’d better go meditate and detach myself from my computer dependency.

Ta-da, Hourglass sweater is done!

           

I had to take advantage of our passage on the San Juan ferry Sealth for the photoshoot. I had finished the sweater on Sunday in Green Lake Park, while Mr. Garter did laps around the perimeter for his daily exercise. I was so tickled that, just as I’d bound off the neckline and was trying it on to make sure it wasn’t too Flashdance, a couple of girls came over and declared that they loved my sweater. They were even more excited when they realized I’d just finished making it. Is there anything more gratifying than public appreciation of your handknits? Anyway, once I’d woven in the ends and stitched up the little armpit holes that remained after I joined the sleeves and body, I didn’t take Hourglass off for five days. That’s partly because I’d been idiotic enough not to pack another sweater for a trip to the state of Washington, and partly because I’m really pleased with the way this one came out. I steam-blocked the hems and cuffs when I got home, so there’s no more of the funky hem flare I’m sporting in these pictures. And that’s all the blocking I did – nothing more was required. So, specs:

Hourglass sweater from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts

Brooks Farms Duet (wool/mohair) in a colorway I call Passionfruit, perhaps 800 yards?

US #7 Addi circs

I followed the directions for the medium size, although my gauge with the Duet was tighter than given for the Cash Iroha in the pattern. I just did a little basic math and figured out that knitting the medium size would give me the fit I wanted. I made no modifications except to add an extra decrease on the sleeves, to work provisional cast ons, and to cast off by picking up stitches ten rows below my bind-off row and knitting them together with my live stitches (leapfrogging the resulting stitches over and off as usual), which is the method I tend to use to finish rolled necklines. Et voila! It feels good to have this sweater finally finished, since I began it before I left New York. It’s been something of a transitional piece, if you will, and fortunately the northwest weather is never quite good enough to put your lighter wool sweaters away for the season.

What to tackle next? I’ve got a Conwy sock on the needles, but that’s pretty much it, and we all know I can’t be content with only one project. The smart move would be to dust off poor Rosalind, who has a completed back and half a left front, and who will be eminently suitable for debut if the weather continues summery. If I can figure out which box she’s in, I may take a stab at reacquainting myself with the pattern tomorrow. I also want to work on my drop spindle skills over the next few weeks. Mr. Garter will be jetting off to Texas again for his new brother-in-law’s graduation, and I’ll be home with the cat for a few days alone. Nothing entertains the cat like the drop spindle. He could watch that thing for hours. And you know an idle brain is the devil’s playground – must amuse the resident feline!

One thing is certain: there must be no more stashing. Not for months. I already have enough yarn to knit for years. I don’t generally believe in strict adherence to diets of any kind, but this time there is good reason to be frugal: we are thinking of buying a house. And not just any house: a really nice house. It’s in northeast Portland and it belongs to my aunt. It’s a perfect size, perfectly kept and renovated, in a perfect neighborhood…it’s so darn perfect we’re not sure we’re actually good enough to live in it. It has a window seat. It has nifty fish-and-swimming-people tiles in the bathroom, and a tub. It has a (small) second floor. (This is kind of a big deal in 1920s Portland housing. A lot of the houses we’ve seen appear to have an upstairs, but really only have an attic.) It has a beautiful kitchen with black and white tiles on the floor. It has a back yard with a magnolia and a peanut butter tree. (The leaves smell like peanut butter if you rub them between your fingers – really!) It has a fireplace, and a guest room, and a study, and big closets, and a garage, and a spanking new roof and windows and wiring. Can we afford it? Barely. But my aunt is offering a price we might never see again for all that perfection, and we can put together the necessary downpayment. The monthly mortgage is going to be a stretch, hence the need to be a lot less free with the plastic in yarn shops. I need my metalworking cousin to devise some sort of a chastity belt for my credit card – it’s way too loose with its favors in the presence of merino. I think we’ll have decided within the next two weeks whether to go for the house or not. Gulp. Send powers of reasoning, and maybe a stiff drink in case those fail.