For Easter has arrived and with it a respite from the Holy Week choral marathon! After singing five services in four days and being stuffed with Easter dinner at the in-laws’, I was good for very little last evening. Rain was coming down in torrents, so it was time to get cozy indoors. I swapped my lacy tights and heels for a comfy pair of handknit wool socks and my dressy Easter clothes for yoga pants and a sweatshirt, pulled my favorite Welsh wool blanket (a wedding present from my cousins in Maine) out of the bureau drawer and snuggled up on the couch with my cat, some knitting, and the third season of All Creatures Great and Small. I thought about working on this:

But it requires too much brain power. That’s the beginning of my Cocoon-Stitch Half-Circle shawl in the Toots LeBlanc angora/merino, and I’m pleased as punch with how it looks and how it feels… softer and deliciously softer as the yarn passes through my fingers and the angora halo blooms. But the pattern is written out line by line and I haven’t memorized what happens between the “cocoons” and the increases yet.

So I picked up my newest project: the Three in One cardigan for my mother, which I cast on Wednesday (which feels like a month ago) at the Close Knit knitting night. I put on my 184 stitches and got started, then remembered I was planning to work continuous garter-stitch hem/button bands with mitered corners for a nice, finished look after I steek… a nice, finished look that was going to require the forethought of a provisional cast-on. Oops. Tracy lent me her crochet hook and reminded me how easy it is to do a provisional cast-on using the hook to draw loops over your needle. I am the world’s clumsiest person with a crochet hook. (As Tracy tactfully put it, “Hmmm, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone carry the yarn in the right hand for crochet.”) I can steam away with two needles at lace, cables, travelling stitches, short rows, you name it… but Galapagos finches can manipulate their insect-extracting twigs with considerably more dexterity than I can muster in wielding a crochet hook. But after a while I developed a sort of left-handed throw that was more or less efficient, and the advantage of the crochet-hook method is that I think I’ll be able to remember how to do it next time, whereas I always have to look up video tutorials of the methods I’ve tried before.

The Three and One turns out to be blissfully brainless colorwork, premium for watching Little Dorrit on Masterpiece Theatre. (I haven’t read this particular Dickens and it’s seriously stretching my attention to figure out what is going on with the truly creepy French guy and some of the other murky fringe characters who are obviously tied into the Dorrits’ and Clenhams’ murky history in some murky, confusing way. I think murky may in fact be the definitive adjective for a Dickens plot. But boy am I looking forward to the romantic payoff when Amy and Arthur finally get together. End tangent.) I’m doing the “Pheasant’s Plumage” version with the purl stitches. The major design dilemma is this: Mom wants some waist shaping. I can’t add it by decreasing without disrupting the three-and-one pattern. (Well, I could–there’s an occasional single-color plain round that would allow for subtracting multiples of four invisibly–but the vertical alignment of the motifs would be thrown off OR, if I bunched the decreases, I’d have potentially unflattering stair-steps at the side “seam.”) If it were for me, I’d throw in an extra design element: a band of about 4″ of ribbing to draw the sweater in at the natural waist in the oatmealy background color. This would echo the shawl collar I’m already planning to add (Mum and I both have slender necks that make the rest of us cold if left exposed) and the ribbed cuffs and might, with the addition of a tie-on belt using some of the contrast colors, give the sweater kind of a rad Starsky and Hutch vibe. But I don’t think my mother owns any belted cardigans, and if the belt of her bathrobe is anything to judge by, I might just be knitting puppy bait. Because apparently

fabric belt : Labrador

as

thumb : toddler

or

Coors Light : my brother-in-law.

All’s just right with the world when the two meet at the lips, you know? And also I’m fairly sure my mother has never seen Starsky and Hutch, original or remake.

So I’m delaying the decision until I can put the question to Mum, and meanwhile I’m angling in for some subtle shaping by going down a needle size now that I’m about 3″ in. (Mum, if you read this post before I see you next weekend, leave your preference in the Comments, okay?) Any advice for me, wise readers? Solutions I haven’t thought of? What do you like to do with colorwork patterns and decreases?

*Post title courtesy of William Byrd’s delightful but tricky setting of this psalm:

Sing joyfully to God our strength; sing loud unto the God of Jacob!

Take the song, bring forth the timbrel, the pleasant harp, and the viol.

Blow the trumpet in the new moon, even in the time appointed, and at our feast day.

For this is a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob.

I like the bit with the trumpet and the new moon.

Amanda is almost done. I knit the two nicest buttonbands I’ve ever done–got ’em perfect on the first try. I had to ignore the pattern’s pick-up number because I made the torso longer than called for. Normally I’d pick up two stitches to every three, which works every time for directional changes like knitting sleeves down from the body, but here the buttonbands are worked on needles two sizes smaller to control the spread of the garter stitch. I had a funny feeling picking up two-to-three in this situation would give me a puckery band that would gather in my sweater fronts. I was almost tempted to pick up one-to-one, but that might have given me too long a band. I didn’t want wavy edges, either. So I went with three-to-four, and it was spot-on. Just one problem: I was so busy feeling chuffed at my knitting savvy that I didn’t put in any buttonholes. Sigh. Rip.

Now I’ve got beautiful buttonbands with holes for the beautiful buttons my father made. I chose this pinky Pacific madrona set. There are dark, stripey wenge buttons, too, that perfectly match the yarn, but I’m proud of my dad’s work and so I decided to let the buttons stand out as their own element. I love how the madrona wood glows against the wool. Only the shawl collar left to do!

Alas, I stole the needle to work on Emily, from Kim Hargreaves’s Heartfelt – The Dark House Collection, for my sister-in-law. So I may need to knit up the Emily front before I finish Amanda. Fortunately, Emily has been flying along. An evening watching episodes of All Creatures Great and Small on Netflix movie viewer (huzzah for the Mac version! huzzah for James Herriot! I feel great affection for this 1977 adaptation of the delightful book series), the inauguration ceremonies (huzzah doesn’t even cover it!), and a faculty meeting or two and I’m up to the armscye shaping. I’m using Rowan Felted Tweed in that deep purple called Bilberry. Because Felted Tweed is such a light DK (in fact I’m not even sure why it’s classed as such–I’d call it sportweight, myself), this will be an airy, weightless little sweater, but if I do a good job I think Marika will love it.

And speaking of last Tuesday, it’s hard to capture my excitement about the new president in words. I think I’ll always remember watching the inauguration (probably the first time I’ve done so, if you don’t count brief clips that played on the evening news), and I hope it will be an event my generation talks about into the future (Where were you when Obama became president?), looking back on it as a pivotal moment for our country and the beginning of a time of worthy work and greater care for each other. Watching the cameras sweep out over that jubilant (if half-frozen) mass of humanity packed onto the Mall, watching sixty middle-schoolers take it all in and hearing them discuss the peaceful transfer of power, I’ve never felt prouder of my country.

This is me, waving feebly from under the avalanche of work that’s buried me these past weeks: I’m still alive! In fact, proof of my continued existence is now on view: go sneak a peek at the fall issue of Stephanie’s brainchild, Popknits. As soon as Stephanie asked for vintage-inspired contributions, I had an idea ready.

This is the Footlights Cardigan, my secret yellow project from the Tour de France KAL, and you’ll be able to read all about it when the issue goes live at the beginning of September. One of the things I’m scrambling to do is to finish a second sample with three-quarter sleeves.

That’s all for now; a manuscript about the fifth wife of Henry VIII and a weather unit for second and third graders still need my attention, and then I’m settling in to finish a sleeve and gulp lemonade as I try to endure the heat wave Portland’s having. (At least the knitting work can be done while watching the Olympics!)

Saturday mornings are for the farmers’ market. I thought my nascent cardigan might look fine reposing among the fresh produce and, for the sake of the composition, the bottle I saved from the best wine I’ve tasted since the Brunello we brought back from Montalcino in 2003.

The Red Russian kale went into an experimental Indian-esque dinner in the following way: I sautéed half a yellow onion in olive oil, added a can of chick peas, then stirred in some chopped fresh ginger, a Murchi curry blend (I went a little overboard and it wound up pretty hot – a couple of teaspoons would have done the trick), a handful of unsweetened coconut shavings, and a dash of hot pepper flakes. I removed the kale “backbones” and roughly chopped the leaves, then threw them into the mix. At this point I needed some liquid to keep it all from sticking. There happened to be some apple cider (sweet, not hard) in the icebox, so I poured in a slosh of that. Then I noticed our growler from the local brewery was in there, too, and still had a glug of flat pale ale in it. Into the pot it went, to counteract a little of the sweetness of the apple juice and deepen the flavor a bit. As soon as the kale had steamed it was done. I shaved a little ricotta salata over the plates to serve it, on the theory that the mild, salty cheese could stand in for proper paneer. It turned out pretty tasty! I often cook this way, starting with a good fresh main ingredient and improvising based on what happens to be in the cupboards. Sometimes the result isn’t what I could hope, but mostly it works out well. And luckily my husband is a good sport about it (not that he has an alternate choice, unless he cooks himself).

We also bought raspberries, and unfortunately Mr. G figured he could dispense with their little boxes and pour them all into a plastic bag. The fragile little beauties promptly squashed each other and I knew they wouldn’t last out the day. We ate a bowl each, and then I made freezer jam. The half a cup of mashed raspberries left over went into a fruity cocktail each:

I adapted an internet recipe and it came out a bit too strong and too sweet, but here’s what I’d do next time:

half a glass of crushed ice
1/4 c. mashed raspberries
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 measure light rum
a slice of lemon

Yum!

Today the chard, spinach, courgettes, and summer squash will join a trio of eggplants in a couple of pans of lasagne. One will be for us and a friend who’s coming to dinner; the other we’ll freeze for our friends who just brought home their beautiful new son.

Meanwhile, the Tour continues, and so does my progress on the yellow cardigan. If this piece of knitting has its equivalent of the Pyrenees, that’s where I am, right along with the cyclists. Two more rows and I can put the sleeve stitches on waste yarn, but those rows are awfully long. The Alps will be the part where I have to pick up stitches and work a 1 x 1 ribbed edge around the whole body, but luckily I’ve got a couple of flatter stages in between to race down the rest of the cropped torso. Overall, I’m feeling good about my chances for the maillot vert!

Of course, there’s going to be a major interruption in my focus on this piece. Pro riders are required to report their whereabouts to the team leadership even during the off-season, so I’ll follow suit: on Thursday I’m leaving for Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp in Wisconsin, and I’m perfectly giddy with anticipation! I may have to put down the yellow cardi for a couple of days, but I intend to be knitting constantly for four days. And I’ve got a project in my head that will employ the techniques I need to work on at Camp without sacrificing the French connection – stay tuned! I’m off to wind the yarn I have to pack and do some weeding before the sun comes fully over the trees to bake me.