Time: Thursday night.
Mission: Seam lace-trimmed bolero and knit enough edging to put the surrey with the fringe on top to shame. Sew on said edging.
Deadline: Saturday, 3:00 pm.
Progress:
It was a dark and sticky night in New York City, and a daunting task lay before me. The seaming came easily, and I raised a glass of lemon soda to the swingin’ chick who first received the divine inspiration for raglan shaping, because she was a hip, hip lady. But I was beginning to think there was no way I could knit enough lace trim to edge the whole jacket in time to wear it to Adam’s cousin’s wedding in Chicago on Saturday. Worse still, I had to sew on the edging, and I wasn’t willing to do a slap-dash job of it. Nay, better seams are a major goal of mine this fall, and I wanted to kick things off right with this bolero.

Thank goodness for boring airplane rides. Thank goodness for inane airline safety regulations that, although they won’t permit your minuscule sewing scissorini with the half-inch cutting edge, will allow you to wield as many twelve-to-fourteen-inch metal spikes as your heart desires. The lace fairly spumed from the needles (although somewhat less zestily from one Green Aluminum Flea Market Needle and one end of a Denise circular than it had from the two GAFMNs). My tapestry needle was a golden blur, and the edging did not bunch or gape or flop or pucker or distort my pretty little silk jacket into any other undesirable shape. I wove in the ends while visiting with all my new in-laws over breakfast on Saturday. And at the deadline, I looked like this:

The ceremony was lovely, the couple glowing, the reception riotous in the best Polish tradition (actually, it was apparently a little watered down – we drank plenty of vodka and shouted something that sounds like “groshko” (which means something like “the vodka is sour, you must sweeten it with a kiss”) a lot, but to my disappointment we didn’t get to the song that suggests the bride take a cucumber – “ogurek” – in case the groom can’t perform). It was my first Polish wedding experience, and it was a great crowd of people. And they complimented the bolero, so I loved them.

And I’m finally getting around to my public thanks to my lovely and generous Secret Pal of Excellent Taste, Minnie, who gifted me with this bounty several weeks ago:

Mmmm…yummy vanilla-scented products from Bath & Body Works, fluffy midnight-blue Katia mohair and jazzy silver accent glitz from Anny Blatt. Minnie included her favorite pattern for a moebius scarf, which I’ve been terribly curious about. Now I get to try one out – thanks, Minnie! Let’s take a closer look at that mohair, shall we?

Yep. Fabulous. Mingus has pronounced it so.

Alas, my beloved No. 5 Green Aluminum Flea Market Needle has been widowed. Her mate was tragically lost on a Bronx-bound C train last night in a scramble to disembark at 59th Street when said train suddenly announced it was going express. I stuffed my lace edging hurriedly into my bag, which I did not zip closed, and by the time I transfered to the 1, the needle was gone. Not only does this make me peevish for the utilitarian reason that it’s my only pair of #5s and I wasn’t finished with the lace edging (fortune smiles upon me: the Denise circulars I’ve borrowed from Amanda for the Lotus Blossom Shawl are also #5s). It’s that these needles are such a beautiful shade of shiny green, like the under-canopy of a sunlit forest, and they’re probably older than I am, and I was so happy to find them at the flea market for a measley couple of bucks. That needle soldiered so faithfully through its one and only project, the lace-trimmed bolero (and it brought out the bronze highlights of the Chai silk so spectacularly), as it’s probably done for hundreds of other projects for other knitters before it came to me, and now it won’t get to knit anything else again. The best its poor mate can hope for is to be involved in a three-needle bind-off, and that, my friends, is a sad fate for such a useful needle. These babies were indestructible. I could have still been knitting with them sixty years from now. Look for me haunting the flea markets in search of…well, I may need a little time before I can think of another pair of #5s as replacements.

Brunswick, Maine is one of my favorite places on this green earth. We were just there for the wedding of two college friends, so unfortunately it was a short trip, especially considering the sixteen hours we spent in the car. But Maine is decidedly worth the trek, and we happily larked over our old stomping grounds and relished the greenery, the smell of the salt sea, and the more temperate weather. No visit is complete until we’ve had our toes in the sand of Popham Beach, above. And I was scarcely less eager to stop at Halcyon Yarn in Bath, conveniently on the way to Popham and to the resort where our friends had their reception. Halcyon is not only one of the great Local Yarn Stores in New England; it is also the first place I ever bought yarn (six skeins of Lamb’s Pride to make scarves for my grandparents!). Had I been thinking clearly, I would have taken some pictures of the hallowed space. But who can think clearly around so much yarn? Anyway, I lost all capability of rational behavior when I saw this:

Serious knittin’ booty, my friends. This is the elusive and currently unobtainable Malabrigo worsted weight merino. I’ve heard this stuff praised to the skies all over the internet, and I can gleefully report that none of the ovations have been unmerited. If you’d given me a skein in a blind grope test, I would have sworn it was alpaca, or possibly even a generous cashmere blend. It’s that soft. And the color? Brilliant geranium, just the remedy for another dreary winter in New York. The charming kettle-dyed (I love that phrase: kettle-dyed) variegations are just quirky enough to remind me that this yarn was made by real humans, which makes me all the fonder of it. I’ve been meditating on a second Clapotis in a winter weight and fiber, and now I know it’s meant to be. Much to Adam’s amusement, I kept a skein of my precious Malabrigo in my lap to fondle as we drove. It’s as good as a favorite stuffed animal, I tell you.

This wouldn’t have been a proper outing without a parting shot (no pun intended) from the sock. Although I mostly worked on fixing one of my most boneheaded knitting moments yet (with the sleeves of the bolero – would you believe I ripped out the wrong one, and so had to reknit them both?), the sock was not neglected. Unfortunately it didn’t get to cavort on the beach; it would have felt very much at home in that grey-blue-sand landscape. Here it’s posing with a recent addition to my college town: the Udder Place drive-through coffee shop. My “Ole Tangle Eye”, a mocha made with Mexican chocolate, was mighty delicious. I’ll finish this account of the trip without dwelling on the rather horrid drive home: I fully intend to wipe my memory of those mind- and bottom-numbing hours in traffic. At least I had my Malabrigo to comfort me.

There’s a new project on the needles Chez Blue Garter. When Joy offered to bring back orders from Art Fibers during her San Francisco trip, I knew I had to get my hands on some Chai silk. The store didn’t have the exact colorway I’d selected from the website, but #33 was close: a gentle variegation ranging from magenta to warm bronze. I’m calling it “Bourbon rose”. The pattern I selected for it is the Lace Trim Bolero from Vogue Knitting Summer 2005. This is as close to the shrug as I go, folks. An upper-body garment, unless is it a shawl or wrap, must have a Front for me to wish to make its acquaintance. None of your sleeves connected across the back, thank you very much.

Anyway, here’s my progress:

That’s the completed back piece, and I’ve made a start on the left front. I’m hoping to finish in time for the wedding we have to attend in Chicago in mid-September. Impressions? The Chai is a thick-and-thin yarn, which doesn’t show off the decorative eyelets to their best advantage, but I’m quite happy with the way this project is coming out. Blocking, or even–gasp–ironing as Art Fibers recommends, should improve the look of the eyelets. The silk is luscious (although it’s tricky not to stab into some of the thicker sections) and behaves beautifully on my green aluminum #5’s from the flea market. And I love the colors. I’m pretty wary of variegated yarns (except for socks), but this kind of gentle color shifting I can appreciate.

Speaking of socks and variegated yarn, starting my second Feather-and-Fan sock has proven excruciating. Observe this:

See how the colors are bodging together on the new sock instead of striping? I determined to knit the leg of Sock #2 on larger needles (#1’s) because the first sock is so difficult to pull over my heel. The slightly larger gauge may be part of my problem, but I also believe that dumb luck led me to cast on the first sock at a very advantageous point in the color range. I ripped out my new beginnings three times last night. The dye lot is the same between skeins, but even when I looked carefully at Sock #1 and tried to cast on in the same place (so the join falls where the blue is just shifting to grey), I got the Dreaded Pooling. Finally I realized I was pulling from the center of the new ball, where as I’d drawn from the outside when I began the first sock. In case this was somehow making a difference, I stuffed my frogged squiggles back into the center and drew from the outside. What do you know?

Much better.