I’ve finally taken some photos of the knitting that’s occupied my post-baby-bedtime evenings this summer. So I’ll trot them out one by one. And summer — at least by the calendar — is on the wane, so let’s just go ahead and eat dessert first:

(Yes, those are September raspberries. Have you ever seen the like?)

You wouldn’t have been able to let this skein languish in your stash, would you? It’s Stricken Smitten’s Smitten BFL Nylon Twist. It struck and smote me, as advertised, at Sock Summit. This base has actually got more nylon (20%) than I think it needs — 10% would have been more than sufficient for a longwool like BFL, in my opinion — and it’s got a rather squeaky hand as a result, but ooooooooooh, that cherry tart red! And that tight twist. This is a bombshell sock yarn just quivering for a chance to strut its stuff. And nothing shows off a yarn like this one better than twisted stitches, Bavarian style. So I cut it out of the herd for a riff on a Cookie A. pattern I’ve been planning. The jumping-off point is Kristi, from her Sock Innovation — I was immediately drawn to the slaloming double and single ribs, but I knew I’d never finish the socks if I attempted the jack-in-the-pulpit motif the ribs frame. That Cookie A. is a genius, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t stay up all night with sticky overheated babies and then try to knit from complicated charts for a round here and a round there. So I thought I’d keep those swooshy ribs but fill in with regular twisted rib so I’d be able to read my work more easily.

We’ll see what happens, but I have high hopes thus far. I actually did feel I needed a small, single-skein project on the needles because it’s really been too hot to swelter under a wool cardigan. Our late summer is just hitting its stride and treating us to a week of temperatures in the 90s (that’s the 30s in the Celsius world, right, Meg?), so we’re spending all the time we can in the wading pool, swinging on the front porch, and gobbling “hazboo” and “buhboo” (those are raspberries and blueberries to you and me) while the gobbling’s still good. I have a feeling it’ll be some weeks before I’m ready to contemplate putting a woolen sock on my foot, but it doesn’t hurt to think ahead, right?

It’s quiet here because I am having a deep soak up at home with my family and friends and the golden perfection of August in the islands. Ada has toddled on the docks to peer at anemones and chitons and limpets (Mama had to restrain her from stepping right down into the sea, fearless, trusting tot); gorged on blueberries and mulberries in a friend’s garden; been sized up by newly caught mustangs; eaten pie at the County Fair; signed “milk” to me while watching a runty but enterprising piglet suckle one teat after the next as his brothers and sisters slept in an irresistible wriggly heap; dozed on long walks with her dad and grandfather; played the piano six exuberant times a day with both hands and her left foot; watched Mama and Granny pull thistles in the meadow; learned to say “oof” while pointing at a picture of a dog; and not least, but at last, has grown two comically crooked teeth. (Note to self: Stop buying so much wool so you can sock away the necessary funds for braces.)

To give you a midweek lift, I offer this edifying school report composed by my great-great-uncle Samuel Cauldwell in 1871, when he was nine years old:

The Camel.
To write anything about a Camel is very hard because he has such a long crooked neck. And he also has two humps except where he only has one, and they are to hang on by when you fall off. He has no stummick but only a pail of water inside of him, put so he can help himself easy. They fill it at the pump before he starts. His hair is bright red and blue and green; for Camel’s hair shawls have to be made of it. The Camel is very much like the monkey only he is made different. There is no more about the Camel.

(Ada has not yet met the resident island camel, so sadly I can’t close with an apt photo. Camels, like horses, are Extremely Large and probably therefore Just a Tad Bit Worrisome. Goats and sheep and pigs and calves are a better scale at the moment, but we’re working on the horses.)

More accurately, now we are thirty-three! Ada and I had birthdays. One of us had cake; the other fell asleep before dinner was over. One of us got a swing and a handknit bear; the other got  a bunch of yarn and a 50mm camera lens.

(Mama needs to practice with this nifty new lens a whole lot. And find shooting locations with more light.)

I think it’s a toss-up which of us had the more wonderful, challenging, mind-expanding year. Like all fresh parents, I can only marvel at the metamorphosis that turns a dozy, squeaky, half-cooked scrap of newborn into a sturdy, busy, willful toddler who comes home from nursery school with marker on her face and glitter in her hair in twelve short months.

(Like the dress? It’s another vintage keepsake that once belonged to our most excellent neighbor Barb!)

Here’s to making the most of every day until we’re 35, my little love.

I knit this beret back in April. April is a pretty sensible month to wear some kind of hat in Oregon, because it can still be pretty wet and cool. (Actually, it turns out July can also be wet and cool, at least this year.) The yarn was a perfect spring green, and the design (Autumn Vines) of leaves and twisting vines was so evocative of new growth. But it turns out I need to wait until we’re really back in the depths of midwinter gloom to wear this hat. The yarn is colored with natural dyestuffs — plant matter — and it is even less lightfast than I would have suspected. I blocked the hat over a plate, and I thought I’d set that plate outside on the laundry rack for the afternoon so it would dry more quickly. I always avoid laying any of the woolens out in bright sunshine, especially if I think their colors might be vulnerable to fading, but this was an overcast day.

Not overcast enough, though. After just a few hours, the top of the hat was distinctly yellowed, while the brim that was turned beneath the plate retained the original green. It’s even more noticeable in person than in these photos, and not exactly a look I was after! With wear, the whole hat should “weather” to yellow, and I’ll admit I’m curious to see what its final shade will be. Yellow is not really a great color for me, unfortunately. I can always overdye it, so I’m not counting this a failure — it’s still a nice little hat, and the yarn (a 65% wool/35% silk 2-ply from Rainshadow Yarns in Kingston, WA) was a pleasure to work with. It has a faintly crunchy woolen-spun hand with a bit of luster from the silk and the longwool fibers. And I don’t mean to criticize dyer Marcia Adams; plant-dyed fibers are processed close to the earth and it’s only natural that they should be less resistant to sunlight or hot water than fibers treated with stronger synthetic chemicals. I do mean to caution knitters to treat these special yarns with extra tenderness and to accept that change and weathering are to be expected. That’s nature’s way.

Thanks to Lorelei for being a patient and photogenic model!

These pictures are from a little workshop I took with my friend Vivian to start making better use of my DSLR, an Olympus E-500. It’s amazing how a few simple pointers from a pro can make a difference. Begone, busy backgrounds that distract from the simple story of the portrait! I shall place my subjects farther from textured walls. I shall boost my ISO in low light. I shall think in terms of the triangle created by the photographer, the subject, and the light source. I think I shall even start saving for a 50-mm lens.

(Vivian did not, alas, impart any nifty tricks for those times when you wish to photograph small, fast-moving subjects who want only to climb the photographer and get their sticky little paws all over the camera. Plays hell with the aforementioned triangulation and depth of field, not to mention the focus. But this, of course, is also nature’s way.)

I have yet another photography class planned for Sock Summit, this time with Franklin Habit. Because it’s tough to take interesting and effective pictures of socks, and I do have a new one I’m hoping to share with you soon! By next week, I may even have two: I’m spending Friday with Cat Bordhi (whom I have never met, despite hailing from the same small town) in “Personal Footprints for Really Rebellious Sock Knitters.” I don’t know that I qualify as a really rebellious sock knitter. The word rebel comes to us from Latin rebellis and originally connoted a fresh declaration of war by the defeated party. In truth, I’m happy to knit socks in the traditional top-down ways, with their multitude of heels and toes developed in different cultures and time periods, each handsome and useful in one situation or another. But I heartily admire Cat’s toe-up architectures and have found them both beautiful and comfortable as well as mind expanding. In short, the more possibilities, the better. I go to embrace rather than to make war. And I go in happy anticipation of rubbing elbows with sock-loving fools from around the world: welcome to Portland, my people! (And how did I miss our mayor’s proclamation that this week shall be Sock Knitting Week? I am always going to wish I could step out my back door and be in the woods and fields, but I love my adopted city.)