Holy comments, Batman! I’m truly flattered by the love for the Blue Thistle jacket, and I’m working my way through to say thanks and answer questions. I was especially tickled that so many first-time commenters came out of the woodwork – thanks, new readers and not-so-new readers chiming in for the first time!

Since you all seem to like seeing new sweaters, it’s convenient that I can finally unveil a secret knit that was finished in November. I’m seeking permission to bring a photo over here, but for the moment you can skip over to the ShibuiKnits page to peek at Spring Thaw! And why, yes, I am just a little bit pleased to be finally modeling the sample of my first published pattern.

And while you’re over there, you can also take a gander at my Ivy Socks – I’ve been sitting on these puppies since July. Whew! It feels good to have these knits out in the world! The patterns are available from Knit/Purl, or from your local ShibuiKnits retailer.

Less than 48 hours until I leave on my pre-dawn drive to Tacoma for a heavenly weekend of Madrona workshops! I get to bask in the wisdom of knitterly goddesses Nancy Bush and Lucy Neatby, my friends. And will any of you be in attendance? I hope we’ll meet in perusing the booths of yarny goodness. I’ve decided to allow myself a skein or two from Blue Moon’s Raven Clan (if there’s any left), because I think it’s such an interesting experiment to do a whole run of different black colorways, and because there’s no black yarn in my stash, but throw yourself between me and the credit card swiper if you see me reaching for anything else, okay? Look for a full report on Monday!

I have no shame when it comes to boosting other people’s ideas, especially when those people are knitters as clever as, say, Jared. Six weeks ago he posted this fabulous rendition of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Shirt-Yoke Cardigan. I wanted one of my own, and I wanted it immediately. Happily, bulky wool and size 10.5 needles were invented for the purpose of instant gratification. I whipped out my Knitter’s Workshop, and in a weekend of knitting, I had most of this:

I added some darts up the back for a more womanly shape, but I always meant to copy Jared’s idea for the side ribbing. (In fact, in my lust to knit an entire sweater body from one skein of yarn in a mere six hours, I forgot all about the ribbing. But a quick session with a crochet hook revived the dream – I simply dropped the appropriate stitches and hooked them back up purlwise.)

But whoa! What happened there on the front? Friends, I ran out of yarn. I knew it was likely. I was planning a direct rip-off of Jared’s nice ribbed button band, but the third skein petered out just as I was finishing the collar. Being too impatient to order a fourth skein from the yarn shop on my little island and wait for more to come in and then for my mother to mail it to me, risking a dye-lot change in the bargain, I went stash diving. I organize my yarn by weight, and there isn’t all that much in the bulky bin. But there were two skeins of this scrumptious Rowan Yorkshire Tweed, which I bought years ago to knit Kristin Spurkland’s Flower Hat from the Winter 2004 Interweave Knits – the very first knitting magazine I ever purchased. I still think the hat is awesome, but I hadn’t gotten around to it four years later so I figured the yarn was fair game.

I first envisioned a Barbara Walker Banana Tree pattern up the front, as seen in Starsky, but the tweed didn’t show up the traveling stitches all that well. So I picked out this pretty Double Wave cable instead. It leaves handier spaces for button holes anyway. And then I think all the Jane Austen I’ve been watching on Sunday nights went to my head. Somehow it came to me that the big blue front panel would look a little less random if there were some sort of blue element elsewhere… like embroidery. Now, I can’t embroider my way out of a paper bag. I’m sure any self-respecting six-year-old in Miss Austen’s day could have whupped my arse in an embroidery show-down. But I’m all about leaping into the deep end with things I’ve never tried.

I give you the Blue Thistle Jacket. I’ve hardly taken it off since it (mostly) dried on Wednesday.

And psst… look who’s grown!

I was raised to avoid throwing away plastic (and anything else that might, in theory, be useful – just ask my husband about my collection of dried up pens that could potentially be revived with new ink cartridges). I don’t like to add to the landfills when I can help it, and besides, yogurt containers can have long and fruitful lives after the yogurt has been eaten up. Mine generally go on to serve Tupperware rotations until their inevitable separation from their lids.

Last night neither of us felt like cooking, and we opted to flake out and have mac ‘n’ cheese and frozen lima beans. It turned out we didn’t have any milk, so I made what turned out to be a rather nice sauce of garlic, olive oil, white wine, hot pepper flakes, and the juice of half a Meyer lemon. It was quite fiery and tasty with the pasta and limas and some parmigiano. And after supper I put the leftovers into a yogurt container (in hindsight, I think it may actually have been a cottage cheese container) so I could bring them to school for lunch.

This morning I overslept and had to scramble to get out the door for my carpool. I snatched food off the shelves and out of the fridge while brushing my teeth and scooping Royal Canin Urinary Diet kibble in the general direction of the squalling cat. (Somehow this had happened the previous day as well, and in the back of my mind was a determination to do better than meatless barbeque riblets, peanut butter, bread, and a Clif bar.) I snatched up the pasta. I flew out the door.

My a.m. toast was holding me over pretty well, so I didn’t eat lunch before Bits ‘n’ Pieces, a student variety show that happens occasionally at school. It went on twice as long as scheduled, with kindergarteners playing impromptu recorder compositions with titles like “People Running,” third-graders performing theatre of the absurd, another third-grade lad reciting his poem from the viewpoint of a shoe (“Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Oh, we’re on the soccer field. Dribble. Ow. Dribble. Ow. etc.”), and the like. Contemporary performance artists have nothing on our Littles. We closed with some very talented older musicians (notable piano performances of a Hiller piece and the theme song from The Office), and by that time I was starving.

I fairly dove into my bag for the leftover pasta. I prised off the lid as I trotted toward the microwave, only to find that I had brought along a container of … moldy yogurt.

P.S. This is, in fact, still a knitting blog. I have a new finished sweater to show you, too, but I rarely see my photographer husband during the daylight hours. Cross your fingers that enough light may penetrate the lowering cloud cover and drifting mizzle we’re scheduled to enjoy for – apparently – the entire foreseeable future, and you might just see a picture over the weekend.

Oregonians don’t get to vote in presidential primaries today, but if you live the half of America that does have that chance, will you please take a few minutes to mark a ballot? I think there’s a flame kindling in Americans at last — I see it in the record numbers of voters turning out in the early states. I want to think this country is waking from complacency and finding it has strength for right action. I want to think we could elect someone to lead us, not to govern us — someone who might ask us to serve our country and our world with our brains and our determination and our energy rather than encouraging us to contribute by going shopping. These are testing times. I want us to pass, and to reach for more than just passing. By voting, at least we’re writing our names at the top of the page. So if you have the chance today to speak your mind about the future of this country, please make yourself heard. Thank you.