This is what happens when you cast virtue aside and wantonly flaunt your credit card at Blue Moon Fiber Arts and Crown Mountain Farms, and maybe a couple of other madams vendors at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. It’s not quite Rhinebeck (I missed my Spiders, the fried artichokes, and the sheepdogs especially, although there were some beautiful Irish Wolfhounds having their own convention at the other end of the fairgrounds), but I did get to do these things for the first time:

1. meet up with Katherine in person
2. pet a baby camel and a Wensleydale ram
3. load up on Sock Hop

Speaking of which, let’s identify the lovelies above. From left to right: Sock Hop in Secret Agent Man and I Got You Babe; Socks That Rock Lightweight in Rare Gems and Blue Brick Wall; Sporfarms Merino/Silk in Frostberries; Sock Hop in two shades of My Boyfriend’s Back. I tried to stick to my goal of not buying yarn I don’t have a pattern in mind for. The two pairings of Sock Hop will become not socks but Elizabeth Zimmermann baby sweaters — maybe Baby Surprise Jackets, maybe Bog Jackets, perhaps Baby Surplice Jackets. I love garter stitch to show off handspun that’s plied this way, and I think some subtle stripes in these closely related colorways will be pretty on babies. What babies, you might ask? It’s true that I’m still finishing up some knits for the most recent crop. Bran new baby Flynn across the street has two hats ready for him, and I’m trying to get his little baby pod zippered and seamed this week. Wee Jordan hasn’t received her February Sweater yet because we haven’t managed to connect with her parents, but it probably won’t fit until next month anyway. The fact is, my friends and relations seem to be taking a breather from the baby manufacturing. It’s like half time. It’s like the last wave has receded and pulled all the little pebbles dancing down the beach after it, but a larger wave is building. The babies are coming, I just know it. This is what happens two or three years after a wagonload of your friends have gotten married, and I aim to be prepared. Armed with my Sock Hop haul, I can garter stitch away on little projects to my heart’s content and store up ickle sweaters like so many squirrel nuts.

The lovely Sporfarms merino/silk was a souvenir for Katrin, who couldn’t come with me to OFFF because she had to work. And the Socks That Rock? Lord knows there’s plenty of that in the stash, thoroughly marinated and aged to perfection, but I liked these two skeins together so much that I couldn’t resist them. The Rare Gems are mistakes or experiments that aren’t replicated, and mostly I don’t find them too attractive. But this one looks like sunset over the desert, and I thought it was particularly harmonious against the blues of Blue Brick Wall. I was thinking of Kate Gilbert’s Syncopated Caps when I picked them up, but then I started to think of interesting designs for syncopated kneesocks. I hereby vow to knit a second Drunken Bear kneesock — and a second Pomatomus — before I cast on a new pair, but I’m looking forward to them.

And now to go knit like a fiend and finish up Star Wars Hat the Second and Wine and Roses Mitt the Second so they can go to their new homes this week. Sorry the posts have been thin on the ground of late; I’ll try not to let the week get away from me this time!

It’s that time again. The children have reconvened to spread merry tumult and germs in the schoolyards, and those of us who work in the schools are settling in for the long voyage of the academic year. For me, a vast new project: shaping our little school’s curriculum for publication. I spoke with my dear friend Curtis today; he’s a newly minted professor unveiling the complex delights of Chaucer and Keats to a cohort of first-years who have almost certainly never worked so hard nor learned so much. I envy them: Curtis is a smart and passionate guide when it comes to literature (and apparently they think he looks like someone hot on TV). I’m going to reread The Eve of St. Agnes this week just so I can pretend I’m back in the classroom with him. Vicarious study of literature is the best I’ll be able to do this year; my two-job schedule won’t permit me time to take classes this term. Remembering the tingles I got when I set foot in a university again last year, I regret it. But it makes me all the more excited for my cousin, who’s going back to grad school after giving over the last seven years to raising her boys. Surely this grand occasion calls for a present.

Wine and Roses mitts from last winter’s Interweave Knits. The yarn is the scrummy Jade Sapphire 2-ply cashmere silk specified in the pattern – we got some in at the store and I knew I was going to have to make these lacy mitts with it. My cousin likes deep aubergine purples, so I think these will be a nice accessory to her fall wardrobe. They’re also a little symbol of her new modicum of release from constant parenting, since silk and cashmere are not exactly the fibers of choice for handling small sticky boys. For one weekend a month when she jets off to California for her intensive classes, she can slip into these luxurious adult handwarmers, and have her fingers free for taking notes and paging through tomes of Jung and Freud.

It’s thanks to Megan the Knitting Philistine and her Fiberlicious yarn photography movement that I thought to pose my work in progress with actual eggplants. It’s also thanks to Megan that the mailman brought me these:

My first order from Good Soapworks of Athens! I could smell them before I even picked up the box. I chose the warm spice and citrus scents I love for dark winter mornings: sweet orange, clove, cinnamon. Since I was out of bed at five this morning to catch Brazil vs. China in women’s World Cup soccer, I got a foretaste of the coming months – rising in the dark when even the cat prefers to stay snuggled in the blankets. It’s a downside of the return to school all too easily forgotten during the summer. But my spicy and soothing new soap will help pry my eyes open and wake me more pleasantly. And speaking of the cat…

My fur is all up in your knitting. Mwahahahaha!

And pssst…speaking of fingerless mitts, the Axel Mitts are now on the Patterns page as a PDF at last. (Thanks for the reminder, Kristen, and for the Rockin’ Girl Blogger nomination!) Happy fall knitting!

In all honesty, I tend to add to my fiber stash because I have a low threshold when it comes to resisting beauty, and yarn senses this weakness in me and preys upon it. As a result, I have drawers full of lovely moth bait currently serving no purpose except as fodder for dreams and receiving no attention besides the occasional petting. But because they exist in my house, I can, upon a whim, decide to make a Star Wars hat for my little cousin Sam’s seventh birthday. Look here! Black alpaca from a Spiders swap two summers ago. And here? A ball of pewter grey RYC silk/wool I bought to swatch for a corset top (I ended up using Cathay instead.). How about some white for the six little R2D2s? Yep; the hat I’ve planned out of Cascade 220 will never miss a few yards. I thought I was stymied when I got to R2D2’s blue bits, but sure enough, in the very back of the worsted/DK wool drawer, was a lone ball of Mission Falls in the perfect shade. Now, light saber colors: here’s a bright heathered red skein of Cascade 220 from the swag bag I got on the yarn cruise around Manhattan. And lo! A whole sack of ancient Thorobred scheepjeswol Brushed Wool in powder blue, inherited from Mr. Garter’s mamma. Someday it will be a nifty ’40s-inspired cardigan, but right now a few yards will give the blue light sabers that potent fuzzy glow. And in a galaxy not so very far, far away, a hat is born:

[Note to self: Dude, next time take a picture of the front of the hat that doesn’t show the join, eh genius?] And it just happens that my little cousin’s name lends itself to Star Wars font, so of course I had to take advantage of that:

It’ll blow his mind, if it fits his wee blond head. Cross your fingers for me that his noggin isn’t bigger than 19″ in circumference, okay? I have to say, this was fun. There may be another of these in my future, because Mr. Garter has been drooling over it. Time for more stash diving!

Note: The charts are free here; there’s really no other pattern for the hat. I worked it on US#3 needles, figured six repetitions of the chart would make a boy-sized hat, and threw in some double decreases at the top between motifs. I worked the letters under the brim upside-down, used a row of purl sts as a turning round, and sewed down the cast-on edge to the inside of the hat at the very end. 

Almost exactly one year ago, Jess and I started batting around the idea of an Elizabeth Zimmermann knitalong. We launched it and cast on for our projects. Today, Zimmermania is more than 500 members strong; new recruits rally to the banner every day. (Email me if you’d like to be among them. The banner is purely figurative, but if we actually had one it would read I AM THE BOSS OF MY KNITTING.) My own little EZ odyssey has brought versions of the Fishtrap Aran, the Rorschach Jacket, and two Baby Surprise Jackets into the world, and now I’ve added a February sweater to the ranks.

Specs:

Sweater from “Some Babies’ Things,” February chapter of Knitter’s Almanac

Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy Sock, colorway “In Vino Veritas”, well under 1 skein

Needles: US #4

Modifications: Because I was using a sock yarn, I cast on 57 sts to begin. Out of sheer laziness, not wanting to strain myself with too much math calculating how to adjust the garter yoke increases to suit, I opted to knit the yoke in stockinet and work raglan increases. I allowed too many stitches for the shoulder portions and ended up with enormous kimono sleeves, but they still look cute. And maybe it will be easier to stuff the wee recipient’s absurdly fragile little arms through. (I don’t know if mums and dads actually worry about this after the first few days of putting their new sprogs through more costume changes than a troupe of variety show actors, but I know that when my turn comes I’m going to be petrified that I’ll damage the tender little morsels trying to get them dressed. My babies may have to wear handknit togas until I’m convinced they’re sturdy enough to be manhandled into sweaters.)

But enough about that. Let’s see some cute buttons:

Aren’t they girly? Of course, flowers aren’t just for girls, no matter what faces Mr. Garter might make to the contrary:

(And yes, when you work on your own start-up you can toil in the hammock in the shade of the lilac tree. Of course, you’re in the hammock working on a national holiday when the rest of us are enjoying time to potter about the house assembling Ikea bookshelves, sewing buttons, blocking hats, and blogging about it all. But it’s no cause to make impolite gestures.)

There, that’s better:

I think the Japanese anemone nicely sets off his manly scruff, don’t you? (The self-employed don’t have to shave if they don’t feel like it, either.)

We’ll close with one last pretty flower picture:

Summer’s almost over. Let’s squeeze out every last drop.