Knitting Musings

A New Sweater for Minnesota?

On Thursday, S and I jet off to Minnesota for our second wedding reception - a lot of S' family and friends weren't able to make the trek to DC a few weeks ago, so we're having another party in St. Paul! Unfortunately, we won't be there for long enough for me to hit any yarn shops or meet up with any of the fabulous Minnesota knitters I've "met" in blogland... but as all of S' family lives in St. Paul, I'm sure we'll be visiting the Twin Cities plenty more times.

But my new knitting goal for the week is to finish up the Monarch of the Glen aran... I've finished all of the pieces, and will finish the neckband today or tomorrow. Then it's just a few long seams and a few ends away from making its debut.... and the temps in Minnesota might just cooperate so that I can wear it!

Of course, since this project is almost done, I need to figure out what is next on the list... (Henry's neckband doesn't count!) So far this summer, I've done fair isle, and cables... so I think lace may be next up on the project block. I have a cone of a beautiful merino laceweight I picked up at School Products for a song...

... I think it may need to become the Alpine Lace scarf from Victorian Lace Today. I may be off to copy the charts right now...

Labels: Alpine Lace, Monarch of the Glen

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Crazy Crazy Week

I spent most of Wednesday afternoon at the Happy Place. Perhaps it was the new shipment of Rowan books, or the beautiful silk-cashmere yarn that UPS brought... or perhaps it was a laughing-gas-leak.

For example, did you know that packing materials could be used as pom-poms? (Cheerleading skirt optional).

And that pieces of uncompleted sweater can double as a veil?

Or triple as a charming kerchief for that inner-babushka?

Eventually, I managed to lay the sweater on the floor. I've now finished both sleeves and the back, and am trucking along on the front. I may manage to seam this baby up soon and add in the collar in time to wear it to Minnesota next weekend!

And finally, reason number 6,756,233 that it can be awesome to live in a big city...

LITTLE RICHARD + FREE CONCERT.

I'll try to upload my really short video tomorrow!

Labels: Monarch of the Glen

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Back from the Honeymoon!

Ok, so I've been back for almost a week. But I've spent some quality time in various hard plastic chairs waiting for my turn to speak to a bureaucrat who will change my name on some official document. It's been fun. Plus, I got the first disc of Deadliest Catch on Netflix, so I had to watch it. And catch up on some Dirty Jobs. (Discovery Channel - I'll forgive you for moving out of Bethesda if you start a channel, say, "Discovery Mike Rowe", where you play nothing but Dirty Jobs and Deadliest Catch.)

And there has been knitting - but I'll take my pictures at the Happy Place later.

So for the Honeymoon recap...

Here's the view from our hotel room. Any guesses where we went?

We stayed here - on the same floor as Marilyn Monroe did when she filmed Niagara! It was lovely - and SO RELAXING! (which is just what I needed after all of the hectic activity.)

We ate a lot at the hotel restaurant... can you blame us since this was the view?

And the best part? We left DC with temperatures in the upper 80s and low 90s. We arrived in Canada and I had to put on a sweater.

I loved being at the Falls - there was enough to do that we weren't bored during our 2+ days there, but not so much that we felt guilty when we were too tired to play tourist.

And we did just about everything - Maid of the Mist, Journey Behind the Falls, Cave of the Winds... we looked at all of the overlooks, and even took a break to drive up to Niagara-on-the-Falls to have high tea. Heck, we even toured the power plant!

S made sure to visit that icon of Canadian life ... the donut counter at Tim Hortons.

And speaking of donuts, S and I made sure to hit up Krumpe's Donuts in Hagerstown, MD on our way home. We had tried to go on our way up, but the retail store is only open to the public from 7-2... that's 7 PM to 2 AM. So we had no luck at 7 am. Curiously, though, we seemed to have timed our drive home so that we "accidentally" arrived just after they'd opened...

They were SO GOOD. And the 6 donuts we got, ummmmm, to "try a variety?" Total cost = $1.35.

It's hilarious though - the shop is basically a garage at the back of the house. You have to turn down a completely unmarked alley to find the shop, and you totally feel like you're arriving at some sort of illicit drug deal. Cars just kept turning down the alley, driving slowly up, and creeping into one of the few parking spots.

And when we got home, stuffed with donuts? Someone was VERY glad to see S.

Labels: Wedding

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WOOT!!!

Labels: Wedding

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Going to the Chapel....

Last post before the big day... everything is going well (fingers crossing), and I'm sure it'll all go great. In the meantime, I'm going to spend a last few days knitting and relaxing before the craziness starts.

Luckily, I have a crack crew to help me. Cricket helped me measure Tangled Yoke so I could design the sweater I just started. Ok, so maybe "help" is a little bit inaccurate - but maybe attacking the measuring tape was a vital step in the process!

Cricket has also shouldered the heavy burden of soaking up all of the extra sunlight that streams through the windows. She's such a team player.

And how could I forget? She also spends a great deal of her time supervising the bird-TV channel. Sometimes she goes outside to make sure the birds don't eat the food too quickly!

And in knitting news, for some reason I felt the need to start designing an Aran sweater in the two weeks before my wedding. My inspiration?

Duncan, from the BBC series Monarch of the Glen.

I swatched, did some math, and poof! There were a couple of sleeves and the start of the back!

But wait... I didn't like the braided cable on either side of the center panel. Rather than rip out 29 rows of the body, I did a little cable-surgery...

Attempt #1 was almost right - but not quite. So I dropped down a second time, and success!

Since this will be a raglan, I'm following my usual method and I'm knitting each piece to the armhole, and then I'll do another round of math to figure out the armhole and raglan shaping, and the neckline, and continue from there.