Cold Snap

The weather is finally turning cooler here, and it motivated me to finish up 2 projects. They were both cardigans that I had been on the verge of completing, but it was hard to get going on them when the weather was still in the 80's.

The one I'll share with you today is the Vine Lace Cardigan--it's the one I hinted at last time. I credit Janet for getting me fired up about this pattern. It had been on my Rav favorites list, which I use as my "I would like to knit this someday, maybe" list. But after she talked about it, the pattern just stuck in my head, and the next thing I knew, I was at my LYS picking out yarn!

This was a fun knit that only took 2 weeks. I had finished knitting it 3 days ago, but I always slack on putting on the buttons. This morning, the air was crisp and cool, and so it seemed like a good day for buttons!


Details and more pics are on Ravelry and in the gallery.

Indy Spirit

We recently took a trip to Indianapolis and I thought I'd share a few pictures with you. One of the places we went was Conner Prarie, an interactive history museums depicting life in the 1800's. There, we watched people doing fun things like woodworking


and frying up puffball mushrooms.



And what 1800's experience would be complete without farm animals?


It was quite a neat place. Of course, since this is a knitting blog, I'll also mention that there was a basket of knitting casually left out in the sitting room of one of the houses.


If you think that's interesting, then you'd definitely want to see the "Loom Room." The room has a large loom, a spinning wheel and hanks of yarn dyed using various natural ingredients.



Not only did we see a life-sized loom room, but we saw a miniature one as well. These pictures come from a dollhouse display at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.



Since travel time is just about synonymous with knitting time for us knitters, I did bring along a project, and I'll show you a sneak peek. Anyone recognize it? (no fair peeking at my Rav page)

Fall into a Routine

Happy Autumn, Everyone! (Or at least everyone in the Northern Hemisphere). I celebrated the first day of Fall by pulling out a top that I had finished back in July. Yes, July. I bought the yarn at my LYS's Beat-the-Heat sale and whipped up the sweater in about a week. Now that was 2 months ago (to the day), and I'm just now taking pics. I guess the main reason is that the darn thing is made of wool. And I didn't want to wear wool in a Texas heat wave--not even in the air-conditioning, not even for a quick photo shoot.

Today the calendar said Autumn, and we did have a bit of a cold snap (and by "cold snap" I mean that the temperatures were not in the 90's), so I put it on. In fact, I wore it all day, and I really like it!


The pattern is Wendy Bernard's Ingenue top, from Custom Knits. More pics are on Rav and in the gallery. The yarn is Cascade 220 Superwash. The put-up for the Superwash is different than the regular 220; it's a loose ball rather than a hank. I'm not sure why they chose to make it this way, but I loved being able to pull it out and get knitting right away with no need for a ball winder. Yay! But as you get close to the end of a ball, you do end up with this floppy thing:


I am indebted to Debbie for showing me that I could use those mesh bags that small tomatoes come in to help keep my yarn from misbehaving. Voila!



I had gotten out of my usual knitting habits, but I'm back to my routine of knitting for a spell before bed. I had also moved away from my garment-knitting to work on my chicken-lizard-horse menagerie, but I'm back to the clothes again. I cast on tonight for a new top, which I'll save that for another post.

Lagniappe

Well, I finished that Hobby Horse I wanted to knit. My 3-year-old loves it (and the 9-year-old has snuck in a couple of gallops too)! It is temporarily on a too-short stick, something we just happened to have around the house. I have to buy a better stick the next time I have a chance to go to shopping. In the meantime, my little one likes to take the horse's head off after she's ridden around, and she snuggles with it next to her on the couch or on the bed. It's freaky in a Godfather-like way yet cute and hilarious at the same time!


Now, as much as I like the horse, I also always like a bit of lagniappe. For those of you not from New Orleans, "lagniappe" means a little something extra. As I worked on this project, I couldn't help but think it would be so fun to add a little extra knitting magic and turn the horse into a unicorn. And here it is...



If you're interested in the add-on, I've detailed it on Ravelry and in the gallery.

A Friend In Need

I have a dear friend who I first met 14 years ago when we were in school together. We have since gone our separate ways but have remained in touch. She lives 1,300 miles away, but we are still very close. So in the past couple of months while she has been having a hard time dealing with her husband's health issues, I did my best to be there for her and we talked often. But when things didn't go well and she was feeling more stressed, I felt pretty powerless to help her. Finally, I decided I should do what I always do when *I* need to de-stress: knit. I started this project on a whim, and this is what emerged. Her name is Liz and she likes lizards, so when a Rav search yielded a dishcloth pattern with a lizard graphic, I used it as the foundation for a simple stole. I hope it brings her as much comfort to have it as it brought me to knit it.


More info on Ravelry and in the gallery.