It's Summer!

Well, I'm only a few days late for the start of summer. This is an easy top that is really comfortable (if it looks rumpled to you, that's 'cause I had taken a nap in it today!). I'm sticking with my rules for the Summer Stashout, but it's not much of a stashbuster since it only took 3 balls of Rowan Calmer. You can find a few more details in the gallery.

Don't Slouch!

I am really enjoying working on the Summertime Tunic. It's not turning out quite as slouchy as I thought it would be (I am knitting the 29" size), but I'm thinking that's just as well.


As much as I like the top, I realize that I need to be careful about how I wear it. I need to pull it down enough so that there isn't too much slouchiness just above the ribbing. Otherwise, I'd end up with the dreaded muffin-top look (don't pretend like you can't see a bit of that in the picture!). Either that or pull the ribbing higher so that you can tell more clearly that it was meant to be that way.

One reason why it's not so slouchy? I'm knitting tighter than what I did for my gauge swatch. I don't knit as evenly as I'd like to (I am so knitpicky after all). You can read my knitting like you can rings on a tree trunk--tight when I'm more stressed and looser when I'm not. Knitting is a great outlet for the stress, but it does show in the results. My stress right now comes from the fact that we're about to make a big move--new state, new house, new job, the whole bit. Today was particularly stressful, so I decided that I would sit in my massage chair and knit at the same time. Everything was going okay till I the chair went into thumping mode just as I was pushing some stitches along on the needle. About a dozen of them dropped right off the needle. So I set the knitting aside and finished my massage before picking it up again. So much for effecient relaxation!

Zen and the Art of Knitting in the Dark

I'm traveling right now, and we usually begin and end our driving trips at night, so that the kids can sleep through a chunk of the ride. I typically bring one of those little clip-on book lights with me so that I can knit while they sleep, but it didn't get packed this time. So rather than give up several hours of knitting, I decided I'd trying working on my Scarf Askew in the dark. I don't have Knit Lites, and I'm not a combination knitter; I'm talking about just plain old knitting in the dark. Now, this is a very easy pattern with mostly stockinette, broken up with diagonal lines of reverse stockinette. No biggie. In fact, it usually gets boring. But in the dark--well, that's different. It suddenly becomes very meditative and relaxing to keep track of where the knits and purls go. I find myself chanting, "knit 5, purl 1, knit 5, purl 1." It's a very soothing knitting chant, just like the kind I always associated with knitting from watching old TV shows and movies, before I actually knew anything about it. I got a fair amount of knitting done, but the beauty of it was that I was not in my usual mode of focusing on the product. I was able to focus on the process, and that was lovely!

I've been able to carry that over into my next project (being knit in the light). I'm using up some white Rowan Calmer from my stash to make the Summertime Tunic. It's a cute easy project. I've done the first 4-1/2" of stockinette and have almost finished the ribbing part. Normally I'd be pretty bored at this point, but I'm enjoying the 1x1 rib and rounds and rounds of stockinette. Ohmmmmm!