Books

Friday Roundup: On the Road Edition

What I’m Knitting

By the time this gets posted, I’ll be on the road (yay for post scheduling!). We’re going on a weekend trip to the Washington, DC area—we’re planning to go to the National Zoo, spend some quality time with family, and lots of other fun stuff. And the 9+ hour drive means lots and lots of uninterrupted knitting time, hooray!

This is the current project on my needles:

This pic shows the strong wavy lines better—love!

It’s a hat (hopefully that’s obvious) that features a heavily modified version of a cable and lace pattern I found in one of my stitch dictionaries. I’m having fun knitting it, but it should only take me a few more hours to work out and knit the crown decreases… which means I need much more knitting for the trip!

I’m in mini-panic mode already, trying to figure out what to take with me. I might end up defaulting to a whole bunch of trial swatches… but then I have to take a whole load of stitch dictionaries. Hrm. Maybe I’ll figure out a quick toddler hat. My son’s hats from last year are all too small now, so he needs some new accessories before the serious cold weather hits. (Side note: am I the only one who would be completely mortified to let my son wander around in store-bought winter accessories? I mean, little hats only take like two hours!)

What I’m Cooking

This is actually from last week, but it turned out really well and I forgot to post a picture. Baked falafel in a pita with hummus and grain-free tabbouleh on the side. The tabbouleh recipe I found used bits of cauliflower instead of the traditional bulgur wheat, which I thought was pretty clever!

This red Thai tofu and pineapple rice was my lone entry for my cookbook challenge this week:

And for my meal-for-a-crowd yesterday, I made a Mexican lasagna (also known as an enchilada casserole) with homemade guacamole on the side. I used my husband’s killer guac recipe—people were very impressed!

What I’m Reading

I’m still working on The Shepherd’s Crown. I’m dragging my feet a bit on finishing this one, to be honest. The author, Terry Pratchett, passed away earlier this year. I’m still coming to terms with the fact that this will be the last new book I’ll ever read from him, sniff.

Friday Roundup: I’m Back!

What I’m Knitting

I missed posting last week while on vacation, but I’m back home as of a few days ago and settling back into the routine! Thanks to a road trip from the Seattle area to Sacramento, CA, I managed to finish most of a little nautical-themed pullover idea I’ve had brewing for a while:

I would have finished the whole thing, but I only brought one ball of the blue yarn, thinking I’d never get through that much with the little one to worry about. Oh well, now that I’m back, hopefully I can get it wrapped up this week. It just needs the second sleeve and the shawl collar, so not too bad.

We stopped in another lovely little yarn shop on our travels and I managed to score another couple of great skeins…but our suitcases were overfull, so I had to have those shipped. Hopefully I’ll have them by next week!

What I’m Cooking:

I actually cooked quite a bit in Sacramento, but I forgot to get pics (and it was mostly my old standbys that I’ve shown a few times here already, anyway). My son’s favorite food right now is my vegan broccoli “cheddar” soup, so I whipped up a big batch of that for his first birthday party last week. It was a hit!

Now that I’m home, we’re about to go on an epic grocery shopping trip and much cooking will commence. I always feel like I need to detox after a vacation—anyone else feel that way too?

What I’m Reading:

My husband and I have been fans of Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half blog for years, so I had to get him this book version for his birthday. I got to read it when he was done. It’s just as funny as the blog! I was reading it on the plane with my son sleeping on my lap, trying not to laugh too much and wake him up.

Friday Roundup: Vacation Edition!

What I’m Knitting

I’m on vacation! (A working vacation, but still.) My husband and son and I are out in the Seattle, WA area for the wedding of a family friend. Ordinarily, many hours on a plane means I’d have plenty of knitting progress to show off… but as any parent knows, taking an almost-one-year-old on a 5 hr + flight does not make for a lot of knitting time. He did really well, but there was a lot of wrangling!

I did, however, manage to stop by a really cool yarn store yesterday when we were wandering around the Pike Place Market area. So Much Yarn is cute and friendly, with an excellent selection of yummy stuff and a great view of the Sound. I was with a group of non-knitters, so I kept my browsing short, but I managed to snag this gorgeous skein of Wonderland Yarns March Hare in Curiouser.

I saw this yarn at TNNA last year and have been dying to try it out! I’m hoping I can get a little vest for my son out of it! (Apologies for the crappy phone snap. Trust me. It’s stunning.)

What I’m Cooking

Not much at the moment, as you can imagine… but I am eating some seriously yummy stuff in restaurants around here. I eat mostly vegan, as anyone who regularly reads this blog knows, and it’s so refreshing to see so many vegan options everywhere!

I did manage to bake some very tasty banana blueberry muffins before we left, however:

What I’m Reading:

I didn’t take my current book with me on the trip, because it’s A) a library book and B) huge. Instead, I’m re-reading a book from one of my favorite authors, Jennifer Crusie. It’s like comfort food in book form:

WIP Wednesday: Blanket and TNNA prep

The baby blanket is almost done! It looks a lot better now that it’s not so scrunched up on the needles:

I ran out of yarn a few days ago and ordered a couple of skeins from Knit Picks on Monday with express shipping. Imagine my shock when they were on my doorstep yesterday. Their warehouse is in Ohio, only one state away from me, but still–that’s some lightning fast shipping!

I think I might do another repeat of the border pattern to echo the motif and break up the swath of stockinette, but I haven’t 100% decided yet. I’ll probably try it–I can always rip it out if I don’t like the way it looks. (It’s a lot less daunting to rip out sections at this point than it was earlier, when there were 600+ sts!)

I’m also deep in planning for the TNNA summer show this weekend. Like last year, I’m part of a rotating exhibit of designers through my print pattern distributor, Stitch Sprouts. I’m really excited that the show is in Indianapolis this year, only about 45 minutes away from me. It means I can haul my 7-month pregnant self there without too much difficulty.

I wanted a good way to display some hats on a table in my booth, but I forgot to order early enough to get cute hat stands from Etsy or eBay (I blame pregnancy brain). So yesterday I went out and got some inexpensive paper towel holders, styrofoam balls, fabric remnants, and ribbon. Following parts of a few different tutorials I found online, I came up with this:

I think they turned out pretty cute!

Rhinebeck 2013 Wrap-Up

Rhinebeck was amazing this year. The weather was even better than last year (about 10 degrees cooler, which made it perfect sweater weather). I bought some great stuff, ate some excellent meals, and had a ton of fun.

My husband took a photography class with Gale Zucker (aka She Shoots Sheep Shots) and had a great time taking pictures all weekend. So he gets the credit for all these photos.

The gorgeous fall colors

Crowds waiting to get in on Sunday-there were at least twice this many on Saturday!

One of the many barns stuffed with vendors, yarn, and people

Woolly friends

Me enjoying a cider donut (it was delicious!!!)

The colossal line for Miss Babs’s booth–it was like this all weekend!

And, of course, I couldn’t have a Rhinebeck post without showing you my purchases, hehe.

First up, a huge skein of Dirty Water Dyeworks Johanna, which will probably become a vest or short-sleeved sweater:

These six skeins of O-Wool Balance Bulky are going to become a cabled shawl/wrap:

And finally, my husband picked out these two skeins of Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair, for gloves he’s going to knit himself:

Not pictured: a Barbara Walker stitch treasury that I’ve had trouble finding in stores, maple cotton candy, a huge bag of local apples.

I think we did pretty well this year!

FO Friday and New Pattern Release: Reilly Pullover

Boy, things have been crazy around here! Rhinebeck was awesome, and I promise to have a post up on that in the next few days. But in the meantime, I have had not one, not two, but three new sweater patterns released this week! So as not to overwhelm this post completely, I’ll space them out into separate posts.

First up: a design in Knit Picks’s newly released Swish Collection, the Reilly Pullover!

And here’s the original sample, the FO I couldn’t show you back around this time last year, in its glory at Rhinebeck:

Forgive the slightly glazed look and the slumped posture-it had been a long day!

My inspiration for this sweater was my love of Aran patterning, but I wanted to keep it simple because it’s easy for cables to overwhelm a sweater. I knew I wanted a large front cable, and two smaller ones. Making the side cables wavy seemed like a good way to add a modern touch.

Here are the FO details:

Pattern: My own Reilly Pullover

Yarn: Swish Worsted in Marine Heather (the green sweater is in Jade). I really, really like this yarn. It’s soft and nice to work with, but as you can see, cables pop just as well as they do with a stickier, more rustic wool.

Notes: This sweater combines three of my favorite elements: cables that are complex but not hard to keep track of, a v-neck, and raglan, all-in-one-piece construction.

Stay tuned for more Rhinebeck pictures!

TNNA Wrap-Up!

Whew, it’s been a hectic week. But I promised a TNNA wrap-up post, so here you go. :-)

We arrived in Columbus on Saturday morning and located the convention center. It’s huge inside, and luckily very well air-conditioned, because it was hot outside.

The show was movie-themed this year, so the entrance looked like this:

It wasn’t cool to take pictures of most of what was on the show floor (which makes sense, because a lot of companies promote new products at TNNA that aren’t ready for the public yet). But I did get a picture of my booth setup:

The other half of the booth was an overview of my print distributor, Stitch Sprouts. Isn’t it great??

I had a fantastic time meeting and networking with tons of people, hanging out with my fellow Stitch Sprouts designers, and walking the show floor. One of the neatest things (which I didn’t expect) was seeing several of the designs I’ve done for yarn companies on display in their booths!

Here’s my Clifden Cardigan at the Universal Yarns booth:

I also got to check out an upcoming book from Cooperative Press that includes one of my patterns. The book looks awesome. Expect to hear more from me about that later.

I hadn’t been to Columbus for about five years, and I have to say that the city was much more cosmopolitan than I remember! The main street going right by the convention center had great restaurants, neat boutiques, and of course the famous Jeni’s Ice Cream shop (it’s as good as everyone says it is).

On our last day, we ventured over to the North Market a few blocks away from the convention center, where I got (no lie) the best waffle I’ve ever eaten in my life. It has ruined me for all other waffles.

All in all, I’m so glad I went to the show this year. The best part was meeting tons of people in real life who I’d only talked to online. In my experience, knit/crochet designers and yarny people are generally fun and friendly, and this was no exception.

And next year the TNNA summer show is in Indianapolis, practically on my doorstep! I’m definitely planning to be there. :-)

Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival

I can’t believe I forgot to post about this! A little over a week ago, my husband and I found ourselves in Franklin, Indiana on one of the days of their annual Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival. We went in on a whim (hey, I’m always up for some yarny shopping), and we really enjoyed it!

The festival was much more extensive than I thought it would be. There were three barns of vendors–LYSes, dyers, spinners, wood crafters, etc. This lacemaking vendor, promoting local lacemaking classes, was one of my favorites:

I got to feel up some bison yarn for the first time:

My husband loves historical gadgets, so this antique sock machine was right up his alley:

Easily my favorite booth at the whole festival was a whole wall of hand-dyed yarn from a local dyer, A Good Yarn. It was the first booth I saw when I came in, and I probably spent more time there than at any of the others combined. I didn’t get a great picture of the booth, but you can see some of her gorgeous skeins in the background of this shot:

And, of course, I couldn’t leave her booth without purchasing something. I made away with two skeins of sportweight superwash in this luminous blue color:

Lucky for me she didn’t carry DK or worsted-weight yarn, or I would have really been in trouble!

My husband did a more extensive blog post (with more pictures, and quite frankly more witticisms than I could ever muster) here, if you’re interested in checking it out: Fiber, Fiber Everywhere OR The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Hoosiers. :-)

Day 5, Something Different: 4KCBWDAY5

For today’s prompt (something different from your usual style of blogging), I decided to show you some of the non-yarny pictures I’ve taken that live in my inspiration file. Time will tell if any of these elements ever make it into one of my designs!

(Some of these photos were taken on trips–see if you can spot scenes from Venice, Florence, and San Francisco! Er… but no points for Venice. That one’s easy.)

WIP Wednesday: Neck! And Buttons!

(This is fifth in my series of design process posts. Earlier posts are here: Part Four, Part Three, Part Two, Part One.)

The sweater is progressing, if a little slower than I’d like (I’ve been working on a bunch of pattern writing, which is cutting into my knitting time). But I got the neck finished last night!

I was going for a “looks like a hoodie from the front, but hardly any bulk in the back” thing, and I’m really happy with the way it turned out! Needs blocking, of course, but I think it’ll be pretty close to the sketch once the back neck is stretched out a little more. I did the neck before the sleeves, as that’s usually the more iffy part of a design for me, so I’ll be working on the sleeves this week.

In other news, I went to a button show this week!

It was, quite frankly, a little surreal. I was hoping to find some neat buttons for future designs, which I did (see below!), but I didn’t quite realize how passionate most of the people there would be about their buttons. These people are SERIOUS collectors. There were buttons there selling for hundreds, even thousands of dollars!

Every once in a while, it’s nice to be reminded there are people with hobbies that are generally regarded as even crazier than mine, heh.

But everyone there was incredibly nice, and I came away with some very lovely (and cheap) buttons!

If you want to know more about the button show (you masochist, you), my husband did a great blog post about it–and the bizarre hotel that hosted the show–on his blog here.