FO: Baby, It's Cold Outside

Yeah, it's 29 degrees outside. Yesterday's high was 24. In my brilliance, I chose yesterday to take my first spinning class in a year. My hamstrings are really not happy with me.

I know I've been a "bad" blogger. It's just that life has been getting in the way and this turn of events has brought with it the knowledge that I've been burrowing in my apartment over the past half-year like a recluse. OK, maybe not a real recluse, but a semi-recluse. I'm sorry for not keeping up with the knitting blogs I love to follow. I'm going through my comments and bloglines slowly but surely!

Along with this knowledge, my knitting fever has dampened somewhat. I still enjoy it, but it's not quite as pressing as it once was. I was spending way too much time on Ravelry when I should have been working. No one should be alarmed, though. I'm still knitting. I just won't be knitting with the same dogged determination of "Imustfinishthisrightnow." Turning 29 in the new year is turning out to be a swift kick in my rear end. That and the spinning class last night.

But here's some knitting cheer for the holidays:

Hollyhock Harvest Mittens
Pattern: Yellow Harvest Mittens, Vogue Knitting Fall '08
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Hollyhock, 1 skein
Needles: US 9 DPNs

These were super quick to knit up. My hands were in sore need of some Malabrigo warmth and these mittens were so fun to make that I'm tempted to make more pairs just to have around.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through my brother's Christmas socks...

And I've made some headway into a new cardi...which should be recognizable to anyone paying attention to really, really popular knitting patterns.

Lastly, I bought some shoes over Thanksgiving weekend. They are yellow. They make me very happy.

More Shooting

Alas, no new knitting content yet...

I have come to an impasse with the freaking cabled coat. The seaming of the thing is a ridiculous endeavor. I messed up three times. Ripped three times. Cried twice. So I'm on to a couple other things right now, but haven't had a chance to photograph them b/c I was working on yet another shoot that involved a lot of high school extras and some freaky art studio in Brooklyn.

The backyard of the studio, however, yielded some very interesting photo results that remind me of strange circus freak movies. I'm sharing them with you so that maybe someone will agree with me and I will feel slightly less silly about how this yard gives me the heebie-jeebies.

An abandoned factory with strange sculptures littering the yard:

Sunlight casting a menacing shadow over both school bus and heavy construction equipment:

Aluminum children at play:

Half a car growing decrepit behind a barn:

Blue clay bowls sitting like serving dishes:

Shells collected from shore and dragged inland:

And a sad Pooh, fading in the sun:

FO: Selbu!

I finally finished sumthin'.

Selbu Modern
Yarn: Shibui Sock Yarn, 1 skein each burgundy and citrus green

Me like this pattern. Me like this yarn. 'Nuff said, no?

Ok, ok, so I'll embellish since this is the first knitting-related post I've managed to come up with over the last month.

I have a love/hate relationship with fair isle. I love it for the results and the detailed work it takes to bring it all about. I love it for the rhythm it creates when I'm knitting and the way I can see the end result growing row by row. But on the other hand, I hate it for its fiddly nature, I hate it for its time and mind-consuming craziness, and I hate that my tension goes from even to uneven.

But can anyone really argue with the beauty of the finished product?

So prettttttttttttttttty.

This must be why fair isle is the rock upon which I beat my furrowed brow.

I also kind of want to abandon my WIPs temporarily and start a new sweater. Am I bad?

This morning...

This morning at 7 a.m., sunlight streamed through the changing trees...

My roommate D and I armed ourselves with steaming cups of coffee...

We walked down the street to this location...

We ran into friends as we stood for an hour and forty minutes in this line:

To do this...

Afterwards, we contemplated what this day could mean...

For every child who has ever felt that there were limits on what he or she could accomplish...

Busy-ness

So...it's been a long time since I updated this thingamajig.

That's because I've mostly been doing stuff like this:

This is what's known as getting short movies made. I spent most of late September/early October helping two of my friends as they prepped and shot their thesis films for graduate film school. I was running craft services, making round-trip two-hour drives to Pennsylvania, cooking dinners for 20 people, offering massages, and helping with production design to dress fake freezers and scary basements.

My whole body hurts. It was an intense, sleep-deprived, stressful and bonding experience. But it was all worth it. My friends have their footage, our actors are still alive, and all of us learned oodles of good things.

We even had our own mascot:

Oscar, the pitbull/boxer mix who was rescued by our producer only a few months ago and got a bit snappy at being left in a barnyard while the rest of us were at work. But those puppy eyes got a lot of love.

I tried to knit. I did. And this is about all I managed:

I dug into stash (b/c I'm growing a bit embarrassed by it) and pulled out two skeins of Shibui Sock yarn and decided I must have the Selbu Modern. I plan to start a sweater as soon as I finish up that darn cabled coat. With luck, this will happen within the week!

Almost a year, almost a sweater

The Norah Gaughan Cabled Coat, which was featured in Vogue Knitting's 25th Anniversary Issues last year, was an ambitious project. I knew going into it that it would take me a long time. Wowee...it's been almost a whole year and the thing is still not done.

But take heart, fellow knitters. I am on what some refer to as a "home stretch." I don't really know what that means b/c I am not a sports enthusiast, but whatevs. It is very nearly complete.

What you see here is the first eight inches or so of the cabled collar. It says to knit two separate pieces to be seamed later. I try to avoid collar seams as much as humanly possible so I am just knitting one long piece. I'm obsessive-compulsive about certain things, but symmetrically-cabled collar pieces are not among them.

And then, of course, since I need yet another distraction, I went crazy over this:

It's from the Rowan Cocoon Collection. I used Cocoon last year to make the Helsinki Hat Scarf for Annie's. The yarn is scrum-diddly-umptious. So, now that it's available in colors other than earthen, I bought up some in green.

It looks a bit matted here but it's not...I think my po' photography skills are making it look sad and scrunched. But it's a beautiful jewel green and I foresee a winter full of green and blue knits. I'm a bit obsessed with both colors at the moment.

But now...going back to finish that crazy coat. I want to wear it this fall so I'm getting it done if it kills me.

FO: Tweedy Ene

Ene is one fiiiiiiiiine lady...

Tweedy Ene
Pattern: Ene's Scarf from Scarf Style
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed in Sigh, 4 or 4.5 balls
Needles: US 8

I only say 4 or 4.5 balls because most of this Felted Tweed was ripped from the back and front of a sweater that I abandoned two years ago. I have no idea how many actual balls I used, but I estimate it at about 4 or 4.5.

Other than using a bigger needle (to account for thicker yarn), I made no mods. This is a wonderfully clear, well-written pattern. It's super. Casting on a gazillion stitches in the beginning it actually not as bad as I'd feared.

It is, however, a ginormous shawl:

I think the wingspan of the shawl is 80+ inches. Didn't actually measure, but I know I could have blocked it bigger if I'd wanted.

It's nice and cozy (especially in air-conditioning) but I think I'll be able to let go of it and give it to my friend to give to her mum. I'm sure I'll make another Ene at some point and how many shawls does a gal need, anyway?

I also finished Clint's Ph.D sweater, but neglected to get a photo of him wearing it. Sigh. I was too busy being sad he was leaving. But he loves the sweater and promised to wear it to death and get a photo of it in blustery Chicago weather. Speaking of blustery, don't I have more sweaters to knit?