Since I found Helena such an easy pattern to follow, I used it for this little cardigan for my beloved nephew. Instead of yarn overs, I used the make 1 increase and avoided the holes. Approx. 10 cm after the sleeves had been seperated, I turned to brow, knitting 1 row of k1brown, k1yellow, then one row in yellow and a row of k1yellow, k1brown. The cuffs are 4 rows of garter stitch. The neck-and buttonband is again a crochet band with buttonholes.

To finish off, I embroidered a sailing ship onto the left front.

Yarn: Egyptian cotton from my stash, very lovely yarn, very good quality.



Da ich die Anleitung zur Helena so einfach fand, habe ich den Schnitt gleich für dieses Jäckchen verwendet und nur kleine Änderungen ausgeführt, z. B. statt die Zunahme durch Umschlag, habe ich die Zunahme durch Herausstricken der Masche ausgeführt. Nach ca. 10 cm ab Armloch habe ich die Farbe gewechselt. Für den Übergang habe ich folgende 3 Reihen gestrickt: 1Mgelb, 1Mbraun, 1 Reihe gelb, 1Mbraun, 1Mgelb, danach in braun weiter. Die Bündchen sind 4 Reihen kraus rechts und auch hier habe ich die Knopfblende wieder gehäkelt. Zum Schluß noch ein Segelboot aufgestickt und fertig war ein weiteres Weihnachtsgeschenk.

Die Wolle ist ägyptische Mako-Baumwolle, mercerisiert und gasiert. Ein wunderschönes Garn von sehr guter Qualität, das es leider nicht mehr gibt.

grid⋅i⋅ron: [grid-ahy-ern] –noun
1. a football field.
2. a utensil consisting of parallel metal bars on which to broil meat or other food.
3. any framework or network resembling a gridiron.
4. a structure above the stage of a theater, from which hung scenery and the like are manipulated.

shown here in araucania ranco, colorway, #120 midnight

to purchase pattern or view complete pattern information, please click here to visit the product page in the knitspot pattern shop.

many thanks to rachel for quick and efficient proofreading. thanks!

good thing i love working on this scarf, because seriously, i’m knitting and knitting, but it doesn’t seem to be getting longer. but wow, when it’s done, it’ll be perfect for what i need. it’s all snuggly and soft, and the colors are so attractive. and it’s wide—if i’m out and i get chilly, i can throw it over my shoulders to get warm and it will work. i like that.
(and it is growing—it’s getting there. one repeat at a time.)

my secret project is also growing and i’m actually thinking i might finish it by the end of the week. if i do, i’ll be a very happy knitter. i’m not really keeping a schedule (though it could be argued that i should), but if i was, and i finished that far ahead, i’d be looking at having gained time toward knitting a sweater.

um. that’s just a little confusing—let me put it another way: if i finish the secret project by the end of the week and start the faroese autumn arbor shawl over the weekend, i have a chance of finishing that by the end of the month, which means i could maybe knit a sweater in february. wouldn’t that be sweet?

that’s the dream anyway. i still have another small secret project i need to work on, but that’s not big at all.
i want to finish up the poppy socks very soon, too—i’ve decided they are now on a deadline. but they’re halfway there

and they’re adorable (it’s possible that their adorability quotient was raised considerably by how fast they knit up . . . .). they are also as cushy-cozy as promised in the knitting, mmm. i love how they look on the foot

though they’re not meant for me so they are a little short. still, you get the idea of how the lace opens up and the nicely-defined brocade texture.

i just can’t say enough nice things about knitting with this serenity yarn—it’s lovely from start to finish. you wanna hear the best part?? roxanne is going to be dyeing this same blend (merino/cashmere/nylon) in a DK/light worsted weight. she’s sending some for scarf knitting as soon as she has it in, so we’ll keep you updated on that.

speaking of cozy, i’ve been wearing my wooly-bear caterpillar socks (now that i finally have two complete toes!) and wow, are they cozy-warm.

adam’s yarn just glows and washes up beautifully, too

sometimes, i just feel a need to mention the goodness of wool on my feet . . .

yesterday was spinning class and we all agreed—thank goodness it was sunday and time for class—we needed it. we didn’t go over any new techniques or skills . . . but we had a very therapeutic discussion about the holidays. there was much hilarity over gifts from husbands and we all felt a lot better afterward (some of us have been drowning in family since 12/22/08). i shudder to think what sort of carnage i’d have wreaked by now if that was me.

after class, beckie and kris came over to knit—more discussion about gifts from husbands (not complaints, just talking; it seems everyone has at least one funny story of the genre).

of course, while we were all downstairs knitting and chuckling, david was doing this

looks like he’s hit the starting line on that room.
for posterity, i took a few pix this morning of some of its sadder features

just about all you could say about that is, ugh.

then there’s the acoustic tile ceiling. now, in a pinch, you could make a case for leaving that alone—i’ve seen it used in modern applications for spare, lovely rooms and it looked very streamlined and appropriate. it could work in the “clean box” we are aiming for here. but—and this is what’s so maddening about the work that’s been done on the house by previous owners—

just look at the alignment of those tiles—why bother? why not just stagger them if you don’t have the patience to align them? that’s just the kind of thing david can’t let slide. even if he wanted acoustic tile, he’d have to replace that.

the guy who lived here before calls himself a “faux finisher” and he was absolutely mad about putting wall treatments on every square inch of this house, especially this kind (it’s first thing to go, believe me)

which seems to consist of smearing joint compound over the thinnest available wallboard (or, better yet, masonite or fake wood paneling!), then tinting it with muddy mixtures of color (badly), and calling it a day.
nope, i take that back; not calling it a day—calling it decor.

secretly, i call him the faux faux finisher. be-ware.

It is no secret that while dogs have masters, cats have staff. What this little quip neglects to mention is that all staff possessions belong to the Cat. Knits included. Here is a much slept on back of Debbie Bliss's Smock Coat (from Simply Baby).



When not being used as feline bedding, this is what the back look likes.

There's a finished left front that nearly caused a nervous breakdown. I knit the whole skirt part with the wrong size needle. I forgot to change from US3 to US5 after the 3 row garter stitch border. About 200 yds and 24 hours of work... WASTED. What a stupid mistake. So as I sat in a dejected self-pitying funk, Darling Master Blackhead ripped it, wound it, and presented the yarn to me like nothing had happened. To my surprise, I actually cast on for the front again and started anew. This time I made absolutely sure that I switched needles after the first three rows.

The right front is off to a respectable start. I'm hoping I have enough yarn. So far, 5.5 balls have been consumed in making the back and left front. There are 10 balls total. I think I can eek by, but I'm nervous nonetheless. I swung by the Yarnery today in St. Paul to buy the last three buttons that I would need. Given my penchant for black cats, I think they are suitably appropriate. Here's a pic taken from the woollyworks website.



These buttons come in a variety of images. I was seriously tempted by the cow jumped over the moon, humpty dumpty, and Jack jumped over the candlestick. They do come at a hefty price ($4.15 each) and needing six for this coat make for a pricey accent. Sure there are much cheaper buttons, but these are perfect: color to compliment the yarn, black cats, and a good feel. Besides, do I really want to knit 1420 yards of dk yarn and not do the work full justice by adding subpar buttons? Answer: not really. Whoever says handknits are a cheap alternative have never shopped for buttons, or yarn for that matter. Thankfully, the cuddly soft yarn, Cashsoft dk in Imp, is a gift from MamaSara. Without her generosity, the Blackheads would be looking at a very cost prohibitive $115 hand knit coat. Oh yes, handknits are such a great way to save money. Yeah right.

In a series of events that shocks no one, Alex dyes her fingers pink and blue the day before a job interview.


Pictures forthcoming (of the yarn being dyed, not my fingers.)

They look like cows. I am not sure how I am going to cook them, but
they are getting soaked now for tonight's dinner.

As many readers of Knitty, I thought Helena a beautiful pattern. So, when it came to Christmas knitting, I chose it for the two daughters of dear friends of us. The girls are 5 years and 6 months old, so I had to increase the pattern for the older daughter.

I tried the knit on neckband twice on the big cardigan, but both times I was displeased with it. As a consequence, I decided to do a crochet neckband, which I think fits the pattern very well.

The yarn is a very lovely cotton from my stash, which is now all gone.

Bye the way, I found the instructions very straight forward.








Wie viele Leser der Knitty, fand auch ich die Helena ein sehr schönes Muster, so dass meine Wahl darauf fiel, als ich mir überlegt, was ich den Töchtern guter Freunde zu Weihnachten stricken wollte.

Da die große schon 5 ist, mußte ich die Größe anpassen, aber das war relativ einfach. Nur die angestrickte Borte mit den Bindebändeln gefiel mir nicht. 2 x habe ich es am großen Modell versucht, bis ich mich schließlich für eine Häkelkante mit Knopflöchern entschied. Ich finde, das paßt sehr gut dazu.

Die Wolle kam aus meinem stash, ein wunderschönes Baumwollgarn, das nun leider aufgebraucht ist.

Cheap bookshelves are my heroes.



(I took this this morning, it's much fuller now. And my desk area much, much emptier. Check out the thrift store "painting".)

It is worth mentioning that right now, this is my ENTIRE STASH*, minus some stuff I just unraveled from old sweaters for dyeing, a bag full of other stuff to be overdyed, and some cashmere and Handmaiden Camelspin I have in jars on the mantel to keep them extra safe (plus they're pretty.) Not so bad, I think. Definitely tackle-able. I am quite pleased to have achieved my dream of putting everything on display, so I can tell what I have at a glance and stop rummaging around in grubby bins, tangling everything up. Plus it's nice to look at, and relatively safe from moths since it's out in open air.



* Entire Portland stash. Now, if we want to talk about the bins of yarn at my parent's place in Michigan....but we don't. We don't want to talk about those bins. Hush.

Ooh, so many projects I’ve been sitting on without being able to blog them!  Here’s the first: A vest for my dad.  He liked his first vest so much that I couldn’t not make him another, and I do believe he liked this one even more. I went with a nice greeny-brown (browny-green?) Cascade 220 Heather, which [...]

Brrrrrr! These palm trees are out of their ideal environment, and so
am I.

Or perhaps he is contemplating how nice it is for the whole family to
be crated together.

My nose disagrees! Gack!

Quick, cue the U2 CD!

I think this officially qualifies as the middle of nowhere.

This was my Christmas present to my other sister, and I liked the way it turned out so I thought I'd write up the pattern :-) Mirasol Sulka is like some sort of delicious silky cloud and the hat works up nice and thick and cozy. If you don't like the slouchy look, you can skip the part where you block out the cables and leave it more narrow and boing-y.



(strange how I am completely underexposed but the hat looks good. Silly white.)





The large gauge means you can knit this up an evening, no problem. Err...sorry I didn't bring it out before the holidays, heh.

As always, available both in the etsy shop and on Ravelry
On Etsy
Ravelry Pattern Page
Buy Now on Ravelry

So I got an email from my "counter" service telling me I had to buy a subscription (as opposed to using their free service) because I got over 5000 pageviews yesterday...but since it's kind of a useless counting service, I can't figure out where on earth they came from :-P I usually get close to 2,000 and it shot up to almost 7,000 in one day. My curiosity is killing me.

So tell me...how did you get here? (Is that your beautiful house? Is that your beautiful wife?!?)

While 2008 was nowhere near as difficult a year for our family as 2007, there was plenty of upheaval to go around. We moved from Monterey back to our house in New England, we had a baby, the husband switched jobs to a very intense start-up that failed to get what they thought was secured [...]

happy new year. i know—i’m just a little late to the party. i have no idea what happened to yesterday—good thing i didn’t make any vows to blog every day this year (though i enjoy immensely that other people manage it with such panache). heh. maybe next year.

i do very much want to express my deep gratitude for your enthusiasm and generosity as readers of my blog and users of my patterns in 2008. you have captured my imagination and followed up by urging and cheering me along through dozens of projects. we have picked names for knits together, traveled through the design process together, and celebrated many, many finishing lines as a group. the collaborations that have materialized through this blog with dyers, test knitters, metalsmiths, and many more artisans along with other bloggers and readers are some of the most amazing of my life, with astounding results.

i hope everyone is looking forward to a year of possibility. i know we all expect changes that may seem like obstacles, but you never know—changes that are forced upon us sometimes germinate into positive growth of unexpected proportions if we keep an open mind about them. that has been my experience, anyway—it was during a four-month drought of work in 2006 that i cheered myself up by starting my blog and nothing has been the same since . . .

i’m setting just a few important goals for this year, mostly around streamlining things so i can optimize my time. my one huge design goal is to start getting those sweater patterns out. it didn’t happen last year, but i’m determined to get it going this year. as always, the biggest obstacle for me is getting started, but i’m challenging myself to just do it.

so yeah, let’s get started on 2009.

first off, i have a couple of announcements from collaborators i want to pass along.

the fiber baristas have opened their 2009 postcards from home yarn club for signups. this sounds like an interesting club—and something different. instead of yarn from one source, the club will send installments from different dyers throughout the year. there’s a ravelry group too, where you can find out lots more.

signups for the taste of shivaya club will open tomorrow at shivaya naturals—you can read a few details about the club at heather’s blog today. this promises to be a lovely offering with gorgeous picks from heather’s luxurious line of naturally-dyed yarns.

now lets talk about knitting

it’s been an incredibly productive week here. i’ve been devoting most of my time to my secret project so that i can finish it quickly. fortunately, that’s working well for me. and equally fortunate is the fact that i love the yarn. the color couldn’t be more perfect for this time of year—i feel like i have a little spring shrub growing right before my eyes in here.

something about it being the holidays made the whole place seem quieter and less focused on “work”, which gave me time to actually work. normally i hit my desk first thing in the morning and stay pretty close to it all day, because we’re supposed to be available to the office (that would be my day job) from 9 to 6, even if we don’t know that work will be coming in. it makes it hard to feel ok with knitting in the middle of the day, so i fill the time with email, patten writing, etc, then end up working on all of that far later than i should. i often leave my desk too jazzed up to settle properly into my knitting when the time comes.

things are extremely slow at the office though, and we’re not expecting work to come in for a while (and maybe never; they’re not saying yet), so we’re now more free to be off getting other stuff done, finances allowing. and i’m discovering that freedom to organize my day differently opens up my brain immensely—how about that. i’m really grateful to immerse myself in it again like this.

i’ve been writing patterns and knitting a lot, which is really calming. sometimes, when things are hectic, i start feeling really disconnected from knitting, so having this time to focus on it is very therapeutic.
i finished my brother’s birthday socks

and wrote the pattern; it should be ready to release some time next week. yesterday we did a little modeling session and got some great photos

more of those when the time comes . . .

i’m getting back to a couple of small projects i started around thanksgiving and put aside to do christmas knitting. the first is something for me, which i really want to finish because it’s going to look great with my new jacket. i dusted off my wiggle scarf last night and put a few rows on it just to get reacquainted.

the yarn is bunny patch, a merino/angora blend from cheryl at new hue handspuns. the scarf is a wide, cozy one that i’m anxious to be using—i love my old scarf but it’s time for a change and the right weather is upon us.

the yummy and cozy theme is extended in another project that’s been patiently waiting for me to take up once more

i got back to work the poppy socks the other night and just couldn’t put them down—i found myself shaking awake with the needles still in my hands during the wee hours of new year’s morning. mmm, squishy. i’m past the heel now and rollicking down the foot to the toe (these are much smaller than those man socks i just finished).

the yarn is the delicious serenity from roxanne at zen yarn garden, which combines the luxury of cashmere and the softest merino with some nylon for durability. not to mention how nice it is to knit with—it is as soothing as a balm and totally lives up to its name. the colorway, paprika, has a warm, bright fullness that expresses this pattern just right for me. i think roxanne is planning to offer a kit for this sock when the pattern is ready—we’ll definitely keep you updated on that.

with no incoming work from the office, david is on a real tear through the house. he took down all the christmas decorations yesterday, boxed them up, and stowed ‘em away. he’s also been cleaning and organizing the basement so that i barely recognize it

(beckie and kim will appreciate how different it looks down there; it was a mess before and i’m embarrassed to say that i showed it to them in that state)
we have a huge basement—it’s the size of the entire footprint of the house and has seven rooms. for most of the first year it was completely empty, then as the renovations on the house revved up, it began to fill with debris and detritus, tools and materials, and all manner of yard equipment (our garage didn’t have doors til last year). in fact, it looked a lot more like this

especially in david’s “shop”. but it looks like he’s tackling that area now . . . i’m seeing a semblance of order where mayhem has reigned for most of the last year (all i can say is, discourage your husband from getting a table saw unless you can handle—or hide—the fallout).

trust me, this is immaculate compared to what it looked like last week.

he’s also preparing the back room on the second floor for renovation, now that the third floor is done (and i do need to show you that soon). the back room has been a storing vault and staging area during the third floor renovation, so it was crammed with all sorts of tools, materials, and crap

it used to be a kitchen when this house was split into apartments. it has a door to the porch deck outside, a nice big window that looks onto the back garden, and a tiny walk-in closet under the stairs. it also has a very badly-done stucco-y wall treatment complemented by painted trim the color of . . . well . . . baby poop. it has an impressive layering of multiple vinyl and linoleum coverings glued securely to the old oak flooring—with the exception of the stove-sized area that got burned in a fire at some point. oh, and it has acoustic tile on the ceilings, yay.

this room is slated to become an extension of my adjacent workroom, where we will put the more utilitarian equipment such as the sewing machine, pressing bench, and work table. david will add a wall of cedar-lined cabinets for storing all that yarn and fiber i boxed up last week. we would like to add a utility sink, but i’m not sure i want to give up the cabinet space; we’re still deciding. eventually we’ll add a screened airing/sleeping porch to the deck outside the door.

fortunately we have a lot of the required materials on hand already—the biggest ingredient will be labor on david’s part. basically, we just want a nice clean box when it’s done. he would love to reclaim the old floor; i suspect we’ll need to put in a new one—he still needs to assess the damage.

he says it’s possible he’ll finish it within a month—i’ll be ecstatic if it’s done before we need to start work on the yard and garden in spring.

so we’ve got a lot going on. we’re hoping that all this energy and work is a good portent for the coming year. we can’t control all the various aspects of our life that keep us afloat, but we can do the best with what we have, so that’s what we’re going for. cheers!

So I am back in Portland, and Portland is back to normal... no more snowy hell, for the moment anyway.

My trip home was quite lovely. Here are a bunch of pictures, quite a few of which are shamefully bad quality... ugh. Sorry.


This came right before I left. Recycled, hand-dyed yarn from Leethal, part of a fingerless glove kit. I made it into another Maner, but the change in gauge threw me a bit and it's a smidgen too small. No word as to whether I'll frog it or just put on a button loop.


I had a layover in Salt Lake City, and this is from the descent. What a pretty state...shame that it seems to be full of warehouses and Cracker Barrels (at least from my drives through it.)


If you've ever been so "lucky" as to fly into Detroit, and into the correct terminal, you may recognize this as the color-changey, new-agey-music, hall of rainbow dreams. It leads you under the tarmac and distracts you from the long wait on the moving sidewalk by essentially placing you inside one of those "Light Show" air fresheners and soothing your furious flying nerves with some Enya-ish, trancey music. I kinda like it.



Christmas Presents!


Hat for youngest sister (the hat for my other sister will also be sold in pattern form, so it'll get it's own post.) It's Madelinetosh Sock Yarn, in "Oxblood", held doubled. What a friggin gorgeous line of yarn, I tell you what. And you get quite a bit in the $30 skein, almost 400 yards.


Last minute Noro socks for the boyfriend. He picked out the yarn. They're funny. This picture is terrible, and he's been wearing them around so they're all mussed up...but oh well. You get the idea.


Cowl for a friend...some sort of red Malabrigo in "spider stitch".




Hats for my boyfriend's parents- the photos are so bad I'm just going to link them.
His Dad's
His Mom's (Based on the Matilda Cloche)

Both from Sarah's Yarns Mongolian Cashmere...a super great deal, though I've heard communication has broken down since I ordered this. I hope not.


Cowl for me mum.
I made a black alpaca neck tube for my dad, but it's nothing worth posting really.



And just for the hell of it, here's a bonus shot of ole Topographie in action, me making a horrible face, and some of my friend type people:



And since I don't have to hide the fact that Travis can knit any longer (he was making his mom a top secret scarf,) here is my favorite picture ever:




And that is all the blurry, craptastic photographs I have for you today. Let's hope Portland gets some damn sun so I won't have an excuse anymore.

As it turns out, the knitting Paideia classes ARE going to happen, and I got an interview at that LYS so...hooray. Don't uncross those fingers yet though :-)

That last picture could have been taken anywhere, so here's the
benchmark as proof. I would have stuck my head there, too, but things
were a bit precarios up there. That was by far the most technical hike
I have done because I actually used my mad rock climbing skillz!

It was a great way to celebrate the first day of the new year!