purlsandmurmers

Blueberry Season

I am tired this evening, bone-wearily tired, and I want to do nothing more than curl up and knit something pretty, but I will probably fall asleep before I have gotten far.  This has been the course of my life lately and who I am to argue, only to knit. 

I've been playing with these yarns, a pretty accumulation of colors and textures, and knitting well suited to my current state of overwhelm.  Best not to have a meticulous pattern in hand when one is distracted or tired, or perhaps even both. 

You can see how it is knitting up as well. Destined to be a long, slouchy sweater, this is being knit in one piece from the bottom up.  Slouchy because it will not have the structure provided by side seams, a structure I normally like, but in this case, with these yarns, this is the preferred approach.  Knit on large, size 13 needles, I will soon be far enough along to separate this at the armholes.

One more picture.  This, because I opened another mystery box from the L'Atelier mystery blanket knit-along this weekend.  I finally have enough yarn to start the blanket squares! (Yay).  Included was also this set of yarns for a sweater.  Near the knitted piece you can see the blue and the wine I was currently knitting, next to the assortment of new yarns.  A perfect pairing.

 

Now if only I can stay awake long enough to knit. 

 

 

New Scarf

The urge to knit slipped away, and has remained hidden beneath the sofa for the last two weeks.  Even looking at the yarn in my knitting basket has not proved temptation enough for me to take up my needles.

 

Nonetheless, I persisted, half-heartedly at best on a few occasions.  But at least I have something to show for my efforts.  The scarf I had started in my last post, the one being knit from three mystery balls of stash yarn, has been finished.  I have named it Glacier Pools, because the colors remind me of the colors seen when staring down cracks in glaciers lit by sunlight.

 

I simply knit until I ran out of one of the yarns, in this case the white yarn.  There remains  20 grams of the blue and white flecked yarn (Louisa Harding Trenzar) and 46 grams of the blue, white and turquoise variegated yarn.   The finished scarf is 7 inches wide and 104 inches long, or a little over 8 1/2 feet.   I am not convinced that I am enamored of the occasional bits of lilac found in the variegated yarn, but they do not dominate the scarf and their effect is minor when the scarf is worn.  I can live with this and still like the scarf overall.

I had minor surgery last Friday and that has affected my interest and ability to knit.  I am just now at about what I would call 50%, and for the first time in a couple of weeks I feel interested in picking up and seaming the purple sweater, or, perhaps, focused enough to knit the diamond pattern and begin the sleeves.  I also have another simple project in the wings, a not-so-basic stockinette sweater, should tiredness set in.

 

More later.

Project Update

The body of the purple cardigan is done and is in the process of being blocked.

Admittedly it took me a few days after casting off to actually get the sweater on the blocking board and pinned, although I fully planned to do it immediately.  Even though the laundry room island is perfect for this, and at the perfect height for me, I was often too tired at the end of a day in the garden to face standing and pinning.  The mind was willing but the body was weak.

 

It should be dry by tomorrow and I think I shall seam it together before starting the sleeves, which is just the way I prefer doing it at the moment, as it seems I always have to shorten sleeves.  Technically I should just figure out the actual dimensions I prefer for different styles of sweaters and then calculate the appropriate sleeve length for each shoulder/arm combination.  But somehow I am not at that point yet.  Close.

In the meantime, I uncovered these three skeins, or partial skeins of yarn while I was unpacking a box.  I don't have the labels and have no idea what they are, nor really why I purchased them.  Actually, as I wrote this paragraph I realized that one of them, the plied blue wool with white flecks, was used in a cowl I knit for my step-daughter three Christmases ago.  That one is Louisa Harding's yarn called Trenzar.  

 The simplest way to avoid cataloging was to cast on. Since two of the yarns remain a mystery, I am simply naming this mystery scarf. The pattern is half-linen stitch, which is a four-row pattern, and I am alternating the yarns as I knit, one row per yarn on size 10 needles. I think it is turning out rather nicely.  I have no real plan except to keep knitting until I run out of one of the yarns.  

 

At the moment I tend to pick up my knitting in the evenings when I am exhausted, and the scarf suits my current needs more than the diamond stitch at the ends of the sleeves.  That will change.  Either I will take a break from planting, or a rainy day will come along, and I will seam the purple sweater and start the sleeves.  But there is no particular rush, and I am happy with this slow flow of life, where each day is filled with the whims of inspiration.