Having struggled with my weight for most of my life, and having that “I’m so big and have a too-big chest” thing going on too, I compensated by wearing big baggy clothes. I’m not as big as I think, and I’m trying different kinds of clothes and taking many big breaths these days. Marnie suggested small cardigans, of a scale I never thought I could wear: very fine yarn, quite fitted, and shorter than I’ve ever worn (i.e., not going down below my bottom).

My ravelry sweater queue features the kinds of sweaters I always thought I needed to wear, not the kind I’m trying to wear now. In fact, so many of the projects in my queue are large-scale — and of course some large-scale things are the best, big and squishy and warm and enveloping. So now I need to rethink things and try something new. A Goodale, perhaps. Even the Laar, perhaps, since I already bought the pattern and a gorgeous red laceweight yarn for it.

I’m also newly interested in making some very bright, eye-popping accessories to wear with my basic pieces, which are kind of anchored in black. I’ve had this great madelinetosh lace in a gorgeous springy green called lettuce leaf; I’m just beginning Jared Flood’s new shawl, Rock Island:

this baby is as delicate is a whisper

For some silly reason I had to start over 4 times; on row 3 I always forgot the last YO and when I tried to tink back I screwed it up. There are 71 repeats of the 8-row pattern (only ~12 stitches/row) so it should go quickly, but it’s not. My hands are accustomed to the drastically different scale of my other WIP:

this baby is huge and weighs a LOT!

This is my traveling woman shawl, the giant edition, in madelinetosh DK, colorway byzantine. I’ve finally gotten to Chart B, and may do it twice. The rows are pretty dang long at this point, and that return all-purl row is a boring killer, me not being a huge fan of all that purling. Still, I’ve put this much time, effort, and expense into it, and I want it to be what I want so I’m hoping to stick with my plan to do 2 repeats of Chart B. I’m into my 3rd skein of the dk now. That’s a lot of yarn.

I’m starting my 2nd week of strength training and taking care with my appearance, which makes me feel proud. It’s fun seeing my strength improve (on plank, at any rate), and it feels so good to be sticking with it. This is a 3-month experiment, set to “end” on August 1, but I’m not fooled: sticking it out that long is just a clever ploy to change my life.

lace ribbon scarf (Veronik Avery), in Rowan Felted Tweed

And here’s the beginning of Marian’s scarf; she chose the Tiger Eyes Lace Scarf by Toni M. Maddox, and she chose Curious Creek Fibers Meru from my stash, in a deep purple colorway named Purple Martin. The yarn is laceweight, half silk half merino; since (a) I want to finish the scarf pretty quickly and (b) I like the heft of the scarves made with fingering-weight yarn, I am holding it double. See?

the pattern is called tiger eyes, but it looks like owls to me!

i really like it - and it's great fun to knit!

Really – it doesn’t look like tiger eyes, does it? It’s owl faces all the way. Right?

And my birthday gift, that thing in the long rectangular box wrapped in silver paper?

my birthday present - turtlegirl was right, it was a swift!

Of course I immediately put a skein of yarn on and wound it up – the Wollmeise that Tammy gave me. It took, like, 3 minutes, and I was grinning the whole time. I used to have a swift (which I kept permanently mounted on the castle of my 48″ 8-harness jack loom, ah the good old days) and I’ve really missed it.

I have too much work to get done before I leave for Laos – 2 giant manuscripts (one which needs to be re-ghost-written) and a couple small projects – so I’d better quit farting around here and get to work. Happy Tuesday y’all!

happy! joy!

SUCH a wonderful, happy day for me! I finished the final little details of my old job, tied up every last loose end, left nothing undone, left on a very high note.

I finished grafting the shawl together, and it LOOKS GREAT! I was so worried that the graft would be obvious and weird, but you know the kitchener stitch is really amazing. It really looks seamless. Now I just have to weave in a couple of ends, then soak it for a bit and do the blocking.

Isn’t it great when the things that hang over you are finished? You know that glorious feeling of liberation and accomplishment and exuberance?

Yeah. I’ve got those going. After I finish the blocking, I think I’ll do the next swatch for Peasy, so I can work on it on the flight later this week. To my daughter’s wedding. Two girls happily married, that’s another great relief, you know?

blocking

.

So, WOTN! Item #1, the wedding shawl. Nupps are “fun.” I won’t show the shawl in its entirety, to preserve the surprise, but little bits here and there seem ok. Case in point: nupps.

nupps (unblocked, of course)

Next up on the needles: socks for my youngest daughter (nonrav link), whose dorm floors are very cold. I want to finish them by the time she comes home for spring break in a couple of weeks, so I’m alternating these with the shawl. (Doesn’t that gusset look mighty huge to you? It does to me.)

A's socks

While not technically on the needles, these are destined to be on the needles very soon – sock yarns chosen by my oldest daughter. Katie, which one do you want me to use first?

Lorna's Lace Shepherd Sock: Beverly

Knit One Crochet Too: Meadow

And finally, in this brief period between snows, I walked over to Riverside Park – my back yard, kind of – and I took a picture I take over and over, in all seasons. Here it is today:

winter view

And here it is a few months ago, and a few before that:

November

May

Seeing the park blanketed with snow, and ice in the Hudson River, made me think about Lent. I didn’t grow up in a church that focused on Lent (ours focused on the fun combination of both fire and brimstone), and I’m not religious in that way, but the idea of it struck me. There’s a longing for life to come – the life that’s pent up in the trees and plant life buried under the snow. The wheel turns, it’s bleak now, but rejuvenation is coming. It’s coming. The world will begin again, as it always does.

On the knitting front, I made it through the entire part of the shawl chart with the big set of nupps. And they were fun! I definitely learned how to do them better by the last row of them, but I was happy enough. Then, knitting the last set of lace rows to complete the chart, and *clunk*. Something was way wrong. After each row – partly due to overweening pride – I’d stopped, stretched out the lace, admired it, looked for problems, found none. After each pattern repeat, I rechecked the stitches. If each pattern repeat was correct, and each row was correct, I’d be in good shape, right? And yet I’d really screwed up something, somewhere. How hadn’t I seen it in all my looking?! Too much pride, too much “look, isn’t that cool what I did?” I guess. And so I had to pull that whole section out. Had I put in a lifeline? NO.

So I held my breath, got out a small tapestry needle and a roll of dental floss, and tried to put one in, below the nupps chart. A tiny little stitch at a time, through the cobweb-weight lace. plink. plink. plink. plink. plink. Across the row…..and then pull pull pull pull, unknitting. It worked, and so now I begin again. At least this time I’ll do the nupps pretty well from the very first row. So with the shawl too, I’m back where I started.

My sweetheart and I have been dieting – him on Atkins, me on low-cal – but here it is, Valentine’s Day (tomorrow). We’re going out for dinner at our favorite Ethiopian restaurant, Awash, and then we’ll come home for something sweet. He really loves blueberry coffee cake, so I just popped one in the oven. Photos of a slice tomorrow, but for now, The Making of the Coffee Cake, followed by its recipe.

rich batter chock-full of blueberries

sprinkled with a yummy streusel topping, ready to bake

Want to make it yourself? Here’s how: