Entries categorized as ‘flowers’
It seems like it’s warming up for real around here, lately. The days are getting longer (much longer thanks to Daylight Savings being earlier), and the first buds of spring are starting to open. From the crocuses in windowboxes…
to the snowdrops in Central Park…
Color and life are returning to the city.
Speaking of color, I got a big jump on my latest pair of socks at a Sit ‘n’ Knit New York meetup last weekend. The Twilight Sock yarn pleasantly surprised me by turning out to be self-patterning. The lighter and darker pinks and purples spiral up the length of the sock. I had a little bit of a gauge issue at one point that caused some odd pooling on the leg, but I just ripped back a few rows to get everything consistent again. I didn’t want to interrupt the patterning when I turned the heel, so I knitted my favorite, a short-row heel using the yarn from the outside of the ball.
I chose a ribbed cable pattern from the first Barbara Walker Treasury, which combines twisted stitches and cable crossings. The twisted stitches make it a little bit trickier to knit this without a cable needle, but I feel that if I can deal with this pattern, I can handle pretty much any cable pattern without a cable needle.
One of the many reasons that I prefer to knit my socks toe-up is that it does allow me to make a lot of design decisions at the last minute. I decided to use two different ribbings for the cuff of the sock. For the front and back, I chose a k1 tbl, p2 rib, and I just let the k1 tbl, p1 cables unwind on the sides. The sock legs are 11.5 inches long, but the knitting just flew by. Now it’s on to the second sock of the pair, and then to continue working through my sock stash.
Categories: Knitting · flowers · socks
I’m nearly at the finish line for my Tangled Yoke Cardigan. After spending a few evenings knitting the neckband and picking up the stitches for the folded hem, I’m left with just the two button bands to finish. After some measuring and math, I figured out that I’ll have to pick up just under 300 stitches total to account for the changes in length that I made to the cardigan.
Picking up stitches and I do not get along very well. I had to do it for the Tubey that I made last year, and there are some fairly obvious errors, although none that are worth ripping out the entire body of the sweater to fix. Picking up the purl bumps for the neckband was bad enough, and this is in a much more visible location than “the inside of my sweater”. So buoyed by another tutorial from knitty.com, I proceeded to attempt to evenly space my stitches and make sure they’re in the same vertical line. The way the neckband pulls in made all this rather tricky, but after many attempts I got all of the stitches picked up for the left buttonband. Great, right? Except I’m pretty sure I picked up the wrong loop and will have to rip everything out as it’ll look funny. I’m going with it as it is now because I have a feeling that I miscalculated the total number of stitches and will need to do it all over again to get things the right size. I also have a feeling that given how sore my index finger is from being poked with a 2 mm needle repeatedly, if by some miracle the band is the right length, I can live with having picked up the wrong half of the stitch.
This is what I’ve started doing as a way to put off picking up those stitches.
It’s my new traveling project, a slightly narrower version of the My So-Called Scarf from Sheep in the City. I like my scarves on the long and skinny side, so I cast on 26 stitches instead of 30, and it’s amazing how fast it’s been going–I’ve knit 3 feet of it in two nights. I’m using Manos del Uruguay in the Mar colorway that I purchased at Knit-A-Bit in Westfield, NJ. I met one of the owners and several of the knitters from Knit-A-Bit at Stitch ‘n’ Pitch at Shea in August, and they were so nice that I wanted to check their store out whenever I got an opportunity to. I was very impressed–they had a great selection of yarns and books (including many colorways of Manos and Lorna’s, and a wide variety of sock yarns), and were incredibly helpful. I went off my pre-Stitches yarn diet because the yarn I bought was perfect for a scarf to go with my navy peacoat, and I’d definitely go back when I got a chance.
The Manos feels much softer than I remembered it feeling (and than what I already had in the stash feels like), so I hope it’ll still wear decently. As with most handpainted yarns, there’s enough variation between the two skeins that I bought that I decided I ought to wind both skeins into one big ball and alternate between knitting from the center and the outside.
And finally, a splash of color to counteract all the gray we’ve been having the past few days. It may have been in the high 70s earlier this week, but it’s still nice to be reminded of summer.
Categories: Eye Candy · Knitting · flowers
September 14, 2007 · 1 Comment
First, another glimpse at some of the waterlilies from Longwood Gardens…
And then a peek of sleeve for those adventurous enough to click through.
Categories: Eye Candy · Knitting · flowers
This wasn’t an actual Butterfly Bush, but the next best thing: a grouping of lantana plants at Longwood Gardens that was positively swarming with swallowtails.
There were some monarch butterflies in the gardens, but they were way outnumbered by swallowtail butterflies, at least on the Flower Garden Walk. That may have been related to the types of plantings they had there, which were very heavy on the lantana (the garden walk is arranged by color, and they seem to come in every color imaginable).
And finally, on a lantana across the pathway from the others, there was a really gorgeous black swallowtail.
Categories: Eye Candy · flowers · travel
Here’s a day-flowering waterlily from Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. It was purchased by members of the du Pont family to preserve old-growth woods, and over the years they added many fountains and a pair of large conservatories and a water lily garden. We’ll be taking a trip out there this weekend, and I’m really looking forward to it.
I’ve finished the left sleeve of my Wicked sweater, and I picked up the live stitches for the right sleeve. One of my goals for the weekend is to finish it off, so I can start on something new. I’m trying to decide if it should be Tomato from No Sheep For You, or if I should try to finally get those Monkey socks off my back. Of course, I should finish the Gothic Spire socks for my grandmother, or my Reunion Socks before I begin any more of those, but I don’t generally let that sort of thing stop me.
Categories: Eye Candy · Knitting · flowers
IMG_4384.JPG, originally uploaded by limonene.
I’ve also still been knitting away at the Razor Cami. I’m at approximately 11 inches now, out of the 16 called for by the pattern. I’m going to have to keep trying it on, though, because with the amount of negative ease I’m knitting into it, it does get a bit shorter on.
Categories: Eye Candy · Knitting · flowers
IMG_2420.JPG, originally uploaded by limonene.
Oh, what the heck. for good measure I’ll throw these in too:
Categories: Eye Candy · flowers
