Knitting, knitting, knitting

I've been sneaking in bits of knitting all through the week. When I'm up due to jetlag, when I'm waiting 10 mins to meet someone downstairs, when I'm staying awake late at night having teleconferences with the US, etc. but not on planes so far. That might change on the return flight which is a daytime one. Small bits of knitting time add up. I am reminded of a hymn I learned in elementary school:
Little drops of water, little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean and the beauteous land,
And the little moments, humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages of eternity.

Paraphrased:
Little bits of time, picked up here and there,
Add up into hours without too much care,
And the little stitches, one by one by one,
Result in completion of my knitted wear

Yeah, I know, I'm not much of a poet.

It is odd how the internet behaves differently in different countries. Google finds you local pages, you get the locally customized sites for many companies which are different from the ones you are used to. Even Blogger's sign in is different.

I am almost done with one of the fronts on the Vogue cardigan. I have to take out a repeat in the back as it is too wide. I hope to finish the other front and the back and start doing the lace part on the yoke on the flight home. Pictures to come when the camera comes back home this weekend.

Last time I traveled here, I was listening and reviewing knitting podcasts. I've completely given up on those for now. On this trip I've listened to NPR exclusively so far: On Health, Kitchen Window, This American Life, and so on. I've also downloaded a Spanish language teaching podcast just for kicks. Let's see how I like it.

No pictures

For the next couple of weeks, there will be no pictures as the camera is traveling with my husband. I could use the one on my cell phone but it doesn't take very nice pictures.

I am almost through the back of the cardigan on the cover of the Summer 2008 Vogue Knitting. It is looking good. I decided to lengthen it a bit as my midriff is not something I care to show off. Otherwise, I am just knitting the middle size. It is a pretty boring knit as the pattern on the bottom is very easy and mindless. But not mindless enough to zone out completely. I have taken to reading while knitting it if there is no TV to watch.

Since it is a pretty lacy, see-through kind of cardigan, and I'm knitting it in a fairly light cotton, I went looking for something to wear underneath it. Serendipitously, I was looking through a Good Housekeeping while waiting (and knitting on the lower back) and found an article on shapers. Both Spanx and Assets have camisoles that will work. In the process of looking these up, I realized that Sarah Blakely designs both these. Just a piece of trivia with no value whatsoever.

I have been busy washing, chopping, cooking and freezing greens from my CSA farm. I did spinach, chard, mixed greens, turnip greens and radish greens yesterday. Today is reserved for kale and bok choy. Both those will be cooked and eaten. Only the spinach and chard made it to the freezer. I love fresh greens but the washing and chopping is tiring. Lots of grit. I soak them in a sink full of cold water and slosh them around. Then I rinse them vigorously before I stack them in piles on the chopping board and chiffonade them . After that, I run the knife through them in a direction perpendicular to the strips to cut the strips into smaller pieces. As the summer wears on, I will move to my quick and dirty chopping method. Wash the greens as before and drain. Put them in a dish and microwave them for a few minutes so they wilt. Dump them (with the collected liquid) into the food processor and pulse to chop. Then add to the dish and finish the cooking. But for now, I am making lovely little pieces.

Why I knit socks

I am almost past the heel on the second Shibui sock. This is why I love knitting socks. Instant gratification. I started last week and I am about half way done in a week. Of course, I had some knitting time this week. I took the train down to New York City on Wednesday for a workshop. So I knit on the way there and back. An ipod, a sock and I'm in travel heaven.

The train got me to New York an hour before I needed to be there. At first I planned to just go to the workshop location and knit. But somehow, I wasn't paying attention to the geography of Manhattan and ended up on Avenue of the Americas instead of Park. I am now convinced that it was fate because I was only two or three blocks from Kinokuniya's New York store. I had stored the address in my PDA on a previous trip. So I went there and spent an enjoyable hour browsing Japanese knitting books. I bought one. Some of the photos below are a little out of focus because I was photographing a book. If it is too difficult to view the details, I'll get better pictures. Just leave me a comment and I'll update them.

It is an older book because it says 2005 on the cover. It is full of work-friendly yet interesting knits. This is the cover. The sweater caught my eye because the houndstooth background is a variegated yarn. Very delicately variegated.It is part of a suit, as are many of the garments in the book. Knitted skirts are not my thing. Actually skirts are not my thing but the suit jackets and tops are things I would wear. You can see the suit here. This jacket has a very interesting cable on it. It is a combination of cables and openwork.This is an allover traveling st but there are interesting little details in some of the areas where the sts come together.A suit with a vest on top. The vest is also an interesting cabled design. The book also has some fair-isle designs, both by themselves and combined with texture.This is one of the loveliest lace designs in the book.There are men and women's sweaters. Some are just OK but I found many of them interesting and all of them are classic shapes with set-in sleeves and shaped waists.

All in all, this was a good week. I just also made my first whole wheat sourdough bread and it looks pretty good. I haven't tasted it yet but the dough smelled really good as it was baking.

Progress!

I made a fair bit of progress this week on the knitting front. I wasn't home a lot but I put the time that I spent at home to good use. First of all, I finished the work for the Interweave book. Here's the leftover yarn - to whet your appetite. Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Red Rover on the left and Violet on the right. I had to photograph it in a fairly dim area to get the colors close to being correct. I am checking the pattern this morning and will be mailing it off this week. After that it will be a year or so before the book comes out. It really isn't very satisfying at this point. It is much more fun when the book is finally published. I swatched for the VK Sideways Sweater that I showed you in an earlier post. Here is the first swatch. The right hand repeat is on a US size 5 (3.75 mm) needle. The left repeat is on a US size 6 (4 mm). Not much difference so I am going with the larger needle.
Here is the swatch seen at an angle. You can see the texture a bit better at this angle. It is a pretty straightforward pattern. Zig one way using a lifted increase and a ssk, then zag the other way using a k2tog and another lifted increase. There is a small lace panel in the middle which is just there to highlight the gentle zig-zag. I can see myself getting bored but it should go fast. While the swatch was drying, I started the other sock in the Shibui sock yarn. This represents a few hours of knitting. Now the sock is in a position where I can take it places and knit mindlessly.
Now I'm off to weed. The garden photography project is progressing. More photos on my flickr photostream. I am enjoying seeing the photos because the flowers themselves last only for a week or so. The lovely tree peonies that MaggieB commented on last week are just a memory. The other one is flowering now but will be gone in a few days. I am using the photos as a screensaver, which is fun.

Flying time

Time flies, they say, when you are having fun. But what about the situation where you don't have the time to do all the things you want to do because time is flying by so fast? That doesn't seem like fun to me at all.

I wanted to knit this week. Badly, really badly. But I didn't. Not a stitch. I came back on Sunday evening so Monday evening was taken up by grocery shopping, Tuesday with cooking and preparing dough for baking on Wed, Wed evening was just a mish-mash of drama, and chores. Thursday evening was a blur and so was Friday evening (actually I think I remember what I did on Friday). Yesterday I spent time shopping for flowers and working in the yard. All my annuals are planted. I planted dahlias, basil and marigolds in addition to the petunias, geraniums, hot peppers and rosemary I planted a couple of weeks ago.

I didn't even read a book this week! I feel as if the week has slipped by with no input on my part. It wasn't that it was boring or not fun. It was just going by way too fast.

I AM going to knit today. On Friday I met with a student. She has been struggling with lace but she has mastered it finally. It was a version of my Driftwood stole. I am so proud of her for her perseverance, her attention to detail and her love of learning.

I have put my garden photos up on Flickr. I thought this way you would see them only if you want to.

A lot of my bread baking this week was based on Artisan Bread in 5 Mins a Day. I can't recommend this book strongly enough for those who don't have any time to bake. There is an accompanying blog with a lot of answers and some new recipes. A lot of it is marketing but there are good tips there also.

Thank you Knitman for your compliment on the tree and the house.

Anmiryam, yes, it is the small things that make us feel virtuous. I am especially feeling good about my exercising. This is one of things that is making me have less time to knit though. In order to get up early in the am to work out, I have to get to bed early. Oh well. Eventually I will catch up on the knitting

Quick Update II

I was on the road yesterday so didn't post. I've been traveling a lot and that has limited my ability to take and post pictures.

I am almost done with the project for the book. I thought I would be able to finish it while on the road and even begin swatching for the VK cover sweater but that didn't happen. I still have a few hours worth of work on the project and then I'll be able to start on the VK sweater. I hope to have photos for you next week.

On a positive note, I have been extremely regular with my exercise program through all this. I am starting my fifth straight week of working out every day. In the interest of full disclosure, I missed 3 days in a row the week before last. However, I did an hour or more of gardening two days out of the three and one was my regular rest day. So I haven't done too badly.

For those who are downsizing, here's a little something: Skinny songs. I bought the album via iTunes and have been listening to it. The songs are set to catchy tunes and provide positive reinforcement and I am enjoying them. They did keep me from making bad choices at airports. I picked a salad instead of a sandwich for lunch one day.

Back to knitting

It is strange how one's mind perceives an activity as being interesting or boring at different points in time. Case in point: I would have considered bread baking really boring a year ago. I am currently knitting, gardening and baking. A year ago I was only knitting and knitting much more passionately than I am right now. A few weeks ago, my brain was classifying knitting as boring and requiring more concentration than I could drum up. Now it is acceptable.

I am almost done with one of the mittens. I had to do some ripping out as I am a perfectionist when it comes to published items. The ribbing is a 2x2 rib with an odd single knit thrown in. Those knits become very stretched out for me. Sometimes, it helps to wrap the yarn the opposite way after the knit st but even that wasn't enough for this ribbing. I decided to wrap the opposite way before and after the knit st and that seemed to help. But the biggest benefit was that I didn't accidentally forget that I wasn't doing 2x2 rib at that point. Before I started wrapping the opposite way, I was getting into a rhythm and happily doing 2x2 rib all the way around and then having to fix the error on the next round. Since the two purl sts bracketing the knit st were presented with the leading leg in the back, I had to work them differently and this made me less error-prone. So even if you don't need the lazy or Eastern purl for neatness, it helps to keep the pattern on track. I don't necessarily find that the Eastern purl makes the knit st all that neat but I leave you to judge for yourself. You can see the single column of rib in the middle of the photograph below.
Once the second mitten is done, the next item up on the queue is the cover sweater from the current VK. It is knit sideways across the more solid part and then one picks up and does the lacy part on top. I am going to make it longer and make the button band all the way down to the bottom. There are better pictures on Ravelry, if you are a member.
I am knitting it in Rowan Purelife cotton in Brazilwood rather than the Tahki Sky used in the magazine. Sky is a worsted weight yarn and I thought that was rather heavy for a summer knit. So I am going to make it in a DK weight. It will involve some recalculation of the st counts but it is a fairly simple shape so it shouldn't be difficult.