Be the Blue

Some of you may notice something odd about this entry: there's a lot of blue in it. I'm as surprised as you are, believe me.

It all started at Spa, when I duked it out with Jackie over one of Amy Boogie's project bags. I shocked myself by actually being interested (some might say more than interested) in a bag of blue roving. It didn't hurt that this particular shade of roving reminded me of the sky in Puerto Rico (see picture in previous entry, if you have any doubt).

The minute I finished spinning up the Grafton Fibers batts I bought last year at Spa (finally!!!), I started on this bag and by the time I left on Sunday, I'd spun up two bumps.
(not spun well, as you can see, but that's another story).

Now, I'm a long-time blue hater. Years ago, I had a roommate in my house who asked me to paint her room THREE different shades of blue, and I have long been proud of the fact that I was a good enough friend to actually do it (it was hideous, can I tell you? Hideous.)

But this particular shade of blue spoke to me, and I've decided to embrace the blue. Be the blue. Feel the blue. New year, new color.

I also realized that spinning has been on the back burner in favor of knitting for WAY too long. I just wish I had realized this sooner. I am devoted to spinning this bag of fiber, to the detriment of the other, oh, two heaping bags of fiber in my house.

It was one big therapeutic weekend, from spinning all day to chatting with my bunkies Carole and Blogless Sharon, and waiting an hour and a half for lunch with Marcy, Laurie and Blogless Manise, and drinking way too many margaritas with our dinner party of fifteen. Nothing beats a weekend with your fiber friends!

Then, when I got home, I had a burning need to know how my Grafton Fibers stripey yarn would knit up, so I started a Clapotis. Yes, I am the last knitter on earth...


The yarn's a little too heavy and tightly spun to be ideal for this project, but I love how the stripes have played out. All in all, striping the two similar batts was a very successful experiment and one I'd gladly do again. I even like the colors now.

Does anyone know whether your sense of color changes as you get older? 'Cause this blue thing is freaking me out a little.

Puerto Rico

This is pretty much all you need to know about my vacation:

I was thisclose to chucking it all and staying. You all probably haven't seen the newer version of The Thomas Crown Affair, but there's a scene in it where Catherine Banning calls her accountant and says something like, "If I had to leave right now, how much could I take with me?" I was doing that math. But sanity prevailed, and I returned to a nor'easter.

Sanity sucks.

The Things I Do For You People

I managed to get a couple of pictures of the Nantucket Sweater this morning before frostbite set in:



If I look unhappy, it's because I'm really freaking cold. Not joking about the frostbite...

I don't know how I feel about it. It's very green, and I don't think the green is as flattering as I'd hoped it would be. It's also a little large and perhaps not as flattering as it could be for that reason as well. AND I really could use a short-row bust, but I've never done one and didn't think this was the sweater to learn on. Lastly (and unsurprisingly to anyone who, unlike me, had given it a second's thought), seaming this puppy was a bear, so the seams aren't quite as smooth as I'd like. I mean, not to whine, I like it fine and will wear it, but it's not quite Rogue (the perfect sweater, in case you've forgotten).

I've made some progress on Arisaig's back:

the yarn is actually more of a brick color than that cloying cherry color

I've made several modifications so far on this pattern. Let's face it, I have a 40 year old figure. I'm sort of okay with that (I'd be lying if I told you I didn't miss my old figure, and I'd be lying if I told you I didn't regret not having worn some of the dresses I could have worn when I had that figure). But Arisaig as written is considerably clingier than my almost mid-40 chubs can handle. I need something that skims the abdomen, instead of glomming onto it.

Ordinarily, I would have knit the 40" bust size. But because I wanted the ribbing to be, shall we say, more generous, I went up a size to the 44". Then I changed the ribbing from k2p2 to a less-clingy k3p1. I did complete the waist shaping as written, which reduced my stitch count to where it would have been post-bust increases on the 40" size (did that sentence make sense?). So when I started the lace bust section, I already had the correct number of stitches and eliminated the bust increases.

The pattern says you should knit the ribbing on smaller needles and go up a needle size or two for the lace. Again, since I wanted the ribbing on the larger side, I knit it with the larger (size 4) needles. At first I thought I would knit the lace on the 4s as well, but when I tried it I had this humongous thing with gigantic lace holes in it. We all know of the magical stretching abilities of lace, so I decreased my needle size to 2.5s*. On these needles, the lace motif is daintier and more attractive (instead of, frankly, slutty) and the bust measures out at about 41". Which is still a smidge too big, but I'm hoping I can fudge that with the wrap.

So we'll see. I'm just hoping I don't end up ripping the whole damn thing up when it's done. When I modify patterns to this extreme, it never seems to work as well in reality as it does on paper.

*No, I don't have magic Harry Potter size 2.5 needles. They're Inox 3s, which are smaller than anyone else's threes and actually are just a smidge larger than other manufacturers' 2s.

For St. Brigid

My contribution to the 2nd Annual St. Brigid's Day Silent Poetry Reading:

Kubla Khan, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinnian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round his thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.