Earth and Sky

I have an idea for my next sweater project. Well, actually, it will be the sweater after next, since I owe my husband a cashmere sweater. Plain stockinette. Crew neck. Black. Sportweight. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that.

But after that, I have an idea for a new project. Have you seen these? They are the Shibui Transitions gloves. I'd love to paste a picture here, but I don't want to steal anyone else's picture, so this is a Ravelry link.

Oh, okay. Here is a little picture from shibuiknits.com:

I fell in love with this design instantly. I love the way the color shifts from top to bottom (this is done with two solid colors, using fair isle colorwork). But I have no real use for fingerless gloves, and as we all know, I have a small sweater addiction I just can't shake. Still, this concept has been kicking around in my subconscious for a while.

A few weeks ago, I scored some Malabrigo Silky Merino in a Ravelry destash. I had been wanting to get my hands on some, and none of the yarn shops within driving distance carry it. So when I saw someone destashing four skeins for about half the retail price, I jumped on it, even thought the color was Cloudy Sky, a greyish-blue that I would never choose for myself:

With the exception of blue jeans, or the occasional navy power suit, I don't wear blue. I have red hair and olive green eyes, and blue isn't really my color. But the yarn...oh, the yarn! It is amazingly soft. Buttery soft. The sort of soft that makes you want to roll around naked with it. Or, um, maybe that's just me. But you get the idea.

Sadly, four skeins is not enough to make a sweater, even if I wanted a blue sweater. It is enough for a lace shawl, but I think we've beat that dead horse enough. So I've been waiting patiently for inspiration to strike.

Today it did.

I was checking the Ravelry destash pages today and found another knitter destashing eight skeins of Silky Merino for a very good price, this time in Redwood Bark, which appears to be a dark, reddish brown. Here's the picture from malabrigoyarns.com:

The pictures I've seen on Ravelry are much redder than this, so I suspect this is not a terribly accurate shot. But the basic idea works: four skeins of grey-blue + eight skeins of red-brown = one transitions sweater.

I'm thinking I'll base the shape on the Opulent Raglan. I wear mine all the time, probably more than any of my other sweaters. I love the deep, square neckline, and the elbow-length sleeves are not only surprisingly comfortable, but also much cooler than full-length sleeves--which is important when summer extends into December. So I think this will be a longish, fitted sweater with a deep, square neckline and elbow-length sleeves. The color will transition from blue to brown (or brown to blue; I haven't decided) somewhere around the midriff. I've never tried fair isle before, but I don't imagine it will be too difficult, especially with only two colors.

Did anyone else hear the KG laughing? No? Must have been my imagination.

FO: Petra

I've saved my favorite for last in this week's FO parade. This is my new favorite sweater. It took less than a week and I loved every minute of knitting it.

Pattern: Petra, by Julie Weisenberger of cocoknits. Size 37".

I love the design of this sweater. It is worked all in one piece from the bottom up. You cast on enough stitches for the back, then increase every other row to add stitches for the front. The unique method of increasing creates the little points in the fronts, and also angles the knitting, as you can see from the stripes on mine. I deliberately picked a self-striping yarn to exploit this interesting shaping.

The sleeves are knitted separately as tubes, then added to the body, and then the shoulders are given raglan shaping. The collar is just an extension of the fronts.

Yarn: Noro Transitions.

I love the yarn, too. Like most Noro yarns, it is a little rough in the skein, but softens when worked, and becomes quite soft and drapey after washing. It is a unique yarn, since the fiber content changes with the colors, giving it a variegated texture. It's bulky weight, so it knits up very quickly. (Too quickly, actually--I was a little sorry to finish this one.)

Modifications: I did have to modify this pattern to allow for greater length. This seemed more complicated than it actually was. I just worked the pattern as written, but started my waist shaping later in the pattern. Then, I added extra length again after finishing the increasing at the top of the waist shaping before beginning the armholes. I also lengthened the sleeves by quite a bit.

The yarn tricked me a little. Even though my washed swatch showed no change in gauge, this fabric grew significantly in length with washing. Both the body and sleeves grew about three inches. In fact, I ended up taking out the bindoff on the sleeves, shortening them, and binding them off again. This wasn't much of a problem, since the cuffs are knitted last, utilizing a provisional sleeve cast on.

And in case you're wondering about the gorgeous fastener, it's one of Romi's shawl pins! You can even order one of your very own here.

Ready For Winter

I'm not a summer person. Oh, don't get me wrong: I like the sun. A lovely, clear, breezy day, about 72 degrees, is a thing of beauty. But summer--at least around here--is just too much of a good thing. Weeks of 80 degree plus temperatures and blistering sun keep me hiding my lily-white skin indoors and longing for the cool, damp skies of November.

So you can imagine my reaction to Las Vegas in July. Holy mother of dog, whose idea was it to build a city right smack in the middle of hell?! (The question is rhetorical.) And more importantly, why?! (Again, rhetorical.) It was 108 degrees every day we were there, with chilly night temperatures in the 90's. But, as they say, it's a DRY heat. They're not kidding. It's the sort of dry that sucks every drop of moisture out of your body the moment you step outside. The sort that causes your eyes to shrivel and your eyelids to stick. The sort that wakes you up in the middle of the night, choking because your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth and you can't swallow. To compensate for the heat, the hotels, casinos, and restaurants keep their thermostats set at a steady Ice Age. Woolly Mammoths would be comfortable in a Vegas casino in the summer. I spent the week alternately broiling and freezing, without clothing to accommodate either extreme. (Although I'm not sure what would have been appropriate. Little black dress with a parka? Bikini with snow boots? Whatever it was, I didn't have it in my suitcase.)

Despite the freakishly hot and over-air conditioned conditions, we had a marvelous time. We saw Cirque du Soleil's "O" and "Mamma Mia", and we had several outstanding meals at top-notch restaurants. We wandered the hotels and casinos and shops, and even braved the outdoors to cross the Strip. Briefly. There is a concrete bridge over Las Vegas Boulevard from the Bellagio (where we stayed) to Caesar's Palace. It is an open bridge, and although it looks quite short, appearances are deceiving. The white concrete absorbs the heat from the Death Star and concentrates it, reflecting it back up to pedestrians on the bridge. About halfway across, the temperature is roughly 10,000 degrees and you realize suddenly that you just might not be able to make it. You look behind you, trying to determine whether it might be closer to return to the starting point. You look ahead, trying to see how much further it is to shelter. Then you notice that the hair on your legs is starting to smoke, and the soles of your shoes are melting to the concrete and you just make a run for it. I'm pretty sure I saw bleached skulls around the midpoint of the bridge. He who hesitates is lost.

So it's probably not surprising that I was overcome by the urge to cast on a winter sweater as soon as I arrived home. (I had nothing on the needles except a little lace scarf. I really need to post some FO shots soon.)

I have some Noro Transitions that I picked up during a Ram Wools sale a few months ago. I bought it to make a winter jacket, and I've been just itching to try it (no pun intended--truly). So I dug it out of the stash.

This is some gorgeous yarn. I have a love-hate relationship with Noro yarns generally. I love the colors, hate the textures. Some Noro yarns, particularly those with angora, like Kochoran, are next-to-the skin soft. But, let's face it: no matter how beautiful the colors, you could scrub your oven with Kureyon. And the fiber content isn't always a reliable indicator of the texture. One would think that a yarn called "Silk Garden" would pretty much have to be soft, right? Not so much.

But Transitions is a real treat. It has a reasonable amount of both silk and angora, which I was counting on to soften the wool. (I order almost all my yarn online, since the only yarn store near me considers Cascade 220 to be an "exotic" yarn.) And I'm not disappointed. In the skein, it feels a lot like Kochoran--nubby and not terribly soft, with a sort of dry hand. But, also like Kochoran, it softens as it's worked and the little angora fibers come to the surface. I am anticipating that it will also respond well to washing. The texture of Kochoran changes dramatically when it's washed, from a stiff, slightly rough fabric to one that is drapey and buttery soft. Transitions is bulkier than Kochoran, and unique in that both the colors and the fibers change as you progress along the yarn. But I'm hoping it will also soften up more with washing.

And who can argue with these gorgeous colors?

This will be a jacket modeled on this design, but significantly modified to allow for greater length. I've been struggling a bit with just how to lengthen this design, since the fronts are knitted on the diagonal, while the back is done straight, and it's all worked in one piece. I can't just continue working until it's the right length, or I'll end up with fronts that are much too wide. I think I have it worked out, but there is going to be some trial and error with this one. So far, though, I'm really having fun with it. I've frogged the whole thing once already, but at a gauge of 3 stitches to the inch, frogging isn't all that bothersome. And I am endlessly entertained by the color and texture transitions.