Home Stretch

As we near the end of the month, many of the Ravelry Malabrigo March knit along-ers are done with their projects. If you've been KAL'ing, but haven't announced yourself in the Ravelry group, please pop in. (That link won't work for non-Ravelry members.) Monday is the last day to join! Even if you don't want to knit along, go peek at all the beautiful colors of Malabrigo Worsted.

I made one Amanda Hat out of Saphire Green and one out of the Natural colorway. The Natural colorway is very versatile, but you know I love that greeny greeny soooo much more.

Here they are, before & after the green hat got a wet blocking. In the top photo (before), the green hat is smaller and pointy at the top. In the bottom photo (after), all the stitches have relaxed and claimed their ground:
All I did was soak it for a bit in warm, soapy water, rinse, and then blot it in a clean towel:
Sorry I can't give you a modeling shot. My resident photographer has been in Texas most of the month, helping his brother Johnny get through chemo.

I know David misses his Libby, so over the weekend I took a few shots of her, in her favorite chair, basking in the Sunday sunbeam. She really misses you too, honey.

FO Report -- Koolhaas

We're back in Chicago after a long weekend up north, and I can say it feels much much colder in Chicago than in the Upper Peninsula. It's windier and humid here!

We spent a good part of the weekend on the numerous cross country ski trails, feasting by the fire, and catching up on naptime.

David said the hand knit I gave him for Valentine's Day kept him toasty, especially on Sunday, when it snowed most of the day.

I used brooklyn tweed's Koolhaas pattern, and about 1/2 a skein of Malabrigo in the Taureg colorway. My only modification was to switch to size 4.5mm/US#7 needles for the decrease rounds.

If you want a Malabrigo Koolhaas for yourself, check out the knit-along that starts March 1st in the Malabrigo Junkies forum on Ravelry. I'm co-leading a Koolhaas KAL and an Amanda KAL, which are part of many Malabrigo KALs starting the first of the month. That means you have two more weekends to shop for Mmmmmmalabrigo!

OK, a few more photos from our weekend in the Upper Peninsula ...

Whenever Garry and Jo's dog, Xena, was out front in her skijoring harness, the rest of us just tried to keep up the pace.She's a tough little German or Deutscher Jagdterrier. Don't miss her cute little icicle beard.

Libby's best friend

My little dog turned eight this summer, and for most of her life, she's enjoyed a midday walk with Alycia.

We get it all in Chicago -- rain, sleet, snow, blazing heat, and wilting humidity -- and yet none of it has made a difference in Alycia's commitment to showing up day after day to walk around the neighborhood with her little buddy.

On the occasional weekday when one of us is home and we cancel the walk, I feel a little guilty, because Libby still looks out the window for her best friend.

When I woke up this morning it was -4F/-20C, but I know Alycia will still be coming over. As a wee showing of our appreciation for her dedication, we gave her this warm wool and silk hat. I confess I wanted to keep it for myself, but I'll be sitting on my arse today in a warm office while Alycia is making her rounds. Brrrr.


Pattern: Fake Isle on Magknits

Materials: Approx. 60 yards/50 meters of Noro Silk Garden in colorway #205, equal amount of Lamb's Pride in M-05 Onyx black, and a few feet of Lamb's Pride in fuschia (no ball band) for the contrasting cast on.

Modifications: used US#5 for ribbing, US#6 for body, and broke Noro as needed to control the colors.

Trudging On

We had a brief reprieve, but the Arctic air is back with a vengeance, and seems to be here to stay for a while. I'm still commuting on my bicycle, but I'm keeping the errands to a minimum and hurrying back to the bike rack before the handlebars and saddle cool off too much. No kidding -- I just compared the forecast for Fairbanks, Alaska and Chicago, and they were almost the same!

Of course it has to be this freakishly cold when my BIL from Texas gets stuck at O'Hare for 24 hours. His oldest has Northwestern University on her short list, so after a hearty breakfast on Friday morning, we headed up to Evanston (in the car!) so that he could take a look around. I'm really glad we did, because he liked the campus more than he expected. When my niece and her momma did the campus tour last Fall, he was on a business trip in South America. I told him Chicago was usually 30 degrees warmer in January, but it's probably tough for him to picture it that way.

Meanwhile, David has been making his own treks back and forth between Chicago and Texas, to take care of his brother Johnny. Johnny wants to be home as much as possible while he's battling cancer and the side effects of treatment, so David is doing all he can to make that possible. Johnny's struggle puts things in perspective for me. The toughest thing I have to do these days is ride my bike in the snow to yoga class...

Lots of cold and time home alone with Libby means I've been knitting. With wool. :) My first FO of 2008 is a hat for my mom. It's super soft and warm, and will coordinate with her dark green coat. Click to make bigger or see other shots on flickr.


Pattern: "Three Tams" on Knitty.

Materials: 1/2 skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca in Couscous and Noro Silk Garden in #246.

Modifications: I combined Tam A's first 10 rows with the body of Tam C. Omitted 6 stitches from the ribbing, and broke the Noro to control the color changes. It fits well and didn't give me hat head.

The unofficial start of summer

We had a great weekend, even though we stayed home most of the time to work on the house.

On Friday night we went to the garden center so that we could fill up the planters on the front stoop, the flower boxes in the back yard, and that narrow little bed that runs along the back fence. We got everything planted and swept up before it started drizzling rain. Perfect timing.

On Saturday and Sunday we tackled the kitchen and either threw out or gave away a bunch of stuff we no longer need, and then reorganized what was left. Top to bottom, it all got attention. The place looks better, it's sparkling clean, and it feels great to have a new kitchen.

It wasn't all work, though. Since a lot of Chicagoans were out of town, we snagged a table at the tiny new Neopolitan pizza place. We took a bottle of wine and had a fresh spinach salad with goat cheese, sweet strawberries, and balsamic vinegar dressing, a plate of grilled calamari with garlic, lemon and olive oil, and a thin crust roasted vegetable pizza. The service was charming and attentive. Our only disappointment was not having enough room for the locally-made gelato. We're giving Sapore di Napoli 4 stars. And that bottle of red after a long day wasn't bad either. ;)

The long weekend also gave me time to pop into the bead store to find a sterling chain for my mom's new dogwood pendant. I'm pretty sure she'll like it. It's truly wearable art from Jenna's etsy shop -- she drew the flower on a piece of that shrinky dink plastic and then baked it.
I'm also sending my mom a pair of socks. Trekking XXL color 109, knit on US size 1 Crystal Palace bamboo dpns, 72 stitches, flap heel. I didn't think this yarn needed any fancy stitchwork. The Haphazard Knitter just happened to be casting on with the same colorway, and she said she was using #1s & 72 stitches, so I did the same. We won't mention the fact that she got her's done in a few weeks and that I needed a few months.

And looka, the peony that was camera shy last week has become a big show off. Maybe I should have saved this for Eye Candy Friday.