Green and White seem to be staples around here lately in life and knitting - I don’t mind one bit - Green is one of my favorite colors, and here’s one particularly brilliant hue!

One of our garden friends allowing me to approach for an extra close shot before taking exception to my intrusion.

Sorry buddy - the fence is yours!

White:

More Two-End Knitting exploration - The second installment is in the works and I’m having lots of fun - I love it’s use with the handpainted yarn, but here in the solid color it’s easier to see the resulting fabric and it’s qualities, especially in photos. I love this natural shade of white - the simple knitting and the color is very soothing.

Green & White:

We have pepper flowers and a few tomato flowers and squash/cucumber flowers and the beans have been blooming for two weeks, and finally, now, we have snow pea blossoms!! I was beginning to think they’d never show up. When we decided to try seeds this year we didn’t have any clue how well (or not!) they might do, especially as we started a little late in the game. But as it turns out, the garden is exploding! We had mesclun greens and spinach this week for salad and I believe that string beans and kale are on the menu this weekend.

What colors are you enjoying lately, or have been showing up in your daily life & knitting?

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Now playing: Rainer Maria - Make You Mine
via FoxyTunes

Things are busy my friends - general work insanity (to be expected at this time of year), and lots going on in real life too, which equals less wordiness from me as most of my energy and attention are drawn elsewhere. So, an update on the activities of the last week (two, actually) in list form:

A new T-shirt from Connie (which has already seen a good share of wear in the week since it arrived. Thanks Connie - I love it!) - her brother’s beautiful design:

Swatching for planned projects and new designs:

A greatly improved schematic for Summer Sky with a little preview for you all, this may not be the final version, but I’m MUCH happier with it than the orginal - Step by step the redux is moving along, I’ll give an update on the expected timeframe soon.

An excellent show last week (The Swell Season) and another amazing opener I’d never heard before (Dawn Landes - check her out with the link below). The music collection grows.

A completed logo for Purling Plans by a very talented friend, to be shared with you all soon.

The Golf came home after some much needed work - followed by some brakework too, and is now running like a top - not bad for 140k - Here’s hoping for another 50-100,000.

Time with Friends & Sheep last weekend - Ironically, more pictures of the sheep than of the friends!:

Lots of time in the Garden (which is coming along quite nicely!) - Pictures soon.

An especially fantastic mess has been documented, but I’ll save that for next Messy Tuesday.

Spinning, as you saw (and helped me along!).

Yarn winding - Newly arrived z-ply Mora Yarn for more Two-End Knitting and the upcoming second installment of the Two-End Knitting Exploration (Did you happen to see? My first installment was featured by Eve in Yarnival on Monday much to my surprise! I’d been wondering where Yarnival went off to, not having seen an edition in a couple months, and as always I enjoyed some new and existing favorite blogs and projects. Thank you to whoever recommended my post!):

So, lots going on here - what’s new with you?!

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Now playing: Dawn Landes - Dig Me a Hole
via FoxyTunes

Swatching soothes the savage mel - When life is a little topsy turvy, they are the perfect knitting escapism. I can focus my entire energy and brain on a particular technique or learning a new skill or just let it all go and mindlessly knit for a small span of time - then come up for air and try something else!

Swatch for Spun Stitches:

Laceweight spinning, the Ocean/Allison yarn which is currently in progress, swatched from my sample made back in July. At this point the silk is finished, and there are a couple more ounces of the merino tencel to go! I think that the average weight of the actual yarn might be a tad heavier than this, but we will see.

Results: At first, I wasn’t sure about the variegation of the yarn when used in this stitch pattern (Frost Flowers from Barbara Walker’s A Treasury of Knitting Patterns - one with which I have had a long standing infatuation). But last night as I approached the table where I had laid it, it caught my eye, and from a small distance rather than up close, it becomes slightly more cohesive and shimmery rather than the stripey-ness that I see at closer range. What do you think?

Learned: Do a sample swatch before digging into the spinning. When I started on this project, I was fresh off the excitement of the finished Fire Yarn (which I already knew I’d love, because I sampled, AND swatched!) and eager to be spinning something else. I did a sample skein, and went directly back to the spinning. Now, I’m impatiently looking forward to my NEXT spinning project so I can slow down and actually use what I’ve learned!

Swatch for Mermaid Gloves:

I couldn’t resist the temptation of a skein of Gryphon’s lovely sock yarn at SAFF (Eidos 100% Merino in color Meno), and after finding my hands freezing in this finally fall-ish weather, I knit this plain jane swatch for a pair of Mermaid Gloves (first I wanted to knit Pomatomus - funny, until just now I always translated it to “Potamus” in my head! - anyway, with the desire for mitts, this seemed a natural progression).

Results: Cast on and knit a couple inches. Now I’m not too sure. I’ll sit on it for a bit!

Learned: I learned a Tubular cast-on, a la Fluffbuff!

Festejakket swatch:

This swatch is take two. I never showed take one, but I decided after starting it that I wanted to actually steek the swatch for practice, so the stitch count and steek placement were a little off, and I wanted a bit more practice. Here it is, in the round, with appropriately placed steek stitches and picot hems!

Results: Casting on soon, and so excited about this project. There will be mods for fit and preference and I need to do a little calculation before I begin - My preference would be a fit more like Becki’s Bridal Cardigan, than the fit displayed in the pattern picture. It will be a very slow knit, I’m sure, but I’m thrilled to have finally completed the first step!

Learned: Knitting small circumference on two circs, and I learned to do a picot hem from the cast on edge w/ no sewing (now I’m suprised I had to look for that one! It makes perfect sense!); and one leading up to the cast off edge, but sewn without casting off (is there a way to do it that avoids both casting off and sewing? I had thought for some reason there was, but couldn’t find anything on doing a search.

Phew! I think I am (just about) done swatching for a bit!