I hope this post looks all right when it’s published. Every time I log on to my website, it throws me some curveball. Today it’s decided to change the font on the edit page. I don’t want to know how to do anything except write stuff and post pictures, and the store can’t afford a new website, so it’s a crapshoot when it will all fall apart. (Sort of like me!) But we persist.
This time of year is not a busy knitting time. There are so many other things for everyone to attend to: spring cleaning, gardening and yard work, vacation plans and routine changes. I’ve gotten a little knitting in, but I’m also trying to read more. I listen to audiobooks while I knit, but for anything different from my usual casual mysteries, I like to look at words and turn pages and look to see how far the story has come and how far it has to go. I can’t hold a book and turn pages and knit all at the same time (Karen can!) so it’s one or the other. There’s nothing pressing that I’m dying to knit right now, so I’m reading more than usual. (Just finished Circe by Madeline Miller; a good story!)
But I did get in some knitting in the last few weeks. This classic raglan in Remix was a fairly quick knit:
Remix is a no-wool alternative, made from a bunch of recycled natural and synthetic fibers. It’s pleasant to knit with and makes a fabric that has a cozy touch but not too much insulation value. Good to wear in the spring and fall, and machine washable. I can see this sweater for work or casual (not that work isn’t casual these days; everything is casual, when do folks dress up now?) The pattern is from Berroco, called Charlestown and is sized for men or women.
I showed you these pretty colors of Kinua Fingering last time:
It’s a lovely blend of fine merino and suri baby alpaca that uses sustainable dyes. I like that idea, but I will say that the color I used (3rd from the bottom in the picture above) came off on my fingers while I was knitting (but didn’t bleed when I washed and blocked it.) I don’t know if that would be true for all the colors or not. Anyway, I enjoyed working with it and the dye washed off my hand with soap and water so no problem. I made this pretty shawl:
It’s called Chal Raices, and it’s a free pattern on Ravelry. (It’s lots of pages because she based it on the ancient history of Seville, which was interesting to read.) I ran out of yarn at the bottom, so I found some leftover Fino to do the last few rows and the picot bind off. I like it, and it also reminded me how lovely Fino is. It was fun to make; the asymmetrical shaping made it interesting the whole way. Here is a photo from her Rav page:
Other than that, I haven’t got much to show for the last month or so. I finished a pair of fingerless mitts for David Lutz, who proudly did most of the knitting himself (but I did the thumbs for him.) And I finished sewing down the pockets and blocking the last sweater Pat Darosh knit, which was a cardigan for her best friend Brenda. If you met Pat in one of the many classes she took at the store, you’ll remember her dry sense of humor and her quiet courage in the face of rampant cancer. She died in late May; we miss her.
On a much happier note, Lenore Peloso knit one of our Simple Tees for her daughter and worried about whether she would like it and would it fit and so on. So now she gets pictures of the tee being worn in various places (like the Baltimore Symphony below)
So Lenore can quit worrying. It fits and she loves it!
Small reminder: Art on the Avenue in West Reading is Saturday, June 20 this year, and the store will be closed.
