Brand-spankin’-new skivvies

Mon Petit Chou, I am done with you! I couldn’t find the suggested 1/8" ribbon so I settled for 3/16", which is a little too wide. Then I couldn’t get the same ribbon in 1/4" for the bra straps, so I think I’m going to swap out the skinny stuff for the fatter, because I like the color better—it’s very Nurse Nancy—even though it will obscure more skin. The fact is, the bottoms are too big and have to be laced up pretty tight, spoiling any peekaboo effect anyway.

So I’m not crazy about the fit. The bra cups are good, but the band is too big; the panties are ok in the hips but too big in the waist. I shouldn’t have made the biggest size, but that doesn’t usually occur to a person who can’t even buy jeans off the rack.

Anyway, here are pattern errata for the left bra cup, should you need them. I’ve put my corrections in **stars**:
Row 35: Sl1, **k2**, yo etc. (not Sl1, k1, k2tog)
Row 37: Sl1, **k1, k2tog**, etc. (not Sl1, k2, yo)
These two rows were reversed, apparently.
Row 39: Sl1, k1, ssk, **k1**, etc.
Row 41: should read 14 st before end, not before marker, as should following rows
Row 43: Sl1, **k2tog, yo**, ssk, k1
Row 45: Sl1, **yo, k2**
Row 47: Sl1, **k1**
Row 51: **P1**, yo, p2tog, etc.

That’s how I managed, anyway!

There were some rather good finds at the thrift store yesterday: Paper Denim & Cloth jeans for my brother–in–law, four good pairs of cotton velvet pants for my sister’s quilt, a couple stupendous paisley shirts, never worn, this strangely abstract Mexican tourist jacket (what is that thing in the middle there? A sombrero? A disconnected joystick?) And the embroidery is unusual—it uses a chenille sort of technique.

Here are the paisleys. I think I like the more orange one on the right best, though it has a bit of discoloration along the sleeve crease.

But the find of the day was this beautiful non-vintage wrap top with a subtle metallic thread. The tag reads “Maple,” a brand I’ve never seen before. I’m totally in love with it:

Can’t wait to wear it! Here’s the truth though: I now own too much clothing. Something I need to contemplate with some seriousness pretty soon now. Taking care of my clothes has started to feel too time-consuming. And I only wear one outfit per day, most days, so having a closetful shouldn’t require more maintenance time than having a quarter-closetful. It just does, somehow.

But the idea of giving up thrifting! Oi, how could I?

In other knitting news, I cast on for Wing o’ the Moth today during SnB, and ripped out five times. Felt like running a marathon, too. OMG: I’m exhausted. More proof that I just can’t knit and socialize! Tomorrow I’m bringing something simple to knit, so my cursing doesn’t put a damper on the fun.

Home for the weekend

You may recognize the rock formations above as the Flatirons, in Boulder, Colorado. Because I am very, very old and grew up in a simpler, less population-dense time, this is part of the view that I woke up to every morning (although, being a couple miles away, we used to have a truly magnificent panorama of foothills—but the view out my old bedroom window has filled in with now-mature trees).

It’s really spoilt me for life. I’m very hard to please where scenery is concerned. New England is full of the picturesque, to be sure, if you like dairy farms and H.H. Richardson and that sort of thing, but for majesty and magnificence and commanding presence and emotional force... Well, you have to go west. Even a three-day-weekend dose of natural beauty is a powerful thing.

Above is my little fambly, on a “hike” at Chautauqua. My sister’s son will be three next month, so he doesn’t go all day, but he’s really kind of a trouper! We visited my sister’s native-plant nursery, Harlequin’s Gardens (which is located in northeast Boulder next to, by coincidence I assume, the clown school), where I got some sedums for my strawberry planter and a good hardy rosemary called Arp. (We packed them in a little insulated lunchbox, which gave airport security a laugh.) I had two Breadworks’ bread-pudding muffins, picked up some fantastic Silk Road (Drum Mountain White Cloud and Hairy Crab) teas, and went for a long walk past my old junior high every day. It was lovely to see everyone, and I remembered, as I always do when I head west, how I like life to be.

Thrift: Above is the forerunner to the Crockpot, the Nesco slow cooker, a hand-me-down from the very generous and knowledgeable Dave Sakowski of Magpie. This one was probably made in the early 30s, and as you can see, is a lovely blush color. There has been a struggle over it in my house; Joe feels it is simply too big for an objet of mere decoration, and I have agreed to use it in the garden, a la You Grow Girl, but... not yet! Pink enamel is a thing of beauty, and if it’s going to be a planter, it needs the right plant.

Knit: Finally, I expect to finish my Petit Chou bra tomorrow, when I hit the thrifts for an old bra to cannibalize hardware from. And then we will have the promised errata!

The nicest birthday present I could have asked for

If you’d been at my house this weekend, you would have seen a lot of this:


You can guess what the book is: the same one everyone else has been reading this weekend. I won’t say more, except that I picked it up and read without stopping, which is to say, on Friday night Joe and I took the kids to the Harry-Potter-themed dinner at Upstairs on the Square at 5pm, the only reservation we could get, and then headed to “Hogwarts Yard” for a great show with Harry and the Potters and Draco and the Malfoys, and from there to standing a long time in a long line at the Harvard Bookstore, and then home to collapse, so I picked up the book on Saturday morning, and I looked up sometime on Saturday evening, starving and tearful. The book is a fitting conclusion to the series, and satisfying, and I’m so glad we’ve all had something so pleasurable in our lifetime. Just what I wanted for my birthday! My heart’s full. P.S. I'm still blubbing over it...

That’s our herb garden up there, by the way. It’s growing like Topsy - soon the nasturtiums will bloom...

We come now to the near-end of le Petit Chou. This is the second full bra I’ve knitted with the pattern; the first one was missing an eyelet on the first row, ugh, and I discovered pattern errors in the left bra cup, and was unhappy with my improvised fixes. So I went back to the beginning (well, not the beginning of the beginning, because that would involve redoing the invisible cast-on, and there’s been quite enough of that this summer!) and examined the troubles in a more disciplined fashion. I need to knit the crotch, weave in ends, get some ribbon to lace everything up, and then [perhaps I’ll model] and write up my errata.

I do believe my next project will be Wing o’ the Moth, for which I bought some nice Addi lace needles. Because I am conscientious, I tried my LYS first, which was, as I was prepared for, pretty much out of needles altogether. In resorting to the web I found these fine people: Bob and Nancy of Colorsong Yarn, who shipped the needles at their standard price, with free USPS shipping (so much quicker and better than UPS, at least where I live) included. Thank you, Bob and Nancy!

As I told Stacie, though, I only want to do the Moth if the edge comes out like this. There will need to be extreme blocking.

Knit, thrift, eat

Howdy, howdy, howdy! Here's mon petit chou this morning. I've postponed finishing the bottoms (surprise!) and have started on the bra. That's the right cup nearly done. Unfortunately I forgot one of the eyelets on the left side and I'm waiting to ask Stacie how to fix it before proceeding further. Perhaps she can do for me what she did for Amy's cable shame. Wake up, Stacie!

In thrifting news, I went to Brimfield yesterday, said to be North America's largest antiques show. I'm not sure if I can believe that, but we skipped the high-end pay-to-enter section, so I can't really judge the show as a whole. I took home only three items: this monumental Japanese basket (for knitting, of course), a faux bois planter from the 20s, and a pink Bakelite buckle for my Lady Detective hat from Knit 2 Together (not yet on the needles).

I nearly got two of those baskets; they were only $25, which is about $75 less than you can get a new one of the same size. The woman who was selling them had a quadruple-size booth full of them, large and small, trug-shaped ones, wooden buckets and scoops, and wonderful curvy stools, all old and worn and beautiful. I thought of my ex-husband immediately, who would love one, and was torn, but I just couldn't carry two.

Today I keep thinking of the Buddhist saint Shantideva, author of Guide to the Boddhisattva's Way of Life, who said something like "Once thought of, a gift not given is the torment of a million lifetimes." So, gotta go back to Brimfield in September. Plus, now I want a trug. And maybe a couple stools. See? Torment!

Had a nice orange breakfast today, and discussed London geography over oatmeal. That's Hyde Park near my spoon :)

Le chou en noir

Hi friends! My chou bottoms are coming right along, as you can see. I'm really having fun knitting them - it's like putting together one of the larger LEGO kits. You just follow the directions. Comfort knitting. And let me say: Cascade Fixation is great to work with. I've never used a cotton yarn my hands liked before this - and the elastic means it's nearly impossible to drop a stitch. There's nothing hard to manage as regards tension, either - just regular ol knittin.

Like Stacie, when I tried on the front of the hipster, I thought: whoops! Shouldn't have made the biggest size. But when I tried on the back last night, I was thankful I had, because, um: More to accommodate back there (surprise!).


I used Eunny's invisible cast-on instructions instead of the ones that come with the Chou pattern, and while her cast-on is easy to master and wicked fun to do (very swooping and rhythmic motions), it leaves these criss-crossed loops on the bottom set of stitches - pretty hard to purl together with the top set when you get there a few rows later. I think for the bra I'll have to try again to figure out the instructions as given, which unfortunately come with a hard-to-parse set of illustrations. (Stacie actually performed the work for me when "I" cast on for the front of the hipster. Now you know my shame...)


Breakfastcam update: Have I mentioned June Taylor to you before? Perhaps once or twice? I have been addicted to this brand of breakfast stuffs for over ten years and have never strayed far - all else is inferior to June's English-style California-made preserves. Heaven. As was the weather this morning! Cool, overcast, and humid. Yes: heaven. What New England has done to deserve a nice summer, I can't even guess at.


So now I leave you with a little yarn porn, some lovely lace and sock yarn from Adrian at Hello Yarn. Aren't these colors wonderful? I love brown and green together, and as you know, fashions change, so when my tastes are in vogue, I seize the moment. Even when I don't know what to do with, say, lace yarn. Maybe a Kat Coyle Lala scarf...


And this would make excellent Monkeys.