Time just keeps slippin', slippin' ...

Poor blog, how I've neglected you. My only real excuse is that I've been knitting, rather than writing about knitting. And organizing a school reunion (quite why I and another classmate who also lives in the States are organising a reunion in London of a school we attended in Hertfordshire is the subject for a long, preferably drunken, rant at another time).

The big news is that the Path of Flowers stole in done and I love it! I take back everything bad I said about Rowan Cracksilk Kidsilk Haze. It's wonderful to the touch, incredibly warm and still very lightweight. When I next see some at anything like a sensible price I will buy it, mortgage and stash storage space availability be damned.



This was my first time using lace blocking rods and they are worth every penny (thank you Knit Picks). It took ages to thread them through the edges, but they gave a beautifully straight and clean edge to the piece, and let it block out enough to see the pattern detail easily.



I've also been having fun using up left-over yarn (mostly Manos del Uruguay) trying my hand at Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket. It was thrilling to make - so different in construction than any other sweater I've done - that I was quite giddy at times. Also confused, because it looked like this for a while.


Not many rows, a little stitching and some crochet edging later it looked like this.



The buttons have Chinese/Japanese-looking ideograms on them, that I can only hope are meaningless, or at least not obscene, especially since I just sent it to a friend in Japan, for his first child to wear.


I contemplated making an adult-sized Surprise Jacket, but every single one I looked at on Ravelry was shapeless in a way that would do me no favours at all. I have quite enough garments that don't suit me (I am trying to get rid of them, but some are so comfortable I can't quite bring myself to sling them).

Oh yeah, like I surf

I was very taken with Connie Chang Chinchio's Après Surf Hoodie, printed in this summer's Interweave Knits. The only piece of lace I'd done previously was a scarf called Branching Out, from Spring 2005's Knitty and, despite not really being a big fan of lace as a product, making it turned out to be really fun.

The pattern for the Après Surf Hoodie called for Rowan RYC Cashcotton, a gorgeous blend of cotton, nylon, angora, rayon and cashmere and I found it at a bearable price in a striking blue on e-Bay. Bought ten balls of it and started swatching/gauging as soon as it arrived. My tension seemed to be a long way off and I ended up making it using teeny tiny needles - 2.25 mm for the body and arms and 2 mm needles for the hood, which is borderline psychotic.

I had got a long way through it before a Stitch 'n Bitch mate, who was making the same thing, suggested perhaps I was using DK instead of the 4-ply the pattern called for. Naturally, she was right (I think she knew but was being kind enough to pose it as a possibility, instead of telling me I'm an idiot.) I'd been so taken with the yarn's colour I'd ignored its weight. As it turned out, I preferred the result of the slightly thicker yarn. I may even make it again, in DK instead of 4-ply, but since it took two months it's not high on my list at the moment.


It has turned out very well and I've worn it for at least part of every day since I finished it a little over a week ago. The laughter from friends and family about the title has not subsided, since I have never even stood on a surf board in a shop, let alone risked life and limb (mine and others') by trying one out on the ocean. My athleticism, such as it ever was, is long gone, as you probably guess from this picture.