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Steekin' Friday

The delightfully cooler weather motivated me to work the crochet steeks on the armholes of the Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan (Wool Gathering #67) yesterday. Hold on tight, here we go now:

Crocheting the 2nd and 3rd stitch of the 7-stitch steek...

Finished crochet on the 2nd and 3rd and 4th and 5th stitches:

Snipping the "ladders" in-between the 3rd and 4th stitches:

The awesomely finished edge:

Is that gorgeous or WHAT? Not an end in sight! After admiring my handiwork lavishly, I then picked up the armhole stitches In Pattern and worked enough rounds to see that it's going to be very cool. The diamond-rose motif continues uninterrupted across the shoulders and down the arms. . . I'll show you on Monday when there's a full motif to admire.

Comments — I Love 'Em

In yesterday's entry, I asked about peplum designs, and readers came through. Deb posted the url to a lovely free pattern, and reminded me of the very beautiful Sheilavig from Virtual Yarns, while Pubah reminded me of the cleverly constructed patterns at White Lies Designs, and Janet reminisced about her trip to York with Jean Moss. The White Lies reminder made me think of Bonne Marie's wonderful, wonderful article about short rows in the Summer Knitty. Read it again, it's outstanding. Thanks to everyone for the peplum pointers!

Racoons!

Sister has some adorable racoon updates on her blog . . . check 'em out and see how big the baby racoon has grown. And, have a fabulous Friday!

Inspiration in the Mail

Ooooh! It's cool and rainy here this morning and the pups and I are delighted. Blogdogblog has featured a lot of weather entries this month, but today's entry is complaint-free.

So! Yesterday when I got home from work there was a catalog from Peruvian Connection waiting for me. While I tend to ignore catalogs, this one drew me in because the cover features an awesome stranded knit in blues and oranges. Did you get this catalog yet? If not, call 1-800-255-6429, or visit the website and ask for one. Do it now, okay?

Here's a sweater that caught my eye, among many eye-catchers:

There are a lot of intarsia knits, including an eye-popper designed by Kaffe Fassett. While these designs are knitted mostly in pima cotton or alpaca (drool), there is plenty of very worthwhile knitted eye-candy. Highly recommended for summer reading, if you are not already reading Life of Pi.

The sweaters in this collection feature a lot of design details that I find quite interesting. Someone needs to point me to a pattern that includes scallops and a peplum. Peplums appear in many of these beauties, and I think I want one. A peplum, that is. Send suggestions, please.

Stargazing

Thanks to Katherine: for the very interesting French tidbit on dog days...it's in yesterday's comments, so enlighten yourself via Katherine regarding canicules.

Okay! On with the knitting, and on with Thursday...have a very happy one!

Dog Days

Another hot one.

Why, I wondered idly, do they call them the Dog Days? Even though I do not believe that Google is God, it's sure a handy thing to have around. Through Google, I found this explanation for Dog Days over at Phrase Finder:

"The ancient Romans noticed that the hottest days of the year, i.e. in late July and early August, co-incided with the Dog Star being visible. They thought the star contributed to the heat of the day."

And here is a lovely bit of info on Sirius, the dog star, from APOD.

Here's what the Dog Days look like at my house:

Pardon our messy backdrop. But you get the idea.

Della says Bleh.

Be cool and be safe, everybody.

Measure Twice

I have a beautiful little tape measure that I received as a birthday present from my son, who in turn bought it from Halcyon.

It's made of Black Acacia wood, and is quite lovely and useful. Beautiful tools are a pleasure to use. And so I took pleasure last night in measuring twice before crocheting and cutting my arm steeks, because I found I still had two inches left to work on the shoulders. How the heck did that happen? I can only think it was the heat that made me think I was finished and ready to rock on with the sleeves. Measure Twice, Cut Once: words to live by in carpentry and knitting!

How hot is it?

Just ask Mikey:

Off to walk while it's still bearable and then off to work; I'll chant while I walk that you have a wonderful Tuesday! Sure, the other walkers at the park will look at me curiously, but you online knitters and spinners and weavers mean that much to me! See you tomorrow.

Tattered

My excellent guild had a tatting workshop over the weekend. Tatting is a type of lace-making that uses a shuttle and fine thread:

Tatting has been around for at least 200 years as a fiber art. The lace produced is very fine, and I've read that it was originally an attempt to imitate Venetian lace. Tatted lace is shaped over the hand in a series of tiny knots.

Here is our instructor, Eleanor, who happens to be our Treasurer's mom, demonstrating:

Aren't her hands amazing?

Tatting is an endless series of small knots, like macrame, I suppose, on a microscopic scale. After approximately six hours of tatting, this was the result:

However, Eleanor could have accomplished this much in about six minutes. Really! It's a very tiny way to work. I'm always glad to learn new things, especially historical fibery things. But I think I'll wait to take up tatting until, oh, I don't know...the 12th of Never?

I came home a little tired of the miniature and had to finish up the body of my Giant Latvian Mitten Cardigan to feel as if I had actually accomplished something.

Tonight I'll be crocheting the armhole steeks and then picking up my sleeves In Pattern...very exciting stuff!

Have an excellent Monday; see you on Tuesday. Oh, here's an excellent time-waster, quite beautiful in fact, and in Japanese, from Metafilter.