Wanderlust shows the routes of twenty-three historic journeys, with info and photos for each. I’d love to see more depth for each, but nifty nonetheless (via What I Learned Today).
travel
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Last weekend, Dan and I went up to North Conway, for our first anniversary. (Well, close enough - the day itself was Monday, and I had to teach that night.) We stayed at Stonehurst Manor, did some hiking, and swam in the pool. Our plan had been to get going early-ish on Friday, so that we could maybe go swimming/hiking/something along the Kanc. The early thing didn’t happen, and then I’m pretty sure that everyone in Boston was trying to go to NH for the weekend. Traffic was gross, both along 128 and on I-93.
Saturday we climbed Mt. Avalon, and watched the Conway Scenic at the crossing in Bartlett, and swam in the pool at the hotel. I need to go swimming more.
Sunday we climbed up to Champney Falls (have I been there before? Mom? It felt vaguely familiar… but falls all look alike), which was gorgeous. Stunning. Wow. Totally will do that again if I’m there after a rain (instead of late in the summer when everything is dry).
Also on Sunday, I got Dan and his mad photography skillz to document some knitting.
First, socks!
These are the Spring Forward socks, in Auracania Ranco Multi. I like this colorway a lot - it’s the “rainbow” colorway, but the colors are all very muted and low-saturation. I also like this pattern a lot - the squiggles are a lot of fun and the stitch pattern is easy to memorize. The pattern also shows up well even in the multicolored yarn, which is always a plus. I might do more repeats on the leg if I were to do these over - there’s plenty of yarn left and I really prefer my socks a little longer than these.
And then, a sweater!
This is Cece, by Bonnie Marie Burns (from ChicKnits, who have all sorts of lovely stuff), in Gedifra Merino Cotton. The yarn is from Mom’s and my trip to WEBS in the spring, in which there was serious stash enabling going on. But, eight balls of the Merino Cotton has turned into this lovely sweater, which is a pretty substantial inroad on the pile.
Notes: I made the body two inches longer than called for (cause I’m tall!), and still got a cropped silhouette. If I wanted this to feel like a more traditional-length cardi I’d have to add at least two or three inches more, and then the shaping would all change. (The shaping starts at the waist and goes up, so you only ever increase - this works because of the cropped length but wouldn’t in a longer sweater.) I made the three-quarters length sleeves, which are still a little on the short side, but I was afraid of running out of yarn. They’re also a little snug at the cast-on edge.
I wasn’t nuts about the lace pattern until I finished it. I’m still not wild about it up close, but the overall effect I like better than I expected. Yay! And the yarn is a beautiful color. It’s a bit splitty to work with, but not too bad. I machine washed the finished sweater(cold water, delicates setting), and the yarn bloomed… and shrank (my swatch only did the first of those). The fabric ended up feeling much sturdier (which was a goal), and the sweater was a bit more fitted than I’d anticipated. It’s stretched out a bit, and right now seems to fit just right, but I don’t think I’ll toss it in the washer again.
Holy smokes it’s been a while. There were Christmas happenings,
and a trip to Gabon,
and Arisia,
,
and I suddenly have a new part-time job doing customer service for these guys, and I’m starting to get interview requests from graduate schools!
Life’s a little insane right now.
But, there’s been lots of knitting. (Long trips are good for that - not so many other things to fill one’s time with, and, as I’ve been discovering, fiber is lighter per hour of entertainment than books are. Hee.) First, however, is an older project. Remember the shrug I was making for Kris? Here it is blocking, looking like it has ridiculous orangutan arms.
A close-up of the diamonds pattern (from the wrong side, as it was blocking).
(A note: The previous two photos are the only ones *not* by Dan. All others are his, and are used under his license. Thanks babe!)
Shimmer, by Rebecca Hatcher, from the Winter ‘03 Knitty. It’s knit in Filatura Di Crosa Zara, superwash merino, lots of plies, black (cause it’s for Kris and that’s what she wears). Lovely, amazing forgiving yarn. The arms are knit in the round to the underarm, then joined to the flat back, and the whole thing is worked in rows with raglan shaping. The ribbing along the fronts and neck is added at the end.
Things I learned on this sweater:
- Superwash wool will grow when it gets wet.
- I knit more loosely back-and-forth than in the round. My purls are looser than my knits, and I need to go down a needle size to save my sanity.
- I knit really lossely in general, and if I want to get gauge, I need to go down a needle size (or two).
I found the pattern easy to follow, although the myriad comments about the frustration of joining round arms to flat back were entirely justified. That portion, immediately after the join, is a pain, and requires rather a lot of stretching of stitches. If this had been knit in something less forgiving, like a cotton blend, I suspect that stretching would have been much more visible. But it’s a very cute shrug, and I do like the lace across the back.
The shrug was seen “live” at Arisia, and totally made my weekend.
- New Hampshire is cold.
- Break was wicked awesome. Savannah is beautiful, warm Georgia weather was amazing, we never really got rained on (although it came close that one morning). I got more sunburned than I’ve been in years. RPI boys are sweet. RPI and Binghamton and Buffalo girls are awesome.
- I get my kitties back from their forced stay at the terrible terrible kennel.
- I have two papers (one on “Does pharmacology have an important role in the treatment of alcoholism?” and one on the kinetic depth effect (yay writing a paper that I already half wrote for the UROP proposal)) due next week. And I have a math test. Whee school.
Returned Saturday from spending ten days in Italy with Dan, Gennie and Kelly. It was an awesome time, the four of us are a good travel group. Much fun was had. The picture above is from Florence, taken in the evening from the bell tower of the cathedral there. It’s Gennie’s. I don’t generally take photos on trips cause, well, everyone else does and it starts to seem pretty silly.
There may be other pics and some stories later.