I went to Italy and all I got. . .

Was four skeins of yarn, badly photographed. A Rav friend in Lucca directed me to the best yarn shop, Lovilana, and the rest is history. Each skein is approximately 1400 yards of teensy weight yarn. I thought the gray and white would make dynamite colorwork gloves or mittens, and the pumpkin and yellow would be lovely lace work. Or sweaters. Or something -- I couldn't go all that way and not get something, even with a generalized yarn diet.


And what did I do with my five travel weeks? Well, I saw things, I met far-flung family (a real highlight of the trip! I think everyone should have wonderful Sicilian relatives), and I knit for future family.

Lucky me, I am getting a niece!

And she is getting a little dress/tunic, knit from Elsebeth Lavold Cable Cotton. I hope it's the kind of size that will go from too big to just right to slightly short, and therefore move from dress to top and be worn for a long long time. Although I used my standard Incredible Custom Fit Raglan ideas, I was aiming for a Debbie Bliss-ish feeling. Just before I was done, my sister said, in passing to me, "I just love picot edges," and the finishing was determined in that instant.

I just didn't have time to block it before the party:


One part that I enjoyed was figuring out how to make a facing as I knit the top, to make a shoulder opening for big toddler head. I knit to the increase point, increased, then purled a turning stitch, and five knit stitches (on each side), then tacked it down when I was done. Crochet-loops and sewn on buttons made the closure.



I can hardly wait to see it modeled!

Now to get to the projects I did not finish, on the trip or after.

If you want attention in Italy

Try pulling out a drop spindle on a train. Eric and I got to spend a week in Genoa for a conference he attended, and I managed to find things to interest and amuse me.

A Ravelry friend helped me buy yarn -- the whole "yarn museum" approach in Italy (and, I'm told, much of Europe) can feel intimidating. Thank goodness for generous people who are willing to help you talk to the shopkeepers. This store was much more yarn-filled than the one I had found on my own, and I don't think I would have discovered it without help.


Everywhere I went, I worked away on the knitting I brought with me, even though, in retrospect, three projects might have been a bit of overkill. I have enough problems knitting lace without jet lag complicating things.

On a short day trip, though, I was tired enough that even my ongoing project seemed too much for the train ride home. So I pulled out this yummy baby camel and silk I've been working on, and proceeded to go into a sort of spinning zone.


Eric said some guy did a triple take as he disembarked from the train, but it was when we were en route in our compartment that the fun began. Two delightful ladies sitting across from us chattered away in surprise. "Mi nonna" was all I caught, but the foot gestures were unmistakable. I managed, with the help of the woman next to me, to tell them that I, too, had a wheel (come un bicicleta! I tried), but that when I traveled, this was the way to go.
Then we managed to get onto how to say "crochet" in English, as it's spelled the same but sounds like the game with balls and wickets. When I pulled out my knitting, the woman asked for it and showed me, I believe, the "right" way to knit, English-style, but very fast. I told her I was faster doing it my way, but went on to show her that I could do it her way and did when I knit with two colors.

It was simply charming, but I don't think I would spin when in Italy again unless I'd done some serious work on my language skills. It's just too much of a conversation piece.

I had gotten about 600 yards of a nice steel-gray two ply lace yarn to bring home to my sister, and for me, just enough for a pair of very bright colorwork mittens. I can't wait to get to them. Eventually.


It's good to be home, and it's good to realize that even in another country, faced with what seemed like overwhelming temptation, I found I didn't need that much yarn. Maybe having a spindle and three projects wasn't overkill, in the end.

Restraint and the lack thereof

Running this morning reminded me that workouts are as individual as dyelots. Although I can do this distance, today was more of a slog than usual. It's grey and gloomy outside -- who knows if that contributed to it? Sunshine seems to act as a battery charger for me. In the absence of actual sun, bright colors seem to help, too (this may explain the colorways of some Scandinavian designs. My brother who moved to Sweden says it's grey much of the time. Get your sunshine where you can!).

I was lucky enough to go to Stitches West this year with friends. Somehow it always feels too far away, and I don't need any more yarn, or fiber, or books, or anything. But a day out with the girls did sound terrific, so off we went.

It was so much fun, of course. Turns out it takes longer to look at everything than I expected, so if we do this again we'll take that into consideration. Also, I think taking classes would have been more fun than just the marketplace, but that's also for the future.

One of the nicest things ever to happen to me was over before we made it through the doors -- a woman in line for tickets said, "That is a great sweater. Where is the pattern?" So I got to point at my head. She was so flattering that we gave her our spare ticket. Then wandering about, I had my muse/voice of reason with me, my sister. She suggested that I might want to look at colors other than green, for instance. So -- red became the Color of the Day. She was obsessing over brown and orange, so it seemed even.

The find of the show, for me, was Miss Babs handdyed yarn. The woman I spoke with was lovely, and seemed to understand how important it was to find just the right red. Meet "Vlad."


Right behind my delight at finding this yarn came a typical worry: How was I to find the perfect sweater for it? To do the color justice, be able to be made with this yardage, to flatter me? Does anyone else do this? Eventually I shook myself mentally, and realized that an imperfect finished sweater trumped a theoretical sweater any day, and that there would be, in fact, more yarn made.

My wardrobe used to have three neutral-colored sweaters, all by the same commercial designer. One was thick and cable-y, one thin and slubby with silk, one was thin merino. All flattering, all the kind of neutral which could really pull a look together.

All, alas, irrevocably stained. Two were the victims of leaky tea cups; one has some sort of oily stain right over a nipple. Lovely, let me tell you. I tried to overdye the tea'd ones with more tea, but it wasn't successful. So finding neutral replacements became another Stitches quest.

Yarn? anyone can buy yarn. I ended up with fiber. Pound of BFL; half pound of BFL/silk. I bet I can get a sweater out of the first, and you can see that it's spinning up into a nice mix of colors.


Spinning up, in fact, on a spindle. I don't, as a rule, like spindles. I drop them, they're hard to use, give me my wheel any day, etc. But this spindle, which I picked up on a whim at Asciano FiberArts Tools seemed to spin itself. I'm no expert, and I'll probably do the bulk of this yarn on the wheel, as I'd like more loft than I'm getting with this, but it's a nice breakthrough feeling. I may have to get Abby Franquemont's new book.

After I toted up everything I spent while there, I thought I'd been pretty restrained. But the Russet and orange yarns (I don't remember the name of the second) at Miss Babs had been left behind. I swear I could hear them calling me. So I went online and got them, too. One good itch scratched. I have got to get my papers graded, my baby sweaters knit, all to get to the good spinning/knitting waiting for me here.

Anyhow, everyone seems to love Vlad:

Everyday Miracles

As I said, the seeds want what the gardener wants. Kale, lettuce, carrots, all up in three days. Thickly, thickly sown, most of them. I'll be potting up and giving away seedlings for weeks.

And another wonder? Someone from Ravelry sold me yarn cheaply that wasn't for sale, so I can finish the Cobblestone. I'm a fortunate woman.

Clearing the Decks

Our weekly schedule feels packed -- and it's not so much the things that are on the list, things like drawing, piano lessons, schoolwork, sports practices -- it's the unscheduled things. I know Thing 4 will want me to read to her, I know laundry will pile up, I know that food must appear and be cleaned up after at regular intervals. Heck, I know the poultry need watering now that our automatic waterer seems permanently on the fritz and that spills and breakage will occur in the house.

So it seems appropriate to clean out some space, mentally as well as physically, to help us negotiate our responsibilities. It's also important to have fun.

So this isn't just a series of children playing the charmingly-named "Butts Up," it's also an acknowledgment that a series of weekends coupled with a lot of effort from both Eric and me made a huge difference.


Here's the "before" shot -- it was a lot like knitting a sleeve.
No movement despite frantic effort, no movement, pile as big as it was before, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow, sneezing, shoveling, sweeping, and then, like it meant to do this all along, it was gone.

Now our back yard is almost completely mulched, although we could have done with either a few more wheelbarrow loads or me not piling it on so thickly. I hope it will cut down on the tracked-in dirt, but that's probably a vain wish, really.

I had fun, too. Eric and I try to get out for a run or walk on weekend mornings and have coffee alone. This morning, Thing 4 came -- early rising will get you treats, sometimes -- and we decided to have coffee right by my friend's yarn store. And hey, she just happened to be having a morning sale!


This is meant for a shockingly pink sweater for Thing 4 -- I sure hope she wants to wear it more than the yellow tulip sweater I made for her. The color is, alas, accurate on my monitor.

And this will be a sweater for me.

I think the silk will give it a lovely drape and I'm excited about tweed now, since working with the yarn on my sister's sweater. I'm really looking forward to it. Thing 1 has made "I'm stealing that" noises, but she'll probably have moved out of the house before I get to it! All I have to do now is decide what shape to make. I tend to wear rectangular ready-to-wear sweaters, and I'm not at all curvy. I could copy a favorite,rectangular, wearing-out zip cardigan, but I think it's the color of that one, not the shape, that is the selling point.

Any suggestions for a sweater pattern that gives the illusion of a waist?