April come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain;
May, she will stay,
Resting in my arms again.
June, she'll change her tune,
In restless walks she'll prowl the night;
July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight.
August, die she must,
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold;
September I'll remember
A love once new has now grown old.
i don't know what it is, but every april finds me humming this delightful tune by simon and garfunkel. it was in the movie, "the graduate", which came out in 1969 and starred dustin hoffman, kathryn ross and the wonderful, anne bancroft. this song was featured at the point in the movie where young, naive benjamin decides that he must have elaine even though he has been eliminated from elaine's life by her father, who wasn't the least bit happy with benny once he found out that he had been bopping mrs. robinson, who was the real bad girl in this whole situation! it turns out ok at the end, except for poor mrs. robinson!
i digress...back to april and what was on my needles that isn't anymore!
i did it again - i met my monthly, self-imposed goal! yippee!
here is the shawl...
it is called perennial and was designed by debbi stone. the yarn is the march allotment from the blue moon fiber arts 2012 sock club in the colorway: budding twig. it was a delightful knit that included a little bit of adventure - the edge was first by knitting 54 leaf motifs. stitches were then picked up along the edge and knit in short rows to complete the stockinette area. as is typical, my photos leave a lot to be desired, but the colors just scream spring and those first bud breaks in the perennial garden. the real surprise is that for the first time since i've belonged to the rsc i finished a project before the next yarn arrived!!
my monthly socks made the deadline with just moments to spare as the clock closed out april. i am continuing to destash using these self-striping yarns of which i have an overabundance way too many!! expect to see more of these in the months to come! argh!
once again, i'm knitting the wendy johnson toe-up socks with the gusset heel. i really like the way it turns out in the self-stripping yarn. these are really plain vanilla socks - just round and round and round in stockinette stitch which when knitting in the round is just knit, knit, knit!! i can't believe how many comments i get from non-knitters as to 'how complicated they must be to make'. jeepers, it couldn't get any easier! or boring, for that matter, but why waste beautiful stitch patterns on yarn that isn't going to show it off!
soooooo.... i can pretty much guarantee that you'll be seeing more of these plain vanilla jobs until i exhaust this stash!!
here is the sweater that i completed at the end of march. it is called selvedge cardigan and was designed by amy christoffers and was in the interweave knits magazine knit wear.
knit from the bottom up and joined at the arm pits it was basically knit in one piece with a kitchener stitch join at the back of the neck. i also used a tubular cast on in 1x1 rib which was a slick way to start! yarn is noro chunky silk garden.
after listening to brenda dayne from the 'cast on' podcast contemplating whether or not to knit this skirt i decided i needed to give it a try. it is the lanesplitter skirt pattern from knitty.com. after gleaning a ton of info from ravelry, i did a provisional cast on, knit the parallelogram by multiplying my stitches per inch by the length i wanted and used a kitchener stitch bind-off so i didn't have a back seam. i picked up stitches around the waste with needles a couple of sizes smaller and knit 3 inches of k2,p2 for ribbing. i didn't need to worry about inserting elastic as it stays up swimmingly! i used 4 skeins of noro kureyon. i think i'm gonna need to revisit this pattern again!
also off the needles is the whisper cardigan from interweave knits, designed by hannah fettig of knitbot fame. this was another wonderful sweater that involved no seaming - can it possibly get any better than that? i knit the sleeves and back in one piece, picked up stitches around the edges for the collar and waist, bound off some stitches at the neck and knit the lower body with the remaining stitches! easy-peasy and a wonderfully versatile wardrobe addition - perfect for pacific northwest spring weather! again, i apologize for these pathetic pictures.
the yarn i used in this sweater is cashmere that i recycled from a men's sweater that i purchased at goodwill for $6.99! can't beat that with a stick!
here's what i did: i unraveled the yarn by picking it apart at a seam and using my ball winder, i made it into single strand balls and slipped them off the ball winder and onto pieces of 1/2 inch plastic pipe. when i had balled up all the yarn on my plastic pipe pieces, i steamed the balls in a closed container over a boiling water bath for 30 minutes. i did this to remove the kinks from the previous knitting. when it had cooled, i re-balled it by combining three strands to make it the weight i wanted - somewhere between lace and fingering - which was the perfect weight for this sweater. i could also have dyed it by making it into skeins but the neutral color was perfect.
that's a wrap for april - tee, hee! let's see what may brings!
