summer sky citron

There are few knitting-related things more satisfying than planning out a project and having it turn out just as you'd hoped.  Happily, that was exactly what happened with my handspun Citron shawl!  Yay!  I started out with eight ounces of beautiful blue and white roving from Skirted Fleece Mill, in a soft, perfectly prepared merino/alpaca/silk blend.  It came from the mill labeled as 'Snow Angels,' but the colors looked to me more like fluffy clouds in a summer sky.

   

 I debated whether to spin this into a two-ply yarn, for a more barber-poled look, or to chain-ply it to keep the gorgeous, pure colors together.  In the end, I decided to two-ply it to prevent weird color-pooling when the rows on the knitted shawl got very long towards the end. 

  

 

  

After plying, I had 888 yards of a fingering-weight yarn.  It's one of my favorite handspun yarns to date-- the merino kept it from becoming too wiry even though I was spinning thin, the alpaca added some staple length to the shorter-staple merino, and the silk gave the yarn a beautiful sheen.  And of course, the fiber prep was gorgeous.  This is the second fiber I've spun from The Skirted Fleece (this was the first one) and both braids have been a pleasure to work with.  There have been virtually no felted bits at all, and the fiber is dyed consistently through the braid, not just on the outer layer.  

And for all of the above reasons, I bought four more eight ounce braids of fiber at The Skirted Fleece Mill when I went to visit my mom for a weekend.

I regret nothing.

  

I cast on the Citron Grande pattern a few days before my trip to Boston as relaxing travel-knitting, and I finished it in two and a half weeks. The very, very long purl-back rows at the end got a bit tedious, but over all, I really enjoyed this project.  

  

I'm so happy with how the finished shawl turned out!  It's huge and light and airy, and it's very cozy either wrapped close to my neck like a scarf or wrapped around my shoulders like a socially acceptable Snuggie.  It's hard to imagine needing it at the moment, since it's been so hot that I run the risk of actually melting every time I leave my apartment, but when winter gets here, I know I'll be glad that I made myself a hoard of knitwear.

  

 The only modification that I made to the pattern was that instead of knitting my increases through the back loop to close up the holes, I knitted into the front of the increases to create a radiating pattern of eyelets.  I did this by accident on my first Citron shawl, when I was a newer knitter, and I liked it so much that I decided to do it intentionally this time. 

  

As soon as I finished this project, I wanted to start a zillion other ones.  I cast on a pair of socks and a shawl, spun up a four ounce braid of Malabrigo merino (and speaking of felted bits and inconsistent dyeing, Malabrigo roving, I am looking right at you.  Good thing you're so pretty), spun a Loop Bullseye Bump (perfect prep, I want to buy a hundred more of them), and did tons of knitting on a super-secret project.  And I'm having to resist the urge to cast on a hat and another shawl and some fingerless mitts.  I want to knit and spin all the things!  I think it's the influence of those sneaky KnitGirllls.  I want to win Stash Dash!  For non-knitters, that means knitting or spinning a 5K worth of yarn, or 5,468 yards, before August 7th.  At the moment, I'm at 3381.2 yards.  I think I'm going to make it!

What projects are inspiring you lately?  

♥

boston

Hi there!  Today I'd like to share a few pictures and memories from a trip to Boston that my boyfriend and I took a few weeks ago. 

  

 I took the train from New York, which was completely pleasant.  The views out the window were beautiful.  This was also my first experience with something truly spectacular:  the Quiet Car.  I can't even describe how wonderful it was to sit on a train knowing that nobody would be yelling into their phone as though they were screaming across a football field, or-- actually, I can't even come up with an 'or.'  The cell phone thing is what gets to me.  Anyway, it was marvelous.  I listened to podcasts and knit the whole way to Boston, and I had my own seat the whole time.  Apparently, not everyone is crazy about the idea of sitting in a train car where you can't make noise, but to me, it was ideal.  I love train rides, and this was one of my favorite ones yet.

  

 My grandmother used to take my mom and my brother and I to Boston every year, and every year I was so excited to go on the Swan Boats in the Boston Public Gardens.  It turns out that I get just as excited about them as an adult!  Since we went on a grey morning with some sprinkles of rain, there was no line at all.  It was just as lovely as I remembered.  There was a pair of nesting swans next to the lake, and the swan who was on the nest moved just enough that we could see the eggs!  It was very exciting.  I didn't want to disturb them by trying to take a picture, so instead, I just hissed "Look! Eggs!  Look!  Eggs!" repeatedly to my boyfriend, who had, in fact, pointed out the eggs to me.

  

Completely by chance, we came across a rose garden on our way to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.  I've never seen so many roses in one place!  And I've gotta say... There aren't too many things better than walking hand in hand with someone fantastic through arches of roses.  I highly recommend it. 

  

We also went to two Red Sox games!  I hadn't been to a baseball game in years, and it was my boyfriend's first time at Fenway Park.  He's an avid Red Sox fan, and David Ortiz hit a home run on his birthday.  So that was pretty great.  It turns out that I really like baseball!  I've known for a while that it's my favorite sport, mostly because it's one of the few sports where I am both interested and can figure out what is going on, more or less, but it turns out that I really like it.  I wore a baseball hat twice and I've worn it to the grocery store since.  I even have a favorite player!  (It's Jackie Bradley Jr., in case you're wondering.  I like him because he has cute chipmunk-cheeks and because the first few measures of his walk-up song sound like they're being sung by Alvin.  I obviously have very strict priorities for choosing favorite players.)

 

We had such a wonderful time.  It was a perfect blend of revisiting my favorite places from previous trips and going on brand new adventures and making brand new memories.  Boston is definitely still my favorite city (sorry, New York) and it was so much fun to experience it with such a special person.  

Where are you all traveling to this summer?  I hope your week is off to an excellent start!

♥

friday favorites v.3

Hi there.  

For this week's Friday Favorites, I'd like to share some of my favorite illustrations on Etsy! 

 

this lovely tea party.

 

this little raccoon with his binoculars-- I love raccoons and this guy is so mischievous!

  

tea and stars-- two of my very favorite things.

  

these sweet friends

  

this charming kitty-- drinking tea while wearing socks and mitts!

I hope you've had a wonderful week!  

♥

p.s.:  due to a huge amount of spam, I'm turning off the option for anonymous comments.  
thanks for understanding!

celestarium

  Sometimes, from the moment you first see a knitting pattern, you know you absolutely-must-knit-it-no-matter-what.  Even if it is absolutely crazy and huge and you're not quite sure what you'll do with it after you knit it.

      For me, Celestarium was that knitting pattern.

     Celestarium is a huge circular shawl with beads arranged to form the constellations as seen from the northern hemisphere, with the North Star in the center.  I began this project on December 21st, 2013, right before I went home for Christmas.  This seems like a pretty intimidating pattern at first glance-- there are 6 sets of charts, and the final chart is 8 pages long.  After I got into the rhythm of count-knit-knit-knit-yarn over- bead-knit-knit, though, it became relaxing and fairly mindless knitting.  It was really satisfying to watch the constellations emerging as I finished each chart. 

 

      I knit my Celestarium with Knit Picks Stroll yarn in the Midnight Heather color.  According to the pattern, it should have taken 1200 yards on size 4 needles.  However, even though I went up to size 6 needles (I am a tight knitter and wanted to keep the shawl light and airy), I only used 1039.5 yards of yarn.  That leaves me a skein and a half of yarn to knit up into little dark blue hexipuffs for my Busy Bee Blanket!  ...Well, eventually.  Not now.  I have had enough navy blue for the moment. 

 

My finished Celestarium measures 48" in diameter, though I expect that will shrink slightly since I blocked the shawl pretty severely.  I'm planning to frame it and hang it above my dresser, with a small, framed constellation chart next to it.  I am so pleased with how it turned out!  Finishing the Celestarium has inspired me to start another huge project-- but that's going to be a present for two very special people, so it has to take a secret for now.  I'll be able to reveal it in a few months-- I can't wait!

♥

friday favorites v.2

Hi, and happy Friday!  I hope you've had a great week.

Friends in the US, I hope you have a fantastic Memorial Day weekend!  I plan on spending my long weekend knitting, spinning, spending time with my brother, doing some yoga, and checking out yard sales.  I found six beautiful 1940s handkerchiefs at a yard sale a few weeks ago, along with a very sweet card with Gustav Klimt's The Kiss on the front.  I'm hoping to find some cute vintage home decor this weekend.

Here are a few of my favorite finds this week!

 

This rose and rhubarb cake sounds delicious, and I love how it looks in a fluted bundt cake pan.  

 

John Howe is a renowned Tolkien illustrator who was also a concept artist for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films.  I've always had a special place in my heart for his drawings of Bag End.  His vision of how Bilbo Baggins's hobbit hole should look is now so iconic that it's impossible to imagine it any other way.

 

It's the season for one of my very favorite flowers-- hydrangeas!  The blossoms in this photo look so lush and fresh!

   

These plastic picnic plates from Anthropologie are so summery and bright!  They're illustrated by artist Ashley Longshore.  

How fun are these enormous paper flowers from the blog Mokkasin?  The instructions are in Swedish, but Google Translate does a good enough job that it shouldn't be too hard to follow.

Have a beautiful weekend!

♥

favorite spaces: the alhambra palace at granada

There are places in the world that seem just too magical to be real-- for me, the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain is one of those places. 

  

 I first fell in love with the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, when I read The Constant Princess by Phillipa Gregory.  It's a beautiful and heartbreaking imagining of the story of Katherine of Aragon, who eventually married Henry Tudor.  The beginning of the story is set in the Alhambra, and the descriptions of the beautiful carved plaster walls and ceilings absolutely mesmerized me. 

  

This is the ceiling of the Hall of the Two Sisters.  In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful and impressive tributes to the ingenuity of the medieval Moorish people, who originally built the Alhambra Palace.  Not only is this ceiling stunning to look at, but the mathematical complexity of creating this design, and ensuring it would be able to be supported by the surrounding walls, is astonishing.

 

Isn't it incredible that every bit of the beautiful carving in the Alhambra was done by hand?  The sheer amount of work is mind-blowing.  The combination of incredible design and phenomenal, patient craftsmanship, created without modern machinery, is hard to comprehend.

One of the most wonderful things about The Constant Princess was hearing the perspective of a teenage girl living in such an incredible place-- and yet, to Katharine, that was just the latest event in a tumultuous childhood.  This photo, with the views out of the intricate windows, somehow makes the palace seem like it could have been a home to a girl who was the same age as I was when I first read the book.  Incidentally, if you're a fan of the HBO series The Tudors, I think The Constant Princess would be an interesting bit of (fictionalized) backstory to give the television show's portrayal of Katharine more context.  She comes off as cold, stubborn, and kind of one-dimensional in the show (in my humble opinion), but I think that reading The Constant Princess gives much more insight into her character's motivations.

The Court of the Lions is stunning... The arches and plaster tracery are so delicately detailed, and the bolder, more solid lions around the base of the fountain offer such a strong contrast. 

These detail shots of the arches into the Court of the Lions show such beautiful, thoughtful design, and again, an absolutely massive amount of exacting work.

 
I would love to visit the Alhambra someday.  I can't even imagine how it would feel to see and touch this incredibly inspiring work of art in person.

Thank you for letting me share this beautiful space with you!
♥

photo credits: 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8

friday favorites

Hi there chickadees!  I am switching my 'Much Love Monday' feature to 'Friday Favorites'!  I am not online much over weekends, so it just makes more sense for me to share my favorite bits and pieces from around the interwebs on Fridays. Then I've had the week to poke around online while having breakfast every morning or while cuddling two certain kitties.  Without further ado, here are my spring-inspired picks this week.

 

This bedroom is so beautiful and calming.  

 

These crewel embroidery flowers are so pretty.  This would look beautiful on the bodice of a dress.

 

Nutella pops.  Ooooooh.  I just purchased a popsicle-maker so that I could make healthy no-sugar-added popsicles this summer.  Naturally I'll be trying these chocolate-y, hazel-nutty ones first.

 

Good thing I have these wise words on my side.  Those Nutella popsicles will be basically like frozen vegetables.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  

 

Alphonse Mucha's La Primavere is so evocative of the relief of spring's arrival after a long, cold winter!

 

This beautiful living room, photographed by David Christensen, is so inspiring.  I'm currently redecorating my living room in white, tan, and robin's egg blue-- I love the pop of coral to warm it up.

I love the delicate hand-coloring on this photograph of the actress Winifred Barnes, taken in the 1910s.

Have a beautiful weekend!

♥