tweedy jackets / blogging

Walking to work this morning I saw a girl with a lovely jacket - warm chocolate brown with narrow cream stripes running through it in both directions like a very widely striped tartan. When I passed her I realized there was a subtle burgundy stripe echoing the cream. I just had a quick look in Ravelry to see if I could find something similar and mark it to come back to later, but nothing so far. Does this sound like anything you've seen? I found Laura's Cardigan (Rav link), which I was reminded of, but the pattern is too busy and the stripes are not really what I was thinking of. [side note - this sounds like a new idea for Ravelry: we have reader's advisory in libraries, why not pattern advisory in Ravelry? If a pattern reminds you of another pattern, people could suggest similar patterns, so that if you're looking for something particular, and you find something similar, you might be able to follow the trail of breadcrumbs to just the thing you're after. Of course we can search by pattern type but when it's a bit more specific, as in this case, such a feature could be quite useful...]

I'll keep looking.

In other news, Quincy is finished and looks fab; I've been getting compliments even from boys who don't know about handknitting. I took pictures yesterday and will do my best to download and then upload them asap for an FO post this weekend - after I came back from Philly and looked at my Ravelry project page I realized I hadn't had an FO for months! The months of Sept and Oct, to be more precise. Hmm, that's when school started up and things got really crazy. Coincidence?

Oh yes, I wanted to mention this little tidbit I just came across from an info professional's blog that I follow - he is very into social networking, Web 2.0, Library 2.0, that sort of thing. He has been tracking trends in blogging and apparently 2/3 of all bloggers are male. Not on my RSS reader!! I found that kind of amusing.

So it's nearly Halloween. While I was down in Philly BB and I visited a wicked arboretum/garden place on the outskirts of the city, and this phenomenal sculpture would be a great home for a friendly, artsy witch:



February Lady Sweater was keeping me warm:


Happy Halloween!

Industrial lace

Over the long October weekend I headed down to Philadelphia and visited a special crafty friend, Beigeberry. She had a great treat in store - we went and checked out the Lace in Translation exhibit at The Design Center at Pennsylvania University.

When you approach the Center the first thing you see is the wonderful chain link fence lining the drive.



It seems a reasonable item to budget for - an industrial strength fence that is attractive rather than menacing.



There were lacy window coverings, made of hand tied rafia:



And huge panels of black machine made lace:



Obscuring a Japanese maple.



And up close, in/out of focus.

Creative lighting fixtures:



Motifs in a burned lawn:



And more by the acetylene torch wielder, a massive rusty oil drum:



The cut out pieces were used to create patterns as well.



Highly recommended for anyone in the Philly area, or visitors!

WIPs: Quimper & Bridgewater

Yeah! Last weekend I was in Philly and got lots of knitting done, it was so nice! Quimper is coming right along, black yarn is hard to photograph but I'm pretty pleased with it...





Hooray for raglan shaping, it's so lovely and simple. The pic above is looking at the widening shoulder. It is nice to watch this grow.

And I started Bridgewater, from Jared Flood's Made in Brooklyn collection and using KnitPicks Shimmer in sherry on size 4 needles. I started this shawl, which has a really interesting construction and starts from a single stitch, in the Logan airport. It's going to be massive. The rows are getting very long and I'm nowhere near big enough. You increase one st at the start of every row until you have a couple of hundred stitches. The centre of the shawl is a bit square of garter stitch. It's the perfect knitting-in-company project - for now!



I have some crafty Philly pics from a fun industrial lace exhibit we went to - but my Flickr account expired and I've uploaded too much already this month so I have to find a credit card and pay to have access to all my photos again! Have a lovely evening...

Today's knitting is brought to you by the letter "Q"

I spent the weekend in Philadelphia having a fabulous time with Beigeberry and the Urban Groundhog. There was much knitting and also the visiting of two lovely yarn shops, but I resisted! And did not purchase. Yay, me.

Before I went I started a couple of projects in a flurry of not-knowing-what-to-take-for-travel-knitting excitement! And it occurred to me later that the two things I started back to back were both patterns starting with the letter Q. What are the odds, I ask you?

I started Brooklyn Tweed's lovely Quincy (not much to look at right now but the construction is so clever and I'm loving it!):



This is Lana Gatto wool in burgundy, picked up half price at Tangled Skeins. I'm using it double stranded, and pretty much got gauge when I swatched and washed, on 6 mm needles (size 10).



And also Quimper from Knitting in the Sun. I will have a better photo tomorrow - if it is not gray and rainy again like today.



This is knit on 3 mm needles (my gauge is out of control - full stop) in Elann Luna in Polished Ebony. It is looking lovely now that I have a bit more of the shoulders going on and the charted pattern is developing. It's actually making quick progress and it will be super quick once I get past the sleeves. A perfect layering piece for cooler weather and holiday dresses, I think.