i could go crazy on a night like tonight

i'm having major issues with the refusal of fall to take hold... this weekend? the initiation of fall weekend where the pants, the panda, and the... [um, doesn't have a webbername]friend and i will trek to the mysterious, wild and wooly land of west virginia (appalachian music? love it! also there are no laws regulating religious snake handling there!) for to pluck ripened apples from the tree, partake of freshly pressed cider, buy pumpkins for breads and cookies and pasta, traverse a corn maze and play on a pirate ship.

all of these are activities to be conducted in jeans, hiking boots, and cozy hand-knit sweaters.

but people? it's supposed to be 91 degrees in harpers ferry this weekend. the mornings are foggy, the nights have the chill of the ultimate surrender of summer... but it's too freakin' hot and humid during the day.

i'm trying my hardest, i'm doing my best to hasten autumn along, though. i'm baking, knitting, and even finishing things!

for instance, my back-to-school u-neck vest? that's done, and i've even worn it to work.

Photos 021

whoops. see what happens when you try to take FO shots at 7 am on a Monday morning? you get backlit crappy shots. here's a poorly photoshopped version showin' off the details:

Photos 021-bright

i really like this vest. for a few reasons. one of which is i figured out how to work in short row shaping even though the bust is in a patterned stitch! can you tell?

Photos 020

yeah, didn't think so. i even planned out doing an edit so you could see them. unfortunately i couldn't find them so i approximated...

Photos 020-short rows

the only other modification i made (other than saying "meh, i'm not really getting gauge, i'll just keep knitting anyway!" and having it sort of miraculously work) was to just do a single set of purl rows around the arm holes... i tried one of the arms with the double rows to match all the other sets of two, but it made the shoulders too wide.

i also made the body a few inches longer because i'm just like that.

i have another quick and dirty FO... calorimetry. i cast on during dinner before seeing the yarn harlot, i cast off a about a half hour before she wrapped up her talk. quick, cute, warm!

Calorimetry cast off

i used a leftover button from the knitted corset top...

calorimetry with button

and photographed myself in it, with the omnipresent dogbutt sneaking into the shot

Calorimetry and me

made with lion wool in teal on size 7 needles... mods? i cast on 104 stitches instead of 120. i knew i wanted to cast on fewer, but didn't know how much so i cast on with the twisted german cast on until i ran out of yarn. 104 stitches it was.

and it worked!

if only i needed warm things in this darned heat...

10 comments:

Anonymous Friday, October 05, 2007 11:05:00 am  

I feel your pain. Dangit, it's autumn already!

LotusKnits Friday, October 05, 2007 11:41:00 am  

Oooh I like your UNeck Vest!

I'm considering a few arm hole edge rows too. It looks really polished!

Crystal Friday, October 05, 2007 4:03:00 pm  

1. i wish i could knit and make fabulous things.

2. why do you look so sad?

Cyn Friday, October 05, 2007 4:32:00 pm  

Oooo! The vest is adorable. Now I really want to get started on mine. Must obtain yarn...

That Rogue you linked to is adorable too. I want one! And a teal calorimetry! I am on a teal kick lately. This post is filled with way too much cuteness.

Omnipresent Dogbutt would be a good name for a band.

Bryony Ramsden Saturday, October 06, 2007 5:22:00 am  

Yet another fabby vest top. I just bought two from Primark (ace vvvv cheap version of M&S in the UK and Europe) because there is not enough time in the world for me to make them now Autumn has kicked in. Suits you lots, and clever you doing short rows! Am v jealous, yet again ;)

rachel Tuesday, October 09, 2007 12:57:00 am  

wow, that vest is so beautiful, heather! I am so impressed with your skills. i can't believe it is that hot out there. it kind of starting to feel like fall in denver, but our days are still a little too summery, too.

heatherfeather Tuesday, October 09, 2007 8:29:00 am  

All of y'alls are too nice! Thanks, peeps!

And seriously folks, enough with the summer... although the weather forecast for the rest of the week looks promising!!

lomester Wednesday, October 10, 2007 2:22:00 pm  

love the vest!! that is PURFECT for work!

Cassie Monday, October 15, 2007 7:51:00 pm  

I love your stuff. I still think you should do baby clothes!

Unknown Friday, November 02, 2007 12:24:00 am  

this has nothing to do with your handsome knit vest (...or only in the tangenital sense that similar ones are likely found in the archaeology of textiles swaddling canadians in winter). i just guesstimated that it was around this entry that i promised i'd report on away from her. so here 'tis:

the poetry of the images -- the snow & shadows, the solo & doubled ski paths -- the something in the nothing -- the emotion in the elements -- totally did it for me. i also liked the alternating chronological narratives, the rise & decline of their life together broken into chapters between sipping an uncomfortable cup of coffee with olympia dukakis. oh, & banging her. i'm curious if alice munro structured the short story in the same way, but (curiouser still) the movie didn't compel me to read it. i wager that ending is unbearably sublime on page.

i've thought about it a lot, that anti-ending, really. it's one of those moments you have to be aware of fully, to inhabit on all levels, otherwise the wisdom it contains is for nothing. (i guess all moments are like that, but who the hell is that zen?) on one hand, there's the blessing of the alzheimer's partial retreat & the restoration of her memory, the past, the essence of their coupledom -- even the book's contents are lucid for her! & on the other, there's her mental crutch, the other man, whose presence probably accelerated the mental erasure of her husband during their 30-day exile, waiting outside the door -- a gift, a gesture of love. in the middle is the chasm.

it sounds too precious described like this, almost patently o. henryesque, but shot in that celestial light raining down & the spinning perspecitve...it's the salvation of both their lives.

it's really difficult to watch if you've experienced a loved one fade into an altered version of themselves, like water blurring a watercolor. my grandmother crossed my mind, and our coping with her coping with the loss of self, once a minute, minimum.

what else? i doubt i could ever see it again.

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