A few new things

It's been summer, it's been lovely outside, and I have been biking like a maniac. (Not today, as my husband managed to make the quick-release skewer holding on my front wheel explode.) Since I'm taking an enforced break until I get to the bike parts store, I thought I'd share a few things with you.

I made a sock out of some lovely sea wool.

I'm glad to say that my mother thinks it would make a lovely sea monster. That's my new emergency backup plan if I succumb to second sock syndrome. (The old plan was to find someone with one very small foot.)

However, my big finished object for the summer thus far is:

my linen phyllo yoked pullover! (Fair warning, anyone planning to knit this: mine is entirely different from the one in Knitting Nature, except having the same yoke stitch pattern. If you want my directions, just ask, they're quite simple.) It's lovely and drapey and soft after a little trip through the washer. On the other hand, it's also biasing around the waist and hips. I have no idea what made it decide to do that (unbalanced yarn? the euroflax didn't look like it had enough energy in it!). It's a small flaw in an otherwise perfect sweater.

Totally tubualar, man!

It's tube time, over here at the California extension campus of Woolly Mammoths. If you've left a comment and I haven't responded, it's because I'm frankly boggled at how to do so now that they took email addresses off the pages. I've asked nicely for them to find some way to put them back up, but I understand the Blogger team is quite busy. If anyone wants to reach me, try chialea-insertAThere-gmail-insertDOThere-com. It sounds like people would like a bit more about short rows, so just let me know what you're curious about and I'll do my best to help out.

Tube #1: sleeve rendered in coned aqua euroflax sportweight on #3 Stumpi Bluntos.

It's the simplest sleeve you can think of (though there will probably be a deep hem there on the bottom). It's easy to knit while reading The Omnivore's Dilemma (which I highly recommend, btw -- what is more important than what we eat and the ability to keep ourselves nourished now and into the future?). It's easy to knit at the movies. It's easy to knit in the car at night (and not driving). If it were easy to knit on my bike, then I'd have a winner. Luckily I have two more complicated knitting projects for when I want to pay attention. The less complicated of the two:

Tube #2: Sidewinder in Melody sock yarn.



It's a sock! It's a tube! It's for my sockapalooooza pal! I really hope she likes this lovely yarn and fun pattern. Judging from her blog, she's not a patterned sock kind of person. I wanted to make something comfortable (thus a good number of alterations in the pattern) and interesting in a colour she'd like. (Technically she asked for "purple or green", but I figure this falls into that category and didn't see any purple at the shop or in my stash.) I promise better pictures when it doesn't look like someone skinned a sock off of a foot.

Note: I'm just getting this uploaded after two days of being unable to upload pictures. What fixed it? Plugging in the ethernet instead of using the wireless. Grr.