Status report

Add another thing to that list of skills gained in knitting my first sweater: the knowledge that you can't just whap the thing together. There are several situation-appropriate means for sewing seams, and I used four different kinds on Pellew's Pelisse this weekend. It's not finished -- I spent some time learning how to fake-graft and mattress stitch, and then had to discover what not to do before I hit a stride and got half of the thing seamed. I finished enough to try it on and find that it will fit nicely but it still has a funky come-together in the shoulder seam, right at the bustline. I think I can see how I'd do it differently if I did it again, but I'm just going to finish this one and move forward. It'll make a great weekend sweater, if nothing else!

I also took time out to dye a hank of sock yarn using Koolaid. I learned that no matter how long you soak your yarn, the dye will strike immediately and I don't think that the yarn was in the pot five minutes before the dye had exhausted. I used four lemonade packages to one orange package, trying to get a good taxicab yellow. The dye job was uneven because of the immediate strike, so I tried again with six packages of yellow to one orange. In the end, the orange overpowered the yellow and I got a wonderful glowing California-Poppy-in-the-sun kind of color. This yarn will eventually become some kind of lace or stitch-patterned sock, and I might even do one more dye try, this time with solid orange. No matter what I decide to do, they'll be urelentingly cheerful socks.

For a brief time, I worked for the California Department of Transportation and learned about the pervasiveness of the color orange in that state. California is the Golden State, so called because of the Gold Rush of the late 1840s. They grow a lot of citrus there, particularly oranges. The state flower is the Golden Poppy. Most people don't realize it from the pictures, but the Golden Gate Bridge is painted International Orange. CalTrans' construction equipment is painted orange as well. So, for a while my "signature color" became orange and I still love it.

That brave little bunch of poppies that grew in my sidewalk this summer has finally succumbed to the frost, but I'm already looking forward to finding them in a surprising place next year.