Very modern, indeed

OOF, 1962. Edward Ruscha, b. 1937.

Despite my best intentions, the Museum of Modern Art was the only museum I managed to see while I was in New York. I love that stuff, and I'm the only person I know who does. Couple that with the fact that the museum was almost visible from my hotel window, and how could I pass up the opportunity? The museum allows photography in their permanent collection galleries, so I took advantage of this when I hit the Pop Art section.

Here are a couple more of my knitting projects in progress. For some reason, when I discovered that I had a pile of looming deadlines, I felt the deep-seated desire -- no, need, to cast on for a scarf. I dug in the stash and found a delightful heathered purple alpaca sportweight, perfect for what I wanted.

It's a free pattern from Piecework Magazine, and is based on one found in Weldon's Practical Needlework and adapted by Ann Budd.

The edge features yarnovers, and at the end of the project you enhance that edge with crochet, creating that lacy bit that flares out a little. Most of the project is a fancy-ish rib, though, so it's easy to fall into that knitter's black hole with it. I work on it when I don't want to think about what I'm doing.

My brother-in-law's kilt hose is another project on my needles right now. I'm at the part that should go quickly, but I'm having a little bit of a problem doing even and neat decreases down the back. When I get it sorted it'll probably zoom along but for now... I put in lifelines because it's frog city every so often.

But you can see that I've got the cuff done, and it looks fine. Here, I put it over a can of some kind to show you how it's supposed to look. This is DK weight yarn on no. 4 needles, so it ought to just fly along.

I ordered this yarn online from New Lanark in Scotland. New Lanark is an historic wool mill that uses its old equipment to make yarn and other fiber products to sell, and uses the profits from these and other ventures to keep the historic mill in good working order and open to visitors. The price is really good even with shipping, and the yarn is wonderful. I've hit a couple of knots in this skein, but you can just break off the knots and felt the two ends together with no harm done. I not only did a swatch for this project, but I washed it as well -- a first for me -- and this yarn maintained gauge and became softer.

So, there's plenty to do at Orchard Ranch for the moment.