Peripatetic

Well, it's been a busy summer.  I ended up being stuck here in Kansas for almost a month longer than I'd wanted to be, because my academic department was co-sponsoring a project in my field.  I'm planning to get tenure one day, so I toe the line when it comes to doing what might be perceived as something I ought to do.  Anyway, the minute, the second I was free, the Emperor and I fled the Plains and headed first to New Mexico, then Arizona, then California, each time visiting relatives and old friends.  We were gone more than two weeks, returned, did laundry, and a few days later left again to visit yet more relatives and friends in Wyoming.

 

Between everything else, I did finish a couple of projects.  First, the long-awaited (by me, at least) Barrel Cactus Tea Cozy.  This is possibly the cutest tea cozy ever created, and I'm not bragging on my stitching but on the designer's ingenuity.

 

 

 

The little spines are laceweight wool threaded through the ribs and knotted.  The green is Cascade 220 worsted-weight wool; the yellowy top is Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted, and the pink is Sublime Yarns Baby Cashmere Merino Silk.  At first, I made a couple of little flowers and artfully arranged them on the top, but the Emperor didn't think they were enough so I made a bunch of bobbles and sewed them to the top, like unopened cactus buds.

 

Whatddya think?  I love it.  I'd like to make another one to take as a gift to my friends in England, as they love Arizona even while they're terribly, terribly British.

 

Heck, I've got a gazillion projects on the needles right now, and have started one more this morning.  This is the Cheche a la Sauce crocheted shawl from Ravelry, and I spun that yarn myself, out of the Fields of Rye roving I bought last year.  When this is finished, it will be the largest project I have made to date from my own handspun yarn. 

 

Last week I also started a cardi/vest with the bulky yarn I brought back from the Brown Sheep yarn mill's factory store.  It's a nice orangey gold, and the vest is going together quickly.  The hardest part has been finding circular needles long enough in these big sizes.  Right now it's waiting for me to find a 16" circular #15, so I can finish the armholes and ribbing.  There aren't any buttons on the front, because you're meant to either leave it open or to close it with an interesting shawl pin.  This project is only an hour or two away from completion, and I won't want it until late October, so I don't mind bundling it up and putting it in the "later" knitting basket.

 

But this is the project that I worked on the most in June and July: the Wendy Knits Magical Mystery Shawl.  It was a mystery knitalong, and as you know knitalongs are the kiss of death to my projects.  The way this one worked, you bought the pattern, and Wendy only gave you enough information to allow you to find needles, yarn, and to make a swatch.  Then beginning on June 8, she released the first section of the pattern.  The remaining pieces were released one per week for the rest of the month.  You're supposed to just knit without knowing what the whole thing is supposed to look like until you're finished, while chatting up your progress on the Ravelry thread set up for that purpose.  Other people (read: much faster knitters) finished theirs right away, but I had a lot of other things to do at the same time, like school work and traveling.  The good part of this is that when I got to the third section (the part I'm in now), I didn't quite understand what I was supposed to do.  Reading the knitalong commentary on Ravelry, and taking a peek at spoiler photographs of finished shawls, helped me to get it.  I'm still plugging away at it, and am actually nearly finished.  This is a bottom-up shawl, which means that you do the longest rows first, and through a series of clever decreases, knit fewer and fewer stitches until it's done.  So maybe my days of knitalongs being the kiss of death to my projects are over, even though I'm weeks late.



 

It has a kind of Art Deco feel to it, doesn't it?  This yarn had been in my stash for maybe four years, since I dyed it with koolaid in a class at our local yarn store.  A merino/cashmere/silk blend, the yarn is lovely to knit with and the colors turned out perfectly for this kind of project.

 

And then, on top of all of this, on top of my job and keeping house and traveling and everything else I need to be doing, plus knitting, plus crocheting, I find myself researching and planning a Regency-era wardrobe.  I don't know why, I honestly don't.  The nearest Regency society is at least a four-hour drive from here.  I'm the only one of my local friends who is interested in this.  The Emperor would probably don Regency duds if I asked him to, but I think he secretly hopes I won't.  If I really wanted to have these clothes, I could easily have them made to my measurements by a professional and then just wear them if I found the right occasion.  But at least half of the fun is in the planning, and another big chunk is in the execution of accurate historical garments.  There aren't any pictures to show, not yet, because I've mostly looked at websites, collected a squillion images on Pinterest, and ordered patterns.   I'd like to end up with a day dress and a "ballgown," or a dress formal enough to wear at a ball but not necessarily dance in.  So plan I do and fun I have, and so far nobody's gotten hurt.  Yet.  I'm thinking that something along these lines will do (see below).  Nice print (or embroidered) underdress, red silk overlay (mine not asymmetrical) some embroidery, a few tassels maybe.

 

 

 

So, how do you go about getting a set of duds together?  First, you make a chemise, because that goes under everything else you're going to make and wear.  Then, you get a set of stays (make them, as I will, or buy them, as others might -- and I don't blame them), and when those are finished, you can start working on the dress.  In case anybody's wondering, I want to top this off with a turban, and have seen a couple of pairs of shoes in modern stores that might fit the bill.

 

Some of my online friends who are into this "hobby" have warned me that it's a slippery slope, and once you start you'll find yourself making a whole wardrobe of dresses, reticules, hats, etc.  What's wrong with that?  As long as I take care to find a house that has a spare closet large enough to house them, it's not really a problem.