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This Thanksgiving, Mr. Cleaver and I had the pleasure of hosting my big brother Luke and his lovely wife Jen for a few days. I think we crammed two days worth of activities into each one, showed the family some Portland-area highlights and had an all-around good time.
Photos 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 by Luke and Jen
It was an unseasonably warm weekend, so Mr. Cleaver and I took a couple of long walks to enjoy it, including another jaunt to Mackworth Island. Where we checked in on out fairy house (the roof had caved in), and got close to the wildlife.
Snacking on a nut.
Letting me know I finally got too close!
Not too much to share today, I just felt like posting something. I also finished knitting a pair of socks for the husband this weekend and will try to post some pics later this week.
If you're one of my friends on Ravelry, you might have noticed that for the past several months the top half of my project page seemed pretty empty. I had no photos of anything I made in the past 4-5 months - oops!
I blame this on two things - one: I didn't feel like putting on woolly things in the middle of the summer to take pictures of them and two: something I affectionately call That D@#n Sweater.
That D@#n Sweater is the achingly lovely Joy pattern from Rowan's vintage knits - my second and not last project from that book. It's a perfect lightweight cardigan that goes with anything and I wear it probably three times a week these days.
So why the name? Three reasons, it's black, textured and involves the following US needle sizes: 1, 2, 3. All of this is to say, I started it January 28 and finished around July 5th. A nearly six month labor of love. That said, I'm a huge fan of the finished product, my only caveat is that I wish I had used better quality yarn, it's made from Knit Pick's Palette, which doesn't feel as nice as I'd like and it's already doing some serious pilling, but in any case I'm sure I will wear this cardigan to the bone.
To make myself feel better, this is a project I completed from start to finish in about three days, one which involved a marathon session of watching The West Wing.
The project was inspired by a similar pillow pictured in SouleMama's book Handmade Home, which I picked up at a local book signing a few weeks back. The "bluework" pattern is free on a site called Pattern Bee (which as of 9/10/09 appears to be down for maintenance - the link should be re-activated around 9/16). The fabric is from a fat quarter pack I picked up at Z Fabrics a while back. The whole thing looks very nice on my sofa.
This one you've seen a lot of, but here's me actually wearing that scarf I wove earlier this summer (June). The ladies in my knitting group like to mock me for my consistency in color selection. Looking at the items in this post and my current (unpictured) knitting project, I'd be the last one to deny it. What can I say? I like the colors of the ocean!
Another scarf photo, in a long tradition of what I like to call the"Book Jacket Photo."
This is Ysolda's Ishbel shawl from Whimsical Little Knits, which I picked up back here and knit in some hand-dyed lace weight from Pine Star Studio that I got at the Maine Fiber Frolic. I knit it in about 10 days and took about 2 months before I got around to blocking it, which really does make all the difference in the world.
This is my new favorite picture of myself. All of the knitting/weaving photos were graciously taken by Mr. Cleaver while we took a walk around Mackworth Island this Labor Day. Mr. Cleaver joined me in creating the final FO ofthe post, of contribution to Mackworth's village of Fairy Houses.
