Watching My Language(s)

One great thing about travelling is the treasures you can find.  This is a completely gorgeous book about Latvian mittens:

Which I totally cannot read.

But it has fantastic patterns, and extremely clear photographs and illustrations.  I'm totally befuddled as to why it's not available in English, but it's not.  

So there you have it: In order to learn about Latvian mittens, you really should speak Japanese.

But if, like me, you have no realistic sense of your limitations, order a copy HERE , and you'll be really happy.

Didja Miss Me?

I've been taking a little field trip! For my birthday this year, my family sent me on a real live vacation. I went to San Francisco, where my pal Carson and I solemnly swore that we were up to no good.

The DeYoung museum was hosting my favorite painting of all time, which I had the great good fortune to see.

We ate this.

And drank that.

Monet, Poplars on the Epte

And saw this,

Seurat, La Luzerne

And this,

Raeburn, The Reverend Walker Skating

And this. All with our very own eyes. I'm never washing my eyeballs again.

Mind the Gap

I'm done with the springtime shell (name withheld to protect its innocence), and here it is in all its unblocked glory:

Normally I would do a lot more to photograph a new project than drop it on the floor, but I made a bold decision about this in the middle of the night: I'm actually NOT done with the springtime shell.

I have to frog it back to the armholes. It's gonna hurt. But not as much as disliking it the way it is. I fell prey to the classic blunder: I made an armhole that gaps at the bust. And by "gaps", I mean "serious side-boob peep show" Eeewwww. So disappointing. But, there it is; I jacked it up, and there's no crying in knitting. What's really blowing my mind is that I knew it was going off the rails somehow, but I still pressed on until all those fiddly edgings were done, and I even wove in the ends, as if that would somehow improve all of the structural problems.

A deep breath and a critical appraisal in the light of day resulted in the following diagnosis:

The notes in white (on the left) are the things I think went wrong. The ones in yellow are my plotted corrections.

A little research into the dangerous territory of bust darts (which I admit, are not my favorite thing in the world), yielded the following gem of an article by Friend of Knitting Amy Herzog:

Why You (probably) Don't Need Short Rows

Thanks, Amy! I had a sneaking suspicion that short row bust darts don't really solve all problems, and now I can prove it. Amy's elegant solution is to add more stitches vertically, which I can totally hide adjacent to the center panel, and then take them all out a few rows later. Poof! More coverage up front, and hopefully no more armhole gap.

And although I never thought I'd hear myself say it: The picot edgings on the armhole and neckline are totally not working here. I'm going to have to change them to something with a little more backbone.

Having emotionally committed to the frog-out, I'm actually looking forward to getting this fixed. It's like an itch I have to scratch.

Sure do wish I hadn't woven in all the ends, though.