Gromit Knits!

Re-Entry

Coming back from vacation is never easy.  There's too much laundry, food shopping, neglected mail and other sorts of drudgery that can handily swallow all your time for days and days.  For these mundane reasons, and because we had some 1400 photos (love ya digital camera), it's taken a while to get to posting photos.

Well since I meant to hit "Save as Draft" but instead published that opening paragraph, without further ado, here are some scenes of Iceland, where it is easy to believe in magic:

The Snaefellsjokull across the lava fields at Dritvik.  This is the glacier where Jules Verne set the initial descent in Journey to the Center of the Earth.

What can I say?  I loved this sign as we walked along the coastal cliffs at Dritvik.

A rocky and astounding shoreline.

There were lots, and lots of sheep everywhere.

Geysers at Geysir, the location that gave it's name to the phenomena.  This is Strokker, the Great Geysir doesn't spout, except with assistance these days!

Waterfalls, this one is Gulfoss, Golden falls.

Elephant Rock on Heimaey, the largest of the Westman Islands.

Puffin near the Westman Islands, click for big, or check it out on Flickr, for a better view.

Last photo.

A house buried under the ash and lava on Heimaey.  One of the friends we were staying with grew up on this small island off the southern coast.  He told us about delivering newspapers to houses that are now buried under lava, like this one.  I remember seeing news coverage of this eruption in 1973 both because they were able to evacuate all 5000 residents, but also because of the engineering effort that went into cooling lava to keep the harbor from being blocked.

I could offer up more of a standard travelogue, but it's all just blather.  If you get the chance, go see this country.  It's wild and delicate, harsh and unbearably beautiful.   I won't forget it anytime soon.

There's more on Flickr and more to come as I finish going through the massive number of pictures, but don't worry, I won't post all the photos from the trip!

Breaking News

Okay, the blog is the last to know.  I've raveled it, I flickr'd it, I even Plurked it, but now, after three years, I have finished the back of Inishmore.  See that thread at the top holding the neck stitches?  It's really done.  I'd better get cracking, at this rate the finished object will not be done until 2017.  I think as processed focused as I seem to be, I want a finished object a bit sooner!

Aaack, for the last several hours I've been trying to post a picture, but Typepad doesn't want to take it and I don't have the patience to figure out what is going on.

If you're on Ravelry you can check it out here.

Yes, Marina, the big update is coming, I have the photos, now I need to get my thoughts into some sort of order and that's even harder than taking pictures!  Especially when I'm trying to get us all ready to head off to Iceland on Wednesday.

Think there might be some yarn there?

Disingenuous

What a big word just to confess that I mislead you.  As I am sure is clear by now, I didn't finish the hoodie in time for E's birthday last month.  In fact, I knew I wouldn't finish it in time when I wrote that post.  She received a front, a back and part of a sleeve on the day itself.  Unbelievably, she was grateful I was making her something and she pronounced it cool (or whatever word is now used instead of cool).

But while I was disingenuous about the original deadline, I didn't think I was that far off.  I estimated I'd needed another week at most.  Hardly. I sewed the last seam yesterday -- June 2nd -- two weeks late.  Never having actually made a hoodie before, I didn't count on the size of that damn hood.  It's huge, look at it:

Texas has nothing on that hood.  You could fit the moon in that hood.  Then the edging.  She's lucky I'm done in the same year as her birthday. 

I did the best I could to make knitting the vast acreage of stockinette more interesting.  I played with creating matching increases and decreases to make the shaping a bit more interesting.  To match increases on the side seams I knit into the front and back of the same stitch. I wanted the little bars to show instead of opting for a less visible M1, my standard.  To keep the bars placed the same distance from the seam, on the right hand side the increases were placed after K1.  On the left side I made my increases in the third stitch before the end of the row.  I know, the excitement is overwhelming, but I felt momentarily clever.  Don't worry, I won't bore you with the fudge I came up with to make my right leaning decreases look more like SSKs.

To top it off, this pattern called for more seams than a Project Runway challenge.  The hood was to be knit in two halves and seamed up the back.  In addition, the hood was to be knit while attached to only the back of the sweater.  As written, the front edges were cast on and then sewn onto the neck edge along the front, after the hood and its ribbing were completed and the shoulder seams joined.  Hood edging and neck edging were to be knit separately and then seamed together. 

No, there may be some advantages to this construction -- less bulk in your lap when knitting, firmer seams -- but no, not happening here.  I knit that sucker in one piece and there were no seams on the hood or the edging.

Despite these nagging details, the finished product is softer than you can believe and will look great on the teenage recipient who is too busy celebrating the end of the school year to be bothered with anything as mundane as a sweater.  Once she's available, she's wearing it, even if it's 80+ degrees out.

I'll post the gory details on Ravelry once I'm finished with this post.

BTW, Chris accused me of imitating the Harlot in my last post, and I have to admit it's true.  I had just finished Things I Learned from Knitting in preparation for seeing her later that weekend in Philadelphia.  Just think of that post as a form of homage.

I saw her.  I even saw the sock.

And Marina, I'll get you that report about my April (and May) knitting tomorrow!