A Sort of Back to School Post

All four of our children, as of yesterday, are back to school.  This involved an unusual dance of "you go here and I'll be there," which involved repeated flights to Connecticut (it would be too easy if all schools started the same day), getting our oldest settled in college, and being chastised by a certain science teacher for failing to get our ten-year-old the required red folder (it didn't appear on her supplies list).  We are none the less sort of settled, and for those of you who know about other goings on, I'm settled into a new job — both demanding and rewarding — as well.

You might suppose that all of this has left me with little time to knit, but that is not the case.  Although I have sadly spent no time whatsoever in my studio, endless plane flights have left me with a great deal of knitting time.  I have a little bit of eye candy for you, and a hope that with everything on a more settled footing, I can go back to being a regular (if not as frequent as previously) blogger.

Teva Durham's Tundra pattern caught my eye some time ago.  So much so, that I had to start knitting it immediately.  It's a simple premise — a wrap using a bulky yarn and a wide rib.  Mine knit up quickly.

I especially love the buttons and find it to be the perfect wrap — it has saved me a couple of times from a suddenly cold airplane.

I was surprised by the rib though.  In the pattern photo, it looked as though the knit part of the rib would be wider than the purl when worn.  It was the opposite in mine.  I looked through the pattern for a mistake, but wasn't able to find one.  I decided to knit it again, and play close attention — perhaps I had omitted a row causing the rib to flip?

I knitted a second version for Ellie.  Rather than doing the math to resize the pattern, I used a somewhat less bulky yarn, Misti Alpaca Chunky, in a luscious handpaint.  I did not change the needle size, hoping for a somewhat less dense fabric that would let Miss El use hers as a wrapper during ballet rehearsals.

Same rib patterning.

I absolutely love it and so does she, but you can see that in the pattern as written, the portion of the rib that shows wider when worn is the purl side.  I'm thinking about a third Tundra that flips the rib.

One last project — I've been working on and off on my linen Clapotis.  I'm on the straight section and plan on doing four to six more repeats.  This is some dyed by me linen-silk blend yarn.

I'm hoping the dropped stitches will pop out nicely once it is finished and blocked.  I like the colors so much that I'm considering redoing my kitchen in blues and browns.  It's a very relaxing color play.

Next week, more flying and knitting in store for me.  In the meantime, I've been working in my studio this weekend, trying to sort through my yarn and fabric stash.  I'm stuck on a good way to store myriad knitting supplies in a way that makes them easy to use, so I've sorted through my fabric and am sending a large bag off to a friend.  I've also decided I must pare down my yarn stash so that it does not exceed my lifetime stash plus Ellie's.  To achieve that goal, I'll probably do some give aways here over the next few weeks.  Also, please post in the comments if you know of a group in Birmingham that does charity knitting, knitting with teens, etc., as I have some of those older  yarns that make me wonder "what was I thinking" but that would probably make someone else quite happy — I'd like to find a charitable group to donate them to.