A Silken Shadow

It was a good knitting weekend, since my friend Pouri (mom of our house guest Elmira) was here cooking amazingly delicious Persian food, and she also knitted a bit with me. She was trying to make a simple-looking cable scarf, but the "free" instructions from Michael's were all in prose, plus she wasn't familiar with American knitting abbreviations and terms. It was slow going. I KNOW if I'd had a graph, it would have been easier for both of us!

Because I had knitting friends, I got a lot done--so much, in fact that I actually managed to finish something! It only took me a month to make the Shadow vest out of Shibui Heichi (raw silk). Here's a nice photo of the yarn.

You can see all the extra colors in the yarn. And dog hairs. Thanks, Scrunchy.

The yarn looks great in seed stitch, and it has a really nice rustic texture. However, it is a bit hard to knit with. You really have to tug to get the yarn to go all the way through the stitches, as I think I mentioned before. I think I managed to make adjustments so there aren't any big ugly holes. The small amount of yarn in each skein meant a LOT of ends to weave in, too. I may actually end up dabbing Fray Check or something on the ends to make sure they stay put.

After I finished the vest, I took a picture of it, which was spectacularly unsuccessful. It's a rather large three-layered rectangle, and you can't see the nice row of cables going up the side, either. Here it is, against one of my now-traditional loud-patterned tablecloths.

Shadow on the table. Hey, there is my foot!

Well, that's just not a great looking item. It does show you just how much seed stitch this thing entails! I sure am glad I knit continental! So, I guessed that, even though it was 100F outside and it is the blazing middle of summer with incredible humidity, I was gonna have to put it on and get photos.

My dear spouse did try to take some pictures inside the house. While I look smashing, other than my giant humidity hair, you can't really see the garment.

That's me in skinny jeans in a blurry vest.

So, we reluctantly went outside and stood in front of the neighbor's garage door to get better photos. Now you can see the vest. I wanted side views, too, so maybe the cables would show up.

Side view. Can't see the danged cables because of my arm. Why do I have arms? Oh I need them to knit.

I look so festive. I like how the vest hangs, so it does not look so square.

Why yes, this IS the front view. Ah, do I feel a little nip of fall in the air? Why no, I don't.

The back. Wow, my hair is long, and wow, it looks like I have chicken legs, just like my son does in his skinny jeans. Only his legs are a lot longer.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this tour of the Rusty Shadow vest. I was about to pass out from the heat, so I also hope you appreciate the sacrifice I made.

With that project over, I am actually STILL plugging away on the second Hitchhiker shawlette. I usually work on it in the car or at meetings. Next weekend I am going to North Carolina to pick up the older boy, who's been there all summer doing an internship. I will also be visiting my dad's dear widow, Flo, so I predict lots of knitting time. Since I'm flying, I will just take that small project with me. I probably mentioned already that I am going to give her one of my place mats.

I did finish weaving the two jewel-toned place mats in my second batch of mats, and am starting one of the yellowish sock yarn. As I do these next three mats (repeats of the first bunch), I am trying to figure out what size I want the matching napkins to be. I could make little 10" x 10" napkins (I have some that size that I bought in Mexico), or I could make bigger ones. I have to practice actually making a square!

The weaving is improving. My edges look a lot better on this batch.

So...what's next in knitting? LATVIAN MITTENS. That yarn is sitting over on my dresser LOOKING at me, so I better make up four cute little Latvian colored wool balls and get to work on those. I love the color and patterns so much! I know I don't have lots of reasons to wear mittens. But I sure do love to make them.