I was speeding right along on Simple Knitted Bodice (SKB), until I got to the section where the beading starts.

Here’s where I’m at with it now - done with the first set of purl ridges and 2.5 lace repeats (out of 5 or 6 total).

Knitting with the beads really slows me down. First, I have to string the beads on the yarn, then I have to figure out how to space the beads somewhat randomly, using the right amount of beads. Since I’m knitting from two balls of yarn (no pooling for me!), I decided to string beads on one ball, putting beads on every other row. The whole process is fairly tedious, and so far I’m ambivalent about the result.

Does this look weird? Are the beads too much? They definitely distract a bit from the pattern, and they are kind of dark compared to the yarn. I decided to use the coffee colored beads because they were by far the least expensive (2 cents/bead, compared to 10 cents/bead for all the others), most readily available (I’ll need about 400 or more of them and am not patient enough to do a special order), and most people thought they looked nice in my swatch.

I’m not really the kind of person that wears beaded clothing. In fact, I don’t think I have a single thing in my closet that is beaded, other than maybe a cocktail dress or two. I’m worried that even if this sweater turns out wonderfully that it won’t be my style because of the beads. So, do I trudge forward and rip later if I hate the beads? Or, do I save myself the trouble and do it now?

In other fiber related topics - does anyone watch the Discovery Channel show “Dirty Jobs“? Or, more likely, is there a man in your life who is obsessed with watching it? Todd watches it religiously, and was playing the latest episode from the DVR while I was knitting tonight. Normally, I don’t really care for the show - it can get pretty disgusting sometimes. (past shows have included an avian vomitologist and casino food recycler) But the 8/22 episode featured an alpaca farm! The host of the show visited an alpaca farm in Shingle Springs, CA, sheared an alpaca, and learned to card the fiber and spin it. Cool! I’m not sure how that qualifies for a “dirty job”, but it was definitely fun to watch.

Did a lot of this: (probably close to 30 miles!)

On trails like this:

Steeper than it looks!

To get to places like this:

Vernal Falls

And this:

Dog Lake

And this:

May Lake

Saw lots of these near our campsite and on trails:

We saw a few bears too, right in our campsite! Yikes!

Finally, did a bit of this:

I’m done with the increase section of the Simple Knitted Bodice. So far, so good! I’ll be trying it on later tonight - hopefully it fits and I can put the sleeves on holders. These 300+ stitch rows are killing me!

On Saturday, Ruth, Lynette, and I went to a lovely brunch hosted by Caitlyn. The food was yummy, and it is always fun to knit with friends.

Of course, when four knit bloggers get together, everyone should take lots of pictures, right? Ha! We are truly the worst bloggers ever. Even though several of us had cameras, no one even thought to take any pictures until Lynette mentioned she was going to stop to look at cameras on her way home. Cameras! Of course! So, out came the cameras, and we managed to get a few pictures to document the event.

Here’s the tasty spread - a fruit salad made by Caitlyn, quiche from Ruth, scones & muffins from Lynette, and my cinnamon rolls. It was very yummy, as you can tell by our empty plates!

And, our knitting…

Finally, a picture of the whole gang…

We’ll definitely be doing this again - it was fun trying everyone’s recipes (all of which were wonderful), and great to see everyone.

Tomorrow I’m off uber-early for a camping trip to Yosemite. Back next weekend with pictures, and hopefully some finished knitting! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the bears don’t think my merino wool yarn is food. Apparently the bear situation is pretty bad there, and they go after anything with an odor… toothpaste, hand sanitizer, deodorant. Yikes!

Have a great (and bear-free) week!

When I got home from my trip on Sunday night, there was a package waiting for me. It was my apron, from Stephanie! I was super excited when I saw that she made my apron, because she posted a picture of the fabric she was using a while ago, and I LOVED it. Here’s the finished apron… very cute!

My favorite thing about this apron is the ruffle… it’s cute, but not too cutesy, and made from perfect little pleats. I’m sure those took a while to make!

And in lace news, I managed to make a lot of progress on the stole over the weekend. It’s amazing how much you can get done when you have a few extra hours on your hands at the airport. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my iPod with me (it’s my preferred method of avoiding chatty people when traveling), so I had to explain to no less than 10 people what I was doing. No, this is not the same as cross stitch. Crochet only uses one needle. No, I don’t crochet. The lace is made from holes in the knitting. Yes, they are supposed to be there. No, it isn’t hard. Yes, I have to count my stitches (so SHUT UP!). Yes, you could make doilies this way, or you could crochet them. The cord between my needles is to hold them together so I don’t lose one (ha! not really!). No, I don’t think that I could take over the plane with my knitting needles. Yes, it is OK for me to have these on an airplane. Oh, your [insert elderly female relative here] knits… that’s nice. AAAARRGH! That is the last time I travel without the iPod.

Anyway, I managed to get through the nupps section and onto the final border on the first side of the stole. I only have about 10 more rows to go on this side, then I have to go back and knit the border on the other side. Almost done!

I’ve been looking for smaller green beads for my Malabrigo sweater too. Shopping for beads on the internet is impossible. I think I may just start knitting the sweater and keep looking for beads until I get to the lace section.

Thanks to those who gave input on the beads! The majority of people liked either the coffee, bronze, or large green beads, with a few votes for gold. I’m thinking the gold might be a bit on the bling-y side of things, as the beads really stand out on the swatch. I really wish that I could find the green beads in a smaller size. I’m going to hunt around a bit and see if I can come across some smaller green glass beads. Can anyone recommend an online bead store? If I don’t find smaller green beads, I’m going to use the coffee colored glass beads. The bronze beads are great too, but in person they don’t have the depth of the glass beads.

Now, I’m off to Vegas for the weekend, with all liquid and gel-like substances safely packed away in my checked luggage. Grrrr. I wasn’t planning on checking any luggage for such a short trip. At least I can still take my knitting on the plane!

Back on Monday with pictures of the stole…

Yesterday, I spent my lunch hour at various bead stores trying to pick out beads that would work well with the Malabrigo yarn that I bought for the Simple Knitted Bodice sweater. [an aside - love the pattern, but what kind of a name is that? Isn’t that what all sweaters are… simple knitted bodices?]

Here’s the yarn I ordered. This is my first experience with Malabrigo, and from what I can tell, it really is as fabulous as everyone says. It’s softer than Manos, and about 2/3 the price. I haven’t seen the Tilli Tomas yarn that the pattern calls for in person, but I’m guessing this is as close as I’ll get in a wool yarn.

I picked out 9 different beads to swatch with the yarn. Unfortunately, my two favorite beads didn’t have big enough holes to work with the yarn. I suspected as much when I bought them, but thought I’d try anyway. So, I ended up swatching with 7 different beads:

Note that the bottom 2/3 of my swatch looks really pretty awful. I didn’t exactly think about what I was doing before I started swatching. I just took a look at the lace pattern, thought to myself, “easy, peasy!”, and cast on. Well, if I had thought about it a little bit, I would have realized that this sweater is worked in the round. So, every other row of the lace pattern is a knit row. Since I was knitting the swatch flat, I should have made those rows into purl rows to keep a stockinette pattern on the front side. Oops! I realized my mistake after I had already knit in 2/3 of the beads, and didn’t want to rip out all the beadwork, so the last 1/3 of the swatch is right. Hopefully you can still get a good feel for how the beads look in the incorrectly knit section.

Here’s my opinion on the beads (top to bottom):

Coffee colored glass - I like these quite a bit. They are warm and add a bit of contrast. They also look similar to the amber beads in the TT Rockstar Burnt Olive yarn.

Large green glass - I like these too, but worry they might be too big. These are similar to the green beads in the TT Rockstar Olive yarn.

Gold colored glass - Eh, not bad. I’m undecided.

Small green with brown swirls - These are kind of cool, but they blend in to the yarn and are barely visible. If I’m going to go to the trouble of using beads, I’d like to be able to see them!

Silver colored glass - The cool color of these beads doesn’t really go with the yarn.

Bronze beads - Similar to the coffee colored glass, but I think I like the transparency of the glass beads better.

Irridescent multi-color - My least favorite. I thought the mix of colors would be cool. It’s not.

Overall, I’d have to say the top three beads are my favorite, but I’m completely undecided. Please leave a comment and let me know which beads I should use for the sweater. Thanks!

Camping was awesome, even if it was a bit hot, dry, dusty, and dirty. We went to the Peninsula campground at Folsom Lake, which is about 10 miles from our house as the crow flies. However, getting to the campground was an adventure in itself. The only way to drive there involves going all the way around the lake, on narrow, curvy, hilly roads. It’s nearly a two hour drive! Thankfully, even though we didn’t make a reservation, there were plenty of sites available when we arrived around 6pm on Friday, and we scored an awesome lakeside site. (From what we could tell, almost every campsite had great views of the lake.)

We got a chance to use our REI Hobitat tent for the first time on this trip. Most. Awesome. Tent. Ever. It has pretty much straight sidewalls, and over 6 feet of headroom inside. Plenty of room for us and the dogs. Our older tent is a backpacking tent, and it is teeny tiny, with barely enough room for both of us to squeeze in. It’s a great tent too, but a bit claustrophobic. The Hobitat will be our tent of choice for car camping from now on!

The dogs did much better than I expected, and spent most of the weekend lying in the dirt next to us. They barked at a few of the people who wandered by our site, and barked whenever one of us would leave the campsite, but that’s about it. They didn’t even bother to wake up at 4am, when a racoon climbed the tree outside our tent, came back down, walked right by us, and dug through our neighbor’s trash. They weren’t exactly the watchdogs that I was expecting them to be!

I managed to find some time to relax and knit a bit too, next to the lake in the cool morning breeze. Who couldn’t relax with views like this?

What am I working on? The stole, of course. I actually made it to the border chart, and the dreaded nupps (which really aren’t that bad). [Ok, ok, so I skipped a few repeats on the middle little flowers section. I was dying. Dyiiiiiing. Could knit no more litttle flowers. And the middle section is long. Looooong. Turns out stitches stretch lengthwise really easily in 100% silk yarn. So, I skipped the last few repeats and started the border. It will be fine. I hope.]

Of course, I couldn’t knit all day, because it got HOT and both the breeze and the shade at our campsite disappeared. So, we got in the boat and hit the lake, sans knitting.

This was also the first time that we’ve taken the dogs on the boat. Mac (below) loved boating, but Newton didn’t care for it quite as much. When the boat was moving, he was not a happy dog!

All in all, a great camping trip. For you Sacramento/NorCal folks, this is a great place to camp, and probably one of the few state parks that doesn’t fill up on the weekends (due to the drive, I’m sure).

I’ve been knitting and knitting on the Estonian Garden Stole, and every single time I count the number of repeats, I’m still at repeat 35. I swear it is getting longer (much longer!), but I don’t seem to be making any progress toward the end goal of 41 repeats. It’s like the stole is in some sort of space-time-knit continuum. I don’t get it. Sigh. Maybe it’s time for a break from the stole?

I certainly won’t get any more of it done this weekend. (that seems to be the theme of my summer so far!) We decided at about 9:30 tonight that we’re going to go camping tomorrow night through Sunday, with the dogs. Talk about a last minute decision… we haven’t been camping at all yet this summer, and since I work all day tomorrow, I have to get my camping stuff packed tonight. And the dogs? They’ve never been camping before. It should be interesting… schnauzers are fabulous watch dogs, which means they will probably be completely obnoxious at the campground, barking at anyone and everyone within a 500 yard radius. I’m hoping for the best though, because it kills me to leave them home (with a house sitter, of course) when we go out of town. It should be an interesting weekend!

1. Monster cookies. Mmmmmm! And, FYI, if you have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, a 1/4 batch of this recipe fits in the mixer perfectly.

2. A tug boat pushing a barge. Big and scary when it is bearing down on your relatively tiny boat in a not terribly wide river. Wow.

Needless to say, we got out of the way and let it pass!

3. My ambition when it comes to knitting.

Bought the pattern, even though I’ve already got two sweaters in progress, plus the stole and a pair of jaywalkers. But I love it, and must knit the long sleeved version! Thankfully my sabbatical from work (2 months off!) starts soon, so I should definitely be able to finish a few projects then.

For others who plan to knit this Glampyre sweater - what yarn are you going to use? The recommended Tilli Thomas silk yarn is seriously cost prohibitive - this would be a $200+ sweater. Ouch! I’m thinking Malabrigo in an olive color, with hand strung beads on the midriff section. I’ll have to check out the bead store to see what kind of beads will work with a worsted weight yarn.