tank with a cherry on top



pattern from Rebecca #25
knitted in Rowan all season's cotton

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I got some more yarn. Okay, okay, I know. But...

First, fellow Knitsmith, Dava, gave me a big, beautiful skein of purple yarn to go with the green tweed I got at our yarn swap. They complement each other perfectly! I love it! In exchange I'll be giving her some leftover Lamb's Pride. She's going to make a real cool sweater out of scraps of different colored Lamb's Pride. I think it's gonna be sort of like the magic ball idea that I've heard Kaffe Fassett has used.

Then, a representative of Boston Healthcare for the Homeless stopped by at Knitsmiths on Sunday and offered us some wool yarn that had been donated to the shelter in exchange for acrylic yarn. Many of the women who come there crochet and the shelter offers them yarn to make themselves afghans and warm stuff. They can't really use genuine wool, since they need something which requires very little care. So I went to Michael's and picked up some nice looking Red Heart and Lion Brand to exchange for 10 balls of this Irish tweedy wool.

And as you know, I went to Wild & Wooly to check out their winter clearance sale. They had some wonderful yarn there, but I was good. I was sooooo tempted though. They had some beautiful Cash Iroha from Noro (25% off!!), but I rather reasonably explained to myself that a cashmere/silk blend is perhaps not ideal for a mother of two toddlers. Then there was the Sisik from Dale that I kept coming back to, but my conscience told me that I already have two projects worth of tweedy wool wedged under the bed as it is, so I resisted. There was also a little bag of Pinguoin yarn in assorted pale pinks and reds, just enough for to make a beautiful sweater for a little girl, which I don't have, so there was no justifying that. And when I found some boy colors I recalled that this year is already booked as far as sweaters for the boys is concerned. But as KnitDad so succinctly wrote in the comments yesterday, "like, what's the point" if you're not going to buy anything? Right on, Larry! So I bought this luscious all season's cotton to make this little number from the new Rebecca.

That's not too bad, right? It seems that I was just good enough that the server gods have forgiven me for whatever offence it was that caused them to shut me down for a day and I'm fully-operational here again. Whoopee!

The weather here has been toying with us long enough. If warm weather won't come on its own, then I'll have to make it myself. Or so I thought. This evening at our Boston-area Knitbloggers Knitnight, I cast on some Rowan all season's cotton for this lovely summer top and happily knit away, drinking my hot chocolate and dreaming of spring. Got home, checked the size and whoops! Guess my gauge changed a little as I drifted off to sunnier days to come. I suppose it would fit if summer never came and I had to just pull the tank on over my JCrew sweater! Well, no summer outing would be complete without a trip to the (frog) pond....

Could it be that spring has actually arrived? One would think so with all the bugs around! (Grin.) That's right, sleeves are done and I'm not bringing the crazy bug sweater with me next week. I'm taking a little vaca from tiny needles! Along with my husband's vest, however, I will be bringing the recently-frogged all season's cotton top with me to start over again. Lovely cotton, lovely colors, lovely size 8 needles.... now all we need for a lovely vacation is some lovely weather. Please!!

Twenty-four hours until we hit the road for Columbus and the stress level is rising. There's just so much to plan and get done before tomorrow. I'd hoped to finish the minimono-matching happy baby hat before we left, but that was a bit unrealistic. It's my own fault though, because I stopped working on it here, at the point of picking up stitches to make the ear flaps, and decided to cast on the front of my husband's brown vest.

Casting on is, after seaming, often the hardest part of a project for me. It seems as if I'm always counting wrong and having to rip and cast on again. And I prefer the look of the knit-on cast-on, which is unfortunately way slower to do than the basic two tail method. So my brilliant plan was to cast on and do the ribbing at knitting group on Sunday and then I'd have the simple stockinette to do in the car. I cast on, counted, recounted, did the ribbing and was the whole time slightly concerned that it wasn't cinching in as much as the ribbing on the back. Hmmmm.... Finished the ribbing at home, went to switch to larger needles, and -- you guessed it -- I was using the larger needles already. Doooh!

In order to recouperate, I started reknitting the Rebecca tank. Despite having knit almost the entire first skein for a size too large, I am really loving this project. The actual knitting is a dream! I cast on correctly (both times now!) and was able to knit away happily. I credit the yarn for making this project so enjoyable regardless of whether I'm really progressing or not. (I think I'm becoming addicted to it -- I've got several more happy all season's cotton tanks planned already!) Last night, I only indulged in a couple of inches of happy, because I'm saving the rest for the twelve-hour car ride.

Now back to the packing. A bag of happy for mommy, and a case of happy for the boys and we're all set! I'll probably be able to update once or twice while we're away, but I'll miss being able to surf through all my daily reads. Please keep stopping by and sharing your comments. I'll catch up with you all when I get back. Until then, happy knitting!

My children amaze me. They were great for the whole ride to Columbus. They enjoyed themselves in the car looking at their books and listening to music, and had an even better time checking out all the trucks at the rest stops. When we would get out of the car to go look at the big rigs, it was like they were thinking, 'oh, yeah, no wonder we drove four hours to get here, this rocks!' They did get bored and a little cranky right before we stopped to have dinner, but nodded off after we ate and slept until we arrived late last night. What great little troopers they were!

Between pointing out trucks and picking up dropped toys, I was even able to knit the sleeves for my Rebecca tank. Cute, no? There's lots of fun to be had here in Columbus and at the convention, so I probably won't get much more knitting done until the trip back. But I should be able to post some vacation pics over the next few days. Stay tuned for the blue blog on vacation!

It was a beautiful day here in Columbus yesterday and it would have been silly to waste it sitting inside playing games, so we went to the zoo. B's favorite thing at the zoo had to be the old carousel. S was a little afraid of it, so he just watched as B rode again and again. Oh yean, we even saw a few animals!

And while the boys slept off the excitement of the zoo trip, I finished the back of the Rebecca tank. Not terribly exciting, but I like those neat decreases a few stitches in from the edge and I am still absolutely madly in love with the yarn. And with the weather so nice here, I'm starting to be able to imagine myself wearing my little tank soon!

Every new truck is like falling in love all over again. B fell for this truck yesterday at the little kidspace at Cosi, Columbus' huge science museum. They have tons of bouncy balls for throwing and rolling, a water area for splashing (complete with little raincoats!), and blocks for building. The kids had such a good time that we went back this morning.

All in all, I've been so impressed with Columbus and its various attractions that I'm a little smitten myself! And as far as knitting goes, I'm still ga-ga over my all season's cotton tank. I've made progress on the front and with a little luck should be able to finish it on the trip, so I can start on the yoke after we get back.

Bad news first. It looks like I'm going to have to delete and reinstall my blogging software. Ugh! My webhost did something last week that caused some database corruption and I'm losing more data every day. At this point, I'm having to do my archives by hand. Double ugh! The reinstall is going to be a huge job, since I've got several blogs each with its own templates, configuration and archiving systems. Triple ugh! I can see that there will be very little knitting going on this weekend.

Good news. I'm working on the yoke of the all season's tank and it's looking great. I can't wait to wear it! And for all of you who aren't yet tired of seeing pics of the boys: here they are at the marathon yesterday.

Fixing the blog took most of my knitting time yesterday, but I found a few minutes here and there to sew up the all season's cotton top. There's still a few loose ends hanging around on the inside, but I felt like I needed to celebrate it now. I like the way it came out, although I'm a bit wary of the off-the-shoulder thing. I'm quite attached to the idea of wearing underclothes, but you know those Rebecca girls certainly aren't. It's very comfy though and the ribbing at the top that holds it up works amazingly well. It has plenty of hold, but doesn't feel tight or look too stretched out. I think the all season's cotton ended up being a great choice of yarn.

In fact, I liked the result so much that I've got many more all season's cotton tops planned. I'm scouring through my pattern books to find other little tanks that I can make with this yarn. Any suggestions? I'm thinking of trying one of the Cherries from the last Knitty and/or a short-sleeved version of Sweetness. I actually have enough of the yarn left over from this one that I could make another one exactly like it but with the colors reversed. Tempting.

Happy 4th of July from tank girl!
Have fun, be safe, and let freedom ring.