theraineysisters knitting and so much more

I’ve had very little time to knit the past four or five days, but I did manage to finish the second sleeve of Mermaid and finally finish this project. I’ve even worn it. Indeed, I probably shouldn’t have photographed it after it wadding it up and letting it sit in my car for two days, but such is life. (I could have given it a light steam, but I had so little time to post I didn’t. My bad.)

This is one of those garments that looks best while it is being worn because of the way it moves and drapes. Half-naked Lucy just doesn’t give the same effect. Nevertheless, here is my completed Mermaid.

We really do need to stop the bad puns.

I just came back from a jaunt to North Carolina where it was a bazillion degrees. Instead of bringing Silver Belle with me, I brought my half-finished Mermaid sleeve. I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of time to knit and I wouldn’t want to haul a large piece of knitting around with me anyway. So I finished the sleeve. One more to go unless I decide to be really trendy.

Here is the finished sleeve before seaming. One one side there are live stitches on one side and on the other a provisional cast-on.

In this photo, I’ve removed the provisional cast-on and placed the now live stitches on a second needle.

This is the beginning of working a three-needle bind off of the seam.

Here’s the wrong side (the inside of the sleeve) once the seam is completed.

The right side of the seam:

The sleeve with a view of the blue detail:

I couldn’t resist pulling the sleeve on. Eeek. It looked really short. I quickly and crudely basted it into the jacket; the sleeve fits perfectly into the armhole opening and the sleeve length is fine. Whew.

Scroll alert:

While I was in NC, I went to a couple of Clay Aiken concerts. I was playing around with black and white photographs. If you are interested, here is one.

I also played around with taking some bootleg concert video. The one that I really liked is of Lover All Alone, which he co-wrote with David Foster. I won’t embed it here, but if you’d like to see the video, click here.

I’m back from Texas (a little more on that later). I didn’t get a lot of knitting done while I was gone: half of one Mermaid sleeve. For all you liberal arts majors out there, that means I’ve still got one-and-a-half sleeves left to knit. Maybe a one-sleeved jacket would be dramatic and stylish? No, I didn’t think so, either. Here is the half-sleeve in all of its glory.

I’ve held it up to my arm in a very scientific fashion and I think it’s long enough, which is nice since I can’t add length to it the way one can with a traditional sleeve. The blue on the “cast on” side is my provisional cast on (done from leftover Koigu). When the sleeve is finished, I’ll do a three-needle bind-off so I have no seam. Hanne Falkenberg does it slightly differently, but I think my way will be easier.

The next photograph is a gift of beautiful handspun yarn I received from someone I’ve never met. She’s a fellow Clay Aiken fan who likes to spin. She’d seen some photographs of my knitting and wondered if I would like some handspun yarn. Yes, yes, yes I said. It’s really lovely yarn, too. I’m not sure the photo does it justice. The darker brown yarn has interesting flecks of color in it, including bits of turquoise. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with yet, but I think I could get a really nice hat or some lovely gloves or glovelets. She wants to work on spinning some fine laceweight yarn which I’ve “generously” offered to take off her hands.

One of my other hobbies, in addition to writing and knitting, is concert photography. I was in Texas for the two opening shows of Clay Aiken’s tour and had a lot of fun hearing him perform and taking pictures under very different and trying light conditions. Here are four shots. The first two are from the Frisco concert, which was outside at night just before fireworks on the Fourth of July. The second two are indoors with stage lighting. (I’m giving you small versions of the photos to help lower the eye rolling quotient.)

Finally, speaking of Clay Aiken and spinning I’ve been following the story of the incident involving his flight from Houston to Tulsa as it gets more and more attention. I first heard about it from friends of friends who were actually on the same plane as he was. This was a smaller plane with no separate first class — steerage all the way. He apparently fell asleep and his foot ended up on the armrest of some woman in the row ahead of him. She tried to get him to move his foot; I don’t blame her. He slept through it. She then started yelling at him and hit him in the chest (not a great idea). That woke him up. Yelling may have ensued. As the story spreads across the Internet, it is morphing like the old game of telephone. I think by the time it’s all over with, the report will be that he was dragged away by the FBI for attacking her with a shoe. Don’t they have anything better to report? (At least it’s not more Paris Hilton.)

I’m going to go work on my baby blanket now. (I keep saying that, don’t I?)