Wednesday, June 24, 2009

It's Summer! Kind of.

Boston is currently suffering from an acute case of "raining and gray and cloudy and miserable all the time." This has been going on for the last couple of weeks, and I for one long for the return of the Daystar. (Sources say tomorrow may be sunny. Forgive me for holding my breath.)

So that may be why the farmer's market was pretty deserted yesterday at lunch, but it did not prevent the return of my favorite vegetable. That's right, zucchini are in season! I snapped up two, and while I regrettably over-blanched them, I still wound up with a delicious dinner of stuffed zucchini.

My mother had reported the first tiny zucchini on her plants (she's growing fewer plants this year, since her garden tends to grow giant monster mutant zucchini) so I didn't expect to find them at the market yesterday. I was happily surprised.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Tilted Duster

When you've been anticipating something for a long time, it's sometimes hard to believe when it's over. Like my trip to Japan, which I started planning in about March of 2008, over a year before the trip actually happened in April of 2009.

Or my Tilted Duster sweater, which I started knitting in October of 2007, and didn't finish until Sunday night. But now all the ends are woven in and every seam has been finished!



Tilted Duster (Ravelry link to project, and to pattern) by Norah Gaughan.

I knit the 40" size on size 9 needles, out of GGH Bel Air in "Olive" (though I'd call that more an avocado color, myself. Nomnomnom.)

The pattern was easy to follow and clear, which didn't prevent from being dumb, like when I knit a good portion of sleeve only increasing on one side instead of both.

I started knitting this in October of 2007 on size 10s. The next time I came back to it, I realized that what I'd knit was waaaay too big (stupid gauge), so I ripped back and started over. Last September, I was close to finishing it, and had even sewn on the buttons and one of the sleeves when I tried it on and decided the collar looked like crap. It was too long, so it sat funny on my neck, and the buttons/buttonholes looked terrible. Modifications: no buttons! I plan on getting a shawl pin to keep it closed, and if I get really frustrated with that I'll add some toggle buttons and a button loop.



Much thanks to Digikami, who is the awesome photographer who provided these photos.

This is my first sweater, and I'm incredibly excited about it, to the point where I am wearing it today. In June. It's keeping me nice and toasty in my frigid office.