Autumn

I finished my In Transit 2. As it turns out, it has Autumn all written over it. The main thing is of course the yarn, which was Quince & Co Chickadee in "Honey". The color is a kind of yellow, amber, golden hue that really fits with this time of year. The trees are now almost bare, and there is a musty autumn smell in the air. Today the clocks changed backwards. I don't like it, now it will be dark when we come home…. But on the bright side, next week the children have holiday and I'll be taken 2 days off for a small break...

 

Anyways for some reason I think this one has more vintage feel then the one knitted in Madelinetosh yarn.  I guess it is the fact that the yarn is uniform in color and the color itself is kind of old-fashioned.

I put more buttons on the deep rib, and the straps are a bit wider & longer. I was lucky since I had cute vintage buttons in my button stash that were just perfect for this cardigan.

Now writing the pattern…..my goal is still to have it finished at the end of December (test knitted and all), I have most of it written down, just grading the sizes remains.

 

Other news, This morning when having breakfast there was a strange cat sitting in front of our kitchen window miaoing very loudly. D opened the door and without hesitating she came in. She was quite thin, very hungry and very very friendly. She also looked as if she is well-looked after in general, with a nice shine on her fur. I guess she got lost some time ago and since she made herself (after eating a lot) comfortable next to me on the sofa we decided to let her be.  So for the moment she stays in our house. If she is still here in a couple of days, we will put out an advertisement since I am sure someone is missing her...

Myrten Hat

 

Since there was such a big lack of hats in our house, I spent one evening last week looking at hats on Ravelry. There are so many patterns there and some are so very nice. Some are also amazing in the sense that so few people actually used the pattern. I spotted the Myrten Hat by Hiroko Fukatsu and there were only 5 projects….

I really liked the flowers and the way they were put on the hat in only two colors. The very clever way of having the solid flowers and the outline of flowers and I was also up for a bit of stranded knitting. My smallest one choose the colors and the yarn. It is Drops Baby Alpaca in a purple and natural color. This yarn is like a thinner version of Blue Sky Alpaca Alpaca-Silk, it is very soft and has a nice sheen. It is more loose than the Blue Sky yarn and thus just a little bit splitty. Not that bad to work with and I can imagine it works really nice for a shawl or something lacy. I think it works well with this hat and I hope it will keep some child warm this winter….

 

Frost

 

Just two weeks ago we had the lovelies Summer days of this year, but now the seasons have caught  up with us….. Sharp frost in the mornings and lovely sunny afternoons. Lovely Autumn days even though it is sad to see the last blooms now destroyed.

But I also quickly discovered that M didn't have any warm fitting hat anymore and she really needed one. The one I spotted was the Effie Beret by Melissa Labarre, since I do like the way the decreases are organized on the crown of the hat.  Also, I had quite some Osprey leftovers from the two Camillas  but not enough to make a solid color Effie beret. So instead I made the brim in Crocus and the rest of the hat in Winesap. Since her winter coat is grey, I do think the brightness of the hat goes well. Finally I will be able to spot her from afar….

 

In Transit

Some time ago in the spring, I was at an airport. Bored and waiting for the flight to board, I started to draw small items. There was one of a cardigan with some ties. I quite liked it but just a plain cardigan with ties didn't completely make it. So I wanted to have some lace too. Back home I browsed through my stitch books and in Barbara Walker's first book there was one that I liked a lot. It is a simple lace pattern over a small number of stitches: English Lace Mesh. So it is good when there are slopes and all that involved. I wanted deep ribs and a vintage feel, but still modern too.
The drawing and some notes lay unused over the summer, but now in Autumn time it was good to start it. So here is the first version in Madelinetosh Tosh sport. The colours is "Stovepipe" a grey with steel-blue undertones. Lovely stuff. I wanted to make a very slightly variegated version and this yarn is just perfect for that kind of thing.

There are some things I want to tweak, so I'll start another one. For this one I have actually kept copious notes so it should go speedy. The tweaked version is going to be in Quince & Co Chickadee "Honey". I will be fun to see how that one will develop.

But until then:


To end ,just a small picture of my lovely assistant and photographer:

Goodbye

 

This morning, my Kara died. She was old and the last couple of days she got worse very very rapidly. Yesterday morning she had still great appetite and cuddled up to me. During the day she enjoyed the sunshine while laying in her cat bed in our bedroom, but in the evening she wasn't interested in either drink or food. During the night she woke me and it was clear she was saying goodbye. I cuddled her, she lay down and fell asleep. This morning she died, peacefully.

I miss her already, but I'm happy she said goodbye.

 

The photo was taken a couple of summers ago, she loved to lay in the sun. I don't have many photos of her, she was a shy cat. Of all our cats, she was really mine and she was the first cat I got as an adult. As I said, I'll miss her very much.

Indian Summer

 

The last couple of days have been really nice. We are having an Indian summer and after the very wet summer it feels so good. I was at a meeting in the country-side for work the last couple of days and on Thursday we walked to the beach and dipped our toes in the sea… Lovely to be able to do so in late September. Not that we spent a lot of time on the beach, we had quite an intense meeting and so on, but we are embarking on a very big project at work so it felt good to get the extra energy.

Anyways, I like an Indian summer, the colors right now are so intense, the leaves on the trees are going into their autumn colors and spiders weave their webs everywhere. The flowers are putting on their last show and a last glut of autumn raspberries and tomatoes should be harvested. In the morning there is quite a heavy fog  and everything is covered by small drops. Just all very nice...

Knitting related; I'm  working slowly on a new cardigan, will not say to much on it yet, just a teaser:

In Transit….