early december yarning along

There’s less than a month until Christmas, which means all the current projects are gifts I can’t show you. I can, however, show you my latest finished project, my Christmas mitts!

I cast these on three years ago to be a pair of socks when I realized that the other stripy Christmas yarn I had, which has white stripes as well as red and green, would not hide the grime of holding onto Metro escalators nearly as well as this pair. So I switched things up and these became a pair of improvised fingerless mitts, and the other yarn became socks.

Last Christmas I bound off the first one with a sewn picot bind-off similar to the cast on I’d used, but I wasn’t happy with it. This year, I ripped that back and experimented with a different picot bind-off. Then I ripped it back again to get a unified color bind-off. And once more to add in some seed stitch in that final stripe to try to control the rolling. (It wasn’t successful.) I will give it the season to see if I can live with it, and if I can’t, I’ll try to come up with a new solution next year. I also bound off the thumb at least three times, trying to find a non-ridiculous solution to that with a picot, but eventually conceded it was beyond my ken and just did a garter bind-off.

I also had to duplicate stitch over the thumb join on the second mitt when I rejoined the yarn in red, rather than the green of the first one and didn’t notice until after I’d sewn in all the ends. I can see I’ve done it, but I don’t think the casual observer would notice.

The yarn is Beyond Basic Knits Stripey Superwash Sock in an undisclosed colorway. She seems to have shuttered her shop since I bought this yarn at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival back in 2009. I probably only used half the skein, so there could be more Christmassy knits in my future, particularly since there was yarn leftover from the socks, too.

There was not a ton of time for reading last week, so I didn’t finish either book I was working on, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi and The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill. I did start three new books this week, though, to add to the collection: Jay Asher’s new Christmas YA novel, What Light, about a girl growing up on a Christmas tree farm; Dear Data, a nonfiction art book of weekly postcards exchanged between two visual data compilers, Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec; and Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas by Stephanie Barron. I’m listening to that last one, part of a historical fiction mystery series starring author Jane Austen as the sleuth. I started that series years ago, but got sidetracked from it. I recommended it as a seasonal read to someone from my Twitter book club last year and she enjoyed it, so I decided to give it a go myself out of sequence this Christmas.

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Yarning along with Ginny at Small Things.

late

I’ve stayed up late finishing my mitts, because I just couldn’t face another day of them not being done. There are three ends or so to weave in tomorrow, but the knitting portion is done. (I’m still not sure I love how the tops roll outward, even after redoing the tops yet again, this time with seed stitch before the picot bind-off, but if I fix them, I suspect it will be in the off season.)

Hooray!

coffeeneuring #9

Coffeeneuring #9: Sugar Shack Donuts (804 N. Henry St., Alexandria, VA)

Saturday, Nov. 19; 12.1 miles
Apple cake doughnut and caramel apple cider

I’d planned to get up and moving earlier than I did on Saturday, which meant that when I did finally walk out the door, dressed for the early afternoon’s sun and temperatures, that I was in for a surprise within minutes. We live below ground, which means that our view of the sky is rather a small one and can give false impressions, as it did then. Only half the sky was still blue when I emerged on the street and by the time I pedaled down to the river and across the Potomac, barely a sliver remained free of clouds. The wind picked up, which did not make the ride an enjoyable one. The gusts were particularly bad near the airport, where a lack of ground cover gave the wind a running start. By the time I reached the edge of Old Town, I was glad to encounter a bus shelter where I could seek refuge while checking my directions and putting on the measly warm layers I’d brought with me.

I stopped in at Fibre Space (nothing on their side of the street to lock the bike to) for a while to see if they had something in stock, but they were out, so I continued on to my destination: Sugar Shack Donuts (bike racks right out front). I’d bought a Groupon for a half dozen doughnuts earlier in the season, imagining Rudi and I would have more opportunities to ride together, but his unavailability wasn’t going to stop me from visiting. The selection was diminished, but there were enough to put together a box to bring home with me. I added their drink of the day, a hot caramel apple cider, and parked myself at a table in the back of the shop. This marked my only Coffeeneur stop that necessitated sitting indoors, but the waning daylight and impending rain and plummeting temperatures did not make me think that I needed to make myself miserable in order to be consistent.

Knowing that rain was possible, I’d packed a slender personal collection of comics, Young Avengers, Vol. 1: Style > Substance, rather than a library book that might be ruined by the weather, and my Christmas mitts. I read my book and started working on a thumb and ate my very tasty apple doughnut and nursed my cider. I texted Rudi to say I’d decided to catch Metro back to the District, rather than ride back in dim, damp, blustery conditions. This wise decision was reinforced when I emerged from the shop to discover that the rain had indeed begun and that my main headlight was dead. I got off at GW and pedaled home from there, being extra-cautious since I was down to my tadpole light in front.

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I’d planned to go out one more time, on Sunday, but it was such a miserably windy day that I made the executive decision to make Saturday’s my final Coffeeneuring stop of the season.

So, with that, over my nine rides over seven weeks, I covered 63.2 miles, just shy of my personal Coffeeneuring best from two years ago.

My theme was reading and knitting. I’d hoped it’d be finished objects, but not a single knit item was completed, although I did get closer on the eight projects I worked on. Of the nine books I was reading at my stops, I had better luck, finishing six of them so far. (Not Your Sidekick, Magic in Manhattan, and The Girl Who Drank the Moon are all still in progress.)

Thanks, once again, to MG for hosting such a fun event!

The rest of this year’s rides: 1-4, 5, and 6-8.

three seasons and threats of fines

I have been working on these fingerless mitts for three years nearly to the day. (Please note, of the three projects shown, only one is done.) I refuse to think another Christmas season will come without my getting to wear them, so I’m saying here that they will be done and on my hands by next Friday.

I bound off the first one (on the right) last Christmas using a sewn picot bind-off that I wasn’t happy with. It felt bunchy and rolled outward, and I may have misjudged the evenness of the rows, because the picots didn’t really pop or look pretty, which would seem to thwart the point of having them in the first place. So a couple weeks ago, when looking for a project to take Coffeeneuring, I pulled these out and decided to see what other options I had for creating a pretty top edging. While this still rolls outward (anyone have a solution for that?), it solves the other problems, so I can probably live with it.

Thanks to knitting (and washing dishes), I’m into the final chapters of the audiobook of The Heist, by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg. The book I want to be reading is in the center of the photo, Kelly Barnhill’s The Girl Who Drank the Moon, which I’m enjoying quite a bit. The books I should be reading, Matthew Desmond’s Evicted and Rebecca Traister’s All the Single Ladies, both need to be back in the library by Sunday to avoid fines. Nonfiction is just slower. And requires thinking. And just feel exhausting this month. But the hold list for both is months long (even when someone doesn’t keep them out late). We’ll see…

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Yarning along with Ginny at Small Things.

early november yarn along

This photo is misleading. I mean, sure, this shawl lives next to the couch for ease of tv knitting. And, yes, this book has been in my bag every day the past two weeks. And sometimes I pick up one or t’other. But I’m tired of both of them and want them both to be done so I can focus my attention on other, more fun ways to spend my time.

Andrea’s Shawl has been on the needles since July. I’ve done 20 sets of stripes thus far, and there still remain a bunch of stitches on my needles. Since I need to get it down to 7 (or so), I’ll just keep going. It has to end sooner or later, right?

It’s more obvious to me that Excellent Daughters: The Secret Lives of Young Women Who Are Transforming the Arab World is creeping toward the end. I’ve got a mere 50 pages to go, which I could take care of in two hours, if I just cared enough to finish. But … it’s dragging. I keep losing track of what Middle Eastern country she’s talking about in each chapter, and I’m easily distracted by what seem to be the bunch of articles she adapted into a book, rather than a firm narrative illustrated by anecdotes. The book is two weeks overdue (our fines don’t kick in until a book is a month late) to the library, and as such I’m loathe to put the book down and pick up another print book. Instead, I’ve downloaded the second audiobook in the Fox and O’Hare series, The Heist, by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg. It’s a ridiculous caper series (he’s a world-famous thief, she’s the FBI agent who caught him; together they now travel the world recovering riches from bad people in an undercover government op), with eye-rollingly bad sex talk. Think To Catch a Thief and dial the cheesiness up by a factor of five. It’s probably really not helped by being read by a guy who reads with a wink-wink-nudge intonation. And, yet, it’s fun and it’s mindless and is exactly what I need right now, with less than a week to go until an election that’s still mind-blowingly close. I’m sure I’ll get back to the important reading any day now, but in the meantime, I’ll be following Kate and Nick’s adventures while I wash the dishes.

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Yarning along with Ginny.

coffeeneuring and yarning along

I thought I’d share some recent bike rides, part of the annual Coffeeneuring Challenge, along with the reading and knitting (none of which is complete to date) I was doing for each one as today’s Yarning Along post:

Coffeeneuring #1: Baked and Wired (1052 Thomas Jefferson St., N.W., Georgetown)

Saturday, Oct. 15; 3 miles
Chaider and ginger pumpkin bread
Baked and Wired used to be a great under-the-radar place, with Georgetown Cupcake scooping up the crowds. Alas, that hasn’t been the case for more than a year, with long lines to be found outside most of the day. However, locals know you can usually sneak inside to the right of the door and order drinks and quick bread at the coffee counter, rather than waiting in line. This visit, though, was slow-moving even in the drinks line. I left my bike locked to a street sign (Georgetown is notoriously bad for bike parking) while inside, and then rode down to the Georgetown Waterfront Park to sit in the waning daylight.

That day, I had my Andrea’s Shawl with me. I’d meant to alter the shape of the shawl, but forgot to when I started the stripes. I’ve seen some reports that the weird shape blocks out, so I’m hopeful it’ll still turn out okay. I should really just finish that up this coming weekend. At the time, I was reading Fannie Flagg’s The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion. I enjoyed it, as I do all her books, but found it less uproarious than her novels usually are.

On the ride home, I enjoyed the rising Super Moon in all its massive glory. (It was not actually this dark, but I had to dim the ambient street light to get any contrast on the moon.)

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Coffeeneuring #2: Teaism (2009 R St., N.W., Dupont Circle)

Sunday, Sunday, Oct. 16; 13 miles
Chai and a pecan-chocolate chip salty oat cookie

So, this wasn’t supposed to be where I went. I played volleyball at Malcolm X Park, biked home, then over to Capitol Hill, where I dropped off some cider with Sarah, before heading to the Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital. I was there to see a Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy film I’d theretofore never seen, Keeper of the Flame. However, I was supposed to arrive with enough time to pick up a drink and beignets at the adjacent Bayou Bakery. Alas, I arrived a few minutes late, and they close at 4, so I watched the film and then planned to stop someplace on the Hill on my way back. But I was tired (that’s a long ride for me) and I just wanted to get home, so I biked back to Dupont and then stopped at Teaism, which is a block from my house. This is another spot where there’s inadequate bike parking, so I tethered to a sign and then watched as a van nearly backed into the bike (which was wholly, but just, on the sidewalk) while I was sitting outside.

It’s a little dark, but you can see I was just starting the second sock of the vanilla pair currently in my purse. I’m still reading Kathering Zoepf’s Excellent Daughters: The Secret Lives of Young Women Who Are Transforming the Arab World, but only have a couple chapters to finish up, which is good, since it’s overdue to the library.

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Coffeeneuring #3: The Coffee Bar (1201 S St., N.W., Shaw)

Saturday, Oct. 22; 2.6 miles
London Fog and Peach raspberry muffin

I spent the afternoon cleaning and really needed to spend an hour outside, so biked over to The Coffee Bar for their last hour of operation for the day. They have their own bike racks, which had empty sides to them, and empty tables at the patio, which made me happy.

I decided to finally get around to reading Magic in Manhattan, by Sarah Mlynowski, in time for Halloween. That’s the first two books, Bras and Broomsticks and Frogs and French Kisses, of that witchy YA series packaged together. I’m not loving it so far, but I’m hopeful it’ll pick up. I’ve started a pair of stripy pink and purple socks for me & love how the yarn coordinates with the book’s cover.

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Coffeeneuring #4: Bourbon Coffee (621 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E., Capitol Hill)

Sunday, Oct. 23; 12 miles
Maple cocoa and a chocolate chip cookie

Another volleyball practice, followed by a trip to Capitol Hill once more, but this time in pursuit of a book for my Ninja Book Swap. Again, I just missed Bayou Bakery, but I knew I’d find something else in this neck of the woods. I wandered through Eastern Market and visited Labyrinth Games’ expansion and East City Bookshop, before settling down on Bourbon’s back patio.

That’s the second of this year’s Sock Madness socks and Meg Cabot’s Size 12 and Ready to Rock, the fourth book in her adult mystery series. (I hadn’t realized it was the fourth book until I finished last night and kept being surprised as I was reading when they referenced previous murders.)

When the coffeehouse was ready to close, I biked back across town, watered the garden, and headed home for the night.