Singin’ those Forest Canopy Blues

Not because I’m unhappy–

but because my Forest Canopy is now blue!

Here’s your regulation blocking shot:

(just for Cookie, the dimensions are 68 inches by 36 inches; definitely no Icarus! but substantially bigger than the original Forest Canopy shoulder shawl)

and another Preteen modeling shot.

(She may be 12, for a bit longer, but she’s 5 feet 4 inches, so makes a good model when I can get her to acquiesce. Sometimes…. )

It’s not quite as vivid a blue as it looks in some of these pictures; the photo below is perhaps a little more accurate. A little.

The green stripes certainly don’t stick out any more!

Though, in the light, you can see the green, but it’s subtle. It looks almost peacock-like, in a way.

So, here’s the story.

Being lazy efficient in my actions, I did not block the shawl first as so many of you very sagely advised me to do. I pinned it out firmly as if it were blocked, in one area, and still saw only green stripes.

Right about then, I got an email from ISE 6, looking for angels for a few people who had never received scarves. I have three scarves on the needles right now, including the one you saw the other day, which is going fast when I let myself work on it. So I volunteered.

The person I got assigned to ‘angel’ is a crocheter, who however loves knit items. She admitted in her questionnaire to a longing for lace, and in fact shyly asked for a lace shawl if there was any chance of such a thing. Her favorite colors are jewel blues and purples, and she doesn’t like too much variegation.

K. I don’t QUITE need to be hit with a bolt of lightning to get it! Let’s see — should I overdye the lace shawl that I’m about to cast off, overdye it blue as I was fretting and fussing about doing anyway, and make someone who’s been waiting way too long for their swap scarf, very happy? Or should I knit a scarf from (almost) scratch that won’t, given the interests of time, be a lace scarf or shawl? Remembering that Forest Canopy was started primarily to use up this raffle prize yarn, and keep Nora company, and had no designated recipient (it was probably going to be for me, but Wendy’s Kay’s shawl is DEFINITELY (I think) going to be for me, so how many shawls do I need?)

So, decision made. I dyed it perhaps more of a jewel sapphire blue than I otherwise would have (I otherwise probably would have re-overdyed it with a bit more green or black to tone it down a bit; I did put in a bit of purple with the sapphire blue); had to do Jennifer‘s cat p— trick (read halfway down in the link to find out more!) to get the excess dye out, then stay up way late last night blocking; but I think and hope it will be just what the jewel-tone lace-loving scarf-lacking swapper will like.

Now to find a couple other treats to send her, but that’s the easy part.

Boy, am I happy to have that decision made, and the shawl all done! Not all blues are sad blues, you know — and the blues are one of my favorite things to play and sing.  Get out that big dreadnought guitar, a nice low key like A, and I’m good.

Here’s to singin’ the blues!

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A Lace Knitter on the Edge

So, I’m now on the edging for Forest Canopy, as I predicted I’d be. (I was pretty sure I wouldn’t finish, unless life completely stopped for me and let me knit all day.)

But there was unexpected drama.

I took the knitting with me (of course, it goes without saying, eh?) to the last day of Riverfest this afternoon; the Gothlet wanted to hang there a bit more, and although we’d been there four different times (good thing we only live a mile and a half away), each time was for some particular event, and there was no real walking about, soaking up the atmosphere.

So we let her ask a friend, and go. (The Preteen was in a similar circumstance, but all her friends were busy or not home, so she declined to go ‘by herself’.) I went with them while my husband did some home chores.

In between the bungee jumping , (click for big as desired) sand-art-in-a-bottle-creating , tattooing , waterski watching (some tiny ones!) , slingshotting water balloons , doing the Ironman race (not what you think , investigating anchors , watching jump rope exhibitions, and cooling off : as I say, somewhere in all this array of wonders, as I dug into the backpack for the wallet and the camera — I put down the bag containing Forest Canopy. And it vanished.

To my credit, I was certain it was either at the bungee jump or the airbrush tattoo place (very early on in the adventure), and I realized it within 10 minutes and went back looking for it — to no avail. I asked here, there, and everywhere. I even looked in a few trash cans, thinking maybe someone stole the bag while my back was turned, then might have pitched it when it (presumably) wasn’t what they thought they were stealing.

I was very sad.

Right before we left, I checked back once more at the bungee place. No, the very nice lady still hadn’t had it turned in. But, as I walked around the bungee the other way, I suddenly spotted my GoKnit bag attached by its snap to the top of the fence around the bungee area! Someone, trying very hard to be helpful, had put it up where they thought it would be easier to see, and not be stepped on or casually stolen. Not that I had looked three feet above where I knew I might have left it, but it was a good thought.

I was very happy.

Knitter no longer on the edge — of great despair, in any case! I collected my daughter, who seemed to have contracted some strange disease

and her friend, and returned home, minus a little knitting time, but with great relief!

So, it is with thankfulness that I can show you the current state of Forest Canopy.

The photography is not ideal, as a storm was approaching as I finished the row, so this is an indoor picture, and the project is too big to show it all on the needles it’s on. But it gives you the general idea.

And, I think, allows me to ask your opinion.

So here is half of Forest Canopy roughly pinned out (even not fully stretched, it will total 64 inches wide, about, plenty big!).

Here’s my question for you:

I love these colors individually and together; they remind me of violets in the sand. (Not horticulturally likely, but those are the colors!)

But the green is so much darker than the other two colors that it draws my eye. This is sock yarn, and if this were striping in the context of a sock, it would look awesome. But, of course, in this project, the color repeats make horizontal lines that sometimes coincide and pool. I thought the diamonds in Forest Canopy

would break up any such pooling variegation. But when I look at it — all I see are dark green lines. I am admittedly sensitized to this effect. And the diamonds will be a little more prominent when blocked, I think. But still….

My thought for some time has been to overdye it. This smacks of heresy, of course, to overdye Tina’s gorgeous work; at least that’s how I feel. And It may not turn out better. But if I overdyed with a fairly intense blue, then the green would turn blue-green, the purple would be a different purple (or at least a purplish-blue), and the tan would just modulate, tone down, the blue somewhat. Then I think the green color repeats would blend in much better and not draw the eye.

If I were to overdye it, it would make a certain amount of sense to do so before blocking, instead of blocking, dyeing, and reblocking.

So I’m asking you all:

Am I being overly sensitive, and is the shawl just fine the way it is?

Or would you yourself, if it were YOUR shawl, overdye it (or want it overdyed)?

I believe I’ll finish knitting tomorrow. The day after, if I dawdle a bit.

Not that I HAVE to block it right away, but please do tell me — what do you think?

Girl On The Run

It’s been a busy day — after a busy few days.

On this perfect July morning, the Gothlet awoke WAY too early for her taste (particularly after watching fireworks the night before), carbohydrate loaded (translation — got to have donuts for breakfast) and ran/walked (mostly ran) a 5K as part of Girls on the Run.  (Check out the link if you have time, this is a really cool idea and organization.)  She’s never run before the last couple months.

Here my 10-year-old Gothlet is, checking out her time as she crosses the finish line with her friend

(though her actual time was a little less, as measured by the radiotransmitters chips the runners wore.)

My friends’ daughters who were also in Girls on the Run ran, and my friends Karla and Lee ran with them (I’m no runner, though I’d happily walk a 5K, & I had to go to work as soon as the Gothlet was done running); and my father ran too, to keep his granddaughter company. I saw many other people I know running (obviously, this was a big race, which was held to coincide with Riverfest). And friends of mine are this year’s Riverfest Commodore and First Mate; they were there cheering runners on too.

After getting the girl carbo-fueled, chipped, and to the starting line where they discussed race strategy (NOT!),

they were off,

and I had about, oh, half an hour to sit on a curb and work on Forest Canopy, before proudly cheering her finish.

I also worked on my Forest Canopy shawl last night while waiting for the Independence Day fireworks at Riverside Park

(believe it or not, there were thousands of people behind me as I took this picture; I didn’t photograph the full crowds, but here’s a picture from earlier in the evening elsewhere in the park)

The boats on the river, which were going back and forth in droves earlier, had by the time of the photo already been herded up- and down-river to clear this part of the river for the fireworks, which are set off from the park across the Mississippi (where we got married, by the way!)

I even knit on Forest Canopy during the fireworks, of which I have no pictures, not simply because I was knitting, and not because I did not wish to take pictures — but because the battery feeb’d out on me.

And I knit on Forest Canopy during the two exhibition dance performances by my daughters (and their dad) yesterday and the day before.

(Gothlet tapping)

(Gothlet and the Preteen in their Dads and Daughters “Blues Brothers” routine, to “Soul Man”)

(the Sole Man, aka Elwood, is on your left as his daughters watch in awe from the non-existent ‘wings’).

Can you tell I’m determined to finish Forest Canopy? I’m knitting it bigger than designed, since I’m knitting with fingering rather than sport weight yarn and since I want a shawl-sized shawl rather than a shoulder shawl. Therefore, I’m now about up to double the number of stitches called for, and it’s taking me a half hour to knit two rows. So I’m ready to be finished (especially since I’m also knitting Wendy‘s Kay’s Diamonds and Purls Shawl (that’s very awkward to type, let alone say), and it’s hard to concentrate on two shawls at once and get anything visible accomplished).

The good news is that, as calculated by weighing my yarn before and after said two rows (twice), I’ve calculated how much yarn is needed for a pattern repeat, that is, about 24 g now (allowing a bit extra for the fact that every other row gets four stitches bigger). And, in order to have enough yarn to finish the shawl and knit the edging a bit longer also (for balance), my careful mathematical calculations would seem to indicate that I need to knit just one more pattern repeat — then start the edging! And, oh so fortuitously, it seems to be the perfect size; stretched (roughly approximating blocking), it reaches from fingertip to fingertip.

So now, I must bid you adieu and go watch “Little Shop of Horrors” and —

knit away on Forest Canopy!

Tomorrow, the results! (I should at least be on the edging, so I can show you something that looks different.) And a request for opinions. Also, a sad frogging story, and the project I should not have cast on yet, but did. (I should feel guilty, but I don’t!)

Lastly, here’s the Saturday Sky while walking along the Mississippi to work after the run:

and upon arriving to work, our patriotic crane.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July!