July Wrap-Up

July was a month of traveling hither, thither and yon. I had several professional conferences to visit, so I was bouncing from DC to Chicago back to DC. Lots of time on planes and trains, including a delightful seatmate on Amtrak who decided he would try to use me in lieu of getting an actual New York guidebook. (He didn’t get very far.) My favorite part was when he asked me, after three solid hours of traveling alongside it, if that big river was the Hudson. Good times.

NETBOOK SLEEVE

Pattern: Self-designed
Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Lake Ice Heather and scraps of blue and gold left over from my Muggle-Proof Scarf.
Needles: US10/6.0 mm
Notes: So. I splurged on a netbook for all this traveling, because so much information for these conferences exists online, and trying to find a computer can be a real struggle. (I’m typing this post up on it right now, actually! So tiny and adorable.) But cases cost extra and I have lots of yarn, so I made my own. I have an entire container of leftover WotA from old projects, so I went stashdiving and came up with a vaguely Harry-Potterish design. I added a pocket in front to hold the power cord, and lined the works with a cute little teddy-bear printed fabric I swiped from my mom’s quilting stash.

It’s lightweight and cushy, fits easily in the lovely messenger bag swag I got from SLA (hands down, best swag of the summer) and does exactly what I wanted it to. Couldn’t ask for more from a last-minute stashdiving experiment.

PANOPTICON JAYWALKERS

Pattern: Jaywalkers by Grumperina
Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepard Sock in Franklin’s Panopticon
Needles: US1/2.25 mm
Notes: All written up here. Even Franklin gave them a thumbs up, which made me extremely happy.

ATACAMA COWL
Robbyn Kenyon
Pattern: Alexstraza Cowl by Robbyn Kenyon
Yarn: Araucania Atacama
Needles: US5/3.75 mm
Notes: Stocking up warm things for winter. There will be no modeling of this, however, because right now it is not winter and there is no wearing of warm things in this weather.
Pattern is easy, cute, and can be done in the round or flat and seamed. The only thing it lacks is a chart, but I could always have charted it out myself,. The finished product is warm and the dragon-scale pattern shows off the variegation of the yarn very well.
I am puttering around with matching handwarmers, but it’s been too hot the last week or so to even think about handling alpaca.

August will be a month of things like lace. Lots of lace. Swallowtail lace, even.