Almost. Ready.

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Color chips

Eye Candy Friday, only it's Tuesday. Let's break the rules, shall we?

Ready for a photo op

It's done, with changes. Stockinette, not mesh; set-in sleeves seamed using mattress stitch, not backstitch; neckband and buttonbands knitted on, not knit separately and sewn on. I love Phildar's simple, wearable pieces, and I had to try one for myself. Sewing the set-in sleeves was daunting, as were the bands of ribbing. I did, in fact, knit them separately and tried to sew them on, without success. So after 3 days of mucky-mucky, I decided to pick up around the neckline and do it my way. 

Pretty wood burl buttons

These buttons were purchased from my local Phildar store during the summer soldes. (France regulates its semi-annual sales, which happen only in winter and summer. Things are marked down as low as 70% sometimes!) Pretty wood burl. Lightweight buttons, they don't weigh down the front, which is a good thing. It emphasizes the (tee hee) décolletage, and it seems someone had tunnel vision during the photo session. Excuse me while I pick out the more decent photos...

Temple of Charm

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Temple of Charm Quilt { + }

Pattern: Squares and sashing. I know. I like squares. I like sashing.
Fabrics: Temple Flowers and Charm by Amy Butler, patterns in all 3 colorways; a graphic tone-on-tone print by P&B Textiles, Cotton Supreme Solids in Marigold by RJR Fabrics
Batting: Hobbs Heirloom Premium 80/20 Cotton Batting
Finished size: 90" x 98" square

This is yet another progression of colors. Candy colors, bright and sweet. A white background this time. Wide, wide sashing to offset those bursts of color. It was made specifically for my mom, who requested something bright and cheerful for her master bedroom. This bedroom faces east, and doesn't get a lot of light past noon.

For the sashing, I found a white tone-on-tone print which looked great in the shop, but when I took it home and placed it side by side with the squares, it looked a bit much. Simply turning the fabric to its back side fixed it! You can see a hint of the pattern, but not enough to distract your eye from the colors.

Temple of Charm Quilt { + }

I stitched in the ditch around the color strips. Then I tried freehand quilting, just groups of wavy lines in between the color strips. I was inspired by the meandering quilting in a Japanese quilting book featuring Kaffe Fassett fabrics, and decided to try my hand at it here. You can see where the lines aren't curvy enough, but are more angular. As well, you can see where the fabric bunches up. While I can be as picky as the next person, I think that the imperfect curves and the bunching up are kind of nice.

Then again, I could look at it 5 years from now and laugh at my quilting!

Temple of Charm Quilt

Here's a closeup. I love how the wavy lines intersect, those horizontals and verticals flowing into each other.

Temple of Charm Quilt

Finally here's a look at how I took all my quilt pictures. At our apartment complex I swept the driveway clean, then laid out two flat sheets, weighting down each corner. I folded each quilt in half twice, then put the folded quilt with the corner in the middle of the sheet, then unfolded the quilt out. It's like how you'd lay out dough in a pie pan, same concept. Lastly, I went to our upstairs neighbor's balcony and took pictures of each quilt in its entirety. There was a bit of fish-eye distortion attributable to the camera, and a nice breeze that swept under the Blissful quilt, so that the picture of its backing looked lumpy. If you ever try to take pictures of your quilt in this way, make sure that your neighbor's balcony is directly over the center of your quilt, to avoid distortion due to perspective.

Long overdue

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BdF Cabled Yoke Pullover

Pattern: Pull empiecement rond #257 by Bergere de France, with my modifications
Yarn: Cascade Pastaza (100g; 132 yards; 50% Llama, 50% Wool) in #007 Medium Grey
Needles: US8 and 9

Here it is, my cabled yoke pullover. Finally. Posted.

I'd finished this last year, and even taken pictures of it, but there was just never time. Soon after the holidays we went to Turkey, then Greece, then we moved to France. I'm writing this post from our Provençale house, mid-July, having scheduled it for publishing in mid-August. These pictures take me back to deep winter in Bavaria. It snowed there quite a few times, and we always had to wear tons of fleecey layers every time we stepped out.

Walk with me.

Walk to Happurger Wand

Walk to Happurger Wand

Walk to Happurger Wand

Beyond Hersbruck, to Happurger Wand. It's a hiker's trail that leads to a limestone cliff (yes, for climbing) at the top of a hill overlooking Happurg. It's an easy hike, and we stopped frequently to take pictures. Snow absorbed all the sound, except for the creaking of the trees, and I thought it was appropriate to whisper.

BdF Cabled Yoke Pullover

I made the sweater loose because I wanted to be able to wear something underneath it. (Pastaza isn't very soft.) I wore a long-sleeve silk tee in addition to my fleece top. As well, I had fleece underwear under those jeans. (It was cold!) The sweater accommodated all those without looking terribly bulky.

BdF Cabled Yoke Pullover

The rolled hem is a alternative to ribbing. The BdF designer cleverly solved the issue of excessive rolling by adding a bit of ribbing. Nice touch.

The neckline at the back hangs a bit low because I didn't use any short rows here. The pattern called for short-rows just before doing the cabled yoke, so if you were to make this, I'd recommend following that part of the pattern.

BdF Cabled Yoke Pullover

I've already discussed the pattern at length, so I'll talk about the yarn. Pastaza is a single-spun yarn, meaning it's not plied. It's a combination of llama and wool loosely twisted around each other. If you look at Pastaza's product page, you'll see what I mean. The intention of the loose ply was to keep the single balanced, but that also means that some fibers will untwist themselves out eventually. The yarn shed a lot in the yoke due to cabling, but behaved well in plain stockinette. It seems that Pastaza works better in stockinette or simple knit-purl textures, not so with cables or other textures that put more stress on the yarn. Next time I knit this, I'll use a multiple-ply yarn.

Blogworthy:
1: Eisbär Flocke has a blog! Actually, she has two! I think this poster (headline says "Knut was yesterday") is cute but crass, because they're obviously peddling her for money. Gah! Let's not even go into a discussion about that.
2: Over at DeputyDog, 11 phenomenal images of the Earth.

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