akabini

Just back from a long-ish dog walk, and realizing that it's turning into my favorite time of year.

Yes, the lawn is crispy, and the pretty flowers are few and far between, but there's a nostalgic twang in the air. There's a moment when you leave the house in the morning when you wonder if you'll need a scarf -- and then decide not. We're in shorts-and-T-shirt mode, but some mornings you need a hat, and you realize that the slow slide into more and more layers is beginning.

The days also don't seem quite as glaringly bright, and there's a whiff of cool on the air -- perhaps from the collective exhalations of teenagers looking at the calendar, sighing, and counting their remaining days of freedom.

And, let's face it, no matter how old I get, I still lust after back-to-school supplies.

We grown-ups don't get the luxury of a life change built-in at this time of year, and I think that's sad. I, for one, get a little thrill from putting together the Fall class mailer for Churchmouse (it'll be coming out next week!) -- it's my chance to participate in that 'back-to-school' vibe. And I love any excuse to be thinking about sweaters, so it's no wonder I look forward to the day I can pull them all back out from storage and start wearing them again.

One of my favorite things about living in Berkeley was the microclimate: just a titch different from the peninsula, across the Bay, where I grew up. Berkeley gets morning fog from The City (SF) year-round, which means that nine months out of the year you've got "Sweater-and-Shorts" weather. Fabulous.

Up here in the Pacific Northwest, we get an actual Winter (okay, so it's not Minnesota, but hey -- we need gloves for a few months!), so our Sweater-and-Shorts season is shorter than California's. That doesn't mean I don't savor it, of course. The few weeks in September when my lower half stays in Summer while my upper half heads to Fall is a very comfortable time.

So, to celebrate, I have an (almost) finished sweater to show off!

This is "Lily," from Marie Grace Designs: knit from the top-down, with a cool little special yarn-over increase at the raglan lines, and a feminine-without-being-girly picot edge at the cuffs.

Yarn: Marianne Isager "Alpaca 2", a wool-alpaca blend that is to die for, dahling.
8 skeins; held doubled throughout.
Needles: US 5 (3.75mm) Addi Turbos

Mods: decided against the picot edge along the bottom hem, and worked I-cord bind-off instead all the way around bottom, along front edges, and around neckline. Worked two large-ish buttonholes at base of V-neck shaping, to accommodate a tie or a button closure (snaps of that next, when I get those finished).

I also decided not to work the sleeves in the round and seam them instead (shock! horror!). I know, I know, I'm usually the no-seam evangelist, but with the 50% alpaca content in this yarn, I was worried that my gauge might shift from flat to circular knitting: and the sleeves are (naturally) the only place in the pattern where you work in the round.

Which explains why my close-up of the picot sleeve hem features a tell-tale yarn end: I haven't actually sewn the sleeve seams yet. I'll grab an hour this afternoon to get that done, and hopefully post final final snaps of Lily in the next day or two.

Can't wait to trot her out (with a pair of denim shorts, of course!

Happy fall knitting, y'all.

I know, I know ... I said we wouldn't have wi-fi at Camp.

I vow to forget its existence immediately.

… But I just had to share with you my favorite moment so far, from last night's instructor concert:

Guitarist to Bassist: "You can take a solo any time …"
Bassist to Guitarist: "I am!"

[Non-musical types: ask a musician friend why this is so funny.]

We're packing again! This time, we're loading up the Most Adorable Trailer Ever
and heading south.

For the next week, I will be surrounded by people geeking out in the creative field of their choice, people exercising their creative passions with colleagues of various degrees of experience and professionalism.

There will be groups gathered to share information and sit in circles and play and goof off together until late in the night… I'll walk past clusters of people sharing the deep intricacies of some abstruse point on their way to the showers... And for days, the creative energy of people making Really Cool Stuff will wash all around me.

Sock Summit?

Nope.

Guitar Camp.

Mind you, the only time I've ever really hung onto a guitar for any length of time was in sixth grade, when my friend Lynne and I took lessons largely because the instructor looked like one of those cute Hardy Boys on TV. (Well, okay - Lynne's intentions may have been purer.)

And I don't have aspirations to take up an axe and play – I just love living with a player, and I love music (and I'm pretty shameless about loving to sing, and will do so even before I'm invited. Whoops.).

So I'm going to go bask in all that creative energy for a week, and work on this little book I've been hatching. This morning we're packing up The Cutest Trailer Ever:

… with all the necessities for a week in the woods:

(Two guitars; three projects. Seems fair, right?)
(Fear not for me. Rumor has it there's a good yarn shop within driving distance.)

And lest you think us complete lushes, repeat after me: the three bottles of gin are for sharing!

This may be Camp for Grownups, but Kindergarten rules still apply:
"If you didn't bring enough for everyone..."

See you in a week.
[With any luck, I won't have internet access and will therefore actually be able to get something done.]

Today we enter a whole new phase in marathon training:
Where we get to the Big Dog Runs.

There's a funny mental hurdle after the half-marathon distance. Somehow, a run that takes longer than the average Hollywood movie has an intimidation factor all its own.

Which explains why it's 8:30 am and I have yet to take the dog for a warm-up walk before I head out for...

SIXTEEN MILES.

If I start by 9, I should be rolling into the home stretch in time for...
lunch.

It makes me yearn to be Deena Castor, or one of the other elite marathoners, who can whip out 6-minute miles for mile after mile. But at twice my speed, she'd still take AN HOUR AND A HALF to finish. That's a Disney kids' movie worth, and that whole time with your legs just crankin'!

I've said it before, and I'll say it many times again before this is over:
Damn, I wish I could knit while I run.