…and we’re back!

Sorry about the blog silence there. My family just returned from The Great American Road Trip, a 3-week journey with Yellowstone National Park as our ultimate destination. The photo above was taken at the Mammoth Hot Springs – yes, those elk are trotting right down the delicate geothermal formation. I was a little worried about the family spending 3 weeks in close quarters (we drove! in a minivan! and camped about 1/3 of the time!), but everyone did great. It was an amazing trip and we are eagerly pondering which parks to visit next.

The night before we left, I bound off the final square in my Albers Cowl. I still haven’t seamed them together yet, but this is how the squares look:

You can imagine that I seriously considered what knitting projects to pack for a 3-week driving trip. I packed 5 projects:Two quick hats, another pair of Sebastian gloves (FOR ME THIS TIME), and two shawlettes (one for my mom and one for me).

On our first day out, I made a hat. I had a single skein of Biggo – I got this skein for free when Knit Picks ran a promotion. It is a bulky, lofty yarn made of 50% superwash merino and 50% nylon. I looked at patterns very carefully to make sure I wouldn’t run out of yarn. I made the Squall hat and had just a few inches when I was done. The pattern says to cast on 76, but that seemed too large, so I ripped back and worked over 68 instead. By the time I got to Cleveland, the hat was looking good and Pam was interested. You know what that means: Pam has a new hat! I left it with her, but only after taking a few photos.

It is such a great color with her hair.

After finishing the hat, I cast on for one of the shawls: Canyonlands (this photo is from the pattern/designer):I planned to use the pretty red bamboo/silk blend I got in San Francisco back in April. Remember the yarn? The pattern says that the lace edging takes about half the total yardage so you should weigh your yarn if you’re worried about running out. At home, I wound my yarn into 2 balls, nearly equal (one was one gram heavier than the other). I did the garter stitch body with the smaller ball and had a bit left… but I still ran out as I attached the edging. ACK! I guess when a pattern says “about half” you should figure on 55-60% rather than 50-51%. Lesson learned. This is where I ran out of yarn: Luckily, since I bought this yarn relatively recently, I can order more from Artfibers in San Francisco. I think 50 more yards will do it.

You can see that my lace edging isn’t quite as structured as the one in the designer’s photo. I hope I didn’t make a mistake using this bamboo/silk blend. I’m not sure if it will block or how well. The canyon-like undulations are pretty, though.

I finished one more project and started a fourth, but I’ll save those until my next post.

Here’s another gratuitous vacation shot. This is in Grand Teton National Park, and yes, we are in a raft on the Snake River! Here is a bald eagle we saw from the boat: