On Pilgrimage

Gentle Reader, the Knitty Pilgrim is away on vacation. Do check back in early August for more adventures in knittery. Until then...Happy Knitting!

Summer Socks

Gentle Reader, fellow Pilgrims amongst you surely will recognize that the Knitty Pilgrim is not one to indulge in trendy abbreviation. No. The Knitty Pilgrim does not "text." One does not find here flippant mentions of the "FO" or "LYS." The Pilgrim is seldom moved to exclaim "OMG!" or indicate that one is "LMAO!" The Pilgrim is inclined to insert two proper spaces following the period at the end of a sentence, and always to include the punctuation inside the quotation mark.

The Pilgrim is a dying breed, I fear. A dinosaur. A curmudgeon. Alas.

Nevertheless, he still can be known to take some small delight in the completion of yet another in a series of silly, stripey socks for the Long-Suffering Other. In cotton, no less, and just in time for Summer.

Behold: happy, if long-suffering, feet!

P.S. OK, regular readers amongst you will recognize one notable abbreviation in the Knitty Pilgrim lexicon: the "L-SO."

Do feel free to share what you yourselves are knitting to welcome Summer!

And, until next time, kind regards. -- K.P.

In Memoriam

The Master

Yves Saint Laurent

Spring Awakening

One knows that spring has arrived with the appearance lilacs for sale outside every deli on the Upper West Side. At long last, we are experiencing here in the City a burst of lovely, winsome weather.

Ah Spring! The trees bud, the tulips bloom, and city faces bear giddy smiles. A euphoria is felt in spite of oneself, and one's best efforts to appear steady, stern.

Yet, with this joyous surge also dawns a dilemma: What to knit? And, frankly, who wants to? Who wants to knit when there are buds to sniff and parks to roam in all their fleeting, springtime splendor? For a Pilgrim as Knitty as oneself, 'tis quite the quandary.

On reflection, one realizes 'tis nature's way of telling the Pilgrim: Lighten Up! Think small! Think cotton! Think Socks!

And so, the Pilgrim embarks on yet another in a series of stripey socks for the L-SO. This time, doing the striping oneself using three different cotton yarns in a royal blue, a light blue and a very spring-y green.

Tedious it 'tis, but oh how uplifting for Long-Suffering feet!

One down, one more to go. May they put a Spring in his step!

Once more into the stash...

Continuing one's stashbusting ritual, the Pilgrim came across a few random skeins of his beloved Noro Silk Garden: five of them, in fact, in the same color scheme, crying out for attention.

What to do with them, one didn't have a clue. And so, taking up needles, the Pilgrim started to play.

Here we have the beginnings of a bias-knit, diagonal striping garter stitch scarf. And so far, so good: if I do say so myself, a most auspicious start!

Stashbusting 2

Continuing one's stash attack, the Pilgrim recently completed this fingerless glove (well, two of them actually) using a luscious little skein from the stash.

Mountain Colors Hand-Painted Yarns
"Mountain Goat"
55% Mohair
45% Wool

The hand-painted variegation serves to obscure the cabling pattern on the back of the hand. But how can one describe the touch and texture of this lovely yarn? One can't.

The Pilgrim has never been one to wear such a thing, but you may take him at his word when he tells you that he absolutely LOVES. THESE. GLOVES. Another new-found delight from the ongoing stashbusting scheme!

Pattern:
"Beer Gloves" by Kurt Fausset
from the book "Son of Stitch 'N Bitch"

Stashbusting Pilgrim

A quick scarf project is as good a way to use up a leftover skein or two as any. It is for times like these that the Pilgrim keeps his trusty stitch guides at hand.

Yea, even the lowly scarf can be a way to keep one's mind creatively engaged and, indeed, serve as an incubator of ideas for larger projects yet to come.

Matching a pattern to a fiber in a way one has not tried before can create lovely little scarf surprises for oneself or one's friends.

Case in point, the Diagonal Garter Ribbing scarf created from a bit of leftover Rowan Felted Tweed, and a simple stitch pattern from Debbie Bliss' "How To Knit."

I love how the traveling diagonals meld with the rich, tweedy goodness of the fiber, which was doubled in this case to add some tweedy bulk.

I call this a success, and one that I believe I will enjoy all to myself...