I just flew in from Seattle last night (super late and in the middle of a downpour) where I was visiting with my sister for her graduation. The city has some really beautiful areas and some fantastic museum and shopping experiences. If you haven't been, try spending some time at the Pike's Place Market (which has a vibe like the old Maxwell Street with street musicians and souvenir vendors, but with fresh fish and coffee everywhere) or the civic center area by the Space Needle (where, apart from the needle there are a bunch of different museums and park areas).
We stopped at the EMP Museum (next-door to the Needle) and caught the Nirvana exhibit, which was sweet! The band has always had a special place in my heart, so it was awesome to see so much of their memorabilia and the instruments they played (both smashed and un-smashed). There were also a bunch of interviews with band members and industry workers about the whole "grunge" movement and their experiences as musicians (click here for the EMP website).
My sister's graduation (the reason for the trip) went really well; nice (albeit cool and windy) weather and she graduated with high honors! She's really a very talented potter/printer/office worker, so if you know of anything good in WA, hit me up! Oh yes, and enjoy the saga of her grad gift (she tells me it will fit right in with her wardrobe, and it fits her! Drinks all around!).
Twinkle’s Weekend Knits
My little sister just earned her bachelors degree in art, and I wanted to do something special for her as a graduation present. I picked a project with a reasonable time frame and budget and got to work. Then I let the project sit in its 80% finished state for a couple months. And about a week ago I realized that in no universe would I actually finish it in time.
Enter the LYS and Twinkle’s Oceania Sweater (pg 94). I enjoy knitting with chunky yarns (especially after knitting socks) and had picked up 3 skeins (that’s 300 yds people!) of Donegal Chunky Tweed by Debbie Bliss in green when I flipped through Weekend Knits looking for something my sister needed. As stated earlier, her favorite color is green, and she is quite stylish. What does every stylish girl in the Pacific Northwest need? A chunky wool sweater perfect for rainy weather!
Donegal Chunky Tweed is 100% wool and is a little scratchy making it perfect for anything textured and/or outerwear. However, it isn’t quite as chunky as the Twinkle yarns, so instead of using the recommended size 19 needles, I knit Oceania on size 15’s following the stitching directions for a size L, which created a stretchy, more breathable fabric. I also lengthened the body of the sweater (for better coverage) and shortened the sleeves to three-quarter length. After finishing, I was left with a little extra yardage, so I added a front pocket to give the sweater a more casual sweatshirt-like feel, edging the sides in a single crochet.
My favorite think about Twinkle knits is that they knit up so fast; I think I finished this sweater in 2 days! Even better, the tie for the sweater is done as a chained crochet stitch, which went way faster than making I-cord (for some reason, the tension of the stitches in my I-cord is always weird and uneven, so it takes me twice as long to knit it). Lion Brand’s Lion Wool in cocoa worked really well for the tie when quadrupled. When all was said and done, I had 2 feet of extra yarn, thereby answering the age old question, can a sweater be knit with 300 yds of yarn? Yes, yes it can.
