My latest project to cross over into the realm of finished. It's the felted drawstring bag from last winter's VK issue. I used leftover yarn, all of it worsted Lamb's Pride. The blue is from the first sweater I knit. The green from a scarf. And the pink? Well, that's from a pile of yarn slated for a sweater that I'm sure I'll have leftovers from. (I'm having a hard timel envisioning the pattern that would be sympathetic to its extreme Lotus Pinkness. I bought it in a fit of pink passion early, early in my knitting career (about a year and a half ago) and it's been waiting patiently to be made into something fabulous. I just don't know what it is. Did I mention I have 10 skeins of the stuff? Thoughts? Ideas? Numbers of therapists?). Anyway, here's the before picture... 

.....and after.

In the spirit of it being officially summer and all, this is another camping-themed post. We headed back up into the woods (this time about Idaho City in the great Boise National Forest) to recharge. There are two things I really, really love about camping. First, the Boler (our cute retro-y camp trailer), which means I can knit. Second, it's physically impossible to do yardwork or housework while camping. In fact, you have the choice of lounging around camp (knitting) or hiking to fantastic views/lakes/streams.

So what does all this have to do with this VK holiday 2004 project that's been loafing around the yarn room waiting to be felted?

I didn't knit on it last weekend (still working Pinwheel blankie, row by increasingly-long row).

But I did felt it in between the massive loads of post-camping laundry made necessary by the pervasive campfire smoke clinging to every stitch of clothing and bedding we took with us. It was our first fire of the season and it was worth it. (Although Dave did have hard time starting it. The man obviously missed out on his mother's firebug gene. When we camp with her, it takes about five minutes and she's got some gargantuan unsplit stump burning in the fire pit).

A storm is brewing. For the second week of camping in a row, there's plenty of rain which means plenty of time to hunker down in the Boler and knit. 

Ah, the sweet smell of vanilla imparted by the Ponderosa pine. Our little hike out of Edna Creek Campground on Highway 21 between Idaho City and Lowman (on the way to Stanley) is interupted by much smelling of trees. 

I've neglected my blogging duties to take a brief sojourn into the Idaho mountains. It's our first camping trip of the season and our first in our Boler trailer. We love this trailer. We love that it's older than me (by a year). We love that it keeps us dry and the knitting relatively clean so that the recipients of said knitting don't have to spend hours picking out pine needles and beetles from the fabric. 

A flower on the Bench Creek Trail, just off of Highway 21 between Stanley and Lowman (Idaho).  

Yes, this is a knitting picture, and here's why: This is taken just after six hours of constant rain/snowfall in the beautiful Sawtooth Wilderness Area outside of Stanley, Idaho. We spent this six hours snuggly and dry in our brand new 1973 Boler trailer (the cutey above) reading and knitting. When the rain let up (at about 8:30 p.m.) we went on a walk and discovered this: The most inspiring sight I've seen this year. Can I just say that I love camping and I love Idaho and I hope never to live anywhere else?

Here it is, the short sweater thingy from Summer VK 2005 (one of two projects I hauled up to the mountains with us in the Boler; the other project: The pinwheel blankie, which just gets bigger and bigger but not yet big enough).

I used Tahki Cotton Classic for this sweetie and DirtyPurls' notes on using short row shaping for the shoulders, thus eliminating two pesky seams (I hate seaming). So, thank you!

As for the yarn, it's not silk (like the pattern calls for) but it worked just fine, except the right side in front keeps pooching out. It's driving me just this side of crazy, but I still love the pattern, love the color and love that I was able to dig deep, deep in my memory banks (not to mention my stash) to figure out the crochet edging. Did I ever tell you about the time I crocheted Dave a queen-sized blanket? I knew two stitches: single crochet, double crochet. It was my last semester in college. Dave was in Salt Lake; I was in Provo. I hadn't learned to knit yet, so you can imagine the time on my hands. My mother lovingly dubbed the resulting blankie a giant potholder. The edges on this sweater are a bit more elegant.

Ta-da! I'm seven revolutions into Branching Out. I love this pattern and had absolutely no problems until my sixth repeat when I had to reknit. Every. Single. Pattern. Row. At that point, my cooing words of love became an eruption of foul language. I'm hoping that's all behind me know. Full steam ahead, lace-maties!

Yep. It's a FO. The pattern: CO 19 stitches of Tahki cotton classic on size 11 needles. Knit 2 rows. Join a strand of Flutter (or any eyelash row) and knit a couple of rows. Revert to cotton and knit 4 rows, then two rows with Flutter. Repeat (That is 2 rows cotton, 2 rows flutter, 4 rows cotton, 2 rows flutter). This accomplishes a cute little pattern and allows one to get a complete scarf using a 100 yard skein of cotton yarn and a 75 yard skein of novelty yarn.

I hearby dub thee knee-deep-in-sweet-peas. Why? Because I love sweet peas and this, my summer scarf, is sweet like that.

Another project finished! This little bag is designed to match my Crusoe socks (which are in the dirty clothes currently and not fit for company).

When I got back from San Francisco, I had a little finishing party of the 10 billion small projects I had started out of nervous frantic energy before I left. Have I mentioned that flying makes me really, really anxious? 

Ah, here it is, the booty, all 515 yards a skein of its silky, mohair goodness. 

Here I am, about to get booty in San Francisco (notice the yarn shop in the background).