some good things

1. any carrie brownstein/sleater kinney fans out there? i found out the other day that carrie now has a blog on the npr website. i love her, so this excites me greatly.

2. i ordered this on amazon this week. i'm picturing lots of evenings knitting in front of the tv in my future (as if that's not what i already do every night, but still...yay!)

3. i also ordered a beardy man print from ashley g, after spotting it on the design*sponge blog. i love those beardy men! (can you tell i just got paid and have money burning a hole in my pocket...?)

4. i started some noro silk garden lite socks this week, and they are flying along. the first one is done! they're my first toe-up socks, and i don't know if it's just the fact that i'm knitting them on size 4 needles or what, but toe-up seems so much faster! i think it's psychological...the foot part is always what seems to take the longest for me with socks, so getting that out of the way first seems so liberating. i'm so much in love with these socks.



i knit the foot slightly too long, but otherwise, it's really cute!

kubota garden, and a finished drops jacket

this weekend we went to kubota garden. i'd never been before, and it's hard to believe this huge, beautiful spot is just a 15-minute drive from where we live. the japanese maples were flaming red, and all of the other plants were in the midst of their downward decay into winter-ness, which i think is so beautiful. i'm eager to visit the garden again in winter, spring and summer; if it's half as gorgeous as it is in the fall, i feel i'll be going back many, many times. here are a LOT of pictures!

























i also used our visit to kubota garden as a backdrop for taking pictures of my drops jacket, which i finished early last week. i didn't really get any good shots, but here is one, plus another one in my living room.





pattern: drops jacket
yarn: rowan yorkshire tweed chunky in damp, exactly seven balls
needles: size 11 denise needles
buttons: vintage plastic

as excited as i initially was about this project, i ended up feeling disappointed in the end result, and feeling like i should have known better than to use such a chunky yarn. my disappointment is two-fold: i think the finished sweater is way too bulky and wildly unflattering, and also, the finishing of the sweater turned out very poorly. i shouldn't have used the chunky yarn to seam the sweater, but i did, resulting in very bulky seams. also, the yarn kept breaking! i liked the yorkshire tweed though - the tweediness itself is beautiful, and it created a soft fabric. i will probably still wear this as a house sweater, and maybe occasionally out. it's very warm, and it does have those cute vintage buttons working in its favor! at least i feel like i learned some valuable lessons with this sweater. next time will be better!

now that the drops jacket is done, i'm back to work on the back-to-school u-neck, and have also started three (!) other projects. i'll show those off, plus some pretty new yarn, later this week!

Handmade Holidays -- 30 Days of Gifts to Sew

have you all heard about the sew, mama, sew project that's going on in the month of november? i'm super duper excited about it (yes, super duper!). every day in november, sew, mama, sew will post tutorials for a different handmade gift. today, kicking off november, is aprons. i never do too well at cranking out loads of knitted gifts each year, but sewing? i think can probably do a little better with that. i was already planning to make a lunch bag for someone, so i especially look forward to that tutorial, but i'm also interested in the baby items and household items.

what do you plan to make for holiday gifts this year?