Cold beaches

The weather just can't seem to settle down here.  Last weekend, I spent every minute I could on the back patio, spinning and knitting.  But then, much of the week was gray and stormy - lots of wind and very wet rain (I don't care what anyone says, some rain is just wetter than other rain).  And yesterday, when I went to La Jolla after dropping Older Daughter off at a workshop, it was blustery and cold and the ocean was very big (I don't care what anyone says about that, either - sometimes the ocean is bigger than usual).

See what I mean?  And look at those colors!  Seafoam green, a lovely deep blue-green, froth; all looking ice-cold and whitecaps everywhere.

Those are the colors I'd wear all the time, and surround myself with, if I could.  Cold beaches.  Yup.

It was so cold, even the pelicans weren't doing much in the way of flying.

Look at them all.

So ungainly and dignified at the same time.

So I walked along the shore, watching everyone else, all bundled up, walking along at the same time.  I particularly enjoyed all the parents out with young children, following them along in their boundless energy, heedless of the cold.  I remember exactly what that was like, walking with Older Daughter along the Marina in San Francisco, with Rick's grandmother - as if it were yesterday.  And it struck me suddenly: it does feel like yesterday, but there I was, having just dropped my daughter off at a workshop on seismic engineering at UCSD.  And as inarticulate and dorky as it sounds, all I could think was:

Dude.

When did that happen?  I remember so clearly what it was like when she was barely walking.  Heck, let's be fair - I remember what it was like to be 14, and nervous and scared and doing something new with people I didn't know.  Isn't it odd to carry all of these people inside - each of them an iteration of "me"?

I guess cold ocean air messes with my brain.

Meanwhile, don't those colors look familiar?

The colors in that yarn are actually more saturated than they look in that picture - and are rather like the beach pictures above (the light and dark browns even look like the pelicans).  I think I should call it "cold beach", in fact.  I still don't know what I'm going to make with it, but in the meantime, I did want to show some finished pictures which illustrate that, once dry, it turns out that this yarn did what I'd hoped: the woolen-spun singles puffed out around the worsted-spun singles in quite a nice way.

(The woolen-spun Polwarth singles are the brown-y colors, and the worsted-spun BFL singles are the blue-y ones.)  I'm so pleased that this did what I thought it would do, and did it nicely, to boot.  Overall, the skeins of yarn handle like woolen-spun yarn - very light, and with a lot of bounce and much less drape.  It will be interesting to see how they knit up.

I've been doing some sampling today on my wheel, but I will write more about that next time.  I've also been knitting away on Vitamin D:

I am nearly done with the body.  I just need to cast off, then pick up stitches around the fronts and neck to knit a few garter stitch ridges.  Then it's on to the sleeves.  I'd hoped to knit this as a long-sleeved cardi (it's designed to be 3/4 sleeves), but I'm shorter on yarn than I'd thought.  So now I'm thinking I might do elbow-length sleeves, which could make this a nice transitional piece.  We shall see how it goes.  Once I'm done with the body, I'll weigh the yarn and then see how far that goes on the first sleeve.  I'm not always fond of 3/4 sleeves, so if it looks like I won't make it to my wrists, I'll probably go elbow-length instead.  Ah, the joys of managing yarn supply.

I rather like the radial increases on the yoke; they also are used to make the front panels swingy.  I'm tempted, should I make this an elbow-length sleeve, to do something similar towards the end of the sleeve, to make them a little bell-like.  Again, time will tell.

Meanwhile, dark and stormy seas aside,  I came home to find that Rick had bought these at the farmer's market.  It's clearly spring somewhere!