Photos of the Month: Following a Year-Long Project

I could start this post with what actually is the photo of the month, but instead, I'm going to put that photo at the end, and trace the progress of a knitting project across almost the whole of 2017.

The project started in early February with a big ol' pile of yarn. Most of the yarn was purchased with a 2016 birthday gift certificate, so thanks are due to Nancy, Jan and Pat for their generous gift.

I cast on Jared Flood's pattern, Grettir, on February 10th and by early March, I had the start of two sleeves:

In mid-March, the sleeves had grown some.

A week later, the sleeves were finished and I cast on the body of the sweater.

Almost two months passed, mostly filled with knitting on other projects, but in mid-May, I finally reached the colorwork.

It turns out that I like colorwork a lot more than plain stockinette, so the yoke progressed quickly from this point, despite the addition of many more stitches when I joined the sleeves to the body.

And not long after the colorwork was finished, so was the whole sweater.

Except it wasn't...

Over two months passed, with no activity on this project, but finally, on September first, this happened:

Yep, that is me, cutting a steek. But first, my dear friend, Martha, reinforced the stitches on either side of the steek on her sewing machine. She also basted the edges of the five stitches added for the steek—that's the white yarn you see in the photo.

There was still more that needed to be done to turn the sweater into a cardigan, but first, I just had to try it on.

And it fit!

Next, I followed that white yarn that Martha put in on either side of the steek stitches and picked up stitches for the button band.

After getting the button band knitted, I practiced the two-row buttonhole technique—from Anne Hanson's excellent Craftsy class, Button Bands and Buttonholes—on a swatch, and I even sewed  buttons on that swatch. I opted for a slightly narrower button band than the one on my swatch, a great reason to swatch before knitting the real thing on your sweater. Here is a photo showing my swatch and two of my buttons. I purchased six of them three years ago at Danforth Pewter in Middlebury, Vermont. I've been waiting for just the perfect project to use them.

Finally, in November, I sewed on the last button, sewed ribbon onto the inside of the button bands to cover the steeked edges, and blocked my cardigan. I even took it with me on our annual Thanksgiving trip to the East Coast., and wore it several times, including on Thanksgiving, when Dave took this photo of me.

If you would like more details—and more photos—follow the link to my project page on Ravelry:  Colorwork Challenge Cardigan.

September Photo of the Month: The View from the Top

Isn't this view spectacular? I hiked to the  top of Hurricane Hill in Olympic National Park. I was looking north, at 5,700 feet. You can see Unicorn Peak, the city of Port Angeles, Washington, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and on the far shore, Vancouver Island and the city of Victoria, British Columbia. I took this photo with my iPhone.

July Photo of the Month: Infinity Mirrors

My favorite photo of the month didn't happen until the very last day of July, when I went with my friend, Stephanie, to the Yayoi Kusama exhibit, Infinity Mirrors at the Seattle Art Museum. The whole exhibit was mind-blowingly amazing, and I took several photos of the wonders I saw. This photo is my favorite.

The exhibit is in Seattle until September 10. It will be in Los Angeles this fall, and then in Toronto, Cleveland and Atlanta in 2018. If you live near any of these cities, don't miss it!

June Photo of the Month: Shining Sea

Looking west toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Deception Pass State Park. I took this photo with my point-and-shoot camera, a Canon SX620 HS. I got this camera for my birthday in March and it takes fantastic photos, as you can see. This is one of my best so far.

May Photo of the Month: Stretching to the Horizon

It's kind of ironic that I am just now posting this quintessentially spring-like photo in mid-June, just days from the summer solstice. My excuse is that spring was really late in the Pacific Northwest, and the annual tulip festival in the Skagit Valley, which usually happens in April, actually stretched into the first week of May this year.

I took this photo on May 2nd, one of the few dry and sunny days we had that week. We were at Roozengaarde, and after wandering in the display gardens, Mr. D and I took a short walk over to the breathtaking tulip fields, where this photo was taken. Tulips almost as far as the eye can see—perfection!

April Photo of the Month: The Peace of Evening

I spent more than half of April on a road trip to California, and, as a result, there were many candidates for Photo of the Month, just from the trip. I'll be sharing some of those photos in an upcoming blog post, but here is the photo that I finally decided to post as the April Photo of the Month.

That is Morro Rock—in Morro Bay, of course—with the afterglow of sunset behind it. Truly a peaceful scene!

March Photo of the Month (So late, so sorry): Rain on Red

I have been traveling since April 4th, so this is really, really late. March was especially characterized by rain, rain, rain, but there were also some signs of early spring. This lovely Hellebore was in full bloom in early March, and despite the rain, it was a welcome sight.

February Photo of the Month: Impressionist Dawn

I just couldn't decide on a February photo to share with you, so I'm a little late. I had two great photos from Stitches West, which will show up later this month, and I also had some knitting photos that I particularly liked. But this was a month of spectacular sunrises, and I caught quite a few of them. This one was my favorite, taken on February 14th.

January Photo of the Month: Goodbye, Minnesota

That's St. Paul down below, and it was my last glimpse of Minnesota before the plane moved up above the clouds and headed west toward Seattle. This is a totally lucky shot. No dirty airplane window, perfect positioning of the wing, and the amazing layout of streets and snow below. This came straight out of my point-and-shoot camera, with no editing needed.