A shocking blocking

My dog decided to be an asshole and piss all over my laundry bag. This, naturally, led to me scooping up all the clothes in the vicinity and throwing them indiscriminately into the washer.

Imagine my surprise when, idiot me, took the clothes out of the washer, only to discover my Argyle Lace Hat lurking in between the clothes.

This hat, as you recall, was made of fingering-weight merino wool purchased at the state fair in 2009. It's a single-ply, handspun, so not unlike a lot of the felting gods of the knitting world, like Lamb's Pride or Paton's SWS.

In any case, here's what happened.Um...pretty much nothing. It's slightly less poufy, but barely felted at all. The thing is, it feels AMAZING. I never really thought this was of the highest quality merino, it was kind of just...regular wool feeling before. Now it seriously feels like Malabrigo lace merino, among the softest yarn anyone has ever felt. Awesome.
It's like the knitting goddess was like "Hey, I know that was totally an accident caused by an asshole basset, and not knitting disrespect so uh, don't worry. I got your back on this one."
As you can see from the original picture on my project page, I think the lace pattern is even more visible and better looking now. Nice. What have you been up to?

Aggressive lace blocking without a blocking table

I love lace knitting and am (obviously) quite obsessed with fingering/lace weight shawls lately, but I kept running into the issue of how to block it. Safety pins + towel on the floor wasn't really cutting it for something that could (and should) increase in size so much after knitting.

After many a lace shawl became unsatisfactorily blocked using this process, I devised a system for blocking aggressively without investing in a blocking table (or hauling myself down to Target to get a ginormous piece of cardboard to do it on.)

Hence the lawn-as-blocking table technique was born. I tried this a few times, using straight pins, and found that the wind kept knocking the pins out of the ground. Finally, I decided, screw it, I'll just use knitting needles.

Hence, I am now (re)blocking my shawl thusly.

After soaking your shawl in warm water, take a couple of towels outside onto this grass (this really only works when the ground is clean, so obviously as winter comes I'll have to devise something new). Lay them out, covering enough ground to stretch the shawl as far as you want it to go.

Start by stabbing the shawl in the central increases yarn overs, to hold it into place. Then, using straight, metal needles (of which I have many) start placing them in lacy sections of the shawl that you want to stretch. I started by stabbing a few in the corners (since this was a triangular shawl...have yet to make a circular shawl and test this out). Then I started along the top edge and bottom border, placing the needles in places where they wouldn't disrupt the yarn or pattern (such as yarn over holes). I kept doing this around the length of the shawl, till it was in a satisfactory shape and size for my tastes. Lace weight yarn dries *really* quickly in the sun, so I suggest continuing to wet it with a wet washcloth as you go along, so as not to tear the yarn. Since the needles are metal, long, and hard (lol) you can stab them straight through the towel and into the ground far enough to securely hold it in place. This is working infinitely better for me than straight pins on *any* surface has so far.

I took a few pictures, which I'll post tonight, but I wanted to write this out before I forgot. This is so much better than any other method I've done.

New hat, needs, wants, and questions.

So I'm back and I hope I won't have another hiatus from knitting (as well as this blog) for a while. I can at least explain why I haven't been knitting in the past three months. I was working from June to August at a horriblly run summer camp, averaging about ten hours a day. There was no real time to knit during the day, being out in the sun and needing to look after all the little kiddies and by the time I'd get home wadding through an hour of traffic, I was just way to tired to concentrate on mi knits. Pretty sloppy, I know. But I'm back...so yay!


Here's the hat I'm knitting for el bf, Jim, in exchange for his old ipod nano.

I picked out the fibres - cotton (it was june when we shopped for the yarn and I had planned to make that month), he picked out the colors - an earthy palette of brown and green, we picked out the pattern - cocoknits simple slouchy hat, though I'm changing it up a bit. Firstly, due to the massiveness of Jim's head I cast on 90 stitches, which might have been overkill but we'll see. Secondly, I'm striping obviously. Thirdly, I'm not doing the twisted rib throughout it. I did a twisted rib rim then switched to stockinette for fear of how striping would look with the rib. What can I say? I'm a wuss. I will use cocoknits finishing technique though, because I've never seen it before and it doesn't use decreases. I do experiment sometimes! Basically, you turn the hat inside out, divide the stitches in half and use a three needle bind-off on them, then finally whip stitch the corners together. I'm interested in seeing how it'll turn out.

So I feel a lack of heathers in my life. I feel as though it's been years since I worked with heathered yarn. In reality, I think the last time I worked with them was actually in december when I drove back to Philly with MSP_Import before New Year's and I started to knit some convertible mittens. So my need right now is yarn with some pretty heathers in it.

My want is to be faster at knitting. I watched a tutorial today and the host of it was just flying with her continental style. I'm somewhat of an ambidextrous knitter now, though I'm usually english only when the pattern involves any yarnovers, though I can fake them with continental. I just wanna be a super fast knitter like this lady was. I guess I'll just have to keep practicing.

Lastly, here are some questions for this post. One of my works in progress had an accident with something that was red. I have no idea what it was, but it left a huge stain on the lace shawl I was working on. So I was just wondering if you ladies had some tips on getting mystery stains out of your knits? I'd like to finish it, especially because it was intended to be a gift. Any suggestions would be really helpful.

Also, where your knits at?

Please enjoy the music while your party is being reached...

Da da da da do do do do do




Da da da da dee dummm

That is the sound of me impatiently waiting on hold to find out what the hell yinz are knitting.I'm finishing up my test knit lace shawl. Messed up the fifth repeat, and did a (probably very bad idea) k2tog to hide an extra stitch...lets hope I don't regret it later.

In the meantime, please enjoy the drunk dog photo.

Test knits and a dye job

Recently, I test knit a design for a fellow Raveler. It's now up on Ravelry, and Andrew did such a good job photographing the legwarmers I knit, that his photographs are featured on the project page. Check it out here.

I had a lot of fun knitting these legwarmers. They were super easy and portable--the good qualities of socks, except without the annoying heel turning and picking up for gusset blah-blah (OK sue me, I hate sock knitting and only do it because I have enough love in my heart to give them out as gifts). Additionally, they're really stretchy and work over jeans and just on your skin without stupidly falling down (is that some sort of "look" now with legwarmers?). I had realized I needed a pair though, because that's about my only non-sufficiently-covered area when it's super cold (leggings under pants are a start, but not woolen).

Also, I finished working on the Colonnade Shawl in a fingering yarn. I really thought I could figure out a way to make the colorway not look as gross as it did, but I failed. You can see what the colorway looks like here. I had no choice but to resort to grape Kool-Aid. Here's the result of my first venture in dyeing.


This is two parts red Kool-Aid one part purple. The yarn is Serenity Sock which is 50% merino, 25% bamboo and 25% nylon. After doing some research, I found Kool-Aid dyeing doesn't work with synthetics, but nylon is the one exception. It doesn't work on bamboo, but since the bamboo content was low compared to the rest of the materials, I decided to go for it. I like the result a loooot more than the original colors. Serenity sock is quite cheap and feels pretty nice, but damn if those colorways aren't ugly. The good news is that it takes dye well.

This image, I think, makes it look more pinky-purple, whereas it's almost got a copper tinge to it (more like the first photo). Either way though...WAY better than that pink-green vomit mess.


I also realized I hadn't uploaded a picture of my Multnomah. Count 'em--2 finished shawls in fingering weight yarn. I'm a friggin' champ.

1. Check out that hair on me, eh?

2. This is another yarn that's difficult to photograph. This is Malabrigo Sock (probably my favorite yarn, ever, for the colors) in Abril. It's more purple in real life (like the one where I'm wearing it) but for some reason the blue really pops when it's photographed. Either way, we all know I'm a total whore for blues and purples, so there you go.


GRATUITOUS IMAGE AHEAD:
My dog is so cute.

Common sense

Common sense is not the strong point of Minnesotans. This is a lesson I learned incredibly early on in my time here. When confronted with an issue, if a solution is not smacking-them-in-the-face obvious, Minnesotans are likely to become paralyzed with an inability to act. They think the situation is simply unchangeable.

I think this comes from their roots as a mostly Scandinavian culture. You may find this shocking, considering the novelty of Scandinavian knitting. However, I believe there is an inherent inability to adapt. Unlike, say, the Somali population of Minneapolis. Talk about adaptation there. War-torn north African "country" with requisite weather, to America's icebox, Minnesota, home of the "Minnesota nice" never-offend mentality. And yet, all the Somalis I've met seem to just be carrying on with it.

Scandinavians, however, when confronted with the possibility of emigrating, did what? Chose the part of the country that is exactly like their homeland. No judgment or anything. But I'm just saying that's not exactly a creative choice.

Anyway, for an example, even just today, I walked into Andrew hand washing clothes in the bathtub. He was continuously dunking a deoderant-stained shirt into the water, pathetically repetitively plunging it in and out of the water, as though it would suddenly remove the stain or exposure to air would smooth the process along. I noted, "You need to scrub that off."

"With what, though?? I don't have anything." See? No immediate solution (as in, nothing sitting directly next to him that would have accomplished the task) followed by immediate paralysis of action. I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a new sponge and handed it to him. Presto! Stain gone.

This, unfortunately, is so culturally embedded, that even a no-nonsense, blue-collar 'get it done' type of girl like me can occasionally be afflicted. I spent way too much time on Ravelry today, admiring a cropped cardigan pattern I liked. I seriously contemplated what yarn I could use and then wanted to download the pattern. It was $6.50. As I'm trying to be frugal, this was not going to work. I spent about 20 minutes mentally reconstructing it in my head. "Oh, I could do that if I find the stitch pattern online..."

Then, hours later, I realized, "Hey, Krista, you're super into the idea of a cropped cardigan right now. And you're actually considering (un)designing one. Don't you um...have a half finished cropped cardigan in your stash?"

Oh yes, that's right. My featherweight. Common sense. I'm losing it. Help.

An open letter to crochet.

Dear Crochet,

I have been extremely proud of myself over the past year and half, for being bi-crafty. I shunned discussions which pitted knitting versus crochet. True, I had learned knitting first, and it was my first love. But, I found knowledge of only one way of manipulating yarn to be unsatisfactory. I was practically entirely self taught in crochet; that's how eager I was to learn.

Granted, I never did as *much* crocheting as I did knitting. I always assumed this was due to taking a class which required us to knit, on top of the larger quantities of patterns available for knitting garments as opposed to crochet.

Still, I made my mother a lovely scarf out of crochet, and was amazed at how fast it went. I know, I'm a slow knitter and could really stand to work on my technique, but crochet! So fast! So easy! Soon, I was even making a crocheted purse. A purse! This is something I still haven't done with knitting (though some lovely patterns have caught my eye). And then, shockingly, my first garment was a crocheted shirt, which I still wear (though I should have seen the warning signs coming when the sleeves were fussy).

I also should have maybe allowed the unconscious thoughts I was having--man most crocheted things look really tacky, or wow this hook is just not doing it for me like needles--to come to the forefront, but I was hell-bent on not being discriminatory.

Crochet, you are supposed to be here for me after all that. When I need a last minute gift, I need you there to help me whip up something pretty in no time. Knitting is labor and time intensive. You have that on it. Stand proud!

So why, oh why, is this hat taking me for-fucking-ever? This birthday was weeeeeks ago. I have never entered a black hole of crochet; that's reserved for knitting.

And then today, I come back to it, thinking I'll finish it off. I even reflected on how pretty the Mulberry Merino looked in double crochet...I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. My gauge is off, but it's crocheting smaller than the original pattern. Should be fine. And the pattern calls for "Less than 3 oz of worsted weight yarn" and I have two skeins of 1.76 oz each. Perfect.

SO WHY THE FUCK DID I NOT EVEN GET 1/4 OF THE WAY THROUGH THIS #@#&*^& HAT BEFORE ALMOST RUNNING OUT OF YARN?!

Now I not only look like a terrible friend, but you've knotted up some expensive yarn for fucking nothing. Good job, crochet, good job. Oh, and you're taking forever on top of that.

That's it. I'm done. Crocheting looks completely tacky 99.9% of the time, and it's not worth it for that .01% of the time. Know why? BECAUSE I COULD JUST FUCKING KNIT IT AND HAVE IT LOOK JUST AS GOOD OR BETTER!

I said it. I'm a knitter. Fuck crochet.

I'm out.
Krista

Glasses chic hits knits?

There are few things more annoying to me than people who wear glasses without lenses or prescriptions because they look cool.Having a disability isn't something you can put on and take off to look hot or perpetuate some ridiculous stereotype about women in glasses being restrained and conservative--until the right guy comes along and they take it all off!!

Apparently that's the new thing for knitting though now too.

For example, I give you this, this, and this. That's just from fall's Knitscene. I would *maybe* believe the models wore glasses if they weren't so inauthentically posing with them in every photo. Classic sign of douchey glasses wearing. Vogue Knitting also got into the trend, but unfortunately I can't get the site to work now. Suffice it to say, it's annoying. (Rav link here)

I can't see when I wake up in the morning and I'm infinitely more susceptible to macular degeneration and blindness. My consolation is that my glasses are a cool design.

Myopia: So hot right now.Krista is not amused.

Summertime ...

So a life update:
My thesis is so far, quite neglected...I've re-written the beginning 948234983 times and can't get happy with it. Le sigh.

I might....*might*....be getting a job offer soon. Cross your fingers for me to be the next linguist making language software.

We are just about fully moved into the new apartment. I love it. I have never taken to a place so quickly. There is just something about finally having my own own place that I don't have to move out of in a year, that I don't have to share with people I don't know very well or whose stuff is not my own. I love the neighborhood. I can still walk to the yarn shop. The bus route is super close. I live across the street from a bar and within blocks of two parks that will be used for outdoor knitting when the rain stops.

What's really been occupying my time though...
Here's Poochner. He's such a sweetie, and best of all, doesn't try to eat yarn and let's me dress him up in knitting with no complaints.

If it weren't for this miserable bout of shingles (self-diagnosed due to doctors being assholes) which is kind of debilitating in a lot of ways, I could honestly say that this is one of the happiest points in my life. Which is great because even two weeks ago I wasn't anywhere near saying that. And it's even better, because shingles goes away eventually :)

Second hand yarn

Here's my second hand yarn I bought from Savers. I usually give a cursory glance to the yarn at Savers, finding it usually to be half-used up skeins of Red Heart acrylic. However, I hit the jackpot when I was there the other day. I got two bags of yarn for $2.99 each. Only one skein was a Red Heart acrylic. The rest, while certainly used up, are all natural wools according to the burn test, with the exception of the black skein in the back, which is cotton. The yellow skein is the only one that has a label; it's Cascade 220. The orange ball, if I know my wools, is most definitely Berocco Peruvia. They're all worsted/aran. The greens/brown would probably make a nice striped hat. I'd like to make some kind of black and white striped shawl out of the others, but who knows?
Anyway, second hand rocks. We're getting all of our furniture for the new apartment that way. Goodwill just gave me a near brand new armchair for ten bucks. Hurrah!

Laceweight update day ? and designing thoughts

I updated my Ravelry page today with some new project photos. Among them, are Steph's mitts, which I cast on for last night. I hope she likes the design, bc it's a really cool construction and I don't often get the chance to do something different on DPNs besides boring stockinette and stuff.

The pattern is the Nautilus Mitts. They are worked by casting on 6 stitches and increasing. Then, doing the same for the palm of the mitten, stitching them together, and working a garter edging for the top and bottom. Cool.
This is also my first time using a linen blend yarn. It's 50/50 cotton and it feels really cool. I expected it to be stiffer, but its quite smooth. I think it'll feel nice on her hands. Also, the yarn is totally cool (in the literal sense) so it won't be awkward to wear them during the summer. Hopefully, I can finish these puppies up today or so. Shouldn't take long. Speaking of which though, Zindrizzle, email me your address so I can get them out to you.

Laceweight Progress:

I've been working off and on between this, Devin's socks (one of which is blocking and appears to have grown to a normal human size), Steph's mitts, and the scarf design of Andrew and I.

As you can see, the laceweight is huge for laceweight. I mean, we're talking about someone who has never got past 4 rows of laceweight previously. For the life of me I can't get a camera to accurately represent the color of this yarn. Suffice it to say it's greener than it looks above. I'd call it mint or something, but Water Green works I guess. I'm almost done with the increase, then I'll probably do the sleeves (on 9" circulars!!!) as per some ravelers' suggestions, because then I can make the body as long as I feel like without worrying about the sleeves being too short. (Also, I'm semi opposed to knitting sleeves with a full sweater on the needles--too heavy.)

Finally, here's my designing so far:
It basically looks like a sloppy, sloppy mess. Way too many stitches for the thickness of the yarn. However, I just got to the decrease section of the pattern, so I'm hoping this means that I can still see whether or not my planned decreases will give me the desired effect. The chart appears to be working well with the mirrored instructions I gave for it. However, once I finish this swatch, I can tell that seaming up the bottom is going to make it way too thick. Therefore, assuming I get the decreases/increases to work, if I actually submit this pattern as a design, I'm definitely going to consider doing it in fingering or sport yarn. That should be interesting, because I rarely see fair-isle patterns at that small of a gauge, especially for scarves. I've already discovered some problems with the stitch count, so if either of you want to swatch along with me, let me know and I'll tell you what needs changed.

Designing

I decided that since I'm not doing anything this lovely Memorial Day weekend, I'm going to work on the scarf design that Andrew and I concocted while I was still in the horribleness that was the winter and the education program. I was too stressed and sad at the time to really feel motivated by creativity, but Andrew designed the chart and I did manage to write out some written instructions for it. Which is good, because I probably wouldn't remember at this point what I had intended it to be like.

So I busted out some testing acrylic yarn, in a purple and white, and I'm going to just go through the chart one time to see if it works. I *feel* like it should, but who knows with knitting. If you ladies would like to give it a try now too, that'd be cool.

I'll post a progress report on the laceweight soon. I finished up one of the socks I was knitting, since I was really close and it was cooler today. It's a little small, but hopefully it'll block bigger. Otherwise uh, I guess it'll be for me. The laceweight is looking fantastic though. Almost done with the 31 increase repeat section.

Little Arrowhead Shawwwwl

My goal is to make this:

turn in to this:

using this pattern and this (Classic Silk) yarn.

I like the way the yarn feels. It has this rustic quality to it. I'm hoping after I block the shawl, it'll look more like the picture from the pattern. We shall see.

Clapotis 2

I realized I hadn't done a post about my second Clapotis, in which I used Noro Silk Garden.
Like I say in my project notes, I had 5 skeins of 1 dye lot, and 1 skein of another. Because I'm weird like that.

What I did to prevent it from seeming weird, was knit in the pattern with one full skein of the original dye lot, knit using a quarter of the odd-ball skein, then one full original dye lot, and so forth. I think it adds random spikes in the color that are pretty effective. At the very end, I used a tiny bit of yarn from my handwarmers I made out of Silk Garden. It's a weird collection of colors, but I like it. I had put in a lifeline, but figured, ah, what the hell? and I finished out with the old yarn (thank goodness I'm a yarn packrat). However, I would still suggest putting in a life line (I did for both Clapotises that I did) in case you're worried about running out of yarn. Since this is knit on the bias, it's a huge pain in the ass to try to figure out what the row looks like (they're crooked.) Ask me how I know this...

I wear this everywhere. It's a great summer shawl; bright colors, incorporates some of my old favorites plus some colors I usually avoid. Love it. It's warm, but not too warm.

Anyway, on to the photos!

This is my favorite way to wear this. I like the wrong side better. As you can see, I chose not to block this one. I like the waviness of it (actually, that's where the name of this pattern comes from, it's a French word which means wavey or something similar.)






Here she is in all her glory, very long and showing the range of colors. As you can see, it's long enough to just grab and wrap around my shoulders, or do the layering thing like I have above. Yay.


This is the right side of it. Also very pretty.

Laceweight progress report Day 2: Zen

So perhaps this is too early for me to start my high praising of this project...But...1.) As you can see, I more than doubled the size of this in less than a day. The thing is...
2.) Once I got the hang of working with this yarn...I kind of....really liked it.
3.) I can't talk highly enough of this yarn. It's just so...soft...and...pretty. Le sigh. I think this may be working out so well (in case you didn't see on the pattern, this is laceweight yarn, but it's knit on size six needles) because I happened to have the yarn the pattern was written for in my stash. It creates an extremely light, open fabric that is beautiful to feel (has impressed even the most oblivious of non-knitter friends of mine) and doesn't feel stupidly warm in your hands. I was so impressed, I accidently...
4.) Spent a stupid amount of money on a new laceweight yarn. I was buying yarn for Zindrizzle and felt selfish and shit and bought some for myself. However...
5.) Since it was 1200 yards, I got to have my first experiences using a ball winder. Fun! Too bad the lady at the yarn store said those puppies run around 100some dollars. That'll be a present for rich-Krista some day.
6.) Don't you wish I could get my camera to work again so we wouldn't have crappy cell phone pictures?
7.) What're y'all knitting?

Laceweight progress report Day 1

This is what I have so far.I would estimate this to be about the work put into an episode of Chuck and an episode of Bones. It's going to be a long, long time before this is a cardigan.

However, the color is super cute and the yarn is incredibly soft. Though that probably means it'll pill a lot.

Always look on the bright side of life...

I will not be defeated.

In the name of all things hol(e)y I swear that lace weight yarn shall not defeat me (did you see what I did there?)

I have had no success, ever, with finishing a project in either fingering or lace weight yarn. It's truly one of the most embarrassing aspects about my knitting. I have progressed extremely rapidly. Less than a year and a half ago, I was barely remembering how to cast on. Now I'm knitting full size, fair isle cardigans and complicated lace and stuff. I have good spatial skills (thanks, GATE), so I can imagine the construction of entrelac. Even intarsia doesn't scare me, though I have yet to find a pattern that interests me in it.

But fucking lace weight yarn. I have seriously like 6 skeins of it. And nothing to do with it. I am embarrassed. I can't tell if it's just boredom. Or laziness. Or what. But it's going to end here.

Yes, clearly I have several other things that need to be finished. But before you get all "how many projects do you have on the needles, Krista?" I'll tell you that it is 90 degrees here and really, really fucking humid. So I think I am justified in abandoning this heavy sweater I'm knitting, the socks for a friend's birthday (made of thick wool--I shudder to even pick them up) and my Saroyan, also in a thick Peruvian wool.

So I think a summer cardigan is what I need. Thin, non-hot yarn. This pattern just so happens to use exactly the amount of the exact same yarn I have. In this color.

I WILL DO THIS!

So the theme for these knits is stashbusting my acrylic yarns. I have entirely too much from the days when I knew nothing about yarn. Otherwise known as the days before ravelry. These knits have afforded me the ability to try out some new things without worrying that I've wasted the expensive yarn I blew my last paycheck on. Maybe it's a good thing the knitting store in town went out of business a couple of months ago.



Naturally the first thing I chose to knit was a scarf....my ultimate favorite knitting even after eight years.


I knit this hat in the same yarn. They kind of make a set.











The other big project that I finished is something I started two years ago, right before I visited Krista in France. It feels good to finally have it off the needles. I gave it to my Grandmother. She loves it...I think.




That is all for now.

A little sick of this all...

I don't know why I wasn't lucky enough to have these flying "perks" from my uncle's job back in the heyday of flying standby, but all I know is that I have it now and it sucks.
My uncle gets on me every time I buy a ticket when I come home from Minneapolis, but then when I take his advice and fly standby, this happens. I have been bumped from 3 flights out of Chicago thus far.
It is almost 11am in Chicago...I have been awake since three o'clock in the morning!

I have been relatively assured that I'll get on the flight at 1pm today. I hope so. I just want out of this airport. I'm having slight PTSD-like flashbacks of the horror that was spending time in this airport before I went to France and spent 12 hours here...then flew 6 hours to Paris...then spent 8 hours in the airport there. *Shudder*...

Did I mention that when you fly standby, just to add insult to injury, they make you dress up? So I'm actually wearing nylons right now, and a wool skirt. Ick. (not even knit by me, so don't ask)

Oh and they like to overbook flights because that's fun. So it's always great to hear about who's getting a $400 voucher to take your standby spot on the next flight.

In knitting related news though, I was allowed all of my knitting needles on the plane. I've been too tired to focus on anything to knit though. I brought my Saroyan, with the Stitch Nation yarn I bought while at home to try (love the color) and the Caterpillar-Stitch Pullover that I've been working on forever. This is all part of a concerted (and by that I mean, recent, potentially not gonna last) effort on my part to reduce WIPs. By my count (in my head, not viewing my stash) I have 2 fingering yarn projects at home (shawl and scarf) this pullover, and the Saroyan. I have been really misbehaving with fingering weight yarn and have yet to complete anything with it (unless the Argyle Lace Hat counts, but that's debatable, it may have been sport weight).

Oh did I mention you have to pay $7 for wireless here? Wtf? Why is Pittsburgh, the tiniest airport I fly into, the only one I've ever been in that offered free wireless?? Get with the program Philly/Chicago et al.

Ok that's enough.
Btw...I have no classes ever again.
/rant

**The hat I made to barter for art. Post will be forthcoming**

New hat, plus some tragedy.

This hat is really pretty. It's Argyle Lace, it's lovely, the buttons are adorable, it fits me perfect. Just enough slouch, just enough shape. Beautiful, naturally white yarn. Merino. No serious errors. I love it.

I was feeling so good about stash-busting my yarn, I went through and picked out this yarn I had bought at Rogers in Ohio. Mohair and wool blend. I was doing the wraps per inch test, I had all my knitting magazines laying around because I was finding a pattern. I was getting close to choosing one, too.

Then, tragedy struck. I can't even explain it all over again, but suffice it to say, yarn is dead. Read about it here.

May it rest in peace.

Re-do hat

I did the Argyle Lace Hat as my first post, but decided to frog it since I thought the yarn would be better suited for this.
So I'm redoing it again with the white state fair yarn. Should be good.

I'm currently....

making a hat (that I will be bartering for art) and reading life of Pi.

I'm also in the midst of making this:

The sweetheart top by LanaKnits. What's interesting about this pattern (and all of their designs) is that it's knit side to side rather than bottom to top. It's all done in garter too, to make a more flattering verticle pattern. 

Hopefully, I'll get all my in progress knits done and be able to do a fashion show too. I'm also hoping to yarn bomb my bicycle, so I hope I can have pics of that up soon too.

I hope all your current knitting projects are going fabulously! 

I am a dumbass.

Title says it all. Can't read instructions while watching conspiracy films about JFK's assassination. Forgot to drop stitches on both sides of decreases in Clapotis...

Must...take scissors...to knits...

Grad school paper

Noro shawl is almost done, and I may or may not have cast on for Cloudy Sunday.

I'll try to get a picture of the shawl tomorrow if I finish. It's already too dark to get a good natural light picture.

Anyway, I just wanted to drop in and mention that I referenced our blog and posts and knitting at large in a graduate school paper I wrote. It's available online here. Let me know what you think!

A+

Dilemma

Ugh...ladies....

Cloudy Sunday or Que Sera next?

Cloudy Sunday would be knit in Lamb's Pride Bulky (mohair/wool) in Oregano, which is an army greenish color.

Que Sera would be in Peaches & Creme (cotton) also in a greenish color, but more plant-colored.

Oh, the decisions we make.

Also, I need a job.

ALAS, ladies

Here are the long awaited photos of all the knits I've been working on. Well, not all, but the highlights.

The Cabled Kanga Tunic, at long last, is wearable. I skipped the pockets in the front because they were a pain in the ass, and this thing is huge enough without adding more stitches onto it. Unfortunately, weight loss and gauge issues mean that this only fits with a belt around the waist, but I think it looks cute n'est-ce pas? This is also the worst photo of the bunch (light was low) so maybe I'll work on getting a better one. Onward!

Here's my Indigo Banded Cardigan from the cover of the fall 2009 Knitscene. This was a fast, enjoyable knit, and also my first experience with short-row shaping on something other than socks. It's still a little wonky-looking, so I think I'm going to iron it into place. Both this and the tunic are knit out of Berroco Peruvia, a GREAT yarn and verrry warm. Also, good for the price.

Here's the face for Stephanie.

And this is me smizing for Tyra.

My overall verdict is that this is an A+ knit.

Ensuite: The long-awaited Emerald Isle Cardigan, the epic fail of seaming, the one that started it all in the realm of finished clothing pieces. This is Berroco Ultra Alpaca, another good deal for the yardage. As you can see, I managed to soften out the fail seams, and subsequent washings have made them barely noticeable. Good news for people who manage to somehow have great stitch definition and follow directions well, and fail on simple sewing. This is easily the most versatile of large pieces that I've made. You could basically wear this with dress pants and a collared shirt, or jeans and a t-shirt (and I have.)
(Please ignore the toilet in the background) Muchas gracias to Craig for the buttons!

Finally, some smaller pieces. From the second I saw Andrea's shawl, I knew I had to make it, and I wear it all the time. It's made from Blue Sky Alpaca Sport which is unbearably soft. I loved making this yarn, and I really enjoyed going away from my usual bright color pallette to make something kind of Victorian and simple. It's simply gorgeous.

My hat is another version of the Star-Crossed Sloucy Beret because I lost my original. I'm not crazy about the color, so I'll probably give it away to anyone who would look better in a white hat than me. Any takers?



Here's my awesome, awesome "dress" scarf as I call it. It's a version of the Clapotis, smaller obviously. It's such a great pattern because it shows off yarn without being too simple, and it being knit on the bias makes the slight variagations in the yarn show up even cooler. I love it, and I love Tilli Tomas's silk yarns. I can't wait to pair this with a black dress and go out some night.








And finally...just for fun, because I know you're all curious.....



Hot tat!

Hasta pronto, my ladies.

Forthcoming post

So Andrew and I finaaaally busted out the camera and did a fashion show with all of my new knits. Of course, we had to pause for a little while to watch the drug bust happening outside our apartment, which means some of the later pictures might have bad lighting.
I'll post those tonight when he's done with work.
I'm currently working on another Clapotis, this time, stole-size in Noro Silk Garden. I'll get a picture up as soon as I'm done.
Just got the pattern for Cloudy Sunday to use my bulky yarn up in my stash. Very excited.
Also I got some Misti Alpaca lace weight which I hope to make into a Citron once Carl teaches me maths so I can make it bigger.
Well, time to head to the coffee shop to keep Andrew company and um...do homework. Hasta pronto!

Cabled Feather Cowl

I made the Cable Feathered Cowl with Borroco Alpaca yarn as a present to a professor who helped me out with some recommendations for grad school. 

Here's a few pics of it:

It came out a little longer than I expected, but I still think it's nice. However, after conditioning it, I find it still smells like my conditioner. I think I may need to invest in some fabreeze before I send it off, haha.

Adorable

This just sort of made my day in its adorableness.

By the way, camera is up and working again (hopefully!) and so I can catch you up in all my backlogged projects-ing. A bientot!

An easy crochet project and some pom poms.

I thought this was pretty neat and should hopefully create some new crocheters out there. Do you have a tutorial you'd like to record and post?