Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Post 49

Spring is in the air! We had a wonderful snow last tuesday, I remember it well because is was bad enough to skip SNB, but unfortunately/fortunately the temp. has gone up high enough to commence the great melt. So on the knitting front. Cookie has decided to name the sock I knit for her, Mona, in honor of my beloved little doggy. I guess it helped that she miss wrote the chart and the hourglass shape did not look at all like an hour glass. I'm so excited for her, I've seen a couple of the socks and they are awesome, she goes far beyond all the other designers when she writes her patterns, she puts in interesting details and multiple sizes. Knitting her sample sock has got me hooked on lace socks so I'm working on this from the Traveling Socks book by Nancy Bush, I don't have it in front of me so I'm not sure of the title but it's the white sock in it, albeit a little shorter. The yarn is the rubysapphire.com yarn that I got from secretpal, she was overly generous and sent me two skeins. I don't need two skeins of this stuff, at 500 yards each, that's alot of sock yarn, so I contacted the ladies in Florida who dye and sell it and they were kind enough to allow me to exchange one of the ones I got for another color, so tadaa....this is the yarn for my next sock project...it is so pretty and I'venever seen this kind of colorway done before in sock yarn. I do wish the yarn was superwash. I've been working on the blue yarn whle waiting for my package from Knitpicks that contain the Palette Fair Cardigan supplies, and and Cookie, I bought the needles to start the Sarcelle! So ha! Anyhoo, the new Intereweave is out and I'm not sure what I think about the format, I didn't really have a problem with it before, just the photo quality was not the best. I love looking for mistakes in photographed knitting, you know, twisted stitches and pattern mistakes, so how about this one, looks all innocent and all, but take alook at the toe, the whole is so big the big toe is bound to pop out eventually. So I hear that YarnHarlot is going to be in NYC at FIT at the end of March. I talked to my friend Linda and we're talking about representing Chicago, maybe, it really depends on her schedule, and why not, the airfare is so cheap. It would be fun.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Post 48


One should not be rushed to finish a pair of socks because the laundry hasn't been done. Then again, if I weren't busy knitting socks I would be doing the laundry...Well Cookie's Monkey socks feature in Knitty.com are done, and in the ugliest colorway ever, some yarn I won at the Dulaan knit-in. I find myself in a strange place, I have no projects to work on, thank goodness I'm knitting a sample sock for Cookie, she's got some great patterns coming out soon, so who knows maybe there's a Sock-O-Rama book....So my big decision is do I find a pattern to suit some yarn I already have, a beautiful burgundy colorway from a frogged sweater, I do I finally break down and buy the KnitPicks Palette Fair Isle Cardigan kit...am I ready for Fair Isle? Those Bohus sweaters I'm seeing floating around are looking really nice too.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Post 47

Hey, two days in a row, must be a waning moon out there! Actually I figured since I was online listing some more ebay yarn that I should post here too. Yesterday was a blast, no I didn't watch the game, ok well, maybe the halftime show, was I the only waiting for Prince to be electricuted with all that rain? Anyhoo, I went out, did not find the tea kettle of my dreams yet, but did pick up some lovely rosewood 4's, got home, popped in West Wing season 4 and was off knitting another Amelia Earhart hat in Manos. This is what it looks like with the matching scarf. I love this hat and on the size 4's it is perfect, it has a nice shape, fits great, just in time for the damn cold!

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Post 46

It is friggin cold here in Chicago! I wouldn't mind it so much if it were snowing, then it would be worth it. On the other hand, the extreme coldness has taught my dog to go VERY fast, no sniffing around for a good spot, I am very pleased by this. Anyhoo, Secret Pal 9 is over and I got the loveliest gift my SP9, sock yarn and in the prettiest blue colorway hand-dyed in Orlando (um, they wear socks in Florida?), I like supporting the little ma and pa home based businesses, great shopping. The package also came with the cutest little key ring with a mini twist of yarn attached that I'm totally going to rip off and try to make some to sell at my LYS. This package was perfect timing as I had just gotten rid of some yarn on ebay, I decided to destash some stuff that I have and never will use. Some fool of a knitter paid be 24 bucks for a skein of Socks That Rock in Medium weight, when I got it for 21! Every since I bought the skein I regretted it, it was ugly and bright, not my colors at all, well happy knitting to you ebay purchaser, I made a 3 dollar profit! Also got rid of some Lorna's Laces bulky and worsted, one I won at the opening of a new LYS and the other at a mill end sale, I was going to make a dog sweater out of it until I realized that it was too sherberty-cute for me, which of course was its name, Sherbert, ugh, so I made a nice little profit and that batch too. I did something stupid a couple of weeks ago, one of my LYS was having a big 70% off sale and I actually found enough yarn, 17 balls of the same thing, which is amazing, usually these sales have only one or two balls of the same dye lot, so I bought it. It really was very pretty yarn, but when I knitted it up I realized that only a house wife in Dallas would wear this, it was not good, so I sold it too, came out even, and the lucky winner got yarn worth 175 bucks for only 55! I came away with more space in my yarn organizer and less guilt. Now about guilt, well two of my friends have knitted up the My So Called Scarf pattern, which I have long loved and never made, and do I really need another scarf, yes, it's cold here, so I went out and bought yarn for it. I would really have liked to find a color in Malabrigo to use (its made of merino wool and soooo soft it feels like cotton) but nothing matched my hot pink coat, so I settled for two skeins of Manos Del Uruguay, in a color way I love so much, it actually is the one used in the pattern. So I've knitted up the first skein, and the scarf is a decent size, I don't want it to be one of those super long scarfs, and though, 'MATCHING HAT!', well I've waited all weekend for the FIMS to be up so I can print the Amelia Earhart pattern. I must have thrown away the copy I used for the first hat I made from it, it's a great pattern. The first time I used one skein of Jo Sharp Silk Road Tweed on size 5's, which was perfect, but it has stretched a little, so I decided in the Manos to go down a needle size to a 4, I want it dense to keep the wind out. Wait, I don't have size 4 bamboos, is this possible, I have everything else in circs, DPNs, from metal, to plastic, to casein, to rosewood, but not in size 4, I guess I'm going to have to go the the yarn store today. The hat won't be the only thing I knit on while I'm forced to watching bits of the Super Bowl, GO BEARS! (obligatory team spirit), I finished the first in a pair of socks using Cookie's pattern from Knitty, Monkey, which was the only thing that made the obnoxiously green sock yarn look good. They fit, the pattern was way easy to memorize so it knitted up fast, I'm happy, though they are snug on me at the top because I have FLS, fat leg syndrome. I tested out my size 1.5mm dpn in rosewood for the first time and absolutely love them, if I didn't have bamboo I would choose the rosewood over regular wood, they seem to have a finish halfway between that of bamboo and brittany birch wood, very nice. So I used the 1.5mm's on the lace pattern and size 0 or 1's (the number has worn off and when they get this small does it really matter?) on the heel flap and sole, easy-peasy. So I'm off to do a couple of errands, I've decided I hate my water kettle and need a new one, so if the parking genie is with me maybe I'll find a spot on Wabash and can run into Macy's real quick (gotta use that employee discount they forgot they still give me), it's just north of the yarn store anyway.