Sep 23, 2011

Of knitting and knitted things

This is a little late in coming, but I had a birthday in August and got this:


Somehow I had to fit it into my stash spot, which also houses the Wii equipment, and which was sorely coming close to running out of space:


So I did this and added labels to keep myself sane, and so far it's working really well. It has also freed up space in the Wii equipment box for other things, and forces me to exercise every time I want to look at my yarn and fleece because it's upstairs now:


Did you see that rainbowy one in the birthday photo? That's Knitpicks Chroma in the worsted weight and it's a single ply, very soft and kind of fun to work with. A little bit Malabrigo-ish, but not quite as divine. I made these armwarmers for my kid and they're fuzzing a little bit, so I'm glad I didn't commit to a whole sweater with it, but for more gently-worn items, it'll be a great yarn to go back to, provided you don't care about consistency between garments or within a garment (there's no rhyme or reason to the striping):



Aside from my travel project, I have nothing on the needles now, which means I can get back to spinning for a bit. It's BFL/silk and it's lovely. I did my sampling and now I need to spin all the singles so I can get on with it. Or maybe not all of them, but a good enough chunk that I can make something fun. I'm thinking a Haruni. It's written for a fingering weight of 14 wraps per inch, so hopefully my singles are close and I can make a lovely natural oatmeal-grayish Haruni. I haven't measured my first single because it's not off the bobbin yet, but if it's not fingering weight, it's pretty darn close.

Sep 12, 2011

Sweater fun and other random things

Most important first - - the February Lady Sweater is finished!



I used Cascade 220 in the worsted weight, and I loved the gray, but there were only 4 balls when I saw it on sale in Oregon. I knew it wanted to be a sweater, so I picked up 2 of the purple as well, and devised this striping pattern to make the most of what I had, and to make it a little more fun for the young person it was going to be given to.

Nanna stepped up and posted the buttons, which are too bling-y for an adult (most adults, anyway), but perfect for a 'tween. She loves 'em!

It was a little worrisome to think that I had done 20 repeats of the lace pattern and that it might wind up being a cropped sweater ... but the beauty of lace is how it grows when you block it! I couldn't believe how perfectly-sized it came out in the end. Just wide enough and just long enough. Now if only she would stop growing....

This is my dog:


See the ridge on his back? He's a ridgeback. Rhodesian Ridgeback. The hair grows backwards there. It's pretty cool. He's a hundred twenty pounds of child-nipping awesome. It's not awesome that he nips children, but he is awesome. My English friend would be cross that I said that. I mean my dog is brilliant. Now that doesn't sound right, does it? He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, after all. He can't catch food thrown directly at his face for the life of him ... he lets it hit him in the face and then he races around trying to find it. You'd think he had no nose or eyes. Anyway, that was random.

This is the September 2011 Whipsaw four-wheeling trip, and the market bag being knit on the trip. It's not much of a bag at this point, but it will be soon!


There was no snow at Whipsaw this time. Over 30 degrees during the day and about 10 (probably) at night. It was warmer (again) at night than Manning Park, which was negative a hundred at night. I swear.

I'm going to go spin something.