My "special" order

As was leaving for work the other day, I came across an interesting package thrown onto my front porch. Inside was this:

Direct from the poppy fields of Nicaragua!!

Just kidding. After some fluffing it really looks like this.

purty.

I have a strong feeling that this shall morph into a Hot Lava shrug......or whatever that thing is called. Clearly I'll have to dig through my old patterns a little before starting. Oh......and I guess I should finish at least some f the 50 million other projects I have going.

In related news, I finally broke down last night after setting up and organizing my new yarn shelf and cast on for Lady Eleanor. I'm in love with it already, even though I was only able to knit three tiers of it while I psychotically sat up until 7 am watching The Devil Wears Prada, for like the 100t time in the past week because HBO seems to have decreased its movie pool to about films. I had never seen the beginning of the movie though, and by the time I hit where I had picked up before the shawl had gotten the better of me and I was hooked. Additionally, I have to say that my secret project of amazing skill and proportions is coming along very well. Some of you already know of this project of insanity. The rest of you will just have to wait a bit. I'm sure it will (not) blow your mind.

Oh!Oh!Oh!!!! And everyone MUST go out and buy this stuff NOW!!

You would have thought that I had found the Holy Grail when I took this bad boy out of the bag. I actually pulled it out, had some kind of mini convulsion and had to shove it back into the envelop so I could try to absorb the glory I had just seen. It's STR lightweight in the new Loch Ness colorway. A must have for all!! I love this colorway as I have loved few before. It even eclipses my obsession for Manos Stellar.

Oh rats. I hear the war cry of CSI:Miami coming on so that means it's time for me to go mock-vomit at David Caruso. My yarn and I will have a splendid time together. And if any of you see me getting a little crazy....like carrying my new love around and talking to it in public, feel free to take action.

Yet another FO

This one has been a long time coming. I don't recall if I had previously mentioned that I had started my Pomotomus socks. This was way back, like in April or May. I had been on a roll with the sock production and the new found obsession with STR, bu once I started the Pomotomus pattern it all kind of halted. There was something I wasn't getting about the pattern and I didn't like reading all the charts.....and the sock ended up tossed under a pile in my bedroom with about two inches of cuff completed. At some point of cleaning, the sock was found, placed in a bag, and moved into my office with the rest of my yarn. The other week I was looking for something else and I came across it. On a whim, I picked it up to see how much I still hated knitting it. Surprise, surprise......I didn't hate knitting it at all! I don't know what was wrong with my brain the first time I was fooling with the pattern, but it's not hard or confusing at all. There was one row of the pattern that my stitch count kept getting messed up on and I still have no idea why. It was easily remedied by adding in another stitch.

Here's a more accurate shot of the color.

Pattern: Pomotomus by Cookie A.

Yarn: STR lightweight, Mustang Sally coloway

Needles: size 2 circs

Modifications: left out some of the toe shaping due to reasons discussed below.

I became super nervous about running out of yarn when I was about halfway down the foot of sock#1. I ended up having just enough, though if I had knit the whole foot correctly I surely would have run out about one pattern repeat short of finishing the second sock.

I guess my absentmindedness saved my ass on this one. On the chart for the top of the foot, there's a point where you have to start adding stitches onto the end of the pattern repeat. I got wrapped up in watching TV and just kept knitting the regular pattern on the third (and final) foot section. It was easy enough to replicate on the second sock and didn't interfere with the fit, so all was good.

Redemption

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been loving my DVR and was very excited by my new found ability to watch Knitty Gritty. That post received a comment that basically said that Knitty Gritty didn't have too much to offer as far as new stuff for the more advanced knitter. Unfortunately, I've found this to be very, very true. I think I've watched all the episodes I've recorded, but really saw nothing thrilling and, truth be old, I usually haven't even really been "watching" as mush as having it on as background noise while I knit something completely unrelated. This week things seemed to take a turn for the better though! There was one episode with Lily Chin that covered a lot of different techniques like bobbles and something else that I can't recall, although it interested me at the time. Then came today's show. Today's show actually made me pause my TV and come downstairs to order yarn. I wasn't able to get a good picture of these so you can just follow the links. This has to be one of the cutest baby things I've ever seen in my life. This hat and these booties. I love, love, love them. I immediately ordered some Berroco Suede and Plush from Yarnmarket. I'm changing up the color scheme a little since they're for a little girl, so I'm doing the main color in Annie Oakley and using a darker rose for the soles of the feet. Then I'm using the cream colored Plush for the fleece part. I'm totally in love with these and am so happy that my nephew knocked up his girlfriend, thereby providing me with the opportunity to knit such things. Thankfully, they live many hours away so I can knit the cute things, mail them, and not have to risk touching a baby. I can't wait until the yarn comes in.

Stash Busting!!!

I did it! I actually broke down and knit something with stash material! Actually, I had to buy another ball of yarn for this, but I consulted some people on this and the consensus is that it can still be considered a stash busting project. Here it is:

And to get a better view of he colors:

Pattern: Artyarns Cashmere Diagonal Scarf by Iris Schreier

Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted (black)

Paton's SWS in Natural Plum

Needles: size 8

Modifications: I tried following the directions exactly but the numbers for the foundation section just weren't adding up for me. I ended up skipping the slip stitches and just knitting. I tried to duplicate this on the end section but it got all nasty looking. Something just ended up not right with my stitch count. I tried to fix the little bit of fug that showed up in the last section while I was binding off and it worked, for the most part.

The other big (and perhaps even bigger) news for the day is that my fancy new sock blockers arrived! Even though I don't have too much of a purpose for them, this excited me to no end. Here they are sporting another FO, even though this particular FO is slightly older.

Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A.

Yarn: STR Mediumweight in the Alina colorway

Needles: size 2 circs

Mods: I omitted all the stitches and just knit the whole thing. This made it go a lot faster because I wasn't having to keep track of numbers, but it also left me with much less give. They still fit though and I think these massive blockers will stretch them into shape.

I also got this nifty stitch marker as a bonus.

The First Hat for Fall

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Originally uploaded by knitglit

So my feeling of knitting dread actually inspired me to finish something up. Amazing.
Pattern: Lady (Hat Trifecta) by Amy King of Spunky Eclectic
Yarn: Berroco Softwist, colorway presently unknown due to my band
trashing habits
Needles: size 8 16" circ's
Modifications: I did 2 extra repeats of the cable pattern before the decreases.

If I knit anoter one of these, which I just may, I'd add another few repeats of the pattern to make it a touch taller and I'd also thrw another cable into the circumference. My head is evidently quite a huge thing that regular patterns do not accomodate easily. All in all, I'd give this hat a thumbs up. I've been oddly drawn to this color lately and I'm excited to see how it will look with my fall hair colors. Oh,and the Softwist.....hmmmm. Lovely colors, but it can be a bitch to work with. I've dealt with much worse, but this stuff really does like to split and unwind.

Drowning

I'm having some sort of knitter's crisis that I've only had once or twice before. I feel like I'm absolutely drowning in my projects! I always have had a million ad one things on the needles, except for when I was working on my first and maybe second project. I used to be a responsible knitter. I used to go to MS&W and not buy anything because I didn't have a specific project in mind. Also, in the past, I think I used to get over infatuated with a yarn and want to dive right in, only to discover that I was knitting a giant piece of crap that I didn't want or like. Then it would be discarded into the abyss of "WIP's", which really was just a hiding place so I could pretend it didn't exist. Nowadays, I'm knitting things I actually want. I'm making an effort to get things finished. I'm trying to reel in the stash and get things organized! It's too much for me! Then all these pretty new yarns appeared. Even though I'm not knitting anything with them right now, I have plans. And damn that Ravelry queue! Half of me loves it, but in the state I'm in right now I feel like those projects....all those many, many lovely projects, are just sitting there reaching out with zombie-like arms saying "Kniiiiiitttt Meeeee, kniiiitttt meeeeee". It's putting a strain on my brain! And then I started all these different things. Some of the big, some of them supposedly small and quick to knit. Or so I thought. Scarves and hats and socks....yes, they're quicker. Still, when you have a gillion of them going at one time it doesn't work out so speedily.
Well, I'm done with pitiful rant. I have the day free so I'm going to try and finish up something, at least, while I'm playing with my DVR and straightening up.

Experiment

IMG_1006
Originally uploaded by knitglit

I'm just fiddling around on Flickr trying to see how this automatic blog posting thing works. Nothing much to say or show.....but here as a test picture is an old FO from the beginning of the year that I don't think I ever posted.

Pattern: Ruffles Scarf from Scarf Style
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden is an unknown colorway

Uh....I don't really remember anything else about it. Sorry.

Yay for DVR

We finally upgraded from dial up modems and crappy bow cable that didn't even receive half the channels anymore to Fios. It took the guy over 9 hours to get everything up and running.....well, almost everything. My compute up in my office that's been out of action for over a year now still won't work. It doesn't have a wireless card in it, but I feel like that shouldn't matter since it's hooked up to the box. My knowledge of computers is rather infinticimal though. I have to call Verizon tomorrow to see what's up.
So! With my new Fios I got to watch Knitty Gritty for the first time ever! I had to take my grandpa to the doctors today so I recorded it and watched it when I got home. This is perfectly suited to my life of insanity. I'm quite the happy camper. Unfortunately, the episode was about how to cast on and do a knit stitch so it wasn't exactly groundbreaking material for me. I'm glad I got to see it though, and I have the thing set to record every episod

Close call

I just got back from Chicago last night and had to be at a birthday party for my mom and one of my nephews at 7:30. This party was also to be my unveiling/presentation of my Lil' Devil Pants. This would have been all fine and well except for the fact that, well, I didn't have them done. By the time we got to the hotel on our first night of driving, I just didn't feel like knitting and instead entertained myself by marvelling at how strange Criss Angel is. He's one weird dude. That's about all I can say about that. Then, when I finally got settled at our hotel in Chicago I came to the awful realization that I had much more to do on the pants than I had thought. I did end up getting it all knit, but then I didn't have the tools for finishing. This was remedied by my trip The Fold (drool), but that's a tale for another day. Let me just say that I spent far, far less than I thought I would. Shocking, I know. So now, with tools in hand, I had to sew the damn thing up. I found this so confounding that I decided to put it off until I got home, thinking that I'd have plenty of time to make a few little stitches before party time. Oh how stupid I can be sometimes. I got home absolutely exhausted, still had to go gift shopping for my nephew, and still didn't know how to sew for crap. After much bitching and whining, I prevailed.

My favorite detail.

I had to use my imagination to get the drawstring through, but it came out pretty well. Also,I amazed myself with the evenness of my seaming.

My mom suggested to me that I not seam the leg cuffs. I don't particularly care for it undone, but I was already like an hour late for the party so I said f-it.

Perhaps the untrained eye won't even notice that this obviously was supposed to be sewn up.

So, onto the specs.

Pattern: Lil' Devil Pants from Stitch n'Bitch Nation

Yarn: Patons Grace in Cherry Red, 4 skeins

Needles: Size 2 Circulars and size 3 DPN's

Started: late July '07

Finished: August 4 '07

I predominantly followed the pattern exactly. I think I must have an early and error ridden edition of the book because I had to leave a row off of the buttonhole shaping. Also, as stated, I didn't sew the leg cuffs. Everyone seemed to love them, so mission accomplished. Hooray for FO's an meeting deadlines!