yarntherapy

bummer, man

Well, shoot. I was going to have pictures of all the fabulous work I've been doing, but sadly that won't be happening today.

I had a good chunk of knitting done on Hopeful, all the way to the second set of waist decreases. As I got further into it, it became increasingly clear that it was going to be too big. I slipped it onto two circulars and tried it on - yep, definitely not the sexy, clingy, top of my dreams. I had gotten gauge at 5 stitches per inch on size 4 Addi Turbos, but I probably should have paid more attention to Jenna's notes, especially the  part where she says "In order to get the snug-fitting look of this sweater, you need to give your swatch a little tug to lightly stretch the stitches before measuring. Prior to blocking your finished swatch you may get 5.5 or 5.25 sts per inch; don’t worry, this is likely correct. " Oops.

So I'm reswatching on 3s, which looks like it will work, but of course I don't have a 24" circular in that size and the closest store isn't opened on Mondays. Grrr!

All body parts of Audrey are done and I'm working on the neckband. Like many people, it took me a few tried to get the lace pattern down (Rowan people, would it kill you to define what a "yfrn" is? Geez!) but I'm finding it to be fun and pretty quick. I'm too lazy to pull out the blocking board and towels today, so I don't know when I'll get started on the finishing. I can't wait - I think this will be a favorite!

Last night was the annual party at my union. It's become quite a bash over the last couple of years, with an open bar, catered food, and best of all - goodie bags! Last year's bags were insane - practically the size of a small suitcase. Lots of industry-related literature and catalogs and useful tools like scissors, iron cleaner, pens & highlighters..... This year's bag was smaller but still full of good stuff - groovy Umbra playing cards from The Container Store, a travel mug, flashlight......but the piece de resistance?

The Extreme Ironing calendar!

No, really.

It's a sport.

I'm not the only one...

Dowtown A train, Monday at 3:30ish.

I was ribbing away on sleeve #2 when this lovely lady boarded and pulled out her knitting as well. How New York is it that we were both working in black yarn?

broken ribs

Oh. My. God. I am so freaking sick of ribbing. Knit, knit, purl, purl, repeat until your eyes bleed. I'm almost done with sleeve #2 of Audrey, thank goodness. But between that and Tempting in the last few months? Let's just say that I don't see a Ribby Cardi in my future. (sorry, Bonne Marie!)

My knitting is definitely getting faster, though. Sleeve #2 seems to be taking less time than #1, and I finished my Secret Pal project (stockinette in the round, size 10.5 needles) in a week. (Pictures later - it's secret, silly!)

This all means, of course, that I can start Hopeful soon! If I get sleeve #2 done tomorrow, I'll cast on right away. Yay for yummy new yarn and lots of lovely stockinette-in-the-round!

I broke down and ordered yarn for Loop-d-Loop's Lace Leaf Pullover - Knitpicks Panache in Moss. Way, way, way too hot to knit that right now, but I'll be happy to have it waiting in the stash. I  did a successful row of kitchener stitch  on my SP project, so I guess there's hope that Lace Leaf won't look like crap. (It was only 8 stitches, but still!)

I went to the movies for the first time in ages tonight - we saw Red Eye, which I really enjoyed. Wes Craven really knows how to make a movie, man. Tense, funny, beautifully shot (except for some cheesy CGI at one point, but otherwise very stylish.) And terrific continuity, a difficult task on a film that takes place in one day.

And Rachel McAdams has the best hair ever - I can't find a picture of how it looks in the movie, but trust me - the hair is awesome.

mail call!

Guess what came in the mail Monday? 10 balls of lovely Rowan Wool Cotton from Jannette. I highly recommend this seller - even though she ships from the UK, I got my yarn in a week, and she is incredibly quick to respond to emails. Plus she's really sweet! The color is Lavish, which is a lovely pinkish wine - I love it, it's going to be really flattering on me.

The yarn, of course, is for Hopeful. This pattern has certainly caused quite a stir in knitblog land! I just joined the knitalong, but I am going to hold off on starting until I finish a little something for my Secret Pal. I did swatch for gauge, though - as usual I had to go down two sizes to a 4, so no Denise needles for this :-(  Luckily I have a 24" Addi Turbo in my collection so I don't have to buy new needles.

I am really excited to get started on this - I can't wait to try some new techniques! Did anyone listen to the Opensource radio show about knitting a few weeks ago?  You can get it here - it's a really fun show, with Debbie Stoller, Queer Joe, and the owners of Flying Fingers. Debbie made a great point about why knitting is so popular with adults - as adults, we rarely have the opportunity just to learn, like we did in school. I know that I love learning how to do something new in knitting, and I love the freedom to make mistakes and the satisfaction of perfecting a new skill. It's rare to have that feeling once you're out of school, and I completely recognized myself in what she was saying.

So my next couple of projects will introduce me to new stuff (short rows in Hopeful) or force to me to do something over and over until I get it right (*%##@&^ kitchener stitch on the Lace Leaf pullover.)

Can't wait!

finally something to show off!

Wow -  it's been a while since I've posted, huh? Sorry about that, any of you who care :-)

I was busy getting ready for my dad to visit (in other words, busy mopping my floors and attempting to find places to put all the crap yarn and stuff that is taking over the apartment), then I was busy keeping him occupied while he was here.

It was a fun visit, actually - I took Sunday off from work and we saw my show, which was very weird - not the show (awesome, as usual) but sitting in the audience watching it. I've never done that before while I was working on a show! We hit several bars to sample their onion rings (a family favorite) and kept getting caught in the rain. Monday we visited the Intrepid and got to see the Concorde -

Surprisingly non-luxurious inside (I think the Air France Concordes were fancier) but still pretty cool to imagine supersonic flight. We also toured the Growler, a submarine that is anchored beside the Intrepid - now, that's a mode of travel I can't imagine at all.

I'm doing really well with Audrey - front, back, and one sleeve are done, so all I have left to knit are a sleeve and the neckband, then it's blocking and seaming fun. Which I am looking forward to since I realized that I actually like seaming!

I do have an actual finished object to show off!

Here's Branching Out soaking:

And as a little wet pile of alpaca:

Pinned out for about a mile and a half:

Aaaaaaaannd..........done!

Lacey closeup:

Yay! I love my Branching Out! I've said this before, but this is a terrific introduction to working from a chart - I feel ready to tackle a much more complicated project now.

I used two strands of Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud in Moss which cost me less than eight bucks for the whole scarf - I could have stopped long before I did, but I really like it long (over six feet, I think!) - I can wrap this lightweight scarf around my neck a couple of times for warmth and still be able to show off the lace. I love the yarn and it blocked out beautifully. I have a couple of skeins of Iris, so I may attempt a shawl next.

must....stay....away...from...Knitpicks!

Gah! They've done it again! Knitpicks has 11 new yarns for the fall, including two cashmere blends, Ambrosia and Panache, and a couple of bulky alpacas, Decadence and Twirl. And Suri Dream, a suri alpaca & wool blend. Make them stop!

I've had Loop-d-Loop for a while (thanks, Secret Pal!) and the project that most caught my eye was the Lace Leaf pullover. I think Panache would work really well for this and it comes in a gorgeous green called Moss. The balls are smallish - 68 yards - so I'd still be spending $70 or so, but I really really want to make this sweater! I think it will be a nice change to do something that will work up pretty quickly after all the fiddly little lace and 2x2 ribbing stuff on teeny needles I've been doing all summer.

The scariest part of this sweater is the big old honking row of kitchener stitch right around the body - the sweater is constructed in two parts (top-down and bottom-up) and the grafted at the middle......

I SUCK at kitchener. Suck. At. It. I can hand sew a perfectly invisible hem in silk organza, but I can't make my grafted knitting look like anything better than something the cat attacked.

So. First I have to get the yarn for Hopeful, and get that underway. I am going to try to hold off on yarn for Lace Leaf, but don't hold your breath.

I actually have made lots of knitting progress this week! Branching Out is done and I LOVE it. She's really, really long but perfect for wrapping around my neck and still allowing the lace to be seen. Front & back of Audrey are done, I just need to recalculate for 3/4 sleeves and get those started - should go fairly quickly as long as I don't screw up my increases. (Thank goodness for that knitalong - so much great information!) Pictures soon!

Oh, I realize that I never weighed in on Stitch n' Pitch - damn, what a great idea! I'm so jealous - like, jealous enough that if the Mariners do it again I could totally see myself jetting to Seattle (I have friends and family there) just for the event. I don't know if it would fly in NYC - mostly because both teams sell out, I don't think you could set aside that large a block of tickets. But maybe one of the minor league clubs? The Coney Island Cyclones are really fun, and there are the Staten Island and Trenton Yankees as well......hmm, maybe next year!

impulse shopping

I really am trying to use up my yarn stash, and I really do have projects planned using yarn I already possess. Really, I do.

But then I saw this sexy little number:

This is Jenna Adorno's Hopeful, as seen on DIY network's Knitty Gritty. Jenna, of course, is the designer of the fabulous and popular Tempting over on Knitty. I adore her style, and my Tempting was a great success.

Hopeful is a special one. Jenna is selling the pattern for $5 and will donate $6 for each pattern sold to the Susan Love Breast Cancer Research Foundation in honor of her partner who battled cancer this year. I have a friend who has recently been diagnosed as well, and is currently undergoing chemotherapy. This when she had planned to travel to India this summer to study yoga.

With my friend and other cancer survivors in mind, I immediately purchased the pattern and figured I'd set it aside for a while until I gave the yarn some thought.

That lasted about ten minutes.

The pattern calls for Rowan Wool Cotton, so I checked it out at Jimmybeans, home of $4 shipping and awesome service. They have some great colors, including a green called Laurel! Unfortunately, at $9.95 a ball (I need 8 balls), it's a little spendy for me right now. Especially since I am trying to use up stash!

Over to eBay and Jannette's Rare Yarns, a seller I have heard about but never bought from. She had a great deal on a bag of the discontinued color Lavish - a color she describes as "rather like beetroot with a tinge of magenta". Yummy! And, because I totally believe in karma - my Paypal balance was almost exactly the amount of my purchase. So it was almost like not spending money at all!

So I'm adding yet another project to the list of things "percolating" in my brain. I think this will be a good one for me - it's a little more complicated than some of my previous projects, with short row shaping which I've never done before. It's also knit in the round which will be a nice change after I finish seaming Audrey. Well, after I finish knitting and then seaming Audrey.

Super Secret Pal!

Wow, in my mailbox yesterday was a package all the way from Australia! How cool!

The contents:

Three skeins each of a mohair blend Australian yarn in off-white and my very favorite color, olivey green! And a cute little tin containing  the best buttons EVAH!

I mean, come on - is there anything cuter than a little wooden kangaroo?

She also included some dangly stitch markers with sparkly shoes on them - I guess she noticed my Zappos addiction!

Thanks so much, Pal!

field trip!

I realized that I forgot to post about my trip to The Point last week. Loved it! Small but impeccably organized space with several tables where you can snack and/or knit. The staff is really, really sweet (unlike some other NYC spots which shall remain nameless.) I had forgotten to go to the ATM so I was out of cash, and even though the cafe register is separate from the shop, they worked it out so I could put my sandwich on a credit card as well as my yarn.

What yarn, you ask?

3 skeins of yummy Bamboo. For, um, another Clapotis. Because I think I, um, lost my first one. I'm pretty sure I left it on the train coming back from my mother's memorial in March. Bummer, huh?

I think the Bamboo will work up really nicely in this pattern, and the colors are gorgeous! The colorway is called Drake, and it reminds me of a rainy fall day. It's all olivey, rust and blue.

Gayle and I are trying to think of a knitting-related fundraiser for the BC/EFA flea market, besides the items I plan on making. I'd love to do something more interactive, like the "pay a dollar, knit a row" scarf that Knit New York had at the last Knit Out - people could add a row or two to a scarf knit from Alchemy Yarns' Kai's Goldfish, then the scarf was raffled off and all the proceeds went to Kai's family (for more information, check Alchemy's website.) I like this idea but I don't know if it would work with a less knitting-centered crowd. We'll do some brainstorming today, and if anyone has any ideas, feel free to email me!

the morning after

It's an awesome thing to have great friends who are great cooks and have dinner parties specifically on a Sunday night because they know that's the only night I can come.

Not so awesome? The raging hangover that comes from all that wining and dining.

It's been a long day.

I'm cruising through Audrey and I'm really looking forward to the finished product. I love the softness and stretch of the Calmer. I think this is going to be really cute and flattering - I'm going to shorten the sleeves to 3/4 length which I think will look better on me. I'll get to experiment with my KnitAble Palm software - it has an increase/decrease calculator!

Branching Out is almost done - I was going to just knit until I ran out of yarn, but she is plenty long right now. I'll give it a few more repeats and call it done. I'm so psyched to get this blocked and finished - it's so pretty! I love knitting lace - I think Flower Basket Shawl will be next. Oh, and Knitpicks is killing me - three new merino lace yarns! I think my favorite is the Gossamer hand-dyed in Caribbean.  I 'm thinking  about using that for one of the scarves in the Elizabeth I pattern set.

I'm going to drink some more ginger ale and knit a few more branches.