Rare Opportunity! Buy my yarn

Major yarnarific destash!

Support the poor sick bunny!

Rare chance to acquire genuine yarny-yarn. :-)

Koigu! Lorna’s! STR! Tess! People you’ve never heard of!

More exclamation points than you can thump your foot at!

See my Ravelry.com Destash Page!

Love and neck nuzzles,

Yarny, Dusty (pictured), and Teddy

Yay! Measurable progress!

About (gulp!) 10 months ago I last picked up this horrible, horrible scarf I’ve been working on for ages.  K1, YO, K2tog.  Until you want to die.  But 10 months ago I said I was going to keep going until I had 5 grams left in order to make fringe.  And you know what I did today?

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!  Next I’ll be doing a sewn bind off, adding fringe, blocking, and then … dunno.  It’s 50/50 alpaca/silk which makes my nose itch and my skin burn.  Anyone want to buy it?  Trade for some yarn?

Oh hi blog! And, an FO for UFOs

Hello my few and far between readers.  How have you been?  I’ve been tired.  Grad school kicked my ass this term, so I’ve been head down in books trying to pull it back together.  And when not doing statistics, I’m sleeping.

But! The semester wrapped on Wednesday, I got my grade today (B! Which seems lame to be excited about, but let me re-direct you to the ass kicking I got last semester, and the fact that I’m not curled up in a corner rocking back and forth is a real wonder)… What was I saying?  Right, so in honor of having a grade and not having to worry about school until August!! I decided to visit G Street Fabrics and take up a new hobby – sewing!

And in just one night I finished a project … to carry around my unfinished knitting projects.

I used this tutorial, which had a few issues (there are 4 triangles, not 5), but was overall very clear.  One thing, totally user error: When the pattern tells you to measure carefully for a professional look… measure carefully for a professional look:

My box isn’t so much a rectangular box so much as a trapezoidal lump.  But I love it!  And I can’t wait to get a rotary cutter and some bias tape to hide the edges and thread that matches my fabric and a fabric marker and one of those plastic quilter measuring things that makes it easier to fold a straight edge and maybe a little seam presser so I don’t have to keep running to my iron to make things flat.

Love!

I see my ball winder in my future…

I really hate where the collar on my sweater ended up.

The button band is too shallow, and it’s far too wide at the neck opening in general.

I’m not sure if I should rip just the last inch of seed stitch, and continue the raglan decreases another … maybe 3 times (that’s 6 rows). Or maybe rip back to the split and do my regular old v-neck.

Toe Up Sock Class. Coming soon to a Stitch near you. If you live near Georgetown.

Now that I’ve taught a few classes, I have better ideas about what I want to do for class. Namely, my sock classes will have plain stockinette option OR stitch pattern of my choice, if you think a stockinette sock would be too boring. But what is my stitch pattern of choice?

Flame Chevron:

Track of the Turtle II:

Flying Chevron:

If you were taking a toe-up DPN sock class, which would you want to knit?

A serious case of Startitis. And snafus in yarn photography.

Fun fact about me: I live on the top level of a 3 story walk up.  I have a cute little terrace (that I’m actually terrified of, omg, what if there was a spider on it?!).  But it’s nice and bright and actually great for yarn photography.  If I can convince myself to go out there.

So today I convinced myself it’s been very cold, and the spiders probably died (no one dispute me on this!  I’m still looking for a new psychiatrist, and when I have something for the panic attacks you can tell me how wrong I am).

Right, so I’m outside, taking pictures of yarn on the edge of the terrace, so I don’t have to stoop and everything is nice and at waist level.

And then my ball of Socks that Rock went flying off the edge.  And of course, it couldn’t have been the sock, so I could have just reeled it back up, no.  No, the ball had to be the thing that fell.  So I threw the sock down after it, went downstairs, picked up the ball and the sock, and went back upstairs.  And took the rest of the pictures on the floor of the terrace.

Do you think BrooklynTweed has to put up with this?

-◊-

Anyway.  I’m suffering a bout of startitis lately.

There’s Icarus, which I actually started back in September.  But I only recently started working on seriously.  I’m up to the border, and it’s taking me about 15 minutes to do each row.

There’s my “bus sock” which I’m so bored with.  And I think it’s too big – which means I need to rip it out, or decide if I want to give my mom another pair of StR socks.  Colorway is Azurite.  I should find something else to knit on the bus, I’ve been working on this sock since early December.

I started a version of “Salina” from Rowan Vintage Knits – I’m going to do it as a raglan (bottom up), and using a slightly heavier yarn (Shelridge Farm Wool-Cotton DK; colorway Denim).  I’ve finished the body and started the first sleeve.

And then because I needed something to do while working at the store, I started a new top down raglan that I’m dubbing Marnie, after Marnie MacLean’s Sam I Am cardigan.  I’m using Aurora 8, the gray I bought years ago and have lost all tags for, the raspberry is color # 1712 and the cream/white is 1350.

A hat using a candle flame motif.  Focusing waaaaay too much on the details, I started in 1×1 ribbing, and through twists, increases, and decreases, I’m having the ribbing flow into the flames over the course of about 6 rounds.  In Yarn Love’s Jane Eyre, Colorway Summer Sangria.

And because all this isn’t enough to keep me busy with classes starting up again on Thursday…

I felt compelled to swatch for Ysolda Teague’s Vivian using Cottage Craft Two Ply that I got at Stitches East (not yet washed, but I think it’s going to work).

-◊-

And finally, just for fun, a frozen Potomac River:

Still No Santa

11:33 here in DC; Still no sign of Santa.  But I’m keeping busy!  I finished the sleeves of my lattice sweater.  (It needs a name; suggest a name!)  Since photographing I wove in all the ends.  Next I have to reinforce the buttonholes; wash; sew on buttons.

Merry Christmas, or happy Thursay!

Do not cast on during pity party: a cautionary tale

My Lattice Sweater (Lucy Planted Firmly on the Ground / EZ+BW=OTP / whatever cutesy name I’m going to call it) was coming along really great tonight.  I started the sleeves (see below) last night and joined them and worked 24 rows (got confused earlier, 12 RS rows).  But it wasn’t looking quite right…

(Top view)

Oh no, of course I had to serious screw something up.  I managed to do a 66 stitch sleeve (correct) on one side, and a 56 stitch sleeve (incorrect) on the other side.

Yeah, now I get to thread a lifeline in 40 inches of all over lattice stitch.  WONDERFUL.

I maintain that my sleeve idea was brilliant though: I’m worried about running out of yarn, so I did a provisional cast on, and did about 6 rounds.  Then I put 10 stitches on a holder, and joined just like I was joining sleeves for a raglan (ala EZ).  When  I finished the body and button band, I was going to split the leftover yarn and knit the sleeves as long as possible.

Stash Club – A Rocking Friday Night

Friday night.  Had some delicious Thai at  Sweet Rice in Falls Church.  Went to the post office to mail out stash club.  Saw some panties by the front door.  I wonder if the post office is a cruising spot.  Why else would you take your panties off there?

Just a few more days

Stats final: Two take home components, due Dec 2 and December 9.  In classcomponent: December 9.

However, that isn’t to say I’m not knitting as a coping mechanism, even though I know I shouldn’t be.  Since Thanksgiving:

My own design.  I’m refering to it as Elizabeth Zimmermann’s EPS, Cosmic Pluto’s Lucy in the Sky, Ann Budd’s Diagonal Cross Rib Socks, and even a little bit of Kim Hargrave’s Jolie getting together for a drunken one nigh stand.  Really, it’s EPS + stitch pattern from Barbara Walker Treasury.  As usual, I’m worried about running out of yarn, but I have a plan for the sleeves.  Which will probably show up December 10.  When I’m up all nigh knitting after the final…

Oh, and Thanksgiving!  Let me tell you about Thanksgiving!

Sadly, my cranberries did not set this year.  Granny Smith apples provide natural pectin to make them jelly-ish.  Just not enough this year.  Rebecca made whipped cream from cream!  I’d never seen that before.  The few times I’ve tried, either nothing or I start getting bits of butter.  We also made apple pie from Alton Brown’s new baking book, with crust from scratch!  We also mashed potatoes (baby red).  We made cornbread from scratch in order to make cornbread and sausage stuffing, along with apple cider gravy.  Broth – you guessed it – from scratch!  We boiled chicken bits, onions, bay leaves, carrots, celery for … a really long time.  And boom! Tastey broth!  A tiny little turkey meatloaf (as Rebecca pointed out when I was being concerned it was too small, “It’s a half a pound of meat for each of us!”).  Not photoed: sauted grape tomatoes.  We also had grand intentions of making beet latke-type things, a roasted acorn squash with cinnamon butter, but sort of ran out of steam at abotu 8:30 pm.  We were eating the pie at 11.