*sighs* This is what it looked like BEFORE I stuck them in both the washer AND dryer:

It was so shiny and soft and comfortable! Oh well. I actually did buy more yarn (before this little mishap) for socks since I loved how it was coming out, but this lack of washability may kill that idea.

I’ve got the whole back done on the Manon now, and started picking up the left front. This is kind of an out-of-date picture, but it’s what I have on the camera right now:

I’m currently deciding if I should add bust darts or not. I made the size 46″ on the bottom, picked up the back and decreased for the 42″ size because I’m small across the back - now I am considering if just knitting the fronts in the 46″ size will be enough to accommodate me. That size gives me positive ease to begin with, but I’m so different from the bust to the waist I am not sure if a few short rows will just give me a more flattering fit. I really want to get moving on it though, so it’s my intention to decide tonight. I suppose a short section of short rows wouldn’t kill me. Hmm…

In other news, tonight I used my birthday gift voucher from Knitpicks (thanks Penny!) to buy this sampler set. I’ve been aching to try some real Fair Isle, but I don’t really wear that style well. That bag seems like a perfect project to try it. I love bags, and you never know when a small one like that would come in handy!

I can currently knit the following out of my stash:

4 shawls (3 lace weight, one worsted weight that can only be a wrap)

12 pairs of socks, not including the Kool Aid ones, and the naughty Anastasia ones

5 adult sweaters, 2 of which are currently in progress

3 scarves

I currently have these projects on the go: KoolAid dyed socks, Clapotis, mohair sweater, grey cardigan, Manon, Revontuli

Now, there will be a good deal of knitters and crocheters that could read this post and laugh shallowly at how much of an amateur I am. The thing is, I don’t aspire to be someone with more yarn than they can knit in a lifetime. But I thought I was being good! I won’t kid myself into thinking that I can (or SHOULD) stop buying yarn, but I’d like to knit down quite a bit of this stash over the next year. Actually, about 95% of the above yarn is allotted to a project already. I’m still yearning for my Clemetine’s Cardi (not surprisingly, at the exact same time of year last year when I had the idea and bought the yarn), I’ve been wanting Bayerische Socks for even longer, I’d like to knit SOMEthing with my handspun (of which the only likely looking thing is the One Row Handspun Scarf.

Yikes, let’s not even mention spinning. I have three projects on the go there - two laceweight, one heavier. The spindles are all in different parts of the house where I’m likely to spin so I can pick them up when the mood strikes. I’d like to come up with a more regimented way of doing it just so they don’t get neglected. The project I usually work on before bed has been getting guilty looks from me each night since it’s been a while. I’m really eager to finish some projects because I’d love to start on some of the alpaca I got at Rhinebeck, and I treated myself to this chunk of GORGEOUSNESS for no reason other than I was feeling sad that day. All of this makes me want a spinning wheel just because I’m convinced that I could make more progress and have my interest held for longer periods of time if I did have one.

This isn’t a post intended to sound like some kind of New Year’s resolution, but it’s definitely a checkpoint for me. I *want* the things I bought this yarn for. There are always going to be pretty yarns and irresistible projects - sometimes, inspiration strikes hard (like it did with the Manon) and I don’t want to punish myself into thinking that I “can’t have ____ till ____ is finished”. But I possess reason and self control to not let this get any further out of hand.

P.S. While we’re talking about checkpoints, maybe I can *finally* do something about this blog layout? Maybe? Soon?

P.P.S. I finally finished reknitting the peplum on the Manon, and have started on the back. Praise be.

At the craft store, I was browsing through the scrapbooking aisle because the supplies are a lot of fun to look at, and I spotted some vellum paper with pink handprints. I pulled out my iPhone to ascertain whether it was possible to put vellum through the printer and actually print on it (you can!) and I bought a piece. This is what I came up with.

The slanting is unintentional, and I sort of regret the curly edges. But I’m too miserly to want to waste a good bit of paper, so I’m using it anyway. There was no holepunch in the house, so I speared it with a tapestry needle with some yarn on it. I secured it to the top button with a twist. I forgot to take a picture of this before I wrapped it. I kind of like it though. The word “care” should have been in the smaller font as well. I don’t think I would want to tag all of my handknit gifts, but it’s fun to see that it’s so easy to be able to!

Firstly, I finished sewing the buttons on to the February Baby Sweater:

Next, I made a pair of booties this afternoon. They went so fast!

And a close up of the buttons used on both projects:

The buttons are so pearly, they were hard to get a clear shot - especially with the flash. But hey, I was here, and the camera was here. Can’t argue with that karma, so natural light will lose this particular battle.

And then I have the second Christmas Shawl:

Now, I do love this pattern - clearly, enough to knit it three times in one year. I’m getting a *little* burned out at this point. I’m up to row 86 (of 134), so I’m nearly there. But man, I will be glad when this one is done. I do think it’s beautiful, and the cream section is *just* starting to phase back into pink. You can not see it in the photo, but it’s such a delicate shade - it’s truly stunning. I will have to find more things to knit with Kauni, but given its properties (a bit rough, fingering weight) I’m not quite sure what that will be. Some kind of blanket maybe. I’d like to do some stranded colourwork with it perhaps just for the joy of watching both strands change. I have no idea what to make though, and frankly, it’s rather too late at night to think about it! I will have a lot of yarn left, so I’m sure I can come up with something.

The first stand I took my wallet out for was Creatively Dyed Yarn. She had SO much yarn and fibre. She had a particularly gorgeous braid of Tencel/Wool.

Tencel is something I’ve never spun before, it’s blue, and it was only $15 for 4oz! Fitted my requirements perfectly. It’s SO soft and shiny…I’m a magpie at heart, so shiny is always good.

Next, I acquired a Bosworth Spindle:

It’s a Mini in Ceaderwood, weighing .6 oz. It has a lovely smell, and is so smoothly polished. I couldn’t wait to start spinning on it, so I took out my newly purchased wool and started this while we rested for lunch:

Wow - I don’t know if it’s the wool or the spindle, but so far it feels like this stuff is spinning itself. It took a little getting used to, but I really do like this spindle. I’ve found this with all my spindles so far - they each have a way about them that takes a little adjustment, but once you get into the groove it’s effortless. I’m happy to say the same about this spindle.

Next I found myself at Shadyside Farm, where I bought some roving in Maryland. They had a lot of the same stock, but this time my eye was caught by some Alpaca/Silk. This stuff is simply stunning in real life - they took chocolate brown alpaca (70%) and blended it with Tussah silk that had been dyed in the most brilliant colours.

This one is Pumpkin:

And this one is called Soleil:

They’re both just enchanting to look at - look how the silk shines against the dark matte background!

I think they’re both absolutely amazing, and thus, irresistable. I have never spun alpaca before! I’m doing some reading, as it’s my understanding that it can be tricky to get the hang of. Some think it’s no problem though, so I guess I’ll have to test some of it out and come to my own conclusion.

Finally, I needed to find that sock yarn. I really wanted something in blue, but I was not having any luck. At Ellen’s Half Pint Farm, there was lots of sock yarn of many blends…nothing in blue, however. I was looking for solid or semi-solid, which is more challenging to find since the variegated yarns generate more oohing and ahhing, therefore probably sell better. My eye was caught by this beauty though:

It reminds me a lot of Colinette Jitterbug, if anyone is familiar. It’s 100% Merino, and should do the job nicely. If I do happen to find some blue yarn for the Maelstroms, this can always be used for another detail-intense sock pattern. There are plenty of them out there!

So, that’s it! A small handful of purchases, but I love them all. I think I’m going to take a serious stock of what I have, and what I intend to knit…I will probably post it on here too, just to publicly shame myself enough to get busy. Once I finish the second Christmas shawl,the Manon, and possibly my nearly-finished unnamed grey cardigan that I am making up as I go, I should get to work on my big cardigan with the yarn from last year. It’s just time to get rid of the old so I can get on with the new.

Oh, and a little maintenance note - it somehow has completely escaped my notice that Wordpress has a plugin that can handle spam. I am giving it a go, so for now the annoying word-verification thing has gone bye-bye. Apparently, Askimet has been quite successful in blocking obvious spam. Wordpress.com uses it and they extend the service to self-hosted sites as well. So, I hope it works because I hate to put people off by typing in verification words.

Love how it came out. It’s light and airy, but so warm. I am afraid I might have to reblock it if only to attempt to make it a bit softer. It doesn’t bother me, but other parties might think it’s rough.

I tried kettle dyeing yarn this weekend. I did a warm and a cool batch…I far prefer the warm one in this case:

The cool thing is, I only used three colours to get this. Fuschia, Vermillion (with a splash of Fuschia dye mixed in), and Sun Yellow Jacquard Acid dyes. The variation took place in the process - the parts closer to the bottom of the pot came out stronger, and the parts near the top came out lighter. You can see the yellow is mostly mucked up, but that’s supposed to be expected during kettle dyeing. I like the subtle orange parts though. This is 100% merino superwash.

The cool one, I’m less thrilled with, if only because it’s not what I intended:

I wanted this to be all shades of blue, so I used Turquoise, Sky Blue, and splashed on some Lilac to deepen parts of the blue because that worked quite well for me before (although it’s completely invisible in this photo). I messed up with those black parts - I wanted to take the rest of the turquoise dye and add some black to it to make it less bright. But I added way too much black dye (hint: these things are freaking concentrated!) and I got greeny-black bits. I don’t dislike it, but it won’t work for the pattern I intended to use. The other thing about this yarn is that it’s 70/30 Merino Bamboo. The bamboo didn’t dye at all (I knew this beforehand) since you can’t dye it with acids, so the result is some whiteness running through it. It’s not TOO bad - it could really work. I might experiment on this one by overdyeing it with the fiber reactive dyes, which if done correctly will only dye the bamboo and not the wool. It will just be fun to see how it works.

I’ve started on the second Christmas shawl, and I reknitted almost half the Manon so far. I will finish that half tonight, and probably go back to the Christmas shawl before finishing it.

I also learned that a yarn company recently issued a pattern book that has wrist warmers (or fingerless mitts, I really didn’t think that through) that are extremely similar to mine. This is ok, they’re not exact, and I can’t claim the original idea, and I very much doubt that they copied me in particular. But thanks to the wonders of Ravelry, the original pattern used in the show *may* have been located. It does look awfully similar, if not identical. It made me feel a little deflated that it was never worth my time to begin with, but there was no central pattern database like Ravelry in the summer of 2006, so who could have known? Some kind people on Ravelry assured me that it definitely was worth my time, which made me smile. Not really posting this for any reason, I just don’t know where else to say it.

I ordered them from Knit-Purl because she sold the yarn by the gram. I ordered 190g for each shawl. However, this system doesn’t really work the way you’d expect. They get the yarn in balls, and they pick balls to fit your order as closely as possible. I ended up with 260g, and 300g, equaling a bill $20 higher than initially anticipated. Luckily, this is not such a problem for me this month, but I really wish they’d have contacted me directly before sending it out, apologising for it not being exactly what I wanted and charging me anyway. I got a nice handwritten note though, which minimised the blow. It’s just something to be aware of. I don’t blame them for the wet yarn at all. The mail system can rot in hell for that one.

Just some closeups of the colours:

I love the rustic quality of this yarn. It’s slightly rough to the touch, but it definitely softened after a rinse with some vinegar and Soak.

I also have a February Baby Sweater:

This was really a lot of fun. The Gull Lace pattern was easy to remember, and worked up really quickly. I liked the way it was constructed as well. This is made out of EXACTLY two skeins of Baby Cashmerino in Duksy Lavender, on 3.75mm/US5 needles. There is a whole ball of yarn left over, as well as a ball of darker lavender that I may use for some accessories.

I also have been working on Manon:

This is a fun knit. It works up quickly, despite the Moss stitch (or double-moss stitch, depending on where you live), and is suitably exciting to make you want to keep going. You can see the left side is mid-row (yes, I was too impulsive to take the picture before finishing the row), but is about two inches in. The yarn is strokable and yummy, and I really love the shade of green that it is. (It’s Valley Yarns Colrain in Grey Olive.) Once the left side of the peplum is done, there’s just the stockinette on top and it’ll be done! I’m definitely aiming for this to be an empire waist cardigan at this point. I’m concerned that it was unwise to make a larger size for the bottom now. It’s going to be very drapey, in any case. I don’t think it’d be worth making a smaller size at this point, but the top will be a smaller size. I was really concerned with the fit around the bottom area, since that’s were I’m largest. We’ll see how this little experiment turns out!

I’ve knitted a February Baby Sweater from Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitter’s Almanac. I also started on a Manon cardigan from the Norah Gaughan Vol. 1 from Berroco. I really hated the look of this pattern at first…I mean, look at the horrible fit on the model (and she looks constipated, to boot). But the design was so pretty. I had a poke on Ravelry and got a much better idea of how the garment is constructed. I think it can be altered enough on top to be flattering. I mean, adding a good few inches before the armhole shaping would take care of most of its ills. I am going to post pictures of this in progress because the construction of the bottom cabled section, or the “peplum”, is so interesting.

My gray cardigan will indeed live! I mentioned in my last post that I didn’t have enough yarn to finish it. I emailed several websites that claimed to have the yarn in stock to find out what dyelots they had. One shop had ONE ball in my dyelot. I overpaid for it, but I needed it. When I realised that I STILL wasn’t going to have enough, I started stalking peoples’ stashes on Ravelry. No one with my dyelot were offering this for sale or trade. Nooo! In a very shameful moment of desperation, I sent a PM to a member that had quite a lot in my dyelot to see if she could spare two balls. I tortured myself for nearly a week over whether or not to send the PM, but I figured the worst she could say was no. But she said yes! She sent me two balls, bringing me well into the safe zone to finish my cardigan! She rocks! I happily knitted up the sleeves, and it’s decision time for the neckline. I stopped knitting the back at the same level I stopped knitting the sleeves, so right now it’d be a boatneck sort of neckline. I’m not 100% on this, so I’ve been looking at other necklines on cardigans. Once I decide, I will finish off those pieces and start on the fronts! Exciting times!

I also, in a most unprecedented manner, ordered yarn to make two Revontuli shawls for my aunts for Christmas. I don’t normally knit such big things for other people, and I certainly do not make myself hysterical with Christmas knitting because deadline knitting isn’t fun and I want no part of it. But we have….16 weeks till Christmas. The first one took me about a week’s worth of knitting, and I added an extra repeat. I’m confident that if I bring them back and forth to work, as well as work on them some evenings for when I need mindless knitting, I can get them both done without much rushing. Well, I say it now. However, I remain confident. I ordered Kauni yarn in ER, and EJ. They each suit my aunts in their own ways. They both deserve a special gift because of the events we had to endure as a family this year. Unless things change, these are the only two gifts I intend to knit this year.

I will be back with pictures shortly.

Firstly, I mentioned in my last post that I was unhappy with my Leaf Kimono Top. Let’s just detail WHY I’m unhappy with this diaster:

Yeah. Matches the finished dimensions perfectly. How retarded does this look? Why? - is the only question I have here. Firstly, I *knew* that this was going to come out dodgy but I followed the directions anyway. Secondly, why were the directions written to this end? Honestly, the top comes down at the right length for a short top. But it looks so STUPID on me and pretty stupid as a finished piece. I am not a tall person…I am short-legged, short-waisted, and short-torsoed (a word which I just made up, but it’s true). This, in its current state, does me NO favours. None. I look terrible in it. Now, if it were longer, we’d get balance. But since this was worked in separate pieces from the bottom up, there’s no easy way to do this without altering the look of the whole garment. I do like to take pride in my work, and I can swallow such pride when necessary, BUT (and if you’ll allow me to be very frank) - THERE IS NO WAY ON THIS FREAKING PLANET THAT I AM GOING TO UNSEAM THOSE DAMN SLEEVES AND RIP THIS OUT AN START OVER I’D RATHER GOUGE OUT MY EYEBALLS WITH SPORKS!!!! *ahem*

So, the current plan is to knit a front and back piece for a few inches, and attach it in any way possible. Since this is a kimono style top, I can get away with something slightly belty looking with a few rows of stockinette, but I haven’t decided yet. I’m sorry that this isn’t going to come out as planned because I quite liked the look of the top as it was, but it doesn’t seem like it’s meant to be that way for me. I can still hardly stand to look at it, so it’s staying in the naughty basket until further notice. Moving on…

A few weeks back, I simultaneously dabbled in Kool-Aid dyeing and the idea of dyeing sock blanks. It was a lot of fun, and I didn’t go into it with any sort of plan. This is what I have:

I used Pink Lemonade, Black Cherry, and Berry Blue. I made one mistake with the colour progression, but I think it’s ok. The socks are coming out nice too - not too bold and blinding. There is a fair bit of white where the dye didn’t penetrate 100% (which was sort of intentional) that gives it an easier look. This is one of the Knitpicks sock blanks, in case anyone was interested. I like the idea of being able to knit two at a time, but I’m becoming of the firm opinion that the magic loop is the devil’s work. I simply don’t enjoy it the way I do DPNs.

Then I have this cardigan that is having a tough time being “born”, in a sense:

I’m not going to have enough yarn. I haven’t finished the shaping at the top on either the sleeves or the back piece because I’m not going to have enough yarn on the current balls to do it. I have two whole balls left for the front pieces alone. So, this kind of sucks. I found one English company that has one ball left in my dyelot, which I purchased, but I’d love another ball or two insurance. I emailed another company, which hasn’t got back to me yet, and I rather desperately PM’ed someone on Ravelry who had a lot of this dyelot to see if she could give up one or two. I feel really bad about doing that but I don’t know what else to do. So many people have it in my dyelot, but none are offering it for trade or sale. The worst she can say is no, though, so it doesn’t hurt to ask. What I’m thinking here is, I might have to rip out the sleeves and start working on the front pieces. This is not going to be a cardigan that buttons up all the way - it was never intended to. But I figure I should work on the fronts with the 4 balls of yarn I would have if I ripped out the sleeves. If each front piece takes less than two balls (which it should) I’ll just have to sacrifice my vision of the sleeves and make it cap-sleeved or something. Well, I do have 5 balls, if you count the one that’s coming. I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to start on the sleeves before I knew if I had enough yarn to make the fronts, but it’s a lesson learned.

Spinning is still sort of an issue, even after all that rest. I think I need to give myself more time to come out of “holiday mode” and get focused on projects and other positive things to come. I did a little bit of spinning this weekend and it went ok, but I found the same problem I had before, in that it’s not distracting enough for my brain. I’ll get back into it. I’m just in a rut.