Monthly Archives: September 2005

so busy, so tired

I’ve sooo much going on with school (like an all-day lab field trip for environmental biology tomorrow) and I think I just agreed to do a largish but easy commissioned knit project. Well, at least that one sounds like it could be cool (my first large commisioned piece!) but it’ll take while and be somewhat boring. I can’t start until the yarn comes in, anyway.

I don’t have any photos today due to my camera batteries being dead, but I’m making a wee bit of progress on things:

simply autumn: coming along. I’m working on the bust increases and counting the rows actually seems to make it go faster
koigu skirt – I’m allllmost done the first tier of hexagons. Next up I’ll do the largest ones, so when I get to the middle-sized ones, they’ll feel faster.
katy: front and back are done, and I’ve started a sleeve! I hope to work on that on the bus tomorrow.

I think that’s about it. I’ve got ideas of knee socks percolating, but actually measuring my, uh, well developed calves was kind of discouraging. We’ll see, I really do want to do them though.

Monica – the Joy is in the store. I repeat, the Joy is in the store!

rough start, but easy going

I started a new sweater, out of Blue Sky Alpacas cotton, inspired by “Simply Marilyn” from last spring’s Interweave (pattern is available free here). Inspired by, only, because I’ve got a different gauge, slightly different cable, difference construction, ribbing, etc. Much planning was involved to figure out how I could get the centre cable to come out of the ribbing, while having the total number of stitches be somewhere in my range.

With 11 stitches to go on my long-tail cast-on, I ran out of yarn.

And well, my carefully planned ribbing still didn’t quite work out, but it was close enough. Smooth sailing now, and it’s just lovely.

Since it’s the perfect autumn colour and style, I’m going to go with “simply autumn”. It’s a quick knit with aran weight yarn, the chunkiest I’ve used in awhile. I want to start another sweater, chunkier than this one, soon – but I’ll have to finish something else first.

I finally managed to weave in all the ends on Cloud, so as soon as I find time to knit the neckband we’ll be in business. Oh, and those irving park socks are pretty much done – just one bout of kitchener and some weaving in of ends. Hm, now I need to cast on for some more socks for commuter knitting!

The fact that the yarn cake of blue sky cotton, sitting on my desk, has remained pristine is an endless source of amusement – I’m feeling rather stressed at the moment with school, you see. It’s going to get worse long before it gets better!

ewwww

First of all, thanks for all the compliments on Cavern! I’ve already worn it once, and I do think it’ll be a great staple for fall. As for the pattern, I don’t know when I’ll get around to it (I’m so busy with school) but it’ll probably be around sometime. No promises, sorry!

I finally finished spinning up the rhubarb wool that I bought from the KW fair.

It’s two big skeins (I don’t know the yardage; I was too lazy to count), and one tiny skein that I’ll probably swatch with. It’s 50% mohair, and 50% polwarth leicester cross.

But I do know why it was so cheap – it wasn’t very clean…

That was part of my spinning towel after one spinning session, and I even had to vacuum my wheel and the floor around it. There was lots of hay and random VM. Ewww. Plus, I reinforced my not-craziness about mohair. All in all, it’s kind of pretty. And I love the colour.

I finished the back of Katy!

It’s sooooo nice. I can’t wait to wear it, so I’d better get moving!