Monthly Archives: September 2006

recharged

Batteries for the camera, anyway (and macro wasn’t the issue with the cybershot – it really is just bad in any kind of low light). Sleeping in this morning helped with my rest issues, but all I really want is a couple of days to sleeeeep and just hang out! Ain’t gonna be many of those for awhile.

Meanwhile, it’s been terribly rainy and COLD the last couple days. I’m skipping right over the whole cotton sweater thing (I’d planned to knit Licorice Whip with some brown Main Line this fall, but I think I’ll just leave it for spring) and right to the GIVE ME CHUNKY WOOL thing.

Could it be? Possibly a Rhinebeck sweater?

We’ll see. It’s all my handspun merino (with one more CC to spin up – a dark green), headed towards a bottom-up seamless circular colourwork yoke sweater. I swatched Wednesday night and came up with a perfect 4.5 sts/in on 4.5 mm needles – the main colour is a three ply, oatmeal merino. So soft. I’m really terribly proud of it (as anyone there Wednesday can attest to). Away I went, and the body here is done up to the waist increases – and the end of the first skein of yarn. It was the smallest skein, weighing in at 109 g and 174 yards. The two I have left are about 264 yards each, so I should really have plenty for the rest of the body and the sleeves!

I’m so excited about that sweater! But I will also need to address this pile o’ purple sometime very soon as well:

It’s supermerino (with a Denise tip stuck in there for scale) for a sample, and rather than getting 10 skeins, I got one honkin’ skein equal to the yardage of ten! My swift nearly had a conniption.

Purple seems to be recurring around here; short row heel tutorial to come once I get to the heel on this here Trekking sock.

I’d better go get some sleep; the Run for the Cure is in the morning and therefore I can’t sleep in!

P.S. For the love of wool, people, go to LittleKnits and buy yarn so I can’t. Seriously, I want Nature Wool at $5.25 a skein. DB Merino DK for $27 a bag. Or the Chunky for $24 a bag. There’s a Kureyon colourway for FORTY DOLLARS A BAG! Gahhhhh!

warning: blurry photos ahead.

Gahhhhh. Normally I use an old Olympus digital camera – 2.1 MP, no manual features, sloooow. But the photos come out fine, generally pretty clear and good colour. I’ve used another camera, a Sony Cybershot (DSC-T1) a few times before and had it be fine too. But lately all I can seem to get with it is shots like this:

It wasn’t even really low light, just not super sunny. I took shot after shot, holding my breath when I took the photo, resting my hands on my chair’s arm, etc. Very irritating. I think I’ll go back to my Olympus, thanks – unless someone can help me with this particular problem? It doesn’t even have a tripod mount.

Grey sleeves – Elann Highland Chunky. Super speedy – the second sleeve is already done (and that photo was taken earlier today). For a cardigan.

Blurry black alpaca starting to look like a sweater. Boring but a good standby knit (not that I really need more things to work on).

Last weekend I went to Goodwill in search of another crockpot – I found this:

But no actual crockpot! I’m being taunted.

Let’s see, what else is up…I desperately want to buy yarn. Dude, it’s not like I need more! Although I keep saying to myself that I don’t have much worsted weight wool at all (really, I only have one sweater’s worth, and it’s got a project attached to it) so I should really get some stuff for design playing. Yeah, that’s it.

I’ve also been thinking about the whole holiday pressie situation, and I think I know what I want to do (just a few bigger things). Buy the yarn now? That might lead to adding a few more skeins for myself…thus breaking the yarn diet. Hmmmm. Will have to think about this more.

Serrano – yardage requirements

I promise a big ol’ knitting/spinning post in the daylight hours, but for now – here’s the yardage requirements that I’ve calculated for Serrano. Obviously since the recommended yarn comes in honkin’ big skeins (560 yards), it’s hard to buy 3.5 or 4.25 skeins for the size you’re making!

Bust Size: 30 (34, 38, 42, 46, 50, 54, 58)
Yardage: approx. 1120 (1280, 1360, 1450, 1570, 1720, 1890, 2050) yards of fingering weight yarn.

Note: I tend to overestimate a little because I don’t want you to run out of yarn! So don’t feel like you have to buy even more than what I’ve suggested here – you might have a lot left over.

There’s also a knitalong starting up at http://serranokal.blogspot.com! Ooh, I’ve arrived?