Month: November 2005

  • what have I gotten myself into??

    I’ll get to the title stuff in a minute. First up, some finished yarns – these are the last of some corriedale that I dyed up a while back, and finished spinning a little while ago.

    I loooove this red/purple/brown combo. It actually came out quite soft, so I’m sort of contemplating some socks out of it.

    Yellow/blue/green. Also very cool.

    Here’s both, plus a skein from a couple months ago. I think I want to do something with all of them – but what?? Suggestions welcome!

    And here’s a shot of bpt. See the front cables? They sure don’t match the directions of the ones in the photo. I don’t know what gives, but something is wrong with the order of the cable crosses. Oh well, it’s fine.

    Mmmmmkay. So. It’s 2/3 of the way through November and I’m just NOW getting requests for knitted Christmas gifts. I’d planned a few already, but now my family’s asking for stuff! Stuff that I need to buy yarn for! Stuff such as a garment! Stuff in cotton, because they won’t wear wool!

    The List:
    mom: a black cotton shrug (the fiery bolero from the summer Interweave in either Elann Connemara or TLC Cotton Plus
    dad: dunno
    sister #1: Gryffindor scarf – will be inaccurate, which is fine with her. I was thinking TLC Cotton Plus in red and gold. HP-ers, what do you think?
    sister #2: socks (already in progress, and that was already planned) and a black earflap hat
    auntie E: felted wool clogs
    auntie J: dunno yet, must be cotton
    girl cousin #1: Pasha!
    girl cousin #2: cabled armwarmers in leftover Cotton Fleece
    boy cousins 1 and 2: some kind of toy from Jess Hutchison’s booklet – I’m thinking robots, from stash yarn

    ETA: I dug around in the stash and came up with a ball of that red TLC stuff, and yeah, it’s too bright red. I did find a suitable one though, in Butterfly cotton, so all I need is some gold and I’m gold!

    How many of these are done? NONE.

    I need me some 1-877-SOS-KNIT.

  • a saga of thumbs

    Well. I followed the decreases for the thumb from the Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns, and that didn’t work out so well.

    I had a big ugly blob of stitches at the end where I drew the yarn end through. I must’ve ripped it out five times! Eventually I did my own thing – just knit straight till the end, then k2tog around, then thread the end through the stitches.

    Pattern: my own, for my tiny hands
    Yarn: Knitpicks Sock Garden, 2 skeins (yarn held double)
    Needles: 3 mm dpns
    Finished: November 17, 2005

    And here’s a big pile o’ Koigu – all the hexagons for the skirt are DONE!

    The piles in the back are the first and third tiers, and are all connected into their respective tiers. The pile in the front is the middle tier, not yet all connected. There’s a whole lotta finishing let to do though – check out all those ends!

  • procrastination and productivity

    Well, it’s not so much procrastination really – I like to think I’ve moved past putting things off just for the sake of putting them off. Like blogging, for example. It’s not a lack of things to say, it’s more like just not having enough hours in the day…look, it’s already 1 am and I’m not sleeping yet. I haven’t been able to get to bed before 1 am in ages!

    Anyway, enough of that. Onto the productivity.

    I tried Kitchener stitching the top of the first mitten closed, because when I thread the yarn through the remaining stitches it doesn’t tend to hold too well. Yeah, didn’t go so well.

    Oh well. I just threaded the yarn through a couple times, and I’ll make sure to secure the tail best I can on the inside. The second mitten has commenced, although the first still doesn’t have a thumb. I’m using my swallow casein dpns, which were my very first set! Ah, memories.

    A finished mimi! So mine’s not verylong, but it’s prettylong.

    Mimi Verylong
    Pattern: Amy Singer – I cast on 25 stitches for more of a scarf.
    Yarn: my handdyed, handspun merino! About 200 yards.
    Needles: Denise US9
    Finished: November 13, 2005

    I love it! It was all curly going into a pin-and-spray blocking, but it’s all nice and spread out now. I know it’ll curl back up again, but for now it’s perfect. And my merino is soft and lovely, if I do say so myself!

    In other productivity news…today I went to a three-hour lab and two two-hour lectures, and I managed to knit 2 titbits, the second-to-last koigu hexagon, the cuff of the second mitten, and a few (looong) rows on bpt. Ah, productivity!