Category: knitting

  • with the promise of more doughnuts to come

    Oy. The days, they pass, and I don’t get nearly enough done. A quick update on things…no photos today.

    School:
    Well. Have I mentioned that the week following Rhinebeck I have three midterms and a project due? Yeah. Gotta get on that. School’s freaking me out, man. Seriously.

    Spinning:
    I left the wheel at the store this week, and probably will do the same this upcoming week – I’ve been teaching wheel classes, and it’s not so fun to be hauling the Lendrum around on the TTC – even with the case and everything. It’s good to have removed a distraction, but I still need to spin up a colour or two for my Rhinebeck sweater! The green I dyed isn’t quite turning out how I wanted, so I’m not sure how it’ll compliment the other colours I’ve done. I’m definitely going to be spinning up some mustard yellow though, hopefully next Wednesday and Thursday.

    Knitting:
    I’m almost done the body on the Rhinebeck sweater (up to the armholes), then it’s onto the sleeves. I’ve been working on figuring out what colourwork to do, but I really need to break out the pencil crayons and graph paper. It’s going really well though, and I think the sleeves will go fast. Yay handspun.

    I’m up to the heel on a purple Trekking sock, so it’s almost (as soon as I get some sunlight) short row tutorial time. I promise.

    Other Current Knitting:
    – Lucy II
    – 2 pairs of socks (handspun and Trekking)
    – black alpaca sweater (booooring)
    – grey cabled cardi from Vogue – two sleeves done, cast on for the back…I really need this sweater to wear!

    Oh, I want to knit so many nice things. Alas…the time, I must learn how to bend it. I’ll be back soon. With pictures!

  • 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.