KnitMe

Mendocino x 2

I finally finished the 'Mendocino' cardigan, adult version, by Starmore from Pacific Coast Highway. This was not the most interesting knit, but I always have at least one project like that, for knitting at lunch hours and traffic lights or while Emmy is in the bathtub or taking swimming class.

The reason it was knit in a bland grey color (not my usual taste) was this:

We'll have matching sweaters for a couple of years. Hers was done a couple of years ago in cotton/acrylic. Mine was done in Celtic Aran from stash, it took almost 9 balls and got worked on from October 31 to January 22.

The buttons are incredibly hard to photograph but they're gorgeous.

They're glass in a dark blue iridescent finish that changes color with changing light. I got them from the ebay seller spirit_inc. She sells beautiful Czech glass buttons in addition to other beads and jewelry supplies. I've been back and bought 3 other lots from her, I'm starting a button stash, erg.

I've been continuing my drive to finish stuff (I'm 1/3 down the second sleeve on Saga Rose), so I haven't combed much except for sampling some of the lovely things waiting in my plastic tub of fleece.

The small ones in the back are Targhee and Rambouillet from here, the bigger poofy ones in the front are Shetland/Merino from here and Cormo from here. It's all yummy, and from what I can tell in my limited fleece experience it is all Good Stuff, so I'm happy to give you the links to where it came from. Maybe someday when I get more ambitious I'll bring up an unwashed and a washed lock of each one and make a more instructive photo!

This one is for Ryan:

The pattern is here (with comments on Roi's version here) and the yarn is the Lorna's Laces worsted weight that I won from Ryan. I only used a little over half the ball so I'm considering what to do with the other half... The hat is a little snug but I've found that if I pull it down over my forehead the cloche style doesn't look as dorky on me, and it definitely fits. I lengthened the crown by about an inch over what the pattern calls for, so that it would fit me better. (There was also a teeny error in the version I had - the decrease row above the lace reads 'k2tog, k10' - it should be 'k2tog, k9'.)

It's snowing here again today but it's much different from last week, it's much warmer and the snow is not accumulating as much. We should make it out to swimming class with no trouble. Last night was mom's night off (haven't had one since last summer), I bought a bottle of cabernet and hauled the spinning wheel in front of the TV and rented the first Harry Potter movie. Probably not the evenest 2 hours of single I've ever spun, but perhaps the most relaxing 2 hours I've had in a long time. I hope I don't have to wait another 6 months to have a chance to watch the second one!

Outstanding Mail Day

It snowed here all morning and until about 4 this afternoon, but the mail carrier made it down the street and brought me two packages.

We got some Cotton Fleece mill ends and three balls of stunning space-dyed bluefaced leicester (sport weight) from Paradise Fibers. And we got 4 hanks of alpaca/silk laceweight yarn and 3 hanks of hand dyed sock yarn from the new line of yarns at KnitPicks. I have to say that the new KnitPicks yarn is gorgeous, and nobody's paying me to say so! I'm going to get some more stuff from them after I sell off a little more stash and finish some objects.

Someone was happy with the Cotton Fleece, since it's for her.

The camera was wildly fooled on this picture. The picture of the yarn is pretty true, it's between sky blue and turquoise. But her sweatshirt is dark jade. I can't figure out why the camera decided they matched!

I'm on a push to finish things, as I love to have that total feeling of freedom that comes from finishing 2 or 3 things in the space of a week or two. Mendocino has a collar and button bands and needs a good block and some buttons, pictures of it soon. Emmy's sock just needs about 10 more rows and a grafting, and she'll have a new pair. I have some Silk Garden to make a moebius for myself, and it's time to start a scarf for Emily, and I want to get into that space-dyed bluefaced leicester for socks for me.

Saga Rose is still sitting with one sleeve - I really want to clear the decks before I cut that last steek. I find a second sleeve much more disheartening than a second sock or second glove!

I did finish spindling the rest of my combed Cotswold cross fleece, now I have two hanks of about 40 grams and 65 meters. Don't know what it will grow up to be, but for now I think it's pretty enough as it is! I think I'll comb Targhee next...

Administrative Note

Dear loyal and faithful Pink Tea readers:
Due to the ever-rising tide of comment spam, I'm going to moderate comments on this site for awhile. I'm very much afraid this will stop you from commenting, and I don't want it to, so I'm alerting you to this in advance. It just means I need to approve comments before they appear on the site. I promise to do this at least once a day, so comment away, you hear? There are tools out there to prevent comment spam but none of them is the solution for us yet, for various technical reasons, mostly having to do with the operating system the site runs on. Thanks for all the comments you've given us in the past and please keep them coming!

Best, Prudence.

Half Measures

We have FOs and half FOs today here at Pink Tea, but first, for those of you that have been reading here for awhile:

I call this photo "victory is mine." Enough said...

Here is half a pair of new socks for Emily.

The yarn is from the ebay seller "lotusblossom" who handpaints/dyes this stuff. It's beautiful shades of pink and blue in a colorway called Pink Peonies. Not superwash, but I think it'll be worth the handwashing.

Here is Saga Rose with one sleeve.

I found myself totally baffled by the row labeled "decrease for cuff", I think the directions are messed up there. If I followed the instructions I would not have ended up with the number of stitches specified, so I got there my own way. One more sleeve to go.

OK here's the real FO.

This is the Dale book 109 lace cardigan, knitted in cream Alpafina (50% wool/50% alpaca).

I started it June 12, 2004 (!) and finished it January 13th - except for the buttons which I'll get to sometime soon - 6 teeny buttons with crocheted loops. I kept putting it aside for long periods of time because the lace pattern was frankly boring - a 12 row repeat, done forever. But it's so pretty and lightweight and inviting.

It shed a lot while knitting so I don't know if I'll be able to wear it over a dark shirt as I'd planned. It used 7 full balls of Alpafina at 200 yards each, plus just enough of the 8th ball to sew down the neckband and make the button loops.

One tiny disaster happened with this. I always hang clamps and vise grips and so on from the bottom of sweaters on the wooly board when I'm trying to pull down the edges, and this time the vise grip left a rust spot on the bottom edge of the button band. So I'll be searching for dye and rust removers at my supermarket tomorrow. Eww. But it's still a lovely sweater and I'm very glad to have it off my plate. I'll try to come up with an in-use picture soon.

My combing and spinning has taken a back seat to all this finishing but the cotswold cross is all combed and I'm going to finish spindling it and plying it in the next few days. My other WIPs are Mendocino, which has come along very quickly and is almost to the sleeve saddles, and the silk-from-hell shawl which has been abandoned since I devoted myself to Saga Rose. I also have 3 different skeins of very non-scratchy yarn to try making Emmy a scarf, and a couple of different things to make hats for myself. Need more time.

Playing Hooky

Well, I'm supposed to be working on a sweater for a friend's brother, but I've had some fun yarn calling to me, and I just don't want to do "have to" knitting right now. Maybe it's the end of the holiday season; maybe it's the new year; maybe it's just general laziness. In any case, I spent a chunk of my winter vacation playing around with a couple of things. The first is a Sophie bag from Magknits. I've made a couple of these already, and I really enjoy the pattern. It's well-written, economical of yarn, and a quick knit. Coincidentally, the Yarn Harlot has been making them with beaded handles, too. Very chic. My version is knit from some of my handspun from about three years ago. I got the roving from Greenwing (Dyeing for Fiber) on Ebay. The colorway is called "Maine Woods," and the fiber is New Zealand Romney. It's a little too scratchy for even my rhino hide, so I thought it a good bag candidate. Here it is in its pre-felted form:

I liked the way the colors lined up, and hoped for some definite striping. This is what I ended up with:

Initially, I was a little disappointed, as I'd hoped that the color runs would stay more clearly defined. As you can see, they muddied up a bit. You can still see some striping (though it's hard to make out in the picture), but it's definitely not a Booga bag. I wasn't sure I cared for it at first, but I gave it a shave and contemplated it for a few days. I did like the fact that the yarn felted up with an almost boucle texture, and in the end, I decided that it just needed a fastening loop and a smashing button - sort of a Charlie Brown bag (all it needed as a little love). A field trip to Weaving Works yielded a Czech glass button that I think complements the bag well. A little two-stitch eye cord and some sewing left me with:

I like it much better now. The photo is taken at an angle and so the button and loop look off-center, but they're not. Oops. The loop is a trifle too long, though, so I'll shorten it a skosh.

Next, in preparation for my local spinning guild's St. Distaff Day spin in, I thought I'd dye up a little fiber to contribute to the door prizes. I've been in a very red mood lately, and so got out some Southdown cross roving, some Gaywool Tomato and some Cushings Egyptian Red. I did some sprinkle dyeing in my crockpot and came up with this:

I like this so well that I'm going to have to do another batch for me. Now, would someone please crack a whip over my head and tell me to get back to that sweater?