Slave to the Needles

It's been a weird year for projects

Well, weird in the sense that I've done hardly any knitting, but made a major shift in focus in my SCA costume.  But, I made stuff, and it was fun, so that's all good.

I'll post some pictures later, after I format them, but suffice to say, that I hope to pay more attention to this poor, neglected little blog... 

Follow up post! With photos!

Here's a pic of the purple cowl, in its completed state:

And, as a lovely bonus, here's a pic of a blue cowl I did a while back, ostensibly to teach myself how to knit lace.  It was WAY EASIER than I thought it would be, and managed to make more errors in the stupid rib pattern than in the lace part.  But it seems to have turned out well, regardless:

The hand towel is coming along, albeit slowly (I only knit on it on the bus, or at work during lunch).  If I like it, I'll try it again in linen.  I'm not as enthused about knitting with cotton, as compared with wool, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

I also tested my theory on the pattern interpretation of the little dress, and was correct.  And I still maintain that it's not clear in the book, so *sticks out tongue*  I'm nearly done with the front piece, and then it's just sleeves, putting it together and finishing.  Woo!

Another FO, and a Dork Moment

Finished the cowl.  I'll get a pic up ere long.

In other news, I was knitting along happily on the dress thingie when I became TOTALLY STUMPED at the pattern directions. It took starting another project (more on that below), a full night's sleep and an entire bus ride in to work pondering the situation before I realized what a MASSIVE DORK I am.  Although, I will continue to maintain that the pattern isn't supremely clear on that particular bit.  So I'll try it when I get home to see if I was correct in my interpretation.

Started the Moss Stitch Grid Hand Towel from Mason Dixon knitting.  Although I may just take the dimensions and make up my own pattern that I don't have to really count or think about, so I can do it on the bus.  Two super skeins of Sugar & Cream should net me a towel and matching wash cloth, if I work it right.  Then I might get me some linen and try it again with THAT.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Hello, Dr. Frankenstein

The skirt prototype, she is finished!

Spent much of the morning with Ma making sure the straight skirt pattern I wanted to use was, well, useable.  It is.  And now she's just as jazzed as I am to make skirts.  The first one out of the gate will actually be the Moss Green from the kit.  I just need to get thread, lining and zippers for the plaid and the tweedy houndstooth, and those'll be in the hopper too.

The sweater for the plaid, as you know, is done.  The cardigan for the tweedy houndstooth is OTN, and I hope to have it done before I go to Scotland.  I was going to do something out of Rowan Vintage Knits for the pukey green, but have since changed my mind and plan to do this one instead.

My queue on Ravelry.com has 65 patterns on it. If their "add to queue" widget worked in IE, I'd probably have WAY more in there, but I think 65 is a respectable number.

Tonight will be movies of my Sekrit Boifriend (Hello, John Cusack!) and maybe some Black Adder. And, obviously, some knitting.

It's a good day.  :)

An FO! And some WIPs!

I finally finished up one of the baby kimonos.  I'm not going to post a picture on the off chance that R reads this blog - I'd like it to be at least somewhat of a surprise at the shower.  If you're on Ravelry, though, the picture is posted there.  The other one should be finished up in the next couple of days, and I'll post the pic of that later as well.

But, just because I can, I'll put up the three other projects I have on needles at the moment:

Chic Knits - Ariann

Vintage yarn from a skirt/sweater kit

Debbie Bliss - Ribbon-tied Baby Dress

Knit Picks Andean Silk in Cornflower

Cashmerino Cowl (my own pattern...sort of...)

Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in Eggplant

So now, I'm waiting to hear if CR is knocked up, so I can knit something fabulous and gothy for her spawn.  Won't that be lovely?

Work! In Progress!

So, as promised, here's a current WIP.  The Somewhat Cowl.  About 70% of the way through the THIRD attempt at me making a sweater out of this yarn.  It was the first kit I discovered, and came with a delightfully obnoxious chunk of plaid.  And four really ugly retro sweater patterns to choose from.  So I didn't.  (Now, before you all panic about how deep that neckline is, there's still a crap-ton of ribbed cowly goodness to go in there that will close that space up in a hurry.  *hur*  I said "ribbed." )

Here's the history:  I started making Ivy off of Knitty.com and got about half way through and realized that it's a sucky pattern, and I'd look frumpy in it.  Which is COMPLETELY unacceptable.  So I poked around a bit more, re-discovered the Somewhat Cowl, and realized that "Sexy Secretary in Turquoise and Plaid" was a look I'd be much happier pulling off.  Enter attempt the first.

Now, I'm a busty girl.  Not impossibly so, but enough that I usually have to overcompensate in a garment's size, just to fit the girls.  So, on my merry way toward the measurements I thought would work I went.  Got to about the point that I am now, and tried it on.

Woah.

Huge.

Now, I love this yarn, and I love that pattern, and gawdammit, I want to look sexy.  Lesser humans would give up after two tries.  But I remained undaunted and just started over, knitting directly from the old sweater to the new.  Recycling, live! And in person!  I'm feeling very ecologically sound, at the moment.  It'll pass.

The only thing that's making me twitch, at present, is that the yarn and the ground color of the plaid don't match exactly, as one would hope.  I don't know if that's because the fabric is old, or if it never really matched properly in the first place, but it's different enough that I might not actually want to wear them together.  And I am sad.  Because, hello?  Cute sexy outfit?

Thankfully I have, now, three (yes, three!) other skirt/sweater kits to play with after this one, that do match exactly.  And a pile of cashmere blend in pine green to make another one of these out of.  So...I'm sure I'll manage.

 

...as thick as pea soup...

Really, truly, this photo doesn't do the glorious barfyness of this kit any sort of justice whatsoever.

The sheer pea-greenness, the Retro 1970ness, the "holy crap that's hideous...hey, you actually look great in that color!" of it all has me completely atwitter.  This beats the turquoise wacky plaid - hands down - for deliciously obnoxious.  And I?  Can't wait to knit it up.  I've decided on Laurent from Rowan's Fitted Knits, without the intarsia/embroidered flower bits.  I think this'll make a fantastic little sweater jacket, and with a perfectly matching pencil skirt, I'm hoping I'll hit a kind of Anthropologie-esque look without the weird pattern combos and froofy bits.  I just need to find the ideal skirt pattern, and maybe nut up and get a dress form so I can sew it my own damn self.

This is the third such kit I've procured, of late.  I'm in the middle of my third try at a sweater (the Somewhat Cowl - I'd shifted to this pattern after my first choice was looking rather craptastic, and then I made it too big.) with the yarn from the aforementioned turquoise yarn/obnoxious plaid kit.  Following that will be a riff on Tubey in natural-colored yarn from New Zealand that came with a chunk of totally divine brown tweed.  Only then will I permit myself to fashon something out of this latest one.  And my fingers are crossed that I win the auction for it's sister kit in a hideous Autumn Gold.  Yes, my friends, the 70s are alive and well in my stash.

And, just to round out the long, LONG list of things I have planned in my head, I'll be making up a pattern for a shawl to donate to the Medieval Women's Choir Benefit Auction from the 100% cashmere I nabbed last week.  I've got it all worked out - decreasing from a bazillion stitches rather than starting small and increasing as I go, and putting a cable pattern on two of the edges.  I'm not sure I'll bother with fringe.  We'll see how it sorts out.

And then there are gifts to knit - something for Scratchel's impending bundle of fun, Birthdays, Christmas...I'd like to test-drive some felted things to see if it's something I'd be willing to do a lot of to maybe sell.  And I'd like to put together some hand towel/wash cloth sets out of something nice, just to see what that's all about...

There needs to be more time in the day.