I just signed up to knit a pair of socks by July 25th for the Sock Museum. I will be knitting Rivendell socks by Janel Laidman. Now I just need to figure out what yarn will work best and get knitting. What color do you think of when you think of Rivendell?
Edited because I can’t spell today.
So, I’m knitting up a tiny preemie cardigan. And I’ve already knit a hat and booties in normal baby size. But, now I’m realizing that a yarn I have in my stash that I didn’t originally use for a baby gift because I thought it was not superwash may indeed be superwash — Lisa Souza Merino Hardtwist in Spumoni. (For some reason, the skein I have is a completely different color from the Spumoni on Lisa’s website. Mine’s a yellow, green and pink mix while the one on her website is teal, grey, and purple…. weird.) This is why I’m thinking my skein may not be superwash if something changed along the way. It’s a skein I picked up at a yarn swap in January, so my memory is a little foggy about it, and it’s at home and I’m still at work (*shhh*).
Anyway, if my skein does turn out to be superwash, I thought it would be nice to knit my friend a normal sized baby sweater as the little girl won’t be preemie sized forever. I’ve knit EZ’s Baby Surprise Jacket once before and thought it was a great, fast knit. But, now I’m also considering EZ’s Feburary Baby Sweater to make things exciting with a little lace. I am flip-flopping between the two. Thankfully, this isn’t a rush. i’ve got the hat and booties and the preemie cardigan should be done quickly (which is good because I believe my friend may be coming to a work potluck on Tues. and I could give them to her then).
So… opinions. Should I go with the magic that is the BSJ? Or should I try something new and knit the February Baby Sweater?
I seem to be experiencing a sort of knitting ennui. Thankfully, there is a baby to knit for. After a few weeks on bed rest, my friend’s baby apparently couldn’t wait any longer and came still several week early. Baby will be staying in neo-natal for a couple of weeks until she can breathe, eat, and maintain body temperature. I had already knit up a cute hat and booties, but they were sized to fit a 6-month-old. While that will fit eventually, I decided to knit up a quick preemie sweater. Heck, the pattern I’m using only calls for one 50 g ball of sock/light fingering weight yarn, which means this should be like knitting 1 sock. So, that’s what I’m knitting while the sock and the stole I have on the needles bore me.
I’m not even excited by the shawl I have ready to cast on. A lovely dark blue wool silk laceweight, and I just look and the ball of yarn and sigh. No compulsion to cast on. Wish I knew what was wrong with me.
Maybe I need to spin more.
Imagine photos of cute baby items here. They are currently trapped on my camera while I wait for the battery to recharge.
My knitting has been experiencing some ennui recently. i have been unable to get a decent pair of socks started, and have cast on and ripped out 2 different patterns. Maybe it’s the yarn. I did get my first Mean Girls Sock Yarn club shipment a couple weeks ago and am now contemplating what kinds of socks it wants to be.
I have also been chugging away on my Miss Lambert’s Shetland Pattern for a Shawl from Victorian Lace Today. I actually started it over a year ago, did about 10 repeats and promptly got bored with it. But, I am knitting it out of Jade Sapphire Silk/Cashmere 2-ply that is quite nice and will be a treat for me to finish. The photo here is from it’s sadly 10 repeats done state. I’ve got about 13 repeats of the center panel to go before I can begin the border. Unfornately, the way the pattern is written leads me to believe that I may get to the border and put it down again for many months as the instructions seem to be written in gibberish.
Because of this, and because Purlescence Yarns had assorted lace yarns on sale at 25% this last weekend, I came home with a very pretty ball of Mountain Colors Winter Lace in Deep Blue. I found the solid color reassuring. I’ve been doing a lot of variegated projects of late (even Miss Lambert up there has some variegation to it). I’ve settled on the Aeolian shawl from Knitty.com because I wanted something with nupps. I’m also considering doing the beading on the edging to give it a little glitz. Just need to decide on the needle size I want to use. I swatched on size 3 needles last night, but I think it may still be too closed. I do tend to use size 4 needles for my laceweight projects, so that may just be the way to go.
One would think that with such a beautiful wheel and no thesis taking up my time, I’d be getting tons of spinning done (which I should be doing since I have tons of fiber lying around after joining the Spunky Ecelectic Fiber Club). But after twisting my ankle last month the spinning slacked off. It got better just in time for me to ingest some mystery item that has left me with a beautiful case of hives for the last couple of weeks. Benadryl induced stupor is not the ideal spinning frame of mind, sadly.
I have been trying to get some knitting done. I have a friend who’s baby tried to make an early appearance… 9 weeks early. She’s now on bed rest and I have been given warning to get the baby gift finished cause the kid may be here sooner rather than later. I picked up a skein of Dream in Color Classy in Happy Forest, a nice, cheery green because I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl. I knit up a quick roll-brim hat and a couple of booties to match.
The booties were a lot of fun to knit. I had picked up Cat Bordhi’s New Pathways book a couple months ago, but had done nothing but flip through it. Someone at my Saturday knitting group had done a couple of the practice booties from the books and I liked the way they looked. So, I whipped up a couple of the Sky Arch booties over the last couple of days. My drugged attention span caused me to miss the instruction to knit 8 rounds after the ribbing, but I think they still look completely cute and should still fit alright even without the added length. The baby won’t know the difference, and I won’t tell.
I have to admit that while it’s terribly exciting to be done with my thesis and graduated, the best part of finishing was coming home to find this in my living room the day after submitting my thesis to the university in April.
The husband had gone to Purlescence Yarns while I was out knitting with friends at a cafe and brought it home after paying it off (lay-away rocks). It had been decided that it would probably be more fun for me to put it together myself. It’s great to know how all the parts go together in case I have to break her down in the future. After getting her together, the husband told me he thought her name might be Catherine. It seems to be sticking. So, presenting Catherine, my new Schacht-Reeves cherry 30″ double treadle spinning wheel:
She’s so pretty and spins wonderfully. It is an amazing experience to be able to spin laceweight yarn while still treadling at a pedestrian pace.
So, I decided that if I was going to get back on the posting wagon, I should try to get back to the posting schedule I had set for myself before the insanity of graduate school dragged me away — Tuesdays and Thursdays, at the very least.
The hard question is where to start. Things have happened in the last several months, but does anyone care now that they are done and gone. Doesn’t matter, you’re going to see some of it anyways. 😛
We went to Canada (Eastern Ontario to be precise) in December to visit family and get a chance to actually see Toronto. The last time we went to Toronto was August 2003. The few days we had set aside to do things like go to the ROM were a bust when the entire eastern seaboard was blacked out. Things aren’t open when there’s no power. We did take a tour of the islands in Lake Ontario cause it was one of the few things running, and it was cooler on the lake. I have a whole set from the visit at http://www.flickr.com/photos/zardra/sets/72157612587406314/. I took lots of photos at the ROM of dinosaurs and statues. It was a lot of fun.
It was kind of fun to see snow for the first time in over 10 years. I thought I was done with cold and snow when we moved out to CA, but being in it I realized it wasn’t as cold as I remembered it being, and I really miss seasons.
In February, there was, of course, Stitches West in Santa Clara. I didn’t sign up for any classes this year, so it was just the market place for me. I tried to concentrate on things that I can’t usually find in the immediate area and also fibers that I haven’t worked with before. I got some madder dyed BFL, some plain targhee, and some merino silk laceweight in Chartreuse’s Sister from A Verb for Keeping Warm. I got some gorgeous baby camel and silk roving from Red Fish Dye Works. I got a huge thing of dyed BFL from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. Picked up some blue dyed Wensleydale, some blue carded batts, and a skein of sock yarn from Lisa Souza. Got a small ball of merino, silk and qiviut from Windy Valley Muskox that I think I’ll make into a cowl. A skein of MadelineTosh sock yarn in Kale from Webs. And last, but not least, a skein of sock yarn in Opal from Abstract Fiber. Rather amazed at the amount of fiber I was able to get for my budget this year, all of it wonderfully squooshy.
La’s Boozer was a smash hit. Got to sit around drinking, knitting, and spinning with La, Didi, Michelle, and Rosemary (and I’m sorry to say several other people who’s name I either didn’t catch or have completley forgotten by now cause I’m horrible with names).
I have a very good excuse for not posting on the blog since February. I spent the spring semester writing my thesis… actual writing, not just prep and research. I got all three needed signatures from my committee and turned it in at the beginning of April. Then, there was the breathing period of 5 weeks while the university checked it over. I got it back a couple of weeks ago with a short list of changes that needed to be made but it was otherwise good to go. So, corrections will be made, three copies will be printed out on fancy, 100% cotton rag paper and submitted for binding. This makes me officially graduated with my MLIS. A little hard to believe.
If you hadn’t been aware, Stitches West 2009 is this weekend. While I am not taking any classes this year, I do have plans to be out and about Friday and Saturday (Sunday is still up in the air).
Most importantly is La’s Boozer Friday evening. Sounds like things will be getting started at 6 pm (although the hostess with the mostess is not going to be arriving until 7:30 pm) in the Hyatt Magnolia Room. Just wondering if anyone out there, who’s planning on being in the area, would like to meet up for food before the drinking starts.
Second most importantly will be the Knitmore Girls meet and greet at the Purlescence Yarns booth Saturday from 2-4 pm.
I’m hoping to be wearing my Ravelry pin (of I can find it) with my Rav name — Zardra — so keep an eye out. 😀
Purlescence Yarns held a yarn swap on Sunday in keeping with the Knitter’s Review slow stashing idea.
I rummaged through the fiber bins on Saturday and picked out the things that no longer made me happy or that I just really couldn’t see myself ever actually knitting. This included a whole plastic bin of the stuff that I bought back when I first started knitting over 6 years ago (e.g., Homespun and Wool Ease). I figured that if someone wanted it they could take it, otherwise, everything left on the swap table at the end of the day was to be donated to charity. Either way, it’s out of my apartment. Surprisingly, someone actually took the sweater’s worth of Wool Ease I had brought.
I came back with 2 bags of mostly sock and laceweight yarns. Now, they will be going through quarantine. I think I’m going to do it the quick and dirty way and stick everything in a garbage bag with a few moth balls. There’s too much to stick in the freezer. Besides, I don’t think The Husband would appreciate opening the freezer door looking for vodka only to find sock yarn.