Lizard Knits

Blah Blah Blah... Where's my Yarn?!

2010-07-25T12:57:00.005-05:00

So school has been working its magic on me again, and this here blog is the one who gets ignored the most. I have an exam on Thursday. Guess what I'm doing...

Knitting, mostly, it would seem. Wanna see? Course you do :)

These are Skew:

The pattern is from Knitty (I do love my Knitty). It's from the Winter 09 issue, and was written by Lana Holden. I love how they're turning out, but I can't get them on my feet. So it's going to be frogged imminently and reknit using a larger needle. Maybe even some more stitches. We'll see. I actually knit this while on winter break in Paris. I really wish it fit, for the sake of having another pair of socks knit in Paris. It could become a tradition. Guess I'll have to go back, I'm so hard done by. Anyway, the yarn is Koigu, so must not be wasted. I'll give more info when you see them again.

Next finished object: Sunshine Socks:

These photos are terrible. It's actually a really nice day, but my balcony is not particularly welcoming right now. You can see in the pictures, there's a bit of a mess out there, and I didn't want to expose brand new socks to it too much. Consequently, there's a shadow interfering with the colour. The yarn is All Things Heather sock yarn, in the Sunshine colourway. The pattern is called (go figure) Sunshine, and is from Cookie A.'s book Sock Innovation. Love this book BTW.

Oh, here's why the balcony isn't friendly:

Momma pigeon is giving me the evil eye. I'm perilously close to her nest which currently contains two egglets. I wanted to sweep up the mess they left from the last batch, but discovered I was too late. So she watches me closely, and I avoid the balcony. It's an arrangement.

So what's not finished? How about Evenstar:

I'm soooo clooose... I've finished up to about 12 rounds in on clue six, which is the final clue before the beaded edging. I ordered my beads this past week, and will hopefully have them by the time I get to the end of this clue. It's taking forever, though. There are something between 672 and 570 stitches in a round at this point (I'm sure not counting), and it takes about an hour to knit two rounds. It's Blue Moon Fibre Arts, Silk Thread II in the Winter Solstice colourway, and it's knit on 3.25 mm needles. I can't wait until it's finished, and I can move on to the next project in the LOTR knitalong.

So when it takes forever to knit on the shawl, I need something that has a few less than 600 stitches to a round. Enter the new issue of Knitty:

This is Mystery + Manners by SpillyJane. I cast on the same day I saw the new issue, and have finished the first one (minus the thumb). I loved the peacock feather motif, and I had leftover Tidepool Heather from my NHM #7 mittens (the blue), and some Eggplant waiting to be something else, and knew they were meant to be. The yarn is KnitPicks Essential. The needles are 2.5 mm.

So, yeah. That's all I've got for you right now. I have a scarf that needs ends sewn in, and which I'm avoiding. Maybe I'll be able to show that next time. Mostly, though I'm sitting around waiting rather impatiently for my Mean Girls yarn to turn up. I've been watching the discussion boards on Ravelry, and other people have their yarn, including one hoar in the Netherlands. What's up with that. I might have to take up stalking the mailman... Or Canada Customs. I suspect one of them has my yarnz and I want it. Now! Now! Now! Now! NOW!

The one with Pictures

2010-05-16T16:13:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I promised pictures so here they are. There are a lot of them, I have more, but thought I would wait in case I have nothing to report next week.

First up: The yarn purchased at Yarns Etc.

Dream in Color Smooshy in the Ruby River colourway:

And Oceanwind Knits Merino 100

Smooshy I've bought before, but this Oceanwind Knits yarn is new to me. It's a Canadian company, which always makes me happy. It's 100% superwash merino wool in a fingering weight. It's also beautifully soft, and the colour is delicious!

Ahem, enough of that. I also have some finished objects.

Trilobite Socks:

Because it's been so long, I will attempt to recap what these projects are as well. These are the Trilobite Socks by Wendy D. Johnson from her book Socks From the Toe Up. The yarn is Regia Galaxy in the Jupiter Granite colourway. This pattern was really simple, and I managed to mess it up anyway. If you look closely at the two feet, you may be able to discern a difference in the lace pattern in each foot. This is not an optical illusion. On the first sock, I looked at the chart, thought it looked simple enough and started knitting. I neglected to read the whole chart which actually changes midway up. Go figure. Rather than ripping out the whole foot of the sock, though, I decided to leave it be. My brother wears mismatched socks on purpose all the time, why can't I?

Next: NHM #7

I'm pretty happy with how these turned out. I originally bought four colours of yarn intending to make two pairs of stranded two-colour mittens. But I mixed up which colours were supposed to go together, and this combination is the result. The blue was supposed to go with a green, and the orange with a purple. I like this contrast, though. Hopefully I will like the green and purple one as much :) The yarn is Knit Picks Palette in Tidepool Heather and Sweet Potato colourways. The pattern is from the book Selbuvotter: Biography of a Knitting Tradition by Terri Shea. They are from a traditional Norwegian knitting pattern. I love pretty much every pattern in this book, so there could be more turning up here. Someday.

On to what I'm working on now.

This is the almost completely finished Mr Greenjeans cardigan from the fall 2007 issue of Knitty. It's by Amy Swenson, and is being knit from Briggs & Little Tuffy in the Blue Jean colourway. All I have left is a couple more inches of stockinette on the second sleeve, the ribbing on the same sleeve, to find a button, and to sew in my ends. At the rate I'm working on it, I'm hoping to have it done in the next couple weeks. We'll see. I wouldn't hold my breath.

Last for this week, but most definitely not least:

This is my Evenstar Shawl knitalong progress. So far, I've finished up to the increase row at the end of clue 3. Now I'm waiting on some longer needles so that I can double the stitches and be able to see what I'm doing. Maybe with a longer needle, I'll be able to take pictures that don't look like a blob. A darn pretty silvery blob, but kind of amorphous nontheless. The pattern is by Susan Pandorf whose shawls have been tempting me for quite a while. Add in The Lord of the Rings, and I'm hooked. Thanks so much Lime N Violet, you master enablers, you :)

So that's it for this week. I'm hoping to keep on top of this bloggy thing from now on, and think if I give myself a deadline, maybe it'll get done. I'm taking a rather intensive course in U.S. history this summer where the professor has squished an 8 month course into 3, so we'll see how well I do. Now, I'm going to go and convince myself to read a textbook instead of knit. Wish me luck.

Back from the Dead

2010-05-09T11:02:00.002-05:00

Hello? Is this thing on?

Erm, it's been a really long time since I posted, as my Mom reminded me this morning. Being chided by your mother on Mother's Day has had the result of lighting a fire under my behind. School really tried to wipe me out this year, and while I've been knitting off and on (gotta stay sane somehow, right?) I have been really bad about documenting it. So I'm going to attempt to give a progress report based on my last posts. I have no recent pictures, though, so you'll have to use your imaginations.

Here goes:

First up: Lenore socks. Almost done. Just need to get the ends sewn in, wash them up and deliver them to the recipient. Hopefully, she'll still want them. I'm feeling the most guilty about these ones.

Next: Trilobite Socks. Finished. Yay! They don't actually match, though because I messed up reading the pattern on the first sock and thought it might be fun to make the second sock properly. Matching unmatched socks.

Another long neglected project was my Mr. Greenjeans cardigan. It had been abandoned with the body completely knit. All it needed was a button band and sleeves. It now has a button band and 1.33333 sleeves. I'm determined to get some UFOs finished.

In the meantime, there has been some increases to my stash. I'll try and get pictures when the sun comes back, but there was a new yarn store that opened locally, and it's really close to where I work downtown. It's called Yarn's Etc. And can be found at 1 Nicholas St. if you happen to live in Ottawa, check it out. It's small, but the owner is really friendly. She carries Lorna's Laces, Berocco, and Dream in Color yarns among other things. Good prices too. I got some Dream in Color Smooshy in Ruby River and some Oceanwind Knits Merino 100 in Razzcherry. (I don't know why the font changed here. Maybe something to do with attempting the hyperlink thingy.)

I've been listening to Lime N Violet. Never a good idea when you're feeling overwhelmed by assignments, but those master enablers have had their way with me twice.

First being the Evenstar Shawl knitalong. Holy crapola! I got a late start on this because I needed to wait until school work had been finished and turned in, consequently I'm only halfway through Clue #2. Clue 7 (the final clue) has just been released. I'm so excited by what I've seem of other people's shawls online. Seriously gorgeous shawl. I hope I can do it justice. I'm knitting it in the exact same yarn as the designer. That being, Blue Moon Fiber Arts Silken Thread II in Winter Solstice. Again pictures soon. I also subscribed to Susan Pandorf's Lord Of the Rings Knitalong for the Fellowship of the Ring. I'm a colossal geek, and the LotR is my favourite book of all time, and I adore the Peter Jackson movies based on them. This is going to be exciting.

Finally, I joined the Mean Girls Yarn Club 2. Also as a result of listening to Lime N Violet when my defenses are down. Curse those master enablers! I can't wait for my first shipment. I promise to make a point of posting about it. If I'm allowed :)

So there's maybe a couple other things, but I'm going to hold onto them until I can get some pictures taken. This has already been a word heavy post without anything interesting to look at, and no links to follow, so I'll leave it at that, and hopefully I'll be back next week.

Baaaaaa...

2009-09-09T19:36:00.002-05:00

Yeah, that's how I'm feeling. I just wanna say that I haven't fallen off the face of the planet. I've been distracted by the truly vicious time waster that is Guitar Hero 5. Yeah. Just thankful I didn't get my plastic toy guitar on the new Beatles Rock Band today. Anyway. I have made some progress on the Lenore socks, but due to my inability to ignore the shiny coloured notes on the screen, I have not got a photo to prove it. I am done with the heel and have decreased the gussets and am ready to start on the body of the foot. I swear.

Pictures soon :*)

Quoth the raven...

2009-08-18T15:15:00.004-05:00

Nevermore.

A little while back a friend asked me if I would knit a pair of socks for her teenaged daughter. She had seen my blog, and had liked some of what I'd already done. It would have been impossible to say no when a teenager actually expresses an interest in handknits. She thought she'd like something in blacks and purple/burgundy. Enter Socks that Rock in Lenore:

This yarn is very had to photograph. It's primarily black, with a deep pinky/purple washed over it. Then for a pattern, she'd like something gothic inspired. Hmmm, can't think of anything much more gothic than Edgar Allen Poe, whose poem inspired the name of the yarn. Interestingly, both the poem and the yarn inspired a designer:

Lenore socks, by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka the Yarn Harlot). I've got a skein destined to be these socks for me too.

So I ordered the yarn, and it arrived late last week. I wound it up right away:

And using a digital scale split it into two equal cakes of yarn. They look different in size, but they weigh the same amount. One is more densely wound than the other. In this picture, on my monitor, you can see the variances in colour better, if not the specific colour. Then I cast on:

This progress is over the last couple of days, and so far, I'm very happy with how they're turning out, and I hope that the young woman in question is too. I'll be trying to post progress shots on these socks every few days or so. Fingers crossed :)

They are not my only project, though. I have a finished object to report:

The Double Eyelet Rib socks are finished. Yay! The pattern is a freebie by Wendy D. Johnson and I used Knit Picks Essential yarn in the Russet Tweed colourway. I used about 1.5 balls of yarn. Someday, I'll come up with a great idea for using up all the leftover sock yarn :)

No rest, though. No second sock syndrome for me. Nuh uh. I cast on the second Trilobite Sock:

I'd messed up the chart on the first sock for the entire foot of the sock. But I decided that I would knit the second sock properly rather than trying to repeat my mistake. So I'll have mismatched socks. My brother would approve.

Incidentally, the Lenore yarn was not the only one I ordered. I might have bought a couple more skeins to justify the shipping.

That's the Lenore in the middle with Fred Flintstone flanking it on the left, and Winter Solstice on the right. My lovely parents also presented me with a glorious gift certificate for Blue Moon for my birthday, so expect to seem more Socks that Rock making appearances in the future. I'd better get knitting.

Shhhhh

2009-07-20T15:26:00.002-05:00

More yarn.

So, the final package arrived, and it is glorious! Three skeins of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock. Haida from the Raven Clan. ST-2 from the Multicolor Wave collection (This is a Sock Summit colour, wahhh!). And Lover's Leap from the Watercolor Wave collection. I'm in love with this yarn. I'm dying to order more. It was a non-customs purchase too, so it will happen. Just have to wait a little while.

In the meantime. I said in my last post that I had knitting content. So here it is:

These shots are of a tank top from a knitting magazine I'd never encountered before. The magazine is called Verena Knitting, and is a UK magazine. The pattern is called Chocolate. I've dubbed my version Turquoise Chocolate, but I need a new name for it. I'm knitting it out of Waikiki, a yarn I picked up on sale when a LYS closed a while back. It's a linen, cotton blend, and I love the colours. I have a suspicion it will be really, really busy. Here's hoping it's wearable.

I also have socks. I finished the first Double Eyelet Rib sock:

And started a Trilobite sock from Wendy D. Johnson's book Socks From the Toe Up.

I'm a real freak, though, and failed to read the pattern properly. I knit along merrily through the toe, up the foot, into the arch shaping, turned the heel, knit the flap, and when I went to start the leg back in pattern, I noticed. I had knit the whole foot only repeating the first half of the chart! So, the leg looks decidedly different from the foot. Notice, I left it as it was. Can't be bothered to fix it. So lazy, am I. Now I need to cast on another sock quick, before I catch the dreaded second sock syndrome. Wish me luck :)

Sockapalooza

2009-07-13T10:15:00.003-05:00

Well, sockyarnapalooza would be more appropriate, but it doesn't roll off the tongue as well. There has been an explosion of yarn acquisition chez Lizard. That yarn diet that I was supposedly on leading up to the Sock Summit that never was has definitely disintegrated. Ah well, c'est la vie. Enough with the talky, on to the goodies.

I made three separate orders, experimenting with different online vendors, and two of the three have arrived. First: The Loopy Ewe.

These are: Dye Dreams Dream Sox in the Passion Flower colourway. Soooo Pretty. And Dream in Color Starry in the Wisterious colourway. It's a little difficult to see in the picture, but Starry is spun with a silver filament. Sparkly stuff has been a problem of late. This one spawned the following order. It's so incredibly squishy in the skein that I had to try and get ahold of its sister yarn Smooshy. I was very happy with the service from the Loopy Ewe, I got my package super fast and it had a personalized message from the shopowner in it. Unfortunately for me, there was an issue with customs fees. Not the shop's fault, and I highly recommend it if you live in the U.S. or they have something you have to have and can't get at home. Which they might. Seriously, they have awesome selection.

So in order to get that Smooshy, I turned to a Canadian vendor: The Sweet Sheep.

Dream in Color Smooshy in the Flamingo Pie colorway, Colinette Jitterbug in the Ginger Cinnabar colourway. I can't imagine that pie made from flamingo would be particulary tasty, but the yarn sure is. And the Ginger Cinnabar looks good enough to eat too.

All Things Heather sock yarn in the Sunshine colourway and Malabrigo sock yarn in the Stonechat colourway. I have no idea what a stonechat is, but the colour is fantastic, and the ATH one totally looks like sunshine. This also came super speedily, and no customs fees. Yay! I'll definitely order from the Sweet Sheep again. All of my yarn is gorgeous, and I can't wait to knit with it. I'm thinking I should think about getting a scale so that I can split them up easily. I hate that paranoia as you're halfway through the second sock and aren't sure if you'll have enough yarn left over to finish it.

So, I have one more package winging its way to me and I anticipate its arrival very soon. When it arrives I'll try and get the pics up pretty soon. I also have some new knitting content to post too, but this has been a picture heavy post, so I'll save it for when the next package arrives. Now, somebody needs to lock my credit card up somewhere safe :)

2009-06-15T16:38:00.002-05:00

Hey, Remember this?

Yeah, no wonder. It's been languishing for nearly two years now. Sadly waiting for me to be bothered blocking it. Well, no more:

To jog memories, this is the wing portion of Mystery Stole 3, also known as Swan Lake. I had a wedding to attend on Friday last week, and it occurred to me that the beads in the stole (which you admittedly can't see in the pictures would match perfectly with my dress. So here's the result:

These aren't the most flattering pictures of me, but the stole looked amazing. For the record, it is the Swan Lake Stole designed by Melanie at Pink Lemon Twist. It's knit out of an unnamed raw silk dk weight. The beads are I think size 6 and they're a soft coral colour. If I remember correctly, I knit it on size 4.5 mm needles. I've loved this stole from the start, it's merely a result of my hatred for finishing that it has languished for so long.

Moving on. I was on a roll last week. The wedding I attended on Friday was for one of my cousins, and two of her sisters had received handmade afghans as wedding gifts from me. It's become a tradition (To date I've crocheted 4 bridal afghans, and knit two) so I couldn't not make one for her. I've blogged previously the Hex Afghan by Nora Gaughan from Knitting Nature. Here it is blocking:

And posed in my parents' backyard:

This knit up fairly quickly and is the main culprit for the delay in blogging this time. All I had to show was a big brown blob. I think the blob turned out pretty well. I just hope the bride likes it as much as I do. It's knit from Patons Shetland Chunky in Taupe with 5.5 mm needles.

So what else? Elated from having completed so many large objects, I may have had a moment of weakness in a LYS. I've been avoiding buying yarn in preparation to attend Sock Summit. But try as I might I was one of the 30,000 knitters who bombarded the server and consequently was unable to get a spot. I'm disappointed, but that's the way these things go. Maybe they'll put it on again next year. In the meantime, I console myself with yarn:

Arequipa wool/alpaca blend sock yarn. It's a kind of dark picture, but it was the only one that came close to showing off the actual colour of this yarn. The colour is very eloquently called 221. I couldn't resist the washy watercolour feel of it.

Koigu KPPPM in the equally eloquent P40395. I can't seem to even find it on their site. Ah well. I shall fondle it fondly anyway. In the meantime, I have a couple socks on the go which I'll get to in a couple of days, but this post is getting far too long, so you'll just have to wait :)

Sidetracked

2009-04-26T09:31:00.003-05:00

So, I've had one full week to myself with no school, and I've been trying to rediscover my life. I think I had one, and it's nice to see that it hasn't abandoned me entirely. I've been knitting and I'll get to that, but first I need to own up to a serious distraction:

I found this book in the new materials for the library, and while I don't tend to do a lot of cross stitch, I fell in love with this book. I promptly ordered it online, and as soon as it was in my hot little hands, bought the materials for the main attraction:

I know, eh? Looks fantastic! Okay, so here's what it will look like:

Eventually. The whole book is stuff related to magic and witchcraft. Some of it is kitschy like cutesy little fairies and wizards, and the dragon on the cover (which I think is very pretty, just not for me), but then there are images of Father Sun and Mother moon, and this cushion. The Celtic wheel of the year. I hope mine comes out looking at least something like the picture from the book.

So enough of that. This here's supposed to be about knitting, so here's some knitting:

This is going to be one of those projects that looks the same every time. The Hex Afghan from Nora Gaughan's Knitting Nature. Maybe I'll mix up the pictures a bit by incorporating things in the background to make it a little more interesting than a neutral taupe afghan. Case in point: the lovely Rock Band drum kit it's photographed with here :)

I've also been working a little bit on my Double Eyelet Rib Socks:

Not too much to see there, either. I've finished the heel and am about to work up the leg. This is a great, simple, easy to memorize pattern that is perfect for mindless television knitting. If only the afghan above wasn't so time sensitive, I'd be much further along on this. Ah well, what can you do?

But wait, there's more. I went to Michael's to get the materials for the embroidery above, and encountered something else. Who knew there'd be yarn at a crafts store?

Well, okay, I knew but in my defense, the Kroy was on sale. So, as the labels state, this is Patons Kroy Socks and Stretch Socks. Muslin and Licorice colourways. The stretch is something I've never tried. Not sure how that's going to work, but I think it's worth a try. So anyway, I'm going to cut it off there, and hopefully get some more knitting done.

Return to the land of the living

2009-04-13T09:48:00.003-05:00

Well, almost anyway.

I have been plugging away on the final bits of my courses this term, and am so close I can almost taste it. I wrote my history final on Thursday, and have my astronomy final on Saturday, and then I'm free until September. I have been knitting off and on in an attempt to remain sane, so here's an update.

Carolina Sock number one is complete. Mostly. I have ends to sew in, but that part is not conducive to sanity, so it will wait.

In the meantime, I like to work one sock pattern and then another sock pattern before returning to the second sock from the first, so here's the new sock:

This is Wendy D. Johnson's Double Eyelet Rib sock. It's knit from Knitpicks Essential yarn in the Russet Tweed colourway. I was nervous about the little flecks of colour that are mixed in this yarn, but the pattern is coming through alright, I think. It's a great pattern, incidentally and is one of her free ones. I might also have preordered her book last week too, so there should be more to blog soon :)

Stash enhancement. Hmmmm, there shouldn't be much to say about that. I say "shouldn't," which somehow doesn't mean "isn't." Ooops. Some was necessary, and I'll get to that, but this is really pretty:

This is a hand dyed sock yarn from a Canadian dyer from Quebec called Biscotte & Cie. Her colours are really gorgeous. This one is Lupin in the Witch's Cat colourway. It seems to meet the fine standards of the actual witch's cat in the picture. Check!

Regia Galaxy Jupiter Granite. This was an accident too. I went to the LYS to get the yarn which is coming next, and found this in the sale bin. How could I resist? Seriously :)

This is what I went for, though:

Nothing spectacular, just a simple yarn. Patons Shetland Chunky. I got 15 balls of the Taupe colourway. This is meant for a wedding present for my cousin. The wedding is in June, I think I can manage. Here's what I've got so far:

It's difficult to tell, but this is about half of the first repeat on Nora Gaughan's Hex Afghan from Knitting Nature. I've wanted to knit something from this book for some time, and I've finally gotten the chance. So far, it's coming together really well. I just hope it doesn't get tedious. I know it's going to get heavy. Thank goodness this wedding is in June and not August :)

The last one is one I bought ages ago, but realized I had neglected to blog it.

I'm not sure how I managed to miss it in my blogging, except that it's really pretty and it's possible I was hoarding it. This is Americo Original 100% dehaired baby llama. The colour is a steely grey, and I have one skein of it. It's luxurious, and I'm awaiting the perfect pattern for it. In the meantime, it sits on my desk and gets petted.

That's about it for now. I just thought I should check in with the blog every month or so. Bad blogger, I know. Summer is almost here, and that should offer lots more to say. I should return soon. I hope. No promises :)

More socks

2009-03-15T09:51:00.002-05:00

Wow. Once I get back to it, I finish fast. Or so it would seem. I have a research paper due on Friday, so that might be it :)

Anyway, onwards. Hedera is finished:

I love this pattern. I love this yarn colour, though I did have a little trouble with splitting. Not so much as to be concerned. I think next time I use Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, I'll try knitting from the outside of the ball. I suspect that might have been the source of the trouble. How 'bout a close-up?

There is one teeny thing I would do differently. Next time I knit this pattern (and I suspect there will be a next time), I'll make a point of counting pattern repeats. I seem to have made one sock about half an inch shorter in the leg than the other. I will not embarrass myself further by showing a picture of this atrocity, but I also refuse to rip it and knit it over again. I don't wear socks with anything but long pants or inside of a boot anyway. So there :P

I will not let it get me down, however. I've already moved on:

This is Carolina by Momma Monkey. This is another amazing sock designer. I understand she passed away recently, clearly she was taken too soon. This is the first of her designs I've knit, but I've got plenty more lurking in my sock file. It's very similar in concept to Grumperina's Jaywalkers, a sock I've already knit twice, and so far I'm finding it quite agreeable. The yarn is Trekking XXL in colour 182. It's all khaki greens and rich golds with a steely blue-grey and touch of cream thrown in. I suspect this is going to stall in favour of a certain Japanese samurai who is going to have to become my priority, but based on the speed with which it's come together so far (I started yesterday morning), I expect you'll be seeing it again very soon.

In non-sock news:

I've actually got this mitten on the go lately too, I've merely neglected to blog it before now. Not really sure how that happened, but here it is now. How about a shot of the palm?

This is NHM #7 from the book Selbuvotter : biography of a knitting tradition / by Terri Shea. The yarn is KnitPicks Palette in Sweet Potato and (I think) Tidepool Heather. This is an enjoyable knit and I hope to be able to get back to it soon. Meh, samurais await.

I've also picked up the stitches for the button band on my Greenjeans cardigan. Which hasn't been seen here for a while. But I've messed up the count, and now have to rip it out and start again. At least it's only 2 rows, and while it's a couple hundred stitches, it could be worse. In the meantime. I've got some new skis to pick up today, then it's work work work. I wonder if Tom Cruise movies might qualify as research...

Socks!

2009-03-08T12:11:00.003-05:00

Yes, folks. I'm back to knitting socks. I last posted this sock in August of last year. Pretty appalling, really. Well, it's been sitting idle since then (due to no fault of its own, it's gorgeous) and I picked it back up the other day. When last we saw it, sock number one was just at the end of its heel flap. Behold:

Owing to the long gap in posting about this sock, I'll remind you what's going on here. This is the fabulous Cookie A's design Hedera. It's being knit on 2.5 mm KnitPicks circular needles (which I love, if only the joins would last better) out of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Blackberry. I'm a fan of all socks Cookie A. I have knit several pairs of her socks in the past, and will knit many more in the future. Case in point:

Pomatomus, Baudelaire, and Monkey.

This all brings me to this: Sock Summit. I am so dying to go. Maybe I'll see some of you there.

The Power of 6

2009-01-25T11:44:00.005-05:00

First things first. I've been tagged by my good friend Jennith at The Blog Bog of the Tundra.

This is the 6th photo from the 6th folder in My Pictures:

A couple of friends and I were lurking inside the Chateau Laurier Hotel being silly. This bunny ears thing has become a bit of a trend of late. Juvenile, but oh so fun :) I don't think Mr. Lennon minds too much. Mr. Trudeau is equally unlikely to be offended. Yoko, on the other hand, if you happen to see this blog, all apologies. No offense intended :)

The rules:

1. Go to your documents. (Or if you are a Mac user, go to your pictures folder)

2. Go to your 6th folder.

3. Go to your 6th picture.

4. Blog about it.

5. Tag six others to do the same.

I don't have many bloggy friends to tag, so if anyone reads this and want to play along please feel free. Just let me know. Incidentally, if you have a chance check out Jennith's photography. It's phenomenal. Just sayin.

Onward. Knitting stuff. This is still a knitting blog. Behold:

Oh, wait. Zara, get out of the gorram shot!

Thank you. Now. Finished Mosey legwarmers from Knitty. These were designed by Susan Power and are one of the first projects I have actually used to suggested yarn. They are knit from Patons Classic Wool Merino on 4.5 mm needles. I love these, but suspect I won't be getting much wear out of them for a while. It is currently -15 outside with a windchill making it feel life -23. Note those temperatures are in Centigrade, for those unfamiliar with that scale, -23 is -9 F. Legwarmers ain't gonna cut it around here :P In the meantime, a couple more shots of them before they get put away:

Again, I can't stress how much I love these, but continuing on:

Reglisse is finished. I'm going to have to mail it, but the Ottawa bus drivers are on strike (STILL) and I can't get to the post office. Thank goodness 2 year olds don't have a huge concept of stuff like late birthday presents. I hope...

Here it is. I'm pretty pleased with it. I just hope it fits. If I understand it correctly, this kid is enormous. I knit the 3 year old size, but to my untrained eye, it looks really small. Here's hoping right. Here's a shot of the zigzag motif down the sleeve:

So, to recap, this is Reglisse. It's from an old vintage Phildar book that was my mother's. It's knit from Lang Jawoll Silk which was chosen in part for it's colour (Reglisse is licorice in French), as well as for the fact that it is supposedly superwash. And it is knit on 2.5 mm needles. Yikes! This yarn is gorgeous. I have enough left over to make socks for me, yay!

So on the whole, ufos are becoming fos, and with any luck, I'll continue to have stuff to share. I did a big chunk of the Serendipity Stole (remember that?) today, and will hopefully be able to share the second last clue with you shortly. In the meantime, try and stay warm. Knitting helps :)

Happy New Year!

2009-01-18T12:18:00.003-05:00

Belatedly :)

So it's another year. Hopefully it will be full of lots of knitty goodness, and I'll have lots to show for it. First, though I'll cap off the projects from 2008. This is my final Finished Object (or Objects to be more precise) of 2008:

Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I followed her instructions, with no changes, and came out with a perfect little jacket, who knew?

This shot is a better representation of the colour. The yarn is Sublime Superwash Merino, in a really pretty green shade that I used previously for a coworker's blanket. This time it's for a very good friend of mine who is expecting her second in May (I think it's May, I'm not good at the baby stuff).

The booties are Saartje's Bootees in the same yarn. Here's a better shot:

Again, the colour is best in the previous picture. I'm in love with these booties. I've seen them all over the blogosphere, and always thought they were pretty cute, but seriously, until I actually had one finished in my hand, I had no idea. Hopefully this little ensemble will fit, I'll have to wait and see. Might also have to force myself into disgusting newborn presence in order to acquire photographic proof. Blah, what can you do?

In other projects, I've almost finished the Reglisse pullover it's knit, just unassembled. Soon, I promise. Also, I have finished my Mosey legwarmers. They are fabulous, but have yet to be photographed due to a combination of laziness on my part, frigid temperatures that are far beyond the possibility of legwarmers being enough to keep limbs from falling off, and a bus strike here in Ottawa that has reduced me (as an individual who chooses the more environmental public transportation system over owning a vehicle) to becoming a creature that lives in the dark. Hopefully, I'll get some pictures soon.

Secrets revealed

2008-12-23T17:56:00.003-05:00

I seem to have been more secure in my speed knitting abilities when, in my last post, I suggested finished Moseys, but in my defense, I've been working on time sensitive projects. The one that was all stealthy has been gifted, so now I can reveal it here:

Jared Flood's Druid Mittens. I loved these on the cover of Vogue Knitting this fall, and wanted to make them for me, but when I bought the magazine, a friend of mine loved them too. So, she's got them. They're knit in the specified yarn in the exact same colourway. That being Jamieson's Spindrift in Leprechaun. These were a really fun knit, and I have yarn to knit some for me too, in a turquoise colour.

But I have other projects to finish first. The most pressing is this one:

The Reglisse pullover. This is the picture from the vintage magazine. Love the collar and bowl haircut. You can's see it clearly, but on the next page, the same little boy is also wearing knitted pants. I decided to resist trying those out :)

Here's my progress so far. It's getting pretty close to the wire, but three year olds aren't very big, and hopefully the sleeves won't be too heinous. I still have to figure out how to adapt them into the round. It might be faster to just knit them flat and deal with the seam. We'll see. My nephew's birthday is on January 3, so I have a small time cushion, but not enough for me to relax quite yet. How about a close-up:

It's pretty dark, but with the licorice coloured yarn, the flash just doesn't work. I'm actually loving this yarn and the pattern. Who knew knitting in the round in reverse stocking stitch would be so enjoyable? Anyway, I'm flying to my parents' place tomorrow morning, so I'd better get a move on and find out whether Porter allows knitting needles on the flight.

Happy holidays all, whatever they may be, and peace be with you.

This just in...

2008-12-14T13:33:00.001-05:00

Yay! There has been success! I've been fighting with my Internet Explorer for the last little while. It seems to insist on shutting down every time I close a popup window. The photo installation window for Blogger, for example. So now I'm using Safari. And lo, pictures:

First up, the third section of the Serendipity (aka Mystery 4) stole. I'm still plugging along on this, very slowly, but I'm determined to finish it before the new year. Next up:

The first of the Mosey legwarmers. So far, These are turning out pretty well. I'm actually more than half way finished the second one since this picture was taken, but couldn't be bothered photographing it. By the next post, theoretically I should be finished them. Now for the priorities:

This is holiday knitting. I wasn't going to post it until after the holidays, but I'm sure that the individual who will receive this doesn't read my blog. I doubt very much that their mother does either :) So I know it doesn't look like much, but by some miracle, or possibly merely knitting genius:

That weird piece of knitted fabric becomes this. Elizabeth Zimmerman's brilliant, and always popular Baby Surprise Jacket. The yarn is Sublime Extra Fine Merino DK, and I used it for a blanket for another expectant mother. This one is for an as yet gender-determined baby due in the spring. I still had yarn left over so I thought these would be fun:

Saartje's Bootees. Also in the same Sublime yarn. I have knit both, but haven't done the seaming yet. They are pretty sweet. Next I need to walk to the notions store and get some buttons for both the jacket and the booties. I hope she likes them. I suspect that baby won't care one way or another. Baby does, however have a big brother, and I can't knit a sweater for one and not the other. So:

Three balls of Lang Jawoll Silk. This is planning on being a vintage sweater found in an old Phildar book. Phildar Mailles Enfants No. 54. I can't find a date on it, but it screams 1970s. The sweater is called Reglisse which I think means Licorice. So the colour is a deep charcoal grey with some lighter grey flecks in it. I'm done the ribbing at the bottom of the body, and have begun the main body of it. It's mostly reverse stockingette stitch, and I'm doing it in the round. I might be insane to knit an entire sweater in purl. We'll see how it goes.

There may or may not be other stealth knitting going on, but that's all you get for now :) I did manage to stumble across a great deal on yarn for charity projects. I don't particularly like working with acrylics, but each one of these bags cost me a whopping $2.09. I'm seeing lap rugs and possibly hats:

I did some researching in the rest of the yarn section at the Zellers store I was at and determined that the bag on the left (blue and lavender) is TLC Amore, and the three bags on the right are Phentex Chunky. That's what I've got for now. I'd better get that holiday knitting out of the way, and then I can think about what I'll do with this.

Peer pressure

2008-11-26T11:21:00.002-05:00

First up, I'd like to apologize for the horrifying lack of pictures lately. It's not as if I haven't been knitting. I have, if only sporadically. It's not as if I haven't taken photographs of the knitting I have done. I got a shot of my completed Seredipity Stole clue 3 the other day. The problem is my new printer. Huh? Yeah. I got my printer connected to my computer which had me very excited as it allowed me to actually print out an assignment in order to turn it in to my Astronomy professor. Turns out, professors like it when you turn in your assignments. Go figure. It's a great printer. It prints in colour, it scans (an excellent feature for tricky knitting charts in magazines you don't want to bugger up), it might even make julienne fries. Unfortunately, its software seems to have bunged up my computer's ability to recognize my camera or its software! So. I'm focussed on medieval Japan for now (for which I need my printer), but hopefully I can figure out the problem and show pictures soon.

As for peer pressure, the Yarn Harlot has been cranking out scarves of late. I've been admiring her lovely scarves thinking "those are pretty, but I don't feel a need to knit one." I thought the same thing when I saw Brooklyn Tweed's scarf. Now, while I don't need a new scarf, and I can't think of anyone else who could use one right now, I'm finding myself thinking something new. Now it's all about "Must. Knit. Scarf" Damn good thing I have no Noro in my stash at the moment, or I might be in serious trouble.

With any luck, I'll get the pictures sorted out soon. Until then, I'll keep knitting.

I'm it

2008-11-18T12:23:00.003-05:00

I've been tagged. My first ever meme. Anneh has asked me to share 7 random facts about myself.

The rules:
-Link to your tagger and list these rules
-Share 7 facts about yourself (random or unusual)
-Tag 7 other people at the end of your post by leaving their names and links to their blogs
-Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

So here goes:
1. I eat everything separate. I'll eat all of one thing, then another, and another, until I'm done everything. In a specific order, too. Vegetables, potato, meat. I also really don't like it when things come into contact with each other either. Lots of jokes have been made at my expense regarding baby plates with divided sections.
2. I don't like chick movies. I like movies with lots of death, violence and gore. I truly loathed the Notebook.
3. I hate silence. It doesn't matter what I'm doing in my house, the tv or stereo are always on. Failing that, I'll talk to myself. I try not to do that in public, but I'm almost never without my iPod. I don't know what I'll do when it gives up the ghost.
4. I'm a Witch. Seriously. Wiccan is the preferred term, but it's tantamount to the same thing. I don't spend a lot of time on it, though. I'm kinda like Catholics that go to mass on christmas and easter.
5. I'm back in school after 8 years away. My degree is in English Literature, which anyone who knew me in high school would find hilarious. I took grade 12 English twice, and OAC English 3 times. In my defense, most of that was because I didn't get on with my teacher, and dropped it a couple of times. Still, doesn't lend me to an English scholar :)
6. I don't like children. Babies give me the creeps, and ultrasound pictures gross me out. They look like little aliens or something. Shudder.
7. I love sorting things. My mother had a big box full of miscellaneous loose buttons, and I would dump it out on the living room floor and sort them regularly. Then, when I was done, I would dump them all back in the box so I could sort them again next time. It didn't come as much of a surprise when I became a cataloguer. I guess I was born for library work.

So there you have it. If it wasn't clear before that I'm a little off, it must be crystal now. I'm not going to pass this on. If anyone reads this and wants to play along, feel free. Just let me know in the comments.

My Serendipity Stole is coming along nicely. I'm done my second clue 3, and will get pictures up asap. Until then, I hope this has been entertaining :)

Progress Report

2008-11-08T13:29:00.003-05:00

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm still here. I've been finding that my knitting has been sadly affected by my educational situation. Professors are so rude. They assign papers, and assignments and exams willy nilly with no respect for a person's knitting time. What can you do? I have been finding some time, but not so much for blogging. So if I actually have anybody still with me, here is the payoff :)

Mystery Stole 4 has been named. It will henceforth be known as the Serendipity Stole. And here is my progress:

Clues 1 through 6. That's all of them. This is, however only half of the stole. This has been set aside so I can go back and knit clues 1 through 5 again. Then comes the grafting fun. How bout some shots of this section?

This makes it hard to see the beads, but I like how the stitches pop.

Some diamonds. Cat hair is extra ;)

This makes me think of fish. I don't know if that was the intent, but there could be a seaweed, underwater thing going on with this stole. I love how the edges are all wavy.

So I've finished knitting clue 1 again, and have started on clue 2. Hopefully I'll get through that one by the end of the weekend (2.5 hours of Coronation Street on Sundays are prime knitting time) and can get on to clue 3. I think that's where we left off before, so that's where I'll try and get back to photographing it. I'm hoping that I can get it ready to be worn during the festive season. Crossing fingers. I have two assignments due in November, so we'll see. Knitting is excellent for procrastination.

In other project news, I got nothing. I'm pretty much focused on the Serendipity Stole for now. One project at a time makes for slow blogging, but it's about all I can handle right now. Hasn't stopped me from shopping though:

Tidepool Heather, and Green Tea Heather

Eggplant and Sweet Potato. All Knit Picks Palette. These are planning on being some mittens, gloves and or socks. Someday.

I will admit to some stealth knitting which will get some blogtime in December or the new year. Enough about that for now. Never know who's reading. So. Back to work.

Stole progress

2008-09-18T17:40:00.002-05:00

And not much else...

I'm a little late in posting this. I actually finished the knitting on Sunday, but it was miserable weather until Tuesday, and today is the first time I've been home long enough to sit down for a minute. I'm still plugging away at my Mystery Stole. Here is is after the second clue:

I love how it's turning out. I am ploughing through my bead supply super quickly. I hope that the number of beads slows down a bit through the main body of the stole. I love the beads, but I'm not sure I can get more of the same. And I still have to knit the second half.

Oh well. I'm too busy to worry about it. I'm going to be traveling this weekend, so I'm hoping to get some non-lace knitting done on the Greyhound. Hopefully, I'll have something new to share next week. Till then...

Updates

2008-09-07T12:38:00.002-05:00

So, as of Friday Mystery Stole 4 is underway. I have been waiting impatiently for this for a while because this time I was going to use actual lace weight yarn. This terrified me. As you can see, though, so far so good:

This is the first clue for MS4. And a closer look at the centre beaded motif:

Pretty, pretty, pretty. This sort of thing is always a little bit stressful, what with the not knowing what the finished project is going to look like. But if this pattern continues like this, I have no fears.

MS4 is not, however, the only project on the go. Here's the other thing I've been focussed on this week:

My Mr Greenjeans cardigan is coming along nicely. I'd really like to get this finished before fall hits it's full swing. So far, I love this sweater. Just look at that ribbing:

Okay, so it's not the best photo, but trust me. It's fantastic!

With that, I'm off back to the stack of DVDs that await me. I'm waiting for more MS4.

Greenjeans

2008-08-30T10:40:00.003-05:00

So, as promised, there's new progress and new stash enhancements.

First up: Embossed Leaves sock. I'm not happy with the fit. As you can see the toe is way too long, which was unavoidable because of the way the pattern flows into the toe decreases.

I knit this on 2.75 mm needles as the pattern called for that size. I think that I'll frog it and try again with something in a 2.25 mm needle. I think that'll make a big difference in the fit. Failing that, this pattern isn't for me.

Moving on. I cast on a new sock instead of fixing the Embossed Leaves one.

Hedera by Cookie A. I adore her patterns. I've knit several before, and there will be more. The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Blackberry colourway and so far, I'm in love with this sock. The pattern is so incredibly simple, and yet, it creates such a beautiful effect. Love it!

Mystery Stole 4 begins Friday, September 5. I am now prepared. I showed you my beads last week, now here is my yarn:

Knit Picks Shadow in the Hot Rod Heather colour. Red is notoriously hard to photograph accurately, but on my monitor, this picture is pretty good. Friday can't come fast enough :)

So, I found a diversion. In the same shipment from Knit Picks, I got my first set of Options needles. So I cast on for a project that's been waiting for a while now:

This is the beginning of Mr Greenjeans by Amy Swenson. The yarn is Briggs and Little Tuffy in the Blue Jeans colour. I think that's appropriate, Blue Jeans/Greenjeans. It's fate :)

One last thing I got was this:

This is an experiment. I have a gift knit on my horizon that I want to be easily washable, but pretty and soft and natural all mashed together. So I ordered one ball of Knit Picks Swish Worsted superwash wool to test knit and wash before I bought a large project worth of yarn. It's the Clematis Heather colour and is really pretty. I think I'll get more of this colour for something for me... after I recover from my tuition payment.

So there you have it. Lots going on. More to come. Hopefully with some regularity. I'll keep you posted.

Teaser

2008-08-29T07:50:00.002-05:00

So, I'm at work (can't you tell), but I thought I'd post a quickie. I finished the first Embossed Leaves sock, but I think it's too big, and too loosely knit, so I think I'll frog it and start again with smaller needles. I'll post pictures later to show what I mean. So in the meantime, I started a new sock, cause, you know, that's what I do :) Again, there will be pictures later. It's a beauty.

But that's not the important part! I have mail waiting for me at the post office! My KnitPicks package came with my Mystery Stole 4 yarn in it. I can't wait to post pictures. Or blog about it :)

Be back soon.

2008-08-25T17:09:00.002-05:00

Where did August go? I was pretty preoccupied through the majority of this month, but it's the last week of August already and school starts next week! Why is it that the time always speeds by when you don't want it to? On the plus side, since I wrote my final, I've had actual knitting time! Behold:

Finished Annetrelac socks!

To recap quickly, because this pair of socks took a ridiculously long time to finish. The pattern is: Annetrelac Socks by Sandy Beadle and appeared in the Holiday 2007 issue of Interweave Knits. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill Sockittome in the Misty Moor colourway which I love! I knit these on 2.5 mm needles (dpn for the entrelac, 2 circs for the stockinette). I'm very happy with how these turned out.

Onward, however. Just in time for school to start back up again, Mystery Stole 4 will begin! I'm waiting impatiently for my yarn to arrive, but in the meantime I'll share these:

Very tricky to photograph, beads. I tried in the tube and you couldn't see that there were individual objects inside. This is the best I could do. The yarn I've ordered is a heathered red, so these beads, which are actually a hematite colour only clear, ought to pop. I hope. They should also sparkle. They have some cut spots on them to catch the light. I'm expecting the yarn to arrive later this week or early next. I've got my fingers crossed.

2008-08-17T15:16:00.002-05:00

Hi. I have emerged from under my school-related hidey hole, and have some actual knitting to report. Not a lot, but some. So let's get to it.

First, I have been working on my Annetrelac socks. I finished the first one:

And took to second sock in progress on a field trip:

I'm channelling my inner Yarn Harlot with these pics, but it was fun. One of the really wonderful things about living in Ottawa is the Central Experimental Farm. I actually live across the street from this corn field in the middle of the city.

There were cows, trust me, they're there.

And far more importantly, there were sheep:

I wonder if they recognize the sock...

In other knitting news, I finished something:

This is a baby blanket I knit for a co-worker who has since had her little girl, and taken possession of the gift. That makes it bloggable, right?

It's a simple garter stitch blanket based on a washcloth pattern. It's knit out of Sublime Extra-fine Merino DK, which is lovely! I almost wish I could have kept this blankie for me. I did manage to keep back 4 balls though, so maybe something. It's 25 inches square, knit on a 4.5 mm needle. I really love this project.

Not one to settle for a single pair of socks on the go, I also cast on this:

Embossed leaves by Mona Schmidt from the book Favorite Socks. This is a pretty simple pattern to work with, and I'm enjoying them quite a bit. The yarn is On Your Toes Bamboo, and is really slippery and really, really splitty, but I love the fabric it's making. The colour is really pretty too. This picture is a little more accurate:

A nice close-up on the leaves which really pop.

So anyway. I've got a little under two weeks before the fall term starts, and I've joined Mystery Stole 4, so there's yarn acquisition to be done, and there should be some actual activity on this here blog. No promises :)

Yikes!

2008-06-07T08:57:00.004-05:00

So, It's been two months since my last post. I don't know what to say, really. I've been super busy. I went back to school part time, to finish my degree. It seems that's taken over my life. I cannot, however let it take over completely. I have been knitting, just not as much.

Before classes started, I was working on some socks, and managed to get them finished, just not blogged. So here they are:

Toe-Up Totem Socks by Hakucho. Sorry for the Ravelry link, non-Ravellers, I can't remember where I got it in the first place. They're knit out of the teak Lang Jawoll that used to be my Bayerishe socks. I made a big mistake in them and they were taking forever, so frog city, and new socks!

Next:

These are just a plain toe-up sock which I basically made up. I half used the basic recipe from Knitty. They're knit from Austermann Step in some colourway or another. I lost the ball band. I like the pinky, purply bits with that sunshiney yellow thrown in there. Good basic socks.

Not done yet:

These are my own design too. I used the Tiny Bamboo stitch from the Vogue Stitchionary volume 1. The yarn is Regia Cotton Tip & Top Color in the 4085 colour. This stitch was kind of fun, and it made a sock that was kind of like a mesh. Here's a close-up:

All round, a good summer sock.

I also managed to get some stash enhancement in:

Paton's Classic Merino in Natural mix. There are actually three balls, but I couldn't wait:

This is the beginning of a pair of Mosey. I'm a product of the eighties, and for me, legwarmers are such a throwback. These ones, I couldn't resist though. It might be the pompoms.

I also got this:

Cadenza by Estelle. This is a new yarn at my LYS, and is a delicious superwash merino/Tussah silk blend. The colour doesn't photograph well with my camera and is actually more on the green side. Makes me think of tropical water. I've set it aside for something really special.

But I can't be without socks on the needles, so I cast on this:

This is the Annetrelac Socks pattern from the Holiday 2007 issue of Interweave Knits. They're designed by Sandy Beadle, and originally knit out of Shaefer Anne yarn. I didn't have any of that, but I did have some Cherry Tree Hill Sockittome in Misty Moor. So far (despite the blurry picture) it's turning out well. I've actually added another 5 tiers of rectangles to this since the picture was posted. What can I say, entrelac is addictive for me.

That's about all for now. Hopefully I'll be less than two months between postings. No promises.

Gathered

2008-04-06T14:47:00.002-05:00

So, I've been keeping my needles pretty busy of late. I finally got my act in gear and finished my Gathered Pullover. Here's proof:

And a close-up on the gathered cables in the front:

Pattern: Gathered Pullover by Hana Jason from the Winter 2007 issue of Interweave Knits.
Yarn: Sablewool Merino undyed 9.25 50g balls. This was a gift from my parents purchased for me in Australia.
Needles: 4.5 mm Addi Natura 32"
This was an incredibly fast knit, and would have been finished much sooner if I weren't such a wuss when it comes to finishing.

So with that finished, I was wide open for new projects. If you remember, I signed up for a course in traditional fair isle knitting a couple months back. Unfortunately, there was one of many disgusting, nasty snowstorms the day it was scheduled so it got postponed. Postponed until yesterday. So I got to spend the whole day yesterday in a yarn store!!! I did some minor stash enhancing, and I think I did pretty well. Plus, I knit this:

Here is my tam blocking on a dinner plate. It was a really fun knit, and I think it turned out pretty well, even if I do say so myself.
Here's the other side:

My first corrugated ribbing. I'd heard people complaining bitterly about corrugated ribbing before and always wondered about it. It's always caught my eye when I've seen it in other people's blogs and on Ravelry. Turns out, it falls into the category of things that I kind of enjoy where everyone else whines. More proof that I'm weird. As if we needed any.
The yarn is Patons Classic Wool in a chocolate brown and Regency for the contrast colour. It's kind of cheating fair isle in that it's really a solid colour and a variegated one. But turns out pretty cool. I've never met a tam that looked any good on me, but I have hopes for this one.

Stash enhancement, did I say something about stash enhancement? Mmmm, yeah, okay, maybe:

I did get this. Applelaine Apple Pie sock yarn in the Strawberry Jam colour. I've been drooling over this for a while and it occurred to me that where pink is my favourite colour, I've never made myself pink socks. Something must be done about that. Close up on colour:

It's pretty close to the colour on my monitor. Really subtle variegation. I'm looking forward to knitting with this.

But that's not all. I finished two big projects, so I started a new one:

This is actually supposed to be forest green, but it refuses to photograph as anything other than teal. This is the best I could do. The pattern is Tomato from No Sheep For You and designed by Wendy Bernard. Due to the colour, I've dubbed this sweater "Fried Green Tomato." The book actually has a pattern in a contrast colour across the bustline, but I chose to do it solid. I'm also laughing in the no sheep idea's face. This is Galway Irish Worsted Knitting Wool. Incidentally, I cast this on Friday evening and knit a tam yesterday. This is a super fast knit. Plus, no sewing! I expect to be wearing this in no time flat. Wish me luck.

Exercises in Avoidance

2008-03-26T16:52:00.004-05:00

A month! Where did that go? Wow. So my Gathered Pullover is knit. I have to set in the sleeves and sew in the ends.... So:

Here's what I've been doing instead.

Yep, that's not knitted lace, there is a crochet hook at the top of the picture. I'm not turning to the dark side. I've always crocheted, just lately I've decided that I like knitting better. Hence knitting blog. This is pure avoidance. It's a crocheted doily that I've actually made before but seem to have lost somewhere in the not ever actually using doilies that is my life. That's neither here nor there. I've messed up though, so now it sits until I feel I can tackle the thing again.

Lest you despair, however, there has been knitting.

A couple hats for the charity bin. These are random free patterns I pulled off the net. I have the specs somewhere, but can't feel motivated enough to find them. I did not invent the patterns. The yarn, I can tell you because it's stash yarn which I have the info in front of me (as opposed to in the other room). The purple is Bernat Big Value, and the red and black is Bernat Satin. All lovely and acrylicy. Mmmm plastic...

I also finished the first one of these:

Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang for a co-worker. I had to frog it the first time because the guage was too loose. Now it's good, but I've knit this pattern twice before, and I've grown bored with it. I guess I'd better finish it someday.

I finished some stuff too:

Sweetheart socks. Regia 4-ply yarn in a bright turquoise colour. I'll post a modelled shot next time. Finished socks mean new sock... right?

Pomatomus by Cookie A. from Knitty. Sorry no link today. Google it if you really want it. It's free :) I've knit these before but they came out really loose. So I used 2.25mm needles instead of 2.75mm ones, and it's coming out beautifully. I was admiring it yesterday when I looked at the rapidly diminishing ball of yarn (Bernat Sox) and took a look at the label. I bought one ball because the label said 1 ball for the socks pictured. I looked again and saw they were kid's socks. I'm not going to have anywhere near enough to knit these socks. Wah!

Moving on to happier stuff. Lady Eleanor, she is done. Here she is blocking:

And feeling fringey.

It's a terribly dark picture, but you can see the knotted fringe which was, I have to admit, part of the sell for me on this stole. Specs: Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole by Kathleen Power Johnson from Scarf Style edited by Pam Allen. The yarn is Noro Silk Garden in colour 244, and I used a 4.5 mm needle. Next up: dinner. Yay!

What, did you think I was going to say finishing? Pshaw!

Fastest Sweater Ever

2008-02-24T18:19:00.002-05:00

So almost two weeks this time. I've been trying to keep busy and knitting. Mostly I've been obsessed over my Gathered Pullover. I'm amazed at how incredibly quickly it's coming together. More on that in a little while. First I wanted to share my finished Azure Socks:

To refresh memory a bit, this is the Azure Socks pattern from Knitty. Hopefully the link above works. The yarn is Koigu KPPPM. I can't remember the colour, but it's all pretty soft muted blues, lilacs, and greens.

This was my first time working with Koigu and I did get a little pooling. Luckily for me, it happened almost exactly the same on both socks. Same colour pool, same spot on the ankle/instep.

This is a really pretty pattern with a lot of interesting detail. The heel construction was unlike anything I'd ever encountered before, but owing to the fact that I'm still learning, I followed the instructions as written and they turned out beautifully. They are extremely snug. I almost couldn't get them on. I'm still determined to wear them though because I'm in love with them.

Enough of that. I've got other socks on the go, but nothing much to report progress wise so, meh, moving on to more exciting stuff. Like my sweater:

Here is my progress thus far. I finished the body and one sleeve already.

And I'm well on my way to finishing my second sleeve. This picture was taken yesterday and the sleeve is about twice as long as this picture shows. Incidentally, the question I get asked a lot about knitting with cats is whether they bother the yarn. The answer is actually no (except for rare occasions or if the yarn in question is alpaca). The thing they like most about knitting is the needles. Also any writing implement I'm using to keep track of where I am in my pattern, and as evidenced in previous posts the book, magazine or paper the pattern is actually on. It's not insurmountable, I figure small children are actually more problematic to knitting than my cats could ever be.

Today I dragged my yarn stash out of the closet. I decided it was high time I went through my old stuff. Some of it was from when I was in high school. A lot of it was leftover bits from other projects (including some leftover from my grandmother's stash when she decided she'd never knit again and passed it on), and almost all of it is acrylic. I'm determined to work my way through some of it. Lots of charity knitting I think will be appearing on this space in the coming months. I'd like to point out that I'm not going on a yarn diet. I would never hear of such a thing. As with all diets, I'm of the firm belief that imposing a no good stuff restriction will result in a serious binge in the future. Nope, not me. I'll still buy yarn, I'm just making a concerted effort to designate stashed yarn into specific projects and put it to good use.

That is all.

Beanies and wooden stakes

2008-02-12T19:32:00.000-05:00

Well, it would seem that I'm not quite on track with my once a week blogging. I've got blog-worthy stuff going on, but there was a visit from the family this weekend to celebrate by grandfather's birthday. So that's taken most of my time over the weekend. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it. If anyone cares to complain, all I have to say to that is:

Actually, in all seriousness, this is a prop replica of the Slayer's Scythe from the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Very pretty. Zara thinks so:

I know it's not really knitting related, but I like to knit while I watch Buffy. Does that count? No, there is a pointy stick part:

And if that weren't enough to kill vampires:

So shiny!

Okay, fine. Enough geek, more yarn. How 'bout this?

I knit this a little while ago, but never got around to blogging it. Here's a bad shot of me wearing it:

It is so hard to take pictures of yourself in the mirror. Anyway it's the Beanpole Beanie by Cerebral Hemorrhage. I used some of the leftover Briggs & Little Regal from my Not-so-Kakhi Cables cardigan which is a lighter guage than the pattern calls for. It makes for a much smaller hat. I have a pretty tiny head, though so this worked to my advantage. It's not as slouchy as it would have been with a heavier yarn, but I think I like it anyway. I like the pattern too, and might even try again in a chunkier yarn some time.

As for more current knits, I started this last week:

And took this picture last night. Then went out for coffee and didn't blog. So I took this one tonight:

This is the Gathered Pullover by Hana Jason from Interweave Knits Winter 2007 issue. The yarn is this:

I can't find reference to this yarn anywhere online, but it's a really gorgeous undyed black sheep merino yarn that my parents very graciously brought back from Australia special for me. I can't remember if I blogged it before. I've been hoarding it since October, so it's entirely possible that I was keeping it to myself. I know you would have too :) Anyway, I was waiting to find a great pattern for it and this simple pullover with a great bit of cabled detail seemed to be just right. It even looks like the yarn used in the picture in the magazine.

So I guess that's it for now. I'll just leave you with a picture demonstrating one of the reasons it can be hard to get much knitting done around here:

They don't make a habit of playing with yarn, but magazines, papers, books, needles, and pencils are obviously designed specially for cats. Right?

Finally Finished

2008-02-01T16:15:00.000-05:00

So this is what it looks like outside today:

Yeah. Time to knit.

But first, I have a finished object to show you. I finally finished my Not-so-Kakhi Cables cardigan and took some pictures. First I tried the mirror:

That wasn't bad, but I really needed someone else to be photographer. So I found a friend and got this:
and this:
Much better. So, as you can see, this turned out to be wearable which is encouraging. I put a year's worth of work into this sweater, so it's good to know that I will wear it. So the pattern, one last time is Kakhi Cables by Penny Ollman. It was from Knitter's Magazine Winter 2006. The yarn is Briggs & Little Regal in black. I've forgotten the needle size I used, it was whatever the pattern called for. On the whole, a successful project.

Onwards! I've signed up for a workshop at one of my LYS in fair isle. The class is tomorrow, hopefully the miserable mess from the earlier photo will have cleared up by then because this particular store is in an industrial park way out in the middle of nowhere. Blech. Anyway, the yarn they wanted us to bring was this:

Patons Classic Wool. I needed a variegated and a solid, so I got Rosewood and Taupe (which I think is really more chocolate brown, but whatever). Hopefully they'll turn into something nifty. Wait and see. More about that later.

While I was in the yarn store there was also this:

On Your Toes Bamboo. Mmmmm this is so soft, I can't even describe it. It's new to me (I think to the store too) and is 75% bamboo and 25% nylon. It's also machine washable and dryable. I'm doing a happy dance in my chair over that. The colour is called Tropical Dusk and reminds me of sterling roses (my favourite!). So pretty!

But that's not all, there was also this:

Arequipa 65% superwash wool, 20% alpaca, 15% nylon. Did I mention alpaca? Alpaca socks for me! Sorry, happy dancing again :) Ahem. The colour is number 201 and is all greens and blues and some lavender thrown in for good measure. It makes me think of spring, which considering the weather, isn't such a bad thing.

Anyway, now that I've blown my yarn budget, I'm going to go and pet the new stash for awhile.

2008-01-25T20:20:00.000-05:00

So, it's a new year, and my goal is to keep this blog updated far more often. No more disappearing for a month at a time. I'm calling it a goal, not a resolution because everyone knows that New Year's resolutions are really made to be broken.

So, I figure once a week is pretty good unless there's something really spectacular to report like new yarn. I don't have any of that today, but I do have more of Lady Eleanor:

I'm still enamoured of this project. The yarn is beautiful and I find myself almost tansfixed by the way the colour changes and the little rectangles come together like something woven. I think I'm going to have to try more entrelac in the very near future. Noro Silk Garden is very loosely plied, but I've only had it break on me once, and it was right at the beginning of a rectangle, so it was easy to reattach without disrupting the colour shifts. There have also been a couple of knots, but they weren't much of a problem until this:

This picture is terrible. I admit it. I've tried playing with it, changing colour contrast and brightness, and sharpness, but I keep getting a blurry mess. You can see the knot there, though. The problem I have is that it's got teal on the left side of the knot and purple on the right. The colours don't change that way. I'm going to have to attach a new ball of yarn here to continue or else there will be a weird purple on purple thing happening. Not the end of the world, but irritating.

Anyway. Onward. I mentioned quite a while back that I had knit myself a Shedir hat. I finally got around to getting pictures. Here's me getting ready to escape the office. Goes to show how devoted I'm trying to be to this here blog, that I would take the time on my way out the door to beg a colleague to take my picture.

I have a really little head, so hats don't usually fit me as written, but I followed the directions in the pattern almost exactly except for a couple of rows of ribbing that I omitted. It fits pretty well. There is a bit of a pook on top, but not as dramatic as some of the hats I see on old guys at the bus stop that remind me a bit of mushroom tops.

Here's a close-up of the pattern. It shows really well in this yarn despite the dark yarn. It's Zara by Filatura Di Crosa (I think and things are really slow here at the moment and my windows keep freezing on my when I try and search anything, so I can't check at the moment.) in a navy blue.

Turned out really nicely. I wear this hat everyday and it's nice and cozy without being itchy. There's a lot to be said for 100% merino wool. I should probably mention that the pattern is Shedir from the special breast cancer awareness issue of Knitty. I'd link to it, but like I said, super slooooow.

That's it for today. Hopefully I'll get photographic proof that Not-so-Kakhi Cables is finished and wearable soon.

First post of 2008

2008-01-19T15:50:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's already halfway through January. It's amazing how time flies when you're trapped on a mysterious island somewhere in the South Pacific. That, incidentally, is my excuse for why it's taken me this long to return to my blog. It's not a good one, but there it is. There has been knitting since I last posted. The Not-so-Kakhi Cables has been assembled, but I haven't braved the modelled shot yet. I'm very happy with it though.

Remember how I had posted pictures of the blocking pieces? I was concerened about the Caleb monster mistaking damp wooly things on the bed for sleeping mats. He likes things that are wet, don't ask me why. So I left the room and kept an eye on the wee beastie, only to come back into the room to close up the computer and find this:

The Zara monster took note that my attention was elsewhere, and took advantage of damp knits with pins stuck in them. Cats!

So photos of the finished sweater to come, but in the meantime, I need to slog through all the knitting stuff of the last month. Be prepared for lots of pictures. The holiday season was upon us, so there wasn't as much knitting as merrymaking, so it's not too bad. First up there was this:

Where there is flaming pudding, there is booze. Consequently, no knitting.

Then there was this:

My sister recieved her Endpaper Mitts and was thrilled. Not so much about the modelling part, but that is the fate of anyone recieving knit gifts from a knitblogger, non? I think these turned out pretty darn well, even if I do say so myself. There is a bracelet on over one of them, I didn't knit something across the wrist. My dad thought I should point that out. Dads!

There was bus knitting:

The first of my Azure Socks. And then, because I don't like to knit the same sock immediately after the first, I finished these:

Southwestern Socks by Wendy Johnson. Mirasol Hacho yarn in the Coral Reef colourway. Me likes. How about a close-up?

The colour is better represented in the first picture, but this one shows the pattern a bit better.

So then I did this:

The second Azure Sock. No Second Sock Syndrome for me, no siree.

I got new yarn:

Trekking XXL in colour #182. This is all pretty olivey greens and mustardy yellow. Kind of makes me think of camoflauge. I'll keep you posted if my feet disappear into the undergrowth when I wear whatever socks this is destined to be.

And finally, because I finished my cardigan, I was allowed to start this:

Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style. The yarn as you can see in the top right, is Noro Silk Garden. The colour is #244. I am in love with this stole (it's too wide to really qualify as a scarf). I was nervous about the entrelac, but it's fun. Take not of my saying that. This is just the beginning of the project. The bliss could still wear off. But until then. The knitting is engaging, the yarn is fantastic! I suspect this will occupy most of my time for a while. I can hear it calling me now. I gotta go.

On the Block

2007-12-17T16:08:00.001-05:00

Well, I'm very proud of myself. I seem to have managed to blog once a week for several weeks in a row. I hope I can keep it up. I'm officially on vacation right now, which is excellent news for me, because it means there's lots of time for knitting. I've been plugging away at socks mostly in preparation for my trip to my parents' place in Mississauga. Socks make such great bus knitting, but I'm easily bored, so I have three socks ready to go.

First up is the Azure socks:

You might remember, I started theses socks initially for sitting in waiting rooms. This didn't actually happen. I forgot to bring the sock, and as it turns out, didn't actually wind up waiting long enough to knit anything even if I had brought it. Yay. So dental xrays are done with no significant problems which makes me very happy and my bank account even happier. And my driver's license has been renewed which means I can drive my parents' kick ass car over the holidays!

Next up:

Southwestern Socks by Wendy at WendyKnits. This is the first sock. I still have to wind the second skein so I can start the second sock. Which I will do. Despite the seeming case of startitis I'm nursing. It looks like startitis, but really, I'm being prepared. The yarn is the Mirasol Hacho I bought at vendors night at the Knitting Guild. It's a sport/DK weight, so these socks are turning out really well.

Next in line, and final sock on the block:

This is Cairi's Sweetheart designed by Bronte. I tried to put a link to this, but for some reason doing so kept kicking me out of the internet. Thank goodness Blogger autosaves now. Anyway, the yarn is some Regia-4 ply I had kicking around. It's knitting up pretty well. I love the colour. It even matches the mattress on my spare bed. It's the small things, I know.

Speaking of blocking:

I finally got around to blocking the body of my Not-So-Khaki Cables. Here they are looking all pretty. The yarn has softened up dramatically, and I'm no longer afraid of putting it on my body. Hopefully it'll fit. So this process was in preparation for knitting on the button band this week because I can't work on all those socks if I want to take them on my trip. The sweater will be too ungainly to pack though, so I can work on it to my heart's content. I can't wait for it to dry. You might be able to see at the top of the picture why my Caleb is also known as el Plumpo. He's been told to keep off the black sweater. So far, so good. He's got better things to do.

Like this:

Birdwatching. That puffed up bird in the tree is a source of endless entertainment. Anyway, with that, I'll go off to find something to do that doesn't involve knitting socks. Hmmm, what to do...

Quick Update

2007-12-09T15:33:00.000-05:00

So, I've been having a tough time getting inspired for the season lately. It's always a little difficult for me, I think partly because the commercialism disgusts me quite a bit. As a pagan within a predominantly Christian environment, things can be awkward. Especially since my family is part of that predominantly Christian group. What can you do?

So yesterday, a couple friends and I gathered together for a decidedly pagan ritual masquerading as Christmas :)

The tree has been trimmed. It was fun. We had food and watched Love Actually (which I highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it), and listened to holiday music.

Plus, I've been working away at that holiday knitting.

My sister's endpaper mitts. These are coming along well. I ought to be done with them in a couple of days.

And because I have no willpower :)

I broke down and cast on for a new sock. I had to try out my new needles... right? Anyway, this is the toe for a pair of Azure Socks from the new issue of Knitty. It's the Koigu KPPPM I got a couple of months ago. My thought was to have it for sitting in waiting rooms. Next Saturday, I have a dentist appointment, and have to renew my drivers lisence (which should have been done months ago, thank goodness I don't have a car). I suspect I'll have a pretty long wait for that too. This will be much more portable than the endpaper mitts. They will hopefully be done by then anyway.

So that's it. Still not feeling super festive. I have a bit of a cold hovering around the edges. But I'm trying. Maybe once I see my folks in a couple of weeks. Here's hoping :)

More Mail Order Yarn!

2007-12-03T17:06:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe that it's December already. Where did November go? It's snowy and miserable outside so imagine my pleasure when I opened my mailbox and found not a notice to pick up my package at the post office (which requires 2 bus rides each way), but my package snuggled inside my mailbox. My second mail order yarn purchase has arrived (mostly). This time it was from the Knitter and part of my order is missing! I don't know where it is. The package hadn't been tampered with, but the email saying it had been sent had everything in it. I'll give it a few days to be sure it's not still on its way, but waaaaahhhh! I want my yarn!

Not to worry, though cause I did get this:

And this:

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Blackberry colourway, and Cherry Tree Hill Sockittome in Misty Moor. These are two of the yarns I've been dying to try, and now I... have to wait until holiday knitting is done. Nuts!

Speaking of the holiday knitting, I've been avoiding it:

Conwy socks by Nancy Bush from Knitting on the Road. I like this pattern. I was a little unsure about the toe construction, but they seem to be comfy anyway. I tend to like a flat kitchenered stitch toe (recall my nutso love of kitchener) and this is more of a star shape. It makes an odd "seam" across the top and bottom, which concerned me, because I don't like boughten socks when they have a seam. But I'm completely unaware of it when they're on. I'm glad I gave it a shot. This stitch pattern is really easy to memorize and it looks really sharp. I could see a sweater in this stitch pattern. Hmmm.... I probably ought to finish the sweaters I'm working on from patterns before I try and make up my own.

So that leaves the holiday knitting that needs to get done. I don't know why I'm balking so badly, it's only one project, and it's mitts, so it's not all that big. On the plus side, I have yet to break out my new needles and some of my nifty new yarn.

Yet.

Online Yarn

2007-12-01T12:19:00.000-05:00

Recently, with the increased strength of the Canadian dollar, I decided it was high time to try out the online shopping waters. There is just so much yarn available online that I couldn't hope to get ahold of at my LYS. As much as I love supporting local shops, it seems like a far more cost effective way to get unusual yarns. So I placed a couple of trial orders. The first one came on Tuesday. Here it is:

My very first Knit Picks order. I was extremely impressed with the service I got from them. There were emails telling me all about my order while it was in transit, including one letting me know when it crossed the border! That seemed above and beyond what I would expect. Kudos to Knit Picks.

So inside the box were a few lovely things that I'm looking forward to playing with.

Essential sock yarn:

This is Essential Tweed in Russet on the left and Essential in Shorline Twist on the right. Nice straightforward sock yarn for simple socks. Excellent!

Even better, though, is this:

Gloss in Dusk. 70% merino wool, 30% silk. This glows! And it's so incredibly soft, I just want to hold it. This will have to be something incredibly special. Not sure what yet.

Whenever I decide, I have these to knit them with:

I've been hankering to try Knit Picks needles for a long time. I've heard lots of things about them on other people's blogs, so this was my chance. I got two each of 2.25 and 2.5 mm circs. 24" length. I don't know why I haven't looked at the fixed needles before. I'd been focussed on their options needles. But these are lovely. I haven't knit with them yet, but when a person is used to paying $20 for a single Addi Turbo circ, to find some that are seemingly just as nice for $5, it just seems like a "duh" moment. We'll see. I have to finish some holiday knitting first. Don't know if I'll hold out.

The final treat in the box was this:

Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby. I've been wanting this book since it came out, so Yay! I think this will be the source of the pattern that is destined for my Silk/Yak laceweight. Still have to wait until holiday knitting is done. Guess I'd better get back to work on it instead of hanging out here. More on that holiday stuff later, beter go.

First Snow

2007-11-21T10:49:00.001-05:00

First Snow
Originally uploaded by KnitLizard1

So I woke up this morning and saw this. Must knit faster.

I'm gonna eat you little fishies...

2007-11-21T10:39:00.000-05:00

Lots of knitting chez Lizard. I've been mostly posting stuff to Ravelry lately. It's slow going, but a little bit at a time will see it done. In the meantime, unfortunately, I've been neglecting this little blog. Part of the problem has been that my rechargeable batteries for my camera gave out. All of them. I don't know how it happened, but they weren't cheap and I'm a little annoyed. But nonetheless, I broke down and bought some disposable ones and now have progress shots to show you.

First up, is a sock I don't think I've blogged about. It's Conwy from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road. It's a pretty cable pattern, which I think shows nicely in the taupe yarn I chose. I thought these could be a simple dress sock. This is actually the progress on the second sock. I finished the first sock and actually cast on right away! Impressed, no?

The yarn is Regia 4 ply, and it's knit on 2.5 mm dpns. A little snug, which is mildly irritating when I want to put them on, but is the way I like my socks. They don't slouch down that way. And for trouser socks, I think they'll be perfect.

Next. Lots and lots of endpapers. I knit Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts for myself nearly a year ago, and have had a lot of enthusiasm over them. This boggles my mind because I think I did a terrible job on them. This time, I think they're turning out better. The first pair started.

I've just started the thumb gusset at this point. These ones are for a co-worker and are knit in Dale Stork 100% cotton on 3.5 mm dpns (I think).

Then there's endpaper mitts again.

This time they're for my sister who cleverly lost one of the lovely alpaca Fetchings I knit for her last year. This time they're to her specifications: black and hot pink, to match her coat. And they're plain old superwash wool. Jawoll by Lang, to be specific. They are also, if you notice, being knit on 2 circs. I tried this method for the first time with my Red Dwarf socks, and am a complete convert.

Speaking of the Red Dwarf socks, I finished Them. Mostly over the first 2 seasons of the show. Yes, I've said it before, and it's guaranteed to come up again. I'm a geek. Deal with it :)

So here's a photo of them looking very odd. They look odd on too, just a little less odd, and I haven't figured out how to take a modelled shot of knee socks. I think I'll have to get help with it. I'll post it when I have it

Incidentally, this is the yarn in the ball. I like the colours much more in the ball than in the socks. They're really comfy, so I'll wear them anyway, but they'll be worn under jeans

The pattern is Turtle Girl's Red Dwarf socks knee high version. The yarn is Jawoll color sport. I knit them on two 3 mm circs. My first time, as I said. I really like this and have ordered 2 sets of circs from Knitpicks for knitting socks from now on. I'm finding the dpns really cumbersome now.

So anyway, I'm finally done this post, and have been working on it since about 9:30 this morning. That's what comes from trying to sneak it in at work :) So hopefully, I'll be back on track for at least weekly updates of the blog. Fingers crossed.

stealth

2007-11-07T09:22:00.000-05:00

Someday I will get the hang of this blogging thing. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how some people manage to update daily and still have time to make a living and... you know... knit. I've come to the conclusion that they must be blogging from work. This is discouraged at my place of employment, so I am stealth blogging right now.

I have no photos to offer, due to the fact that I can't connect my camera to my office computer, and while I might have something on my Flickr account, I don't have the time to fiddle with it, because my supervisor could return at any moment.

Mostly, I wanted to point out that I am still kicking. I finished the sleeves on my Not-So-Kakhi Cables cardi. Next up: blocking. Which I may or may not bother with. I probably ought to so that the button band knits on nicely. Damn! It's pretty chilly in my office right now and a nice wooly sweater would be just the ticket.

I have also been knitting some knee socks with some yarn I bought, but have not blogged. It's sport weight and stripes in a really weird, erratic pattern. I'm not sure how much I like the way the colours are coming out, but I love the socks. Trouble is, I've run out of yarn and will have to buy a whole new ball of yarn with strange random striping tendencies for a total of about 5 inches of knitting. Grrr. Oh well. What can you do?

My biggest news, though is that I'm on Ravelry! This is truly awesome. I've been working on moving all my pictures to Flickr so I can put them up there. So I'm KnitLizard, and will be spending far too much time there over the next little while. I'll try and update the blog during that time as well, but I make no promises. In the meantime, I'd better post this and get off here before I get busted. Happy knitting.

Yarn Haul

2007-10-21T14:10:00.000-05:00

It's amazing how much can happen in a month's time. Since my last post, I've finished the body portions of my not-so-kakhi cables cardigan, and am most of the way finished on the sleeves. It's pretty boring stuff though, so I won't post pictures. I knit Shedir from Knitty's special breast cancer issue, but forgot to take pictures. Oops. But I also made some additions to my stash! It's going to be pretty photo heavy now, so bear with me.

This is Briggs & Little Tuffy:

The colour is Blue Jean, and while the photo is blurry, the shot on the right shows the colour pretty well. I got this while on a yarn crawl with a fellow knitter prior to a volunteer stint for the Ottawa Knitting Guild at a fibre festival at the textile museum in Almonte. We stopped at The Real Wool Shop in Carleton Place where I acquired 6 skeins of the Tuffy first, then at the Mississippi Blacksheep Gallery where I got this:

This is about 1900 yards of silk/yak laceweight. Possibly even cobweb, it's pretty fine. It's also so soft, I actually walked several blocks to find a bank machine in order to bring it home with me. Mississippi Blacksheep Gallery is really nice, but they don't take debit. Bear that in mind if you plan to visit. And you should, especially if you're a weaver.

Then there were my lovely parents who I love. They went to Australia in September (without me, which I don't love) and brought me back some yarn!!!

This is what seems to be DK weight yarn (21 st to 10 cm). It's 8 ply in 50 g balls, of which I have 10. They're natural colour spun from black sheep. It's a really pretty brownish grey colour that is hard to make out in the picture. I would have tried for more shots, but the wind was blowing really hard on my balcony and I still had more yarn to photograph. I'm not sure what I'm going to make with this, but it has to be really special. The fact that my folks not only tracked down yarn while in Australia, but also hauled it home with them, makes this the most special yarn in my stash. And considering that silk/yak stuff, that's saying a lot.

After that was the Knitting Guild's vendors night. I spent less than I budgeted, for that I am proud and I got a great haul:

This is Hacho from the Mirasol project which means that a portion of the money goes towards building schools for the children of Peruvian shepherds who are responsible for the sheep whose wool made this yarn. The colour is called Coral Reef. Pretty worthy cause and some really pretty yarn.

Koigu KPPM. I've read lots of blogs where the joys of Koigu have been described, and when I saw some available, I had to have it. The colour is P436 and is so pretty, I can't even begin to tell you.

Finally, this is hand dyed by a new company called Sweet Paprika Designs. This is their Messa di Voce sock yarn in the Blood Orange colourway. So pretty! It was really hard to choose a colour. I wish I could have bought all of them. Such is life, and I still need to find the funding for blocking wires so I can show you Swan Lake (previously known as Mystery Stole 3), plus the possibility of Yule knitting. Yikes, is it really almost the end of October?

Anyway, that's all for now. I wish I had some actual knitting to show off. I swear I have been knitting! Really. I have. I'll show you next time. Until then, here's some naughty critters:

I know they don't look terribly naughty here, but I'm sure Caleb is off to get into something or other. Possibly my knitting. That's all, I'm off.

Almost There

2007-09-23T10:47:00.001-05:00

So much knitting has been going on around here in the last little while. I finished the knitting on my Mystery Stole. I have yet to get ahold of some blocking wires though, so here it sits:

Nothing like a lovely pile of knitted... something. I think it's going to look really great once it's blocked though. I've thoroughly enjoyed knitting this project and am sad to have it over. I was a little nervous toward the end. I'm always nervous about running out of yarn on every project I have ever worked on. As a result of this paranoia, I tend to buy too much yarn. This time, I stuck with the yardage recommended by the designer (Pink Lemon Twist, incidentally, check it out) and if you look at the top of the photo, you'll see what had me so nervous this time. Yeah. That's all that's left. Whew! Just squeaked it in. Next time I post this, it will be blocked. I might even be convinced to try a modeled shot. I'll think about it.

In the meantime, the weather (briefly) changed around here to a wee bit chilly. So I whipped out some of my UFOs. I looked at the Michael Kors one and was about to work on it, when I found a gross error in it which will require a great deal of fiddling, cursing and possible single malt scotch. Definately not television knitting. So I put it away again, and pulled out not-so-kakhi cables. And I finished the left front portion of the cardigan:

I also cast on and got to work on the right front half. Not too shabby for a couple of days knitting even if I do say so myself. I'm finding myself enchanted by this pattern again. It's really hard to tell with black, but the combination of cables and seed stitch is making me very happy. I don't tend to like cables with a lot of reverse stockingette, so this is a very good design for me. And the amount of seed stitch is fairly small, so I'm not going insane with the back and forth of the yarn. More on this in the not too distant future I think.

On the not quite knitting front:

I made stitch markers! Not too bad for a non-beader. I had no idea what I was doing, so I just used earring findings. I figured that they could work both as solid and split ring markers. Anyway, there are 8 of each style, and I like them. The ones in the middle were a pair of earrings that I had only worn once before they broke. Teach me to buy cheap earrings, but I was annoyed to say the least. Now they have new life and I feel much better about them. The ones on the right, could actually be worn as earrings. They're my favourite. I think I'd like to read up on beading and try again with something a little more complicated than this, but in the meantime. Woo Hoo, stitch markers!

Now back to some cabling and Supernatural DVDs!

Yikes!

2007-09-09T15:24:00.000-05:00

Wow! So I was doing so well with my mystery stole. I kept plugging along, almost always on track. Now that the last clue has come and gone, the incentive to keep knitting is gone. I want to see it finished, but I don't want it to be over. Kinda crazy, huh? I have been working on it, just very slowly. I'm currently waiting to start row 188 of the final wing section. There are 193. The end is in sight. I didn't photograph it though, it looks pretty much the same as last time :) Next time it appears on here, it will be finished and (hopefully) blocked. I need to get me some blocking wires.

I've also been working away on a pair of socks for a very dear friend of mine. She asked for hot pink ankle socks, and I just happened to have some hot pink Regia in the stash. Sweet. Anyway, I don't think she reads this blog, but I couldn't say for certain, so those pics won't show until she gets them.

This all doesn't make for very good blog fodder, so I'll bring on the most recent purchases.

There's been stash enhancement:

Dale Stork sock yarn. 100% cotton in black and white. These are destined to be another pair of Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts for a co-worker. Also Tofutsies #724 - Foot the Bill. This is a yarn I've been reading a lot about in the blogosphere, and have been dying to try. I noticed this afternoon that in the September 2007 issue of Magknits, there is a gorgeous sock pattern using this exact yarn and colourway. Fate? Hmmmm...

There has also been library enhancement:

This is something I haven't really blogged about before. I usually prefer to get my patterns free online, because I like to spend my money on fibre, not books. I also am employed by a library, so I have feelings about borrowing books, not buying them :) But every once in a while a book is published that is so awesome, that I have to have it. These were not purchased at the same time (about a month or two apart), but I thought I ought to blog them both. Fitted Knits by Stefanie Japel and Romantic Hand Knits by Annie Modesitt. With any luck, there will be projects out of these started before the year is up.

Other than that, there's been very little action in my stash. I've sworn to finish some things before I start new ones. That's a little daunting, so I don't count socks. As far as I'm concerned, socks don't count. Incidentally, neither does sock yarn. I can't be held responsible for what happens in the sock yarn department. I suspect it might be a little bit like Vegas. So on that note, I'll sign off and see if I can make some progress on a sweater.

Wings and Toes

2007-08-16T18:35:00.000-05:00

Well, MS3 is winding down. The final clue is released tomorrow. I'm unsure how I feel about that. It's kind of like how I felt when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released. I don't want the knit-along to be over, but I want to see how the whole thing comes together. Personally I'm hoping for lots and lots of beads. I suspect that lace and beads may be my newest obsession. Ah well, it could be worse. And hey, I've got pictures! So on with it.

Clue 5 completed.

Just the wing portion of clue 5:

Close-up on the feathers in the wing:

And because I also have shots of clue 6 coming up, I thought a page break was in order. Behold the absolute cutest little tootsies:

Also, behold the amount of cat hair on my couch. Blech! Are we ready? No? Okay, something else to keep you going.... hmmm. How about this?

This was just one of the pies that my cousin John baked at the cottage. They were phenomenal!

Okay, enough dawdling. Here it is. My stole is up to date, even if my blog hasn't been. My finished clue 6:

I think it's looking pretty good. The line where the wing meets the body of the stole is a little harsh, but I don't think I mind too much. I love the feathers! But I've been working on Icarus off and on for a while, so that's a given. I just wish I had thought to add beads to it. Ah well, next time.

So I'm ready for clue 7 tomorrow, except I'm going out of town this weekend, and will be spending most of the day tomorrow on the road. No internet! Waaaaah! On the plus side, my parents (whose home I'm crashing) have a colour printer, so I can say goodbye to my pink highlighter. I won't be taking the stole with me, though. It's gotten far too large. It is, in fact as wide as my couch is deep, and who knows how long. I wonder how I'm going to block it. I'll worry about that later.

That's it for now. There has been a minor stash enhancement, but I forgot to take pictures of it. I was too busy admiring little pink toesies. I'll get to that next time.

Clue 4 Done!

2007-08-04T14:47:00.001-05:00

Wow! There's been a lot of chatter in my inbox since clue 5 and the theme were posted on the Mystery Stole page. I had thought I would hold off on mentioning the theme in my blog in case someone who wanted to be surprised stumbled across it. But since attempting to sort through my inbox, I figure the cat is out of the bag anyway. Thank goodness I couldn't wait to learn the theme, or I might have been seriously distressed to have opened my email and the first message there gave it to me.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there. What is, is that I have finally finished clue 4.

I think I'll have to figure out a better way to photograph this when I finish the next clue. I'll worry about that later though. Right now I just want to get started on my wing.

I finally saw Swan Lake about a year ago, and I just fell in love! So now that I know that's the theme, I'm extra excited. I wondered about the motif from Leda's Dream being in this stole too. I thought it might be something about swans but dismissed it, thinking it was too obvious. Typical of me, overthinking things. So, I'm determined to not do that here anymore. I'm going ahead and knitting the wing as it's written and trusting that it will turn out. Melanie obviously knows what she's doing. What a designer!

Anyway off to knit some more. Later!

Chart E Done!

2007-07-29T13:21:00.001-05:00

Yay! I'm on track. I didn't knit anything for the last week. I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last Tuesday (don't worry, there will be no spoilers), but I spent some time at the gym and I hurt. So I spent too much time wallowing in my pain to knit :)

Anyway, it's the weekend, and for me, that means lots and lots of knitting time. So I spent yesterday and part of today plugging away at clue 4 and here it is:

I've been seeing chatter where people have been finding these little hexagons or cat's paws or whatever they are (they make me think of snowflakes, I'm Canadian what can I say?) very frustrating. Now admittedly, I still have a whole chart to go of them, but I love them. They make me happy everytime I get to the little O^O that finishes them off.

Here's another shot showing the bulk of the stole so far:

It may be noted, that I changed the colour of my lifeline. The blue was easy to see in photographs, but it was a bit of worsted weight yarn that I found lying around and used in a pinch at the cottage. It was far too bulky to use in this stole. The new yarn is a scrap of green fingering weight left over from my Baudelaire socks. Much easier to work around, even if it is harder to see in photos. That little ball of yarn you can see on the right of the stole is what's left of my second skein of yarn. I bought 4, so I should be alright for quantity. I'm a paranoid knitter. I always think I'm going to run out of yarn, so I tend to buy too much. I think I've mentioned this before. Oh well. I have things to do. I'm expecting company this evening and I'd like to get a start of Chart F before I have to do things like vacuum, blah.

I'll post again before the week's out, I suspect, but in the meantime, here's something pretty:

Yeah, I know. It's a bug. I like bugs. Especially the kind that eat mosquitoes. Later.

Quickie

2007-07-23T17:59:00.000-05:00

So, I just wanted to post a quick progress report on the Mystery Stole. I've finished clue 3 and have printed off clue 4. Things are looking pretty good even if I do say so myself:

Again, the blue line is the beginning of the clue I just finished. This is supposed to be the 1/3 mark in length, and while I haven't actually measured it, I'd guess it's almost a meter long. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the remainder turns out. But right now, I'm on page 474 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and Doctor Who is on at 8:00 so, I'll leave it at that for now.

Back from holidays

2007-07-21T18:09:00.000-05:00

So, before I ran off to the lake, I had mentioned that I had finished clue 1 of my Mystery Stole. So here are the pictures that I didn't have time to post:

The first clue is finished. It's pretty wide because I'm working with DK weight yarn, but I think it's still very usable.
Here's a closer shot:

I'm really loving this pattern. I'm actually thinking about making another one in a lace yarn. Maybe in a pewter colour, something silvery with black beads. This is like a drug. I can't get over how the lace images form.

As I mentioned, I spent the last week at the lake. I actually managed to get some knitting done. Here is my finished clue 2:

Not too shabby. You can see the blue line there. That would be my lifeline. Thankfully there have been no mishaps that would require its use, but I just know that if I hadn't put that in there, I would have been frogging away like mad. So, it will continue to mark my progress. I figure that it will act as the marker in the blog for where the clues begin. Works for me anyway. That lovely bit you can see past the stole? That's the big Rideau Lake. Our cottage is built on a hill so from the deck, you can look down at the water. Don't be too jealous, we came home early because we thought that staying might necessitate the building of an ark.

So now I'm on row 191 and am looking forward to finishing clue 3 in a matter of days. Not sure how long. I am also on page 134 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. So, I'll go back to the wizarding world now, and post about the non knitting things from the cottage sometime in the future. Hopefully, there'll be knitting progress then too :)

Mystery Stole

2007-07-10T20:03:00.001-05:00

So. As I mentioned in my last post, I have joined the Mystery Stole 3 knit-along. So far, I've been so totally overwhelmed with the sheer volume of email I've been slogging through, that I haven't really had a chance to really interact with the group.

I did buy yarn. I went to two knitting stores here in Ottawa and could find absolutely no white or cream coloured laceweight yarn! There was black in one store, but I don't wear black as a rule, and knew that I would never use a black stole. So, owing to the fact that I was already behind by 2 clues, and it was Saturday, and I had no car, and it was raining, I opted for something a bit heavier. This is gorgeous stuff. Silk DK weight. It's impossible to get a good idea of just how luscious this yarn is from the picture. Hopefully, the sheen will show up in future stole shots.

I've never tried beaded knitting before. Mainly because I'm a big fat chicken. So when I saw that beads were an option for this pattern, I jumped at the chance to try it out. Let me tell you, for someone who has never played with beads, a place like the Sassy Bead Company is a little scary. Nevertheless, I prevailed. My goal was seed beads for this project and only this project. These are what I came away with:

Pretty peachy beads that bring out the warm peachy tones in the vanilla yarn. Hopefully I won't lose too many. I know for a fact that at least 2, if not three, have vanished into the black hole that tiny things like this get lost in.

So I got the yarn and the beads. But the yarn is bigger than the pattern calls for, so I did the unthinkable (for me anyway) and I did the swatch. Good thing too, because this is on 4.5 mm needles and it's still pretty dense. I like it though, the YOs are clear and the stockingette is not too tight without being messy. That's how I'm going.

Sorta, I did the swatch. I did the 3 rows of garter, and the pattern once but didn't bother with the garter rows again, and there was no way I was going to cast this off. I'm far too paranoid about running out of yarn. This is something I have been dealing with for as long as I've been working fibre crafts. It's why there are so many single balls of yarn sitting in my stash. If I ever get on Ravelry, that will become much clearer.

So. That's the start of my Mystery Stole journey. In all honesty, I just finished knitting clue #1 before I came on to write this post, but the light was gone. I'll take pictures tomorrow. I figure due to the overwhelming numbers of people in the blogosphere participating in this knit-along, there are zillions of photos of Mystery Stoles in progress floating around out there, so my plan is to blog about my stole when I finish a clue. Hopefully there will be other knitting happening as well to fill out the gaps. Now, I'm off to play with some string (aka acrylic yarn).

Still here

2007-07-06T17:08:00.000-05:00

Warning: Picture heavy post!

Once again, I am a bad blogger. I have been knitting, and shopping, and sitting like a lazy slug on the couch which is nowhere near the computer. Poor excuse.

Anyway, on with the pictures. I have a couple of WIP's that have become so idle as to be mostly forgotten. The next couple of pictures were one of them. It's a short sleeved aran sweater designed by Michael Kors and published in the Holiday 2005 issue of Vogue Knitting. I love this pattern, but it's had a very sad and pathetic past. I started it sometime around holiday 2005, got about halfway to the armhole shaping, and noticed a big ass error in the berry stitches in the centre panel. Okay, rip back, pick up stitches, keep knitting. Those berries are really 3-stitch bobbles. I messed up, but didn't notice until the neck shaping. Then I abandoned it. Last summer I ripped it all out and started again. Got most of the back finished and abandoned it.

I finally finished the back and got 3 repeats of the diamond pattern done on the front. I'm nuts for this project right now. Hopefully that'll stay the same until the rest is finished. I'd hate for this to be rejected again.
Finsished back (unblocked)

Front so far

Next up: Socks. Summer is great for socks. But I haven't been happy with any so far.

On the left is Eunny's Bayerische Sock in Lang Jawoll. This picture doesn't do the colour justice, it's gorgeous! Unfortunately, I didn't read the chart properly, and have been doing the wrong twists for half the stitches. I've got a lot done that way, and the pattern still looks all cably and stuff and I can't bear to rip it, so I think they'll stay that way. At least I've been consistent.

On the right are a couple of single socks which may be ripped in the near future. The yellow one is Yellow Snow. It's Regia 3-ply and the pattern is great (it's actually Melanie Berney's Snowflake Lace Socks), but the cuff is too tight for my calves. I think I'll try and loosen the cast-on somehow. Not sure if it'll work. It might be ripped in the end. The other is Austermann Step in a simple stockingette stitch, but the toe is wrong. I might try and fix it too. Who knows?

Onward. This ought to be recognizable to pretty much anyone who might actually read this and who doesn't work with me (you know who you are. Thanks for reading btw). This is Icarus. Everyone has done it. It is my first lace and there are lots of errors, but I think they hid really well and they're mostly at the beginning where the rows aren't too long. I love this pattern, even if it does go on f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I think I'm over 400 stitches now. The end is in sight though. I hope.

The yarn is an old acrylic store brand fingering weight that my mom had started to make a sweater for my dad in. She can't knit much anymore, so she gave it to me to finish, but the pattern got lost somewhere along the way and there had been something spilled on the knit portion of the sweater. So I found a new use for the rest. I can't imagine my dad wearing anything in this colour anyway, the 80s are over.

Next: A mostly finished Jayne Cobb hat from Firefly as expertly modeled by Seymour. He was pretty happy to see the light of day until I covered his eyes up with the hat :)

So the hat is knit. I just have to sew in the ends and make a pompom. This is actually the second one I've knit. I made one for a friend last Halloween, and it totally made his costume! The yarn is Alafoss Lopi in gorgeous harvest shades of red orange and gold. I kind of imagine Jayne's mom living in a farming settlement on some outer rim moon raising sheep for fleece, then lovingly spinning it, dying it, and knitting it into warm things for her son to wear in the cold of space.

I know... I'm a big geek.

Onward, to stash enhancement. Sock yarn first, cause you can never have enough. On the left Dale Stork in a greyish blue. On the right, Regia 4-ply in a taupey colour. I think that it could be made into something for someone masculine sometime. Or not. It could be for me.

The blue has a purpose. I promised a very dear friend of mine that I would knit her 7-month old son some socks. I don't like knitting for babies in wool, so I was thrilled to find this at my LYS. 100% cotton sock yarn. He's not walking yet so the durability factor shouldn't be a problem and with teeny feet, one ball might even make 2 pairs. Coolio.

Emu Superwash DK in brown and green. This also has a specific purpose. My dad wants socks for his golf clubs. He wants them to be machine washable, but I couldn't bring myself to buy more acrylic. I have far too much of that already. Mmmm superwash wool. Hope he likes the green. I'm not worried about the brown.

Next is Estelle Mystik. This is planning on being Intoxicating from No Sheep For You. The pattern calls for silk, but my bank account can't handle that much silk, so I went for something a little less pricey, but with a great sheen all the same. This is a cotton/viscose blend. Very pretty.

Last pictures. This was an impulse buy, but I think I know what I'm going to make with it. I have 10 balls of it and paid $35. How could I resist. It's called Waikiki and is made by Stahl-sche Wolle. I googled the hell out of it, but couldn't find any mention of it anywhere. I hope that isn't a bad sign. But I knit up a swatch and it knits up really well. I love love love the colours and the fibre is perfect for summer. It's 47% cotton, 33% acrylic, and 20% linen.

So that's most of what I've been up to. I also got Fitted Knits the other day, and am looking forward to pawing through it lots. I'm not supposed to buy more yarn for a while, but I think I'm going to make a small exception. Mystery Stole 3 closes entries tonight, and I'm on my way to join now. I'll need some yarn to knit my stole out of. Shouldn't need too much though. Hmmm. July is cashmere month at Yarn Forward. There's a thought....

On that note, I'm off to join my first knit-along. I promise, it won't be so long next time :)

When Mommy's away, the kids will play

2007-05-09T17:00:00.000-05:00

So I got home from work this morning to this sight:

The blinds from my sliding doors. Interestingly enough, they were hanging from the ceiling this morning when I left for work, and yet here they are, laying down on the job. I wonder What could possibly have happened. This sort of thing only happens when you have somewhere else to be. In fact, I shouldn't even be taking the time to blog about it because my ride arrives in about half an hour, but I couldn't resist sharing the work of my precious angels.

In other news:

Completed Jaywalkers. These are my second pair, and I love, love, love this pattern. I suspect there will be many more in my future. So, again, these are Jaywalker Socks by Grumperina and I knit them out of Meilenweit Cotton Fondo in the 6506 colour.
Here's a closeup of the toes:

Hmmm, something's a little amiss, but I think I can live with it.

Anyway, I must be off, I have somewhere to be. The blinds can just stay where they are.

Oops, I did it again... again...

2007-05-03T16:51:00.000-05:00

For the record, I am not nor have I ever been a fan of Britney Spears.

Okay, now that that is on record, here goes again. My internet shut down mid post before, so...

I went yarn shopping. Again. Yay me!

So I got this:

Bernat Sox in Lime Hot. This says it's new. It's certainly new to me, and I hope it's okay. It's an acrylic nylon blend which is kinda, meh. But it's lime green! And even more important, it was under $3!!! Which is good because I also got this:

Regia Cotton Tip & Top Color in the 4085 colourway. I can't find what the actual name of the colour is and after the crash, I can't be bothered finding out right now. Maybe when I actually knit it. I also got these:

Regia 4-ply in Raspberry (1258) and Turquoise (1255). Regia needs to get more creative in the names of their colours. My yellow one from the other day is "Yellow."

So then after satifying my need to bulk up my sock yarn stash in preparation for summer knitting (I sadly only had 3 pairs worth stashed), I splurged on this:

This is only two of the six balls I bought of Filatura di Crosa Luxury 100% silk! The colour is called Natural and has been discontinued. I have no idea what I'm going to make out of this except that it will be a summer shell tank. I can't wait.

Now just to prove that I haven't been sitting idly, with nothing but shopping going on, I have progress shots of the second of my Meilenweit cotton Jaywalkers and the left front of my Not-so-Kakhi Cables cardi:

Gratuitous kitty shot:

And as if my babies weren't eye candy enough, the Eiffel tower in the late afternoon:

I have other Paris shots which I can share later, but I couldn't resist these two pictures taken from our hotel room. This was on the windowsill, just outside.

Two pats of butter and a partially eaten piece of cheese. Mmmm, just in case the guests get hungry, the hotel finds a way to get past the lack of mini-fridge in the room.

Just beyond that tasty snack (which, incidentally, we left for the next lucky visitor) was what was lovingly referred to as the jaccuzi:

Also, not so lovingly, as the cesspool. The roof of the building next door. I could have climbed out my window into it. Pretty gross. Luckily, we didn't spend much time in the hotel, cause... Paris!

Anyway, I've posted more pictures than ever in this post I think, so I will leave you with those lovely pictures. Me, I'm going to play with silk!

Grr Argh

2007-04-29T20:09:00.000-05:00

So for the last week, I've been trying to post these pictures, but haven't been able to. Turns out, I can do it if I do them one or two at a time. Irritating. But, I have knitting and cool geeky stuff to blog about, so let's get to it.

This is the first of a pair of Jaywalkers (a la Grumperina):

This is Meilenweit Cotton Fondo colour 6506. It feels really springy with the bright colour stripes and the creamy background. I've made pretty good headway on the second sock since I've finished this one, but I don't have a picture yet. What I have got is a close up:

Here you can see the striping and the pattern. I love this pattern, it's the second time I've done it and my other pair are my favourite socks. Caleb approves :)

In not knitting, but still geeky news, this arrived in the mail the other day!

Close up:

Reverse:

This is a t-shirt from MakeUSmile Tees. An online company based in the states. I really liked the service I got and would recommend them. Anyway. The picture is from a commercial that airs very briefly in the movie Serenity.

I love this movie, just like I love the television series that it was based on, Firefly. This was an example of the voices of fans having sway in the entertainment industry. FOX network prematurely cancelled Firefly, much to the fans' horror, and a really big noise went up online and at conventions and in letter campaigns, and we got a movie out of it. Never give up on a cancelled program you love. Personally, I'm going after FOX again for cancelling Drive. I hope anyone else reading, takes their television entertainment into their own hands too. Maybe we can get rid of all the garbage that's out there.

Browncoats did the impossible, we are mighty, never give up!

Yay New Post!

2007-04-18T16:13:00.000-05:00

So It's been a while... Again. I have excuses. There was no sun for the last eon (about a week and a half , but still), and I killed my battery recharger in London and so, had no batteries for my camera. Pitiful excuses, I know. I could have bought disposable batteries for my camera or even a new charger and taken low-light photos. I could have posted with no knitting pictures. I didn't. Get over it.

There has been knitting, though. I present Monkey Socks:

Close up:

I started these in Rome and knit most of the first sock on my 10 hour flight. I really like this pattern. I do not feel that this yarn makes the most of it, though. It does create an interesting snakeskin look, though and I do like the colours. I just wish that Cookie's fabulous pattern came through it. Oh well, I'll just have to knit this one again. Woe is me. Stats: Monkey Socks from Knitty by Cookie, the yarn is Supersocke 100 Highland Color 844, and they're knit with 2.5 mm needles.

Onward. I finished the (unblocked) back of my Not-so-Kakhi Cables cardigan:

Sideways view, sorry I forgot to rotate it before I uploaded it. Anyway, you can see the pattern of the cables really well. The centre portion and the sides are seed stitch and I really like how that looks in this yarn (Briggs and Little Regal). I knit this a little longer than the pattern calls for, because I like my sweaters to come past my waist. It may turn out to be a lot longer than my waist, but I figure in cases like this, more is definately better.

I also enhanced my stash some. One of my LYS is closing and is having a sale. Mmmm yarn sale.... Ahem, so yarn:

This is Galway Irish Worsted Knitting Yarn. 100% pure wool. The colour didn't come out very well in the picture, but is a gorgeous emerald green which I thought was appropriate (for the record, it is colour 26).
Also:

Regia 3-ply. I think this is a little finer than some of the other sock yarns I've worked with but I think I can manage. I might have to (gasp) swatch first. The yellow is actually a little softer than the picture, but not by much. I was riding the bus home and started snickering to myself when I thought about what socks to knit with it. I think these are going to be Melanie Berney's Snowflake Lace Socks. I think that's hilarious, but then I'm notoriously "off."

So I've also been plugging away at a trial run of Icarus using some old fingering weight yarn. So far it's turning out pretty well, but I have no pictures because due to the nature of lace, it just looks like a blob. Not terribly interesting. I have some lovely alpaca laceweight waiting in the wings to do this shawl in it's proper form, but me being a first time lace knitter, and a big chicken, I thought a trial run was in order. I wouldn't want to horribly ruin something as pretty as Icarus ought to be.

That's it on the knitting front. I'll just post a couple more shots from my vacation as eye candy. Also I figure the longer I can draw this out, the longer I can pretend I just got back from vacation. So: Here is The London Eye from across the Thames with the sun making it even cooler looking:

I'm a really big fan of the new Doctor Who. And this landmark played a very large part in the first season pilot, so it was really cool for me to see.

Next is a very serious bird:

This is one of the Tower ravens. There have been ravens at the Tower of London for hundreds of years. It is said that as long as the ravens stay at the Tower, the monarchy will never fall. Of course, the ravens live in a wire cage and have been bred specially, so that seems a little unlikely. Long live the Queen!

Finally, for the English portion of my trip:

As you may guess this is the glorious, ancient Stonehenge. You can't actually get up close to it anymore, it's all fenced off. Some vandals had caused some damage with spraypaint, and actually stolen some of the stone. I can't imagine someone doing something like that, but there you go. This site was very important for me. As a pagan, I could not go to London without making this pilgrimage. As you can see from the photo, we had an absolutely gorgeous day for it.

So that's it for now. I'll move on to the next leg whenever I get around to posting next :)

Back from Vacation

2007-03-25T12:54:00.000-05:00

Wow! It's been almost a month since my last post. I just returned from a fabulous vacation abroad and have been spending the last week remembering why I left :)

I spent a little over two weeks in Europe, starting with a visit with my grandparents who were vacationing in the South of France, then off to London to begin a Contiki bus tour. We did London, Paris and Rome (we being myself and my brother aka Boy) and had an absolute blast. We met lots of new fun people and made total fools of ourself when we discovered the joys and horrors of absinthe. The books make it look very glamorous, but boy does it pack a punch.

Anyway, not a whole lot of knitting got done, though I did take some along. I figure that if I had left it all at home, I would have been bored stiff and have been practically screaming for some pointy sticks and string. So here is the rundown:

I finished my Endpaper Mitts. These are from a pattern by Eunny, and she deserves all credit for anything fabulous about these mitts. I love them, though I discovered that my tension goes all to hell when I do stranded knitting. This was my first attempt, so I won't be too hard on myself, but you can see where the space between my dpns was, and my tension is way too tight. They fit, barely. I won't give up though, I'll just try bigger needles next time, maybe even bigger yarn.

I finished my Baudelaire socks. This pattern is by Cookie and I got it from Knitty. The yarn is Regia 4-ply tweed in colour 70. The flecks of orange mixed in with the green is lost in the pictures, but I love it.

Here's a look at the cable down the sides:

I finished these on the bus from London to Paris, and the photos were taken in my Paris hotel room. Pretty nifty, huh? Anyway, this was a pretty easy knit, the patten chart is simple enough to memorize which made them great for travel, but I have yet to master cabling without a needle so wrestling with 6 dpns on a moving vehicle is not something I would recommend.

This was my first attempt at knitting a sock from the toe up, and I don't think I'll be trying it again soon. I can totally see the appeal in being able to knit until you run out of yarn, and for anyone who hates kitchener stitch, avoiding that would be a blessing, but personally, I have shapely calves and don't like really high socks anyway, plus I am a freak who loves the kitchener stitch, so, I think I will stick with top down for now. Don't hold me to it though.

So here is the next sock on the agenda:

This is another design by Cookie (number 3 for me). These are Monkey socks, again from Knitty. The yarn is ONLine Supersocke 100 in colour 844 which is mostly brown with bits of cream and blueish gray mixed in. It's self-striping, and I hope I can manage to match them. I did it before with my Jaywalkers (which were before the blog. Maybe someday, I'll post a picture), so I should be able to do it again.

Here's a closer shot:

I knit all but an inch and a half on my flight from Rome to Toronto. I might have finished it if I had knit the whole trip (10 hrs), but I had to stop due to hand cramps and imminent food.

Oh well. I suppose that's a pretty respectable amount of knitting for an adventure packed trip. I saw a lot of really fabulous places and if I'd been knitting the whole time, I would have missed an awful lot. The sort of things that I may never see again. Knitting won't go anywhere. So now I'll leave you with a picture from the trip. I think I'll post a couple of pictures each post so as to not overload a knit blog with not knitting content. Here is a picture of the candy I bought at the Confiserie Florian in Pont de Loup, France:

Not enough? Okay, here's the Mediterannean:

That's it for now, I'm off. I won't be gone for a month this time, I promise.

Of Josh and Angelus

2007-02-28T17:18:00.000-05:00

Not much to report on the knitting front. Mostly I've been tearing around trying to get ready for my trip (4 days and counting). I have been getting some work done on my "Kakhi" Cables. The back is starting to look like it might actually be on its way to becoming a garment:

I'm past the armhole shaping now and have about 4 more inches to knit before I reach the shoulder shaping. I'm loving how this pattern looks, even if it is fussy with all that seed stitch and cable work (I haven't figured out how to do it without a cabling needle). Here's another close-up:

Now that all that exciting knitting is done with (this is a knitting blog after all), I'll move on to what has me the most excited today. Josh Groban! He performed here in Ottawa last night at Scotiabank Place and I had my tickets months ago. Here is a shot of the stage:

It was really impressive! All the panels lit up and had images on them that changed throughout the show. Josh sounded spectacular (no surprise there)! Here's an "action" shot:

For his encore, he came out wearing this Senators jersey which was really awesome. It had Groban 07 on the back, which was pretty cool.

I took lots of photos but I wasn't allowed to use my flash so most of them look like this:

This was an absolutely phenomenal concert and I can't wait for him to come to Ottawa again!

Also on the not knitting front, on Saturday instead of groceries, I came home with this:

This is a thing of beauty! The Sword of Angelus from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is the one that features in the 2nd season finale where Buffy stabs Angel and sends him to hell. Yeah, good times. This is my first blade, and hopefully, it's just the beginning!

Well, I guess that's enough of non-knitting stuff for now, hopefully I'll find time to post again before my trip (4 days, did I mention?), that is assuming I have actual knitting progress to report.

Bad Blogger

2007-02-20T20:43:00.000-05:00

I am such a bad blogger! I can't believe it's been so long since my last post.

I recently found out that there is a knitting guild here in Ottawa. A coworker of mine told me about it, and I went to a meeting last night. It was awesome! I've been wanting to check out a group of knitters, and this is a big group. I think I'll be going again.

I have been knitting, and have a few things to mention. First is a finished Endpaper Mitt (designed by Eunny).

I don't remember if I mentioned the yarn I used in previous posts, so I'll do it now. This is Schoeller Esslinger Fortissima in colour 144 and Scheepjes Invicta Extra in colour 1350.

Here is the inside:

Looks kind of the same as the outside, if I do say so myself :) This is my first time using two colours at the same time. I have done stripes before, but this was kind of addictive. Who knew?

In works in progress:

Here is the "Kahki" cables cardi so far. Eh. Not so exciting blog fodder. The black looks gray, but at least you can see the pattern. For the record, I hate seed stitch! I do like the way this is coming together though, even if it is slow going. I think I'll make this my priority piece. I have small things going too, but I'm going on a trip in a little less than 2 weeks, and want to save them for airplane, bus and train trips :)

Anyhow, I hope that I will have a couple more posts up before I head off for vacation, but until then, it's time for House and he gets cranky(er) if I'm late.

More Finished Stuff

2007-02-06T22:51:00.000-05:00

Wow! I am on a roll. I guess this blogging thing could be the solution for my inability to finish projects. So I have socks:

These are just plain old stockingette socks. They are Navy Patons' Kroy Socks 2.5 mm dpns. I've knit two other pairs like this and I find they're great everyday socks. Inexpensive yarn that knits up well and I can throw them in the washer and dryer.

I also finished this:

This is Grumperina's Odessa hat minus the beads. I loved this pattern! I can't wait to try it again with beads this time. It's knit out of the Luxury Collection Fine Merino Superwash DK. This was also left over from my brother's holiday scarf. He won't miss it I'm sure :)

So now that I've got a bunch of little projects finished, I really should work on the bigger ones. Here is the start of the Kahki Cables Cardigan:

Not much to look at. You can barely see the cables. It's just going to be a black blob. I doubt I'll blog it much, unless there's serious progress. Despite its lack of blogability (new word?), I really like this yarn and the pattern is knitting up nicely. Should be working on it more.

There's also this one:

This is one I've had on the needles for years. It's a Michael Kors design aran top from the Holiday 2005 issue of Vogue Knitting. And the back is almost entirely done. I think the holdup is that it's knit in acrylic Bernat Big Value. Now that I've discovered the joys of natural fibres, the acrylic, just doesn't feel right. Not to mention that it's Michael Kors (his, incidentally is knit in cashmere).

So, instead, I have more little projects. Like:

Endpaper mitts. These are from Eunny's blog, and they are my first attempt at colour work. I'm over the moon with how well they seem to be coming together. I'm terrified that they will be too small though. They look really small. I think I may just be comparing them to socks and my wrists are considerably smaller than my ankles. Time will tell. Anyway, there's more UFOs kicking around my place, but this is already a picture heavy post and it's almost midnight which is way past my bedtime, so I'll save them for another time.

Of Fetching and hats

2007-02-03T19:46:00.001-05:00

Wow! It's hard to believe it's February already. The shortest month of the year, so why does it always feel like the longest? I've been away from the blog for the last week, but that doesn't mean I've been away from my knitting. I knit scarves for everyone on my holiday list this past year, and had some leftover yarn from those projects, so when I heard that my sister could use a pair of fingerless mitts and my brother could use a new hat, I got on it.

This is a simple stockingette hat in boring black. I used the pattern for the Fana Cap from Charlene Schurch's Hats On! I just neglected to change over to another colour. I guess I figured that the Boy might be more likely to wear a plain black hat than one with a pattern in it. His scarf was the DNA Illusion scarf from MagKnits:

It's not the greatest picture in the world I took it on my old camera, but you can see the double helix not too badly. The scarf and the hat were both knit with Luxury Collection Fine Merino Superwash DK yarn which was a dream to work with. My other FO for today, is a pair of Fetching from Knitty. (Someday, I will figure out how to link to things, I'm afraid of stealing bandwidth)

This yarn doesn't photograph well. It's Luxury collection Alpaca Peru (100% alpaca, mmmm) and the colour is a kind of midnight blue with bits of turquoise and fuschia blended in. Really pretty. I don't have a picture of her scarf, but it was Here and There Cables from Scarf Style. I hope she likes these, she's a little particular. I love them, and if she doesn't, I might just take them back. I've been wanting to make a pair of these for me since they made their Knitty appearance.

So, 2 FOs, I figured I could celebrate so:

Austermann Step, and Lang Jawoll. I've worked with both of these yarns before and was happy with them both. I'm itching to start some socks now. I think I'd better get the number of UFOs down first, though. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Yarn and a Finished Object

2007-01-28T09:03:00.000-05:00

Now, like most knitters, I have a lot of UFOs. I've convinced myself that this is normal. It does, however, feel extremely good to have an actual FO that isn't merely a sock. And I have that today!!! Behold, Kathy Zimmerman's crewneck cardigan from Family Circle Easy Knitting magazine Holiday 2005:

This was a realatively easy knit, I finished the knitting almost a year ago. It was the seaming that took forever! I hate seaming with a fiery passion and had to force myself to do it. But, hey nifty cardigan for me! It's knit with some of the last cheap acrylic yarn I had in my stash: Bernat Berella "4" in the Soft Heather colourway. I don't really mind knitting with acrylic... gasp! But I much prefer natural fibres. I chose wooden buttons for this:

You can almost see the little flowers burned into the button. I really like these buttons, even if the cardi is a little boring.

So, Yay! FO means new project, right... right? I'm hearing no objections, so here is new yarn!

Briggs & Little Regal in black. Won't photograph well, I know, but I needed a black cardigan and found the perfect one in the Winter 2006 issue of Knitter's magazine. This yummy yarn wants to be the Khaki Cables cardigan designed by Penny Ollman.

So now, I'm off, I have a new project calling me. New stuff soon.

Yay Pictures!

2007-01-23T20:03:00.000-05:00

Just not knitting ones. I finally figured out what I was doing wrong when I tried to add pictures to the blog. You'll never guess... I forgot to click in the box that says I agree with the rules. What. An. Idiot.

Oh well, I've got it now.

It turns out that all of the pictures I had taken of my knitting in the last year were absoulute crap. You couldn't see anything. Not colour. Not stitch definition. Not even what the FO actually is in some cases. Blah. I'm going to play with the existing pics and see if they can be salvaged, but in the meantime, I'd like to introduce my reasons for living:

Zara

Caleb

In these photos you can see the atrocious housekeeper that is me, but I've got better things to do with my time than housework. Like knitting. Oh yeah, no knitting photos. I bought a new camera today, so as soon as there's light to take pictures by, there will be knitting photos. Yay!

More blather

2007-01-20T14:31:00.000-05:00

So I'm visiting with my parents this weekend. A very dear friend of mine had her first baby earlier this month and we're having a shower for her.

Not much on the knitting front. I have a sock on the go for the Greyhound trip. Still no photos, I left my camera at home like a big doofus. I can tell you that it's navy blue, Patons Kroy in plain stockingette, so you're not really missing much.

Hmm... Maybe a few things about me:

I learned to knit as a child, but it's only within the last year that I've really picked it back up. I'm learning a lot from reading other people's blogs, in addition to fueling my yarn lust and inclination to start more objects than I finish.

My mother was the one who taught me. She knit some while I was young, but my grandmother has had a knitting basket beside her chair for as long as I can remember, probably for as long as my mom can remember too. I can always take my knitting with me to Grandma's.

I'm a thrower. I hold my yarn in my right hand as I knit. I've tried to hold it in my left, but it's pretty slow going. I'd like to try some colour work in the near future though, so it could be handy to learn.

One of my first FOs was a cabled turtleneck sweater. It's bright pink acrylic and it took me about 3 years to finish. If I ever figure out how to post pictures, maybe I'll show you. I have a tendency to take on more than I can really handle.

I knit scarves for all the people on my holiday gift list this year. I had to blitz a few over the last week or so. I have to admit to beeing pretty proud of the 3 that were done at the last minute.

I think my favourite thing to knit is socks. Probably because they're fast and portable. I've been stocking up on sock yarn the last little while, I would hate to finish a pair only to discover that I have no backup yarn. Does that sound like an excuse? Meh, works for me.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to post pictures next week so anyone who chances on this blog can see that while my knitting may be passable, my photography is truly dismal. Hope everyone's weekend is fabulous, now I'm off to pick on my little brother.

New Beginnings

2007-01-16T18:30:00.000-05:00

Hi! Wow! So this is the beginning!

I'm Lizard and this will hopefully become a knitting blog with some cats thrown in for good measure (that is to say, when I have nothing to say about knitting).

I have no idea how dedicated I will be, so just to warn anyone who accidentally stumbles on this here site, new posts may be sporadic.

I hope to have pictures eventually, but right now I'm just learning, and can't figure out how to post them.

In the meantime, I'm a Canadian knitter from Ottawa. I have two cats. Zara and Caleb. I expect they'll show up here a lot. I have lots of projects on the go all the time, and very few finished objects. Maybe this blog will force me to finish the things I've started, or not.