Finally Finished

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.

On the Block

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...

Almost There

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!

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

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!

Yay New Post!

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 :)