yarn: Regia 4-ply sock yarn (black) and Tausendschön sock yarn (Traumtänzer) held double (ETA: approx 50 grams of each)
needles: US8/5.0mm circs
started: July 8, 2008
finished: July 11, 2008
mods: garter stitch at the edges, three increase rounds at bottom
Categories: bloggy business
I finally put aside the angst and decided on another
Gloria cowl for the Tausenschön Traumtänzer. Paired with some bog-standard Regia 4-ply sock yarn in black, it makes an interesting variegated fabric.
The colors remind me a bit of the old Pac-Man video game, so there you have it: Pac-Man cowl. I substituted a garter stitch border and realized too late that I really wanted a cowl version 2.0. After some ill-fated increasing, which I realized too late would 1) look stupid and 2) mess up the random variegation. So back I ripped.
Don’t judge. It’s been a stressful week.
For slightly less mindless knitting than stockinette in the round — which, you will note, somehow managed to go stupidly awry — I finally started on my socks for the InterweaveSockAlong: the Seduction Socks by Ann Budd in some heavenly Colinette Jitterbug in the moss colorway.
So far, so not messed up.
Currently, I’m deluding myself that the scant Jitterbug yardage is a perfect match for the Seduction socks, which feature a slightly shorter leg than a typical sock. I will no doubt be wrong.
Categories: bloggy business
Categories: bloggy business
It is insanely popular on ravelry
<<cough1425projects
cough>> but I am just not feeling it right now. Maybe it’s because I’ve reknit the sleeves four times. Maybe it’s because it’s summer. Maybe it’s because I’m just a fickle slut of a knitter. (Are male knitters also fickle? I mean,
fickleness is so nineteenth-century feminine, isn’t it?)
Whatever the cause, I’m about ready to gouge my eyes out with a handy pointy object. Which would have the benefit of 1) preventing further work on the CPH as well as expressing my extreme boredom with said project and 2) preventing further work on the proposal as well as expressing my extreme boredom with said project. Win!
At least part of the problem is the yarn. I’m knitting this in Valley Yarns
Sugarloaf and I am not in love. It’s a perfectly fine yarn: very soft, good stitch definition, nice aran weight, comes in tons of pretty colors. But for all of that, it’s not for me. The high acrylic microfiber content (48%) makes it feel slick and artificial instead of genuinely soft; at 81 yards (74 meters) per 50 grams it’s a heavy yarn. These are things I just learned to think about.
The body of the sweater hangs and will not doubt stretch like a mofo, despite the seams. I don’t even want to think about what the hood will do to the neckline.
That said, I still have a sleeve cap to finish, another whole sleeve to knit, and then the hood, button bands, and finishing to face. And the sad part is, I think I’ll like the sweater when it’s finished. Only “think” though.
On the positive side, I’ve learned that I love the wooly, even if it is a bit scratchy. I never wear sweaters next to the skin anyway. (I broke out in hives just typing that.) So in the future, unless at special request by someone I love, no more super-processed fibers for me. Because, really, knitting this hoodie in a lovely wooly tweed would have made all of the difference.
Categories: bloggy business
This yarn does not yet know what it wants to be when it grows up.
I’ve tried socks:
yarrow ribbed and
Cookie A. I’ve tried
cowls. And still, nothing has been quite right. The variegations have been tricky and I expected serious pooling from what I’d seen on ravelry:
here. (Warning: eXXtreme pooling has been known to cause palpitations, nausea, and obscenitites.) I don’t mind pooling at all, but I wanted something that seemed either a bit more random or a bit more calculated than the weird spiral striping I was getting.
Besides, the name Traumtänzer (= dream dancer; daydreamer) makes me want to knit a lovely, airy pattern that has the colors coming together in just the right way.
So I thought I might try another shawl. I have a couple in mind: Adamas or perhaps the Forest Canopy Shawl. I’d have to make a smaller version of the Adamas, since I only have one skein of yarn, whereas I could probably manage a full-sized Forest Canopy.
So many decisions made difficult by pretty yarn.
Categories: bloggy business
The Swallowtail Shawl was my first foray into lace knitting, and I have to say that the pattern was a great one to start with: the results are pretty, the knitting is interesting without being perplexing and gives relatively instant gratification.
There was really only one snafu along the way (well, expect for the time I knit while drinking wine and — predictably — had to tink back a couple of rows): I ran out of yarn. Hand-dyed yarn that was not, at the moment I needed it, available. So after some contemplation of the stash, I pulled out my skein of Cherry Tree Hill supersock in pink. If I was going to add a contrasting yarn, I was going to go big. All in all, the unexpected modification turned out well, I think — and is definitely cheerful, which is important in a wedding-gift shawl, I’d say. Next time I’ll try US7 needles to possibly avoid this problem.
Specs:
pattern: Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark
yarn: Tausenschön hand-dyed sock yarn in Zitronengelb (420m/100g) + Cherry Tree Hill supersock in Pink (51m/17g)
needles: US8/5mm circs
started: June 25, 2008
finished: June 30, 2008
Categories: bloggy business
Categories: bloggy business
So, yeah, I’m really loving the Swallowtail shawl in
zitronengelb Tausenschön yarn. The color isn’t quite solid but ever so slightly variegated — lovely hand-dyed goodness — which makes the lemony color slightly less vibrant and a bit more subtle. Or something. The pattern is zipping along, the needles [US8] and yarn [sock weight] are producing a nice squishy fabric, and I’m in lurv. Which is how you’re supposed to feel when knitting up a wedding gift shawl, right?
Categories: bloggy business
Today I must speak of the AWESOMEness that is
Kim. We discovered a mutual
love of Triscuits and then, before I knew it, Triscuits were on their way to this sadly Triscuit-deprived, rabidly
soccer-loving land.*
Alice approved.
Look at all of the goodies! Not only some delicious Triscuits, which were soon put to their intended use, but some Panda Cotton (fruit salad!) — currently marinating in the stash awaiting the perfect fruity summertime pattern, some tropical coral in a super-cute little bag, and some great stitch markers. Thanks so much, Kim!
I still don’t have a sock on the needles, mostly because I am fighting the CPH sleeves. In my attempt to avoid too narrow sleeves (which I absolutely hate; a sweater with them is dead to me) I have been doing all kinds of fancy pattern revisions, none of which have worked out. (Surprise, surprise.) Sigh.
I’m also thinking of turning some lovely lemony-yellow yarn into a
Swallowtail shawl.
That should keep me busy.
* Okay. Soccer doesn’t have much to do with Triscuits (or vice-versa) but I thought I should mention the European Cup as Germany is playing in the semi-finals tonight against Turkey. Eeep. For a little background on German-Turkish relations:
here.
p.s. Thanks for all of the birthday wishes!
Categories: bloggy business
So
ravelry totally made my day this morning
I received not one — but two!! — happy birthday messages: one from a total
stranger who the day before had herself received
herzliche Glückwünsche zum Geburtstag from a likewise unknown raveler and another from
Emmms, grad student and
KAL organizer extraordinaire. I <3 ravelry.
On to the knitting. I’ve finished up some little projects along the way, while continually f*cking up the CPH sleeves. Cast on number three anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
First on the list, a tea cosy mash-up.
This cosy started life as the
Autumn Tea Cozy with a desire for steeks, but then developed definite Nancy Bush pointed-toe tendencies, only to be finally finished off as an improvised
Cashmere Tea Cozy. With a little i-cord loop.
All in all, a successful set of modifications. The Noro did its job with the stipey goodnes, the picot edge is whimsical without being saccharine, and it fits the recipient’s tea pot like a glove. Did I mention I cut my first steeks?
I definitely recommend the tea cosy as the ultimate in low-pressure first-time steeks. If it all went horribly awry, I was only out a couple evenings of knitting and one skein of Noro. I followed Eunny’s directions for crocheted steeks: here. Then when they were in place, I just snipped away.
I added some single crochet around the openings to finish them off. Voilà! Tea cosy. I used one skein of Noro Kureyon [138] and unknown needles (US8? US9?).
I also finished up another ballband dishcloth, in two more colors of department store bio-Baumwolle.
Nice and easy and so handy. This one is for me.
I’m still hankering after a new sock pattern, as I miss having a pair of socks on the needles. I started the yarrow ribbed sock in some Tausendschön hand-painted; although the yarn is lovely and the pattern relaxing, it just wasn’t coming together. So I frogged away and am now bereft of socks. Good thing the voting for the first pattern of the Interweave Sockalong is almost over.
Categories: bloggy business
