FO, FO, FO!

Modified Fetching, KnitPick's Merino Style, US4, 50 stitches instead of 45, lengthened where needed, added second cable repeat at top.


Modified Natalya gauntlets, shortened, A.C. Moore cashmere blend.


One Natalya plus a matching headband of my own "pattern".

Finally got photos earlier of these. The Natalyas and headband have been done for weeks, the Fetching's were finished on Thanksgiving. I am working on a matching hat for them, and they will be gifted to my sister.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So it just wouldn't be Thanksgiving around here without a new burn scar on my arm. Today's addition is on my left arm, just below my elbow (and just barely missing the tattoo there). Ouch.

The stuffed turkey is in the oven, the potatoes are awaiting boiling, the dessert (pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting) were made yesterday, as was the corn maque choux.

I should be knitting. So much to do yet before Christmas - I have one of the pair of Fetchings done, need to start the second yet. I doubt my sister will like them (or the matching hat I have planned), but I am at the point where I don't much care. And I'll gladly keep them if she doesn't.

I still haven't gotten a photo I like of my finished Natalya's and matching headband. Need to try again tomorrow I think.

I think I shall go knit while waiting for the turkey to finish cooking.

random knitting musings and alpacas too

I've just realized that I have yet to start any holiday knitting. Shedir doesn't count, I still haven't come up with a solution to shorten it, so it is currently in my one yarn stash drawer hiding so it doesn't get thrown into traffic.

Rogue is not yet frogged but will be soon. The yarn (KnitPick's Main Line, Ink or whatever the black is called, I'm too lazy to check prior entries or look it up) will instead become a Simple Knitted Bodice. But that will have to wait until I can buy the pattern. Which will be... hell, I don't know. I can't afford the $29.95 to renew my soon-to-expire livrjournal paid account and massive amount of userpics, which is more of a priority than a knitting pattern right now.

I printed out the Knitty universal toe-up sock pattern earlier and did some calculations. I think I am going to do a basic stockinette for my first socks, using the Regia 4 color in the lovely muted olive greens that I won on ebay. I don't know how tall I want them, and I have huge calves (I still blame all that bike riding I did while living in Philly all those years ago), so I did a ton of measurements for calf increases and will decide how high to make them while working on them. I want to use as much of the yarn as possible, even though I'm normally not a fan of socks that go anywhere higher than about 3" above my ankles.

Earlier today in the lull between the rain we went to the open house at Eastland Alpacas, which is oh... not even 5 miles from us. They have a *ton* of alpacas. Most were wet and thus kinda icky feeling, but there were a few dry ones that were oh so fun to pet. We had a lot of fun feeding them, and afterward we stopped by their shop which has a ton of alpaca-fiber sweaters, socks, hats, scarves, coats, etc. And yarn. And fiber to spin. Being mostly broke, we left without spending a ton of money - only got two more of the cute little made in Peru knitted finger puppets. Harley got a baby alpaca to go with her slightly bigger one, Sage got an alligator (to go with her ladybug?).

I want a farm. With land. And a barn. And alpacas. And sheepies. And goats. But not all for knitting purposes, mind you. Just mostly. ;)

Dishcloths blather (and they lather too)

So I have been working slowly on dishcloth number 22 for the last week. Ugh. Never again am I doing a freaking bamboo pattern. Slow, slow, slow. It's like... around halfway done. I even took it and extra Sugar & Cream on our little mini-not-vacation this week and even then only got like 10 rows done on it.

Rogue, what wee little bit is done, is getting frogged. I keep waffling and waffling on the Main Line and I've finally decided I want to do Rogue in a slightly heavier yarn. Leaning toward Elann's Peruvian Sierra Aran, probably Italian Plum, maybe Walnut. I do wonder how true their online photos are in comparison to the actual yarn color.

The Main Line shall become... I don't know. Anyone have any ideas for roughly 1700 yards of worsted weight cotton/wool blend... in sweater form, to fit a 44" or 46" bust?

I should attempt to finish that damned dishclothbefore the end of the week. It's seriously dragging my motivation down to nothing.

Mmmmmmm... black cables

When I first started knitting last November people said not to learn to knit with black yarn. And I did anyway. My first two FOs were black yarn. And there have been quite a few more since.

When the thought of cables first crossed my mind, everyone said only do cables in light colored yarn. But why should I listen when I haven't yet about anything else?

I've still not photographed my modified Natalya's in action, but I did finish the matching headband today, and snapped a few photos of it pre-grafting seaming. We'll get to that momentarily.



Why yes, those are black cables.



And oh look... more black cables. And I appear to be making a Rogue with black yarn as well (though that is on hold for now, I am *still* waffling on my yarn choice).

Anyway. The headband was interesting. No problems with it until I picked up the beginning stitches and removed the provisional cast on. I somehow seriously borked the pick-up, ended up with two too few stitches and four really tangled up ones. After an hour or so of trying to figure out what was what I decided to instead pick up a new row a few above this one (and thus pick out every stitch up to that point one by one), knit a few extras onto the end and work from there. My first attempt at grafting in pattern was going fine until I realized the cables didn't match up (too many non-cable rows between them), so I ripped back and added two more rows, one with a cable twist. Second grafting attempt... couldn't count apparently because all was fine until the halfway mark where I knitted a purl and purled a knit. Ripped back again. Gave up on grafting, did a three-needle bind-off, forgot to bind off while doing it though. D'oh! So I bound off after that with just barely enough yarn left to weave in. At least I can tell where the center back is, what with the not-so-pretty seam there. Good thing it'll be hiding under my hair when I wear it.

And just because I've yet to post a photo of myself here in my blog, and I have one that I actually almost like from Halloween, and it does relate to knitting in that I am wearing wool roving dread falls in it...