Monday, July 27, 2009

updates in the land of the knitterly love

I know I know, bad Sadie no cookie, I haven't been posting as much as I should. I've been inundated with Chem, and this weekend I've had Sarah visiting, as well as helping mom with the backyard for her birthday, I've just been uber busy.
Dispite this uberness I have had time to do some knitting. I finished the first of these:

That's the Knee Socks! from Ravelry. I'm doing them in Casade Heritage greens, and a skein of Noro sock. I'm alternating four row repeats and just guessing most of the way. I have big calves so I like the toe-up construction that allows me to make them bigger as I need. The pattern is written well and I have managed to follow it dispite the changes I'm making.

The other thing I finished/ have been working on is Ilga Leja's Manon. My mom got it when she was in Edmonton from River City Yarns (a place I dream of visiting, in fact I may need to go to Edmonton just for the yarn). It's done out of Arucania Ruca and Silkessence.

As you can see it still needs a good blocking (which may take a while with the schedual I've been keeping). It is however gorgeous. Part of me can't wait for autumn to bring out all the scarves shawls and stoles I've been working on.

I also started the Inconcievable! shawl knit along, I'm doing it in Dream in Color Smooshy, it's turning out nice. I love lace but it does require more attention than I seem capable of devoting lately. Which is probably why the smaller easier patterns are getting done and the jackets and shirts are getting neglected (I will finish that tank top by summer).
The other thing that's happened is that I am going to frog the waterlily tank and re knit it in the smaller size. It' grew, and it grew again, and currently it resembles a dress. While sometimes I would be drawn to just saying let by-gone's be by-gones, this is some expensive stuff, and I do like the top, I thought going down two inches was enough but clearly I need to make the small size and let it grow. I don't want to frog and reknit the entire thing, but that is going to have to happen so I may as well accept it. It may not be reknit in time for the weather though, once I've frogged it the yarn is getting a time out for bad behavoiur.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Tour de Fleece and Socks

So between class, work, and finding a house (which means packing cleaning etc), I have been spinning on the Tour de Fleece. My goal was and has been to spin all the Jacob I have, some of which is dyed and some of which is natural brown. I got the brown done first.

This picture is more true to the color than the other one. It's a fingering/light fingering weight, and there's over 700 yards of it. I'm calling it "Fezzik" after the Princess Bride, I'm also planning to knit the Inconcievable wrap from it. I'll get a different guage but that's okay.

Here is all the yarn that has been set, there are four skiens of it. The Jacob was a trial, it was fun and it is beautiful but the sheep was unjacketed and I processed this from the raw so there was much picking and even in spinning a lot of VM came out, but I think it's pretty and will have that rustic look that I want.

And because this is a knitting journal at the heart of it all, here are the cookie A. socks I finished (knit during my last class - Logic). It's the Thelonious Socks pattern done in Cables and Lace "Night's Plutonian Shore" from the Poe Club. Its hard to take accurate pictures of them because I am only one person (without sock blockers). But they are pretty and I am enjoying them.

I knit therfore I am