By Popular Demand

An Update!

I've been busy with something I'm sure. More like I've been exhausted all week. I have, however, been knitting, so I'll present you with what I've got so far.

• Finished Jaywalkers in Lorna's Laces Shephard Sock in color way Mountain Creek.
  
  
  
  
  I was impressed because I was nervous that these weren't going to fit since the stitch pattern is inherently unstretchy. But they fit perfectly. I'm really happy with the way they turned out.



• I finished one more segment of Zoe's wedding gift and started on the third segment yesterday.



• I'm still working on the dress from Knit 1. Here's the progress:

Sorry for the lackluster fact driven post. I'm distracted by other things today.

You can tell how busy my weekend was by the amount of pictures in this post

That's what I've been this weekend. Friday during lunch I hit up P&S with someone from work. My mother's birthday is towards the end of the month, so I bought her a bathrobe and the plan has been to embroider a light house on it (we're from Rhode Island, they're big up there...). I'd been wanting to learn how to embroider for quite some time. I bought a kit at the Bust Craftacular and I just haven't whipped it out yet. So I did. I read the instructions and decided that I would start teaching myself. I wanted to start on something for me so that I didn't screw up the lighthouse.


I've gotten a bit more than that done, but I ran out of blue thread, so almost all of the puffiness is done except the dog's butt. I think I found a bit more embroidery thread of that color lying around as I was putting some stuff away, so once I finish the light house I might come back to it. Speaking of the light house, here's what that looks like right now:


I'm not crazy about what it's doing up top, but I'm chalking it up to experience. Also, it shows that it's handmade right? :)

While I was at P&S I saw that they had the new issue of Knit 1. I'm not a huge fan of the magazine. I really liked the men's issue (enough for me to buy it even), but other than that I haven't been really crazy about the patterns because they're usually a bit wild for me. This issue still has some crazy patterns, but there are a couple others in here that I thought I might even like. So I took it home with me.

But the story doesn't end there! Saturday after belly dancing I headed to The Point (if you haven't figured it out, I almost live there...it's my equivalent of Cheers). I ran into Katy and the Carolls and their knitting entourage. I showed them the dress below from the new Knit 1 mag and told them that I wanted to make it.


because I really do want to make this dress. I was looking at the colors of the Manos Cotton Stria and finally settled on the ones below.


As I was swatching today I decided that it made sense to hold two strands of the Cotton Stria together. The dress was originally made with Lion Brand Homespun. I've got nothing really against Lion Brand per se. I've never worked with it, but the colors of the Cotton Stria were too lovely to resist. It'll still be quite mod. Unfortunately now, I have to go back and grab a few more skeins of it so I can be sure I'll have enough now that I'm double stranding it.



The colors are less orangy than they are in that photo. Katy said she'd help me make a shift to go underneath so that I won't have to wear the dress with something on underneath. I'm hoping that this will be something that I'll be able to wear in the fall as well maybe with a shirt underneath or something.

Oh and I joined the Mason Dixon Knit Along (I'll put a button up there soon) and I'm a bit more than halfway done on the second hand towel. I think that's about on par with the amount of time I have to complete them.

Well, with the time I've got before I need to be in bed, I think I'll continue along with that dress from Knit 1.

Wound up and ready to go in Brooklyn

GMY* seeking appropriate partner pattern for friendly rides on the subway, evenings at The Point, downtime at home, etc. start with swatching, then maybe more. I really want a pattern that can deal with my fuzziness, is willing to accept me for who I am and will really show me off. If this is you, please respond to this add...posers need not respond.

*GMY = Green Mohair Yarn

Knitting Rut Knitting Rut Knitting Rut Knitting Rut

I do believe my knitting has turned to vinyl. I've become a broken record.

I'm still working on the second Jaywalker. I've even resorted to knitting this on the subway and metro north so I can get it done quicker. It doesn't seem to be helping...


I started the second in the four part series of Zoe's wedding gift. Not only is the pattern obnoxiously repetitive, I've got ten more of the repeats to do!

What this means is that I've been doing a lot less reading and that I'm eyeing everything as a potential next project. The tank is first on the list, and then probably the hip scarf. However, I just got the new issue of Interweave Knits and there's a couple things in there that are ticking my fancy so to speak. The Brioche Bodice, and the Icarus Shawl. I've needed some sort of a shawl for work for quite some time now. My office tends to get to subzero temperatures - especially in the summer. I've never knitted anything in lace before, so this seems to be a pretty good project to start with since it's in the Lace Primer issue.





The biggest negative factor about both of these projects is that I think I'd actually need to go buy yarn for it. The reason this is upsetting is that I feel like I've bought a decent amount of yarn, books etc. and my poor exhausted credit card is just itching to be placed at the bottom of a bowl with some water and placed in the freezer.

My stash keeps getting larger and larger, and at some point I'm going to have to knit it all. I think that once I get rid of knit up all the linen there will be a decent amount of room. But the other space hog is the 1,000 yards of mohair that I had to have when I saw it at Rhinebeck last October. This is what I'm thinking this year. I'm in the planning phases for Rhinebeck 2006. I need to make room in my stash box for some new yarn (we'll forget that the yarn I currently have doesn't fit in the stash box). But maybe that lace shawl just needs to wait until I find something amazing to knit it out of while I'm at Rhinebeck. Can I wait that long?!

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I was talking to Rebecca at the Point today. She suggested using their space (and her precious time nonetheless!) for a knit-blog workshop. I've got a bit of planning to do, some handouts to put together, some fun hands on things to put together so people might actually get something out of this - but it looks like the knit-blog workshop will actually happen! I'm pretty excited. I have no idea when yet, I still really want to finish the HTML book I'm reading so I can add all that knowledge to the workshop but I'm really excited that the workshop has a home now! I'll pass on any more information as I get it.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Yup...colors and such are changing...bear with me while it's a little crazy over here. I wanted to feel spring and summer when I look at the bog. The old style will probably come back in the fall though with some changes as well. I'm surprised at how easy this is to do. I'm still staying within the confines of one of the main blogger templates, though after I finish this HTML book (which I haven't opened in a week so don't get too excited out there) I should be able to do more intense things.

Oh, the WIP in the background can now be defined as a FO. Time to start the next one. I'll do a boring color next; "natural." I had to skimp out on one of the repeats because I couldn't get it in with the amount of yarn I had. The FO is therefore a bit shorter than I would have liked, but I kept my sanity and am actually excited to start the next one. I'm still not really sure why, but I'm going to hope that I can continue to be excited about it after it's been cast on!

My issue of IK came in the mail today! There's some interesting tid bits in it. Once I finish reading it I'll let you know what I really think about it. There's a nifty pattern for a felted hat that looks like a good idea. I've never done anything with needle felting so maybe that's a good project for it.

Oh - note to self - for mom's present, you'll need some iron on transfer paper and some iron on backing - Katy and I have come to the conclusion that P&S or Pearl by Canal street might have it. ALSO - fabric for a belly dancing veil can probably be purchased around 7th ave and 40th (is that the right cross street there gals?). Hopefully these errands will get done tomorrow, but I doubt the fabric places will be open on Sunday.

Who in NYC would be interested in getting together for an HTML/CSS "Get to know your blog" party? Any idea where a good place to host one would be? I'm thinking somewhere relatively accessible (read: not someone's apartment) that would have free wireless access and room for a bunch of us to get together and talk about how to make our blogs look the way we want them to. I'm thinking the best time for such an event would be after I've finished reading this HTML book (I'm about a third of the way through). Not that I'm an HTML/CSS expert, but I think I know enough to teach some people that don't know that much about how HTML/CSS works, and I have enough patience to actually sit down and look at a bunch of blogs to see where to plunk in certain attributes. Any grand ideas?

Well, it's a start

The new background doubles as a WIP shot! It's the Linen hand towel from Mason Dixon Knitting. I've just got one more pattern repeat to do and this one's done! I even figured out how to get the background to stay instead of scrolling like the last one did. I'm hoping that this will make it a bit easier on folks with slower connections. It won't have to keep refreshing I don't think. But maybe I'm wrong. We'll try it and see what happens. I'm really impressed with myself because I haven't even gotten to background images in the HTML book that I'm reading, so this is uber cool!

Anyway. I'll get started on changing and coordinating the colors of the boxes and sidebars tonight. I just really wanted to get the image up.

In other news I finished one of the Jaywalkers. I still have one more sock to go though, so there will be no FO photos today! It looks hot though, even if the colors are doing some odd pooling thing after the gusset.

AND: The Denim Silk arrived! Here it is below hanging out with my HTML book:



It was a happy day on Wednesday when this box arrived! I'm not quite at the point where I can start casting this on. I might wait until I've finished phase two of the wedding present. I might not though. I'm hurting shirt wise...