Saturday, January 06, 2007

Where have I been?

The holidays were quite busy for me. Consequently, this will be a rather long post.

I haven't finished the Reflection Aran Pullover for my brother quite yet. Here's where I am on it:

Reflection Aran Sweater progress

Like I posted before, I've only got about five skeins left, and I'm thinking I'm more than likely going to run out. I have, however, decided that I don't care if the front doesn't match. I'm just going to knit until I can't really knit anymore. I just want to be done with the damn sweater. The back is done, and I'm about three quarters done with the second sleeve:

Refelection Aran Sweater sleeve II


Here we have the detail of the sleeve. It's coming along quite nicely, but I have made a couple of screwups. There's a few S cables instead of the plain right and left twisting cables. Right there, you see a couple of really awesome stitch markers. They were a gift from my friend Beth. She made six of them and gave them to me in a nifty box. It was like receiving ME in a box really. Each one is just a bit of me. Besides the camera (I really love photography), and the ball of yarn with needles, she also made one with a book and two beads that say DK (DK is the company I work for), one with an achor (yay RI!), one with an Arc de Triomphe (my favorite Parisian landmark!), and another one with a microphone (I used to be a part of WRIU, the college radio station at the University of Rhode Island).

What I did do for my brother, however, was knit him a tiny sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts:

My brother's mini sweater

Yup, that's a pipe cleaner made into a hanger. When he opened it, he looked at it and asked if it was a penis warmer (no joke here...he really did think that was its purpose). I had to tell him that no, in fact, it was an ornament, and besides, it'd probably be too itchy for such a place.

While I was in Rhode Island, I got my mom started on her first sweater ever. She's been knitting dishcloths for quite some time now. But, to be honest, I can really only deal with so many dishcloths, so it was time to teach her something new. We headed out into the wild streets of Rhode Island to try to find a decent yarn store to get her some yarn. I wanted to use the trip as an excuse to explore some yarn stores I wouldn't get to explore ordinarily. We went looking for Knitting Traditions...and More! which is theoretically located in Middletown. Well...there's a fishing shop there, a hairdressers and a hardware store. The guys at the fish store told my mom that the yarn store moved down the street. So we went looking for it. We got to the end of the street and still didn't find it, so we took a left towards a group of shops. Randomly, there actually was a (completely unrelated to the yarn store we were looking for) yarn store called Knitting Corner. This is by far my favorite yarn store in Rhode Island. We got her some Cotton Fleece to Make the Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.

She actually called the store a couple days ago and asked for them to set aside a skein of yarn for her. Then she called my dad and asked him to pick it up. When he got to the yarn, he said to the woman "you can make a whole sweater out of this?!" I love my dad.

I also got a bunch of yarn, but I think I'll squeeze that in as a seperate update.

4 comments:

schrodinger said...

Penis warmer. HAHAHAHA!

Good on you for getting your mum started on her first sweater, I wish her all the best 'sweater vibes'.

illanna said...

That's so cool that you made a tiny sweater as an IOU. I've always imagined myself doing that in case I couldn't finish the sweater in time. I've never made such a huge project as a gift like you are, so I haven't gotted to do that yet. I admire you for making that ambitious project for your brother. He's very lucky.

I think the hourglass sweater sounds like a great first project for your mom. I love that pattern because of the whole no finishing thing. I taught my boyfriend's mom how to knit and it was so much fun to see the knitting related things that she would get excited about. Is your mom going to get a blog?

Happy New Year!!!

Anonymous said...

I'm also excited to hear about your mom's sweater progress.
I can also sympathize w/ the frustration of a sweater that won't complete itself. Damn aran sweater-monster!
Glad you liked the stitch-markers! Of course, now that microphone can represent all your karaoke glory...

Passionknitly said...

schrodinger: Thanks! I think she'll be able to do it and that she'll feel more confident with her abilities once she finishes it. She knows how to do a lot, she just doesn't think she does.

Illana: The mini sweater was actually really quick to knit! The no finishing aspect is KEY. I know that she'd probably knit all the pieces and then not put them all together! While my mom's quite internet savvy, I don't think she'd ever want to put the time and effor into creating a blog.

Beta: I guess I can blog for her to a certain extent as well. :) I can't wait to start my own Hourglass. I'm a bit behind on the times. I LOVE THE STITCH MARKERS!!! I was sad to take them off the needles when I finished the sleeve today!