Yay!

Phew! Well, I finally got CS3! THANKS RAVI!!! I'd link to your blog but it hasn't been updated since like March.

So now I actually have photos of what I've been doing! Unfortunately, no sooner did I get CS3 (THANK YOU RAVI!!), did I find this wicked awesome site called Picnik. You can do all sorts of stuff to your photos there. Crop them, adjust them, etc. It integrates into Flickr too, which is HOT. And you can save photos straight to Flickr using that. Which is also hot. So go check it out.

Anyway. So I completed some projects. I still haven't managed to find time to get a photo of the skating sweater on me. And currently it's drying from being blocked. I got a lot of comments on it when I wore it a couple weeks ago. Someone at work, before I could even say I knit it, commented that she really liked it. It's really my first successful sweater.

I also completed one of my Monkey Socks. But I don't have a photo of that. And I just took a photo of it! I knit it out of Great Adirondak's Silky Sock in the Antique color way. I love how the yarn isn't really pooling at all. Check it out:


Surprisingly, I was patient with this sock, so it actually fits. I usually get so excited to kitchener stitch that a lot of times I knit my socks too short. This one I didn't. I just have to make sure I don't knit the second one short either and I"ll be good to go. I've started on the second sock, but I'm kinda putting it on hold until I finish Ann's Midnight Dot Mittens.

I've started these mittens three times. It's kinda gotten to the point where if this next shot doesn't work, I kinda want to give up and hire someone to knit them for me.

Look what else I finished:


Bess and Jeff's place mats!!! I haven't had a chance to pass them on to the recipients, but I did have a chance to take some glamor shots as you can see. There's more on Ravelry and Flickr.

Additionally, I knit a hat. You see, my old Sparkle hat from SNB was the first hat I really knit for myself. So it has some sort of sentimental value. This was before I realized the wonder of pattern erratas. I used the wrong size needles for the top of the hat (even though they were the needles used according to the pattern), and so the hat didn't really fit right. It's been a long time. That hat has started to look kinda shoddy. Looking felted even. So last year I bought some paiettes (don't even ask where, I've no idea, somewhere on 6th ave in the upper 30s) with the notion of knitting a new Sparkle hat. I had to dig for them, but I finally found them, punched holes in them, and the next night set to knitting the hat. It took me one night to do (I finished it shortly after Bleach ended on Adult Swim on a Wednesday night). And so I present to you, Sparkle Hat 2.0:


Nope, a photo can't get more myspace than that! I've gotten several comments about it. The manager at the Point laughed at me. But the best was some guy on the subway platform at Pacific Street. He came up to me and said "I noticed your hat from several pillars away. I just wanted to say that I like it and it's very festive." I smiled at him and thanked him. And then he disappeared.

This is important. I didn't say "oh thank you I knit it myself in a night" like I usually do. I just thanked him. It was significantly easier than telling someone, "no really, it's easy." or "yeah, I probably could sell them, but I don't feel like it." Why is it that people want me to be a sweatshop? Really?!

On a completely separate note, I thought I'd share some resources I've recently stumbled upon outside of Ravelry.

Knit Map is awesome. You plug in your zip code and they find knitting stores around you. I'm still not sure it's really complete. I did a search for Staten Island and it said that there weren't any there. I'm sure there has to be at least one knitting store on SI.
knitblog.com has a whole index of where to find pattern errata for several different books.

There was another cool thing, but I've completely forgotten it. Anyway...isn't that enough!?

Where Have I Been? What Have I Done?

Oh where to start? November first Ruth and I went to Anthropologie (yes, that Anthropologie) to meet Wenlan Chia, author of Twinkle's Big City Knits. I went partially for the free yarn (Anthropologie had it set up as a workshop where participants would make either a scarf of an ornament according to skill level), but mostly to meet Wenlan (I seem to be good at meeting knitting book authors!) and to ask her what the hell was going on with her sizing.

I thought I wrote some sort of review about the book, but I can't seem to find it in my archives. I thought it was rather scathing towards the inhuman sizes she has. I was confused. She came over to Ruth and I (who were obviously the most advanced knitters in the workshop) and we asked her" dude, WTF?! (but nicer obviously) She replied that because her garments are knitted on huge needles and the yarn is like roving, her garments stretch like mad and also, that they're built with quite a bit of negative ease to be form fitting.

So, I bought her book that night, along with enough yarn for the Skating Sweater from it. Anthropologie was selling Twinkle for $10 a skein! and 15% off of that because we were there for the workshop, so I'm sure you understand that I just had to! Curiosity got the better of me, and I started knitting it the next day once I found size 19 24" circiulars (Thanks Purl Soho!). After just a week, I was here:



Since then, it's been completed. I actually wore it Thanksgiving Day. The sleeve seams are a bit bulky, but nothing I can't get used to. And it fits pretty well. I'm not really sure if it looks alright, since I didn't get a chance to get a photo of me in it. I kinda wish it were a repeat or two longer and of the 6 or so skeins i bought, I have three left over.

I seem to be on a big needle spree what with the Berkshire Pullover and now this. I knit a hat out of one of the skeins, but I don't like it, it's too short (probably that I can just never get her row gauge). But I've also been working on a set of four placemats for friends who got married last May (hey1 I've got a year after the wedding!). I've finished all of them, I just have to weave in the ends and slap some made by tags on em.

I was sick last week, and cuing projects to Ravelry like mad. I bought the new Rowan book (there's LOTS of great stuff in there!) and kinda can't wait to finish up the projects i'm currently working on in favor of some new ones. Next up on the docket is going to be the Tangled Yoke Cardigan from the Fall IK. I started swatching, but I haven't measured yet at all.

I'll probably bring the placemats to SNB tomorrow so I can weave in the ends. And I've made quite a bit of progress on my monkey socks as well. I'm knitting it in Great Adirondack's Silky Sock in the Antique colorway. It's really great yarn to work with. Up there on my top five sock yarns I'd say.

So, I upgraded to Leopard, but the problem I'm having is that only photoshop's CS3 program works, which means my Photoshop 6.0 or 7.0 or whatever was obsolete. Also, I can't seem to get iPhoto to work either (probably because it's not part of iLife 08). So i found CS3, but I need a good Leopard hack for CS3 to get it to work, so if anyone's got that, drop me an email or something. My friend had one, but it doesn't work for Leopard I guess. We did try that screen sharing thing through ichat and it was pretty nifty. Thing is, I don't really want to put up any photos I haven't changed the contrast/ color on. I think mostly because my camera sucks and I always end up with photos that look like crap if they haven't been balanced.

Anyway, I'm still getting over this cold, so I really need to get to bed. Sorry for the virtually pictureless post.