another knitting blog

petals

The first installment of the Sundara Yarn Petals Collection arrived yesterday.

Yes, more sock yarn. What of it?

baa baa, Black Sheep

Last Friday, I rode down to the Black Sheep Gathering with Wool Girl and NeuroKnitter from We Heart Yarn.

After the impulsive expense of the Vegas trip, I was thinking about skipping the festival altogether. However, it was such a pleasant trip in good company that I'm glad I decided to go along.

Looks like I'll be doing a bit of sock and lace knitting this summer. [click to embiggen].

Here is a numbered key.

1. Interlacements Rick Rack II, color 311. The colors remind me of copper, bronze, and pewter. One 1400 yd. skein of this came with a pattern for a simple feather and fan stole, which I have already started. It's going to be drapey and beautiful.

If you read Wool Girl's entry on the gathering, you will find a picture of me trying to choose the perfect colorway. Really, I only brought home one skein.

2. This is the first of four selections from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. [There's a shot of part of the booth below]. This yarn is a cotton blend called Sock Candy and the color is Dusty Blue. I'm thinkin' socks.

3. Another Blue Moon offering: Bambu made from...bamboo in the colorway Carbon. This yarn is wonderfully slinky. I'm hoping to turn it into a lacy scarf.

4 and 5. Blue Moon Socks that Rock, of course, in Mist and Star Sapphire, respectively.

6. One skein of laceweight baby alpaca from Sporfarm in The Dalles, OR. The colorway is Winter Garden.

7. Approximately 1200 yds. of Graceful 100% wool laceweight from Yarn Place. The color is 3603, Marooned.

8. Two skeins of a natural white silk/cashmere blend from Hokulani Farms in Bend, OR. I should have gotten more of this; I have a vague notion that I'm now thinking will require more yardage.

9. Trekking (XXL) in color 78, because someday, somewhere, somebody's going to need socks.

Do you think this will keep me busy until September?

monogamous knitting

I've been working on one project more or less exclusively since I finished Reid. It even went to Vegas with me.

The blob on the left is Eunny's Print O' The Wave Stole in progress. The yarn is some Brown Sheep Cotton Fine I've had since Texas.

The pairing was pretty simple-minded: the original was knit in green and I had some green laceweightish yarn sitting around...

I made a couple of small modifications I'll get around to talking about when I block it. Mostly, I knit more pattern repeats than were called for.

I've been knitting on the border for about a week now. I enjoy adding the border and slowly freeing the edges.

Here's the right side. [click].

Here's the wrong side. [click].

The last stitch on the silver needle has just been knit together with the first stitch on the gray needle to join the border and the body together.

71 pattern repeats down, 41 more to go.

Vegas

I am not really a Vegas kind of gal.

I don't drink much.
I'm not interested in gambling.
I'm not titillated by strippers of either gender.
I hate hot weather.

Still, I had a pretty good time. I enjoyed hanging out with friends.

Ka' was impressive. The star of the show was definitely the luminous, rotating hydraulic stage that performed as a boat, a beach, a mountain side, an ice cliff, and a battlefield.

This was my first trip to Vegas and I'm glad that I had the chance to go; however, I can certainly wait a few years before I go again.

KA

We have tickets for Saturday night.

surrender

Seven years ago, I was living in Texas, turning up the AC in order to knit, and buying yarn off the Internet because there really wasn't an adequate selection to be had locally.

I bought some nice gray laceweight yarn in an eBay auction and knit the Nature Scene Shawl from The Best of Knitter's Magazine Shawls and Scarves.

That was a stupid thing to do. The yarn and pattern did nothing for each other.

I knit it almost as an exercise and when it was done I didn't care for it and never blocked it. I toted it with me from Texas to Maryland, from Maryland to Oregon.

Once in a while, I would take it out and look at it in a crumpled ball and think, "I'm never going to wear that thing." So I would stuff it back where ever I found it and forget about it again for a couple of years.

Last week, in while in the grip of some sort of well-intentioned delusion, I decided the time had come to block it.

So far, good.

It really is pretty yarn, if not the most inspiring color; and the stitches block out beautifully.

Uh oh.

Crap.

Holes.

Too many to be bothered with fixing.

I am free.