(* almost finished object)
This is what I did this weekend, what do you think it might be?
Close-up of stitchy yarny goodness:
Also, I found a yarn store. And this yarn forced itself into my bag:
I have no idea what it will be, but I loved the two-color skeins in unusual pairings. Here’s a page with some of the colorways. And another with it in-skein.
Look at the pretties…
I guess I should clarify…I made them during Project Runway. However, somehow I knew that the “fashion accessory” was not going to be knitting needles.
Yes, I mean my new KnitPicks Options needles and yes, I think I literally mean “tarnished”.
I knit all of the Ballet Cami on them and it went really well. However, near the end of the principal knitting, I noticed that the tips were a little dull. Looking more closely, I noticed that it was only near the tips, pretty much exactly where I hold them. Clearly, my fingers are interacting with the finish. In a way that I haven’t seen with my Addis.
It’s hard to take a photo, but I did my best. Note that the needle on the top is duller than the one on the bottom. They both have the tarnish, the one on the bottom simply has that side turned away from the camera. (The penny was there to give my camera something to focus on)
Does this mean I regret my purchase? No. At least, not yet. But it does bear careful watching. If anyone else notices this problem, I’d love to hear it.
In other news, here’s a finished object! This is the square I made for Annette’s Blanket. I’ll be mailing it to Samantha in a day or so. When I looked at my stash, I realized I had a bunch of Cascade 220 Superwash left over from a past group blanket; small balls in a bunch of random sizes. So I decided to give the log cabin technique a try, and I let the size of the balls of yarn dictate the size of the squares. Next time I try one, instead of working in a spiral, I think I’ll start in one corner, and grow down and right (or something like that).
So, it wasn’t an official race. I did have an early lead, but I also had a few distractions. And as I expected, Bron finished her Ballet Cami before I did. Go over and take a look and congratulate her. Really, I wasn’t feeling deathly competitive, it was more like the way I’d race with the other smart kids in classes — mostly good natured, spurs everyone on to do better.
But I did finish the principal knitting on my own tonight:
There’s ends to weave in and crochet trimming to do, not to mention figuring out that booby cinch thing. Bron didn’t do that on hers, feeling it was already a little too low cut. However, for me, it’s been the Summer of Cleavage, so I’m gonna cinch the hell out of it.
After I did the 3-needle bind-off at the shoulders, I tossed it on to see how it fits. It’s very close fitting, but I noted that my gauge swatched relaxed when it went through the washer and dryer. So I made this one with that expectation. And it must look good, because I wore it downstairs and my husband looked at me funny and asked if I’d changed my top. A few beats later, he noticed the strands of yarn hanging all over it and realized it was the item I was knitting all weekend.
The other news is that my latest Rockin’ Sock Club kit arrived on Friday. I wound the yarn up into a ball and tossed it into a bag because I went down to NYC for the weekend. I spent several hours on Saturday at a gabfest and mostly knit on the Ballet Cami. But I did swatch up the new Peaseblossom. Here she is wound into a ball:
On today’s trip through the Knitting Bloggers Webring, I discovered that Samantha of Me, Myself and Milotis78 is collecting squares for a comfort afghan for her parent’s neighbor, Annette, whose husband recently had a sudden fatal heart attack at age 41. She’s hoping for 72 8×8″ squares in superwash blues and greens. She’s got 1 and a number of pledges. Go help her out. Maybe I’ll use up some random balls in my stash and give that log cabin thing a try.
I got home from work today to discover the latest shipment from KnitPicks with the additional items I’d ordered for my Options needle kit. And discovered that somehow I hadn’t ordered any 3-pocket pocket sleeves. Which is what I needed most. *sigh* *click* *click* *click*
And in Ballet Cami news, here I am at 10.5″:
Of course, Bron, who I am not racing with, has already divided for the front and back and is striding right along. She claims her new contact lenses are slowing her down. And she’s a little annoyed with the gauge differences between circular and flat knitting. Maybe she should frog it back and fix it. And she should definitely spend some quality time with those candle molds she just got. I want to see gargoyles!
I’ve been in Project: Colorswap for several months. And for various reasons, June was the hardest for me to send out. Fortunately, Lynne paired me up with someone who has been as challenged as I have. We both sent our packages out over the weekend and on Monday, my package from Julie arrived.
In the box was this lovely bag:
And in the bag was all this stuff:
Highlights include chocolate, tea, sunprint paper (when is that gonna come in colors?!), penguin ice cube trays, candles, an issue of Simply Knitting, and these things….
A cheeky pencil and eraser set:
Yarny goodness (Patons Divine and Classic Elite Skye Tweed in denim colors):
And the best part of all, a blue dragon with a light-up mouth:
Julie got my package as well. She was the recipient of the candy striped sock yarn I dyed a while back. I also included some lace weight yarn, which she’s going to make into this shawl. And when I went to visit that site, I found a vest pattern that is screaming my name. And I’ll get to try steaks! Whee!
And as if I didn’t have enough projects already, something spurned me on to look at the Mason-Dixon KAL. I’m seeing dishcloths and bibs all over the place. And I’m not motivated to knit them. Really, I’m not. And I’m not all that tempted by a log cabin either. But I looked at the KAL and saw this. That I must make. A blanket and matching pillows. Probably in a lightweight wool. I can’t wait until I can buy the pattern.
However, also on Monday, a purple July package arrived from Amanda. So I’ve decided that it will sit until I can send out hers. Fortunately, due to my compulsive purple purchasing, I already have most of what I plan to send. I just have to finish a couple of little things, and off it goes.
Finally, in Ballet Cami news, last night I was up to 9.25″ inches and feeling proud. But then Bron posted this morning that she’s at 13″ inches. Damn!
My knitting e-mail address is a Gmail address. That’s because in addition to all the comments from you and that I leave elsewhere, I also use it to subscribe to the Knitlist and to a number of other knitting sites (knitalongs, etc) and Gmail does a great job at letting me manage that (threaded conversations can’t be beat). Anyway, they do a really good job at spam catching, so today, when I saw a message in my inbox with the subject line “interweave”, I opened it. SPAM! I suppose “interweave” might have been found in a dictionary and I’m just randomly getting it. But I throw in the towel when spam comes with the subject line “magic loop” or “addi turbo”.
I also didn’t read blogs much this weekend, so I’ll share some things I found on catching up….
* I have a thing for miniatures. I don’t collect them, but I’ve made a few tiny things. This takes the cake.
* I have Mason-Dixon Knitting. I haven’t really looked through it closely yet because I had a frenzy of buying knitting books with my Borders Rewards personal shopping day (and if you go nuts enough on one of those, you get another), although I am working up something in scribble knitting that I haven’t shown you yet. Anyway, I glance through the KAL blog today and saw this. I hadn’t been tempted to make anything log cabinish, especially after all the garter stitch in Mermaid. But…but…but…. At least the pattern is out of reach for a while.
* No surprise, I didn’t win anything in the Dye-O-Rama drawing (but Chris didn’t either, for once, so there is justice in the world), so I think I might have to buy myself a sock-blocker keychain kit. I haven’t decided what this year’s holiday ornament will be yet, so I’m tempted to buy several kits and make this. However, my ornament usually has a holiday theme, and even if I used festive sock yarn, I think I’m the only one who would get it. But I also just bought the book so that I could make this star santa as an ornament. Then again, I think last year’s ornament was cross-stitch, so maybe I should knit this year….
* Turns out that Bron started the Ballet Cami over the weekend as well. And I’m two inches ahead of her. But rather than propose a challenge, I cede it to her already, because that woman knits a project without distraction. The 3 or 4 (or more?) other in-progress projects in my stash bow down to her.
What’s that project you say? It’s the Ballerina Camisole from the latest MagKnits. I saw it, I liked it, I noticed that it used Knit Picks Shine Sport, which gave me an excuse to order the Options needles. So I did. And I sat around at a party chatting with people yesterday and started it.
So far, I’ve got about 7 inches knit:
Yes, I’m totally loving the needles. Well, I’m not really noticing the needles. So as far as I’m concerned, they’re perfect. Actually, that’s not quite true, every once in a while, I notice how pointy the needles are. So very pointy! And the best part? When I finished the ribbed hem and had to switch to larger needles, there was no two-circular awkwardness, I simply changed the tips!
Also, I started this with a tubular cast-on. In the past, I worked the one described in the back of Interweave Knits. It was fiddly and always a little too loose. This time, I grabbed Nancie Wiseman’s “The Knitter’s Book of Finishing Techniques” where she uses a provisional cast-on to start it. I liked it much better than the one in Interweave. And it looks so good:
In other news, I finished the principal knitting on my Rock and Weave socks today. I have some ends to weave in, and I need some buttons. But they fit! So I’ll get some buttons and then give them a proper post of their own.
So, I’ve unpacked my Knit Picks Options needles and set the case up. Here are a few things I’ve done to organize them. I thought I’d share. I also placed a new order for more stuff.
- The organizer comes with 6 Needle Pocket sleeves, two of each size (1-pocket, 2-pocket, 3-pocket). The 3-pocket pockets are fine for storing one set of needle tips. But you get 9 sets of tips. Right now I’ve doubled them up in obviously constrasting sizes. But I also ordered another set of 3-pocket sleeves.
- The needle tips aren’t labeled with their size. Nor are the pockets in the organizer labeled. I’d ordered some of the Needle Size ID Tags which are intended to be hung on a cable holding stitches to remind you which ones you were using. But because I like easy reference when trying to find The Needle I Want, I decided to stick them in the pockets with the needles to ID the tips. I’ve ordered a couple more sets of ID Tags to actually use on cables as intended.
- The 2-pocket sleeves are good for storing the cables. Unfortunately, there’s no convenient way to label them. In fact, the packaging they came with didn’t even identify which lengths they were.
What else did I order?
- The larger needle tip sizes that aren’t included in the set
- Longer cables that aren’t included in the set
Now I’m off to write them an e-mail asking for the smaller circulars in a 2-socks-at-once magic-loop-friendly 40″ length and also for cable couplers. I’m not sure that I’d ever use the cable couplers to make a really long cable. But I can see that it might have other uses — like transfering stitches from a shorter cable to a longer cable with a minimum of fuss on an ever growing shawl.
Mermaid Jacket
Odessa Hat 
ZigZag Sweater
Twisty Baby Set
Miss Dashwood
Clapotis (Mixed Berries)
Tychus
