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Evangeline number two
I love this pattern. It’s easy, yet interesting. And it knits up so quickly. Of course, I have been knitting a lot of items lately with fingering or lace weight yarns, so a worsted weight seems to fly by. And I was just noticing that this pattern is my first time at knitting cables. That’s funny to me that I’ve not done cables before.
Now I need to find something new to knit…
Yesterday I sat down to a couple of movies and churned out the most freakin’ gorgeous fingerless gloves ever. Seriously.
Is that not the most gorgeous red you’ve ever seen? I love how the double cable fits the red so well. I loved every moment of knitting these gloves. So, I’ve cast on a second pair today. Oh, yes. I am a process knitter.
I really just want to do nothing but wear these gloves and stare at my hands. I love them that much.
How do you decide between your spinning WIPs and your knitting WIPs? I’ve been making some good progress on Icarus. But I’m distracted by the spinning.
The Bunny Merlot seduced me…
Actually, I like the name “drunk bunny” more than “bunny merlot”. It’s not turning out the way that I had expected it to when I originally bought it. However, it was one of my very first fiber purchases after learning how to spin, so I honestly didn’t have any idea about what I was purchasing. It’s angora, silk and merino on black polwarth. The black polwarth is pretty greasy and the fiber isn’t spinning up nearly as soft as I had expected it would. BUT, it still is lovely fiber and it’s spinning up into some lovely tweedy fingering weight singles.
But the drunk bunny has been put aside for today’s new arrival. My brand-spankin’ new spindle and roving from Butterfly Girl Designs arrived today. The spindle is a picasso jasper high whorl spindle and it is ridiculous the difference between it and my first spindle (see the drunk bunny spindle). It’s elegant and effortless. The difference is like Alice and Emmett, really. But, oh… the roving. I saw the roving and had to have it immediately. Can you say love (1000)…
Because I am that obsessed, it is so Twilight that I don’t even know where to begin. The batt is actually called “macabre”. It’s a superwash merino/superwash wool/bamboo blend. Red, white and black with sparkles. Seriously, how can you not think about Twilight when you see this? And best of all, it spins like a dream… especially on the gorgeous new spindle. I must get more of her spindles. I think that I might become addicted.
And on a sidenote: A week and a day until Breaking Dawn. (See? Obsessed.) Back to the macabre…
I give you the consequences of Friday night knitting, multiple (strong) pomegranate martinis, and Icarus:
Oh, that was just the beginning of my froggy saturday morning. I ended up ripping out an inch and a half of Icarus. It’s really a rather mindless pattern, but apparently still required too much attention for my inebriated mind Friday night. And it’s funny… saturday morning frogging has become a ritual for me because every week I tell myself that the WIP I bring isn’t that involved. I try to keep my projects really simple due to the large quantities of alcohol that always accompany Friday nights. I really just need to stick to stockinette socks at Friday night knitting. They’re really the only things that I don’t screw up. But I guess that saturday morning frogging is a small price to pay for the awesome time that I always have with my BFFs.
It’s been a productive week for me. I’ve made progress on Icarus (despite my Friday setback). I have also finished my feather and fan scarf (FINALLY)!
It only took me 3 months… I’m ridiculously pleased with how well the colorway of the yarn worked out with the feather and fan stitch pattern. I thought it might be too much, but it’s really not. It’s very watercolorish. It could use a light blocking really… but only for the ends, as the scallops have kind of curled up. But that’s probably got more to do with my ridiculously poor casting on and casting off skills than anything else. So, I doubt the blocking would completely correct the problem. But overall, I’m pleased.
I also finally finished spinning up the remainder of the seawool in to lovely delicate lace singles.
I’m definitely thinking smoke ring or some other kind of delicate lace cowl. There’s about 492 yards here, so that should be more than enough. I’ve really been digging the spindling lately. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it. In fact, I sat down at the wheel this morning to work on my cormo and could only do it for about 15 minutes before I was bored. I just really missed the spindle. Yesterday I ordered a new spindle from Butterfly Girl Designs and I cannot wait for it to get here! I also ordered a yummy batt from her too that I can’t wait to see. I already have plans for the yarn once it’s spun… Oh, and I’m thinking I should get my first Spunky Eclectic fiber club shipment sometime this week. Yay! But in the meantime, I think that I am going to pull out the merino/silk/angora roving that has been hanging out in the stash to work on my spindle. I guess that the cormo is going to have to hang out just a bit longer.
There’s pizza in the oven again tonight. I’m so impressed with my beyond delicious attempt at pizza last night that I just had to have it again tonight…and because there was leftover dough and sauce and mozzarella. It’s starting to fill the house with it’s yummy pizza smell.
The noro socks have come to a bit of a halt for the moment. I can see that the yarn is about to meet up with itself colorwise and something tells me that having stripes of the exact same color next to eachother are going to sort of ruin the whole effect that was going for. So, I’m going to let them hang out for a bit until I’m ready to deal with them. Actually, the sock has become so obnoxious to me that I couldn’t be bothered to take a photo to post of the fiasco.
In unrelated news, I preordered Breaking Dawn this weekend so that I will be ready for the midnight release. 18 days. Yay!
The cormo still waits at the wheel. I suck. But I did make an attempt at cobweb lace singles of some extra seawool that has been haunting my stash. I spun some of it up on the spindle. It really is quite stunning… more so than I expected it to be. However, I measured the wpi and about fell out of my chair. 25 wpi. Seriously. Unsure that I could have possibly spun something that fine, I measured again. 25 wpi. Wow. Go me.
I only spun up about 166 meters because I wanted to make certain that I was going to like the finished product. It’s so soft too. So, I’m going to spun up the remaining 3 oz into cobweb singles also and maybe I can get a lovely lace scarf out of this.
I must be off now…I think that the pizza is ready. Yum!
I headed down to the city to meet some friends for dinner last night. I got there a little early so that I could make a couple of stops at the LYS and bead shop. Ahhh…little luxuries. My plan at the LYS was one skein of Noro kureyon sock yarn. One and only one skein. After finally choosing a color, I took my skein to the checkout and received the most wonderful news: I had a $36 yarn credit from my 2nd quarter shopping. Score. So, I picked up a second kureyon skein and a skein of Araucania Ranco multi (another favorite fingering weight yarn) and left the store with 3 skeins and only really paying for one. I cast on one of the skeins of kureyon this morning for a pair of striped socks.
I liked the new Noro sock pattern on knitty, but being a fan of the mindless sock knitting, I wanted something with a bit less attention. So, I decided to do basic stripes instead. I’m working the stripes alternating between the center pull yarn and the outside yarn on the skein. The stripes are a little wonky where the round starts and ends, but I’ve never been able to get that right on anything I’ve knit in the round. But it’s not too terrible that I want to frog it. I’m just using my simple socks pattern that I’ve figured out after many pairs of socks that fit perfectly now.
After the LYS, I headed across the street to the bead shop. I’ve been envious of all of the gorgeous handmade Twilight stitch markers that I’ve been seeing on the Twilight forum in ravelry lately. Being the crafty bitch that I am, I decided that I should make some of my own. I’ve spent this afternoon assembling them and have decided that I’m not too terrible at beading. (I have only made 2 other attempts at beading before today) I’m not saying that I want to get into the jewelry business, but I’d definitely like to keep on with the stitch markers so I can have something a little more interesting than the generic clover markers that I normally use.
These are my sparkling Edward inspired markers. I actually made 2 of the topaz “Thirst” markers (check out the second in action on my sock above).
And these are my Forks markers and the Twilight apple marker. I need more beads now. I have oodles of ideas in my head.
And for the record, No. I haven’t touched the cormo on the wheel yet today. I know. I suck.
Everything feels screwy today. It should be sunday, but it’s not. I’m not complaining…I just feel a little out of whack.
The Fourth came and went with little excitement. I’ve never been one to get too excited about the Fourth aside from the fact that it means that I don’t have to go to work. I spent the day relaxing and making much progress on the feather and fan scarf that I started in April and then quickly abandoned. I’m about two thirds of the way through her now.
And I’ve finished one of Alice’s gloves. Yes, it does need blocking, but I’m happy with it and excited that my first fingerless glove was much less scary than I imagined it would be. The second glove has been started and I’m done with the lace edging around the elbow. I now just need to pick up the stitches for the arm and get going on it. But it will probably sit for a bit as I’m now focused on finishing up the scarf. I feel like I should not start anything new until I finish Icarus, the clapper, bigfoot tofutsies, and block that damn lace ribbon scarf that has been finished since…I don’t even remember. Oh, and I need to get through the Cormo on my wheel. I don’t know why that has been such slow going for me. Funny, a couple of months ago, I was worried that I didn’t have enough of a fiber stash and that I would spin right through it all and be left with nothing left to spin. Now, I don’t know if I’m ever going to get through it all. Plus, I joined the Spunky Eclectic club, so I’ll be getting new fiber every month. I need to block out time during my week that I devote to nothing but spinning. I’m thinking that Sundays would be a good day for this as I rarely make plans for Sundays.
Which leads me to the thoughts that have been floating through my murky head as of late…
I’ve really taken notice of my surroundings lately. The clutter in my life, my house, my mind. I need to simplify. When I moved into this small space at the beginning of the year, I rid myself of many of my possessions. And now, 6 months later, I still haven’t unpacked much of what I have (as there is no space to put most of it) and I’m starting to think that I need to downsize yet again. With a few exceptions, I’ve not really missed anything that hasn’t been unpacked in these last 6 months, so I’m thinking that I don’t really need any of it. So, I’ve been working the last couple of days at uploading my rather large CD library into my computer so that I can get rid of a lot of the CDs that aren’t really essential to me. I’ve got 4 large tool boxes full of art supplies- pastels, acrylics, oils, watercolors, gouache, charcol, conte, etc… that I was thinking I could pass along to Logan. I know that she’d probably love to use them. I have ridiculous amounts of “knick knacks” that I don’t need. I figure that just getting rid of these items will simplify my surroundings considerably. It’s like that line from Fight Club (the movie) when Tyler says “The things you own end up owning you.” I am owned.
Time to get back to being productive. I have toesies to paint, cds to rip, and cormo to spin.
