Most Beautiful Yarn

I fell in love with this yarn at Dyelots!, the local fiber store. I'm thrilled to be able to type the phrase "local fiber store", it means I live in the right place! Enough about me, here's the yarn:


It's a 50/50 silk and merino blend , with 660 yards in 160 (or 140, I'm having a memory blip) grams. Hand dyed by Dyelots (Janis). It has wonderful lustre.

This next pic has a more accurate representation of the colors, they are fairly soft.


What shall I make with this lovely yarn?


I'm going to modify this pattern from Interweave Knits. I'm going to turn it upside down, if you can envision that. It will be in stockinette instead of rib. I need to make the most of this yardage! My plan is to knit the front first, and if I run out of yarn, I can make the straps and back out of something else.

It'll also have modesty straps, ones that cover bra straps. Maybe crochet straps.
I am so inspired by this yarn that it jumped the queue of awaiting projects. The other yarn is jealous.

P.S. Can you readers tell me whether the blog writing on the right hand side of the page is showing up near the top, or if you have to scroll down to see it? Please?

Ribbon edge

Some of my favorite cardigans have ribbon stabilizing the button band. It was just a matter of time until I tried it.

I'll try to figure out how to crop this soon, so it can be seen better. Until then...


My lovely green Noro Cash Iroha, with two ribbon possibilities. I have decided on the narrow ribbon, for a few reasons: 1) the wide ribbon is $26 per yard and 2) the wide ribbon is too stiff. The narrow ribbon keeps the edge of the stockinette from curling, and will make a nice peek-a-boo detail. I'm thinking of continuing it around the bottom edge of the sweater to keep it from curling too. Then I don't have to mull over choices for less curling stitches on the bottom edge. The narrow ribbon is less than 1 inch, the wide is about 2 inches.

I really wanted grosgrain (however that darn word is pronounced) ribbon, but the ribbon/needlepoint store didn't have a color that went with the green yarn well. Out of the hundreds of fantastic ribbons that this store has, not a lot want to play well with that fabulous but vivid green. I guess I could go with black, but this is such a vibrant sweater that I didn't want to tone it down.

Expensive crochet and new yarn

Ok, I admit it, I was window shopping on-line. I found something with knit related content, thus making it worthwhile research. This is a beautiful purse.

Remember when I got my mojo back last week? This is part of the reason:

The yarn on the bottom is the orange Silky Tweed that June sent me for entering her blog contest. It wasn't inspiring me on its own, but I was at the local yarn store, and the red color made me dance with glee. The yellow on the top liked them both, and wanted to come home with me.

So on the theory that buying these would make me more likely to use the yarn in my stash, I bought it. I now have 6 skeins total, and if I decide on a project soon, I can buy more before the store runs out.

Have you noticed the stretches here that I'm making in these justifications? A little dicey, but we don't need them to stand up in court.

Bead 'speriment

I swatched out some bead experiments this weekend. I've read about knitting with beads before; I remembered one technique, and made up some more. This is slipping the bead onto the right hand side of the knit stitch, using pre-threaded beads. To thread the beads on, I used beeswax to stiffen the yarn end into a point (instead of a needle).

I did a swatch with beads on the purl stitches, but we'll have to try the photo again, it turned out blurry. I tried one with garter stitch, but garter stitch really drives me crazy. It just seems so unfinished to me. I wish I liked it because it lies flat, and I need as many of those stitches as I can get.

The interesting part was seeing the different orientations that the beads had with the different techniques: vertical, slanted, horizontal.

I also put the bead on a float in front, but it looked bad with this bead/yarn combo.

I saw "Decorative Knitting" at the library today, and looked through it to see how they use beads. Some interesting techniques, but they didn't explain how to do many of the swatches they showed. What a tease.

Also in book knitting: I got One Skein. I like it! Of course, I got the book to get ideas for using stash yarns, but it's making me want new yarn for the projects in there. I'll resist.

And in faux one-upmanship:

Wonkyknit isn't the only one with racoons in her trees!

Mojo is back!

Instead of clicking along, my needles were moping. Instead of inspiring me, my yarn collection was crushing my spirit. I didn't even want to go to the yarn store.

I'm cured! I'm past the hump on my green sweater (I've pinched off the sleeves, which makes each row go about twice as fast). Orangina (aka hempathina) is behaving. (Except that the balls of hempathy keep falling apart and getting tangled.)

And I've got the summer 2006 Interweave Knits in hand. I'm seriously considering subscribing just to get it a week earlier. I usually like the shopping aspect to buying a magazine at a bookstore, especially when I'm limited on funds: it makes up for a lack of other shopping.

But I had to wait ELEVEN DAYS to read HibiscuitsGirl's Extreme Drunken Summer 2006 Interweave Knits Review!

That's almost an eternity. And I should say waitING, as I'm delicately savoring the magazine. I've had it for hours now and haven't opened it yet. I did read the first paragraph of the review, enough to find out that my doppelganger isn't in this issue.

Her:

Me:


We're still flipping coins to figure out which one's the evil one.

My first scarf

The first scarf that I ever knit was a 1x1 rib in Prairie Silk by Brown Sheep. It was knitted on a trip to a conference in the San Juan Islands in Washington.

Well, I was pretty sad when I lost that scarf. Not only did it have sentimental value, it was a pretty good scarf. A tad scratchy, but that's ok. So I made an exact copy.

Here is my flying poodle modeling it for us:


(Photos of the back of the poodle's head remind me of the Daffy Duck cartoons where Daffy's bill gets blown off.)

Hempathina back in favor

Hempathina is back in good graces, thanks to a frogging session.


The color is a little bit redder than I'd like (in real life and in the photo). I am contemplating dying it someday to a darker shade of brown, but let's wait until I'm done with it, shall we?

It's been very sunny. Hard weather to blog in. The bike trailer (trailer towed by a bike, not a trailer to tow bikes in) got its maiden voyage today. Fun! Although we discovered that it is not the optimal way to transport seedlings. We'll be keeping the car.

And I chopped out part of an ivy root the size of a cantelope. The ivy is as old as our house, and tough as nails. The roots are on the neighbors side of the fence, but they don't mind me chopping at them, they're renters. I'm good at tearing things out. Not so good at planting, but I make my contribution.

I was worried that the hatchet-wielding was going to hurt my wrists for knitting, but I'm holding up just fine. And since company is coming next weekend, I've got a very clean (well, mostly there) craft/guest room. It's making me feel better about knitting to have all of the annoying projects put away for now.

This pic shows the color of the Hempathy better:


And no, I didn't make the sweater. I bought it after I started knitting, and was astounded that I could get it for $25. Thank goodness for underpaid Chinese garment workers.

Stuck on Hempathina

And not in the good way. I joined the SKC knit-along, but am not going to make it by the deadline. I'm not sure I'm ever going to make it. I consider myself a fairly competent knitter, but this is kicking my &$*!

I just keep messing up. I admit it, I haven't been concentrating fully, but I'm a multitasker. It's hard to only knit.

So I'm mad at knitting. But tomorrow is knitting with the girls, I'm pretty sure that'll cure me. It usually does.

Handmade Book

Back in the days before I discovered knitting, I made other things, like books. The problem with these books is that they are not so useful. After the popularity of blank journal books, everyone who uses them has plenty, and so do those who don't use them.

Subliminally, I think I was trying to knit. Look at the binding:



I had all of the components ready for this book, and they had been hibernating for quite some time. All I had to do was glue and sew, Presto!