Friday, February 27, 2015

Help Me Pick a Project: Vote, Comments, Etc

Earlier I said I had too much Wollmeise. Well, not really too much, but I acknowledged that it's now spilling out of it's designated WM bin and that's just silly.  A couple of skeins I own are off limits--predesignated for projects--but most aren't. So, you're going to help me choose project and color, right?

Here are the colors currently in the stash (click through for bigger): 

Color 1: Admiral. I promise it's a super dark blue.
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Color 2: Petit Poison Medium --think really dark raspberry, or port.
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Color 3: Nazar Boncugu 
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Color 4: Madam Souris
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Color 5: Petit Poison, Number 5, Dark: Again, Raspberry/Port colors. Guess who just realized she had two skeins of Petit Poison?
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Color 6: Ein Klein Wenig Verrucht: a  nice blue/purple shade
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Color 7: WD: Fliederbusch: don't mind the WD, just mean's "We're different" so it's a little off from what the dyer intended. Still lovely.
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Color 8: WD: Der letzte Versuch: Actually blues and purples in the skein
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Color 9: WD: My Old Blue Jeans: Has anyone noticed I buy jewel tones?
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Color 10: Turkis: so bright teal it almost hurts. (Also, seriously I've owned it for 5 years)
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Color 11: Amazonas: from earlier this week, looks like Parrots.
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Color 12: Im dunklen Wald
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And here are some projects that I think would knit up nicely (all of these are Ravelry patterns, you should be able to click through and see them w/o an account: 

Pattern 1: Whippoorwill -- this is a lovely 2 color shawl. Please specify which 2 colors you think should go together. 

Pattern 2: Spice Route: long rectangular scarf that kind of looks like Clapotis.  Might be good for one of the variegated colors? 

Pattern 3: Undine: I've been meaning to knit this forever, no idea why I haven't yet. 

Pattern 4: La  Cumparsita: I love Marnie's patterns. And this looks so elegant. Would be perfect for a cocktail party. (Please note, I rarely go to cocktail parties)

Pattern 5: Carlina: A more practical scarf with interesting pop out details.

Pattern 6: Arctium: Marnie again, I wasn't kidding. 

Pattern 7: Christmas Lights Shawl: I could only make the smallest size w/ one skein. Hmmm....

Leave me a comment, tweet, FB post etc and let me know which pattern and which color.  

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Sock Show Thursday: 2015 Edition So Far

If I'm planning on making 12 pair of socks this year, I'm already behind. Here it is, nearly the end of February and I have 1.5 pair done.  This doesn't bode especially well, because the spring doesn't look to be slowing down anytime soon. And while I should be knitting on the train, too many evenings of squished in with other commuters with broad shoulders and me a tired hedgehog...

Anyway, I have finished some socks! 

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Oh, hmm. Well, pretend there are 2 now!  This is Baah! La Jolla yarns in the Purple colorway. My usual 1x1 rib pattern knit over 60 stitches on size 1 (2.25 mm) needles.  These are going into my drawer for Northwestern Football season when I don't really feel like being super purple but would like to have warm feet and pretend a bit of team spirit at tailgates.

Next up, sale yarn!

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These are the socks I started in Florida (pictures still to come! I bought yarn. No one was surprised.) as the Philosopher and I took Alligator Alley to Tampa.  I really love the base and it's been gray recently, so my coworkers have all been looking at the skein hoping that something like that green comes for us soon. Only a few more weeks til spring now... Again, size 1 needles, 60 stitches.

This yarn is Zitron Wolkeinspiel and the color appears to be Snow Drops, if I'm translating correctly (Schneegl Ckchen--Sibling the Elder do you want to tackle that?).




Wednesday, February 25, 2015

To Figure Out This Year

I have something approaching an embarrassment of Wollmeise yarn. Claudia dyes up such stunning colors and there's always such a mad rush when it posts at The Loopy Ewe. I feel swept along in the tides of Oh-that's-lovely-I-got-some-too-limited-amounts etc etc..

I know better. The Wollmeise has a perfectly nice online wool shop in Germany. And at the rate I'm knitting it up (one skein every... 5 years or so?) I should be set for another 60 years or so.  Yeah.

So this year, I need to figure out at least a couple of things to make with it. Two of the skeins are spoken for. I won't say which, of course, because that'd give it away to the final recipients (only one of whom is the Philosopher).  But I need to go through my queue, figure out what works that will use up as much of each skein as I can, and just start knitting it.

You've figured out by now I bought more, didn't you? Two skeins of Twin (her Merino, Nylon base) this time:

Skein 1 is Im dunklen Wald and it does indeed look like a forest floor.

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and Skein 2 is Amazones and it reminds me of parrots.

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Hmmm, I see a call for a vote coming.  Off to scheme!




Monday, February 23, 2015

Marshmallow with a Squashed Stoplight

Yes, that's what I look like when I'm wrapped up to go outside. My cream down coat (which got a trip to the dry cleaners while I was in Florida--more on that later) makes me look like a walking marshmallow and my winter hat, which no longer unfortunately can be called "new", is in stoplight shades.

My first hat for the winter was the Pamir that I knit for Loopy Academy Semester 1. Unfortunately, we went to a holiday party and the hat went home with someone else.  It could have told me it wasn't happy with me, but I guess not.  Faced with the prospect of several more months of winter and my primary available hat not one I was thrilled with (the Mrs. Crosby one that I still need to rip out), I dove into the stash again, pulled out the Pamir pattern and set forth...

This is Pamir #3 (Pamir 2 went to Madame Massage Therapist)

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It's loose on the head there because I was just getting ready to block it again.  I wear it every single day. 

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Those of you contemplating your own Pamir may be noticing that the band on the first picture looks a little odd: it's inside out.  The Philosopher likes the geometric design that the pattern creates on the back, so I knit the brim inside out. When I fold it up over my ears, as the negative Farenheit temperatures have certainly called for, you see the usual pattern. 

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The yarn is lovely. It's Dragonfly Fibers Traveller in the Chicago Blackhawks colorway. I picked it up at Sifu last fall. I'm only sad that it doesn't seem to be a regular one of their colorways and so I don't think I can get more. This was a huge disappointment to several friends who have tried to abscond with this hat--both male and female.

And while I enjoy it, I am just starting to get sick of it.  I need a couple more hats in rotation soon...back to the knitting needles! 






Friday, February 20, 2015

Some Progress...

We're midway through the month and I finally have some knitting progress for 2015. Not much, but at least I don't feel like I'm never going to complete anything and really, does it make sense for a woman to commit this much space in her living room to a hobby that she seems to have only a passing acquaintance with? Never mind the many bookshelves of books and a conversation with a friend recently where I admitted, in a vague tired way, that I hadn't read much since Christmas.

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Meet my Catkin shawl.  I started it after Christmas I think, so we'll call it January.  I completely missed very clear directions and had to rip back. This has been sitting on my desk at home for six weeks. I'd knit 10-15 stitches (stockinette with some interesting increases) and then sigh and put it down to work on whatever it was, or go stare at a book, or sleep.  Midwinter blues and work crazies have been double whammies of tough this year.  I've just completed section A and section B should be a piece of cake--at least, assuming I can get back to working on the shawl.

The yarn is Dirty Water DyeWorks, purchased a few years ago in Washington DC.

I have also finished, though as yet I have no picture for you because it needs to be blocked, another triangle for the Philosopher. I sort of used the Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief as my guide--mostly because he likes the shape of those increase-- but there are no eyelet rows, just alternating stockinette, garter, and moss stitch. I abhor moss stitch, which I find surprising because obviously I have no problem with 1x1 ribbing. He'd asked for another "dark" triangle and this is done in the Styx colorway of Sock! by Lisa Souza, which is black/navy/purple yarn.

I'll see if I can get it blocked this weekend and a picture up for you. Perhaps the cats will pose with it if I tell them not to. ;)






A Redo

 I started this pair of socks on New Years Eve just before 2020. I finished them in May 2020 , amidst a lot of optimism about what I'd a...