Posts from — February 2006

That is, for me anyway I went to Lambkins Hideaway today to show off my Olympic shawl. I mentioned it before, but they got really into the whole Knitting Olympics thing. They gave discounts, had their own team, a party, etc. You had to bring in your project by today so they could take a picture and award medals. They were all so sweet to say how wonderful/beautiful/delightful it is despite my many mistakes. I also got a good tip…use bamboo needles for a project like this so the stitches don’t slide around as much. They help prevent two stitches sticking together. So all of that praise made me feel good. Oh…and I got to fondle yarn…always good feeling.
What was really cute though is that Mindy (:wave: Hi Mindy? Are you out there somewhere? Do you have a blog? Would love to chat!) came in and she said something to the effect of “oh, you’re the diva girl!” How fun is that for someone to recognize you from your blog? Of course, I was in a yarn store so I was totally “in context” which probably helped.

Then, the owner (Christina, I think. We’ve never formally met, but she has been in the shop both times I was there. Also, she looks official, lol) of the shop told me they had been watching my progress on my blog and they about died when all my stitches came off the needles! I thought that was pretty cool. Plus, they had forgotten to give me the discount on my Olympics purchase, then tried to contact me through the blog but my contact form was down! Must’ve happened when I migrated to Wordpress 2.0. Anyway, she mentioned the contact form today which enabled me to fix it AND adjusted for the discount. How is all of that for customer service???!!! Quite refreshing in the downward spiral that is retail.
I returned my last skein of Gossamer (for the shawl) since I won’t be needing it again (at least for a WHILE and besides, I would want a different color). Of course, I couldn’t leave empty handed. Instead of RETURNING my skein like a good little knitter, I EXCHANGED it for more sock yarn instead. :badgirl: Sock yarn is the one thing I can always count on using eventually (It’s nice to know what you’re going to do with a particular yarn instead of waiting for the yarn to tell you what it wants to be. Sock yarn…socks…duh…nice and brainless when you need it), so I don’t feel at all too guilty about my new sock yarn. Plus, it just reminds me of summer…watermelon specifically. And summer and watermelons can’t possibly be a bad thing, right?

The end of the Olympics is in sight and many, many knitters are still furiously working away on their Knitting Olympics project. I however, am finished (actually yesterday, please don’t curse at me through the screen…I’m sensitive and will somehow know that you have done it). You may think if I’m not knitting down to the wire maybe it wasn’t really a big enough challenge. Maybe you’re right. But maybe you don’t really know just how much you can do until given a deadline. I also suspected when I started that I might not want to take the shawl on my trip, so a lot of knitting was done in the early stage of the games.

The rest of my fellow knitting Olympic athletes are in my thoughts as I knit along happily on some socks which thankfully, have no deadline. Why are you still reading? Keep going…you can make it! Come back later. If you’ve already finished (or if you just need a quick break because your eyes are crossing from knitting for 22.5 hours straight), feel free to read on.
If you thought your lace looked like boiled ass before blocking, just look at it soaking. Truly, boiled ass with a wet wool stink. A little scented fabric softener does wonders for the wet dog sheep??? smell. It’s amazing that a grey pile of stinky wool can turn into something so pretty.

The Diamond Fantasy Shawl pattern is delightful. It is so well written, easy to follow and beautiful. At least it would be if there weren’t so many mistakes. I’m ok with that though. Sometimes it is enough to finish the race and to have learned from it, which I have. Lace is not hard but requires attention. All. The. Time. Even if you don’t think you need a lifeline, you do. But if you don’t, you probably won’t care enough to frog 21 rows of mohair to correct it. And wine helps with the aforementioned not caring. And with the aforementioned mistakes. Next time I do this pattern (and I will) I’ll do it in a yarn that shows the pattern as it deserves to be seen. This yarn made it way too easy to let go of mistakes. It’s so airy, that unless you are a knitter and know what the pattern is supposed to be, you probably wouldn’t notice the many mistakes (and there are MANY). However, in it’s perfect state with the right yarn, it is an absolutely beautiful pattern that deserves to be shown prominently.

You know you’re crazy when you leave your Olympic knitting in Cincinnati while you are in San Diego. Yup…I made a rash decision. Talking the shawl on the trip in its current state wouldn’t have been portable enough. I decided to take socks instead. I think my brain saw this as an opportunity to forget about knitting all together. Instead of knitting socks, I read. Three books and a couple of magazines. It was bliss. I even stayed up a couple of hours after bedtime reading a book I just HAD to finish. With no one telling me to come to bed, I reverted to the guilty little book habit of my youth.

San Diego was lovely although a little cold. With the winter storm warning, we actually had to wear a sweater in the sun. BAH! It still seemed tropical in comparision to our winter weather. I had a blast with Stacie and the San Diego area is so much fun. More on that later.

I did the last couple of rows in repeat 6 of the KO shawl last night. I am now on the 7th which seems close enough to finish…except that every passing row getting longer…it could be down to the wire.

Whew! Got most of the stitches back on without much problem. Disaster averted. I was missing two stitches…I think I added them back in the right place but who knows? I hope it doesn’t totally throw off the pattern. Not much progress the last two days since getting the stitches back. I am halfway through the 6th repeat of 10 or possibly 8. Stephanie said six repeats are enough for a shawl but I think she is quite a bit smaller than me. I told myself I’d do at least 8 repeats for the KO challenge but up to 10 depending on how huge or not huge it is at that point.

I’m leaving the boys here to fend for themselves and guard the stash while I’m off gallivanting with Stacie in San Diego. I been busy the past few days obsessing planning and packing for the trip. I’m only taking a carry on so proper packing is essential! It pains me to have so few shoes but it is so much easier when no checking of the bags is involved. My hotel has WiFi so I think there is a pretty good chance you’ll hear from me before I’m home. I’ll let you know if I find any good yarn stores in the area!

Well, disaster might be a bit of an overstatement but there is at least a setback. I finally cast on about 4 pm on Friday. Good so far. Then when I got to the 12 stitch repeats I hadn’t read ahead to see that Sivia mentions placing markers. I’ m telling you, yarn that sticks like this NEEDS markers. I needed to make sure there were 12 stitches before I started knitting each little repeat. They were almost always there, but sometimes the YO’s and the previous stitch stuck together to make me think otherwise. Which led to lots of tinking and counting.

That was not the real setback though (although it slowed me down a lot). Once I got the markers in there I was pretty much cursing cruising along…except for Saturday night, where after some wine I noticed I needed to count much more often. I thought I might even be able to get so far along by Wednesday, that I would leave the shawl here for my trip, take easier knitting for travel and pick it up when I get back with plenty of time to finish before the closing ceremony. You can even see signs of beautiful diamonds though for now it mostly just looks like boiled ass.

This morning, I needed to take a picture of my weekend progress. That is when I had a brilliant idea. The shawl had started to pile up quite a bit on the current set of circulars which is no problem since I have Denises. Just click on the little extender and slide the stitches over to the longer cable or leave it there to make your own longer cable. I didn’t need to do the later, since I have 42″ and 50″ cables. That is where I got a little lazy. I snapped on the extender and longer cord and casually picked up one end to slide over the stitches.

Bad idea. Apparently I had not securely put on the extender. All my lovely little lace stitches in limbo with no cord to hold them. Only by the annoying quality of the stickiness of this yarn did I have a shot. I am assuming most of the stitches made it back on the needle. I can’t be sure until I tackle the next row, which should be exceedingly fun now.

I just received my first package from my Secret Pal 7 pal. What a beautiful gift! She designs jewelry for a local boutique and sent me two pieces…a “bling ring” and a necklace. The necklace is all sterling silver with chalcedony and tourmaline. The ring dangles are sterling silver with swarovski crystals. Both are so pretty and right up my alley! Of course, I don’t know who she is yet, but if anyone is dying to have some righteous bling let me know and I’ll forward your information through the super secret email account.

Hoping to be home by 2 pm today to cast on for the Knitting Olympics. Good luck to all the athletes!

That is the sound I heard from the front of my house this morning. Here is the result. This poor guy’s Monday is going to suck even more than a regular Monday. He either a) felt it was perfectly acceptable to leave home with an iced over windshield driving east into the sun, b) instead of watching the road was looking at his phone while dialing work to tell them he’d be late (um, now, way late) or c) driving way too fast in front of my house on the street with no sidewalks so that people (me) running or walking with their dogs have to dive off the side of the street to avoid being hit by a car going 60 in a 25 mph zone and hit an icy patch. Whichever of the above it was I still feel bad for him. And bad for my garbage man. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Ok, on to knitting. I finished Stacie’s scarf and did a wet block. I love the way it looks! The thick/thin yarn really adds a lot of interest. I also worked on Jim’s socks…the most boring socks ever that I haven’ t picked up for months. I figured with the the Knit Olympics coming up it would be pretty stupid to start something new and exciting that I won’t get to touch again for 16 days. So instead, I decided to put myself into a black sock induced coma. Despite how SLOW they seem, I am making progress. Knitting a project for Jim is the only time I wish he was a more average size man! I promised black “work” socks which for him come just below the knee of his 6′ 4″ long legged body. He just doesn’t like calf socks. BAH. Bad for a sock knitter.

Since I have this fabulously expensive yarn for the Knitting Olympics, it would be a real shame to follow my usual modus operandi and eschew gauge. So last night, the swatching of the Diamond Fantasy shawl begun. And ended.

What I learned: 1. This yarn is kind of splitty. I will actually have to pay some attention while knitting. 2. Recycling paper is good, but not necessarily so good when you have to cut a logo off the bottom. Turns out the printer can’t tell there is no paper and move the rest of the pattern to the next column. Which makes it really hard to figure out why you have five stitches too few. My stupidity never ceases to amaze me. At least I figured this out before the official cast on next Friday. 3. Mohair is sticky. Ok, guess I already knew that, but adding in some nylon glitz makes it even stickier. Which leads to…4. Can’t make a mistake with this project. Just can’t afford it $$$wise or sanity wise. As you can see, the frogging didn’t go so well and I already wasted some of the precious. 5. Will have to actually pay attention (did I already say that?).

After all that, I needed something low stress. Stacie’s scarf looks much better knit on 15’s. I thought it might be funky and help keep me awake to put a cable in the middle. With this kind of yarn, I knew it wouldn’t turn out like a regular cable but was hoping it would produce an interesting effect. It did and I like it. I think it will look even better after a wet blocking to stretch it a bit and define the stitches.

Finally the too short hat for Tom is fixed. I picked up stitches and used some leftover grey WOTA. The gauge was just about the same and mixed fine with the other wool. I should have it in the mail later today.

Don’t worrry…I’m still drinking (in fact, a little too much just last night). Just getting on the little bandwagon that is word cloud. Kind of fun. Thanks Jenifleur.
More fun with framing. Me, a poster frame, and my lovely piece of art “Mad Knitter” by Collette. I was almost finished when I noticed a little peice of lint between the glass and frame. Instead of taking it completly apart like a normal person (or leaving it in there like a normal person), I undid just a couple of the tabs thinking I could blow the lint out. Almost worked. Almost. Then I had to undo a few more tabs, blew again and then some how the !&^$#*(^! glass broke. Damn. At least the painting wasn’t hurt. Can you believe it’s $8.42 for a silly little piece of single pane glass? Hopefully I’ll have a picture of my successful framing/hanging job tomorrow. I’ll try to have a bit more patience this time.

After the glass incident, I decided I should get to work right away on the Ara yarn I bought yesterday. A scarf for Stacie (my San Diego trip friend). The yarn is cool, but this gauge sucks. 10’s just aren’t doing the yarn any justice. I’ll have to rip and go up to 15 or 17 then see how it looks.

Karabella Gossamer. Of all the worthy yarn in Lambkin’s Hideaway, this is the one I have chosen for the Diamond Fantasy Shawl for the Knitting Olympics. Very pricey, but once I saw how it looks knitted (an extremely helpful YS employee pointed out a shawl they happened to have) I couldn’t resist. I’ll just have to wear it a lot to bring the ADPW down (adpw=Average Dollar per Wear, one of the many techniques used by yarn sluts to justify purchasing an expensive yarn). The other suspicious yarn is 100% wool Ara from Dale of Norway. It’s a lovely thick and thin texture that I think will be perfect for a scarf. Also, it was 35% off, thus a totally worthy purchase with no need of justification.

Lambkin’s Hideaway is totally into the Knitting Olympics. They’re having a casting on party the evening of the 10th and their own store athlete list. They’re even giving away prizes and a 10% discount on supplies purchased for the project. You can read all about it on their news page and blog. They also have Annie Modesitt coming in to teach some classes. I am all over that one! It will be cool to finally meet her in person after doing one of the knits for her upcoming Men Who Knit book.