Sunday, August 14, 2011

What Would I Do Without Ravelry?

My goal for the weekend was to finish my Elektra shawl. I got pretty close to done. I was binding off and I ran out of yarn. None of the yellows in my stash matched and it isn't like I have extra skeins of wollmeise just lying around for these situations.  I was debating ripping out my Bind off and re-binding off in an orange that didn't quite match my beads. That was my plan before I wised up and did a ravelry search. After a lot of swearing and freaking out I found someone destashing a partial skein of wollmeise in the same base and color. A couple PM's and a paypal transfer later and I have matching yarn on the way to finish the shawl.
If it weren't for Ravelry I would never have found someone else with this color of wollmeise up for trade/destash/etc. My orange options didn't quite match my beads. (See the picture if you don't believe me.)  I REALLY did not want to rip out my bind off. That sounded like my best option of bad ideas.  I was not a happy person.

Now I'm anxiously awaiting the destashed yarn to get here so that I can FINISH! I'll be stalking my mail like a crazy person this week.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Some Happy Thoughts of the Knitting Kind

Most of my happy thoughts are few and few in between right now but this glittery combo is singing the most cheerful songs to me.

Dream in Color Starry
Black Parade and Into the Mystic
I did quite a bit of frogging today. Not in anger, but because I realized I just was NOT getting to certain projects. So I feel more accomplished and have less UFOs just sitting around being ignored. Let's face it I have two pretty glittery yarns singing to me, why would I go back to a project that's making me grumble?

These are the projects I have progressed on. (Click the photos for a better look. Right = Laika, Left = Gwen's Scott Pilgrim-esque hat)
I've been taking my knitting and spending my lunch breaks in the library. I've gotten a few strange looks, but I think it's worth it. :) I'm getting more knit time and keeping my sanity. 

Thursday, June 2, 2011

It was 2 FO kind of day ...

I've got two shawlettes blocking right now!
Travelling Woman
Liz Abinante
Cosmic Fibers Cassiopeia in "Gout of the Dick"
"VD Awareness"

Summer Mystery Shawlette
Wendy Knits Mystery KAL
Madtosh Merino Light in Logwood

"Mystery Solved!"
Now it's time for me to see a certain sweater about a sleeve.

Today's Goal

I am going to finish the ONE SHORT sleeve on this freaking sweater! I mean seriously it's one effing sleeve. AND IT'S A SHORT SLEEVE! I should have a finished sweater right now. I'm beginning to doubt my own sanity due to the fact that this is still not finished. It's one sleeve!! ONE!!!


Single sleeved sweater modeled by Veronica's little monsters.

Monday, May 30, 2011

I went on a Trip

I went on a two day trip. It was a whirlwind of a trip. ... At the SLC airport I ended up having a tweet convo with Ysolda. I'm still in literal SQUEE-SHOCK from that. I WISH WISH WISH I had checked twitter earlier I want to meet her so very bad. I even had 3 of my knit from her patterns in my bag. (Ishbel, Peaks Island Hood and Snapdragon tam). It was pretty much the trip highlight.

Anyway we went to Salt Lake City, UT, Tooele, UT, Wendover, NV, back to Salt Lake City, then to Jordan's Landing, then back to Tooele, then back to Salt Lake City again. Then finally to Tooele to sleep and then back to Salt Lake City to fly home. ... It was a busy trip. I didn't really sleep much. BUT I did do my best to take some pictures since that's been my blogging thing lately.


I packed. Rocky pouted because I kicked him out of my suitcase.



(This thing is BIZARRE. You should google it and read about it. I linked to a better pic.)


I brought knitting, but it's a secret project so all I'm showing to prove I'm knitting is my pretty little markers. :P These stitch markers are awesome though. I bought 4 sets and am so addicted to all 4 sets. Check out Crimson Orchid on Esty.


Mauricio and I gambled at the Montego Bay across from where his dad works. The place is LITERALLY all neon and mirrors. It's far out.


The High School Graduate with his brother and sister. (AWWW)
(And the reason for this trip of madness.


My purse broke, so I bought this new shiny bronze one. (Among other things.)


These are my bored and delayed at SLC shots. I love those shoes b/c they sparkle, they're comfortable and they show off my hand knit socks.  :)

 Airplane window shots. Before take off, and after takeoff.

 I had lunch with my mom to make up for her birthday being missed, and my two favorite little girls tagged along. I love them. They're the best children in the world.


To sum it all up I bought an awesome new fishy ring today (among other things). It's one majorly awesome ring.

P.S. I totally skipped my Mimos Monday tradition today. :(

Monday, May 16, 2011

Saturday night and Today in Pictures

Saturday night at Yellow brick road. My favorite local classic rock cover band.

Brody -- the lead singer. He's leaving and we are not thrilled. He's too good to leave us. :(

We know the Band!!
Only Brody is pictured but seriously we've met the whole band.
In all seriousness a friend of mine (on the left) actually knows the band. Much to my very enthusiastic amusement. 


AND Today (Monday)! Minus the pictures that would prove today sucked as much as it did.
Mimosa Monday
 Knitting Pictures
My sweater is Almost finished! 1 sleeve left!

My Adorable puppies.

Friday, May 13, 2011

My (yester)Day in Pictures

Yesterday I wanted to post "My Day in Pictures" ... BUT blogger was down so I didn't get to. So without further ado here is my yesterday in pictures.

Pretty Dress Day!
This is just the pattern... Whole res picture is unavailable.

New socks!
Knit by Ronni
Pattern: Peace Socks by Wendy Johnson
Yarn: Cosmic Fibers Hercules
Colorway: Drucilla

My socks are all in my drawer, and are all clean-clean-clean
Not pictured: New Drucilla socks. (They were on my feet.)

New Wollmeise
I am a yarn HOAR :)
But I finally got PINK wollmeise
Colors from left to right:
Magnolie medium, Tutu medium, Klapperstorch, Maus alt, Maus jung, Natur

I'm going to try and get "My Day in Picture" posts up on a semi regular basis. At least it'll be something to look at. :)

Friday, April 29, 2011

HA!


For the record. I still think superman is a tool.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

What I've been up to ... A photo post

Swapping



Stashing .... Some sock clubs, mostly yarn for sweaters



And Knitting







And a SWATCH!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Swatching

 I loathe to swatch. I know everyone always says "swatch. You'll be glad later. blah blah blah blah blah." It honestly never sinks in with me. I loathe to swatch. I think it's a waste of my time. I can usually figure how to get gauge on my own or whether or nat a specific yarn will work with a specific pattern. I'm smart. I do maths in my head. I measure my gauge from past projects. I'll read every ravelry forum and project note. I will do anything to avoid a swatch. Which is funny. With all the time I spend prepping and reading, it would probably just be quicker to do the swatch. But I hate swatches so I won't do them.

It's similar to my resistance of memorizing certain math formulas and instead spending HOURS programming my calculator to do the math for me. In the long run, I end up memorizing the formulas and doing the problems on the test with the program and by hand, because I wanted to double and triple check myself, but I digress.

This week I swatched. I swatched for what is probably only the second time in my whole knitting experience. I actually knit a swatch. Actually, I knit two swatches for this project.

I had it in my head that I wanted to knit $5 in Paris with my Malabrigo Rios. I wanted it to be white (Natural) with red (Ravelry Red) stripes. Then I got the most horrid vision about the red bleeding during the first wash of my new sweater resulting in a PINK and red sweater. Not what I wanted, not even close.

So I made a swatch. I balled up all the white yarn and kept one red skein on my yarn swift. I knit off the swift because then if the red was bleeding, I could easily tie it back up and soak it in vinegar with the other hanks.

I'm glad I did my swatch. Especially since that first swatch ended up immediately turning the water pink. I still had hopes that it wouldn't bleed onto the white even with the pink water, but that didn't work out either. The white part of the swatch was  pinkish and dingy looking.
So, I'm rather glad I swatched this one time. After the pinky swatch, I re-hanked my red skein and soaked all three over night in cold water and vinegar. Actually, I think I swore before the re-hanking and had a mental debate on whether I could handle a pinkish and red sweater because I really wanted to start RIGHT NOW. Then when I was done being a delusional idiot, I went ahead with the vinegar bath. (My bathroom does smell like vinegar now, but that doesn't bother me. I love vinegar.)
In the morning, I pulled the hanks out of the vinegar bath and tried to wring as much water out of them as possible. I hung my loops on hangers to dry. Looks like all the wire hangers sitting around do have a use. Those things aren't allowed in my closet.This is when I'm happy to live in the arid desert. Things dry quickly.
I should add that the major motivation for me to get up on Friday morning was to pull the hanks ou of the vinegar-water and set them up to dry. It was cold, there was no coffee .... I really lacked the WANT to remove myself from the warm bed.


It was a good sign that the white yarn I used to re-tie up one of the hanks stayed white. I was excited. I really REALLY didn't want to do this whole thing a second time. Not that it was an awful experience. But it did involve TWO swatches, and A LOT of waiting. I'm not a patient person. I was ready to start my sweater and I wanted to start it right at that very moment. I haven't knit much in over a month. I was inspired and ready to knit. It's maybe crazy, but I'm happy that I even went through this process in the first place. If I hadn't I'd have ended up with a pink sweater. I think I could rock a pink sweater, but I didn't want to have to.

The second swatch was knit almost exactly like the first one and also washed. Notice how the water is not PINK. The vinegar did it's job. I was SUPER happy. The second swatch;s white was still the original color. I can now successfully knit my sweater and not fear for the white's safety.

So I guess swatching is a good idea and does pay off in the end. I still don't think I'll become a person that swears by swatching though. I'm not going to be re-wired in a way that will make me a more patient person. I may just avoid white for sweaters in the future because then I won't have to worry about other colors bleeding into it.

My sweater is on the needles now. I'm hoping it's a quick knit. I want to finish it before I don't like the color RED anymore.