April

Wow, April has blown by. Notable events, Easter holidays from work, my birthday, cake (ok, birthday cake) , and a few projects started, and mid-progress.

Mmmmm birthday cake - It was a Raspberry Mousse cake from Murchie's - well, mostly it was a chocolate mousse housed in a chocolate shell, with a raspberry core.

and also this Lemon Cheesecake to celebrate Robin's birthday coinciding in the same time frame.
sooo yummy - one of those whipped cream ones, soft and lemony.

I think it's been awhile since I bought a Murchie's cake - it was quite a treat!

Add to that one of the first sunny days in spring, friends, good conversation and knitting - it was relaxing and fun.  Robin and I had joked about having a six-year old's party where I gave out goody-bags.  Instead, I brought ~60 skeins of yarn, and gave it away - pink and reds, a few blue - indie sock yarn, handspun, wollmeise, silk-wool, and merino, merino blends, and silk. Aftermath shown below, mid-right.

Haappy Birrrthdaaaaay...

 

to YOUUUU!

 Finally took a pic of my Herbivore...unblocked..but off the needles..

I started the lace of the Little Colonnade then, decided I didn't like how the yarn was looking..so I frogged it back and am trying to just finish up with a bit of simple eyelets with the Brass and Steam-

Lovely how the stockinette shows off the blue and  brown...

Yes, I'm still appreciating browns, and I'm somewhat on a coral kick these days..and blue - 

Coral Gables Traveller shown far right, I purchased on a destash, and left and right is Kathmandu, a bright orange which I hope to pair one day with St. Tropez (middle) for Octopus Mittens-

and with this blue - Blue Stink bug, I've stared the Larch Cardi - 

knit straight up from the bottom to the shoulders, and then, split for the arms. The bottom is a twisted rib, which is cast-off and then, re-picked up for a nice finished edge. Seemed like a waste of time when I was reading it, but the finish is really lovely, and it can't be achieved just by fudging.

Work's been pleasantly busy, and a few other adventures....it'll be May in a few days..and I can't wait. I'm planning to layout and block and pin my Hush when I have some peace and quiet and can focus on it properly without distraction. The instructions indicate blocking the body before picking up for the sleeves.

ETA: If I haven't enabled you yet personally - the Madelinetosh group on Rav has a Sales & Promos thread as they're getting ready for Mad May - a big knitting stashdown event for the month of May. Several knit designers are offering discounts on patterns through end of April and some end of May. Happy Knits is offering 20% off all Madtosh yarns through April 30th with the code from the thread.

April Fool's Day

Today was good day sunny and I got a lot done.

I also discovered a huge boo-boo with my hush cardi. somehow the fronts are not the same size..one is definitely smaller than the other. so, i'm debating now to finish the ribbon on the front i'm on and then, try to pin it together to see what it'll look like. I'm pretty sure that the 6 stitches that are missing on the left are in the right. That means, I might be ripping back the entire section of woven stitch which is 2 strands held together. Fun, fun.

Anyway, tomorrow is a new week, and it's a new month.

I did finish off the 12" of my herbivore and bound it off on Saturday, so that is done - yay!

End of March Progress

1. Little Colonnade Shawl in SG Blue Morpho (40%):



Status: Still waiting to start lace;

2. Herbivore Shawl in Cephalopod Yarns Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (80%):



Status: 9.5" of 12" high; and hoping to bind-off soon.

3. Hush Cardi (60%) -



Status: Finished the back, and left front, working on right front, in the woven stitch section on small needles held doubled.

Recent Reads - Caught up with the Hunger Games series (Friday to Tuesday); hope to see the movie.

San Antonio

The weather was rainy when I arrived, and the River Walk was covered in puddles and not so nice to walk in; but, the next day it cleared up and it was oh so lovely and warm in the 70s the next day.

The Alamo:

Sunny courtyard at The Menger Hotel (not where we stayed)



and a night view from the Hyatt Regency (where we stayed)



View of the Hotel from the Tower of Americas - it's the squarish building about 1 o'clock in relation to the red tree-ish structure in the bottom middle of the picture.



We had a lovely dinner  (Quail; Short rib; and a Coconut Flan) at Boudro's on the River Walk, and seafood at Ostra, and Swordfish at the Chart House Restaurant, at the top of the Tower of Americas,  with 360 view of the city, and a lovely sunset:

Knitting away

Still knitting away on two of the three projects I wanted to start in February - the Hush cardi (Austin Hoodie pattern) in Skein Fingering Merino cashmere. It's knitting up so lovely and it's very soft. I measured one of my jackets the other day and realized the length is fine without any mods (oh no! No Mods!) haha - those of you who know me well will realize what a shock that will be for to not make any mods...if I end up doing so. So far so good. It's fingering weight and I'm really enjoying knitting with it.

Also want to say that my exchange of yarn from Skein yarns was successful. I had done a custom order in the fall and received 2 skeins which were really not my colour and so unexpectedly not close to the yarn company's photos. I was able to return them and exchange them for some hand-dyed fingering merino cashmere in thistle. Kristen (the owner) is really a genius with the mottled pastels. Just beautiful yarns, and I really love the way the base knits up. Hard to believe my arm was out of commission just a little more than a month ago.

What I returned -

Merino Silk Sport colorway Envy - Pics at left published by Skein Yarns. Pics on right what I received - Rouge - a pinkish red came looking more like copper; and Envy - a complex mix of forest greens and olives, came looking unexpectedly flat:

 

Here's what I applied my return credit to 4 skeins Fingering Merino Cashmere in Thistle  - much closer to the expected picture (skein pic shown on left), and well-matched as requested.




She apparently dyes the skeins in batches of 6, but I think you do have to request the skeins to be well-matched, otherwise, it does not appear to be done. Kristen also mentioned that she has someone helping her now with packaging so for whatever reason she wasn't able to provide a photo prior to mailing the yarn, even though the yarn was dyed Friday, and she didn't ship until Wednesday. i.e. you have to be willing to suspend your expectations based on her photos on what you will expect to actually receive when making a custom order. I would recommend going with one of the more pastel with cream colorways if you do a custom order,  as she is definitely a genius when making those, as compared to the darker more saturated tones.

Also, stay away from custom orders of colors she's made on merino or bfl sock bases where she doesn't have a stock photo for the merino-silk sport. Even with that, as indicated, there is a range of what she says accepts as being that colorway.

Shown Below - The Orient - a gorgeous enriching colorway on BFL sock. I requested this colorway on Merino-silk sport and received the yarn shown at right - a dark brooding colorway closer to brown and burgundy.  Although supposedly dyed together, only one of the skeins had more of the apricot color shown. I was trying to break out of my "norm". I'm ok with the colorway and didn't want to pay to return the skeins, but it was not what I expected based on the photo, and based on the way the colors appear to look on the different bases (see skeinyarn.com and user: skeinyarns on flickr to see how close her photos show the colorways between merno silk sport, and fingering merino cashmere bases.

 


Similarly, here is what Hush looks like on her Flickr (left), and in my hand (right) - just a hair on the continuum of colorway different than what one expects... ok, hard to see in my comparison - but the left picture is much more of a chestnut brown large and lively on my monitor from the skein yarn website, whereas, in my hand, it's a much more muted brown...but still lovely, if you can handle the unexpected change:

The second project was one I started on a whim - Little Colonnade, another shawl from Stephen West. I'm using a skein of bugga that I bought on destash in the colorway Blue Morpho - a mix of royal blue, a light sky blue, and chocolate brown. very soft and lovely. I'm about 40% in; finished the stockinette part and ready to start the lace columns part.

As for breakwater, which I wanted to start, I am holding off to start that one until I get more done on these other 2 projects. The reason being, that I guess I can't split my attention 3 ways, as evidenced by my starting the neck and knitting oddly the first time, and knitting a moebius mid-way through the first rows, on the second time. Hoping that will be a March or perhaps April project. I'm interested to see how the Traveller DK yarn knits up and handles long-term. Many are enamoured with it. I hope it will be as soft as the swatch seems to be.

More pics to come when I feel like I have knit a bit more to show.

Destashing some yarns

Posted some yarns to my destash page here.

More available on my trade/sell page on Ravelry.

My tastes are definitely changing towards earthy colors - gold, green, brown, and blue, and away from hot pink (oh no!) and red. So, I have lots of pink and red to destash there. Mostly Fingering to Worsted weight; not much lace. If anyone locally, would like the one skein of Mal Lace in Hot pink, pm me and I'll bring it to knit night. Thanks.

Hawthorne and Hush

Finished off the Hawthorne -Project #3:



Started the Austin Hoodie with Skein Fingering Merino Cashmere in Hush



and Happy Valentine's Day to me - my Verdant Gryphon Valentine bonbons arrived -

New Year catch-up 2012

Phew - one month in on the new year and there's already been a bit of excitement -

1. A couple of projects finished-

Project #1 - a quick and easy cowl
Yarn: Sanguine Gryphon Codex in the Daughter of Huang Chow - a golden yellow with bits of green
Pattern: Simple Yet Effiective Cowl by Alexa Ludeman (free on Rav)

 

and the before shot of the yarn-


Project #2 - kind of a cheat, but not, because wips count as finished objects - finished my spectra.
Yarn: Handmaiden Mini Maiden in two colorways - gray-blue saltspray, and a magenta, pink, wine colour.
Pattern: Spectra By Stephen West

Started in the fall and it's very interesting to make the wedges and watch the color change for the first few - kind of fascinating, really. Then, it's just boring and crazy counting and re-counting, hoping you'll be done soon. Based on reading others' projects, I'd hoped to knit 80. I knit 68. I realized that when I wound the scarf around my head as planned, it looked like a huge egyptian collar, which was not the look I was going for; so I've decided to wear it just draped on my shoulders and hanging down in a coiled fashion. Here's a pic of it drying after blocking.



3. Cardigan almost done

I'm making the button hole on the lacy part in the front; and prepping buttons. Pic so far:



2. A bit of unexpected weather - Jan 18th -
Snow day translation : "work from home or take a vacation day".

I worked from home.



and worked on digging myself out. I used up a 10kg bag of salt "salting" the driveway.

It was back to normal by the weekend...

- pic still on my camera -


3.A bit of an arm issue
Last week's issue was my arm - no grip strength on my right hand, couldn't write, knit, or drive (yikes!). I was worried about carpal tunnel..but my doctor said it's fine, as he whipped my wrist around testing it. my shoulder on the other hand had a limited range of motion, and pain which caused pain in my hand, and a cold sensation running down the back of my hand.

...Seriously, my yarn stash flashed before my eyes.  I really stopped to question a lot of the yarn I have in my stash and found a lot of the yarn dropped to the bottom of the knitting list, pretty quickly.

Luckily, I was out of commission only a few days, so I'm back to plotting my rav q.
Seems to be back to normal now, but I'm trying to still take it easy on my arm, and take lots of breaks.

4. We started a new New Year - Year of the Dragon, the Chinese New Year.
As a colleague of mine said (who is also Chinese)
..we don't call Jan. 1 "white people's new year"

Believe it or not, the conversation evolved from a discussion I brought up when I mentioned that my mom makes a lovely meal called "Chicken with Chinese Mushrooms". I was speculating why we call them Chinese Mushrooms when my colleague started with, "You're right, we don't call the normal mushrooms "white people's mushrooms"; which I think is because the mushrooms are dried and are mainly sold in Chinese grocery stores. (ahem, there's that qualifier again).. I guess it would be like German Shepherd, and French Onion Soup?

~Happy New Year to you ! ~

5. A new shawl...with lovely little leaves:

14: Nebula Pashmina Cowl

this was a quick knit - this shawl collared cowl from Alana Dakos. I knit it in Madtosh Pashmina held doubled colour is Nebula - a lovely teal colour.

Before:


After:

70% is the magic number..

I just realized that I knit to about 70% of a project then seem to stall out. I either get stuck, bored, or end up at some fixing point.

Do you see a pattern here? 

Fortunately, the first one, the cardi is kicking right along - I'm at about 70% because the body is done, and i'm working on the sleeves. I've modified it, but that's normal for me. The only thing potentially holding me back on this is that I hope I won't be too bothered by the color change on this beast. The one that my camera detects, that the cardigan's top is more brown gray than the bottom which is a chocolate brown with more chestnut brown highlights. I know, it's not hair, but it's the best description I can give at the moment. I've started the decreases on the sleeve, and have been trying it on as I go. I did knit about 2" longer so that the cardi matches the one I normally wear.

Project 2 - Dahlia Cardi is only at 15% - that's because i'm about 70% done with the chart (there's that "70" number again - hmmmm...) and think I might have to frog back..not sure. my stitches are a bit off on one of the repeats and tempted to keep going, just to be going on this so-called Knit-a-long (KAL). The rest of the pattern is stockinette so it should be peasy. 

Project 3 is a actually a simple shawl..one of the first patterns I ever made "Branching Out" in a cashmere that is to just to dye die for knitting pleasure on my hands. but I put it down..and am working on Project 1 full out now.

Project 4 is Spectra - also stalled at 70%. I knit this when we were at Cornerstone Cafe and it was pretty smoky there. I got tired of having to block and re-block this baby. Now, I'm at 56 wedges of 80 and thinking of binding off earlier rather than later - before I really lose interest (bwaaahaha).
I wound it around my neck to just get an idea if I could bind off and looks like it'll be at least another 6 or 7 wedges before I can do that..just to get the length I want after it coils around my neck. Pretty close though. Could be a 2011 project, after all.

Project 5 - Watershed cardi - this was supposed to be an easy cardi that I just whipped out last January. Hah! right. I ended up totally ignoring the designer's intention with the pattern and doing my own thing. (sometimes my hands become possessed while holding the needles)

Even though my gauge was fine, my row gauge was way off, and I ended up having to do some major math. Then, I misplaced the pattern most of the summer, and had Juanita help me re-do the major math in late August with intentions to fix it all. I frogged back, and was all ready to finish this off by joining the parts to make one long big back and forth, AAAAAND here we go again, realized that the left front had some fudging that I have to go back and fix..so, time to rip this one back, and then, re-join yarn. Neither quick nor easy for me apparently. So, it's somewhat on hold, and not hibernating because that would put it so far down on my project page, I'd forget I was making it.

Project 6 - this was my last december's hot-to-trot pattern that I couldn't wait to cast-on. I was sur e I was going to finish it in the month of December. It's the Kelmscott cardi. A lovely thing knit in a lovely yarn. Blue Sky Alpaca Suri Merino - I'm swooning just thinking about it. sadly, I forgot to read ahead on this one, and missed decreasing at the neck AT THE SAME TIME (the knitter's blasted words I say!)  as I was doing the armhole decreases and had to rip back.

Once I was in the mood and had ripped it back, I went  back to the pattern. It's still hibernating because the designer doesn't say how to adjust the lace as the decreases are eating up the lace pattern.
Also, I think the post-it note I was using to keep track of rows on multiple charts may have fallen off (after a year, it just doesn't keep it's stick), so I have to go back and read my knitting.

I think the neck decreases will anyway be hidden by the shawl collar anyway..so even though I say i'm at 70%, I'm probably really just at 50% because there's this huge shawl collar also in lace that still needs to be knit once the fronts are done. ::sigh:: this one could be a 2012 project.

back to knitting the cardi..oh, and I've cast-on another little neck thing, which I expect (ahem) to be a pretty quick knit. more on that later.

Almost Christmas...

It's almost Christmas..just a few more days. December has really blown by. I've spent a lot of the last few weeks working, and working more working. Overtime, staying late, icky stuff. I'm making good progress on my cardigan. Just lengthening the body, and then, I will do them hem, and knit the button bands. I'm modifying the pattern again, because I'm not sure I like the whole look of it, and I like doing things my own way. This yarn is so pretty.