Smiley's :)

Last year I completely forgot about the Smiley's Yarn Manhattan Yarn Sale. But then again, last year I might have been wooed by nasty acrylicy crap so it's probably better that my more refined fibre self decided to wait a whole year before venturing forth.

On the left we have Filatura Lanarota Chaco, 10 balls, 200 yards each, 100% Virgin wool in a lovely heathered merlot colour. On the right is the same yarn, only this time 90% wool, 10% polyester in a tweedy purple with flecks of primary colours. This lovely yarn is destined to become either the Marseilles Pullover by Kathy Zimmerman, or the Supernova Pullover by Norah Gaughan. On top is a cute cotton blend, 85% cotton 15% acrylic (I can tollerate this little bit of plastic in my cottons, I feel like it'll make them wear better), that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with, but I have enough (1600yds) to make a sweater or cardigan with yardage to spare.

I budgeted a $100 and I spent $93. Yowtch! But hey, that's enough nice yarn to make three sweaters! A bargain!

Red Scarf Project: A Modern Day Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, a young knitter was duped by a lovely looking pillow case in Vogue Knitting into buying some fuzzy Lion Suede yarn. The young knitter tried knitting it on her old, inherited needles only to find that the yarn squeaked like a little mouse. The yarn got thrown in a corner where it languished for well over a year.

Then one day, a handsome, young charity project rode into town. "Give me your red yarn!", he cried and the fair maiden was unable to resist. So out came the long discarded squeaky stuff, the knitting needles left to gather dust in favour of a pink metallic size 5.5mm crochet hook. The land was soon covered with be-scarfed (premature) Christmas trees. The charity project and the now not-so novice knitter lived happily ever after.

THE END.

Oh Alice!

She's finished!! I'm so proud of myself.

Who's a pretty girl then?

Fun with the self-timer....

Yes, I'm standing on my sofa, what of it?

Pattern: Alice from magknits.com

Needles: Knit Picks Options circulars size 4mm used throughout because the 3.75mm needles wont screw into the cable. Aaargh!!!

Yarn: Knit Picks Merino Style, 8 balls Storm and 2-3 balls Frost. This is more than the pattern called for but I added over two inches to the body length.

Modifications: Ribbed edges on body and sleeves replaced the original garter stitch. Two inches were added to the length by knitting ten more rows before waist shaping and by increasing the spacing of the shaping by an additional row. I changed the colourwork on the sleeves to be the negative of those on the body because I thought it looked better than having a block of the turquiose colour after the dark ribbing. Plus the turquiose was a little brighter than I had aticipated so I wanted to tone the sweater down slightly. And finally, I knit the sleeves flat (adding a stitch either side for seaming) because I couldn't get gauge using DPNs. Phew, that was involved!!

Knitting Alice: a lesson in perseverance

I love it.

I've had to make a few changes to the pattern as written over at magknits.com, adding the essential 2 plus some inches to the length to account for my overly high waist (such a chore, I know), replacing the garter stitch hem with ribbing and doing the colour work on the sleeve in negative. Also after three failed attempts at knitting the sleeves in the round on some 4mm DPNs without successfully getting gauge once (need I remind you of the 8 hours required for the initial colour stranding on the body?!), I decided to knit them flat and seam. Seaming is good. I know it needs a little blocking TLC, plus the rest of that second sleeve, oh and a collar too, and it may end up being a little bigger than envisioned, but I LOVE IT!!!

Hiatus Schmiatus

My sister is currently over here visiting from the UK. This means no knitting time, severe withdrawal symptoms and compulsive stalking of knitting blogs/yarn store sites/interweave knits previews. I don't think I've ever stalked a store quite as much as I did Elann.com this week, especially since I knew this would be going on sale at 50%!!!! at 12pm eastern yesterday.

Oh dear, it would appear that 15 balls in the black raspberry colourway are on their merry way so that I can indulge myself when the new Interweave knits comes sliding through my door. Have you seen the previews? Oh my... A cardigan for arwen will soon be mine, oh yes, she will be mine.

Of course, I will be continuing with Alice before casting on for Arwen. Monogamy is a wonderful thing, but I can't say I'm not just a little bit tempted to start this cadigan as soon as humanly possible. I see joyous Christmas-time kntting in the future :)

Resurrecting Alice (Happy Birthday to ME!)

So little girl, what would you like for your birthday?
Firstly, I'd like the library not to be over-run with school kids so that I could get on with reading my paper about prions for class this afternoon. And secondly, what I really, really want is a pretty sweater of perfection...

OK, so you don't really ask Santa for Birthday presents (unless you're the baby Jesus), and maybe the little kids aren't that obtrusive (I mean I'm blogging here, not reading my paper), but the sweater I can handle myself (with the caveat that it isn't finished in time for my birthday, which is today.)

But just look at it!!! I'm so proud of myself that in all my (now) 26 years that I have learnt to make something as cool as this. We shan't mention that it took me three hours to do 8 rows of colourwork (I'm a newbie), or that I have a sneaking suspicion I may be allergic to merino, this sweater is freakin' awesome! The tension of my stranding is great, they lay in flat lines on the back, and just, yay! OK back to prions and dreams of Birthday cake....