I don't knit i-cord for just anyone

But then again, maybe I do! I got wind yesterday that one of the post0docs in lab had his first baby, a little girl, yesterday. I didn't even know his wife was pregnant! I guess that comes from being the newbie in the lab. Like any self-respecting knitter, upon hearing the news I immediately began formulating a plan as to what gift to give...



Pattern: Children's Cotton Hat from Last Minute Knitted gifts. (Incidentally for some unknown reason Amazon has a deal where it bundles this book with Knitting from Nature for only $19!!! How could a girl resist??)
Yarn & Needles: Less than one ball of Debbie Bliss DK cotton in a lilac colour somewhat darker than the picture. Despite my recent acquisition of Photoshop I still couldn't get the colours true. Knit Picks DPNs 3.75mm.


This really did take only the proscribed 2 hours, I was impressed. Also I love the yarn! Knitting with cotton is usually something akin to torture but this yarn is soft and silky, not in the least bit rough, and neither does is absorb every last drop of moisture from my skin. I'm so glad I have 23 more balls of the stuff!

ETA: The Dad is in work. Today?! Man, that's dedication. iTunes just ate my iPod. Sadness.

Simian

The gauntlet had been thrown down. My honour was at stake.

In keeping with my efforts to spring clean a little around here I've mostly been cleaning and organising this holiday weekend. I actually found my floor, swept and mopped it! Miracle! Then I managed to track down the beginnings of a sock I'd abandoned in early March. I was getting nothing but grief from the pattern (my fault entirely) and in short, the original sock was crap. So I ripped it, knit it and made a new sock! In two days!!

Monkey-dunk. Monkey-dunkey-dunk. Oh how I love thee!

The pattern probably needs no introduction since it has spread like a yarny plague through knit-blog land. The yarn is Fearless Fibers superwash 100% merino and since I'm a bit in like with fuchsia at the moment, I'm loving it. I did, however, knit in a reinforcement thread into the heel and toe just in case and was kind of sad to find a break in one of the plies halfway down the foot. But, nevertheless, the saturation of colour in the yarn more than makes up for the little breakage snaffu.

And now to the knit the other one!

(Yes, we're still not talking about Ariann, can't bring myself to rip back to the arm join. Inishbeg now has both a back and a front.)

Only Seven?

Yah, call me a sheep and I'll bleat right back at you.

The Seven Weird Things Meme
(In leiu of any real knitting progress *cough*lie*cough)

1. I have a phobia of toothbrushes. The thought, sound or sight of someone brushing their teeth is enough to make me goose bump from head to toe. I'm going it now in fact. This is one of my self-made phobias brought about by over thinking, a trick that's probably weird by and of itself. Nail brushes (big ass shudder) and short carpets have the same effect, anything with short bristles will do the trick. I have to stop now.

2. I obsessively cut my nails as a form of procrastination. You didn't know you could cut your nails for hours at a time? You should see me when I have a paper due...

3. I can tie cherry stalks in knots with my tongue.

4. I have a birthmark on my butt the shape of a man's shoe print. I say it's where the doctor kicked my ass after I was born.

5. Instead of the 32 teeth you're supposed to have as an adult, I have 24. Four wisdom teeth have been extracted over the past three years and when I was 15 I had four other teeth removed to make some space. Probably a little too much space in retrospect. I always find it funny when I see a new dentist and they exclaim, "What did they do to you?" Wait, maybe that's not a good thing?!

6. I've been inside one of the Egyptian pyramids.

7. I can move both my eyebrows independently. Forget the single arched brow, I can make these puppies DANCE!

OK, enough randomness. Have at it!

Another Knit Rescued from the Dust Bunnies of Doom

This one isn't quite as old as the last one, which incidentally is now wound up into the cutest little mini hanks, smelling prettily of Kookaburra and being soft and compliant. Good call you guys.

This is Inishbeg from Debbie Bliss Donegal Tweed that I cast on before the fibre was even dry on Killybegs. And then it languished a mere 32 rows in for a month, that is until last night since Ariann and I are not speaking. This seems to be a frequent occurrence for me. Anyways, knit on stupidly big needles with enormously fat yarn, this thing is almost guaranteed to fly off the needles. That is if I can live with that annoyingly mis-crossed cable and without taking out of the house.

Does anyone else knit with bling?

Problem solved

All it took was Annie saying frog it and a massive loss-of-vision-inducing migraine....
I realised both the sweater and I weren't up to much. (Although I think the yarn was substantially dirtier than me, ew!)

And I have some lovely "new" refreshed yarny goodness :)

Time to 'fess up

OK, OK, I get it. I've been making people feel bad by being a supfastknitter. So to make y'all feel better, how about a string of the ridiculously bad crap I've been hiding behind the scenes for a while? The skeletons are going to be laid bare! May I present the first of my knitted shame....

First blogged about on March 7th '06, a vintage cardigan knit in Ebay 100% black wool. By March 9th I'd realised my fatal flaw, a vague mention of the sweater appears in April, socks happened and the cardigan of doom was never heard from again. Why? Because it's been sitting in a ball in the back of my closet while I wonder what the hell to do with it. Please note the hefty creases as evidence to this fact.

Le problem, as they would say in French France....

No notes (although I did take them, I just can't find them since I've moved house after this project was unceremoniously abandoned), no recollection of needle size, and the real biggie, NOT ENOUGH YARN!! Although there are needles in the work, I know I just put them there as stitch holders because I worked this thing on straights.

I'm not sure I want to make this into a 1/2 sleeved cardigan since the stitch is kind of waffley and thick (warm cardigan+short sleeves= NONSENSE). But neither am I sure I want to rip it all, even though these patterns have caught my eye in the last few days. I actually really like the stitch, which I have since learned is probably a mistake rib, but I'm not sure about the collar styling or the fact that the sleeves will have to be much shorter than anticipated.

Oh wise ones, what should I do?!

And then there were two!

Ariann is ready to have the sleeves joined to the body. In the spirit of trying to figure out whether I am a fast knitter or just an extremely good procrastinator, I timed myself for the second sleeve. Including a major 10 row rip and a couple of full round tinks, it took me 2 and a half hours to knit the 13" of sleeve. Fast? You tell me!

Blink and you'll miss it

Inspired by the weather to indulge in some spring cleaning and hyped up on waaaay too much caffeine, I cast on for a pair of baby socks around midnight Friday using the leftover Mega Boots Stretch from this project completed in August '06. The second sock was cast off on Sunday evening through numerous interruptions by the whiny, teething, yet immeasurably cute intended recipient who, and I have witnesses to back me up, believes strongly that boobs are for leverage and my necklace is the most fascinating thing on Earth. As I wove in the final ends he tore out a clump of my hair. Fair swap.

No pictures I'm afraid since the socks literally came of the needles and onto the feet. It'll be a while before they actually fit, but still....

Hooray for babies.

And So She Grows

For some reason the sleeve of Ariann is totally kicking my butt. It took two days to knit my way up to the sleeve divide of the body, and two more days to knit the couple of inches of sleeve shown above. Somehow my brain can't compute that instead of a purl row I need to put in a knit row to make the pattern flow in the round. I've tinked this one lonely sleeve almost as many times as I tinked Killybegs!

Although I'm sort-of-maybe starting to have reservations about the suitability of this yarn for this project, I'm forging ahead in the blind hope that it softens during the block. Yes, yes, that's what swatches are technically for but I wanted to conserve enough yarn to be able to comfortably finish the sweater. Wish me luck...

Another Day, Another Obsession

Say hello to Ariann....

Ring Wraith Spotted in Manhattan!

Pattern: Central Park Hoodie, Knit Scene Fall'06. I made the 36" after hearing that the sweater runs a little snug.
Yarn: Lambs Pride Worsted, 6 balls of "Wild Plum" which I would rename "Sharpie Black", not quite black-not quite dark purple but somewhere in between.

Modifications: I totally didn't read the pattern decided to carry the centre panel of cables up the hood instead of knitting a plain stockinette back. It's not noticeable when the hood is down and required a bit of decrease fudging. I don't think it makes the hood any pointier than any of the other completed CPHs I've seen, but that hood, it's damned pointy!

Concluding remarks: When taking self-timed photos I tend to end up with a lot of pictures of my arse. I'm happy to say it appears smaller in photos than in my imagination. Hurrah for shrinking buttocks!

Oh and the cardigan..... I LOVE IT!! I totally want to make about a million and a half of these! Although thinking about it, I may limit myself to maybe one more some time in the future when the six hours of seaming it took to get this pretty sewn up seems like less of a chore! The yarn, with it's 15% mohair content is a little scratchy but it did behave very nicely in the bath, no splashing, not much unnecessary bleeding and it did not once throw it's rubber ducky. I particularly like the construction of the sleeve caps in this cardigan, long and thin which allows for a much tighter arm hole. Although the CPH body came out a little bigger than I would normally wear, all winter I was craving a dark, big cardigan to throw on over just about anything and this fits the bill perfectly. And just in time for Spring!

Found: My Knitting Mojo

It was beginning to look like my bright start with the CPH was fast becoming a damp squib. A lack luster attempt at getting everything blocked, a crawl up the hood's 11 inches and don't even get me started on how many attempts it took to pick up all those edge stitches for the button bands....

*sigh*

But then I decided to pick out some buttons from my vintage collection and once again all is right with the knitting world, courtesy of wooden toggles that no doubt started their life on one of my childhood woollen coats.

A little bit more knitting and a whole heap of seaming to go, but soon I'll have another FO to show. Hurray for buttons!