The Golden Iris

In order to distract you from the fact that my Picovoli still isn't dry and I can't show you photos, I'm going to show off the yarn I finished yesterday. I can't help it, I'm so proud that I made yarn! I think I'm getting a little better, too. Here are the 2 colors of singles on their knitting needle bobbins, waiting to be plied: And here is the initial result. Luckily the 2 quantities of yarn were very similar. Here's a better shot of what it looks like: And a shot of the whole skein before it had to take a bath to set the twist. I probably frightened our neighbor by whacking it against the shower wall, but... too bad. And finally an action shot brought to you by Bridalwreath Spirea: For the spinning nerds, here's some stats: 2 kinds of wool, pre-dyed (I don't remember exactly what breed); the purple is slightly variegated. Maybe 5-6 wpi -- this is pretty chunky stuff, although it's thick and thin in places. And sadly only about 41 yards. B...

The previous post wasn't knitting. It was the opposite of knitting. ( Sarah , you shouldn't be jealous of the opposite of knitting, haha.) Today, however, we have evidence of knitting. All that's left is sewing down half of the hem, doing the picots on the sleeves, and weaving in ends. Yay! However, all the other work I have to do is eating my brain, so we'll see how it goes. One thing at a time... one thing at a time.

...right? By my careful estimation, this was a sock with too long of a leg. You know what happens next. I'll restart from here. If the third time trying to get a heel in this sock in the right place doesn't work, I guess I'll have to rip them out and do them toe-up. But I'll be damned if I have to. I finished the waist decreases on my Picovoli, but it doesn't look different enough to warrant putting up a photo.

I knit another ball on the Picovoli yesterday, so this is closer to 60% of it. I've started the waist shaping, using the only counting system my lazy brain can handle. I make a check box on a piece of paper for each of the rows, labeling which ones are plain and which ones I have to decrease on. Saves me the trouble of actually counting, and it gives me a visual indication of my progress. Oh, and the waist decreases aren't as severe as they seem -- the sweater is folded under at the corners in the photo to try and get the circular needle to lay flat. Today is supposed to be dominated by things other than knitting, so I suppose I should get working on those other things.

Judging by the amount of yarn I've used, this is approximately 40% of a Picovoli. I'm not so sure about the Shine Sport that I'm using. When I knit with this stuff, I suddenly end up covered in 238905749687 balls of hot pink fluff. I'm not sure if that's the cotton or the Modal that is escaping to attack me, but I hope this behavior doesn't continue when I actually wear the thing. This is one of these patterns where I wish I could see a diagram of the sweater laid out flat. I know this is what it's supposed to look like, but I'd like some reassurance anyhow. I added some eyelets around the neck and sleeves. I'm still trying to decide whether I should add eyelets and the picot trim around the hem. And another surprise this morning: At a smidge bigger than lifesize, another teeny tiny new leaf on my Christmas cactus. Aww. (Sadly, I don't think they put plants on Cute Overload .)

I think I have project ADD. This week I've started 2 more projects. The first is Grumperina's Picovoli , in Knit Picks Shine Sport. I forgot how much I hate knitting with anything that's mostly cotton, and I'm fearing I'm going to run out of yarn, but otherwise I'm happy with how it's looking. I also forgot how crazy the crochet provisional cast-on freaks me out, and how, when you have to do a picot edge, the rotten thing curls the wrong way to escape from you when you knit it back in. But since those stressful moments are over, I can concentrate on the knitting. By the way, those are my favorite needles ever, the old 100% nylon ones. If you ever find some, do not pass go, do not collect $200, and send them straight to me. They're the perfect needle -- they are unbreakable, flexible, and have perfectly seamless joins. I have no idea why they stopped making them. When the yarn that I wanted went on sale last week, I had to grab some for the project...

Yarn makes excellent bookends. Now I can look at my new yarn all the time without having to dig through the closet. If you have a roommate, try this one. See how long it takes them to notice that there's yarn stacked in the bookcases.

Nothing could be finer than dyeing bunches of Easter eggs with a friend, right? But there's all this dye left over. Whatever shall we do? Funny, I have some white yarn hanging around. It needs to be wound into skeins, though. I'll bet you know what comes next. Easter egg dyes require quite a bit of vinegar. So we got out the syringe, squirted away, wrapped these puppies up and gave them a ride in the microwave. The colors kind of bled into each other, but that's okay. When we washed them, the dyes didn't bleed into the water, so hopefully they're pretty fast. Here they are, drying. And all wrapped up and ready to go! Happy pastel spring yarn, brought to you by a recycled sweater, leftover Easter egg dyes, and the space of an afternoon. The green skein is mine, the pink and orange one a friend's. Now, what to do with 100 yards of handpaint aran weight?

Here's another moment of retrospection here at V knits. Buck would like to introduce you to a friend of his. While clearly a chick, this very early example of my cross-stitch is carefully labeled on the back "Tweety Bird" with my mom's help. Mom sent this to me in my Easter basket. I'd almost forgotten I'd made it. Thanks, Mom! Now I have some more cute Easter-springy things, and better yet ones that I've made. There was more Easter-related crafting today, but I have to save it for a future post.

About a week ago I embarked on a dangerous journey. I began to learn to spin. Here are the results. They aren't necessarily pretty, but I've got to start somewhere, right? The first yarn wasn't awesome... thread-thin in spots, hardly spun in others... but I wound it into hanks, washed it, and hung it up to dry. And when it was dry, I wound it into mini skeins. Now they can be cute decorations. Something a little different. I think Natalie said this was merino, and it's behaving much more nicely. I'm trying to practice keeping the yarn uniform, but it's still a little goofy in places.

In my zealous sock-knitting spree (during a funny Spanish movie) I mistakenly knit the leg of my sock too long. I made it past the heel before I realized that I was going to run out of yarn. Don't counsel me on toe-up socks. I know, I know, you never have this problem if you do it that way, but not being able to do heel stitch bugs me somehow. And I kind of like to graft toes. So I ripped it out! Hooray! I enjoy the physics, such as there are, of knitting. I like the way the knits and the purls fall back and forth when they come off the needles. Or maybe I just tell myself this to negate the pain of what was almost a sock disappearing. Here is what's left of the sock, with Buck standing guard. I know I didn't have to rip it out that far, but I didn't like how the all-stockinette leg was fitting, so now it's going to be ribbed all the way down. Oh, and KnitPicks... sometimes, you're crazy. "NOTE: The yarn label incorrectly states that Parade knits u...

I cast on this morning, and ended up watching a movie this evening instead of finishing my paper like I was supposed to. So here is my progress on socks out of Knitpicks' Parade. I've just started the heel flap; half a sock a day isn't bad at all. The base color of the yarn is more natural than white, which I didn't quite expect. But it's not bad. I like the stripes. And no, I didn't work on that Gossamer thingy today. Sarah, you were right. It's a pain in the butt.

gossamer Originally uploaded by belleange . I could only go so long, right? Now I'm back to #11s and feeling clumsy again, particularly because my yarn is so slippery. I've wanted to make Karabella's Gossamer Ruffle shawl for years and years, ever since I saw it in magazine advertising. Between this and Rosedale, this is becoming the time of fulfilling my long-standing knitting dreams. If only it felt that romantic while doing it. Suddenly, this thing I have always wanted to make isn't that exciting anymore. What the heck am I going to do with a sparkly shawl, with a big ruffly tie in the front? As you might imagine, my social calendar is not filled with fancy parties that necessitate sparkly shawls. But when the yarn went on deep discount at the store, I couldn't resist, so here I am, fighting slippry skinny yarn on chunky heavy needles. This must be the part of knitting they were trying to sell as 'meditative'. I don't like to knit slowly. I d...

Here in Delaware, spring is in full swing. Magnolias, forsythias, daffodils, hyacinths, pansies, muscari, cherries, you name it. Everything is blooming. And everything is starting to leaf out -- including me! I finished my Falling Leaves socks today, while also completing that other necessary spring ritual, filing my taxes. I had to wait in line, because I was able to get them done for me for free at the public library (with income from three states this year, I didn't want to do them myself). Note there are no photos of me filing my taxes. It's better that way. I waited in line for three hours. And of course here's a closeup of the lace pattern. And the stats: Yarn: 2 skeins Koigu KPPPM #516 Needles: #1 dpns -- I am whiney about learning the new ways of doing socks on circulars, so I sucked it up and did the shifting lace pattern on dpns anyways. Actually, the leg was fine -- I did it on 3 needles instead of 4, and that solved the shifting problem. I didn't h...