The Golden Iris

Today I took a little trip to Home Depot and got some goodies to repot my houseplants. Everybody was severely rootbound and sad, so everybody got bumped up. Here is the end result. I won't show you the 'before', or the mess I made. But thankfully nobody was harmed in the process. I can't wait for my spider plant to start growing some babies, and I'd like to see how the hosta does indoors. I have a north-facing window, so sadly I can't grow any herbs or anything, but I'll try the shade plants. And hostas are pretty tame, anyhow. 'Golden Tiara' is a pretty quick growing, yet smallish variety, so I'm hoping it does well in the house. And I miss my old one at home. (Yes, I miss my plants.) Now I have a big bag of potting soil in my house. Anybody want some? Today I also finished the first sock of that crazy rainbow stuff. Somehow, it knits up much less obnoxiously than it is in the ball. The only places it looks like the ball are in the hee...

But no, not the Martha Stewart kind. Today we have a New Project Parade, an FO, and a shower update. I finished the slippers made with yarn I dyed with Easter egg dyes. This is what happens when you knit both ends of the ball at once: Siamese twin socks! And the finished project. Again, these aren't the most fabulous of slippers, but they get the job done, and looking down at the colors makes me happy. Of course, because I finished one set of socks, I had to start another: Ordinary stockinette stitch socks, made with Bernat's 'Sox' kindly given to me by Natalie . The colors end up looking a lot different knitted up than they do in the ball. I'm not sure if that's better, or worse. I was knitting these this morning in the Dunkin Donuts, and a nice lady stopped to talk to me about them. She told me she'd knit her husband socks for 15 years, and now she's knitting for great-grandchildren. Pretty awesome. Finally, here is something I began recently. A...

But let's start with the winning. #1: School is over and done with. Yay! #2: The yarn I dyed with the Easter egg dyes finally spoke to me (after I'd wound it into a ball and swatched), so it is well on its way. Right now it looks like this: I'm knitting them both toe-up, from either end of the ball, because I didn't have much of a good idea how much yarn there was, or how much these little socks would take. I'm using Wendy's Generic Toe-Up Sock Pattern , modified for 36 stitches around. Let's just say they're going quickly! I'm having trouble getting the colors to photograph correctly, but I'll give it a better try when the slippers are actually done. ... and now it's on to the losing. #1: Witness my shower. See all those parts laying around, that are supposed to be attached to the shower? Yeah. Yeah. They were supposed to have fixed it today, but I doubt they're coming now. Thankfully I can take a shower elsewhere, but this is ...

For anyone who's ever experienced the phenomenon, writing a paper is usually a relatively unpleasant activity. To take a break, I'm going to complain about other stuff. First of all, wtf is up with the Weavette mini-looms? Before you all get your panties in a twist, I have one (an original, so ha!), so it's not like I'm against them. I don't understand why people are purchasing them, stringing them full of sock yarn, and not doing anything else. Maybe the new ones don't have this, but my old one came with a cool little booklet of all different kinds of textured and jacquard weaves that I defaced with my mom's cheap acrylic. I think at one point I was going to Weavette myself a little sampler throw. But just making little plain squares, over and over again? I don't get the appeal, even if sock yarn makes plaid. Just another way in which people on the internet are going to follow each other around some more. (Now, though, I'm thinking again abou...

I have some stuff I'm not fond of anymore. I figured I'd make an offer here before I ask strangers.... First off, and best: 7 hanks of Araucania Nature Cotton, 105 yds/100g. Retail ~$7 ea? And the other stuff (all of this is still available) : 2 balls Ironstone Yarns Monet, color 11 (rainbow/black). 100% viscose, 123 yd/50g. 1 ball Trendsetter Voila, color 4 (camel). 100% polyamid, 187 yd/50g. 1 ball Crystal Palace Fizz, color 7120 (yellow/burgundy/charcoal). 100% polyester, 120 yd/50g. 2 balls Unger Aura, color 2860 (silver). 50% polyester, 50% acrylic, 114 yd/40g. This is from the 80s -- the real deal in vintage eyelash!!! What I'm interested in: -- old 100% nylon circular needles, sizes hopefully in the single digits, length unimportant. -- sock yarn. -- laceweight. -- things from my Amazon Wish List -- make me an offer?

(Said in the announcer's roar a la "Are you ready to RUMBLE!") Here's where I was last night on the Gossamer Ruffle Shawl: And here's what it looks like right now. What you see as the bottom edge is actually the inside 'U' in the other photo; what's on the needles is what I picked up all around the outside edge for the ruffle. It's a pretty standard garter-stitch ruffle: on rows 1, 3, and 5, knit into the front and back of every stitch; rows 2 and 4 knit plain. Cast off. I made the mistake of doing some math. What it comes out to is multiplying the initial number of stitches by 8 (2x2x2=8, right? Please tell me it's somehow less...). And then I made a second mistake. I counted how many stitches I picked up. 220. (Or so -- it's not like I need to be accurate.) And then I made the biggest mistake of all. I figured out how many stitches there will be by the time I bind off. 220x8=1760. One thousand, seven hundred and sixty stitche...

Well, this is arguably writing. So there. And it's even on my to-do list, which means blogging is an approved activity! First of all, it's good to know that I'm by no means the only one who hates knitting with cotton. Unfortunately I think this is going to make it more difficult to get rid of the 8 hanks of Araucania Nature Cotton that I have sitting around.... Thanks for your compliments on my Picovoli. I am enjoying wearing it [unlike some famous knitters out there, I wear my sweaters ;)]. And my Mom can knit and crochet; my guess is that if she used the yarn it would probably be for knitting, though. UPS tracking tells me the package was delivered yesterday... I hope to hear from her soon! And now, here's what I've been up to. I've finally conquered the Parade sock, and having finished one, have started the second. I want to get these over with so I can knit something different! I've also been working on my Gossamer Ruffle Shawl. This is what one...

In a lull yesterday I was able to spin and ply up the last of my teal roving: For the life of me, I could not get this stuff to photograph properly. Anyhow, teal 2-ply, again about 40 yards and 60 grams. I think I need to learn to spin a little finer, but this has been fun. I decided that even though my first efforts weren't necessarily awesome, they would still wow my mom. (Moms can always seem to appreciate those kinds of things, can't they?) So I made up some labels, and now my yarn really looks like real yarn. I'm so proud. Hope my mom likes it, and Happy (early) Mother's Day to anybody out there who fits the description. Now I have to go spin some more!!

And without further ado, here is my finished Picovoli , which is almost (but still not quite) dry. Yes, that's what I look like when I'm waiting for the self-timer on the camera to go off. I think this came out great, although maybe a hair too short (seriously, like, 2 rows). I love the shaping and it was easy enough to do. However, I still have a hatred towards cotton. The blocking helped so much to make it have not toooo much negative ease and helped the picots lay down flatter, although I think they're still going to roll annoyingly. Here is my only major modification: I added eyelets around the sleeves, neck, and bottom, which is probably contributing to the rolling, but I like the way they look, so too bad. I also finished a panel on my giant red afghan, so now I have all the rest of the panels to make. I think my next project is going to be KnitPicks' Candle Flame Shawl in some of the light blue Alpaca Cloud I have laying around. I'm saving socks for th...