CAZZO!

last night i was working on that scarf and my denise needle cord snapped apart. right at the place where the black connector joins the blue plastic cord. not having another size eleven circular needle i went to walmart today to see if i could pick something up for cheap. no dice.... plenty of 10.5's and 13's, but no 11's! what the hell?? i'd like to finish this before my mom gets here on wednesday so i don't have to mail this back to her but it's looking like that's not going to happen.

curses. this is the second time i've had a denise needle cord break on me. i'm thinking of maybe getting a new set of interchangeables... that knitpicks options set seems sorta pricey but pretty appealing. i think i might get their needle set with my christmas money.




currently i'm working on a heart sachet from the IK 2006 holiday gifts issue. the yarn is from one of the many balls of koigu i have kind of floating around and i think if i get my ass in line i'd be able to make a bunch of these as christmas ornaments.



working on something with size two bamboo needles is a lesson in gentility, i'm finding it to be less of an exciting knitting experience and more of a lets-not-break-the-ten-dollar-needles sort of game.

current WIP - potato chip scarf

this is my current work in progress, a variation of the potato chip scarf from knitpicks. this is also my first comissioned piece in the 11+ years i've been knitting. my mom is having me make this for one of her coworkers. the yarn is louisa hardings' "flotsam" and is kind of neat. it's like three strands of varying materials all intertwined. the fiber content is 40% cotton, 45% polyester, 10% viscose and 5% acrylic. this yarn is in colorway 9 which is a pink/teal/red combination. personally if i had to choose this yarn i would have chosen one of the other, less-pink colorways but this isn't my scarf so i really can't have an opinion of it.

i initially cast on way more stitches than the recommended 90, i thought the scarf would be too short and i really like long, drapey scarves. i got about four rows in when i realized that there was no way i was going to make a substantial scarf out of the yarn that i had. so i frogged a good two hours' worth of knitting (knitting horizontally instead of vertically, all while doubling the number of stitches every other row takes f-ing forever) and started over. i also upped the needle size to 11's (i had initially worked it on 9's, bad idea because the stitches were too small to be of any use as ruffles) and have been coming along swimmingly.

scarf as of last night:


closeup of the yarn/scarf:




if i did something with this yarn again i think i would like to make a shawl or a poncho. perhaps some sort of a loose pullover. something breezy and simple for spring/summer as this isn't a yarn whose fabric would hold any substantial heat.

felting extravaganza

these two bags were done for two different coworkers who had birthdays two days apart. that's a two-tacular sentance right there.

the green bag is some fisherman's wool that i dyed myself, it was like my second dye experience and i had intended on turning the yarn into a zip-up cardigan. then i moved to new orleans and that was the end of that dream. the red yarn is manos del uruguay, and is an amazing color.


closeup of the green bag


closeup of the red bag. that colorway is gorgeous.


after felting. notice the size difference and how they've shaped up quite nicely.


closeup of the green bag after felting. goodbye decent stitch definition!


i wasn't able to get a good picture of the red bag after it had been felted, but i can tell you that if you've seen a felted bag you've already got a good idea of what it looked like.