Yarn figures

I was invited, very last minute, to a party on Friday. The party was excellent, despite me knowing almost no one there, but I think that I got to know those few people just a little better, which is fine by me. Right before the neighbour came by to tell us to quiet down, we had rolled the carpet back and were dancing up a storm in the living room. My odd act of the evening was sitting on the landing of the stairs to the basement and reading the entirety of The Forgetting Room, by Nick Bantock, who is one of my favourite artists/book producers. He's not really an author, it's just that the work he creates is inseparable from the words that accompany it. I'll wax poetic about Nick Bantock another day, this post is about yarn.

Since parties downtown mean late nights, I sleep at my parents. Since my parents live downtown, that means at least a day downtown. Which means that I can go yarn shopping. Before going back to campus I stopped by Lettuce Knit, mainly to see if they had a copy of the current issue of Interweave, which they didn't.
I did not, however, leave empty handed. I was accosted by two lovely skeins of Lorna's Laces, in Iris Garden and Chocolate. They are destined to be Endpaper-ish mittens for my darlingest Claire, who's birthday is in a few weeks. She more that hinted that she needed mittens to go with her brown and pink scarf and jacket.

The bag of yarn there is 9 balls of .... something. I know it's wool, I know its sockweight, but there's no brand. I bought it off ebay. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. I could knit socks, but the colours go with each other so well, it seems like a waste to separate them. I'll think of something eventually.

I also just bought 10 balls of a light blue and purple sockweight off ebay on the weekend. Very excited. I'm looking for a sweater pattern, but nothing I can find is good with a gauge that small. I think I'm going to have to start designing it myself. Sad thing is that I was really looking forward to knitting a sweater from a pattern. Once again, I'll figure something out.

In what I'm actually knitting, this is the minisweater for my ex-roommate. I'm almost done the increases. I would link to the pattern, but unfortunately Glampyre's site is doing all manner of wierd things right now, so it would be pointless. Suffice to say that I am very glad that I copied this pattern out when I knit it last year. The yarn is a cone that Kim found at Romni's. It is the scratchiest thing I have ever knit with. Only garden quality twine is worse. The fabric isn't that bad, but my god does it feel awful sliding through my fingers.

This is my progress so far on the thigh-highs. Both are at the knee. I knit four and a half stripes yesterday, hopefully get as many done today. I have this idea to wear them to my day of rock on Saturday, but I'm thinking that that is definitely not going to happen. I might be able to get one done, but not both.