Spinning Makes More Yarn!

Soon after I got back from Europe, I got Laura to teach me how to spin! Man, this stuff is fun to do. This is my first attempt, about 100 yards of merino/silk. It's pretty thick 'n thin, but hey, it's my first try.

This is my second attempt, a much more even skein, also merino/silk. The colours are all pink and a really dark purple. The dye didn't get all the way through the braid, so there is a lot of white in there as well. It's all smooshy and delicious!


Denny has declared Wednesdays for spindle spinning until they all go to SOAR, so I'll be joining in on that. Look forward to some shockingly purple stuff soon!

Still Knitting, Still Blogging.

A finished object! This is Tempest, from Knitty. The yarn is Centolavaggi Lana Merino, by Lane Menterosa, which I found in Florence when I was there in June. The yarn is technically a cobweb, so I doubled up the yarn and was still was only getting a laceweight gauge, so I had to go up a few pattern sizes in order to get a size that would fit me. I think I did size G, though technically I was a size D.


Normally I'm not one to fuss too much about price, but oh man, was this sweater ever a deal! The yarn cost me 5 euro a skein, though I probably only used about 3/4 of each colour. Each skein has about 1400 yards in it. That isn't a typo, there are actually 1400 yards. So the yarn cost me about 15 dollars, and I bought the buttons at the In The Loop yard sale on the weekend for 50 cents. Muahahahaha! My student budget laughs in the face of money!

Now that Tempest is done, I've started a new project. This is Loppem, from Berroco Vol. 3. It's a cute little short sleeve thing that I'm thinking will be good for school. It's looking like it will be a warm fall, and some of my lecture halls can be pretty chilly, so it's the perfect balance. The yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca.


My sock at the moment is still the Lettuce Knit one, and it's coming along quite nicely. I'm about halfway down the foot now.


I'd also like to introduce you all to what I suspect will become the newest knitting photo location, my livingroom windowsill. You can almost see the firestation across the street.

Oh, and because someone asked, my apartment is back to normal, with minimal damage from the flood. We only had a little spot on the bathroom ceiling that was very quickly fixed. The people in the unit next door were less lucky, they have to have a wall redrywalled.

On Wednesday, at Knitting, I made a bit of a scene. Well, not really, but I did concern quite a few people (myself included) with a very very small sweater front. It is pictured on the left. The blocked out version is on the right. I am happy to announce that all is well, and that it blocked out just as I hoped and planned it would!


The fronts and back are blocked and ready to go, I just have to finish one sleeve and then I'm ready for the seaming! Almost there....

ps. Please excuse the poor quality of the above photo, I didn't realize it was blurry until just now...

Wet wet wet.

Hello peeps! So I'm still internet-less, though more importantly, I'm also apartment-less as well. What? you might say, didn't you just move into a place? Ah, dear reader, you are right, I haven't even been there for a month yet. However, when I returned from a friend's cottage on Saturday I discovered that my building's roof flooded in Friday's heavy rains. While my unit is fine, with very little water damage, there are still huge fans and dehumidifiers everywhere. So I'm living at my parents place, which means sleeping in the basement.

The cottage was amazing though, and is a good memory to think of when dealing with such things. We did lots of swimming in the lake, sitting on the dock, drinking beer and eating food for three days. There were twelve of us, and it's a miracle/example of us being grown ups instead of teens that we all got fed properly the whole time.


I did some knitting with my friend Renee, who is working on a Harry Potter sweater vest, and needed help seaming it up.


In this picture I am working on some Charade socks out of the new Lettuce Knit colourway from STR, which is gorgeous. It's all pinky and cream and green and blue, with a bit of gray.


I've also been knitting on my Ravelympics project, Tempest. I'm using some amazing cobweb weight yarn I bought in Florence, in gray and blue. I'm double stranding it and I still have a much smaller gauge than the pattern, so I'm knitting a bunch of sizes up. This is the front, which looks tiny, but it streatches way out when it's blocked, so I'm not freaking out. Too much.


I think when I'm done this piece I'll block it and the back and seam them up right away, just to make sure. Better safe than sorry!

Oh, and I now really want to make myself some Dr. Horrible's Sing A-long blog dolls.

Bees!

So I've been totally lax about posting, which is bad considering the cliff hanger I left you all with. My new job is at Lettuce Knit, the formidable yarn establishment in Toronto. I have survived three shifts unscathed. I even learned how to spin!

I've also been moving into a new apartment, which means that all my waking hours are spent packing, unpacking, or working at the store. I haven't had the chance to take any pictures in the daylight yet, but I'll tell you that Dollar and a Half is kicking my ass. Hopefully I have found it's kryptonite and will whip it into submission sometime soon.

So not to have a completely lame photo, I will leave you with a totally awesome sign I painted at my friend's music festival in England a few weeks ago. The Beat Hive was full of dance and hip hop music, and is where I saw Yacht, who made my weekend. I have Yacht inside me!

Back in the hood!

I'm happy to say that I'm finally home, this time for good. Or, at the very least, for a good long while. Today was mostly spent puttering around, vaguely unpacking and doing laundry. I cast on for the Dollar and a Half Cardigan from Interweave Spring 07 and rescued a chair from someone's rubbish pile. The chair will be especially useful as I will be moving into my first apartment next week, which only adds to the inability to properly unpack. I have no where to put all my stuff.

Tomorrow I start my new job. I won't tell you quite yet where it is, though I suspect that many people know what it is already. I can hardly believe that I'm actually going to be working there, so I'll confirm once I've actually spent a day working.

I'll leave you with this picture from the festival I was at last weekend. I have much craftyness to show off from it, not to mention all the yarn and fabric I purchased within the last few months. I definitely fell down a few times!

Adios, until tomorrow!

Twisted Stitches

I finished the Twisted Stitch Legwarmers! They were so much fun to knit. There was some funkiness in the first one I knit, but I managed to fudge it and you can't tell at all. The second one came out perfectly. I'll try to get some modeled shots soon, it's even harder to take pictures of your own legs than it is to get pictures of your own feet. Bugger.

I used Dream in Color Smooshy in the colour Some Summer Sky. I CO 60sts instead of 58, and increased 12 sts in the purl sections when the pattern started expanding. The pattern calls for sport weight, so I had to adjust for gauge and the fact that I have calves. I think the pattern was written for tiny little model legs. I really want the book that this is from though, Knit So Fine. I love knitting with fine yarn, so I think it would be perfect.


I had loads of yarn leftover, so I am knitting Zeitgeist's Springtime in Philadelphia Beret. The colour in this photo is more accurate. It's all blues and a little bit of lilac. I am loving this pattern, but I am not loving that I do not have a circular needle in the right size. I will bike out to Mumbles tomorrow and see if Mrs. Mac's has one. I need to get out anyways!


I have also cast on another pair of socks. These are Anne Hanson's newest ones, Caterpillar. The yarn is Koigu, colourway P428. I took this photo yesterday afternoon, but after a drink at the pub it has grown exponentially. I'll get another photo of it soon. I've stalled a bit on it. I want it to be my travel knitting for the weekend, when I go to Dublin. It won't be very good if they're finished before I leave!


I have my last exam this afternoon, which I am looking forward to. Well, I'm really looking forward to having it be done. Then I can bike into town and pick up some groceries and top up my mobile, which is completely out of money. I'm only in Swansea for another week, so I don't need much, but I've run out of bread and cereal. I'll have to have oatmeal again today, but that will put me out of milk! It's a tricky business, this using up food. Sometimes you have to buy food to do it. Oh, I will buy some veg so I can do a chicken stir fry with rice. Sounds delicious!