Friday, June 29, 2007

Sock Saheliya

One of my favorite songs was the phonetic inspiration for the title:)

I finished the STR sockies--hooray!

str sockies

They're just standard 64 stitch toe up, short row heel socks, but the lace pattern is from the Surplice Bodice Camisole from Knitting Lingerie Style. I loved that pattern, so I had to use it for something else. They took me a rather long time (almost a whole month!) because they were mostly bus knitting, and now that it's summertime, I only take the bus to work, so I can walk home. As soon as they're done drying, they'll be off in the mail.

I'm still waiting for my next STR installment; I'm afraid that the mailwoman might have lost it or delivered it to someone else.

I also finally got my order from the Loopy Ewe:

from the loopy ewe
(Counterclockwise from top right: Dream in Color in Chinatown Apple, bonus yarn Online Supersocke in Highland, Posh Yarns Applause and Roses by the Knittery on the bottom of the bag)

It's not Sheri's fault that I got my package so late; my lame-ox replacement mailwoman never told me she delivered it to the apartment office on Monday. Argh! However, there are some delightful things for me to start working on...where to begin?

On the food front, we're having twice-baked potatoes for supper tonight--they're so simple but so tasty. I made a gross discovery when I went to wash the potatoes before cooking them: one of them was rotting from the inside out, and liquefying. It was so disgusting. Thankfully, DP was napping, because if he'd seen that he wouldn't have let me use the rest of the potatoes! He's easily grossed out.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

American Psycho

That was the theme of Friday at work. I spent all morning getting yelled at by a co-worker who was trying to frame another employee for theft, then I had a visit from my local psychotic. A year and a half ago, I had a person come into the shop at my work (I'm going to call my place of employment BI from now on). He thought he was Jesus, and he wanted to "baptise me". It was VERY scary, but I heard from the police that he was committed to the local psych ward. Well, he obviously got out, because he came back to my shop on Friday. I didn't recognize him at first, but he seemed familiar. Then he came back in to say one more thing, and I KNEW it was him. He left, and I locked the door so he couldn't get back in, but it was extremely frightening.

After I got home on Friday, I had to sleep because the events of the day had given me a migraine. When I woke up, I got to thinking. The employee that was yelling at me is an older guy, veteran of WWII from Poland. He can't do his job anymore, but BI won't let him go because of his age. I hired someone else to "help" him, and he systematically tried to frame her for all manner of things and generally make her look bad. Then she left, and I hired a new helper. Everything was fine until a month or so ago, when he started doing the same thing. I can't tell if it's dementia or a guerrilla war, but I can't handle it anymore. But what I started thinking on Friday was that maybe he's trying to get me to quit or be fired. Maybe he blames me for taking his job away from him. We're starting a big fund-raising campaign at work, and it would be a bad time for me to quit. But if this continues, I might have to leave. It's horrible to never know what is going to set him off.

On the crafting front, I decided that I'm going to make the silk slip from KLS for the KAL. I'm going to use Handmaiden silk-cashmere from my stash:
silk cashmere for slip

Now I just need to get to the material store and buy the silk for the slip part. I think I have enough interfacing for the knitted bits. I'm excited for this project!

I still haven't finished the sockies...for some reason, I feel like it's a slog. However, my next STR kit is in the mail so I better finish them before it comes. I wish more people would post spoilers for the kit, since I can't quite tell what the pattern is like from the pics that I've seen ;)

I also ordered some things from the Loopy Ewe, and I may integrate them into KLS patterns rather than socks. I'm on a reds/purples buying kick, and I'm feeling the need to actively make things and not just buy the materials to make them with.

Monday, June 18, 2007

I give up

Since I can't seem to take a good picture of myself, and my DH is not up to the challenge, I give you this lame-ola pic of my Surplice Bodice Camisole:

Finished Surplice Bodice

What: Surplice Bodice Camisole, from Knitting Lingerie Style
Time: 11 days
Materials: A little over 6 skeins of Louisa Harding Grace (silk/wool blend)
Needles: US 7
Modifications: I knitted this as one piece, rather than seaming it together.

I love this top, but I have to decide which tank top to wear underneath. In washing, it grew just a hair too much for me to only wear a bra under it. However, I'm very excited to wear it out to dinner at some point! It was very easy to knit, and it went quickly, even with my modifications. The only issue I had was that at some point in the lace knitting, I entered the black hole and seemed to make no progress no matter how much I knit on it. That passed, and left me with a loverly top.

I decided to give my brain a break, so I started the Beginner's Triangle Shawl from A Gathering of Lace. It is pretty easy, and I'm going to work on it when I need some down time.

I also took some of the Crown Mountain roving to work with me today, to spin on my way home. It's soooo easy to spin. I'm having very little drafting issues, and there are no bits that are felted together from the dye process. When I finish this batch, I think I'll have to buy more in another colorway. Thank you so much, Amanda, for steering me towards it!

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Yarny

My arm numbness finally wore off, so I've been spinning the Crown Mountain roving, and I think I love it :) It went from this:
crown mountain 003

To this:
crown mountain 002

It's a Navaho-ply, around fingering weight, about 100 yards. I was too impatient to see what it would look like plied to spin more of the singles.

I'm also eagerly awaiting my June STR shipment...

In other news, I found out that my best friend from high school is getting married in a month. We became friends about 20 years ago, when I taught her how to crochet on the playground. In honor of that, I was planning on crocheting her a shawl. I'm not going to say which one, because I have a bit of a problem with the pattern. It was published in a book, and also available from the pattern writer's website. I figured that since I didn't like the book, I'd buy the pattern from the writer. I bought it, downloaded it, and found it riddled with errors. I could figure my way around them since I know how to crochet :), but it sort of took the excitement out of making the shawl. I went to the bookstore a couple of days later to buy a book for my dad, and I picked up the book with the pattern in it, to see if it made more sense in book form. Lo and behold--the errors in the pattern that I bought were not in the pattern as it appeared in the book. Frankly, I find that SUPREMELY irritating.

Still no picture of the surplice bodice camisole: the ones I took were awful, so I need to clean them up.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

It's here!

My Crown Mountain roving is here! Unfortunately, I can't spin it yet, since I seem to be having a problem with my arm--it's going numb. So, I've been resting it for a couple of days and hoping it gets better.

Argh!

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Too many projects

Sigh. I am just too tempted by projects. I'm currently working on my STR sockies, and I'm about a third done. I love anklets :) I really want to cast on for another project from KLS, but I should wait for the KAL to begin. During lunch, I was looking at knitty, and I think I'm going to have to make the Unmentionables. I just can't resist them. Plus, I have 4 skeins of yarn that are screaming at me to become 2 pairs of socks. Really--every time I walk past my stash tote, they shout at me. Can't anyone else hear it?

I also just got a gift certificate to my LYS from the mom of a bar mitzvah--$50! I'm so excited, I can hardly stand it.

(Looking back on what I just wrote, it reminds me of the moment in the TTC journey when you realize that you know [and use] way too many acronyms.)

I'm religiously following the trail of my Crown Mountain Farms roving on its way to my apartment. Spinning some of the batts from Abby has made me a lot more relaxed about my spinning, but also a lot more confident. I'm really impatient for that fiber to get here.

My italian sausages are almost done, so I better grab them before they burn!

Monday, June 11, 2007

Ain't No (Crown) Mountain High Enough...

My roving from Crown Mountain has shipped--I'm so excited!

To answer Amanda, my grasshoppers are not too droopy, though that might be because I ended them before I got to my calf. I think that would be the spot that could cause problems. I made the large size (I'm a size 10 wide), followed the directions for where to start the heel and had no problems with it. Though, "fiddlyness, thy name is reverse gusset heel." I love the end result, but the heel was a bit obnoxious. Nothing specific, just irritating.

I'm happy to see that the new Knitty is up. Wisp, in particular, is very tempting. Unfortunately, my mohair allergy has progressed to epic, palm scratching/breaking out in hives proportions, so I won't be able to knit with my KSH anytime soon.

On the surplice bodice front, my sister told me that I could use some of the purple ribbon she had left over from her wedding, so as soon as I see her, I'll be able to wear the bodice :) I now have to decide what to make next out of KLS. I'm thinking of the silk slip...

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Spinsterism

So, yesterday I was bummed out because the Sock Hop yarn from Crown Mountain Farms that would be perfect for my sister-in-law's socks was out of stock. But as I was looking at all the other beautiful Sock Hop yarns, I realized that the names were familiar: I had read about someone spinning roving with those same names. Silly me, I hadn't even thought of that! I bopped over to the fiber page and ordered the color of fiber that I would have bought in the yarn. So, I'll just spin up the yarn and then I'll have what I need. (This also means I can dye the KP yarn I bought in some colors that I want:) )

My surplice bodice is done, but I found that the ribbon I had is not long enough--not even a yard. I'm going to have to trick someone into driving me to the fabric store at some point. I'm trying to decide whether to wear it with a tank top underneath (since it's really low cut) or to buy a fancy bra and let it show. I'm not sure how daring I want to be. No pic yet as it's still drying.

I cast on for the STR anklets; I may use the lace pattern from the surplice bodice for these sockies. Since it's Knit In Public day today, I'm thinking of going down to the Sundance Cafe and working on the sockies while listening to my LOTR audiobook. This version is the best I've heard. If you're a longtime reader of the books, you'll notice that sometimes Robert Inglis says the wrong words, but his reading is wonderful. It's much better than the BBC dramatization, which is too dramatic in my opinion.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Hooray!

Well, the yarn drought did not materialize--I got the yarn in time for the weekend, and worked on the surplice bodice all this week. Now I just need to finish one more armhole (k one row, p one row and bind off) and then it's done. I'm very excited.

I also finished my grasshoppers yesterday:
grasshoppers right side out

Pattern: STR Knee High to a Grasshopper
Yarn: STR Silkie April club yarn
Needles: US 0 circular, 47"
Modifications: I worked from two skeins, since I thought that I'd be doing kneehighs. I got bored, so they're only ankle length, but you can see that they're different dye lots. I also used k2tog, yo instead of p2tog, yo, but I can turn them inside out if necessary to mimic the real pattern:
grasshoppers inside out

My plan is to make a pair of anklets with the leftovers, then jump into either birthday socks for one of my friends or the next STR pattern, whichever gets to me first.

I also got a great tip from Amanda on some great black and yellow yarn. Of course, by the time I got to looking up the url it was sold out, but oh my goodness is it gorgeous.

I really need to look at my comments quicker!

Friday, June 1, 2007

Yarn drought

Argh. It may seem odd that someone with enough yarn for 10 pairs of socks, several thousand yards of laceweight and 15 pounds of unspun fiber could suffer a yarn drought. Alas, it's true. The one yarn I need more of is not here. It's on its way here, traveling from NYC, but it's not here yet and I'm totally bummed. I was hoping to finish my surplice bodice camisole from KLS this weekend, but if that yarn doesn't get here in tomorrow's mail, no dice. Double argh.

I read an interesting review of Kitting Lingerie Style here. I enjoyed seeing someone else's perspective on the patterns. The comments on the review are neat too. I think I'll be joining the KAL; I should have at least 2 pieces done by the time it starts, so I should have a grasp on how to knit the patterns.

In the "not all people are jerks" category, I had an awesome email back-and-forth with a rabbi in Israel yesterday. I've been looking for an English translation of one of his books, and I can't find it anywhere--I've asked booksellers all over the country, and no one has it. I found the author's email while surfing around, and I decided to take a chance. He emailed me back that he'll send me a copy! He was very nice about it.

I still need to finish the ribbing on the grasshoppers, so I guess that's what I'll be up to this weekend. I just got bored with the pattern and so couldn't make them kneesocks. Maybe I'll get more gumption at some point and be able to make a pair of knee highs.