I Hate Lace

No, I love lace! I just hate trying the wrong pattern and getting 50+ rounds into it before realizing that I don't like the result.

But first, some blocking. My blocking technique is getting better. From reclaimed cardboard to:















A sheet, folded in half, under which is a layer of plastic grocery bags (OK, these were reclaimed from the recycling, too). I just laid out my ZigZag sweater, after deciding that the sleeves weren't too short after all, and went to town with my new spray bottle. I have a fear of soaking wool in my sink because a) there is toothpaste in it and b) well, I end up with a soggy pile of wool that droops and stretches and drips all over the place and STINKS, and I end up just not wanting to deal with it. My spray bottle allows me to get the sweater completely wet, but not get anything else too wet in the process. It dried in about 5-8 hours and it fits really well! I took some photos but they really suck too much to post. My roommates weren't around to help me out with the photography. Maybe later.

After I ripped my SCJ, I started right away on a new sweater. I got this far:












and realized that it was probably too big around, but I was so sick of ripping this yarn that I kept going. I've now almost finished the front after dividing for the arm holes, and I just don't like the way it's shaping up. I'm using Ann Budd's sweater book, and I have to say that everything I'm making from there ends up really huge. I have to remember to size waaay down, like pretend that my gauge is 4-5 sts/in when it's really 6-7. It's sort of ridiculous. I might end up frogging this, but I really don't want to. I'm sort of a keep-going-and-pray-it-will-work kind of girl.

Which leads me to this.














The Daffodil coffee cloth from Marianne Kinzel's Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting. I just finished that little white flower center you see in the book, and you know what? It's not lacy enough. It's solid. It's more than solid - it's about 50% ribbing! I should have used size 4 or 5 needles instead of size 2, but I don't own 4s or 5s. I own 2s, 3.0mm, and 3s. I love those sizes but this was just too dense for my taste, and I could tell the finished product would be too small to really wear and well...I frogged it.

It seems like a loss because I did spend quite a few hours at Stash Saturday afternoon, buying size 2 dpns and getting a serious start on this thing. Then I came home and worked on it for a few more hours while I watched The Ten Commandments on ABC, which was funny because I was knitting with my Austermann Pharao. Anyway, today I ripped it and started a rectangular scarf thing, which hopefully will be more lacy and wearable.


I know he was playing Pharaoh and all, but I have to say that Yul Brynner was hot. He was hot in The King and I, too, so I know it's not that I have some thing for pissy Egyptians or biblical baddies.

I need to find more cool lace patterns. Or make some, because I am itching to knit lace, and I feel a stash enhancement coming on as I start really liking this austermann yarn!

COTTON!

The new knitty is up and I am so smitten with the cover design Mesilla that I've already ordered my yarn. In fact, I'm ordering enough for 2, in another color scheme, so that after I knit the first one I can play around with the pattern and make a similar one. Because I'm like that. I'm the type that always needs one in every color.



I love summer and I LOVE cotton, so this is the perfect thing to get me through the rest of the rainy season.

Of course I'm ordering knitpicks because it's half the price and, well, have I mentioned I'm in college?

R.I.P. Circle Jacket

In a sad turn of events, my Sunrise Circle Jacket has been R.I.P.ped. My yarn just yielded too floppy a fabric to really make it work, so I'm putting that pattern on the back burner for now and reusing the beautiful Sierra Aran (guys, I'm not kidding, I love this yarn) for a simple boatneck pullover of my own design. Details to follow.

In other news, the size of my knitting library has grown fourfold in the last few weeks, and in my excitement I've added a library section to the sidebar. I've never been a knitting book person, but now that I have a few I realize how fun they are and how much use I will get out of them. I went ahead and bought the Marianne Kinzel book, then because of all the excitement about the new MDK book I ordered that, too. It's so fun! It made me want to run out and buy 50 pounds of Peaches and Cream! I wouldn't know where to get it around here, but I really think that was the only thing stopping me. Plus, babies. I don't know too many babies right now, so I don't really need to be knitting bibs and burp cloths and all that cute stuff.

Then again, I can always stockpile it in case of baby emergency. It's very possible that seven years from now, twenty of my friends will be pregnant at the same exact time, and that stockpile would be a very good thing to have...

April Showers

Oh, the first couple days of April have been really gloomy around here. I am looking very much forward to a warmer, dryer season that must, I mean, it really must certainly be just around the corner. This rain is becoming such a drag. Anyway, to brighten things up, and also to mark the new month in Project Spectrum, here's a shot of my kitchen table, just basking in the glow of all that orange. I am starting to accumulate a lot of orange things. You're lucky I didn't pull the cans off the shelves or the tupperware out of the fridge for this shot, or take a photo of my bedroom or closet. It would have been an orange overload. I didn't realize I was such a fan.












And yes that is a box of







An empty box. :(

I have to say I'm pretty impressed with KnitPicks and their dye lot matching skillz. I ran out of yarn for my bro's Christmas sweater (Merino Style in Nutmeg) and they had run out, so I ordered a couple balls of it after it came back in stock, dreading a major difference in color.














There's really no discernable difference. The ball from the old dye lot looks a little darker in the photo, but it's just shadows. I can't tell from the knitted results where the old ball stops and the new one begins. Finally my brother will get his long-awaited gift. Sorry dude.