Adamas

Pattern: Adamas by Miriam Felton for KnitPicks.

Yarn: KnitPicks Shadow in Redwood Forest (100% merino), not quite 2 hanks. I really liked working with this yarn, it blocked beautifully, and for the price you really can't ask for anything better. I'm sure I'll use it again.

Needles: KnitPicks Options US#5. Earlier I did some complaining about the joins coming loose all the time, but I stopped having that problem after I tightened the hell out of them with the little key. Maybe they have to get broken in?



Partway through this project I convinced myself that the lace pattern was boring and not that great. Blocked, however, I really do like it. The lace is so delicate and drapey, and in the right light this yarn, full of reds and greens, glows incredibly.



I wore it to Thanksgiving dinner. It looked great.



PS I forgot to add that I made a slight modification when I cast on to make the garter-st border along the top edge continuous, à la Kiri. Small thing, but I prefer it (and that cast-on is really fun to do!)

Thanks for all your comments, I feel like a million bucks. I'm wearing it right now, as I work on my grad school application in my jammies.

Star Me

Oh yeah, baby. Give me that lacevember star. I earned it (sort of).



When did I start Adamas? I forget. Lucky for me, I blog, so I can go look it up. I certainly didn't start this in November, or even October.



I did finish it, though!



So, I'm flying to L.A. for Thanksgiving tomorrow morning, and my plan was to block this overnight and just unpin it and shove it in my bag on my way out. Accordingly, I threw it in the sink with some cold water and a little bit of Garnier Fructis Long & Strong (a trick passed on to me by a Stitch n Bitcher) and geared up to pin it out.

Then my boyfriend called and we decided it would be more convenient to stay at his house tonight...it's right by the BART station, he's got more stuff than me, yadda yadda yadda...

Ughhguhhh. Damn freaking wet conditionery lace still in my sink. Unblocked. Undry. UNCOOL.

Wet Adamas goes home with me tomorrow neatly folded in a ziplock bag (hey it's like my 3oz of liquids!) where it will be redampened and pinned somewhere - god knows where - at my mom's.

But it's doooooooooooooooooooooooone!

Still Alive

Yes, unfortunately this is just a "still alive" post. I couldn't muster any photos of my knitting, but I am knitting.

I took my GRE on Wednesday. Is it cool to tell you my score? Oh what the hell - 690 verbal, 720 quantitative; 1410 overall. I was happy. I don't know what the percentile scores are yet, but I think I did really well. For my "issue" essay or whatever, I ended up writing about dogs and cows and developmental psychology and Nietzsche and god knows how many other things I don't really know much about, but I think it worked. We'll see in a few weeks what the readers thought about it!

While wondering if this kind of score would get me some sort of scholarship for grad school, I found this in my fortune cookie after lunch:



RIGHT ON!

Since I was already in San Francisco for the test, and since I was *probably* going to miss my class anyway if I tried to head back to campus, I just went shopping instead. I got two pairs of jeans at old navy - FINALLY found some jeans that fit, didn't look stupid, didn't feel cheap, and didn't have goofy pockets or weird trendy elements. One is a pair of "skinny jeans" and I love them, but so far I can only wear my flip-flops with them. All my other shoes look stupid. What shoes can you wear with skinny jeans?

I'm on track to finish Adamas before Thanksgiving. We are going out to dinner this year because all of my siblings will be doing other things and our kitchen is still in the remodel phase, so I'd like to wear my new shawl to the restaurant. I think I'll be working on the edging tonight during Desperate Housewives. I might not get to do a photoshoot until I'm in LA on Wednesday, but hey, the weather is better down there anyway!

I really, really, really have to write my grad school personal statement. I've been putting it off, hoping I'd learn some fancy vocabulary in my City Planning class that I could incorporate, but it's really time to sit down and explain myself. I can do this. Wish me luck.

School Sucks

Yes, school is sapping my energy and inspiration. Actually, I like all of my classes a lot this semester. I just don't like this semester this semester. I want out! I'm taking the GRE on Wednesday, and if my practice ones are indicative I'll do well, so wish me luck! I had an outline of a paper due today, and for me outlining papers is like pulling teeth...out of myself...but in the end I'm always happy my professor forced me to do it because hey, my paper is half written! Sweet. Next week is Thanksgiving and before you know it I'll have a month off. YESSSSSSS!

I think I finished the last strip of my log cabin.



Unfortunately shiny yarn + yucky weather do not make for good photos. Honest, guys, I try, but this was the best I could do for now. When it stops raining I'll take it outside and do a nice little photoshoot like a UFO of this proportion deserves.

I went ahead and picked up along the last light brown side, but I don't think I have enough medium brown for a full-size strip and frankly, YAWN! I just want to slap a border on this blanket, fold it up, and forget about it till I give it to my friend at Christmas. I'm going to do a dark green garter st. border about 5 ridges deep, maybe with some light green striped in if I have enough. Then maybe a faux-chet around the edge? I don't know. I think I'll do mitered corners for a more finished look, but I can't fit all the stitches on the needle to do it in the round, so it will have to be in pieces. Any tips?

Oh here's what might be a really dumb question: I've never seriously worked with acrylic yarn before, but I'm slowly making progress on this in Caron Simply Soft for baseball games. So, um, can you block acrylic? It's curling madly and I'm not sure if I should bother doing much.

I finished the cap of my first sleeve for the blue cabled sweater (finally!) and I was fretting the whole time about using two whole balls of yarn, thinking I only had two more left, which would give me a second sleeve but not enough for the hemmed crewneck. Yikes. I kept glancing at my yarn bag thinking, ohhh jeez, if I have to order one more ball of the Main Line it's going to mean a $40 order at KnitPicks because I can't pay for shipping when there's a deal like that on the table! But:



Yes, I rock. Three more balls, including the one I kept attached to the swatch lest I need to unravel it. Se my messy, messy desk? I can't seem to keep my room straightened when school gets like this.


Check this out, for all you sock knitters out there, a new challenge. Penguin Shoes!

Reuters: A penguin called Elvis wears a new pair of blue shoes at the Antarctic Centre's Penguin Encounter display in Christchurch, November 7, 2006. Elvis and 16 other penguins who arrived at the International Antarctic Centre in September have been given specially designed shoes after several penguins developed sore feet in their new home, according to Antarctic Centre director Richard Benton.

Ok, they're not knit, or at least not handknit. But isn't that the cutest/saddest thing ever? My face is melting into a grimace of sympathy at the thought of penguins with sore feet. Oh. my. god.

I think some hot chocolate will take my mind off papers and the GRE!

Temptation!

Ok, ok, reading about my take on christmas carols isn't the most exciting thing. However, I did get my copy of Interweave Knits in the mail yesterday. As if I didn't have enough projects in the pipes already, jeez. Luckily, I can't start a single one of them right now, otherwise I'd be showing you swatches for these lovelies:



The Enid Cardigan, by Veronik Avery. I've been wanting a yoke-style sweater for a while now but I've realized I'm not so into wearing traditional-looking fair-isle patterns. These circles are way more my style, and I love that this pattern uses purls on the RS to take advantage of that WS color-change phenomenon, which I love, but have a hard time working into patterns in a way that doesn't look goofy.

I think I'm going to knit this with the yarn I recycled from this goodwill sweater:



Which will, of course, necessitate dyeing. Kool-aid worked on this yarn so I'm guessing those crazy Wilton's dyes will work, too. I've been anxious to try some dyeing so I'm glad to have found a project that just might work with this sweaterfull of yarn I got for FOUR DOLLARS. Yay for recycling.



The Nantucket Jacket by Norah Gaughan. In the last year I've totally made my peace with 1/2, 3/4, 5/8, 7/12, and all those other not-quite-full-length sleeves. For some reason I used to be very uncomfortable in them. Anyway, another win for the recycled yarn! I really think this will look good in this purple cotton assuming I can get the gauge to work out in a way that I like.



I have a hard time, just looking at the photo, believing that this jacket is done on size 9 needles. But whatevs, I have a pair and I'll see what I can do. I'm not hand-winding all this cotton, though, so that's stalling any swatching for now.

Finally, yes, this:



The Rambling Rose cardigan. BUT.

BIG BUT.

The pattern? Only written for sizes 30" and 43"

come the @&!^%#@^ on.

Oh yeah, and the yarn would cost you about $150, so while you're at it get some Aleve for the headache of trying to fit a 30" or 43" pattern to your 34-36" bust. I mean, I can do it, it's just...if I'm going to follow someone else's pattern (and pay for it, via my subscription) I would LIKE to actually be offered something in my size. Maybe I'm just overreacting because I'm used to everything coming in my size, but I think it's a bit irresponsible of a magazine to purchase and then sell me a pattern in only two sizes (neither of which are useful to me, but even that's beside the point) when all the other designs come in about six each. That pattern would be of very, very little use to someone who wasn't comfortable playing with gauges or altering stitch counts to get a sweater 6" bigger or smaller than the pattern is written for.

And I have to find a yarn substitute, because I'm not spending that much for a sweater that honestly, just might be a big time-waster (but it's pretty so I'll make an attempt).


Ok, I hope that wasn't mean. I'm really turned off by reading blogs with mean remarks about other people's designs and I don't want to do that. I think the design is gorgeous (obviously...I'm dying to knit it). I just think it's a poor editorial choice to put it out in that size "range." And also, I think the model looks cute in it, unlike some reviews I've seen with some unsavory comments about her, which I won't repeat. Cuz it's mean.

Questionnaire

What is it with knit bloggers and personal issues? Seems like everyone's got some these days and I'm no exception. Mountains - but anyway, I haven't been knitting much, except on my log cabin (yay!) I'm taking the GRE in a week and I have to figure out my grad school applications asap. November might be a little slump for me (but I WILL finish Adamas...I think!)

Every good blogger has to do one of these at some point. I've never done much introduction on this blog so I figure, what the heck? This comes from the Lacevember kal. I've omitted some questions that didn't apply or that I didn't really understand.

As a visual aid, here's a really dumb picture of me:



The knitting questions, or the usual suspects

How long have you been knitting?
Since the summer before 4th grade.

How did you learn to knit?
My summer day camp was organized in "classes," and the class I took was about the American Girls doll Molly (the WWII one). In one of the books she knits some afghan squares for the troops, so we learned to knit as we read it. We also ate turnips because that was in the book on sugar and butter rationing. Bleh. Actually, this is where I learned to knit my freaky way that tends to make people at my SnB go...wha? But it's fast, so whatever.

Favorite thing about knitting?
Seriously? Um. Probably that it's useful. I don't like to make things that just sit there and look pretty because I feel like I can't justify it. With knitting I can actually have a sweater or something, and then I get compliments. Love the compliments.

How long have you been knitting lace?
Since I started Hush-Hush from Knitty in the summer of 2005. Once I realized I could do F&F I was unstoppable.

Favorite thing about knitting lace?
I like accessorizing. And people think it's really hard (actually one comment I got in my statistics discussion was, "that's hella good!")


The yarn questions, or flash your stash

Favorite lace yarn?
Haven't worked with that many, but I did like the Austermann Pharaoh (though the bind-off edge does not block well). I have a suspicion I will love the pink merino I'm going to make my next shawl with. So tiny!

variegated or solids for shawls?
Solids. Solidssolidssolidssolidssolidssolids. Sorry, I just can't handle variegated lace.

Favorite lace color?
uh? Unexpectedly bright colors for a grandmotherly shawl I guess. Like...bright orange.

Technique, or show us your skillz

Circs or straights?
Only circulars, ever. Basically.

Favorite lace knitting trick?
Knowing a bunch of different decreases so you can sub in the ones you like. Personally I prefer ssktbl over skp, and sl2k1p2sso over sl1k2togpsso. I never use stitch markers in between repeats and I generally just "read" the lace pattern from the row below rather than use the pattern once I've gotten used to it.

Lifelines? If so with what?
No, but if I had to I guess plastic thread (like for beading)?

Fancy blocking wires, or just sewing pins stuck in your carpet?
Pins stuck in my Ikea futon.

Pattern, or can you follow directions

shawls or lacey items?
What? Shawls I guess...Lacy shawls...?

triangle, rectangle, or circular shawls?
Mostly triangle but I'll be experimenting with other shapes for my next project.

Charts or printed instructions?
Printed

Favorite lace you've knit?
Kiri and Sarcelle

Favorite lace you want to knit?
Stuff from Marianne Kinzel's two books.

Just Fun, yup that's right, just for fun

Favorite jelly belly flavor?
Peach

Tell me everything you know about Eric the Red.....
Actually I've taken a few Scandi lit. classes and I have read about him in the sagas but, well, other academics got in the way.

Holiday carols, sing along, or wish they would be banned from all public airwaves?
They should only be played for two weeks before the holiday they're for (and honestly, aren't most of the ones we're bombarded with Christmas songs anyway?) I have nothing against them, only the really bad "updated" remakes of classic songs. Ugh. I love Feliz Navidad and I'm always happy to hear it in the mall, in Walgreens, at the grocery store...for whatever reason I never get sick of it.

Why is my cat always puking etc.?
Because you have a cat.

What's for dinner tonight?
Hopefully pizza. I'm really in the mood.


That concludes it. Back with more later this week.