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Thrope

Hi all,

So I've been getting some comments about my election hat, specifically people asking about the pattern.  Sorry about the long delay (and also that I didn't mention this in my original post), but the pattern is Thrope by Kristen Kapur  (rav link).  

Hope all is well, been bookbinding more than knitting lately, if I ever get myself together I'll post some photos!

Doily

So it's been a bad week.  Two tests and two papers, an interview and inventing a portfolio to go with said interview (yes, I graduated, yes I'm still taking classes, you just can't keep me away).  Said portfolio should show things like internship experience,  classwork, and hand skills.  The hand skills area was lacking so I decided to knit something impressive (at the very last minuet of course).  I went for Spiralen.  

I freaking hate lace. I never thought I hated lace, but I do.  Everything seems relatively simple: I read the instructions, I understand the instructions, I follow the instructions, and I end up with the wrong amount of stitches at the end of the row.  Also starting knitting in the round with only 8 stitches on size 3 needles was one of the hardest knitting things I've ever done.  Shouldn't have been, but it was.  But the good news is since I had to start over so many times (about 12) I'm now really good at knitting in the round with only 8 stitches on size 3 needles....

At first I came up with this, which only vaguely looks like the pictures in the pattern.  I was confused.  Then I realized that the "plain knit every other row" direction only lasted until row 12, yet I of course had continued it all the way through because I am so good at following directions.  

Everyone told me this was lovely.  It was fantastic and great for my portfolio.  I of course thought it was crap because that is not what it's supposed to look like.  So with little time left before I actually really needed a finished portfolio and when I actually should have been doing schoolwork, I made a new one, the correct way (and it goes a lot faster when you're not adding extra rows....)

Election Hat!

I have this thing with hats, namely that I hate them. Or let's say I hate wearing them. I think I look stupid in most of them, although I realize that they're really nice to have when it gets cold. So I keep knitting them, at least one a winter, in my eternal quest to find a hat I don't hate. While watching very exciting election coverage last night I knitted this (well, the vast majority of this, I started it Monday night).

Yes, I am a lazy blogger and instead of using a camera I use Photo Booth....

The yarn is some cone yarn I picked up many years ago from Webs. It's way bulky which I don't really like, and it's 100% wool so it's rather not so soft, and I have a ton of it that I don't know what to do with. I don't even know what the stuff is called.... The white is Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool. This is a lovely knit, very quick, easy, and I like it! We'll see if I wear it. Now to wait for this unusually warm weather to end.... no, I don't mean that, don't end, stay as long as you'd like.

innocent drinks

I'm sure many have heard about this from other place (ie/ Mason-Dixon Knitting, which is where I heard about, yesterday, so I'm probably way behind on the game here), but check out all the tiny hats that are going on innocent drinks!!  Oh, if I only lived in the UK, I'd drink an innocent drink with a tiny hat.  

I keep thinking of things to post and then I say to myself I need to take a picture of that so I can write a blog about it, but then I never take a picture so I never blog about it (excuses, I know), so perhaps I shall start a pictureless blog (which isn’t any fun, but I’m doing it anyway).
For the past month or so have had a burning (yes, burning) desire to finish a sweater. Any sweater. I’m usually a pretty monogamous knitter but right now I have three (three!) sweaters going, for various reasons, all of which refuse to finish. I was working on that blue thing with the cables from last post for a long while and then the sleeves would not end; I kept knitting and they kept not growing and I got frustrated. And I’m going to have to buy another skein of yarn anyway and redo the waist shaping because somehow I managed to make simple increases and decreases look like crap, so that has been put to the side for now.
So I started the Dutchess Raglan, because the only yarn I have in abundance enough to make a sweater is a random cone of Classic Elite Yarns Newport, which I got on sale at my LYS a year or so ago ($5 cone!). It’s way heavier than what I usually go for but I’ve had it forever and I felt I needed to do something with it. So I knit away on my dutchess raglan but was once again thwarted when I arrived at the sleeves as I do not own any size 9 double pointed needles which is exactly the size I needed to make the sleeves happen.
So what to do other than pick up kaleidoscope, which I abandoned last year not because of sleeves but because I chose to knit it in such a freakishly small gauge it just stopped getting larger (much the same problem as the sleeves from the first cardigan I mentioned).
So now I have size 9 double pointed needles but since kaleidoscope seems to be moving along now I think I’ll stick with that for awhile. And that’s the saga of my multiple sweaters right now, all of which are only half way finished. Perhaps when one starts to work out for me I’ll take a picture.

Hi,
So I'm not good at blogging, I'll admit it. For awhile there I was doing quite well, but recently (read: past year), not so much. I was upset about my procrastination for awhile (as I often
thinking about blogging), but recently I have embraced my sporadic and undependable blogging habits. And so I present to you: the baby sweater I finished in April:

If you think it's awesome and want to knit one too you can find the pattern here (http://wishingiwasknitting.blogspot.com/2007/07/baby-jiffy-knit-sweater.html). I made mine in Knit Picks shine DK weight. Soft, pretty and machine washable and dryable, no complaints here.
And I had just enough yarn!

Actually I didn't have enough yarn and the arms look slightly too long, although in reality the body is a little too short. So it goes.

I also graduated

Yay art cons for being nearly the smallest major in our freakishly huge university!

Then I started this sweater, which looks very crinkly in this shot.

I also am doing cables. I didn't use to like cables (in a how they looked sort of way, not in a how to knit them sort of way), but now I've changed my mind (good story). And cabling is really fun.

I'm just winging it, as always. This is my first real person (vs fake person or child) top down sweater. I'm enjoying being able to try on as I go but I don't feel too secure with this method yet. I'm using the four skeins of Green Mountain Spinnery's Cotton Comfort that I picked up at a sale last summer. So far this yarn is super great and you should use it. Will it be enough yarn to finish? Most likely not. Why do I always have this curse? Always There's an easy solution: buy more yarn the first time around, stupid....

Also, fresh chickpeas:

In a pod and on a plate

Bright green!

They're pretty good too :)