FO - Jitterbug Cowl

I wanted something out of yarn from Threadbear to take to their movie night. A break from the homespun afghan of doom sounded pretty good too! I had major inspiration from Vierge en trop, considering I, well, had the same yarn stashed and I had gotten it and Threadbear and, yeah... perfect.



Pattern: MintyFresh's Bainbridge
Yarn: One hank of Colinette Jitterbug, held double
Size 5 needles
Mods: Ties omitted. I can close the sucker up with the many gorgeous antique brooches I've been collecting from antique shops...

A few words about the Jitterbug. I'd heard horror stories about this yarn, which is why I hadn't turned it into socks already. True to form, my hank was underweight and had two knots in it. Although, I did luck out, because the yarn appears to be ALL the same dye lot, unlike some of the stories I've heard on Ravelry about having different dye lots knotted together in the same hank. Nonetheless, the color is amazing, and it feels squishy and soft and warm. I fear it may fade, and when I mentioned this to Rob at Threadbear, he informed me that wool washes that contain eucalyptus may be the culprit for hand painted yarns fading, including jitterbug. I'm a eucalan devotee, so I guess I'll go the cheap shampoo route when washing this.

FO - Exchequered

So, I started Knitty's Exchequered right when it came out... early in 2006. I had no idea that double knitting was going to be such an incredibly tedious endeavor. Two years later, I've finally cast off one of my perpetual UFOs. Uh, I might have overdid it a bit, because this scarf is seven feet long.





Seven. freaking. feet. of double knitting. I feel like I've just run a marathon or something. Very much worth it, though. This thing is double-thick, warm, and just... yeah, I haven't really taken it off yet. I wish I'd have pulled it out to finish sooner, because it languished as a UFO for far too long. I guess one of my New Year's resolutions should be to finish or frog all the things that have been sitting that way for far too long...

FO: Branching Out

One of my absolute oldest friends, Jackie, is moving to England for graduate school. It's up in the air whether this will be for the duration of her program or perhaps the rest of her life. When you've known someone since kindergarten (age 5), it's tough to think about them being an ocean away...

She leaves on Saturday, so I wanted to knit something up to send to her when she arrives. You know, maybe along with some Hershey's chocolate (scarce in England, I believe) to cheer her up in what may be a rough time. I consulted with another old mutual friend, and we decided that Knitty's Branching Out and some autumn-colored silky wool would be a nice match for her personality and wardrobe.




Well, I wasn't banking on having it done BEFORE she leaves. Now I'm unsure whether to save it for a bit and mail it to her, or drive miles and miles to see her off on Friday, the day before she leaves. I must ponder this.

In the meantime, there are 27 pattern repeats there just as the pattern suggested. This was an incredibly easy and satisfying knit which I almost didn't want to end! I wet blocked it after soaking it in some Eucalan, and it opened up the lace even more! At least there's more lonely balls of silky wool in my stash... I may need to make another to keep!

Neverending scarf of doom

I'm starting to think that Knitty's exchequered is the neverending scarf of doom. This has been in my stash as a UFO for a long freaking time. I love how it looks, but I can't focus on the double knitting for a very long time. I don't like k1p1 ribbing much either, so I'm assuming that there's a connection there.

To ease the process, I'm having:



Delicious red vodka drinks with happy heart-shaped ice. I went to Ikea for the first time today, and I got a couple of spiffy fun ice cube trays. I also have puzzle piece ice!

Hopefully the Stoli will get me to concentrate on my knitting...

Magnets, FOs... I swear I've been busy.

There was a big thread on Craftster about marble magnets which is where I got the inspiration and advice on doing this. The magnets looked like a really satisfying, fun little project that I could dig into on a day off work.

I had a 2006 Hello Kitty calendar laying around (couldn't bring myself to throw it away), and decided that this would be the perfect medium to immortalize as little magnets in this fashion.



The supplies:

• Those half-marble things one finds in a floral section of a craft store or the aquarium section of a pet store. Perfectly clear ones work the best, as iridescent ones will blur the images underneath.


• Silicone sealant glue. Available at craft stores, Lowe's, etc.


• Magnets. I used 1/2" round dealies. A 50 pack was $6.


• Circle punch, 3/4". Mine was incidentally a little bigger than my marbles, so I ended up trimming my images anyway. Made cutting them out a snap.


• Cardstock (not pictured), to back the pictures you pick.

Next thing to do is cut out a plethora of cute images that would look good immortalized as magnets.



...And then glue them to the backs of cardstock. Of course I picked cardstock that's, like, the same damn color as the old coursepack from college I was working on... This just keeps the color of your images true if they're on thinner paper.



Once the backed images are set up, use a small bead of silicone sealant to attach them to the flat sides of your marbles. A good hard press will get rid of any little creases or nooks in the bottom of the marble - this is like magic. The images will come out mostly bubble-free and crystal clear! Silicone is amazing stuff; this is why any old glue doesn't work as well.

You'll also notice in the above picture that my circles were a tad bigger than my marbles. Let this be a lesson that you check the size of your marbles and the size of your images. So, to remedy this...



...I trimmed the damn things.

Let the glue set up a bit (half an hour should do) and you'll be ready to attach your magnets.



Again use a small bead of the silicone sealant (a little goes a long way) to attach the magnets. I used thick magnets because the marbles are glass and therefore heavy. However on the craftster thread a lot of people used sheet magnet because its much cheaper.



So now I have some pretty magnets and I didn't have to feel guilty about throwing away that Hello Kitty calendar.




Oh, knitting? I've been doing that, too.



I finished a years-old UFO; the yarn is Filatura Di Cosa 127 Print or something along those lines... three balls, size 7 needles. Pattern is the Angel Yarns Noro Scarf. Pretty simple and easy, probably way it has stayed unfinished since 2005. The big disappointment? The wool needs some serious conditioner or eucalan to make it wearable; so itchy!



I also finished Tubey, done out of Knitpicks Alpaca Silk. I swear it looks good on me, I just haven't had Steve around to give a proper photoshoot... Will do that soon, I think.

Now on to Eunny's Deep V Argyle Vest! So fun! Hope I don't run out of yarn!

My best FO?

Well, my SP9 hostess asked me what my favorite/best FO is. Choosing is a hard process. At first I was thinking my Clapotis, but since everyone has made one of those and it was pretty easy, I decided to stick with something that's a little more unique.

If you've been reading me for more than like four months, you probably remember this:



It's a beaded scarf I made for my grandmother's 85th birthday out of koigu and some bronze beads. She loved it, but probably in that "I'll only wear this for a special occasion" kind of way. I got the pattern from a co-worker at my LYS, who has been using it as a demo to teach classes on beaded knitting.



So yeah. Not hugely technically difficult, but made better by the fact that I know it was loved and well-received. Grandma was like, "Oh, these are my colors! How lovely!" and on and on because she's a talker. :-)

Two meh FOs; still here for your enjoyment.

So, first up we have a scarf:



This is the product of three balls of Joann Sensations Thick 'n' Thin that I found on clearance. Oh, and Steve wanted to pose in an "interesting" way, so we have a stapler attack, red eye, and a little something on the camera lens. I used regular old stockinette stitch, no border or anything, to get the curl. (Size 19 needles, hoo boy, they start to look a wee bit phallic after 13 or so, don't they?)



This is the fabric that it produced. The yarn itself is very thin, faux-mohair sort of, except for these GIGANTIC slubs in it.

And no, I cannot imagine making anything other than a simple scarf out of it. Simply put, if anyone has tried, they need to be shot, because anything else could not possibly look good!



Last, and much more awesomely, we have Knitty's Cigar. I'm going to gift these soon here. Because the recipient I have in mind probably wouldn't hand wash to save his life, they are made out of Lion Brand Wool-Ease and some scraps of black. It was a pretty good pattern, I'd say...

Two posts in a day, ssshhh!

I took some more photos.

Really because I finished the scarf to go with Claire's knucks. Steve was going to model them both, but alas, his hands are too big for the knucks.

So here are some random photos of knitting awesomeness.



There's Steve, with one of mom's knitted snowmen. He's modeling Claire's scarf, and the knucks are off to the side. The snoman and Xmas tree are there to make everything look more "wintery" than the hot weather has allowed.



A close-up of Claire's scarf. It's artful yarns broadway, acquired at the KARYS summer sale. It's just a drop stitch pattern, easy breezy!



Everything together. Hope they look all right and everything; I'm mailing them off to her tomorrow. How stupid, getting wintery accessories for one's birthday in July...? That's what she gets for keeping me on as a friend after all these years.

On a side note, the color of the knucks is somewhat of a long-running joke between us. When we were really young, both of us (but especially her) were OBSESSED with anything lime/neon green. Especially accessories. This is more toned-down than what we'd have liked at the age of thirteen, but she'll still get it.



And just for kicks, the snowman. Mom's been making these for ages. Not sure where the pattern is. Most were adorned in red and green Xmas accessories; I got the darker "punk" version of the snowman, reverse-stockinette beanie and all! The X eyes are supposed to be "punk" ... or is it drunk? When the snowman's hat is falling off, it makes you wonder...

This is me, and all of my yarn...

I had an old knitting blog that got boring fast, so I moved it. Go me.

I've been accomplishing a lot lately as far as knitting goes. Homework is entirely another story. My Malabrigo sweater is shaping up awesomely; I'm using the loro barranquero colorway. Of course, Malabrigo's picture of the color is ass-ugly. It's really a nice, purty fiery looking colorway. There are so many more reds and browns than the picture on Malabrigo's site shows.

In case you're wondering, Mr. Sinister likes to wear a scrap of Artful Yarn's Flirtation as a scarf. What a ladies' man.

Of course, my photo is so much more accurate as far as the color is concerned. That shit knits up so beautifully, I'm merely ignoring the fact that I know that it's a single ply yarn that will totally pill with wear. I guess that's why the sweater shaver was invented. It's a really sweet pattern, which rules because it can be made with about any yarn in existence. It's fully customizable in size, shaping, and edges. I'm tempted to put bell sleeves on the thing because I'm a dork like that. We'll see.

My other big, fat accomplishment was finishing a scarf for grandma for her birthday. She's turning... old... How old, exactly, I'm not sure. But that's using a skein of Koigu, a tube of beads, and an elongated stitch pattern dreamed up by one of my co-workers. Yes, one of my jobs is at a yarn store, and yes, I love it to death.



So, fellow knitting nerds, drop me a line in one way or another if you'd like to trade links or be cool friends. *Nods*