Woolly Interlude

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! I had a wonderful few day’s worth of celebrations; there were a few dinners out with various friends, a fun evening of roller skating, and a blissfully relaxing facial/massage. Heck, I even tried sushi (and I’m terribly anti-fish/seafood, so raw tuna was a big leap out of my comfort zone)! Although it was sushi at a Spanish restaurant (review here, if you’re in Louisville GO!), so it was a strange juxtaposition of flavor and atmosphere.

I’ve been doing some knitting (and a LOT of sewing, but it’s boring), but I haven’t been able to post it, since it’s been for my Knittyboard Harry Potter Secret Pal. I can, however, share the goodies I got from my KBHPSP, Cindiluhu.

Isn’t that awesome? Some of the candy has mysteriously vanished since I got it last Saturday…. I’m really excited about the Opal, as I haven’t used it yet, and I love the bookmarks, stitch markers, and the itty bitty sweater, too! And Charmed Knits? I’m excited; there are lots of neat projects in there. What a fun swap idea; jupiterjessica, you’re awesome.

I got more yarny goodness in the mail, courtesy of my Knitty Mellow SP, Ms. Prolix. I mentioned earlier that she ran a contest over at her blog, and I won! I got this gorgeous Fleece Artist Merino Sock yarn. Thank you so much!

And last but not least, it’s been over a month since I picked up the Dollar and a Half Cardigan, and that single day I knitted on it was 6 weeks after I did the bulk of the work. I love the yarn, and I love how the photo looks in the magazine, but I’m not loving the reality of the sweater. It’s not that that the yarn is a bad match to the pattern (as it’s not at all; it’s wonderful), it’s that the sweater is written waaaaay over sized, I don’t think I edited enough length/ease out of it, and I don’t think I’ll like the way it looks when I’m done. Plus, I know I won’t want to seam it when I’m done, and in general, I don’t mind seaming!

There’s the progress so far; I’ve finished the back, two sleeves, and most (if not all) of one front. I seriously only have one front, a button band, and finishing to go, but instead, I’m going to frog the whole thing. I love the yarn too much (and it was too expensive) for me to let it languish like it has been. That makes two months in a row where my UFO Resurrection Challenge project is something frogged.

So now, I have a question for you. What should I do? I want to knit a fitted, 3/4 sleeve pullover for myself, mostly stockinette. But I don’t know exactly how I want to do this just yet. I’ve got two basic ideas for the neckline: I either want to knit a deep-V neck from the top down (which I’d have to figure out on my own, with the help of the Vogue Knitting Book), or I want to knit bottom-up, and do an EZ Seamless Hybrid.

I’m planning on doing turned hems, although I might do a bit of lace edging on the cuffs of the sleeves instead. Or I might do an asymmetric cable, in remembrance of the departed $1.50 (or little cables up the arms). Or I might do some ribbing at the side “seams,” to help shape the sweater.

Any thoughts on the neckline? Which “design element” from the above paragraph sounds most interesting to you? I’d love to get some feedback before I start this thing!

Sometimes I want to post, and I don’t, because I still haven’t replied to all of the comments from my previous post. It just feels like it would be rude or something; I can’t really explain it. Today I got over that hurdle (temporarily), though, and am posting because I want to. And it’s my birthday, so I guess that’s reason enough.

I ordered some yarn from Woolgirl last Friday, and it showed up Monday. How fast is that? And if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought it was a present in the mail instead of something I bought for myself. The yarn was wrapped in the cutest tissue paper, decorated with stickers and a ribbon. And the little sheepie above was included; isn’t that the cutest little stitch marker?

The yarn is, of course, gorgeous. The blue in front is a couple of “mini-skeins” of Whatnot Sock Yarn. They’re intended to be used for contrast toes/heels, but I’m going to try to get a pair of socks out of them, with contrast toes and heels from some of my sock yarn leftovers. The background yarn is Whatnot Sock Yarn in Rock, and it’s gorgeous.

I was in complete awe of the personal touches; there was a nice, long personal note included in my package, a business card (that I could conveniently leave out for friends and family to notice if I wanted to), and the stitch marker. Her shop is set up a bit like The Loopy Ewe, who I also love. Anyway, I would definitely recommend Woolgirl. Especially because it’s not all sock yarn; she’s got lots of other weights.

I’ve been doing just a bit of knitting, and I hope I’ll get time to do a lot more this weekend. There are a multitude of birthday plans, though, so we’ll see. It’s kind of unusual for me to do much more than get dinner and a movie for my birthday, as late June kids almost never get birthday parties. When I was a kid (heck, all the way through college), my friends were invariably on vacation at the end of June, and I never had a day where I could bring treats to school (you might notice that my half birthday, December 22, would typically fall during Christmas break).

Although I have been making up for the lack of having flowers delivered when I was in middle and high school: yesterday I got a huge vase of flowers from my boss, and then a delivery guy walked in with more from my other co-worker. I felt very spoiled! If the sun comes out this afternoon, I’ll try to get photos, but for now, they’re making my office much more cheerful.

What a wonderful Saturday! I got up today and checked my email, and it turns out I won another blog contest (yes, that makes 3 posts out of the last four in which I’ve mentioned I won a contest, and yes, that means I’m totally not going to enter any more for awhile). Anyway, Rosa over at Purly Qs had a contest running while she was on vacation, and all you had to do was guess how many yards were in the ball of laceweight she had spun recently. Having some laceweight in the stash, I made an educated guess, and was the closest! I’m super grateful for the generosity of bloggers, and I think I’ll have another contest later this summer to share the wealth.

I spent the afternoon sewing up VBS costumes; I’ve still got a couple left, but I ran out of appropriately colored thread, so they’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Then, to escape the evening heat (my apartment has west facing windows, and the sun doesn’t set until 9pm here, since we’re at the edge of the time zone), I decided to catch a movie and enjoy the arctic blast of commercial air conditioning. And guess what? The theater had a sneak peek of Ratatouille, the new Pixar movie that comes out at the end of June!

Now, my thing with Pixar movies is that the teaser they release the summer before the movie is never very interesting. The one for this movie actually grossed me out (is that a rat eating garbage?!). But the movies are always fantastic; the only one I don’t particularly care for is A Bug’s Life, and I watch the DVDs of the others all the time. So I thought I’d give this one a chance, and it was wonderful! I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who’s ever enjoyed a Pixar movie; it’s got a great plot and is very funny. (And the short before the movie was hilarious!)
I spent some time last night knitting, and some time fondling my new yarn. Here’s the progress I’ve made so far on a plain stockinette sock in Vesper Self-Striping Yarn.

Isn’t that fun looking? When I started it, I originally planned to do a short row heel, but then I realized that that will create wedges of two colors, and I think that’ll disrupt the flow of the sock. So I’m going to use Wendy’s toe-up heel gusset, and see how I like the striping on that.

And the yarn that I fondled? Well, I got a lot of yarn in the mail yesterday.

1. STR G-Rocks, 2. STR Blue Moonstone, 3. STR 24 Karat, 4. KP WOTA Chambray

The G-Rocks and Blue Moonstone are for socks for me, and I’m planning to use the 24 Karat for socks for a swap. The Wool of the Andes I got at the big Knit Picks sale, and I’m planning to use it for a vest later this year. I’ve loved that color since I first saw it, so I had to snap some up.

And before I knew all of that had arrived, I ordered some other yarn. Have y’all seen Wool Girl? She’s got some gorgeous stuff over there, and I ordered a couple of pairs worth of yarn. Then, of course, there was an update of the Vesper Self-Striping, which I’m enjoying working with. Since the pair I’m working on now is intended to be a gift, I thought I’d snag a skein for myself, in the Muddy Waters colorway.

Sounds like enough yarn buying for one day, right? Well, um, then the new sock club at Yarn Pirate opened up, and I love her colorways, so I joined. You know what this means, though. It’s about time to start a moratorium on yarn buying (except maybe some yarn appropriate for a baby gift, since I’ve got to work on one of those soon, and I amazingly don’t have anything appropriate).

And one last thing before I go (because I haven’t shifted topic enough in this post): I might have mentioned this before, but I like the Rocky movies (well, except for Rocky V, but that’s still 5 out of 6 that I’ll watch when the opportunity presents itself). Rocky IV (that’s the one with the Soviets) just finished up on TV while I was writing this post, and there are two absolutely unbelievable moments at the end. First of all, Soviets cheering for Rocky? Yeah, right, like he’s going to end the Cold War single fistedly…. Secondly, Sylvester Stallone beating Dolph Lundgren? As if. He was He-Man, people!

But only one.

I finished the sock up last night, which was nice. It weighs 89 grams, and I’ve got 23 grams of yarn leftover from the second skein. I guess when the stockings are done, I’ll have enough yarn for another pair of (regular, not knee high) socks! I really wanted to cast the second one on tonight, but I had a couple of extended coughing fits and didn’t want to mess up the tubular cast-on. Instead, I started a plain stockinette sock using my Vesper Self-Striping Sock Yarn.

I also won a contest over at Ms. Prolix, so soon I’ll have some awesome chocolatey brown Fleece Artist Merino sock yarn. Yum!

And I feel like I should have more to say, but my brain has been checking out at around 4pm for the last couple of weeks. Maybe I’ll go to bed early for a change.

Is that even possible? I guess so…. I haven’t posted pictures of my finished German Stocking, like I said I would, because it’s not done. I was all set to knit the foot Saturday night, but instead I realized I had made a major mistake, and had to rip out a good 7 inches of leg. Of course, I didn’t mention that Thursday night I’d had to rip out 4 inches of leg, so I’ve been making progress, but not really, you know? Here’s where I am right now (and it’s pretty much exactly where I was before I ripped those seven inches):

I love how it looks! (Well, except for that nasty bit of laddering, and that one loose strand where I missed a stitch when I had to drop a stitch down 30 rows and pick it back up in double twisted moss stitch. But really, I’ve let it go. I’m not ripping this sock any more!)

I knit a teeny bit on Sunday and Tuesday, but my cold made me take Monday night off from knitting. I’m feeling better, though, so this could be the night I finish up the foot! Even with all of the ripping and reknitting I’ve done on this sock, though, I want to finish and start the next one! Even though I know it means 3.5 hours of casting on (although I got some new Knit Picks DPNs today, so it might go a little faster).

And in other exciting news, I had a wonderful lunch today. The weather was great, so I sat outside at a little cafe near where I work, and then I checked out a used book store before heading back to my office. I checked the craft section first, of course, and there was only one knitting book, but it was a good one! They had a hardcover edition of Kaffe’s Classics in like new condition for $15, so I picked it up. When I opened it, I saw this:

Nifty, huh? While I wouldn’t knit most of the sweaters, I do really like the Tumbling Blocks afghan and the Brocade pullover. Maybe I could knit some pillows with the motifs? Or maybe, someday, I could turn the sweater pattern into a fitted sort of sweater… we’ll see.