Why this gal's sittin'out the swap

So--I was all excited and geared up to join Scout's Dye-O-Rama extravanganza... That is, until last Thursday, when I brought some not-so-Kool-Aid home, and proceeded to have one of the most disappointing afternoons on record (and made a drippy, smelly mess of my kitchen...)

Here goes the sad tale...




It started out nicely enough. Unless you've been impervious to all the dyeing excitement, you'll easily understand how excited I was at the outset of this venture. Let me add also that I have this kinda-sorta notion that, maybe one day, I can spin, dye & sell yarn like some of my heroines (even if I'm too poor to buy yer stuff doesn't mean I'm not a huge fan of y'all!) So here I was in my kitchen, plastic baggies on my hands, about to embark on my glorious dyeing destiny.

Well, hm. This is what happened. Judge for yourselves the magnitude of my dismay.


I guarantee you that a washed-out box of crayons had nothing to do with my original vision for this yarn--my head was full of Fleece Artist--but nevertheless, this was what I produced. I was trying to take deep, slow breaths to keep my cool (not by any stretch an easy feat in a kitchen full of noxious Kool-Aid fumes), which led me to the realization that the Fleece Artist most emphatically does not use Kool-Aid to dye her glorious colourways, and that I shouldn't try to make Kool-Aid do what it decidedly could not, would not do. I should embrace its essence instead--listen to the Kool-Aid, and the Kool-Aid will tell you what to do. (This sounds all peaceful and Zen-like--it was not. It was me choking back sobs and screams while mopping up all the nasty runoff that was dripping all over the kitchen, scaring the cats and, possibly, even my calm & loving husband.) I had a packet of orange and a packet of Spiderman raspberry left. I did the only reasonable thing a desperate gal could do--I over-dyed. Here's the yarn's sorry, drippy ass hanging out in the yard:






Here's its sorry, tangled ass mid-wind (because of course it turned a completely different but oh-so-potent brand of evil on me when I started to wind it, so I left it to fend for its own, because who wants to spent a whole evening swearing at and being beat-the-crap-out-of by some yarn that they don't even like?)





(You'll notice that, left to its own devices, the yarn did not wind itself into a ball.)


I do not like this yarn. It may be tolerable if it didn't stink of acid candy and wasn't a bitter reminder of utter and total failure, but things being what they are, I don't like it. The twisty, sorry mess is destined for the garbage pail. (Or, maybe, someone out there's got a hamster who'd like it for its litter? Maybe you need something to stuff a cushion with? I'll happily mail it to Austria, wherever--just say the word.) The ball I may keep--the way Cate Blanchett keeps Joseph Fiennes around at the end of Elizabeth: to remind herself how close she came to danger. But it will never, ever be knit into anything. And here's why: in a final attempt to make peace with this nasty piece of yarn, I took it into my lap, along with a pair of size 3 circs, and decided to see what I could do about a tiny little swatch, and as I pulled the strand to cast on the bitch snapped right at the center of the ball.
(And no, the hypothesis that maybe I wound it too tight is not acceptable--this yarn's out to get me.)


But you haven't heard the worst: I'm not entirely dissuated from bringing Kool-Aid into this house again. What can I say--I'm poor, I have a dream, and a huge hank of Knitpicks dye-yer-own laceweight kicking around. Call me crazy.

No, really, please--call me crazy, so I don't put myself through this again.





PS: Oh yeah, I finished the ballet T from Lood-d-loop. Doesn't it look nice, hanging on the wooden hanger? That's good, since you'll never see me wearing it: it makes me look like a bloated rain barrel. That's okay! I enjoyed knitting it, and learned a valuable lesson about knitting close-fitting garments in chuky yarn--i.e., don't do it. But here's a question: what do I do with the blasted thing now? I still have a ton of that yarn and no wish to knit with it again soon, so no point frogging it. Chair-back cozy, maybe?

Ta-da!

I give you... finished minisweater! I finished the second sleeve & the seaming last night. Many an end has been woven in, I tell ya. There's been some major surgery performed as well, as the armhole stitches all went gaping mad as they were being held by waste yarn--I had to sew them up or else have some pretty serious ventilation going on (maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad thing.) I'm afraid I did do a pretty horrible job of the seaming--hopefully no one will notice. They shouldn't, unless there's some knitterly behaviour I've yet to notice, where decent & respectable ladies ask you to show them your pits. "Hmmm, d'you knit that? Alright girl, hands up!"



My Knitpicks yarn didn't come in for the long weekend as I hoped it would, so I could play with Kool-Aid. (Gotta practice--the way things are now, you would do well to wish I won't be your Dye-O-Rama swap partner. You will sign up anyway, won't you?) But it's been a good knitting weekend anyway--I cast on for the ballet t-shirt from Teva Durham' Loop-d-Loop. It's a dead-easy pattern form a book with gorgeous, real complex stuff (short-row fair-isle, anyone?), along with fairly strange model hairdos. Anyhoo, I think this is just great, cause when I'm done I can say, oh-so-casually, "Teva Durham? Oh yeah, I've knit her." A real soothing knit, soft fat yarn on fat plastic needles. Yarn's the same as the one I used for Bobblicious. Some day soon I'll post the story on that yarn. I promise.





There were also some yarn purchases. Two balls of Circulo Anne black mercerized cotton for Orangina, and three skeins of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Obscure Teal that are just screaming to be made into a circular shrug. I've been up and down the 'net and all around my LYS trying to find some black cotton yarn for Orangina, without success. Either too pricey, discontinued, not available. I had finally resigned myself to use Bernat Sox, thinking that by sheer force of will I could keep the acrylic from melting on me during my SIL's wedding in Central Texas in August. Fortunately for all, we won't have to find out whether I can pull it off, since when I went to pick up the Fleece I found these here balls... and cheap, eight-fifty each. Blessed be.

I leave you with some random Easter weekend prettiness: Mr Darcy with daffodils, and anemones with tulips.

Can you name this WIP?

How about now?




























How about now?


It's a week's worth of progress on the minisweater, which needs no introduction. I'm doing it with Sugar n' Cream cotton in cream and black, on Susan Bates Quicksilver size 9 circs. I was having a bit of difficulty at first, getting in the groove of the pattern, figuring out where the sleeves were, all the while keeping track of the different-coloured rows, but soon enough I was having a ball. I'm still a fairly new knitter, so things like raglan increases are very exciting. A couple of things are off, though: because I change the yarn on RS knit rows, I cannot do the first inchin garter stitch like the pattern calls for, lest I get irksome peek-a-boo contrast stitching. This bothered me at first--what I get instead is a single garter stitch row every four rows--but then I thought I could decide it was cool, and it would be, so it is. Plus, knitting in cotton, there isn't as much rolling so it isn't strictly a fit/design issue. Also, I didn't clue in til too late that I was supposed to M1 for the increases: I've been kf/b instead, and so it doesn't look quite as it's supposed to. But these are minor complaints. Overall, I'm very pleased with the pattern, and can tell you right now I'll be making it again. I'm not too terribly thrilled with the stark stitch definition of the cotton, but I'm real poor and already had the yarn, plus it'll be cool and washable for the summer--double bonus. I've knitted a whole stripe as fast as I could first thing this morning so I could get to the oh-so-exciting part of separating the sleeves from the body. So clever! You can see in the picture how delighted I am with this whole top-down, raglan business. (Actually, I'm cracked up because DH, as he was taking the picture, said "Now think of how sexy I am...")

Speaking of sexy--that second picture is solid evidence of how great my husband is. Late at night I get dangerously silly--a surefire sign in this house that it's past ten-thirty is my hysterical laughter--and often like to stick stuff on DH's head-- articles of clothing, scarves and bows, what-have-you--and then laugh til my legs give way and my stomach hurts. He bears this with surprising patience and grace. In this case, he felt that the minisweater looked like those wigs that judges and magistrates wore in the days of yore--you know, dignified. So, there's my husband, putting on a dignified look--with a half-done boobholder on his head. What's not to love?




A note to my non-knitter readers: here are a few of the abbreviations I use. WIP is for work in progress. DH is for darling husband. SIL is for sister-in-law (etc, in kind.) FO is for finished object. LYS is for local yarn shop. I'll post more as I think of them.

Sunny mornin' at home

It's bloomin' beautiful around here today: the yard is bright and warm (why oh why, then, am I here at the computer?) and sunlight is flooding the kitchen. The WIP you see there on the table is #2 of Delia's wristwarmer pattern (I shortened it a bit: did three instead of four repeats of the cable, and only four rows of ribbing--I diggit.) This is the second pair of these I make, and every bit as much fun as the first. I guess this is a good time to tell the sad tale of the first pair. I was knitting on the bus on my way to work, eager to knit every stitch I could before getting off (this was that blissful time before the whole Jaywalker thing went south) and flew out the doors at the very last moment before the bus rolled away from my stop and--you guessed it--left my handmade babies on the bus, which I didn't realize til later. I wasn't too concerned at first, since I've once left an umbrella on the bus (in very similar circumstances) and it toured around town all day and was waiting for me on the bus as I was riding home. I figured I'd get the wrist warmers back by then end of the day. Not so. They were gone, and two days of calls to the lost & found yielded zip. I hope they're keeping someone warm. Leaving handknits behind may be the only way this selfish, only-child knitter ever knits something for someone else.

And where, you might wonder, is the first blue wrist warmer? Glad you asked! Here it be, with the finished capelet.
I tried to do a hoody-type thing with the capelet. Capelet doesn't want a hood. The lesson here is that trying on a handknit while still on the needles will give you a very skewed idea of said handknit's dimension (you'll tell me that's bloody obvious and I would agree, but I only seem to learn things by doing them wrong the first time.) So when I cast off I realized that what I had wasn't a snug collar but a wide shoulder-hugging boatneck deal, at which point I didn't exactly relish more ripping & more math. You wanna be that way? Fine, be a hoodless capelet. (All the more reason for me to make Greta at a later date...though the ones in the book look much better than that long gray business, but it gives you an idea. BTW, do get that book.)

Not sure what's next for Mockingbird's needles. I might attempt the socks again--Broadripple this time--or cast on for a minisweater with some black and cream cotton I have (this striped version inspired me... oooh, pretty.) My list of summer knits is growing alarmingly: Somewhat Cowl, and Orangina in black for my SIL's wedding (I picture it with a short row of fat black pearls and a knee-lenght black circle skirt.)

I know other people have already kvetched about the knitting on Grey's Anatomy this weekend. Sandra Oh's face expresses exactly how I feel about it. "Girl, what the f--- do you think you're doing with those huge needles?" Y'know, I bet that show pays big bucks to doctors and surgeons to assure accuracy with all the medical stuff. Is it too much to ask, to have had a knitting expert give advice? No frikkin' way did Izzy knit a whole sweater in a day and then wear it for three hours so it smelled like her before giving it to the recipient, all the while working rounds in the hospital. Who do they think they're kidding? Not me. Pshaw. And I was sooo excited when I saw previews. "Honey, there's gonna be knitting!" I chirped. I was so let down. For shame.

Folks--it's sunny out. I'm blowin' this taco stand!

(And yes, that means I'll probably go at least a whole hour without checking to see if the new Knitty is up.)

Yarn's a-comin'

It is a beautiful spring day in Victoria--daffodils bloomin' a-plenty, magnolias unfurling unashamedly--and Bobblicious got its first outing. I got several compliments on it--looks like it's going to be a real crowd-pleaser, the kind of garment you don't wear if you don't feel like discussing it with all the salespeople you encounter. It is rather difficult not to blurt out, "Thanks, I made it!" when you hear that "Nice sweater!" (Bragging isn't very nice.) It is also difficult not to correct them--it's a shrug. It would seem that only knitters know about shrugs...

I have placed two yarn orders in the last two days--yarn's a-comin', folks! From A Swell Yarn Shop, I'm getting one skein each of the Oh-la-la sockyarn, the chunky May Flowers, and the worsted Shaggy, all of which are Angela's own handpainted goodness. (The sockyarn has mysteriously vanished from her site... it's a gorgeous pink-green-brown mix, sooo my colours.) The sad thing about that order is, she doesn't ship to Canada, so I have to have the yarn shipped to Texas, to our friend Sean's house, for him to bring when he comes to visit in May. But the yarn is in Seattle, which is so much closer to here! So close, yet...

More stuff coming from Knitpicks. I bought their Sweet Mary Jane cardigan pattern, and their Shadow merino laceweight in Sunset to knit it with. Five skeins of turquoise Shine will go towards Picovoli. There's also some paint-yer-own sockyarn and lace yarn in there that have Kool-Aid written all over them. That order is coming straight here, to tide me over until the Swell stuff arrives.

Well into the decreases for the Little Blue Riding Hood capelet. I'm modifying the decreases so the opening is smaller, to better accomodate the hood. I was all done with them last week, only to realize that it made for too short a lenght. So I ripped back, knitted a few more inches of stockinette, and now I'm nearing completion on the main body again. At least I know that my modifications are yielding the desired effect. I should get it all done tonight, watching the new Pride & Prejudice movie with a girlfriend--which will suck, obviously, as we all know that there is only one true Mr Darcy, and it is Colin Firth. (Actually, that's not the whole truth either... my cat is also Mr Darcy, and look how dashing...)

Enter the blogring!

Yeah! Mockingbird gets to play along with Pacific Northwest knitters! Check out the fully-functional code down on the right... sweeeet. I'm enjoying getting to know my neighbours already. Do drop in for tea, ladies!

Kinky sock yarn & cathartic frogging

You'd be surprised (I certainly was) by how calm I was last night when I gave up, after yet another cast-on mishap with the now-frayed-and-kinky (but still so gorgeous!) sock yarn, and buried it deep at the bottom of my stash basket, along with its two sets of evil twin acolytes, Circs 1 & 3. They are not to be looked at again for another couple of weeks (for which my dear, patient hubby is very grateful), by which time I hope that the Evil Fairy of New Projects will have taken her curses elsewhere.

Instead of knitting, last night DH & I frogged the navy blue Alafoss Lopi scarf--it felt sooo good to rip--and balled it all up so that, this morning, I could start fresh and cast on for the capelet I planned to use the yarn for. Such blissful mindless knitting with the thick, sturdy lopi!