Wednesday, September 28, 2016

WIP Wednesday

Two socks are actively in progress.  I'm on sock 2 of Hello, Sweetie.  I think I tricked the camera into showing some of the detail.  The yarn is not that great for the design but it is the second attempt and I'm not doing it a third time.


This is Practice Compassion.  I was not able to trick the camera quite so well this time.
I like the yarn very much.  It has a nice twist and is great for the patterns.  It 's Freddy Helix by gnarledpaw.  The colorway is Professor Plantain.  It's that speckled/splattery yarn I am fond of.  It has lots of speckles but the main color stays main.

I missed my Blogoversary yesterday.  It was technical trouble.  The browser I was using decided it did not want to work at all any more.  It took several fails logging in with a different browser to get so I could post.  I still don't know what I did that allowed me to log in.  I'm not complaining.  I might start if this doesn't post, though.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

WIP Wednesday

No pictures because it is getting too dark and I don't want to fight with the camera.

Love is Love shawl:  I got caught up with the big long clue.  I was so happy.  I put the shawl in the project bag and thought I could ignore it for awhile.  The next morning the new clue appeared.  I've been slogging away on it.

The Serious Queue of Socks
  • Time Warp:  one done, one cuff in progress.
  • Coffee Cantata:  the yarn I bought didn't have the right texture.  I looked to see what other people used.  The ones I liked were all done with Wollmeise.  Guess who ordered two skeins of it from Germany?  It's a birthday prezzie for me.
  • Hello, Sweetie:  I restarted these with yarn I thought was more suitable.  I'm not sure about the suitability plus I appear to have again lost the ability to count.  I actually set these aside and worked exclusively on the shawl last night.
  • Scrappie:  starts October 1
  • Cableship:  starts October 6
I've been pretty good about not starting new things or acquiring more patterns.  This means, of course, that there will be new things arriving for the stash.  Not too many.  Just one three month club.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

WIP Wednesday

The Love is Love shawl has hit the point where it is an effort to do more than one row at a time.  I think it is about 600 stitches.

Based on the amount of yarn required, this is about halfway.  I can't begin to guess how huge it will be.

The September Knit from Stash sock.  I'm on the foot of the second sock. 
Photo excuse #42:  the phone rang just as I took the picture.

Sprinkle Sock.  This was a freebie.  I'm not overly crazy about the textured leg.  The yarn's from Hedgehog Fibres and I like it.
There are 5 more pair in the serious queue.  Serious=I picked yarn and put it in project bags and some patterns are actually printed.


Friday, September 9, 2016

Stash Enhancement Saturday

It's close to Saturday and I've got this yarn piled up next to the computer, so what the heck.

I got the Zauberball that I meant to get and the Laceball that I got by mistake.  You can see that the colors are so close that someone not paying careful attention might buy the wrong weight.
The colorway is called Bunte Gasse which the Interwebs tells me translates as Colorful Alley.  I don't know what I'll do with the laceweight.  The tag says it is "Good for scarfs.  Start balls from outerside."  Okay.  I now want a scarf pattern for laceweight yarn that utilizes long gradual color changes.

This is Cheshire Cat from Wonderland Yarns.  It looked pinkish on my monitor but in real life it's a bit closer to caramel and darker than the picture shows.
I plan to use it for the Coffee Cantata socks, so the color should be good for that.

This is the Arne & Carlos yarn.  It looked a little bit lavender on my monitor but those areas are pale blue in real life.
I wonder how long it will be before I go hunting for the other new colorways?

The other half of the Design Line Special Edition that the A&C yarn is part of are some colorways by Kaffe Fassett.  I got one.




Back to the needles.  I've got to knit up some old stuff to attempt to justify these new yarns.



Wednesday, September 7, 2016

WIP Wednesday

I've gone from one WIP to a whole bunch with a couple more waiting in the wings.

The Love is Love shawl is now big enough that the needle cable won't let it be stretched out very well for a picture.  Okay, I did take a picture and it didn't come out well.  Per usual.  We got a huge clue this time so I haven't caught up get.

The Philosophy is Kindness socks are about 3/4 done.  These are the front and back:


The Knit from Stash socks for September use leftovers:





In the wings are Sprinkle Socks.  They use the splatter type yarn that I love.  I don't know whether I'll use Invictus Yarn's Koi colorway or one of the Hedgehog colors.  I've been itching to try them.

Since the Knit from Stash yarns were originally going to use Hell in High Heels,  I'm going to use it to make Hello Sweetie.  It's a sock pattern from Heidi Nick who did the Philosophy sock pattern above.  I don't know if the yarn will work with the pattern.  The names work together perfectly.

Saturday, September 3, 2016

Shopping Saturday

It had to happen.  As soon as I typed "I don't need more yarn", I was off looking for more yarn.

There's a knitalong I'm doing next month that recommends a specific yarn.  I found a shop online and ordered it.  At the same time, I discovered new Arne & Carlos colorways.  They were on sale.  The only downside was the colorways I liked the best were sold out.  I have controlled myself so far and not looked for them elsewhere.  I did buy one of the second favorite colors along with a Kaffe Fassett colorway.

The shipping notice email arrived.  I didn't notice that the specific yarn comes in more than one weight.  I accidentally ordered laceweight and I wanted fingering.  I really hate it when I do things like that.  I wonder if it's a basic senior moment or something worse.

I went to Ravelry to get the yarn's name and made a neat discovery.  There's button in a yarn listing for showing all buying options.  If you click it, you can do price comparisons.  Another excellent feature from Casey the code monkey.  Thank you, Casey!  I found it for $5 under the price that most places sell it.  

I want to do the Coffee Cantata socks which take 500 yards for the large size.  The shop had their house brand yarn on sale and it was 500+ yards for less than you would pay for a standard 400 yard skein.  My fingers are crossed that I read everything correctly.

I think it is time to put down the knitting and pick up my Nintendo 3DS and pop that Concentration Training program in. 

Now where did I put the charger?

Friday, September 2, 2016

What was I thinking...

...when I  bought that neon yarn?  It was probably on clearance and I needed just a little bit more to reach free shipping.  The Squirrel Friend socks:


The afghan is done.  It is not blocked because I can't figure out where to do it where it won't become and instant cat playground.  Life in the Trees:




Someday I may learn to use the camera properly.  Don't hold your breath, though.