Knitting, with Dogs

Woohoo!

Made it!

So I get to put this up:

Yay me!

Run-a-go-go

We're coming up on the last few days of the first round of Runagogo.  I started out well, and slacked off a bit as the RAL (Run-Along) went on -- pretty typical for me.  {rolls eyes} 

In a sense, I met the TOTAL mileage goal back in February, by a combination of walking miles and stationary bike "miles".  But the stationary bike miles kinda felt like cheating.  So I decided that I'd walk 100 miles AND ride 100 "miles" on the stationary bike.

I finished the bike miles this morning, and I should finish my walking miles this afternoon.  I need to get it all done today, because tomorrow I'm off to the Peachtree Handspinners Guild Spring Retreat.  I don't want to have to worry about anything serious then.

There's another round coming up -- don't y'all want to join in the fun??  :)

A little more dyeing

And I haven't abandoned the dyepot either.  A week or so ago, I went down to Dunwoody Yarn because they were having a sale on some yarns, including Baby Ull.  Yeah, I'm broke, but I am absolutely DYING (without the e) to make socks from some of Cookie A's new sock patterns and I didn't have enough of anything in stash.  I have used Baby Ull for socks before.  The cheapest Baby Ull they had was bright orange.  BRIGHT orange.  (It's #18 on the color chart here.)  6 skeins at 50% off, though... what a deal.  And I have a dyepot and I'm not afraid to use it.

I didn't take any "before" pictures, but here's the "after" picture.  No more orange!

I really like the variations in color.  I used mostly red* dye, with a little plum from a previous batch thrown in at the end.  Each skein is 3 balls of Baby Ull.  When I finish Susie's shawl, I'll see if I can use these for some of Cookie's socks.  For me.  :)

(BTW, it's already sold out.**  just I think I actually drooled all over myself*** when I saw this yarn.  Holy mother of purl, that's gorgeous stuff.

*In case you haven't noticed, I've got a LOT of red dyes around the house.  Someday I'll have other colors too.

**%$*&#$!

***Is there such a thing as a yarngasm??  You know, that sudden rush of feeling that comes over you when you see a really luscious, amazing yarn in to-die-for colors?   Cause if there isn't, there should be.

More bounty!

I won a contest!

Danielle at Mystical Creation Yarns had a St. Patrick's Day contest, and I won!  The prize was "4 oz of the lace weight silk [1400 yds.] in which ever colorway you want."  Woohoo!  I picked the Iridescence colorway I'd seen in her Etsy shop.  The yarn came Friday, and while it's a little lighter* than the color shown in the shop, it's really, really lovely.  See:

I wish y'all could feel this stuff -- it's soooo soft and, well, silky.**

And I got a bonus too!

Little sheepy st markers.  All together now:  awwwwww.....
(The marker on the left says "MCY" for Mystical Creation Yarns.)

It's been a busy, crazy week, so all these goodies have really cheered me up.  :)  Many, many thanks, Danielle!

*Probably a case of "different monitors show things differently."
**When in doubt, fall back on cliches.

Peacock Feathers Progress: 2

I finished chart 2 of the Peacock Feathers shawl last night.  Here's proof:

(Apologies for the crappy pinning-out job.  It always makes me nervous to slip shawl sts to another needle for stuff like this.)

You'll notice I took a tip from Miss Alice Faye and used the little cord stops to hold the sts on the needles.  They work really well, and on my size 4 needles, I don't worry about them gripping the needles too tightly.

The pattern really isn't bad, but it does take attention.  So far I've had 3 times where I had to stop and figure out what bone-headed thing I'd done to make my st count off.  Most recently, I forgot* to p1, k1 into the double yo.  Just... forgot.  After about 3 repeats, it occurred to me that those big yo's actually MEANT something.  [palm/forehead/smack]  Thereafter followed careful tinking back and restoring sts to their rightful places.  But it's all recoverable, and has been recovered.

On to chart 3!

*I swear, I really HATE it when my mind just wanders away without me.  Jeezopete.

Amazing bounty!

Oh man, look what came in the mail yesterday!

A pattern, and TWO skeins of Susie's  50% tussah silk/50% merino yarn in the Midnight Rainbow/Harlot's Peacock colorway.

But wait, you say.  There's only one skein there.
Very observant, Grasshopper.  That's cuz the other skein is already in progress:

Pinned out a little, here's how it looks at the end of chart 1/1a:

See, Susie made the mistake of sighing that she didn't have time or inclination to make a lace shawl for herself.  So I told her I'd make her one.  Hey, I already make more lace shawls than I can wear now, and I'm happy to have a chance to share with someone else.  I really didn't expect the extra skein of yarn.  (Susie, I'd've done it for NOTHING!)  But when she offered it, I accepted. 

Folks, you should see this yarn close up.  Here's my attempt at a close-up shot. 

It's like a black opal.  At first you just see the dark shade, but then the subtle color variations start showing up.  It's got greens and burgandies and blues and I don't know what all.  It's gorgeous.  Of course, it's also dark, so I borrowed a tip from Fleegle and pulled out one of my headlamps to wear while knitting it.  Works great.  And the added benefit of the headlamp is that it really lets the shine of the silk show through, and brings out the color variations while I knit.  Yummy...

So keep an eye on Susie's blog or her Etsy shop.  Look for her wonderful stuff there!  And I get to knit with it.  Neener neener!

I got some other good stuff too:

Charlene Schurch's new book, and the Yarn Harlot's new book.  I got Charlene's book because I test-knitted one of the patterns.  Dear Robert brought me back Stephanie's new book from his manager's meeting in Denver. 

Life is good, mostly.

Let's talk about...

borders.  No, not the bookstore.   Knitted-on lace borders.  You know how some people hate to do sleeves, or hate to sew sweater pieces together?  I hate doing knitted-on borders.

They're not hard.  I know how to do them.  But there's something about going through all the work of knitting the body of a shawl, and then having to go on and knit a border onto it that just wears me out.  I currently have two shawls* sitting and waiting for me to get back and finish knitting the borders.  And then there's my current shawl:

This is a pattern I bought last year at SAFF.  It's a lovely pattern, very fun to knit.  And the yarn I'm using is really nice to knit with.   It's Melody, a fingering/sock weight yarn from Jojosquare  on Ebay.  I'd been a little hesitant to order some of this yarn till I saw it in person, also at SAFF.  It's nice yarn, crisp and easy to work with.  And, as you can see, it's variegated, and it's variegated in ways that I like.  But that border.  It's 32 sts wide.  You have to do 2 rows of pattern to eat up one st of the body of the shawl.  And I finished the body with 569 (or something like that) sts.  You do the math.

Here's a detail shot:

OTOH, I'm almost half-way around the body of the shawl, so I may make it to the end without pooping out. 

If I make another shawl using this kind of yarn, I'll probably use a larger size needle, for a more open look.  But his will be nice and warm and cozy.  Wish I could use it now, since our heat has stopped working right before this cold snap. 

Speaking of Jojosquare yarns, I splurged and bought some laceweight stuff:

I think this stuff is just gorgeous.  But I have a weakness for yarns that shade like this.  At almost 8000 ypp, it's pretty fine.  I can't wait to use it.  But I must.... stay.... strong... and... FINISH... current... PROJECT......arrrggghhhhh.....

Send good wishes.

*I may frog one of them, however.

Lamb agility

This is hilarious! (YouTube video).  The dog lovers will appreciate the activities ("substantial deduction for pronking" -- HAHAHA), and everyone else can just be enchanted by Major Baby Sheep Cuteness.

Lamb agility.

Fun with Dyeing, part 3

On with the dyeing experiments.  I've got a red theme going on here.

Y'all know that Skacel Merino Lace yarn?  I had a few skeins of it in my stash in neutral colors, so I decided to use them for dyeing experiments.

First experiment:  2 skeins (about 2600 yards) overdyed with red and a couple of other colors.*  This spectacularly bad picture is the result:

It looks a bit better in person, but not much.  What you can't really see is that there are light spots where the dye didn't penetrate too well.  That's really the worst bit of it.  I was experimenting with some small dye packets I got off Ebay.  My other dyes do rather better than this.
I think this one will go back into the dyepot again.

Here it is after overdyeing:

It looks really nice in person. The red's a little richer, and instead of light sections, I've got dark sections. 

Here it is on a couple of skein holders:

(No dogs were actually traumatized in the taking of this picture.)  :)

*You'll notice I keep meticulous records of what I do.  Ha.  Haha.

Knitting news

Just in case everybody hasn't heard yet:

1) Eunny Jang is the new editor of Interweave Knits.  Pam Allen will become creative director at Classic Elite.

2) If you've been drooling over CookieA's new sock patterns like I have, you'll be happy to hear she's got her website up and running.  Woohoo!!  I'm so broke I'm eating ramen, but Millicent and Thelonius are mine, mine, MINE!!!!

Now I have to save up to afford the yarn.  :)