The pretty, the cute, and the pointy objects

I promised you pretty. Here is the pretty!


This is a scarf knitted from the edging unraveled from a cashmere/silk blend thrift store sweater. The pattern is a basic lily of the valley lace pattern, but I replaced the nupps with the beads. They're sort of a dark jewel-toned rainbow assortment. I love it!


Now, some cute. Remember me writing about Eight Ball the llama? Well, when he was sheared this summer, I brought back the fleece to give to some spinners from the knitting guild. Anna was kind enough to give me a bit of two-ply yarn from my buddy the llama, and so I knit it into a wee sock ornament to give to my grandmother for Christmas. I crocheted a little snowflake and sewed it on to give it a bit more decorative feel. I think it's pretty cute. I hope Grandmother likes it!


Today, I got off work a couple hours early, and I went thrift shopping. I really lucked out at one of the stores. These antique knitting needles were only 49 cents! There are four nine-inch size 17 (1.4 mm, also known to US knitters as 000) needles. I wonder who used to knit with them. Whoever used them must have had super-sturdy hands, because these puppies are SHARP.

Colors, colors, and more colors

In the knitting guild, we have swap meets twice a year. Last March, I got several balls of someone's handspun. It's going to be a striped scarf. I love how different brown yarns can be!

Here's a finished (-ish) object from the Malabrigo Magic Yarn Ball swap.
Pattern: A Touch of Whimsy scarf
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted, in Water Green (1 ball)
Needles: US 8. I used the Brittany needles Katy sent me, and they're lovely!
Cast on: 7/11/08
Cast off: 7/15/08
I really enjoyed this pattern. It's easy to memorize and interesting enough to keep your attention (which is a big deal for me!). The only problem? It's awfully short. So it might be frogged to make something else. The Malabrigo is too good to waste on a project I won't wear.

Here's a detail shot of the scarf. I love how there are cables and lace in it, but it's not too busy.

I also did some hand-dyeing this past week.

First, I made a giant skein. (Pardon the stuff on my dresser.)

I dyed it with egg dye in ~24 inch segments. It took about 15-20 minutes for the color to set in the microwave.

Here it is drying in my bathtub.

And here it is, all wound up and ready to go!

Is it just me, or do patterned socks get knit way faster than plain stockinette ones? It seemed like it only took a couple hours to do the whole patterned leg.
Yarn: Lang Yarns Jawoll Color Aktion, in the ever-so-poetic colorway 132.0188
Pattern: Spring Forward
Needles: US 1
Cast on: 7/21/08 (I think - it's been sitting around in my bag languishing in 1x1 ribbing for a while)

And now, a Basil update - remember this little guy? Look how big he is now! He spent the night at our house earlier this week. Aside from a couple of accidents, he did really well. (I think my brother feeds him sulfur bricks, though. Phew!)

Is it winter yet?

I need to accept the fact that I do, in fact, live in Oklahoma, a state of four seasons - almost summer, summer, HOT summer, and Christmas. From about May to September, you don't even need to check the weather forecast - it'll be HOT, HUMID, and WINDY. Yet somehow I've chosen to live my life surrounded by wool. Go figure.

Pattern: Emerald, from Knitty.com
Yarn: Recycled Greek wool
Needles: US 10
Cast on: May 22, 2008
Cast off: June 3, 2008

This was a very easy knit. Bulky yarn and size 10 needles make it an almost instant gratification project. I still need to find a button - you can't see it in the picture, but there's a five-stitch buttonhole in the ribbing. I have a few ideas, but I might wind up waiting till winter to pick one.

The shawl collar was much easier than I expected. I messed up on part of the directions, so it's a bit larger than the pattern specifies, but I like it with a slightly bigger collar. It's a big, snuggly, oversized sweater that I'm looking forward to wearing when it's cooler than the surface of the sun outside.

Here's my new knitting toy! It's a yarn meter that I ordered from Amazon.com. With all the recycling I do, it'll come in very handy. Speaking of Amazon.com, I just discovered that you can get YARN there. Lorna's Laces, Misti Alpaca, Cascade, Plymouth...if only they had Malabrigo on there too!

How to keep an eleven-year-old occupied

The little girl my sister tutors was at our house on Saturday with not much to do. The solution? Give her some recycled cream-colored wool, Kool-Aid, and egg dye.

This is the colorway that Bianka picked out. It's purple egg dye, pink egg dye, and cherry Koolaid-knockoff. The purple separated a bit, but the pink and red turned out well.

So now I have a big ball of girly-colored wool. I'll be making hats or scarves for Bianka and her sister.

This is the colorway I picked out. It's supposed to be dark blues and greens. I mixed blue and green Wilton's food color paste with Wilton's black color paste...and discovered that either the black was just ultra-concentrated red, or vinegar changed the color.

It took soooo long to get all the wool dyed on this one. I had it packed in too tightly, and when I poured on the dye, it stuck to the closest wool and wouldn't budge. Every time I thought it was done, I'd pull a bit out and find huge white blobs. I had high hopes for this colorway ("Mess"), but you can't even see any blue on it!

A pretty and an (intentional!) ugly

I've been in a race with myself to see how fast I could make this. (That, and the book's due back at the library.)

Pattern: Shetland Triangle from Wrap Style
Yarn: Sportweight/DK-ish cashmere from a thrift store sweater (color's most accurate in the closeup)
Needles: US 8
Cast on: 2-21-08
Cast off: 3-1-08
Blocked: 3-2-08
Modifications: I did an extra repeat (or maybe two) of the main fir cone pattern to make it bigger.

Lace on big-ish needles goes SO fast! It also had the benefit of being a very easy-to-memorize lace pattern. This was also the first time I've worked with cashmere. It's soft, but somehow it didn't feel as elastic as wool. When wet, it also smells just like wool.

And for the ugly: remember the Frankencloth? Here it is in all its completed, misshapen glory.
This was a fun project - it's just a bag of dishcloth cotton odds & ends amalgamated into a...thing.

I worked on my second Monkey sock yesterday on the way up to Tulsa. My grandmother has an acreage south of Jenks, and we went up to clear branches out of the tractor lanes. The weather was, simply, perfect. We came home filthy, scratched up, sunburned (especially me - the joys of an Irish complexion!), and exhausted, but all in all, it was a very good day. I got to hang out with my buddies Magnum and Elvira, the miniature donkeys, and Eight-Ball, the slightly deranged llama. (Totally forgot my camera yesterday. Rats.)

A wooly week

I have to say, there are definite perks to my otherwise mind-numbingly boring job - like not having to work from December 21st to January 2nd. Most of that time was spent in Tulsa with my mom's side of the family. But I did take a day to go thrift shopping (my favorite kind, aside from yarn shopping!).

A huge Shetland tweed sweater - I'd call this DK to light worsted. And there is a TON of it. According to the label, it's a size small. Yeah, for a small Hagrid. Notice the iPod* for size reference.

This is my favorite! It's the softest, springiest 100% wool I've ever unraveled. And the manufacturers were kind enough to tell me that this is "worsted wool." Thank you, manufacturers!


This was maybe not so bright of a purchase. I bought it based solely on the colors. When I got home, I did find the fiber content on a tag inside the shoulder seam (how uncomfortable would that be!). It's 50% wool, 50% acrylic, and unfortunately, it has serged seams. I think, though, that the seams aren't actually cut. (At least, I hope so.) The yarn is so pretty in that variegated stripe! I know I can unravel the body from the underarms down.

These, believe it or not, are two different sweaters! They're the same brand and same color, but one's a medium and the other's a small. Both are super-soft one-ply 100% lambswool. I don't care for the color, but can we say overdyeing?



Here's a 100% silk sweater with a twist - it's knitted from ribbon-like strands of torn silk fabric. I started unraveling this one...then I found deodorant on the underarm. GROSS! So this needs a serious wash before I mess with it any more.


This sweater is rust-colored 100% silk. It unraveled beautifully, and it's about a sportweight/DK.


Here's another 100% wool sweater - this is a sportweight/DK lambswool. It's a pretty tan with white, brown, and almost black nubbins. Again, notice how huge it is!


No, this isn't a sweater. This is a velveteen coverlet I found for my bed! I'm determined not to let it become like my other blanket...


...completely covered in dog hair. Nearly everything I own is completely covered in dog hair - that's the price you pay for having a dog that sheds year-round. But Tucker's so cute that it's hard to kick him off the bed.


Last Saturday was the Gourmet Yarn Company's end-of-the-year sale, and I picked up some Cashwool and Jojoland Harmony - both lace yarns I've been wanting for a while. That's almost 2 miles of wool, by the way. Now that I've done a lace shawl, I want to make something bigger! I've been looking through my copy of Victorian Lace Today, and it's both exciting and overwhelming. The knitted-on borders look a bit daunting, but I think I'll just have to plow through one.

*I love my iPod and librivox.org! So far, I've put the entire New Testament, seven or eight good-sized audio books, thirty or so hours of podcasts, and my entire music collection on it, and it's only about 10% full.