Wednesdays are for Sharing

It's Wednesday again. Aren't you excited? Thrilled to your fingertips with anticipation? Sure you are. This Wednesday is a little redundant as I posted about this fabu yarn before. But now I've actually knit with some of it (a few inches of my Clapotis) in a beautiful colorway called 'sea pearl'. I keep fingering the little bit that's hanging off my needles and thinking I need more, MORE for myself. Just MORE in general. I love all of their colorways - a bit unusual since I'm more of a solid colored/texture type gal. Briar Rose has lots of pretty things including patterns, needles, and yarn of course. I love that they sell huge hanks of yarn. I just buried my face in it when it came in the mail.

Not quite on the knitting circuit is the instructables website where you can learn to make anything (really anything) from homemade infrared goggles to building an antique style crystal radio. Sometimes there are knitting and sewing posts but my amourousness for this website is that everything geeky can be made by following the tutorials. I love the DIY set.

Chock full of Fun

Yes yes yes. Yep. Yeppers. Oui. Si. If I knew more I would continue but as I don't I'll have to get on with it. Comcast guy was here on Saturday so I have uberfast digital geekiness going on via the internet. Hee hee. I can't believe we waited this long. Anywho, at left is the beautiful new beast called the iMac. Gotta love it. She's telling me how I should knit up my new Briar Rose yarn into a Clapotis for mom. I agree. In fact that gorgeous 1000 yard skein is already looped up into two skeins and ready for action. That is, after I get the pattern printed out because I seem to have lost the copy I printed out at an earlier date. Bummer.
Not to be outdone is my darling Fifi. After three weeks of single project hardcore knitting she's finished! Just in the knick of time for the end of the kal. Sheesh. Here are the specs: 7 balls Elann Esprit in Peacock Green (at 2.49 a skein this was a far cry from the Rowan Calmer the pattern called for.) Knit up on #7 circular needles. Modifications: I worked the cable rows all the way down to where the plain ribbing starts. I moved said ribbing down to begin below my bust line and not at the nip-line. I personally don't want attention drawn to that area, especially on cool days. I worked the center cable and diagonal ribbing on the front only as I thought it would look rather strange running along my spine on the back. Finally, I increased the length of the sleeves and the body to create a regular t-shirt type sizing. She's super stretchy in case of weight fluctuations and cool enough for summer wear or layering this fall. Je t'aime, Fifi.

Finis!

Fifi is complete. (Pic to come - I'm waiting for the comcast guy this weekend to upload a bunch of pics FAST!) I bound off the sleeves last night while watching some QaF and sipping a beer. No better way to finish a project, eh? I'm excited to move on to my poor, languishing undulating rib socks and ponder my next project. I did in fact order some wool from Briar Rose but not the one I posted about. I put others before myself and ordered some yarn (1000 yds for 50$!) to make the Mom a wrap for Christmas. She's had a a rough year, recently suffered a small stroke but is already recovered. She deserves something beyewtiful. I'm thinking Clapotis. I think I missed the band wagon on this one since it looks like all of the kal groups are from about two years ago. I guess I'm not in with the in crowd. :)

I'm going to end this post with an interesting quote from Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood. The main character has a retrospective of her work about to go up and heads into the gallery to meet with the owners and talk about the show. She speaks about the art and how galleries are too reverent, blah blah blah. Here it is: "This gallery is not totally sterilized, there are touches of cutting edge: a heating pipe shows, one wall is black. I don't give a glance to what's still on the walls, I hate those neoexpressionist dirty greens and putrid oranges, post this, post that. Everything is post these days, as if we're all just a footnote to something earlier that was real enough to have a name of its own." I love that last bit, it reminds me of so many things these days. How music is post, proto, precursor. How fashion recycles itself, reinvents. Is there any original thought out there? Anyone? Anywhere? Holla back if ya here me.

Wednesday's are for Sharing

I've decided to take an idea from other bloggers and have a theme day. So Wednesday's are for sharing, not to say strictly that I won't share cool stuff on other days but yep, Wednesday seems about right. The idea is to post about cool stuff I've found online (or otherwise) with y'all. I'm sure other knitters & crafters will have found these things too, but if you haven't, hey I guess I'm giving you a heads up for patterns, yarns, and other general craftiness. So we'll start it out with a pattern I'm totally drooling over cause it's got some sweet retro action going on. I haven't bought it yet but that's because I'm over my knit book budget for the month. The pattern is 'Flair' and you can find it here. She's got a good blog too, funny and witty. I love the sleeves on this and the slight 'swing' style (very Jackie O) as well as the overlapping fronts. I think it'd be gorgeous knit up in some Cascade 220 heathery-gray yarn. And because this is my first 'Wed. sharing' post here's another: Namaste knitting bags in faux leather. I love love love the everyday bag and am going to slap it at the top of my Christmas list this year. They come in other designs as well, but I really like the size of this one and the very handy division inside between knitting and purse stuff. Plus it comes in lots of purdy colors. Which one do I want? I'm waffling between black (goes with everything) and the rust color. Although I don't have a brown purse. See, waffle. At 69$ they're a bit pricy for a knitting bag but I can totally see myself using this all the time and not just for SnB night. Hells yes. So there it is. Wednesday's are for sharing - aren't you glad?

Closer...closer

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Originally uploaded by zombiegirl1

I've had this yarn on my mind all day. I love that they have 4 hanks all together for one flat price. It makes me feel like I would get more for my money even if that's not the case. I'm really drooling over it and thinking about my stash and what I'm going to knit up after Fifi is done (sleeves only now) and I've progressed on my undulating rib socks. Hmm..stash leads me to think about that uber-site Ravelry and check my place in line. Hooray! Only 1634 people in front of me. It's progressed quite quickly from the 7k from the last check. If you haven't already get yerself on that list! Well, maybe not, as it looks like they're just about ready to switch over from Beta and let everyone in. It's going to be a Ravelry free for all. I can't wait.

The Weekend Goes To

vinylib
Originally uploaded by zombiegirl1

This weekend, unlike many others, seems to have passed at the same rate of time as my work week. I feel much was accomplished including relaxation. Not always the case. The mess that was the vinyl library has been organized and purged (mostly the man's stuff as my collection is pitifully small and well organized). The record player finally has a home besides the orange crate under the desk where you couldn't put your legs because of all the stereo equipment and I said goodbye to my ten year old stereo components. Au revoir! The organization that started with my knit stuff has started to spread to the rest of the house (thank goodness!) and the man has even pitched in. I think it all started with a new piece of technology (last year's model) we bought and finding homes for some no-longer-needed electronics. Besides all of this goodness I recently acquired a few new knitting books from Knitpicks summer sale (40% off): Knitting Lingerie Style, No Sheep for You, and Romantic Knits. Score on all counts, viva la weekend!

*The pic is a before shot - I'll post an after when it's all the way done.

Amaizing

amaizing
Originally uploaded by zombiegirl1

I promised a while ago to post about my sock progress for the Undulating rib socks. There really isn't much progress as I've been slogging away at Fifi full time. I do have a little done, the cuff and about 3/4 of an inch of pattern repeat. She's biding her time patiently. If you haven't knit with this yarn (pictured) it's very cool. It's made from corn fiber and elastic, good for those with wool allergies, and feels much much softer knit up than in the skein. Silky almost.
Another cool thing I've run into (webwise) are the textiles of Joel Dewberry. Very cool designs with beautiful color combinations. My online shopping fingers are itching to pet some of it.