Friday, January 28, 2005

cast on, cast off, repeat until thoroughly bored

I wish I had something fun to report, but (at least as far as knitting goes -- real life is a different story) it's been the same old, same old since I released the mitten pattern. (It seems to be going over quite well, and so far, so good where revisions are concerned. I know I've mentioned this to a few people, but I proofread the pattern in a much more thorough way this time around, so... well, I won't jinx myself. Anyway.)

I actually tried to make some progress on the Ron hat today. After work I brought an extra skein of yellow Cascade to Knit New York to exchange for the US 11 DPNs I need for the hat -- I'm tripling the yarn so it'll knit up fast and warm -- but alas, they were out of stock. Regardless, it was my first pleasant experience there -- I actually stopped for a cup of mint green tea while waiting for a friend -- so maybe I'll give them a fair chance in the future. Purl and String still own my knitter's heart in the meantime.

I realized I need to read more knitting blogs. At the moment I only read friends', and very few at that. So, give me recommendations! Plug someone else's or plug your own -- I certainly don't discriminate against people who can toot their own horn.

Speaking of self-promotion, the new book Ravenclaw (blue/bronze) Wizard Ties came in last week, and they're gorgeous, if I do say so myself. Go on, my fellow geeks studious housemates, get one. ;)

Lauren posted at 2.58 on 01.28.05 comments (0)

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

the Hermitten pattern is up!

I know it's the middle of the night and I should be asleep and blah blah blah, but I had to had to post that the Hermitten pattern is up for sale! I decided to push on and get it done before we started on my computer (which of course is still going and is why I'm still up), so yeah. There it is! Enjoy!

Lauren posted at 2.28 on 01.11.05 comments (0)

Monday, January 10, 2005

what a tease(r)!

Jon and I shot pictures of the Hermittens today in Stuyvesant Square. Can I mention how much I hate modelling? I can? Okay... I haaaaaaaaaate modelling with the fire of a million burning suns! okay, maybe not, but holding still and not nitpicking about lighting and framing? pfft! ;)

Anyway, I thought I'd share a bit of a teaser for the mittens...

It's seeming like the pattern should definitely be ready this week unless I totally slack off on it *halo*. The cables are charted - I have to put the pictures in, write some copy, and put together the pages on the site, but fingers crossed that it'll be done quite soon. Of course, we're upgrading my computer tomorrow night (Win98 to XP, 15 gig hard drive to 200 gigs, yay!), so that could potentially set things back a bit. I hope not though!

Lauren posted at 4.42 on 01.10.05 comments (0)

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

my first blog-era FO XD!

I stayed home from work today (I've been intermittently dizzy all day, not really fun) and finished the second Hermione mitten. Yay! I don't have pics of it yet, not that there's any need since it's a mirror image of the first one. Now to block them and then take some pictures, and then they're ready to send. *And* if I'm not a lazy bum for once, I could get the pattern finished and posted sometime next week. Nag me, otherwise I'll let it slide like a certain sock pattern. :p

I also started, mostly out of boredom, on a hat using the leftover Silk Garden from my armwarmers. The bottom is 2x1 corrugated ribbing working from opposite ends of the ball -- it started out olive green and navy and will probably wind up turquoise/teal and purple. Noro pwns me! I doubt I have enough Silk Garden for the entire hat, so I'll probably switch to this ivory alpaca/silk I've had lying around after a nice wide band of ribbing. A crazy hat to go with my crazy coat!

Oh, and I reworked the top of the Ron hat so it doesn't suck. Pics soon -- all things considered I'm pretty happy with it, my sucky Fair Isle knitting aside.

Lauren posted at 0.29 on 01.05.05 comments (0)

Monday, January 03, 2005

i know, i know, i swore i wouldn't post yet...

...but I've been up to some pretty snazzy stuff recently, if I do say so myself.

Firstly, I'm almost finished with the Hermione mittens I've been working on for Gidget. I knit the left one first and then transcribed and reversed that pattern for the right hand, and I'm about up to the finger webbing on that one. They've knit up surprisingly fast considering I haven't really dedicated any blocks of time to them, just spare moments. Anyway:

They fit a bit snugly on me, but my hands are pretty big. Plus, they're still unblocked, so that'll help with the sizing, too. Just like the hat, they're Cascade 220 in #9404 ruby, but knit on #6s this time so they're denser. I'm trying to finish the pattern sooner rather than later, so keep your eyes peeled!

I've been stopping myself from working up a pattern for Ron's animal cracker hat for a long time because other folks keep putting dibs on it, but AFAIK no one's come through yet. So, I give! I spent some of New Year's picking Adrienne's brain about her Ron hat observations, and I threw together a test swatch last night:

It's Cascade 220 again, but knit as a triple strand on #11 needles. I'm getting about 3 stitches to the inch so even with the Fair Isle, it knits up pretty quickly. I kinda really hate the green/yellow mix at the top though. I thought that might've been what's going on because -- well, it's too complicated to explain, but that'd been my best guess at the top of the hat -- but it's really distracting and fugly. So, it's back to plan B, which involves both Fair Isle and duplicate stitching for a few rows. Sigh.

Also, I spent last week working at String on the Upper East Side while NYU was closed, and I took advantage of my discount (yays!) to buy some Koigu for socks for Jon:

The variegated yarn will be the body of the foot, with the brown (it's brown and not black, the light in our apartment is crap today) at the toe, heel, and maybe cuff, and I'm planning to use the stranded stitch from Crusoe. Mine will be toe-up, of course!

Lauren posted at 13.55 on 01.03.05 comments (0)