Tuesday, September 06, 2005

making the best of what you have

It's been a while again, hasn't it? Last week was crazy for me, between having a social life and knitting frantically and trying not to stress out over those bits of real life that happen between stitches.

For starters: my financial aid fell through/never happened for the fall semester, so I'm now 11 credits short of finally earning my degree, with no foreseeable way of paying for those credits (~$11,000) out of pocket. Since I'm not in class this semester, I lost my job, so now I'm trying to resolve that as well. (Psst -- if anyone in the New York area needs a receptionist/admin assistant/photographer/IT geek, or knows someone who does, my resume's here. Yarn awaits anyone who gets me a job. ;)) My last day was on Friday, and all the explanations and goodbyes had me choked up all day.

On the topic of Katrina, I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said. My heart goes out to anyone who's been affected. I'm planning to destash by knitting for kids being taken in by a friend of a friend of my mom's in Jersey -- I've never really had the opportunity to knit for kids before, so I'm looking forward to it -- and I ordered another four balls of Andean Silk to do a Hermione hat/mittens set to auction either through MissionFish or Katrina's Keepers, in the same vein as the R2D2 hat that's currently at $360. I haven't got much to donate besides time and blood, both of which I intend to do, and knitting for a cause is such a warm, fuzzy feeling.

I, um, might've deviated from my yarn diet to order 4 skeins of Alpaca Cloud in Stream while I was making a Knitpicks order. I feel no remorse, or at least not much, because I'm itching to do a proper lace project, and I've been really good with finishing things this week. I've averaged 1 finished project every night for the past week, as follows:

Tuesday - Jon's mistake rib socks, since I thought I'd see him that night
Wednesday - String's Ab Fab poncho, which was an absolute delight aside from the degree to which it ate my brain
Thursday - the left TWH Hermione mitten on my morning commute, and the film Ravenclaw PoA scarf I cast on at the book release at night
Friday - worked on Soleil all day and would've finished had I brought an extra ball
Saturday - Soleil (it's just about done blocking now), and weaved all the Ab Fab ends (which is a project unto itself)

So, I think I deserve a bit of a treat, don't I? Aside from the fact that I'm about to dive into piles of cashmere (for String) and alpaca (for my roommate's mom) for my next several projects -- the blue laceweight can just sit and be petted for a while. Not that it'll actually happen, but let's pretend that it will.

eta: Might I just say? Sesame from the new MagKnits would make the perfect house sweater. Substitute your favorite house-colored DK yarn with the darker shade for A and the lighter for B, and it'd be all sorts of cool. I guess it's a blessing in disguise that I'd need a 44" to have decent wearing ease. ;)

Lauren posted at 1.53 on 09.06.05 comments (0)

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

how responsible!

I think I'm the last knitter on the face of the Earth to give them a try, but I just placed my first-ever Knitpicks order. I'm proud of myself, too - I stuck to my yarn diet (which I think I never blogged about, but give me a second) and only got three skeins of Andean Silk in cranberry for the Hogsmeade!Hermione set for the Witching Hour auction.

Originally I was planning to use 1824 Wool or something similarly easy-care and practical, but I think poshness (alpaca/silk/merino guhhh) outranks washability in this case, and the Knitpicks was way cheaper anyway. The only thing I'm worried about is whether the cables will look right in the blend, but for $13 and change, I'm alright just giving it a try. ;)

The yarn diet - I realized while moving just how much yarn I have for a person who doesn't have a real stash. Most of it is odd single balls that I bought on impulse, rarely enough for a good-sized project. There's not a lot that I have plans for, but I'm trying to knit my way through what I can before buying much more. And, considering that I've been two four different shops in the last five days and come out of it with only a ball of Fixation, I'd say I'm doing pretty well. :D

Lauren posted at 14.28 on 08.09.05 comments (0)

Thursday, August 04, 2005

various and sundry

Okay, first off, omg I want one. I'm fairly suspectible to the charm of gadgetry as it is (zoom in on 2 PDAs, sexy cellphone, iPod...), but knitting gadgets? Sign me up, baby.

Secondly - and I'd sworn to myself I wouldn't do it this time around - meet the Goblet of Fire costume reference page. I'd hoped it wouldn't be necessary, but two new, wholly different schools and twelve competition uniforms, not to mention a slew of new adults, mean there's actually so many new costumes that I can't believe no one's beaten me to the punch. As a bonus, my hosting package is now so beefy that I can spare the resources to host the full-sized high-res images that Warner Bros has been so generous with, this time around. I may be a bit slow in updating it, due to my limited internet access, but I'll do my bestest.

Thirdly, I've hit a new impasse with the animal cracker hat - I need to find a superbulky (~2.5 st/inch) forest green and yellow twist or tweed yarn for the top of the hat. Two colors of 220 held together just won't cut it, no matter how many times I try it. Yeah, I know. Good luck.

But! I've made some ridiculous headway on Jon's Koigu socks (nicknamed "Breakup Sox", haha). I've ditched the purl ridges in favor of a mistake rib, which looks really excellent in the brown/olive/burnt orange colorway I'm using. I started on, uh, Monday I think, and I'm already two inches past the heel. kasgofjsadhuio I love Koigu, especially after using Lion Brand for a few weeks.

And for anyone who doesn't knit but is itching for a Hatmione/Hermittens set nonetheless, I'll be knitting a set for the Witching Hour's auction during the Fall Festival. Be there or be, well, a bit chilly all winter. ;)

Lauren posted at 15.52 on 08.04.05 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)