Monday, September 25, 2006

finally getting somewhere

I woke up with a start at 8am on Saturday, after four measly hours' sleep, and said to myself, "Self, I'm gonna write the animal cracker pattern this weekend." I rolled back over, snoozed for a half-hour, then went on a six-shop yarn crawl (similar to a pub crawl in just about every way -- and certainly just as expensive -- but the sense of temporary euphoria doesn't destroy brain cells). To wit:

• School Products, for a Lamb's Pride refill (um, and Koigu);
• The Point, who no longer stock Tahki Shannon;
• Purl Soho, where I managed not to buy anything silky, fuzzy, or tweedy, despite being sorely tempted;
• Knit NY, for stitch markers (can never have enough!) and buttery-yellow sale-bin DB Alpaca Silk (already 25% of the way to being a pair of Fetching wristwarmers;
• Downtown Yarns, for a skein of bright blue sportweight Frog Tree alpaca (the nascient project deserves a post all its own);
• and an intarwebby visit to Simply Knitting, for 50%-off Tahki Shannon (yessss!)

And then, I wrote a pattern. Just like that.

Of course, my real goal was not just to write the pattern, but also to test-knit the sizes (there's four, 'member?), do my photo shoot, and be writing my unveiling post right now. I was actually on track, too, and then a deadliney project popped back up (no, I can't say what it is; yes, you'll certainly find out eventually; and of course I'm evil, that's not news), so I switched over to that.

Oh, and I also shot more yarn porn! At this juncture, I'm fairly certain that yarn falls into the same category as baby animals, sunsets, and British rockstars: It just doesn't photograph badly.

animal cracker makings...

...and the resulting hat! this is actually the one I knit last summer, but the final pattern is the same. see how the Shannon yarn makes the top all variegated and jawesome?

yesterday's Koigu. the gold's not nearly so bright in person, and looked even less bright in the store. not complainin' -- I like bright!

Frog Tree alpaca in the foreground, DB Alpaca Silk in the background. I hadn't planned it, but what an alpaca-y picture.

this isn't new, but it is sexy. Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4ply, which had been earmarked for cabled socks for Jon. I don't think his new girlfriend would take too kindly to an ex knitting for him, so I have no idea what it'll be now.

Kaalund Classic Two, laceweight wool. would you be shocked to hear that I bought it in late winter? :) I think it might become the IK Icarus shawl, if it's not too busy to hide the border.

Vee! I'm a bit further now, and I'm getting a bit terrified of running out of yarn, even though the math says I should be fine.

see how smushy and wrinkly it is right off the needles...

...and how smooth and drapey it is after it's blocked? that's silk for you, I guess. we loves it!

haven't posted about this before, I don't think. this is most of my hipster hat, 2 skeins of Classic Elite Intrigue -- metallic cashmere! the yarn was a congrats-on-permanent-employment present to myself in March.

you can't actually tell, but it's a couple inches short of being done. I was mid-decrease, too, so it'll be a bitch to get back into. I love the way the waffliness shows off the metallic thread. actually I love it in general, I'll be picking my winter coat around it.

a heavily tweaked one skein wonder -- half-length sleeves, allover butterfly lace, and an attempt at a short-rowed shawl collar. I got bored before the collar was actually big enough to fold over, but I still like the fit. (a couple skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca Silk, which had been bouncing around my stash for ages.)

and finally...

new shoes! I was actually looking for shoes suited to knitted socks, and wound up with so-ugly-they're-cute hipster shoes. (they'll still make a nice foil for anklewarmers, so I didn't absolutely fail my mission, riiiight?) my love knows no bounds.

okay, that's it. :)

(Aaaand commenting should be working here, now, so no need to link LJ! You'll need to be register for a Typekey account, if you don't already have one -- sorry for the fuss, but this is the only way I can find to stop myself from getting comment-spammed to death again.)

Lauren posted at 0.11 on 09.25.06 comments (5)

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

sisyphean.

That's the sight I woke up to this morning. Since I'm consistently incapable of waking up early enough to block anything during the day, I decided I could bear, once in a while, to give up my bed to my ~*~one true love~*~ and spend the night on my aerobed. Sunday night saw Kiri sprawled out, and this morning it was Peacock.

Blocking lace is such a pain in the ass, but it's worth every minute spent hunched over your surface of choice, tugging and molding each YO into place. It hadn't really occurred to me, even while I was crocheting them, just how many points Peacock has, nor that I'd need to pin each one out to actually make it pointy. Didn't occur to me, either, that I might not have enough pins -- 'til all of a sudden my tin was empty, and I had another quarter of a shawl to pin out. I had to finish with sewing needles, and I can only hope that I got them all out of my bed. (eek!)

Sisyphean. That's what lace blocking is.

After I unpinned Peacock, I got out its big sisters and took a few pictures of my three painted ladies:

top to bottom: Kiri, Peacock, and Charlotte

I've yet to be happy with any Kiri pictures (nothing I've shot quite does justice to its sheen -- I still swear it must have some silk in it), but Charlotte proved a bit more photogenic.

Of all the design decisions I made on Charlotte, that's the one I love the best: I used my fourth shade (I've long since lost the band, but it's somewhere between sunset and rainbow -- deep shocking pinks and oranges merging into dusky blue and olive) to crochet around the whole thing, and the way it contrasts against the greens by the neck just kills me.

I brought all three shawls to our knitting circle at work (we're all official-like, we've even got a mailing list) because I was so chuffed over them. It seems maybe a little pompous to flit around with all this posh lacework when other people are just starting out, but it's, um, something to work towards, right? Right?

(Non-sequitur #1: Can you tell I got a new camera? Pretty much as a result of the Franz tour -- in the course of taking a thousand-plus pictures in one week, I realized how much my old camera was holding me back. The new one is a Nikon D70, and I fall back in love with it every time I feel the shutter recoil in my hand. Yay for DSLRs.)

(Non-sequitur #2: It occurs to me that, until I get commenting working on the blog proper, the LJ feed will accept comments. I'll try to remember to link to each entry once it propagates.)

comment here!

Lauren posted at 22.40 on 09.19.06 comments (0)

Friday, July 29, 2005

mini-picspam!

The Quidsock pattern is ridiculously close to being finished. My last gauge swatch is blocking, and pretty much as soon as I have internet at home (supposedly tomorrow afternoon, but we'll see), I can put the freaking thing up.

In the meantime, I have proper sock pictures!

The Gryffindor ones are Adrienne's; Ravenclaw are, of course, mine.

whoooooo boy!

Lauren posted at 10.45 on 07.29.05 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)