I need one, too.

I need one. The lovely blogger at Knitted Bliss is attempting this Anthro knockoff, and I wanna do it, too.

I have a few balls of white Big Softie with no planned purpose that I think would be perfect for the ribbing and embroidery. I think that I want a bright color for the cardigan. This one is a little UGG like to me. I was thinking magenta? I think it should be a relatively quick project, once I find a cardigan I like. Ooh, or maybe a hoodie? Should be fun.

One Sock Down.

Lab meeting sock: done. But just one. Since I finished it this morning I've had Norah Jones's "One flight down" in my head. No, it doesn't make sense to me, either.

Quick, easy, and it fits perfectly. All other socks I've made (the whopping two pairs) are a little big in the leg. This time I was like, I'm just gonna cast on an unreasonably small number of stitches, and hope it works. And it did. But now I've forgotten how many that was and will need to count so I can make the next one. 

I think I'm liking sock knitting better than I have before because I got some sweet new Addi Lace Turbo needles. It is so much easier to knit socks with these. Makes me wonder what I was doing before. 

It might be a bit before the sock gets a friend. I want to finish my pink lace sweater first, and my new Vogue Knitting came in the mail yesterday. I literally dreamed about one of the tank tops in it. So I must make. But the sock is portable, which makes the chance of two socks far more likely. I think the best thing to say is that someday, there will be two socks. Someday, sock. Just hold on.

Neapolitan Mittens

Every year my husband's graduate program has a Mardi Gras charity ball. I use the term "ball" loosely here. It's more like a costumed, wine-soaked debauchery fest that happens to be sponsored by school. Last year I wore pink feather eyelashes. I could see nothing. A large part of the charity portion of this event is a silent auction. I always knit something to donate, but usually I'm more on top of it than this year. I totally forgot about it until about a week before hand. So I dug around in the "box of WIPs that stand a chance of being finished someday", which is different than the "box of WIPs that have no chance, but I can't stand the thought of ripping them out yet, and so here they are in this box." I found a nearly done pair of flip-top mittens that I probably started a year ago. Didn't take much to finish them off, and I like how they turned out. Plus, they're made from left over yarny bits, so they're a great stash buster. I think I have the pattern written down somewhere. I'll try to remember to put it on Ravelry soon.

The brown and white are Cascade 220. The hot pink is Encore worsted, and the pinky-purple is yarn I dyed that was left over from my barbie vest- I think it started life as Galway wool.

And some gratuitous photos, because I like photos.

So I hope they get some bids. Unfortunately (for this reason only, because otherwise, it's awesome), it's not really cold enough for mittens anymore. Maybe someone needs to give a gift to a cold-weather-dwelling friend? Never know. 

And now it's too warm for a sweater.

The wonderful thing about living in California is that it's often 75 in February. The crappy thing about being a knitter in California is that it's often 75 in February. I started this sweater at the beginningish of this month, and I'm not sure I'll get a chance to wear it this year. Maybe I'll start a trend and wear it with shorts. Too hot on top, chilly on the bottom. It could work.

I realize this is not a picture of a whole sweater. Oops. Cool pattern, though, right? It's going to be a scoop neck pullover with long sleeves. Here's the first sleeve. I'm stalled on the sleeve because apparently, knitting sleeves with sleeve caps is hard. I figured I'd just knit the thing, because that worked out ok for the body of the sweater, but turns out that's harder when there's a sleeve cap involved. So yesterday, I read just about all of the articles on the interwebs about designing sleeve caps. One article involved calculus. For serious. I stopped reading.

I might just continue on with the current plan, which involves a lot of fudging with the lace pattern and some "oh, that looks like it'll fit in the arm hole". Then the really fun part will be making another sleeve to match.

But really, I have loved knitting this sweater. It's Malabrigo, which is always wonderful to knit with. And I love this colorway- it's Hollyhock. I'm pretty sure it's only going to take 3 skeins of yarn. Seems like so little. But really, it's a fairly open lace pattern on size 10 needles, and it's a fitted sweater. So it's not totally out of line. I'll just have a couple extra skeins, and that's never really a bad thing.

Lab Meeting Sock

In my real life, I have a job. And in my job, we have meetings. I get to knit in these meetings. Therefore, I love meetings. This is the sock I'm working on in my meetings. Got the leg done, and part of the heel flap in this photo. We've progressed since then.

It's Berroco Ultra Alpaca, and the pattern is something that I made up when I didn't copy down the stitch pattern from a book correctly. Dang it. Oh well. By the time I realized that I was making an accidentally-striped sock, I'd gone too far.

This yarn is not my favorite. It's splitty and fuzzy. The fuzzy is less of a problem, because then the 8 pounds of cat fur that inevitably get knitted in don't show so much. At least it was cheap.

Today in my meeting, I forgot how to turn a heel. I had to rip back like 3 times. It's hard to seem like you're paying attention when you're counting, ripping, untangling what you just ripped, and whispering to yourself. Oops. Sorry, other meeting people.

And more yarn for Etsy.

Another one for the etsy store. I really like how this one turned out. After a second dip in the kettle, that is. It's super green. I'm calling it Jurassic Park. I like dinsoaurs.

Luckily, I have a pair of socks that are pretty close to this color already, so the temptation to keep this one is much lower.

Dyeing yarn is addicting. I need more yarn.

Socks, A Sailor's Delight.

These are my first socks of 2012. They're the "Sailor's Delight" pattern from 2 at a Time Socks. A while ago, on Ravelry, I traded a skein of sock yarn that I'd dyed for this skein of yarn. It's J Knits superwash sock yarn in the colorway "Boston". At first, I really didn't like this yarn because it was super splitty. I cast on for the first sock (yes, I knit them one at a time, even though I got the pattern from a 2-at-a-time book) on a slightly drunken Saturday night. The next day, when I resumed said sock, I found it to be totally fine, and not splitty at all. Lesson: we don't knit with fine gauge yarns while drinking. This is a lesson that I will surely learn again.

I really love these socks. I wasn't sold on the color when I got it, but it turns out that they fit right in with my mostly nautical wardrobe. The fact that they're called "Sailor's Delight" may or may not be the reason I chose this pattern. Yes, I have a nautical problem. Don't judge.

This is only the second pair of socks I've made. I hated knitting the first pair. It took the better part of 2011 for me to finish. So no, it doesn't make sense that I decided to knit more socks. But these socks flew by. I knit most of the second one in a Saturday. And I have worn the crap out of them since finishing. Like, so much that they may need to be darned soonish. They just go with so many outfits! I loves them.



New Yarn!

Lately, I've been into kettle dyeing yarn. Well, actually, I've been into hand painting, but that's really not working out for me, so the yarn keeps ending up in the kettle to try and "fix" it. It generally works. Here's one that I'm actually pretty happy with:

I put it in my etsy shop. It was a hard decision. I can totally picture myself wearing socks knit from that yarn. I loves it. But, I'm trying this thing where I don't have more yarn than I can reasonably knit in my lifetime. It requires constant vigilance. It's so easy to fall down and add a few or 10 skeins to my jimmy beans online shopping cart. So that means that yarn dyed for the etsy shop goes into the etsy shop. This one, though... it might get accidentally deleted and end up in my stash. We'll see.

Here are two more skeins I did:

One I love, one, not so much. I'll give you a hint. The one I love ended up in the kettle. Perhaps I'm just not good at hand painting yarn? The blueish one is supposed to look like a peacock. Instead, it looks like an old, tired peacock that someone left in their attic to fade for about 50 years. It makes me sad, and I don't know how to fix it. I think that if I put it in the kettle, it will just end up brown and muddy. Maybe I'll just dye it black and pretend that's what was supposed to happen all along.

Now We're Knitting.

Dear Knitter,

Welcome to my shiny new knitting blog. I made this blog for you, so that you might find inspiration in my success, camaraderie in my failures, and maybe a pattern or two along the way.

I hope you enjoy it.

You're welcome, and I hope to see you around,

Emily

And because no blog post is complete without a photo, here's one. This is what I did this morning instead of cleaning. Well, this and Gossip Girl. So much better than vacuuming.