Sunday, October 23, 2016

Hello, Gorgeous!

Some benefits to working the overnight shift, your body keeps to the hours you're usually awake and working on your nights off, there's little disruption to the knitting.

3 A.M.
Fini!

Jade Fall for my friend. Yarn from my stash from eons ago when I hoarded it. In a color I don't really care for, personally, as it's too green based.

It has had two baths and eight rinses. *sigh* Silk bleeds dye like a stuck pig. Oh, but is it gorgeous.

 photo silk 2_zpsi7cc8uad.jpg



 photo silk 1_zpsggoqq5dl.jpg



* * *

Needle
US 10 - 6.0 mm


Yarn
Tilli Tomas Pure and Simple (discontinued)

How much?
2 skeins = 520.0 yards (475.5 meters), 200 grams

Colorway
Jade

- - -

Yarn
Tilli Tomas Rock Star (discontinued)

How much?
1 skein = 150.0 yards (137.2 meters), 100 grams

Colorway
106 Jade

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Like Trying To Cover The Side Of A Barn

I love beautiful hand-knit sweaters. And this is the season here in the Midwest to wear them. I have one sweater that was given to me by a dear friend of mine that had been given to him by someone who hand-knit for yet another person, but it didn't fit that person which is how he ended up with it. And in a night of passion, I seduced him to give me the sweater.

Not really.

I was cold one afternoon while reading, I'm a fat chick, and the sweater fit. So he gave it to me.

But the idea of seducing someone to get a quality hand-knit soft wool sweater is a better story.

Anyway.

So the Yarn Harlot posted about Rhinebeck. If you don't know about that fiber event, I'm pretty sure you're not into any of the fiber arts. Go read. I'll wait.

In the Harlot's post, she has a pictures of people in their lovely sweaters they all knit themselves. And that's when the sweater envy begins to creep up on me.

Then the asshole advertisers at Facebook slap this picture on my wall.


 photo yes_zpspsgerxih.jpg



*swoon* I adore texture knitting. Cables are a weakness.

More info on the pattern and materials here.


The problem begin to mount when I think of knitting that gorgeousness:

1. I am the world's slowest knitter. I prefer the knitting to the finished object. It is the bane of my friends' hand-knit gifts from me. It will take years for me to get a project done. And if the pattern has problems? One friend is looking at nearly a fucking decade for a bloody hat I want to make her. She doesn't have much patience, luckily, she likes me.

2. I get bored easily. Knitting miles of monkey work? Add that to a nature documentary on YouTube, PBS or Netflix and I've overcome my menopausal insomnia. Sometime even without the documentary. (Monkey work = any plain knitting you can basically do without even looking at it. Garter stitch, purl stitch, ribbed stitch, etc. And miles of it.)

3. I am fat. Been big, round, chunky, fat since puberty. (High school I was solid, but I was also swimming miles on the junior varsity and varsity teams. Sure as hell not doing that now.) So to make a sweater that would fit me would be expensive. The amount of yarn I'd have to purchase would be enough to have to cover the side of a bloody barn. Plus? All that knitting? See item 1.

To ease my sweater envy, I usually knit toddler sweaters. It does take me a bit, but the thought of the child growing like a tomato plant in July keeps me under pressure to complete the sweater before they're a teenager. And I saw this post by the Yarn Harlot. Too sweet.

For now, though, I have a silk scarf to complete for a friend. I've pulled the yarn out for the shark hat out (AGAIN) after washing it and allowing it rest for a month, to attempt the knit now that things have been cleaned up in the pattern by the designer. And I have a pair of thrummed mittens to kick out for another friend, it's a Christmas gift from 2014.