Tres Chic Veronique

I wasn't sure I wanted to go to Smiley's Yarn Riot. I'd read that the lines were 2 hours long, that people were fighting over yarn... It seemed like a zoo. But my friend Liisa requested my advice in choosing yarn, and she didn't have to twist my arm too much. So I went, and even brought $60, knowing I wouldn't spend it, but you never know. Well.
First of all, it wasn't too crowded (at 6pm on tuesday). Second, the line wasn't that long. Here's what it looked like:

Yes, they hand out laundry baskets at the door instead of regular shopping baskets.
Here's Jamie's loot:

(Can you tell we went a little crazy?) Looks like Curtis will be getting a scarf!
Both Jamie and Liisa bought so much yarn that they were given garbage bags. Here's Liisa's garbage bag, at the bar of the Holiday Inn where the riot took place:

Here's what's inside the bag:

Liisa and I both bought 10 balls of Paton's Brilliant. See?

Liisa is going to make a fancy scarf for her mother and I want to make Teva Durham's Brilliant Retro from the winter Interweave Knits. Yes, I know you can't really see the sweater on the preview website because the picture is so tiny. What can I say? I trust Teva.
Rebekah didn't purchase anything at the Riot, but she got 17 skeins of yarn from a farmer in Vermont over Thanksgiving... In fact, she started making a hat.

In addition to the Paton's Brilliant, I also got Grignasco Merinogold, which is somewhat similar to Zara or Aurora 8 except it's a *little bit* less soft. The 10 balls in their box look a little bit like eggs and I petted them carefully. They can't wait to be dyed.

Total amount spent: $85. (Thank you Rebekah for loaning me $20!).

I *just* handed out my thesis. Phew.
My external committee member's lab is in the Cornell/Weill hospital, and of course I got lost in there. Why are hospitals so confusing?! After that nerve racking experience, I got an email from the Dean's office telling me to fax them an "advisor-signed form approving the distribution of (my) thesis to committee members". Oops! (Also, I find it amusing that my advisor, who happens to be the Dean, did not tell me about this form. Anyway, our lab manager has a stamp with his signature, so all is well).

Since my advisor was reading my thesis this weekend, I had plenty of time to knit without worries. I finished the DNA scarf (for my advisor) and one Vinternatt mitten! A little note about Fair Isle: I tried to weave in the color that's not being used. I really tried. It looked terrible. So I ripped back and re-knit, this time using the stranding method. Much better! The recipient of the mitten will just have to be careful not to trap her fingers in the strands... I also progressed on Mermaid. (No pics. Imagine the same Mermaid as last time I showed you, except 2" longer).

I found the perfect thing to do while waiting for my boss' annotations on my thesis: knit! Unfortunately, this is frenetic knitting, and not very soothing. It is productive however.
Perfect for Mermaid, which is all garter stitch, with over 100 st per row. Since last week, I've heroically knitted, on size ONE needles, from the halfway point of the back to the beginning of the right front. That's what, 25% of the body? I'm counting that each front is 25% and the back is 50% (and the sleeves don't count, but for those who want to know, I've knitted one already). So I'm 75% done! See, math can be a good thing.

...Also perfect for the Vinternatt mitten, for which I have to forget about all outside distractions and focus on the chart. The key here is to *forget all outside distractions*. (Look closely: do you see I received Jess Hutch's robot booklet?)

Of course, I couldn't keep my focus for too long so I also worked on the DNA scarf. I have 4 balls of Knit Picks' Andean silk, and I'm into the 3rd one already. Yes! My labmate Karen agrees that it indeed looks like DNA.
Oh, and I haven't shown you the brioche capelet, which I completed last week and wore to The Point last friday. I forgot to ask Marie and E to take a pic though, so you just get a mirror shot.

Hopefully this nervous energy will not last... Good thing I get to hang out with friends this weekend. I get to help my friend BB, who's in the planning stages of a cabled sweater for her husband. Now, she's only knitted one sweater ever, so I envisioned a plain sweater with one cable down the front. After a long time spent looking for a pattern with him, she eventually gave up and let him find his own. Now this cracks me up: he bought an Alice Starmore book on amazon! He gets points for finding the best designer, but this would be BB's second sweater ever.... Gulp.

Not much knitting going on... But my thesis is now over 70 pages long! And it's been handed over to my boss, so the monkey is off my back. At least for a day or so, and then I'm sure I'll have a gazillion corrections to make. Then I hand it out to my committee on wednesday, ack!

As for those "anonymous" commenters wanting to know what is the perfect gift for me-- I mean for a knitter... Check if your friend has a Wish List with Amazon. Or JimmyBeansWool.com. One thing I've been lusting after cause it's so damn expensive is a cool bag for my knitting. I used to sneer at knitting bags, thinking someone figured they could make a regular ol' bag, call it a "knitting" bag and overcharge knitters for it. But Lexie Barnes "lady B" bags at kpixie (a really cool online store) are the cleverest and I'd splurge on one of these cuties:





If it weren't for the $120 price tag!! Damn. Maybe my friends should get me a millionaire boyfriend who will keep me supplied in yarn and knitting bags. Or I could become a millionaire myself, if I started manufacturing some of these so-called "knitting bags".

Look what's been going around blogland: the IK preview. Is it me, or is this issue coming out really late (dec 13)? Maybe they got so busy with Knit Scene that they put the regular issue on hold... Anyway, I love the idea of seeing the projects before the magazine is even printed.

Another thing going around blogland:

Your Birthdate: May 3

You are more than a big ball of energy - you are a big ball of hyper. You are always on the go, but you don't have a type a personality. Instead of channeling your energy into work, you instead go for fun and adventure. Witty and verbal, you can have an interesting conversation with anyone. Your strength: Your larger than life imagination Your weakness: You tend to be pretty scattered Your power color: Lime Your power symbol: Lightening bolt Your power month: March

Well, it is true that instead of "channeling my energy into work", I am writing a post... And I love my power symbol: the thunderbolt! (Better than a snowflake).

I've also been doing some dessert knitting. Yes, I've been a bad girl. The veggies (Mermaid, the Brioche capelet and the DNA scarf) were completely tossed aside last night in favor of my first attempt at Fair Isle. I received the Vinternatt mitten kit from Nordic Fiber Arts (super friendly owner by the way)! Since I had never done Fair Isle before, I practiced on some scrap yarn for about oh, 10 rows... then I dove in! I've got the cuff done, and I'm 7 rows into the mitten. I also finished the lining for the cuff, using Marnie MacLean's no sew hem technique: you pick up the stitches that were on hold, knit up your lining with smaller needles then you fold over your lining to its final position so the lining stitches and the regular stitches are all lined up. Finally, you knit together one lining stitch with one regular stitch all the way around. Then you just go on knitting your regular stitches. Brilliant. And neat!

Yesterday night, I realized I have many eat-your-veggies knitting projects. The Brioche capelet held my fascination (those cool increases!) until the rounds became large and increase-less: it went from dessert knitting to eat-your-veggies knitting. (One more inch and I'm done though...).
Enter an old boring project that had been tossed aside: the pumpkin gauntlets. They are so old that they're new again! So I finished the last couple of inches on a measly 47 st, finished the thumb and did the Kitchener bind-off *without the aid of any reference book*. (It was in the living room and my roommate had guests, and I didn't feel like rooting around my mess in front of an audience).

I hereby present: the right gauntlet conquering Manhattan! (The left gauntlet is still conquering Europe).

Project specs for the pumpkin Renaissance gauntlets:

• pattern: my own! 20 st of 1:1 ribbing, with twisted K st and 27 st for the cable panel (3 st rev st, 9 st cable #1, 3 st rev st, 9 st cable #2, 3 st rev st). The cable was lifted from Teva Durham's Renaissance tunic, IK Winter 2002. The gauntlets were knit top-down, so I had to make the thumb gusset upside down (ie start with all the thumb st and decrease until all the thumb st are gone).
• yarn: Debbie Bliss' Alpaca Silk DK in burnt orange (#4) purchased at The Point
• needles: US 4 wood needles, 2 of which broke; 2 cable needles: a metal one and a toothpick.
• wearability (1-10): 8 or 9. Although the yarn is super soft, the gauntlets are long enough to keep my wrists warm and they look a little like opera gloves, they are a little bit tight. I hope they will stretch upon wear, as Lisa suggested!

Everybody needs a new project! In fact, my friend BB, who's knitting her first "big" project right now (Ubernatural), remarked that finishing a project is not fun. Sound familiar? She's completed the body, and almost done with one sleeve, and all of a sudden, she is obsessed with buying more yarn and casting on for new projects. (Although she is not a sock knitter, she immediately "got" the concept of SSS -Second Sock Syndrome- when I explained it to her). Anyway, I was a terrible role model: my solution was to put in a Knit Picks order so we could get free shipping. We spent $70.

I do not have much loyalty to my projects. I go through a big honeymoon phase, where the project is technically challenging -but not too much- the yarn is beautiful and I just want to work on this project all the time. Sometimes, if the project is quick, the honeymoon phase can last from cast-on to cast-off (Flower Basker Shawl!). Other times.... Let's just say I have a few half-knitted things laying around (Mermaid--no link, I'm too ashamed).

Here are my old and crusty unfinished projects (OCUPs):

• Vesper socks. When I wound the hank, I counted how many 3 stripe repeat (red-pink-green) there were, and calculated that I could do 18 per sock, plus one repeat to make an afterthought heel. That's a lot: I got knee socks out of 19 repeats. Unfortunately, I did not increase for the calves, so I now have very tight knee socks. I should rip and reknit. *Should*
• The Habu Collar: oh, this mohair is not scratchy at all! By the way, the picture on the Habu website looks dreadful, but I swooned when I saw it in person. Unfortunately, this capelet/collar is crocheted. Enough said. (But the knitted collar was completed in one evening).
  
• Liisa's Hush-Hush: this one pains me. Liisa claims that all knitted objects look awful! *gasp* When she found (all on her own!) Knitty's Hush-Hush, and exclaimed that it was the only pretty knitted item she had ever seen, what could I do? I was forced to make it for her. She got me the yarn 2 summers ago, and I thought I'd have it for her birthday last October, then this October... Do you know how mind numbing it is to knit stockinette in the round on size 2 needles? Do you? I got bored halfway through. I keep Hush-Hush on my couch as a reminder that I should knit it. That trick does not work, just in case you wanted to try it.
  
• Rowan's Red Hot: I was enamoured with my discontinued red Calmer purchased on eBay... I knit a front, a back and 2 sleeves. And then, disaster. The back and front were knit last Thanksgiving, under the influence of my mother's family, very tightly. Once I got home, I knit the sleeves. They are super loose. *sigh* I ripped most of it out. Not all at once, that was too painful.
  
• this list is too depressing and stressful. Let's move on.
  

• Norwegian mittens: I cannot wait to try Fair Isle. I know the tension will be all weird, and I know I'll be cussing, but I also know that I will figure it out in the end. And that one little moment when you've mastered the technique is all worth it. But then, knitting the second mitten will be tedious. (Hey! I think I've answered BB's question about why it's boring to finish a project!).
• Jess Hutch's robots and other assorted little guys: Are these not cute and manly at the same time? Good for kids but not it a demeaning Disney way? I've already purchased Knit Picks' Merino Style in an assortment of colors.
  

The yarn swap at Gleek's was also the unveiling of the Mystery Shawl 2. I knitted like crazy on friday night so I could finish the shawl and bring the left-over Merino Oro to the swap. I work so much better on deadlines...
My friend BB has been very confused by the notion of "blocking" and since blocking lace is the most spectacular blocking there is, I documented the blocking process. (Ack! I just wrote "blocking" 4 times in one sentence). Here is the shawl spread out before blocking.

I dunked it in Eucalan wash for 20 minutes, then gently squeezed out the excess water.

Notice how huge it has become: I now need 3 towels!

And here it is, all dry and pretty.

I must admit, I never thought I could knit something so light and airy and... complicated! The concept of the Mystery Shawl, where you get only a portion (or "clue"!) of the pattern, is brilliant. You only focus on a tiny part at a time.

Patten specs:
Yarn: Ornaghi Filati-- Merino Oro, purchased from One Fine Yarn about a year ago, $16. You get a whopping 1375 yds in a 100g hank (that's cobweb weight!) but I only used 56 g/770yds. The remaining 44g are in Sarah's hands...
Started on Sept 30, completed on Nov 11.

And now, to the swap! Stephanie generously invited all Spiders to her apartment. I stuffed my face with her husband's delicious cooking, as well as Sarah's hmm-hmmm cake (Grand Marnier....).

Here is the loot, all spread out on the floor. Although Marie (right) is fondling 8 skeins of mohair, Katie (left) will go home with it. Stephanie (background) is still checking everything out. Not pictured are Sarah, Lisa and Abby.

And here is my loot! The red yarn (Red Heart Ping Pong) has little orange pompoms AND glitter in it. Glitter! I also grabbed 4 balls of Patons' Grace in a very bright yellow (darn, not enough for another Orangina). I am in love with the Karabella: 4 balls of Aurora 8 in a light brown, 1 ball Aurora 8 in dark brown, 1 ball Aurora bulky in a matching dark brown. And lastly, 3 balls of self-striping silver/white flat ribbon.
I now have to plot what to make with all of this...

I was watching one of my favorite movie channels, the "old movie channel" (TCM) and guess what I found? Knitting!
The movie is called Quality Street (just like the candy!) and features Katharine Hepburn as a pretty young thing at the turn of the century who is fixated on getting married. (I guess that's what young women did back then). Anyway, she visits her old spinster aunts, and guess what they're doing?!

Spinster #1, the bitter and mean one

Spinster #2, the nice and pretty one

Group of spinsters

I got a great kick out of seeing knitting on TV at first. Then I realized how these women were portrayed as pathetic. One of the spinsters has even made a wedding dress, just in case one of them ever got proposed to. She gives it to Hepburn of course. At this point, I had to turn the TV off. Aren't you glad that we are part of the new knitting generation?

I just now looked at the plot synopsis on IMDB, and it seems much more complex than I thought. Hepburn has a crush on a doctor, and assumes he's going to propose. Instead, he enlists in the army and is gone for 10 years (wimp!). Upon his return, he's shocked, shocked! to discover how old she looks (and how old do *you* look, mister?). Anyway, Hepburn spruces herself up for a ball, just to prove him wrong. She transforms herself so completely that he doesn't recognize her! She takes the game up one notch by pretending to be someone else, her own niece in fact. They spend the evening flirting, but in the end, he admits that he cannot marry this beautiful young girl because a) the "niece" is too ... flirty --clearly a deplorable quality in a young woman-- and b) he's in love with the old Hepburn. Happy ending, right? Well, no. The dreaded spinsters, pictured above, are watching Hepburn like a hawk so she can't even tell him that she IS the old Hepburn. Ooh, those evil knitting spinsters!

Yes, I had another dyeing party! I couldn't keep my hands off of Marie's Procion dyes. Can you believe she loaned me 5 different dyes? I narrowed it down to 3 colors that I thought would look good for overdyeing my bright orange yarn: chocolate, bronze and rust. I did a little test, like so:


In the end, I chose chocolate. Here are my 3 newly brown skeins , and my 3 old red skeins. On the side, you can see the 3 test strands: chocolate on the bottom, bronze in the middle and rust orange on top.

I have to admit I was so impatient to get my yarn to dry that I plopped it in front of a fan, wound it as soon as it was dry (2 hours!), and started knitting immediately.
It looked so nice that I posted on the Scarf Style/Wrap Style KAL. Did you know I am the first to post about a Wrap?

Here's a cross post:

I took photos of the unusual cast-on edge for the brioche capelet (Shadow Dance). The pattern instructs you to do a provisional crochet cast-on (I did mine with orange waste yarn). Then, once you've knitted a bit, you simply unravel your waste yarn. I was afraid the whole thing would unravel, but, miracle of miracles!, it did not. Here's a photo tutorial :

I also would like to note that the instructions for the brioche stitch are much more detailed here compared to IK Spring '05. (Specifically on how to work the purl rows).

I have an honest-to-goodness FO to show you! Here I am modeling the Rebecca Apricot cardie. Specs:

Pattern: Apricot Jacket from Rebecca magazine #27

Yarn: Rowan's All Seasons Cotton, purchased on super-duper sale from the eBay vendor Cucumberpatch UK for $24.99, in color Copper. Not my first choice, but did you see the price?! Actually, now I like this color. I'm on an orange kick, so sue me.

Rants: Boy oh boy. The instructions suck ass. I looked at the photo to figure out what I was supposed to do. That's ridiculous. Thankfully, there's a knit-along on Craftster and it eased my pain to know that I was not alone, cussing in my apartment.

Wearability factor: pretty high, but it's so snug! And my buttons are too small for the buttonholes, so I keep busting out. Maybe it'll stretch and I'll redo the crochet edging to make the button loops smaller (chain 1 instead of chain 2).

I've spent most of the weekend knitting on the Mystery Shawl 2. The edging is loooooog. I ball-parked it at 50 repeats total, but I'm at the half-way point and I've done 30. *sob* Fortunately though, knitting this 10 row repeat 30 times means I almost have it memorized. Yes, I still look at the chart. I'm in my comfort zone, ok?

The first photo shows my progress mid-weekend, and the second shows what I had by sunday night (well, photo taken monday morning). I can really see this shawl emerging from its crumpliness...

You know the best part about this? The Mystery Shawl 2 knit-along contains 5 "clues" (chunk of the pattern), one per week. This is good, as I would cry if I saw the entire pattern. Anyway, it's taken me one week to complete each clue, and now I'm at 2 weeks for clue 5. Which I thought was pretty good. Until I saw Eunny Knits' blog. She knit a larger shawl, on smaller needles than I'm using in oh, about one week. How is that even possible? Do you realize it took me the entire day on sunday to knit 23 repeats (that's 1/3 of the total)? I console myself in thinking that maybe she became obsessed with the shawl, could not think of anything else all week, and went a little batty. Whereas I kept my sanity (mostly) intact. Right? Right?!

This summer, I was making a list of all the NYC yarn stores I've been to. For each one, I noted vital info such as what brands were stocked and whether the salespeople were friendly. I also tried to catch the gist of each store: luxury yarns, snobby staff, easy going, aggressively friendly owner, non-english speaking staff etc.

And now, I've turned it into a quiz!
Find out "what NYC yarn store you are?"

I should point out that I frequent all of these stores. I don't think one is "better" than the other, but rather that they each have a distinct personality. Based on my mood, I might go to one or another. Take the quiz and find out which one you want to go to today!

Spiders? I know what yarn store we all want to be, but fess up!

My computer is on the fritz. But not for long, because the IT guys came to my rescue. Actually, they are still rescuing, which means I cannot post any pics.
Instead, I will show you an interesting tidbit of information: how could we not love an online crafty magazine with the headline "you're going to die anyway, so you might as well knit"? Their concept is great, but I don't think I will make anything from their premiere issue. Wait, let me see that again...

Bridget list:

• Number of repeats completed on the mystery shawl 2: 7 (out of 50)
• Number of repeats fudged up: 1
• Number of repeats I will frog and re-knit: 0
• Number of back pieces completed on the Apricot Jacket: 1
• Number of front pieces: 2
• Number of sleeves: 2
• Amount of seaming completed: 50%
• Number of wearable Apricot Jackets I will bring to The Point on friday: oh boy, it better be 1.

Number of projects I'm loyal to: 0
Number of edging repeats required for the Mystery Shawl 2: oh, about 50.
Number of edging repeats completed: 4.
(Hey! How did the 90% completed Rebecca Apricot Jacket get in this shot?)

Number of Renaissance gauntlets completed: 1. ONE. UN. UNO. One whole, entire gauntlet. And I even cast on for the second one. Don't want to get second gauntlet syndrome...
(Look! The Renaissance gauntlet has conquered Europe!)

Number of times I've dyed Knit Picks' Andean Silk in red and orange: 2. (Yup, I was at it again last night).
Number of dye jobs I'm satisfied with: 0
(See? The red is nice and red, thanks to the 3 packets of Tropical Punch Kool Aid and red food coloring. Good. The orange? Not so orange. I'm trying to intimidate this so-called "orange" yarn with black dye. Ha!)

Number of balls knitted on Rebekah's project: 1 (yes, I told you about this already, but I have a picture of it now). This baby blanket is one big stockinette square with a 5 st garter border. Rebekah claims it is knitting valium for her after about 2 rows. We have a deal: I purl, she knits. It worked pretty well I think.

Number of new projects started: 1. Stay tuned!
Random note: did you see that WendyKnits has just started knitting Hanne Falkenberg's Mermaid? I'm making mine, in color 9, on size 1 needles. It is a project that is both easy (garter stitch!) and yet still interesting (short row shaping!). But, did I mention the size 1 needles? Also, now that I've reached the halfway point, the pattern instructs me to "reverse shapings". So I'm stuck at the halfway point. Something tells me WendyKnits won't be...

(Psst! Sarah: I changed the comments settings from "only registered users" to "anyone", so you can comment away).