I get rather, um, verbose beneath this cut. And, if somehow you have neither read nor seen Jane Eyre and haven’t absorbed the story just by being alive, I guess I should warn you that here there be spoilers. Read the rest of this entry »
Wow, how gorgeous is this sneak peek on Design*Sponge (click on either of the pictures or the links to view their original post and tons more pretty photos)? It’s not something I could ever pull off in my own home, because I am too obsessed with ridiculously bright colors, but it’s so beautiful. I covet this kitchen. The ceiling! And, I can’t lie – I’m not exactly a clotheshorse, but I wouldn’t mind converting an entire bedroom into a dressing room/boudoir.
Oh, D*S. You make me feel guilty about the fact that the closest I have come to home improvement DIY in the past few months is buying a cheap bed frame from Ikea and painting it purple. Oh well.
Way back in the day (okay, probably just a couple of years ago, but I can’t remember exactly when), I decided I wanted a Harry Potter scarf. So I made one! God, knitting is awesome and straightforward.
This is just a big old tube, and it’s sort of impractical because I (sadly) am not a teenaged wizard living in the Scottish mountains, but I love it. Longer than I am tall, and too wide to wrap around my neck more than once, and nerd nerd nerdy. Just what I want in a scarf!
Please excuse (a) this awkward picture and (b) my messy bedroom. Further details to come later, but I thought this deserved to be revisited.
Remember this sweater? Or, more accurately, remember that close-up of stockinette? Well, it’s about 95% done now! Yes, that’s right. Four months later, I am still not finished with this baby. I knit the body up to the sleeves, then decided I didn’t like the hem, so frogged it and started over. When I moved, I had two sleeves and a body done. Then I zipped through the rest, boldly refusing to try it on before binding off. Which was obviously a mistake.
Basically, I’ve knit this thing eighteen times. It’s worth it, though! I’m in love already. And I’m so close to the end now! I just need to buy some buttons and block it and then I’ll be free to fold it up and never wear it because I live in Phoenix, Arizona. Hmm.
The internet has done wonders for my knitting. When I started knitting, I was pretty content to make 2×2 rib scarves until I died, just pleased to be turning string into fabric. I made a couple of floppy hats for myself and a friend, and that was about it. And then I discovered Ravelry, and pictures, and zillions of other knitters, and fancified yarns, and I was a goner. And now, having gone after cables and garments and lace, I feel pretty safe saying I’m a Knitter, rather than someone who knits.
Next step? Become an Embroiderer! Is that a real word? I do not care. I have been a Flickr maniac, browsing through pages and pages of embroidery photos, dreaming of, I don’t know, pillowcases and journal covers, whatever. Here are some of the photos I’ve been drawn to.
Just you wait – one day soon, embroidery will enjoy the same hipster-fication that knitting has been undergoing in the past few years. I’ll be ahead of the game this time.
1. crewel embroidery – elsy965
2. an embroidered pillowcase – sonnetofthemoon
3. Alfhidd Fågel – Ikea
4. Embroidery Skeins – incurable_hippie
5. sachet – alisontauber
Okay, so it’s been a while. In my defense, I did quit my job and move to another state in the many months since I last posted, but that really didn’t take up that much of my time, so the sad truth is that I have not been blogging because I am lazy. But that all changes today! Today I begin the backlog of posts about knitting projects, harebrained schemes, and aspirational crafty plans I’ve been hoarding since April 7th!
To begin: my current knitting obsession is plain, simple garter stitch triangle shawls. I made a textured shawl (post to come soon – I swear!), and it was all downhill from there. This one has no pattern – simple increases, and the edging/bind-off Jared Flood uses for the Hemlock Ring Blanket (does this have a name?), and voila! My mom saw it and joked that I should give it to my 3-year-old cousin, but I think the size is perfect for wearing it as a scarf, rather than a shawl. I did have to block it somewhat aggressively to get it to this size, though – more yarn would have been nice.
Yarn: Knit Picks Palette in Golden Heather, about 1.75 skeins
Needles: I wish I remembered – large enough for a fairly open knit
on Ravelry
And now, blog, I promise not to leave you alone again. But for now I have to go nurse the head wound my recycling can gave me while I tried to wrestle with it in these ridiculous Phoenix monsoon winds.
Quick knitting update: I’m working on two things right now. Both of them are purple, because I contain multitudes of ages inside of me. Grouchy old ladies, Lisa-Frank-obsessed pre-teen girls, you know.
First, a sweater. No pattern for this, which is kind of scary. I contemplated writing up a pattern as I went along, but as I was sketching out my ideas, I realized it is based too heavily on other designs, so that won’t be happening. Right now it’s just a giant blob of stockinette, but it will ultimately resemble some sort of cross between the Garter Yoke Cardigan and Lucy in the Sky. I have knit Lucy in the Sky, and loved it, so I’m maintaining a fair amount of the construction, with a garter yoke (though the neckline on that would never work on me, so I am not attempting to reproduce it exactly).
I’m knitting it in one of my absolute favorite colorways of Cascade 220, Rainier Heather. This picture doesn’t get it exactly right because it was taken in low light, but it does capture what might be my favorite thing about this yarn.
It’s purple, but look at those weird and wonderful yellows in there! They only come out in certain lights, and I love them. It’s almost like an oil slick. In a good, aesthetically pleasing way, not a gross, environmentally unsound way.
I’m also working on the Woodland Shawl in Garnstudio DROPS Alpaca. This is my first time working with 100% alpaca, and let me tell you, I am sold. This stuff is soft. I kind of feel like I’m knitting a little purple cloud. The pattern is really simple and easy to memorize, and the result will be, I hope, very pretty.
It’s like a giant orange flying saucer.
This is the Moss Stitch Beret, courtesy Kent’s Craft. It’s a lovely, straightforward pattern that produces a delightful result, but it took me ages to knit. Because this yarn (the tag to which I lost years ago, so I have no idea what it is other than 100% wool and incredibly soft) bled like crazy. Honestly, I looked jaundiced before I had even completed one row, so I could never work on it unless I had lots and lots of time in which to wash my hands over and over before being seen by the general public. However! I persevered, and (after many orangey rinses before blocking) it is done! And I am a fan.
I’ve never loved seed stitch, and had been incorrectly informed that it and moss stitch were the same thing, so it was also a nice surprise to discover that they are, in fact, different, and I actually kind of love moss stitch. Also, it works a whole lot more quickly than seed stitch, which is never a bad thing.
At around the same time that I was tackling lace, I decided the time had come to tackle cables. I’ve never been that confused by the mechanics of cables (cabling needles, for example, seemed pretty self-explanatory), but I had just never gotten down to the business of actually making a cable. I’m a little embarrassed to say that with all the beautiful patterns out there involving cables, what pushed me over the edge and made me add that extra needle to my project was this:
And yes, in case you’re wondering, I do feel very silly now. But we’re definitely not here to talk about Twilight! We’re here to talk about those mittens! They’re huge! And completely unnecessary for the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, but entirely necessary for my imaginary life in which I live in the mountains, where there is snow. So you can guess how pleased my imaginary snow-bunny self was to discover that other, more industrious knitters out there had been hard at work coming up with a pattern for these.
Back to the balcony:
I used Valley Yarns Stockbridge, which is an Alpaca/Merino blend, held doubled. They are outrageously warm, so who knows if I will get a chance to wear them anytime soon, but that is okay. Because I have them.
(By the way, in these last two posts, I am wearing a sweater I WISH I had knit – it is a cashmere blend cabled crewneck, and I covet it and want to own hundreds. Sigh. If only I could knit about a thousand times faster and making copies were actually feasible.)
On the moon we had gold spoons. 