Sunday, November 27, 2005
 
Pattern: Aimee from Rowan Vintage Style, smallest size
Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze in Liquer, 4 skeins. ALL of it.
Needles: US size 5 and size 6
I like, I like. By the way, that photo on the right, where I look like I've just slipped a disk, is actually me doing The ParisHiltonShouldersBackChestOut pose, aka The PHSBCO. Do the PHSBCO and increase your perceived confidence by 150%.
I wore this yesterday to Nephew B's christening out in western Mass., and despite the lace - and the unexpected snow - it kept me nice and warm in the drafty church we were in.
I didn't make too many changes to the pattern except to go down a needle size. It seems to have affected row gauge enough that I have two full extra stripe/lace patterns than the photo in the magazine. My Aimee is very stripey. Also, there is that hem and opening at the front for a ribbon to thread through, but alas, no ribbon. I just may leave it that way.
I used backstitch for the first time to attach the shoulder seams. I should have ignored the call for sloped shoulder shaping, and then left the shoulder stitches live to do a 3-needle bind off. It would have been so much easier to deal with. Also, though I followed the pattern, the sleeve cap shaping wasn't exactly great. There was too much extra material from the top to the first stripe that you would have had puffy princessy sleeve cap, so I removed several rows from the top. I could have removed even more, but luckily we're dealing with extra fine KSH so the bunchiness isn't too noticeable.
You know what else isn't noticeable? That SNAG I made a couple days ago on the front. I can't find it, so it's not there. Woooooo.
I used every single last bit of the four skeins of KSH. All that's left after weaving in are the scraps cut from the loose ends. That was close.
Filed Under: Completed Projects | Rowan | Aimee
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Paperwhites
Growing nice and fast, but the flower buds themselves look to
be less than robust, due to GROSS NEGLIGENCE in replenishing
its water supply in a timely manner. I give you a C.
Aimee
Seaming is all done, with just a few loose ends to weave in. The
stripes on the arms match up nicely with the stripes on the body. Nice
work, with a suprising display of meticulousness. I like
surprises. But wait, there is a snag smack dab front and center, due
OBVIOUSLY to reckless use of the hanger while trying to set up photo
shoot. Don't think I didn't notice. Because I did. It's RIGHT THERE.
Hello, which is more important, getting the shot of subject
or the subject itself? A little more consideration and respect
next time. B+.
Thanksgiving dinner
You're giving your first Thanksgiving dinner, and instead of a
turkey you decide on a "free range natural young capon." So it
will be a humane and hormone-free Thanksgiving. How ecologically
responsible or whatever. But what the hell is a capon?* In any case, I
give you an A for preparedness.
Christmas Knits
No pictures available at this time, please check back at a later date.
Girl I know you haven't started. F-. It's so bad I might have to give you another. F- again!
*Capon: a castrated rooster
I'm a little behind on my bird lingo,
but the weekend shopping at Whole Foods brought me to my
very first encounter with a capon. KAY-pon. I was just
looking for a plain ole chicken, a nice organic free-range chicken, but
before me lay a vast sea of turkey, duck, goose, cornish hen,
quail...and this capon.
WHERE'S the CHICKEN. I want CHICKEN.
According to the guy behind the meat counter, castrated roosters
taste better than the lady hens' white meat, and are more tender and
succulent. Oh REALLY? says I. Well, let me brine the bejeezus out
of this mofo regardless, and then I'll get back to you. Not that
I have any other option. Capon it is.
WHO would have guessed that genital mutilation had a place in the
Whole Foods philosophy? I suppose I am just naive. I suppose there are
worse things in the world. But like, if you were a chicken, would
you rather be running all around in a field, but castrated, or caged
with your nuts intact?
Filed Under: Life | Aimee
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
With the new job, my daily commute entails a short, stumbling,
sleepy-eyed walk across the hall from the bedroom to the office.
The splash of all that oranginess wakes me right up. Its attempt to be
grown-up and professional is thwarted by that relic from college, The
Futon. Will we ever be rid of it. And will we ever decorate the bare,
bare walls.
That's Veebs filling up the wicker basket nicely. Its usual place is
in the basement but since working from home, I have this cat glued to
my side 99% of the day. He's such a little lover. An annoying little
lover. He's on the desk, in front of the keyboard, walking back
and forth, tail in my face, on my lap where he won't sit still, behind
me on the chair taking up space, making work furry and
soft but quite impossible. With the basket in here he has his own
place to sit, and can leave me in peace.
Aimee and Electra are on the blocking board. (Uh, Electra kinda
looks like the rug...) I'm wondering now if I should just finish up
Electra first, since it really only took about a week to finish a
panel. I'm losing focus these days, which is why I haven't been
knitting as obsessively as I used to. I just can't do multiple projects
at once, and yet my mind wants to wander elsewhere...
Anthropolgie cardigan. I like you.
...to this lovely cardigan
from anthropologie. It looks like a very simple construction - the
bottom looks to be knit in one piece all the way around, then you pick
up stitches along the side for the top portion. I could take a
pattern from the Japanese stitch book
for the top...and maybe decrease that bottom part so it looks less empire-waisted... yeeesss... yeeeeessssss... The store has so many other
inspiring knits which I may just have to go out and buy.
I just found this on amazon.co.jp! Books of 200 more stitch patterns, 500 aran patterns, 1000 aran patterns!!!! God help me.
Filed Under: General Knitting | Life | Aimee | Electra
Monday, October 10, 2005
Rubadubdub, check me out in the tub.
WHAT is Aimee doing in the tub? Because the tub is clean. Here at Chez Knitty McKitty, we finally have the power of Pine-Sol!!! Feel free to come over and let your baby crawl on my kitchen floor. After I finish the post, I will wetblock Aimee in the toilet, just to prove to you how clean our house is now. Sniff sniff sniff, ahhh. So that's what clean smells like.
I don't know how you guys run your household, but we don't. There are no cutesy "Laundry Wednesdays" or "Vacuum Fridays." We've tried though. We are just not routine people. Clothes get washed when they can stand up on their own, things are put away when the cats have puked on them at least twice. Unlike some crazy people I know, I find therapy in not cleaning. Duck is the same way, so between the two of us, we are very very dirty (although I very much remember while we were dating that his room was always SPOTLESS. Hmm. Interesting).
So we have housecleaners now. I KNOW. If you tell my inlaws about this they will kill us, my dad would pinch his nose because the idea stinks. My mom would be cool though. She understands that time is money. The DIY method has had us using up an entire weekend to clean this dumb house from top to bottom. Gross! How many sleeves, scarves, socks could be knit up, how many miles on the biketrail could we cover in that time? Probably bajillions, if not gazillions.
I like how the housecleaners move the furniture so they can get at the corners, where large amounts of Dust Kittens are most likely found, metastasizing quietly in the dark. They really are relentless.
The bolero is coming along slowly. I knitted it up some more in the car, on our way to and back from Grammy's funeral.
(She had the perfect Irish sendoff - it had been sunny and dry all week, then on the morning of her funeral the sky and the bottle of Jameson opened up, and everything turned to slosh, just in time and just for her.)
I finally finished the ribbing around the front and neck. It's very squishy and yummy. But the slopes in the ribbing don't seem to be as smooth or gradual as they look in the picture. Mine are kind of abrupt...I'm going to blame the instructions again and not my technique. I seamed in one sleeve and really had to stretch the cap to get it to fit in the seemingly larger armhole. Luckily it looks alright when I tried it on, but this is for sure the last Debbie Bliss thing I make. I hate her instructions.
Filed Under: Debbie Bliss | Bolero | Life | Rowan | Aimee
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Bolero Jacket from DB Simply Soft
So far I've only worked this in the car. Don't know what happened, but I'm not so ga-ga for it anymore. Figures. But I'll finish it, to get my money's worth if nothing else. I have only the sleeves to do, and then, the Endless Ribbing. Since I'm a renegade/lazy knitter, I did not alter the pattern to account for using Aran rather than Chunky. It's going to turn out smaller than the smallest size. It'll be fine, because I too am smaller than the smallest size.
Aimee from Rowan Vintage Style
 
I am officially President of the KSH Fan Club. Just had do to a couple of rows of this to get my KSH fix. For awhile there I was debating using some of the Liquer to make another Butterfly, and some of it for a shawl. This color is so delicious that I am overwhelmed with the urge to eat it. So, please, pass me the goat hair.
Our favorite gal, Kooch from Rowan 38
 
More Rowan! I just love this coat. By the time I finally decided that yes, I will pay for Rowan 38, they were out of stock everywhere. Everywhere being the one local yarn store that I can get to without driving. (The LYS in Boston which I deemed sometime back as MY LYS doesn't even stock Rowan, so it doesn't count as a reliable source.) A couple of weekends ago, on our way back home from Stowe, VT, we stopped by the ultra-bucolic little town of Woodstock, and as we strolled down the main street I said aloud, "A place like this ought to have a yarn shop, for sure." I had not even finished my sentence when we passed the last store on the street, et voila! Yarn! Fate! Ha Duck was thinking he was in the clear. Little does he know, I'm like the pig sniffing out his truffles. If there is yarn, I will find it.
The pattern for Kooch asks that you purchase 11 skeins of Yorkshire Tweed DK and 11 skeins of Tweed 4ply, and hold them together for a chunky gauge. That's 22 skeins of yarn. Ha HAA you cannot sucker me into paying $170 for two types of yarn, when I can instead pay $65 (shipping included! All the way from the UK!) for 10 skeins of Rowanspun Chunky in Fern on eBay and use the rest of the money I saved to buy shoes.
Filed Under: Debbie Bliss | Bolero | Rowan | Aimee | Kooch
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