Handknits are officially in vogue!

Have you seen this?

Twinkle's Striped Tunic, as it is called in Vogue Knitting's 2005 Holiday issue, is now the Butter Hill Funnelneck, part of anthropologie's fall 2007 sweater collection. Fascinating! So cool that as knitters we were able to be two whole years ahead of what was going to be fashionable in the stores! I only wish I had actually made this sweater like I meant to when I first saw this.

They're advertising it as an actual handknit, selling for $228.00. I might be crazy, but that price does not seem too unreasonable to me...

I mean I tried selling a pair of Red Socks once for more than that.

Here was an email I received recently from a Sox fan:

Here was my reply:

And then here was his reply:

I think I pissed him off. Oh well, art isn't cheap!

(GO SOX!)

Comments [12]
Filed Under: Life

My own sheep and wool festival

While everyone and their cats were at Rhinebeck this past weekend, I was at WEBS. I had a strict game plan, I had a strict list, I had a strict timeline to keep the store experience to under 15 minutes. Any longer than that and my system starts to shut down. Still, from the second I stepped inside my mouth got real dry, my brain couldn't distinguish between sport and aran weight, acrylic from wool, I couldn't add or multiply, I couldn't read, I couldn't decide, I became color-blind. It was horrible.

I can't imagine what a few minutes at Rhinebeck would have done to my health. I don't want to know. I want to stay sane for a little while longer.

So this is what I managed to crawl away with from WEBS.

Noro Garden Silk I mean Silk Garden Lite, enough for 3 pairs of thicky socks. I wasn't going to do Christmas knitting this year but changed my mind.

Malabrigo worsted in Azul Profundo. My first Malabrigo! I'm so into blue, I'm so into this blue. They only had 4 skeins so I'm not sure if I can squeeze a simple sweater out of this, but I'm gonna try.

Remember my decree at the beginning of the year that I would not buy any more yarn for the rest of the year? I had included sock yarn in that decree, which was pretty stupid and is anyone surprised that I lasted for about a second. But aside from sock yarn, I pretty much adhered to the rules of the game: no new yarns purchased at all - until just this weekend.

Not too bad!

Comments [12]
Filed Under: Yarn Stash

Marina Piccolas

I finished the Marina Piccola socks some weeks ago.

Not particularly happy with these as they are probably THE sloppiest socks I've ever made. I don't know what happened but my gauge for the second sock was so off that the leg is more than an inch longer than the first, the heel and foot is loose, and as a result I ran out of yarn just as I was getting to the toe.

Yuck. Bleh. I wasn't even going to post about them but then last night Duck took this shot as I was lounging on the couch watching baseball and since it contains all the ingredients for a crowd-pleaser - some new handknits, some older handknits, some handknits in progress, plus bonus! a fat cat - I thought I'd share.

Don't we all look comfy, with our animals and our yarns? I am wearing the aubergine bolero - celebrating it's 2nd birthday! - and knitting the entrelac socks. Try to disregard the fact that the soles of my socks look like the underside of a Swiffer cloth.

Veebs is not usually a lap cat but lately he's been feelin' the love. Meanwhile, as he spreads out luxuriously along the length of my legs and purrs that gentle, bumblebee purr of his, my little kneecaps are slowly being turned inside out.

Comments [20]
Filed Under: Completed Projects | Socks | Marina Piccola

Found It

I'm flipping on and off like a light switch here.

These are Eunny's Entrelac Socks from IK Spring 2007. I'm using Koigu in the loveliest shade of royal blue and Sundara Sock Yarn in Bartlett Pear, both given to me as gifts. La, I love presents. I love this color pair. It's now my favorite combo du jour, replacing green and purple which had a long and fruitful reign, especially in the old house. But no more. We had barely moved out when the new owners came in and immediately painted the green walls red, and now I must have royal blue and chartreuse in my wardrobe and my bedroom. Our new place has putty-colored walls that would look so much better in a Golden Delicious appley sort of color. Picture that in a bedroom with a rich royal blue duvet cover. Yummy. Anyway.

The Middle East-wrap cast on method for toe-up socks is so cool and so easy that it just about blew my mind. And after I did a couple of tiers of tiles I couldn't stop, giggling like a madwoman as I knit. Because I'm in on the secret: entrelac socks are the simplest things ever! And the outcome is so freaking cool. They're going to be finished in no time.

Comments [17]
Filed Under: Socks | Entrelac

Lost it

After posting only the back side photo of the Side to Side Cable sweater because the front side was just too hideous to share (so tight! so lumpy!), and therefore I realized I hated it, I lost my will to knit.

I hoped trying something brand new would get me out of the funk. So I knitted this gnarly little scrap of entrelac.

Oh HAI do U like mai ontruhlack?

It's all I've done in the last week. Still not feelin' the knitting love yet. Boo.

Oh but I'm so ready to get my weekend on. Lots of sun and baseball to enjoy!

Happy October!

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Just don't know about this one

So I spent the last week applying the body ribbing to the Side to Side Cable sweater, after having seamed what I had already knit. I picked up every other stitches of the body and started the ribbing in the round. It was already 7 inches along before I decided maybe I should try it on before going any further. So I did. And it didn't go any further than my shoulder blades. I almost needed medical assistance to get out of the sweater, my circulation and one arm being nearly cut off.

Removed the ribbing, and now I have a cut-off sweater. I'm not sure it looks right. I'm not sure.

Side to Side Cable Sweater from Vogue Knitting Fall 2007

Some random notes:

I love the traveling cables from sleeve to sleeve, but honestly, it does not look terribly flattering on me. It kind of gave me broad shoulders. I'm ready to play football everyone. Ah, maybe it's ok. Ah, I don't know. I'm on the fence.

The pattern called for two strands of yarn held tog using 10.5 needles. I used one strand of DK-weight yarn and size 7 needles. The sleeves and the collar fit perfectly. If any of you guys end up following the pattern as written I gaurantee you the sweater will not stay on the shoulders. Unless that's the look you want to go for.

After the sleeves, instead of casting on 21 stitches on either side for the front and back part of the body, I cast on 31. It wasn't enough, hence the cropped look. 50 would have done it the trick.

The body was maybe was too tight. I probably should have used a size 8 or 9 needle for the garter stitch body portion only, and the 7 on the sleeve and cable portions.

Will definitely have to add length to the body, this time picking up more stitches and using a fatter needle.

But I can't bother to do this now, I need a little break first.

So, to be continued...

Comments [14]
Filed Under: Vogue Knitting

Things in the kitchen

This post courtesy of my brain being currently unable to string words into interesting or useful sentences. The heat finally got to it.

Cookbooks.

Part of wedding registry. One person bought out the whole thing.

Fan.

Came with the new place. The previous owner had some eclectic tastes...

Cats.

He's always trying to sit on the keyboard.

Ducks.

Make way!

(They're measuring cups!!)

Cats and Ducks.

THE END

PS The side-to-side sweater is nearly completed, just had to get through the weather and a couple more inches of ribbing. Stay tuned! (GEEZ LOUISE was it hot. We spent the evenings grilling and over the dying coals we roasted marshmellows. Guess what though, I hate marshmellows! And yet I ate an entire bag! So gross! The heat made me do it. Also, the leaves are turning colors from being scorched. That's the last time I ask for an extended summer.)

Comments [17]
Filed Under: House |  Cat in the Kitchen | Life

Give me more summer days

So the first day of Fall was several days past, neighbors are placing potted flame-colored mums on their front stoops, and there's a wooly sweater blocking on the blocking board, smelling appropriately like a barn.

But as far as I'm concerned it's still Summer. Lucky for me, the weather is cooperating. 90F forecasted for the next few days!

Homemade sweet Italian sausages from our friendly neighborhood grocer

I'm here on the deck squeezing out every last drop. Am I the only person here who doesn't like Autumn? Probably...

Caprese salad, minus the mozzarella

One of the best things about being in a relationship is that you can eat all the red onions, and he'll still like you for who you are.

Comments [10]
Filed Under: Life

I'm knitting not a sock!

So I've been on a lying binge lately. I've been telling people that I've been really busy and haven't been knitting lately. That's why I have not been blogging lately...and not reading other people's blogs lately...and not reciprocating when they comment or add me as their friend on flickr or ravelry, lately.

The truth is, I've had time to watch every single Red Sox game on tv, and enough time to knit a whole sweater for myself.

Knit in one piece from the sleeve, to the body to the other sleeve.
I'm going to have to do this more often.

This is the sleeve detail of the "Side to Side Cable Top" from the latest Fall 2007 issue of Vogue Knitting. When I saw this my dormant sweater brain cells fired right up, and was carried back years ago to the Pre-Knitting Era, when I came across a sweater like this in anthropologie and fell in love. The way the thick cables traveled up one arm, across the collar and down the other arm again...I dreamt of a lifetime of wintery evenings snuggled in front of the fire...And then I reached out and touched its sticky, decidedly unsnuggly acrylic fabric, gawked at its yucky, inflated price tag and wept. Nothing could be done about it, I had to walk out.

So the bank didn't break that day, but oh my heart. It tells another story.

I tried to get my mother, knitter extraordinaire, to make a version for me. To my surprise she kinda went Hmmm and I was like, What do you mean you "need a pattern?" What do you mean you can't just Do It? and so she never did and that was the end of that.*

Things are different now. I know how to knit. It's so empowering.

Just the other sleeve to go and then the body ribbing to do, which I might omit for that trendy cropped sweater look we've got going on lately. I deviated from the pattern and used a DK weight yarn instead of two yarns held together for a chunky weight. The yarn I'm using - Cascade Lana d'Oro Tweed - is from way way back; the first bag of yarn that would be the start of my yarn stash, in fact. I bought it from WEBS, and being that I was a newbie and didn't fully understand gauge and yardage and sizing, I let the sales associate convince me that I needed 20 skeins of dk weight yarn in order to make an xs sweater. Ha ha!

By design there's some serious negative ease going on. I'm not going to tell you the width of the bust because you will laugh and I will cry. I'll be blocking the bloody bejesus out of this thing so hopefully it will all work out.

It has to!

And now the Season of Sweaters has officially begun.

*(My mother has knit plenty of her own sweaters on the fly, sans pattern. But I think this one skerred her. Or she was lazy. Don't tell her I said that.)

Comments [19]
Filed Under: Vogue Knitting