tubey picture test

http://www.flickr.com/photos/93725391@N00/116503544/?rotated=1&cb=1143064841828

Photo-lacking.

Gosh, it's been a while since I've posted. I've got a lot of stuff going on. First and foremost, break out the champagne and the streamers because I finally finished Tubey! Yay! My first adult-sized sweater ever! Stupid photo-thingy. I'm not able to acutally upload any pictures right now. I promise I'll post pictures really soon.

The other thing I'm super-excited about is a sock yarn swap that matches up with Project Spectrum. Zarah is coordinating it: basically you get a pal and each month you hand-dye sock yarn in the colors of the month (using Kool-aid, or your dye of choice) then you send it off to your pal and get a skein from them in the mail. I ordered 10 hanks of Knitpicks Dye-your-own sock yarn. There are 5 months left in PS so each month I will dye two hanks-one for my pal and one to keep. I'm really excited about it-I read a couple of tutorials on how to get self-striping yarn so I think it will turn out really good. Everyone who is interested should head on over to Zarah's blog and sign up!

Other random knitting things: I received my hand-dyed yarn from Sarah for Team First Sweater, which I think I mentioned before. I was going to post a picture, but.....next time. Also, I am almost to the toe decreases of my first ever sock. It is so addicting, I can't put it down. I loved doing the short row heel....it was like magic! I was also going to post a picture of the lovely postcard I got from my postcard swap pal for Project Spectrum, but....again, next time. Stupid photo-hoster thing. I guess this is a pretty boring post with out all the pictures to illustrate what I'm talking about, but next blog will be photo heavy, I promise.

Stash Enhancement

Yesterday I went on a "Yarn Crawl" of Richmond with Beth. Here's what I came home with:

I know, I know....much much more than I intended on coming home with. We started with Lettuce Knit, a cute store with a HUGE selection in a stip mall near Stony Point Mall. As we were pulling in to the shopping center I saw girl scouts selling their yummy cookies so we stopped and loaded up. That was the first sign it was going to be a good day. We then walked over to Lettuce Knit and ohmigoodness what a treat-they were in the midst of their semi-annual blowout sale. Up to 40% off some yarns!!! The store was packed and yarn was everywhere! Beth found some pumpkin-colored yarn for 40% off that she'd been wanting and I saw lots of everything I wanted. I settled on getting 10 balls of Elsbeth Lavold Chunky AL-enough to do a simple sweater. I also got a pattern book-Rowan Bigger Picture-based on a sample they had on the wall. I didn't get the yarn (Rowan Big Wool) there because they didn't have enough of the color that I liked, but I will order it online. Next up was The Knitting Basket. It was off of Grove St, kind of downstairs and on the back side of the building. They had a very impressive book and magazine collection (including back issues dating to the early 00's) but their yarn selection was a little lacking compared to Lettuce Knit. They had a sample knit up of the alphabet baby blanket from The Baby Knits Book by Debbie Bliss. I'd seen this knit up at Sweetpea Knits, one of my favorite blogs (see sidebar) and it's so soft. I bought the book. I don't have a particular future baby in mind, but we'll see how long it takes to make. Maybe it could be for my own one day. I didn't buy the yarn for that either, they had a good baby yarn selection, and good prices, I just didn't see this as a project I'd be starting soon. The third store was the Yarn Lounge in Carytown. This was my first visit to Carytown, and I liked it. Very hip shopping area with some cool sidewalk cafes. This shop was very modern, minimal selection but lots of quality stuff. They have lots of great samples to drool over. One caught my eye not so much for the colors but the texture of the yarn. I poured over patterns for quite a while trying to find the pattern that was the excuse to buy the yarn. I finally found it. I can't even begin to describe how soft this yarn is.

It's a cashmere/merino blend. I'd never heard of the brand before (RYC) but they had a great selection of yarns, mostly DK and 4-ply, with one aran-weight. I was debating between this and a striped v-neck sweater but I decided on this for a few reasons: 1) I'm still working on the last sweater I attempted 2)said sweater was all stockinette and rib and soooo boring after a few inches 3) see the beads? see the lace? different, challenging, the makings of something to keep me interested and finally, 4) smaller project=less time till I can start something new. Plus, it's PINK so I can start it for Project Spectrum. I've made a decision that I'm not doing anything else (except start those socks, whoops) until Tubey is finished. Speaking of, here is the current state of Tubey:

She is SO close to being finished. About 5 more inches. I *hope* to finish her today. It's hard to get motivated to knit a 100% alpaca sweater when it's 70 degrees outside, but that's what I get for procrastinating. The last store we went to was one we had visited before, Got Yarn in Midlothian. Beth needed to get another ball of alpaca (the same yarn from the nose ring incident) to complete her scarf. I couldn't leave a yarn store empty handed so I was browsing the sock yarn (*note-the previous three yarn stores didn't have a very good selection of sock yarn-the only one that could even begin to say they had sock yarn was the knitting basket but their color selection didn't do anything for me). I found Lorna's Lace in a beautiful colorway that reminds me of a rose garden-deep greens and bold pinks. Perfect! Another pink-ish yarn that can count for Project Spectrum (March is 80 days long, right?). I was browsing the store to see if they had anything new and we found a sample sweater vest knit up in the very same sparkly yarn that I bought the last time we went yarn-hunting. It was gorgeous and had such beautiful drape. The lady showed us the book she used to compute the pattern, and I got it. The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns-you can plug in what guage your yarn is, your size and what you want to make and get a pattern for basically everything. I am going to make a sweater-vest sort of thing, but with a cowl-neck so it wil be just a sleeveless sweatery thing. So that was our day, interspersed with a few Starbucks stops, some knitting in public, and people-watching. I'll leave you with the sock(s) I started a few days ago in the lovely Neopolitan colorway. So far so good, but we'll see what happens when I get to the heel flap.

Michigan is COLD!

Greetings from Virginia-we're back! Our trip to Michigan was full of food, family, and fun. I felt like I needed a flow chart to keep who was who straight. My husband's grandfather is really neat. He is a metalcrafter and has done amazing things over the years, including a centerpiece for their local university. Out behind their house he has a barn where he does all his work, called the Golden Anvil. See all that snow? That was what we woke up to Monday morning. Grandpa really gets the "crafty" thing. He was explaining to me how he always had to have something productive to do, so he'd feel like he was accomplishing something. He also said that he liked being in his barn more on the days when the weather was bad-it's comforting. I totally get that. There is nothing better on a rainy day than a nice ball of wool, needles, and something hot to drink. I had a good time in Michigan, but I'm glad to be home. (Hello, it was like 60-something degrees today!) In knitting knews (hee, hee), I worked a LOT on Tubey, but it's still not done. I'll spare you another sleeves and a half-finished body picture. I tried to start knitting socks, but it was too much to try to figure out while visiting with everyone, so I put it away. I did find a cute yarn shop while in Michigan and picked up some Regia self-striping sock yarn in sand colors. So far for Pink Month I haven't picked up anything pink to work on! I'll get there though. I'm suffering from a bit of Olympic Whiplash-I worked on my PS Postcard tonight and didn't have a single urge for knitting. I'm going yarn shop hunting around Richmond this weekend with Beth so maybe I'll pick up something gorgeous and pink while out. If you are my Postcard swap buddy, look no further! Ok, I think the coast is clear. I finished the postcard and here are the final results. On the front of the card I used actual thread and really stitched the Project Spectrum title into it. I've never done that before and was pretty impressed with the way that turned out, even if it is a little uneven. As for the rest of the cover.......eh. I wasn't super excited about it. Don't get me wrong, I like how it came out, but not my best work. The inside however, I love. I lined the inside of the card with a marbled pink paper, then used a punch to punch out the hearts. I then made a list of all the things I like that either have red/pink in the name, feature red/pink, or are colored red/pink. I hope my pal likes it and I can't wait to see hers!

March is Pink Month!

Yay, today is March 1st which means I can officially start something pink and un-Tubey and not feel guilty about it. Why, you ask? Because today is the official first day of Pink and Red month for Project Spectrum. I think I'm going to follow Lolly's lead on letting socks be a primary focus. I've never made socks, so we'll see how I feel about my first pair, but I'm super-excited about the prospect of them. I really like the Broadripple pattern from Knitty.com, but I think that might be a little complicated for my very first socks, so I might just do a straight stockinette or rib pattern. I'm still knitting away on Tubey (ugh), although thankfully I'm not suffering any alpaca/nose ring related problems like my pal Beth (see comments from last post). Tee-hee! Maybe I should will the alpaca-gods to continue to torment her nose ring so I can reap the benefits-that yarn is gorgeous! Just kidding, Beth. Even though what I want to do now is toss Tubey aside and cast on for yummy Neopolitan socks, I will stay on course. I'm about to do the brown stripe across the boobies, and then it's just miles and miles of ribbing left. Perfect for a long car ride where setting down DPN's at rest stops could prove devastating. Other exciting news? I was a winner selected at random for a Team First Sweater prize. I think it's some hand-dyed LB wool. If LB=Lion Brand, cool, I like (most) of their stuff. Hand-dyed is always amazingl too. I couldn't find a pic, so I'm not sure of the colors, but I will post a pic as soon as I get it. The Yarn Harlot announced on her blog that she is going to enter everyone into the prize drawing who participated in the Knitting Olympics-even if you didn't finish, and even if you didn't sign up online. All you have to do is send an email to gold2006ATyarnharlotDOTca and she will enter you. (It's an auto-response system, so you don't have to really say anything.) She hasn't revealed what the prize(s) will be yet, but based on the last ones she sent out you can bet they'll be awesome! I'll be keeping my fingers, eyes, and knitting needles crossed in the hopes I get a Harlot prize!