AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

Give-away!

I've sent off the prizes for donators for the CCFA today (Congrats and Thank You to Carol).  I didn't have a large list of donators, but I still feel odd keeping things I added to the list of prizes.  So?  Giveaways!

This week I'm giving away The Knitter's Book of Yarn.  If you are interested in receiving this book, please comment on this post.  I will randomly select someone Saturday morning, May 17th, at 8 a.m.

I will ship internationally, so don't worry about where you are from. 

(and because I feel like there should be real knitting content in here: I am on repeat 12 of 17 for Convertible, and should be going to Windsor Button on Thursday to pick up small shank buttons to complete the project.  I do not have a picture today, but should have a picture for tomorrow.)

Making a list

Between Tweed, the new Interweave Knits and the new Interweave Crochet (and, umm, my large-ish WIP and Queue in Ravelry), I have a veritable army of projects.  It's hard to focus on any one project without some form of deadline, especially once the project has become less desirable.

Over the last few months I have realized that one of the things that seems to make me less likely to finish a project is picking up stitches.  It's not a problem for a pair of socks.  It's a small area and I am only trying to get a max of 18 stitches in there.  For something with a shawl collar?  It's a couple of hundred stitches on diagonals or some other more difficult configuration.  Of course, I like these patterns, which is why I knit or bought them in the first place.

So, I want to make (not putting these in Ravelry yet) the following in no particular order:

• Baby hat (I have a pattern, but there is a chance that the recipient could read about it);
• Butterscotch Cardigan;
• Roped Shell (the one with the cabled edging from the latest IK)
• Scottish Isles Pullover

Those are just the new projects.  It's only 4, but in a month or so there will be a new Knitty out and the process will start all over again.  Of course, there are probably more than 20 items in my queue (I'm in denial, so I'm not going to look)....

How on earth do you pick what you want to work on next?

committed?

Obligatory charity info: Today is recommitment day for Team Challenge, so please donate a couple of dollars to the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation (donation link).  This is the last day to decide whether or not the minimum donation amount can be raised, and to guarantee a space on the team.  After this point, if you have guaranteed your space on the team you will be charged the difference between what you raised and the minimum amount.  It's important, because it keeps the event costs down and allows a reasonable percentage of the fundraising to go to the charity (overhead can be a monster).

Knitting stuff!
My hubby broke my yarny fast last night.  We went to Windsor Button and I got three skeins of the Tahki Cotton Classic for a hat.  I bought and paid for the hat pattern last night and printed it out this morning.  I probably won't start the hat until tomorrow (umm, yeah, that WIP list?  So hosed), but I should be able to finish the hat by next week even with my training runs and working on Convertible. 

Convertible is a great pattern.  I'm at just about the half way point in just over a week of knitting (and at least three of those days were when I was sickest with my cold where I didn't do more than 5 rows), and think I'll have it finished by May 18th.  I'm counting the Muppet and Convertible as my two projects to complete before buying more yarn (though I do plan on not buying yarn for the Butterscotch Cardigan until I have finished the baby hat and my latest pair of socks), so I need to get cracking!

I blame Brainy

Sorry about that.  Alison mentioned a few weeks ago the Butterscotch Cardigan in the latest Interweave Crochet.  It's hard to believe, but crochet was the first fibery craft I really got into (umm, unless of course you want to count cross-stitch, which I've been doing since I was maybe 6).  Over the weekend I finally picked up the magazine, and the Butterscotch Cardigan is one of my top three design favorites in the issue.  Most of the things I have the skill for just weren't my cup of tea, but the Cardigan is pretty feasible as is the spiral hat (which I'll probably do first once I am done Convertible), but Alison was right.  The Shepherd Sock makes this a fairly pricey top.  Not completely outside of the realms of affordability, but not as thrifty as I'd like to be. 

So, I've been searching out alternatives.  I figure I can buy the yarn once I am down under 10 WIPs listed on Ravelry, which probably won't be until June.  I had this crazy idea in my head of double stranding a laceweight yarn.  As long as it wasn't too fine, I could probably get away with it.  Even if I had to buy 3 skeins, it would possibly be cheaper than buying 8 of the LL.  I do this sort of math all of the time as part of my browsing pattern online.  You know, I could probably buy the Comfort Sock or the Knit Picks solid sockweight yarn and make the project under $30... but I would probably enjoy the project more if I sprung for this slightly more expensive yarn.  A silly thing to do.

So, I emailed the Loopy Ewe yesterday late afternoon and within 10 minutes had an answer I could probably live with:  Lane Borgosesia Cashwool is one of the laceweights Sheri carries, and two strands of it together is pretty close to the apparent weight of one strand of the Shepherd Sock.  Even buying a third skein would still be pretty affordable.  So, now I know what I'm doing with my fun money in June!

making progress?

I'll get the boring part out of the way.  Fundraising is hard!  I'm hoping to get to $1000 by Friday, May 9th, so if have an extra $5-10 available, please consider donating it to the CCFA.  My donation page is at: http://www.active.com/donate/napa08newengland/seannalobue.  'Kay?  Thanks!

Onto more interesting things for everybody else. 

I gave J- her shrug (which I've been calling the muppet) last week, but I wasn't done the knitting for her.  She wanted something lacy for her niece.  I have been using this Angelspun by Unger (a mohair/acryllic/nylon blend), and it has turned out to be a lot more interesting to work with and less problematic than the muppet yarn.  Truly a wonderful turn of events.  Of course, I was trying to get Convertible done for this week, and I'm still a fair bit off.  I did my normal mathimation and if I keep up the same minute per row rate, then I have about 26 hours of work left.  I was supposed to do nothing but run and knit last weekend, and while the weather cooperated for knitting (I didn't go running in the rain) I caught a cold.  I did a tiny amount of knitting, but at this point I feel like I am days behind.  I'm trying to decide how much sleep I can give up and get it done this week without compromising my health!

But pictures, everyone loves pictures! 

I am on repeat 5 of the pattern (each repeat is actually two lace repeats).  I might be able to cut down the time it takes if I can spray block it overnight sometime this week just to see how big a blocking will make it.  The pattern is only meant to be about the length of your wingspan, so theoretically if she had gorilla arms I'd want to knit it longer.  I have some yarn in my stash that will probably work to make one of these for myself when I'm done.

The pattern at this point is mostly mindless (just hard enough that I really don't want to get distracted and forget what I'm doing).  I made a mistake this morning that took me 15 minutes to figure out.  Thankfully the lace pattern is really easy to fudge.  All in all the pattern is pretty forgiving.  I'm pretty sure that it would be dead easy to alter this pattern to use your favorite lace pattern instead.  If your lace pattern produced a wavy edge, then you would want to graft it in the middle, but that's pretty minor.  It is basically a stole with a border on each side and buttonholes every so many rows.

Closeup of the stitch pattern?  Sure.
I'm pretty sure that this would work with nearly any fingering to lace weight, though given that it originally took two skeins of a sockweight bamboo yarn (has anyone seen this yarn by Blue Moon?  I didn't see it listed on their site, and it would be nice to try out.  I love to use bamboo yarn (and for that matter finer weight yarns in general).

Of course, it is not helping my progress that I picked up the latest Interweave Crochet over the weekend when I decided I needed decent coffee.  I have gone through some of my smaller skeins of yarn to see what I could make, and really want to try and make the spiral hat.  I'm really a crochet beginner for all that I used to do a lot more crochet than knitting, so it looks like a good pattern to get in the practice of, well, following a pattern. 

I unsurprisingly want to make the Chinese Yoke Top and the Butterscotch Cardigan.  I'm definitely not skilled enough to make the former, and don't have 8 skeins of matching sock weight yarn to make the former.  I keep trying to figure out what the most affordable sock yarn would be to make these, an exercise that at least will keep the project in mind for the next couple of weeks while I try to finish Convertible and a couple other projects on my list (it's getting warm, so the Frog Camisole is probably the next thing I'll finish after this).

Friday is for LolCaffs

My hubby sends me the bestest things!  You can make your own at http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/ (there is a cute little kitty in a plushy car).

It's the happiest coffee ever, and I will drink it all <cue maniacal evil laughter>.

Last night I was working on Convertible and watching The Tick (not the best choice given I needed to tink), and just didn't get very far.  Between that and a meeting today, I am about 3 hours behind on my knitting.  I'm still going to try to and finish Convertible by Tuesday, working it around my training runs.

Umm, yeah, running.  I ran 5 miles on Wednesday and a little over 5 miles today.  I'll be running 9+ miles tomorrow and probably about 6 with a friend on Sunday.  I love running, though every once in a while I'm reminded of how much it cuts into my knitting time.

not just muppets

I received Tweed earlier this week from Alison!  This book is just a wonderful addition to my knitting library!  I'll probably post more about it tomorrow, because I don't have it with me and want to make sure I get all of the pattern names correct.  Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm just not a big history person.  It's probably the really boring videos I had to watch in grade school on the Micmac Indians that finally did me in, but I enjoy very specific subjects within history.  History of Japan (especially the Heian period and the Meiji era) and history of science.  And now, apparently, the history of yarn.  It really shouldn't be that surprising, given that yarn is a subject in general that I find intensely interesting as a knitter!  So, I'm still mostly enjoying the history of the yarn and the fabric and haven't really done more than look at the patterns enough to make a laundry list of "want to makes." 

Whew! 

Of course, while I ruminate on that book and its delicious possibilities, I happily gave the muppet to its recipient today.  She plans to give it to an elderly relative for Mother's Day (said recipient is at least 80 from conversations).  I got to show her how I was progressing on Convertible.  I'm three repeats in, and it is turning out into quite a speedy little knit.  I think she wants it by early next week, so I will literally be doing nothing but running and knitting all weekend long!  But it's all for a good cause!  Hopefully I'll have a picture after we get our camera back.  I can't subject anyone else to another really poor camera phone photo (though maybe I can try an outdoor camera phone photo?). 

knitting muppets

I apologize for the picture.  Our camera is over at a friend's house, so I had to resort to the camera phone.  While it is normally better than this, the room doesn't have the best lighting for this kind of thing. 

This is the Elegant (or was it Evening) shrug that I knit up for one of the lovely ladies at the chocolate shop.  I am going to bring it by tomorrow, and she'll be able to give it as a gift this weekend.  I cut it very close to the line on this one, because the short rows (combined with picking up stitches in a hard to see knit) was giving me the heebie jeebies. 

This shrug feels a little oversized.  I made the medium, but if I were making this for myself I would probably make the small.  I will probably make this for myself someday soon.  I have about half a monster skein of Oak Grove yarn left from the Ruffled Capelet I made a couple of years ago.  I think this would look pretty snazzy in a nice simple dark yarn (probably a rich brown) with the collar being a showpiece of yarn and color. 

I hope that she likes this (and that the recipient likes it when she gets it).  I've already started Convertible, and am just through the first lace pattern repeat (only 33 more lace repeats to go!).

Counting the hours in the day

I really want to go to the Yarn Harlot's signing at Webs.  I want hang out with other knitting folks (something I haven't really done in far too long), look at gorgeous yarn, read a new book, re-meet the Harlot, and have an excuse to start something new or at least put aside the large muppet shrug I've been working on.  However, I don't drive.  I'm pretty happy about the not driving thing, though it makes things like this a bit more problematic.  I'm happy to pay gas and tolls to get there, but that was a level of preplanning on my part that just didn't happen.

Why?

Because I'm working on the muppet shrug.  I haven't managed to work on it every night this week, but fairly close.  I have about 10 more short rows to do and then 5 rows of ribbing and binding off.  Sixteen rows shouldn't take too long, and if I am dedicated Saturday night then I could probably finish it and block it that night or Sunday morning.  For the record, I did about 2.6 rows over my lunch break today, meaning each row is probably taking me about 15 minutes. 

So, instead of going to see knitter peeps, I will be eating a giant pixie stick(s) and working on Convertible.  At least as soon as I have finished the muppet shrug!

Homemade ice cream

Part of me wants to call myself an indifferent cook.  I love baking, making desserts and cooking large meals (like for a party), but am really bad at the meals for 2-4 people.  Of my favorite desserts to make, I love to make ice cream.  Late last week, I made a batch of strawberry daiquiri sorbet and swirled it with homemade vanilla ice cream.

I have one of the Cuisinart canister ice cream makers (with the extra canister), so I am able to make batches of ice cream like this fairly readily.  I am relatively careful about making sure there is always enough space for the canisters in the freezer.  That small amount of planning means I can nearly always put together a batch of ice cream.  My favorite cookbooks for ice cream are The Perfect Scoop and the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream cookbook.  One of the ice cream bases in the B&J cookbook uses sweetened condensed milk.  I usually buy fat-free and store it in the freezer or refrigerator, and then make up the base with whatever milk or cream I have on hand (this base is very flexible, doesn't involve heating and then chilling the base and doesn't involve raw eggs).  This batch was extra soft because I used whipping cream instead of skim milk.  Most of the time my ice creams are much closer to ice milk in texture and flavor, though they are still really tasty.

The best thing about this ice cream?  OK, second best thing. (The third best thing is that we can use our monkey bowls for dessert.)

Aren't these colors just great for a yarn colorway?