Confessions of a Knitting Addict

It's true. I can no longer deny it. Gone are the days when I could quit anytime I wanted.

I submit the evidence in three exhibits.

EXHIBIT 1

I recently ran out of stitchmarkers.  How the heck this happened, I have no clue:  I usually keep packages of them, and it seems that I rarely leave any type of craft or yarn store without buying some.

Actually, I still have stitchmarkers, but I took them to work and then left them there by accident.  (Note to co-workers - I didn't really lose them at work.  I NEVER KNIT AT WORK!  Or only during Sharepoint training.  Right? wink, wink.)

Started a new lace project (Alhambra scarf by Anne "Amazing Lace" Hanson), and even though I recently organized my knitting doodads, I could not find stitchmarkers.  Any stitchmarkers.  (Do you know how crazy this is?  Stitchmarkers to lace knitters are like NEEDLES - essential.)  A thought occurred to me: I'll bet there are some in the couch.  I tore apart the couch cushions like I've heard crystal meth users search for crumbs (no, ma, I don't know about this firsthand).  I found 3.  It occurred to me to vacuum.  JACKPOT!  And I got the bonus:  I found a tapestry needle in a size I recently 'lost' the last one of...  life is GOOD, baby.  Life is good.



EXHIBIT 2

DUH!  The reason I do laundry is to felt up test swatches!  (Here, Colinette Shimmer 5 in Monet, colorway #101.)

[I will soon be posting the great Colinette swatch experiment, which this is part of, so watch this space.]








EXHIBIT 3

Made this sucker big so you could see the price on it:  $26.99 for 50 grams. (Don't look, ma, you won't understand... and, no, it's not machine washable.)

Tao is 100% silk in a single-ply cord and OMG it is OMG so amazing to knit with OMG. Colinette Tao in Whirley Fig, colorway #157.  OMG.  And if you're nice to me, I'll let you touch it.

I shower because yarn this nice needs me to be worthy of it.  (Some days I succeed.)  And in our sex ed class in 6th grade, good hygiene was emphasized as being essential to laying the groundwork for others to like you.  And I want Tao to like me.  I really really do. (and sometimes it does:  hit me.)



And, little pretties, it needs knitting on now, so off I go - happy clicks!


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Hot Child in the City (not)

No freakin' clue why, but this song has been going through my head for a few days. Nick Gilder? Why couldn't it be Nick Cave? I mean, really. Sometimes I want to give my synapses a good talking to...

So. This was taken Sunday, October 10, 2010, on Penn Ave in DC. The vestish long drapey thingee is actually Iris Schreier's "Chevron Ruana" from her book Lacy Little Knits. Which I own, and am knitting something from, but can't find! ARGHHHHHH!!!!!! My one knitting book that's MIA.

The yarn, hold your breath, is Colinette Tao in the Madras colorway (#153). Here. Breath again. This yarn is sooooooo beautiful - warm golds with glints of dark amethyst and deep turquoise. The Tao yarn is a single-ply, fairly smooth, nice silken cord. I've made some shawls with it, and loved them, and making this solely with about 8 skeins of luxury stuff was an investment - let's not talk about what I don't have in savings because I'm wearing a couple hundred dollars worth of yarn (and hours of knitting). Ok, changing the subject...

Iris' book will be linked here once I consult with my webmistress about how to do my Amazon Associate hookup. (ETA! WOO HOO - figured this out on my own!) I am a jump-right-in kinda girl - I DON'T read the manual - give me the quickstart guide every time, please. However, I will say that if you haven't knit an Iris pattern prior to knitting something in that book and figured everything out on your own, you probably should at least cruise through the intro. And swatch. Yes, I know, it sucks. But there's less super-direct instruction in her patterns than I was used to and more reliance on the techniques in the intro ("K 5, P 3: end of row is 8 stitches" vs. "knit until it's about 5 inches measured the Iris way").

That said, and this was the first thing of hers I knitted, and I did NOT swatch, and I barely skimmed the intro, I'm happy. I had to start the damn thing about 5 times (swatching would've taken about 3 false starts off that), and if I had to do it over, I'd sew up the armholes a bit tighter, and maybe make the whole thing a little smaller 'cuz the yarn stretches out.

But this pattern + this yarn is a total winner. Especially if you dig looking like a bohemian kinda funky chick and are in denial that you're middle aged (even though you're dressing like a crazy old aunt).

And a shout out to Chico's. Damn, I never thought I'd say that. If you are going the Statement Piece route (and this is a Statement Piece), they have great plain tanks and tops and pants to set off the color. Jewelry's a little pricey - I like the sale counter at TJMaxx or Marshalls. Or Etsy.

OK. Dogs need walking and I just remembered something I forgot to do yesterday at work... crapola. Happy Wednesday and happy clicking.

ETA - Ravelry page on this project here
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SOLD: Will Knit for Coffee. Or Money. Or Coffee Money...

So. This is the first sweater I made and sold - to a dear friend who is now starting to knit!

SHAZAM!

(Can I tell you that I am feeling excitement dangerously close to the kind I imagine I would feel if I was in a cult and scored a bonus-points convert - ? The kind of convert with a large trust fund and no heirs.)

Looking back at my notes on this project on Ravelry, it took me slightly less than a month to knit. I'm thinking I was fairly devoted to the project, and wasn't knitting on a lot of other stuff at the time.


Pattern Designer: Colinette - of course!
Pattern Book Title: Nostalgia (Colinette #63)
Pattern Name: Millais
Yarn Brand: Colinette
Yarn Type: Parisienne (in Fire, color #71 ) and Tao (in Windfall, color #149 )

Come to think of it, looking at the dates (March-April), I betcha this was knit with yarn I purchased at Woolwinders in Rockville (no longer carrying Colinette - but who is in DC these days? *sniff*) after getting a sweet little tax refund. It came out a little small for me, but I wore it a few times anyway, and when Leslie saw it her eyes lit up, so when an offer was made, I accepted.

Some notes on knitting this up: Pay attention to the Tao stitches. Also, they are a little tricky - the pattern is written for right-handed yarn throwers (English style) and I am a picker and knit in the Russian Continental style (more about that someday, it is such a pain to figure out stitching, let me tell you, and I am going to at some point get up and going on that; I need to do a page transposing stitches for those of us like me). I've even had English throwers contact me about how to do the stitch. Not that I'm much help.

Also, the way I knit, the pieces have a lot of horizontal give and not a lot of vertical give. So, I would go a tad longer than you think you need, at least on the body, and maybe go a little narrower in the body pieces.

Finishing: this was pretty darn easy to finish. I used the Parisienne to stitch together and because of the nylon or whatever man-made base is in that yarn, it's quite strong and disappears nicely. Just did simple mattress stitching (article with pictures from Knitty.com here), and it worked just fine.

Leslie mentioned this as a beach sweater - something nice for evenings in summer on your vacation when a chill is coming off the water... I have to say that the pattern dresses up and down, makes a great preppy-style shoulder wrap as well as a nice little pullover.

Work. Not at the beach today. Damn. Oh well...


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BTW, poking around online it looks like the pattern and yarns are being kitted and sold as of the date of this posting. If you are thinking about it, it is probably a good way to get a great color combination for this project, especially as not many US shops are currently stocking Colinette yarns. A state of affairs I would like to see changed! You really have to touch and feel and SEE Colinette to get it. Amazing stuff. (I know. Foaming at the mouth is not all that attractive. Sorry.)

Colinette Rossetti Shawlesque Jacket - and they are Liberty Boots. Zappos. LOVE!

ETA: this is me at Mautner Gala 2009 in what is probably considered vintage (15 years old - ? Leslie, is that vintage?) Laura freakin' Ashley dress that I have decided I will have until I die or explode, whichever comes first. The shawl-jacket thingee is (but of course) a Colinette pattern, Rossetti, that I finished in one week (do not try this at home, I made a lot of mistakes in it) using Colinette yarn Parisienne in colorway Marble and Colinette yarn Tao (how do I love Tao, let me count the ways) in colorway (where did this name come from?) Whirley Fig.

The shawl was perfect though - it's lightweight from the lace yarn and still drapes well from the weight of the single-ply dk-weight silk yarn. The pattern is basically a long rectangle with slits for where you will insert the two smaller rectangles that are the sleeves. 4 seams to sew to put three pieces together. Totally doable.

You do have to pay attention while knitting with the lace yarn. More of a books on tape or NPR knit than a catch up on True Blood knit.

You can wear it upside down or right side up - depends on how much of a collar you want. And how much you want hanging around your knees.

This pattern gets-

Four stars for simple construction
Two stars for understandable pattern (the lace stitch has gotten me questions on Ravelry (friend me, I'm "puppycatrancher" on the Rav), which are hard to answer because I knit in the Russian style which is fairly obscure -'cept in Russia, I'm guessing- and this pattern is written in English for English-style knitters).
Five stars for the ba-gorgeous Colinette yarns
Five stars for a pretty pattern book (Nostalgia)
Five stars for a garment that you can wear in four seasons and dress up and dress down ('cept not waaaaay down - I don't even see Zsa Zsa Gabor walking the pooches in rhinestone collars in this - wait! I do. But not me. Let's say this pattern and your Orioles ballcap - never gonna work.)

and, oh yeah, the boots. My 45th birthday present to myself, found them at Zappos (BIG SHOUT OUT TO ZAPPOS - the friggin' president of it emailed me personally when an order got screwed up - and yeah it was him because I had an in to him ain't sayin' how, it wasn't some form response) along with the matching Tarina Tarantino jewelry!

Felt like such a princess that night (thanks, Sheila, for making me go)!

I had my makeup done professionally for the first and so far only time in my life, and was wearing false eyelashes... if my boobs were bigger and if I had a tan, I would have felt like Queen Latifah at some awards night. (and some love to the B and the single ladies and the Queen [she shows up at 3.28 looking totally amazing] and that fierce Jane Lynch show. and to my own true love who purports to be ring shopping...oops, who said that?)
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