conic knit along

In spite of this being a sheep-free knitting blog, I can be a bit of a sheep. Three of the six people at knitting last night were making Conic, so I’m joining Cookie’s knit along. I’m going to try to make it with some Henry’s Attic soie naturelle that I dyed with oxblood Procion dyes several years ago. Here’s a terrible picture I took when it was drying.

I’m going to try to get a better picture when I wind it up but I have a feeling that it is one of those colors that is really hard to photograph well. I am not sure if the yarn will work for the project or not. The weight required (light fingering) is one where the acceptable non-wool substitutions that I’ve found have been prohibitively expensive. For example, Neighborhood Fiber Co has a light fingering silk that looks gorgeous but would cost me more than $120 for the amount needed. Oops. I might try a single skein of that yarn another time for something smaller. It’s so pretty!

Enough of the yarn lusting. I’m going to go wind up the yarn that I dyed all by myself! I’m sure it will be lovely. Right? (Say right.)

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finished, at last!

I know some of you won’t believe this (Jen C, I’m looking at you!) but my double knit, 67 rows of non-repeating colorwork cowl is done. Totally and completely. The top has been kitchenered, the ends tucked inside, and it was even blocked. Amazing. Let’s start with the finished photos for you to ooh and aah over.

The pink side.

The brown side (the one I think I will keep facing out.

A quick modeled shot. This thing is warm!

It felt so good to set this project to completed on Ravelry and not have it show up as WIP anymore. To recap, I started this cowl in 2008. I fell in love with the pictures of it on Ravelry and someone else in my knitting group was making it and it seemed like such a good idea. Then I got about 19 rows into the 110 stitches of (as I already said) nonrepeating double knit colorwork and lost my steam. Last November I picked it up again and got down to knitting. A couple of weeks later, the colorwork was finished. I am not sure how long after that all of the knitting was done but it didn’t take long. Then I started doing the kitchener stitch of the 220 stitches at the top… and messed up. Since knitting seems to exacerbate my elbow issues I decided to bring it to knitting night last week as a nonknitting knitting project. I messed up the kitchener again but Veronica showed me how she does it so I could see what I was doing wrong. (Can I just say I haven’t done kitchener stitch in a while? That is my story and I’m sticking to it.)

And now it’s done. Before the mornings are bitter cold. I am really looking forward to wearing it while biking with the kids to school during the cold (for California) winter mornings.

And Jen C and Jen S (who both knit much larger double knit projects than this) you can laugh at me for this taking so long, just do it quietly and where I can’t hear you.

yarmulkes for sale!

Let’s start with apologies: I’m a bad blogger, you know it, I know it, I just don’t do it regularly. Okay, I’m glad I got that off my chest.

Now, what have I been knitting? Not a lot, actually. My husband had a gallstone attack on Mother’s day and I spent that evening with him in the ER, knitting away on my blue Etesian sweater while leaning awkwardly in an ER chair. The next day, my elbow started to hurt. Then I did a bunch of data entry for my job and it hurt more. And my forearm hurt. And… it hasn’t totally gone away. A mom at school who is a doctor told me that she thought it was tennis elbow, I’ve had acupuncture three times for it, which has helped, but it still aches and my forearm muscles are still very tight.

It sucks.

(My husband is fine now, though gall bladder-free and on a doctor ordered low fat diet and kind of sad about that.)

So, I took a break from knitting, mostly. I have been crocheting quite a bit, though.

Dave, from Chub Creek, posted on Twitter that someone should make him a coffee carafe and mug cozy, so I did.

Completely by accident, it arrived just before his birthday. He sent me a thank you Chub Creek mug in return.

Which is enormous. I use it in the morning to pretend I’m drinking giant mugs of coffee, even though I can’t drink real coffee any more because it makes me insane. (It’s hell getting old.)

Next up in the FO parade: little bag for Brenda Dayne‘s A Memorable Yarn project.

I used yarn from Karen’s stash and embroidered a pink K on it since pink was Karen’s favorite color. The Memorable Yarn event that I attended at A Verb for Keeping Warm ended up being held on the anniversary of Karen’s passing, so it was quite appropriate.

Speaking of pink… I finished my impulsively started Annis.

I was knitting it one evening with my knitting friends and I said I didn’t think I’d ever wear this pink shawl with a beaded edge and my friend Teenuh said that she loved it. Her birthday was coming up so… problem solved! And the shawl has a new home with someone who loves pink and sparkly beads. Perfect.

When I was working on Dave’s cozies my younger son commented that he loved that blue color and would I please make him something with it? When I asked what he’d like he decided on a blankie for his stuffed dog, Snowball.

Stuffed dogs are easy to please. My son liked it too.

Last, but not least, my friend Pam’s son is having his bar mitzvah and at some point earlier in the year she mentioned that she might need help making yarmulkes. I decided that knitting them was a) too hard on my elbow and b) too time consuming. After knitting three I settled into crochet and made eight crocheted yarmulkes (plus the three knitted ones).

I stacked them at knit night and it reminded me of Caps for Sale, a book I loved as a child. I’m still thinking that I need to write Yarmulkes for Sale! I just need an illustrator.

Whew. Are you still with me? Good. I have more pictures. This time of yarn that I bought while visiting my brother and his family in NJ. Did you know that in NJ they don’t charge sales tax for yarn because (like clothing) it is an “essential”? A belief that yarn is essential: I like that in a state.

I got some Berroco Origami on sale for a sweater I’ve been wanting to make for two years.

And then I got some single skeins of Rowan Cotton Jeans that were also on sale.

I am not sure what I’ll do with those. I thinking maybe some crochet coasters or something similar.

There was also Rowan Calmer in the sale bin.

The colors are more different than they look in the pictures. I see hats and mitts in that yarn’s future.

I don’t know if anyone stuck with me through this long, picture-heavy post. Maybe if I posted more often I wouldn’t have so many pictures to share at once. Maybe.