Two of a Kind

Finished my second fairisle sleeve last week. Finally getting around to posting again. Knitting has taken a back seat to life lately. Busy all around and too tired to knit! Can you believe it, too tired to knit! What is this world coming to?!



I did however have some time to start swatching for Butterfly from the Rowan Spring mag. This has been on my list for some time and since I didn't feel like carting around 8 balls of yarn last week to finish up the front of my fairisle, Butterfly finally got a chance.



Not only did I get a chance to swatch and practice knitting with beads (I have to thread on 500 of the little suckers!) But I started on the inner ruffle at the bottom. At first I wasn't so sure that I was happy with the result. Then I kept knitting along and it started to look a little nicer.



Some of the girls at SnB think that I was crazy for doing this project with all the beads and lace and little tiny mohair yarn - but I really live for this stuff. In fact, after I make the dress version, I think I might also do the tunic version in a nice teal blue color. Basically I just have an obsession with kidsilk haze. Is there anything wrong with that?

Finally gave up on waiting to receive my Yorkshire tweed chunky from England for the boyfriend's sweater. Had to call the credit card company last week and get the charge refunded after trying numerous times to contact the store by email. Sad thing is that I was getting it for about $9 a ball and I can't find anyone here in the states that can even come close to that great price. I need 11 balls of the stuff and don't really want to pay $15-$17 for it. Guess I'll just have to wait for another Handworks Gallery sale, sigh.............

Out of Hiding

So the other night, I get the brilliant idea to finally knit a yoga mat bag so I don't have to carry my mat in hand several blocks to my new class. I've been wanting to knit the nice mesh version from SNB 2, but everytime I start, I get very distracted, end up messing up and rip, rip, rip. Since I'm probably going to another class on monday, I didn't exactly have much time (or sanity) to devote to knitting a rectangle that bores me to death.

So I had an epiphany. "Hey I can knit one up so fast on my knitting machine!"

Yes, my knitting machine. The knitting machine that has sat underneath a sunflower bedsheet for the past 4 years. I decided to dust it off and have a go.


The long neglected machine.


Setting up the needles.


Jersey fabric moving along.


20 inches in 2 minutes. I'd like to see a handknitter do that!


Yes, I actually blocked my rectangle!


The ribber at work on my 1x1 rib, 23" long strap.


Even gave a quick touch of the iron to my strap.


Finished!

I sat down at the machine at 9:00 p.m. Fumbled around trying to remember how to cast on. Read some notes from college knitting class. Talked on the phone, knit a little, ironed some, and then stitched it up. By 10 p.m. I had a wonderful functional yoga bag that didn't bore me to knit. My knitting machine is my new friend for boring jersey projects.

I actually wanted to knit my bag in a pointelle stitch, but the lace carriage wasn't co-operating, and I just wanted the thing finished. Function over fashion for this project. Maybe one day, I'll sit down for another hour and make a nice lacy one, but for now, this will do. For now, the poor neglected knitting machine goes back under the sheet and I move on to more interesting things, such as finishing up my 2nd sleeve on my fairisle sweater.

Ships Ahoy!

Found this cool little quiz today:

My pirate name is:

Black Bess Rackham

Like anyone confronted with the harshness of robbery on the high seas, you can be pessimistic at times. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Hmm, have been thinking about some other words to put on Hardcore from Knitty instead of "cool boys knit". I think my pirate name could be fun. I think I'll rewrite the pattern a little, but a big cardigan w/ a skull yarn ball on it is just the coolest thing ever! BTW, for those that don't know me, I love anything with skulls on it. I was very impressed by the Knitty men's issue. Now I just need to get my boyfriend to read some of the articles about men who knit and try to teach him! We'll see....

In other knitting news, finished the 1st sleeve on my fairisle pullover. Then last night I finished the fairisle part on the second sleeve. So sad actually. Now I am in one color jersey world and I'm not having too much fun. At least I did take part of my front apart to fix the neck drop, so I havent' seen the last of my fairisle yet. Maybe later on tonight I'll have some time to post some pictures so you can share in my fairisle high.

10:55 p.m.

As promised, here is a pic of the finished sleeve with it's less finished sister on the right. Hopefully I can make a dent in the jersey section this weekend when traveling back to New Jersey. Hooray for weekends!