May 22, 2011

odds & ends

apologies for the radio silence. it's been a busy month. sort of. watching quality movies and eating chocolate has taken more of my time lately than expected. of course by quality i mean roland emmerich, and by chocolate i mean double-chocolate. blinding, searing, never-ending nerve pain does have some perks. i thoroughly recommend getting some, if you're into the whole get-all-the-free-time-you-want-but-cry-yourself-to-sleep thing.

anyway, like most of us in the knitting universe, i'm a TV knitter. i can't watch TV without knitting something. so thanks to classics like 2012, godzilla and independence day, i've been able to make a bunch of random things, of which a small selection thus follows.

the first one is another cowl made with the willow pattern. i made it with the same amount of stitches and decreases as the hemlock cowl, but the yarn (flavia baby - yes, again) was thinner so the end result is even snugger. i can barely ram it through my giant head, but once it's in place it looks and feels pretty good.


mom likes the socks i make, and will stop at nothing to get a new pair. so in order to avoid being disowned i made her a simple pair with the extra hank of knitpicks stroll i got from great british yarns. i'll be safe for another month or two.


then there was the suicide mission called trail socks. the yarn is gorgeous. and 20 euros a hank. and yet, only through sheer manic perseverence was i able to finish this pair. have you ever heard of a thing called pooling?

the first sock was perfect from the start. the yarn behaved beautifully and created an almost self-striping pattern. then came the second sock, and all hell broke loose. no matter how many times i started over (and believe me, it was lots) i couldn't duplicate the color flow. every time i ended up with dark splotches and light splotches. i tried different gauges, starting at different points of the yarn, but no. bob the saint (remember him?) wouldn't let me off the hook. and no, pooling is NOT something that makes hand-dyed yarn interesting and/or beautiful, it's fucking annoying, and if anyone tells you otherwise, they're probably on sedatives or have already died inside a little.

then, after five painful days, i threatened bob with a murder-suicide-scenario, and he finally caved. and now i have a killer pair of socks. with no pooling. thank's for playing, bob!


i also made some stitch markers. girly ones. because i'm a girl. i checked.


knitting-wise there's lots of other stuff going as well. there's another lace scarf i'm making, slowly but surely, and a mountain of baby clothes for a certain someone who's expected to pop into this world during the summer. before you ask, it's not mine. dear god, no. but more on those projects as and if they develop.

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