the siren call of Ravelry

This afternoon, I was going to either pick my kiddo up early from preschool and take him swimming, or make shepherd's pie for dinner. But instead, I spent the last hour updating my projects on Ravelry and browsing my friends' newest projects. That place is such a time drain.

I keep forgetting to take photos of my kiddo's gansey, which I finished in January after my shoulder finally recovered enough for me to knit again. At first he complained that it was "too yarny," yanking and pulling at the funnel neck collar. But he seems to have gotten used to it, and will happily wear it. I still need to take photos of all the details, like the diamond gusset and the triangle neck gussets. Those Channel Island knitters certainly were clever about those little comfort-enhancing additions. I love feeling like I'm part of a centuries-old tradition by incorporating these features into a modern sweater.



I finished up a pair of cargo longies this week. They use my Moonlight colorway, and have a cute little cargo pocket on the left leg. I love the button that I was able to find--it was exactly what I was looking for.

Decadence

This colorway was inspired by the movie Chocolat. It was the first movie with Johnny Depp where I really understood why so many people thought he was hot. Since his other movies that I'd seen were What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, Edward Scissorhands, and Ed Wood, maybe that's not so surprising. The movie as a whole was so-so, but the chocolate wonders and watching Depp and Juliette Binoche in action were fantastic.

Anyway, I've tentatively named the colorway Decadence. Dried much lighter-colored than I expected. It's dyed on my new bulky Blue-Faced Leicester wool, which I am really liking--smoothly plied, with a lovely sheen.

back in the dyepot again

After not really feeling like dyeing for, oh, about two months, today I dyed 3 lbs of yarn. Two new colorways, one custom colorway (the soon to be world-famous Eat Your Veggies), and my Spice colorway on the last of my organic Clun Forest yarn. Plus I touched up some yarn that I originally dyed in October, but that I've been too busy/lazy/unmotivated to fix until now.

Photos this weekend! I'm especially excited about my new chocolate-themed colorway, for February's movie stocking at Venus Vanguard. It's inspired by the movie Chocolat (not to mention the pound or two of Endangered Species chocolate that showed up on my doorstep this week), but someone well-known in HC-land already has a colorway named that, so I'll need to come up with something else.

tedium

My neck and shoulder still hurt, so not much is happening on the knitting front. I did decide what to do with the aran cabled shrug--I'm going to knit the shrug just in stockinette. The yarn is interesting enough on its own to carry a plain sweater, I think, and it will also help with the probable yarn shortage. Now I just have to heal, finish the boy's gansey, and then finally get to a sweater for myself.

And THEN I can figure out what to do with my black aran BFL. It's one of a kind yarn--my very favorite BFL that I've ever had. Soft and plush, and a true aran weight. Not the same as the old school, cottony BFL, though it bears more resemblance to that than the silky thin stuff we've been getting in the past year. I got half a kilo of naturally colored black through a co-op about 1.5 years ago, and spotted another half-kilo from the same co-op on the Wooly Wonder swap board a few weeks ago, so now I've got enough for a sweater for me. Oh, and I also managed to get my hands on two kilos of undyed from that co-op, too. Woot!

Today I am dedicating my childfree half-day to figuring out my 2007 income and expenses. After last year's tax-time, I vowed to do a better job of tracking the money stuff in 2007. Ha. Ha. Ha. I've only gotten through July in my PayPal account and my neck is killing me and I want to put my eyes out. Plus I still have paper receipts to go through. Waaaaahh.

gansey, part 1

About a week before Christmas, I started working on a gansey for my three-year-old. I'm mostly following Knitting Ganseys by Beth Brown-Reinsel, with patterns out of Cornish Guernseys and Knit-Frocks by Mary Wright. I'm using the Northcott pattern for the main body, and a seed stitch variation for the upper parts of the sleeves. The yarn is a wonderful, silky soft BFL/merino/kid mohair blend that's a natural brown.



I first heard of ganseys when my husband bought one on our honeymoon. His is very plain, with some decorative stitches at the shoulder and armhole only. Like his, my kiddo's gansey is reversible (the neckline is unshaped, so there is no front or back side, so it will be easier for him to dress himself) and has triangular neck gussets. And of course, it has my favorite feature, the diamond-shaped underarm gusset.

I've made the body and started one sleeve, but somehow I strained my arm on Christmas Day and haven't been able to knit since. My shoulder hurts and I've got a bad case of tendonitis--it's not just near the elbow, but along the whole length of my forearm. I'm going to lay off the knitting for another week and see if it improves. I've been icing the tendon and doing stretches, but I think time is going to be the real healer here.

to shrug or not to shrug

I think I'm giving up on the aran cabled shrug. My yarn (silk/wool/cashmere Noro Kabuto in a rich claret color) is gorgeous, but it's got that thick/thin thing going, and also has some color variegation so the finer details like the double seed stitch just aren't showing up. In addition, it occurred to me that maybe a petite person shouldn't wear something that has an 8" wide cable section going across her shoulders. I think I might get overwhelmed by it.

I do have some natural bulky BFL that I could dye, if I really wanted to knit the shrug. The patterning would show up so much better with a smooth-textured yarn. But the thought of dyeing 2.5 lbs of yarn and then spending 30 hours knitting it up, only to find that it looked terrible on me ... well, that thought definitely gives me pause. I'm going to knit a little more of it, stretch it across my shoulder, and see if that gives me a better sense of how it might look.

the mysteries of postal delivery

It would actually cost me less to ship this little cozy to Australia than to someplace in the U.S. How strange is that?