Finished Object: Meredith's Eternity

Which, ironically did not take an eternity to knit. To be honest, only three days of off and on knitting. Fun little knit. A little repetitive after a while, but the cartridge rib is really fun. I like how the designer did it both horizontally and vertically.

Pattern: Eternity Scarf
Yarn: Rowan Lima in Cusco
Needle: US 9 - 5.5mm

It's hard to photograph this thing in the afternoon light around here. Mornings are really best, as we get ambient light instead of direct light. Plus, the snow is REALLY making our photos look overexposed. Not too bad on the knitting itself. Very very bad on human skin.

(Thanks to Bruce for the photo of me!)

Eternity in Progress

Meredith's Eternity Scarf (rav link) is going beautifully. This is out of the Rowan Lima, and lemme tell you, this is one sexy yarn. It feels amazing on the hands. It produces a lofty yet thick fabric. It has great stitch definition. It's got a little bit of a halo, but not too much. Oh YEAH, baby. It may be my new favorite yarn.

Here's a progress shot:

Yes. I will start a pair of socks. Soon. First, I'm going to get through Meredith's set. After the scarf, it shall be a hat and some sort of hand covering.

But I am actually somewhat motivated to knit socks now. Took me long enough. :)

Finished Object: Cynthia's Mittens

I finished up Cynthia's mittens on the 10th. They were a super fast knit, despite the fact that it took me a few days to finish up. I ended up knitting, ripping and re-knitting the second mitten, as apparently I decided to make it child sized? Not entirely sure how that one happened.

Pattern: Flip Tops
Yarn: Berocco Campus in College Try
Needle: US 9 - 5.5mm

And the entire set for Cynthia. It should go into the mail this afternoon.

Moving right on to Meredith's commission. The first piece is the Eternity Scarf:

I'm making it from the called for yarn, Rowan Lima (it's really gorgeous yarn, I think I mentioned that before).

I tried to cast on for it yesterday, but instead of setting up my addi needles with two size nine needles, I put on one size nine and one size 10. Oops. I was a little distracted about the tooth problems and the dentist. All is well.

Oh, and in terms of my resolutions, I'm keeping up with the meditation fairly well, as I hit four of seven days last week, and am aiming for five days this week. I got one day of yoga in last week and I'll get another in this week. I'm also trying to take better care of myself, which I've been neglecting to do for a while.

On hold for a minute

I'm off to the dentist today to deal with a (not fun) problem that occurred over the weekend. However, I did finish Cynthia's mittens and am about to start on the cowl for commission #2.

I'm ok and in a surprisingly good place despite having a few (minor) health issues (teeth, tummy problems again, etc) so once I'm back up at full speed, I'll do another blog post with a picture of the finished trio for Cynthia and the plans for the new projects. And I promise I'll do a catch up on everyone's blogs soon.

Finished Object: Cynthia's Shroom

Well, I have two thirds of the set for Cynthia done, and it's going to be super cute. I did test drive it yesterday in the actual outdoors (rather than sticking my head out the window) and it is VERY warm. So that's the good news.

Pattern: Shroom (my rav page)
Yarn: Berocco Campus in College Try
Needles: US 9 - 5.5mm and US 10 - 8 mm

Anyway, a picture:

All work and no coffee makes mumseh a dull dull model.

Anyway, I've started on Cynthia's mittens, using this pattern, Flip Tops by Vanessa Carter:

It's a pretty generic flip top mitten pattern. But it works, it's simple, and it looks really cute in the Berocco Campus. However, I did find that her gauge is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off from mine. She specifies chunky yarn, and a US 10.5 - 6.5 mm needle, and I ended up having to drop down to a US 9 - 5.5. mm needle. The 6.5mm needle produced something closely approximating a hat in diameter. As my wrist is rather smaller than my head, I figured this was probably a bad thing and ripped back. I mean, for the Shroom hat you cast on 48 stitches on a 5.5mm needle. For these mittens she wanted 32 stitches on a 6.5mm needle... that's HUGE!

And yes, hardcore knitters, I did do a gauge swatch. I exactly matched the designer's gauge with a 6.5mm needle. So I thinking maybe she misprinted? Or something? Anyway, it works quite a bit better with the 5.5mm. I haven't made any further pattern mods, but I'll keep you all updated.

Should be done with the mittens tomorrow night, or sometime this weekend. I am heading up to Connecticut for my sister-in-law Susan's baby shower (where I will FINALLY give her the Hap  blanket), weather willing.

After Cynthia's stuff is done, I'm moving on to my other commission projects for Meredith. I have the yarn (yummy Rowan Lima) and a pretty good idea of what I'm going to knit, so I'm stoked. And after that I have about 50 pairs of mittens to knit a bunch of sweaters and another September Circle for Ella.

Resolutions, Knitting and Otherwise

1. Knit a few charity items this year. Helmet liners, chemo caps, etc. It's pretty amazing to me that I can do something I really love doing, and make somebody else's life better while doing it. Rock on.
2. Knit a pair of $%#*! socks. 
3. Forget about learning to knit Continentally for now. It's not going to happen any time soon. I simply don't want to change how I knit at this point in time. I like my current technique, I am quite fast, and it makes me happy. I am not counting it out for the future.
4. Query knitting magazines about article possibilities.I'm on the path. I have written quite a few knitting articles for eHow and I really love doing that. So going more indepth than I can in a 500 word piece looks REALLY appealing to me.
5. Design, design, design. I'm ready. Willing. Gonna do it. I swear. I've designed some stuff on the fly for eHow articles. Why can't I do it for myself? I know DAMN WELL how sweaters go together now, and yeah. I can do it. I can do it...
6. Design and knit Bruce a sweater. He needs another one. I think I've got his neck covered for a while. (four scarves)
7. Meditate. I'd like to do this daily, for at least 15 minutes. I'm not sure if this is an attainable goal. I did yesterday. I'm going to try today. My friend (and knitting protege) K over at AnnieMall is also trying to make some changes in her life. I'm checking in for the meditation stuff in her comments.
8. Try to do yoga twice a week. I can do twice a week. This is attainable. Plus, I enjoy it. Why don't I do something that I enjoy? Why, that, my dear friends, is the question of 2011.

How'd I do on last year's resolutions?

1. Acquire an SLR. Yup. My mom sent me one of my father's old ones. I got some good photos out of it before the batteries died. I'll need to get new juice, and then that sucker will be up and running again. Apparently I have a touch more photography knowledge than I thought, but I still need to learn more.
2. Complete six designs and have them test knitted. Nopety nopety no. There's always this year.
3. Selling designs? nope.
4. Eating more healthfully? Oh yeah. My stomach issues definitely saw to that. I ate better, had very few (less than 15) alcoholic drinks last year, lost some weight. Tummy issues have started up again, but I'm trying to deal with them more aggressively this time around, taking supplements, eating things that make me feel better, etc.
5. Improve employment situation. Definitely took care of this one. And I'm moving quickly towards DOING EXACTLY WHAT I want to be doing. Which is incredibly exciting to me. Bruce, too. And dealing with the employment sitch has made me a much happier Virginia. Though I still find I'm holding on to some resentment regarding my last position. I think I've forgiven all, and then I have a memory or a flashback and go back to steaming rage. Ah well. I'll let go of that when I'm good and ready to.
6. Knit socks. Heh. Obviously didn't happen. I think I said exactly the same thing last year regarding socks as I did above. 
7. Finish Bruce's sweater. Yep, even if it was a fair to middlin failure.
8. Finish Ella's sweater. Yes. Wasn't a failure. But I did forget to get photos of it.
9. Make a nupp. Nope, no nupps. I have plans. Bruce got me the book Knitted Lace of Estonia and it is chock full of nupps. And pretty pretty lace. That I will probably never wear, but will have a blast and a half knitting.
10. Learn to knit continentally. Nope. Not ready.

So, I got 50% of my resolutions last year.

Not too bad, all things considered.

I definitely hit the ones that I needed to keep me from going insane. Such as food and job.

Anybody else have resolutions going? I know Karen had some great ones...

Last and First

Last finished object of 2010: Honey Cowl the Fifth

Pattern: Honey Cowl
Yarn: Malabrigo in Loro Barranqueno
Needle: US 7 - 4.5mm

My friends Jen and Joey ended up stranded in New York until New Year's Day, so they came and stayed with us for a while. Joey ended up falling in love with the yarn that I used, and as I was, um, not as enthusiastic, I gave the cowl to him. So. I guess this means I will be making another darned cowl for myself.

It was also my first project with my new Addi Clicks. The tips on the new lace click set are pretty darned sharp. I didn't notice much difference between the tips on these and the tips on my Knit Picks set, so they seem to have solved the bluntness issue.

And, my first finished object of 2011: Cynthia's Cowl

Pattern: improvised
Yarn: Berocco Campus
Needle: US 10.5 - 6.5mm

I ended up tossing every single pattern I'd found for this yarn, as the colors and texture of the yarn ended up competing with the patterns themselves. I also started out with a US 13 - 9mm needle and it just wasn't good. So I swatched about 50 million different patterns, and finally ended up doing exactly what I did for Ryan's Very Manly Cowl, just with bigger yarn.

Please excuse the bad hair. It's the first day after Christmas break, I haven't had coffee yet, and... yeah. Well, I made an ass of myself over on Leonora's blog this morning, so why not do the same on mine? 

The cowl itself is large enough to wrap twice and/or pull up over the head for a hood. The yarn is nice, soft enough to sit against my sensitive skin, and pretty good on Bruce's. Of course, we were wearing it in our VERY overheated apartment, so it probably isn't the best representation of the garment. Also, I hadn't blocked it yet. I suppose I would look like an idiot if I put the cowl on and stuck my head out an open window to test its warmth. Not that looking like an idiot is anything new this morning.

The yarn itself is a wool/acrylic/alpaca blend. It has a thick and thin texture, going from a DK weight yarn to a super ultra bulky. As I mentioned, I tried a pretty huge range of stitch patterns in it on swatches, and the two that looked good were garter and stockinette. I didn't find it too splitty at all, although in the super ultra bulky parts, it wasn't really twisted at all, and the fibers were easily tangled, which necessitated paying closer attention to what I was doing. On a size 13 needle, the stitches looked... well... cruddy. The DK portions looked awful, and I don't think any amount of blocking would have saved them. I went down to an 11, and it just didn't work too well for me, so I swatched again with a 10.5 and that was fabulous.

Anyhoo, off to work on Cynthia's hat and mittens. I'm having fun, and the Campus is a nice yarn to work with.