Hot date?

I plan on knitting tonight.

Is anyone joining me?

Bus Time Knitting

On the way to grad school orientation today, I saw another woman knitting on the express bus. We were both doing socks. I was making jaywalkers. I don't know what she was making.

Should I have talked to her? We both smiled and made eye-contact and went back to knitting.

How good is your norse mythology?

Apparently Tuesday is named after the Norse god Tyr, who, like Mars/Ares was the god of war. How fitting then, that this day has been chosen for our fightknitting?

Amber was saying something about this being Library Day, but then I didn't bring any books, so let's do that next week.

Who's in?

Ravelry Watch - August

6198 people are ahead of you in line.

They seem to be moving at a pretty good clip. I wish that I had signed up for beta testing the first time I heard about Ravelry. I remember in early June my exact thoughts were "Let's see if it's any good once it gets out of Beta and they get the bugs shaken out." I have an aversion to Beta versions, but the FightKnitters have convinced me its pretty solid.

Also, why haven't I posted pictures of the yarn swift my dad made?

Oops.

In my defense, it was cheap at a garage sale right near my house, and I had the day off. You're supposed to garage sale on your days off, right?

Roll Call!!!

check in, peeps. i have ACTUALLY STARTED LONDON CALLING. well... i made a gauge swatch. i need feedback on if it's right or not because i don't get gauge at all. no matter how many books i read, vids i watch, websites i look at. gauge is like trigonometry to me, so i need help!

my birthday present to me

slippers
Originally uploaded by ellaislost

I made these yellow slippers as my birthday present to me. Please ignore the fact it has been 90 degrees out. My feet may have been sweating when I put them on.

They are made of malabrigo, toe-up, and totally fit.

Malabrigo Laceweight

In Milwaukee, I have a yarn shop. The ladies there are nice and tolerate my eccentricities. When I was there two weeks ago, I was telling them I wanted to get some laceweight yarn. I looked at what they had out, but nothing was really doing it for me. I sort of new that I wanted *ahem* bubblegum pink variegated yarn. We'll ignore the obvious lapse of taste in color.

Anyway, the ladies busted out the colors they planned on putting out for fall of the Malabrigo Laceweight yarn. And they had exactly what I wanted and only 5 hanks of it. At 470 yards a hank, I decided only to get 3.

Today, I found out that none of my yarn stores in the Twin Cities are stocking this stuff yet. The Yarnery ordered some. Double Ewe probably isn't stocking it, even though they carry the worsted weight Malabrigo. I also checked the websites of a couple of other shops and no one seems to have it yet.

So now the urge to make something in bubblegum pink laceweight before anyone else can even buy it is overwhelming. Project-stoppingly overwhelming.


Edit: I'm 6993 in the ravelry queue. At this rate, I'll have arthritis by the time I have access.

Yarn Store Report - Beyagi

I meant to post this on Monday, but completely forgot...oops!

This past Sunday, I undertook a Stash Enhancement eXpedition to Beyagi, a beads, yarn, and gift store in Little Canada. Given that yarn is only one third of their mission, I wasn't expecting to find much, but they where having a 40% off everything sale, and I had a number of things on my knitting shopping list so I checked it out.

I have to say i was pretty impressed. The store is small, so their selection isn't huge, but what they did have was high quality, and unique. For example, they had King Tut egyptian cotton which I had seen online but hadn't run into in person yet. They also have a pretty good selection of every type of Debbie Bliss yarn that I'm aware of in a number of colours.

Price-wise, they were about average for what I've seen in the Cities, but the 40% off certainly helped me make a few decisions. All in all, I walked out with about $80 worth of stuff for under $50. The owner was super nice, and they are raising money for the breast cancer 3-day (the owner's partner is walking this year).

Will I go back? Well, it's not that far from work which is nice, and I always get stupidly happy whenever I go to Little Canada (flags! everywhere!), but, due to the small selection, I don't know that it will be my go-to shop for most things. If I'm looking for something unique that I haven't been able to find thus far, I'll definitely check them out again.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMBER!

Roll Call

Who's knitting this week? I plan on it.

Voodoo Wrist Warmer 1

Voodoo Wrist Warmer 1
Originally uploaded by jen.fotos

ok you guys. i'm really excited about these! i was hoping i'd get the other one done tonight but probably not. since i'm useless on monday nites, this means i'll finish it on TUESDAY.

dun dun dun!

Voodoo Wrist Warmers

Voodoo Wrist Warmers, originally uploaded by jen.fotos.

Hey, I'm doing something that is not a dishcloth or a scarf! Neat. Noro is made of LUV and AWESOME with a dash of MMM.

I haven't forgotten our header either… is this the layout we'll use? I like it.

Edit: Oooh, looks like 500 px is too wide for photos. Sorry! Will fix for next time.

Wow.

I may have just found the shawl to use with the 880 yards of lavender laceweight that I bought in a fit of charity:

I give you Hanami!

It's beautiful. and I can't believe that it's the exact same yardage.

My hands are broken

PICT1443
Originally uploaded by ellaislost

This is a grocery bag. I made it in a cotton-linen blend. 160 yards later, my hands hurt and the bag was done.

I cursed out this bag's existence the entire time I made it.

PICT1444
Originally uploaded by ellaislost

So I casted on another grocery bag. This time made of recycled sari silk.

Jumi warned me about sari silk. I didn't listen. It's difficult to work with. It breaks. It's over-twisted. I kept knitting. I had allergic reactions to the yarn if I rubbed my eyes after working with it. I kept knitting. It hurt my hands. I kept knitting.

When I came near the end of the bag, I ran out of silk. I ripped out a couple of rows and re-knit. I ran out of silk again before I was finished.

Jumi bailed me out and gave me some of her left over silk. Bag finished.

PICT1446
Originally uploaded by ellaislost

More cotton linen blend. Could it be another grocery bag?

Please, someone stage an intervention.

promises

Jen, as promised, here's the pattern that I'm using for my brioche scarf:

Cast on an even number of stitches.
Row 1: * Yo, sl 1, k1, repeat from *
Row 2: * Yo, sl 1, k2tog, repeat from *
Repeat Row 2 until the end.

Amber, as promised, here's the shawl that's catching my eye:

Bee fields from Knitspot she's working on a rectangular version of the pattern, so I may wait until that comes out.