And She Knits Too!

Monogamy works!

(Hopefully that title won't attract a bunch of weirdos; especially since this is about knitting monogamy.)

I've been faithfully plugging away on Vino and on Tuesday night I finished the back.  This knitting one thing at a time plan is quite fruitful.

Sorry about the crappy camera phone pictures, I was in a rush and my camera battery was dead.  I really need to get another battery or a new camera since this is getting rather silly.

I pushed getting the back done because it was not longer portable at almost 38" and I wanted to work on it at knit night on Wednesday.  And I concur with everyone that Dream in Color is fast yarn; it just flies off the needles.  I finished the ribbing on the left front last night whilst eating cake to celebrate Denny's birthday (and a big Happy Birthday to Elizabeth whose birthday is today) and meeting Ysolda, who came all the way from Scotland to hang with the knitters--she's lovely and her cardi is now on my to-do list.

Of course, even the monogamous can stray a bit...

That's the yarn to make Hip in Hemp.  I'm trying to stay faithful and not swatch or anything until Vino is blocking.  I don't have an elastic for the waist yet, so I wouldn't get far anyway.  But it is tempting to start.  Especially now that Spring has sprung and it's ideal skirt weather. 

Better camera phone photo of Queen's Park turning green (I walk by it on my way to work.  It's kinda neat to be this close to government, even if they piss me off most of the time.)

Knitterly Weekend

Phew, what a weekend. I started with the Spring Knitter's Frolic, where I did buy almost enough hempathy to make Hip In Hemp (I need to find the dark brown, probably at Romni) and I won a fabulous skein of fuschia lace weight donated by the Sweet Sheep--thanks Michelle! I got to hang with Michelle from In Yarn Veritas for the afternoon too. Lots of fun.

Then I did some work around the house and after dinner we were off to the More Big Girl Knits book launch at Lettuce Knit. There were yummy cupcakes, loads of knitters, including Amy and Jillian the co-authors extraordinaire and Shannon Okey was up for a visit too. I tried on a bunch of the garments, won a nifty bag, and gah gahed over how everything looked amazing on Keri and had a few beers before we dashed off to see The Forbidden Kingdom (which while not extra fantastic, it was still pretty good).

I forgot to add a photo of the bag.  It's similar to this one.  They're made from rice bags and each one is different. Totally fun and fishy.

 

I managed to have a nice long sleep before spending the day close to home, watching Xander play ball hockey, doing more yard work (deck demolition, garage cleaning), supervising homework and scaling mount laundry. I did spend some time on the vino coat too--I'm an inch and a bit away from the arm hole decreases. Laura smartly pointed out that a Vino front is smaller than a Vino back, so if I can get this done, I'll be back to more portable knitting again. This is good because the next few days look a tad cold for biking and I'll need some TTC knitting.

So much for being in bed by 10:30

Both Craig and I have been staying up too late, lately and we've been trying to just stop doing stuff and getting to bed earlier. That was my plan tonight, as I finished packing the lunches at 10:30. But then I just had to knit a couple of rows on Vino, and I just had to check my email, and I just had to take a picture of Vino and upload it to Flickr so I could blog it tomorrow and now here I am at 10:51 blogging now. For someone with a PhD, I'm not too bright.

That being said, Vino is just swimming along. This is fast yarn. I don't know what makes it faster than other worsted weight wool, but it *feels* faster and I'm still very much in love with knitting it.

However, a 30 inch piece of brown knitting does not make for very exciting blogging. So I glammed it up by putting my piece in progress on my new living room rug--which is very pretty.

I'm no decorator, but confess I do like this new stage in my life where a) I own a house and b) I can now accumulate things I love to put in my house. I do not have the time, money or inclination to hunt for the perfect thingamadoodle to coordinate with some whatchamacallit in my foyer (in fact, I don't think I have a foyer), but I do like that I have a new couch, ottoman and rug that are my style and which coordinate with each other. I actually have a palette (which I keep swatches of in a little daytimer binder so I can bring them shopping, geek that I am) and a plan. It sorta scares me since I used to think milk crates liquor bottle shelves were tres chic; I guess I'm growing up because I enjoy my cozy home in progress.

Must Knit Faster

Reading Claudia's Blog over the years has taught me many things, most notably:
a) To embrace my inner orange
b) That you can knit for both product and process
c) Biking is the way to go
and
d) If you knit one thing at a time, you get sweaters (and usually faster).

I like knitting as a process, but I also love knitted stuff for wearing. Ever since I tried on Laura Chau's Vino at the Knitter's Frolic, I knew I wanted one. A generous gift from some of my favourite knitters last spring sealed the deal and once I decided on a colour of Dream in Colour yarn, I was ready to go (It wasn't the fastest decision, sure, but it was worth the wait).

Once I started, the sleeves flew off the needles. Here they are almost finished.

I love the November Muse colour which is rich and really complicated when you look at it up close; there are greenish, bluish and grey tones in it too.

I started the back (the BIG piece) on the weekend and it's going quickly, if the back of a knee-length garment can be said to go quickly.

Being realistic about this, I'm faced with a dilemma. If I knit this almost exclusively (it's not portable, so I might have a smaller thing on the go too so I can knit on the go) I might be done in a month. Especially if I neglect my already neglected yard, partially renovated bathroom (a story for another day), the garage and that stairway project I started way back when.

However, I probably won't neglect those things, and will finish Vino sometime in late June or later, and it'll be too warm to wear it.

So do I persist, which I suspect Claudia would do or cast on a nice truly summery sweater?

I really need to start planning my knitting around the seasons a bit more if I want new stuff to wear when the weather changes.

What's in Dr. Steph's knitting bag(s)?

One area where my new MacBook totally delivers is on the photo side of things. My Canon Powershot S230 is five years old and on my PC I needed to download pictures using Canon's cumbersome software; without it, XP couldn't seem to find the camera. With my new 'puter, I plugged in the camera and there were my photos! So I took pictures of all my WIPs.

Earth Stripe wrap is at the 112cm mark (I think it's about 150cm at finished length without fringe). I'm sooooo close. I want to wear this a few times at least before Spring, so this is high on my list. It's too big and there's too many colours to carry around so I need to be home to work on this. Not a problem this week because Craig is off to the Tim Horton's Colts Provincial Championships tomorrow so it's just me, the kids and the tv. Go Beck Rink!

I finished the first Vinterblomster mitten last Tuesday night. Here it is blocked. I love it.

I started the second mitt last night so that there is a chance I'll have a pair to wear this Spring (I think they'll match nicely with Claudia).

Emma's socks are almost done (Oak grove mc and Sheldrige Farms soft touch cc). Her feet have appeared to stop growing (she's just turned 9 and wear's a woman's size 7, so having them slow down for a bit is good for sock knitting and shoe buying).

And this is the thing that is distracting me from all of the above. My first piece of Vino--Laura's awesome sweater coat. The yarn is Dream in Colour Classy in November Muse and I love knitting this and looking at it. The colour is exactly my style and it's fast and fun. I put this into the bottom of my knitting bag and left all the rest out so I don't play with it for a bit.

This also game me the chance to show off my new couch and funky ottoman.  The scary ikea couch is no more and I have place to rest my feet while I knit!