Purple Passage

On the heels of all the super-sweet comments you guys made here and on Flickr about the Ingenue and how the color suited me, I got to thinking about my relationship to purple. If you were to ask me to name my favorite colors, I would most certainly say 'green', 'brown' and of course 'orange'. 'Purple' would never come to mind--in fact, I distinctly remember looking down at girls in elementary school that were in to purple--it seemed too easy. Yes, my judgmental nature and me go waaay back. In any case, it is therefore somewhat surprising to me that basically every project I have on the needles right now is purple. Huh? Let's take a stroll through crazy town the WIP/zzzz basket and examine the evidence, shall we?


Diminishing Rib Cardigan: Silky Malabrigo in Wisteria. I know I will come to regret making a sweater out of this pill-tastic yarn, but it's pretty, right?


Tea Leaves: Brooks Farm Mas Acero in some cryptic color. Genius call on the yarn if I do say so myself. Ok--my Twitterpeeps picked this out, aren' t they smart?


Seamless Hybrid: EZ Seamless Hybrid in Berrocco Inca Gold--have you seen this yarn? Such sheen-y beauty, almost seems like a shame to give this one away! But it's not going far, just one closet down from mine.


Central Park Hoodie: Rowan Scottish Tweed Aran--need I say more?


Back-To-School U-Neck vest: My Vestvember project in Ella Rae Classic 'Purple Heather'--how ridiculous can this get?


Sekret Test Knitting: Some Valley Colrain in Grape Jelly. This is top secret: I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.


Bella's Mittens: One down, one to go. This is Ella Rae Kamelsoft. Great pattern. Super soft yarn. Squee.

I guess the evidence is incontrovertible. I am a purple fiend. Perhaps growing up in the land of Darling Nikki and having my strongest sports affiliation be to the Minnesota Vikings might have something to do with it.


I think I might be taking a page of out of my Grandma Dot's playbook here: once on a visit to Florida in the late 70s I made the (foolish?) comment that I really like her Deviled Eggs. From then on out it was Deviled Eggs 24/7. They popped up at every holiday and social occasion imaginable. This of course caused me to despise them. Please don't let this happen to purple.

Ingenue

My Ravelry project notes tell me that I started this project back in August 08, worked on it in my usual undisciplined, distracted way and put it down sometime last January with the prescient comment that "...maybe I'll pick this up sometime next November". And wouldn't you know that naturally being a woman of my word and all I actually did just that, without even realizing it? Cue Twilight Zone music...

The Specs
Pattern: Ingenue from Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard
Yarn: Karabella Marble #35353, 9.75 skeins
Needles: Size 8
Mods: No waste shaping because well HELLO do I really need to go into all that AGAIN with you people? The neckline is a thing of beauty--love it to death. Blocking worked some serious miracles in this sweater & just kicked the whole thing into the zone of pure satisfaction.



In case you're wondering, yes I am aware that I look like a John Waters character in the above picture. I'm blaming the photographer and his unwillingness to take direction.

Babs and I are all about doing the pattern out of the yarn it's written for--I know that this might be some sort of puerile impulse, but occasionally it works out for us. And this is one of those times. Weirdly I happened to have 12 balls of Karabella Marble (a yarn that I could swear was discontinued briefly) in my stash and so cast on with great enthusiasm. Ah yes, that initial enthusiasm...if only we could bottle that and sell it. That I still had the yarn was very fortuitous as I had even tried to destash the yarn at one point, but luckily none of the ill-mannered cheapskates other detash folks wanted it.


Well, I'm about 23 years late to the whole ingenue/gamine party, but I suppose that since the sweater is the opposite of 'matronly', I'm still in the acceptable age range for wearing this--but only just barely. Can you tell that the photographer and I were having some marital issues during the photo shoot? He might have called me 'picky and demanding', and I might have called him a 'negative douche bag'...

I must say it feels good to dip into that 'zzzzz' pile and finish some projects that have been darkening my door and making me feel mentally ill. It's a good thing, too, because I seem to have stepped up my whole maniacally casting on for everything in sight routine--to the point that my 'only work on three projects at a time' policy is being put dangerously into question.

As you can see, we reached a tentative cease-fire by the end of our shoot, but I'm not expecting this to last...

Vestvember castings on

The above-pictured bench is one that we see every Sunday on our ramble in a local state park & is brought to you courtesy of yesterday's lovely weather. Sometimes November can be glorious. Speaking of November Vestvember...have you cast on yet?

Considering that I am basically stockpiling Felted Tweed like it were some sort of nuclear weapon and I were the potentate of a rogue state, casting on with it for a Vestvember project seemed like a foregone conclusion. On my recently concluded overly-short 36 hour trip to Chicago I brought it and the Honeycomb pattern along as I was sure that it was meant to be. Somewhere over Toledo I realized that I had sent myself on a fool's errand: size xl on size 4 needles with two cable rows as well as lazy, nebulous increase directions and my all time most hated knitting directive ever ("...and at the same time"--yo I'm not alone with my dislike of this phrase here) were going to spell trouble. I flashed forward to many hours of bitter, knitting non-enjoyment and had the good sense to rip that mother out. Although it was for the best, I was disappointed as I had been SO looking forward to knitting with this yarn...and then I remembered the most exciting pattern to beat the band had just been released: Pickadilly, people. Pickadilly.


Once in my hotel room with my robobar cocktail and macadamia nuts (what, you don't automatically do that?) I made haste to cast on for Pam's frolicky cardigan. Resolved and pleased to once again feel that glorious yarn felt itself in my hands as I knit, I spent an evening of hotel knitting bliss. And I am here to tell you that I LOVE THIS PATTERN. I haven't been this excited to start something in a long time--I'm even planning on doing the crochet edging, and I am a suck ass crocheter!

Luckily Vestvember is still a go for me because I had the good sense to bring another project with me, one that had auto-pilot written all over it: the Back to School U-Neck vest. This is another exciting project--it's permitting me to use some Ella Rae Classic that I've had for ages. This yarn is Cascade 220's doppleganger as far as I'm concerned, and I'm loving it. One of the reasons that I'm enjoying this vest so much is that I am knitting it with the knowledge that I won't have to do sleeves for it, because sleeves are a knitting buzz kill. A sleeve is all that is standing between me and my little gamine Ingenue, and let's just say that things aren't looking good for either of us. Phooey.

Chevron, etc.

This past week I decided to take a pause from the Rowan merry-go-round & pick up a few projects that had been laying fallow for a while. And boy am I glad I did, because I now have a finished chevron scarf and am one plane ride away (tomorrow--conference, only 36 hours but still) from a completed Ingenue. As I am sure you are aware, it's not every day that one can lay claim to finishing a chevron because everyone's favorite not-last-minute-gift takes a shitload of time. I gestated my kids longer than each one of these has taken me.

Specs:
Pattern: Chevron scarf from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson
Yarn: STR Lightweight in Monsoon and Footzey-Foo
Needles: size 6
Mods: None

I am glad to have persevered because now I have a killer present to give one of my favorite friends. I only basically see her once a year, which might be a good thing because I already told my husband that there would no doubt be problems in our marriage if we both lived in the same city as I would likely ditch my family & want to spend all my time with her, maniacally laughing.

As a non-knitter she was a total champ last year and accompanied me to Loop, so it only seems right that I should make her something. I love how the colors on this chevron are basically understated and not crazy. If you are looking for your next time-suck, by all means spend some time perusing the Ravelry project gallery for this project. After several hours you'll emerge, probably realizing that you've soiled yourself, but you sure will have a lot of color combo ideas!

Miller's Hat Test Knitting

When the opportunity to test knit the newest Through the Loops pattern presented itself a few weeks ago I absolutely jumped at the chance. My fantasy of what test knitting would be like involved knitters in Underwater Laboratories type settings, knitting away while wearing Clinque-counter lab coats checking off boxes on papers attached to clipboards.

This vision quickly then gave way to another one, no doubt shaped by my childhood in the Twin Cities, where every Brownie troop visited the Betty Crocker Test Kitchens. It was one of my first visions of domesticity, and I was fascinated by the women in aprons testing cake batter in different themed kitchens: the Polynesian one was a personal favorite and in my mind it is where Pineapple Upside-Down cake was invented. At the end of the home ec type tour, we each received small Easy-Bake Oven® cake mixes (sadly I didn't have an actual Easy Bake Oven because, you know, OH MY GOD that light bulb was dangerous) and a giant plastic red spoon--I'm sure gay men everywhere have made that thing a major Ebay collectible, despite the unfortunate plastic aspect...

You can see that the bar for test knitting was very, very high. And I was not disappointed! But not because the above-mentioned fantasies were fulfilled, but rather because the Miller's Hat is one kick ass mutha of a pattern. It has everything: totally rad herringbone stitch, cushy purls sts & best of all serpentine cables that rock so, so very hard.

The Specs:
Pattern: Miller's Hat by Kirsten Kapur
Yarn: Brown Sheep Shepherd's Shades in #784 'Rain'
Needles: size 5 and size 7 addi turbos
Mods: I only did one cable repeat as I was making this for my daughter. I also somewhat foolishly used a yarn that just edges toward being a bulky, on size 7 needles, so the hat a. is not as slouchy as I would have wanted and b. hurt like hell to knit. My mistake! My next one will be in Malabrigo on a size 8 which I’m sure will be slouchy perfection.

The herringbone stitch was a first for me and I must say that I am really pleased with how it turned out, although it did require that I put down the Twitter and the iPhone for 5 minutes and actually pay attention. And I'm so glad I did!

Now that this hat interlude is over, I am free to devote my attention to Vestvember. Are you ready?

Hoodie of Narcissitic Investment

I was that kid in the 70s who could never find her name at Wall Drug on the souvenir license plate display, nor could I ever seem to locate any 'Heather' swag at Pedro's South of the Border or any of the other tacky tourist traps my parents would never take me and my brother to (though I begged, LORD how I begged. Principles. Pfft.). If only I had been born like 12 years later, I would've had my pick of the vanity name plates, but that was just about the time Morgan and Kaitlin were setting up shop and Heather and Ashley (you know it Ashley, I know you're feeling me here) were relegated to last year's news. Oh well. At least I now have knitting to fulfill the narcissistic desire to see my name projected everywhere...

Specs:
Pattern: Heather Hoodie Vest from Knitscene, Fall 09
Yarn: Rowan Cocoon, 7.25 skeins of #818 'Quarry Tile' FTW!
Needles: Size 7 mm, because I'm special.
Mods: None, except for messing up the cable repeat at several points. Also,this garment is boxy, like FLINTSTONE boxy, so if you are looking for a pattern with some waist shaping? Umm, please to keep walking.

This garment is exactly what I wanted it to be: fast, comfy and warm. The Cocoon is a silky dream, although the splittiness takes a little getting used to. I would definitely buy this again--oh wait, I did! A sweater's quantity! Nevermind...

This pattern represents a series of firsts for me: not only is it my first time using Rowan Cocoon and first time knitting a hood (not hard, as it turns out. But it takes foreeeveeer), it's also the first time I learned a knitting technique from someone under 12 on Youtube. Yes, I couldn't recall how to do the three-needle bind off, so luckily weird child labor laws have not prevented kids from posting diy videos. Yay kids!

Next up? The Rowan love fest juggernaut is ready to keep rolling. Next stop: Honeycomb Vest in Felted Tweed. We're gonna drive this mother til the wheels fall off!

That knitting festival...

One week ago Babs and I had the pleasure of attending what her husband referred to as "...that knitting festival". It was the first time we'd ever crossed state lines together! While calling it a Thelma and Louise typa getaway deal would be somewhat of an overstatement, we did manage to have a bit of a blast at Rhinebeck.

We got to meet lots and lots of new knitting pals:


As well as see some old friends, too.




There was also some yarn purchasing because I mean, HELLO it is a knitting festival, for Chrissakes:



I got the requisite STR because, well, I'm nothing if not 100% predictable. I also picked up some much needed Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair and Sylvan Sprite for a hat pattern that I saw and had to cast on right away [more on that next time]. The yarn I was the most hoping to encounter for my next tam project is interestingly enough the plainest yarn around, Jamieson & Smith Jumper weight. Don't the three colors below just seem desperate to become a Dollheid?

I was also fortunate enough to nab the last O W L mug from Jennie the Potter. Scoring the last one of anything will always have a special place in this mad consumer's heart...

There was grub at Rhinebeck, and while I am perhaps excessively proud of the fact that the fried dough wasn't part of my equation, the 12 year old me is absolutely stunned that the in-my-40s-me waited in a long, tedious line for. . . artichokes? Huh? But oh they were so delicious. Plus it's not like we had to be anywhere, right? There were also apples, because we were in New York state after all, and let me just say that the Honeycrisp is the king of apples--get one while you still can!



I am working on finishing a big project that I hope to have the stones to complete this weekend. As it will involve picking up 279 sts around a neck and collar, the self-defeatist gears in my mind are already wildly spinning, desperately trying to find a way to get out of it. Maybe a new project...