Bleh. My cats paws are offset by a stitch or two. Figuring out how to rip back two rows of garter stitch was not easy, but I think I've got it. *threads dental floss through her shawl for miles and miles* T_T


And now I can't find the cord to transfer the picture from the camera, so this post has to be pictureless. Oh well, now there won't be any documentation of how I messed up. XD

Woot! I post bearing pictures!

So, despite my posts to the contrary, I haven't had a total loss for knitting lately. The yarn to the right is destined to become a hat of some sort. I don't have the needles for it, so it's just sitting around looking pretty and dodging the cat for the time being. I lost the band for it, so I don't remember exactly what's in it, but it's from Mini Mills in PEI. The colour repeats on it are quite short (like, two inches or so) and it's slightly thick and thin. It's a little strange for me to knit with, but I like the swatch I did. The swatch just told me that I also needed smaller needles for it.

So in the meantime, I've frogged the mini scarf I was making from this Katia Mexico yarn, and have put it on my needles as the hat the Mini Mills yarn was supposed to be. Mini Mills will just have to wait.

This yarn makes me glee all over the place. I love ombred yarns like this, and this one is in such cheerful colours, it just makes me squee. I like to pinch it, because it's so lofty. I only wish it wasn't so splitty. It's a single ply yarn, so it's like so many hairs just laid next to each other on the needles. Add this to my tendency to untwist yarns as I knit, and then add in two froggings, and the yarn has seen better days. But I still love it, so it gets to be a hat.



This lovely red stuff is what gets to keep me warm. It's Lamb's Pride Worsted in Spice, and it's going to be a cat's paw lace shawl, as seen in my last post. Much thanks goes to Moe for suggesting it, and giving me an excuse to go to Tangled Skeins and check it out. I went after lunch today, and sat around drinking coffee and swatching on borrowed needles for an hour, and generally enjoying my complete and utter inability to do any homework there. When I'm through with blogging, I'm going to cast on gleefully and then promptly puzzle over things like pM (short research has shown this to be "place marker") and how to keep track of what row I'm on and what I'm supposed to do on that row. Should be much fun.





And this is my cat. She's very silly, and very bad, and has tried on more than one occasion to make off with every ball of yarn I own. She completely lacks respect for me, and even tried last night to steal the Mexico yarn from a foot away from me. Just picked up the whole ball and tried to run off. My ill fated arm warmers met the same fate, and I had to take two days off from knitting them to rewind the ball, only to discover that it was a full frogging job anyway.

But yeah, she's cute, and I cackle at showing incriminating photos of her on the internet. As much as keeping my yarn away from her is a 24 hour job, I lurves her dearly.

So, you lovely Halifax ladies that knit. I'm looking to make this: http://www.freepatterns.com/fp_pdfs/Other/Knitting/Cats_Paw_Lace_Shawl.pdf

You probably think I'm nuts, but I am sort of that way. So here's my problem. The yarn they used is an Australian mill's yarn, in wool and mohair, and I don't know how to sub in. The pattern says the gauge is 10sts - 10cm on size 10.5 needles. Any of you want to enlighten me as to what this is telling me?

In other news, swatching has been done for a hat in ridiculously colourful yarn (the Mini Mills stuff needs some smaller needles for a decently cozy fabric, so it'll have to wait until I can go swatch for a while at the Loop), and I'm eager to cast on and puzzle over things like k1fb that don't quite make sense to me except when I watch the videos at knitting help. Honestly, how could anyone ever learn that from a book? o_O

Oh man, I'm having yarn withdrawl. I'm so busy with school that I get about 30 minutes of knitting time a week. All I want to do tonight is go to a yarn shop and spend loads of money, and then come home and roll around on my yarn. Alas, both time and money thwart me. I've got some reasonably nice yarn at home, but one ball is being knitted into Branching Out (which is not entirely stress free for a new knitter like myself), and the other is still in hank form.

The hank is blue and pink variegated, with a colour repeat of about an inch and a half to two inches, and I have no idea what it'll look like knit up. Not a clue. I'd swatch it, but I'd have to spend an hour winding it into a ball first. Morgan told me it wanted to be a hat, but I don't know what kind of hat it wants to be.

Anyway, the basic reason behind this post is because I'm bored, and I don't want the breath holding and constant counting of Branching Out, but I also don't want to make stockinette cat toys for my cat to tear apart. Blah.

I want to knit. :(

I've got a project I desperately want to make. This project desperately wants me to stuff it to the bottom of my stash and never speak of it again.

No, it's not the lemon bag, which I'm still not on speaking terms with. Its my new cabled wristlets. I had to cast on for the first one about 5 times. That was fine; I eventually figured out what was giving me so much trouble. Then I got to the increase round, and forgot the second increase. Figured it out two rows afterwards, tried to rip back and ended up frogging all two inches of it.

Cast on again. Get about three or four inches done. Leave the project on the floor on the living room unsupervised for 10 minutes. Return to discover my cat has the ball strewn across the living room and back again. Not a big deal, as the project was still sitting there untouched. She was after the glorious ball; forget the knitted stuff. So I spent most of my free time today rewinding the ball so I could knit from it again.

I've got about five and a half inches now. I think it's too big for me. See, my wrist measures at 6.5 inches around. The pattern had sizing for 6 inches and 7.5 inches. I figured with my tight knitting tendencies, I'd make the 7.5 inch one and have a reasonably well fitting wristlet. Well, it appears I was wrong. I've been attempting to loosen up the deathgrip stitching, and I guess I've done pretty well for myself, because while the wristlet fits okay, my boyfriend and I agree that after a few wearings, it's going to be loose and annoying and falling off.

*sigh*

So I'm thinking, do I just frog the damned thing and start over again? Do I frog it and grab another ball that might show off the cables a little more and save this poor beaten ball for something less cabley? Do I give myself some retail therapy and get myself some sock knitting implements (needles, yarn, the whole bit) to get frustrated at instead?

I started on my lemon bag at the Tuesday night KOL. I had neglected to realize in my charting, that I can't just carry the blue along through the yellow without it peeping through constantly, and the shape of the lemon prevents me from just dropping the yarn in the front and picking it up when I get back to it. Aggravation ensues. I spent half an hour or so last night sewing in ends so that I wouldn't have three million to do when I finished the bag, so you can't see the agony that has gone into this purse.

If I didn't love the colours and the concept so very much I'd probably bury the yarn at the bottom of my stash and find it in a month's time and do something else with it, lemon forgotten. As it stands, we may see a completed lemon purse sometime in the year 2010.

Sigh.

This is the yarn for my lemon bag. None of it really reproduced well, but that's okay; they're close enough. I'm going to use the blue for the background of the chart, and have the raspberry combined with the lemon and blue in stripes for the strap. Now I just need to get my gauge worked out, and I'll be set to start tonight at the knitmeet.

Planning on heading to the Halifax KOL tonight. I'm working on a chart and choosing colours today for a new bag based on the Orange You Glad bag in SnB; the Happy Hooker.

I'd love to do the lemon in the yellow Cascade 220 Quattro. I'm torn between raspberry and electric blue for the other colours, and wondering about a green for the stem and leaves as well. Obviously, this requires a trip to The Loop today to figure out what colours I actually have access to.