two knits of ivory

SHE really needs a new name but nothing is coming to me. I shot a buncha photos of her this weekend but none turned out to be that money shot, the shot that captures her verve. She goes to the judges this weekend. It'll be hard to part with her. Project Stats: I cast on December 2, 2011. I cast off August 18, 2011. According to the scale, weighing the leftover yarn, the project used approximately 1,778 yards of the sport weight Madelinetosh Pashmina yarn in the colorway Filigree. I used size US8s/5.00mm Knit Picks harmony wood needles for the project, with the exception of first few rows after casting on. With that I used US4s/3.5mm. The yarn is a dream to knit, the pattern was super easy to follow. The pattern is Evenstar from designer Susan Pandorf . I used the charted sections mainly and don't recall having a problem at any point other than when deciding which Evenstar motif to use. She provides a swatching sample in the pattern that I found ve...

Sitting right next to me are five delightful skeins of Madelinetosh's Pashmina in a new colorway, Magnolia Leaf. It is my 9/11 balm. Well, technically, the balm amounts to a great deal more than just the madtosh. Hubby and I took a last minute trip out to Webs on Saturday and I partook in a hearty round of retail therapy. Theres's enough madtosh Pashmina for another Evenstar, as well as enough Ultra Alpaca for a long fall sweater or cardi. Plus there's new sock blockers for my stranded sock habit, gorgeous stitch markers made of little brown glass leaves, a sheepy mug, etc. etc. Sometimes I just gotta let my impulses run the show. Doing so did help melt some of that 9/11 tension away. ---- OMG! Can I just say that this new madtosh colorway is fantabulous. There are pinks and reds and ochres and limes and browns and oranges. It's exactly what I need right now. The world is a unhappy place, but where there is yarn there is comfort and love a...

So my sense of humor is MIA. I speak or write and try to be humorful but all that comes out is a blob of bile. The best I can do in times like this is to ride it out like a bout of bad weather. What's helping at the moment is a voiceover in my head of Gandalf bellowing, "This Too Shall Pass." This must mean my sense of humor is returning. Right? There is something good and new happening at Chez Yarn. I am knitting a sweater from a pattern. A real bonafide pattern. There's relief that I've actually started the knitting because the act of deciding on ONE single pattern among all the millions of gorgeous sweater patterns out there is a daunting friggin' task. I went through four or so years worth of Interweave Knits mags. As much as I want to knit a winged cardigan, I decided the stash I have on hand would work best on a fairly traditional cardigan, the Ropes and Picot Cardigan from Interweave's Winter 2008 ( rav link ). This project stood o...

A little over four months ago a sprightly, optimistic knitter posted this WIP photo. Yes ladies and gentlemen that there is four stranded sock projects. Four. The hubris of said optimism has faded, but it was a lovely, blissful thing. The memory of it is made all the more sweet whilst I've had to digest the following crow pie. The narrower of the two grey/black socks was frogged not long after the photo was taken. It seemed nonsensical to have two nearly identical projects. The remaining three projects have suffered some indignations. Sock one, named Fire on the Mountain, is knit from regular Wollmeise sock yarn, Schwarz and Kurbis colorways. What did we learn (or relearn) knitting Sock One? Knitting stranded socks is fun! Wollmeise sock yarn is a friggin' twisty twisty twisty yarn Wollmeise sock yarn is gorgeously dyed Unlike single yarn socks, you must knit every stitch of the heel flap. The edge stitches (bottom sock, not visible in pic) will ...