New Projects, Shawls, and finished Projects!!

I finally, FINALLY finished the Alpaca shawl from "Greeting's from Knit Cafe" done in Prime Alpaca color-Nutmeg. Yum. I turned out so lovely look!

Here is my parent's deck railing modeling it for you (I couldn't bear to think of putting it on foilage-all of ours are either spiky or cobweb ridden).


I was also going to post on tuesday about how I started my first pair of socks!!!! I feel like a real Knitter (as opposed to -k-nitter). Heres where I finished on Monday (with pictures on Tuesday prior to working on it):


Here's where I am about now :


I finished my first sock! That's the love of my life posing as sexy as ever. I'm working on my second sock and am still working on the ankle bit prior to making the heel flap. My first sock! I went to the LYS and showed my LYS who were super proud of me. I wound up buying more sock yarn for Matthew to make him a pair (like he has a choice) and a pattern book for Sampler Afgans. Matthew's mom brough tme home32ounces of Irish Wool (white) so i'm going to knit that up into something blanket like. Anywho, back to my second sock!

Bag Sale!

Well this morning was eventful and the day has hardly started! I'm up to row 191/200 on the alpaca shawl thanks to knitting at 1:30 in the morning. After the 191 row I made myself stop, and go to bed. Wherein I laid there for an hour or so wide awake thinking to myself, "I could be knitting right now".

Around 6 am my alarm clock went off (god help me) and I dragged myself out of bed. I would just like to point out that I haven't gotten up at 6 am since 2002. 7:45-8am mabey but 6?! No thank you. However it is/was Yarn lady's big Bag sale where you get a bag full of 10 skeins of yarn at 75% off the price. I got there around 7:45-ish and there were already ladies digging through these containers (for lack of a better word) which were so huge you pratically had to swan dive to get through. I'm so thankful I got there early because by 8:30-9:00am it was packed.


That's just one side of the store and there was so so much more yarn. I'm particularly amused by the lady on the lefts facial expression. "NO! It's MY yarn! You can't have it!!". LoL. The women were going wild. You know the huge Ikea bags you can go shopping with? They had those for your shopping use while at the sale. Several women had 4 bags PACKED full and were still going. Personally I was a bit disappointed with the selection but I did find a few gems (pic further down).

That was the truck that was FULL of yarn from their storage bins. You can barely make out on the left all the empty boxes. Good grief.

Th eline, while long did go by fast:

The staff was all very nice, outgoing and all had a good sence of humor. There were a few grabby people, and some would throw the discarded bags in front of you while you were searching but all in all everyone was nice and polite. I look like something the cat dragged in but remember, I am working of 4 hours of sleep.


Here's my goodies:

20 skeins of 100% Silk (origionally $300.00) for $75.00
20 Skeins of Tweedy Cotton (origionally $120:00) $30.00
20 skeins of 100% Extra Fine Merino ($120.00) for $30.00.
And 2 pattern books. All for $140.00. Nice. :D So my stash has grown but The cotton is going to be made into a tank and the merino into a sweater to put on after yoga. Woo Hoo!

In Progress

I finally, finally found my camera and was able to take pictures of my two WIP's.

Here's the Cable Pullover I'm working on (this is the back panel):


and the Alpaca shawl complete with a ticket stub to help you get a gist of the size it is so far:


Only 40-something rows to go!

Life.

On Friday morning my Fiancee told me he signed up for the Marine Corps. Hell. Damn. Crap. Etc... So I didn't do much knitting although I've knit myself back together enough to work on my alpaca shawl and pullover a little (no pics sorry). I've come up to a stopping point on the shawl that isn't by choice but what can you do? I'll leave you with acute picture of us.

In Progress

Let's just wipe yesterday from our collective minds shall we? I did however, get some knitting done. So for your viewing pleasure:


Isn't it lovely? I know you can't feel or smell it but...heaven. Pure heaven. Same goes for this one:


It's getting bigger. I have no clue at the actual size of it thanks to the circular needles but, I'm thinking it'll be just fine size wise. Lovely all of it. I'm off for a tux fitting and lunch with a friend, so I shall blog more later! (I blog...hahahaha still gets me).

New Project!

Finally! Finally I've started on the Vogue Knitting (fall 2006) Cable Trim Pullover-also known as "alpaca sweater". Last night in class I cast on worked the k2,p2 rib then realized that-duh- on the next row you knit th e knits, and purl the purls. By that time I had knit my swatches (zomg) and realized my mistake class was over. On the swatches, I knit loose. The pattern calls for size 2 and 3 needles. So, we are decreasing the number of stitches cast on and using the 2 needle through out (to save me from the horrors of 1,0, or 00 needles). Anyway, I got home at 8:30pm and fell asleep. I woke up around 8:30 am (apparently I needed 12 hours of sleep) and stared at the messed up ribbing for awhile. To rip or not to rip that is the question. Damn it, I've been obsessing over this sweater for a month now and by god, I want it done correctly! I ripped. Two whole rows. Then re-cast on and k2,p2 then realized at the end of the first row I messed up somewhere and had to rip back. Being a little stressed at this point I knit a row on the Alpaca Shawl (which I fixed at faire-hazza to the spinner!) and felt much better. I then cast the sweater back on and... I suppose I ought to do more than just that.

*&^%

I'm tired. Exhausted really, from finals and work ( work is a nightmare I can't wake up from). I've got this gigantic headache that is right behind my left eyeball and creeping up into my nose to finish me off in my head. So what do I do? I knit. Then (pardon my language) I fuck up the Alpaca shawl. Ok so mabey it isn't quite "fucked up" as I think it is but I can't tell if I increased or decreased a stitch or if I dropped one or what. Hell. I was hoping to work on it this weekend (to take the edge off of work) but I don't want to mess with it even more. I've already bothered my LYS thinking I screwed it up to the ripping point (I didn't) this week and I don't want to pester her again. I want her to continue to like me.

Arg. My brains! My eyeball. My poor knitting....poor, poor knitting. I'm sorry Alpaca, I'll do better next time. Or Monday. Which ever comes first.

School's Out!

Yea!...Kind of. Melancholy and all that. Two of the three classes I took I'm pleased are done (if only so I can relax in the week) but one I'm bummed out about. The teacher was awesome and I wish he could just teach all my history classes. Only two problems with that; A: I'm majoring in Medieval Europe History (he teaches US) and B: He doesn't teach at LB unless there is something he's not telling me. It's hard to find a teacher who "Light's you up" as my Uncle Tommy says- so when you do, you want to hang on to them for as long as you can.

However, Summer is now upon me and with only a Ceramic's Lab to look forward to school wise I'm FREE...Monday through Thursday. That means I've got a TON of knitting I can do. Hazza. I did wear my Bamboo Shirt today and it didn't fall off. Can I get a "Thank God!"?

So if you remember, My stash was largish (if you don't scroll down) and now look at it!

Prime stuff too! You've got your wool, merino. cashmerino, mohair, ALPACA! How I love the alpaca. So, ok there are still some acrylics in there but they are super soft and are going to be made into those blankets for the Binky Patrol. So there. :P

Also here is a picture of my project yarn (which so does not count as stash). I'm starting on the dark grey on Monday-I can hardly wait!!


I've done quite a bit of knitting on the Greetings from Knit Cafe Large Triangle shawl. I'm almost at 100 rows, 100 more to go. It doesn't look like it'll be big but I assume that somewhere along the 120-150 mark it'll get there. And since I have 1320 yards of the color I obviously can always add more.


So there you have it. I'm off for knitting prior to work (wish me luck there) enjoy your days.