Gratuitous Yarn Pictures

The newly-dyed yarn and I had a little photo session, and here are the pics:

Re-skeined, here's one side:

And the other side:
It's going to go to the Yankee Swap our knitting guild is having at our holiday party this afternoon. Hopefully whoever ends up with it will like it!

Slowly Catching Up

First, a belated Happy New Year to everyone!

Here's my last finished object of 2007:


It's the Ice Queen from Romi, in the current issue of Knitty.
I used Kidsilk Haze in Meadow, and I had about 18" of yarn left!

Here's how it looks when not on an Ikea-trash-can-as-model:

I didn't exactly follow the pattern; I didn't change needle sizes at the end, and I skipped the last few rounds (22-24 the last time, I think). I was pretty glad I did when I saw how little yarn I had left! I never seem to have the same amount of yarn left over as other people. I'm just unique I guess!

And my first finished object of 2008:

This is a baby quilt that I've had the fabric for for a looong time. I think I bought it at my shop (I had a quilt shop with a partner) which means it's at least six years old. It's been marinating in my stash, and I put it on the new long arm while it was in the garage and put a pantograph pattern on it. (Of course you can't see it in the picture.) Tonight I put the satin binding on it, and I'm pretty pleased with myself. It's the first finished object using the new machine.

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Last night Rori and I went to Loops for their Sock Night. We had a blast! I worked a little bit on my Scroll Lace Socks (Rebecca, we need to get together so that you can try them on!!) and met boxer Lamon Brewster. It was really funny--I'll bet there hasn't been that much testosterone in the shop ever! Hopefully there will be a picture on the Loops blog soon.

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This afternoon I got my act together enough to dye some sock yarn for the K.N.I.T. Guild holiday party Yankee Swap that's coming up Sunday.

The color isn't quite right (one of these days I'll actually get my act together enough to take a picture in natural light)--the color is a little brighter. I'm going to re-skein it and put a label on it. The base yarn is KnitPicks' superwash sock yarn. I ordered two skeins of it with my last KnitPicks order, and I can definitely see why it sells out so quickly.

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Tomorrow morning at 9:00 (!!) is DD's first basketball game, so I'm going to head to bed.
Maybe tomorrow I'll take some pics of my other projects-in-progress.

Have a great weekend!

Old Shale variation scarf

I just couldn't resist the siren song of the recently-dyed yarn.

And a gratuitous close-up:

It's not necessarily a color I'd wear a lot of, but I'm sure enjoying working with it.

I think next it's going to be some blues/purples/magentas though. As soon as I get Delores' yarn dyed, that is!

The stitch pattern is a variation on Old Shale, which is different (quite a bit, actually) from Feather and Fan.

Here's a chart of what I came up with:

I like it better because it doesn't have a (yo, k1) sequence that puts a k1 before the first k2tog. Silly, I know, but it pleases some anal-retentive part of me.

Wallaby Swatchiness

Last night I decided to swatch for the Wallaby I'm going to make for my boy. It's probably going to be huge on him since he's 2 and the next size up is a 4, but I'd rather make it too big and have him grow into it than make it too small and not have him be able to use it.

It was 97 degrees outside and I'm going to cast on for a sweater. I think there's something wrong with this picture. Thank goodness for air conditioning!!!

No, there's not something funky going on in the rows on the right. Well, actually there is, but it's intentional. I've put in purl bumps to indicate my needle size--US5 for the bottom part, and US4 for the top part. I always think "oh, I'll remember what needle size I was using on that!" and of course I never do.

So I balled it up in my hand, mashed it into some warm water, scrubbed, squeezed, and otherwise abused it washed the swatch to test for color fastness. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been with the way cotton dyes tend to never exhaust. And just for you, Lisa, here's my paper towel, on which the swatch rested while it dried overnight:

Really, not too bad for the yarn being 80% cotton and such a rich color. I'm not too worried about it bleeding onto the white yarn that I haven't decided how to incorporate (yet). Thanks for the heads-up, Lisa!

I'm ordering some needles from KnitPicks to make this sweater, so I'm going to put the project aside while I study the pattern and get a few other projects out of the way. I'm almost finished with the Spiral Doily, just need to do the crocheted bind off. Maybe tomorrow. I want to have it finished (and blocked!!) by the next knitting guild meeting, since I started it at the last guild meeting.

And now I've got to get to bed. Why do I always end up posting at midnight?? Oh yeah, housework and two little kids, the lights of my life, who need my attention during the day. :-) Totally worth it. Well, the kids and hubby are, any way. LOL!!