i am in fact back, and there has been much knitting and other going’s on in the past three weeks. first the knitting. ( it turns out that i really suck at taking mirror pictures, so all of the photos were taken using the photobooth application on my macbook. even though it doesn’t look like it all of the colors, on my monitor at least, are really true to what they actually are.)
i think that being on a roadtrip creates some kind of time warp because looks what i finished in just 2 days of driving-
pattern:
my own
yarn:
handspun! i spun this out of a very lightly processed merino roving. working with it made my hands feel so nice because of the lanolin
needles:
denise circulars in a U.S 6
notes:
they don’t look like they took a lot of time, but i worked it out and if you add up all of the ripping that i did i actually knitted the equivilent of two and a half pairs. all of the ripping was due to the fact that i only had around 75 yards of yarn to work with. luckily these used just the right amount of yarn, and i finished with inches to spair
pattern:
a re-mix of flintknit’s re-mix of the bainbridge scarf
yarn:
one ball of debbie bliss cashmerino aran
needles:
denise circulars U.S. 5
notes:
as far as the mish-mashed pattern goes, thats what happens when, while in a car in middle-of-nowhere-ville florida, you decide that you want to knit a bainbridge scarf. it helps if you have only read the instructions for said scarf once and still don’t really get how it fits together. i pretty much remembered that you cast on 125 stitches (its actually 165) make a buttonhole somewhere and then make a tab, so thats what i did. the upside of my bad memory is that i ended up using only 1 ball of the cashmerino.
i also completed the rest of my winter ensemble
pattern:
yarn:
some no name wool sportweight, to me it looks like it was handspun. it is a bit scratchy, but for the amazing green color i forgive it
needles:
phildar circulars U.S. 2
notes:
this is without a doubt the worst pattern i have come across. first off there is pretty big math error when you increase for the palm ( it should be knit four increase one, not knit 3), and then once you are past that you find out that the pattern was written for someone with huge palms but skinny stick fingers. i had to make a ton of modifications, but i love the end result so i’m putting these in the win column
pattern:
my own. a basic hat with garter ridges and a star decrease on top
yarn:
malabrigo worsted merino
needles:
denise circulars U.S. 8
notes:
i LOVE this hat! first i’m really happy with the pattern. i wanted something easy that still had some visual interest, and this is perfect ( i may write up a pattern in the future). secondly, the yarn is amazing! if i only ever knit with this and peace fleece ever again i would be one happy girl. for me malabrigo’s big selling factor isn’t the softness. it is increddibly soft, but no more than other well manufactured merino’s i’ve felt. what does it for me is the squishyness. the texture is so spongy!
thats the end of my knitting news but i finally sat down at the machine again so there is also sewing news
out of all the purses i have made this one is definitely my favorite. the fabric for the outside is one leg of some jeans that i got at the thrift store, and the lining (which you can see poking out in picture number 2) is a blouse that i got at a swap meet.
the body of the bag is a rhombus whith rounded bottom corners and for the lining i kept the pocket that the blouse had and added another pocket and a band of elastic for hanging pens of off.
i think that the handles are the coolest part. we had gotten this weird grommet gun thing a while back (it looks a lot like a pair of pliers) so, before i had sewn in the lining, i used that to shoot in two grommets on each side. then, (because i was braiding with four strips of cloth) i threaded two strips through each one and sewed the ends together. after that i braided them and repeated the threading and sewing process on the other side
and thats it for now! but there is plane knitting on the horizon and i’m thinking that when i come back from l.a. i’ll have a travel update post
