Alas, not in a fibery sort of way, but in a ‘not-killing-houseplants’ kind of way. He’s not only the only person I know who can keep a ficus alive (indoors, in Seattle) for more than a decade, but check this out:

Our friend Taylor gave him that orchid not quite two years ago as a housewarming present. It was, of course, in bloom at the time, but hasn’t done much since then other than to put out a ton of new leaves. Buutttt…. This week it suddenly burst into bloom again.

How cool is that?

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No, I’m not hunting rabbits here. Or anything else for that matter. No hunting for me.*

I haven’t been knitting or spinning much either, just because for the past two weeks my life has been All Work, All The Time. Yech.

This weekend, though, I did manage to finish Rogue sleeve #1, and should have sleeve #2 finished this evening, and if I’m REALLY lucky I’ll be able to start on the body tonight too. But only if I’m really lucky.

I also managed to get totally uninspired with the lovely Silk Garden feather and fan scarf project, so I ripped that sucker all the way out and started it anew, as a Totally Different Scarf. Why it feels the need to be a scarf I have no idea, but that’s what it seems to want to be, so whatever. A scarf it shall be. This time the multidirectional scarf pattern that’s been going around, and that I’m too lazy at the moment to look up the link for. It’s been kind of tedius to knit so far, but it’s really cool to see the way it’s coming out, which keeps me going. And I’m liking it a LOT better than I liked the f&f version. So there.

The three lonely skeins of Silk Garden #50, which I was dutifully hoarding for a sweater (but nobody ever had that color in stock), have also decided to become a scarf, this one tubular and striped - the stripes being two rows alternating two balls of the stuff started at different points in the color progression. I’m really liking the way it’s coming out so far, and still desperately want to make a stripey sweater with this same colorway. Yummy.

That’s really all I’ve accomplished. It looks, all written out, like a whole lot more than it feels like it is. Alas.

*I don’t have anything against hunting, and I certainly don’t have anything against eating meat (mmm, tasty meat!), I’m just not the hunter in the fambly.

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Lame! Lame! Lame!*

I managed to make it all the way to the top of the Rogue sleeve, with maybe 10 rows to go, and I ran out of yarn. Sigh. Sure hope that package from ThreadBear gets here soooooon. Yes indeed. Whatever would I do without those guys?

*bonus points to anyone who can remember where that line came from

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I jumped right in and started knitting Rogue last night. Woot! Aside from the fact that I was tired and being a total idiot, it’s been a blast thus far. I discovered that if one actually READS the directions, projects go much more smoothly. Who woulda thunk?

I wound up ripping out the sleeve from row 21 down to row 5 not just once, but twice! Yay for me! Had I slightly more carefully read the directions and done the math, I would have realized that my initial instinct on the sleeve increases was correct, and not had to knit it three times. Alas. I’m a dork. So I knit it up, said (out loud, even) “oh crap! I have twice as many increase stitches as I should”, re-skimmed the directions and decided that my initial interpretation of them was wrong, reknit it using my new-and-not-so-improved reinterpretation of the instructions, got all the way back to row 21 and realized “oh crap! I can’t count!” in one of those lovely “duh!” moments. Sigh. Ripped it all back, reknit it yet again, and made it this far:

This, mind you, is my swatch. I figured that I’d just start the sleeve instead of actually doing a boring little square swatch, and now I’m about half way through the one ball of Bartlett that I’ve got. I did call ThreadBear yesterday and order some more, and hopefully it will get here post haste so I can finish. I wasn’t sure I was going to like that yarn, but the more I work with it the better I like it. It’s surprisingly nice to work with.

And, just incase you thought I was exaggerating on the “oh god it’s going to take forever”-ness of the alpaca cardi, I present proof:

(click on it to see it not only up close, but in more realistic color)

The amount of time so far invested in the alpaca piece is slightly more than is invested in that chunk of Rogue above, even with the ripping out and reknitting. Like I said, it’s going to be a very very long road.

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Here’s the link to the creepy-ass two-headed kitten picture from the cutesy kitten calendar. You make the call.

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I got started knittin’ on what will be, at some point WAY WAY WAY in the future, the sweater made from the super-yummy alpaca yarn. As is the case with all well-laid plans, it went completely to shit the second I started the swatch. It looks like a decently thick yarn, but, alas, it would be perfectly happy to knit up at 7, maybe 7.5 stitches to the inch. I’m knitting it at 6, just ‘cos if I don’t I’m not going to have nearly enough yarn to make a sweater with, and that would suck. Bigtime. So, for the time being I will be doing the knitting equivalent of slogging along in knee-deep guanch, with a pack of hungry dogs who would cheerfully eat me if it came right down to it, hoping like hell I don’t get lost and freeze to death. It’s gonna be a long, bumpy ride, but the prize at the end, I think, will be well worth it.

Mush!

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Or maybe just the photographic equivalent thereof.

We start with my morning commute, as we do every day, on the ferrry:

With the early morning commute project:

At the office, the mailman brings me this:

Followed by much jumping around with great excitement.

Shredding the end of the box reveals:

With more restraint that I think I’ve ever shown in my life, I removed the contents of the box, intact:

And, finally, opened it all up to reveal:

Since I couldn’t possibly resist touching the stuff, I managed to wind the Bartlett into balls while making endless phone calls this afternoon:

and, sadly, discovered not one, not two, but THREE knots in the one skein. My hands, however, are VERY soft from all the lanolin in it, which is wonderful, if slightly smelly.

I had to wait until I got to the ferry dock for the trip home to wind the first skein of alpaca. Here we are at the 20 minutes-into-the-winding point:

and…

(lovely sunset interlude)

…and at the hour mark, finally finished. Holy crap these are HUGE skeins. That ball is HEAVY.

I fear that my swift isn’t going to be big enough for this, and that I’m going to have to wind all three balls by hand. Ooooh, that would be lame. Hmmm, maybe I’ll have to buy another swift! Yeah, that’s the ticket! (enable me, Rob, I dare you)

There you have it, folks, the photographic equivalent of the high points of my day. One of these days I’ll get around to posting the low points on my other blog…

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On so many fronts, but particularly in the just-got-a-box-o-loooooove-from-my-Boys-at-ThreadBear kind of way.

Oh.
My.
Gawd.

The pictures linked down the page a way? Do. Not. Do. This. Yarn. ANY kind ‘o justice. Not even close. It is sooooooo unbelievably beautiful, and holy-crap soft. Get naked and roll around on it soft. So soft that doing that at the office is even tempting. I kid you not.

(Ok, I just have to share this. I am sitting here at the front desk at my office playing Cheese Hostess for the moment while our wonderful receptionist, Penny, finds some missing paperwork in the HR office. She’s got this cutesy kitten-of-the-day calendar on her desk, and today’s picture is freakin’ me completely the hell out. I *know* it’s a picture of two kittens. Deep in my heart I do, but it doesn’t *look* like a picture of two kittens, it looks like a two-headed-three-legged kitten, which is just creepy and wrong. I’ve looked at it up close, and for the life of me I can’t see the end of kitten 1 and the beginning of kitten 2. I gotta put this thing face down on the desk before I completely snap…)

Ok. So, back to the yarn. I am in LOVE with this yarn. I must swatch on the ferry tonight, and, seriously, I’m taking the next two days off work, and that yarn is going to become something in the next two days. Or at least be well on it’s way to being something.

Also in the box’o'love was a skein of Bartlett Yarns yarn in “bracken”, which is a lovely shade of green, and which will be swatched for Rogue. It’s a bit scratchy at this point, but I’ve heard it’s wonderful to work with and gets VERY soft and nice once it’s washed, so I’m game to try it. And the price can’t be beat. Rob recommended it, and said it was absolutely perfect for Rogue. So ok. If it works out well, I’m going to order enough of it to do a scaled down Rogue for my 11yo daughter, who, I think, would totally dig it.

Pix to follow, once I get home and can offload them outta the camera.

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… the correct answer is ‘het is af’.

I was way off. Volledig seems to be more ‘completely’ than ‘complete’, and beëindigd would be more ‘concluded’, whereas the sweet, short, and to the point ‘af’ is just plain finished.

Dutch is haaard, man.

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You know when you have one of those days where you have it all planned out and you are READY and excited and waiting none-too-patiently, and the government comes along and bites your day in the ass by having a holiday nobody warned you about and giving the mailman the DAY OFF???

Today was that day. My box from ThreadBear was going to arrive this morning. I was damn sure of that. I was ready. Prepared even. I had the pattern I needed to swatch, I had needles in every size (Denise’s are sooo handy), I even had my camera with me, with fresh batteries in it so I could share with y’all the yumminess that was in that box (and the super-cute way they wrap stuff up). Buuuut no. We had to have a holiday. Feh. Grumble. (whine). I am so not good with this delayed gratification thing…

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I started to make another skein of the two-ply alpaca the other day, and noticed that the leader I used, which was a tiny bit of some wonderful purple merino/silk blend, looked absolutely fabulous against the charcoal alpaca. It got me a-thinkin’, and I decided to see what would happen if I plied the alpaca with the merino/silk blend.

The result?

I’m likin’ it. The purple is REALLY subtle against the grey - it stands out in the photo for some reason, but it doesn’t really look quite that contrasty seen up close and personal. You have to get pretty close to it to see the purple, which I really kind of like.

Haven’t a clue what I’ll do with it yet, but I’ll probably stripe it with the other skein of solid charcoal 100% alpaca. Mittens most likely. Soft, soft, soft. Yummy.

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Or should that be ‘het is be�indigd’?

Either way, the hand-spun lace scarf is done! Woot! It’s all pinned out and blocking into a lovely rectangle at the moment. See?

Click on it to see what it looks like up close and personal.

Yeah, baby! One more finished thing! Ahhhh, the sense of completion. Two things finished in one week. Pretty special, methinks, unless you count each sock separately, then it’s three things in one week, which is damn near over the top for me. Guess I’ll have to start some new stuff today, huh? keep my number of WIP’s up. If only I had more of the sock yarn. Sigh.

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So, ok. The Silk Garden Scoop Neck Cardi. I don’t love it. I try. But I just can’t bring myself to love the way it fits. So I was all set to frog it this weekend. Enter Barb, stage left.

She rather forcefully insisted that frogging it was bordering on the criminal. She loves it. LOVES that sweater. Said she’d happily buy me a new sweater’s worth of the Noro if I give her the SNC. Ummm….. Ok!

So it’s been saved. No frogging will happen to the SNC. It will have a happy new home where it will be loved and worn and cherished, assuming, of course, that it doesn’t pee on the floor, dig holes in the lawn, or roll in anything dead.

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Maybe a stirring combination of all three.

The socks? The new ones? The ones I just finished last night?

Just.

Came.

Out.

Of.

The Dryer.
After they had gone through the washing machine.

Hey. The ball-band said superwash. I was just testing that. Actually, I wore them today, and wanted to take them to the island to show to the sproglet tomorrow, so they had to be washed. I wanted to show her my new funky socks, not my new funky socks. KnowhatImean, Vern?

Oh, yeah, they’re fine. They smell vaguely of damp sheep at the moment, ‘cos I don’t think they’re totally and completely and utterly bone dry, but they look exactly like they did when they went into the washer, only, well, cleaner.

Socks That Rock truly is the best sock yarn EVER. Yes indeedy.

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Months ago, I made a sweater… If you go back to here, and scroll down about half way, you’ll find a picture of the Scoop Neck Cardi from the Noro Debbie Bliss book, done up in Silk Garden. I love the yarn. Love love love love love it. The sweater? Not so much. All day long I’ve been sitting here thinking, rather seriously, about tearing it out and turning it into something completely different. Like a raglan sleeve pullover with little cable-y details up the raglan seams. Or… maybe a stripey boxy cardigan, done with 4-row stripes from alternating balls of the SG so it’s stripey, but subtly so. Or… Maybe I just take it apart and re-knit the two front panels. It’s mostly the neckline that just isn’t working for me. It’s too low. It’s too wide. It’s too… something.

I’m going to think on it a bit more, but in all liklihood, that sucker’s a goner. That yarn was expensive, even if it was on sale, and I hate to see it sitting in the closet, all forlorn, waiting for me to pick it when I reach in for something warm and yummy. But I never do. I think I’ve worn it twice thus far, and it’s bugged me both times.

Suggestions? Ideas?

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