be sorry before

Life's A Beach

Have been knitting away for the past couple of days on the Twist & Lace pattern in Dream in Color Smooshy; the knitting is slow but terrifically satisfying, and it's beginning to look like something:







one day I'll learn how to take better pictures.  I'm practicing, but my digital camera only has 4.1mp...

After yesterday's pouring rain and the onslaught of the destruction of my dining room wall (no, I didn't take any pictures of that), I think I'll leave the house for a change--the sun is really shining today!

Unless I get sucked into more ravelry ...

FOR THE BOYS ...

OK - finished the second baby sweater today.  This is the same pattern for the Tulip Baby Sweater but a bit changed for the un-distaff side -

it's getting really hard to do both blogging and ravelry, so I'm at an impasse as to what to really pay attention to -

right now, I'm seriously thinking of casting on a Chevron Scarf from p. 121 in a little bit of my favorite Noro Silk Garden:







I'll let you know ...

THE BANDWAGON...

has been jumped on - when I saw the precious Tulip Sweater on Stephanie's blog, I (while humming "oh we like sheep") searched the web and found the kit here.  Ordering occurred, and a few e-mails with the lovely Carri later, the adorable little package arrived... I got the "girl" kit first, and lo and behold there's a little baby girl born about 3 months ago to whom I owe a sweater.

Just too cute, dontcha think?  So I went back to Coldwater Yarns and got the "boy" bunch of Dream in Color yarns, since there's a baby boy being born any minute to whom I also owe a sweater ... OK - back to the Notting Hill Vest by Kathy Zimmerman, that I owe to my OWN baby boy.

Happy Canada Day today to all who celebrate, and Happy Independence Day on Wednesday to all who celebrate!

There's something about Trunk Shows ...

At our last connection, I was working feverishly on the Great Adirondack multi-yarn thing.  Here's how far it's gotten since the last post: the US 10-1/2 needles got me ... my right hand is aching and needs a break from all that exercise! It's growing like kudzu  ; for all of you southern readers, you know what I mean!

Promise I'll get back to it at some point within the next one to twelve months.
What, you might ask yourself, could that strange pink thing be that seems to be attacking part of the shawl?  why, it's Hippy the Hippo , which I just had to have after getting Fergie the Frog - one cannot own enough "stuff" keepers, especially if one's a knitter.

So - now - where was I?  oh yes! trunk shows ... you know how a garment might not look so wonderful in the flat and then when you see it in person, you fall in love with it?  Happened to me on Friday.  Knitty City is having a trunk show for garments from Lace Style and, you see that cover sweater?  IMHO, totally unappealing from the picture - but in person, WHOA-WHEE ... something that I could totally see being worn by yours truly or some relative being my daughter - but of course, they didn't have the actual yarn used, so I did a little hunting and came up with this,
which happens to be a yarn called Peruvia by Berroco, 100%  peruvian highland wool, soft like butter, and the color is a fabulous dark, rich teal with a touch of black thrown in - it was hiding in one of the bottom shelves, in a myriad choice of colors, and, mirabile dictu, the perfect yardage/gauge/weight for the Tailored Scallops sweater by Joan Allen!
It met (a) with Kiki's approval

and (b) knits up beautifully!







of course, Coco was a bit envious:

I swear, it's getting harder to tell them apart on a daily basis - Coco's growing by leaps and bounds - this is the latest space of Kiki's that she's invaded:

which, from a distance, you can see how truly elevated it is:
yup, that's the old kitchen sink, and my ceilings are 9'3" documented height - those Siberians really know how to get to the higher ground, now, don't they?

ps- stay tuned for when the Kauni Effektgarn arrives in bulk in NYC ...

SCORE!! ??

OK, admit it, how many of you have become Magpies in your knitting life?  I fell into that trap yesterday (hasn't happened to me in at least a month or maybe longer, to tell the truth) at The Point , where I dropped in to spend a knitterly hour or so before picking up my daughter for the obligatory Mother's Day weekend visit.

Aside from the fact that they have the Addi Lace Knitting Needles in stock,  they are having a big MD sale over the weekend, and I was sucked in (albeit a day early) to an obscene ginormous discount on a 6-skein grouping of Great Adirondack (again, Patti Subik, you're a terrifically bad influence) to make either a shawl or a throw, a la the Colinette groupings ... 6 skeins of a combo of
1. "unknown"
2. evening fluff
3. plush
4. chinchilla
5. 1/4 dazzle
6. surprise ( ball of which is pictured here)


which is a straight-out copy of Prism yarns' "stuff" - which is OK, but, I got sucked in - hey for that kind of discount, you can totally understand, yes??

also, WHY oh WHY do these yarns always look better in the skein??? 

must be a marketing ploy, don'tcha think?

so, here's what (so far) 5 of the 6 skeins look like in the "flesh":

My Current Claim to Fame

I was just having my first cup of coffee, and up popped an e-mail from Cara with the subject line saying: "You Won!"

OK - normally I would delete or at least run a virus scan on something that came into my inbox like that - but this time, bleary-eyed, I recognized the name ...

and, to put it mildly, I was SHOCKED!!! It seems that I was almost spot-on with the date and time that she would finish the last mitered square of her latest obsession, the cotton blanket (king-sized, mind you!) for her bed.

where's the feather?  it would definitely have knocked me over -

thanks again, adorable Cara ... you know where you rank in my heart of hearts!

ps - I've never gotten more comments on my blog than today - thank you once again, adorable Cara!

more tomorrow with the quest for the perfect pattern for my latest score of Great Adirondack -







and I'm leaning toward this one from Elann - just the ticket for some "mindless knitting" -

NEWS TO ME ...

Finally ventured out of the neighborhood and stopped in at The Point. I was hoping to see Helane, the owner, but she wasn't in - saw the adorable Rebecca , who now is there only on Saturdays, and met the new guy Josh, and a couple of blogless knitters (at least I think they are) - Linda and Carol - thanks for your company!
Couldn't leave a beloved LYS without buying something:


it's Great Adirondacks Pinstriped, a comfortably hefty skein (560 yds), 75% merino wool/25% merino superwash in the incredibly happy colorway "Kiwi Kenny"!  Patty Subik, you've done it again.

A quick google got me 5 to the inch on US 8s.

OK guys, now here's where you come in:  it probably wants to be a shawl, and I would love some suggestions of which one to make.

Please help me come up with something as I wind up the skein ... the latest bunch of Addi Lace Knitting Needles are begging to be used (unfortunately the largest size is a 4mm/US6).

thanks a big bunch, and enjoy the first decent weekend of what we around here in the oversized Granny Smith lovingly call spring!

GOING GREEN

How do I love Evelyn Clark's patterns? let me count the ways ...                                                










I got two skeins of Fleece Artist Basic Merino Sock with the idea of making a shawl. This is the beginning of her Shetland Triangle from Wrap Style , treated myself to a set of these:

yup, Addi Lace needles - and I've got to say, there's something quite wonderful about them ... the points are perfectly sharp with a touch of a scoop at the ends, and they're lighter than the Knit Picks Options (whose points are even pointer - enough to insert accidentally into one fingertip!) and slightly "grabby" - just enough to keep the yarn from sliding off of them.


I think I'm going to knit this until I've run out of the yarn - may take quite a while, since I've got a lot of it.
 

STEEKING HAS STARTED

Well, this project is going along swimmingly, if I do say so myself:






before I knew it, I was at the point where the armhole steeks are to be created:












and here's the first of the two steeks:







then I was not comfy with the way the yarn was wound on one of the cakes, so I rewound:
much better, at least to my eye.






as always, please click on the pix to enlarge.

And someone else gave her approval:

PRETTIER IN PINK

I am now sure that this is one of the best movies ever made and watched (after having just finished watching it for the 900th time.

but the real reason I'm writing tonight is to celebrate my friend's brilliant report from her oncologist - all (and ( MEAN ALL) the tumors have SHRUNK!!!

so, herewith, my homage to PINK:

and there are probably many more pink pix, but I can't find them now - and please stay tuned for the progress of the Kauni Cardi:

HEALTH AND HAPPINESS TO ALL ON A SATURDAY NIGHT!!!