Taking care of business

Last Wednesday, Mercedes at the shop felt me out about whether I'd be interested in maybe filling in for her on her days off.

Um...duh. :)

Obviously, I'd need some training as to how to ring people's purchases up, and on store policy/procedure, as well as a bit more instruction on where everything is, but hey...if they want me, I'm so totally there.

In other news, I'm pretty tickled that my Spanish Knight WIP comes up when you Google for the pattern. Carrie K, you should not be surprised that I'm still not done...I am totally stalling on it and I have no idea which Christmas is going to see my mom receiving it. Definitely not 2007, I can tell you that! (It's okay, I'm giving her something else nice.)

But onto Carrie's question...I've checked out the Hempathy yarn on Ravelry, and have looked at a bunch of projects that use it, and I think it would be a good yarn for the Spanish Knight sweater, yeah. The gauge is right, and Hempathy seems to show up cables really nicely, so I think you have a winner. Now, I've never felt that yarn, so I have absolutely no sense of how it's going to drape, but everything else about it seems to work, so if you think its drape will match with the sweater pattern, I say go for it.

Calorimetry for moi

I kill earmuffs. Seriously. Every pair of earmuffs I've ever had (that wasn't butt-ugly) has either been lost, or I've broken it. Even those wonderful earmuff earphones that I got last year as a Christmas present from my parents? Fell out of my coat pocket later in the winter and...gone. (The look on my dad's face when I told him this was sooo guilt-inducing. My stomach still sinks into my toes whenever I think about it.)

The really annoying part about this earmuff-losing talent of mine is that I really need earmuffs, because I have seriously wussy ears. Even with just a little bit of breeze and a hint of cold air, they start to hurt and I get a headache, and it's just not a good scene.

So here we are, as the cold weather begins once again, and I have already hurt my ears being out in the cold without any earmuffs. Therefore...Enough! Is! Enough! I resolved to whip myself up a Calorimetry quick-smart before things get any worse. So yesterday at the shop I went looking for some nice aran-ish weight yarn, and I got stuck. I couldn't decide between a really nice and inexpensive merino in forest green, or a lovely dark powdery purple which was a 70/30 acrylic/wool blend (also affordable). So, what the heck - I splurged and bought 'em both. I was originally thinking I'd make two, and then I realised that I could really do my ears a favour, and make a single, reversible band with a double thickness! Green on one side, purple on the other. Perfect!

It is knitting up astonishingly fast:



Although I don't know how big a fan I am of the purple now that I'm actually working with it...it seems a bit insubstantial and fluffy, in a 'hollow' kind of way, if that makes any sense. However, attached to the green merino (which is fantastic, although unfortunately now discontinued) I think it should be fine.

And hey, is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that the clicking of the needles when doing 2x2 ribbing continentally taps out the beat of the "Mazel Tov" song from Fiddler on the Roof?

(Am I too weird?)

Herdis for niece

Rats. I forgot to take a picture of this for today's entry. Oh, well. You'll just have to imagine for yourself, then, how well the left front is coming along: I'm well into the neckline shaping. However, the project has once again stalled because I have cannibalized the needles for something else. Yes, I'm fickle. What of it?

Branching out for DD1's teacher

Coming along bee-yew-tifully!



The instructions call for 36 pattern repeats from a laceweight yarn, but I've done 12 repeats so far and I think I really just need about 24 or 25. So I'm very close to being done. Isn't it purty?

Fair isle tank top

And I'm working on this again. I decided to change the pattern (AGAIN) so that the yoke would have some negative ease (about 5-7%). And I think, think, that I have a final pattern. I'm now working on the 24-month size to determine the final yardage needs. Then of course, I'll do the 18-month size, and so on until I've got yardage requirements finalised for all five sizes. (Yes, I'm doing the largest ones first so that I finish garments more and more quickly the closer I get to the end. Less of a mental slog that way, I think.) I'm so excited about this design, so I really want to get this done fast so I can send it off.

Larry's Cabled Cashmere Pullover for DH

I'm back in the land of uncertainty.


(Sorry about the blurriness.)

See the light, thin strips in the dark blue stripes? That's me working the original ball of dark blue in with the new balls of navy blue in an effort to minimize the difference between the two colours. Unfortunately, in spite of my original hopes, the difference between the two dark blues is not minimal, so I don't think it's working. Bleah. So I'm not sure whether to keep going doing it this way, or to alternate stripes one new navy, one original dark blue. I think I'll do two sleeves two different ways and see which one I like best.

Again, bleah.