Yarn for sale!

First of all, thank you all SO much for your comments about Brocade. Looking at it now, I can barely believe that I knit it myself. I haven't made much progress on the next piece (the front) but I'm sure I'll get back on it soon - I know many of you are looking forward to the finished project. The only knitting I've been doing lately has been on socks - I managed to screw up the second New England sock pretty badly (after turning the heel and all, I realized I'd made the leg longer than the first sock - haven't had the heart to rip it out yet) and I started some boring socks out of the self-striping Regia I got on eBay. Today's post has an agenda, however - I'm selling off some yarn! Details below, click the links to see bigger pictures of each: 1. Jaggerspun Zephyr in Daffodil. I'm not exactly sure how much is left on this cone, but it's at least half and probably more (the shawl I knit called for around 2,000 yards, and a cone holds 5,040 yards... so you're probably getting 3,000 yards, more than enough for another shawl). $30 + $3 shipping SOLD 2. Lampe's Lumps handspun in "Pucker Up," 75 yards. $20 + $1 shipping 3. Handpaintedyarn.com laceweight wool in Jacinto, 1 full skein plus leftovers. 980 yards in the full skein. $5 + $1 shipping SOLD 4. Cascade Ecowool in color 8087, a coffee brown. 478 yards. $12 + $2 shipping SOLD (I also have a partially-used skein of this in color 8095, a shade darker, about 400 yards - let me know if there's interest) 5. Cherry Tree Hill SuperSport in Peacock, 250 yards per skein, plenty for a pair of socks. $30 + $2 shipping 6. Pakucho Organic Cotton in Chocolate, 15 skeins (2 of which were partially knit up, then wound into center-pull balls), 88 yards per skein. $45 + $5 shipping SOLD If you'd like to buy one or more of these yarns, please email me at thejenna AT gmail DOT com rather than comment. I'd prefer to do payments through PayPal. Oh, and the shipping quoted above is within the US, but I will ship worldwide if you'd like. Thanks for looking - I'll try to get some more knitting-related content up later this week!

Voila!

So. What do you think? Looks pretty nice from afar, no? And not too shabby close up: As you can see, my blocking board arrived and, comically, it's bigger than my table. And the iron is out in full force, having flattened out the lumpy bits (quite effectively, too!) I'm freaking out a bit, though. I'm not sure if you can tell from the first photo, but... it grew. It's every knitter's nightmare. The second your precious piece touches water, it becomes the incredible expanding garment. It's not a disaster, though, it's just an inch and a half or so. And it might contract again as it dries (which is why I haven't pinned it down at all - giving it ample opportunity to shrink - please, shrink) You should have seen me: after I laid it out the first time and saw how huge it was, I ran it back into the bathroom, stuck it in the sink again and agitated. I shook. I squeezed. I did everything you're not supposed to do. But I'm not sure it fulled at all. Which is probably okay. Right? At least it didn't unravel. Also, I finally finished the first New England sock: I kept putting it off because I was unsure about size (the recipient's feet are a size or so bigger than mine) and, little known fact: the toe is my least favorite part of sock knitting. I'm not sure why that is. Toes always seem to take forever and make my fingers hurt the most. I hate knitting the common wedge toe. So, I was pretty overjoyed when I realized that the toe in this pattern is a star toe! Much more fun. And I think they'll fit Hilarie well - I added an inch or so of stockinette after the end of the pattern and before the toe. I'm in a bit of a Netflix-watching slump, but I'm trying to pull myself out of it. I'm afraid we may have gotten sucked in to some awful summer television here. I'll do my best to get back to a semi-nightly screening schedule - if only to have more posting content!

Rowan Brocade - Piece 1 complete!

Quick update - just wanted to let you know that I've finished knitting the back of Brocade! But. I'm not going to post any pictures of it until it's blocking out. It's ridiculously lumpy right now (gorgeous, but lumpy) and I want to give it the respect it deserves. And there are a few more ends to weave in. Blocking will commence once my recently purchased Sew E-Z blocking board gets here. I used a 50% off coupon for it last week. I think a good wet blocking and some aggressive iron use will really make this piece shine. So! Stay tuned :)

A labor of love (to say the least)

Say hello to my little friend: This little red crochet hook is, quite seriously, my best friend in the world right now. It's allowed me to do this: That's a whole section of woven-in ends. Normally I use a blunt needle to weave in ends, but I've been making my ends on this project pretty short (due to a continued fear of runningoutofyarn) and my little hook really does the trick. Anyway, I do appreciate all your concern for my sanity upon seeing those ends. But really, get this: I am LOVING this project. This doesn't feel like knitting. It's a puzzle. I'm only about 40 rows into the intarsia, but I can't get enough. Everything that was annoying at first (the guesswork in how much yarn to cut, the endless spit-splicing) I can't stop thinking about now. Even weaving in the ends is fun. What's happening to me? And it's all coming together: Look, you can actually see what some of the shapes are now! It gives me hope. Oh, and great news - the yarn from my Dyeorama pal came today! My pal is Julia from mayamocha and not only did she use a warping board to dye my yarn, she also spent two days untangling a HUGE knot in my skein - seriously, there's a picture of it on her blog, it's crazy. I love the yarn, I do - it's so green and self-striping and though you can't really tell from this picture, there's even a jacquard-y section. I can't wait to see how it looks all knit up, and I imagine the next pair of socks I cast on for will be with this. Thank you again, Julia! Since I've been really slacking on the movie reviews, I'll throw in a couple of disappointments here, quickly. First off, while in New York we went to see Brick, which is meant to be a modern-day film noir set in a high school. To be honest I didn't really want to see it, at least not for $10.75 ; I would have rented it later on. My friend Dana (whose opinion I trust) realy didn't like it. But Brian wanted to go and the timing was right, so we went. And guess what - I didn't like it! And I love noir. The whole concept just didn't work here; it was very forced and I felt like very little acting was going on. The characters speak in the same jargon as old noir films, which is interesting and sort of cool at first - but it does more than wear thin. I didn't buy it. It could have been so good! Damn. I find myself comparing it to Mysterious Skin (most likely because they both star Joseph Gordon-Levitt), which totally blows Brick out of the water. Last night we watched THX1138, George Lucas's first film. I know a lot of people really love this film, but wow... I could barely watch it. Can you say "pretentious wank of a movie"? Okay. I didn't find it to be a particularly original vision, nor a compelling story. Pretty to watch? Sure. Great performance by Donald Pleasence? Yeah. But it didn't grab me, not at all. At least it was pretty short, clocking in at only 88 minutes. I agree with what one reviewer on Netflix said: "If you are curious, watch the first half hour. That much is kind of interesting. When they are all in the big white room TURN IT OFF AND BACK AWAY FROM THE DVD PLAYER or you will be sorry."

What have I gotten myself into?

No, that's not fringe you see there.... those are ends. Hanging off my sweater. I've done intarsia twice before, but in small doses... this time it's the. whole. sweater. A whole sweater of hanging ends. The worst part is that there are barely any BIG sections of color, they're all small and interlocking and I never know how much yarn to cut and I can't tell you how many spit-splices I've had to do, just in these few rows. Give me fair isle over this any day of the week! Please. I'll take it. Which isn't to say that I'm not enjoying myself. While the wrong side is quite painful to look at, I'm pretty happy with how the front is looking! And it can only improve with blocking and tugging and weaving-in. I'm afraid it might turn out a little big, though, since I'm knitting looser than in my swatch. Anyway... this project might take a while. Here's my Dyeorama yarn, all balled up and ready to go! There are a few spots where the dye didn't penetrate quite enough, but other than that I'm still pretty pleased. And I hope my pal will be, too :) We're taking and impromptu trip home to New York today! I'm excited, I don't think I've been back since winter break. We'll be hitting up the Big Apple BBQ Block Party and who knows what else - probably no yarn shopping, though (I'm on an informal diet). Have a good weekend, everyone!

Victory over acid dyes!

First of all, a HUGE thank you to everyone for your sweet comments on Forecast. You all seriously made my week! I am so flattered and happy - I think I need to start my next project while I'm still on this confidence high. I apologize for not responding to any comments yet, I'll get on that this evening. Nothing new going on knitting-wise, really. I'm at the toe of the first New England sock and about to start the neck ribbing on my striped raglan. I swatched with the Yorkshire Tweed for Brocade and got gague easily, horray! Monday night I got a visit from the incomprable Cirilia of Skrilla Knits! We talked about cuteoverload.com, engineer boyfriends, school, and of course, knitting. The sweetheart that she is, she brought me a little present - the most adorable little notebook of graph paper with a modern floral print. It's by Jill Bliss - I love Jill Bliss! Thank you again, Cirilia! So, news on the Dyeorama front - have you noticed I've been a little quiet about it? Well, the source I'd originally intended to get my dyes from sort of fell through on the timing and I doubt I'll be seeing those dyes for another month. I placed another order with PRO Chemical for two of their WashFast Acid Dye kits (the Autumn kit and the sampler) and 2 oz of Dark Meadow. My pal emphasized that she likes green, and in the survey she said her ideal colorway would be called "Earth Song" - I really took that to heart: I'll post a better picture once it's all dried and skeined up, but you get the idea. That blue color... wasn't supposed to be that blue. But I'm sort of glad it turned out that way! There's a lot of vareigation in some of the sections but I think it looks awesome. I had a ton of fun dyeing this and barely made a mess! I'll be doing this again soon for myself, I think; I'm sad to see this one go. I've watched a lot of movies since the last movie post I made - the standouts were definitely All About Lily Chou Chou, The New World, and Festen. I don't really have the energy to write about them all right now, but tomorrow? We'll see, maybe along with a better picture of the Dyeorama yarn.