WTF?!?!?

People. Robert Altman died last night. One Jenna mourns. (posting should resume after the holiday - too much car-buying, apartment-hunting and fatigue to think straight.)

Lady Eleanor... in action!

Pattern: Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style (duh!) Yarn: Noro Silk Garden, color #234 - 10 balls used Needles: Denise circulars, size 8 Started: Not sure! Probably about a year ago (gasp!) since I ordered the yarn on 10/26/05. Finished: November 3rd Measurements: 61" x 20" Modifications: Yarn substitution, cast on 9 triangles (instead of 7), only 4 rows of knotting for the fringe. Ah, complete! I can't believe it took me a year to finish this. I worked on her in three big spurts. Luckily, it's a very easy project to pick up at random - once you get a decent grasp of the pattern and how it works, there's no row numbers to worry about. I never got tired of knitting her, and I found the entrelac very satisfying. It goes fast, and with the Noro it's fun to see the colors change. Here's how I'll probably look all winter: She's the perfect size, I think. Wide enough to cover my ears and nose, but it's not too too bulky wrapped around my neck. Happy with the length, too :) I don't have any yarn left over, and had juuuust enough for the fringe. My fringe is a little imperfect. There was no way I was going to get it all lined up evenly, so I just did it quickly and, well, it's fringe! Whatever. I love it. It may look like I'm posing here, but.... I'm frantically picking leaves out of the fringe. Leaves! Yeah. Don't put your handknits on the grass. Back to the details. I wasn't always happy with the way the colors were lining up - too much saturation in one area, too much boring taupe in another. My least favorite color in the bunch is the blue, it's the least muted and pushed the whole thing towards the garish side. So sometimes I would cut out a whole blue section and save it for later (or for the fringe). Also, just like Jessica did (ps - welcome Fig and Plum readers!), I left off the crochet edging and didn't block her. I'm glad that this pattern has gotten popular. It's great. Everyone should knit it, or at least a smaller entrelac scarflette. No two Eleanors look alike! Yeah, I'm way too much of a goofball for such an elegant knit!

Lady Eleanor: The Preview

Just a little preview photo of Lady Eleanor, since the last one went over pretty well. As you can see, she's destined for a life tucked away safely in the closet, not spread out on the couch - that fringe could drive a cat crazy. Last night was a spinning night! I finished plying that corriedale: 340 yards, can you believe it? I'll get some better shots when it's skeined up, the colors are wonderfully subtle. I have no idea what weight it is, though, maybe light worsted? Things like this remind me that I'm quite a novice. I also started spinning the roving I posted yesterday: I'm trying to spin it as fine as I can. It takes forever, but that's a good thing! I don't have the money to buy tons of fiber all the time (ohhh I wish) so this is a way to make what I have last, I guess. Maybe that's a backwards way of thinking about it, but it works for me right now. Oh, and here's the questionable lace that I mentioned last time: Apologies for the awful picture, I had to take it with no hands. The pattern is Eunny's Print o' the Wave stole, and the yarn is handpainted Zephyr from Furryarns in Monarch. I can't remember why I bought this yarn - and I certainly don't remember the colors being so garish (I think the photo on the website has been changed in the year or so since I ordered the yarn). Anyway. Is it hideous? Is it worth continuing? I'm really thinking no. It's not something I would wear, first of all, and I think I'd feel bad giving it away because I dislike it so much. Aaaaand I think I just answered my own question. I'll soothe my craving for a lacy project in a different way - by casting on for Pomatomus! Finally, inspiration came to me, in the form of Interlacements Tiny Toes. This yarn was begging me to knit it up - it's sooo cushy and bouncy. And I just know that Pomatomus will show it off perfectly.

The post I made earlier, then deleted because the blog freaked out.

I've been suuuuuch a slacker. My thoughts these days are more on our impending move than anything else, I guess. I have over 400 of your blog posts to read, and I will read them all - but forgive me if I don't comment :) I'm in a bit of a slump, which I guess is natural after finishing so many projects? Lady Eleanor is done, too, by the way - I finished her at the office last Friday, fringe and all, and even wore her home. I'm in love already, silently cursing the unseasonably warm weather we've had here this week. Pictures this weekend, I hope, if I can get someone to cooperate one more time. My yarn for the Phildar Swing Jacket is on its way. I was about to buy 6 skeins of Beaverslide (in Frosted Smoke, I think).... but I balked at the price at the last minute. I'm supposed to be saving up money for the move, and while I love the pattern I'm not sure how much I'll wear it when all is said and done - I just want to knit it. So I went for Elann's Highland wool instead. I've never used it before - I heard it's a little pill-y but I can live with that. I started knitting some lace, too, but I think it's ugly. Really ugly. I'll post a picture of it soon, and you guys better tell me the truth. The problem is with the yarn... what was I thinking, ordering variegated laceweight? In colors I'd never wear? If I keep going I might pass it off as a gift, but ugh. I just really wanted to knit lace, I guess. Stay tuned. Why am I feeling so uninspired? There used to be hundreds of things I couldn't wait to knit, but nothing is grabbing me these days. I'm sick of pawing through my stash, hoping for inspiration. I think a bit of a purge is in order, before the move. Stash sale #2, anyone? Sorry for all the booooooring! I'm even putting myself to sleep. I will try to pep things up a bit this weekend, maybe some dyeing? Look, here's some pictures! BFL that I over-dyed - it was too pastel the first time around, now it looks like watercolors! Corriedale from the Sheep Shed - all spun up now, and in the process of being plied. Lovely stuff.

Ahem.

The blog seems to be a little fucked at the moment (pardon my language) - I have a post all ready to go, but my Haloscan comment links have disappeared. Again. Awesome! When I get home tonight I'm going to start from scratch and redo my template, then reinstall Haloscan and hope for the best. Stay tuned, friends! EDIT: Argh, they're back! I am so fucking confused. Let me know if you see them :( and if you don't, my email is on the left sidebar.

Whoo!

Thank you all so so so much for your comments on Brocade! You're all so kind, and you made this girl feel pretty damn good. I DO love Brocade, in spite of and even because of its flaws. I wrote about them in such detail because so few people have knit it, and I wanted to get as much information out there as possible for anyone considering the pattern in the future. On to the contest. The question, for those of you who missed it, was which two ancient projects I finished last week. Four of you got it right! Kudos to you, Carrie, Eric, Emily and Trek. I finished the New England socks (last blogged about here) and the Northern Lights mittens (last blogged about here). If you guessed Lady Eleanor, you were close - she and I have been inseperable all week. We might be looking at fringe this weekend! Interesting that no one picked Butterfly - I don't think that one will ever get finished, either. I assigned each of the correct answerers a number (1-4) and let the random number generator pick the winner. And that winner is: Trek of Trek Casts On!!!Congratulations, Trek! I know you're a sock lover, so hopefully the prize will be up your alley - a big hunk of the Mystical Creation Yarns hand-dyed merino that the New England socks were knit with. I have probably 2000 yards of it left, so I'll make sure you get enough for a pair of socks :) More details on that yarn below. Some FO details: Pattern: Northern Lights mittens, available here at Knitpicks Yarn: Knitpicks Palette in... uh, a bunch of colors. Needles: Inox dpns, size 1 Modifications: None, except for a pattern error - the pattern lists the second background color (the brown one) as "Fawn," but in the picture it looks a lot more like "Bark" or at least "Wood". Fawn is a little too light and the oranges don't really stand out in those sections, but I'd already returned my yarn once for ordering the wrong colors (they should really list that stuff on the website, geez). Meh. If they look a little funky, it's because they haven't been soaked or blocked. They need to be - the tips especially are mishapen and my colorwork could be evened out a bit in a couple of places. But! Overall I think my fair isle here is very nice looking. Better in person. The mittens are pretty snug; if I were to knit them again I'd go up a needle size. (Not too many pictures of the socks, since they're for a friend and hopefully she'll oblige me with a modeled shot once she gets them.) Pattern: New England socks from Knitting on the Road (by the great Nancy Bush) Yarn: Merino fingering weight in Amethyst from Mystical Creation Yarns, held double throughout Needles: Inox dpns, size 1 Modifications: Yarn substitution, of course, and an inch more of stockinette before the toe decreases. This pattern is just great. It's not too difficult but there's plenty to keep you interested - I especially enjoyed knitting the lacy ribbing. I'm happy with how it turned out in this yarn, too, for the most part. It's very very fine, almost lace weight even, but held double it's perfect for socks. As I think I've said before, I love the effect of doubling a variegated yarn - you get really cool flecks and it's a lot more interesting-looking than little stripes of color. A bit of stripey-pooling did occur in some parts, but that looks cool, too. I think the heel on this sock is sooo cool. It's just like a regular slipped stitch flap heel, but the slipped stitches continue underneath after you turn it! It's a very narrow heel, maybe not the most comfortable ever, but fun to knit. The cast-on is quite unique as well, and so pretty! I believe it's a sort of modified double-start cast on (correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have the book in front of me). Since I was doubling the yarn already, I had to quadruple it for the cast on. It turned out very stretchy, and did I mention pretty? I hope Hilarie will like them. I need to pick up some sock blockers and block them - this is the first time that I've felt like I really need sock blockers. Do you want to know why? One sock is bigger than the other. Yeah. I have NEVER had this happen to me. And it's not because I finished them months apart - when I got past the heel on the second sock in July, I noticed that it was longer than the first sock I'd knit. I thought I'd done too many rows on the leg or something, got frustrated with myself and abandoned the project (see a trend here?) But when I looked at it again last week, I saw that I'd knit everything perfectly! It was just bigger for some reason. Well. I'll just block the hell out of that first, smaller sock, and everything will be okay. Right? Ugh. A tidbit from my personal life: today is my 3rd anniversary with Brian! We had our first date three years ago today :) And what a date it was, sneaking beer into my freshman dorm - oh, youth! I love you, Brian! We're awesome. Thank you for the photo taking, the countless trips to Webs, and your overall embrace of my fiber habit (and more than that, of course). I have a ton of movies to review - I'll try to get that up tomorrow. Expect a finished Lady Eleanor soon, too!