Friday, December 16, 2011

Swap

Both my Sunday and Thursday knitting groups had their holiday parties last night--needing to scurry away from one party with cookies and yarn to get to a second party with cookies and yarn is just about my perfect evening.

Since I think of myself as an antisocial hermit (also, in my head I'm not athletic... and probably still in high school, when all those things were true!), it was lovely to see everyone, and acquire tasty cookies and new-to-me yarn. And I palmed off two sweaters which were ever so slightly too short in the arms on my friends, so now I don't have to feel guilty about neither wearing nor fixing them. Perfect!

I have plans for the new yarn already: Christmas socks, and a post-Christmas wrap. It's possible that the year when I knit a pair of socks per week made me over-confident, as there are other things besides the socks which I still need to knit. And I'm especially excited about the wrap, since I'm going to combine the new yarn (grey merino-tencel) with some handspun wool that's been problematic. I received the wool as part of a fiber club, and the colors (yellow, peach, light orange) aren't anything I would have picked. But striping them together with grey should make them look more like me!

Friday, December 9, 2011

Fashion Blogger

When I've had enough of libraries and archives up, I'm going to be a fashion blogger:



Notice the turned in toes, and refusal to look at the camera... I will need to work on being less blurry though!

Or maybe a bull fighter:



My inherent blurriness will be less of a problem, since it will make it harder for the bulls to see me.

In the meantime, this is the Middlefield Pullover from New England Knits.



I used EXACTLY 5 skeins of Christ, from Schaefer Yarns, in the colorway pomegranate. So exactly that I have less than 10 yards left over.

I lengthened the body significantly, so it's no surprise that I needed more yarn. When I finished the body, I knit the neck, weighed my remaining yarn, then knit the first sleeve till I'd used half of the yarn. I figured I would make 3/4 sleeves if I needed to, but I had just enough for full length. I'm really happy with it--It was a speedy knit, and it seems to match my entire wardrobe.