Ooh La La!

Feeling French? I certainly am today! I can keep you in the dark no longer, I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with with this FO, I love the color and the style, thanks Veronique! It is a slightly bigger fit than anticipated, but I'm okay with a little more breathing space :)

Excuse the electronic drum kit in the background, Mr. B. needs hobbies too eh?

Close-up of front detail

Pattern: Phildar #30, Débardeur, from Spring Tendances 2004
Yarn: Toccata by Lana Grossa in color 98
Needles: US 3 & 4 Boye Needlemaster (not my fave, but hey! they work)
Mods: Mostly the same, except I left 7 stitches at the end of the pattern on the front and did a k1, p1 ribbing for the straps, just giving a little extra thickness. It also looks a little neater to me.

While I'm on the French mode, I notice that my hit count went up on Tuesday, and I was curious enough to look at why. I was pleasantly surprised to see that someone had translated my supple rib armwarmer pattern into French. Il est fantastique! I feel so Cosmopolitan now.

Yoooo Hooooo!

EDIT: while I wrote this blog on 9/25, it seems that blogger is not my friend. I had to republish again today. DOH!

If anyone out there was wondering, yes, I'm still here, and no I haven't given up on blogland yet. The dastardly cold virus got me, and it got me good. I had to work through it [well, went home early one day]. I had to bow out of the genius, and fun sounding Sock Wars. I was such a warrier at work, that I had no energy to get the unexpected goods required for battle. Did anyone see dk yarn and #5 dpns coming? I sure didn't. Having seen some of the socks that have already been completed, I'm impressed. I wish everyone good luck in the battle, may the best sockster win!

Naturally, I had to share the bloody cold with Mr. B. so the poor man had to suffer our exceptionally busy weekend going here and there, but struggled through. Weekend was fun, I wasn't so keen on the whole 80's theme of the party in CT, but had way more fun than expected.

I did manage to finish a knitted item though, here's a sneak peek. More photos to come when I can find some daylight, it's getting a bit shy.


Right, I better get going, I have a bunch of blog reading to get to - I have to admit that it's a little daunting to be so far behind. If I don't say hi quite yet, don't worry, I haven't forgotten you.

Fantabulous!!

They're done, really done! I'm so frigging happy, these are my favoritist socks ever! HA! Take that Pomatomus socks, you thought you had the better of me first didn't you? How wrong you were, I won, yes ME, I win!!! The yarn, the color, the pattern, all a perfect team to create the beauties you see before you.

That camera strap isn't there, really
Look at those kitchener toes, best ever
PS, Please excuse the nasty flash photography, a typical knitblogger problem. The color is off (shame, it's closer to the one I wanted - LOL) a bad side effect of work getting in the way of beautiful daylight FO pictures - and knitting for that matter.

Pictures.

I debated about posting this, but finally decided to. This was the view from our roof last night. It was a strange and emotional day, but the tribute in lights is a beautiful and touching tribute.






On a lighter note, come and have a looksie at the yarnmail I got last week:

Some cotton, for a secret pattern.

Some gorgeous cotton by Lana Grossa for a gorgeous Phildar Cami, probably will be complete just in time for the cold weather :)

Finally, some black cotton/acrylic (pretty soft and nice) for the Men's Zipped Raglan from "Last Minute Knitted Gifts" [YAWN] for Mr. B.

Anyone seen the new Knitty issue? I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. You should check it out.

In honor of the pot sock.

A little ditty in honor of my current project OTN:

I'm near finishing my second Pomotamus,
Which for ages I thought was short for Hippopotamus.
It's a Cookie design,
(what an ingenious mind).
It truely is honorificabilitudinitatibus.

Spiders, Oysters and the blood bath.

So, I got up the guts decided to meet with the Spiders at their favorite haunt the Point and I have to say that it was absolutely lovely to finally meet the girls behind the blogs I've been stalking reading over the past months. I am not so great at names (make that terrible) so I can't remember the names of everyone who was there. I'm not going to embarrass myself by trying to name all the Spiders that I met, I'll only end up missing people out or (worse still) making people up. But everyone seemed really great and I want to say a big hello and thank you to all of you that were were there yesterday, it was a pleasure to meet you all, and you made my first time knitting with a group most enjoyable. I do have to say a big thank you to Michelle, who originally invited me when I met her on the way to the Suss sale in July (I also briefly met Carrie) and thanks also to Veronique, who actually persuaded me to be there yesterday.

As I promised... the bloodbath story. It's the story of my Soliel and the shitty yarn Cotton Patine. I was hand washing it and had actually forgotten about the purple fingers I got when I was knitting it. Not for long though, I look and it bleeds the moment it touches the water - I figured they might have put too much dye in it, so continued to wash it. Oh my God!! I couldn't believe how quickly the water turned the richest deepest purple - more purple than my Soleil. So I rushed to the kitchen cupboard (don't worry, it wasn't that far away), grabbed the vinegar and added it to the water to stop the bleeding. It worked, but my top had a more distinctive odor and was about 10 shades lighter (one step away from frigging lilac). Don't believe me? Look, see:

See? Believe it or not, this is the same yarn.
Needless to say, I'm totally disappointed with this yarn, to anyone who plans to use and wash this yarn, I have one word to say to you.....vinegar.


On a lighter note, I will be heading off to the Riverside Park Oyster Festival later on this afternoon. Some music as well as Oysters and Guinness galore - I like neither oysters, nor Guinness, but it's a fabulous excuse to get out into that beautiful September day, enjoy the sunshine and have a laugh with friends.

Hope everyone else has a wonderful weekend.

Warning - contents in this post may be upsetting and/or offensive.

So Mr. B and I went to BODIES The Exhibition on Saturday (yes! this last Saturday, the Saturday the skies opened and the wind blew mightily! And yes! we did get wet, really, really wet). Anyway, I emailed a good friend back home about various things, including this exhibit and she emails me back telling me there is a big controversy about this exhibit (I guess I was living under a rock, cos there are a ton of stories about this). God damn! Can't a girl just go and look at her plastinated cadavers without all this guilt?

Needless to say, I didn't know this before I went, and the biologist in me found much of it fascinating - my favorite part was the blood vessels, the body can truly be beautiful.

Knowing what I know now, I'm not sure if I would do it again...

Coming next: the blood bath - or how my Soleil lost it's lustre.

Hand-dyed Happiness

Hand-dyed goodness in pictures:

Lacy hand-dyed
Good enough to eat
Hand-dyed, hand knit socks
SP Hand-dyed sockiness
Pomoto-whatsit
Hand-spun, hand-dyed
My latest, orangeade
What socks will this be?

Dedicated to my Secret Pal Samantha, whose beautiful quilts inspired me to play with color.