Yippee!

Now that the daylight managed to coincide with me having my knitting and camera at the same time, it's time to show you some FO's. First of all, Mr. B's socks. Man are his feet big! I was beginning to think I would never finish knitting these socks, but perseverance does pay off.





Pattern: Slipped Stitch's Boyfriend Socks.
Yarn One hank of Knitpicks bare superwash fingering weight I dyed it myself using Jacquard acid dyes, I just mixed some green, blue and purple until I got this cool turquoise.
Needles Knitpicks Classic Circulars, 32" #1's (magic loop).
Adaptations None.

Secondly, after a marathon knitting session yesterday, Shedir #2 is complete. I got to do the extra pattern repeat that I wished I'd done with the last hat. Now my ears will be warmer. I guess I should do stats again eh?



Pattern Shedir cap.
Yarn 3 balls of Elann's Baby Silk in "Oxblood", a soft, beautifully colored 80% baby Alpaca, 20% silk yarn. I doubled the yarn.
Needles Addis Turbos, 32" #3's (magic loop method).
Adaptations I did 4 of the 5 pattern repeats.

Of course, I had to do a top of the head shot again.

Bookworm

My corner

I've been tagged.
BOOKWORM – tagged by Katie

Instructions:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag 5 people

The closest book to me was right behind me on the bookshelf. I'm sure that environmental cues and show that this is my side of the sofa, the yarn, needles, and wheel in close proximity. The book that was closest was Philip Pullman's "The Amber Spyglass" the third book in "His Dark Materials Trilogy", numbers 1 and 2 were contenders for being close too.

Wasting no time, the Court commandeered a flight of zeppelins, and that same day a battalion of the Swiss Guard began to embark aboard the zeppelins waiting in the still air beside the lake of Geneva.

And the next 3 sentences are quite long, damn you Katie! Oh well, here goes:

So each side was aware that the other was also making its way towards the cave in the mountains. Ane they both knew that whoever got there first would have the advantage, but there wasn't much in it: Lord Asriel's gyropters were faster than the zeppelins of the Consistorial Court, but they had further to fly, and they were limited by the speed of their own zeppelin tanker.

And there was another consideration: whoever seized Lyra first would have to fight their way out against the other force.

Exciting stuff huh? Have no idea what my day's motto would, but I guess I'm best off steering clear of those zeppelins.

And I'll tag.... Oh! Whoever has the urge to try it.

BIG thanks!!

Talk about RAOK!!

First of all, to back-track a little. Most of you are already aware of the loss of my Shedir. Thank you all for your positive and/or butt-kick promising comments, I think I had the most comments ever in that last post. Now, back to today, I got home from work a little while ago and I have a little package in the box. It's from Yo-Yo Knits, Alyson. It's replacement yarn (Elann's Baby Silk), enough to knit a new Shedir. This girl is fan-f*ckin-tastic! Not only was the yarn for the original hat a prize from her blog, but now she is sending me additional yarn to make a new Shedir!!

So I want to say a very big and public thank you to a very special person.

Avast Ye!*

First of all, please join me in a moment of silence as I mourn the lost of my Shedir, which is probably in the hands of some hipster brooklyn-nite, somewhere in the depths of Williamsburg. It fell out of my jacket pocket when I was out for some drinks with friends last night, I went back for it about half an hour later, not there, no-one handed it in! I can only hope that whichever thieving bast@rd stole it whoever found it, is getting as much pleasure as I did, man I miss my shedir already. I guess I have to go shopping for more yarn now.

I finished my mitts last week, they took forever to dry in our freezing bloody cold rather cool apartment. I've been dying to take pictures of them so I can show them off. Fortunately, I managed to share them with my Spidey Pals, and now the weekend has finally rolled over and I can show them to everyone else. So, enough with the talk, talk, here are the pics and stats:



Pattern: Hello Yarn's cool, "dangerous" Pirate Mittens.
Yarn: 2 balls of Knitpicks Telemark one in Bayberry and one in Chestnut, inspired by the color combo used by Lisa with her Norwegian Mitts.
Needles: Denise's in US 5's, magic loop method.
Mods: None, the only thing I can say about the project is that I had difficulties with the fair isle initially, I ripped out that first mitt a significant number of times, but it was worth it.



One final word on fair isle [which I know really should be called "stranding", but just can't bring myself to use that term, plus "fair isle" sounds so much cooler]. I wasn't too happy with my stitches on the mitts, they looked uneven to me and not so great. When I blocked I blocked hard. I soaked them in soap-filled water, and basically beat them up in the water (not too hard, since I didn't want felted [or should I say fulled?] mittens. Once scruched of water I pinned them down on the blocking board, Mr. B. laughed and called me a Mitten collector. But I think the results were worth it.



* Apparently, pirate talk for get a load of this, me likey.

Boringly normal

Thanks again to everyone for the advice on the pirate mittens. I ripped out the mitt and started again, and now know that that extra little tug I was giving was making the puckering. I am happy to report that the mitten is coming out really well, pictures will be coming soon, once I get some actual sunlight. I did, however, take some crappy pictures of my Glittens, which you've probably seen a lot of over blogland. They were a pretty quick and relatively easy knit, and I'm pleased that I tackled something that I was always a bit dubious I could make [gloves].




Pattern: Patons Convertible mittens from leaflet # 1159.
Yarn: Knitpicks Swish Superwash in Jade.
Needles: Denises #6 and #7, using magic loop, I also used a crochet hook to pick up the stitches for the mitten, it proved to be a tricky task for me.
Adaptations: I only cast on 40 sts (48 gave me a very baggy glove), so the fingers had 2 less stitches each, leaving me with a k1, p1 in between fingers. I knit less rows for the thumb, and also adapted the decrease pattern at the top of the mitt for a more rounded (rather than pointed) top.

And now for something completely different. This 6 weird things meme has been floating around blogland forever now. And, as usual, I'm a little slow on the uptake. To be honest, I put off doing this one because I was pretty sure that there wasn't anything weird about me, certainly not blogworthy. But, I had a go at it anyway, so here you are:

1. Like some others, I have difficulty differentiating my left and right. I usually have to say "right to write" and look at my hand to remind myself. I have successfully sent people with the completely wrong directions, unintentionally, only realizing way too late.

2. When I was a kid walking home from school I would sometimes imagine that a person walking or driving by was a famous filmmaker and they would see my amazing talent by the way I walked and come dashing over to tell me that I have to star in their latest blockbuster. There are some days now that I occasionally think about being 'spotted' when I see a limo drive. [yup, I'm actually pretty embarrassed by this one].

3. I practice Reiki (just first degree). While my attunement was a very profound experience and I've seen it have amazing effects on myself and others, I'm still a doubting Thomas.

4. My middle toe on my left foot is much longer and larger than the one on my right, it happened when I was hurrying over to the TV to turn up the music for "Neighbours" (oh, I miss Ramsey St) which my baby cousin loved so much - he was so cute singing along to it. I couldn't wear shoes for a week, the toe still hurts in the cold, and turns a funny purpley colour when it's hot.

5. Apart from my first [as an adult] project, I have never used the required yarn for a knitting pattern. I just don't think that it's in me. I clearly have the desire to be different and the need to make things more complicated than need be (I'm pretty sure that I can't be the only one in this one).

6. Since I spent a huge amount of my childhood in Germany, I would grow up watching at lot of stuff in German, I loved Neverending Story, even though I didn't 'get' everything that was going on in it, I watched the German version at least 3 times before ever seeing the US version. I was actually an adult before I realized that Sesame Street was an American show!

PS: I buckled and upgraded to new blogger, once I found out that I can now label my posts I couldn't resist.
 

Progress

First of all, I want to say thank you to everyone who left lovely comments about "the incident". I really do appreciate all the kind words and suggestions. I'm afraid my action with the sweater will inaction at this time. I cannot face it, I don't want to disappoint any of you, but I can't pretend.

As I promised in my last post, I do have additional pictures of things I've been up to. First up is a Boyfriend Sock. One is done, knit using knitpicks superwash fingering weight, dyed by yours truly. Mr. B. liked the color, so I thought it was time for him get a new pair of socks - he was such a good boy after all.


Second up, thanks to Sandra for reviving my interest in these mitts, I've started the Pirate Mittens. I dunno though, I've ripped these out once already, and I'm trying my best to stretch out the knitting a couple of times a row the second time, but I still have puckering. What the #!@$ am I doing wrong? Suggestions gratefully received.


Finally, some spinning I did while Mr. B. was taken away from me by the in-laws. This is Multicolor Colonial Navy. 100% Corriedale Wool. From Carolina Homespun. There's only 4 ozs though, so not sure what I will make with it...

PJ Day

Time to get the violins out, cos I'm feeling poorly - the taking the day off work, watching junk telly, wearing PJ's, feeling sorry for myself kind of poorly. However, the good news is that I caught up with some blog photos (yes, it's actually daylight in my apartment while I'm at home!).

Firstly, some of you may be wondering what happened to the Natucket Jacket I was knitting from the 2006 winter Interweave knits. Did I manage to fix it? Does it fit now? Where the hell is it? Honestly, I've been putting off posting about it, it still makes me sad now (5 weeks after, what shall be referred to as "the incident"). Anyway, here is a quick look at the result of "the incident".



I never did get to plan c (re-seaming) - plan b involved some water and a tumble dryer, one of the sleeves got a little too damp the felted result of which you can see on the right. There are other parts of the cardigan that are felted, and yet it still remains a lot too wide and a little too short, it is not savable, not even slightly. The cardigan resides in the back of the closet now, until I finally have the heart to throw it out.

On to a brighter note, I finished something else, which actually fits, and I'm totally in love with it. I think that these are my most favorite socks ever (aren't the latest pair always?). I went a bit nuts taking photographs of the socks, I won't bore you with all of them.



Yarn: 1 skein of Brooklyn Handspun's stunning Signature Yarn in "Rose Mocha" - man do I love this yarn, it's soft, the colors are gorgeous, apparently it fluffs up great after washing [can't wait to wash them] AND it's superwash.
Needles: 32" Addis, US #2.
Pattern: "Ripple Weave Socks" from the Fall 2006 issue of Vogue Knitting.
Adaptations: I opted for a garter stitch short row heel, thanks to gleek for her version. I also added a p1, k1tbl at the beginning of the k row of the sole, and k1tbl, p1 at the end of that row. This helped the pattern 'pop' and gave a little symmetry for me.





Close-up of the garter stitch short row heel, isn't it great?

There are more pictures (sock, mitten and spinning) to share, but I will save them. Just so you know, the Nantucket jacket has ensured that my future includes only small projects - socks, mitts/glitts, hats etc.

Happy New Year*

Just a quickie to wish you a happy new year, hope you all have a safe and happy '07.

Here's a couple of shots of Mrs B. senior's scarf. She loved it, and Mr B. Senior loved his hat.


Pattern: My So Called Scarf by Stacey.
yarn: Malabrigo in color 137 "Emerald Blue"
Needles: Denises #11
Adaptations: I only cast on 24 stitches, giving me skinnier, longer scarf. Like the last scarf, I added a single crochet border.



My yarn arrived from knitpicks Saturday, so I have plenty on the needles (which I'm sooooo happy about), so there will be more pictures to follow. For now, I'm off to suffer the rest of my hangover...

*yeah, original blog title I know, but my poor brain is suffering today, it's the best yer gonna get.