Yarn Porn

You know you want to see it?

Of course, you do.



Glorious!


9 DB Cashmerino Aran (I would have gone for 10 if they had that last ball!)
10 Jo Sharp Summer Garden Aran Cotton
14 DB Wool/Cotton
12 Lopi Lite

I told myself that all this stuff would be my Fall projects to justify the spending. What are my Fall projects? Well, I still have to come up with some ideas... But how can you walk away when Debbie Bliss yarn is 40% and 50%
off! The sale continues all week. Everything is on sale-- everything. Then there is deep discounts on tons of yarn. I like this LYS. It's not exactly convenient, so does that still make it a LYS? Anyway, they carry a wide selection which is great. I was really surprised at how much they carried. I remember going to last year's sale and was happy with the yarn I took home, but didn't think carried a lot the yarn I would knit with. I went away with a feeling that the store was a little old school. Now that I scoured the store from top to bottom I can say they carry an excellent selection of yarn. It looks like they know their audience is changing; they've sell hip knitting bags, the books selection has expanded, the color selection is good, and I believe they updated the store logo. Also, regular prices are good.

And now I am broke.


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Another yummy summer salad. Your classic tossed green with blue cheese and pinuts sprinkled on top. Nothing makes salad better than blue cheese and pine nuts.

Fiber Celebration

This is going to be a full weekend: Bellevue Art Fair, Hilltop East opens, and the West Seattle LYS is having a sale. This may motivate me to finish something.

I have found a new toy with one my office tools. Okay, I use this thing everyday to crunch numbers, but look what else it can do. Pivot tables, vlookups, if then formulas, fogetaboutit! Copy and paste, baby, that's all ya gotta know about Excel to do this.



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Note to self: Must update sidebar.

A shout out to all you peeps.

Hey, thanks to those who emailed me in the recent past-- all two of you. I am sorry I did not respond. I have to admit that I do not check that email accoutn on a regular basis, though it is my main non-work email. I prefer not to use work email to do non-work stuff (i.e. blog related stuff), if you know what I mean. My family email at work and such but that is about it.

At times I do lack blog ediquette; comment and not follow up on a response, or post and not follow up on a comment. I really do appreciate all comments and replies. Again, thanks writing.

Yesterday a blogger asked about the anonymity, or lack of it, of her readers who blog. Well, in my case I haven't told anyone outside this household of two about my blog. (And if anyone out there knows me, but I don't know that you are reading, please don't inform me. Let's just keep the relationship the way it is.) It's not that I write about extremely personal matters often, I hardly do, that I don't want to reveal who I am. I just like to express my creativity, sometimes my thoughts, and my opinions to noone in particular. I have always been that way. I'm an introvert and a lot of the times expressing myself to noone in particular is cathartic. And it is great to hear when readers feel the same way I do. Writing it out gives my issue a bit of a resolution. Sort of like: there I said it, I feel better now. I'm not the most expressive blogger, far from it, but typing out a few sentence that sometimes only I understand feels great. It is like after an encounter where you think of the world's greatest comeback. Maybe that's where my preference for anonymity comes in. Ha! There I go self diagnosing. It is a knitting blog, so I try to keep it about knitting and such.

This in no way says that I don't want to get to know other bloggers or that I would be anti-social outside the blogging environment. Just me saying why I like to write my blog anonymously.

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On an unrelated note: Oh, those Londoners! Ever so... British, aren't they?

Quelle Horreur!!



More horror!!


Fear not? I fear them a lot!! As seen in the August issue of Lucky. I was frightened when I saw it. I had deja vu of my mom in those pants. Will it work for us folks who no longer have flat tummies or those of us who like to eat a large meal in one sitting? What about when you sit down and the pant waiste cuts into your tummy, especially for a sloucher like me. Not to mention the fact that they make your backside enormous even if your backside isn't that large. (Hello, the more material used to cover your booty the larger it looks.) I can just see it now: those ginormous shoulder pads from the eighties are coming back after they run through high waiste bell bottoms and everything crocheted from the seventies.


Back to reality.

Finally, after a year of sitting quietly folded in my to finish pile I sewed the placket for cardi raye from Phildar. Stupid me didn't buy the hook and eye ribbon when the nice lady at Brieweb asked. Where can you find hot pink hook and eye ribbon? No where this side of the Atlantic. I also searched for the right shade of pink with little success until I wasn't looking anymore, know what I mean? I laboriously sewed nine hook and eye sets to the cardigan this week and was able to declare it complete.



But damn that lurex yarn is scratchy. Or is the correct description itchy? Besides being scratchy/itchy the pattern is a little short so I did some surgery after all the pieces were seamed. i used every last inch of that green yarn!

Notice the different ribbon? Yes, that is grosgrain, before I found the satin ribbon in that perfect shade of hot pink, or I believe it is called French Pink.

Cheveron tank from Rebecca. Not my favorite. The design is similar to their stripe cheveron tank several seasons ago. And it is similar to the tank in the summer IK. I use Katia Idea Jean, a ribbon yarn. Also, I should have knit this in the round.

Oy, did you see this?

For all cupcake-holics. A while back I found this link via Action Hero. It is a lot fun to make and I embellished mine with beads to imitate sprinkles. Also added embroidery to look like letter icing.

Teach yourself to crochet and have fun!

I'm not a lush...

but I play one during the summer months. Man, today is a perfect day for drinking margaritas... as much as possible without getting too billigerent. No, no, I kid. Though, it is a perfect margarita weather.



This is suppose to last all summer....don't think so. Yeah, it's the 1.75 liter bottle, the one that comes with its own handle.


Yummers!!


Okay, margies aren't only thing I down for dinner. Fresh pesto and pasta salad.


And quinoa and soycutash(Trader Joe's) salad with soy ginger vinegrette. Delicious cold.

Oh, yeah, this is a knitting blog. Pale Blue Cardigan from Rebecca is coming along slowly. The cables are slowing me down. I can't imagine what it will be like when I get to the sleeve increase. I do love the color I chose, lilac from Plymouth's Wildflower. Yeah, it is 51% cotton, 49% acrylic. Feels just like 100% cotton. During hot months the facilities folks at work crank up the a/c and it is incredibly cold! Funny how all the women complain and the men think it is just fine. Well, it makes it too cold to wear sleeveless tops to work. I have to put on a sweater most days. I'm thinking of making another Elspeth, in all-purpose-goes-with-anything-black. Back to Tivoli, okay, I'm going to give in and just knit stockinette and crochet the edges like action hero. Perhaps to save yarn I will do a garter or and knit three or four rows of a seed stitch border. I gotta get going with that project.

Gotta go for now, it is too hot to continue.

Lavender frosting

lav_cupcake
Originally uploaded by pknitty.

Hee hee. I was picked up by Cupcakes Take the Cake (7/13/05 posting).

I started Tivoli and just frogged it. I read about curling curling edges so I decided to knit it in a purl and knit stitch pattern to avoid problem. Only thing is I don't like this stitch pattern. It was a diagonal purl stitch but looks more like seed stitch. Back to the reference books for ideas.



Kiri is done. Thumps up for this pattern. Very similar to Flower Basket Shawl. The pattern is not as open as FBS so it ate up four skeins of Peruvian Baby Silk. If you like FBS but don't want to knit another FBS, like me who has made six FBS, this is a definite recommend.



Thanks to Fidgety Budgie for reminding me about sewing a muslin model before cutting into the intended fabric. I had only done a muslin model once before, I'm usually not a patient person to do a trial run. Since this pattern has many pieces and no petite sizing I didn't want to rip and resew to adjust the fit on the real garment. I am glad I did a trial run even if there were no adjustments needed. Turns out that size 8 fits nicely! It would appear to be difficult with all the piece, but no it was straight forward. And the best thing about this is no buttons. For some reason really dislike putting in a button hole and sewing on buttons. Only down side is no lining. I may cut into the muslin model to draft a pattern for a lining. Aah, the satisfaction of a snag-free project.

safe and sound

ok
Originally uploaded by pknitty.

I heard back from my old workmate and she is unharmed but still shaken, understandably so. Thank goodness she's and her co-workers were unharmed. Her office is centrally located to where the attacks occurred, and she said she rode the number 30 to work yesterday like she does most days from the tube station!! She is lucky indeed, the blast occurred after nine and she was already at work. Soon she will be off for a holiday in Spain-- a much needed break.