Oh, the possibilities

Don't you just hate it when you wake up on Monday morning, get ready and ride the train to work, only to find out that your office has been 'locked down' because of possible asbestos contamination? Yeah, me too.

What will I possibly do with a whole extra day? Goodness, I hope I can find something...

Also, thanks for the comments on the Phildar sweater. Reading my post now, I see I was a little too emphatic on the "omg this thing took forever" as opposed to the "omg I love it." It was a total PITA to finish, but I did finish it. And I really love it. The yarn is fabulous; the buttons are beautiful. It's pretty cute too. I think I'll wear it a lot!

Hope you have a gorgeous Monday.

HSADTFFFO*

So, it's March. What do you say to the first FO post of 2008 here at LK? I know, right? Crazy talk.







The Phildar Asymmetrical Sweater is finally finished. Alert the press.

Pattern: Asymmetrical Sweater from Phildar Tendances 456 Fall 2006 (Ravelink)
Yarn: RYC Silk Wool DK (13 or 14 skeins) (Ravelink)
Needles: US size 4 Inox circs and size 2 Addi Lace circs
Buttons: from Britex. I love that place.
Started: February 14, 2007
Finished: March 22, 2008

What I learned: ribbing sucks. No really. In a lot of ways. All ribbing = no waist shaping, and really it's the waist shaping that keeps me going when I'm knitting a sweater. It's something to look forward to. Something to pay attention to.

And really, the freakin ribbing is the only reason this sweater took more than a year to finish. Ok, so, imagine if you will. You're knitting along on the back, you pull out your measuring tape and think, "Wow, what great progress I'm making. I'm almost ready to start the armhole shaping." And then you streeeetch it out and pin it down and think, "Oh, I actually have about eleventy billion more centimeters to go before I start the armhole shaping. Awesome!" Because, logically, this thing loses height when you stretch out the width. Right? So eventually you start counting rows going, "Ok, so if a train leaves Philadelphia at approximately 3.4 rows per centimeter, and it's already traveled 29 centimeteres, how many rows until we get to New York?" Rangsiwan might not remember, since it was about six months ago, but she saw some of this algebra in action. She was sitting nicely knitting on her sock, and I was mumbling and cursing to myself and frantically working out math equations on the back of the pattern. Nice first impression.

Anyway, I also learned how to graft live stitches to a cast off edge. The button bands are grafted onto the edge of the sweater fronts, which was a bit mind-bending for a while. I can graft the toes of socks closed, but I just could not make it work in this case. Then Montse Stanley walked into my life and made it all better. For some reason the up/down description she uses (as opposed to the knit-/purl-wise directions I had been using) made so much more sense.

And, I guess since it's now officially spring, this little friend joined us momentarily during our photoshoot.

So precious.

Right, so hopefully there will be more FOs around here soon.

*Holy Shit, About Damn Time Freakin' Finally Finished Object

Stitches West

Ok, I know I'm like WOW late with my Stitches West wrap-up post, but here goes anyway.

I got the goods.


Clicky for details.

This was my first Stitches. I took my mom and we had a fabulous time. But I have no pictures. Not camnesia per se, but memory card-nesia. Had the camera, just couldn't take pictures. Great job. I also forgot my knitting on Thursday. Dork. Here's proof we were really there.

We signed up for a class, so got to go to the market preview on Thursday. The market was definitely overwhelming. So much yarn! So shiny!

I had a plan of attack all lined up, my map with little stars and notes and highlighted names and a pocket full of cash with YARN written all over it. I made a total fool of myself and got Cookie A's autograph. I became an instant enabler and my mom went from "not going to buy anything" to spending almost as much money as I did.

I got plenty of what I had wanted (see above). But, not all. You'd think with a warehouse full of yarn, I could get anything my little heart desired. First off, I missed out on Norah Gaughan Vol. 2 and Malabrigo worsted in Azul Profundo, but most disappointing was the yarn for Venezia (ravelink). I wanted to knit it in two colors (like this one), but other than Black Water Abbey's fingering yarn (that only comes in natural sheep colors), I didn't see any appropriate fingering sweatery yarn. It was either superwash or too heavy or too light... Poo.

So, what's a girl to do with $100 left at the end of a yarny weekend? Order from KnitPicks of course. Palette saved the day, and now my Venezia is only costing $20. Nice.

The class I took was Design your Dream Sweater with Leslye Solomon on Sunday morning. I have thought about trying my hand at designing, but was always too freaked out by the math and the thought of making it fit together right. Like the armscye? First of all, what the heck is an armscye, and secondly how do I make it the right size? Eek. But Leslye had some really good tips and now I'm not so afraid. Now if people would just stop publishing patterns I like maybe I could convince myself to design my own. My mom took a class on log-cabin knitting, and has decided that she hates garter stitch.

Stitches was completely amazing. We had a lovely time!

Let the yarn diet commence!