Knits

TO ME! Mwhahahaha.

Okay not really. Although, I’m really not giving anything for Christmas. I gave my sister her Clapotis when I saw her at Thanksgiving and hmm, well I don’t think I gave anything to my mom, but she’s busy spending my inheritance on crazy things anyway. (I’ve asked her to be sure to label the things of value or at least put them all in the same corner so it’s easier to torch the piles and piles of junk she has in her house/garage.)

In the last 10-days or so I managed to finish up 3-pair of Victorian Cabled Wristlets. I am not being patriotic (British or American) in the colour choice, they just happened to closely resemble the colours of the flags.

 
Jaeger Extra Fine Merino Aran in Peacock for me — Rowan RYC Silk Wool DK in Limewash for me — Lana Grossa Bingo in sexy colour 7 for my friend Louise

I’m spending Christmas with my friend Louise and her family and thought I’d make her something. I hope she likes them — she seems to like sort of quirky things like this. They just need a washing. I actually realised after I’d finished them that the set of DPNs I was using got mixed up. Three of them 4mm and the 4th was probably 3.5mm and much shorter; I only realised this when I put them back in their package (it’s yet another set of needles that aren’t different colours for different sizes and unmarked). They’re a bit tight, but the white-ish ones came out rather loose so I thought I’d use a smaller needle with the red ones (also Louise is really petite).

I don’t think I ever finished listing off the other knitting related items I bought for myself while in the States. I got several books:

• Knitting Nature
• Knitter’s Book of Yarn recommended to me by Ava of TwoBlackSheep. I recommend it to you if you’re not a spinner and probably don’t know much about what the real differences between various yarns are; and I don’t just mean sheep vs alpaca vs cotton, but within sheep for example.
• More Sensational Knitted Socks
• Last-minute Knitted Gifts
• Vogue Knitting The Ultimate Sock Book which I didn’t like as it turns out it’s really just a stitchionary and 95% of the stitches in it are from the first Vogue Stitchtionary so it wasn’t worth me holding on to it. I brought it back because a woman here in the UK wanted it so I sold it on to her.
• Sensational Knitted Socks which I already mentioned since it was a kind gift including beautiful yarn from Ava (I think I may be developing a crush).

I had also bought myself a set of Knit Picks DPNs (very nice and sharp) and Options interchangeables (the metal ones, not the ugly wood ones). I immediately put together the interchangeables to start two socks at once and before I even finished a round, one of the cables came out of the metal-join which was very annoying. I called Knit Picks immediately and they sent a replacement cable (it arrived the day after I left, d’oh). In fact, they sent TWO replacement cables and the stopper thingies so that’s nice. My only complaint about both sets of needles is the fact that the different sizes aren’t in different colours so it is easy to tell them apart. I am not a person who carries a ton of stuff with me; I have my pencil tin that DPNs fit into and I’d rather not have to futz about measuring the DPNs to make sure I have the right set if I’ve tossed in two or three sets. I didn’t buy the tags for the circulars as I don’t feel that’s a satisfactory solution for me.

Tomorrow I’m off to the North again, but for a job interview this time. I’ve kept it quiet because I don’t like to jinx things. Keep your fingers crossed for me come Wednesday afternoon. Again I’ll have a lot of train time to be knitting so hopefully we’ll see some progress on that Marigold Sock(s). Amazingly I only knit one or two repeats on my trip to Manchester the other week.

Hope those of you in truly cold climates are with heat and power! It may not be snowy here, but cycling in near freezing temperatures into 15mph head winds is not the way to end your day.

That is about half of the 150 santa’s entering a pub…

Well, I’m back home. My UK home. Not that I have a house back in the US, but you know what I mean.

It was nice to visit with my mom and sister over Thanksgiving and for my mom’s birthday. I even went and saw my dad down in Los Angeles which was quick, but nice. It was an odd sort of trip because I felt tired the entire time no matter how much sleep I got. It ended up that I didn’t do too much at all — no drive down the coast (or up), no real “sight seeing”, not even any clothing shopping like I had planned. I did a bit of knitting and bought (for me) quite a bit of yarn and knitting accessories. Despite not doing much, there’s actually a lot to show and say so I’ll split it up into a few posts.

First, the knitting. I showed you the two completely finished items in my last post — Clapotis for my sister, and Charade socks for me. I still have to write up the full details. I knit another Little Cables Hat for my friend who picked me up at the airport and drove me to my mom’s. I didn’t get to give it to her since she left very early the day after Thanksgiving so I’ll put it in the post (or actually will ask my mom/sister to do so since I left it behind). I also knit one of the Victorian Cabled Wristlets. I could’ve easily knitted both of them, but I’d only brought half a ball of yarn — the other half I had used to make a swatch to decide whether to purchase a sweater’s worth. Hopefully I can knock out the other one this weekend (if I can find the swatch). I love this wristlet — the yarn is sooooo nice and makes me sad I didn’t discover it before it was discontinued. I did buy a sweater’s worth though, heh.

I also started some house socks for my sister - there’s only toes to show so I’m not showing. I also started a pair of Marigold Socks for myself with my Piece of Beauty sock yarn in Sweet Grass. This yarn is so pretty. It’s the newer yarn that she’s dying and it knits up much nicer than the previous yarn. I liked the previous one, but felt like there was no elasticity in it (or I was pulling it all out) whereas this is just right. It also has this nice sheen that doesn’t seem to show until it’s knit up. They’re moving pretty swiftly. Another pair I wish I could’ve done two at once, but as I started them as a project to knit on the plane, I didn’t want to risk losing my cable needles.

Oh, and finally, a picture of my cardigan on me. You only get a picture of the back side of me since I rarely can take a nice picture — I always gotta pull faces or do a stupid pose.

I have lots of stash enhancement to detail, plus books and other related purchases. Plus some photos from the few times I did get out.

I also barely got online (my mom has my old computer which is just dead slow as is their connection) so I am trying to catch up on blog reading which isn’t easy since I was behind before I left! Hope you’re all well.