Green Wisp

For those of you who wondered, this is the Wisp I was talking about. Please excuse the slightly blurry and so-typical Lace On Leaves photo, but it is the only photo I have of it from before I blocked it to death, and I am too vain to show it any other way. I highly recommend both the pattern, from Knitty Summer 2007, and the yarn, Rowan Kidsilk Haze. I easily made the scarf in less than one ball by making it just a touch narrower - now what to do with the tiny quarter ball that is left?

Ski-mergency Moebius Turtle

When I was heading out the door on my way to a Christmas back-country skiing trip, I had a realization. Although I had spent the last week and some carefully, maybe obsessively preparing my gear (I hadn't yet been on a back-country trip for which I felt fully prepared), and I finally had the important things - weather gear, hattage, glove- and mitten-age, appropriate underwear, All Ten Essentials, everything - I didn't have anything to keep my face and neck warm but a scarf given to me by my dear mother. Not only do I love it too much, I would trip on the ends.

Luckily, I knew just what to make, and I had the perfect materials on hand. So I grabbed them, and I knitted this on the way to Aspen:

This is a moebius! This is what my best friend taught me to make! The yarn is Noro's Kureyon (color 152 for the interested), recently frogged from my unfortunate attempt to be creative with the Matrix mittens from Knitty:

See? not too pretty. If it had just been the colors I might have kept going and hoped for the best, but the gauge was simply too different; even my tiny hand was uncomfortably between the child's and medium sizes.

I'd thought that the two yarns would work well together because of one glorious moment of color harmony, which can be seen (more or less) below.






























I suppose that's because I figured - hey, the colors are the same, and if a color happens within a ball of Kureyon, then it must go with the other colors! Maybe I should mention that I've never knitted with Kureyon before. I liken the experience to reading a book by an author you love, whose writing style you adore, whose characters are fresh and new and compelling, but whose plot you just wish would happen differently with all of your heart. The colors are beautiful; the colors are rather amazing; but I have no idea why they appear together in one ball when the colors so clearly do NOT work that well together.

But for my moebius, it worked very well. It was surprisingly warm, and actually took the place of my hat most days since it better accommodated the strap of my goggles. Hoo-rah!

!

Just a quick post. Heading out tomorrow for a back country skiing trip - and I'm not packing any knitting! Argh! I might reconsider, we'll be spending a lot of time in the hut at night.

We've been on a Craft Night hiatus, and I've been craving it. I miss knitting with other people! But I've gotten some things done. Finished two Wisps as presents, and actually managed to send one off in a timely fashion. I need to learn to block more gently, b/c I kind of killed both of the with overstretching.. the charm of the pattern is in the fluff and loopiness.

Cast on a pair of Matrix mittens from this season's Knitty, but although the pattern is very simple, I chose poorly for yarn and will probably have to scrap it. Pictures later!

More Christmas Knitting

How much Christmas knitting can a Jewish girl do?

I ended up spending the weekend in Boston, visiting my very best friend, and one of the magical upshots: I learned how to knit moebii! (moebius strips) I'd heard some buzz about them, but imagined that it was just a gimmick - knitting a strip and grafting it or somesuch. But NO! you knit a SURFACE. It has ONE SIDE. It has ONE EDGE. It is AMAZING!

Finished the Wisp scarf in pink wool - on a visit to Windsor Button, a crafty store in Boston, I spotted a ball of green Kidsilk Haze, which is what Wisp originally calls for, and I sprang for it, figuring that I have enough friends in geographically disparate locations that I could get away with knitting the same pattern more than once. Well. The pattern in SO DIFFERENT in the right yarn, and it is so so much better. Scratch the pink. It is now a table-runner. Demoted.

Very excited to knit mittens; bought my first ball of Noro Kureyon and some coordinating Manos del Uraguay to knit Matrix from this season's edition of Knitty. I'm also working up some funny-looking thrummed mittens in leftovers from the fair isle sweater, which is in limbo during the holidays. Pictures soon? I'm too busy learning to SKI!

Holiday Knitting

I'm traveling to New York this week to visit friends. I only brought a single project with me, in hopes (equally) of finishing the project and getting a lot of work done. It is a Christmas gift for my gentleman friend's mother, a lace scarf happenin' in the pink yarn from the previous post. Halfway done! Pictures if my hosts have a camera.