trying to update regularly, maybe?

I know, GASP.

Yesterday was Knit Night, where I worked on the second braided I-cord strap to the tank top. I worked on it more tonight, but as I've braided them I realized, eek, it comes out shorter than the other finished strap! crap! I left fairly long tails on the I-cords but I'm still going to have to work some sort of mojo, probably with the dreaded and never-attempted kitchener stitch to get these things finished. SIGH.

Taking Stock of Supplies

Since I broke down and bought new fun fiber during the yarn crawl and I still feel guilty for having so many projects unfinished (FOUR! and one hibernating shawl!) I figure the best way to get myself motivated to finish more things is to have a nice inventory of what I have to work with.
I am, as the yarn harlot says, tossing my stash. So here goes:

Roving
TWO (2) ish ounces Myers House Weaving Dept roving, wool (shortish staple?), natural
FOUR (4) ounces Kraemer Yarns Mauch Chunky roving, wool, Walnut

Yarn, full skeins
ONE (1) skein handspun by mousewife on Ravelry, DKish, wool (romney?) natural
ONE (1) skein Dream In Color Smooshy with Cashmere, fingering, wool/nylon/cashmere, Slippery Trail
ONE (1) skein Dream In Color Smooshy, fingering, wool, Cocoa Kiss
ONE (1) skein Araucania Lace Merino, laceweight, merino, pale cream/green-gray
ONE (1) skein Madelinetosh Tosh Sock, fingering, merino, Saffron

TWO (2) skeins Classic Elite Woodland, DK, wool/nettle mix, mossy green
TWO (2) skeins Plymouth Baby Alpaca Lace, Laceweight, 100% alpaca, pale gray
FIVE (5) skeins Ella Rae Kamelsoft, aran, merino/camel, black
FIVE (5) skeins Dalegarn Svale, DK, cotton/rayon/silk, pale gray

Yarn, partial skeins
ONE and ONE HALF (1 1/2) skeins southwest trading company Vicki Howell Love, "worsted", bamboo/silk, periwinkle
ONE (1) skein Paton's Classic Wool, worsted, wool, BRIGHT RED
ONE (1) skein KnitPicks Palette, fingering, wool, Bison
ONE (1) skein KnitPicks Palette, fingering, wool, Rose Hip
ONE (1) skein t-shirt cotton, sportweight? cotton, blinding white
THREE QUARTERS (3/4) skein Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool, worsted, wool, oatmeal
THREE QUARTERS (3/4) skein Reynolds Saucy, worsted, mercerized cotton, terracotta
THREE QUARTERS (3/4) skein handspun single from Waterloo fiber fest, worsted, wool, copper patina
THREE QUARTERS (3/4) ball Lion Brand Incredible, "super bulky", nylon ribbon, Copper Penny
THREE QUARTERS (3/4) skein Lion Brand Lion Cotton, aran, cotton, Magenta
ONE HALF (1/2) skein Baruffa Cashwool, cobweb, wool, forest green
TWO HALF skeins Patons Kroy Sox FX, fingering, wool/nylon, Cadet Colors
ONE THIRD (1/3) skein KnitPicks Gloss, fingering, merino/silk, cosmos purple

Yarn, currently dedicated to projects
ONE (1) skein Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace, laceweight, silk/wool, watercolor (Pi Shawl)
ONE (1) skein ONline Supersocke 100, fingering, wool/nylon, Sierra colors (2x toe up socks)
ONE and ONE HALF skeins handspun from Waterloo fiber fest, fingering-ish, wool, magenta/natural (Socks)
TWO (2) balls Tuesday Morning Exquisite Chunky, bulky, merino/microfiber/cashmere, Navy blue (Herr Inspektor scarf)
THREE (3) skeins Berocco NaturLin, sport, rayon/linen, Coriander (Karma tank)
FOUR (4) balls Crystal Palace Shimmer, bulky, acrylic/nylon, midnight (Scarves)
FOUR (4) skeins Classic Elite Premiere, DK, tencel/cotton, meadowgrass (Baby wrap sweater)
FIVE (5) balls KnitPicks Andean Silk, worsted, alpaca/silk/merino, chocolate (Amused sweater)

Still Amused

So it occurs to me that I really haven't posted anything on this blog in the LONGEST TIME and that's probably because when I'm knitting, I feel like knitting, and not taking a break to write about knitting. It's a difficult balance to acheive!

In any case, I'm still working on the Amused sweater, only this time I'm actually knitting regularly and making progress on it. I've joined the front bands and I can try it on and it looks like a real article of clothing! amazing!

I'll post a picture as soon as it stops looking like an unnecessarily warm bellydance top. :)

Amusement!

Gonna start me a new project because it WON'T STOP SNOWING and the lack of sunlight is slowly driving me crazy. So here's the details:
I've had in my posession (for YEARS, mind you) a huge bag of 13 balls of KnitPicks Andean Silk yarn in Chocolate, which is a gorgeous color. Originally I had planned to make a sweater I'd seen in Interweave, and it was beeeautiful with a cable running diagonally up the front and around to make the collar and it was just...yeah. There were, however, a few problems with this plan.

1) I'd picked out this sweater because it was in a section about larger-sized garments and curvy knits and such, and while I am still extremely curvy, I have actually lost quite a bit of weight since originally seeing said pattern and it probably wouldn't work out.
2) The yarn, while totally gorgeous, is about Half Alpaca, with the rest of it being made up by Silk and Merino. And many of the comments on the ravelry warn unscrupulous knitters to wash their damn swatches before they make a whole honking sweater out of it, because this stuff GROWS. handy-dandy Knitter's Book Of Yarn backs them up on this, since both alpaca and silk have very little memory.
3) The original pattern I'd looked at was, horror, piecemeal. This was before I'd gotten to the circus-tent realization about that cardigan from days of yore that took up almost the entire dining room table after we'd washed the pieces. Basically I never want to knit anything flat and have to seam it again. Because that blows.

SO: a new pattern was found, one that has a similar style but is, importantly, seamless and available for free on the interwebs instead of in a back issue of interweave that I'd have to track down. I'm going to be knitting Amused, which is gorgeous and by some miracle of science and magic is, judging by the Rav project pictures, a raglan sweater that is flattering on busty ladies like myself. GASP! it's awesome!
Still though, that is a lot of cables, and cables can make Andean Silk droopy (droopier?) so I am swatching the hell out of this yarn. The pattern calls for a gauge of 16sts and 24 rows/4" and unlike the pattern, I could not nearly get that with size 9 needles. I got it with size 8 needles though, BUT!! just because I am paranoid, I added a panel to the swatch with 7s, and I am washing it as we speak and then we'll see how much this sucker grows, and whether I should knit this sweater with 7s or, gasp, something even smaller. I'm thinking that'll be the case.
Additionally I'm going to be knitting the small size rather than medium, and I may have to modify it as I go if the yarn is going to grow so much. I'm taking precautions. But I feel good about it, overall, and I can't wait to get started. the yarn is BUTTERY SOFT and the shine is just...ugh. gorgeous. it'll make a lovely sweater.

UPDATE: washed and dried, the gauge on the section knit with 7s is 14 sts/4" OH JOY.  Soooo I've unraveled that and I will simply have to do another swatch, this time with size 6 tips. Perhaps that and a section with 5s, just in case. god, sweater. You will be so worth it. but this is...tedious. Ounce of preparation, and all that. siiiiigh. onwards. In the meantime, gonna work on Triinu some more.

KNITPICKS.

holy crap, Knitpicks. I love you.
So I ordered my big massive "I'm going to get this needle set and finally feel like a capable and prepared knitter" order, and I did that on the fourth, and spent my christmas gift card on it and it was lovely and wonderful and I also ordered The Knitter's Book Of Yarn, which I adooooore and I'm so glad to have a copy of my own. Also assorted sundries, but no actual yarn since...I have a ton of stash overflowing a dresser drawer and I need to bust that thing.
anyway, I placed this order late at night on the 4th and it came TODAY!!! super quick, I'm amazed at the service, and the needles (Options Harmony set) are gloriously perfect and look to have no faults or splinters or anything. YUM. Also there are sock blockers. SOCK BLOCKERS. Literally nothing in standing in the way of my making a ton of socks and never stopping.
Knitter's Book Of Yarn: said softcover on the website, and I was like errr, okay, that's a big honking book and paperback would be chancy since the binding could start to fail, with that many pages, but at that price I was not going to quibble. (I love their book sale) aaand I get the book? IT'S HARDCOVER. JOY OF JOYS.

Basically right now I'm high on knitting supplies and just bouncing off the walls and I want to nom on things and go YAAAAARN like some knitting zombie. it's not a pretty sight. oh wait I mean it's an AWESOME sight.
Also later today I'm gonna make a freaking brownie pie. I feel great. YARN YARN YARN.

Back to Knitting

NaNo went off pretty much without a hitch, I've been doing a bit of editing here and there, mostly to just fill in scenes that I  had to skip over in order to get to the end of m story by the end of November.  I had a great time visiting home for a few days for christmas, and now I'm back to a lace knitting binge that I just adore. I'm determined to finish this Triinu scarf within the next few days, possibly get it done before Girlfriend gets back from visiting her relatives in Minnesota.
Triinu Progress:
I'm on lace repeat 23 out of 29. After that I have to set up and do the top edging, and then, ACK, unravel the provisional cast-on and pick up those stitches and do the bottom edging. That part is terrifying to me, as I've never really done a provisional cast on before.
Well, that's a lie, I tried one recently to make a little model top-down in the round sweater that was doll-sized, and that worked out fine, but the Cashwool I'm making the scarf with is SO SO FINE and I'm worried about the cotton I used for the provisional. I hope it doesn't destroy my stitches, because that would kill me. I will just have to take deep calming breaths and possibly have a glass of wine handy when the time comes. I can do this.
Meanwhile I will return to sitting in one place for hours on end, making nupps. HOORAY NUPPS.

Day 2

So I burned through day 1 of NaNo, and I'm feeling fairly good about that. I have a lot, a LOT of rambly biographical stuff for my MC Clyde, and I've gotten him to the point where he meet-cutes my other MC, Paul, and I have discovered that they have truly excellent banter together. It's going better than I could have hoped.

BUT!!! At this point, after doing 6K yesterday I'm very much slowed today, and I'm trying to get to 1667 but it's taking longer now that I actually have to think about conversation and such.
and it's really starting to bother me that I don't have a title. this is not good. I'm worrying about things coming up, like how to transition from random meeting to working partnership to something like friendship and then insane scientific discovery. Maybe I should plan to get THAT, which is the most important thing, really, in the entire plot, done in the next....I don't know, 3K? I'd hate to have a fifth of the book gone by before the driving action occurs, but....meeeeh...maybe that'll work? Although I plan when this is done to cut most of Clyde's background or at least trim it into something not rambling and crazy anyway, so that'll take it down to a manageable size and then the discovery will be earlier. Okay. That works.

Still need a title though. When this was just an idea for a graphic novel I was calling it "Elite Syncopations" after a Joplin piece, but that really doesn't work well, I think. we'll see.

UPDATE 4:20 pm: I'm distracted by googling 19th century prosthetic limbs, since I want to get a good idea of what Paul's working with and what could potentially be created for him later in the story. And I found THIS THING, which is pretty much the most awesome/horrifying steamy looking piece of metal gorgeousness I have ever seen.  UNF.