Saturday, July 30, 2005

Spinning

Look at me. I have reached new heights in fiber awareness.

I found clumps of wool, and I started carding them (sort of) with my fingers, and twisting them to see what the hell all the fuss was about.
One of the people whose house we were staying in noticed, and started saying something like "oh, it's been a long time since I spun, I hope we haven't thrown away the spindle."

After about 20 minutes, a drop spindle was borrowed from a neighbor (after all, we were in a village. you could borrow a cow if you wanted.) and I was immediately shown how to spin.

Haha. I am great. (not really, I'm just happy.)

My first ever thread-yarn-hybrid is sitting in my backpack, safe in its own padded pocket. :)

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Boring.

Boring boring boring.
That's my life as of now. I went swimming, and as soon as I got out of the pool, the sun went away and it got really windy. I froze.

Knitting, er, slogging away at the weird misshapen sweater-thing that has no idea what it wants to be. I've changed my mind like 20 times already.
The reason why I don't want the front to be one piece and long is because cotton just frames my belly and makes it look bigger. I don't want it short either because that looks weird if it's not with a sundress or similar thing. I'm very picky, but I don't really know exactly what I want. I know what I don't want, though.
Yada yada yada...Enough whining.

Yes, I read the Yarn Harlot's blog. I've been reading it for a while.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Hmm...

I realized last night that with all the alterations in this pattern, it's resembling Spring Fling more than anything. It's just about an inch or two shorter. It's sort of a bolero-shrug-cropped sweater hybrid. I wonder how it'll turn out, and if I'll actually wear it. (From when I was little, I've had an aversion to wearing knits. Strange attribute of an avid knitter...)

Saturday, July 09, 2005

Victory!

Yes! Notice the new banner right under the "I Power Blogger" banner? That, my friends, is the result of about 5 minutes of staring at the template and cursing.

My only excuse for taking so long is that it is indeed 2:15 AM here and I have been up since noon. My, what a tiring day.

But seriously, Knitty is awesome.

Blue Mariah

It's blue. It's soft. It's...Mariah! Ok, I know I'm cheesy.

Mariah is going well, I guess. I'm a really slow cabler without cable needles (I've been using both my ring and a Q-tip.) and I'm a really slow knitter when knitting cotton. This means that for a long time of effort, I've only got 3 cable repeats to show. That's about 4 or 5 inches of the back.

Now the (sort of) interesting part of the sweater is that since it's something for warm weather to just cover my arms etc, I'm making the bottom hem start at a bit above my belly button. All my pants start at my hips, so this isn't normal length for me. In fact, it feels like it's only a bit removed from the One Skein Wonder that I always wanted to try. (I can't try it because I'd have to pay for it, and being a minor who can't work, I don't have the money.) It's not though. It's probably 8-10 inches from the bottom to the armscye, and then another 8 inches to shoulder seams. I'm completely guessing on the measurements because I don't have a ruler and don't know my own measurements.

uhh, that's all for today.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Ok, in a futile attempt to make something out of this...

I'm making it into a knitblog. I don't have a digital camera just yet (read: and never will) so anyone unfortunate enough to stumble upon this desolate blog can just, er, use their imagination.

Ok. Right now I'm in Istanbul (again) so my stash is limited. To 400 grams of really pretty blue cotton (I think it's mercenterized or whatever they call it) and 16-inch-long 5mm wooden straights. I was totally serious about the limited comment.
Now this cotton is very slippery, and splits like nobody's business. (god, where the hell did I pick up that phrase?) The wood is weird to knit on, because I'm used to steel, steel, and, oh, more steel.

With a stash like this, you'd think I'd aim for a shell or a tank or something. haha. I am insane; you must know this. I have decided to make Mariah from Knitty, an online KnitMag that I really like. This pattern is meant for thick, nice wool, and I'm completely f***ing over the look of the pattern by making it in floppy cotton.

Whatev'. We'll see how it works out.

Right now I'm about two to two and a half inches through with the bottom of the back. I've done 4 cable repeats, my gauge is god-knows-what. Probably like 4 sts/5 rows to an inch.

Actually, I might nix the sleeves and zipper and just make a t-shirt lookalike. Who knows.