Merry Christmas

Well, we finally got our visas two days ago after five months of living with my parents. This is truly a season to rejoice. We'll be leaving for Rio on December 31. I'm not sure how often I'll be updating this blog in the future, but you can see what I'm up to on Ravelry. Merry Christmas.

New project., new yarn

I've started a new project, of my own design, using Colourmart DK weight coned silk. I'm having to double-strand it, because there is no way that this is a true DK weight. More fingering, I'd say. That's Colourmart. Their laceweight is cobweb, and their four-ply is lace-weight, etc. Gorgeous yarn, though. The color I have is "Camel," a nice neutral. I'm making a top-down raglan lace blouse, meant to evoke 1930s England.



I'm almost down to where I can put the sleeve stitches on waste yarn.

I did a bit of stash enhancement over the weekend. Because I'm just sitting here, waiting to go to Brazil, I'm going through the yarn at a faster rate than usual. I ordered some Elann Pegasus in Sky Blue and some Elann Ramie/Cotton. The Pegasus will be combined with some Connemara I bought last year to become this, and the Ramie/Cotton will become this. I love the look of Berocco's Bling Bling, but I couldn't justify $140 for a short-sleeved sweater. $16 from Elann suits me just fine. I am, however, considering at-home means of getting gold onto the yarn. Fabric paint? Jones Tones foil?

Tangled Yoke Pictures

Buttons and everything!

Ravelry!

I've finally gotten on to Ravelry! My screen name is Lobolita. (My little brother's nickname for me.) Come find me!

Tangled Yoke Finished!

Yesterday, I finished the last button band on the Tangled Yoke Cardigan. Here it lies in its blocked-but-not-dry state:



Pattern: Tangled Yoke Cardigan by Eunny Jang in the Fall '07 Interweave Knits
Yarn: Jaeger Trinity from Webs
Needles: #6 Inox circular, #4 Susan Bates circular, #0 aluminum crochet hook
Start-to-finish: About a month
Modifications: Not many. Other than using a completely different yarn, I only made two significant mods. Obviously, the first was making it short-sleeved. For the sleeves, I cast on the final number of sleeve stitches indicated in the pattern and worked 6 rows of garter rib before joining to the body. Secondly, instead of picking up stitches for the purl bumps on the collar and doing a three-needle bind-off with the collar stitches, I slip stitched the live collar stitches down to the purl bumps using a small croched hook. I decided to do this after seeing Sil's collar travails.

The pattern was extremely well-written. Even the complicated cable was quite easy, as long as I followed the directions. I'll post a modeled shot as soon as it's dry and I sew on the buttons.

Bad News

First off, we're not in Brazil. Things have been...delayed. The Brazilian government doesn't particularly like American volunteers, apparently, so it's really hard to get our visas through. So we're waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Did I mention we're living with my parents while we wait?

Right now, we're waiting in Long Beach, WA, which is kind of fun. We went to see Mt. St. Helens, too, which was awesome.

That was a pretty big boom when it went off. The National Park area around the mountain is incredibly desolate still, but Weyerhauser has done great job of replanting its lost forest.

It's pretty amazing what one little volcanic eruption can do to a landscape.

I've also had time for a great deal of knitting. I finished the Roundabout Tank, a shell of my own design, my Hedera socks, and am currently 5 inches into the Tangled Yoke Cardigan. With nothing else to do, I've discovered I can really fly through the yarn. I'm also forcing myself to practice some project monogamy, or at least bigamy, by having only one large project and one pair of socks on the needles at the time. That way, I actually finish things. Imagine that.

Very bad pictures of my Hedera Socks, featuring Abbey:



Pattern: Hedera, from Knitty
Yarn: Panda Cotton, in Red Cinnamon
Needles: Socks knitted one at a time on two #1 Inox 16-inch circulars.
Comments: I like the pattern, and I like the yarn, but Panda Cotton is a bit too splitty to knit lace comfortably. I'd pick a different yarn for this pattern if I were to knit it again.

I did it!!!!

This morning I got a message from my college adviser that my final project was approved!!!!!!! My M.Ed. is done!!!!!!! Two years of sheer torture are complete!!!!!!! For the record, this is a Master of Education degree from the University of Washington, Bothell. My hood, when I get it, will have a purple and gold lining and a light blue velvet band, representing the field of education. This makes me want to knit something celebratory. Perhaps in light blue, with purple and gold accents? Hmmmm...I'm thinking fair isle....

Kiri Gifted

The Kiri shawl I finished over a year ago has been given to my grandmother. I made it out of Icelandic laceweight she gave me, which my uncle had sent her while he was stationed in Iceland, so it seemed fitting that she be the recipient of the shawl. She loved it.



And here's the back, with Grandma doing her best snobby dress mannequin pose.



My grandmother is 82 and a character. She has 64 direct, living descendants, including 24 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. When you add in all the spouses of these descendants, there are over 100 people at most family gatherings. Grandma taught me to crochet when I was six or seven years old, and has always fostered my crafting habit. Unlike most of my cousins, I grew up next door to her, so I've been fortunate enough to have maximum Grandma-exposure. Her own mother lived to be 98, so we expect to see a good deal of Grandma yet.

The Roundabout Tank continues, sadly. It's not sad because of the tank, which is great fun, but it's sad because it means our Visas for Brazil haven't come. If they had, we would be in the air right now.



I'm making the second size, but I joined at 37" instead of 40", because I wanted a bit of negative ease. I'm three balls into my nine balls of Pegasus, and I'm hoping the yarn holds out until the end.

Pegasus

I've succumbed to the siren song of Flickr. One of the big reasons I haven't blogged as much as I should is that uploading photos to our private server was so fiddly and time-consuming. (I know. Wah. Millions of people do it every day.) So I've switched to Flickr, which is much easier, and, quite frankly, cooler. I present to you, Pegasus:



And the much-desired appropriate edging stitches for the Roundabout Leaf Tank (The photo is flipped, lest you think I knit left-handed):



And finally, here's some of the Brazil stash:



Surprisingly non-blue. What you see are orange Jaeger Trinity, celery Elann Camila, three colors of Crystal Palace Panda Cotton and Panda Wool, camel silk from Colourmart, red KnitPicks CotLin, moss Misti Alpaca laceweight, and lime Lacey Lamb from Jade Sapphire.

Packed away already are a couple of cakes of Zephyr Wool-Silk, some Brown Sheep Cotton Fine, another color of Jaeger Trinity, and some sapphire blue Elann Luna. And the Pegasus, of course. I've got projects planned for about half of it already, and the rest will probably be my own designs.