No New Mohair

No new mohair for me, I spent my money on something else... I bought a new phone, and accessories. *sheepish grin*

I've been almost drooling over the LG enV flip phone with full qwerty keyboard for about 6 months, and now that it comes in a pretty green color and is only $29.99 on the VerizonWireless.com website if I were to buy it there... I don't want it. I bought its glorified newer sibling, the LG Voyager instead. It's just, better. And my boyfriend bought one so I got to play with the real live version of it and like it much better than the enV.

Okay! Back to yarn. My feather-fan mohair scarf has been my project of choice for my work lunch hour. So portable, so small, so easy to work on without having to think or consult directions, so soothing. However I think I need to ignore it for a while until I can get back in the swing of things on my brother's sweater. As I knew would happen, I stalled on that while starting a new project. I'm past the flames on the first sleeve, now I need to work through the raglan shaping and start on sleeve #2.


In other news, I finally posted some of my past crochet projects, which are all done in thread. A 6" tall (sitting) Winnie the Pooh, an almost completed "hunny" pot to sit with pooh, parts of a Tigger character, a Christmas tree angel, and a snowflake tree ornament.

If I can dig it up, I'll have to stretch out and photograph this lacey tablecloth I started when I was 19 and haven't touched in 3+ years. It's a daisy pattern in size 30 crochet cotton, made one 4" square at a time and connected to the rest of the tablecloth on the last round. It takes me about 2.5 hours per square, and I can tell which squares I did first; they're smaller/tighter and ugly. If I ever get really bored and pick it up again, I'm redoing all of the ugly squares with newer looser pretty ones.
However, that's a big IF since it takes so long to do. I think the only reason I've gotten as far as I have is because, being a thread project, it's so portable.

I'm beginning to think that I should base my knitterly career on small, easily memorized, portable projects if I'm to finish anything.

Mohair Mania

Last weekend I was gifted with some mohair yarn. I've never worked with mohair before so I was a little leary of trying anything. I tend to rip back on anything I'm working on several times... the prospect of not being able to rip back... *shudder*

But I braved it! I cast on with a wrap from knitty.com called "wisp". I was shocked at how much warmth and wind-blockage even the fishnet portions of the knitting, barely anything between skin and outside air, actually provided. This stuff is warm...

I wasn't happy with wisp though, don't like the look of it enough to finish anything, and fishnet (YO k2tog) all the way across the width of the project is just too slow. I ripped back (HA!) and started a new wrap with a diagonal YO k2tog k1 across.

I'm not so crazy about the color of this mohair, only because it includes pink. I hate pink. I'm seriously considering visiting my LYS in Columbia to pick up some solid colored mohair to make something to keep for myself ;)

surfs up

I work with this lady who has an opinion, and a story, about everything. EV-REE-thing.

I ran across this blog post while surfing the net, and thought of her. Though I hope I never see her in flipflops.

Florida Giggles

Gauge Matters

I gave in, I bought yarn. But I needed it!

I stopped by Knitters Nest and picked up three more balls of that Queensland Rustic Wool I used on the helmet liner, so nice and soft...I'll use to make a few more, and maybe make myself a neckwarmer.

AND! I made a decision about that Joey's Flames sweater. I hate the orange acrylic. That's it, I hate it, I can't work with it. Not only does it feel horrible to work with, but it's a different gauge than the woolease. It's bigger. And worse, it's noticeable. This squeaky orange plastic yarn look like a lumpy bumpy mess that somehow attached itself to my lovely even stockinette heather greyness that is the sleeve.

So what have I done with this decision? I bought more yarn. Lion Brand Vanna's Choice stuff, a burnt orange. It's still 100% acrylic, but it's must softer, and it feels like the same gauge as the woolease. If I'd been a smarter knitter when I started this sweater, I would have looked at gauge and laughed at the orange acrylic.

So now I've got this nicer orange acrylic to work with, and I have two and half pieces of the sweater completed. Fortunately on the front and back of the sweater, the orange is only a stripe that begins at the raglan shaping, chest high. I think I can re-work those rows without unraveling to that point, but if it comes to that then I'm okay with it. The sleeve though, that will be completely unraveled and reworked.

I figure, my brother has been waiting for a long time for this sweater. Everybody in the family who knows about it, knows he's been waiting, and they're all waiting to see the finished product. Now that I'm working on it again, I'd rather work on a product that I'm proud to finish and see in use, so I'm making it better than I knew how to then. This way, when I see Joe wearing that sweater, and see my family sees Joe wearing that sweater and comments on it. I'll be able to smile, and know I did a good job, instead of cringing at all the remembered errors and quick fixes.

Time to get on that. =)

Budding Yarn Snob

I blame it on the abundance of nice local yarn shops providing quality yarns at affordable prices. I think I'm becoming a yarn snob.

Maybe not a true blue yarn snob, but definitely a yarn snob. Lately I've been working with some really soft sirdar snuggly acrylic for little girls' sweaters, and fine superwash merino for a friend's helmet liner, and now I've started back on a sweater I started years ago for my brother... with some heather grey woolease. It feels... plasticy, and rough compared to the other yarns. And worse yet, the bright orange contrast color is cheap red heart acrylic that practically squeaks across my needles. I'm not sure I can put this project aside until I'm completely finished or I won't want to pick it back up again.

So that being said, I'm working on my brother's sweater again. I'm discovering that over the past year I've become much better about making notes on my projects, keeping a notebook, writing down alterations, etc. I wasn't so good at that when I started this sweater so I've been backtracking through the construction to figure out how I should make the back of the sweater match the front. Ugh.

I am so tempted to start another helmet liner, or neck warmer, or something other than this sweater.