Split Neck Tee from Fitted Knits

Wow, who would have thought this would take me so long. It's in Elsebeth Lavold's cotton frappe. Really, I don't who comes up with the gauge on this labels. I knit it at 6 stitches to the inch on size 4 needles and really, it could be tighter. I like the yarn cuz, even though it's cotton, it has some stretch because it is a cabled construction (or is it chain?). And I love the color. When I saw it I had to get it. Navy blue with silver nylon parts running through it. The color is called "night", very fitting. For the trim I held together a strand of "dk weight" (again, totally false weight info) silk from Colourmart which is U.K. based (150 grams, aroudn 1200 yards for $16)and a strand of some pure sparkle hard stuff from Pinoguin that I got while in South Africa. It's really hard and scratchy, so a bit irritating on the neck, but it matched in color and I didn't want to order more yarn just for the trim so I used what I had.

The patten is not so fitting, despite coming from a book titled Fitted Knits. I added a little bit of waist shaping, but it's still mostly a rectangle. I think from now on I'm going to always include back darts as well as bust and waist shaping. I think decreasing in the back is more necessary than the front because at least in the front we have boobs (or in my case, booblets) to take up some of the volume, but in the back it's just a bunch of loose fabric with nothing to fill the void. Not flattering.

I had to adjust the gauge since I used a much finer yarn, so that I just knit according to the numbers for the 4th size. So I got a taste of what it's like to have to knit larger sizes. More stitches! And since it was knit in the round, all those tiny stockinette stitches just seemed to go on forever. I added the waist shaping in part just to break up the monotony. But actually, I like it. It's a cute design.

Oh, and for the clasp I got two little separate pieces and then linked them together with a ring. Got them at Walmart in Calgary on my recent trip to Banff National Park (I'll show pictures next post). Hmm, this top is pretty international.

Okay, enough info, here are the pics:





And that's it until next time, when I'll have another sweater of my own design to show. Til later, People!

Late Summer Special - Curves

Just in time for the end of summer (Chicago's summer is soo short), here's a pattern that I've been working on. It's already written up and will be available is now available over at the fantastic Swanky Knits! Trying to decide what to do with the neckline nearly drove me insane. I knew I didn't want it to be plain. I pretty much stumbled onto this shape and liked it, so I kept it. The sections of ribbing follow your curves, hence the name. I chose SWTC bamboo and it is a pleasure to knit with and wear. You must knit it tighter than the ball band or you're going to get lace, but a little goes a long way. This took less than 2 full balls for the 32" bust size. The largest sizes will not take more than 4. And the finished fabric is so slinky and feels so good against the skin.



Sexy! Ribbing lines start with a little fullness at the hips, decreases for the waist, and increase to maximum fullness for the bust. In fact this shaping simply follows the actual decreases and increases of the top, with a bit extra for more visual effect.



So I'm happy to have this off the needles and I've already worn it twice. The folks at work really like it. :-) So do I.

In other news I'm proud to report that I have been slowing down on the yarn buying. I'm not sure how much of this is due to simply being incredibly poor and how much has to do with having another burgeoning interest (the natural hair thing). I think the poverty has kept me from buying but the hair thing has kept me from being too upset about it.

However, I did get a gift certificate for Jimmy Beans Wool. I worked their booth at Stitches Midwest for a few hours. This Stitches was so different from my first. I had the last shift, so I got there 2 hours before the whole thing was over and helped them pack up. I didn't go around the market at all. I planned to at least look around, but in true Chicago fashion, the el had problems / was under construction, etc. (how many times did I take the subway in Seoul? Tons. How many times did it have problems? None.) so I was 5 minutes late instead of 30 minutes early and didn't have time to do anything but work. And I was starved, too, and was working off a couple handfuls of cashews and the lemon bars someone's mother brought for us. But still, Stitches was a good thing. My LYS, Loopy Yarns, had a party the Friday before and I met folk from out of town and there was cheese and wine, and y'all know how I love free alcohol. Don't they all look so happy?



And for my work at JBW's booth, with the gift certificate they gave me, I got these goodies. Like I said, I've cut back on yarn, so all I got yarn-wise was a couple balls of sock yarn from the new Kaffe Fasset Line, the Landscape line in Fog. Doesn't the yarn look absolutely nothing like the pic in the link above? I'm really hoping it magically turns into the pic.



I also got a French Girl Margaux, a pattern for a cape. We'll see if I can knit this for Halloween.

But coolest of all is this bag from Lantern Moon. I love their baskets and bags, and this is pretty cute in person, too.



I'm off to California tomorrow to visit the family and I'll take along my Split Neckline tee from Fitted Knits and a sock project. I'll bring the socks and a book in this bag.



Til later, Folks!

Beaded Pillow

Shhhh. It's a sekwet. This is for my first homestay family in South Africa. The son is the only one who knows my blog address, hopefully he's not reading this right now. It's a beaded pillow.

The yarn is Plymouth Encore in a cream color and a beige color. It was worked on size 7 needles. This makes the beige-ish beads hard to see in the photos, but they look very nice in real life. I prestrung the beads using dental floss threader. This works really well, so that I was able to get something like size 8 or 6 beads onto worsted weight with no problem. The pillow is a 14" form.

The back is a simple fair isle pattern I got in 200 Knitted Squares, which is where I also got the leaf pattern, and the edging is a crochet picot-type edging.

Closeup of pillow and beads



Whole pillow




Pillow back

A Letter to My Uterus

Now you know I don't like to post without knitting content, but I'd decided to separate my post topics out a bit more. So tomorrow I'll post the pillow, which has actually been done for about a week now. For today, I have a letter.

Continuing the fine tradition of writing letters to body parts (see here and here), today I have a letter for my uterus.

Dear Uterus,

F%$#@! you!

Hmm, will all of my letters start this way? Okay, once more.

Dear Uterus,

Okay, I get it. For many years I didn't pay attention. I thought you and me were just chillin. Sure, you had to cramp all up like a MF'er every month but thank heavens for modern medicine because bc calmed that down significantly. But over the years your tiny little sweet girly voice has slowly turned into a loud and, dare I say, obnoxious roar. Now I don't think it would be an understatement to say that you are damn near yelling at me for not giving you what you want. And yeah, I know what you want. A baby.

Never mind the fact that I don't actually like babies. Never mind that I am always the one holding a poopy smelling baby at arm's length running around in a panic like "what do I do with this?" And never mind the fact that any child left with me for more than a couple of hours only has a 50% chance of survival. It's not that I'm trying to kill them, it's that kids are stupid and will kill themselves if you don't watch out. Really, I think babies would just walk straight off a cliff if you didn't watch them. And I won't watch them. I'll forget about them for a second. And then it'll be all "hmm, oh shoot!, was I not supposed to leave Jr. in the bathtub with the hot water running?", or "dang, did I leave all the plastic bags from the grocery store on the floor where little Nene was crawling?" or "maybe I shouldn't have painted all the electrical sockets with clown faces" (okay, that last was a joke. But really, People, you do not want me watching your babies.)

But no, you don't care about any of this. You have no foresight at all. You don't care that, should I have a child, I'd inevitably be forced to listen to the same joke (and trust, it will not be a funny joke because it will be a simple-minded thing from a kindergartener) 20 times because kids think the same joke is unendingly funny. What, you don't remember this exchange:

Kid: And then he did it like this!!! hahahahaha
Me: Wow, that's funny.
Kid: And then he did it like this!!! hahahahaha
Me: Yeah, I know, it was kinda funny.
Kid: And then he did it like this!!! hahahahaha
Me: Um . . .

Nope, none of this is important to you. You just want a baby on you, and you have no qualms about letting me know. I see cute little knit baby things, and you yell "Make baby now!" and I'm like "I don't have a husband" and you yell "go make baby now!" and I remind you that I don't even have a boyfriend and you yell even louder "me want baby, baby in me now, make baby, baby!" (um, did I tell you all my uterus sounds like a caveman?)

Really, it's starting to get embarrassing. I'm afraid others can hear you, since you are doing it out in public now. I used to not really notice most men. Seriously, unless he was damn fine I didn't even pay attention. Now whenever a halfway decent looking one walks by, you growl at them! Got me out here faking like I didn't hear it, looking nonchalantly up in the sky when they turn around wondering what nearby animal was growling at them. I still remember the first time it happened, shocked me to death. There I was, walking down the street all innocent like, and a well-groomed fairly good-looking guy passed by and you yelled "sex!" Hmm, don't mince words, do you? Now your goals are more clear, and you sometimes bypass me altogether and yell commands directly at them: "You can make baby, yes?! You make baby in me now!"

So look, I'm just saying I understand where you're coming from. Next birthday marks three decades here and you're getting tired of waiting. I know you got all these hormones and what not, and societal pressures, and worries about the expiration date on the eggs (yeah, don't act like you and the ovaries aren't in this together; I know). But you're going to have to give me just a bit more time and maybe one day . . .

Until next time,

The Body You're In

And the Winners Are . . .

Okay, I don't usually have good ideas. In fact, my ideas are usually just plain bad. You know that person who's like, "yeah, I suppose we could just walk down the side of the mountain, but wouldn't it be better to go cascading off this waterfall? In a barrel? It's a barrel, so we wouldn't get hurt, see?" That's totally me. But this contest? This was a good idea. I got so many music suggestions. Thank you all so much! I have been able to add several new songs onto my Shuffle. Next music contest will be so you all can recommend some get crunk type music. Sometimes you just wanna break somebody off hard gangsta style, and you can't do that to no ultra mellow neo-soul. As it is, every time I hear some song and think "that beat is hard", almost before I can finish my thought somebody yells "ho" at me. I mean, I can take a little, but I have a 2 ho limit.

So I listened to all your suggestions, or at least tried to. Y'all were supposed to give me specific songs, not just artists. So if you didn't I just listened to the first song or two I came upon or ones whose titles I liked. Not all of them were the type of music I usually like, but actually I think they were all good. Like Jason Mraz. Not the music I like, but I had to find out what disintegrates Ms. Pixie's panties, and indeed, his voice is pretty damn appealing. Same thing for Chad Perron. He ain't no Johnny Gill, though. :) Van Hunt, too. He definitely has some panty melting powers. He had been recommended to me before, so I was glad to get some specific songs to listen to. Same for Lily Allen, though I had heard a song or two from her before. And Soko? Again, not my style, but that song is funny for real. Actually, there were lots of great songs that I couldn't make winners because I already knew them, like Chrisette Michelle's hit and also Corrine Bailey Rae's stuff, Robin Thick, Vivian Green too, among others. Hmm, what was I complaining about, I already had good music!

Anyway, with no further ado, the winners. Choosing between first and second place was hard, but first place has to go to:

Harlem Purl for Teedra Moses's - Rescue Me. I am really feeling this woman's music. All your music suggestions were great.

Second place goes to:

EmunaMoriah7 for Raheem DeVaughn - Believe. This dude's stuff, not just this song, is hot. In fact, while I was listening to it, I felt a breeze in my nether regions and looked down to discover that, in fact, I was no longer wearing panties. Looking around the room, it was obvious that my panties had simply exploded, the floor being littered with panty shrapnel. Even poor Enif the bunny got hit:


(You know he's going to get punked on the bunny playground for this picture. That crumb is a piece of cereal, the only way he'd let me take this photo)

There's something that reminds me a bit of D'Angelo with him. Emuna, I loved all your suggestions, too.

Third place goes to:

Aruni for Amel Larrieux - Beyond . This song was great, and it got me onto some of her other stuff, which is also great. Thank you.

And to mix it up a bit, fourth place goes to:

Ms. Pixie Riot for Jamie Cullum - "earlier stuff". That was real not specific, girlfriend. Even less specific than Melissa Knits "bonus tracks off the Japanese only CD". So since I didn't know what I was looking for, I just went to You Tube and typed in his name. The stuff that came up wasn't Japanese (sorry Melissa), but I kinda liked it. Different than what I would normally go for, but I did kinda like "Get Your Way".

Okay, winners, please email me so we can arrange your prizes. To everyone else, thank you so much for the suggestions, and conciliatory cookies will be making their way to your houses. I'm just joking, you're not going to get a cookie. :-( But I really do appreciate it.

So, back to knitting. My knitting has been dragging since I discovered this site for nappy-haired folk like myself. I love this site, so much info, and I have gotten over my hair rage. For now. I highly recommend this site to nappy folk, especially those struggling with their hair (you know who I'm talking to, and email me for the low-down if you want to know more). I even made a hair photo album. So yeah, knitting has been slow. But I am nearing completion on a pillow I'm making for my first homestay family in South Africa. I really wanted to knit stuff for each member of the family, but that will have to wait until next year, and that's if I start now.

The squares are for 200 Knitted Blocks or some such book. You know, the ones where they say they have 200 designs but really it's like 50 designs, each in 4 different color combos? Hello! Changing the color is not changing the design. So misleading. Anyway, it was my first time knitting with beads. Check out the results of my deflowering:



Isn't it pretty? Okay, I know you can't see the beads that well. They're a really light color, in the stockinette portions surrounded by the reverse stockinette. I pre-strung the beads using dental floss threader. I actually have no idea how you use dental floss threader when flossing your teeth, but they work really well for getting beads onto yarn. I did 4 squares like this for the front, and the back is a simple fair isle pattern that I did most of in the airport DFW while my plane was being delayed. People stare! They act like they've never seen a twentysomething with a fro knitting fair isle before.



The yarn is Plymouth Encore. I can't remember the brand or size of the beads. They are probably 8/0 or 6/0. I was really amazed they fit on worsted weight. Yay, dental floss threader!

Okay, time to wrap up. In my next post:
*the conclusion of the pillow
*a new top design and pattern
*a letter to my uterus

Thanks for reading, People!

Contest! Make It Like It Was

The way it used to be . . . Do y'all know that song? Regina Belle. I don't know what got this song in my head. I think it was a box of Fruity Pebbles.

I saw Fruity Pebbles on sale at the supermarket. I know I liked this cereal as a kid. $2 a box on sale, can't pass that up. I went home, poured that stuff into a bowl with milk and started to eat it. It tastes terrible! It tasted like sugary pieces of cardboard, and the edges were all hard and jagged. And what's worse, they had the nerve to put this on the front of the box!


What the hell did it taste like before? And so Fruity Pebbles joined the ever-growing list of stuff that I could have sworn tasted good when I was a kid but now I realize is the lowest quality foodstuff available. This list now includes, among other things: Spaghetti-O's, Whoppers (the "chocolate"-covered malted milk balls), those giant red lips made of chewable and edible wax, and anything from Red Lobster.

Was stuff really getting worse, or were my tastebuds getting more refined? I didn't know, but it made me a little nostalgic. And that's probably what got me to thinking of that Regina Belle song. Which got me to thinking about music.

I could swear the music I hear on the radio is getting worse. I don't listen to the radio much anymore, but I should since I'd probably still like a song every now and then. As it is now, I live in a music vacuum. So I started downloading songs I used to like to see if they'd be as good or, if like the mushy flour rings with watery tomato juice on them that dares have the word "spaghetti" in its name, they had lost their charm. And the good news is, they hadn't!

Now, I'm not going to pretend that as a kid (or even now) I had sophisticated tastes in music. But I found myself still loving After 7 "Kickin' It", BBD "When Will I See You Smile Again?", Aaliyah "Age Ain't Nothin But A Number" (I try not to think what R. Kelly was doing to her 14 yo self that prompted that song), Troop "All I Do Is Think of You", Guy "Let's Chill", Tone Tony Toni "Whatever You Want", New Edition "Boys to Men", and Vesta "Congratulations" among many great others. The only real difference I noticed is a new sensation in the, um, loinal area when listening to Johnny Gill. He leads on "Boys to Men", and I also got "There You Go" by him from the Boomerang soundtrack. I don't think I felt this when I was 10. Well, not from Johnny singing. But now, yeah, it's pretty distinct. I think Johnny could just have his way with me (should he want it). Yeah, if he started singing to me like that, it wouldn't so much be a matter of me taking my panties off, so much as my panties simply disintegrating in nanoseconds. If you've ever wondered what it would look like for someone's panties to just evaporate off their body, find Johnny Gill and have him sing "There You Go" to me. It would be over. Resistance would be futile. This blog would no longer be rated PG-13.

But man, people can't have stopped making music I like. I'm just, for various reasons, not surrounded by as great a variety of the type of music I like as I used to be. So I turn to you, People. Help me find some good new music! Some more like the ones above, or D'Angelo, or Floetry. Gimme something good. And I'll give you something good (don't go there, PG-13, People!)

My first contest!

The rules are simple. Turn me on to a relatively current (say, released this decade) song I haven't heard before, even better an artist I haven't heard before, of a type I'd like as suggested by the groups and songs above. Give the artist and the song title. Each individual can give up to 3 songs. I'll chose the winner based on my favorite new songs.

And the prizes? What else, but yarn? Understand, I would not give you crap. It's just stuff that my tastes have changed from. First place winner gets their choice of these, the second place winner gets second choice and so on.

4 65 gram, 110 yard balls of self-striping single ply wool in black white and gray. It would make a cute felted purse.



One ball of Jaegger 50% wool 50% silk lace weight, 2 oz, 630 yards in a cranberry color. It is enough to make a lace scarf like this.



If you liked the socks I made in this post, you can make your own with this Elann house brand yarn. I originally bought 3 balls thinking I might make knee-highs. Since I only made anklets, I used just 1 ball and less than 1/5 of a second. The remainder could get you at least 3" cuff socks, or just go for some anklets like me.


Finally 2 balls of Elann Super Tweed, each 50 grams and 104 yards. I was going to make a hat or gloves with these, before I decided that I wasn't a big fan of coral colored yarns.



The contest will run until August 1st. Help me out, folks, and win some yarn!

Oh yeah, you know I dislike posting without knitting content. Here's the Lorelei I told you I was working on, being modeled by me at work with a crazy fake-looking smile.



Also a shot from the back, the loneliest photoshoot in the world.


'Til later, People

Damn, Coachella is hot!

I've been one blog-happy woman this past week, and this post brings you another FO! It's Coachella, and since I already described it over on the Coachella KAL page, I'm just going to (mostly) copy and paste the description like a punk. But let me just say first that Coachella is soo sexy, so hot. Damn, for real hot. Like, you know, where you say "damn!, that's hot" and you sing the "hot" in a long note falsetto? It's that kind of hot. Okay, here we go:

So I decided to make a night-time going out type of Coachella. It's always a little risky to go for the hand knits on an evening out, but I was willing to try it.

Turned out to be the fastest knit ever. The only wearable I knit faster was the thong, and I didn' hurt my hands at all, taking breaks and stretching every 15 minutes or so. CO Thursday night, finished Saturday morning, wore it out Saturday night. I estimate total knitting time was less than 10 hours.

I swatched 3 yarns for this. The first was Louisa Harding Glisten in black. It, like the called-for yarn, is a 100% nylon tape/ribbon type yarn, and it has shiny bits. I really wanted to use this yarn for this top, I had just the right amount in my stash. But after swatching, I saw that it is rather stiff and would not have good drape, and to get gauge (or anything above the ball recommended gauge) gives me open mesh that is see-through and looks like a fish net.

Then I tried Berroco Bonsai, which is a 97% bamboo 3% nylon yarn. The nylon is shiny and adds sparkle. If I had had this yarn in black or white or gold, I would have chosen it, but I had it in a sage type color and it's not really what I want for going out at night. I think I will make it again in this color and yarn for a day look. This yarn is very drapey and very suited to this pattern, I think.

I finally decided on using some Alchemy Synchronicity that I had in my stash, which is a single ply 50% silk 50% merino yarn. It will be warmer than the others, but that's not too much of a problem since it's for going out at night. It has a nice drape. The color is Pewter. I got this yarn at 66% off (otherwise, who can afford it?) and was sawing it for something else, but I guess I can manage to do the other thing with another stash yarn.

Also, for the neck roll part I held together a strand of Drops Glitter yarn, which is very fine at 10 grams giving over 700 yards. It is a metallic yarn that adds a little sparkle. I'm going to copy the modifications I saw in someone else's Coachella and do arm edging as well, and I will hold the sparkly yarn for that edging, too.

I knit the smallest size even though I am the 2nd smallest size because from washing my gauge swatch (really, swatching and washing your swatch is worth the knowledge, people) I knew this yarn loosened up a bit after washing. I'm glad I did this, otherwise the drape would have been too much for me. As it was my bra sometimes showed. I wore it with a strapless bra, and in fact sometimes you could see the top of the band in the back armholes area. I saw it in some of the pictures I took, and had to readjust things so it wouldn't show. I don't know what to do about this, as the armholes were already as tight as could comfortably be. I have to say that I don't really think this top works super well with a bra, only if the top sits just right and doesn't move around too much. Oh, I'd also do fewer increases towards the bottom, as it puckers there as it is now. Anyway, here it is:





That's the thing about summer knits. Some people don't like summer knits, but I love them. No sleeves! You get done so fast.

A Letter to My Hair. And Socks.

So some time ago I sent a telegram to Mother Nature asking her to hurry up already and make it spring. In typical Chicago fashion, she listened to me, made it spring for about 3 weeks, then made it summer. Also recently I read this letter from a black man to his average sized penis. These combined to inspire me to write more letters to things that couldn't ever respond back. Perhaps I will make it a series. Next in line is a note to the bunny about who ate the last Frosted Mini-Wheat. I know it wasn't me, and there are only 2 of us in the house. Fourth will definitely be to my uterus. Okay, wanna hear it? Here it go.

Dear Hair,

%$!~$% you!

Let's start that again, shall we? Must keep my PG-13 rating over here.

Dear Hair,

damn, Damn, DAMN! So what's up, really? Do you think this is cute? You think it's funny? Cuz the joke is getting real old real fast.

I'm not sure what I did to deserve this, except to be born black. The drama I have had with you is pretty much unbelievable and unforgivable. Even from the time when I was a little girl getting burned with the pressing comb and having my scalp fried with the straightening perm chemicals, you have been out torment me. Remember Comb-aloo, that little yellow comb that was obviously meant for the finest of Euro hair that Daddy used to chase me/us around the house with? Ah those were good times. *sigh*, times. I think the last time we got along was around this time:


(Why am I red? The best I can guess is, everything in the 70s was sepia. Just as everything in the future will be chrome.)

And now I wear you natural and really, though it's gotten cheaper and slightly more convenient to deal with you since I don't have to go anywhere to get my hair done, you still offer me a never-ending stream of pain. You, you are the sole cause of all those headless knitting FO photos I took. Don't try to blame the face, slap some lotion on the face and a bit of lip gloss, the face is ready to go. No, it was all you.

I even started a Natural Hair Meetup Group to try to learn to deal with you. I did research for handouts at the meetings. Motown Girl dot com became my buddy. I found out about the no-poo method. I tried it, you laughed in my face. Mocked me. "You think these triflin' schemes you have will make even the slightest impression upon me?! Ha! I laugh in your face! I mock you!" See how you actually said those words, "laugh in your face" and "mock you"? That hurt, Hair, that really hurt. And what hurts the most is that I actually like you, but you are intent on causing me grief. 짝사랑 (jak sarang), as the Koreans would call it, one-sided love.

According to my parents, you aren't doing me any favors in the dating world, either. I'm already a shy girl, which doesn't help, and apparently, so the story goes, the 7 black men left who are single, educated, and still interested in dating black women don't want to look at naps like mine all day long. On the plus side, white people tend to think my hair is cool (you know, it's all exotic and stuff), so maybe they'll be some luck there.

Hmm, maybe it was me tormenting you all this time? Hmm, guess I'll have to give this a little more thought. In the meantime, you, me, and the credit card have a date over at Miss Jessie's, and I hope something over here will satisfy you though I have to say quite bluntly, most of these pics look like folks who have somewhat fewer of the straight-from-Sub-Saharan-African traits than I do.

Until Later,

The Body You're Attached To

Now that that's out of my system, you know I don't post without knitting content. I needed a quickie, project I mean (PG-13, People!), and I've been wanting some anklets for summer, so I whipped these up, worked on size 2 needles. Started Friday, finished today. Just 48 stitches! The tiniest bit over 1 ball. Really, if you have size 7 feet or smaller I think you'd only need 1 ball of Elann's Esprit cotton and elastic yarn in color Licorice Allsorts. Don't they look cute with my black heels with the pink sole?



Not that I'll ever wear them like this. I don't wear socks in heels or sandals like this, maybe if I'm in a funky-friendly place, maybe, but in general, this is a big fashion no-no for me.

And don't you love that round toe? I am through with square toe socks forever.



Well, until next time, People.

Dancing Gangsters WIPed into shape

Okay, first thanks to everyone for the nice comments about the shrug. The people at JBW were also very nice about my loserness. You make a loser feel so much better about her loserly ways in this moment of loserissitude. Extra loser points for that last faux-word.

Okay, I want to be a dancing gangster. Oops, I mean a gangsta. Don't laugh, this is serious, I'm quitting my day job (which is barely enough to pay my rent, anyway), quitting this non-successful grad school thing, and start working nights in underground dance battles where I may, or may not, depending on how the mood strikes me, get into violent fights after said battles. Now I know you're wondering what has inspired this, and to this I'd like to pose the question, "why does anything have to inspire it?" Hmm? Why can't a person just wake up one day and realize that they've gotten their calling, and it is dancing hard gangsta style, no matter how internally contradictory such a thing seems? Well, why can't they?

Okay, you caught me out. I was inspired, and it was by the movie Stomp the Yard. Now you just never mind that IMDB rating of 2.7 stars, those people are crazy. This is an 11 star movie, and I'll tell you why. First, 4 stars straight out of the gate for having dancing gangsters. Oops, I mean gangstas. I mean, since West Side Story or MJ's Bad, when have you seen dancing gangstas? (and You Got Served doesn't count cuz I haven't seen it. Yet.) Yeah, Boy, I'm bad, watch these twinkle toes! Second, homedude who was the star had some beautiful retro slang gems, including "That dude is straight up whack" (I was a bit disappointed that the "whack" was not preceded by "wiggity"), and "I already schooled you once today, homeboy, how many lessons you wanna learn?" C'mon, you know that line was hard. Those added 2 more stars right there. But for real, that dude could dance like nobody's business, he was killing people on the dance floor, and the stepping was entertaining, too. So anyway, yeah, 17 stars.

Now, on to knitting. No FO's this time around. Actually, I have one, but I can't show it right now. So we just got the WIPs. And even one of those is a secret for a little while, too.

I think I'm about 1/2way done with Lorelei, which is from Yarn Play. I saw someone else's over on Knitty, you can see it here. Though I already had this book, it wasn't until I saw an FO from it that I was overcome with desire to knit from it. You knit the bottom as a strip then sew it up to form a tube, then pick up stitches along the edges and knit the straps. Also the pattern lets me put random holes in where I want them. I'm more than 2/3 of the way through the tube and not even through my 2nd ball of yarn, so I suspect that for the second size it will take no more than 4 50 gram balls. In "Cornflower" blue in Cascade Pima Tencel. I don't usually go for this kind of blue as I usually find it a boring color, but I kinda like this one.




Speaking of which, I went to WWKIP day celebration in Chicago's Millenium Park where I met lots of great knitters, and at least one really bold one. The first sentence out of her mouth was that she liked my Tomato sweater. Why, thank you. *smiles* The second sentence was that she hated us skinny bitches. What?! Can I introduce you to the nuanced meaning of "familiar"? Cuz that was way too familiar way too fast. Okay, okay, it's all good, I wasn't really that offended. But let me just say the complaining about sizes was way exaggerated. Yeah, I knit the smallest size, took 3 100 gram hanks and 1 week. But unless your bust size size is 132", or unless knitting math operates in some dimension where normal math rules don't apply, you do not have to CO 3 times as many stitches as I did, nor, assuming a similar speed of knitting, is it going to take you 2 months to make. A size 50" bust is just about 1 1/2 times my bust circumference, so you can use 5 hanks and finish in 11 days, sheesh, so don't give me all this "woe is me big girls have to spend 700 years knitting a top" stuff, okay?

Where was I? Oh yeah, WIPs. Another one I'm working on is the Jaywalker pattern which everyone and their mother has done.



I'm just turning the heel on the first sock. This is kinda low priority, though, so who knows when it will be done. It's in Yarn Pirate merino/tencel colorway "Loopy Blues". I didn't realize how popular this yarn was when I bought it. People are crazy for it and every time the Loopy Ewe (where I got it from) gets restocked in it, it sells out within a day. Sock knitters are fascinating creatures, I tell you what.

Okay, that's all for now. I have another natural hair meetup tonight. Tonight's topic is Conditioning!

One more thing, you all have to go over and check out Rose-Kim's series Thursdays Are For What The Hell Is This? Those big ass knits are too much. Which brings me to one final point. Why is it that nowadays everything that stinks smells like ass? "This smells like ass", and "that smells like ass." People, I'm beginning to think you don't know what ass smells like. Really, it's very distinctive.

Shrug Springs Eternal

This pattern is now at Ravelry!
----------------------------------------------
Something for the crocheters! I know y'all were feeling neglected, with countless knitters telling you that you make nothing but doilies and olive and burnt orange granny square afghans (btw, I admit to loving those colors).

This is how the story goes. I made this a couple months ago, and I found out about the Jimmy Beans Wool pattern contest the day before the deadline. I was just finishing this one up, so decided to submit it. It got slammed by a baby sweater, but they said they liked it and asked if it could be included in next month's contest, which I agreed to, where it got slammed again by yet another baby sweater. That's cool, it's not the most original thing in the world. So I'm releasing it to you all, for those of you who want something for yourselves or who have no babies (like me).

Crocheted in one piece from the top down in standard raglan fashion. Except that it doesn't seem so standard for crochet, which makes no sense because it's actually even easier to try on a top-down raglan in crochet because you don't have to take anything off the needles. Also in my current favorite crochet stitch. I don't particularly like the look of regular single or double crochet over and over again, but I like the look of this stitch which is a simple 2-stitch repeat and sub it in wherever I can. Don't worry that it's in fingering weight yarn. You don't have to get it too far past your boobs and, after all, it's crochet so it goes pretty fast. And check out those cute little puff sleeves. Huh, huh?

Okay, enough blab. With no further ado, the item (thanks to my boss for the name suggestion, which everyone preferred to his earlier suggestion of "Green Semi-Multi-Vest". yeah.) Um, it was done back in Spring, so the name made a lot of sense then. Patten is a pdf attachment, but you are forced to scroll through all of my trite pictures before you can access it. Mwahahaha!

Shrug Springs Eternal












Okay, and now the goods: Shrug Springs Eternal

It's my birthday!

It's my birthday! I'm 29 today. I started out the day happy, but have gotten sadder and sadder as the day has gone on. Please wish me happy feelings!

The Sweater that Hurt Me

If only it could be more like the sweater (or super hot spy) that loved me. The word for today is "pabo". That's Korean for "fool", and that's what I am for trying to knit a sweater in 4 days. Oh, I did do it, speeding away on some Addi Turbos, all top down in the round raglan. It was only after I finished. Several hours after I finished, actually, that my hand began to kill me! Painful throbbing, much worse than I'd ever had before. So I've been taking it easy. Took a few days off, then did a little crochet, no more than 15 minutes at a time with long breaks. Wow, that was stupid.

Anyway, here it is. Inspired by Tomato. I made the neck a scoop neck instead of a square neck, did a different color/texture pattern across the chest (I made it up!), and did a tiny bit of color detail on the neck, sleeves, and waist. I considered doing all those in corrugated ribbing, but ultimately decided against it as overwhelming. Anyway, 5 balls of Valley Yarns Colrain (merino/tencel) and a little bit of some Cascade Pima Tencel in white I had around, size 7 needles, done from Friday morning to Tuesday morning. Do you think this pattern is interesting enough to warrant being written up?



I've been noticing that other people's Tomatos have come out a lot more form fitting. Other people's tops in general. Like look at this lovely one. What is up with the tops I make? They never are that closely fitted. It's as though I need to do twice as many decreases after the bust (going top down). Is this because I have too small a waist? Cuz that's what I want to think. Yes, that's it, too small a waist.

In other news, I've been thinking about men lately. The trail of thought was brought about identity theft guy. Oh, didn't I tell you about him? I was walking home one night and some dude flagged me down, which happens, but he was wearing a suit and tie. So I thought I was about to be proselytized to. But he asked me to have dinner with him and his coworkers. Right then. No thank you, I just bought dinner. Also, that's weird. Well, he just wanted to tell me how sharp I was looking, blah blah blah, can he have my phone number, blah blah blah. And then he asks, "what do you know about identity theft?" skrrrrrreeech! That's the sound of the needle scratching across the same old record. Excuse me? He wondered if I knew that the previous week, thousands of Chicagoland teachers had their identity stolen. Um, nooo, I didn't know that, nor did I know flirtation nowadays was being mixed with infomercials. And then he handed me a DVD on indentity theft. I still haven't watched it, as I'm sure one of two things must be true: (1) it's like that video in The Ring that curses everyone to die within a week of watching it unless you make a copy and show it to someone else, or (2) There are just like 100 naked, variously posed pictures of himself on it.

And this got me to thinking of various men encounters I've had. This one was pretty mild and harmless. But there was the shouting match between me and about 6 dudes in Zimbabwe as they surrounded the telephone booth I was in and pounded on the glass. When they finally left and I made my international phone call to my Daddy, I burst into tears, not so much from fear, but from anger and frustration. I wanted to kill. I was 17.

There was the crazy dude in Korea who grabbed my ass, ran to the end of the block, and then started jumping up and down and pointing and laughing at me (this was the clue that gave me a hint that he might be crazy). I chased that dude for a full on 10 minutes. It was almost comical. We got tired, and the chase just turned into a fast walk. Then when we regained our breath, the running was on again. Across the street, through the park. Finally I did manage to catch him, tell him off in the most broken Korean ever, and hit him. At least I turned that one into a funny story, which won me "inki sang" (popularity prize) in a Korean speaking competition.
Here's my class cheering me own. Signs say "Go, Nikki!" and "We love you, Nikki!" Awww.



Then there was the group of drunk men in South Africa who wouldn't let me pass one evening as I was bringing home dinner. Really, one just kept stepping in front of me so I couldn't pass. So I hit him, and he let me go. Though I was always speaking English, they continued to talk to me in Zulu. I don't think they realized I wasn't Zulu.

And just this week some little kid hit on me. He looked about 18, but he showed me his ID that said he was 20. He had earlier lied to say he was 22. If you have to lie to be at 22, you're too young for me (my 29th b-day is Thursday). He invited me over for food, I told him I had my own food, he was like, "oh you got a Link card? Good, I'm tired of eating McDonald's." Oh, Kiddie got jokes? Then he touched my hair (!) and asked if I needed it braided. I was like, "look little boy, if you touch my hair again, I'm going to have to spank you." Come to think of it, maybe he would have liked it. Hmm, and I thought I left that whole strangers-touching-my-hair thing in Korea.

The point is . . . . wait, was there a point? Oh yeah, you know, girls aren't ever running up on me and grabbing my ass and touching my hair and shouting profanity at me. Or handing me possibly cursed and/or pornographic "identity theft" dvds. What is up, dudes? Why is this world so full of men hurting or harrassing women? Y'all need to chill on that, for real. I guess I should look at the bright side, since in both the Zimbabwe and South Africa cases, other men took the offenders away. Maybe I should focus on those men.

Roll wit' it, Tomato!

So I made Tomato from No Sheep For You, which is a cool book and a cool pattern. Very easy, took me a week to make. I raised the neckline a bit cuz it would have been slightly scandalous otherwise. I definitely plan on making more, or at least more top down tops.



But this yarn. I used Blue Sky Alpacas cotton. Now, I distinctly remember liking this yarn and enjoying knitting with it earlier in my knitting history. Then again, I also remember having no problem working with 100% acrylic and that certainly isn't the case anymore. Okay, so a tiny bit of it is my fault, as usual. I did swatch, but not in the round, so my gauge tightened up a bit when I ended up making this in the round. I was already going for the smallest size, which was already 2 1/2" smaller than my actual bust size. But in reality, this top came out about 4" smaller than my actual bust. Don't worry, it still fits (knits stretch nicely, people, even in cotton), but it's a bit stiff. Actually, it's a lot stiff. Almost like I'm wearing cardboard. In the previous post, though I complained about the bleeding of Jaeggerspun Zephyr, I did note that it has exceptional drape, even when knitted at a tight gauge. This yarn, not so much.

And do you know what a stiff cardboard-y top does? I bet you can't guess. See, it remembers my rolls. Now, when I stand up, I'm a pretty slim girl, comparatively speaking, but I'm not going to lie, some rolls do appear when sitting. Well, I discovered to my great dismay, that my rolls leave an impression in the top! Yeah, I know it's funny. To you. I stood up the first day I wore this and lo and behold, what Koreans would call sam-kyup-sal (3 layers of flesh) was imprinted into the very fabric of this shirt. Just hanging away from my torso, still showing the fat rolls of a minute ago. Thanks a lot, BSA cotton. You're the best.

Plus, knitting this stuff hurt my hand like a mofo. I'm talking pains shooting up my right wrist for real. Owie. So I think I'm sticking to blends from now on.

In other news, I went to Maryland Sheep and Wool festival the weekend before last. Everyone I know thinks I'm insane, and with good reason, admittedly. Yep, my broke ass bought a ticket to the east coast, rented a car, got a motel room, and went to a festival OF SHEEP!


Wait, 2 quick diversions. The first, there was something freaky going on in the room next to mine. We've all stayed in one of those no-tell motels before, we know how it goes. But this was unlike anything I had ever heard before. It was screaming. And I mean just that, screaming. Screaming. "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!! AAAHH, AAHHHHHH!" Not moaning, groaning, talking, just screaming. Don't know how many hours, cuz I lost track. So if ever you're thinking of offing someone, know that you can do it in a Red Roof motel without fear of anyone calling the police.

Second diversion, have you all seen this trailer for Black Sheep. Whoa.

Okay, back to MDSW. I took a drop spindle class and haven't touched my roving since. I suck. And I kept thinking I shouldn't suck, because sheep hair is a lot like my hair. I kept wondering, would I get any better at this if I first took my pick to it and sprayed it down with some afro sheen? I considered braiding it, or perhaps adding it as some sort of psychotic extensions to my own hair. Then I just accepted that I suck and moved on. But I did manage to spin this:




Um, since Ipod Cozies are all the rage amongst knitters (I don't want to ever hear a knitter who made one of these look me in my eye and tell me crocheters make a bunch of useless trivial stuff (like doilies)), what about an Ipod Shuffle Cozy? Those things are only about an 1 1/2". A coin purse, that can hold one coin? Huh? Huh?


But outside of the yarn, the festival was cool. I'll show you festival goodies on another post. So for now . ..

VK Fair Isle Sleeve Sweater

or "What I Did at Work Last Night: A Photo Essay"
or "A Million and Seventeen Ways Not to Make a Sweater"
or "Vogue in Red: An Erotic Mystery-Thriller by Nikki the Shizknitter"
(oh, wait, that last was a mistake)



Vogue Sweater, how I hated you. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong with you. I knit the fair isle sleeve too big, despite the fact that I subtracted stitches (apparently not enough). I didn't wash my swatch, and the red in the fair isle bled into the white (curse you, JaggerSpun Zephyr DK!). I knit the front to an entirely different pattern because I didn't check the Vogue Knitting Errata before starting (curse you, faulty VK patterns!).

Fortunately, there is always a cure. The sleeve got cut, in my attempt at steeking. I say attempt because the outcome was not totally perfect. Though there were several tutorials on crochet steeking (I don't have a machine), none of them were for something like this, just cutting off the sides of the sleeve. But I did it anyway. And I cut off the bottom, too, as it was a little too long. Then I picked up some stitches along the bottom. Again, not perfect, but hey, that's what Fray Check is for.


The red bled a lot. A lot. A whole lot. I haven't had color bleed like this since the Sugar N Cream cotton washcloth I made. Why should this yarn have bled so much? Anyway, dye once it bleeds
onto the fabric, doesn't set immediately. I thought I had rinsed it all out. I set it down to dry. But I guess I missed some because some of the red dye crept back into the white. Damn. I used my RIT Color Remover which is to get rid of colors that have run, and it did the trick (mostly).

And the pattern errata was eventually found with the help of the wonderful folks at KnittingHelp.com You guys are the best.


But still, this sweater left me pissed. It's like it took pleasure in frustrating me. And so, I decided to murder it. "Murder" has been one of my coworkers words for a while. He's always going to murder something or somebody. So it was my turn, and VK Sweater, it was your turn to die! (insert maniacal laugh).


Now to be fair, this idea all started from this:




That's not Kool-Aid, people. And thus, it was on!

I first considered having it die from lonliness and starvation, just by dumping it in the trash.





But I thought a sweater that had come up with so many ways to torture me deserved a more inventive death. I considered shredding it to bits in the office fan. "Feel that breeze, baby? That is the wind of inevitability!" But then I realized that we still needed an office fan and didn't want to break it.







Aha! I had it! Steek this, bitch!





But in the end, I decided to just finish sewing it up and wear it. Now, VK Sweater, you are truly conquered!


Specs:
Pattern: Vogue Knitting Holiday 2006 Fair Isle Sleeve Sweater
Yarn: JaggerSpun Zephyr DK silk/wool blend. 7 2 oz. balls Cinnabar, 1 ball each of Charcoal, Steel Gray, and Vanilla
Needles: Size 4
Yarn Notes: Despite knitting this to a tight gauge, this yarn has amazing drape. Also bleeds like crazy. Despite the silk content, not what I would call a luxury yarn in terms of feel. Spun such that at parts it is often flat like a tape yarn. Has mysterious tufts every now and then. Suspect will be fairly hard-wearing.

You know the pose by now.




And from the back.






The neckline is a little loose, despite the fact that I actually put in fewer stitches than called for. I may rip and redo it, but not now. I'm tired. There are a million more things to say about this sweater, so, um, maybe later.

Telegram for Mother Nature

Dear, Mother Nature, it's April! Just thought I'd let you know. What is up with this weather? It snowed last week. Chicago makes me (more) depressed. I was riding on the bus, looking out the window. The sky was cloudy and gray. The buildings were brown and gray. The earth was brown, the trees were bare. Just nasty. I need sunlight. It's always around this time of year that I'm like "okay, Chicago, we get it, you're cold. You can stop now." Cuz we've had enough.

So if I can't make the sky blue and the trees green, guess I'll just have to knit and crochet those colors. So I have this lovely Touch Me scarf that I crocheted. I got this yarn on sale and it was still pricy, especially for the little yardage. And with the speed of crochet, I had gone though (censored) dollars in about 3 hours! It is luxuriously soft, though. The stitch is from 220 More Crochet Stitches, crocheted on an I hook. Chicago's brown and gray + the blue and green I'd like to see come along.



With the leftover, I also made this choker. Band is knit in 2x2 ribbing, flower crocheted, leaf knit. Chicago flowers, please come back!



I still have some leftover in brown and green, that I'm going to use for a small necklace. This one, I think. That's where I got the knit leaf instructions, anyway.

And I finished my Clapotis! In HandMaiden Lady Godiva "Nova Scotia". I used just a wee more than 2 hanks. I knit on size 6s, one less increase section than in the pattern and 2 more straight sections. So if I had only done one extra straight section, 2 would have been enough. The other 1 and 9/10 skeins will be for Perfect Periwinkle from Fitted Knits, I think. I also held with the Lady Godiva a strand of Drops/Garnstudio's "Glitter". Very fine, 10 grams gives 700 yards, so I only need one spool, and at $4, a very cheap way to add glitter to a project.







I absolutely love this thing. I think I've worn it every day since I finished, rather than the Touch Me scarf. I like that it's so much wider than a normal scarf, it's got heft (sorta like me since my recent weight gain). And it's purrrty.

So there are blue and green knits. Um, Mother Nature, take that as a hint.

In other news, I started a group at meetup.com for natural black hair, as I can use all the advice I can get. On occasion, my hair looks, I think the technical term for it is "busted". Totally doesn't help that it's all uneven from when I got angry and whacked it all off with the craft scissors. I have a lot of hair, it is really really thick, and it is a serious effort to keep it reasonable. So I thought I'd get together with other women who wore their hair like this and maybe share some tips. It was great, we're all so cute, trust me.

And my semi-miniature crown variegated African violet trailer is also looking happy. All crowns are in bloom or bud with color, which means it could be a good show plant with a little grooming. Unfortunately, not all the crowns are showing the variegation.



And one final thing, Bloggers, what's up with the restricted blogs? I don't subscribe to anyone's feed, but every now and then I go through the comments left for me and try to look at people's blogs. But for some of you, I click on your name and it tells me that regular folk like me can't view your blog. Damn, I never get invited to the party with the hip kids. Not cool, people, not cool. Ah, knitting, you never reject me!

It's getting x-rated over here.

Warning, longest post ever, which makes me think I should post in shorter chunks more often.

What a trip! It was fabulous, people. I visited yarn shops, I went to hear the Harlot talk, I saw lots of knitters wearing their beautiful handmade goods, I ate good food. People were not lying when they said the Yarn Harlot was funny. I felt like I got two hours of free knitting-related stand up (if by "free" we mean the cost of a plane ticket). And she was right on point with the totally silly and unsubstantiated stereotypes non-knitters have about us. Like we're all socially inept and have no friends and nothing better to do so we knit. "Ha!", I laughed, eyes shifting nervously, "those crazy, crazy non-knitters. You so silly, you non-knitting, not-knowing-anything-about-me peoples, you," I continued, tiny bead of sweat running down my face. Crazy plastered-on grin, "no social life, soooo ridiculous!" And I'm sure you'll agree, and kindly not point out that I'm writing this on a Friday night.

On the down side, JerseyKnits, who I was supposed to meet but never actually got together with, did not ask the Harlot to sign her boobs, as far as I could see. And being the punk that I am, I didn't ask either. I had earlier suggested, both of us lacking in the boobal region (self-described! don't yell at me), that it might require all four of our booblets to get "Stephanie Pearl-McPhee" completely spelled out. But it seems it was not to be, and I find this disappointing for two reasons. One, I think it would have been hilarious to ask a knitting star to sign out boobs. And two, I was feeling a little boob-deprived. You would think I had gotten enough in South Africa, where by all measures, I saw about enough black breasts to lasts 17 straight guys' dreams for 17 years (17 is my number these days, I've counted about 17 thousand things as being "17" lately). So many breasts that by the end of the 17th "Festival of Topless 'Virgins'" (virgins, whatever you say) me and my group barely batted an eye. But no. And so I was disappointed.

Speaking of boobs (breasts have now become a recurring theme in this blog), let me offer you an example of what not to knit if you love your boobs. So there was a lot of hullabaloo about how Twinkle's new book Big City Knits had all these finished garments in it the chest circumference of the average person's head (like 22") in it. People were all worked up, "why can't we get away from anorexia as sexy" and so forth and so on. But the idea is supposed to be that knits stretch (I think we know this is true) and that chunky knits stretch even more. Okay, I decided to try it out. I'm a 34" bust. I swatched, I gauged (3.5 sts/inch), and I knit a vest at a 25" circumference. Which brings me to The Uniboob.



Cower with fear! The Uniboob sees all, with its giant darker-than-the-surrounding-area eye! Okay, maybe it's not so obvious in this pic, but trust me. It obviously fits, it obviously stretches, but it has to stretch so taut over the chest that there is not the slightest hint of a valley. Boo to that.

There are two pluses to this vest, though. First is the neckline, which I love. And the second is the back. Can you see it?


That's right. It says:


"Knitters are socially inept", ha! Proved them wrong, huh? Huh? Hello? Hey, no sass, or I'll sic the Uniboob on you! Anyway, I still remember the pattern, it's very basic, but I didn't write it out. Wasn't sure there'd be much demand for the Uniboob Vest.

So, back to the NY trip. I have to say I was kinda disappointed with the LYS I went to. I think I've been spoiled by my LYS (I love you, Loopy!), as I was generally not impressed, except with Seaport Yarns.

I went to Habu, which was all minimal and expensive, just like I expect a store of Japanese yarn to be. Really, the main room was just a beige mat in the center that had yarn on it, priced. That's it. There were benches along the wall, but you weren't allowed to sit on them. Then a tiny side room where everything was white and brown and priced by the ounce. Came away from there with nothing.

I visited Knitty City, which is a cute little store, but still more expensive than elsewhere. To be expected, I'm sure, as it's in Manhattan. What I wasn't expecting was for the Brooklyn store Knit-a-Way to be the most expensive of them all. Paton's Grace was $6.99! Cascade 220 was $7.99, the Plymouth chunky alpaca was $18, etc. And there were signs everywhere on how I was being monitored by security cameras. How can we pick out our murphies in such a place (not a word in your lexicon? check entry 2)? I didn't buy anything from either of these two stores.

I also went to School Products, which I was looking forward to because of their famous low prices for their own imports of cashmere and merino. But I swear, their cashmere and merino doesn't feel like the cashmere and merino I've felt before. It just doesn't feel as yummy, and I wasn't particularly excited about anything, so I didn't buy from there, either.

But Seaport Yarns was really fun. Just imagine an office suite, you know, reception desk, turn the corner, 4 or 5 offices down the hall, but instead of people working, every room and corridor is filled with yarn! I got lucky there, and after being disappointed elsewhere, made a second trip to this place. So from there I got these lovlies.

Blue Heron Rayon Metallic in "Water Hyacinth Copper" (a.k.a. "that's the spot") and Colinette Jitterbug in Marble


Aussie Wool (for friend to teach her to knit a hat), Louet Gems Pearl and Punta Del Este Mericash


The Mericash is exquisite, doesn't have any of that microfiber that the other "CashSomething" yarns have in them, and is nice and lofty. Cafe du Monde gloves, here I come!

But I was feeling all disappointed in my yarn field trips. I told the guy I was staying with that I thought the biggest yarn store, Webs, might be not too far. I saw it was a couple states away. I had my doubts, but he was like, nope, we can go, I'll drive. And he said this having a cast on his left arm. That's friendship, people ("friendship" is what we're calling it now). And so we went.

Look, people, look!


Webs has the biggest showroom I've seen for a yarn shop, but in addition to the showroom, there's a warehouse in back. A warehouse. Of yarn. A yarn warehouse. A large house, storing wares, which in this case, are all yarny. Eight long aisles of yarn goodness. And I cried, just a little.

And now to the Yarn P0rn that gives this post its X rating.

Louisa Harding Sari Ribbon and Webs' house brand Colrain (merino/tencel)


RYC Soft Lux in "Gigli" (whoever understands Rowan's naming practices?)


Rowan Chunky Print


Misti Alpaca Hand Dyed (alpaca makes me itch just a tiny bit, but in a "hurts so good" kind of way)


I will now let you all go take a cold shower. See you back here when you're decent.