Sunny Delight

What is yellow, has picot edging, and bobbles all over?

I'm calling her Sunny Delight. It's a project that I have been quietly working on for the last eleven days. Better photos to come, so long as the weekend weather matches my outfit.

Now that she's done, I can get back to knitting the front of the Vogue dress. I'm also looking ahead for my next knit, and I'm not sure what it'll be. I'm curious about this book:

Runway Knits, by Berta Karapetyan. I've only seen pictures of the patterns on blogs, so look here or here to see some of them. They look interesting, but maybe a little too conservative for me. Here's my favorite, so far:

I wonder what it looks like when the model isn't gripping it together? Droopy? Floppy? Droopy and floppy in a cute way? Not sure.

Springtime and RAD Lace Recap

I get to walk by this tree to and from work everyday. I am going to miss San Francisco. I still haven't recovered from being beat down by the snow in New York. After not catching a cold for over a year, New York gave me cough that won't quit.

I finished the back of the Vogue minidress. Here she is, blocking on my floor. I really like the silvery grey color of this KPM.

I forgot to blog about the RAD Lace exhibit, which was one of things I was most excited about seeing in New York. Well, I was a bit disappointed, which is surely why I forgot about it. About half of the exhibit was too far of a stretch from knitting or lace, and much of it was purely architectural. To me, many of the pieces just happened to look "lacey," which seemed to be enough to qualify it for the show. I was looking forward to seeing a bunch of awesome knitted stuff in one place, but I only saw a handful. Check out this knitter's review of the show: I think she sums it up much better than I do, and she has great photos.

I suppose I let my expectations go too far. Oh well. I feel like a hypocrite writing this, though, because I studied architecture in college and liked to push the boundary of what is considered architecture by making my models out of cloth and sewing them together instead of using museum board with glue. I shouldn't be such a hater.

Overall, it was totally worth the visit. The tiny knits by Althea Merback are mindblowing and the fiber obtic chandelier is beautiful.

My First FO: Steek Tank from Loop d Loop

I rediscovered this is my closet yesterday and wore it for the first time in two years. Actually, it is only the second time I have worn it since I made it.

It's the Steek Tank from Teva Durham's "Loop d Loop" book. A couple of years ago, I used to casually lurk about on craftster, mostly on the sewing boards, until I came across a knitter who had made the steek tank. I fell in love with the sweater and vowed to learn to knit so that I could make my very own steek tank. First I bought the book, next came yarn and needles from knitpicks, then hours of instruction courtesy of knittinghelp.com, and not long after that, I had my coveted hand knitted steek tank. I wore it once (to show off that I had learned to knit, and even made a whole vest!), and that was it.

For whatever reason, I had a hard time pairing it with my usual everyday wardrobe, so I slowly forgot about it. I cleaned out my closet recently and found it in a lonely section of my closet, and yesterday, decided it was just the thing to wear with my new grey jeans. So here she is, a past FO, but a significant one, finally deemed worthy of a couple of photos.

Details: Steek Tank from Teva Durham's "Loop d Loop." Knitted on size 15 circs with Knitpick's "Panache." Finished in 2005, too long ago too remember how many skeins I used.

Spoils of New York

I brought home some extra special things from New York...

Koigu kpm from Purl. I fell in love with this yarn while knitting my entrelac scarf on the plane, and when the salesgirl at Purl suggested it for the Vogue dress, I had a 'duh' moment. It just seems so right that I couldn't believe I didn't think of it! I'll have to find another use for my loverly orange alpaca silk. Shouldn't be too hard.

I also picked up some new clothes! I visited Built by Wendy in Brooklyn and got this dress.

I managed to squeeze in some subway knitting on the longish ride from the Lower East Side to Columbia. Perhaps the first of many similar rides.

My favorite part of the trip, besides seeing my sister and her girlfriend, was Coney Island. What a bizarre and surreal spot. I heard that it will be torn down soon, so my wonderful hosts drove us over there to check it out.

Yes, it really says "shoot the freak." I don't think this would go over too well in SF.

There are no words to fully express the magnificence of these kittyfeet.

Next Up?

In two days, I'm leaving for a short trip to NYC. I'm not a big fan of planes, trains, subways, or any enclosed space, but the thought of my travel knitting makes them seem not so bad after all. Hours and hours of uninterrupted knitting? Awesome! But what to take with me? Not another gigantic Twinkle project, and surely not the 18 skein afghan that is only 3 skeins away from completion. Gotta be something on smallish needles, and I don't do well with sock knitting (I never finish the second one). I've been playing/obsessing with different ideas of what to bring with me.

I bought this gorgeous mandarin orange skein of Blue Sky Alpacas "silk alpaca" yarn to swatch with for the Vogue dress. Got gauge, love the yarn, adore the color, want to go ahead with the project, but the yarn store is closed Sunday and Monday. I guess it'll have to wait.

I've always wanted to try entrelec, and always wanted to try kpppm. So there you go. I think this will most likely be my New York knitting. I certainly can't buy any more yarn, or else I won't be able to justify spending any more money at Purl! Hopefully, I'll have something to show when I get back.

FO: Shopping Tunic

Another Twinkle sweater. This was a real quickie! It only took about 3 nights of knitting to complete. Loved the design of this and the pattern was very clever. The sweater is knit in the round, in one piece, and then flipped inside out so that the purl side faces out. I finally got to use the Soft Chunky yarn that I had stalked since the book came out, and it was worth the wait. I am only sorry that I couldn't have waited to use it for the Best Friend Cardigan. It is so soft, drapey, cushy, in fabulous colors and decent yardage for the chunk. It has a lovely pearlescent sheen that makes it look as luxurious as it feels. Obviously, I like this sweater. It's the first Twinkle sweater that didn't have to grow on me before I wanted to wear it outside the house

I love the pockets.

Details: Shopping Tunic from Twinkle's Big City Knits. Used 3.25 skeins of Soft Chunky in "Urchin". I knit the xs size and lengthened both the body and the cowl by 2" each. If I hadn't added to the length by 4", I may not have needed to break into the 4th skein. The pattern actually calls for 7 skeins of the stuff, but I learned from this blogger's experience http://knitlit.blogspot.com/2007/03/twinkle-dust.html#links, that I could get away with 4 skeins. Thanks for saving me some $$$!

I got my spring/summer 07 Vogue Knitting and have fallen in love with this:

I'm such a sucker for knit dresses. Actually, I am a big fan of dresses and wear one almost every day. I really like to feel feminine, but I also find them comfortable and they make getting getting dressed for the day really easy- one piece and then you're done, a no-brainer. So I could see myself wearing it a lot. I would make it shorter since this would most likely be longer than knee length on a shorty like myself. I think the Filatura di Crosa "Zara" that i used for my capecho would be perfect for this, light and soft yet durable. I'm gonna swatch it up and see what happens!

FO: Best Friend Cardigan

So here's my finished Best Friend Cardigan, or as I like to call it, my Gorilla Smurf sweater, which is what I felt like when I first put it on. It didn't help that my two coworkers gave me the crazy look when I wore it to work on Friday. After that dose of humiliation, I felt like frogging it, but it is slowly growing on me. The chunky yarn and chubby seams make my shoulders about 4 inches broader, but maybe that's not such a bad thing.


Then, while my man was taking these photos, I remembered that I have the perfect belt for this. Voila! More feminine, less gorilla smurf, right? I think I just need to be careful about how I wear it, and try to keep the bottom half of my outfit as streamlined as possible, i.e. cigarette pants, skinny jeans, pencil skirt. I was wearing a poofy patterned skirt when I left the house on Friday, which may have been cause for my coworkers' befuddled looks.

I think I'm going to keep her!

Details: 6 skeins of Cascade's Lana Grande (double stranded) on size 19 circs. I had barely 1 foot of yarn left over after seaming. This was really quick and fun to make. I knit it up single stranded first, then decided I didn't like it, frogged the whole thing, and then knit it up again and it still took only about one week to complete. I got the jumbo buttons at Britex downtown.

I just picked up another 6 skeins of soft chunky at YarnPaperScissors in Burlingame. The owner bought way more colors and skeins than Imagiknit, which suprised me, because it is a much smaller store. I bought a nice yellow called "Canary" that I am going to knit the hoodie with. Yippee for quickee chunkees!

Now that I am starting to plan my cross country move, I 'm getting a little sentimental about San Francisco. Also, I have a good reason to finally buy this necklace that I have always coveted:

My diamond would be over San Francisco, of course.

I think I saw it about a year ago on daily candy, loved it, forgot about, and now I need it! They are available here http://www.stateofmine.com/ and you can get it customized for any state and city.

Twinkle Twinkle, NYC

I went by Imagiknit today with a hunch that Twinkle had landed, but it still hadn't arrived when I checked at noon. Well my hunch was correct, but it was only four hours premature. I got the call later in the afternoon, so I sped over so that I could get first dibs on colors. Unfortunately, they only ordered 4 skeins per color of the soft chunky, and only in about 6 colors. I can't blame them, it's not really a spring or summer weight yarn. I took home 4 skeins of Urchin, which I thought was black when I looked online, but is really a deep dark gorgeous purple.

There's my Soft Chunky, posing in front of the Best Friend Cardigan.

I really wanted to buy 6 skeins, so that I can make the groovy sweater dress or the hoodie. Would it be so bad if I bought skeins from another dyelot? I could be sneaky and use a separate dyelot for all the ribbing sections, or would that be too stripey and weird? After looking at the patterns again, I see that there aren't many that I can do with only 4 skeins, except for the Best Friend Cardigan, which I have already almost completed in Lana Grande.

My wool winder could hardly handle the Twinkle jumbo skeins.

I've got big news: my man just got his acceptance letter from Columbia University! We'll be moving to NYC this summer. It's going to be so hard to leave our beautiful apartment, my sweet job, my cute scooter that I go everywhere in, all of our nice furniture, not to mention our friends and San Francisco itself! I'm excited for the new adventure.

Holy crap! We're moving to NYC!

FO: Twiggy Tunic

Here's my finished Twiggy Tunic, with a disclaimer: my boyfriend took amazing pictures of this. I have to admit that it is really not very flattering, doesn't fit well, and is difficult to wear.

Details: I used Berroco Bling Bling yarn that I bought on closeout about a year ago. It is a cotton/acrylic blend with gold flecks. I knit the xs size on US 15 needles.

The fit is drapey and loose to the point where it actually slips off my shoulder, and could potentially completely fall off. I have tried to remedy this by attempting to shrink it in the washing machine in the hot cycle. No luck. This cotton sack is only going to get bigger, I'm afraid. The sleeves are especially big around my shoulder/bicep area. I know that a lot of people are concerned about the 22" finished measurement of this sweater, so let my experience soothe your fears. My 22" sweater stretched to about 36" and stayed there, which is unfortunate given my wimpy 29" bust.

I did enjoy knitting it, especially since it took about a week to complete. I still want to knit more from Twinkle's book, specifically the Best Friend Cardigan. I might pick up some chunky wool today, which seems sorta crazy given that it has been 80 degrees in San Francisco for the last four days.

*Update: On the craftster knitalong, someone suggested that I crochet a single chain inside the base of the neckline ribbing to pull in the color. This totally worked! I wore it to work on Friday, and I ran around all day without having to tug it back up onto my shoulders. Yay!

Of Twinkle and Capechos

Now that the capecho is off my needles, I'm on the hunt for my next project. I just got the new Twinkle book from Amazon and it is gorgeous.

I am still wavering between patterns, and it is difficult to get started because the recommended yarn is not available yet. Twinkle, aka Wenlan Chia, has her own new line of yarn, which is, of course, what all the patterns are knit with. I am really interested in what the Soft Chunky yarn is all about, and how it compares to Cascade Magnum. I really like get up close and personal with a yarn before I can decide whether I want to use it, or what could be a potential better alternative.

I am leaning towards starting with a pattern that calls for Cruise, a silk/cotton blend, and using something from my stash as a sub. In the meantime, I can wait for Soft Chunky to be released so that I can order some to make either the Best Friend Cardigan, Groovy Sweater Dress, or the Twinkle Hoodie.

P.S. I started a knitalong for this book on craftster.

My favorites:

And my capecho! I just love it! It fits really nicely and goes very well under my new spring coat. I have worn it a lot recently, and a surprising number of people recognize the pattern. Last week, I went into Noe Knit wearing my capecho, and the women who work there were so excited to see it knitted up that Susie, the owner, busted out her camera and took photos! I was a little flustered, but totally flattered overall. You all made me blush! Thank you!

*Update: Susie put the photos on the Noe Knit Blog! Please don't look too closely at my face (yikes!), focus on the sweater!

FO: Norah Gaughn capecho from Vogue winter 06/07

I had so much fun with this pattern! I was completely obsessed from the beginning, and couldn't wait to finish each of the little pentagrams. The pattern is wiggity-wacked, though. There is a long chronicle of ill-fated, ill-fitting capechos on this craftster knitalong: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=143106.0

I knitted size xs with Filatura di Crosa "Zara" on size 5 needles, instead of worsted yarn on size 9s as recommended. I also moved the button over about 4 inches and added a second button to secure the neckband. Before changing the button placement, the neckband was really droopy and the fabric bunched under my armpits.

Basic Cable Hat i.e. Aggressive Stashbusting

I bought another skein to swatch the Vogue pentagram sweater with. I could tell right away that it wasn't right for the sweater, but I did fall in love with the yarn and had to knit it up asap. It is called "Silkdream" by Lang yarns. It was reccommended to me by the owner of Yarn Paper Scissors, a new yarn shop in Burlingame.

It has been freezing lately in SF, and without the yardage for gloves or a scarf, I decided on the Basic Cable hat from Stitch n' Bitch Nation. Pretty quick and easy, except for the pom pom. This is the first time I have ever made one and it sure was a pain in the butt to pull the yarn through the circle about 200 times. I do love the hat, though.

No News is Good News

No blogging for a while because I have been plugging away at Saffron Cables. I'm in the home stretch now.



But I've been cheating again... I fell in love with this:



I couldn't help but do a little yarn research and bought a couple skeins and did a couple of swatches!



The left swatch is karabella aurora 8. I think this is similar to the berroco merino that is called for. The stitches are clear, the gauge is correct, but I am worried about how dense the little sweater will be. The second is rowan kid classic. The gauge is a little bit off, the stitches are not as distinct, but it is so light and fluffy and fuzzy. And I love the color. Maybe I should try it again on a smaller needle? I'm not sure which I prefer.

Vintage knitting mags

One of my favorite customers came by the shop and dropped of a bag full of musty old knitting and crochet magazines from the sixties. Odor aside, the patterns are amazing! The mags are almost entirely full of minidresses, tunics, and knitted suits. They are on loan to me, so I will be very busy scanning for the next few days.



The Vogue magazine patterns feature some serious sequins and beading.






















I played with my fancy new toy yesterday. In the spirit of Vogue fall/winter '67, here's some pretty pictures of my favorite shiny and sparkly shoes.

My Pretty Pink Camera

My birthday present came a few days early this year.



She's more than just a pretty face: she has 7.2 megapixels, super steady shot, an enormous lcd screen, and a long battery life. I'm just starting to get the hang of her. Expect more frequent and higher quality images to come!