OMG-I love finishing!

When I posted after I went to WEBS, I got so lost in the yarn p0rn, I forgot an item I bought. A DVD called The Hand Knitter's Guide to Sweater Finishing with Leslye Solomon. This was, hands down, THE BEST fifty bucks I ever spent-she is AMAZING. I never dreaded stitching a sweater together but by the same token, I didn't look forward to it either. This video changed that. No more bulky seams, no more dents where the side seams start. This sweater I just finished would make my grandmother proud the way I put it together. It's the neatest job I've ever done and you can't see it at all. I did graft the shoulder seams, afterall.

If this DVD is not in your library, GET IT! It covers EVERYTHING and I'm looking forward to finishing and stitching a sweater together now, almost as much as actually knitting it.

I probably should have made the medium, I love oversized things, even more now that I'm getting older, but I can fit a second person in this with me, like the model in the book...I'm just sayin'. I love this sweater tho, it's going to be my favourite. The yarn is awesome, Rowan plaid. I have more to knit another jumper. It's so soft...and WARM! Of course, winter donesn't really arrive till February anymore so I've still got a few months to wait.

I'm just as addicted to Ravelry as I was Second Life when I discovered that, if not more. No, I'm not stopping blogging tho I dunno how many read it anymore. I think a blog goes hand in hand with Ravelry. One word of advice....FREEZE YOUR CREDIT CARDS NOW BEFRE YU GET YOUR INVITE! I'm droppin' money left & right now. Nobody warned me once you're on, your credit cards melt into a puddle of plastic. I got a bunch of sock yarn on the way here...can't wait!

I joined a Hallowene shawl KAL. I never did a knitting KAL before. Funny thing is shawl calls for approx. 480 beads so I went off in searh of some seed beads. Found some no problem and ordered half a kilo. Then I wondered if that was enough-what do I know? I never did beads before. SO I wrote them and asked if I should get another one. ROTFLMFAO!!!! They replied today saying there's approx. 48 THOUSAND seed beads in a half kilo. Anybody need any black seed beads? LOL!

Here's a shot of me in the new sweater. Guess you can tell the top of my hair is kinda burnt off. I hve a small patch in front still very long. I decided since I'm not yet ready to look normal and quit bleaching it white, Im going to turn a negative into a positive...I'm gonna have him cut the little bit remaining so it's the same length...this way I can spike it up and maybe throw some manic Panic in-purple and green and fuchsia and orange and whatever else catches my eye. No blue...the blue is so goddamned strong and I don't want it turning the rest of my hair blue. I can always add extensions if I get too down on the short hair.

I'm In!!! I'm In!!!

So I got my Ravelry invite this morning when I was down my grandfather's painting swatches on the wall to pick a colour to paint the kitchen and den. I took a break and checked via my iPhone and it said my invite had arrived. Freakin' cool is all I can say. There's so much there....I started putting my stash in but it's gonna take a lot of photos and time to organise myself there.

I'm kinda bummed tho...there's a NYC knitters group....I know it's dumb since I don't live there but REALLY wanna be a NYC knitter. Can't I be an honorary member? This whole NYC thing is going to gnaw away at me until I draw my final breath on this planet. Maybe in my next life I'll be fortunate enough to call NYC home for real. I do now even tho I don't live there LOL!

Anyway, I finished the Rowan Atmosphere sweater. I'm going to see if I can get it blocked tomorrow and then I can stitch it together and wear it. Well, assuming the winter isn't full of 92 degree days like tomorrow is supposed to get. We had started to get a chill in the air and I was getting all into the fall and here we go back into hot, humid August weather. I have my frickin' Halloween decorations up! I guess that's what I get for decoratin' early. Hey, this Witch can't wait! Autumn is my favourite season.

Short Rows

SO I decided to try doing the short row technique for shoulders. I always hated the stair step edge as they looked like crap and were often too bulky when seaming them together. I picked up the technique pretty easily, it wasn't has hard as I thought it would be BUT...

What do you do when the back shoulders have more stitches than the front shoulders? On my back piece for this sweater, I have 4 more stitches on each shoulder than the front. I have re-done it several times and it seems to be right. Now I don't know if I'm better off ripping it all back and doing the damn stair step way OR using a 3 needle cast off and knitting two together evenly spaced on the back needle. I cannot graft the shoulder seams since there's more stitches on the back than the front. I don't understand this LOL!

It looks like my place in Ravelry may be coming over the weekend. I hope so! I've got a lot of yarn to catalogue there. The invites are going faster than I thought.

In other news, my doctor called me yesterday to inform me...I have gallstones. WTF???! I don't fit the profile for them and I was never big in dairy. I have decided all this bullshit on tv and in the magazines and stuff is just that...BULLSHIT. I eat right (salmon & other oily fish, lots of sushi and skinless chicken mostly), hardly ever eat red meat, don't drink excessively (tho I had my bouts of very heavy drinking in my late 20's thru early 30s), never touch fried foods or ice cream, I don't use salt at all. Snacks for me usually consist of salads or broccoli or celery or a nice big tomato sprinkled with garlic powder and olive oil and I end up with gallstones, high cholesterol and a hernia. Go figure. I was sort of intent on telling my doctor I want my gall bladder out NOW before any attacks happen but I'm being told by friends they won't do that...so apparently, I need to suffer excruciating pain of an attack before they'll remove it. I got one word for that....PERCODAN!!! COPIOUS amounts of Percodan.

I've been reading labels since I was in my early 20's, I've been a MAJOR PITA with my diet eating only healthy stuff-genetics suck LOL! BUT it could be worse so I'm not too upset, just really baffled.

Rowan Plaid

I don't know what to say about this yarn other than is is so soft and wonderful, it's like knitting a cloud. I started that pattern Atmosphere from the Rowan Plaid book, and here is a progress picture. Actually, quite a bit of progress has been made since I shot this last weekend. The back is done and I'm up to the underarm shaping on the front as of 10 PM last night.

I'm so digging this sweater and can't wait to wear it.

I think I've given up on the dragon shawl for now. I don't have a nice house to display it yet so what's the point? It's a lot more difficult than I thought. There is a neat shawl pattern I can try to get my groove with in Rowan magazine 34.

I am so anxious to get into Ravelry, have been not-so-patiently checking my space on the waiting list and if the invites continue as they have the past two days, I should be able to get on there by the end of next week, unless they crank out the invites even faster, who knows. I'm absolutely DYING to get on there!!!

I also am eating a nice, big, juicy, fat crow pie. Umm, for years I have railed against cell phones. I never saw the attraction, obsession or need for them unless you were a doctor who had patients lives hanging in the balance. I bought an iPhone this past Friday. Apple whore that I am, I just couldn't resist any longer. It's not so much for the phone, I barely talk to anybody on my home phone as it is but the Notes feature is really helpful, the camera will come in handy for a quick snap of a new luscious yarn to add to my stash or a cute guy on the street new pair of needles I have to have and add to my list. I'm really impressed with it and love it so far. I guess this means I won't be getting the new iPod Touch now LOL! Apple's new products are worse than drugs in that sense....I crave them. It's funny, anybody that knows me now is so surprised "YOU, of all people, got an iPhone?" RTOFLOL!

Felting and WEBS and S.E.X.

I don't know where to start first. I guess at the beginning is the best place. In my last post I said I was working on an awesome pair of slippers. I can't wait to show them off so here's a quick shot as they're drying to shape. These Elf Slippers caught my eye about a month ago and just begged for me to make them. I have never felted before and wanted to try it, and this pattern was perfect. These are so me it's not funny LOL! They said for kids & ladies but a kooky bohemian type like me, why not?! These were so easy to do and fun, I'll be making more. As soon as they're dry, I'll take better pictures. I was going for a jewel tone with the yarn. I got blue, purple, burgundy and green. The purple looks darker here than it really is...it is really pretty in the daylight. Felting is a lot of fun!

Yesterday, we went to WEBS...I've been ordering from them for a while and decided to go, they're only a hair under 2 hours from where I live. WOW! What a place, err, palace LOL! It reminded me of the yarn stores that were so abundant around here when I was a kid. WEBS might be great on the internet but in person...HOLY CRAP!!!! They're so friendly and all that yarn! HONESTLY...I DID NOT MEAN TO SPEND $300. THERE! LOL! I got some Noro that had me drooling, the way the colours look knitted up, I thought they'd make a great scarf. The blue tones of the Rowan Plaid are going into the sweater DYLAN from their Country book. And although the name Kaffe Fasset sends me running to the hills pulling clumps of my hair out, I couldn't resist this Regia sock yarn he has out. I'm not real sure which sock pattern I'll use with it. The Lopi colours are for another pair of slippers.



And I got these books. This New Pathways for Sock Knitters is a MUST HAVE. I'd never heard of Cat Bordhi before but this book has amazing socks and new techniques I can't wait to try. The other book, A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting, had neat stuff. I have to knit my cat a bed....it is just too tempting seeing them in the book.

I guess that's about it for now. I don't know what to go jump into first now with all these goodies.