Of Cowls, Unravelled Sweaters, and New Yarn

Not a very catchy title, I know. But it is blogging time! I need to decompress from today. I commute to university, for those of you who don't know, and I was on campus from 7:30 AM to 8 PM. In other words OMGKILLMEPLZ. In my one class, we have to prepare a mini lesson plan? Do you know how hard that is? I'll tell you: very. I have trouble narrowing my focus so much, and also understanding what other people need in terms of background. Reading has always been my thing, and I've never needed the explanations most do. Not to sound like a twat.

Anyway, this blog isn't about my personal life, it's about my craft! I'm still chugging away on my cowl/wimple. It's still going well, and I love working with the yarn. I've messed up a few times, but I'm too lazy to rip back, so the mistakes stay. Sometimes I end up with one less stitch than I should. My solution? Just make a new one! I know it's not kosher and the knitting goddesses are probably pissed at me, but whatevs. Boyfriend has graciously loaned me his camera, so there's an artsy fartsy shot on the side. I figure, it's an unblocked WIP, so there's no use in trying to show off the lace just yet. And yes, that is an Elvis Costello album hanging on my wall. Live at the El Mocambo. I am a giant, giant fan of his. I got to see him in concert once; one of the best days of my life, truly. Anywho, the cowl/wimple, as I said, is going fantastically. I'm done 2 repeats and have about 16/56 rounds left to go on repeat 3. Then there's another half repeat, 6 rows of garter, and I'm done! I'm really excited to be finishing up this project, not because I haven't enjoyed knitting it, but because I want to wear it! I'm wondering about the bind-off, though. You're supposed to bind off very loosely, and, well, I suck at that. I'm pondering if I should use Jeny's Suprisingly Stretchy Bind Off to do the job. It would be stretchy, but maybe too much so? I don't know. It's something to think about.

My other project has been finishing unraveling that wool and angora sweater I blogged about a while back. It's all done now, and most of the yarn is back in hanks (which, to me, are the twisty things), although two skeins are still drying. I'm ambivalent about the yarn itself now that I've gotten a good look at it, but it was still a worthwhile experience. I'm not sure if it looks too worn or not. But hey, I got about 1300 yards of it! Maybe it'll look better knitted up. The plies are really loose, and I'm sure that contributes to the look of it. If nothing else, I could probably make some bitchin socks. There's a crappy photo for your perusal on the left. The yarn isn't that kinky anymore after it's been washed; I didn't weight it too much, but the washing process itself does a lot of the de-kinking for you. It smells like shampoo. Lovely!

And a third fibery thing. Last post I was all excited about the Rowan Kidsilk Spray that I had won in Sara (at Lazy Knits and Purls)'s giveaway? Well, it arrived today! It's devilishly soft and really sinfully indulgent. Beautiful yarn all around. Since I seem to be on a picture spree, go ahead and take a look off to your right. I'll wait. ...Okay, you done drooling? You see that? That's Kidsilk Spray. That shit looks at Malabrigo and says "That's all you got"? It laughs in the face of mere nylon blends, touting its silky softness in the face of any opposition. It blows raspberries at other mohair. Okay, enough silliness. Really, though, it's gorgeous yarn and oh-so-soft. They really need to invent a Feel-O-Screen. I'm going to make a friend's mother something out of at least one skein. She gave me her mother's knitting needles and is all around an awesome lady. Now that I have some really, really nice yarn that is deserving of her, I'll happily use it on someone else. Now, just to pick a pattern. Aka the funnest part, amirite, amirite?

And lastly, I see that I have a follower! Hi! *waves* I'm very flattered that of all the knitting blogs in all the corners of the Internet, you walk into mine. Grab a chair, get cozy!

Thrift Store Finds

So, I love thrift stores. LOVE them. Where else can you get things so cheap? Plus, so many of them donate proceeds to charity; you can't go wrong!

I've been wanting to go thrifting for a while since I got the notion that I can buy things, and then unravel them for the yarn! Not exactly novel, but a bit of an epiphany here. I ended up getting a blanket for $3 and a sweater for $6.

Now, the blanket looked to be hand-knitted. I felt sort of bad unravelling another knitter's hard work, but the fact that they will never know comforted me somewhat. Related: what kind of asshole throws away a hand-knit baby blanket? I think it was relatively recent, too; the yarn (as per my burn test) was 100% cotton, and had two uneven plies. All signs point to recent. If it were older, I think it would have been acrylic and the plies would not have been so uneven. Uneven ply is more of a modern taste, right? Anyway, I did take a few pictures of it before the unravelling, but they're on Boyfriend's camera, so I can't get to them now. But, I do have some photos of the yarn I got. There's a photo of the whole haul on the right, there. For the sake of brevity, I won't post all the photos I took of the separate colors. I didn't manage to get a good picture of the ply, either, but it looks a lot like photo below:

The resemblance is so uncanny, even down to color, that I think this might be the yarn itself. It's called "Fiddle De Dee." I'll have to ask a Rav member how fuzzy it is. Might be the last piece of the puzzle. The bigger ply of this stuff is super fuzzy when you take it apart.

My other find was a green cardigan for $6. I haven't taken it apart yet, and to tell the truth, I'm sort of afraid to. It's from something called Oui Designer collection, and the yarn is 45% angora, 40% lambswool and 15% nylon/polyamid. Pretty nice, huh? A photo of the whole sweater on the right, there. It's fuzzy (as can be expected of angora), but there's still stitch definition and good seams. This will be my first try ripping a sweater when I get the ovaries to do it.

I haven't been working on my socks, I lost the yen to, I guess. Also, I'm getting hardcore laddering, which is disturbing. I didn't get them my first time on DPNs and my first socks, so why now? I really should pick a project and just get the mojo back.