MeowGirl: swap photos!

i finally caught some light to bring you the following visual stimuli...

this means swappy fun! now i can tell you all about the Pinku Flower Swap neck/wrist tie Takeyah created for me. here is a picture of it around my wrist (by the way, it was a contortion task for the right hand to take a nice photo of the left arm.):

the frilly, fluffy, full petals are adorable; i love the colors, and every bit is yarn, even the strap. mmmmm... yarn. here is a closeup:

this was my first swap; it was exhilarating and heartening. someone who was previously a stranger took the time and thought to create this lovely crafty object just for me, and the flower crossed quite a distance to live with me. so delicious! there were even cute new year's stickers (baby chicks!) in the package. thank you, Takeyah!

here is a photo of the WIP baby hat i blogged about before:

i like the soft little nubbies created by the thick parts of the yarn, and the color is sweet. but the 2x2 ribbing on a small gauge was slow-going enough that i casted on another hat... for myself. more about this later.

doesn't Kitty Kitty's ruffle scarf look great on her? the texture and convolution are terribly appealing. i'm delighted with our spontaneous joint project. my stitches are in there!

i'm also rather envious of those socks; they look like such fun! i wanna knit socks... meow.

MeowGirl: blah...

the weather hasn't been knitblog-friendly lately. it's rainy season here in Berkeley, and the current lack of natural light in this apartment discourages good photo posts.

i received a flower i adore from Takeyah for the Pinku Flower Swap, and i've been trying to catch a good photo to share for days. to no avail, the clouds work against me.

WIP to report: a buttery-yellow baby hat for a brand new niece in the family. the yarn is Flake Cotton by Ironstone Warehouse, 24 sts. per 4"/10cm (according to label), and thick & thin. i casted 136 stitches onto 3.3mm needles. 2x2 ribbing is now 2 1/4" or almost 6cm along. not sure when to stop. how tall should baby hats be? hmm....

strawberry cream and chocolate ruffle update: all 80 ends are weaved in. i pinned the scarf to a towel and spray blocked it. once it dried, i excitedly pulled out the pins and... frustration. it's as curly as ever. i don't think i'll resort to what fluffa did, but i'm in definite need of something more drastic.

i close today with a heartwarming story. my little brother reads this blog, which has enabled an unexpected sharing of this obsession. he was visiting and asked me what i was doing from another room. i said "unraveling" (i was finished with the swatch for the above mentioned baby hat). his reply was "frogging?!?! why are you frogging?"

my little brother used knitting jargon spontaneously without prompt. i started giggling with delight. i can't imagine how we could have bonded over knitting w/o this blog... meow

kitty: Sneak Flower pin in action

Sneak Cell Phone Shot of Meowgirl modeling strawberry cream and chocolate ruffle. So one might question why haven't we seen a posting of the final scarf? hmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... (Ok I realize she hasn't worked in all 81 ends or blocked it yet, but it was so cute in person. Don't you think we need better photos of it?) Most importantly though, she just received her flower in the photo. I really hope she likes it. I also got a sneak peak of her flower for the swap. It is very cool and I love the netting that she is using. I hope she will take a photo of her flower and the smooth big pink ball. Yeah Meowgirl is in Ohio for the holidays.

kitty: knitting update

Well for better or worse my Pinku Flower got sent out yesterday. I could have worked on new designs for another month but I realized that I needed to get it in the mail if there was any prayer of it getting to OK before Christmas. Hopefully my swap partner won't see this post before it arrives tomorrow. I also sent out a flower pin to my mom and I got to hand deliver one to MeowGirl last night at the airport. Yeah she is in Ohio.(happy dance) I think this was flower design number 8. The first one were pretty homely, but I really didn't want to do a silk ribbon flower. Throughout the project I knew that was my default if I couldn't get a knitted flower to turn out. I ended up really happy with the design, but maybe I should have done a silk ribbon flower since I am much better at that media than the knitting.

Now I can finally work on other knitting projects. Here is my swatch for the fingerless gloves. I have been experimenting with both tiny circulars and 4 inch double point needles. The problem that I have been running into is that with the metal needles I am splitting the yarn a lot with the tiny needles. Not really sure what the solution is to this problem to be honest. I do like the texture of the addi better than the bamboo circulars. I would try doing it on inox circulars to see if I still ran into the problem, but I have yet to find them that small.

The black stole is coming along. It measures 15.5 inches now. So I am soon going to be faced with the decision of how wide do I want it to be. My original thoughts were 18, but somehow it seems short. From other patterns I have been reading they seem to be measuring anywhere from 18 -28inches.

Tonight is the big knitting class, I can not wait to see what we learn.

Kitty: The Store

Well, I just got back from the yarn store where I was looking for yarn for my Pinku flower swap flower. I put the book and yarn down for just a second and they swarmed in for the kill.

[BONUS: circling in for the kill.]