Purlene’s Corner

Yay! I won a contest! Knitting up a Storm is giving away free stuff over the next four weeks. I won beautiful marble stitch markers – I can’t wait to get them! Zip over there and throw your name in the hat. :)

omg the rainbow socks are totally going in the frog pond tonight. They are driving me insane and it isn’t even 9:30am! Sooooooo big. They will be redone with a size smaller needle, fewer stitches, and much swearing. I still love the yarn an awful lot, but man – I hate socks that slip inside the shoe. The biggest draw for handknit socks is that they fit perfectly, and these most assuredly do NOT.

I may start ripping them out at lunch today. ::smite::

Great glorioski, it’s been a while since I updated. Thank you for the kind words about my photography skillz – I concentrated more this time around, and I think they’re better. Also, I shut the cat up in the bedroom. He’s the vainest thing, or hates knitting, or something, but the minute I put a sock on the couch and get out the camera, he’s right in the middle of it.

Knitting! I went to North Carolina recently to visit a friend, and somewhere inbetween the laughing and talking and eating and tv watching and card playing and friend-visiting and boozing, we knitted up a storm.

My first color work! The Center Square Hat from knitty. What a great color work pattern for a first-timer. Sadly (for me), we had the wrong size needles. Look, we checked before we left, we looked at the pattern, everything. But we had to go buy needles, and we remembered the needle size wrong. And as for swatching, who swatches for hats? Anyhoodle, the hat came out absolutely adorable, sized for probably a 12 year old, so I’ll mail it to my buddy in Kentucky for her girls. I think I want to add a pompom on top. Details: Cascade Heathers, size 10 needle, added in a pattern repeat and did the top differently.

Sock for kiffle! I love kiffle, she’s one of my dearest friends, and it seemed appropriate that she be given sockwear. She lives in New York City, where I swear it’s colder there than the temperature really says. (I say this from Chicago, where it’s a balmy 28F today, so obviously I don’t know what I’m talking about.) I am so happy with this sock, I can’t even tell you. It’s snug and warm, and I think the colorway is completely charming. I haven’t cast on for the second yet, but I will this weekend. I want to finish a couple of other projects first, and then socks-ahoy.

One of the projects is to rip out and redo the top of Chara’s hat, darnit. She says it’s too short. It’s SEAMED. What was I thinking? But, here’s what I’m thinking now. why can’t I pick up the stitches around the bottom and add a garter stitch border? Or a cable? Something to go around the bottom to add length without having to unseam and rip out and reseam. I honestly don’t know why I knit a flat hat, it’s just a ridiculous thing to do.

Moving on.

One of the projects I want to finish. It’s the rest of the rainbow sock, with afterthought heel. There’s a lot of needles. I decided that instead of waiting until the end to do the heel, I’d go ahead and knit it while I was mid-foot. Then I could try it on like usual to determine when to start the toe. An awesome idea. I’ll tell you this, though, after kiffle’s socks on the size 1s, these size 2s are huge and loose. I may be done with size 2 sock knitting for a good while. The picture’s a little out of date, in that I have actually finished the heel and my idea was, in fact, STELLAR.

Baby Surprise Jacket! So cute! Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, size 7 needles for a nice drapey fabric. Garter stitch is very stiff, I found, and I want something baby can snuggle up in. This is a fun project, once I figured out how to read the pattern (with internet help) and it was primarily knit in airports, planes, and El cars. Ah, transportation.

Today is a light one – knitting and possibly playing my geeky online game (ffxi ftw!), and meeting friends at an LYS later this afternoon. Tomorrow, more of the same, except less LYS. Then Monday, and my lovely four-day weekend is over, woe.

Yarn pictures! Also known as, ames takes TERRIBLE photographs, and really needs to practice more.

Cascade 220, solid and tweedy. This is destined to be a Center Square Hat from knitty, my very first colorwork project. I figure, if I can do the hat, Latvian mittens aren’t far behind, right?

omg, this is so blurry. I hereby promise to do better in the future. Trekking XXL No. 158, slated to be socks for my dear friend kiffle.

All of it. I didn’t take pictures of the white sock yarn because it’s, well, white sock yarn. Louet Gems, white, la la la. The pink ball is paired with another even paler pink that I couldn’t find when I was doing this (I am really the worst knit blogger in the world), but they’re going to be a Baby Surprise Sweater for a friend.

And in other photo fun:

The Sears Tower, as seen from my office window, last week. 5:45pm, or thereabouts.

So, I tripped and fell wallet-first into a yarn store last night. DO NOT JUDGE ME – I had store credit. :D I walked out with a skein of awesome sock yarn that may end up on someone else’s feet if I don’t like what’s happening with the current socks more than I do now. Did that make sense? Current sock project – not filling me with delight. New yarn – delight spilling over my edges. I also picked up two balls of pale pink and deep rose to make a baby sweater for Tera’s baby girl (and I need to get going on that – and will probably need more yarn argh), and two skeins of wool in coordinating purple shades for my first colorwork project ever. And two skeins of white sock yarn, because I’ve been kind of hankering to make fancy knee-length socks. You’ll see them when they’re done, two years from now. I am not a speedy knitter. Total expenditure? Less than $4. YAY STORE CREDIT.

Lordy, I have too many ongoing projects. It’s amazing I have needles left to start things with. (ha ha ha of course I buy new ones. there’s a reason I have three full sets of US2 needles.)

Pictures and an actual post of content coming soon. I’m futzing around with computers right now. Anyone know how to uninstall a graphics card that’s incorporated with the motherboard? Yeah, me neither. Hm.