flip-flop weather

well, it's gotten hot fast here in southern california!  i am no longer interested in holding a hot blanket in my lap in the sun at little league games or swim practice.  i need a new outdoor project, one that would qualify as "stoplight knitting", or knitting i can do without paying much attention.

enter the flip-flop sock (ravlink)! 

i cast on yesterday with some frogged project sock yarn, sensations bamboo and ewe from joanns.  it is very soft, but bit splitty to work with.  the socks are knit from the toe(s) up, as you can see, and start with the interesting turkish cast-on.  it is always fun to learn a new technique!

i am still working away on my hip to be square quilt!  indoors only ツ

pretty in pashmina

i started another project.   as though i needed to start another project.  this one i wanted to do as soon as i saw it at purl bee.  but i did not want it to be quite so big and heavy, so i bought some beautiful madeline tosh pashmina in an incredible denim blue (the photos do not do the color justice), and cast on.

i cast on 300 stitches, instead of the recommended 220, using a 31" size 11 circular, and started this herringbone stitch.  it's a bit slippery and fiddly, but it's really easy, and this loopy scarf is coming out fantastic!  it's easy enough that it qualifies as stoplight knitting, meaning it has some hope of actually being finished.  i want it to be about 8" wide -- now it's just 2" and i have 3 oz. of yarn left.  i may have to invest in some more.

this stitch is so elegant and dignified.  i love it!

i can see the snow...

... while running errands around town.  i know it's not very impressive to those living in the far north, but it is a lovely way for mother nature to decorate our view here!

i have slurped the following picture from this ravelry pattern.

thinking about crocheting this rug is the closest i've been to a snowflake lately.  isn't it a fun pattern?  i may have to do this...

ETA -- here is the link to the blog with the pattern for this snowflake.

ps -- thank you for your comments about the shamrocks -- they really are darling in real life ツ

because starting a new project makes me feel good

i had noticed this lace scarf knit-along in november, and dismissed it as impossible.  but i needed a bit of a boost the other day, and impulsively jumped in 5 days late.  it's a project that has some features i've been wanting to try, nupps and beads, specifically.  i started up on monday, and tried to knit charted lace with medium to dark-colored laceweight yarn on size 2 needles in the car in the dark during swim practice, and guess what happened.  so i'm back-tracking, retrieving the lost yarn-over and losing time, but i love the yarn and the project.  and i look forward to quiet afternoons with a small glass of dry sack by the fire, knitting.  ahahahahaha! 

picture from lollygirl.com

i shall take a picture of the advent scarf as soon as i have more than one inch of fabric to show you.

oh how i love my time in baja

so here's a copy of a little video i made and posted last year.  it was taken with my cell phone's limited video feature, so quality isn't great, but i LOVE how the music goes with the kite's rise and fall.

i should be grocery shopping and packing bathing suits, but i'm thinking about knitting. what should i bring? i like knitting cotton down there, because it can be a little warm, sticky and sandy for wool projects. i'm bored with my current projects, even my "must.finish.this.soon" projects i'd like to have in place for workshop samples. i want to buy new yarn. there. i've said it. like i don't have enough.

OH wait -- i just had an idea! i have some cotton that's been sitting around forever halfway knit into a sweater for my daughter. it was not coming together so i finally frogged it. i saw this scarf on ravelry. it's exactly the same as the multi-directional scarf i just finished, only with 1x1 ribbing instead of seed stitch or garter. it would be awesome with different colored snakey triangles in hot pink, sunshine yellow and bright turquoise!

thanks for the chat. that really helped!  ツ

the grocery shopping and the packing will commence, right after i take these pictures...see you next week!

my name is elise...

... and i am a start-aholic.

look how many wip's i have on ravelry.  and those are just the ones i have documented there.  as i was putting my sparkly wrap up as a project, i took a look at my page.


oh boy.

ETA:  i finally added the wip ravelry progress bars to my sidebar.  will that shame me into finishing at least one of these before i start another?  doubtful.

a sparkly notion

i have this really pretty black sock weight yarn.  it's spun from merino wool, silk, and (imagine!) sterling silver.  i intended to use it to make myself some opera-length, black fingerless gloves with a lace panel from elbow to knuckle.  they were going to be really pretty -- a way to both bring back gloves AND show off a manicure.

however.

i got sidetracked, and decided i needed a simple wrap to wear to an up-coming event.  and that yarn was beckoning.  i've been inspired by the look of the citron wrap everyone's making, particularly the ruching divided by some structure.  i wanted something lacy, but not too; structured, but not too; easy, but not too.  i experimented with 4 different simple laces and decided upon the 2 i'm using.*  the really fun part of this wrap is that the structure comes from columns of tunisian crochet worked every 16 rows.  it was actually pure laziness that led me to this.  i did not want to perform the calculations necessary to reduce the gauge, and even if i just grabbed a smaller needle and started knitting, i did not want to knit a million little stitches and 50-11 little rows.  hence, tunisian-supplied gathers.

this is a tricky fabric to capture with a camera in daylight.  but here you can kind of see the sterling silver sparkles.  they look like dust.  (click for biggie-smallness)

i am not naturally drawn toward sparkles/glitter/sequins/look-at-me stuff.  but this is very subtle, very restrained, very take-a-second-look-if-you'd-like-but-no-pressure.  i am nervous about not liking it once it's done.  but it's been a really fun experiment, combining the techniques of knitting and tunisian.

wouldn't those fingerless gloves look great with this?

_________

*why 2 different laces?  i wanted the edges to be bigger and rufflier than the middle panels, which i wanted to have as straight lines to complement the really square nature of the tunisian stitches.  moderate method to the madness.

or maybe i got bored...