Slick Knit

Secret Pal Package!

I received my first Secret Pal package yesterday, a book from my Amazon.com wishlist.  Is there anything cooler than getting random presents from strangers in the mail?  I think not.  Now I just have to find time to read!

Danica & the Amazing Technicolor Dream Scarf

Lookee!  I made a crazy-ass version of the Danica scarf from Knitty.com.  As soon as I saw the pattern I knew it would be perfect for using up all my scraps of Cascade 220 leftover from other projects.  The main plum color was from an unused skein I picked out when I bought too much yarn for my entrelec purse and could only get an exchange, no refund.  I liked the color and had no idea what I would do with just one skein of it.  Now it is a keeping my face warm in the polar winds of Ohio.  Woop!

I decided to use the plum as my main color and alternating rows of a Cascade 220 Quattro in pink/purple/green/blue and the heathered green as my alt color with random triangle/squares of the other scraps.  But I was majorly paranoid that I'd space them too far and have to cram all the scraps into the last few rows.  So I guessed at how many triangles and/or squares of each scrap color I could get, then figured out how many repeats of section 2 I wanted, drew the scarf, and used my niece's colored pencils to create a chart of the scarf before I started.  Then I had to lie down because I scared myself with the overplanning and OCDness of the whole thing.

When I started this scarf I wasn't sure the colors I had from different projects would work together but I think they do.  I think the 220 Quattro from my Clapotis helps tie them all together.  It really should be blocked, the bind off edge is all wonky, but it's cold and I want to wear it.  I feel very Single Girl in the City when I wear it even though Dayton barely qualifies as a city and other than the scarf pretty much every day I dress more like Single Girl Trapped in Lane Bryant - long sleeve vneck tshirt, jeans, Danskos.  I am boring but now I have my pretty, pretty scarf to fool people into thinking I am stylish and colorful.

In other project news, I started my first cable project - a cabled knit purse in Knitpicks Sierra.  It's basically the pattern nbenedick posted in this thread at the Knitty coffeehouse but I modified it slightly.  She started with a RS row and had three cable forwards on every 8th right side row.  For the life of me I couldn't get that to work out where the cables were evenly spaced within the 64 rows of the pattern.  After checking out some other cable patterns I reversed the pattern - started with a WS row - and did the cabling on Row 4 and then every 8th row after that.  Plus I switched the middle row to a cable back just to get practice doing both. 

I'm really digging the cabling.  I find the cable back much easier but all in all it's about as simple a technique as you could do.  I have yarn to make two pink, one cream and one black purse right now.  The plan is to sell them with the profits going to my friend Lisa's Avon Walk fund. 

I'm undecided on joining the Knitting Olympics.  I have some gorgeous Merino Stripes yarn that I bought to make the entrelac wrap shown on Knittique's web site and technically I haven't started yet.

(Oh, I took a picture.  Let's all oooh and ahhhh at the pretty yarn.  Plus a bonus look at my girly flowery sheets.)  The pattern doesn't give a gauge, just two recommended needle sizes and a finished size.  I started on the smaller and didn't even get a row in before I frogged it and put it aside.  I really don't like knitting fuzzy yarn but I love the way it looks when it's done.  But starting and finishing it within the time period of the challenge will really be a challenge.  I'm working a second job most nights until after 9pm so I really only get to knit on Tuesday nights and weekends so the cabled purses and the socks I knit when I need a break from the purses would all have to be ignored for two weeks.  That would be sad for them, don't you think?  Then I'd have neglected, depressed yarn hanging out in my bedroom, blasting Alanis and Jewell and begging for my attention.  That can't end well, can it?

Wrist Warmers

I asked a co-worker to take a picture of these for me because my camera is AWOL.  I had no idea my arms would look so dorky like that.  Pretend my arms are cool.

I managed to finish my sister's Voodoo Wrist Warmers just in time for Christmas.  We were supposed to eat at 6pm Christmas Eve then open presents after.  I finished at 5:47pm and got to my parents about 6:30. 

I used Karokee for these and they are so soft.  The half inch near the elbows is 2x2 rib and then I said, "FUCK this" because I hate ribbing and switched to 3x1.  That bottom part poofs out a little and I wish I'd done them all 3x1.  The other thing that irks me is on the first one the pink section isn't solid pink, it's mottled with blues.  None of the pink in the rest of that skein or the entire second skein (and I unwrapped them both completely) was like that.  I was already up to the pink section of the second one when I discovered it so there wasn't much I could do.

The best reaction so far was from a girl my sister and I both work with at our nighttime job.  She asked me how much I would charge for a pair and then ordered just one.  Apparently her right hand gets cold at work when she uses the mouse so she only needs one and doesn't want to waste her money.  I found it hard to argue with the crazy girl logic.

Right now I'm working on the Danica scarf. But instead of two colors with a few random different squares I'm matching this as a scrap buster.  I'm using leftover Cascade 220 and 220 Quatro from various projects to make a random color project, like Joseph's mother and the patchwork cloak.  It's an Amazing Technicolor Dream Scarf!  But I want to make sure my scraps weren't all bunched together at the end or the beginning so first I made a crazy, full color chart to space them out.  I planned my randomness.  I think that might be a sign of mental instability.  I should finish it this weekend or next at the latest, pictures to come as soon as a find my camera.