irish moss

yesterday we ordered yarn for a sweater for chuck. yay!! somehow once i order yarn and know it's on the way, i want it yesterday. but i'm glad we had a little extra for that. also ordered a couple books at knitpicks' 40% off sale: mason-dixon knitting and favorite socks. yay and double yay! the favorite socks was in my stash (otherwise known as cart on non-knitting sites), and went out of stock over the weekend. but just as i was checking out it became available! i figured it was a sign too good to be ignored. mason-dixon is a book less about patterns and more about experimenting, which is what i like about it. there are some cool patterns in there too, but they focus on how i can change it. i hate the very static patterns, that focus on one very expensive brand name yarn, with sizes for anorexic models and not real people like me. the sock book has cool patterns from interweave knits magazine, and i've been drooling over it for at least 6 months. so aside from the socks, there's some linen hand towels i want to make from mason-dixon. too bad 100% linen yarn costs $20 for 100 g.

but anyway, the sweater is from aran knitting by alice starmore, called irish moss. lots of fine cables/plaits, so it's nice enough chuck can wear it to work too. for some reason whenever we talked about what kind of sweater he would like, he thinks first about what he would wear to work. so maybe once we've got that out of the way, he'll get more ventursome. i'm glad we like the same type of elaborate cabled sweaters though, cuz it'll be fun to knit this.

the real disappointment is that aran knitting is out of print. *sigh* what a travesty. although if i was rich, i could buy it for $200 on amazon i don't like it that much. it starts out with a history of aran knitting, then explores the different patterns used in traditional aran sweaters and various permutations of them. so again, it's more of a primer to learn from and make my own stuff, although it does have some very nice sweaters in it too. that's where my lazy side shows up i guess, because i have lots of ideas for things but it's easier to find a pattern by someone elseso i don't have to do the math. small things like socks and scarves or shawls (although not complicated lace triangle ones) i don't mind doing, cuz the math is pretty easy, but i haven't planned my own sweater yet. someday.

speaking of math, i got some patterns picked out for the mystery present. some hints: it has pockets and plaits. the final choice of which braids to use hasn't been made yet, but i kind of want to pick the yarn first to finalize the gauge first so i know how many stitches i have. the other math problem i have is with a silk camisole pattern from last minute knitted gifts by joelle haverson. i need to add about an inch, and it has plain stockinette at the sides so i figured i could just sneak them in there. but after messing with the math for a bit, and then casting on, the pattern didn't come out how it should. so i went back to the math board last night and haven't quite figured out the problem yet. the lace border is simple, and i noticed the smallest size 28 (and please, who do you know that's a 28? not size but measured around the bust? i always felt like a giant but things that make it worse) only shifted 1 stitch for the wavy lace and all other sizes shift 2. so maybe i'll just take the total stitches and figure out how many reps i can do with 1 stitch shift. i still haven't figured out why my 2 rounds didn't come out right, they did on paper.

on the positive side, i wove in the rest of the ends on fjörgyn, my viking knits sweater. and i took out the button band. i decided to wait until i find the buttons i want for it to do the button band over, so the button holes match the buttons better. now that the long trailing yarn ends are gone from the sleeve i can wear it in public. yay!! i've been wearing it at home, specially these cold rainy days. we went to the lys saturday, inua wool, because they were having a sale. what can i say, i'm from a scottish puritan background. they have nice yarns, but they're the expensive designer kind, and knitpicks has equal quality for less. we did buy the fjörgyn yarn there, it's even the kind the pattern specifies! (it was chuck's christmas present and he made me splurge). but anyway, i wanted to check out their buttons, since i remembered some cool interwoven knot buttons. alas, they didn't have the ones i remembered. but chuck did get me 2 skeins of reynolds whiskey on sale, that match cathy's scarf. there's about half a skein in my stash, so it may be enough for another surprise present.....hmmmm. and the sock yarn was 25% off, so we got a skein each for a pair of socks. sock yarn is hard to resist because they're so practical, and use so much less yarn, and it's easier to justify buying "just one skein". ah me.

knitting daily had a comment today, from an older lady asking for more challenging projects, and saying the blog seemed to be aimed at young, new knitters. i agree that it seems to be mostly basic knitting, and definitely the people posting are asking very basic questions. but maybe the experienced people aren't posting. i don't (not that i'm superknitter or anything). but people ask super easy questions, and then get 25 answers saying the same thing. like they couldn't read the first answer that said to use thread and say i agree with that instead of writing it all out again. but whatever. it's a cool site, run by interweave knits, and has their free patterns. they have some posted especially for the blog, but none of them have appealed to me yet. except possibly a shawl in faroese style, with shoulder hsaping so it supposedly doesn't move. now that sounds cool. there's lots of cool lacy shawl patterns out there, but i don't want to have to keep pulling it up and re-adjusting it. the pattern they gave for it is rather simple, but i'm thinking of doing it as a sample to learn the shoulder shaping bit and then use a lace pattern of my choice. maybe reading the pattern through will give me the lesson, but doing something usually gives me a better idea of how to apply it.

so.........knit-wise, i'm waiting on that irish moss yarn, figuring out what's wrong with that silk cami (it was supposed to be a mindless project *sigh*), finishing designing the mystery present and binding off one other project that i finished the knitting on a while ago what can i say i'm a bad finisher.