arctic gold round my neck

arctic gold aka qiviut or muskox fiber, spun up into fine, very soft and very warm yarn. most qiviut is fingering weight yarn yet can be knit into lace and retain its warmth. when i first moved to alaska it cost $70 for a 50g skein. these days it goes for $90 as more people (and tourists) have learned about it and demand has gone up. a couple years ago i scored a reduced price skein at our local group's destash. it's actually a 50/50 blend of silk and qiviut that costs less than pure qiviut. if you know how expensive silk is, that might put it into perspective.

anyway, the silk adds drape, sheen and, well, silkiness to the qiviut. it felt wonderful to knit with and literally kept my fingers warm while i was knitting! small projects are common with qiviut, to make use of every last inch of yarn. i went with a neckwarmer as scarves have never been a hit with me. my neck does get cold, of course, so hopefully this neckwarmer will do the job.

the pattern uses a sideways version of feather and fan, which we all know i'm a sucker for. it's a free pattern meant for qiviut, although a different brand with more yardage than what i had. i made some adjustments to the pattern to accommodate the difference in yardage, which turned out to be unnecessary, and so i can tell you on good authority that qiviut/silk frogs very well and can be reused with no problems. in the end, i followed the pattern as written (gasp!) with fewer repeats and ended with just enough yarn to weave in my ends.

the feather and fan was fun to knit, no surprise there. the neckwarmer pools into a cuddle of silky warmth on my neck. since the folds hide the pattern, and the inside shows, i may end up wearing it inside out, just to see if anyone notices.

i've worn it indoors and outdoors a few times, but have yet to try the -20F/-30C half hour walk test. due to the drape, it doesn't really cover my whole neck and it won't stay hooked over my nose, so i don't know if it will work the whole winter. it definitely can be worn in a chilly house or for extra coziness. i'm glad to finally put the qiviut to use. now it won't stare at me from the shelf and my neck will be warmer!

reflections on the black hole that was february

today's temperature of 40F was a pleasant reflection of the -40F weather we had about a month ago. comparison does make all the difference - those 80 degrees makes +40F feel like short weather.

february was a long, busy, boring month that somehow went by really fast in retrospect. i stayed home a couple days when the temp hit -47F (it sounds impressive but after -20F you can't feel the changes in the cold except by noticing how fast you lose feeling in the extremities), and even got a bunch of knitting in and took pictures of it.

although somehow actually getting the pictures up never happened. *sigh*

remember the 3F shawl? that i ran out of yarn on? at the end of 3 skeins it was still just an inch or two shy of elbow length. arg. and then i went for more yarn, and they actually were sold out of that color. is that allowed? so they put it on order for me. the break was probably a good thing, cuz the shawl and me were getting tired of each other.

while i was at the store, i wandered around a bit (of course). the owner must have had an epiphany because there was all kinds of new yarns in there. louet gems, koigu, noro, more solid color sock yarn (yay!), and mirasol, the very yarn i was drooling over in anchorage a while ago. there's a hat i've been wanting to make, and chuck said i could get some mirasol sulka for it. so i was just waiting and waiting for that baby ull to come in. which it did last week.and that's the hat yarn. black, with some blue highlights, and super soft. hopefully it doesn't pill awfully. amazingly enough, the baby ull colors are a perfect match again. i can't believe i'm on my third dye lot and there's no color change line in the shawl. although i didn't actually start working on the shawl again yet, so i might still be surprised. but so far i've got to say that baby ull is the yarn to run out of.

some other things have been distracting me. lots of frogging, a couple (relatively) quick projects, and life.

i frogged the anastacia sock i had started. then the wound was too fresh to cast on right away, so i started an irish moss sleeve instead. sleeve rows go way faster than front and back rows. although i haven't worked on it for a couple weeks now, so who knows if chuck's sweater will be done before the snow melts. luckily here i've still got till april. maybe may.

the half clessidra i had got frogged too. the pattern got too fiddly with the yarn i substituted, but i will try again sometime with normal sock yarn (and thus no fiddliness). and i've been pondering the silk cami tent i made last summer with knitpicks shine. . . . .lovely yarn, nice drape. . . .i think it would make awesome curtains :)

there's a candlelight lace pattern in barbara walker i've been wanting to try, which would be a good match with the yarn for our bedroom windows. i'm not totally decided yet, but chuck won't let us go curtainless in the bedroom cuz he can't sleep in the summer for the light. but all we've got are the super-fugly 70s curtains we inherited with the house. if i gotta have curtains, i might as well have fun with it.

one of the life distractions was the yearly Air Force awards dinner, a banker affair. i don't mind the banker affairs so much except for dressing up. but even with a skirt on i was underdressed there - the people not in uniform were decked out in prom dresses. so everyone's all fancy fancy, and then they start calling out the award winners.

suddenly i was re-living a high school assembly. the cheers were an odd contrast to the otherwise high tone of the evening. my very favorite moment was when both of the two MCs used the phrase "best of the best." MIB anyone? i would have laughed out loud except everyone was so serious so serious for that part. i love how will smith mocks the military guy at the beginning of men in black, i would watch the whole movie just for that one scene.

speaking of watching movies for one little thing, we went and watched national treasure 2 just so i could see riley. darned if i know the actor-dude's name, but i love his character. he makes watching nicolas cage bearable. he's smart, hot, and funny - if i wasn't married to chuck i'd go hunt him down and marry him. just like that. seriously.

and (spoiler) why oh why did they have mayan gold in the dakotas? the mayans didn't even get into texas. my archaeology self wouldn't let me enjoy the end of the movie with the ridiculous hordes of clearly mayan artifacts thousands of miles away from their natural habitat. at least in the first national treasure they explained how the templar treasure made its way to america. ajajaj. it was too implausible, even for the movies. lesson: you just can't trust hollywood.

between work (very busy and very dull, but still not as bad as subbing) and life i really haven't got much knitting time in. it's a horrible bummer, my fingers itch to do it and it just seems wrong not to knit in the dead of winter (february always feels like the dead of winter). while i added an inch here and an inch there, i was dreaming of the next project. awful, isn't it?

tahoe is already up next for sweater project, once chuck's sweater is done (and i finish that turtleneck, but i always manage to gloss over that bit when i dream). my delaying strategy is wearing thin though. the yarn is all picked out for it, the persian violet incense at elann.com. i was waiting for the checkbook to say i could buy it, but chuck got our tax return done already, so the checkbook's given the go-ahead. i'm trying to hold off, cuz once the yarn is in the house it'll be much harder to resisit casting on. if all my knit thoughts added inches, all sorts of things would be done already.

one project that's made it through the black knitting hole of february was the dark mark scarf for sara (the second project is blocking as we speak). it's been so long since i made a scarf, i forgot how fast they go.first time illusion knitting, and i love it. way easy, even with following charts, and i love seeing the pattern emerge. i almost wish i wore scarves, i'd keep this one for myself. but sara will give it more love than me, so it'll be heading off to her this week. the back is almost as cool as the fronti (accidentally) knit an extra inch between charts, and left off the fringe, with very little yarn left over. the pattern almost exactly uses both skeins, especially if you have fringe, and still makes a decent length scarf.doesn't chuck look cute in it? i call that his scary joker face.

and as long as we're on harry potter topics, if you're not sure which camp to join, why not this one?not sure if it's pointed at a specific candidate, but it made me laugh. why can't i ever find the stores that are selling these things???

vacation crumbs

the candy bar's all gone, but there's still some crumbs left. small crumbs. honest.

our last full day in MA, we squeezed in a yarn store trip. finally. my idea of vacation is finding yarn shops and checking them out. unfortunately, that's not chuck's idea of vacation. after possibly some pouting on my part, we went to webs. chuck was suitably impressed by the size of the store - until a worker reminded us to "not forget the warehouse."

chuck's jaw might have dropped. he might have broken out into a sweat, thinking of how the checkbook would yell at us if he let me loose in a yarn warehouse. then again, maybe not, since he practically forced me to pick some yarn before leaving the store. seriously, he gets this "you will buy something for yourself while we are here" glare in his eye. he spoils me rotten.

we ended up with sock yarn for me (left), and some for chuck (right). they had all kinds of luscious yarns, but alas, i'm the kind of girl that forgets to bring all the details for the sweater(s) i want to make. and doesn't dare guess on the quantity, cuz i just know i'll run out. *sigh* we got some yarn for sara's dark mark scarf though,

that i'll be making her for christmas. after the fact, obviously. notice that i actually got the yarn specified in the pattern, please. aren't i a good girl?

since i finished up the christmas knitting, i've been swamped with ideas mulitplying faster than rabbits - and definitely faster then i can knit them. i don't really do new year's resolutions, since i make goals as i trash achieve them, but finishing up a bunch of projects around the same time made me kind of reflective.

i've really got the sweater bug. socks are good (portable, fast, mostly mindless and inexpensive) but i'm just itching to make sweaters. my normal knitting habit is to have a couple smaller projects, and one large (ie sweater-like) project going at the same time. in an attempt to quell the sweater bug yet not freak out the checkbook (it's kind of touchy this time of year), i came up with a plan. simple, brilliant, time tested. rather than splurging on 1-2 skeins (usually sock yarn) cuz i feel like i can afford it, save up for the sweater yarn. and knit from the sock yarn stash (since i won't be splurging on the sock yarn).

my stash is not very big at all - it covers maybe two bookshelves - but it's starting to bother me in the anal organizational sort of way. it just sits there. that we cannot have. some of it is sock yarn, which will obviously become socks, but there's a couple skeins of random yarn. i'm sure i had something in mind when i purchased it, but it's long gone now. so i've got to figure out some small projects to use them up. which is not the easiest thing in the world when all i hear is sweaters calling my name.

along those lines, temptations like ravelry and knitty have been luring me with loads of free patterns to neglect the knitting books that i actually have. in my ravelry library, where you can see what books you've used, i think i've only used 2 books that i own. gulp. why am i ignoring them? so i'd like to knit at least one thing from each book i own. to justify buying them and all.

that was as far as my reflections took me. simple plan: knit from stash, knit from books, only buy sweater yarn. it sounds good, don't you think? i hope it works.

in the meantime, i'm working on what's on the needles already. mostly. the priority list keeps playing musical chairs. the FFF shawl should have been done weeks ago, so that's at the top. i may have only half a skein left to knit. if it behaves itself. once that's done, i'll start sara's dark mark. last sunday i cast on a pair of socks,anastacia, in the lovely new yarn from webs. it looks a bit dark here, but that's what it looks like in real life too.

my plan is already set in motion, using a pattern booklet i bought last year (reynolds #82390), with some stash yarn (knitpicks telemark), and a 3mm needle (i figured with the rest of the details i might as well throw in the needle and look like i know what i'm talking about), i cast on for thisnot the actual hat, since hats are too hot, but a headband, cuz my ears still freeze, using the main snowflake pattern from the brim. i figured it was just wide enough. and small enough to try out color stranding - and use up some of those random stash skeins. you know what? it's not so bad. i did knit a couple rows before remembering i could use one color per hand. duh. when i sneak in a row or two, i even like it. who knew?

and the project left without a seat is: chuck's sweater. all i need to do is make some sleeves, but this FFF(ing) shawl past its deadline is pushing it out of the lineup. not to mention the other projects pushed on the backburner for When I Have More Time To Think About Them - and really, when will that be? they're part of the plan too, finish finish finish. so they won't be hanging around, clogging up my sidebar, and besides, i get more knitwar points if i finish them too.

that wasn't too bad for finishing up the last morsels from vacation, now was it?

except for two, itty bitty more things.

i had brought a couple recipes with me to my mom's, just in case i was asked to cook. and i really noticed for the first time that some foods chuck and i eat regularly, my family had never eaten. like jambalya (which adam made very well) and anything curry.

i had a leftover food dream from my mission in sweden that i finally fulfilled - banana curry pizza. sounds really gross, but it's sooooo good. mostly going off memory, i took a basic curry sauce recipe, threw in mushrooms, chicken, and banana and put it on a pizza crust. there was only one hitch: i forgot i was using my mother's measuring cups, which are english. while the recipe was metric. oops. no wonder the sauce was more watery than normal. but still good. my mom even liked it.

and, last of all, next time i buy a house, i'm buying one with stairs. my mom had us in the attic room, so we were up and down 2 flights of stairs all day. oj. my thighs may have been feeling it for the first couple days.