Author: Nikol

Yarn: 2 balls Schulana Morbido + 2 balls Plymouth Baby Alpaca Brush
Pattern: Evening Shell from Twinkle’s Big City Knits
Size: M

After the week-long gluttony of my cruise, I’m feeling a little thick for this. But in my imaginary world of make-believe, where I’m back at my goal weight, it’s freakin adorable. And even now, I think it’s pretty cute. Way too hot for the current weather, but cute when it cools off. I think it might actually be toasty enough to wear with just a scarf in the fall (no jacket).

A very fast and easy knit. There were 2 strange things about the pattern for me. First, in the cable pattern, the WS rows are written as if you were working flat, but the pattern is knit in the round–so when it says to purl, you’d actually knit. If you’re used to cabling in the round, you might not even notice (I didn’t the first time I knit it), but if you’re not, it might throw you. And on the armholes, after you cast off & have that live stitch, the numbers it gives you to knit forward are actually for the total number of stitches you’ll need. So you have one live stitch already on your needle from the BO & it tells you to work 5 st, when in fact you just work 4 for a total of 5 st. I don’t know whether that’s just a writing convention I never noticed before, an actual mistake.

That aside, it’s an easy peasy pattern. I actually knit it twice, once with a very stupid combination of yarns (at gauge, but stupidly dense and bulky–don’t ask me what I was thinking). Then I frogged the whole mess, unravalled the giant uberballs (3 yarns held together), rewound into smaller uberballs (unterballs? just plain balls?) with just 2 strands, and reknit. Much, much improved.

I think the key to substituting on these bulky knits is to keep the work fairly loose–so gauge, but with a really relaxed fabric, to keep it from looking like a macrame plant hanger.

I might make the longer version (same, I think, but w/ 3 cable repeats) next time, and I’d definitely go with a solid. I think my 2-color fights the cables more than I’d like.

I’m about to leave for vacation, so I can’t list them yet, but I just spent the last 2 days counteracting the fabulous massage I got on Monday by cranking away at the old carder to produce these honeys:

I’m leaving around 4am for almost 2 weeks aboard the Marco Polo with Kristi on a little something called Treasures of Germany and the Baltic II. The “II” part is just because it’s the 2nd one of the summer, not a sequel to our original Treasures of Germany and the Baltic. Sweden, Latvia, Estonia, Germany & Denmark. Of those, I’ve only been to Denmark and Germany, and Denmark was only for the music festival at Roskilde, and last time I was in Germany, I was probably 12, not a prime appreciation age. While cruising isn’t the most authentic way to travel, it is the easiest, and in our case (mom’s an airline employee and gets supercheap remainder rooms on cruises), the cheapest. And I love spreading out in our little cabin and visiting a bunch of different cities without having to pack up my gear and drag it around in between. And since you don’t have to schlep all you crap around, shopping’s only limited to what you can check or ship home.

If anyone has any can’t miss fiber (or non-fiber, of course) recommendations for Stockholm, Riga, Saaremaa, Gdansk, Berlin, or Copenhagen, tell me now!

Now I just have to figure out what knitting I’m bringing along. I’ve got a bunch of bulky shit going right now, and I’m not dragging that with me. I need to figure out a few small little things instead.

Oh, and I just received my fiber washing bag from Ozark Delights and it’s freaking genius. I’d highly recommend it to anyone washing a lot of fiber. The mesh is a bit finer than I’d like, so I might make another one for coarser, more VM-y fibers, but this should be outstanding for all my alpaca, and especially for machine felting. It will be really easy to make, but I don’t want to give the design away, because you should buy one! It’s such a clever notion, she should be rewarded for it.

I really love that Potter Craft put out my book, because they publish some of the rockinest knit books. I’m constantly feeling like an inadequate middle child when I see their new release lists. But on the upside, if I ask nice, they give them to me! Presents! Yesterday, I got Twinkle’s Big City Knits. And it’s yum. It’s an instant-gratification whore’s wet dream. It’s pretty much all bulkies, but they’re nice and tailored instead of looking like huge lumpy sacks of potatoes. Do you remember that VK designer issue the year before last I think, the one with the striped reverse-stockinette uber-turtleneck number on the cover? That’s her. I can tell right off some of the stuff will not work on my thicker frame (Wenlan’s a fashion designer way more than a knitwear designer, so like all fashion, her stuff favors lithe 8-foot dolls who glide around on their impossibly long legs), but there are also several designs that I can tell right off will look good on my non-runway body. Yay! I’m due for a little break in work knitting and want something fast and satisfying.

I’m starting with the Magic Shawl (random images from flickr):

But I didn’t have an appropriate bulky, so I built 2 uberballs out of 3 worsted-to-chunky yarns each:

I’m casting on after dinner, but I swatched before I wound them up & like the way they knit as one. Reminds me of a more textured MarLa. Normally I wouldn’t go around mixing orange reds and blue reds, but the common strand of Baby Alpaca Brush (fuzzy left strand in both groups) makes them look surprisingly good together. So my plan is to skip the fringe (I like the fringe, and that’s actually the “magic” part of the pattern, but a chunky single fringe looks cool, whereas, three skinny fringes will look like a rug chewed by a puppy), work the body of the sweater in the orange reds, and work the ribbing in the blue reds. Will it work? Who knows? Will I have enough yarn? What do I look like, an engineer? Let’s hope so. (Not that I look like an engineer; that I have enough yarn.)

Last night, when I started looking through the book (which, by the way, has a mix of glossy and flat pages that I really admire. I want to write another book just to have it printed on flat paper!), I couldn’t pick a pattern to go with my stash (I’m only one strike away from being booted off the stashalong, so I’m being good), and I hadn’t yet hit on the notion of uberballs or skipping the fringe, but I was all amped up to knit something bulky. I thought about that great Loop-d-Loop leafy sweater, but I really like that as a green sweater, so I started a chunky cardigan with some Patons Bella I had:

The leafy edge is big fold-over collar, and the live end is the middle of the raglan shoulders. The leaf pattern is from an old afghan booklet I found. I plan to add a few random leaves near the bottom, a leafy edge, and mabe some big fold-over leaf cuffs? I wish I’d knit a couple rows of ribbing before starting the leaves. Maybe I’ll tear it back and start over. I really think I’d prefer it that way, and it’s only a night’s worth of work.

Raglan shoulders with the undersie of the collar.

Hm. I probaby will tear it back. Dammit. Fools rush in.

I’m off to go make some scrumpy coconut soup for dinner. Yum.

Another variation for my Hat Menagerie class (Chicago–I’ll be teaching it at the KC & Minneapolis expos, too).

I believe I’m going to add a curly faux beard to the baby version. Who doesn’t love bearded babies!?

The dress plan worked. Not mind-blowing or anything, but comfortable, cool & a quick sew. I’m going to make another with the changes I’d like & I’ll make a tutorial for it. Gosh, I look almost trim here. The dress isn’t amazingly flattering; it’s jut a lucky picture.

I don’t see why I can’t just take two big rectangles and case the top and then case again about 8 inches down and put elastic in the casing for a cute little strapless empire waist sundress. It can’t be any less flattering than the smocked-top strapless dresses everyone is selling that make absolutely everyone look dumpy. I’ll have to try that tomorrow.

I made two new hats for the Hat Menagerie class I’m teaching: lamby and gnome! The gnome is still wet, but I’ll model it when it’s dry. I think I might end up fulling it a little for body. Meantime, lambykin, hellacreepy on the disembodied doll baby head:

It seems a little strange to lay out $25 for a bunch of wires, some T pins, and a yardstick, but dude! These totally rock! They’re amazing. There’s no way I could get an edge like this with pins. If I’d known how brilliant these would be, I’d’ve taken some before pictures of this edge, because it was HIDEOUS!

This is Kelly Sue’s nursing shawl, which I had to temporarily ungift from her because I didn’t have time to block it before the shower.

The Kansas City Star did a brief writeup of the show with video, so you can see a few pieces in action!

I forgot to correct the author at the show. They keep saying I’m from Lawrence….