Pardon me -- your 1337 isn't showing.

I finished knitting the torso of the Noro and alpaca top-down raglan cardi. I'm super-pleased with it so far. The fit is just right -- yay, Laura, for an excellent pattern! I took pictures of it this morning. Normally, it takes me a little time to sit down, download the pics from the camera, fuss with them in Photoshop to get them color-corrected (that's why you often see a grey card in my pictures - that's a Neutral Gray 5 card). Things might take a leeeetle bit longer this time:

My lappy says something like this:


Actually, my particular BSOD tells me that it has something to do with the memory. I ran diagnostics and my lappy failed March A, March B, March X, and March Y tests. I don't know enough about computers to know exactly what this means, but past experience tells me that this probably isn't good for the files I haven't backed up.

Alternatively, I can pop out the keyboard and start jabbing at my computer's innards with a #17 straight needle and see what happens.

I went into Eleganza yesterday because, despite my calculations that ensured perfect fit, I messed up the yarn requirements for my Top-Down Raglan Cardi. I need more Noro Silk Garden #47 (yarndex closeup), lot P. I was hoping that Kristi might have a ball or two leftover, but no such luck. I looked for another yarn that I could use as a substitute, but no luck with that, either. I checked Ravelry stashes but no one had any listed for sale/trade. So last night I bought two skeins of #47, lot V on Ebay. Even if the dye lots are not exactly right, I am confident that I'll be able to tweak them to make them work.

My main tweak so far for this sweater: I took the remnants of my last skein of #47 and divided them into sections by color. There were 5 distinct color changes in all. I then cut each color section exactly in half and wound each piece into a little ball, so I have 2 equal sets of 5 colors in little bitty balls. This way, I can knit each sleeve with one set, so the sleeves have the same colors/equal stripes.

While I didn't get what I originally wanted, my trip to Eleganza was not entirely without success. I bought a bag full of yarn to make another top-down raglan cardi:

• 3 sk Noro Silk Garden #226 (grey - blue - purple) (yarndex link)
  
• 1 sk Manos Wool #04 (turquoise) (yarndex link)
• 1 sk Cascade Lana d'Oro 1066 (blueberry)
  
• 1 sk Cascade Lana d'Oro 1069 (purple)
  
• 2 sk Noro Cash Iroha #108 (chocolate brown)
  

Arrrgh, I want so badly to show you guys pictures of these yarns together! I'm very excited to play with them and make them into a jewel-toned sweater! Here's a quick collage to show you roughly what they look like together, until I can get a proper picture:



The Silk Garden #226 has little bits of the robin's egg blue in it (picked up by the Manos #04), along with a larger portion of blues that go beautifully with the Lana D'Oro #1066. The Cash Iroha (background of the picture) picks up the deep chocolate/coffee colors in the Silk Garden.

That's all for now; keep your fingers crossed that I'll either get the lappy sorted out or rig up another computer for transferring/editing my pictures.