Happy Late Belated Monday!

Hurrah! I have successfully rigged up a substitute computer for processing photos! We can now celebrate the Monday update only a few days late.

Update on Thing One and Thing Two... it is with a heavy heart that Coco and Bella have gone to a new home. I was about to write "Coco and Bella have gone to a better place," which is technically true, but then my friends would look at me suspiciously every time I wore my white fur hat.

No, it turns out that while I was sad to see them go, my allergies were not -- in fact, my sinuses decided to throw a party and stay open 24/7 to celebrate the cats' departure. Mom held out for a while... until she discovered that she was allergic to the kittens, too. We had no idea what to do with them -- they were rescue cats, so I couldn't very well haul them off to the pound.

I could not live with them. Mom could not live with them. Mom's housekeeper, whose beloved cat died many years ago, thought they were precious.

They are now clawing their way through my mother's housekeeper's furniture, clinging to her screened-in porch and running madly around her living room in the middle of the night, much to the delight of all. Coco and Bella are thriving; Mom's housekeeper loves them; Mom's housekeeper's home is under constant threat of imminent shredding. All's well that ends well; thanks be to God; God Save the Queen; Knees Up Mother Brown, Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Speaking of Monty Python, here's my sweater so far:

I could not be more pleased with how the torso turned out. It fits perfectly. Brava, Ms Chau, for an excellent pattern.

view from back

Now with 50% More Sleeve Action!

The lesson I have learned is to only adopt pets to which I am definitely not allergic. Fortunately, I am not allergic to alpacas. I learned a few days ago that there are rescue alpacas available for adopting, not thirty miles from where I live...

To be continued.

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.

Show and Tell

It's Monday, and that means it's Show and Tell Day here at courtneyknits!

First up, the Simple Yet Effective Shawl by Laura Chau.





The name says it all. Knit in alternating sections of garter and stockinette stitch, with stitch markers to remind me where the YOs go. Mindless knitting at its best. I plowed through this thing last night while watching the Redskins game. Towards the end of the game, which was so totally exciting, I found myself knitting with my eyes closed. Turns out that's a pretty effective way to get some rest without actually falling asleep. The knitting was just enough to keep me marginally awake -- this is important when you're at someone else's house and snoring might not be the best way to show you're having a good time.

Speaking of good times, I knitted while I was out at tea yesterday with Anne and Angela! There were a few people who couldn't make it, and we missed them, but we still had fun. Three knitters with sandwiches and scones and sweets and a bottomless teapot -- hurrah!

After tea, I went shopping and bought two new sweaters and a smashing new red felt hat at Sky's the Limit in Frederick, MD. It's a really cute boutique with a fun collection of trendy clothing (such as Tulle and Kersh) with a smattering of hippie thrown in. I will try to remember to post pictures of the hat -- it's my new winter love. Apologies to DBF -- I'm afraid hats will always come first.

I was so busy knitting on my shawl yesterday that I neglected my other pet project...

Next, we have the Top Down Raglan Cardigan by Laura Chau. Hmmm... apparently it is not only Show and Tell day, but also Knit Things By Laura Chau Month! That's right! I'm declaring it official. Now go to her site, clicky on the patterns and cast on, brave knitters (and chicken knitters! her patterns are super-easy! You will love them!)!

Top-Down Raglan Cardi by Laura Chau
Knit using Noro Silk Garden and Adrienne Vittadini Donata.

I'm knitting the 36-38" size so I can wear it as a layer over another shirt.

Quick change of subject: if you haven't seen it yet, the new Twist Collective is out and there are some gorgeous, fun things in there. Vivian and Ice Fantasia caught my eye.

Do You, Yarn, Take This Pattern...?

So I started knitting up this yummy Zoe sock yarn (ravelry link). While discussing it with DBF (a definite muggle), I had a mini-revelation. I held up this swatch to him and complained, "I love the color, but I can't see the pattern for the colors."


He said, "I see the pattern. The colors are secondary."


DBF, for as wonderful as he is, is not a color person. I, with my freakish color sensitivity, am. This solved a question for me. There were times that I saw beautifully knitted shawls, in gorgeous colorways, but I couldn't see the pattern at first because the color shifts leapt out at me first. I couldn't understand why the knitter chose that yarn for the shawl, when it wasn't (to me) a good match. After DBF's comment above, I realized that maybe to the person who knitted it, the color and pattern and everything worked together perfectly.

Well, that hadn't happened for me with this yarn... at least, it hasn't happened yet.

But I've seen it in another's project! Laura K knit a pair of socks using Zoe Sock in the same colorway, Acadia. They are a perfect marriage of yarn and pattern (link to her Ravelry project page).

Laura's Acadia Socks
Socks knitted with Shalimar Yarns Zoe Sock, colorway "Acadia"
on US 1.5 / 2.5mm

And I wanted to create something like that -- where the yarn worked with the pattern, and the pattern worked with the yarn. I did not want one fighting for dominance over the other. It occurred to me that the finest projects often take the yarn and show it off to its best advantage.

With that in mind, I dove down into my stash and started rummaging. I pulled out four skeins of Noro Silk Garden, color 47. One ball of this I had frogged from an enthusiastic attempt at an entrelac pillow cover, conceived without regard to whether I'd actually want either said pillow cover or anything in those colors. In another Rubbermaid container, I found three balls of Adrienne Vittadini Donata (70% alpaca, 30% acrylic) in brown, smushed together with several balls of brown Jaeger Fur. The latter is possibly one of the most expensive fun-fur style yarns ever. I purchased it while in the throes of knitting and fulling stuffed toy hedgehogs. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. But let's leave the Fur for now...

The Silk Garden and the Donata looked pretty good together (no, really, they do)... and using both of them, I might actually have enough to knit a cardigan. I did a Ravelry search for cardigans using Silk Garden. The first to come up was Laura Chau's Top-Down Raglan Cardigan. I read the pattern; I estimated yarn amounts; I printed out the pattern and cast on.

Pictures coming soon.

While I was browsing Laura Chau's site, I also saw the simple yet effective shawl. This is knit using fingering weight/sock yarn. It may the the solution for the Zoe Sock... stay tuned.