Karma

So I opened up my purse yesterday to find this:



Which sucks since I really need this set of needles - both for the test-knit I'm doing right now and, eventually, for the 2nd entrelac sock. Fortunately my roommate had an extra set of US size 1 dpns that he wasn't using.

But then I came home to these:


Completely and totally awesome hot pink knitting earrings from Lick My Sticks.

And I tried to get a picture of them on:


Go over to her shop or her blog. She's funny, a great knitter and makes some awesome earrings!

I finished up one entrelac sock last night watching Best in Show with my roommate, whom, by the by, had never see it before. So the movie was fun, but finishing the cuff on the sock, not so much. In order to put in the tassels (yes, these socks have tassels) there are eyelet rows and a hem and they're bound off in a way that attaches the last row to th inside... it's a wee bit complicated and quite a large pain in the arse. In fact the last couple rows of ribbing and the bind-off lasted the entire movie. BUT, well worth it:




And the side view:

PS3: earth yarns

Or: Malabrigo, how do I love thee? Let me count the stashed yarns...

I was somewhat surprised by the lack of green yarns in my stash this morning*. I really thought I had more! Green is one of my fav colours and over the years I have come to the realization that it really does look good on me. (In my high school years I wore blue all. the. time. I wasn't super popular - although I don't think I was a super geek either - so blue usually made it easy to blend in. I'm a much more colourful dresser now!) I have green eyes, and usually wearing green makes them pop. Anywho, enough digression, and on to the stash I plan on using for PS3: Earth.

So, the lack o' green yarns means I actually only have 2 pictures to show you. However, these 2 pictures represent quite large potential projects...


4 skeins of malabrigo worsted weight in Verde Adriana. This will (eventually) become Wicked. Or, at least, that's the plan.



5 skeins of malabrigo worsted weight in Oliva. Planning to be Drops' A-line jacket. The lighting (for which I am very grateful, not having seen the sun for at least a week...) made this look much browner than it is, but I think it's beautiful in all lights.

*Note: there are tons of green yarns in my stash, but all the rest are just partial skeins, left over from other projects. So, they don't count in this case. Or that's what I'll tell myself anyway.

up close and personal

I realize that yesterday's picture of the harlot holding my sock is not really a very good project picture... but it was just so cool that the harlot actually held my sock! Anywho... I'll get over my star-struck-ness sooner or later - although I actually also met the guys from Everclear on Friday, so it's been a big week for me and "rock stars". (Yeah, the harlot may not sing, but the woman announcing her at Borders did call her the "Beatles of Knitting"...)

Anywho, since it is still grey and icky and foggy out, here is a close up of my sock, as held by the harlot:



Pattern: Entrelac Socks by Eunny Jang, Interweave Knits Spring 2007
Yarn: Crystal Palace Panda Silk in 3005 and 3006 (3 balls and 2 balls respectively)
Needles: US1 / 2.25mm

whadda ya mean it's april already??

OK, so I've been slacking a bit in the blog department... I've been really tired since getting back from Korea - the kind of tired where I don't want to do anything all day but then I can't get to sleep at night. It's a vicious cycle. Also, I haven't done anything so interesting to even consider blogging it. I got very little knitting done in Korea (even on those 12-13 hour plane rides I mostly just tried to sleep). Since getting home I've finished the mate to this sock but they're pretty much identical... The striping patterns on both the leg and foot of the sock look almost exactly the same. I've also started another sock and gotten a package from Cookie A for whom I'm going to be doing some test knitting (secretive and "unbloggable" test knitting, of course).

But I actually, finally have something "bloggable"! I met the yarn harlot last night! A couple of knitterly-friends and I went to see her at the Borders in Annapolis. By the time we finally met her she was probably pretty tired (over 2 hours after she finished speaking) and her publicist had already left so I'm pretty sure that my picture won't be showing up on the blog (especially since mine is the only camera with proof positive of this meeting...) but it was lots of fun just the same.
Ok, on to the pictures:


Obligatory picture of harlot taking picture of us...



Harlot quizzing me on both my rocket-science abilities and my true Canadian-ness... more on that later.


Trading socks with the harlot!


And, finally, the obligatory hold-my-sock-while-you-hold-mine picture.


Thanks to my friend Terry (no blog, but she does have an etsy shop full of beautiful hand dyed sock yarns - including ones with real silver spun into them!) for all the pictures.

OK, so the rocket-science/canadian quiz: My latest sock is the entrelac sock by Eunny Jang from Interweave Spring 2007, as modeled above by the lovely yarn harlot. When she saw that she asked if afterwards I would be on my way to nasa to work on rocket science and sharing my brain with the world. I sheepishly told her that I do Spanish Literature and would probably in the end help, well, no one.
Then Terry yelled "she's CANADIAN" and I turned a little pink and said "Thanks, Terry" kind of flatly. The harlot looked at me and said "How long did you live in Canada?" And I said, well, technically I still "live" there, but I'm here for school. So she said "Do you think you can pass the Canadian test?" And I said "well, I would definitely hope so!" And she looked at me (somewhat suspiciously I think!) and said "Well, Americans can't get it, ever." And I said "ok...." (while thinking in my head "Oh. My. God. If I don't get this I'm going to look like the biggest dork, in front of the Yarn Harlot.) So she looked at me again and said "It's very easy, you just have to finish this sentence: "When you eat your smarties..."

Yes, I got the answer right, but no, I'm not going to tell you what it is. Otherwise we'd have to make you all Canadians... and you wouldn't get the joke anyway! She thought it would be a great question at the border to check everyone's "true" Canadian status... although you probably would have had to live through the 80's and 90's watching Canadian television to actually understand.