Life Is Like A Grapefruit

Sometimes, it takes someone else to tell me to knit something. Hitchhiker is an incredibly popular shawl/scarf pattern by talented German designer Martina Behm. There are spinoff hat and mitts, variations on the slanting theme, and over 5000 Hitchhikers knitted on Ravelry. Then sillyfru of the Sassypants Knitter podcast started a KAL. I had this fabulous Sweet Georgia yarn in my stash that I've been wanting to use, so I went for it.

And I love it!

It's a quick, addictive knit and very rewarding in lots of ways.

You start at one corner and knit back and forth, increasing until it's time to make your first tooth (of 42). Achievement! Reward, please.

So you make another one. the rows gradually get longer.

You make another one. And another.

And before you know it, you're happily knitting endless rows just to finish one more tooth. Fabulous.

It also doesn't hurt that this is an immensely wearable scarf with its long, tapered points and squishy garter stitch centre.

I love looking at it all layed out, seeing the variegated yarn move around as the rows change how the colours pool.

All in all, one of the great wins of knitting. There's a reason why this pattern is popular. Go knit one. You'll love it.

What's Dyeing?

Stormy Beaches BFL

 Things have been cooking in the dye pot.
Pretty strings are fluttering in the wind.
What does this mean?
The shop's grand opening is on Monday morning Australian time (Sunday evening for most US people).
There will be variegated sock yarn, self-striping sock yarn and variegated DK wool on offer.
Are you ready to knit through the zombie apocalypse?

Peachy Keen MCN

Dark and Stormy Night BFL

Big on Stripes!

Things have been happening around here. Yarny things.
But more on that later in the week.
What's on the needles this week?
Vivian is still not done (mainly because when I have time to knit, I don't have the brain power), but I'm about half-way up the hood. The end is in sight.
Still lots of yarn left over though! Hm.

But I needed something easier to knit, so I cast on some vanilla stripey socks. Because stripes have been on my mind lately.
The yarn is Austerman Step, and it's a nice yarn, except for the flecks of dye that have sprinkled into neighbouring stripes. Not the look I was going for.

Ravelympics 2012

Who wants to watch a bunch of chem'ed up super athletes perform things slightly faster than their peers in massive arenas?
Not me, but when you add crafting to the mix, suddenly you have Ravelympics 2012, and those events are much more interesting to my palate.
Events range from afghans to hats, from dyeing to weaving.
Looking at the list (and the time frame, since 3 weeks seems an awfully short time), I'm considering entering some (not all) of these:

• colourwork crosscountry 
• cowl jump 
• double-knit boxing 
• frogging trampoline 
• hand-dye high dive 
• hat dash 
• home stuff hammerthrow 
• lace longjump 
• mitten medley 
• scarf hockey 
• shawl sailing 
• single skein sprint 
• sock put 
• swatching coxswain 
• synchronized stash busting 
• wips wrestling

What about you? Will you be a Ravelympian? Which team? Which events will you participate in?

Vivian Update

Just a quick update on the Vivian sweater.
Last time you saw us, the sleeves were just about to join the main body.
Which turned out to be surprisingly straight-forward.
What wasn't straight-forward were the decreases to fuse the two together permanently. It got better though, once i switched from the K2togs in the pattern to P2togs. By then, I knew where I wanted to be, and which stitches to eat. Looks better now.

The saddles were easier than I expected them to be, but my stitches are rather large and loopy. I might have to tighten those up, if it doesn't come out in blocking. Does anything ever come out in blocking?

I also managed to add a design feature at the last minute.
Can you spot it?
Here's a hint, look at the two front tops.
Yeah. Brilliant, that's me.

Raspberry Swirl achieved

Are you one of the many, many knitters who know about the magic of Wollmeise? That mysterious yarn of many plies, which has colours so vibrant they make people want to hoard a skein (or ten) of every colour, hue and shade?

Or are you one of the many who couldn't care less about that overpriced, cottony-feeling German yarn with the unpronounceable name?
Or worse, have you never even heard of Wollmeise?I admit, I got sucked in. There is something magical about the hype, about the colours, about the everything.You can't just *buy* Wollmeise. You have to be in the know. When this indie dyer updaters her website, you'd better be quick, or everything will be gone.

I had to try it.
And I scored the most glowing skein of pink, pink yarn. now what to do with it?
It didn't seem right to just knit any old thing with this magical yarn.
So I tried to find a pattern that would show off the yarn's beauty.

Being still reasonably new to sock knitting, I finally settled on a pattern just about head-high out of reach: Wendy Johnson's Bob and Weave socks, a gloriously complex pattern of twisted stitches.

It took *forever*.

I figured out that these twisted stitches and tiny cable crosses really didn't like being corssed without a cable needle. So I ended up using a locking stitch marker to hold and cross the many, many crossed stitches.

And then, one magical day, they were done.
And they were perfect.
The yarn, the pattern, the colour, the everything.But these socks are perhaps a little too rpecious. What if I wear a hole in their 100% wool goodness? What if I snag them, or felt them, or stain them?

So after months of painstakingly knitting the most glorious pair of socks, I'm not sure they'll ever leave the house.

They sure look good on my feet while I sit at the computer though.

Win again!

I have long maintained that my knitting is lucky. And I have once again been proven right!
Nerd Wars has ended, and thanks to my dissertation blanket (aka the multi-block cat squishie of endless garter ridges), I won not only a pattern for robot mitts (Gear Isle by Odessa Reichel), I also won yarn! Who doesn't love yarn?
Exactly.
Win.