you'll find the island of missing scarves! or scarf, as it may be. poor zigzag scarf was stuffed there for months on end! how did i do that? i usually put all of my winter items in one spot. oh well. KP found it. he's good at that sort of thing.

back in its rightful place

sorry to say that it wasn't in the closet balled up in the corner partying with other handknits. if you've lost a handknit, it's possible you will find it in the spot you're least likely to think of so get an outsider's help or opinion. when i was younger, i always had my mom look for things i lost because i could never find them myself! i'm glad i married someone who is willing to look for things for me. i seem to be blind to the areas i never think it's going to be in.

knitting update:

baby sweater in the making

this is the sweater for my friend's baby, H. it's actually MUCH further along than this. i already divided for the front and am working through the left sleeve. it's a quick knit and i'll have plenty of yarn leftover. maybe a hat too?

one down...

here's the first of two leg warmers! man, are these fast knits, or what? i was really surprised how quick i was done with it. i'll cast on for the second one this week after i finish at least one side of the baby sweater.

the second angel sock is almost to the heel (i've been working on this at lunchtime or on the train) and the mistake rib scarf is about 12" long but i have much more to go on it. i'm not in a rush to finish this scarf so i'm willing to put it aside for other ventures.

speaking of other ventures, has anyone else felt that their yarn stash has grown considerably this year? geez, i took one look at mine the other day and felt overwhelmed by what i had. then i read jody's entry about taking stock of her festival yarn and using it up before the next festival. she is keeping a list in the sidebar of her site and crossing the yarn off the she uses. brilliant idea, i thought! i'm going to take it one step further, though, and take stock of ALL the yarn i have.

i know. i know. the idea spooked me out but i got down and did the dirty work. here be the list in all its glory: the stash (it's also over there on the sidebar if you need it.) seriously, this is EVERYTHING that i have. most of it is photographed so if you want to see it there are links at the top of the page to my galleries. i'm also going to float the items that i'm currently using to the top. if i don't use all the yarn for that project, i will re-inventory it and keep it in the list. yarn that gets used entirely will be struck through. hopefully this little experiment will keep me from buying anymore yarn and on track to having "just what i need" instead of "everything that i want."

laugh, if you must. those of you who know me know that i'm a sucker for color and fiber. it's gonna be tough. i won't deny it. but maybe this list will shame me into submission... maybe.

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WWAAHHH! i can't find my aurora 8 zigzag scarf!

where are you?!

i've torn apart the hall closet and even went through all of my stored winter clothes in hopes of finding it but it's still missing. where do these scarves go? really, my apartment is not THAT big. it's brooklyn, after all. my next step is to pull out all the bags in the closet and under the bed where it could be stuffed into, and i'm not looking forward to it (do you know how many bags i have? too many.)

so i've halted most of the knitting on my angel socks, pink carnation scarf, and leg warmers because i forgot that i really had to work on a baby sweater for my friend juliette's lovely child, H. H is big boy so, even though he is less than a year old, i'm making him the ribbed baby jacket sweater (seen here in a lusciously girly raspberry color) in the 12-24 month size. i think that it'll fit him for most of the winter! i pulled out some debbie bliss merino aran in chocolate brown that i bought from hawaii joy before she moved to hawaii. pictures to come!

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to all who knit with karabella aurora 8. your project will grow. EXPONENTIALLY. i knew when i blocked this scarf that it would grow. i didn't think that it would end up being SEVEN FEET LONG! it's the longest scarf i have ever knit! and it wasn't intentional.

one long ass scarf

i've done a lot of updates to the site lately so hopefully everything looks normal now. i've added a bit of code to the site to highlight any comments that come directly from me so you'll know when i answer a question or enter in a conversation. i'm going to do more commenting here and less email responses to people (unless it's something i don't feel like sharing on the internet or it's personal or not really pertinent to the conversation or just a thank you) so if you want answers to your questions, i would suggest subscribing to my RSS 2.0 feed which includes comment updates, if you haven't already. i realized recently that i found it frustrating to go to a website, read about a topic in the comments, and then not see the answer because the blog author chose to email the answer instead of posting it so i'm setting a good example and all that.

some of you may have noticed that prince andre's world (the iguana at the top) was broken on tuesday and that's because the weather RSS feed went down. NOAA, i guess, has outages too. so i slaved over the PHP on tuesday and wednesday and have that fixed now. it will update the feed twice an hour (as opposed to once) and there will be no more weird errors on the page should the feed not be available again (turned off error reporting). i also fixed a problem with the updates when a new year begins AND i have the script use an older RSS feed if the new one isn't available. phew! i did some other PHP stuff too but most of you will find it boring. i, on the other hand, have a new found respect for PHP.net. why was i depending on my o'reilly book?! there's so much more on PHP.net to use and it's all free. lovely.

ok, back to knitting content next post. the second sockapaloooza sock is almost done! will probably finish it up tomorrow and will be washed and blocked over the weekend.

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that's right.. after finishing the first sockapaloooza sock last week, i immediately casted-on for the second sock and got moving. progress is much slower on this one but i'm still going to be done before the deadline, i'm sure. the play that my production company is producing goes up tomorrow night (see madairproductions.com for more info) and i'll have many nights of sitting in the box office knitting to look forward to. now that i have one finished sock and another on the needles, i get a chance to show you the marked difference between the washed & blocked and the unwashed socks.

small sock, big sock

here is the second sock sitting on top of the first. you can see that's it's almost 50% smaller! now you know why i was freaking out last week. the difference is pretty extreme! the anxiety was worth it though. this is some fabulous yarn and i'm definitely going to order some more from marie once i'm done with all the sock yarn that i dyed at her place.

oh! and check out this cute little bag that i picked up at the point last week..

sock containment system

we ran out of ziploc bags at home and my sock yarn was threatening to get away from me (you know, loose ball with less yarn in it. it was threatening to fall apart) so i decided to pick up this little number. it keeps the skein contained and everything seems much neater. i can also clip it to my wrist or belt loop for on-the-go knitting but i don't really know when i'll ever do that.

the sock is past the heel now and i'm chugging toward the toe. this time i picked up stitches between the short-row heel and top of the foot on both sides and then decreased them away after a couple of rounds. definitely a much better solution. it looks neater and there are no holes on the side (there are no holes on the first sock now but that's because i darned them after i washed them.)

continue reading -»

i spent all weekend working (thankfully from home) and i can't think of anything more stressful than working all week THEN working on the weekend. what gives? i used to think that i had a great laid back job but now i'm not so sure. i hope this passes because i'm not much fun when life is like this. my only saving graces are the hubby and my knitting. KP keeps me well fed and puts up with my sour attitude when i'm completely swamped. he's such a trooper! the knitting helps me destress at the end of a long day. there's nothing more zen than picking up the needles and knit knit purl purl knit knit purl purl.. or in my new projects language, knit ssk, knit knit knit knit knit... anyway you get the picture. any guesses as to what i've been working on?

i finally picked up all the stitches for the cowl part of my somewhat cowl hence all the two by two ribbing.

the cowl is upon us!

i've got two inches here and i'm shooting for seven because i want a floppy cowl like katie does. this is a great late night project. the 2x2 ribbing is completely mindless and the US4 susan bates needles are so much easier to handle than the US5s (the join seems to be smoother.) i also started a quickie scarf using a bunch of aurora 8 that i've had since i started knitting. the majority of it was bought on my first ever trip to school products (MEMORIES!!) this is the zigzag scarf from scarf style.

i should have flipped this image. oh well. i have no time to go back and correct it.

so i hope that everyone who's downloaded the vino arm warmers pattern is loving it. i checked my stats to see how many downloads there were and i'm quite impressed! there seem to be more lurkers out there than i originally thought (hi lurkers!)

anyway, the only other pieces of news i have are: 1) i've decided to install mint on my blog to check stats. i'll let you know how the installation goes and how i like the tool once it's up and running; 2) i'm actually thinking about reading dune again. i can't believe it but my mind is telling me to pick up the book and read the whole series again. i think that i'm desperate to write a series of essays on dune as well, covering all the different aspects and plots that are contained within it. it's a shame that no other book besides the wind-up bird chronicles has ever so captured my love as this book has. (what i'm neglecting to mention here is that i've read dune almost fifty times already. yep, i'm a freak.)

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