Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The Lure of Pink


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Originally uploaded by theblairgirls

Definition of lure from m-w.com:
Main Entry: 1lure
Pronunciation: \ˈlur\
2 a: an inducement to pleasure or gain : enticement b: appeal, attraction

Yeah, so much for goldmines. This weekend I dropped by Knitting Arts on a errand. They were having a bag sale, 50% off, shawl kits and just bags of various overstocks. I resisted and left w/o buying any yarn. I also went to Yarndogs to pick up a prize I won (a set of Euculan Woolwash) and also left w/ no yarn. So today, when I went to Commuknity to pick up a pattern I felt confident. As I was browsing the books (I can buy all the books and patterns I want, notions too), I spied a shiny pink mass on the bargain shelf. I tried to ignore it but I thought I'd just check what it was and I touched it. Then I counted it. 6 balls of Bouton D'Or Ksar. Silky soft. Pink. On sale. I'm such a sucker. Total yardage 546.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

A Veritable Goldmine


I've struck gold. 6 weeks into the game and I was feeling a little desperate. The game was suppose to give me time to go through my stash and get it up on Ravelry. It was suppose to give me the resources to find projects for the yarn I have. So far it's been great! I've got lots of things queued up and yarn to knit it with. But by getting most of the stash up I found that it was lacking. When you buy with no project in mind you buy for the yarn. And for me that meant it was either pink, handpainted or both. While knitting the Sweetheart socks I was finding that I really liked cables and that I'd love to make a cabled sweater. So I hunted the stash for some great cable sweater yarn and found nothing. It's been 6 weeks and all I could think of was going out and buying what I didn't have. Something blue, maybe tweed or heathered. And then this weekend I found this: 10 sks of Patons Rustic Wool in heathered denim...not in a store, in my stash! Yay me!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

No points for re-knitting


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Originally uploaded by theblairgirls


Lately I've been hanging 'round the frog pond. When I took this sock on a trip to Paso Robles for Easter weekend all the knitting I did the entire weekend I ended re-knitting because of a mistake I made early on. Then I got to the toe and knit a little too long...can you see my baby toe? Nope.


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Originally uploaded by theblairgirls

See the needle on the left? That marks how long the sock should be. But because of the change in the way the pattern ends (as a single, unnested heart, not all that visible here) I have to frog all the way to the needle on the right. Ugh. Good thing I like knitting.

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Originally uploaded by theblairgirls

I finished this sock this morning while waiting at the doctor's office. It's about 173 yds so I'm adding that to my points now and I'll be casting on it's mate at my UFO group tonight. Here's the finish caloriemetry, it's a little big -- but works well and was very fun to knit.
Addendum to game rules. Cris sold some a lot of yarn recently so we ammended the rules to only allow 20% of yds sold to count as points. She's ahead, of course.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Resistance is Futile

 IMG_2101 Originally uploaded by theblairgirls

It's been almost a month and I haven't purchased any yarn. I've been busy getting organized on Ravelry. I've been taking pictures of my stash, queuing up projects and assigning yarn to them. Currently I have 76 items in my queue, 48 of which I have the yarn to make in their entirety. 48 things. Sweaters, shawls, bags, socks, mitts and hats. You've heard of armchair gardening? This is internet knitting. And so far it's distracting me from buying. Except that Webs just announced, today, their anniversary sale which goes on for two months. I've already gone through the list and came up empty, whew. However, this year they're having a set of yarns on sale in April and another, different set on sale in May. So next month I get tempted again with a whole new set of sale yarn. What's a girl to do? Cast on. Here we have Calorimetry knit with Patons Soy Wool Stripe in Natural Pink (of course). The yarn sheds more than my shepherd but it's soft and shiny and pink!