Saturday, June 20, 2009

Found Some Yarn!


You would think, being in Ireland, that I would be up to my neck in the stuff. You would think that I would be sick of wool, that I would have enough wool to last me for the rest of my life.

The truth is, wool has been in somewhat short supply over here. It seems like the Irish want you to buy their already knit sweaters, not knit your own. This doesn't make a ton of sense to me, but then, I think everyone should knit everything. Everyone needs a thneed.


Also, were you aware that the sun, essentially never sets over here? It is literally birght as day here, and it's well after 9PM as I'm typing. I'm too exhausted to write much more tonight - it's been a pretty go-go-go vacation - but I wanted to post some pictures of the finished Henly Hoodie - literally finished 45 minutes before the cab came to go to the airport.


When it was first finished I was somewhat disappointed, but decided that I would wear if for two weeks on vacation, and if I still wasn't sure I would pull it apart. About a week in now, and I've decided I love it. I did buy buttons for it, but decided to 86 the buttons. I like it just the way it is.


In these pictures, by the way, I'm standing in front of the Passage Tomb at Newgrange, one of the oldest surviving man-made structures on Earth, 500 years older than the pyramids. I got to go inside. And can I get a whoop-whoop for Dream in Color yarns? Look at that Deep SeaFlower, especially in the above picture. They know their dyes.

I'll be telling you all about the wool that I bough on INISHMORE the largest of the ARAN ISLANDS when I get back. I might have bought 6,000 yards. Maybe.

Regularly scheduled blogging will resume 1st week of July when you will be treated to entry after entry of me desperately trying not to get kicked out of the HPKCHC.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Where Have I Been?

It's been a long time since my last post, and the truth of why is that I am lame.

1) I have become utterly obsessed with Battlestar Galactica. Jorah and I like to buy dorky tv shows for special occasions. Our 2 year wedding anniversary was right after he left for New Mexico, and we celebrated by getting Battlestar Galactica. Let me just say that it is testing my loyalties in many ways. I love and adore Joss Whedon, and sincerely believed that there would never be anything better than Angel, Firefly, or Buffy (in that order) but I am LOVING this show. I'll be able to give a full verdict later this summer after the 2nd part of season 4 comes out. In the meantime, I have barely even checked my email.

2) All my knitting is boring. I haven't finished a single thing since the last post. I did fix all of the problems I was complaining about in May, but things are still fairly boring. Here's a WIP photo tour:


The Henly Hoodie. The truth is, I'm not crazy about the armseyes - there's something rotten in the state of Denmark. I need a sweater to wear in Ireland/Scotland though, so I'm finishing it - armseyes be damned. If I'm still unhappy with it, I'll pull it apart when I get home and reknit it - the Classy is to good to frak with. As you can see, I'm almost finished the hood. Then I just need to deal with the ends and put the buttons on.



The Stock Socks. These used to be my Mermaid socks, but they were too small. I decided I ought to come up with a basic sock recipe for myself for a plain old sock, and so these are it. They are my purse socks, and and they travel around with me.



The Cabbage Leaf Baby Blanket. I pulled back the whole thing not long ago all the way to the CO. I'm knitting it again, 20 sts narrower. I dig this blanket, although, as you can see, I still have not been able to take a decent picture of it.



And finally, because I've been going crazy knitting all this stockingnette, I started some Shur'tugals out of some Dream in Color Starry - Nightwatch. I'm pretty crazy about the Starry, and I don't usually like glitzy yarn. I have some in Romeo Blue too, and that is going to become - you guessed it - Viper Pilots!

I had so much fun knitting in May because I gave myself some deadlines. This month has been really hard though, because I'm leaving the country for two weeks. I have homework to do for the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup, and I don't know when I'm going to do it - whatever it is, I'm going to have to post it to the net pretty quick after I get back - homework is due by midnight on the 30th.

I also wrote up two patterns in May, and found that it gave me a lot of focus and structure. It's something I need to do more often. This guy thinks so too:



He likes to sleep under my desk while I type. This is him sleeping on one of my slippers. Since this picture was taken I've moved one of his beds under there. He's much more comfortable now.