A Time to Learn

It was a busy week, not only because work was busy, but also because I was putting the push on my knitting at home, hoping to get the front of my latest sweater done up for weekend finishing. Unfortunately, it didn't happen and by Friday I was feeling frisky and ready for some fun. So I bought some food coloring and following a Knitty tutorial I made this:


It was so much fun! And I love the results. I learned some things too and am already planning on doing another batch based on what I learned.

But my dye session had to be cut short this morning as Jim received a phone call that his mother was dizzy, ill and heading to the hospital. We sorted out our business and jumped in the car to be with her. She was very happy to see us and looked quite chipper considering where she was. It wasn't long before a doctor came to see us and he made a simple and very happy diagnosis: BPPV or Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo.

Note that word: benign. It made me happy even though I know it must very annoying to experience. Essentially, calcium build up in the ear canal creates tiny rocks that cause mixed signals to be sent to the brain resulting in dizziness and nausea. It's common in the elderly or people who have experienced head trauma. I'd never heard of such a thing, but I'm glad I know about it now.

I think this little emergency may serve as a wake up to Jim and I to visit with and cherish his mother a bit more. And now, another yarn shot, because it makes me happy. I think I shall call this color Kermit in a Blender.

Sweaters

It's weird, but I don't seem to enjoy knitting sweaters much. Too much emotional baggage perhaps. All that work knitting, planning, calculating and even if the danged thing fits, you still won't know if it will look good on you until it's all put together.

I've made good progress on my V is for Violet, but I'm so ready to be done with it already. The second sleeve is almost done too. Then I just have to work the front. I like to divvy up the work this way, because knitting two big pieces feels like such an accomplishment that still needing to work sleeves afterwards seems like a low blow.

To break things up a bit, I started a chunky cabled sleeve:

I love smooshy, chunky cables. So squishable! Funny how I can be fed up with one sweater and yet ready to start another.

Tent Sale!!

The Spinrite Factory Outlet tent sale started today and I was there with bells on!! Here's what the inside of the tent looked like:


Here's what the lineup outside of the tent looked like:


And here's what I look like anticipating a super-bargain:


Honestly, I know quality is more important than quantity, but the deals that are available are amazing. And the sale is on until August 22. But I needed to get there early because I wanted to nab some Kroy. And I did! 40 balls of pure white for $60. Retail cost would be almost $240. They didn't have the color I wanted, but at that price, I'm going to take up dying!

But I should show you what all I bought. Here it is (dog for scale):

Oh! that's not nice, you want to see the actual yarns, don't you? Well fine then, here they are:

Now I must confess, I picked up a little bit of yarn for my best beloveds. That would be my mom and my mom-in-law. Mom agreed to split a bit with me before I went.

The yarn for my MIL will be a gift. She is 86 years old now, on a limited income, but still likes to knit for the church and for fairs. She only likes to knit acrylic and comes up with the most interesting color combinations. In other words, she's easy to please on the cheap. So she's getting mill ends and yarn from inside the store at 22 cents an ounce. I hope that when I'm 86 someone will bring me yarn to keep me in my habit. That is if I haven't knit through all this by then.

A good bit of that yarn is chunky and bulky weight. I don't normally work with such thick yarns, but I have specific projects in mind. For one, I want to knit this for Jim:

And for another, I still want to work a Cowichan sweater during the winter Olympics and there was a perfect super bulky roving at the sale. There were six huge balls in a bag and each bag was $8. Buy three get one free. I got a black, a grey, a white and a red which is probably enough for 2 sweaters or more.

This picture shows the chunky yarn for Jim's sweater at the top (100g ball) and the bulky roving at the bottom.

The yarn is actually bigger than it looks in the picture. Please refer to the stash picture for scale. The blue yarn is supposed to be an alpaca blend and is lovely and soft. I've no idea what fiber the white is. I'll have to do a burn test.

I got home before lunch, and even though I was slightly over budget, Jim was thrilled for me. He could see that I got some awesome deals, I didn't go too much over budget and he loves the yarn I picked for his sweater. He's such a sweetie!

Man! I had fun. I'm still grinning.....

Knitting Large

Irtfa'a is done!! And she's a beaut. (On Ravelry.)

It came out just as I'd hoped. The fabric is light, soft and yet warm. I did a full on wet-block, giving it a nice bath in some Soak and it seems to have lightened the color. It looks much whiter in these images than it did before.

I didn't have enough pins to pin out each point individually, so I pinned two together as you can see in the above photo. I don't think you'd notice it if I didn't point it out, so I'm okay with it.

The size of it is perfect. I'm tall, at 5'9" so many shawls come out short on me. Using the mohair/silk blend yarn allowed me to go up a few needle sizes from the recommended 3.5mm to a 4mm resulting in a larger shawl.


The pattern is perfect. I loved the flow of one lace stitch into the next. I didn't change a thing, except to fudge my boo-boos. It's going to be hard to find another project I enjoyed as much as this one.