Jessimuhka Knits

I finally took a picture of the socks I started right after finishing the Conwy socks.

They're another pattern from Knitting on the Road, Unst. I'm using Claudia's Handpaints in Just Plums. It's a really nice yarn. I'm not sure exactly what to compare it to, as the base yarn doesn't remind me of any other luxury sock yarns, but I'm pleased with it.

I did a bit of shopping this weekend. The Grove was having their 3rd anniversary sale, with all craft books 40% off. I found a copy of Rowan's All Season Cotton Collection and decided with Cotton Ease coming back, $6 was a good deal for the booklet. Then we drove out to Alpine to visit Lori's. I'd never been out there before (West County San Diego snob here) and was planning on just picking up a couple of sets of Inox Grey DPNs. Well, I got the double points, in US 2 and 3, and another brand of the Teflon coated metal in 2.25mm, but I also saw something else that needed to come home with me.

It's Yarn Place "Heaven", a 55/45 merino/tencel blend. I'd never heard of this yarn before, but damn does it feel nice. And at 3,100 yards for $30, it's enough to make the Spider Queen Shawl at a very good price. The brown will be my Spider Queen Shawl, and the blue I picked up for Krys, after calling her to check the required yardage for the SQ. What are knitting friends for if not to field calls that consist of "Are you by the internets?" "Cool, look this up for me." Ah well, she may have been the only person I didn't call in my "how many cups in a pint?" supermarket trip last week. (My sister Ariel for the win on that one. Check out her website, you get to dress up a cupcake!)

And because I can, gratuitous detail shot. I turned the flash off and tried to hold the camera steady to get a good shot of the color. It's shinier in real life, but other than that pretty accurate.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I finished my scarf in Louisa Harding Grace color 6. Pictures!

Stats:
Yarn - Louisa Harding Grace 50/50 wool/silk, 3 balls
Needles - 2 size 6 Inox Grey DPNs
Pattern - Mistake Rib, 35 stitches *k2 p2* every row, ending with p1.
Blocking - Washed in wool wash, laid flat under table to dry, spreading ribbing slightly.
Impressions - I loved this yarn! It's a very lofty single and very soft with a nice sheen. I'd love to have a sweater out of this someday. It's fairly reasonably priced for a luxury yarn, $11 for 110 yards of DK weight. I was pleased to get a scarf as long as I am tall out of 3 balls, which I picked up on sale at the Bonita Knitting Store.

I've made some good progress on Icarus this week, while watching Season 2 of House. It's easy enough to knit while watching TV, and I can pretend I'm concentrating on it when things get gross on screen.

Chart 2 complete, which was my goal for the month. I'm going to set it aside and work on my other goals for a bit, but might pick it back up in a few days because of this -

Yarn for the Tina Shawl. It's JaggerSpun SuperFine Merino from Sarah's Yarns. I must say I was extremely pleased with both the prices and service from Sarah's Yarns. I got a 1lb cone for what 8oz cost on most other websites, and it shipped just one hour after I placed my order. I received it 3 days later, along with a color card for a lace weight yarn she'll be offering this fall (Super Lamb). The color is Graphite and I really want to get started working with it, but can't until I finish Icarus. As usual, it takes the call of starting something new to get me to want to finish something old.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I missed posting on Friday. I had to spend all day Thursday and Friday cleaning the last of everything out of my old apartment. Man, I had a lot of stuff. I've had a busy weekend, but fun busy.

Saturday morning I made the yarn pictured above. Wendy had us all over to make a big mess in her house. Of course, I forgot my camera, so I don't have pictures of the actual process, but rest assured it was fun. I'll edit in links to pictures when other folks get theirs up. It was my first experience playing around with acid dyes, and it was great fun. I think I may have to order some acid dyes soon and start making messes on my own patio. It was actually really easy and I'm very happy with the results.

The rest of Saturday and yesterday were spent doing fun non-yarny things. I also started a little something for a little someone, but pictures will have to wait on that.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Finals are over! i had a little stress induced shopping spree today, with most of the spoils here.

Not pictured, fancy lip gloss. The magazine is IK Spring 04, which I bought because I wanted a sock pattern in it, but it also has a great aran baby set. Friends, get procreating! Cute knitwear all around. The yarns are Lorna's Laces Shephard Sock in Baltic Sea and Lorna's Laces Swirl DK in Vera. All of the above came from Knitting in La Jolla. The Swirl DK is really neat - it's a 4 ply yarn with 3 plys of superwash merino, and one ply of silk/merino blend. The silk takes up the dye differently, giving the yarn a neat swirly effect. I'm thinking socks, maybe.

The sun glasses are in there because Nordstroms is awesome. I bought new sunglasses about a month ago, and they were on the pricey side for me. Yesterday I had them adjusted at the Horton Plaza Nordstrom, because one of the ear pieces was loose. This morning, one of the lenses was cracked, which confused me. I guess the woman tightened them too much. I took them to the Fashion Valley Nordstrom today and the woman at the counter immediately exchanged them for a new pair, even though I didn't have my receipt with me. That's good service.

In knitting news, I knit a couple rows on Peacock Feathers this week and only have 36 rows to go! Hopefully I'll finish it soon, finishing the MSS really got me in a finishing mood. MSS still needs blocking, as I haven't had a chance to pick up more t-pins yet. Soon.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 06:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This weekend I met up with Kris, Miyon, Krys, Kristin, and Cora at Starbucks for knitting.

Counter clockwise from foreground: Miyon, Krys, Kris, Kristin, and Cora. I had a lot of fun and am glad I ventured out into the crazy weather to join them. I'm ashamed to say that when it was hailing that morning I considered not going out. Southern California has made me weak.

I also watched a lot of sports this weekend, most notably the Syracuse/Pitt game and Duke/Wake Forrest game, as well as the World Baseball Classic. The WBC is much better than I expected. The second round games yesterday were all very good. I also filled out my NCAA Tournament brackets. All the sports watching meant lots of knitting progress.

Mostly I worked on Rogue and got 1/3 through the body.

Overall picture. I'm doing a cardigan version, because I will never wear a wool pullover in SD.

Detail shot. To get a good detail of cables I turn off the flash, and in this case, braced the camera against a chair to get a steady shot. I really should buy a tripod one of these days.

Oh, I also ordered a zipper for my York sweater, since Kris was nice enough to let me look at her Zipperstop color cards. It should be here in a couple days, and I'll take pictures of my adventures in zipper installation.

Edit: Came home to a package today! My Socks that Rock!

From BMFA. I placed my order right when they came out with their sock club and somehow slipped through the cracks. Kaci was very nice when I called to ask about my order and sent me a bonus skein to make up for the wait. I'm very happy with the customer service. Colorways from top to bottom are; Carbon Dating, Red Rock Canyon, and Rare Gems (bonus skein). It's so soft and pretty! I need to finish one of my socks in progress so I can start a new pair with one of these.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 03:57 PM | Permalink

Yay! Yarn for the SFCKAL. If you click the picture, it will take you to the Flickr page with notes on the color names. I was having a crummy day yesterday**, but when I got home the box from SHP was on my doorstep. I hugged the box for about 5 minutes before opening it, then hugged the yarn some more. I love you yarn! I was going to hold off on swatching, but hell, I'm the boss of my knitting. If I want to swatch, I'm gonna swatch. Besides, swatching isn't starting a new project. Those are the rules, that I just invented, right now.

*Anyone know which Simpsons THoH this is from? I know it's the one with the Shining, but which number?
**Crummy day due to tweaking my back somehow. I'm feeling a bit better today, but going up and down the stairs is still not fun. I'm blaming it on my Con Law book.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 03:39 PM | Permalink

I'm about ready to buy yarn for Rogue - Rowanspun Aran. All that's left is to pick out the color. I'm leaning towards either Gables, Autumn, or Hardy. Any suggestions? I'm already working on a sweater in a color very similar to Gables, so I don't know if I should try and broaden my color horizons. Atlantic is pretty too. Midnight I think is too dark, and I'm not a fan of Caviar.

In other news, I started the sleeve caps for York. Only about 30 rows per sleeve to go! Maybe I'll get it sewn together this weekend, after my midterm tomorrow. No more knitting today, time to hunker down with Character Evidence.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 02:36 PM | Permalink

I finished up my summer internship today. It wasn't really much of a finish, as I'll be back in two weeks part time during the school year, but I did have a slightly stressful day getting some time sensitive stuff done. So after work, it was time for some retail therapy.

I stopped into Nest Boutique in Little Italy, since I'd heard everything was 30% off. I showed restraint, and came home with this:

Southwest Trading Co. Bamboo, for a self designed tank. I've had this design stewing in my head for a while, so I'll probably get to swatching to see if it'll work in the near future.
I resisted Crack Silk Haze in a pretty blue for the River Stole, so I think I'll be knitting that in my Knitpicks Alpaca Clouds. I also resisted some lovely shades of Manos and Rowan Felted Tweed. If you are in SD and looking for a deal, check them out. I don't know how long the sale lasts, but they still had a good amount of nice stuff today.

I took another progress picture of Madil:

It's inching along. I made it through a repeat at Claire de Lunes on Wed, but noticed my stitch count was off when I got home. I haven't had a chance to sort that out yet, but I'm figuring I just forgot a YO somewhere, easy fix.
I also got started on the cabling for Veste Everest. No picture yet, as there's not much to see. Once I get a few inches in, I'll take one. I'll probably bring this one to the Whislestop on Sunday - anyone else heading out there?

Oh, and go visit Krys at her new blog Knitting Affairs. It's always nice ot know I'm not the only knitter with committment issues.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 01:47 PM | Permalink

I've decided to give blogger a try while I wait for my LJ subscribtion to run out. I'm faking my way through some really basic HTML right now and think I'm doing an ok job. If anything looks particularly bad, please tell me.

Here's my real update for the day

My Kool Aid experiment finally dried. The flash made the picture a little too bright, but the colors are pretty vibrant. I used Black Cherry, Grape, and Blue Raspberry. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. The yarn is Cascade 220 Quatro in one of the natural shades. I'll be double stranding the yarn to make a felted bag. The double stranding should help mask my two very uneven dye lots.

On the knitting front I'm past the heel of the cashmere socks. I wound up not getting in as much knitting time as I expected yesterday because an old roommate was in town for the day. It was nice to see him and catch up a bit.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 05:40 PM | Permalink