warnken

oof, apologies for the blurry.

finally! finally! i cast-on for the zetor scarf from jatta soheltaa.

[tangential side-note - i lived in finland for a bit during university and am always! tickled to see finnish. ravelry is chock-full of super talented finns! what's up with that? shouldn't sweden be up in arms in a knitting race?!]

i bought this yarn, peria kid mohair, while in london, at the very beautiful and very cozy loop, in islington.

unfortunately, i had forgotten my camera that day, but it was very grey, rainy and chilly, i suppose a typical english day. loop was the first stop on the yarn tour 08, in which i first ventured to islington [a charming and quaint part of london], then out to the no-mans-land surrounding the handweavers studio in blackhorses [lots of petrol stops, shabby mechanics shops].

peria is ok. i am always on the look for subsitutes for kid silk haze, which, quite frankly, is ridiculously overpriced. k1c2's douceur et soie is pretty close to it, and pretty affordable, but i've only ever seen it at halcyon, i think. peria's a little thicker, and 100% mohair. i have to say i am not the biggest fan. it's uber sticky and tangly, which tries my patience, and sheds like a motherfucker. should have known.

oh well, the color is beautiful [it's the top one, fyi], and the scarf will be named warnken, in the honor of ms. emma warnken johnson, whom we stayed with in london, most likely past our welcome. in addition to living in london, ms. johnson is particularly fond of that shade of mustard yellow, and it never fails to remind me of her.

lil'guy gets cozy

on the knitting front, i finished my leaf foliage scarf. overall, was not terribly pleased with it. the malabrigo lace weight was beautiful; really soft, gorgeous tonal monochromatic color that's hard to find. but the lace gauge given was really a little too dense for my taste and oh my god did this project drag on. blergh.

BUT moving away from tiny yarn and needles for a bit, i have recently acquired a new macbook as a grad gift and it is beautiful and shiny and still has that fantastic new-electronic-smell [sometimes i sniff its gorgeously white keyboard]. to protect the lil'guy, i've been swaddling him in scarves, but he deserves something custom, something tailored and lovingly made.

enter entrelac! it's one thing i have still never done, even after 10+ odd years as a knitter. there's a similar sleeve somewhere on the interwebs but googling is failing at the moment.
i'm following this tutorial and i'll tell you, this shit is easy.

i'm going to try alternating colors on the rows simply because this is meant to clean out some of the yarn lingering in tupperware underneath beds. then maybe some sort of decorative embroidery joining-stitch? i'm going to do two rectangles and take it from there!

laminaria

changed my mind. doing laminaria from spring 08 knitty, with this gorgeous yarn from etsy knittinpretty.

it's 100% soysilk, which i've never worked with before, hand-spun and hand-dyed in reds, oranges and purples; hard to find lace-weight yarn in such deep saturated colors.


on its way to the ol'wav soon!

desert seascape

the new knitty has been up for a little bit, and while most of the patterns don't really appeal to me, this one caught my eye. adam and i may be living in the desert next year, which forces a shift from knitting montreal-appropriate items.

i'm thinking about a gorgeous blue or green silk laceweight yarn for this - knitting lace scarves are some of my favorites! the yardage is so few that nice yarn is affordable, and it always fits.

a quick etsy search turns up some glorious choices, a soy lace-weight dyed in "sea-glass" or a silk/cashmere blend in "oceanic gaia", both by dragonflyfiberdesign.

. . . . camp shipping . . . ?