Speaking of lace...

I just got an order in from The Loopy Ewe which is a great little place if you're looking for a reliable source of sock yarns and lace weight. And I am insanely pleased with my order. Now, I'm not a sock maniac, though I know some people are. But for me, I can never have too much lace weight stuff, even if there's no way I can knit all of it before I die (maybe they can fit my head-jar for some prosthetic knitting arms). Usually, there's not much I can't get from where I work, but there are some small brands that we don't have yet. These are three such yarns. And I love them. Love them with all my black little heart:
Did you hear that? Did you hear me squeal like a school girl with her first copy of Tiger Beat? I wouldn't be surprised if you did. From top to bottom there's All Things Heather hand dyed alpaca lace in Faded Denim, Chewy Spaghetti color Mischevious, and J. Knits Lace-a-licious color New Mexico. Ten thousand thanks to Mary over at 43 skeins for recommending them to me.

Also, I found some pictures of the shawl I made for Gail out of her hand-dyed 2/14 alpaca silk. I needed some photographic evidence for my blocking technique which I learned from lace designer Hazel Carter. People just laughed when I said it was like hanging a pelt. But, well!


It was, I think, about 12" x 96" after blocking. I just use 1x2s cut in the right lengths and sew the piece to them. The books are there to keep them in place since I didn't have the right kind of nails to stick them together more permanently. All for the best, really, since it's easier to store the frame in pieces. But this method is great. I don't have carpeting in my house, so there's no option of pinning it to the floor, pinning it in sections on a blocking board would be a snore, and sewing it to a frame also raises it off the ground a little, so it dries super quick. If I nailed the frame together, I could even prop it against a wall or outside in the sunshine so no one would have to walk around it. Plus I kind of perversely like the look of it. If it were sewn in more carefully, I could just hang it on a wall like that.

The Sunday Morning Round-Up

Tahm to circkul the wagons, pilgrum...
Let's take a look at things I have on the needles (at least the ones I can FIND at the moment. oh dear.)
Ah, yes, the Araucania Nature Wool sweater. I got 5 skeins each of something like 8 colors when it came in. This is probably my favorite of the colors I got. Lovely, lovely light worsted weight stuff. A real deserted-island sort of yarn (like, if I were stuck on a deserted island with only one kind of yarn, yadda yadda). Very handpainted, so each skein really varies. This lil guy was actually a much more completed, boat-neck (my favorite of all necks) cardigan, both sleeves worked and partially down the body, with the button band worked along with the rest of the sweater. But, lesson learned, the boat neck looked entirely stupid as a cardigan, the sleeves were wonky, and the simultaneous button band drove me crazy. After I realized these things, I just had to take a deep breath, rip it all out and start fresh. Took me a whole night to rip the damn thing. But now it's starting over as a much more sensible crew neck and I'll pick the button band up after. It feels a lot better, and this yarn deserves to be made into a sweater I'll actually wear.

Speaking of facing the not-thrilled-with-it facts:

The Noro Silk Garden sweater. I coveted, like biblically coveted, this color for the longest time. It was disc'd, though, and I had given up hope of ever getting my hands on it. But lo and behold, when some Noro closeouts came rolling in, a couple of bags of it had stowed along and into my greedy clutches. So I have one precious bag of it, and since it's so treasured I'm really angsting about what to do with it. This is a top down set in sleeve with simultaneous sleeves, going to be a cardi. I've done it before, but Barbara Walker is pretty sketchy on the details in terms of where to take the starting measurements ("full back width" huh?). So I've been going around measuring my pre-fab sweaters to see what they do. And I started monkeying around with the proportions BW gives. Not a smart idea. I think the sleeve caps are going to be a little too poofy, and I'm just not in love with the neckline. I think this guy's going to get ripped out soon and restarted as a more conventional v-neck with sleeves worked after the body. I'd normally prefer to do simultaneous stuff, but the picked-up sleeves are actually a lot of fun. And I'm not even sure I'd do a cardi, because then I'd have to find shirts to wear under it. Oh I just don't know.

And here are a few that don't have so much backstory, though I'm sure I can find a way to elaborate on them if anyone's interested:
A Noro Blossom cardigan-to-be. Poor little guy's just a back right now, little more than a swatch. He might get re-worked, though, because I fear he's a little too wide.

A Malabrigo lace scarf that's been hanging around for awhile, but it really is pretty! I should get back to it.

My current bus project. Franklin socks! I learned the whole two-at-once thing on one circular needle from Melissa Morgan-Oakes. Well, learned kind of like a monkey learning to crack nuts. I saw her doing it one day and the lightbulb came on and now I'm obsessed with it. See. Imitate. Repeat! She has a book about it coming later this year, but I've seen an advance copy. It's double-plus awesome and I think it deserves a spot on every sock knitter's shelf.

And ooooooh.... lookit the pretty colors.... Gail (the Kangaroo Dyer) is a straight-up genius with colors. I dare not venture a guess at how she got her superhuman dying powers. She also dyed the spinning fiber which I worked up into this:

Excuse my blurry picture. Totally. Awesome. I've spun it up into a lace weight single ply to get the most yardage out of it (there was only about 4 oz of it that I could see). I'm just knitting with it straight off the bobbin and then will block it afterwards to set the twist and whatnot:

I know I should have skeined it and washed it beforehand, but there are a lot of fragile places and I'm just too afraid of all the activity of skeining, washing, and winding breaking it. And now I'm committed to finishing this to clear the bobbin! Yeah, heh, we'll see how that works out.

And now for the mother-of-all, the thing I want to TRY to finish this weekend, the thing I'm actually getting paid for. The sugarloaf sweater:

I don't know how the colors turned out in the picture. It's actually a lovely grey mauve. Top down set in sleeve. Ribby. Cushy. The pattern is more visible when stretched. We'll see how it goes this weekend. Now to get back to work.

I now declare this blog... OPEN!

Because we all know that what the world needs most is another knitting blog. It's true!

I guess I should start by saying that, though this blog will probably feature many crazy opinions shot out by yours truly, it's really meant as a journal for my designs. I must not let it become a diary for what I drank last night or who shot who or what skin disease I think I have today. Nuh uh. My employers might read this, yo! So while I'd love to have all my thoughts and emotions preserved for future generations, I'll have to bank on them being able to stick my head in a jar before I die. Then Kirsten's Head can post personal blogs well into the 22nd century! Hooray!

Edit: eh, who'm I kidding with this "only design journal" stuff? I already have non-knitting clap trap all over this freaking blog. Still, I'll try to keep it from getting too personal and awkward. People still have to be able to look me in the eye at work, right?