Adventures in knitting

I got some amazing yarn for christmas. Mr. Gaia got me some 100% alpaca wool and organic cotton from Diva Knitting and my mom got me some lionbrand wool.

So, I'm searching ravelry for the perfect pattern to show off my new yarns. Meanwhile, I decide I need to work on my skills so I decided entrelac was just the thing. I grabbed a ball of some kind of dk acrylic in pastel variegated and cast on for Quant.

Mr. Gaia was offended. He couldn't understand why I would use crap from my stash rather than my wonderful new yarn. He doesn't get the idea of searching for that perfect pattern. Besides, I'm waiting for Drops to release some of their new patterns. There are some that might be perfect.

That and I'm going to work on losing some weight so I'll use less yarn and have enough to make a (fitted) sweater.

Coolest Earrings Ever

Okay, you knitters out there have to check out these earrings - they're too wonderful.

Can I admit to being more than a little jealous of the creativity that inspired these? I am so not creative at all.

Here's a link to her Etsy shop - http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5154009

Ravelry

I finally got my invite to Ravelry. I can't remember when I applied, before school started, so more than a month ago. I haven't done much yet. So far, I'm just looking around.

I think it's going to be a good thing and I hope to find some good ideas.

I need to load my stash into it and then I need to go search patterns. I'm not sure what I want to make next. I need something to take with me to soccer games, something that looks cool, but isn't hard to do.

Something that doesn't require $100 worth of yarn.

Knitting

So this is the tank top I decided to knit. I managed to get about 6 inches knit while listening to Mr. Gaia finish the last 200 pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. If that doesn't seem like much progress, well, that's because it isn't. I got caught up in the book too many time and ended up having to frog back the last row multiple times.

What sucks about it is that I really don't care for the yarn I'm using. It's red heart brand acrylic and scratchy as hell. I have no idea if I'll ever actually wear the darn thing.

Hyperion picked up a shell at the beach last time we were there. It was just a plain shell, but a hole had been drilled into it (probably by a murex). He asked me to make him a necklace with it. I collect these shells because I love the colors and the convenient hole makes me think I'll actually make jewelry with them. So far I've managed to continue to lose my stashes of them within days (yes, I finally decided on a central location and am not placing all of them there). Last night I went into my stash and found some waxed cord. I made a loop of the cord, pushed it through the hole and then the threaded the cord through the loop. Then I tied two knots in the cord - one strand was knotted OVER the other strand. Then that strand was knotted over the other. This makes a necklace that can be shortened or lengthened by pulling the knots closer to the shell. This all would, of course, be easier to explain with pics, but I don't have a working camera. A google search, however, turned up this tutorial which explains it very well.

He was happy with his new necklace for about 15 minutes and then he lost interest. Sigh.

But it is cool enough that I'm going to make more of them. So, it was a successful experiment in that respect.

Knitting Suggestions?

Okay, Mr. Gaia likes my tank top fine (because it is somewhat low cut) but he says he wishes I'd wear something that isn't cut/knit straight across, a v neck or a scoop neck, he says.

So, here's what I want in a pattern:

1) v-neck
2) knit in the round with very minimal sewing
3) it needs to be shaped
4) works with multiple kinds of yarn (so it needs to have a fairly large guage)
5) is a pattern I'd want to repeat many, many times so I have a nice wardrobe of them
6) the straps need to be wide enough to cover bra straps.

Does anyone know of a (preferably free) pattern that might meet these requirements?

Thanks!

Knitting

Well, I frogged my bag. It just wasn't going to work out. I couldn't figure out anything to put in the bottom to make it sturdy and have the right shape.

I decided instead to make this tank top. I'm making it in cream colored cotton. I need a cream colored shell to wear under a couple of sweaters plus I can wear it on its own. This is my second sweater and the first was an unmitigated disaster. So I hope this one works out much better.

I also like this tank top and this one looks really sexy.

My main problem is that my gauge is way too large for most sweaters. I'm using my smallest needles (size 2) so I don't know if I knit too loosely or if my yarn is just really heavy.

I hope I'll eventually have pics to post.

Knitting

So, bowing to online peer pressure, I finally decided to learn the continental method of knitting. I have to say that it isn't as hard to learn as I had thought it would be and I think once my hand gets used to holding the yarn (and stops cramping every few minutes) I will be able to knit a lot faster.

I started knitting a bag that I wanted to look like this when I was done but I'm thinking that it just isn't going to work. I'm not sure I will get the nice neat bottom I wanted. Mr. Gaia has suggested using an embroidery hoop to give it structure. I've considered getting heavy gauge wire and making a frame out of it, but I'm not sure how that will work out.

I may just frog the whole project and make a nice hat for my mother in law (knit hats are not flattering to me, as much as I want them to be). And then I can use the pretty, soft crochet cotton for something knit for me (yes, I know crochet cotton sucks for knitting, it doesn't have enough give, but it's something I have and it is pretty and soft).

Biking
9.13 miles. I was really aiming for 10 miles, but without an odometer, it's hard to know how far I've gone. 87.1F, 69% humidity. 17.3 mph SSE winds with gusts of 25.3mph (and believe me, turning into that wind felt like hitting a brick wall, especially since I was stupid and plotted our course to have headwinds at the end).