I've Been Bad. Very Bad.

Cityknits had a 30% off sale. I got to Detroit early on Monday before practice so that I could spend money I should be putting toward other stuff. Needless to say I won't have to buy yarn for a long, long time.

I got:2 hanks of the Peruvian Tweed I've had my eye on and almost bought in other yarn stores. Might have to pick up a 3rd to make a full sweater, but the stuff is easy enough to find. Not sure exactly what I want to do with it yet, perhaps I'll use it for the remake of an old sweater that I love (but am wearing out)...

Some Butterfly Cotton, 4 hanks in an asparagus green and 3 in a light blue color. There was a wrap sweater in the Spring/Summer 2006 Vogue that I had my eye on (other than the one I ended up making a few months ago), but never got around to due to my lack of yarn fundage. It's still pretty high on my to-knit list, I was planning on starting it in February so it would be ready for the spring weather, so while the yarn was on sale, I bought it. Sorry, can't find a pic of the actual sweater in the magazine, but if you have it, it's the wrap sweater in the Roman Holiday spread that's basically done in these two colors.



13 lucky balls of Karabella Aurora in Moss, which I will be using for this pattern (also purchased at Cityknits):It's by Karabella, it's simply called the cabled cardigan. If you've been to Cityknits, they have the sweater in the exact color I bought hanging in the store. Sexy! (I just realized that the Karabella and the cotton for that other sweater are basically the same color! Doh! Oh well.)


As if I didn't just spend enough money (almost $200) on all that yarn at Cityknits, the week before Beth and I went out to Knit-A-Round in Ann Arbor (one of my favorite yarn stores ever). There I bought yarn for Eunny Jang's Deep V Argyle Vest, which is my first color work and a very easy, fun pattern! I'm doing it in Cascade 22o in a khaki and rose color combo. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the first chart!



And at Cityknits, I also picked up the last remaining hank of this pretty green heather Cascade 220, which I haven't been able to find more of anywhere else. (Not that I've honestly looked all that hard...as you may have already guessed, I don't have much yarn funding at the moment). I'm planning on eventually getting more and using it to make this gorgeous fitted cabled sweater in the latest Vogue Knitting.

Oh, and as for Eleanor...she was cast off on Tuesday 10/17. She's blocked, the single crochet row at each short end has been added, and now she's just waiting for me to quit forgetting to stop by Michael's and pick up one more ball of yarn because I don't have enough for the fringe :) Should get around to finishing this weekend.

Yay for having lots of yarn! No wonder I'm having to go into work tomorrow (a Saturday!) and pick up overtime!

Shot Out To Knitters!

I love knitters. Seriously. I've been a little restless and moved around a lot in the past few years since I finished school, trying to find the "right" place for me. First there was Rochester NY...didn't like it there so much, I basically ended up there since that's where boyfriend got a job. When teaching didn't quite work out, I packed up and moved to Detroit, Michigan, in hopes of finding a job and skating competitively again. Skating was going great, but the job search wasn't as successful (needless to say I had a lot of knitting time). After a few months of no luck there, I was able to find a job in Cleveland...which was good because my family is there and many of my friends have migrated back that way in the past year. (Let me just say that aside from knitters, the other great type of friend is former skating teammates. Synchronized skating creates a sisterly bond that really does last a loooong time.)

But in all places, I've found great friends. They're knitters. I miss my Rah-cha-cha knitters dearly--that is, by far, the quirkiest, goofiest group, but amidst the alcohol, laughter, and dirty old men (Jim included), there is extraordinary talent and a shitload of heart. Then there were the Detroit knitters, who welcomed me with open arms and although I was only there a short time, became great friends. Funny how no one in the Roc EVER knit socks (although they seem to have caught on to that trend), and it seems like that's all the Detroit knitters do. That and their dishcloth exchanges (while I've come to understand knitting socks, I've yet to grasp onto dishcloths...or exchanging dishcloths with people you don't know, but to each her own, eh)? Now I miss them too.

I've been to the Cleveland knitting group twice, I'm sure in due time they'll be as near and dear to me as all y'all in Rochester and Detroit have been.

As for the new job...I'm working for a company that helps prepare defense cases when hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, etc (basically anything medical-related) get sued. We prepare the defense's case, I'm in the medical division, where analysts go through the medical records of the thousands of people suing and for each one, come up with a report in plain English that lawyers can understand. I edit those reports. Sounds exciting, huh? Despite it being kind of boring, I have great benefits (better than what I had as a teacher), flexible schedule, they're willing to let me work around skating, I don't have to work overtime but can if I want (and get paid for it, too), I don't have to directly deal with stupid people (only on paper), I have NO stress and go home in a good mood. Pay is less than what I'd like to be making right now, but having my personal sanity is a halfway decent trade-off.

And since you all know I'm crazy when it comes to figure skating, I drive up after work on Monday nights to Detroit (Dearborn actually), practice with my synchro team, and drive back to Cleveland. That's just over two hours each way. And you thought you were nuts because you drive 45 minutes to the good not-so-local-YS once in a while.

Anyway, I'm in Detroit at the moment, gotta get going to meet up with Beth...we're going to spend some major moola tonight at Knit-A-Round before I have to be at practice tonight. There is a cabled sweater in the new Vogue that I have GOT to knit. (Kind of a spontaneous last minute thing, sorry to those of you who may have wanted to come along!)

Oh, and Eleanor is scheduled to come off the needles tonight possibly. Woo hoo!

How Quickly They Grow Up

Here's my little Eleanor, at just over two weeks since she was first cast on. Already at seven skeins of yarn. *Tear* She and I spent a very vibrant, sunny fall Sunday together on the patio the other day. She's just getting longer right before my eyes...


Like a proud mother, I laid her out on the patio next to the flowers to take another progress pic; the ultrasound of knitting:
And that's when I noticed one square was laying kind of oddly...almost twisted. As you see here:

But this yarn is wool, right? With the magic of blocking, it seemed as if it would lay out all right. I tied on ball number eight and knit on. Three rows later, I realized that what I had *thought* was a pesky square was really a pretty hefty error. Somehow I had managed to add another diagonal "column" of squares (starting at that odd blue one), which would make Eleanor wider on the second half and bug the heck out of me. As you can see in this photo...the two outside lines cover columns going from one end of the wrap to the other, as they should. That one in the middle somehow, due to a brain fart, snuck its way in. Let me repeat: I discovered this after I had added three more rows of squares to what you see in this photo. But I couldn't just leave that error there to stare me in the face and make me feel like a failure every time I wore this shawl. I'd be scorned at by knitters everywhere. You know what I did next, much to the horror of my family who sat there watching, claiming that you could hardly notice it, and that they would have just left it and kept going. Hmmph. By the way, I'd like to give a shot out to my great uncle Mike's "lady friend," who was kind enough to help me, the traumatized knitter, by winding my yarn as I was frogging it. Way to be a pillar of strength in this time of knitterly disaster. When all frogging was done, I had ripped out well over one skein of yarn.

But we're past that now.

I'm happy to say little Eleanor has made a full recovery and is back to where she was before this unfortunate accident...actually, a whole row further, as of tonight. She'll be a Lady before we know it!