Finally, the Knitting. ::I should be studying. I'm not. After I get this post up. And the laundry done. And it feels right...:

Over the New Years holiday weekend, I was working on this baby sweater for a co-worker:



Yes, it's the Flax Jacket from one of the Minnows books. It's my baby gift stand-by. Cute and easy, knit in one piece to the armpits, and the sleeves are knit from pick up stitches, top down. The yarn is Cottonease (I speak it, do you?). In Blue.

Anyway, I had anticipated getting the sweater done over that weekend, and traveled to town, to the local yarn store, for buttons.

Just buttons.

So, after picking out the buttons, I performed the perfunctory stroll through the store (you know, just to be polite), whereupon I spied this:



It's Musa, by Lana Gatto. And it was love at first git-nekked-and-roll-around-together-on-the-floor. Really, I was mesmerized. It was sooo soft. And beautiful. I kept touching and squeezing and squeezing and touching. I even sniffed it. Twice. I even sniffed it. Twice.

When the clerk came over to see what I was looking at, she said "Ohhh," with a knowing smile.

I'm not the first? I asked.

No, she laughed.

I think I just layed an egg. Says I.

It's a common response, she replied, with a knowing nod.

But I'm ligated. I said, with a tremble of fear.

It's powerful stuff. Love carefully, she added, ominously.

I grabbed one skein (240 some yds, on 11 needles, great scarf potential) and headed for the register. When the yarn lady said the stuff has been flying off the shelves and might I rethink the single skein purchase, I was about to cry. So went to the shelf to fetch the rest.

::Is it hot in here? Or just me?::

Needles to say, it was impossible very difficult to start back on that damned Cottonass, I mean Cottonease. ::Sorry Bron. While I do appreciate the Cottonease, it felt like a string of turds after that other stuff.::

And needles to say, that baby sweater is as of yet, undone.

A while back, I fell in love with this pattern, after seeing it at my new neighborhood yarn shop:



It's Sursa, from Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton's Book Number Two.

So the Musa and the Sursa, were meant to be. Or so I thought. Here's the finished product.:



The ruffle, er, the ruffle-like-substance, er the unruffle, is done in Noro's Iroha. ::Have you touched/sniffed that shit? I'm learning that there's a whole nother yarn world out there, all mine for the rolling around in.::

But, as you can see, sort of, it's less ruffle than it is annoyingly loose rev. stockinette edging. I was really going for a funky look with the choice in contrast. Without an effective ruffle, it looks like something my grandma's cat dragged in from the tacky neighbor's pile of curbside pickup. Circa 1964.

I think the problem with the un-ruffle is that the gauge on the yarn I used for the main body is bigger than what the pattern calls for. The pattern instructions are very specified yarn specific, which is kind of annoying. For example, they tell you to knit the shawl until 125 grams of yarn remain, instead of giving a specific length. Like, who carries a scale in their knitting bag? Okay, maybe I don't want to know.

Here she be, on the shoulders. Just imagine a brilliant, funkafied ruffle, where that other stuff hangs:



Anyway, it's already ripped out and awaiting a new attempt.

I always feel badly that I don't do much knitting on this knit blog. But maybe that's a good thing. I'm boring myself to tears.

The Banana Split
In comments, Stacey Joy wondered what I was doing with a banana in my purse. Truthfully, I thought that item would raise more interest. In fact, the first draft of that post contained an explanation, but I changed my mind.

I'm weird about my bananas. There is typically a 15 minute window in a banana's development, when it is of perfect ripeness for consumption. If I transport my banana with my other lunch stuff, it gets all icky from being near the cold stuff. So I keep it in my purse. Sometimes I forget to take it out. That's gross. And that's that.

And while you're at Red Lipstick, check out the booty full booties. ::Spontaneous Ovulation Warnings are in Effect::

And now, I need to go study. As soon as I clean out the refrigerator and organize my recipe file and pluck the pubes from my chin and finish the laundry and trim the dog's nails and call my mom and apologize for all the horrible things I did as a teen, that she never knew about.

After that, I study.

Have a Monday, everyone.

::Sorry for late edit. Made mistake applying Red Lipstick's address::

Labels: Knit Done