Moving On

The last couple of days I've gotten home from work, picked up my knitting for about 3-4 stitches and then passed out. I imagine that working at this pace indefinitely would really make for poor progress, not to mention increase the impossible nature of Christmas knitting. Unfortunately, the knitting is going to stay at a tortoise-like pace for the next month as I'm packing up my kittens and my Andrew and moving cross country at the end of July. I did make some progress on my left glove.



Yes, this is the same amount of knitting I was able to do in two days on the right glove, only it took twelve.
Right now I'm staring at a pile of flattened boxes and shelves of stuff that really needs to go in them. So I think I'm going to knit for a while. Don't judge me.

What's Next?

Alright, the second glove is moving along a wee bit slower than the first and Bob is, ahem, taking a breather as my feeble brain can't handle the ever changing amount of yarn strands that grace his beautiful face right now. So, I will show you yarn for my next few projects. Note: I am a deceptively slow knitter so please ignore the dust on the yarn.

First we have some Rowan Big Wool in Best Brown.



This will be a cardigan of some type to keep Andrew's skinny ass warm in Chicago. I'm betting I can knit this sucker in a week.

Next we have my new winter sweater.



This is about 11-12 balls of Manos in color 108. It will be a zip up raglan from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I'm super stoked about this because I've had half of the yarn for about 3 years and now my plan for my first sweater that I'm not embarrassed to leave the house in is almost complete.

The next collection of yarn is much more speculative in nature.



It's 8 balls of sport weight alpaca that have no intended purpose whatsoever. For some reason I have a tendency to buy single balls of sport weight alpaca just because. I don't get it either. Anyway, I know that I'm a big fan of the solid dreary man-colors, but I was thinking that this could be the start of a really great Kaffe Fasset-esque sweater, much like this one...



Too Heathecliff Huxtable? I don't know. I figured it would be perfect for a baby sweater but the only baby I know lives in San Diego and what freak in their right mind knits a baby sweater out of alpaca? (Note: if you happen to be knitting a baby sweater out of alpaca, I'm totally not talking about you.) Do I really want to knit a sweater in sport weight that I will probably never wear? Maybe I'll find a new friend with really bad taste. Let's hope.

Research v. Knitting

Research is going well. I've read five books cover to cover in the last week and yet I still managed to knit. Well, knit slowly.



The right glove is finished and the left is on the way.



Probably Jane came through with a completely accurate appraisal of my mystery fiber. They are in fact a set of microfibre pinch braided dread extensions that once graced Andrew's lovely head.



They look a lot like Ozark Handspun and I think they'll make a pretty awesome hat knit on large needles.



They were done by Heather McClure at Black Cherry Hair Salon in Atlanta. She is amazing with the color, no?

Like a...

I spent most of this past weekend doing research and attending to some family matters but I was able to get some knitting done yesterday.



I went to knit at Main Street last night and thankfully Stephanie gave me some advice on glove construction. My pattern has all of the fingers knit from the same round. This would result in an ill fitting fouchette around the little and ring fingers. Right now I'm sort of terracing the fingers so it fits much more comfortably.

I also got some knitting done on Bob.



I'm really enjoying the intarsia. I have, however, been known to break out into a sweat when I realize that after starting a new length of yarn, the next row needs another length, in the same color and general area, just six stitches over. I'm 12 rows into the chart and this is what the back looks like:



I'm pumped.

In other news, do any of you guys know what this is?



It's the most unusual thing I have. More on this later. Y'all have a bang up day.

New Books

I bought some books this week. One is Knit Two Together by Tracey Ullman and Mel Clark. The first time I looked at the book I was underwhelmed and Andrew said I called it "stupid" and "tacky". I saw some images online the other day and was all "Those are freaking awesome! What book is that?" Yep. I bought it immediately. I'm pretty sure I love it still, which is good, because I've loved Tracey Ullman since I was a little knitter. This is not a critique, but I'm a little frightened by the amount of pattern books being produced by Los Angeles yarn stores. If you happen to own a yarn shop in Los Angeles and have published, are publishing or thinking of publishing a completely different book of your own super original patterns, disregard me. I'm only talking about the other Los Angeles yarn shops that have, are or will produce a completely different book of their own super original patterns. That said, Mel Clark does have some mad design skills and her book really is worth having.

The other book is a 1972 10th edition of Davis-Chris Textbook of Surgery. I snagged it for $2.50 at Goodwill. Score!

What's the likely hood of me knitting anything from Knit 2 Together?
About as likely as me performing a Clinical Pulmonary Transplant, but the pictures are fun to look at.