Goldielocks...

Alright so I'm a redhead rather than a blonde, and its knitting needles rather than porridge. [1] Work with me here on the comparison.
I've got size 30 cotton and a doily pattern that's caught my eye. (Yes more size 30 cotton. Sue me, it's my favourite lace thread.) 2 mm needles arent giving me the love anymore. The plain section is too dense for my liking.. perhaps I'm just uptight (Yeah yeah yeah.. I've heard it), or perhaps I should switch to decaf (Uhh.. full time tech support. As the button I got at GenCon says: I drink coffee for your protection. Not going to happen.), but I think my gauge has gotten tighter. Well. Damn. Okay, no problem.. I've got some 3 mm needles in my bag. (No project they go with, just a zippy bag of needles. Yeah, my life is like that.) 3 mm is way too big. The thread has no structure, no stitch definition. 2 mm is too small, 3 mm is too big.. where's my just right! 2.5 mm you say? Do I dare take those needles out of the sock in progress?



Yep, that's the sock in process no longer on 2.5 mm needles, but now on 3.0 mm needles. I really don't think one round of funky gauge in the ribbing is going to be the end of my socks' world as we know it. And I get the startitis under control. Uhh.. no I give in to it. As I always do. I am weak. *hangs head* See?



Salient points for the detail oriented: J&P Coats size 30 mercerized cotton, size 2.5 mm bamboo needles, one of the patterns out of Gloria Penning's compilation of Rachel Schenlling's patterns. Pattern 5 on page 3 for anyone who has the book.


[1] No porridge, but I do have a bear:



I'd claim it's blurred for the privacy of whoever that is sitting in front of the bear, but no.. really it's a photo out of a moving vehicle pre-coffee. The bear sits in front of the gallery next to where I work on campus. It is regularly dressed up for events or at the whim of university students.

Baked and half baked.

Nothing like mixing and matching my geeky pursuits. Sitting around at office hours for the vampire larp at UoW, bump into a D&D player that we game with in Toronto and work on casting off the doily. I think that moment perhaps quantified all that is geeky in my world. This damnned doily has given me no end of grief on the thread front. First the knots, then the running out, then the non mercerized. Grrrrr. It is done. Done done. Not blocked, but done.




I also finished the first of the dayglo socks. Jaywalker pattern, Regia sock yarn. These are the travel socks, so they dont happen quickly. I've cast on for the second one already, so hopefully that will keep SSS at bay. The fit's pretty good, and while I haven't weighed the ball of yarn remaining, I'm easily going to get the pair out of it and probably could get a pair of kids socks as well. Yay small feet. (Something about me is actually small. Hands and feet.. hey, I'm taking what I get here.)




Now I just need to decide what next. Perhaps I'll surf my Ravelry queue and see what leaps at me. I'm slowly getting the hang of Ravelry (a networking site for crafts.. sort of. It's a great big gawk fest at what everyone else is doing really). I wasnt sure of it to start with, but I'm a slowpoke at everything. Focus is for oth.. oooh! Shiny!

Poor old camera.

My poor old camera doesn't cope with shiny well. It doesn't cope with little well either. Have mercy on it, it's (in the scheme of digital) ancient. (which means a few years old. I'm so glad humans arent ranked on that scale of ancient). Anyhow, that being said, here's some beaded shiny (little *and* shiny.. oh yay) that I did in class last night.


Class was with the Guelph Needlecraft Guild (comment if you want more info), and it was downright heavenly to sit down at a class where I wasn't one of the people who knew what was going on. I tend to take classes that I could be teaching and end up being a resource for other students, but beading.. I'm a mook like everyone else. Here's a closer picture.. isnt it pretty!




If all goes well this evening, I might even have a knitting FO soon. Wouldn't *that* be novel.

Argh! Pink!

Problem. My usual. Using vintage thread, run out before the end of the doily. We won't get into the 'you never blog' problem, let's just pretend it never happened and move on. Okay? Okay. Right! Out of thread. As usual. This time about 9 rows from the end, which is at once better and worse than 2 rounds from the end. Varigated pink in size 30. No problem. I've got pink coming out my ears (me? Pink? Why!? I've no idea, I think it breeds). Seven different balls of pink cotton come out to the back deck with me. Natural light is the only way to go for matching.

Every last one.. mercerized. Nice and crisp and shiny. Doily? Not mercerized. Soft and faintly fuzzy and definately not shiny. Well. Damn!

Vintage cotton is nearly always mercerized. I'm up a tree here.. but wait! I did a little tiny doily out of this very same cotton thinking 'I've got lots! No problem!'.. I'll go find it, rip it out (Eeep!) and have plenty more cotton.

I can't find it. It's in the house somewhere, but damnned if I know where. In the hunt, I pick up a ball of white and put it down. And pick it up again. Size 30.. not mercerized. Well I'll be hotdamnned! Whoo!

Varigated middle, white edge.. nearly becoming my trademark.

Why do I have this much pink!?