February Giveaway

Hey there, yarn fans! In honor of February, our shortest month, I'm giving away some travel-sized products from Aquae Sulis, a knit-related soap shop!

Included in the giveaway are a knitter's balm, which has a really nice lavender scent, and some wool wash:

The set is perfectly sized for your knit bag! In addition, I've included two 50g skeins of Malabrigo Lace in Apple Green and Pearl Ten- they're adorably little and would make a great pair of striped fingerless mitts or a hat:

In order to win this month, go to the Aquae Sulis website and look around, then come back here and post your favorite product! Don't forget to leave your contact info so I can message you when you win!

Happy February! I'll draw a winner at the end of the month!

- YX

January Winner

Alright! Time to see who won January's custom skein giveaway!

Congrats to entry #41, Purplefrog5! I hope you enjoy your yarn!

For those who entered and didn't win, thank you for participating, and no worries! I have another great giveaway coming up in just a few minutes...

- YX

FO: Obsidian

I normally don't post on weekends, but I finished my Obsidian on Friday and got some photos of it today:

I don't know where the sassiness came from, but I'm not complaining. This sweater feels great on, like pretty much anything I knit with Wollmeise. There's no itch on my relatively sensitive skin, and the wool is lightweight enough to be warm but not stifling in 70 degree weather.

There are two ways to wear the sweater. The first is off the shoulder, like I have it shown above. The other is a more traditional cowl:

I love the color of the fabric, and that I had relatively few issues with pooling this time around. I mostly credit the all-knits garter stitch pattern, which keeps the yarn from getting on a circular repeat. The wrap-and-turn process in the pattern has an interesting result: a spine along the back of the sweater:

It's kind of a cool look, but definitely something that doesn't seem to be advertised in the pattern photos (except one at the very end, where the context is a little confusing). I really love the sweater and can see myself getting quite a bit of wear out of it, though. I really love the difference in gauge between the cowl and the body:

Great texture, but doesn't compete with the yarn. I love this colorway. It's so rich and pretty. And because of the liberal amount of dark blue in the skein, I can actually get away with wearing the greens and yellows that normally make me look like the wicked witch.

Woohoo! Another one bites the dust!

- YX

Dropped Stitches

I just picked up a dropped stitch on the sleeve of my Obsidian. It's the third dropped stitch I've encountered on this project... I'm finding them after 10 or 15 rounds have been knitted, too, so picking them up is hard because there's no slack where they once existed.

With this yarn (Wollmeise lace), picking up stitches is a finger wrenching, brain crunching task. The base is so splitty that the plies often get tangled and it's difficult to discern what goes where.

I think the most irritating part of a dropped stitch is that you have to pick it all the way back up to your current row. When I finish doing that, I don't get a sense of completion or finality-- it's just a bunch of work to get back to where I already am. No forward progress, no warm fuzzies.

Picking up dropped garter stitches is a different kind of torture, too. Normally, my trusty pink Boye crochet hook makes quick work of dropped stockinette, but garter requires removal and reinsertion of a hook, making it more trouble than using my spare DPN.

And perhaps I'm so irritated, not because I hate hate hate sleeves, but because I'm so close to being finished with this project that this kind of distraction seems like a mockery of my sanity. For what it's worth, I think my brain is wiped out tonight. I'll try for the home stretch tomorrow.

Good thing I'm getting close to done- we're back in the 70's here in the Lone Star state, meaning a good bit of my knit goods will be languishing for quite a few months again.

- YX

Weddings

Last week, I was out of town doing videography for a wedding. It was a beautiful celebration, and the bride and groom (my cousin and her fiance) looked so happy on their big day.

The cold January day made me think about wedding knitting. Did you make a shawl for your wedding? Perhaps for bridesmaids? I know there have been quite a few wedding dress projects on Ravelry, even! I can't imagine being dedicated enough for a whole dress, and these are just gorgeous. I found some great patterns that would work for a wedding, too. Check them out...

1930's Inspired Gown by Catherine Jeandel-- wow. This would be gorgeous in ivory, with several more repeats at the bottom to brush against the ground. The open back is beautiful.

#21 Lace Dress by Shirley Paden for Vogue Knitting. I love this for a City Hall wedding.

Principesa Dress by Sarah Wilson. I love this voluptuous dress with the drapey lace cowl. So romantic and would respond well to lengthening. 

I love these dresses! Unfortunately for me, I lack the discipline to finish anything remotely as involved. In fact, I have a #32 lace shawl that I began to knit for my wedding, but gave up on it quickly:

I guess it ended up being alright, since we got married in Key West in April-- the temperature wouldn't have been kind to a wooly me:

- YX

(Reminder to get some free yarn!)