Yarngasms!

Warning: slightly risque content to follow. Requires a good sense of humor.

Yes, yarngasms. Like a footgasm when you wear a new handknit sock, but better. Why is a yarngasm bettern than a footgasm? Oh, let me count the ways.

1. You experience a yarnagsm in three different stages: buying, knitting/crocheting, and wearing and/or giving.

2. They boggle your entire mind, not just your feet.

3. Your hands are the chief interface with the yarn. Fingers have one of the highest concentrations of nerve endings on your body.

4. They can be experienced at the same time and/or overlapped with other 'gasms like footgasms (socks), handgasms (gloves), neckgasms (scarves) and the lovely total body gasm (sweaters). Double your pleasure, double your fun, right?

I have been having yarngasms here and there today whenever I pick up the scarf I'm making out of Misti Baby Alpaca Suri & Silk. My hands sing as it threads through my finders. My needles sigh at the feeling of being draped in this gorgeous stuff. I must make sure the recipient of this wonderful item knows how wonderful it is. I'm sure she'll take one feel and fall in love just like I did.

Another yarngasm that got started on Thursday when I bought the Misti was the purchase of my first hank of sock yarn that will be for socks. The skein of Trekking I got a while ago is turning into a lace scarf. Anyway, I am the proud holder of a lovely 100 grams of Araucania Ranco, 75% wool, 25% nylon/polyamide. The label says polyamide, Ravelry says it's nylon. Either way, it feels great and I'm looking ofrward to making my first pair of socks with it.

I will have pictures of these yarngasm-inducing items later. I have to go feel them up again before I let the public into our little private world. ;)

Dishcloths

I decided to take a break from Coachella to knit a few dishcloths. Dishcloths tend to be easy and fast, which are both in the recipe for instant knitter's gratification. Sometimes, you just need to finish something.

I found a pattern for a Star Trek dishcloth that I fiddled with a bit to give me this:


I also hatched an idea for a new cloth that was based on a pattern called Grandmother's Favorite. It's one of the simplest dishcloth patterns out there, but it is very boring to knit. Thinking that a horizontal rib would be fun, I started knitting and voila:


I'll get a better picture in later. Here's the modified pattern:

Cast on 4
row 1: k4
row 2: k2, yo, k to end
rows 3 and 4: k2, yo, p to last 2 sts, k2
row 5: k2, yo, k to end

repeat rows 2-5 until the cloth is big enough for you, then decrease like so:
row 6: k1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k to end
rows 7 and 8: k1, k2tog, yo, p2tog, p to last 2 sts, k2
row 9: k1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k to end

repeat rows 6-9 until there are 4 sts on needle. Bind off.

This variation makes this cloth less boring to knit, but still very effective for scrubbing. Now I have two new dishcloths and no progress on Coachella. Oh, well. :)

Auntie Courtney!

Not yet, but it is coming.




Here's a picture of the little one at 12 weeks gestation:


It's a pretty good shot for only 12 weeks. My sister is so excited. She's had some morning sickness, but she and her husband are thrilled at their impending addition. This is their first baby.

I think I'll really enjoy the second one more. The love will be the same, of course, but there will be no fear of the unknown. That will be nice.

Success!

The bag is felted! A scant 10 minutes in the washer and it shrunk up just beautifully. It isn't as tall as I'd planned, but that is so okay with me. My last felting project ended a bit disastrously, so this is a treat. I have no place to hang it, so I draped it over the computer chair.

Its shape is fine and it's nice and deep. The straps are longer than I thought they'd be, which is great because I got really sick of knitting them and bound off before I thought they'd be long enough for what I wanted. The color is lovely, blue with lighter flecks throughout. Paton's Classic Merino Wool in Denim Marl is nice for felting.

I'm tickled pink! After drying, all I gotta do is attatch the D rings for the adjustable strap and flap closure. Drying will take a while, though. I did let it spin a bit in the washer to get most of the water out, which seems to not have affected the shaping at all. Who said you shouldn't spin felted things? They were a little off. *wink*

I see the light! I'm almost out of the tunnel!

The blue felted bag was an endless sea of knitting stockinette in the round. Endless, that is, until Sunday. I finally finished the body of the bag while Peanut and I were hanging at Sarah's house. I started binding off while I was there, but when I got home I decided to undo that and knit two rounds of k2 p2 ribbing except where I was going to continue knitting the flap.

The flap, I decided, would be shaped just like the bag's bottom, then tapered to a long ribbon that will be used in one of those double D-ring closure things. Or something. I also knit a four stitch seed stitch border to prevent curling. It worked out nicely.

The strap took some thinking. Sarah suggested I check out the way the strap was done on the Slingshot at Knitty. I considered this, then decided on something different that serves two purposes. I'm knitting a strap with two strands of the wool held together on size 10 needles. Purpose 1: produces a thick strap that, when felted, will be nice and cushy on my shoulder. Purpose 2: knits up quick so I can finish this %$#@ing bag-that-never-ends.

I suppose it hasn't been that bad, though. Incredibly boring, but that was nice in it's own way. I was able to knit and make eye contact at the same time. And I knit while getting cavities filled at the dentist. Most people at the office there got a kick out of me knitting blind.

I cast on the leggings that I will KAL with some of my knitting buddies. We all have to make changes to the pattern because it's written for an anemic supermodel and we are real females with actual flesh on our calves. They will be a challenge and a fun KAL, but I also want to cast on baby socks so I can finally knit a pair of socks. Since they're itty bitty, they will go fast. Also, I will write up the pattern for the bag and post it here. I doubt anyone will use the pattern, but publishing it will be a good idea for posterity.