a dillydallyknitter: September 2006

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Forgive Me Knitters for I Have UFO

...it's been a year since I've last picked up this scarf.

This week's Blogstalkin' assignment is to photograh, our oldest UFO. Mine is the Loopy Scarf from Knitty. I really have no idea why I haven't finished it other than I put it down one day and never picked it back up (which also describes my current method of housekeeping). Now that Fall's almost here, maybe I'll be inspired to knock this out.



Combo of Berroco Hip Hop and Kidsilk Haze knit on big 'ole US#17(12mm) needles

I've only been knitting for 1.5 years so I don't have very old knitting UFOs but my oldest fiber related UFO would be a Christmas counted cross stitch started about 4-5 years ago. I haven't cross stitched in years so maybe it will stitch itself in the middle of the night and I'll have it for Christmas 2100...

The headless reindeer:


A picture of the pattern: As you can see, I have a long way to go.

posted by cpurl17 @ 11:12 AM   9 comments

Friday, September 29, 2006

It's a Rowan YPF!

As it usually happens with yarnaholics, a few weeks ago I stopped by a LYS to buy some sock needles and left the store with this:


The yarn I need to make this sweater, Glade, from Rowan 40:

I takes 3 coordinating colourways of the new yarn, Tapestry and 3 matching colours of Kidsilk Haze. (I forgot the ball bands so I'll add the names of the colours later.)








posted by cpurl17 @ 9:45 AM   15 comments

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Life is a Cabaret, Old Chum

After languishing for months in my knitting bag, I finally completed the Cabaret Raglan by Norah Gaughan from the summer 2004 Interweave Knits.





Yarn: Reynolds Cabaret 100% Cotton (discontinued, I bought on clearance)

The sweater turned out well but I don't like how it looks on me (wah!) so I'm sending it to my sister (who is more petite than me).

Put down the knitting,

The book and the broom.

Time for a holiday.

Life is Cabaret, old chum,

Come to the Cabaret!


posted by cpurl17 @ 9:35 PM   10 comments

Sunday, September 24, 2006

The Mystery is Solved!

The other night I finished my second Mystery Sock KAL sock, the the Ocean Sox that I was knitting along with Zknitter.


Close up of the "kelp pattern"

I used Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, color 162 "Icehouse" and size 2 needles.

Check out Zonda's sock! We knit them in a duo KAL!

posted by cpurl17 @ 5:42 PM   12 comments

Knitty Friends and More Yarn!

On Saturday I went yarn shopping with Left Coast Knitter, Ceallach and met a new Knitter Janet (who is very mysterious and slipped out of the photo but that's her half empty margarita glass on the table). Being knitters, we celebrated our yarn purchases by eating mexican food and drinking margaritas because you know how we do.


First we went to Yarn! in Alameda. The shop owner is closing her shop to pursue a new business endeavor so everything is 25% off.

I bought 9 skeins of Noro Cash Iroha in a royal blue color:


More sock yarn - Gem's Pearl & Opal:


And 2 back issues of Rowan magazines. I so do not excude the Rowan cool but I love looking at these magazines and want to collect every single one:


***


Fancy cat beds all over the house, including a handmade Kitty Pi bed and my cat chooses to sleep in a cardboard box lid...

posted by cpurl17 @ 9:04 AM   7 comments

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Saturday Night at the Movies

This week's blogstalkin' assignment: our home video collection. Mine, as you can see, is rather pathetic.

I have some Christmas DVDs stored away that I watch every year: A Christmas Story, A Christmas Carol, White Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, Charlie Brown Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life, the Grinch.

And a few I can watch over and over:


Do you remember the world before instant gratification? Back in my day the Wizard of Oz would come on television once a year and it was a really Big Deal. We'd get to sit in front of our one color TV with a big bowl of popcorn (popped on the stove with real butter) and be terrified with Dorothy as she traveled the yellow brick road and faced the Wicked Witch of the West. And don't forget those flying monkeys.

Mary Poppins was the first movie I ever saw in a real theater. I was entranced. My Mother bought me the movie soundtrack album and I played it over and over and over and can probably still sing most of the lyrics. For my birthday I got a melamine Mary Poppins plate set and it was my favorite. So much so that I saw one on Ebay a few years ago and bought it.


And Mika wanted you to know her favorites: Cat Sitter and Couch Potato Kitty's.


A movie doesn’t have to do everything. A movie just has to do a couple of things. If it does those things well and gives you a cool night at the movies, an emotion, that’s good enough. ~ Quentin Tarintino

posted by cpurl17 @ 7:24 PM   4 comments

Friday, September 22, 2006

Friday Night Yarn Pr0n is a Re-Run

I had issues with blogger and didn't get home in time to take photos by sunlight so my first post is a re-run--This is a 1,375 yard skein of Ellen's Half Pint Farm 50/50 merino/silk I bought last February at Stitches West. Still in my stash!



Tomorrow I'm meeting up with Ceallach and Left Coast Knitter for a little yarn shopping so watch this space!

posted by cpurl17 @ 11:03 PM   3 comments

Monday, September 18, 2006

Monday Cheap Thrills Yarn Pr0n.

Michael's is having a sale on Paton's Merino wool so I stopped by on Sunday to pick up a couple of skeins and the next thing you know I'm explaining the importance of dye lots to a very nice sales clerk who opened a new package of purple yarn for me and I leave with two huge bags full of yarn.

BTW, if you ever want to torture Cpurl, make me stand in line at Michaels where they are having some "issues" at the register so we all shift over to a new line but end up behind a woman who is buying a gazillion flower picks and some ribbon that has to be cut from the spool and the sales clerk has to go find a pair of scissors because Lawd knows how hard it is to find scissors in a CRAFT store but I digress.


So it's not the fanciest of yarns but I have enough yarn to make this:

The Must Have Cardigan

And I have enough of this to make a simple cardigan

It's actually a lot deeper shade of purple

And this I thought would be fun to felt with:

So, 2 future merino wool sweaters for under $30.00 ain't bad. Plus a bunch of other colors to felt and craft with.

posted by cpurl17 @ 9:30 AM   13 comments

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Keep On Readin' in the Free World...

....or, Help Cpurl Destash Some Books.

This week's Knitty Blogstalkin' Assignment: Our Library


I'm lucky to live in between two local libraries:
The bronze sculptures sit outside the one in my town.














The next town over features these bright sculptures:


It was nice to see how busy they both were with a steady stream of patrons.



Chez Cpurl, I'm still dreaming of having a great library -- but I do have a number of books piling up in various corners, bookshelves and nooks gathering dust so I'd thought I'd share them with my fellow Knittyheads. Below is a list of titles below so if you see any you'd like to read, email me your addy and I'll send it off to you--no strings (or yarn ha ha) attached. The rest I'll haul off to a local charity.

Disclaimer on condition: While I treat hardbound books with reverence, I'm not so kind with paperbacks. These have been read on airplanes, commuter trains, the bathtub, during a meal or sitting in the corner gathering dust. I'll mail these off as time permits, using Media mail in the States and Surface mail to the ROW.

























Cpurl's Book DeStack list:

A Changed Man by Francine Prose
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman
His Excellency George Washington by Joseph Ellis
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Jewel by Bret Lott
Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler taken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel taken
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides taken
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult taken
Never Change by Elizabeth Berg taken
Patty Jane’s House of Curl by Lorna Landvik
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi taken
River, Cross My Heart by Breena Clarke
Road Song by Natalie Kusz
She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
Shoot the Moon by Billie Letts
Songs in Ordinary Time by Mary McGarry Morris
Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by Malika Oufkir
Sula by Toni Morrison
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon taken
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greertaken
The Day I Turned Uncool by Dan Zevin taken
The Elegant Gathering of White Snows by Kris Radish taken
The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
The Girl’s Guide to Hunging and Fisihig by Melissa Bank
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini taken
The Ladies Auxiliary by Tova Mirvis
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley taken
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon taken
The Sunday Philosoph Club by Alexander McCall Smith
The Tall Pine Polka by Lorna Landvik
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger taken
The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler taken
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston taken
Touching My Father’s Soul:A Sherpa’s Journey to the Top of Everest by Jamling Tnezing Norgay
Under a Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes
What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearl Cleage
When the Elephants Dance Tess Uriza Holthe
Wicked by Gregory Maguire taken
Whisker of Evil by Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown


So if any of these titles appeal to you, send me an email and if it's unclaimed, it's yours!

In knitting news, I've finished my California Hiker socks and one of my Mystery KAL socks. Zknitter and I are knitting the same mystery pattern so I promised not to post a photo until she finished her first sock. (She's a busy gal on the go!)


Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport Sock Yarn

posted by cpurl17 @ 6:42 PM   9 comments

Saturday, September 09, 2006

My Brush with Knitting Celebrity Greatness!

OHMYGAWWWDDD, I got to take a celebrity photograph with Ceallach of Ceallach Knits!! She's so cool--how perfect for this week's blogstalking assignment of a photo with a celebrity.

Oh, and some Canadian woman who calls herself the Yarn Harlot wanted to be in the photo too. Poor thing, no one was giving her any attention so we let her pose with us.

(I wait for hours to get my big photo moment and my clapotis ends up all bunched up on my shoulder, sigh)

So, I met up with Ceallach today and we drove to over Los Altos where over 300 knitters showed up at Full Thread Ahead to see the Yarn Harlot herself, the uber-fabulous Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.

After checking in, we walked around the shops and, since knitters can't live on yarn alone (shocking, I know), Ceallach treated me to a refreshing margarita and appetizer platter at a local Mexican place. We returned to the shop and found some seats.

BTW, speaking of celebrities, Cookie of Pomatomas sock fame is somewhere in this crowd.


As expected, Stephanie was a hilarious and very entertaining speaker.


And, as you all know, you can't go to a yarn event and come home empty handed--Los Altos has another yarn shop, Uncommon Threads where I scored some Koigu because, as I said to Ceallach, this colorway makes me happy. And she understood, because she found some happy Koigu too.

posted by cpurl17 @ 10:39 PM   12 comments

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

P...is for Project Spectrum Post Card

I received my Project Spectrum postcard the other day! Melissa of Frog Stitch stitched me an fabulous fabric postcard and even included some beads and ribbon as embellishments.


Little beaded flowers:


The postcard I sent her was a collage:

If you couldn't tell, the color theme this month was Neutrals / Black & White. I'm a little sad that it's over but looking forward to Project Spectrum 2.0 in January, 2007.

posted by cpurl17 @ 10:04 PM   5 comments

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

A..B..Catching Up

...or How I Salvaged My Long Weekend.

The Long Weekend (Labor Day here in the US) started out crappy for me. 2/3 of the time I had a mondo headache. The kind where you can't sleep and you want knit to but it hurts so you knit anyway balancing an icepack on yo head and end up making stupid mistakes and have to rip out your sock TWICE.


So I tried to distract myself by catching up on my ABC along photos:

O is for Obi


Obi is a traditional sash used with Japanese Kimono. Here, I'm using a vintage obi as a dresser runner.

P is for Project Spectrum postcard.

This month I'm swapping with Melissa from Frog Stitch Our cards are both in transit to and from Canada so I have to "P is for Postpone" this photo!

Q is for QVC

No Hope you'll ever get that Aran shawl done in time for Christmas? Tired of friends who just don't get why you knit when you can buy a merino wool sweater for $49.92? Too pooped to get off the sofa to get to the LYS? Have a crush on the UPS man?

Then the answer is just an 800 phone call away! 24/7!



And don't think I don't have the furnitureslides,goldearrings,goosedownpillows,foldingfootstool,
fullerbrushdoormat, pressurewasher and,ohyes,pre-litChristmastree to prove it!


So yesterday, I got to take a nap with my buddy Mika. Notice my socks don't match?

And, at the end of the day, I managed to finish one sock.

So the weekend wasn't a total wash afterall!

posted by cpurl17 @ 5:54 PM   15 comments