To make it official -- hie thee hither to the new blog site, with a new name.

http://ninaisknitting.wordpress.com

(Name change explained in the ETA note on my last post.)

Better than nothing...

[ETA: I do everything a million years after everyone else has ... to that end, I'm moving over to WordPress. I know, I know. I've changed the name too, since the vast number of searches that directed people to this site were for 'pigtails, girls, knee socks', which was icking me out. In a big way.
Go HERE now: http://ninaisknitting.wordpress.com/]

Two hats:

St. Patrick's Day Slouchy Beret --
Frog Tree Alpaca, two row stripes, two different shades of green.



I am a big fan of kelly green, but think that it looks lousy on me with my complexion and general coloring, so striping the bright almost pure secondary color with a muddy acid green was just what the doctor (I) ordered. The matching St. Patrick's day hobo gloves did exactly make themselves, though I put a lot of energy into hoping that they would, while I dealt productively (not) with a made case of start of spring break startitis.
I didn't rely on any specific pattern -- I just cast on a bunch of stitches, knit upward, and cast off once the hat seemed slouchy enough. I have not yet woven in ends, and I finished this ... a month ago? Yikes.

Next Hat: Dorothea, by Kristen Kapur



Yarn: Madeline Tosh Worsted, in Clover. Yum.

Jury's out on whether this is actually a flattering color for me, and I don't trust my computer's webcam at 11:45 pm to give an accurate picture of the color, but gawrsh do I like this yarn in this color...

I wanted another Spring Hat since Easter is New English for "another freaking cold snap after you thought it would be warm forever and ever amen" -- the leaves and green and the squishy squishy merino seem to fit the bill.
This pattern is lovely, and all errors with it are my own durn fault, namely for not printing out a copy of the pattern and trying to conjure it up in my head on a long bus ride to Boston and back (a long story). I would absolutely knit this again, and there are so many squishy green merino yarns out there to try...

The past year has been almost an entire period of Startitis (and a wicked case of Second Sock Syndrome), and I've got quite a few projects on the needles -- a lace scarf, a ribbed scarf, a pair of mittens, the aforementioned hobo gloves, at least three mate-less socks, and a baby sweater that needs some freaking seams and buttons and to be mailed to my cousin's baby girl -- and then there are the sweaters (three) for which I have all the yarn, I have the patterns, I just need the time to swatch, start, and finish, and, of course, they're all winter sweaters just in time for spring.

Try to guess how many of those projects are green...

And after all that...

So, I had a long, amusing, and apologetic post in the planning process. I'd taken pictures of a few of the (many) recent knits (some more successful than others), and even conscripted a housemate (yeah Suh!) to take some pictures of me modelling two and a half finished objects. I'd finally opened up the replacement cable for my digital camera (the original is MIA. Somewhere) and hadn't even injured myself on the clamshell packaging.

And now the em-effing computer won't recognize my camera as new hardware, which means that there is either (a) a problem with my computer, (b) a problem with the camera, or (c) a problem with the new USB cable.

BAH.

To be continued!!

[PS: I am alive, and I am knitting -- I've been insanely busy this semester with two jobs, one comp, as well as three classes, which has meant not enough time for any one thing, and blogging disappeared. But hopefully not for much longer!!]

And now for something completely different ...

So, I went to Rhinebeck yesterday.

It was awesome!!

I saw lots of sheep,



llamas,



and goats,



as well as rabbits, alpacas, and other knit bloggers, including Ann Hansen, Amy Singer (of Knitty), MintyFresh, Laura Chau, and possibly even Franklin Habit. I know that he was there ...
I fan-girled out in front of Ann and Amy. They're both totally cute -- Ann was decked out in this gorgeous sweater, and I almost did the equivalent of reading poetry you've written to your favorite poet ... I told her that her work had inspired a project of mine, and nearly pulled this out of my project bag to show her:



This will be a cowl in the "Gingerbread Rib" pattern from Vogue Sock Knitting, in Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 (the sockweight merino yarn by FA) in the Nova Scotia Colorway. (The yarn is amazing in terms of how silky it feels, and how jewel-like the color tone is. It's like kelp, and pine, and ponds, and blue skies ... when my family was in Maine this summer, I saw all of the colors in effect!)



I've tended to shy away from texture rich patterns with variegated yarn, but this seems to work so well!

Ann's sweater, on the other hand, is an amazing interplay of color variation and texture, and totally makes me want to cabley sweater out of Briar Rose yarn.

(Read Ann's blog, wouldja? Not only is her work great, she's got a fabulous garden, cooks gorgeous looking food, and made me want to knit stoles. Stoles, people! Also, she was terribly nice to me, even though I felt as though I'd totally accosted her.)

As mentioned, I also fan-girled out in front of Amy Singer. Knitty is awesome -- I remember when I first stumbled upon the link to it on Eunny Jang's blog when she knit "Shedir" -- and Amy's books are fun, colorful and inviting.

Interestingly, I did not approach Laura or Minty, or the guy that I thought might be Franklin ... the possible-Franklin because he might not have been the man behind the Panopticon blog, but the younger women ... I don't know! I was hit by shyness, and a worry that I'm bothering "celebrities" who just want to have a good time with their friends, in other words, the same feelings that kept me from pulling out my work in front of Ann Hanson. All of which left/leaves me feeling very meta...

Anyways. I also got this done:



The beginnings of the two-color brioche hat in Weekend Knitting -- I cast on on the bus ride to Rhinebeck, and completed this much as of this afternoon.



Lamb's Pride by Brown Sheep, in the Wild Mustard and Oregano colorways, picked out by the boyfriend, because I kept mis-interpreting UVM colors.
But for the LARGE KNOT I encountered unexpectedly in the Wild Mustard Colorway, I love the yarn! It's perfect for a hat, and mohair halo is so dang purty.



Dig the two-color brioche detail ... Unfortunately, I will be frogging this, since, one, it is way too big, and two, the newbie errors I made are pissing me off. Expect more brioche in the round from me.

But first, expect more gifts for others from me ... my backlog of promised projects in mortifyingly long, right now, and with the holiday season starting and all ...

Best of all about Rhinebeck, though, was that I made a friend. And I neglected to take a picture of her. No matter. Cora is awesome, and was the best person to walk around a strange, beautiful new place with. Also, she drives a moped.

A successful day, all around.

PS: I would show pictures of what I bought, but then I would immediately start in on thrummed mittens, neck gaiters for Dad, or holy-frickin'-jeez pretty socks ... when what I need to do is finish two papers. Stupid grad school.

Pictures of Things I Have Knit:

Which of these things is not like the other?



Which of these things...



does not...



does not...



belong?

To be continued...

Some Pink Socks...

So, it's been a slightly longer while than I expected -- regardless, I come with pictures. (And a post.)




Details.
Yarn: Koigu, Painter's Palette Merino, in one juicy combination of pinks, reds, and oranges.
Needles: Pointy metal size 1s in that powdery metal finish. They made my right hand middle finger go numb, and I'm not totally sure what was up with that.



Destined for my mom -- I had such a great time choosing the yarn, knitting the cables, and doing the first sock. Alas, the second sock dragged like a ... well, you know. Finishing the foot was a day long slog that involved staying up past my bedtime just to GET IT DONE.



And yet ... I love them. There may be a hold on top-down basic stockinette socks (the tedium of not having a pattern repeat to look forward to or count bothered me in a way that I'd never felt before!) for a while, but I'll be back. For real.

Next up, patterned finished socks, and some works in progress.

This is a ...

In middle school, the cool girls used to play this really inane game that went something like this:

This is a (blank).
A what?
A (blank).
A what?
A (blank).
Oh! A (blank)!

The (blank) would be some common object with a one syllable name, or a name shortened to one-syllable -- girls would sit in a circle and gradually pass more items around the circle, and it was theoretically an exercise in concentration. In practice, it was really annoying, and something that only cool girls in middle school can actually get away with.

This is all a long winded way of saying that this is a HAT, that I knit a while ago for Marcia at the Forest Guild to make up for the fact that I got to see a dress rehearsal of Billy Budd the opera with her son who works as an usher at the Santa Fe Opera.



Slightly washed out because of the awesome power of sun, but I really really like this hat -- I improvised the shaping at the top, and it ends in a sweet little point that is just elfin enough.

Dig the cables:



They make it extra squishy, and may have introduced me to the crack that is knitting cables. I love the process and love the effect. So much that I committed myself to knitting two more hats -- one for the woman I lived with in New Mexico (Hi Rachel!) and one for the woman that lived across the path (Hi Ruth!), both of whom I taught to knit socks. How's the syntax on that one?

My attempt to post more frequently went to pieces, but to compensate, I'm breaking up the massive quantity of STUFF that I have to post into many smaller posts.
It's nice to be back!

Edited to Add:
The details! I didn't include any details about this dadgum hat.
Yarn: Cascade 220. Dream yarn! I love it. Like, it's a habit.
Put-up: This took less than a skein of Cascade 220, which is 220 yards (!) per skein.