Etsy Shop Updated

It's finally a NYC summer- oppressively hot, smoggy and humid with spectacular nighttime thunderstorms. This hasn't stopped me from being elbow-deep in wool though.

Here is "Chicken:"





Chicken is a blend of hand-dyed merino, BFL and Finn that I dyed in eucalyptus, Bamboo, CVM wool, and Harrisville wool, which is full of neps and interesting texture.

Here is "Woodsprite":





This is a blend of Hand-dyed Merino, BFL, tussah silk and Finn that I dyed in eucalyptus, bamboo, CVM and a few handfuls of harrisville wool for texture.

They are both available on my Etsy store.

I'm still plugging away at the Aeolian- I'm actually itching to get working more on it. Finding the time to sit down and concentrate on the chart is more challenging than the actual knitting!

I'll be on vacation for a bit and hopefully will have some FO's when I get back.

Aeolian progress

I sat down one day last week, beads and handspun in hand, and cast on for the Aeolian shawl!



I have to sit down and concentrate on it, or I'll be losing YO's and making a tangled mess really quickly. I'm pretty psyched though- it's not difficult knitting, you just need to be in the mindset to sit and concentrate for a while. Lace frightens me, but once you break it down into bite-sized chunks it seems pretty do-able.

I'm using size 8 seed beads in a pretty purpley-pink. I didn't have a crochet hook small enough to impale the beads on and I was impatent to start, so I strung the beads onto the yarn beforehand just push them down the yarn as I get to them. It's easier for me to string them like this rather than fiddle with them one at a time- I have this heriditary hand tremble that makes doing something like that really difficult. It's not bad at all- some people in my family has a very noticble partkinsons-like tremble. It does make picking up teeny tiny seed beads and threading them a bit of a challenge though. I'm glad I bought extra because most of them ended up on the floor.

I started swatching for the Espresso sweater in handspun as well last night. I didn't mean to start a new project. Wednesday night I try to meet up with the local knitters for some tea and socializing. I went through all my projects on the needles and I had nothing that I felt like I could bring with me- Lace is a big no-no when I could possibly be (and want to be) distracted, I have one Fair Isle sock project going, a complex cabled band for a sweater, and a lace cami that I have to do some soul-searching on as it is a canidate for frogging. So I use my time wisely and bring along whatever needs to be swatched.

Summer Weekends

Time to get out of the city and out to the country!





The rain wasn't fun, but it is nice to get away.

In other news, I cast on for the Aeolian. Finally. I'll have pictures soon. It's going along really quickly and I realized I'll probably need more beads.

It was actually hot enough to put the AC window unit in last night, so I dragged my wheel and my knitting into the bedroom and fooled myself into thinking it was fall.

Lotus Blossom Tank

Finally, an actual knitting FO. This has been finished for about a month now and I just forgot all about it. Partially, because it's a bit unflattering.



It's the Lotus Blossom tank for Interweave Knits. I wanted a nice summery tank with some lace. I dug around in my stash and found a bag of Classic Elite BamBoo yarn. I gauged and started knitting away. It was pretty obvious to me that this was going to fit very loosely, so I went ahead and cast on for the XS size.



The lace was fun- I loved how it was very geometric and boxy. Kind of unusual for lace. I was thinking of doing a 5th repeat- i wanted it to be long-ish and I like the way odd numbers of repeats look. At the end of the 4th repeat, I got lazy though. I did an extra inch of st stitch for length, and then decreased 10 stitches under the bustline to give it more shape.



The yarn is very heavy and drapey, and if I stand slouchy, i totally look preggers. I'm not. Also, even under the most insistent of pushup bras, it makes my boobs look like a shapeless sad mound of blah. I love my boobs, and consider them a pretty decent asset. I wish for them to not look like this. They actually look like they are struggling to stay upright, the weight of this top is dragging them down.



Still, I like it. It's comfy and swishy and it's rad to wear something that you made yourself.

Batts and Spindles updates today

I will have the shop updated sometime this afternoon. I had a bit of a carding craze this weekend, so There Will Be Batts. Like this one:



Also, some rather fetching spindles:




www.knotmydayjob.etsy.com