gaysknits

i was surprised and impressed...

with the yarn i saw at joanne fabric tonight.  i planned to do some friday night shopping for buttons and i did.  i found two that i loved immediately and chose my favorite which is a deep purpley with dark swirls and some texture.  these babies were top of the line...my other choice cost $1.99 for two these were $5.50 for two buttons!!! i usually go looking for buttons with something in mind and spend hours looking and this was different...i  found these only minutes from the door.  i had some time to browse and wandered to the yarn dept.  i really wanted to see if they had in stock the new lb yarns line but sadley they did not. what they did have was nice though and i would say really nice even. when i started knitting  a few years back it was the yarns that drew me in and then i quickly bored with the selection at joanne's and sought out a nice yarn store and remained faithful until  it closed and i swear i'll be knitting with the yarn i bought at the closeout sale for years to come!  there are many resources for buttons but i like to see them and touch them and place them on my sweaters before i choose so i stick with what's local and that is joanne's for buttons.  i may freqent her for yarns in the future too.  i saw some really lovely silk and wool blend yarn and some bamboo blend and some soy and wool and some self striping sock yarns that were so fun looking in great colors and even some stretchy sock yarns...my mom will be thrilled beacause she loved the last pair of socks i made her from stretchy yarn.  i don't know if she's the stripey type but i love stripey socks.  anyway i am impressed.  the youngladygrandaughter is chomping at the bit....well that may be an exaggeration...but she is ready to start knitting again and i think we'll visit the yarn dept at joanne's before we go to the beach so she can pick out some yarn to knit herself a hat or a pair of gloves or a cowl or something...i'm really anxious to make a couple of cowls...seems like the perfect project  to try out some luxurious yarn like cashmere or silk! these are my biuttons and i'll be modeling the finshed product soon...i promise. later...love   g

it's time for some...

bathroom shots.  for some reason this is the only place i seem to find myself taking pictures at night...indoors.  it isn't because the light is great either.  i think it's because of that little glass shelf that i can sit the camera on to set the timer.

the asymmetrical cabled cardi is washed and blocked and looks  pretty much like it going to look except that i haven't sewn buttons on yet.  i have not purchased the buttons either.  i made two button holes and would sincerely love to have a third part way down the front of the sweater but i probably won't bother to figure that out at this point.  this yarn is lovely, it is donegal luxury tweed by debbie bliss and it is pretty soft for a blend of strictly wool and angora.

i wish it were a couple  things.  i wish it were longer but i was undecided about making it so and i didn't.  it is a little narrow across the back of the shoulders and i wish it were not but the only evidence of that is a little fold between the collar and the body of the sweater and i don't know if more room would've solved that problem but neither is a really big problem. i like the sleeves and i love the panels down the front.

i can't wait to find buttons and will most likely look for some at joannes tomorrow night. friday night shopping for buttons whoo hoooo!!!! i really know how to live huh? i would really like to have something in the a rosey or purplely shade but i'll probably buy whatever strikes my fancy and i may not be either.  if you think you see a long string hanging around...you do...i left a length of yarn at the cast off point of the collar and plan to use it to secure buttons.  i'm off...knitting with the grey's you know.  later...love   g

and i thought i was so clever...

but in the end i ended up making more work for myself.  i just deleted a whole bunch of pics from my flickr account thinking what the hell man i don't need these...they're already on ravelry and what do i want a bunch of pictures of half knitted sweaters and balls of unknitted yarn for every body to look at??? delete delete delete and whoosh they were gone and i began to notice very shortly after that...so were the pics of my finished projects on ravelry. gone  with the push of a button.  now this is a problem for me because i  already lost a bunch of my pics when i switched computers.  i put all my old  files on a jump drive and you guessed it deleted them from the old laptop and then the jump drive crashed and all my pics were gone before i got them on my new computer.  one would think i'd back them up huh???  i'm not very good at all this stuff.  so anyway i just spent the last two hours putting pics back on flickr so my projects on ravelry have photos to go with them and the pics of the balls of yarn??? gone and so is my stash on ravelry  which is a major bummer because i used those stats to see how much yarn i own at any given time and for matching up pattern with stash yarn you know...how much i maybe could use for a this or a that.   ah well, by the end of this year i will have knitted it all up anyway and when i start buying new yarn i may re build my stash but in the meantime more stash busting is going on here at gaysknits.  i bought some handspun yarn this summer when bonnie was going out of business, it was a real luxury item because at $48.00 a skein i walked past it on many other occasions but at a great discount i bought three skeins of ellen cooper hand dyed homespun. one in mango and two in a blue purple color combo.  i'd tell you the name of the color but i deleted it from my stash and i'd have to go digging through hat boxes to find it then...well you can see where i'm going with this. one was to be used for a triangle shawl for my mom. i planned to do a thick and thin type thing and have been searching for patterns which is why i have so many scarves and shawls in my queue.  i found the perfect match for the yarn  in a glampyre pattern the reclamation scarf.  i probably could've figured this pattern out by myself but i was tired last night and i had finished up my asymmetrical cabled cardi and was tired of ripping my hair out trying to figure things so i paid  the $2.00 for the pattern and cast on.  this is a great little pattern and easy peasy and jeez although i'm sure i could have figured it out by myself what on earth can you buy for only $2.00 and besides stephanie's baby probably needs a new pair of shoes anyway so why not.  i am loving this and i can't wait to see how big or how small it becomes.  either way will be fine with me.  that's the beauty of this pattern you knit till the ball of yarn is gone then you have a cute cute little scarf or a big one!!!  gay is happy again. later...love   g

will have to get buttons...

and model this some other time but the asymmetrical cabled cardi is finished.  finally.  mods on this baby were plentiful.

my best modification was at the collar where i did decreases across the cable panel so that the collar didn't stretch out and lay all wavy and funny...this is perfect.  i did it first without the decreases and it was so wavey  i ripped it out.  surprise surprise huh?  i did something like k3 k2tog for the width of the panel...it is the perfect solution...perfect!

still it isn't as wide across the front as i would have wanted but a good blocking may do wonders for it.  i need to go buy and sew on some buttons. over all i had a lot of difficulty with the pattern instructions but thought it was cute enough to muddle through it.  the cable panel on the left got eaten up by the raglan decreases and i wish i had made it a little wider to start with so not so much of that happened but...you live and learn!!! later...love   g

like i said i'm changing my life...

i'm knitting a hoody.  i love vivian...she is gorgeous and long and fitted and there is nothing i can find to dislike about her.  i wear  zippered hoodies all the time...all the time and this long lean fitted look mimicks one that i do find myself wearing. i just can't decide on a yarn.   i plan to go up a notch in glam factor than what i reportedly had planned for this sweater. elsbeth lavold has a lovely wool alpaca silk blend silky flamme that is the same gauge as the original yarn...me thinks anyway not that i worry about gauge but this  hoody is beautiful and it would be a major bummer if it didn't fit.  another yarn i like is bazic which is a superwash wool by classic elite. i love the softness of superwash and love the wearability of it. i'm leaning towards something in a rusty reddish color family for this. it will take half my life to knit. sleeves hood cables oh my! the other project i have planned is  herione.

this will take my whole life to knit but it so suits me. it is a style i can wear and that will flatter. this is going to be the coat i have looked for and cannot find...anywhere.  it will be knit in cascade 220 heathers. it is a bit felted so it will truly have the appearance of a wool coat not a sweater when i am done with it. i am not subbing yarns because i love cascade 220. i have a skein of it in stash and it is nice and so soft and  100% feltable wool.  mmmm  love.  color to  be determined but i like the lapis heather and the heather tweed but i am open to others and green is nice too as is cordovan.  here comes the confusion and there goes that yarn diet but hopefully i will end up with a few things i will wear.   these are more classic knits not trendy fly by night styles that go as soon as they got here and go out of style and out of my favor as soon as they are finished. lets have some links and some pics.  both of these patterns are from twist collective which is a superb resource for beautiful patterns if you ask me.  the yarns are from webs of course because if nothing else i like a bargain even though the link to my cart at webs is no indication of that.  i tend to add things to my cart that i like so i don't lose them and wean them out when i decide on colors etc. later...love   g