gaysknits

new yarn has entered the premises...

so much for stash busting. in the mail yesterday i received the final two colors and textures of yarn for the favorite color sweater.

red being the favorite color.  i ordered a red violet and a red angora mohair blend and it is wonderfully soft and exquisitely furry but not quite as lacey fuzzy as the mohair so i have cashmere, mohair and angora in shades of wine, red, mauve, and violet. i love the color combination and i love the assortment of textures i have right now so i'll stop shopping. i am loving the cashmerino which is soft and comfortable against my skin.

the sleeves are no fuss fitted and strait to the hand and long. the cowl has been ripped out and is a strait up loose fitting turtle neck. the only thing i know about the body is that it will not be fitted and it could be long and tunic like but nothing is certain.  friday i was turned on to an online black friday yarn sale so i indulged hoping for a deep discount and i got ten percent off...not such a deep discount but what i did get was the shibui silk cloud i was hoping for to make a lacey ribbons pullover from the latest issue of interweave knits.  the color is not red or purple and although i considered black or brown it is neither but  i'll leave that up to a later reveal .

 
 

i have now had contact with and/or knitted with at least seven different angora and mohair yarns and yarn reviews will be forthcoming as i definately have my favs and you may be surprised at my choices.  i have a renewed fascination for the fuzzy, the furry and the soft.  i must be going back to the days of my youth so please stop me if i make an angora twinset or a cable knit mohair sweater because  i don't want to go back quite that far...a fuzzy beret...hmmm...now that's a horse of a different color and a distinct possibility! 

i was gifted some vintage black boucle wool...enough to make a sweater coat and i picked out the perfect pattern but it is no longer in publication and is apparently as hard to find as hens teeth...i have tried all the way to australia so i will attempt to duplicate the pattern and make it up as i go along.  i have located a collar similar in shape to the one i want in an old issue of vogue knitting to use as a guidline for shaping the shawl collar as i have not attempted to make a one yet. the yarn has been soaked in wool wash and hung to dry and re skeined. i have  to wind it into ballls. no knitting had been done for a few days because of all the cooking  but i did start up again last night.  it snowed the night before and although it was ony a few flurries and not even noticeable i pretended it was inches and inches, turned on the fireplace and snuggled up to some knitting.  after we went to the local electronics store to replace the phone that broke when i dropped it on the floor. oops. later...love   g

today i will ramble....

on and on and on. i have a lot of ramble in my head today and maybe it will go somewhere...maybe not.  i just noticed typepad has a quick compose like face book or twitter. i think i will try that but not today. today i have rambling to do. i have lots of work to do too but it is not work that i have been occupying myself with lately. it is knitting, it is reading, it is cooking well really candy making i should say that has been occupying my time lately.  i made myself sick eating the pecan brittle i made for the mom and she did get some of it but i ate a good share  myself and it was delicious. every year i make cookies for the holidays and they take up large hunks of time and for the most part go un eaten because there is so much else to eat and because i don't have the opportunity to see the people that will be eating the cookies until the day  of the holiday so this year i will not bake cookies.  i will make peoples favs.  i have people who love peanut brittle, i have people who will gorge on beef jerky, i have people who hoarde chocolate covered potato chips and then i have myself who will eat an entire recipie of thumbprint cookies all by myself and the guy will do the same to chocolate chips. i plan to limit my baking to the favs.

shopping...i plan to cut out practically altogether. well except for socks and patchoulli incense and of course the grandpuppy will get a giant bag of dog food. she has a new favorite kind this year so it will be a treat!  speaking of shopping...for my birthday i decided to buy a pair of boots. let me say that before i found the perfect pair i ordered and returned four other pair.  i used a tank of gas driving them back to the postal office and geez the mailman must think i am crazy and the last box i got in the mail had this printed on the side in big letters "highly addictive contents inside" ain't that the truth!  i returned a pair of snow boots that were wonderful but too small. i returned a pair of suede flat boots that had sheepskin inside and were too big.   i returned a pair of suede  wedge heel boots that were perfect  except they were too wide in the calf.  i returned a pair of tall buckled leather boots that were so cute with jeans but they were also way too wide on my skinny legs.  i bought and am in love with a tall pair of leather scrunchy boots with a  half inch heel and a bit of point to the toe and they are soo comfy, yum and cute. then rather than sell on e bay my old practically unused tall suede boots that did not fit under jeans only over them i gave them to the youngladygrandaughter  so she has new boots and there is still not a huge pile of boots in my closet. i kept one pair of snow boots to replace the ones that sprung a leak last year and one pair of black flat boots to replace two pair of suede flats...one tall  and one short so i am really short one pair of boots but no worries i have handled that. a pair of brown midcalf buckle boots is on the way to my front door and i hope they fit me because i love them but if they do not i will not hesitate to return them in exchange for a bigger or a smaller pair of the same boot but maybe in black  instead. highly addictive contents indeed!   i will not have time to knit gifts either.  the mom  will be dissappointed but she received a scarf for her birthday and i have been knitting gifts for the past few months so i will be occupying myself with a few personal projects.  one of which is the sweater coat and i have a design in mind  for that. as a matter of fact the guy sat through a fashion show of sorts when i went to the local national chain discount department store and tried on at least seven or was it fifteen sweater coats made from blends of acrylic yarn that i cannot stand to wear or to touch but i did find a style that i like so no harm done.

 i am also in the process of accumulating a wealth of yarn in shades of red.  i swear every day i order yarn in a different shade of red or a yarn with a different texture or fibre content for a sweater that is literally being designed as i knit it. whoa so unlike me to  do something like this and yet so perfect for me. it is inspiring. it  is fit to order and it is fun.  so far i have some wine cashmerino, some mauvey kidsilk aura, some red mohair, some rose red merino that i may or may not use depending on what the design of the neckline of the thing turns out to be...surprise, some maroon alpaca which i definately will not be using as it does not have enough color variation and or it clashes with the other yarn, and some angora blend yarn i ordered for additional texture and have not received  in a shade of red and when i woke up on friday morning i shouted to myself "it needs some violet" so i ordered a red violet angora. wait til you see this thing! it will either be fugly as hell or exciting and wonderfully creative!  i have no idea what the style will be. that changes in my head daily and as a matter of fact i am off now to rip out the neck and re do it to the specifications that were in my head when i woke up this morning.  so far the body is knit to the ribcage, the sleeves knit to below the elbow and i have started the neck/collar.  all of the above is done in cashmerino so it will be a soft and comfortable item next to the neck and upper body where the skin is most sensitive.  the cost is becoming astromomical. it all started out as a real bargain on the cashmerino...twenty bucks for four skeins is a real bargain then i added thirty five bucks to the total and then an additional twenty then again twenty more so we are already up to ninety five dollars and this thing is way out of the price range of anything i would normaly pay for a sweater to wear with my twelve dollar jeans but on the other hand that's entertainment! these are what is left of one of my brithday flower arrangements and a new pet  the guy found lost and wandering around and loving animlas as he does he adopted it...i keep him in a jar of alcohal! later...love   g

sometimes tiny is better...

fortunately this is one of those times.  i do not usually knit with fingering yarn.  i can honestly say i have never in my life even purchased fingering yarn before now.  usually i don't have contact with anything finer than worsted. unless you count the chevron scarf i knit in 2008 out of sock yarn and since then  i haven't wanted to recreate the hours and days and months it took me to finish the sucker.  hell i think i wear the thing just to punish myself for making such a loooooong  time consuming project  and because it is soft and comfy and colorful and it is about the only colorful thing i have ever had in my wardrobe!

me and the little guy had a picnic of sorts last weekend and wore our handknits to enjoy the sunny gorgeous fall afternoon  at the marina. this week i have dabbled in chunky yarn...the purple bliss scarf for bob's wife...she loved it...and i have dabbled in fingering yarn.

 

who knew it would be a new found love of mine that fingering yarn...and the multi who knew i would fall  in love again with the multi having previously turned against it because if it's habit of willfull misconduct and after having pooh poohed it's tendancy to do whatever the hell it wanted to do as far as color and pattern goes. multi fingering wool seems to work nicely...in this particular case anyway. did i say wool??? wool???  yes the wool has become another new found friend to me. i don't know if i am mellowing or losing my mind.  i rescued this yarn from the  clearance bin at the lys and my intention was to throw it in the bottom of the hat box until sometime shortly after hell froze over and then i saw this pattern.  multomah.   i had the perfect yarn for it.  one skein of fingering weight multi wool yarn.

 

this pattern has made me feel stupid and exercised my brain at the same time  and it really is simple but i have made mistakes and poor judgements ending in my having to spend some time tinking back.  i am happy with the results and would only be happier if i would put this sucker on a long piece of scrap yarn and see what it looks like all spred out. maybe  i'll do that but maybe i won't have the time.  i intend to finish this up and have it blocked and ready to be delivered to the mom on wednesday evening and presented to her as a birthday gift...along with the three different kinds of peanut brittle i am making her.  it's is a busy saturday for me so i am off to be busy and i will see you on the other side of the weekend maybe?   later...love   g

i'm gonna have to...

take better pictures of gaia but she is completed and i love her.  on to the next project...keep in mind i am putting off knitting a christmas stocking for one of the boy oh boys but i'll get to it before christmas don't you worry.  next up is some purple bliss.

 

i bought this debbie bliss cashmerino in lavendar to make a cowl for bob's wife but in the end he decided he'd rather have a scarf than a cowl...some people have no use for imagination  nor can they stray from their comfort zone and had i known that i would've ordered a chunky bulky yarn but i didn't know and i didn't order any so necessity being the mother of invention has caused me to knit this holding two strands of aran together.  i really have no use for purple yarn other than for this item so it would go to waste otherwise and that would be a sin because this yarn is sinfully soft to the touch and absolutely perfect for a scarf!  as an additional bonus this project is great television knitting to because it is a no brainer and as others have said you'd have to be really intoxicated to screw this up so drunk television knitting it is! the length of this is to be determined by how much yarn i have!  later...love   g

i am fast approaching...

an fo.  can you believe it? something other than gloves or hats to boot! not that this is  anything other than a glorified small. this is gaia.

it is one of the sexy knitter club selections for this kal and it is a glorfied small. it is constructed from one long rectangle of ribbing knit with less than a skein of malabrigo worsted and less than a ball of rowan kidsilk haze held together...on size 13's...can you say quick!  it has been steam blocked...a process that i am not crazy for but for a change i was following instructions who'd have guessed i was capable of that! anyway i knit the size small and almost wish i would have knitt it longer and wider so as to get a little more length down the back and  a little looser sleeve opening. it fits fine though because fortunatly i have skinny little arms to fit in the small little arm holes.

 

i knit this  in two days so it's not like i can't make another by the weekend!  i took the third day to crochet the edge and block it and today i was anxious to try her on so i basted it togther with scrap yarn so i could do that and it happened to be daylight out side so a photo was in order. in addition i think i may have pinned it together wrong so it may get some tweaking yet. thought you'd like to know! later...love   g