Rescued!

Today, I fully conceded to the fact that I'm going to need more yarn to finish this hoodie. As the yarn has been discontinued, I had to turn to Ebay for sellers and, as luck would have it, there was a seller with the right shade to sell... in Canada! After a few emails and a harrowing experience setting up a Paypal account, it's done!

In other news, I made it to my first London knitting group meeting at the very posh Liberty's store. It was nice to be one of the crowd again. There were some extremely talented knitters present - one who does the most amazing lace wraps on a weekly basis apparently. The ringleader (of sorts) is Yvonne who turns out to email Sally regularly. What a small world this is! Even better, Yvonne runs a booth at the Knitting and Stitching Show and, in exchange for some volunteer time, I get in free! Knitters rock!

Sleeve Joy

I started in on the cotton-wool hoodie sleeve the other night, paying careful attention to the bind-offs in the pattern as I was picking up and increasing. Reading a pattern backward isn't nearly as difficult as I anticipated. Eventually, I realized it had worked out really nicely! Will post a pic soon. Now I'm concerned that I may be running out of yarn.

Cotton-Silk Frustration

I decided that I'd try for a non-wool project for one of my more sporty friends and found a neat pattern in the VOGUEknitting International mag that seemed to suit the bill. However, the pattern for the hoodie pullover calls for alpaca wool (who would go jogging in alpaca?) so I found a Debbie Bliss cotton-silk yarn that fit the tension (see previous post about tension squares) and started in, choosing to forego the side seams by knitting it on two circulars from the bottom up.
A few issues have cropped up. Firstly, although the yarn fits the tension, it doesn't have the same elasticity as wool and so the ribbing on the hem and waistband isn't looking so hot. Next, the twelve-strand nature of the yarn is proving difficult to execute the Russian Join with. There are some unfortunate lumps and pokey bits where yarns have been joined. Third, because I'm knitting this hem up instead of collar down, I'm not exactly sure how to join up the shoulders or how to work in the sleeves. So far, I've put the stitches I was supposed to bind off under the arms onto a contrasting piece of yarn in hopes that I'll be able to pick them up later for sleeve-work. This whole project may have to be binned or frogged. I'll have to find out what normal people use this yarn for...

Trippy Trip...

Look where I'm going in October...
Alexandra Palace

Everyone has a First...

Ta-da! My very first tension square...