By God I hate Internet Explorer sometimes!
I had to download Firefox and then try and work around not being able to save to some folders because of work permissions, just to get the blogger create new post window to work properly!!

Grrrrrr

Anyway! :)

I have one last batch of yarn to show for today's Yarn P0rn Friday (TGIF people!!)



mmmm, Thats 100purewool.com 3ply merino. Yup the same people who did my pink & brown monstrosity also produced this. I'm on thier mailing list and every time I get one announcing thier sales i'm very very tempted. I specifically asked for a very solid blue and the lady assured me that its not varigated and that its thier most popualr blue colour. I can see why, its puuuurfect! So now I know, i'm only going for solid colours from them, i'm not taking a chance on varigated colourways.

Now Kitty's never done this before but as I was taking photo's of this yarn she just went bonkers and started to play attack the yarn:



I thought it was funny at first and kept taking pictures:



Then this happened, and i didnt think it was as funny anymore - ACH!!



The yarn is fine, I repeat, the yarn is OooooooKay!

Geeze, I gotta say.... firefox is SO much faster to load that Internet Explorer, I didnt think it would be that different but its very very noticeable, and firefox is free.... sigh

Anyway... again.

I figured that seeing as I used my red yarn on Wicked I'd need to get a subsitute for something Red... which has been on my to do list for Waaaaaay too long. So thats what I have in mind for this, unless something better comes along. Which it usually does!

I probably should have saved this post for Yarn p0rn friday but hey, i'm bored and I havent posted much for a while :)

AAAges ago I made some bargain purchases of Jaeger Extra Fine Merino and Roma. They've been discontinued for a while and one of my fav Ebay and online stores (cucumberpatch.co.uk) was throwing them out with free shipping. And with the normal costs of shipping to Australia usually costing more than the yarn itself thats a big deal! I've only just gotten round to photographing them.


So I snapped up 10 balls of each, above is the Extra Fine Merino in Cocoa. Its a lovley chocolate brown that I was thinking of turning into a Ms Marigold (rav link) from Zephyr.


And also 10 balls of Extra Fine in Smoke colourway, which is a nice grey colour. I think I orginally planned this to be Coraline (rav) from Ysolda but we'll see how we go. I was also thinking of doing the tangled yoke cardigan... but I havent bought that pattern yet (i've already bought Coraline).

And the Roma:

Was going to be the Katrina Rib (rav) by Cookie A. But i really dont know how well a ribbed clingy top is going to look on me.

Just between you and me, I think these are going to be sitting in my stash for a while ;)

With the break down of my Corsica a little while ago, I realised that the cascade 220 is a little bit too ichy for my liking. Whenever I tried it on with short sleeves my arms just really did not like it. Soooooo I accidently found this Awesome colourway in the Berocco Comfort yarn:



its called Dried Plum and its colour number 9780. I think the name is very apt, its a deep purply colour. I was putting off bying it because of the price of shipping via ebay sellers. Then, webs has it's anniversary sale, with comfort selling for 3.89 a ball down from 5.75 - SWEET! Plus thier shipping chargers were about the norm, Yoink!

The only downside to it might be that its 50% Super Fine Acrylic & 50% Super Fine Nylon... so pretty much 100% synthetic.

However that doesnt mean that its not good quality, its Soooooo soft - much softer than the 220. Comments on Ravelry say that it tends to be a bit splity, ive had a close look at it and I reckon i've dealt with much splittier cotton yarns before and that sort of thing doesnt really bother me.

I also think that I didnt get enough 220 yarn for the corsica size I wanted anyway so the Comfort is going to become my new Corsica.... if the new sized pattern ever comes out. Poor Fiber Fiend has had a bit of bad luck heath wise, according to her blog, which has put her behind schedule but thats okay with me cos i've still got some re-doing on Wicked before its wearable.

which is a great seagway into updated WIP pics of Wicked:





As you can see above I continued the cable ribbing on the bottom (the pattern calls for seed stich to tie into the pocket) but i reckon that looks better. For my re-do i plan to rip right back to where the bottom of the pocket is joined onto the body of the knitting and keep doing a bunch more waist increases and lenghten it by at least 6". I also want to rip the pocket back to where the armhole seed stich is bound off and keep that going right to the end so the whole side of the pocket is an opening for Le Hands. I might also add 2 or 3" to the length of the pocket cos as it is my hands only just fit!

But wait... whats going to happen to the cascade 220 yarn, that was an awsome colour you had.

Well i'm glad you asked becuase I also found this magnificent pattern on Rav one day (I got bored at work again... what... you wish you could too!)

its the Hemlock Ring Blanket (rav) pattern that Jared Flood adapted from an old knit doily pattern (Jared designed the koolhass beanie pattern - he's an awesome designer!)

Lots of ppl have used Cascade 220 held double for this pattern and Minou has written out the pattern on her blog which is what i'll be using... if I ever get around to this! I think this would be a much more useful thing to make with the cascade cos its been getting quite cold at nights lateley, if it werent for hot water bottle lap cats i'd be using the heater a lot more i think :D

anything else...... oh right, I got itchy for an FO seeing as I frogged Corsica and Wicked still needs altering. So I cast on for the Hannah hat a couple of days ago and finished last night:



Its two strands of Malabrigo, one Azul Perfundo and one violetas, held double. The blue kind of overpowers the purple but I still like the result. This is the hat which has a slit and buttons so that the wearer can have thier hair up in a ponytail while wearing this with minimal hat hair problems because you unbutton rather than just pull of your head:

I've still got quite a bit of both colours of malabrigo left, so i'm making a purple
Calorimetry and I might do a blue panta. I had a bad hair day earlier this week, which is what's prompted all these head coverings!

So anyway this post is WAAAY too long, I have one more batch of yarn to show off, so i'll save that for tomorrow :) later ppls!

...the thing about knitting sweaters is that its not very exciting! Especially when they're majority stockinette stitch.

Hense the lack of blogging, mainly because of the lack of blogging content :)

My orangina is on the back burner again - it is winter here now after all :) And i'm almost finished with Wicked, done in Malabrigo Sealing Wax. I'm about 1/4 through one sleeve with the second still to go. Unfortunatly the only pics i have are a bit old, they're taken before the pocket was put on:






Its a little bit shorter than I would like and the pocket is WAY too small, I've only seamed up the top and bottom, there is a little on the sides that can be seamed as well but if i did I would never get my hands in! As it is there isnt much room for them!


I want to see what blocking does to the length of the garment, scarves that i've made in Malabrigo have lengthened quite a bit. If that doesnt help i'm going to rip it back redo the pocket so its bigger and lengthen the top overall.



I've also noticed that the neckline has started to droop just with trying it on a few times to gauge lengths. If it gets really bad after blocking i'll try crochet chaining around the edge and as a last resort I read that someone thread some yarn around the top and tied it off to keep it tight.
*EDIT* its not drooping, its the sleeves! The extra weight of the sleeves is pulling the yoke so much that its almost falling off my shoulders!!


I'm itching to get onto something new, i've been pawing though my Harmony Stitch guides for a stitch to incorporate into a shrug with the georgeous Lion & Lamb in Edgewater. I was thinking of knitting from sleeve to sleeve, very much like the Dream in Colour Shrug (ravelry link) Pictured left :)


But i'll have to see how the Edgewater colouring fares with that stitch pattern, I have a feeling it will be too busy for a delicate stitch pattern.


If that fails I think i'll have to fall back on the Anthropologie Inspired Caplet (ravelry link) which is just a basic raglan shrug, which i've knitted before... many moons ago, it was my first wearable finished knit. It turned out much too big and far too hot (it was acrylic yarn) but I learnt a lot from that knit :)