humility

Usually new things come easily to me.

Not so much colourwork.  I present for your amusement some extremely amateurishly tight stranded knitting, featured in my adaptation-for-45cm-BJD of Everything Old spinner, dyer, and designer Emma Galati’s Pevensie (which incidentally is a super sweet pattern that I foresee knitting in the intended size range some time down the road):

But let’s not dwell on the fact that I was so obviously, completely wrong when I thought it was just a bit too tight and would probably block out.  Let’s not think about the fact that I’m about to frog the whole thing back.  No, instead, let’s talk about how awesome the tonal variation in the two sock yarns I used for CCs looks.  Let’s focus on how the subtle shading works with the already awesome motif to enhance the illusion of three-dimensionality!  Because this combo of yarn and pattern is so awesome I’m not even going to try and pretend that a seed stitch ruffle was some kind of intentional finish to the garment.  No, I’m going to rip it back and make this coat perfect because it deserves that kind of attention!  See?

Incidentally, the red is leftover Everything Old Hopscotch from Mr. Salamander’s socks.  I think I’m pretty cool, using a designer’s yarn to execute her pattern.  The grey is my beloved Shibuiknits sock, and the white is Kroy and I still dislike it pretty much the most of any sock yarn I’ve knit with (thankfully this is my last ball of the stuff, and I think this pattern will pretty much use it up).

I’ve hidden my other project under a jump for those of you who don’t like to be thinking ahead to Decembery decoration yet.  I mean, sure, wait ’til after Thanksgiving, right?  But here in Canada that was already over a month ago, so NYAH!

To console myself over my colourwork fail, I’ve been growing my Wee Forest in pretty much any yarns I have around the house in anything resembling a green-type colourway.  Wee Tree is a totally cute, totally easy, totally adaptable project that I highly recommend to anyone looking for a festive (or springtime!) scrap project.  The trees at least are turning out in a manner that is in line with my opinion of myself, although it turns out that while I thought I was being clever by putting a little round of cereal-box cardboard in the bottom to help them stand, I was in fact causing the tail from my cast on to be trapped into a little bulge below the cardboard, actually making the trees even tippier!

Also, I got a package in the mail today containing the 2 drop spindles I ordered from SunnieFairy on Etsy!  After searching the web, they seemed like the best combination of prettiness, sturdiness, and low-priciness I could find, which is good since although I’m really excited about learning to spin I’m also really wary of pouring a lot of money into it and then finding out I don’t enjoy it as much as I think I will now.  Plus I’m a little on the broke side.  Anyway, I got a top and a bottom whorl so I can try out both.  I’m planning to try and take a class with my sister, and I figure we can share these spindles to start.

When I imagine myself spinning, I usually visualise a bottom whorl spindle, but the top whorl here is definitely the prettier.  Check out the awesome grain pattern!

I’m hoping we’ll be able to fit in the class next month, while the store we’re planning to go to is still downtown.  In January they’re moving to a small commercial zone in a residential area that’s kind of far from where I live.  Sounds like it will be a great move for the store overall, but I’ll miss them downtown!