And the winner is....
Mazhalai!
Lovely Mazhalai, send an email with your address to lilytx at yahoo dot com, and I'll get out your delicious Claudia's Handpainted sock yarn in Purple Midnight lickety split! It's going to be hard to part with this, I tell ya...I may have to visit
Hill Country Weavers again to see if they have any more skeins hiding somewhere!
The rest of you should boogie on over to her blog to check out her very funny and clever
Amazing Lace post!
Seriously, though, it was such fun to host this contest and see all my regular peeps stop by to say hi, plus regular peeps who never comment and delurked shamelessly for yarn (you know who you are, wink wink) and a few brand new peeps thrown in there for good measure. I spent all afternoon yesterday at Flightpath cafe stalking y'alls blogs and adding subscriptions to my Bloglines, so that I will now NEVER get any work done on my dissertation, but will be very caught up with all my knittaz.
If I may get sappy for a brief minute, it's been so great to get to know the people I have over the past year, and to develop real friendships, and to learn a tremendous lot about knitting from all of you. From the moment my blogging godmother
Heather generously posted pictures of my Viennese Shrug, I've been constantly amazed by the sweetness and supportiveness of this community.
Snurfle. OK, sappy minute's over! I have a little consolation treat for all of you who did not win yarn...all right, you too, Mazhalai! Hustle on over to my boy's
blog for his special recipe for infused blueberry vanilla bourbon...trust me, this stuff is fantastic. He whips up various different blends for one of Austin's fine eating establishments (kiwi and strawberry tequila was the latest), and each one of these concoctions sells out every weekend it's available.
Enjoy!
Now we are one. Hundred.
Guess whose blogiversary is today?
And believe it or not, this is my one hundredth post! I couldn't possibly have planned it this way, seeing as how I can barely plan my outfits in the morning or what I'm having for lunch.
(Do you guys remember Garanimals? Now
there's wardrobe planning for you. I wonder what those would look like for big girls? ;-)
Anyway, this is a major milestone for me. Not because I've learned tons of new things about knitting (although I have), and not because I've made so many new friends (although this is absolutely true), but because I never thought, once I started blogging, that I would ever be able to keep it up on a regular basis. I thought for sure I would be kicked off the webrings by the second or third week.
Look at me, guys! I can commit to something! Woo hoo!
To celebrate, I could spend time giving you highlights of the year, or working on an anniversary knit (
Laura's brilliant idea, to re-knit one item to see if she could do it better), but I'm not that clever. All I got is yarn.
Did she say yarn?Yes! My very first contest! Leave a comment between today and midnight Saturday, July 22 (CST), and I will choose a lucky winner with a random number generator to receive two skeins of
Claudia's Handpainted fingering weight yarn in Purple Midnight. I don't have my own picture, but trust me, the colors are truly breathtaking.
Good luck!!
Knitting blues.
What with work, and throwing bridal showers, and attending dissertation defenses (
one good friend is responsible for two of those events, believe it or not), knitting hasn't been much in evidence around my house lately.
This morning, I wanted to start the baby sweater from
Last Minute Knitted Gifts (to make an outfit with the Baby Denim Pants from the same book), discovered my gauge was off, and couldn't find the right needle from my Boye interchangeables. I tried to remember the projects I had going, couldn't figure out where it might be, and finally had to look at my own sidebar to remember where the size 4s were! (In the camisole top, also from LMKG. I hadn't realized I was giving that book quite a workout.)
Man, it's a sad day when you have to check the Internet to find your knitting needles.
In the meanwhile, I just made the deadline for the most recent
Sew? I Knit project.
This may be my last sewing project in a while, since I'll be moving apartments at the end of the month. Things'll be chaotic enough without fabric scraps and pins littering the dining room floor. Thank god knitting's so portable!
Almost there.
Man! It feels like it's been a long time since I've posted any knitting progress! (Um, hi? Olga? Maybe because there hasn't been any?)
Thank you for humoring me with my
Amazing Lace challenges along the way. Coming up with creative entries has been fun. Progress on the Trellis Stole, however, has sort of fallen by the wayside.
Ah, well. What can you do? It's summer, it's hot in Austin, and who wants to wrap yards of fiber around their sweaty little fingers for fun? Well. I kinda do, but knitting time has been in short supply, and sometimes I sneak in a couple of rows here and there on the Jaeger Trinity cami I'm working on, but that Trellis? What with the charts, and the slippery needles and the itty bitty lace yarn, it's seriously a jealous mistress, demanding all my attention. No
24 on DVD, no nuthin'.
I did manage to finish up the knitting on the Baby Denim Pants from
Last Minute Knitted Gifts, however! I won't make this an official FO post, because they still have to go in the wash to shrink, but here are some pre-wash photos:
Right now, they seem long enough to fit a pre-schooler, but I'm hoping they will shrink enough (as Joelle Hoverson and Rowan both promise).
Love the seed stitch cuffs!
The waistband is neat, too, with the purl row making the fold nice and flat. The drawstring holes, on the other hand, are pretty much FUBAR. Hopefully, the drawstrings will detract attention from this bit of ugliness.
In other news, have y'all seen the new
Knitty? Girls and boys, I am really not one to engage in public snarkiness on other people's designs (although I do heartily enjoy reading
others' snark).
But really, Amy Singer? More fingerless glove patterns? Seriously? Seriously?? (I don't have anything against the fingerless glove, per se, but I do not understand why there have to be endless and infinite variations on this theme, sucking up precious pattern space in my favorite online and print knitting magazines.) And I just do not understand
this and
this. And sweet Jesus, in the name of everything sacred and holy, what is
this?!?!
However, if you look hard enough, there are a few gems: these stunning
socks from Cookie A., these unbelievably adorable
booties, and the knitted
calla lilies. Lilies are my favorite (with tulips running a close second), so I may be a little biased.
So, there you have it. In the now infamous words of
Miranda Priestly...that is all.
