Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Monkeys take Dupont Circle


I had a brilliant idea for Christmas for my grandma. She lives in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC, so I wanted to buy her the Neighborhood Fiber Company sock yarn in the Georgetown colorway. Sadly, they don't make Georgetown. So I settled for Dupont Circle, which is nearby (indeed, it's the closest metro stop, so I went through Dupont every time I went to visit her). I took a quick look at the yarn online, and it looked like a cute purple semi-solid. I put in a call to A Tangled Skein, my favorite NFC supplier, and a few days later the yarn was in the mail. When I opened it, I discovered that there is no way to call this yarn purple. It is pink. Very pink. My grandmother isn't really a pink person. I cast on and knit halfheartedly. The socks looked really big. I frogged. I cast on again. I knit quarterheartedly. Finally, I threw up my hands in despair and made a donation to the Georgetown Public Library restoration fund (the library burned down last year). Thankfully the donation went over very well as a Christmas present. Tears (of happiness) were shed. I don't think my socks would have done that. But I finally got around to finishing them. They're quite comfortable, and look excellent on moi. The only problem: since I didn't buy the yarn in person, I got an extra skein, just in case. Now I probably have three socks worth of NFC Dupont Circle sitting around. I don't know how many pairs of pink socks my wardrobe can absorb!

Monday, February 11, 2008

Recycled sweater legwarmers

I started off with a ribbed Salvation Army sweater (I think it was originally old navy or something). I cut off the sleeves, picked up the stitches on the first intact row, and cast off. I'm really excited about the way they turned out. They kept me super cozy on the way to work this morning in sub-20s weather. The only problem is that the cast off edge is a bit tight. If I were to do this again, I'd try to find some yarn elsewhere in the sweater to salvage. Then I'd knit a few more rows in pattern, and cast off incredibly loosely.

Scrap Wrap update


I just joined the official Inauguration Scarf knitalong blog. Here's the most current picture of my wrap, taken for my knitalong blog debut! It's kind of ugly, but I think it will have a lot of character when it's finished.

Saturday, February 09, 2008

Another tea cozy with a flap

I got an e-mail from someone named Amanda who knit a tea cozy from the Winter in Washington tea cozy pattern I posted a few weeks ago. (She clued me in to the math problems. Thanks Amanda!). She e-mailed me a photo of her final product. She says her teapot is different. It doesn't have a real spout, instead what she described as a 'beak' at the top. But I think it still worked out! Here's her picture.