FantasyLitKnits


Wednesday, March 21, 2007
I loved the way the Rowan Ribbon Twist knitted up into cute wristlets.



Yay! An FO! Should be another coming along soon. The Lady is quite close to being all knitted up. Then I just need to block her and attach the fringe and she's done. But of course I'm going to string you along just a bit longer and not post pics til she's finito!

The boys and I took an excursion to our local library the other day. It was my first time browsing their knitting selection. They actually had some pretty good things, I was surprised. Here's what I picked up.




I immediately fell in love with The Principles of Knitting and A 2nd Treasury of Knitting Patterns. The first has basically any information you will ever need as a knitter. Unfortunately, it's out of print and there aren't enough to go around. Hence the $365 price on ebay. The killer is that eventually I will have to return the book. But until someone puts a hold on this baby I'm going to be renewing like crazy! The latter of the two books I actually enjoyed more though. I can see why so many people have mentioned it either in a blog or a pattern. Thankfully it's only $30. I'll be getting all four of these. (Or however many there are and ever will be!) They're amazing! The cables just made me drool.

The other books were decent. I did really enjoy Vogue Thick Knits. It's funny that a book from the 80s is so appropriate for todays styles. I saw 3 or 4 patterns I would like to knit out of it. Usually I only like 1 or 2 in a book this small. The others I didn't really see anything I'd do. The Urban Knitter was the most recently published that I got but was the one I really didn't see anything I'd like. It was a little surprising because Lily Chin is one of my favorite designers. Have you ever seen this girl knit? It's like watching The Flash knit! Okay so maybe she isn't that fast but she's pretty darn quick.

Okay so let me ask you a question. Does this or does it not seem to be Andie Macdowell?? I'm almost positive it is!



Anyway, all in all it was nice to know I could satisfy my addiction to browsing new knitting patterns by going to the library.

~DK

Posted by Elyse at 8:52 AM | 0 comments
Friday, March 16, 2007
Sara and I went to Personal Threads to drool a bit. It's a cute little store connected to an antique gallery. Very cozy and LOADED with yarn. I enjoyed looking around. I finally got to experience some yarns I had only heard about like Lorna's Laces, Jaeger, and some Noro Kuryeon sock yarn. Mmmmm... but the yarn I wanted to buy with all my heart but had to refuse myself the indulgence was this Prism lace weight yarn-



It was $36 for a little more than 1200 yards if I remember right. I've had my heart set on making this shawl from Victorian Lace Today and this yarn would have been awesome.



Unfortunately I don't have the money to dish out at the moment for two skeins at $36 and a $30 book. I don't think Hubby realized that when he got me the Noro Silk Garden for my birthday he was creating a yarn snob MONSTER. I have several projects I just "have" to do and they're all at least $100. It's time to do some saving up!

I did allow myself a very small impulse buy.








Rowan Ribbon Twist. I lurv it! I'm finding recently that I'm facinated by bulky yarns. One of my next book buys is sure to be Big City Knits. But for now I'm gonna have to settle for some small wristlets.




I found these on Marcia's blog. Very cute blog by the way. She said she got the pattern out of an old Rebecca pattern book but it's just a K1P1 rib so it should be easy enough to figure out. Thanks Marcia!

I bought some size 15 & 17 needles for the project. I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the 17s. the gauge swatch pictured above was done with the 15s. Only problem could be that I might run out of yarn so I may end up going with the 17s just to lessen the chances of that a bit.

Speaking of my size 17s, 19 month old Rion has taken quite a liking to them. A future knitter? I sure hope so!







Posted by Elyse at 1:34 PM | 1 comments
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Disclaimer: I wrote this a few days ago and I've been waiting to get ahold of Hubby's phone so I can download pictures off of it. Hasn't happened yet so I'll just edit them in when I can, try to enjoy despite the picturelessness.

Yesterday was THE BEST MAIL DAY EVER! I got both spindles, the Pink and Blue Space roving, and the Pirate Tote from Anatomy of a Skirt. The bag I LOVE LOVE LOVE! It was totally worth the wait. The roving was awesome, and I didn't realize how much 4oz was! The spindles were great too.

So of course I taught myself how to spin last night using this as a reference. I think I did pretty well for a self-taught first timer.



And only one thing went wrong, besides the uneven spinning :) The roving was crocking like crazy! (Crocking is the rubbing off of excess dye.) I had purple hands afterwards! Being a beginner I wasn't sure that this was unusual or just a part of handspinning. Apparently it's not unusual but it's not supposed to happen either. I have to order some Synthrapol to wash the roving in. It's a little annoying being my first experience with spinning. My main concern is how to get the dye off of the spindle so it doesn't get on any other yarn I spin. I'm sure I'll find a remedy online somewhere. Sigh. (update: the internet says use chlorine bleach) Looking at the bright side, I know how to spin now! I'll be excited to spin the Rose of Sharon roving when it gets here. Hopefully there won't be any crocking with that one!

PS The new Knitty is up!!!

Posted by Elyse at 10:00 AM | 1 comments
Monday, March 5, 2007
Hey guys! I want to know where all my readers are in this big wide knitting world! So if you would be so wonderful, go down to the link under Frapperfy in the side bar and put yourself on the map! Gotta love my readers!!!

~DK

Posted by Elyse at 7:10 PM | 1 comments
Sunday, March 4, 2007
The afghans became so daunting that I have given up! They needed to be done too soon for it to be possible and I just refuse to let knitting become stressful, it's my only means of de-stressing! So the black belt afghan is not going to exist, ever. The other two I'll get done eventually...I think. Right now I'm sticking with the Lady who is getting prettier and prettier every day. I lurv it! I'm not going to post any more pics until she's done. Cliffhanger, ha! Now you have to keep reading :)

This week is going to be an awesome knitting mail week. The yarn Pirate Tote should be in any day now, after a lot of hard work on Erin's end. Poor girl made it twice because the mail lost the first one. And that's with the policy saying they aren't responsible for lost items. There's a lot of appreciation on my end with that.


I ordered two spindles from AnnieMay on ebay(one for bulky on for lighter weight yarn) so I can finally get to learn how to hand spin.




And how could I resist getting some roving on Etsy? I ordered 4.25 ozs of Pink and Blue Space from ritaspins37


and 4 oz of Rose of Sharon from hippieartchick.



I've already fallen in love with them! If I suck at spinning then at least I can cuddle with it still! Roving makes me drool, it's soooooo pretty!

Posted by Elyse at 1:21 PM | 1 comments