Bleeding Tub

In an otherwise uneventful night at chez Cashmere Dreams,

I decided to give ol' Raspberry Tiger a wash. By the time it's 20 minute soak was over, the water looked like it housed something terribly disturbing-- a dead poodle, a severed limb, you get the horrific idea.

The water NEVER RAN CLEAR. Raspberry Tiger is resting on a burgundy sheet. I'm afraid to find out how albino it's state is tonight! Bad Mystical Creations Yarns. Bad!

Raspberry Tiger

Finally, a picture of the finished Raspberry Tiger Clapotis! This was knit between March 23rd and March 31st. I won't go into detail as nearly all of you have all ready knit one. If I were to do it over again, I would choose a dk-weight yarn. Let's just say it's pleasantly bulky... a lovely winter scarf.

Lotus Blossom Tank and bedroom wall at 7:02 a.m. They're certainly analogous, calm colors.

That's it for today. Short and sweet.

Still Life, Spring Green

All right. So I worked on the Lotus Blossom Tank a little bit this weekend.

A few notes:
-The first six rows are worked in a larger needle (US #6), then the knitter switches to a US #5. This apparantly stops the knitting from curing in.

-I changed the central decreases from a Slip-two-Knit-one-Pass-slipped-stitches-over to a Slip-one-Knit-two-Pass-slipped-stich-over for the first lace repeat. For the second, I decided to try the original decrease as the stiches were starting to look sloppy. (Blocking can fix all sloppiness!) Take a look a below. I'd recommend sticking to the original Slip-two business.

-Cotton Yarn. Usually I really dislike working with it. Cotton Patine, thus far, has been quite pleasurable to work with! The 100% combed cotton has an unusually squishy/spongey & soft hand. It has absolutely no elasticity, but the cushy quality to the yarn combined with it's softness lends to a surprisingly light and comfortable knit. In my mind I can *almost* imagine that it's merino. You know, almost. [Expect further updates as I can't believe it's actually as great as I think it is at this moment. C'mon, it's 100% cotton!]

-The color is certainly growing on me. Clearly I like it enough to buy tissue boxes with a similar hue.



If you celebrated, I hope you had a great Easter Holiday.
My extended family was certainly all smiles.

"Highly Evolved Beings"

Excuse the poor lighting this morning.

There it is, yarn dyed for the Buffy Knit Along. Yes, we're talking Vampire Slayer.
Any suggestions for a colorway name?

This skein has found a home with Amy at KnitThink. This all started when Amy held a contest, and Buffy conversation ensued. She believes knitting Buffy fans as highly evolved beings. When you are one, how can you disagree?

Sweet Georgia Yarns has a "Slayer" colorway, but unfortunatly she will not produce any yarn during this year. Google searches didn't magically find any unwanted skeins of the same, thus the attempt above. I'm out of this fiber (440 yds, lt. superwash merino), but I will make similar batch when another shipment of wool arrives.

Final Jaeger Trinity Cobalt results. It did lighten up upon drying, but is darker than this picture shows. I couldn't have asked for better results.

First summer-related knitting project this year will be a Lotus Blossom Tank. At the retreat last weekend I won a door prize-- 10 skeins of Elsebeth Lavold's Cotton Patine and a cute shell pattern from (blogless in Mpls) Joyce. It's a surprisingly light brushed dk cotton yarn. The only downside is that some colorways have been known to dramatically loose their color after machine washing. Honestly, I probably would never have picked this color, It's a lovely silvery sage tone reminicent of my bedroom walls. If it does lighten up, I certainly won't be dissapointed.
Final thoughts: I didn't intend to circumnavigate a chat about Lizard Ridge. Yes, it has been (almost completely) seamed. It looks great, but just isn't wide enough to be used as intended- a cozy, cuddly afghan for two. So, I'm adding another strip. One square has been knit from left-overs. 5 squares remain. I'm trying to not spend money on yarn, so I'll slowly pick up the last needed 3 or 4 skeins of Kureyon. I'll finish it sometime this spring/summer.

Calling All Minnesota Knitters!

We came out in droves last night-- clearly seen above.
(Ok, ok! So I forgot to take a picture of the entire room.)
Instead, here's a picture of a few wonderful women who, of course, are also fantastic knitters. Clockwise, starting with the Cinxia sweater (9 o'clock) you'll see Deb M, Pam, Renee, Deepa, and Addie in front.

You see, the Yarn Harlott was in town.
We all appeared to have a great time. She's wonderfully entertaining, and it's always great to get together with "your people". You know, people who understand why you have such a huge stash in the room previously known as the guest bedroom and also never leave the house without their knitting.

Who knew that knitters, as an interest group, are the largest users of Bloglines? (What about Google reader?)

I was absolutely astounded when Stephanie asked how many bloggers were in the audience. There must have been at least 125 people who raised their hands! Sure, one or two might have been political junkies-- but I'm sure most of them are knit bloggers.

After taking a peek at the MN knitter's Ring, only 58 blogs are listed. Where are the rest of you! Sign up, people. Sign up!


In other news, the dogs took a bath on Tuesday. Toby's tail increases in fluffiness by 150% each time!

Adventures in Dyeing

At the knitting retreat this weekend someone gave a mustard skein of Gems Opal away. The moment I saw the neglected skein on the floor (it had been thrown in discust as somone 'traded' a batch of handyed yarn for a few skeins including gems via the roll doubles-dice game), I thought this would be a perfect skein for a dyeing experiment! An acid dye kit found it's way to my home about two weeks ago, and it was calling out.

"Use me. Try me. You know you can do it!"

I'm really pleased. The gradation is really lovely. A horrible sense of awareness now surrounds me.... ANOTHER hobby?
Last year about this time I purchased four skeins of Jaeger Trinity from the annual Web's sale, which coincidentally is happening right now. Be forewarned. It's not nearly as exciting as last year's sale! Dear Webs, we knitters are not nearly as tempted as last year to buy yarn from your annual sale. Last year we had great yarns, fabulous color choices, and a whole lot of it... At any rate, the Trinity colorway was Hibiscus-- a lovely light purple/pink with white flecks. The problem is that I really wanted to buy the cobalt color, but didn't want to pay an extra $5/skein.

So, I tried to achieve the cobalt color:

The skeins are still drying, but they're looking spot-on right now.

"Breiende vrouw" (1869)

"Breiende vrouw" (1869)
Originally uploaded by elemmaciltur.

From Elemmaciltur.