Tuesday, November 11, 2008

new website at WEBS!!

The new WEBS website is up!!

I love this for several reasons. The biggest one is that the old website didn't work on Chrome, my browser of choice. I kept meaning to tell someone about it, but then I forgot, and then I heard on the podcast that they were overhauling the website, so I thought I'd just wait it out. And here it is! And it works beautifully on Chrome!

Another reason I love the new website: WISH LISTS!! Wish lists are my favorite thing ever. When I was younger, the only thing I ever wanted was books, but my friends and family could not buy books for me because I already had so many and they didn't want to buy duplicates. The answer was my wish list at amazon.com. For many years since, I have avoided spending lots and lots of money by putting things I want on my wish list rather than buying them. Then I would just hang out and wait for holidays. But the yarn continued to be a problem. This new website is my answer! Yay!

(I feel as if the previous paragraph made me sound very materialistic. I probably am that materialistic, but I don't usually make it so public.)

Other reasons I like the website: I like the generally more sleek and attractive appearance. I like how the pictures of the yarns are arranged on the yarn pages. I REALLY like how it remembers where I've been recently. I will like how I won't have to put in my information over and over.

I realize that there is a chance that I am the first non-WEBS affiliate to create an account and wish list on the new WEBSite. I also realize that my friends who work at WEBS might be able to actually find out whether this is the case. I ask you: if it is, please don't tell me about it. Just save it for the intervention.

Off to continue stalking Twist Collective and Knotions!

Sunday, November 02, 2008

baby pictures!

Wow... it looks like the last time we checked in on my knitting, it was the Olympics. That was awhile ago... I guess the semester has been pretty busy. Let's see what I've been working on.

First things first. I finished the gansey!
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Emerson, for whom the gansey was made, does not like to take pictures. However, as it was starting to get a little chilly, we made a deal that if I worked on nothing until I finished the gansey, he would let me take pictures of him wearing it. Yet, these pictures have not yet happened. I'll let you know.

I put a lot of stuff on hold to finish up the gansey, so after the gansey there was a bit of a finishfest. Pictures!

These are the Bayerische socks, a totally crazy Eunny Jang pattern.

In Shibui sock yarn. Just gorgeous, if I do say so myself.


I also finished all the pieces of my beautiful Central Park Hoodie in Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed. I'm stalled out on the seaming, though, because I hate seaming with tweed. I think I will probably pull out some Valley Yarns Northampton to do the rest of the seaming.

I also finished a baby sweater for an adorable baby! The lovely parents fed me dinner in return for it. After they invited me, I frantically remembered that I had intended to make a baby hat as well, but that was alright because baby hats take no time at all.

This girl loves to remove hats. We managed to get a picture of the hat on her by acting quickly. Still, you can tell she's on the way to taking it off.


And it's off!

So adorable.

Meanwhile, I finally started working on Mystery Stole 4. Much less blurry (and longer) in real life.

I'm doing the two sides one at a time. This is uncharacteristic for me, but it's because it's cone yarn. (Valley Yarns Colrain lace with beads that are also from WEBS.) I love this yarn with these beads. Anyway, I started this and then I realized that I didn't have enough beads. By this, I mean that I brought half my beads on a trip and ran out before I was done with Clue 2. (Clues 1 and 2 have way more beads than the following clues.) During this same trip, Snowflake accidentally sat on one of my size 4 tips and snapped it. So I ordered some new ones. They just came in this weekend, and I've been knitting away (with some more beads) ever since. I'm about halfway into clue 3 now.

I've been working on a Cobblestone for my dad. This is probably my first serious attempt at knitting things for Christmas. I'm up to the armpits on the body.

And about halfway through the sleeves.

Knitting the sleeves has been sort of crazy. As you may know, I like to knit off the hank without first winding it into a ball. I also like to knit things two at a time, so that makes two sleeves at once on magic loop. Furthermore, I'm knitting this in Cascade Eco Wool, which has about a million yards in a hank. So basically whenever I knit on these sleeves, I have two ginormous hanks spread out all over everywhere. It's quite a scene.

I've also been working, slowly but steadily, on a raglan sweater for Snowflake out of the melt-in-your-mouth Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk.


And some gorgeous socks out of Socks That Rock, Jabberwocky colorway. The colors are darker in real life, but somehow no less gorgeous. This also has pretty much the best stitch definition I have ever seen. (Less blurry in real life.)



This is my first face-to-face encounter with Socks That Rock, and let me tell you, I think it's the beginning of a long and expensive love affair. Clue: my friend saw the hank of Jabberwocky and immediately wanted something made out of it. (Just days before he said he didn't need any more knitted stuff, and in fact he was good for material possessions in general.) Clue 2: Socks That Rock has a colorway apparently named after that baby up there^. I can hear my bank account shrieking now...

In other news, VOTE ON TUESDAY. And if you're in Massachusetts, VOTE NO ON QUESTION ONE. This is very important.