Ha! Fat chance.

Izzy and I spent yesterday evening doing a snow dance. Well, in Izzy’s case it looked suspiciously like she may have been doing her ham dance — which is a sight to see, let me tell you. But maybe not, as she usually only performs her ham dance for her daddy when he’s in the kitchen slicing . . . uh . . . ham.

Then she appointed herself snow lookout.

So . . . it snowed. But not so much. It looks like there’s an inch out there, and although the government is on unscheduled leave, it’s off to work I go.

(Amy, it’s way cold, so your cute little hat will be put to goood use!)

Virgin Sweater

Here are a couple of close-up photos of virgin faces.

Now, who do you think is wise and who do you think is foolish?

Does it make me a bad person that instead of “foolish virgin” and “wise virgin” I think “silly bitch” and “smart grrl?”

Tuesday’s contest results: and the winner is . . .

Patricia N. of Toronto, Canada! She correctly guessed the Oregon Cardigan, designed by Alice Starmore — pattern in the long out-of-print The Scottish Collection. I had eighteen entries with correct answers. Not bad at all. I even had some of you search doggedly through all my old blog archives to find the entry where I mentioned buying this wool. (Don’t worry Kate, I won’t tell them you did that. And besides, I admire your resourcefulness.)

So Patricia is the lucky recipient of the Knitter’s Stash book. And remember, this contest was made possible through the generosity of Catherine S., who sent me the book.

Happy Friday, all! Stay warm!

I repeat, wow!

Twas a good day in Gift Faerie-land!

Here’s what I found yesterday morning:

This is a darling little sachet bag from Theresa of Still Point – another of my favorite daily reads. She knitted it from her own handspun, and inside is a fragrant bar of Crabtree & Evelyn lavender soap. Theresa said it’s to put with my stash to keep it sweet-smelling, but I think I need to keep it where I can see it all day for at least one more day because it’s so beautiful. Thank you so much Theresa! I emailed you yesterday — hope you got it.

And then yesterday afternoon the Gift Faerie flitted in to my office with another surprise! (My Gift Faerie is out of the office today so this is apparently today’s surprise a day early. She’s so well-organized, my Gift Faerie!)

This!

From the wonderful Kateri, of Gifted Hands — a devoted reader of my blog. These are beautiful birch needles with cute little ceramic tops. Aren’t they great? They are fully functional as knitting needles, but I think I will stand them up in a mug in my knitting area so I can enjoy looking at them when they are not in use. And thank you, Kateri!

Again, wow.

New SIP

Started a new sock on the train yesterday — this is from the Lang Jawoll sockyarn that was my surprise gift from Sabine in Berlin. Sabine, you are right — this is wonderful sock yarn. And the colorway is perfect for brightening up a dreary winter day!

Virgin Sweater

The virgins are back!

I have finished all the virgins now, and am in the boring, repetitive upper part of the body. It’s a repeating flower pattern and I realize that I find that far less interesting than the intriguing lower part where every row is different.

The sleeves are done totally in this borring pattern (insert ominous music here) with a single larger motif that goes up the sleeve. Yawn.

Izzy sez “meow!”

No easy feat, considering that I never shut up.

Yet another visitation from the Gift Fairy!

Yesterday I got a lovely package from Bonne Marie, the ChicKnits diva! Inside:

Wonderful-looking bath salts, which I think will be just perfect to use in my continuing efforts to combat this.

And beautiful buttons that I’ll be using on a project very soon . . . stay tuned for that.

I decided to start a blog after reading Bonne Marie’s ChicKnits, and I bet that’s true of a lot of us. So a huge thank you to our Queen of KnitBlog Inspiration!

Stash Enhancement

Got a coupla cool things in the mail the other day.

Heilo wool to knit Dale of Norway St. Moritz from Bea Ellis Knitwear.

And Opal “crocodile” sock wool from Carodan Farm.

Because I need more wool.

Contest Update

Entries are pouring in. And a lot of you have guessed correctly! There’s still time (till 5:00pm EST tomorrow) so email me your guesses.

Sock alert!

Finished my Opal Southwestern #6 socks. Izzy helped.

Project Monogamy

No update photo of the virgins, as I didn’t work on the sweater last night. I worked on my secret Knitty project. I feel so . . . so . . . naughty! Like I was cheating on the virgin sweater. I don’t know how those of you with multiple WIPs do it. If I did this all the time, I’d be so consumed with guilt I wouldn’t be able to hold my needles!

First off, many of you had problems getting on my blog yesterday. My apologies.

Because I put so many photos in my blog, it eats up bandwidth and when I’ve reached my limit, my provider makes the site unavailable.

In light of this unfortunate situation, I’m going to start putting the photos on my other server and link to them in my blog, so that less bandwidth is used up here when my readers access my site. This should all be fairly transparent to you all, though perhaps the photos will load in a little slower. And there’s a chance I’ll exceed my bandwidth limit on the other server. But if that happens, you’ll still get to my blog — the photos just won’t show.

It’s a bit of a pain to do it this way, but it’s the only way to keep my blog easily accessible to you guys without shelling out big bucks for extra bandwidth. And I don’t mind the extra bother because I love you guys. Kissy kissy kissy.

Is anyone barfing yet?

But on to the regular business at hand.

Another great surprise yesterday morning . . .

This one from Véronique in Switzerland. Look! Look!

A knitting watch! Isn’t it cute? The photo doesn’t do it nearly the justice it deserves. It has a tiny knitting basket under the crystal, with real balls of yarn, tiny knitting needles, and even a miniscule pair of stork scissors! I wore it all day yesterday after receiving it (and am wearing it today) and it makes me smile every time I looked at it. Thank you Véronique! I love it!

And another surprise!

Look what I got in the mail yesterday:

This is the lovely Koigu scarf that Joe knitted for me, after my shameless begging over on his blog. As Teresa said, I am a fiber hussy! The scarf is lovely and I am delighted to have it. My photo is not completely accurate for color, but those of you who voted on which scarf Joe should send me picked well — the colorway is perfect for me. Thanks Joe!

Contest!

Here it is! The long-awaited blog contest.

Pictured below is a pile of yarn. Can you guess what sweater it is destined to become? These are the colors called for in the pattern, I’ve not made any substitutions to try to fool you! If you want to hazard a guess, send me an email by clicking on “Contact Me” under “Links” in the sidebar. In the event of a tie, I’ll draw a name. The prize is Knitter’s Stash, the wonderful book shown in yesterday’s blog entry.

Contest closes 5:00pm EST this Thursday. If no one guesses correctly I’ll give you a hint. Okay, here’s a hint to start with — it’s a fair isle. Duh.

Good luck!

Current WIP

And here is the updated photo of the virgin sweater.

I’ve been having problems photographing this danged sweater because when I crop and save, the picture becomes extremely fuzzy at my normal compression settings. Something about back and red just makes my image editing software uncooperative! So I’ve been saving at a lower compression for a better quality picture. This has, I’m sure, contributed to the bandwidth problems. Sigh. so I’m afraid you all get a small photo today.

Not a visitation from the Gift Fairy, who is undoubtedly exhausted from all the recent activity on my behalf, but a blast from my past!

A friend from long ago, Alice, was searching online for a toe-up sock pattern and found the one on my website. After wading through my site a bit, she realized I was the same girl she knew from a summer job we shared when we were in high school and the summer before college. All those many years ago.

I was . . . wait for it . . . gobsmacked when she posted a message on my tag-board. A few messages, one email, and a phone conversation later, we were back in contact.

So welcome to my online world of knitting insanity, Alice. It’s great to have you back!

You Gots de Questions? I Gots de Answers!

Caroline F. asked what size needles and gauge the Sanquhar Duke glove pattern calls for. It’s fingering or sock wool and suggested needle is 2.25mm. This is for a medium sized hand. The pattern advises you to go up or down in needle size to adjust for gloves for larger or smaller hands.

Theresa asked what the text on the Virgin sweater is. Here’s the photo:

Kinda hard to read while it’s all smooshed up on the needle, eh? “Smooshed up” is a technical term, by the way.

It’s: “fem kloke og fem daarlige jomfruer”

Translated: “five wise and foolish virgins”

And, just to show you how dorky the foolish virgins look, a close-up of one of their dorky faces:

Tell me this chick doesn’t need a nose-job.

(Yikes! When I first wrote that I typed “blow-job” instead of “nose-job.”)

And here is a photo of what the sweater would like like if I was knitting it as a cardi, rather than bastardizing it into a tunic. Link is to Bea Ellis Knitwear, where you can purchase kits for the Norsk Strikkedesign book, and the book itself. You can buy them elsewhere, but I highly recommend Bea. I’ve had nothing but excellent service from her shop over the years.

A Question for You Guys

One of my coworkers is expressing interest in learning how to knit. And I didn’t even have to nag her! Do you guys have a specific sweater pattern you’d like to suggest for a first project after she learns the basics? Something very simple that can be made in a totally yummy yarn. Let me know what you think!

Y’all have a good weekend! See ya Monday!