Wendy Knits

Button, Button

By Wendy on January 7, 2004

Who’s got the button?

The answer to that question is Lindsey-Brooke! Actually L-B did have the button, or buttons in this case. When I mentioned last week that shell buttons for Abalone would be cool she immediately went into “personal shopper” mode and picked up some samples for me to try out and sent them to me. What a great friend, eh? I just have to mention a desire, and it comes true!

Oh my . . . I really really wish I had a new BMW Z4 Roadster.

Cough, cough.

Here is button number one:

Pretty, but too light.

Here is button number two:

Oh my gosh! How cute is that button?! I love it, but I think it’s too busy for Abalone. Sadly. Cuz it’s so durn cute!

Awwww.

Button number three is the winner:

Hard to get a good photo, cuz of the glare of the white card. A close-up:

This button has just enough purple tone in it to work beautifully with Abalone. Thanks, L-B!!

Abalone Colors

I’ve gotten a couple of requests to post the colors I’m using for Abalone here on my blog. Also what yarn I’m using — Jamieson’s or Jamieson & Smith.

Please remember — the yarn I’m using for my current projects is always listed in the sidebar in the descriptions of my current WIPs. I also specifically stated which yarn I’m using in a blog entry last week. I’m using Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift. Jamieson’s is not the same as Jamieson & Smith. shetland. The Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift is, however, the same yarn as the now discontinued Campion. Some of the color names are the same as the old Campion names, some are different.

But anyone of you who wants to knit this design and has the book can easily figger out the colors, with a conversion chart for Spindrift and Campion. You can find conversion charts on the wonderful Knitting Beyond the Hebrides website in their resources section here.

Speaking of Abalone, I only got a little work done on it last night — other stuff got in the way. But for the brief time I worked on it, Lucy enjoyed it.

Supposed to be seriously cold here today! I’m wearing Henry VIII to work today.

Posted in Wendy Knits

I Gotcha Glowing Colors Right Here

By Wendy on January 6, 2004

In yesterday’s comments, Cat asked:

I’ve loved the pattern of Abalone but the gray colors in the picture just never appealed. Did you you look at shade card and see how different the real sweater would be?

I’ve always loved Abalone, even with the greyish colors in the original. I wanted to give my mom something relatively easy to get me for Christmas, so I figured out the Campion colors in Jamieson’s (without ever looking at a color card) and gave her the list.

Was I ever amazed when the pattern started emerging.

I can’t believe how much more beautiful the Abalone colors are “in person.” The background colors look like the ocean — beautiful deep sea greens. So I just sort of lucked out on this.

And in answer to Julie’s question — I am doing Abalone as a cardi. It briefly crossed my mind to convert it to pullover, but I decided not to. As much of a pain as the two-color garter stitch bands are, I really like the look of them.

GSRP Box

I took the time Monday night to look through the GSRP box in detail. There wasn’t much of anything I wanted in it — not that it isn’t lovely stuff, it’s just stuff that doesn’t appeal to me for one reason or another. Like, the color isn’t right for me, or I like the color and the yarn is cotton.

So I grabbed the skein of Colinette Circe, just because it looked intriguing.

And I put in three skeins of Noro Kureyon, which I figure is probably about right, value-wise.

And the Cable box is going on its way to Christina in Woodbridge, VA this afternoon.

And while we’re talking about the GSRP . . .

A huge thank you to Amy for masterminding this very fun project. After seeing the box and the paperwork inside that Amy diligently included, I can see she put a lot of time into making this run smoothly.

Mouse-a-thon News

Lucy says: “Don’t look at me!” Go see Mr. Geoffrey’s World!

If you want to see some totally adorable kitties available for adoption, check out this site! Mr. Geoffrey fosters kitties for Capital Animal Care, and there are some beauties pictured on his site.

He also has some information about the Mouse-a-thon catnip mice available for sale from Capital Animal Care.

Are you looking for a furry friend or two to share your home? Run, don’t walk, over to Mr. Geoffrey’s! The link to Mr. Geoffrey’s World will remain in my sidebar, so you can check back any time at all.

Posted in Wendy Knits

First Monday of the Year

By Wendy on January 5, 2004

And it’s back to work for me. Sigh.

Thank you all for your birthday wishes expressed on my blog and emailed to me — I really appreciated them. And thank you very much to those of you who sent me birthday cards too!

I had a good birthday — presents, seafood stir-fry for dinner, and champagne. Can’t get much better than that! Lucy gave me a birthday kiss:

But she quickly grew bored and wandered off.

I had a good weekend. We went to the mall, watched some movies. And I did some knitting on Abalone too:

I keep comparing my work to the photo in the book — this design is more vibrant in real life — in the book, the teals and green appear a lot more grey than they are in person.

I’ve done absolutely nothing on my Feather and Fan scarf for a week. But now that I’m back to commuting, the scarf will be completed quickly, I think. I’m more than halfway done with it, so a few days of riding the train ought to do the trick.

GSRP!

Also this week, I met the fabulous Kristine for the Official Great Stash Redistribution Project Box Hand-off. Kristine was kind enough to offer to bring the Cable GSRP box to me, the next recipient, so we met for coffee over the weekend. We met at a coffeshop in the mall, both whipped out our knitting, and had a nice chat. As you know from reading her blog, Kristine will be opening a LYS in a couple of months, so I wanted to hear all the details she could give me at this point.

I’ll blog about the GSRP box and my contributions to it tomorrow. right now, I gotta think about going to work.

Hope you all have an easy Monday!

Posted in Wendy Knits

Let Me Sleep!

By Wendy on January 2, 2004

Lucy looks all partied out, doesn’t she?

I hope you all had a nice New Year’s celebration. I rang out the old year and rang in the new knitting on Abalone — I’m into the pattern a bit — see?

So far so good! Not a difficult fair isle, as Starmore fair isles go. But a pretty one, I think. And enjoyable to knit.

I don’t have much to say today, but I wanted to show you the Abalone progress. And I wanted to answer the comment from a couple of days ago looking for the kitty bed pattern. You can find it here.

For the benefit of new readers: you can find my main knitting page from the link in my sidebar under “My Knitting Gallery.” Links to all my knitting stuff are on that page.

Time to go back to bed . . .

Posted in Wendy Knits