is it Wrong to love Finishing?

To say I was pleased by the difference in the look of my cardi once I finished the first buttonband is, well, quite right , quite astounding…

Gone was the ripply, stiff tape, and on was the nice flat band.

After I picked up the stitches for the band (5/6 ratio on my DK weight yarn), I casually knit the thing while watching Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire on television. Seeing the adventures of the Boy Wizard on the small screen was quite entertaining (except for all the commercials) and before I knew it, voila!

There was a buttonband!

No Pain, except for the little bit up by the collar where I savaged the original stitches when I ripped out the zipper tape.

There were 4 sts for the collar neckline edge; there were 9 rows in the buttonband; so every RS row I worked I knit-two-together the last stitch of the buttonband and the first stitch of the collar.

If this had been a slightly fuller, *hairier* yarn, nothing further would’ve needed to be done.

Filatura di Crosa 401 is a very processed matte-type yarn so there were tiny gaps between my K2TOGs. I always leave a healthy tail of yarn when I attach it for the initial pick-up, so I used that to weave around the gaps.

Now that I have a super-close-up in the light of day, I see a little hiccup towards the center of the picture. But that’s the beauty of the Human Eye vs the Camera. The Machine picks up every discrepancy; the Eye is more forgiving.

Which is Real?

For Instance: My photog co-workers and I are endlessly discussing High-definition Television (HDTV). The recent surge in big-screen sets around the country’s living rooms has made for some interesting discoveries. Where once all the foibles and bumps and glitches of the human face were smoothed out by the Lo-Def sets, now they are in our face in the very sharpest relief. Add a huge screen to the mix and you are paddling up a visual landscape that might make you duck under the sofa! (Watch Ghost Whisperer or any CSI episode and get back to me.)

What is maybe tolerable on the big screen in a movie theatre is really scary in your living room; scary in a run-for-cover HARSH way.

Even the *regular* Talking Heads in news shows, talk shows (TYRA!) and reality-bites type shows, LOOM and pontificate like the Great Wizard of Oz and I, for one might have to go hide from my TV, until the people making it learn to think of us little guys watching those Giant Heads at home.

Seriously, Tyra TopModel, full-screen, fierce…

oops. Knitting as a Shield!

  Monday Morning Mirth  

Ring ring ring Midwest homegirl Rapper and Sweater Curator Leslie Hall and her Museum of Gem Sweaters:

“…In 2000, Hall started a gem sweater site [the Gallery of Glamore], where she archived a hundred self-portraits in which she donned different sweaters salvaged from thrift stores, “to celebrate their majesty.” The project garnered a wave of attention, and the subsequent profiles in publications like Vice, Bust and Paper magazines helped Hall cultivate a loyal following that she credits for pushing her to tackle her next big project: launching Leslie and the Lys, her hip-hop group.”…Wired Mag

The Gem Mobile Exhibit on exhibit in Boston captured here…

Oh how I want that Floaty Pen!

 I swore b.Lime wouldn’t ever be used as a swear word but I Was Wrong…

Seeing some of the fresh little lime leaves on the neighborhood bushes pushed this little shell back into the mix.

Like many a naughty thing, this knit benefited from a Time Out.

[A New Definition of YARN?] I’m using (Bettina) which is unusual, beautiful: High Maintenance. The base of the yarn (the yellow-chartruese) is mysterious, to say the least. On close inspection, it looks like it is not spun, not twisted, not fiber like we know it. Rather, a genius professor with mad skillz somewhere in Italy (Milan? Rome? Florence?) mixed up a huge batch of Viscose + Nylon and made sheer sheets of *paper*.

Then it was cut into the strips that were wrapped in taupe colorerd linen that became..

[M-W’s take on] YARN: “…1 a: a continuous often plied strand composed of either natural or man-made fibers or filaments and used in weaving and knitting to form cloth b: a similar strand of another material (as metal, glass, or plastic).”

Whoa. The powers that be are way ahead of my mental curve here. Important words: continuous, strand, used in knitting, of metal , glass or plastic!

My continuous strand of viscose/nylon wrapped in linen thread is indeed: YARN!

BUT. It is not Civilized Yarn ;p

Under normal knitting tension, where the yarn is just moving across the right hand, the linen wrap tightens and the chartruese strand becomes bunched so much so even the folks in the corner coffeeshop might’ve heard me screaming b.Lime it all to H**L!!! as I was forced over and over to smooth out the strand as I felt it knob up under my hand. [My friend Rocksolana calls this effect *worming* and isn’t that creepy?! But so true…]

Notice the contraption in the top left of the photo above. After struggling through the first skein of Bettina, I knew this would never be finished unless some Order was imposed, a Citizen’s Arrest of this bad boy, an intervention for its own good, Tough Yarn Love!

SO I rewound the skein on my ball winder and put it on the Rack…

This loTech machine is something I used on my shell and recently on some Baby Uggs and thank god it is working with this yarn as well!

As I worked on the lower body of the shell I started dreaming. All over the neighborhood, the ladies were starting to wear their springtime frocks! And this year, they are fanciful, flowered, mixing materials, embroidery and trims.

So I made a changeup of my own on the Shell: I named it Jessameen (you’ve been so mean to me) and I started knitting part of it with mercerized cotton in a much smaller gauge…

Lesson Learned?