odessa odessa

The hat so nice, I had to make it twice.
v.1 for Lulu:
and v2 for me:
This one's in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, a yarn I expected to love. I don't. I guess I'm more of an earthy-crunchy than a smooth-shiny fan. It feels nice but it catches on everything. Within 4 hours my new hat had 2 annoying snags. Perhaps cashmere blends aren't meant to be scrunched in your pocket with keys? Ahem.

I suffer again from 2nd Hat Syndrome (2HaS), in which I make the same hat that looked so cute as a gift to someone last week, and find that its not-so-cute on my own bean. I still love this pattern, that Grumperina knows how to design, and write, a good hat.

odessa

Its my sister Lulu's birthday this week, she gets an Odessa.

pattern: a charmer from Grumperina
yarn: It was once a skein of yellow Brown Sheep worsted weight wool, that was put into a communal dye pot of indigo. Something weird happened , the leader fished it out, plunging it into vinegar as it had turned slimey and seemed to be disintegrating. The several-rinses-later result was about 100 yards of slightly felted, varied thickness, multi-hued pearlescent wooliness. Perfect for my one-of-a kind sister.
notes: The yarn is heavier than the pattern calls for so I reduced the stitches to 100, and left off the beads. The result is less refined, but with the same swirls. Its an addictive knit.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

I spent most of Saturday helping this same sister pack up her art studio, after 18 years of stuff accruing. I come from a family of artists. We all understand stuff. Stuff inspires us, stuff is worth looking at again, stuff might work well in a collage someday . That last one is, by the way, the go-to reason for hanging onto anything. Try it. Dryer lint? Might be good in hand-made paper. Used wrapping paper. Thing you bought at a tag sale but it shattered in an interesting way? Sure.
But you didn't hear it from me. Because if you've got enough space, stuff adds up.
After I said, "do you really need to keep this?" in my most non-judgemental-y voice for the hundredth time, she got a little peeved. Yes, I'm an oldest sister. Why do you ask ?

red scarf project: the sequel

Instead of wishing I'd been there to see and photograph all the Red Scarfs sent to the Orphan Foundation for Valentine's Day care packages, I headed south.
Because I realized , why not, its do-able, and I'm a .

This is Tina, who coordinates scholarships for the Orphan Foundation, with two of the college students who receive care packages from the Orphan Foundation. The young woman on the left graduated recently.She said getting the packages while she was in school really meant something to her, she loved them. Are you smiling yet? I grinned all day long.


I'm here to tell you: Norma was right. As she predicted in a post I can't find now,there was plotzing at the sight of all the fuzzy scarlet splendor.

Also oohing, and aaahing, some out right coveting, petting, admiration and above all, appreciation for the knitters. Much of which happened in fast forward, as close to 2000 care package boxes were packed by an army of volunteers. That's a lot, and I mean towering piles of fed ex boxes lot, of care packages.

There was no way to know which were from knitbloggers but a few times I recognized a scarf I'd seen posted, it was like a celebrity sighting.

You 'd like these folks. If you knit a Red Scarf, be glad. There's a former foster kid who's in college somewhere in this country today, enjoying it.

Want to see a few more*? Click here.
The models are all Orphan Foundation students, alumni, volunteers or staff.
Please enjoy them but don't download them or post them to your own blog or server.
They're copyrighted material.
If you want to show them to someone else, just send them over here. Thanks!

from the bleachers

I'm trying not to get windburn as those luge knitters steer with their feet, twiddling the dpns at warp speed as they hurl past.

Here on the sidelines I'm only experiencing some passing button envy, knowing there are teams of my kind of people:


and there are those churning what I'd like to be knitting soon:

Especially at Insaknity, I'm so jading on her multicolored version.

No, bambino, I am not in Torino, and having thought about the Yarn Harlot challenge I realized this: she has over 4000 knitters signed on. I thought, yeah, I could go for it..but what if I'm the hundredth monkey???

All over the world anyone who'd ever knit would seize their needles and cast on, without forethought (or even a trip to the LYS), through tribal cosmic evolution. The collective friction of needles clicking on every stitch could create enough energy to raise global temperature, resulting in major problems back at the the luge competition when the ice got runny. And you just know ad agency execs would start pitching to us on commercial breaks brought to you by Lion Brand. Do you really want to see the camera casually panning a ball of Noro* on the table next to Bob Costa, as knitterly product placement?

And besides, enough with the deadlines. February is my month to do something different.

Which I have been doing, more about that, tomorrow.
* If you didn't click on the Noro link above, its the last chance to bid on the fabulous Noro afghan at ebay. To benefit Afghans for Afghans. Go, now!

with a vengeance 1

*Whatever it takes...
First act of vengeance, observance of Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, always the first Saturday in Feb.

Fully sugar buzzed and caffeinated fortified, I finished my Cable and Rib Hat. I hardly took it off for the rest of the weekend, I like it that much


pattern: from the Knitting Pattern a Day calendar
yarn: KnitPicks Decadence - bulky alpaca . Love it. Its not really all that bulky, very silky and smooth to touch.
notes: I used size 9us needles, instead of the recommended 10.
As the cables went up toward the top, I knit them 1, then 2 rows shorter, so the hat was less tall. The pattern is a good one except its written for a 16" circular needle and never mentions switching to dpns as you decrease. I can see how it'd frustrate a new knitter when things got small near the top. This yarn is lovable, it feels so good to knit and took well less than one skein for the hat.

*Thanks to Cassie for the button.
One last look at the breakfast table.......