Capitol Time

I'm in DC. At least for the next coupe of hours, as my flight to LA leaves this evening. The photo above is of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum building (still say ours is prettier). I've really loved DC - for some reason I thought it would be dangerous, unfriendly, ugly and impossible to walk around. I was wrong.




Now the conference is over, today I did museums, and geeked over kids science literature in bookstores. But mainly I just wandered about what I've discovered is a really beautiful city. The weather has been great and sun shows off all the autumnal colours. Plus, I followed Lolly's recommendation of Teaism and had the best noodle soup I think I've ever tasted.

What am I knitting in the bottom left picture? That'd be a secret. As I'm uploading photos though, I'll leave you with a few pictures of some beaded icord I've done recently.

results

Despite working pretty hard since I got back from holiday, and slashing a crucial knitting finger while cutting bread this week (not to mention the various addictions of facebook) I've managed some craft output.


A pair of socks - toe up jaywalkers with a short-row heel, using Tofutsies. The yarn smells funny. Really funny, to the extent that it makes your fingers smell. And I don't like the colour nearly as much as I thought I would (bought it online). That said, it feels nice enough and it is exciting to have socks with chitin and soysilk in it! I still have 45g left. I suppose I could use it for a slightly psychedelic baby-top.

The top of the quilt's done. I was going to finish it today, but I think I might use a sparkly top thread, which'll require a shop trip. I'm plugging along with a couple of double-knit scarves a friend asked me to knit (you can see a sneaky WIP shot here) and cast-on a tweedy Rosalind yesterday.

I have a question with all these scarves. I hate fringes. Hate them. With the double-knit ones I really don't think they need them, so (like exchequered) I think I'll leave it fringe-less. But with Rosalind I think I need something. Am I alone in this hatred of fringes, and does anyone have an idea for an alternative?

soysilk tablecloth - done!

I'm back from Edinburgh and my cousin's wedding. Which means the tablecloth has been given and I can show it off!


This was a bit of a toothpicks and dental floss project, but I did enjoy it and am pleased with the results. The only thing I didn't really like about it was knitting-to-deadline, but that's my own fault.

Yarn: laceweight soysilk. It's a bit like cotton, but not so strong, and silkier knitted up. I tried to do some research before I bought it but I couldn't find a knitter who had used it. In the end I thought it was worth a try, and I'm glad I took the risk, because it is fantastic. Recommended. It does smell a bit odd when wet though, sort of chemical.


Pattern: Find it and other's here. It was hard. But I wanted a challenge. I ended up charting out a lot of it because it was much easier to read, but that's often the way. I started each motif with the magic adjustable ring rather than the way it suggested and simplified the boarder a little, but otherwise I didn't do any mods. There were places where instructions could be more clearly expressed, but it all seemed to be correct.


Needles: 2mm brittany birch dpns, 2mm addi turbo 80cm circular and a 1.75mm metal crochet hook. The birch had too much friction and the addi's were slippery but neither was too much of a problem. It was a vintage pattern and suggested working the 800+ sts for the boarder on dpns - thank goodness for circulars! I *hated* the hook - way too slippery. Either I get a wood one of that size or there is no way I'm crocheting at that gage again.

grey forecast

The end is in sight for the soy silk tablecloth. It's no where near finished, but it is getting there. It'll really need some good blocking if it'll ever look like this. But a crochet swatch I experimented with blocked well, so I'm hopeful.

I've started to consider my next project. I don't have a huge amount of time, gift knitting season being upon us. But want a cardigan for myself and have settled on Forecast, with Winnie's mods. I'm going to use cucumberpatch's super-cheap Rowanspun in a dark grey. Yes, it is 100% wool, but I can handle it for cardigans and you'd be suprised how hard it is to find a good aran weight wool mix.

things to do with tofu no.289

I broke out the laceweight soysilk. I'm hoping blocking will do wonders.

Thanks for all your kind comments and emails after my last post. I worry about mentioning my non-knitting life in the blog (for lots of different reasons) but your kind words meant a lot so I'm glad I did.

Look - finished Boyfriend Socks! Don't they look great in blue?

to infinity and beyond

What's this? Soy silk. Laceweight. It's destined for the crochet hook. A very small crochet hook. All will be revealed in a later post. The yarn is, worryingly, called Infinity. This project may take a while...

I passed my transfer "exam". Although it was so unlike an exam it seems silly to call it that (they told me I passed as soon as I'd sat down) it was really just a chance to sit with a group of academics in my department and go through in some detail the work I've done so far. Useful though, and I now have a much tighter plan for the finished thesis (not to mention fear of how on earth I'll get it written before I'm 30). Plus it means my funding is confirmed till April 2008.

Back to knitting, my lace chart from the weekend now looks like this:


Knitted up, it looks rather like a lace pattern I've seen in a Harmony guide, so I probably could have saved myself the maths. But to be honest that was the main attraction.

I'm off to Whistable in a few hours, a long weekend with boyfriend. We plan to eat oysters, drink ale, go "ooo pretty" at boats, avoid seagull poo and generally laze about. I've been taking exams this week and he's been organising a load of them, so we both could do with a few days out of the city.