Birthday Set Progress

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Birthday Bag, all done!, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

Birthday Bag is all blocked, all dry, all strapped! ALL DONE! The straps are from the same yarn, but you can see why I am wondering about alternate yarn options. I might still swap out handles, but we’ll see.

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Birthday Bag in semi-action, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

I do like short handles, and you can see that this works just fine. I think overall I did great for only having 260 yards of this Araucania nature wool chunky yarn.

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Birthday Bag’s Closeup, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

I am still loving the variegation in the colors!

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Birthday Set! Without Flash, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

I’m really happy with how the hat, scarf, and bag work together texturewise and colorwise. This picture was without flash.

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Birthday Set With Flash, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

And this one was with the flash. The real color is somewhere between these two pictures, but this one is closer to the real thing.

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Birthday Texture, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

Here you can see the three projects close up! I think Birthday Hat’s Odessa pattern is knitting up in a lovely manner. And the variegation is really gorgeous! It’s Jade Sapphire 4 ply 100% cashmere yarn. And 100% yum, lemmetellya.

So that’s what I’ve been up to this week. Odessa obviously sort of really needs to be knit up and finished by Sunday night, and I think I should manage that without a problem. The scarf is now long enough that I can knit at it and whatever length it is Monday morning is the length it’ll be. And I’ll just be walking around all day Monday with the purple Birthday Bag. Awesome.

This Thursday is for Wish Lists

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The Happy Hooker, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

I didn’t get the Happy Hooker book just for Debbie Stoller to sign it! I got it also because there were a few projects I wanted to try to do in it. I’m not looking for crochet to replace the knitting obsession, but there are some things knitting can’t do easily that crochet can. The biggie is flowers. I love little touches that make the outfit, as you can tell by my flourishing bag, shoes, hat, scarf, whatever collection. And This book has a few flowers I’d like to learn how to do, plus a scarf and a shrug and a hat that are wide open and are just amazing looking.

Here’s a few of the projects I would love to try:

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Garden Scarf, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

The Garden Scarf, which takes three balls of Karabella Aurora 8. I think that one of those flower motifs on its own would be great for an applique on a felted bag, too, or maybe even several! I think it’d be a great look, since it’s simple and yet would allow an opportunity to add a contrast color.

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One Skein Scarf, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

This is an amazing looking scarf if you ask me! The pattern calls for Patons Classic Merino Wool which I’ve never seen, but it’d be an easily subsitutable yarn. I’m thinking Cascade 220 in a pink. I could stand to have ONE serious pink scarf. Or maybe blue. I don’t know. Or apple green.

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Ferris Wheel Flower, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

I think this is a really cute flower, and is a great way to use up all those random little balls of leftovers.

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Six Petal Flower, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

Here’s another flower. There’s a lot of different flower-type motifs in this book, which I was really glad to see, because hello random flowers! I’ve always wanted to make you! You know.

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Short n sweet, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

Here’s a simple and (I think quick) cardigan that would be great in warmer weather. I think it’s classic and elegant. The only concern I have is the sizing, which gave options for a 32″ or a 45″ chest. What the?! I’m a 40, so I don’t know how that’s going to work.

Felting is Fun

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Birthday Bag, pre-felting, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

Felting is still fun. It’s like MAGIC where a scary floppy mess somehow acquires shape! Heft! Strength! And all you had to do was throw it in the washing machine. But first: Pre-felting, Birthday Bag had a really pretty texture, didn’t it? I love those colors.

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Birthday Bag’s blob, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

Pre-felting, it was definitely crazy wide and blobbular.

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Birthday Bag Blocks!, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

Post-felting! I’m using the box my mother sent me last month when I was sick. I understand that this wasn’t what the box was intended for, but it was the only thing I had that would fit the bag’s size. And? WATERPROOF! Bonus. I want only eleventy squintillion more of those really cool boxes that make blocking so easy. Isn’t the bag pretty and textured? And perfectly rectangular and nonblobbular!

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Birthday Bag Blocks (with flash), originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

This picture shows the colors of the bag better. Quite variegated isn’t it? I love it. One thing down, two more to go, for Birthday. Which is Monday next. Eep. The Birthday Scarf is halfway done at minimum and Birthday Hat isn’t even begun. But I have plenty of time! Right?

Tuesdays are for Self Portraits

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Debbie Stoller and the Fraro, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

I admit it, I was holding out on you. Of course I had a picture with the Debbie Stoller! It’d be insane not to have.

In other news, I finished Birthday Bag completely last night, except for the icord which I’m working on at work and hopefully it’ll all be idone so I can felt the whole thing tonight! Ooo. Exciting.

Project Spectrum

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Fraro’s Love of PINK says HELLO, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

I’ve had a lot of fun with the color theme of Project Spectrum this month, which are pink and red. I have no trouble finding these colors in my life and in my knitting!

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Still life: scarves in a bowl, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

I have just a few neckscarves and am certainly not well known for wearing a scarf every single day. Certainly not! But if I did, these are the pinks and reds I found. Just a couple scarves, right?

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Knitted Pinkly Goodness, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

These are the pink stuff I’ve knitted. Kindly avert your eyes from the glaring Second Legwarmer Syndrome. Currently I’m really loving the Manos bag and I definitely am excited to see how Birthday Bag turns out when I finish it which should be tonight or tomorrow, ooo the excitement.

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Fraro has taste. Honest., originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

Here’s Birthday Yarn, in Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted, and I don’t remember right now the name exactly but look at it! Pretty!

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Pink! Eyelash! Chenille!, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

This yarn is still frightening, isn’t it?

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Picasso Bowls, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

In the apartment, I don’t have a lot of red things, but one of them is the bigass red bowl that Matisse and Picasso like to nap in.

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red!, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

And here’s my RED bathroom. Whee! What do you mean, it’s not a complete view of the bathroom? Heh.

Look! It’s Debbie Stoller!

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Stitch n Bitch, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

I managed to drag myself out of the apartment long enough to take the metro to Knit Happens where Debbie Stoller was signing books and whatnot.

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Stitch n Bitch Nation, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

And I even managed to have a conversation with her!

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Stitch n Bitch: Happy Hooker, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

It’s always weird to talk to people in person. Especially if it’s an author, never mind the author of the first knittage book you ever read.

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Hey! It’s Debbie Stoller!, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

But it was nice! And lovely! And I have signed books! And I feel like I brushed with fame. Knittage fame.

Saturdays are (still not) for Sockapaloooza

But! I have it on good authority I will be spending all day next Saturday at Knit Happens knitting my socks!

I hope so! My sock yarn balls, my needles, and my SmarTrip card are all super-ready.

E is for Europe

I know I’m behind in the whole ABC Along thing. It’s not that I didn’t remember to do it, or that I didn’t know what to talk about, but frankly it was because it was hard, is hard, to ecapsulate the whole Europe thing into one small thing.

I could put up trite postcards and paste pictures of my travels that I think were pretty darn cool, or tell you stories of how it was to walk down the Kurfurstendamm in Berlin, through Zlata Ulica in Prague, sit in Rynek Glowny in Krakow, walk along the train tracks at Auschwitz, or to look down at the flat terrain of Pest while standing on the castle hill of Buda in Budapest.

I could show you my glass ball, swirled with teal, cobalt blue, and white color within the clear glass, bought in Prague and still holding a place of pride right in front of my monitor, six years later. I could tell you about the massage I got at the Turkish bath in Budapest. I could, I could, I could.

But I can’t. None of it gives you the sense that I wish I could give you, that I need to give you. Of all of what I saw, of everything I got, of each piece that I brought back to America to me, those scarves mean the most to me. They don’t mean anything to most people, of course, but every time I wear one of these scarves I am transported back to the sights I saw, where I bought the scarf, how I felt wearing it. And it is magical, and it is Europe, for that moment that I smile within and remember.

And that, in its own way, is enough.

Caution: Purple Ahead

What’s in your bag? I apparently like knitting a little tiny bit. If you for some strange reason want a description of every single item in the bag, I have notes on the picture on my flickr page. You can see that my Birthday Scarf has grown quite a bit, though I’d really like it to be at least twice as long in… gulp… ten days.

Isn’t this fabric neat looking? I love the way it pools and flashes and whatever, it’s great visual texture and right about now I imagine Scout is eating it all up.

Doesn’t Birthday Bag look great? It’s in Araucania Nature Wool Chunky.

By the time I’d done 5,200 stitches, I realized the horrible truth, however. At some point I’d lost one of the four stitch markers and I’d been decreasing at three corners not four… #(**$#&$(*#&$(*##*(. So I took the whole thing to Stitch DC and asked the nice lady to help me frog it with the ball winder. Even with the ball winder and the two of us, it took us a full hour… stupid stubborn stubborn tangly yarn. .

I’ll work on it this weekend and it’ll be PERFECT because I said so.

Wednesdays are for Wish Lists

Today

I

have

only

one

wish:

Manos del Uruguay.