I may have sprained my foot, but that's no reason not to buy yarn.

Tuesday was "Christmas in July" at the yarn store three blocks away from my apartment, and I might have embraced the theme, or the 20% off a little too much.



Summer '06 Interweave Knits, A World of Knit Toys, One Skein Cotton Fleece in Robins Egg Blue, and seven skeins of Royal Bamboo. (I think the bamboo is where I lost my head a little.)

I tried really hard to plan before I went into the store, but somehow I still spent an hour just looking at yarn and thinking of things to make. Petting the bamboo for the third time, I checked my cell phone for the time. Yeah, I had to be at the doctors to get x-rays taken in a half hour. So I grabbed about 600 yards worth, thinking about the silk corset, and booked it.

Which is probably good, because I was gunning for the Cathay next, followed by the clearance Cashmerino Astrakhan.

And then after my doctor's apointment, me, my roommate, and my snazzy boot headed out to Target and Ben Franklin, where I picked up another skein of Snuggly 4ply to finish my razor cami.

I'm not buying anymore yarn until I finish finishing some of my other projects.

orange and black

Well! I haven't been doing much knitting lately because unlike some people, my job doesn't allow me the luxury of knitting during work, plus I get home and sit down on my shiny computer and go to sleep. And it's been very, very hot. Plus I don't have an easy-access local Stitch'n'Bitch anymore.

But last night, I finally went out and did some knitting.



Stitch'n'Pitch Night at AT&T Park! It was an awesome game -- my favorite pitcher pitched a beautiful game of eight shut-out innings, we won by six runs, and...



We got free yarn and Clover needles. The Clovers are size 4 straights (what am I going to do with those?) and the yarn is all acrylic, but hey, free! The little square, however, is a Psychedelic Square in Microspun (yeah, I know, I know). Somewhere I have another square, but it appears to have disappeared into the void of my messy, messy room. I am, however, considering buying some cheap-yet-nicer-than-Microspun yarn in orange and black and making a Giants afghan for real for the boyfriend. (Yeah, I know, I know. But he'd LOVE it.)

The game also had a knit-off between two ladies at an inning break, where they were attempting the "very difficult seed stitch", the "very difficult blind seed stitch", "blind one-handed seed stitch", "blind seed stitch while eating an apple", and "knitting with baseball bats". And there were knitting themed refreshments as well, but I wasn't all that hungry anyway.

The best part was a comprehensive list of all of the yarn stores in the area. Awesome. It's a checklist of all the places I have to go through.

It was also my mom's first trip to AT&T Park, so I'm glad I managed to lure her out and have a good time.

I didn't take any pictures at the park, even though I brought my camera, but Nathania sat a few rows in front of us and she has a couple of pictures.

Go Giants!

I may be knitting too much.

I think I'm knitting too much, or at least thinking about knitting too much. How do I know? Well, I ordered some yarn from knitpicks a couple of days ago, and Wednesday night I had a dream about it arriving. But instead of all six skeins being the aquamarine I ordered, three were aquamarine, two were a chocolate brown, and one was just navy blue. Obviously this horrified my dream-self, so I went into the store where they sold it and started arguing with them and telling them to find me aquamarine in the same dyelot.

Apparently I'm just really excited about this yarn coming so I can start on the Ballet Camisole. And apparently I really like knitting designs that have something to do with ballet in the name.

a little over a week's progress on the Razor cami:

This is a fun knit. The lace is easy to memorize and looks pretty. I'm using Sirdar Snuggly 4ply in an aquamarine color (apparently also the summer of aquamarine, but I never met an aquamarine that didn't go with my skin tone) and I joined a knit-along. Fun.

The magazines in the picture are just me trying to figure out what to knit after the Ballet Camisole. The yarn store three blocks from my apartment is having a "Christmas in July" sale with everything in the store at least 20% off, so I figured I might stash a little. I know for sure I'm going to get stash a skein of cotton for either the Saturday Market bag or the Rose-of-Sharon purse from Magknits. I suspect I'm becoming a simple lace addict.

I really am a slacker, aren't I?

My boss has been coming into my office for the past three Wednesdays and asking me what I've been working on*, and then inquiring when I'm going to wear something to work that I've made. Considering most of the things I knit are still in pieces, I decided it's time to do something about that.



I have started blocking my tennis sweater, last seen in February. Has it really been that long? I think my boss is right.


*One of the perks of working in a call center** is occassional knitting time (aka homework time during the school year) in between calls, and a boss who used to crochet when she did the same job.

**No, I'm not going to say where exactly I work. I don't need irate people trying to get me fired. Or internet stalkers calling me all day long. ...shut up, it could happen.

detangled!

It took me about five days to detangle the giant tangled skein, but I managed to finish detangling before I ran out of yarn on the other skein. Just barely, like Italy in the world cup, but I made it.



(If you squint really hard you can kind of see what's going on. Dark brown yarn, 4x1 ribbing, and bad natural lighting have been making my photography life miserable. I thought it was supposed to be summer, not grey and cloudy and 60 degrees all the time.)
Now I just have to finish up the straps, and I'm ready for the three needle bindoff and something new!

And by something new I mean ohmystars's razor cami. I cast on for this last night at knitting, since Bamboo Ballerina only has at most an hour left of knitting to do and I knew Dorothy and I were going to be at knitting for over two, since we were off to see Pirates of the Carribean afterwards. I suspect this cami, like Jack Sparrow, is cursed. I spent two hours casting on and counting last night. I couldn't get an accurate count to save my life- and this wasn't even the first time I cast on for this tank. I actually tried casting on before I started Bamboo Ballerina, but the yarn got stuck on my denises and the needle tip popped off. I lost half the stitches in the process, so it was off to the yarn store for a bamboo size 5 for me. The bamboo needles seem to be working better, so hopefully this project won't have to walk the plank again.

Phew.

Things have been pretty crazy for the past month between finals and work schedules and all that fun stuff. But there has been knitting, despite the lack of blogging.



That's the front piece of Bamboo Ballerina. I was hoping to get the knitting done on the tank by tomorrow, but can you see where I ran into problems?



A giant tangle for me to puzzle out. That picture is after spending my knitting time this weekend trying to detangle. I think it may be time to cut my losses and attach a new skein.