Sweater Purgatory

I'm being punished for being drawn to complicated patterns. Big time. I've been working on these effing sweaters for my mom, dad, and sister for MONTHS and I feel like there is no light at the end of this tunnel. Lookie:

First the Collette Pullover from Interweave:

I'm still loving these colors together. I'm just going a little crazy, as I'm on the second sleeve, and I haaaate sleeves. Thank G-d we don't have three arms or I would give up knitting all together. (: My goal is to finish this sweater by Saturday - Only half a sleeve and the armpits up. Can I do it? Probably not.

How about Daniel from Twist Collective:

Don't let little Danny fool you. He is a big, man-sized sweater that will not go quickly like you'd assume. Man sweaters take forever. Man sweaters are not my friend. I still have TWO SLEEVES (barf), one front panel, and the neck to finish. I hate me for deciding to make sweaters for everyone this year.  

Wanna see my new yarn?  Okay, if you insist.

Can you believe this is corporate-ey?!  Berroco Ultra Alpaca in some beautiful color.  No idea what I am going to make with it.  Maybe the Central Park Cardigan or the Minimalist cardigan.  Or maybe neither.  I just love this color.

And THIS is my new Malabrigo. Just feedin' the habit. It's a sickness. Don't judge. I will be making some leg warmers from Last Minute Knitted gifts using dark grey Kidsilk Haze to go along with it. Yummy.

Speaking of yummy. How DE-LISH is the color of this, aherm, Malabrigo (don't judge) Lace!?!?! I'm going to make another one of the sweaters that I made for Misha, but this time for a different niece. I am totally in love with how soft and gorgeous this is. I bought two skeins. Maybe there will be enough for moi!? (:

Well, that's about all the excitement for now. My 4th semester of law school starts in less than a week, so I'll probably be posting a lot more. When I don't have anything to procrastinate for, posting is less frequent. (:

Warm House, Warm Head

First dinner party and the first knit of the 2009 all within three days of the ball dropping!  Woosh!  Shall I tell the story in pictures?  Okay.

This year was our second-annual Hanukkah Party and was even better than the first year.... probably because I didn't do the shopping, cooking, and cleaning in the day following finishing my first semester of law school finals.  Instead, this year I shopped, cooked, and cleaned for 3 days and it was a much more enjoyable experience.  Okay, first up: the house (or apartment, I guess).

After three days of cleaning, everything finally looked great.

We got these dishes and napkins at Crate and Barrel the day after Christmas basically for free.  The after-Christmas sales kicked in before Hanukkah was over.  So we lucked out big time. (:  

Sorry for the gross quality of this and the next few photos.  Being in a loft, only the bedroom and living room have windows - we have to rely on very soft natural light coming over the "soft" wall (doesn't go to the ceiling).  As you can see, no soft light available at the time of this particular photo-op.  Anyway, our office has been an eye sore since we moved in August 2007.  We didn't know what to do with the wall space, since all of our "coherent" art was used up in the more general areas of the house.  

So finally I went allll the way out to Ikea and got some cheap fabric and frames and made some fabric boxes.  We also bought some metal dry erase boards - very industrial meets... uh... me (:  Our desk is actually our old dining room table.  We didn't want to spend a lot of money on a desk and after buying a new dining room table, we thought this one would do the trick.  Reduce, reuse, right?  Moving on.

Thanks to track lighting (blegh), this picture is a little more passable.  We bought the three big posters (not Gaudi or Job) in a pack of 8 for $20 at Renegade in September.  They have been sitting on our floor since then.  Good, right?  Again, Ikea saved the day and we purchased these glass sandwich frames for $6 a piece.  I love deals.  The guitar is mine - a Valentines Day gift from my Great Aunt Evelyn when I was still in High School. (:

Pretend this isn't blurry, please.  This is my little craft corner.  The table is actually a sewing stand: the top lifts up to show an amazing amount of thread and little compartments for all of my needles, scissors, etc.  The other two drawers are filled with ribbon and patterns.  Another keepsake from Evelyn.  Above the table are all of my knitting/sewing books.  I'm proud.

More posters.  No big.  The stools got taken out of the kitchen to make more room and are not generally in such a ridiculous place.  

ON TO THE FOOD!

Okay, so I didn't take a lot of pictures of food.  Mainly because everything I made tasted great but looked... not so good. (:  Fried Latkes and Brisket do not photograph well.  But here is my menu:

Winter Spiced Sangria

Seven Vegetable Couscous with Spicy Harrissa

Brisket with Dried Apricots, Prunes, and Aromatic Spices

My Gramma's Latkes (in her own writing)

10-Minute Homemade Applesauce

Our friends always pick up the slack by each couple bringing an appetizer, side, or desert.  This year the Aprils brought homemade spinach artichoke dip, Greenfields brought salads from Wildfire (my fave), and Engels brought a Trifle.  

If you are interested in making my Gramma's potato pancakes, you should know that they are a little different than what you are used to.  The condensed milk makes them a little sweet.  They are INCREDIBLE with either Sour Cream or Applesauce.  The recipe I included for applesauce is SO good.  My friends call it my homemade applesauce recipe.  Pff.  Thanks, but I couldn't take credit for this.  I use brown sugar instead of white.  People rave.  You should make it.  

ON TO KNITTING!

If you aren't familiar with what a "Secret Latke" is, it's the same as a "Secret Santa" but for the Jews.  Secret Santa in potato pancake form. (;  So my Secret Latke got a hand knit hat and I tried out labels for the first time! 

Pattern:  Sideways Grande Cloche

Source:  Boutique Knits by Laura Irwin

Yarn:  Brown Sheep Burly Spun yarn

Yardage: Almost the entire skein

A good start to my 2009 knitting, I think.  Hope you are all having a great year so far!

My big steaming pile of holiday failures.

A little math problem for you all:

1 baby sweater + 3 adult sweaters + about a billion hats = ??

Then divide the answer above by 4 months.

The total?  FAILURE.  Yup.  Guess who didn't have anything done as of Christmas Eve.  MEEE!  It took me most of Christmas day to finish that cute little Danish baby sweater for Misha - the only person who actually got the promised hand-made gift.  Want to see?

Yup, that's all I have to show for all of the procrastination over the last semester.  Maybe my problem is that I didn't procrastinate enough??  I'll try harder for you all next semester.  Pinky swear. (:

A little inside information on moi:  My family (parents, sister, etc) celebrate Christmas because, duh, they are Christian.  I am a Hanukkah celebrant because, duh, I'm Jewish.  Weird, I know, but go with it.  So I went home for Christmas and got some goooooood stuff.  Here, look and drool a little. (:

  

  These were a bit of an impulse, I have to admit.  But they were 50% off!  How can you say no to 90 yards for $3.75!?  Plus it's bulky, so it will knit up quickly.  I'm thinking of doing a little fair isle sweater for baby Jayden - all my other nieces are too big (you did see Misha, right?).  While not the softest yarn, I think the tweed-ish qualities in the yarn will help it redeam itself.  But really, how can I stay mad at sale yarn? I can't.

  THIS is Cascade Eco Alpaca.  WTF!?  EVERYONE has been holding out on me.  How did I not know that Cascade made soft yarn!?  I felt this in the store and had to have it.  Luckily I had already found a new Sirdar book that I had to have and that called for this DK-ish weight yarn.  It was mine.  A sweater in 5 skeins?  Yes please!

Oh, and how about some new literature?  

These are both from my sister and ooooh I was so excited to get them.  If the colors of "Seams to Me" excite you, check out the author's blog here.  She designs some DELISH fabric and there are some great free projects if you are interested! (I know you're interested, let's not kid ourselves.)  I definitely asked for the itty bitty hats book... but I think my sister chose this with a little self interest involved.  I mean... she's the only one with an itty bitty baby with an itty bitty head.... well, not that itty bitty, but ya know...

 

  Maybe you can see the knitted pieces on which these books are sitting?  Those knitted pieces, my friends, are the pieces of knitting that never made it into complete sweaters for Christmas and which function as evidence of my complete crafty failure.  Bah.

  Anyway, so after Christmas in the frigid north, I came back to Chicago to celebrate Boyfriend's 31st birthday, our 3.5 year anniversary and, of course, to celebrate the last 3 nights of Hanukkah!  Hurray for gelt, candles, presents and a huuuuuuge sushi dinner at Coast.... probably the best place for Niguri in Chicago, if you're interested. (:  So what was my Hanukkah present?  $100 gift certificate to my favorite LYS!!!!  He's gotten me Tiffany silver jewelry for the past few years, which I love and wear every day, but he really hit a home run on this one.  I am so excited and I will certainly post pictures of my loot.  

I'm thinking of the Addi snap set?  Or does anyone have any suggestions for yarn that are wonderful that I wouldn't otherwise be able to afford?  I'm all ears! (:  

As we say in my family - Merry Christmahanukkah!!!!  Hope you all had as lovely a time as I did!

Seriously? ANOTHER hat?

I knit this up on Thanksgiving Day during the hours I managed to not sleep.  It was originally made for a girlfriend, but the hat is starting to give away the fact that I've been wearing it.  Often.  

Pattern:  Koolhaas

Designer:  Jared Flood/BrooklynTweed

Fiber:  Malabrigo Worsted, 1 skein

Needles: US 7 and US 8

Size:  Mens, I think?

A flawless pattern, true to form.  I will say that the cables got a bit tedious... I need to learn to knit continental... or whatever the way is that I don't knit right now (yarn in right hand, thrown).  I don't have time for all that yarn throwin'.

Speaking of which, I can't sleep.  I laid there for an hour just almost unconscious, but thoughts about finals just kept creeping in.  One week from today and I'll be sleeping (and knitting) happily.

Oh YAY!!!!

Can you read that?!  It says that tomorrow and Saturday are my favorite days EVER!!!!  Renegade is back and I am suuuper excited.  

Chicagoans:  GO THERE.  

The rest of you:  WHY DONT YOU LIVE HERE?!

Oh, because it was 15 degrees at noon today?  Okay, that's a valid point.  

Danish? Yes please.

There is exactly one bad thing about Ravelry:  It lets you discover patterns and fibers not available in the US (or wherever you might be.)  Fortunately, Ravelry also provides a remedy for its only downfall: other users who can help!

I have been wanting to make the Mini by Else Schjellerup since I saw it last year.  It's not a complicated peice at all.  Just a top-down baby sweater or dress (depending on where you stop).  Unfortunately, it is only available in Danish and in stores in the Netherlands.  Also unfortunate: how badly I wanted this pattern.   I tried to make it by sight, but my version was missing something... something that was cruicial to the aesthetic of the dress and why I really wanted to make it. 

So I tried and tried to find someone who would buy the pattern for me and send it to me.  That was a no go.  I emailed the designer.  No go #2.  I posted on boards, googled, sent emails.  No, no no.  

BUT!  About a month ago, I finally found a website that shipped internationally:  www.pinnsvin.no.  I got my package yesterday and now I can start this little sweater/dress (I haven't decided yet) for Misha's holiday present!  

The pattern is only available as a kit, so I also received some Design Club DK Duo Merino.  It says fingering, but it feels like lace.  It has beautiful texture to it, and the heathering is really nice.  You can barely tell, but this is a grey-ish pink.  It's going to be perfect.

So, about the language thing..... right.  Well, I spent way too much time looking up Danish words online last night.  Then I wised up and thought I should use my beloved Ravelry!  So I PMed someone who had made a mini and asked for translation help.  True to Rav form, she was totally up for it and so helpful.  For all you Ravelers, check out her version here.  It's one of my favorites.  Another one of my favorites and probably the reason I needed to make this dress is here (for ravelers) and here (for non-ravelers).  

I should finish up here.  It's finals time and I really should be doing many other things unrelated to knitting right now.  Should.  Off to my beloved mini before bed!  

I do things other than knit

So... I sing.  This is not something a lot of people know about me, but that I am taking more seriously lately.  I have recorded a few times with Ghost In The Console Productions (here in Chicago) over the past few years, but my producer, Patrick, is really pushing me more lately.  And I like it.  

  So here is a non-final mix of the latest song I have been working on.  I wrote this song YEARS ago - so long ago that Pat and I had to knock it down a few keys so that I could actually sing this song.  There will be a real, live drummer in the final cut, but I thought I'd share where it's at right now.  

Someone please pay me to sing so I can stop reading this stupid Civil Procedure book.  Oh, don't worry (hah) I still knit.  

Yup, you counted right, this is the THIRD Habitat you've seen up here.  Don't judge me.  Boyfriend needed a hat pronto.  That's my excuse, at least.