Friday, November 17, 2006

Lead with cute shoes...

Since there are no knitting photos to discuss, I've decided to distract you all with cute shoes:

This is a funny photo in that my feet look really tiny in relation to my calves, due to the angle of the legs and the camera (although as I've mentioned before I do have fairly sizable calves, and I also have small feet). I love my new teal and brown shoes, as well as the brown tweed cabled socks I'm wearing with them. The shoes are made by Palladium and are from Zappos. I also got a pair of brown flats (it's VERY hard to find cute brown shoes that aren't dowdy), which I'm not sure about keeping. They look great with socks but without, well, there is some toe cleavage, and I'm not sure I can deal with that. Zappos has free shipping and free returns, so there was no harm in trying! What I'd really like to have (aside from the brown shoes) is good red shoes...I have great red boots, but some shoes would be good for those non-boot days, you know? Anyway...

I finished the multidirectional scarf last night! I didn't take any photos because they'd look like what I posted a couple of days ago. It's not quite done in that its not blocked or fringed yet, so I figured the photoshoot could wait. I think blocking pre-fringe is the way to go, right? Let me know if I'm horribly mistaken on this.

I was sitting in a seminar yesterday thinking about what knitting I have going, and making a list (I do this a lot, make knitting lists during scientific seminars. Don't judge. If you went to as many talks as I do you'd do the same). I realized that I don't have that many projects on the needles. No wonder I've been itching to start something new...

Current Projects

1. Hike sweater - 90% done. Needs sewing up and finishing

2. Bamboo tank - 95% done. Needs finishing around the neckline. Seriously, that's it. No excuses.

3. So-called scarf - 45% done. This is killing me, as I mentioned a few days ago.

4. Elfine's socks - 10% done? I'm in the middle of the first foot. I haven't touched these since early summer, and while I like them, they're getting pushed aside from simpler things and gift projects.

5. Red armwarmers - 50% done. These were going to be to sell, but I've decided to keep them since they look really skinny (although they're very stretchy, I feel people might be afraid of them) and I love the color. So there. They will be for me (which lowers their chances of completion significantly).

6-9. Gifts for Christmas - One of these is about 40% done, another is swatched (Gram's socks), and the other is not started (same as gift one, so they must be done in succession). I'm half done with my Christmas knitting and it's only mid-November so I'm pretty confident that it'll get done without too much stress. Aren't you all just itching to see the Christmas knitting? I know I can't wait to post about the gifts after the holidays!

Things I WANT to Start

1. A lace scarf. I have one on the needles, started back in July (1 inch done?), but I'm not happy with it. Mainly I'm not happy with the way the pattern makes me move my stitch markers around (my fault, not its, of course). And it's a huge undertaking, with very fine yarn, and I think what I want is to knit something less ambitious for my first real lace project. To that end I bought Victorian Lace Today, which many other bloggers have raved about (although I bought it pre-raving, and thus was finally ahead of a blogosphere trend). Click that link if you want to see some scanned photos from the book. Kathy has done a very nice review and included many project pictures. I love this book. The photographs are amazing, the patterns appear to be relatively straightforward, and, most importantly, there are many rectangular stoles/scarves/etc. I'm not a circular shawl person. The concept is fine but it's not me, or my wardrobe, and in fact I'm not even really sure I can pull off a lace scarf, but I intend to knit one and find out. I have some appropriate yarn for said scarf, but of course not enough of any one thing that isn't multicolored, so I might have to make a quick trip to the LYS for some Misti Alpaca laceweight. I have nice pointy needles on the way from Knit Picks and I'll be all ready to go!

2. Something tweedy and cabled. I really want to knit myself a tweed cabled sweater. I have several patterns and yarns ready to go, but I keep stopping myself from starting, because there are too many other things I should knit that are more likely to be completed in my lifetime smaller and more managable. We'll see. I'm keeping those cabled armwarmers as a teaser for myself...

3. Many small projects. Orange alpaca armwarmers (waiting to be designed), Malabrigo scarves, felted bag (by Christmas), my turquoise mohair/Lamb's Pride ribbed scarf, stockinette socks with pretty yarn (for me), Dave's sweater (not small, and could be cursed so should probably be avoided), a red scarf for me, another cabled hat (will start soon, using Kristen's attempt at making one with my guidance as an excuse. Thank you Kristen), more armwarmers to sell, knee socks (I'm obsessed with knee socks at the moment), the Lizard Ridge afghan (not small, but at least modular), too many things...

Have a good weekend! Dave and I are headed down to Tacoma for a cyclocross race on Saturday and then down to Portland Saturday night to see Pam and for Dave's race on Sunday. These are big races, the last two in a national series that brings out all the big shots. It's been raining and it will be muddy!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Toe cleavage?
What in the world is toe cleavage?
And can it possibly be worse than the shoes that you were wearing on Saturday night? ;)

You and your shoes.
Cracks me up.