The Soapy Knitter

Why, hello there!!

I’m glad you all enjoyed oogling my new books! Trust me when I tell ya that I’m enjoying them, too!

I have an announcement:  I’ve created a pattern store.  Yep, that’s right.  Your very own one-stop Rosi G. pattern shopping!  Have at it!  Keep an eye on it for new stuff (got two in the works right now!)

I have no yarn pr0n for you today. Instead I bring you shawl pr0n. Just as lovely. Sometimes even lovelier!

Here I bring you Anne Hanson’s Star of Evening shawl.

I’ll give you all ONE guess as to what company’s yarn I used for this shawl.

Yep. You got that right. Schaeffer. After all, it’s my favorite yarn company. Keep that in mind when you wanna spoil Rosi G.

You can see the beautiful detail in this pattern.

You would be AMAZED at how simple it is to knit!! The pattern repeats are ridiculously easy to remember. Hence it only took me a week to finish.

This yarn blocked so well. I love it. OF COURSE I do! It’s Schaeffer!

Star of Evening

• Source: knitspot
• Yarn: Schaeffer Yarn Company Heather - 1.23 skeins (492 yds)
• Colorway: Cobblestone
• Needle: Size US 8
• Cost: $28.50 per skein, used 1.23 = $35.05
• Started: May 22, 2008
• Finished: May 29, 2008
• Size knit: scarf-size in pattern
• Note: The only thing of note is that the pattern calls for 300 yds of laceweight yarn on size 3 needles for the scarf sized. Maybe I used almost 500 yds because I used a fingering weight and size 8 needles.

Thank you for all your lovely comments and your purchases of my Primavera Shrug. It makes me feel great that everyone liked it, and gives me some confidence to design more! It made me a bit nervous to release it because its my first major garment design and I wasn’t sure how it would be received or if anyone would even BUY it! LOL

Off the needles since last week is Alhambra. From this blob:

emerged this beauty:

I love the swirly details:

It’s a light and wonderful scarf. Feels great on the neck and dresses up my old jean jacket quite well! Another great knitspot pattern! Thanks, Anne!

Alhambra

• Source: knitspot
• Yarn: Misty Mountain Farm Alpaca Lace - about half a skein (300 yds almost exactly!!)
• Needle: Size US 3
• Cost: $6 for the half skein, I wanna see you beat that for a sexy little scarf like this!
• Started: May 2, 2008
• Finished: May 14, 2008
• Mods: The only mod I did was to slip the first stitch of every row.

Moving right along with another Anne masterpiece, here is the beginning of my Star of Evening Shawl using Schaeffer Heather in the Cobblestone colorway (purchased at Loopy Ewe):

Schaeffer continues to be one of my favorite yarns to make shawls. This Heather (55% merino wool, 35% cultivated silk, 15% nylon) is knitting up beautifully. I am through the 3rd repeat of the pattern in this picture. I have two skeins of the Heather (total of 800 yds) so I’ll probably knit this up until I have about 7 repeats. I’m also using a size 8 needle (the pattern calls for a size 3) so I’m sure it’ll be a nice sized shawl!

I’m staying home an extra 2 days this week to extend my already long holiday weekend. I plan to take the kids to the sitter, knit and watch girlie movies for those two days all by myself! (Hubs will be working.) WOO HOO!!

We’ve made sure the kids have had fun this weekend, tho. I must share this story with you: yesterday we took them to Highland Park here in Brooklyn. It was PACKED. It’s a huuuge park and many people go there to bbq. So we’re sitting there making sure that we can see where our kids are. Then all of a sudden this cute little girl decides she wants to come play with Gian’s toy truck. We’re all “Oh, she’s sooo cute!” So, I notice that no one is running after her. Something tells me to start asking around who’s child this is. Well, her mom was NO WHERE TO BE FOUND in my area. I was like OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I make sure she stays there entertained with my kids and DH and go wander further up the park asking around. Nothing. One man suggested I speak to the undercover detectives that were patrolling the park. I did. They were trying to ask her where her mom was or what her name was but she was maybe 1.5 yrs old and didn’t speak. They’re ready to put her in their car and take her away and the little girl started crying. At this point, I started crying too so I scooped her up because she was so scared. So she’s clinging to me and spilling all her milk from the bottle she was carrying all over my shirt - but I’m used to that so I didn’t mind. Now we have half the park staring at us because of the commotion.

Down the hill comes a little boy riding a bike and says to the little girl, “Come on, Melody.” I said, “Who are you?” He says the little girl is his sister. One of the cops tells him, “Oh really??? Go ahead and take your sister then.” The little girl wouldn’t budge. Now she has my neck in a death grip and I’m looking at the roughly 13-yr-old kid like I wanna smack him upside his head. So I tell the kid to show me where his mother is. This woman was like roughly a whole city block away from me but further UP into the park (we were near the exits, she was up the hill). The detectives drove around and came up to where I went to meet the mother. As I’m walking that way, another man tried to come and get Melody and she would NOT go. Now I’m all like, shit she’s better off with the cops!!! Finally the mother meets me halfway. This woman had gotten up like we had disturbed her day in the park. She hadn’t even been LOOKING for her kid!!!!! WTF?!?! I was HEATED! I told her, “Are you her mother???” And she smiles and says, “Si,” and aimed for the little girl who went to her skeptically. I told her the detectives wanted a few words with her. I didn’t leave until the DT’s had pulled up in their car and then I walked away with a heavy heart. After that I told Tano we should pack up and leave because I just wanted to keep crying for that little girl and her stupid ass mother. How could she have been just chilling out when her kid was missing??? Some shit happened like that to me and I’d be running around frantic! And that woman is lucky the little girl walked DOWN the hill and she found people who aren’t maniacs, and not UP the hill and into the short edging of trees where on the other side is the HIGHWAY!!!!

Anyway, if you read through all of that, thanks for listening to me bitch. I hope you’re all having a wonderful holiday, keep your kids SAFE and close to you and hopefully you still get to knit lots and lots today as you bask in this WONDERFUL weather we’re having, at least in the NorthEast!

Nope. I wasn’t at MDSW. I was in New Cumberland, PA. Never heard of it? Yah, neither had I but DH is working nearby until further notice so we’d booked a room to go visit him. It was a nice enough little 3-day weekend. I loved that there wasn’t a lot to do around there so I should have PLENTY of knitting time. I did.

I was able to finish my mystery project: the one for the Little Knits design contest. I’ll block that this week and get it in the mail.

I also finished the River Nuts socks I’d started a few weeks ago when I asked you all what socks I should knit next. I opted for the Nutkin pattern with some mods.

The first mod: these were knit toe-up using magic loop. In the pattern, the designer has you do a 3-needle bind-off at the top of the toe to make a little ridge. I just knit two purl rows to create this ridge.

Next mod: the OCD in me decided that I couldn’t have the swirls all moving in the same direction on both socks. So I reversed one of the swirls on the back and the front of each sock.

I also increased to 68 sts from the original 64 and switched to needles one size larger after the heel because otherwise these babies weren’t going to fit. I had to also increase to 72 sts for the cuff to do a k3, p3 ribbing.

The biggest mod was the heel. I opted for the Riverbed arch expansion and plain heel from Cat Bordhi’s New Pathways book. I love the snug fit of the heel and the ease of working the “gussets” with no need of picking up sts after a “flap” but you get the flap heel-look!

Knitting with the Araucania Ranco yarn was fantastic! I loved the wool-y feel of it and even using size US 2.5 addi’s, it still produces a nice fabric.

Nutkin Socks

Source: Knitzi

Yarn: Araucania Ranco, Color: Acorn

Needles: Size US 1.5 & 2.5

Cost: $16, not bad for a pair of comfy socks where the yarn is a pleasure to knit with

Started: April 13, 2008

Finished: May 1, 2008

After realizing that these are my 6th pair of completed socks in the four months of 2008 so far, I decided I needed to switch my purse knitting to something else! I cast-on for Anne’s Alhambra scarf using some Misty Mountain Farm Alpaca Laceweight I purchased for a song at Rhinebeck last year. So far, it’s a nice easy knit and quick, too!  I’ll need to find a fancy pin like the leaf one Anne is wearing in her pictures!  HAWT!