Maybe I Want To Look Cheap

Progress so far on the Cheap Green Sweater:

I'm almost ready to divide the arms from the body. Just a few more rounds to go and I'll put it off onto some waste yarn so I can try it on before I make the leap.
I'm still kind of ehhh on my eyelet ribbing for the bottom and cuffs.

That's my swatch. What do you think?

In other news, I'm driving to Tulsa this coming Saturday to pick up a used Tri-Loom. It's 7 feet across at the widest point, and it doesn't adjust but it was pretty cheap. I figure I'll know after a shawl or two whether I want to keep on with the weaving. I've been reading things saying how fast and easy it is, ("You can weave an entire shawl in one afternoon!") then on the next site I click I'll read about how it takes FOREVER and people gave up on it. I guess I'll soon see for myself.

Let's Design A Sweater, OK?

I am thisclose to finishing the Noro Charlotte's Web Shawl and a My So-Called Scarf that you guys haven't even seen yet. So, What did I do last night? I worked on the Yarn Room cleaning, then became distracted by some bulky green yarn I forgot I had and started a raglan cardigan with it. What? Stop looking at me like that.
I'm up to the point where I need to decide if it's going to have buttons or a zipper and what I want it to look like when it's finished. I'm doing yarn over eyelet increases so I'm thinking maybe long-ish with a good size band of eyelet ribbing at the bottom and the cuffs and a two-way zipper. That sounds cool, right?
This yarn was originally purchased with the Loop-d-Loop Leaf Lace Pullover in mind, but I've seen that thing looking so bad on so many people who actually have shoulders or a chest that I've decided it would be too big of a pain in the ass to make it fit me and my boobage.
So anyway, this sweater will need a name. The yarn is Wool Ease Chunky and I'm even using a 6.5mm pink plastic Lion Brand circular needle I found under one of the yarn room tables so it's totally cheap. That needle isn't as horrible as I feared it would be either. The joins looked suspicious, but no snags so far. Let's see....we have cheap,leaf green, and bulky with eyelets...nothing springs to mind except salads and trailer parks.
Speaking of trailer parks, (and this is not knitting related so stop now if that's all you came for) Husband Boy is working in Searcy, AR this week, and his hotel is right next to the only Airstream dealer in the state. He called last night to tell me how he's going to go over there today and look at the new Bambi model without me. I told him to ask if they have any used ones.

Behind The Closed Door

This is "The Yarn Room":

Click the picture to see it bigger.
As you can see, I have a lot of work to do in there. Pretty much anything we don't know what to do with gets shoved in the yarn room until I figure out what to do with it and take it out of there. It's getting pretty darn full just now.
I get distracted easily by the stuff in there too. I'll be cleaning along and run across some yarn or a bag of fiber or an old magazine or pretty much anything shiney, and I stop cleaning. I'm going to try to stay focused this weekend.

Here is one of the things which will be trying to distract me. I got my two pounds of Brown Sheep Mill End Roving today:

This is it all separated into piles on my dining room table. Isn't it pretty? Doesn't it just call out to be dyed? I put it in some of those giant ziplock baggies and shoved it in the yarn room closet, but I can still hear it in there sulking and whining about how all the other fiber in the closet is so much prettier and how cold the mail truck was and how it could use a soak in a nice hot dyebath. geez.

A Scary Thing From The Blog Stats

Dear person in Plano, Texas who found my blog on a yahoo search for "red heart super saver yarn free long sweater pattern",

I just have to ask you: WHY???
Did the intended recipient do something so horrible to you that you could think of no better revenge than making them wear a long sweater knit from the itchiest, squeakiest, sweatiest, stiffest yarn in the world? Are you a monk and this is to be your modern hairshirt?
Do you have really tough hands? Cause you're gonna need them to knit an entire sweater out of that stuff. Just one hat wore my fingers down.
I really hope you just want the pattern, and that you plan on knitting it with some other yarn. Acrylic is fine...there are some nicer ones out there, just please step away from the Red Heart. You're freaking me out.

An Email Post

I really like the convenience of being able to post through email, but
I hate the way the post ends up looking on the blog. I always have to
come back and edit it so that the lines aren't all broken up and
weird. I wish there was a way to fix that. Oh well, I'll fix it later.
So today is the first day of Husband Boy's new job. He'll be staying
in a hotel in various small Arkansas towns Monday - Thursday nights
for the next few months at least and possibly longer. We are not
excited about this, but we ARE excited that he'll be getting paid a
boatload of cash for the bother.
I'm thinking you're going to see a lot more frequent updates here as I
sit home every weeknight with nothing to do but spin and knit and
watch the tv until time to get to work on the gardening in a couple of
months. Then you'll just see way too many pictures of plants and dirt
if you stick around. I'll probably put those over at the Livejournal
with links here every time there is a new update so as not to clutter
up the knitblog with non fiber crapola, however I do plan on growing
some natural dye plants so I will probably talk about that over here
some.

While I'm thinking about it, I wanted to let you spinners know that
Carol over at The Sheep Shed has literally tons of Brown Sheep Mill
End Rovings that she's selling for $7.50 a pound for all the same
color or $6.00 a pound for a grab bag that could be anything. This is
a great deal. I loooove me some of this stuff! (Miss Kristi, that
peacock green/blue fiber I sent you in the Secret Pal exchange was
some of this) Get it while the getting is good.
http://www.thesheepshedstudio.com/Roving.html

Secret Pal Loot etc.

I got my first Secret Pal 7 Package from my super nice pal, "Sissy LaRue". The bastard customs inspectors had opened it, but it didn't look like anything was missing. I got a really cute little art doll schmoo thing, a giant candy bar, and a mix CD with a nice card. Lookie:

Isn't that spiffy? Thanks Secret Pall Sissy!!

OK, now for the etc. Here are the two Crochet Motif things I have made for a possible afghan. Do you guys think it would look ok if I did a combination of these two plus some solid red, white, and gray all joined together with black?


Finally, here are the socks I started when I got back from my needle buying in Tulsa.

YES It's Jaywalker Socks, and YES it's Trekking XXL in color 100. The surprising thing is that I'm doing top-down socks of any kind because once I perfected my toe-up casting on I didn't think I'd ever go back, but the siren song of the Jaywalkers was too much to resist.
I printed this pattern out from MagKnits when it first came out, but didn't knit it because I didn't have the right size needles and it was top-down. I was doing pretty good at resisting it until this whole knitalong thing came about and I started seeing finished Jaywalkers every day on the Bloglines. There is only so much a girl can take before she gives in and drives two hours to Tulsa for the needles.

Tulsa

Saturday I went to Loops Yarn Store in Tulsa and I saw a ball of yarn that retails for $279. I kid you not. Almost 500 yards of 100% Cashmere. I touched it, but of course I didn't buy it. That was some damn fine yarn, but not $279 worth of damn fine yarn. I wonder if they ever sell any.
I ended up being all practical by getting the needles I came for and some other yarn that I can't talk about because it is secret pal gift yarn. Loops is a nice place with a friendly, but not overbearing staff. It was crazy busy though. I've never seen a yarn store as busy as this place was. I think I'll put it on my Tulsa yarn store visitation route.
After that we went to some outdoorsy store that Husband Boy wanted to visit. I was all ready to be bored, but then I found a nice pink jacket with a black zip-out liner that can also be worn alone so it's like two jackets for the price of 1. It was 50% off, so it was like two jackets for the price of 1/2 a jacket and we just can't walk away from that so home with us it came. If I'm ever lost in the woods I'll
be easy to spot.
Near the outdoorsy store was Margaret's German Restaurant. This place almost killed us because the food was so good we ate and ate and then I almost fell asleep driving home.
I'll have some pictures to show you guys later. Blogger has been acting up all weekend or you would have gotten to see them sooner. I've been making some crochet "motifs" - cough! granny squares cough!- for a possible afghan, but I can't decide if they look ok or not. I also started some more socks so as you can see I'm procrastinating on the wip's. Will I ever finish anything else?