What I'm up to...

You might be wondering what happened to Rob's pullover, a.k.a. the Secret Yarnination. Well, I got to where I had to unravel the first of the three sleeves (the one that was too short) and when I did, the yarn was, well... "kinky" is probably too gentle a word for it. "Permanently molded into stockinette" is what I'd call it.

I used my swift to wind it into a skein, which I carefully tied and took off the switft. Then I hung it up on a ladder in the garage, using a bag full of soda pop to weight the skein down:



That yellow bag on the blue hanger is full of soda pop. :-) The yarn is that magenta skein on the pink hanger.

Then I sprayed it at intervals with water in a spray bottle, and let it hang for a few days... took it down and wound up a ball from my newly straightened yarn.

Voila!
I wish I'd taken a 'before' picture, but you can kind of tell what it used to look like by the little piglet-tail there, the bit that never got weighted down.

So soon, soon, I'll return to / finish the Spartan Pullover!

Meanwhile, I've been knitting like crazy on that little green baby cardi I showed you last time. And my mother-in-law arrives on Saturday morning for her 2-month stay! We'll go pick her up from Los Angeles, leaving at 4 in the morning (ew).

In sadder news, I slammed my US #5 Addi Turbo in a car door.

It was bent at a 90° angle when it first happened. I straightened it out; it works okay, but it's a little rough. I need to polish it up with some jeweler's rouge or something. It'll probably break at some point, but for now, I can still knit. Whew!

No no, WONDERFUL YoYo!

I ordered some wonderful thangs from the Terrible YoYo's Etsy shop last week. One item I can't show because it's a gift, but here's most of what showed up on my doorstep:

The key point here is that the only thing I ordered in this picture was the beautiful yarn. The rest was little goodies sent by Alyson to help cheer my surgical recovery. What a sweetie! There is chocolate-scented cocoa-butter-and-beeswax body balm... absolutely STUNNING stitch markers (like fine jewelry!)... a lavender sachet (the better to protect my hand knits, of course)... and, to top it all off, Devil Duckie tissues ("Just in case," Alyson said). Anyone who's been in my house knows I am a big Devil Duckie fan, so these were perfect.

Anyway, Alyson is Da Bomb, so go to her Etsy store and order the heck out of her stuff :-)

And so was the yarn. I had vaguely thought, from the photo on the Web site, that it might coordinate with the Sundara Yarn in Cantaloupe I'd bought a year ago. And yes, they coordinate beautifully.



Not only that, they knit up to the same gauge (should be 6 spi with US #5s, but since it's sloppy ol' me, it's 5 spi with US #4s) and they look lovely and subtle together...

I only had 450 yards of the Cantaloupe. Now I have a total of 700 yards and can probably make a little vest or even a short-sleeved sweater for Carson if I work fast (she is growing like a weed). Yay!

In other news, I've started Trellis for a friend's new daughter. I'm making it in the 6-month size because she probably won't use it until autumn. This is di.vé Zenith on US size 6 needles.



It's a fun knit. The Zenith is very splitty but knits up super soft. I think the baby will like this little Aran sweater.

In health news, I'm improving daily, though I've contracted an unrelated little bug, so it's back to the doc tomorrow. But, I'm sure I'll be 100% in no time!