At last...

What's that? It's a blurry, badly taken photo! This can only mean one thing: Anna has a digital camera, and she's not afraid to use it!

This is the first attempt at fair isle that I've been blathering on about so much. I'm taking it easy by only using two colours, and it's turning out okay so far (haven't run into any major difficulties, and that's a very good thing). As of the moment, I am yet to start pounding my head against a brick wall screaming "Why, oh why, did I ever decide to attempt fair isle for the first time using my own crappy improvised pattern instead of looking to someone who actually knows what they're doing". This can only be a positive thing. Still, there's plenty of time for despair later. Plenty of time; heaven knows this thing is moving slowly.

The slowness, I suspect, is because I'm just doing the thing that all the knitting books imply is amateurish; i.e. picking up one colour at a time, then dropping it when I need the other one. Don't care, I am not dextrous, and as of right now I can't be bothered to learn to knit with the yarn in my left hand so I can hold both at once. Maybe one day, but for this first attempt, I'm happy to take it slowly.

Hurray! A slightly less blurry photo! This fellow is my Argosy scarf, in the beautiful Silk Garden yarn that I lashed out and bought to celebrate quitting my hateful bread vending job ($15 per ball of yarn normally being more than a little out of my price range). It is shiny, and pretty, and lovely, and I am in danger of developing a very expensive Noro habit if it doesn't stop being so beautiful quick smart!

And last, but not least, this is the blue bag I've been making with the mysterious unidentified yarn (photo taken with a much better quality camera than my new one, as is painfully obvious). It's nearly finished now; I just have to sew the strap ends together, and then put in the lining and zip. I really like this one so far; it's so unusual. The texture and colour of this yarn really us something else; the photos here don't really do it justice.

Anyway, I'm off to take more photos and generally be a nuisance. Oh, and to try my hand at felting.

Still finishing away...

Well, still on my mad finishing spree, and I think that it's long overdue really...
The frustrating thing is that even though I'm finishing all of these things that have been kicking around for ages, I don't have a digital camera with which to take pretty photos of them so that I can stick them here/on Ravelry. On the up side, my old work finally transferred the accrued holiday leave pay that they owed me into my account, so I'm not quite as desperately broke as I was last entry. I'm seriously thinking about picking up a cheapie digital camera from somewhere... something under $100 (good technology being pretty much wasted on me because I'm such a wally that I can hardly tell what I'm using anyway...).

Anyway, on the knitting front, finished my Cleo halter top, and the crazy furry scarf I'd been knitting while Chris was playing endless hours of Wii. I'm getting close to finishing my crazy blue bag too.

The blue bag is a bit of a mystery; I have no idea what the yarn is, other than that it was Lang brand (I lost the labels long ago). I bought it for $1 per ball at a Lincraft sale just after I started knitting, because I liked the colour, though I had no earthly idea what to do with it. I still don't know what it's made off... you could never make a garment out of it, it's too ropey and scratchy. A friend of mine commented that it feels/looks like it's made out of the same material as they used to make those green enviro shopping bags. Anyway, so, a bag it is becoming. Now all I really have to do is bite the bullet and sew all the seams up... I hate sewing...

My Argosy scarf is nearly finished too... but I'm thinking I may need another ball of Silk Garden; I'm not so big on short scarves, and unless this one grows half a mile during blocking, then it's going to fall into this category. Must go and scrutinise it before I make the call. The annoying part is getting said ball of Silk Garden. To my knowledge, there are two shops in Melbourne that sell this yarn (though I suspect there's more, there's only two that I know definitely sell it). One is closed until 14/1 (but isn't too far away), and the other one is about an hour's commute away. There are no quick/easy options for lazy me. Boo. Oh well.

Anyway, since I've had a fair bit of time, I've been sorting through the old stash, trying to organise it a bit, since it's beginning to take over our not particularly big unit. I'm trying to organise things by potential project, and it's fun; I have so many potential things I can do, as well as some yarn that I have no bloody idea what to do with, because I can't see it working as anything, as pretty as it is in ball form. Oh well.

Finally, I'm also making a brave first attempt at Fair Isle knitting. Colour work is kind of the final frontier for me; I've done the lace, the cables, the short rows, etc, etc, and now I figure it's about time to try my hand at this. The only problem is that I'm pretty sure it's going to be doomed to failure, because I have this very stubborn tendency to try and work things out myself the first time around. It's only after I've failed dismally that I go and actually do things the intelligent way. So, my first Fair Isle attempt is designed entirely by me, with only the general advice in my various knitting books to guide me. This should be amusing...