IndigoMuse Knits

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Sick days are for blogging

And sick days are for catching up with blogs too. My Bloglines feeds have been emptied out for the first time in months. Sorry that I haven't been liberal with comments but I'm barely coherent enough to post on my own blog. I've caught some sort of flu crud from Thing 1 and 2. They've had it since the weekend. I got bitch slapped with it yesterday. High fever and coughing and I sound like Lauren Baucall. Or Kathleen Turner. Or a person who's been chain smoking for 30 years. Sexy, huh?

So I thought that I'd catch up on your blogs and found that several of you are sick too. I guess misery loves company. Knitted socks abound in bloglandia. I need more Koigu before I knit anymore sockies. I've been sorely disappointed with other yarns and commit to only knitting socks with Koigu from now on. Thus the reason that some Lorna's Laces Shepard sock yarn went from being socks to these loverlies (hope you don't mind but some of the pictures were taken whilst I'm in bed today):

Mrs. Beeton's Wristwarmers





Perfect for using up bits of luxury yarns and adding beautiful beaded enhancements. The blue pair uses a beautiful variagated laceweight mohair/silk (whose ball band is long gone but I remember it being Italian), LL sock yarn and some laceweight cashmere reclaimed from a thrift store sweater last fall. The second pair are made with some of my handspun silk and mohair and the same cashmere. So soft, so decadent. I.Love.These.

I'm knitting like crazy through my stash so that I have some goodies to take to Spring Bada Bing. My plan is to bring felted tote bags, monkeys, some spring ponchos, felted flowers and some felting kits. I was crankin' stuff out like crazy until I got sick. Bummer. Here are a couple of ponchitos as I'm calling them. They're not big ol ponchos and are just enough to cover your shoulders during cool Spring and Summer nights.





The brown one is Patons Divine, Bernat Boucle and an angora silk blend reclaimed from a sweater this fall. The pink and green one uses the Knit Happens colorway of LL Shepard sock yarn and pink Manos. When I'm feeling better, I'll try to get an action shot that will do them better justice.

And here are a few forgotten FOs:

Felted Guinea Pig bed (the piggies fought over who would get to sleep in this all Winter)



I used Galway and Lion Brand Fun fur and modified a felted kitty bed pattern.

Buttonhole Bag with flower for my CA now NC best bud



I modified the pattern by simply knitting a narrow rectangle for the base and picked up the stitches to knit in the round. I also knit a few extra rows at the top for a sturdier handle (my friend wanted a bag that looked like the one on the cover of the Fall 05 Spin Off). I think I used two or three skeins of Knit Picks WOTA.

Black Fifi Bag which was an auction donation for Fat Tuesday



This Fifi (my original pattern) was my first felting project with Patons Classic Merino and I love felting with it. I used black for the body and grey for the base and bottom stranded with Lion Brand Fun Fur.

Blue Sky Sportweight Baby Alpaca scarf in eggplant and fuschia - YUM!



I bought this yarn on my first trip to the Yarn Lounge in Carytown/Richmond VA in January. I bought it just in time to be snowed in all weekend with nothing to do but knit. The pattern is Blue Sky Alpaca's easy knit scarf. I ended up knitting it on size 4s which took forever but I like the resulting shadow knit style. And even better, its MINE all MINE!

Recycled Felted Fair Isle bag



This tote was constructed from a beautiful but worn out Lands End vest. I felt like I was cheating when I made it because I didn't knit it - oh the horror!. But I love how it turned out. I even have some panels left to make a couple of little totes.

There are also some prototypes fresh off the needles that I'll show when they're in a more presentable form. Someone send me a few shots of bourbon or tequila to put me out of my misery. Blech...

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

You need to submit that guinea pig picture to Cute Overload, stat!

Anonymous said...

I'm totally in love with that Buttonhole Purse. It's wonderful. Excellent job.

Anonymous said...

That buttonhole purse is one of the better examples of a felted accessory I've seen in a long time! Your talent is copious!

This is the best part of blogging. It's a relief from the fashion world, to see my sisters knocking it out!

Beautiful!

WandaWoman said...

So sorry to hear you are sick. You've really been a felting fiend! I love the mods you made to the buttonhole bag and the flower is just the right finishing detail on the bag. Love it! Hope you are feeling better soon!

emmy said...

Hi Tanya!
It was good to see you. I am glad that you got to Holly Sping. I haven't been in awhile and need to go but I am trying to HOLD out for the Spring Fiber Festival! OH YES! I will be there. 5 or 6 of us are going and have rented a cabin at Smith Mountain Lake State Park. Our camper isn't open yet and is too small for all of us so we decided to go that route. I would love to see you! I have a feeling it will be crowded, maybe by email we can exchange cell numbers and meet up!

Love your latest work. Congratulations on being accepted into the show in Richmond.

Better scoot See you soon
emmy

Amy Boogie said...

I hope you feel better soon
That guinea pig bed is too cute!

Anonymous said...

OMG...you made a felted bed for a guinea pig. I could just die from the cuteness of it!

Nana Sadie said...

Hope you're feeling tons better by now and that we'll get to see you on Thursday night (Apr 6th!) for RVSpinKnit night. Gorgeous stuff as always...especially the piggy bed! :)
(((hugs)))

Mary said...

I met you on Saturday!!! I didn't know it was YOU! I was the girl (who am I kidding -- I'm no girl any longer), who was buying the Denise knitting needle set and we were talking with that lovely older woman about them -- you both said you loved them, and you were saying you wish you had extra cords. The older woman said that she's been using them and loving them for 30 years. I remember thinking how nice and pretty you were! Wow -- how COOL is that???!!! Nice to meet you! :-) I'll be bloggin' about the SFF this weekend -- been out of town this week for work since Sunday. Yay - I feel like I have a new friend! :-)