Knit Powers to Peace: Pronto! Ciao!

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Pronto! Ciao!

I thought it was time to blog again. I have so much to say. The picture above is a picture of me knitting socks in Sorrento, Italy! Since last time I blogged, I went to Maine AND Italy, I went skiing for the first time, and I got a sports injury for the first time! I am now recovering from reconstructive knee surgery, and I'm moving around now. In fact, yesterday I drove for the first time. Where did I go? Two yarn stores, of course.

The biggest piece of knitting news I have is that a pattern of mine has been published in a book:

The pattern is called "Vixen" and you can find it in Yahaira's book, "Sensual Knits." This is my first published pattern. I made the original prototype almost 2 years ago out of Claudia Handpainted Yarns in the John B. colorway. See?

The pattern is made from fingering weight yarn on the body and chunky weight yarn on the upper edge. John B. himself gave me the chunky weight yarn that I used in those pictures above. Thanks!

I can't believe people are making my pattern already! I mean, it's a great pattern, but I am just new at this whole pattern thing I guess. Here's a beautiful finished Vixen made out of Dream in Color Yarns. Here is a stunning Vixen Camisole made out of Blue Moon Fiber Arts! Very cool.

Speaking of very cool, my boyfriend Danny sent me a link to an awesome director who knits and crochets called Special Guest. If you go to the site, scroll over to the short film called "The Special Guest" and watch it! I love the little yarn hair guy, and also the tufts of fiber in the sky. So beautiful! Also, if you hover over the crocheted titles of the page, you can see little yarn warms crawling about. Try it! It's cute!!!

Danny is great. The link on his name is his website. You should check it out. He is knitting this hat for me:

I knit these socks for him:

That last one was taken in Tuscany.

The yarn is Regia Nation Colors and the pattern is... you know. When Danny and I went to Maine, we went to a small yarn shop (I wish I could remember the name) and they had a whole wall of Regia. Danny said "WHAT IS THIS?" and he really liked this colorway, so he bought it and I made him the socks. If you have Ravelry, you can see the ravelry page here. In fact, if you have ravelry you can see everything I make! I'm obsessed with that site. My ravelry name is Illanna (2 L's and 2 N's). Just like my real name!

Lady Luck smiled on me last month and allowed me to win Cara's Spin-Out raffle. I won some great goodies! The yarns are Yarntini Variegated Sport, Mama Blue Knitting Goods Merino Semi Solid Sock, and Crash into Ewe Merino Sock. Just my colors, right? I didn't even tell Cara that I love pink and green but somehow she knew I guess.

As soon as I opened the box, my Grandma Bea saw the Mama Blue (that sounds like a song) and she loved it. She asked me to make her a scarf for her birthday, so I did. The yarns are all fingering weight though, so I wanted to add something to bulk up the scarf. I held the Mama Blue with 2 strands of Misti Laceweight Alpaca that Jdub (ravelry link) gave me last year. It turned into a semi-solid heathered soft beautiful luscious scarf!

I made Swirl Socks out of the Yarntini:

The color is called "Cosmopolitan" so it seemed appropriate to surround the socks with booze. These socks are a gift, and they are zooming toward the recipient right now as I am typing this.

What else? What else? This is my current project:

Stockinette toe up socks with a short row heel, made out of Dragon Dance from the BMFA Rockin' Sock Club.

I bought some Dream in Color Classy in the Cloud Jungle colorway from the Loopy Ewe. She has great service. She individually wrapped each skein in tissue paper. It was very appealing. I put the yarn in the bar because it's Classy: