August 26, 2008

Minor loss of fidelity

Awhile ago, the Daft Crafter mentioned that she was looking for a kick-ass pattern to knit. One of those patterns you can’t stop thinking about, that's so good you just knit obsessively to the exclusion of all else and start resenting having to do things like eating and crapping because they take up valuable knitting time. I may be paraphrasing a bit there.

Anyway, she seemed to find that level of obsession with a pair of colorwork mitts. In malabrigo laceweight. They’re ridiculous and she’s awesome. Frankly, I’m a tidge jealous too. It’s been a long time since I’ve been that enamored of anything I’ve been knitting.

What’s that, you say, you’ve actually been knitting? Why yes, I have been knitting, thank you very much. Just not much, or particularly successfully. So what have I been knitting?

Completed stockinette socks – quite charming in their blue-green oceany way, but not a thrilling knit. But still! An actual finished knitted object!

OS8

OS7v2

Knit in Lana Grossa Meilenweit Mega Boots Stretch (colorway 721), size 2 Harmony DPNs, 72 stitch cast-on, standard sock recipe. Yarn gifted to me by my coworkers as part of my appendix get-well package. Finished socks will be gifted to one of my fellow SNBers, who is not only an awesome sock knitter, but is also a graduate of my MLS program AND had her appendix removed by surprise some years ago. I can't think of a more fitting recipient.

As for the WIPs…well. Not so much.

Spring Forward – meh. Thinking the variegated yarn obscures the pattern. Also, pooly. And frankly a little too repetitive to be an obsessive knit. Possibly also too small.

SF2

There’s also a shawl and a sweater, both in a time-out. The former due to an unfortunate night where I played a super-fun game I like to call “I can drink wine, knit lace and watch Jeopardy at the same time because I am a Super Genius!" The latter due to poor pattern reading and a mistake I made in the VERY FIRST ROW.

Enough whining! You know what the solution is, right?

Yup, it’s time to start something new! Meet Firewalker. Pattern – duh. Yarn dyed by me. This yarn was previously a much smaller Jaywalker, with a much less cool name. Pretty, pretty, pretty…

Firewalk1

It’s even prettier in real life, I promise. Does anyone else have a bitch of a time getting their digital camera to capture reds accurately? My camera can’t quite seem to believe anything is this gaudily colored and just smooshes the oranges and reds into a big blurry mess. I’ve tried different light (direct, indirect, etc) and different settings, but nothing seems to work very well.

If you have this problem, do you have a good solution? I’m keeping my fingers crossed that someone will say that I really need a much better, shinier and sleeker digital camera, but any settings advice would be appreciated too...

6 comments:

Sarah said...

I do like the Firewalkers, ya know for socks. :) Stranded is addictive and exciting.

Anonymous said...

You have just won my Knitter of the Year award! I can't remember the last time I received a hand-knitted gift. It was probably something from my great-grandmother when I was about 12 and completely unable to appreciate it. The socks are gorgeous (I *love* the colors), and they will get much use.

Also, I want to see those Firewalkers in person - they look amazing.

Macoco said...

ooh lala look at those finished socks! The firewalkers look really interesting I will have to check out that pattern. If I ever decide to knit again that is. ;)

babyjenks said...

hey there! i've finally stopped by to check out my snb friends blogs. good reading so far!

as for digital color, in part it's the lighting and also the computer monitor.

i know that doesn't help much, sorry.

haven't seen you in a while. maybe this fall? (eek! i can't believe it's almost fall!)

also- i have a friend shipping me a box of books, stuff you'd probably like too....

ciao,
sabe

Quirkles said...

Beeyootiful socks, all of them! I love the spring forward colorway, and of course the firewalker one, too!

Jenny said...

I love that red and orange yarn... I'mma have to do that again. I made Charade with mine, but it looks SO good illegally crossing the road. Also, I definitely think the problem is your camera. You definitely need a new camera.