Knit Addict

Well…I started the new job yesterday.  So far I’m having a blast.  My brain is about to explode from all the new stuff being shoved in, but that will settle.  My days a flying by, which is how I like it.

I’m working in the data center, which is in the final few months of a major, major renovation and rework.  How big?  Well….next week they’re going to be testing the dual water chillers that feed the 11 CRAC units.  A CRAC unit is an AC unit that blows the cold air under the raised floor.  And when I left today one of the new generators had been running under a 1350 kw load for over two hours.  Yes, I said one of the new generators.  I think Russ would love the humongous Cummins engines that power these things.  One natural gas, the other diesel.  There’s some really sweet stuff going in, tons of redundancy, and I’m way excited to be part of it.

I’ve finished a couple of things in the last few weeks that never got blogged.  They got Ravelry’d, so you may have seen them by now.  One was the Bugundy Socks.

The other was Jim’s K1B scarf.

Hopefully he likes it.  The technique feels like a cross between Brioche and Fisherman’s Rib to me.  Not sure it’s a technique I’ll use much, but it was an interesting exercise.  It might come in handy for using a multi colored yarn that won’t cooperate as anything else too.

I’m not even going to try to cover everything from camp.  There’s just too much to even try.

There were several projects knit from Kauni yarn.  It’s a fingering weight yarn with really long color runs.  There was a huge run on the stuff a couple of years ago when the Yarn Harlot did a sweater from it.  I’ve got to admit I like this pattern better than the one everyone was doing.

Lots of good advice about using this yarn.  The color repeats apparently aren’t uniform, so if you want to not lose your patterning you have to do some splicing of colors.  Now - same yarn, same colorway.

One of the absolute best show and tells was this digestive tract model.

Seriously.

It was knit on commission for someone who sells some kind of digestive snake oil.  Whatever the reason, it was freaking awesome.

Rhoda finally finished her lace project.  It’s been in the works for 10 years.  I was in the same camp session with her the first year she brought it.  The project has morphed considerably in 10 years, but the final result is absolutely lovely.

Oh - and I missed a couple of things in my purchase inventory.  One was a hank of Cheryl Oberle’s gorgeous lace yarn in - don’t fall over from shock - turquoise.  Maggie B knit a shawl from the red.  I almost bought it too.  And the purple.  But I resisted.

Maggie used to be a pilot in the Navy.  Unfortunately when she was in there were still only “token” women, and her efforts to follow her true calling - to be a test pilot - were thwarted by dickheads who think women are a threat.  I guess to second rate hacks who want to weed out the competition, they are a threat.  I think they probably missed out on a great asset.

I also bought more of Cheryl’s yarn to make a Wabi Sabi after seeing Penny’s.  And dammit, I didn’t get a picture of it.

Unfortunately I didn’t pay close enough attention to my camera battery indicator and missed lots of great shots.

One of the other things I’m really excited about is a project I’ve been wanting to do for a long time but haven’t started.  It’s the Cornfields sweater from Latvian Dreams by Joyce Williams.  I’ve had yarn for a few years in a cranberry and a bright raspberry color.  I realized after I knit my first sweater from Shetland wool that I can’t wear it next to my skin, so I started thinking about how else to do it.  I’ve decided I can knit it as a cardi and it will still be amazing.  The thing that’s been holding me back is the chart.  I’ve looked at it, copied it, thought about it….and it’s still daunting.  Big chart, and it looks like it’s not very rhythmic.  I talked to Joyce about it this year, and she said it’s actually one of the easier charts to knit from the book.  She said once you get into the design a bit the rhythm just comes and it actually is a pleasant knit.

So I’m jazzed up about knitting it again.  Like I don’t have enough I’m knitting on already.  So far I’ve resisted the temptation to start it.  I’ve also been daydreaming about the Phoenix cardigan from Meg Swansen’s Knitting…. there’s just not enough knitting time!