cosmicpluto knits!

production knitting (and ripping)

I’ve been busy busy getting ready for my trip to Boston and Rhinebeck! Mostly this involves running around and buying new stuff for traveling – something about taking a trip really brings out the shopper in me. I need a new water bottle! tote bag! pj pants that can be seen by other people! case for my new camera! etc etc etc. Now I’ve got a suitcase full of Coffee Crisps and I’m still working on my knitting after a bit of a Rhinebeck sweater disaster.

Yeah, it looks ok. But trust me, this was NOT GOOD. The shoulders were WAY too roomy for little ole me, which I really only discovered after sewing in the sleeves and knitting the collar (which also needed some tweaking). Total fail. So I ripped the collar, took out the sleeves, took apart the shoulders, ripped the upper body back to the the underarms, ripped sleeve caps, and rejoined it all to work a seamless set-in sleeve. It’s blocking (again) now and I think it’s MUCH better! Plus I got a pretty pretty ribbon to put in, which makes me happy about it. It’s not perfect, but it’ll do for now I think!

I put the finishing touches on my swap hat, which I think is ready to go -

and now I’m working on finishing up a scarf – just a few loooong rows to go.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to finish packing those new pj pants and get to a Thanksgiving dinner! Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends and readers.

new and improved, kinda

So this week I decided it was time to just bite the bullet and buy myself a new camera body! I love the lenses I use (Sigma 30mm f/1.4 and 17-70mm f/2.8-something) but I felt like it was time for a body upgrade. The body I was using, a d40, has been discontinued for awhile now and I’ve been ogling a new one for the last few months! I got a Nikon d5000.

This is definitely a fair upgrade – double the megapixels, Live View, takes HD video, great sensor, but still in a more compact body than the spendy-but-awesome d90. There were a few things that made me choose the d5000 over the d90. Price was a big one, the d5000 being more than a couple hundred dollars cheaper. I’m used to the display of the d40 and the d5000 is quite similar, and the size and shape are similar as well. The d5000 is a touch bigger than my old camera, but not as big as the d90. Since I have teeny tiny hands that’s important to me! (Although of course if someone wanted to sell me a d90 for the same price or something I certainly wouldn’t refuse). The d5000 also has an interval timer, meaning you can take more than one timed shot at a time.

One of the biggest things that sold me on the d5000 was the “vari-angle” LCD screen. This means the screen flips out and rotates. Perfect for self-portraits, or in my case most of the time, knitting pattern shots! So cool, right? Well…

The LCD screen hinges from the bottom. Which is great if you want to say, use the live view and the LCD to hold the camera up high and still see what the camera sees. But it’s going to be useless for my self portraits. Can you see why? Yup, it won’t play with a tripod. You can’t put the camera down on something and still see the screen. This was a pretty poor choice on the part of Nikon – the screen should have hinged from the side, making it available at pretty much all times.

So overall I’m happy with the photos, and the displays, and I’m happy I bought this camera. But I really, really wish that the LCD could have been used as I imagined – mounted on a tripod, able to see myself and make sure I was in the photo and what the framing looked like. Oh well. It does take pretty photos! The first thing I noticed was that the colours were much easier to capture and truer to life, straight off the camera. I haven’t had a lot of time to play with it yet, but a couple of knitting photos:

(A hat for a swap we’re doing at Rhinebeck! So excited! THREE WEEKS!)

This colour, Madelinetosh’s Composition Book Grey, was pretty tricky for my old camera. With the new one, presto!

I’m trying to get this sweater done in time for Rhinebeck – the sleeves are done, but I keep having to restart the body. Even just now I looked down at it and realized I should’ve done more hem shaping. Once I think of something like that, I can’t just let it pass, so I guess I’m ripping yet again!

purple and more purple

In addition to the basket backpack, which was the first thing I picked up at Rhinebeck, here’s the bit of yarn I got!

Some silk/merino from Skaska. None of the cashmere there really struck me this year (and I went early) but I love this colour. I’m already knitting some of it up!

Cashmere from Still River Mill – love it! So soft. Not sure what I’ll make since it’s quite thin laceweight. Maybe a shawl.

Sock yarn from Sliver Moon Farm. I bought three skeins of this exact colour last year, so when I saw more I bought it up. Now I should have enough for…well, something more than socks anyway.

A few skeins of natural cormo/alpaca/silk from Foxfire Fiber. So squishy. I feel that perhaps I should’ve bought more, but none of the colours really did it for me.

This didn’t come from Rhinebeck – on the way back to Boston we made a long pit stop at Webs. I had a great time looking around there and bought a sweater’s worth of this red Araucania merino as well as a bag of Misti Alpaca Royal Worsted. Yum.

Now I just need to get on this swatching thing!

my 2009 Rhinebeck recap

Rhinebeck was so much fun this year – really, it can’t ever *not* be fun. It just gets better and better every year!

We got to the fairgrounds around 9:30 on Saturday and managed to shop a wee bit before heading to the Rav meetup. I found a basket backpack and some Cormo in Building A.

As you can see, I was somewhat unprepared for the cold weather even though I knew about it, so I borrowed Ysolda’s Snapdragon Tam and the Snapdragon mitts as well. I think the colour actually kinda works on me – I’m always hesitant about yellows, but this one’s nice and golden.

The Saturday meetup was awesome – I loved seeing everyone’s reactions to Bobsolda! And I got to see Bonnie with her gorgeous teal Sagano shawl, which she test knit for me.

After the meetup we headed out to the Elks Lodge to set up for the party. I manned the button table, which was great since I got to say hi to everyone coming in!

The party was a blast as usual, cupcakes were had and nibbles eaten. Sunday was way more low-key – after the meetup I went off to find my Got Soap and headed to my book signing in Building B – lots of great books and authors there! Afterwards we all met up again, did some shopping, and headed back to the (amazing) house for dinner. Can you believe we could all eat dinner at the same table at once? That was a huge kitchen.

I had such a nice time, I can hardly wait for next year. Next up, the yarn!

come see me at Rhinebeck!

I’ve had an awesome time in Boston and have taken hardly any photos! Now I’m having a crazy awesome time pre-Rhinebeck with loads of fun people, interesting beer and yummy food.

Just dropping in to say, if you’re coming to Rhinebeck this weekend come and see me at the Author’s signing being put on by Merritt Books in Building B! I’ll be there with books to buy on Sunday from 1-3pm. Come say hi!

rhinebeck spoils

It’s late and I’m dying to go to bed, but I wanted to post all the yummy stuff I got at Rhinebeck! So it might have to be point form if I’m going to get through writing this…

L: Teal laceweight cashmere, over 1600 yards, from the Skaska booth. Mmm!
C: Black fingering weight cashmere, 1200 yards (score!) from the Skaska booth as well. A woman at the booth was a little disappointed that Andrea and I bought up all the black cashmere!
R: DK weight wool/silk from Brooks Farm, 1 skein. Probably destined for something like a swallowtail shawl for a gift.

L: a sweater’s worth of pillowy, squishy natural coloured DK-weight merino from Greenwood Hill Farm (I think?). Sort of knits up tweedy – I totally got sucked in by the knitted up samples at the booth!
C: three skeins of sock yarn from Sliver Moon Farm in a gorgeous plum. Seriously, the camera did not want to capture the true luminescence of this yarn.
R: two skeins of yak down/cormo DK-weight yarn from Bijou Basin. This yarn is irregularly spun, cushy, and I love it! I’ve got 300 yards, and I’m thinking something with cables…

And finally, in spinning fibres (do you sense a colour theme here?) -

L: batts from twitchystitches.com – crazy awesome teal/green/shiny goodness. About 180g.
C: smokey grey corriedale mix from Spinner’s Hill – 5 oz.
R: one lone braid of Ashland Bay merino in Cranberry – 4 oz.

I also came home with a heck of a lot of raw milk cheese and a couple bars of soap, too! I actually had a bit of trouble shopping on the Saturday since it was so darn busy, I just wasn’t really able to concentrate properly! I more than made up for it on Sunday though

In not-unrelated news, I have a pair of Fluevog Marians, red, in size 7.5 that I want to sell to a good home. After I twisted my ankle, it’s decided to be a bit…reconfigured. So they don’t fit quite right anymore! I’ve only worn them a few times (maybe 3 times) so they’re in like new condition. Yours for the same price I paid, $165 (USD or CDN is fine with me, despite the now rather significant difference!) and I’ll include the shipping. Email me if you’d like some new shoes!
Taken!