Outfit Post: Long Layers

As long as you ignore the bright green socks, this is what I wore yesterday.  Lately I've found myself in a different mood in terms of clothing.  I definitely like little fitted sweaters and high-waisted pants, but I'm finding myself swinging in the opposite direction too: long, flowy, layered, more neutral/subdued in color, and sometimes no waist definition to speak of.  I've been moving in that direction for a while, but it wasn't really until the winter that I found myself reaching for this style of clothing more and more.

The Dries van Noten tied skirt was one purchase where I wasn't completely sure how it would integrate into my wardrobe.  I got it from a vintage boutique for $120, probably a small fraction of what it would have cost, and six months later, I'm more than sold.  I wear this skirt all the time.  It's easy and strange and I love how the ties float around down by my feet when I walk.  It goes with everything and nothing simultaneously.  Kind of like how it doesn't go with this tunic top (with pockets!  and slits at the cuff to wear them as mini-handwarmers!) and yet it works.  The proportions aren't right and the colors don't really work together and I loved wearing it all day.

Skirt: Dries van Noten, bought vintage

Cowl-neck Tunic: EcoSkin, bought from the awesome Radish Underground in Portland

FO: Super Green Kai-Mei Socks

I brought three projects in progress to the beach with me, and returned with two finished projects and only one still on the needles.  First up: Kai-mei!  

Holy moly, these socks are green: punch-you-in-the-face green, cartoon-nuclear-waste green, Skittle green, edamame green.  I have no idea what color I'll even be able to wear with this green.

But the pattern is great.  It had the brainless 6.5-inch cuff, then the honeybee pattern was really fun to execute on the foot of the sock - very polished and neat and impressive-looking.



I also really enjoyed working with the yarn, Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in one of their semi-solid colorways.  I bought it at a yarn shop in Ohio on a total whim because I loved the color, and then it sat in my stash for forever.  Back in January I was on a starting (but not finishing) sock kick, and I wanted to try making Kai-mei... but didn't want to use either a variegated or a plain solid sock yarn.  Then I remembered that I had this, which definitely has some tonal variation (so not solid!) but shaded within the same hue (so not variegated, yay!), and boom: pattern and yarn marriage made in heaven.  This yarn is tightly twisted and very soft, but I think it may be in the process of being phased out, because it's difficult to find online.  Sad, because it's a great sock yarn with awesome yardage.

Pattern: Kai-Mei, by Cookie A from Sock Innovation
Needles: Size 1.5 (2.5 mm) US metals DPNs, either Knitpicks or Hiya Hiya
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Select Semi Solids, colorway Pesto, most of a 420 yard skein
Mods: None!

Christmas at the Ocean

This Christmas, we got back to the things that are important:

spending time doing absolutely nothing

laughing at our hilariously entertaining dogs

and being together.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chinese Food Day, and/or a Fabulous 25th of December.

UFO dumping: Kai-Mei

So I'm really weird.  Sometimes I can go for months - nay, years - without ever really taking a hard look at what projects have been in progress forever and are probably never going to get done.  Sometimes it takes me two years to give up on a project, during which time it will just sit around shoved in a basket somewhere.  I don't include these projects on Ravelry.  They're my dirty little yarn secrets.

Recently, this has been changing.  I am suddenly going crazy with the realization of how many I'm-never-going-to-finish-this-who-am-I-kidding projects I have.  So I've been going through them, one by one, and taking a long hard look at what they are and why they don't work.  I've already ripped out two socks in progress that were a) too small or b) too long in the leg, to the point that I was going to run out of yarn on the second.  And I knew that there was no way I was going to use leftovers from another project to finish them off.  Not gonna happen, and I shall explain why:



I know there's several sayings that endorse leaving imperfections or mistakes in handmade objects, that it makes them more meaningful and/or holy.  And just as I laugh bitterly when non-knitters tell me how patient I am - since I am pretty much the opposite of patient; you should try driving with me and see! - I just can't get over mistakes in my knitting, period.  I have zero problems with other people subscribing to this ethos; I will happily accept any item made with love and never ask whether or not it has any mistakes... but I am way too neurotic to adopt it myself.

For some things, like picking up 2 too many stitches on the pick-up-and-knit row, I have no problem shutting my brain off and doing a couple of k2togs on the next row.  But visible mistakes, stupid things that I should have seen but didn't because I got too cocky about what an awesome-ass knitter I am and pfft who needs to read charts anyhow... those give me an aneurysm.  They shall not stand.



That brings me to Kai-Mei.  I wasn't sure whether it was one of those Do Not Pass Go projects or not.  I started them in January, knit 6 inches of the leg, and promptly dropped them for something newer and shinier.  Actually, there was some question about their size: I wasn't sure if they were charmingly not-too-snug in the leg, or if they would fall down to my ankles if I looked at them sideways.  Add in the beginning of my senior semester and my epic laziness (but putting lace on the instep might be haaaaard, I thought), and they were unceremoniously crammed into my UFO basket.

So when I got to them this last week, I was sort of perplexed by the fact that I had almost half of a sock done; not only that, but it was the super boring part that I had already finished.  I tried them on.  They fit perfectly.  So I knocked out the last half-inch of the leg and the foot of the sock in about two days.

The pattern: written beautifully.  The honeybee lace pattern: divine.  The yarn: tightly twisted and a dream to work with.  The amount of embarrassment over how long it took to accept a perfectly nice and good sock instead of squirreling it away like an self-conscious teenager shoving an intarsia Santa sweater into the bottom of her sock drawer: considerable, but well-disguised ...hey, look how pretty it is!