Envy is a Deadly Sin...Unless...

you covet a really, really cool set of knitting needles.

Rochelle (not Rachelle) brought her fancy shmancy Knit Picks Options Needle Set to Stitch and Bitch tonight. Very nice.

Not that I need any more knitting needles, but these are really nice. The joins between the needle and the cables are MUCH smoother than my Addis. I've been knitting a lot with cotton lately and the lack of give to the yarn makes a bad join more noticeable.

I haven't seen Rochelle in ages and hadn't realized how much I'd missed her! Check out her blog...she knits amazing lace pieces!

In Knitting News...first the good



Thanks to a horrifying accident on Highway 8 that we encountered on the way to pick up the girls at the cottage this weekend, I snagged lots of knitting time for the Silkroad Aran collar. It's 2X2 rib and pretty tedious to knit, so it's a good thing that it was the only thing I had available to distract me from DH's rising blood pressure during 4 hours of bumper to bumper traffic.

The bad...



Well, it really isn't bad. Orangina is quite lovely, pretty stitch pattern, lovely colours, but I made a whoops. I really don't think that it is going to fit me. Curses! Breathing slowly through my nose, I see that I have a couple options.

1) Frog everything. This is my usual course of action. It's drastic, but it removes the offending object from my sight completely and therefore remains a favorite of mine.

2) Put it away. Orangina is knit on pretty small needles (3mm) so it's a slow knit. I'm not likely to get to wear it this season even if I didn't have to do any rework and I don't have immediate plans for the yarn otherwise...so let's sit on it and see if it grows, or I shrink (yeah, likely)over the winter.

3) Redesign the garment. Basically at this point, Orangina is really just a lace patterned rectangle. It could easily be reclaimed as a sweater, possibly the back of a lacy cardigan for my oldest daughter who will be 10 next season. Hmm...ripping it all out seems such a waste. I could always start fresh on an Orangina for me next season using the reclaimed yarn from the failed Striped Vest.

Ok, I'm 0 for 2 now with my recent knitting projects. Given my recent knitting setbacks and the prospect of knitting even more olive ribbing I needed to start something that promised some immediate gratification.



Not quite instantaneous, but this is an hour or two's worth of Marie Grace Smith's Orange Twist pullover, made from some Paton's Claire Murray washable merino that I have in my stash. It's butter soft, has nice stitch definition and is machine washable (great for a kids pullover)

Of course, Paton's has discontinued it in favour of stocking more butt-ugly lumpy novelty yarns, like this

or this

or this


Enough already, it's just too easy.