Dear Ravelry

I heart you. I heart you so hard. I want to have your virtual children.

Anyway. So, I have spent most of last week on Ravelry. My username is Kaviare, if'n you are on there and you want to join me.

I have also spent some time trying to wade through the backlog in my bloglines. I was reading sooz's blog, and I was like 'wait, I don't remember this Wil kid. What the?' Turns out? Last time I read was before he was born. This makes me sad. Sooz was one of the original blogs I read, and I love reading it. If someone's blog starts later in the alphabet than, say, 'd', I probably haven't read it in about that long. This is not only a source of guilt, it is a source of sadness. These are not just blogs I read to see what people made or whatever. These are people that I feel like I have an actual connection with. People who share parts of my life in ways that other people can't.

Since I still have no internet at home there is not much I can do about this. Except work harder to get internet at home. Which is waiting on getting a computer that is worth using on the internet. Which is up to someone else who is helping me get that. Gah.

Anyway, Ravelry = awesome. If you don't know what it is, then let me explain. It's like myspace or facebook for yarn. Except, instead of people you never want to talk to in real life, let alone online, there are fibre celebs like Franklin Habit, Brenda Dayne, The Girl From Auntie, Wendy from Knit and Tonic, The Yarn Harlot.... I've run out of breath.

And instead of looking at pictures of said people staring pensively off into the distance, or hanging drunkenly off of each other's shoulders, you get to look at other people's knitted and croched items. You get to see who has knitted the same things as you, or the things you want to knit, what they said, what yarn they used, who used the same yarn as you, what they said, what they knit with it....

And, instead of spamming your email every time you get a message, they send you kittens.

OK, so I made that last one up a little.

Anyway, if you haven't joined, you should. They've currently got over 15,600 users, and there are only 17,797 people on the waiting list... Seriously, there were about as many ahead of me when i joined, and I got in real quick. They are doing an amazing job and I love them.

Also, because the only way to put your photos up there is to use your flickr account, I've been getting a lot more use out of mine.

I had something to say, but I forget. So instead, I'll give you an FO report.

1950's Jumper

I wanted to knit myself a jumper. I really liked the look of the 1950's jumper in the Jo Sharp Knit 1. Elegant. Simple. Elegant. Except I wanted to knit it in Boutique, the new wool from Bendigo Woolen Mills. Boutique is 8 ply, while the pattern called for Alpace Silk Georgette, which is not only pricey, but also 5 ply. So I swatched. I got together with my mum, who teaches maths, and did my sums.

I decided that because I go out a ways, and then in a ways, I needed more shaping than Jo had factored in. So I calculated the stitches I would need for the waist, decreased dramatically, and then just increased the amount set in the pattern. There was a week or so when the extreme decreasing edge was freaking me out, btu my fath in Mathematics, and the soothing presense of more experienced knitters in my knitting group, who had seen such things before, kept me from going over the edge.

I won't go into the gorey details, but it all turned out in the end. I am actually a bit disattisfied with the shaping. not because it goe sin to far, but because it startes too far out. I think, if I did it over, I would pick about the middle sized pattern, and just knit it as the pattern saysx, or maybe with a few extra decreases.

I always forget the negative ease. I'm sorry, negative ease. I am learning to love you.

I actually wore it to work a couple of times as a vest. It worked quite well. I'm thinking of making one apurpose to be a vest. If only it weren't so dorky!

My sister is the worst picture taker ever.

She's all like 'pull a face, laugh, pretend like you're a rock star.'

And I'm all like 'Take. A. Photo. Of. The. Jumper.'

And she's like 'pretend like you're flying!'

But here it is, finished. You can see the bottom, on the left of the photo, where it's a bit lumpy from the wierd shaping.

I love the yarn. It's 65% Wool, 25% Bluefaced Leicester Wool, 10% Mohair. It's soft and warm and fuzzy and awesome. I'm actually thinking about making another one in the scarlet colour of the same yarn. Except, of course, that that's a littel adventurous for me. Colour, you know. It has been drawn to my attention that I prefer jewel tones or desaturated colours.

Anyway, Love. I'm wearing it now. Success tastes sweet.