half-assed knit blog
half-assed knit blog
half-assed knit blog

Lady MiniMaiden’s Lover

It whispers to me. When I close my eyes, I can hear its seductive purr. “I’m so beautiful,” it murmurs, “so soft, so silky. I’ve seen you watching me. I know what you want to do to me.”

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“Knit with me,” it urges. “Just do it. Do it now. I know you’ll be gentle.”

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I am weak, very weak. I knew it was waiting for me, sitting quietly in the yarn bin, tempting me. No hurry, I thought, trying to ignore it, but I can’t fight it any longer. The Mini Maiden wants to get on the needles, and I am powerless to resist.

Oh, Mini Maiden, what am I going to do with you?

Rhetorical schmetorical, I choose to interpret that question literally and in fact I know exactly what I want to do with it. In an effort to become a Real Designer (snerk), I got myself a proper sketchbook. A nice big one, so that I could work out all the pattern details right next to the sketches, instead of scribbling them on the back of a printout of English Mesh Lace (again). I tracked down my old, neglected sketching pencils. For some reason, they were inside a furry black drawstring bag. (Not that one.) I… don’t know.

I was rewarded with a sketch that is at least 3% nicer than the ones I draw on lined paper with whatever pen[cil] I find lying on my desk. Totally worth it. Uh… right?

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Effort is overrated, I think. Still, I like not having LINES going through my sketches. Hooray sketchbook.

I once hand-wound a skein of laceweight yarn from Knitpicks, 440 yds of it, and swore that I would never do it again. Well, mostly I just swore. But the “never again” thing was said too. I guess I technically kept my self-promise, because 547 yds of fingering weight is not the same thing as 440 yds of laceweight.

The yarn whispered some more during this process. If I didn’t know better, I would swear that what it said was, “neener neener, you don’t have a swift and ball winder, because you suuuuck.” But my beloved Mini Maiden would never say something like that.

By the end of it, I had noticed two things.

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1. This yarn is really really fucking gorgeous.

2. This yarn is really really not my colour.

I knew about #2 (and for that matter, #1) when I bought it. It was a deliberate attempt to buy yarn that wasn’t so firmly seated on the warm-toned half of the colour wheel that it had made a permanent ass-indent. Variety! Spice of life! And so on.

I can wear those colours, I think. And they are very pretty. Particularly that bright teal-y sort of shade. I must embrace the world outside of my comfortable little corner of red and coral! Yeah. Whatever. I guess I should go and swatch.

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P.S. Guess what size needles I’ll be using. Hint: madness may be involved.

P.P.S. I have become obsessed with Artfibers. I WILL purchase a giant heap of their beautiful, beautiful yarn. (When I can afford it. Which isn’t now.) Don’t tell the Mini Maiden. I don’t want it to fly into a jealous rage.

9 Comments

  1. Kelly says:

    Absolutely a beautiful colour! I sympathize with you trying to reach outside your comfort colour zone. Just recently I’ve left the greens and browns and earth tones for some nice teals and blues.

    My guess at a needle size: 000. Close?




  2. Lisa says:

    I’m going to guess size 4. *snicker*

    What did you decide on the brown poo?




  3. OLPP says:

    I would knit myself a lovely veil, like a nun or the cartoon Maid Marian, and wear it every day everywhere. And I’d swoosh it across my face so I could be under constant influence of its loveliness. That’s what I’d do.
    And I guess size 3. That seems sorta mad…




  4. Tammy says:

    Artfibers makes me swoon, big time. A friend of mine was in California last year and I had her pick up an order for me. Unbelievably gorgeous and amazing to touch.




  5. Rivka says:

    Sometimes you just have to give into the urge. I find that if it’s gotten to the point where I literally have a dream at night about knitting something then it’s probably time to just do it. And that is some gorgeous stuff. Question: I really really want to get into designing. Have any tips/book suggestions? I got the ideas just not the technical know-how.




  6. Rivka says:

    Oh, P.S. I cast on for the Bamboozled today :-) Don’t tell my other projects.




  7. amanda says:

    That yarn is scrumptious! Size 0’s, I presume?




  8. Ladylungdoc says:

    You are right – those aren’t your colours. At all. I think you should send that yarn to me.




  9. Nikki says:

    Damn, that yarn is beautiful. Yarn like that is better as a wall hanging, I usually find. Knitting it tends to mess up the way the colors lie and make it all jumbled. But it’s such a pleasure to knit, esp. w/ jewel tones like that, and I bet the yarn feels great, too. Will it be enough? Since it’s fingering but you aren’t making something that will get as hard a wear as socks, I’m guessing size 3s.