America Freaks Out '08

Today is so exciting. And because I commute into DC for work, it's even more exciting because of the election buzz that is everywhere I turn. I haven't voted yet, but don't worry, I'm leaving le office early to do so. I can hear my (extremely democratic) boss down the hall bitching about McCain/Palin. He's a pretty funny guy. How can anyone even think of asking me to concentrate on actual work? There's far too much going on for that nonsense. Let's just hope Obama wins.

Anyway, onto knitting! I found a new favorite technique over the weekend, and there's quite a tale that goes with it. It begins like this: Ok, so you know the "SECRET Project" that I was working on and finished? Well, after looking at it for a couple of days, I knew it wasn't right. The yarn wasn't right for the project nor the person it was made for, so I frogged the whole thing. It was a bit tragic, but most definitely the right thing to do. And, since that yarn will no longer be used for the SECRET project, I can show you the yarn!
Although it looks harmless enough, this yarn is extremely bright and rainbow-y when knit up. It has bright blues, oranges, greens, pinks, EVERYTHING. It's a nice yarn though, I think I'll make it into a nice hat/beret for myself later. Oh yeah, and the yarn is Noro Iro in colorway 70. Noro yarn rools.

Ok, so I bought different yarn and found a much more appropriate pattern. And I learned stranded knitting! Well, I had attempted it before when I was making the Matrix mittens for my mom (which I still need to make before her birthday), but I was doing it all wrong. I was holding both colors in my right hand and get the skeins all twisted up together, so at the end of each round I had to unravel them. Considerably time-consuming. So, after a few rounds of this, I thought, "Is there a better way to do this?" And there was. Except that it involved me learning the dreaded Continental style of knitting (I'm an English knitter)...

So, as you can see here, I'm knitting a knit stitch with my right hand (It's a dark picture, but I'm holding one color in each hand), as I do normally. However, I had to hold the contrast color with my left hand, and knit it Continental Style...
So, the stranded method uses both English and Continental style knitting at the SAME TIME. Crazy. Although I'm really glad I learned because I love the way Fair Isle knitting looks and it is, of course, created using the stranded knitting method. The back of the work (or wrong side) will look like this with stranded knitting:
Once again, I know ti's a dark picture, but you can see the yarn being "floated" behind, which give the entire fabric a double thickness. I like it. I think I may even like stranded knitting more than entrelac, and you all know how much I love entrelac. I've already put a bunch of Fair Isle and Selbu projects in my queue. Being a knitter is awesome.

Some upcoming projects that I have in the works:
-Jaime's Stripey Hat
-Katie Bell's Endpaper Mitts
-Little C's Little Gems Mitts and Kittyville Hat
-Dusteeno's Fingerless Manly Mitts
-Doug's Eraserhead Pillow
-Emilie's Pencil Scarf

Oh yes! And as per Jelly Donut's request, here is the link to the Pencil Scarf pattern, found on Zakka Life's blog. It's going to be my youngest niece's Christmas gift, as she's a little artist.

Things are coming along, and getting all of this done before Christmas doesn't seem that unrealistic to me anymore. Am I crazy? Maybe. But I'm also prolific and AWESOME.