Recently in Nautilus Category
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora
Pattern: Nautilus Hat by Marnie Maclean
Needles: US 6 dpns
The first row was murderous to knit, I almost gave up after that! After a while, the YOs and K2togs became easier to deal with. I dropped quite a few stitches from the ends, and that's when I figured out I should've gotten bamboo needles. Metal dpns suck. BUT I like working with dpns, so there will be more no-seam projects in the future, like Marnie's Halley's Comet Hat or Blue Sky Alpacas' Bobbi Bear. No no no, don't talk to me about socks just yet! Lemme have fun with the simple stuff...
Even singles, don't you just love that? With joining ends, though, I still get fat or wispy sections. I have to work on that. I tried spinning this fiber from the fold, but the colors are so closely blended that I got the barber pole effect. Leila indicated that with such a close blend, the resulting yarn will probably be heathered. I think the lace scarf pattern from the Winter 2004 issue of SpinOff will be perfect for this.
Reading: The Broker by John Grisham. I'm 10 pages into it and I already know it's not very good... I think his best were his first two: A Time to Kill and The Firm. Also, Core77, a design magazine, and artist Banksy's attempt to install his art in galleries here, here, and here.
Not much. Workwise, we're in the middle of an impossible deadline (boo). Traffic has been hellish due to the rain (ick). I lead-climbed a 5.11d this weekend (yay). I knitted and spun a bit (yay). So the good and the bad balance out.
We have the ubiquitous Clapotis in progress. It's inevitable that a pattern will form in variegated yarn, and it did here, but since stitches will be dropped, the pattern won't be so obvious. I don't think there's an efficient way to dye yarn so that the color lengths are totally random, other than doing it one length at a time. I really like the yarn that Mia sent because the color lengths are shorter, thereby avoiding excessive color pooling.
I'd been looking for patterns to use up the rest of my Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora and I found Marnie's site and patterns through a post of JenLa's. She has some good patterns (especially the hats) with very clear directions. I am learning the hard lesson with metal double-pointed needles (aaaaargh), and after I finish this hat I'm going to buy some bamboo ones.
Reading: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, a book that's been compared to The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Takami's book takes it 2 steps further. This is Amazon.com's product description: "Battle Royale, a high-octane thriller about senseless youth violence, is one of Japan's best-selling--and most controversial-- novels. As part of a ruthless program by the totalitarian government, ninth-grade students are taken to a small isolated island with a map, food, and various weapons. Forced to wear special collars that explode when they break a rule, they must fight each other for three days until only one "winner" remains.... A Japanese pulp classic available in English for the first time, Battle Royale is a potent allegory of what it means to be young and survive in today's dog-eat-dog world."
