Warning! Actual knitting content ahead!

Well, frankly, I'm still figuring out this whole blog thing, so the knitting content is just going to have to wait until I complain for a minute about my lack of knowledge about technological things. I honestly don't know why I thought that this blog was going to be a good idea, except that it seemed like the thing to do..... my whole thought process was "Hey, I like reading knitting blogs. I don't have a local knitting community or even know anyone who likes to knit. I will join the online community and then everything will be bunnies and rainbows!" Except. Except I forgot that I'm kinda stupid when it comes to computers. You'd have thought that for the amount of time I spent coming up with a title, somewhere along the way Self 2 would have said, "You know, I think you'd be better off fumbling around the internet, reading about other people's fabulous knitting exploits." Alas, Self 2 was conspicuously absent funnily enough, because normally Self 2 likes to masquerade as Self 1 and.... I'm kind of assuming that any of you out there who might be reading this blog at this point have no I idea what I'm talking about. Right. No more sports psychology. On to the knitting content:

A Cardigan for Arwen

Designer: Kate Gilbert

Interweave Fall 2006

Yarn: Classic Elite "Wings" in Lavender Frost

Needles: Bamboo size 7 and 8

Modifications: Added 1 inch to length

This is Arwen. She is BEAUTIFUL. She is my first attempt at a sweater since I finally figured out what I'm doing. (It only took 4 years. But I make a mean mitten. Ask anyone.) I would have used the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, but I am poor, and Webs had Wings going for cheap during their annual end of the year blowout. Nice yarn, and very silky, but I'm not sure that I would use it again. It's very hairy. I walked around looking like I had a white long-haired cat for about a month. As it is, I would never wear it with the black tank I have on in the pic. It just happened to be what I was wearing when I decided to take the pic.

This is the tam I'm making for myself. I've kind of wanted a beret for a while, but was never inspired enough to try one until I got the latest edition of the Knitpicks catalog. All those gorgeous colors, expertly blended into a completely organic, seasonally-appropriate hat! I was sold, and immediately bought Mary Rowe's book and the kit for the "Falling Leaves" tam. Only, the book does not have instructions on how to make the "Falling Leaves" tam. It has plently of instructions on how to make tams - all the ins and outs and ups and downs of hypothetically making a tam. But no instructions for recreating "Falling Leaves." Which I think is the point of the book, but NOT what I had signed on for. I wanted "Falling Leaves", dammit! Nor, I must say is the pic in the catalog accurate enough to reproduce it from sight alone. So I'm going solo here. After discarding a couple of the colors (it was starting to look like the 70s) and ripping out a couple of times, I'm on my way to a slightly less subtle, but ever so much less frustrating tam. It's kind of liberating, "designing" your own color scheme, changing a will. But at the same time, it's as if you'd joined a book club only to find out that instead of reading books, you were going to be writing them. Not quite what you bargined for.