See here the most recent spoils of thrifting:

Hello, we are all rosy and domestic.

Among other things, you'll see a circular needle which closely resembles the beloved Addi Turbo. The tips are steel, the cable is some sort of super-flexible rubber tube, and they're lovely. Also, only 50 cents! Much more affordable than the traditional A.T. Does anybody know what sort of needle this is? Maybe some sort of Addi Ancestor? Any veteran knitters out there who encountered these back in the day? I thought that all vintage circulars were supposed to be terrible, substandard things. Apparently not.

And speaking of Addi Turbos, I recently bought a pair of their new uber-pointy lace needles. It was a bit of a splurge (geesh those things are spendy) but they're supposed to be so wonderful and make lace knitting a dream, blah, blah, whatever. Anyway, yesterday I pulled them out to swatch and I only got as far as the cast-on row before I had to put them down because of the reek. Am I the only one who can't stand knitting with these? It's the same metallic smell that some cheap jewelry has. Yuckkus. The worst part is that I bought them on vacation, so I'd have to drive 6 hours to return them. Bah.

Thoughts? Advice? Words of wisdom?

p.s. I just smelled a pair of the regular Addis, and they're stench-free.

Posted by Elli at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (33)

You know how sometimes you see something and you think…I could do that! Well, I saw something (click on the "shop" link for more).

It’s no secret that I love my vintage knitting needles, and normally I would never do anything to harm them. However, I have a few odd mateless one sitting around cluttering up the joint and I may have sacrificed a few of the wonkiest for the sake of science, er, fashion.

At first I tried using boiling water to soften the plastic, but I eventually gave that up in favor of steam which we all know is hot, hot, hot*. So I put on my biggest oven mitts and was very cautious. They aren’t perfect, but I think they turned out pretty well. I kinda want to make some more.

*Please do not say I didn’t warn you. If you have a hankering to try this at home, please be very, very careful.

Posted by Elli at 7:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (32)

Ok, I spent the entire sunny weekend not taking pictures of the current projects. I just kept putting it off. So now it's depressing and rainy and dark, dark, dark. Blech. Oh well, I've got a few saved up...

Recent stash acquisitions:

Socks that Rock in Lemongrass and Star Sapphire. Since the pic, I've knitted almost an entire Elfine's sock (link to pdf here) out of the Star Sapphire. (But do I have a picture? No! You'll just have to use your imagination. But it's stunning. Trust me.)

I also finished a secret project over the weekend, but I'm not going to post about it until my family gets the e-mail I just sent out re: Christmas knitting, reading blog at own risk, blah, blah. Last year it wasn't really much of an issue since the knitted gifts were mainly for people who didn't know about the blog yet, but this year it's a different story. I just can't tiptoe around for 1/4 of the year not showing you guys what I'm working on. That would be silly.

In the mean time, here are more vintage needles to soothe your poor wip-/fo-shot deprived souls:

Posted by Elli at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

I spent the weekend sewing away like a madperson on my Weekender Travel Bag for the sew-i-knit! bag-along (which ended yesterday) but I'm not quite finished yet.

Aside from realizing that I’d blown through all my thread before I was halfway through the project, things are going really, really well. Piping may be my nemesis, but yesterday I conquered and subdued it (with the help of lots and lots of thread). I do fully realize that my sewing hubris may cause the lining to spontaneously combust on me, but I’ll take my chances and say that this is looking to be the best sewing project yet…finally knocking that camouflage dress I sewed in college out of the top spot.

Tonight's Assignment: To stitch a couple more bits of the lining together and get it to go inside the bag. That’s it!

Of course, being in hypersew mode, I didn't pause to take any pictures. You get more vintage needles today, ok?

Posted by Elli at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Have I mentioned that I love vintage knitting needles? I just got these ones earlier this week. They're mostly old Patons, Aeros and Parfreys and in their previous lives they were well-loved by an Australian knitter. I've adopted them and plan to put a little more wear on them before they retire.

The weather was perfect today. I took these pictures with all the windows open and a warm breeze blowing through. I didn’t have time to get many photos taken before it got dark though, so I’ll have to wait for a nice sunny Saturday and get a few more.

Posted by Elli at 7:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Above is a sampling of some of the vintage knitting needles I've found over the last couple of years. I used to ignore anything but matching sets, but lately I've been buying interesting needles with no mates. Today I found a couple of interesting ones at the thrift store--one is a hand carved dpn that looks like it is made of some sort of bone (above, far right). I found a set of three similar needles a few months ago so now I have four (in different sizes though...no socks on these until I find a whole set). The other one is a steel needle marked "Czechoslovakia 2." It measures as a US 3 and is pretty heavy for its size. A comparison between it and an aluminum size 3 (I love my scale):

The steel needle weighs 15 grams, while a size 3 aluminum needle weighs only 6. Makes you realize why they switched over.

This weekend I'm working on Thunk's x-Christmas sweater. I should finish the sleeves tonight. The goal is to have the sweater finished within the week! Then it’ll be time to dedicate some serious time to Demi.

Posted by Elli at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)