Verity

Last year, I beta read Code Name Verity. I was obsessed. I am still obsessed. It's fantatsic, and when it comes out, everyone should read it. I am dreadful about giving a proper description, but it's about two young women, a spy an a pilot in WWII. I went as the spy for Halloween last year.

The orange sweater is nearly a character in its own right in the book, and I became obsessed with the idea of knitting it, and I don't even wear orange. It was super fast knitting, despite knitting with sockweight yarn and fairly small needles. (I think they were 4s. I appear to have forgotten, and didn't keep track in Ravelry.)

There was rather a ridiculous amount of detail that went into things. I spent days running about trying to find stockings with seams before giving up and painting stockings on with foundation and eyeliner. (How ridiculously period appropriate.)

I bought the skirt, unlike the other person who has assembled this outfit. Two friends make fake early 40's francs, carte d'idenite, and a ration book. The lipstick has "code" written in it, and there was more code on my hand, which I have taken offline as it was a bit spoilery. The painted fingernails are entirely in character.

The sweater pattern came from The Vintage Knitting Lady, it is genuinely old. I went with Bestway 1605; I knit long sleeves and the crew neck. Figuring out the pattern was easy, I love knitting both cables and lace, and it was pretty. Finding the right shade of orange was harder, and I nearly went Eidos Aster (I would have called the sweater The Form of Truth, then, because it really would be irresistible), which I still think is lovely, but it cost rather a lot of money, and in the end I went with Knit Picks Palette in Salsa Heather. Salsa Heather is lovely, it looks like orange from far away, but up close, you can see that it's actually made by spinning yellow threads and red threads together. The pattern has only one size, amazingly, and I made it fit me.

Print o' the Wave, Beginning

I cast of a giant ridiculous project on Sunday night, the peacock sweater I created and named Engel's Flaming Peacock. I need to pick up stitches and reinforce the collar, and add buttons, and it will its own proper blog entry. But tonight, while waiting for things to get out of the oven, and waiting for the washer to finish so I could put things in the dryer; I wanted something relatively easy, familiar, but just a little complicated. I didn't want to have to do the math for figuring out how many stitches I will need for the hood on my Pixie Hood, and it is too hot to really think about knitting with thick alpaca and silk for winter anyway.


I pulled out this lovely blue and purple skein of yarn I bought on impulse online, sight completely unseen from Posh, in one of their rare orphan sales. I think I bought it knowing the fiber content and nothing else. Its name is Chloe, the yarn that is, I haven't named the project. I trust them, they do beautiful yarn always, and this was no exception.


I sat and balled the yarn and debated patterns and watched TV and annoyed the poor dog by not paying any attention to him at all. I settled on knitting Eunny Jang's Print o' the Wave, for the third time. Familiar, simple lace, and lovely. It should go fast, since it is after all the third time I'm knitting it, and I am better now at picking up stitches than I was the first time I did this.