steeking and cheating

It seems I cheated on my beloved yarn ...... with embroidery floss! I picked up a Sublime Stitching kit at the Renegade Craft Fair about, oh, 800 years ago, and why I never broke it out until now I will never know. I think the prospect of having to plug in the iron to get started may have just been too much. It's ridiculous; I know, because embroidery is so much FUN! I had no idea. I want to stitch cute little designs onto everything now. Also I'm glad I didn't start embroidering before my trip to NYC a few weeks back, because I'm pretty sure I would have bought all the tools and threads Purl Soho had in stock. And then some. For now I'm working on the pillowcase that came with my kit, just learning some different stitches. The how-tos on the Sublime Stitching site have been ridiculously helpful! Expect to see more embroidery in these parts in the weeks to come because I just ordered some more patterns and tea towels. And I cannot even wait to start drawing/tracing my own ideas and stitching those into reality!

In yarn-related news, my argyle vest is so close to being done I can taste it! I reinforced and cut the steeks a couple of days ago and GOD was that ever fun! Here's the crazy looking thing that came off my needles:

Those sections of vertical stripes are where I reinforced (using crochet, like Eunny's pattern directs you to do - it's a very simple, quick, and strong edge) and then cut! I didn't take any sexy "scissors with knitting" shots because I was pretty sure I was going to screw something up with the first cut, and it was a weird time of day with bad light, no batteries for my flash, blah blah blah. If you'd like a sexy "scissors with argyle vest" picture go check out Minty's and gasp dramatically. I did get a shot of my reinforced steeks, though:

I reinforced in a contrasting color of wool of the andes (the vest is in cascade 220). The reinforcements will end up on the inside of the vest and I wanted to be ABSOLUTELY SURE I could discern the reinforcements from the knitting so I wouldn't cut into them by accident.

And then I cut. And NO ONE DIED. The wool totally just grabs on and nothing comes apart except where you want it to. It's completely magical. I'm certain I'm going to do everything this way now, all the time, so that I will never have to purl ever again. Purling sucks.

This is the vest when I finished cutting it. It's distinctly more vest-esque, no? I've since started finishing the arm holes by picking up my stitches along the edge of the steek and knitting a few rounds of ribbing. It's easy enough, although picking up stitches is one of my least favorite tasks and I'm pretty much frothing at the mouth to be able to wear this vest. My only hope is that it's taking an absurdly long time for Chicago to warm up this spring, so I should be able to wear it a few times before it's eleventy bajillion degrees out with 99% humidity. And if I miss that deadline, the library is as cold as a meat locker all summer long, so it will probably see some indoor wear.

For now I'll leave you with this (somewhat visually perplexing) shot of the edge of the neck line. Here you can see outside argyle, cut steek with reinforcement, and argyle floats - neat!