FO: An Orchid Branching Out (flowers and toys included)

I got a little snap happy in the studio, enjoy the photos. Pattern: Branching Out by Susan Pierce Lawrence as seen in Yarn: Knit Picks Shine Sport in Orchid Needles: 4mm Addi Natura Circular Needles I tweaked this one to see what it would look like in peach. Modifications: I think I'll add a longer chunkish fringe Notes: This was probably the most consuming project that I've ever made. It wasn't the pattern- thought it took me ages to memorize. It was the fact that as I was knitting I was forced to be fully aware of how I felt, what was going on around me and in my life. It's extremely interesting to track how much I can knit in a single session on the commute to work. I found that I knit faster when I was upset, late or there were annoying people around me and less when I was in a good mood or had someone with me. Knitting this piece has also made me notice that I've been feeling sick or melancholy for the entirety of it. That's just retarded. Well actually the weather here has been retarded and I blame a lot of my mood on that. I need more sunshine! I haven't seen the sun in days and days. Remember that pretty snowfall Julie talked about? Now it's half melted, mixed with city grime and over salted. Shit ain't pretty, lemme tell ya! Toby has a new studio and I took these shots there with some proper lighting and his D200. It was pretty rad but I had trouble uploading the photos to flickr. It was strange, the colors would change to a blander muted version. I punched up the saturation in most of them so that the stitch definition is more visible but it's still not right. These two are the best and closest to the actual color. The glow in the dark dunny wanted in on the action and then I kind of..um.. got creative? We weren't asked to- but I cut out images to match the thoughts or whatever I had written on the other side. Makes for a nice highway divider if I do say so myself. At the time of the shoot I couldn't find any of the 20 thousand glue sticks I own so I placed them on top of some of the extra blank tags Then some shots of the berrocco x-press I'm using for the diamond scarf. Alas, scarf itself was at home but it's almost done now. Then everyone jumped in for a final group shot. Men always have the best toys! I should probably end this entry here but I have to show you my matching flowers. The miniature orchids Toby gave me for Valentines day have bloomed. I love how delicate and vibrant they are. I don't know what this green mossy type plant is but it's pretty nonetheless. I'd say they have knocked star-gazer lillies out of second place, but are still just a hair behind blue forget-me-nots.