Swatch and re-swatch

First of all, I'd like to say that apparently Eunny and I are jacked into the same design brain somewhere. There are two differences: 1) she's a way better knitter than I am (and having a few years on me will do that to you) and 2) she has a heck of a lot more time than I do. I was pretty amused to see that she's thinking of the same kind of jacket I am. She's interpreting it a bit differently, at least partially because I'm interpreting it through the veil of a potential yarn shortage.

It may not matter, though. Does anyone know what this weird thing on my finger is? It came up after I started knitting with the hemp. I pre-washed it, so I don't think it's a chemical burn. Could I be sensitive to hemp fibers (I wouldn't think plant fibers would usually cause a reaction like this), or is this just a friction burn? There's a bunch of these big swollen-looking raised places surrounded by some red going down my finger where my yarn moves. (Sorry for the terrible picture; I'm borrowing a camera today.)

As I'm defending my Ph.D. today, I'll just give you a quick update on my swatching so you can sympathize a bit.

I got back to my LYS and ripped apart their needle display, looking for a replacement for my INOX needles. Let me just say that I really hate blunt needles. They bug me, and I spend a lot of time hating the tip when I knit with them. Please take it as an indication of how unbearably bad the INOX joins were that I happily bought a set of Stumpy Bluntos in the wrong size to get away from the INOXes. I then proceeded to knit another swatch in highly unorthodox fashion. (I had an excellent reason for pulling this off the needles last night, though I can't remember it to save my life today.)

I've been swatching the hemp (see burn above). I think I'll be using a brioche stich on the new Addis to save yarn. Actually, I think I'll be leaving the hemp alone for a while, at least until I figure out how to avoid the big series of burns down my finger.


To cheer myself up, I had to buy some Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Red Tailed Hawk. (The colourway is more brown and less orange.) I love this colour so much that I've been trying to figure out how to change my complexion enough that I could wear a sweater knit out of it without looking extremely silly. Perhaps if I paint my face blue, warm colours will look better on me. Ahwell, there'll always be socks!