Let there be light!

So yesterday I finally gave up on the idea that my living room would eventually hold a couch -and thus be able to seat people should I ever actually desire for people other than myself to hang out here - and got a new craft table. Yay craigslist.*

This is really more logical all around since I suffer a desire for other people to share my space perhaps .05% of the time but NEED somewhere to work on yarny and other artsy-crafty projects 99.95% of the time. Having this spare desk means the sewing machine now has a home that is not the back of the closet, the skein winder does not require me to completely clear off my computer desk to use, and I have a big chunk of stable flat surface on which to put things like a lightbox.

For anyone that's never used a lightbox before, its one of the easiest ways to get a color accurate photo indoors without a lot of screaming and crying and some combination of grey cards and colorcards ** and a/or really competent flash or light setup.

I've managed without one since moving but my pictures have been a lot more varied in quality without it. This isn't helped by the fact that my apartment is north facing and never gets sufficient sunlight to mooch off of instead.

A few times I have trekked down the three flights of stairs carrying a box of yarn to take pictures out by the pool but this is not ideal for oh so many reasons and so mostly I've just let the picture quality slide a bit and hoped no one that wasn't me noticed.

For instance - this is what that Targhee I spun actually looked like.

And this is what my finished Ashland Bay Merino looks like.

This is the yarn that finally kicked my butt into replacing the light box because there is nothing like trying to get a decent photo of a really dark color in dubious lighting conditions to make you want to tear your hair out. The box I whipped out is 16x16x16 which is a little smaller than I'd like ideally - fine for 1-2 good sized skeins but a little cramped for larger quantities - but the smaller size does mean it slides out of the way easily and I can take some time hunting down a larger box in decent shape later. ***

The finished yarn is 704yds of 3ply, which I hesitated over for a long time. I tried a 2ply but just couldn't make myself like it even though it gave a more practical gauge in my swatch. This yarn is knitting to about 16sts & 24rows over 4"x4" which is really heavy for something I'd want to wear in Texas pretty much ever. On the other hand, it looks good knit up and has a nice stitch definition and I'd finally decided when I was doing my swatches that I didn't want to spin any more of the stuff to try and expand my yardage.

I'm happy with the yarn, even if I'm not sure what its going to be. Rosemund's Cardigan is a possibility, as is Hey Teach!, and Little Blue Sweater. Alternately I could go completely off my original plans and knit something that's not even a sweater with it.

I'm not really sure yet as nothing is screaming "KNIT THIS" right now to me. I am confident the right project will wander by eventually though.

* what exactly did 20-somethings do for furniture before craigslist anyway?

** which for some bits of colored plastic or cardstock are really ridiculously expensive

*** hopefully one with the banker-style put together so I can collapse it when not in use... I think U-Haul sells some like that