Knitterwockey

My first yarn cake

2012-01-22T12:37:00.000-05:00

I know I've been quiet lately. I haven't had much to update on the yarn front. I was a dope and forgot to take a picture of my mom's shawl for Christmas so I'll have to do that next time I see her. I still haven't finished Manda's socks yet (more on that in a minute) so my knitting production has been pretty much nil.

But! I did get a cool new yarn toy for my birthday. Kevin got me the ball winder from knit picks (after I've been whining about wanting one for about 2 years now). I just caked my first yarn, some Madeline Tosh sock yarn in Malachite.

I am so in love with this color and I fully plan on knitting something for myself with it once I finish Manda's sock. I'm thinking maybe some glittens or a shawlette? The ball winder is super neat and I love being able to make neat little yarn cakes now. Also, this picture was taken with my new 50mm lens that Kevin also got me for my birthday. This lens has a learning curve to it so my pictures might be a little fuzzy with it for awhile but practice makes perfect.

Back to Manda's sock. I haven't had much knitting mojo since I finished most of the other presents before Christmas. On December 5th Kevin and I found out that we are expecting a baby in August so I've spent a good chunk of December and January feeling tired and sick and without any motivation to knit whatsoever. I'm starting to feel much better now in the past couple of weeks so I'm thinking I can get my knitting mojo back soon. I really need to finish up those socks so I can move on to BABBY KNITS! Squee! I've already got some darling rainbow yarn that's been earmarked for a baby knit.

So that's what's going on in my neck of the woods. I plan on being more active now that my energy is coming back.

Quick update

2011-12-16T10:48:00.001-05:00

I finished Mom's Autumn Leaves Stole and completely spazzed out and forgot to take a picture before wrapping it up. I knit a cute little owl hat for one of my nieces and now I'm just down to finishing a sock. I may get all of my Christmas knitting done in time after all!

On another note, I can't seem to leave comments for anyone. It never shows me as logged in when looking at other blogs and I can't comment with my google account. So...um, everything you're doing is wonderful! Hopefully I'll get this issue resolved soon!

Christmas Knitting the OMG I'm RUNNING OUT OF TIME EDITION!

2011-12-09T08:39:00.000-05:00

So we are 2 weeks away from Christmas and I have a little under half a shawl, 2 hats and 1 sock left to complete. It didn't sound like a lot when I had almost 2 months to knit all of my presents but somehow, time has gotten away from me and I've only managed to complete one sock and a pair of mittens. Hats are quick, so I'm not terribly concerned about them (plus I have one hanging around that I'm not attached to and can gift if I do run out of time) but the shawl concerns me. I'm getting tired of it, the pattern is very repetitive and not terribly interesting so right now I fee like it's a slough to get through. It will be lovely, but I don't anticipiate doing this pattern more than once. Also, there's no way I'm going to finish the second owl sock before Christmas. Those socks just take way too long to knit (I'm a slow cabler).

Since these are all presents I'll keep pictures under wraps until they are gifted. I know this isn't much of an update but I just wanted to let y'all know I am at least still knitting. I'm really excited about the patterns I can start in January but I'll share more on that later.

Thrummed Mittens V 3.0

2011-11-06T12:03:00.000-05:00

I finished up the second thrummed mitten this morning after taking a break to knit Hedera No. 2, start Mom's Autumn Leaves stole and read the Hunger Games (which BTW is excellent).

I knit the bulk of this mitten in 2 days. They're not terribly interesting to make but it goes quickly so making them repeatedly isn't so bad. I might try to knock out one more pair before Thanksgiving if I can get through Manda's present quickly enough. The yarn for her present finally came but I need to get some beads before I can start working on it.

So far progress on the Autumn Leaves stole has been going well. I'm through the first chart and it's simple and easy to follow. Definitely one of those 'looks way more complicated than it actually is' projects. I'm not even all that fussed about having to graft together two pieces. After knitting so many socks grafting is a piece of cake (though I STILL have to look up the steps and follow them, I just can't memorize the process). I like the color for it too. I went with a neutral cream yarn (Cascade 220 Heathers) and it will go with a lot so hopefully it will see a lot of use.

So far Christmas knitting 2011 is going well. Let's hope this trend continues.

Finished Hederas

2011-10-29T13:22:00.000-04:00

So I finished the first Hedera over a year ago (last August to be exact) and I wasn't quite in love with the pattern so I shelved the second sock unable to face all of those purls and knits and yos. But when I was trying to figure out what to make for Kevin's Mom for Christmas I found the first Hedera and decided that they would make a great present for Laura. The second sock went much quicker and more smoothly than the first. I'm not sure what made me dislike the pattern to begin with but it really wasn't so bad.

The sock on the left is the second sock and the sock on the right is the first. I can't remember if I blocked the first sock but the stitches on it seem much smoother and more even. I'll block them both to see if that makes them match a little better. Over all though they're nice and squishy and stretchy. Very comfortable socks and they're basically red sox blue so I hope Laura approves.

October knitting round up

2011-10-25T08:30:00.000-04:00

So far in October I've knit the honey cowl, finished up a Koolhass, started a pair of thrummed mittens (1 down, 1 to go), knit up a quick baby hat for a friend's baby that should be making an appearance shortly and decided to finally knit the second sock from the Hedera pattern I started like...2 years ago? Whenever the winter Olympics were going on in Canada. Or was it summer Olympics? Who knows.

I've realized that honey cowl and thrummed mittens are the two patterns I've knit the most at 3 times each. There's something about them that seem to appeal to people and I don't mind terribly knitting them multiple times, they're quick, easy and great for tv knitting. I decided I did need a break after finishing the first mitten this time around though and started working on that second Hedera sock again. Kevin's mom did ask for a pair of socks (or mittens!) so I decided that the Hederas could find a nice home with her at Christmas. And because I already have one done it won't take long to finish and I could probably still throw in another pair of mittens for her too since I'll probably have the time. I'm actually not even hating the pattern as much as I did when I made the first sock. I've become immune to the yos before purls. (That sounds like it should be a slogan on a tshirt or something! It could be a knitting solidarity thing, Yos before Bros! Ha!)

The present I'm most concerned about right now is Mom's Autumn Leaves stole. In theory it really shouldn't take that long to knit, it is knit with worsted weight after all but also it's a stole and quite a large one at that. I want to start on it no later than Thanksgiving so I can give myself at least a good month of knitting time on it before Christmas finally hits.

I sure have come a long way with my knitting since my first year of giving knitted gifts. I still cringe at some of those early scarves and too small hats. I kind of wish I could ask for all of those gifts back so I can rip them out and redo them. At least I can make up for it now with super awesome stuff that people actually ask for.

Honeycowl the 3rd

2011-10-14T17:48:00.000-04:00

Honeycowl the 3rd is finished now. I cast on last Saturday, realized I was knitting a mobius and recast on Sunday, cast off last night. It's in Malabrigo teal something or another. It is absolutely gorgeous and oh so cozy. I'm a little sad that I have to give it away but I think it will be appreciated by the recipient. I got a little bored with the pattern so I didn't make it a full 12 inches wide but the pattern is flexible and it's plenty wide and long enough to double up.

I think for my next project I want to knock out a quick baby knit this weekend. We have friends that have a baby due by the end of the month and I do like welcoming a new baby with a hand knit gift. After that I'll work on more thrummed mittens for Kevin's Mom and her friend and then I'll be starting on Mom's Autumn Leaves Stole. I'm certainly not lacking for projects to keep me busy until Christmas.

Koolhass

2011-10-06T18:54:00.000-04:00

So I finally finished the Koolhass last night.

It's certainly a cute hat but it was a total pain in the ass to knit. I've decided I am not a fan of constant cable crosses at all so this will probably be the only time I knit this hat. It will probably get set aside to my christmas stock pile in case I need a present.

In other Christmas knitting related news, I will be making Mom an Autumn Leaves Stole and my MIL has requested another pair of Thrummed mittens for one of her co-workers to give as a gift. Slowly but surely I will make sure everyone in the South Shore area of MA will have thrummed mittens!

Manda has requested a teal honeycowl for her birthday so once that yarn comes in that will be my next project. In the meantime I'm finally working on the Noro Striped Scarf with Knit Picks Chroma. The Chroma is so soft and will make for a very cozy scarf. This will be my inbetween project to work on when I'm waiting on yarn like I am now. I still need to decide what I will knit for Laura for Christmas and I would like to work in a pair of socks for my niece Kaitlyn since Jessica hijacked the pair I was going to give to her. They might have to be ankle socks though, we'll see how long Autumn leaves takes.

Wedding Shawl

2011-10-03T15:00:00.000-04:00

Here are a few pictures from my wedding of my wearing my Hanami. There's also a shot of Manda wearing her Something Lacey. It had to be pinned in the back to make it stay put. I'm glad I made it. It wound up being quite chilly on our wedding day and it was absolutely freezing during pictures! It was so nice to wear and I got loads of compliments on it so it made all those hours of knitting lace well worth it. :)

Cables without Needles

2011-10-01T16:04:00.002-04:00

Assignment number 1. Learn to knit Koolhaas without the cable needle = Success. It still isn't fun, but it's much less annoying.

New Yarn from the honeymoon

2011-10-01T11:35:00.000-04:00

My sock from the airplane has suffered a terrible fate. I tried picking up the stitches again but I'm awful at that when yarn overs and decreases are involved with a lace pattern. That combined with I wasn't taking great notes so I couldn't remembered where I was in the pattern I ripped it out to the toe. That sucked but it was just a project I was knitting just because. It wasn't meant for anybody so that made it suck less. I can go back to it later.

The sock wasn't the only project I had with me so I still had some airplane knitting. I've got a Koolhass going right now. It's kind of an annoying knit with the constant cable crosses. Today I'm giving myself the assignment of figuring out how to cable without a cable needle. Hopefully that will make it less annoying to knit.

My only knitting related souvenir I picked up was this yarn in Bruges.

It is Cashwool 150, 100% wool. Each ball is 50grams or about 150 meters. (164 yards) The yellow is a mustard yellow and the darker ball is a real dark burgundy/almost brown. I'm thinking together I could make a really cute color work hat or pair of mittens. Maybe something similar to this. I would say it might be a christmas gift but since it's the only yarn from my honeymoon I think whatever I make I will keep for myself.

Along with my learn to cable without cable needles assignment today I also need to start considering Christmas knitting. This year will definitely be the year someone gets a pair of glittens.

I'm back!

2011-09-29T16:04:00.000-04:00

I'm back! Finally! I got married! I went on a honeymoon! I didn't get as much knitting done as I expected! Security made me ruin my sock by trying to steal my needles (but they gave them back)! I have a new last name! And a great appreciation for waffles! And Belgian beer!

There may be knitting related content to come in the future but for now I will be obsessing over wedding pictures and trying to decide which one will be my new facebook profile picture.

In the meantime there's a metric crapload of honeymoon pictures in case anyone is interested.

Honeymoon!

2011-09-27 Honeymoon 2011

A few things

2011-09-13T11:20:00.000-04:00

I finished up Manda's Something Lacy shrug. I actually finished it up on Labor day. I still need to weave the ends in though. I don't know why I keep putting that off. It isn't like it's some ginormous project with a million ends to weave in but I just keep putting it off. She'll be here tomorrow so I guess I better get to it tonight. In the mean time I've been working on a pair of socks from the toe up book. That pattern is fun and interesting and it seems like a toe up sock works up quicker than top down. I still love the way Lorna's Laces feels too. So soft!

I think I'm going to take the socks and yarn for one other project with me for airplane knitting. I'm debating between the summer flies shawl and a koolhass hat. I'm thinking a hat would be easier to keep track of, but I don't want to run out of knitting and not have anything to do on the flight back. Then again, I'm not really that fast of a knitter.

In other news, I'm getting married Saturday. OMG.

Something Lacy progress

2011-09-01T21:07:00.000-04:00

I finished up the back of Something Lacy last night and blocked it out.

It looks much bigger than it is. I seamed up the sleeves tonight and have started the ribbing around the body. I had to try it on after seaming the sleeves to make sure it fit. At first I seamed up the sleeves too much and couldn't squeeze into it. I took out a few inches on each sleeve and tried it on again and it fit. They're almost elbow length and cover the worst portion of my arms so I think that's probably mission accomplished. Hopefully I'll find the time this weekend to finish up the body ribbing and get the sleeve ribbing started by Monday. That won't take but a minute since the sleeves are already plenty long enough.

You better like this Manda, it's the only one you're getting! :)

There's nothing magic about Judy.

2011-08-27T21:48:00.000-04:00

This my friends, is a picture of success.

/

This is my first successful attempt at using Judy's Not-So-Magical Cast on. I picked up a copy of Socks from the Top Up today at Barnes and Noble (I had a gift card to use up). I had every intention of buying New England Knits but I talked myself out of it because realistically, it's going to be months before I work up the gumption to knit up that gorgeous sweater on the cover. But socks? I can do socks now and they would make great airplane knitting. And toe up would be a nice new challenge. I liked the look of most of the socks in the book so I went with it instead. Well after spending most of the day working on Manda's Something Lacy I wanted something new (I'm still working on the lace back and after 4.5 repeats I'm a little bored with it) so I decided to try one of the toe up socks from the book. I wound up 2 balls of Lorna's Laces in Clara's Garden and picked out a pattern.

That was the easy part. The pattern calls for casting on either with the Turkish Cast On, Figure Eight or Judy's Magic cast on. None of them looked appealing to me but I decided to try Judy's Magic Cast On since it seemed to be the easiest and most useful to know. I do long tail cast on all of the time, this should be a piece of cake! Right?

Wrong. 1 hour and 3 you tube videos later (including one very annoying Cat Bordhi clip) and I was incredibly annoyed and baffled. No matter how many times I replayed the videos and went through it step by step all I wound up with was a series of unknittable yos on both needles. I never have this much trouble trying to learn knitting trick with videos to follow but for some reason this cast on baffled me.

I finally stumbled upon this blog post with a slightly different version of the cast on and after 2 tries it finally clicked! Turning it upside down and following her clearly written out instructions made all of the difference in the world. I highly recommend this technique if you have any trouble learning Judy's Magic Cast On. I still don't quite understand what was going wrong before but as long as I can memorize this method I could be fine for knitting socks toe up.

On another note, Lorna's Laces is so incredibly soft. I cannot wait to put these socks on my feet.

Sale Alert!

2011-08-23T09:12:00.000-04:00

The 2009 Interweave Knits Accessories digital copy is going for $.10 right now. This magazine has the Koolhass pattern in it so that alone makes it worth it. There are several other patterns I could see myself knitting from it too (especially now that we're approaching winter season knitting and I do shawls!). That's $.10 well spent!

Also, my Something Lacy is coming along nicely. I cast on about...40? Extra stitches to make up for using fingering weight instead of worsted. I did do a gauge swatch but honestly, I don't even really know what it means other than I think I hit the gauge that was listed on the yarn spot on but I wasn't sure how to convert that to my pattern so I just started casting on in multiples of 10 until it looked like it might be wide enough. So now it looks wide enough and I haven't had any major hiccups in knitting the lace so far, though I did do one extra row yesterday when I wasn't paying close attention while knitting and watching Kick Ass (I know I'm late to the party but that movie is a lot of fun!). No biggie, the leaves in one row will be slightly longer than the others. If anything, I think I might be flirting with longer sleeves that are almost down to my elbows but that's much better than having too short sleeves since the whole point of this thing is to cover arms.

It's also going fairly quickly. I've done 2.5 repeats of the lace so far and I think I can get through the whole lace section by the end of the week. So that would leave blocking this weekend then starting the ribbing on the arms and body. I think I can knock this bad boy out in 2 weeks.

Goodies to share.

2011-08-18T17:42:00.000-04:00

I've got a couple of goodies to share. I ordered a shawl pin on etsy earlier this week with a gift card I won at work. I thought maybe it might come in handy for wearing my shawl at the wedding. It's really lovely and was shipped quickly. I'd definitely go back to the seller DonnaJs for future pins.

It came all pretty wrapped up.

So pretty I almost didn't want to unwrap it. But I'm glad I did. It's gorgeous!

In action on the Orchid Thief (I think I might be daring and wear it to work tomorrow!)

I also knit another braided necklace. These are so quick to knock out. This one was some leftover berroco alpaca I think. I'll probably be making another one of these tonight. I'm avoiding large projects until this weekend. Manda requested a shrug for the wedding so I'm going to attempt to make her Something Lacy. I'm going to stop by the new yarn shop that just opened up tomorrow to see if I can find some yarn for it and cast on for it this weekend.

Braided necklace

2011-08-16T21:38:00.000-04:00

I found a new quick project that will be perfect for gifts for people. It is the Cable Braided Necklace from OlgaJazzy. Manda found the pattern and asked for one so I knocked one out yesterday/today to see how they work. I used some leftover sock yarn to make this one.

I love how versatile this is. It can be a headband (this one is too long for that) a bracelet or a necklace worn with the button in the front or the back. I can see myself making a ton of these to give out.

My shoes

2011-08-15T17:54:00.000-04:00

Today's photo challenge is shoes.

I love my toms. They are so incredibly comfortable.

Orchid Thief FO Pictures

2011-08-15T17:52:00.000-04:00

I'm still amazed at how quickly I got through this pattern. But I guess after spending time with 1,000 yards of lace weight anything would feel like a breeze.

I ALMOST had enough yarn with one skein. I ran out 3/4 of the way through the last pattern row. So I basically used the second for the bind off and that was it. Somebody is getting some magenta colored socks soon.

I've got knitters block right now. I want to knit more and I want to knit another shawl(lette) but I can't decide on a pattern or what yarn to use. I cast on for my second Hedera (I never did start that second sock) but as soon as I got to the pattern portion of it I remembered how much I disliked knitting it. I hate yoing before/after purling. I don't know if I'll keep knitting that. I need to knit something though. I'm open to suggestions! Especially one skein projects that use fingering/lace weight.

Orchid Thief the Blocking Edition

2011-08-14T18:30:00.000-04:00

Orchid Thief is blocking. I actually knit that bad boy in less than a month. Once I figured out the chart repeats thanks to many posts on Ravelry it was a piece of cake. It was also really fun to knit. Pictures will be forth coming once the weather is nicer outside and she's done blocking.

Something Fun

2011-08-11T19:44:00.000-04:00

Today's photo post is something fun. Obvs. I totally wanted to do a knitting related photo since I consider knitting to be my main form of happy fun time.

She's coming along quite nicely. My new skein of Absolute Magenta came in today (super fast shipping, thanks Eat Sleep Knit!) so I can take it with me with no worries of running out of yarn this weekend while I'm out of town. It even seems to be the same dye lot as the original skein. At first I thought the new yarn looked darker/richer than what I have on the needles but when I held the two strands next to one another I couldn't really tell a difference. So yay for that. I think with the left over yarn I might knit up some mittens or glittens or fingerless mitts to go along with the shawl.

Something I made

2011-08-10T23:09:00.000-04:00

This seems to be turning into an every other day photo challenge. But that's ok. At least I'm sort of sticking with it. Today is something I made. And today I made...bird nests. The idea is to make them into cute little bobby pins. I followed this tutorial. They're super easy to make but I think I still need to work on my wrapping technique some more. But so far they look cute. I need to find some bobby pins that have the flat bits on them so I can glue them on. I think that will make them more secure.

I started with the lighter wire with the pearls but the pearls didn't fit in that wire so I had to go out today to buy thinner gauge wire and I picked up some blue pearls to see how they look. I like both looks.

Orchid Thief - The I Really Need to Learn to do a Gauge Swatch Edition

2011-08-09T12:19:00.000-04:00

So I broke down at ordered another skein of my DIC Absolute Magenta last night. It wasn't instock at my beloved Loopy Ewe so I wound up ordering it from Eat Sleep Knit. This is my first time ordering anything from them but I'm really pleased so far. The price was good, I actually found a 10% off coupon code so it was cheaper than getting it from Loopy Ewe or Jimmy Beans and even though I ordered late last night I had an email waiting for me this morning saying that it had been shipped. Which is awesome because I am so close to finishing this shawl and I don't want to wait forever to get my yarn. I thought I was doing well with the yarn after I finished the last repeat of chart 3 but I didn't count on how much yarn was going to get eaten up doing chart 4. I'm not out yet but it's precarious looking now. I'm on row like 104 and there are 114 pattern rows, so like 20 left to knit and my ball has gotten considerably smaller than it was when I started this chart. I just didn't want to risk running out and I really want to see one all the way through. I probably won't use much of the new skein so there should at least be enough left over for a pair of socks or perhaps some matching mittens or fingerless gloves.

Waiting for the new yarn to come in before finishing will be killer though. I'm so close I can taste it! I can't wait to see this one all blocked out.

Something New

2011-08-07T17:14:00.000-04:00

I missed yesterday's photo of childhood memory. That's ok, I don't really have anything around here that is from my childhood or reminds me of it.

Today's is something new and these are the newest purchases in the house. Our wedding bands.:) One step closer to getting married.

Someone I love

2011-08-05T19:12:00.000-04:00

Here's my photo for day 5 of the challenge. None other than Mr. Kevin.

My favorite color

2011-08-04T18:06:00.000-04:00

My friend Manda pointed out a challenge on another blog. 30 days of pictures in the month of August. Obviously I missed the first few days but it looks like fun so I'm gonna try to pick it up from today. This is my favorite color. I love most shades of blue so I gathered up what I could find in my stash and took a photo.

In other news, I decided to fudge it with the Orchid Thief. The extra stitches seemed to only be between the first and second spine stitches and once I got past the second spine with my fudging everything was hunky dory. So I'll trudge along and hope it looks ok when I'm done!

Orchid Thief Now with More Kitteh!

2011-08-04T10:27:00.000-04:00

This post is brought to you by the letter G, a tummy ache and the prettiest kitty in the land, Gracie. Also, not a insignificant amount of frustration.

Frustration you say? Well yes. Between being completely over the whole wedding planning thing and not at all interested in making any more decisions related to that, the near constant tummy ache I've had for the past few weeks that changes in intensity during the day but hasn't quite gone away completely (I'm starting to think I may have a food intolerance of some sort) and the fact that my Orchid Thief is has 10 extra stitches, I'm a little annoyed and frustrated.

I've made it through the 3 repeats of chart 3. Other than missing a yo here or there that I had to fudge and make up for everything turned out ok. I think it looks the way it should. I'm not spotting any glaring errors and the pattern worked out fine, I didn't come up with anything extra that doesn't seem like it belongs but some how I'm off my stitch count by 10. The book says I should have 283 and I have 293.

I started chart 4 and was following mitchypoo's written instructions for row 86. It started out ok (at least as far as I could tell). The stitches lined up at least through the first ktbl.

k3, ssk, yo, k10, k3tog, yo, k, yo, k, yo, k, yo, sk2p, k10, yo, sk2p, yo, k11, yo, k, yo, ktbl, yo, k, yo, k11, yo, sk2p, yo, k10, k3tog, yo, k, yo, k, yo, k, yo, sk2p, k10, yo, sk2p, yo, k10, k3tog, yo, k, yo, k, yo, k, yo, sk2p, k10, yo, sk2p, yo, k11, yo, k, yo, ktbl, yo, k, yo, k11, yo, sk2p, yo, k10, k3tog, yo, k, yo, k, yo, k, yo, sk2p, k10, yo, sk2p, yo, k10, k3tog, yo, k, yo, k, yo, k, yo, sk2p, k10, yo, sk2p, yo, k11, yo, k, yo, ktbl, yo, k, yo, k11, yo, sk2p, yo, k10, k3tog, yo, k, yo, k, yo, k, yo, sk2p, k10, yo, k2tog, k3

The bolded line is where I hit problems. I got through the k11 but I didn't have just one stitch left to do a yo k yo before the next ktbl. I had like 15 more stitches before I got to the next spine and now I'm stuck. I'm not sure if I should just fudge a few decreases to make things work out or keep just knitting until I get to the ktbl. The problem with throwing the decreases in is I'm not sure where they should go since the first bit of the row lined up ok. I think It would help if I knew exactly how many stitches should be in each section (between the spines). I'm determined to make this work. I'll be damned if I'm ripping out anything. I think I even have enough yarn to get through it. There's 2.3oz on my needles and I've got 2oz left to knit with.

But until I figure it out, here's some more kitty.

Orchid Thief Progress Picture Edition

2011-07-27T20:01:00.000-04:00

So I'm in the middle of the 2nd repeat of chart 3. I can't think about the repeats too much otherwise I just confuse myself . So I just look at the stitches and work them as they come. It's obvious where the decreases should be, where the knits and yos go and the spines let me know when my count is right. I've gotten off by a stitch once or twice (probably by forgetting a yo somewhere) so I just fudge it and trudge on. Good thing nobody pays me to do this and have any expectations of perfection.

So anyway, here it is so far. I really like the color quite a bit. But the yarn isn't quite as soft as my first skein of DIC smooshy that I ever worked with. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll have enough yarn for this (gauge? what?). I went down a needle size just to be on the safe side after what happened with Hanami and my DIC skein had 450 yards when the yarn in the pattern only has 440. But then again, I'm the girl that ran out of yarn with 1,000 friggin yards to work with.

Orchid Thief - WTF Edition

2011-07-26T09:28:00.000-04:00

Ok, so remember how I was raving about how simple the Orchid Thief was in my last entry? That was all a damn lie. Ok, it wasn't a complete lie. Casting on and working charts 1 and 2 were pretty simple and intuitive. No issues there whatsoever. And really, the pattern is very clear and distinctive in your yarn so you can really see what you're doing and can easily tell if you get off track. So that's nice and really once you start one row you don't even really need to look at the chart again to see what needs to be done. It's very repetitive.

The issue begins with chart three and Ysolda's repeat boxes. You do chart 3 a total of 3? 4? times (I can't remember and I'm at work so I can't reference the pattern). There are 4 pink boxes indicating repeat sections of that chart. And this may be me since I'm still a novice with lace knitting and shawls but when I see a repeat box that says to me 'oh I need to repeat this portion of the chart again immediately'. But if you do that when you first start working chart 3 your whole world will turn to shit because that's not what those little repeat boxes mean at all. At least not for the first time you work the chart. I am so glad Virginia pointed me to the Ysolda group over at ravelry when I mentioned I was going to tackle this shawl.

I found a discussion about the errors and errata for The Orchid Thief and the general madness that lies within the charts. I thought the big issue would be on row 86, the beginning of chart 4 but it seems like quite a few people have gotten confused by chart 3 (including myself). So I saved several versions of the shawl in my favorites where beautiful, lovely ravelers have made detailed notes for making your way through this mess. Little Blue Duck's notes for chart 3 are so helpful! I don't think I'd have figured it out if it weren't for her breaking down how the repeats should go. How in the world does one even figure that out to begin with if it's not clearly mentioned in the book? Ysolda is an evil trickster with her charts. I need my patterns to be simple and easy to follow line by line. So far any pattern I've tried by her has involved entirely too much thinking. But her patterns are incredibly beautiful so I'll probably keep subjecting myself to this kind of mental anguish just so I can have pretty things.

Hanami Photos

2011-07-24T14:59:00.000-04:00

So here's the infamous Hanami. Overall I have to say I'm pretty damn happy with it. I can see a few spots where I fudged it up a bit, but you gotta be looking for them to notice the mistakes. I LOVE the color. It's such a beautiful shade of purple. It should probably be longer but that's my fault for running out of yarn but it still works ok. I did get it finished before my fitting for my dress so I can take it with me to see how they'll look together. Yay!

Now on to the pictures. There will be a few of them.

My favorite part of the entire shawl is where the basket weave transitions into the cherry blossoms.

My modified cherry blossom ending with just a few rows of garter.

I love it. I'm so proud of myself for tackling this for my first shawl ever.

Shawl Fever

2011-07-23T22:19:00.000-04:00

So I had so much fun knitting Hanami I decided to cast on for another shawl straight away. I was browsing around ravelry's popular shawl/wrap patterns listing and stumbled across The Orchid Thief. It's quite pretty and conveniently enough I have the book Brave New Knits so it was a winner. I'm knitting it with the Dream In Color Smooshy in Absolute Magenta. This shawl is knitting up fast too! Coming from lace weight fingering weight feels like worsted to me right now. I'm through the first chart already and the pattern is really intuitive and fun. And so far it's the easiest to understand Ysolda pattern I've done yet.

Hanami Fin.

2011-07-23T15:06:00.000-04:00

I decided to finish up the hanami with a few rows of garter stitch. I didn't want to take the chance of ordering new yarn and it not matching the way it should (plus it was $36! Jeez!). I'm a little sad I didn't get to finish it out the way the pattern calls for since it's just so pretty but I've got it blocking out right now and it seems to still look pretty good. It did bleed quite a bit when I put it in water to soak. When I poured the water out it looked like purple koolaid. Hopefully it won't bleed more after that.

The good news is I really enjoyed knitting Hanami. The pattern was interesting but not difficult once I got the hang of it and it changed often enough to keep it interesting even though it was such a long pattern to knit. I'll probably do another one, maybe not quite as wide as a scarf? I like that idea.

Hanami Part Uh Oh

2011-07-21T21:18:00.000-04:00

I've hit a hiccup with my Hanami. I'm out of yarn. And I'm not out of pattern. I didn't think that was possible with 1000 frigging yards of yarn. The pattern doesn't even call for 1000 yards of yarn! I thought I was safe! (And no, of course I didn't check my gauge. When have I ever had that much sense?)

This big pile of purple is my Hanami. Please ignore the terrible photo, I was lazy and took it with my phone.

This is how much yarn I have left.

And I've got most of chart F, all of chart G plus the ruffle boarder to finish. What do I do? Do I order more $36 yarn that may or may not match perfectly? Do I just say screw it and knit a few rows of garter and bind off? Do I rip it out? Is there absolutely anyway that I can manage to reknit this whole damn thing in the time I have left? I seriously doubt it.

The one thing that is in my favor is that it's the cherry blossom end so other than being shorter there is no real noticeable difference of where the pattern ends so I could skip the rest of chart F but I probably still need chart G and the wavy border if I want it to look anything like the real thing. But if I just do garter and bind off it'll probably still look fine. It's not like the beginning of the shawl is perfect anyway.

So...what to do? What to do? I have no idea.

Hanami Progress Part 2

2011-06-21T21:33:00.000-04:00

Finally made it through all 7 repeats of the basket weave chart. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick that was long. But it went by quicker than expected expect during each repeat I'd get stuck on one row (always a different row) and have to knit and tink and knit and tink when I kept coming up off by one stitch. That's annoying. But I've made it through. It doesn't seem very long yet. I hope blocking fixes that. But aside from getting annoyed by tinking so far I haven't had the urge to put it down yet. I'm not bored with the pattern and so far haven't suffered any major disasters. *knocks on wood*

Hanami Progress

2011-06-05T16:03:00.000-04:00

So I'm making progress on the Hanami. I'd say about 6-7 inches into it so far and I've finally hit my stride. I'm not sure what happened but those 2 extra stitches that kept coming up stopped coming up. I must have been missing a decrease here or there without really realizing it because the last repeat I did was spot on for every row and looks super.

The bottom is messy for sure. A more dedicated knitter than myself would probably rip it all out and redo it perfectly but I don't think I could do it perfectly if I wanted it. It'd just be an awful cycle of ripping and redoing until it was right and y'all know how much I hate redoing my work. If I got stuck in that cycle then it'd just never get knit. So I think I'm ok with the first 2-3 inches being messy if the last 67 inches are good. I can't really think of a time where this thing will be all spread out with every stitch visible other than during blocking anyway so noone will be the wiser. It bothers me a little that the bottom won't be perfect but I don't think I've ever knit anything that is perfect and I'd rather get through this thing and feel accomplished when it's done rather than feel accomplished with a half knit perfect stole. I'm familiar enough with the basket weave now that I can tell if I get off on my stitch count so it shouldn't be an issue anymore.

The yarn is still lovely to work with. So soft and it seems to work up quickly considering it's lace. I love the color (good thing too since my fingers turn purple for hours after knitting with it). I think this will be my only project for awhile until I'm certain that I'm able to finished it on time. I think if I can get in about an hour of knitting a day on Hanami I can get it finished up in 2 months which is plenty of time before the wedding.

Finished Breeze Socks

2011-06-02T21:16:00.001-04:00

I finished my breeze socks on Tuesday. They were a wicked quick knit and the pattern was interesting enough not to get boring (not knitting a leg at all probably helped a lot with that as well).

I probably should have knit them out of a less warm yarn. It's knit picks pallet which is wool I think and therefore they're too warm for summer. Maybe they'll be ok spring/fall socks. But still, the yarn is soft and the socks are comfortable to wear.

I love the heel on them too. So much more fun to knit than the usual boring heel flap. I like that the cable pattern carried through.

Hanami is going well. I'm enjoying knitting it quite a bit. I'm a little iffy on if I'm doing it right. I keep coming up with 2 extra stitches every few rows and I'm not exactly sure where they keep coming from. The first repeat is a little messy, probably from my off counting somewhere, but the second repeat is looking nice so far and since I'm not a perfectionist I'm gonna let it roll until I get a few more inches in and can get a better idea of how it's going to turn out. It's getting easier to read the pattern as I knit it and I can kind of tell how it's supposed to look now. I'm surprised I'm enjoying this as much as I am. I didn't really think I was going to be a lace knitter but so far so good. Then again, I'm only about 5 inches into the thing so I may be singing a different tune by the time I get to charge G.

Hanami Cast On

2011-05-24T23:08:00.000-04:00

Cast on for the Hanami tonight. I skipped the beaded cast on because I'm lazy and didn't want to wait on buying beads. I've got my first inch knit and so far it's been relatively painless. I think this pattern won't be so terrible to knit. It's relatively simple, mostly just yos and decreases. No knitting acrobatics to speak of so far. The Dream in Color Natural yarn is really soft and will be lovely to wear but it's bleeding on my hands as I knit so I'm a little concerned about that seein' as how I'm going to be wearing it with a white dress and all.

In other news, I finished up my first breeze sock on Friday (cast on for it on Sunday) so I knocked it out in less than a week. I'm about 2/3 of the way through the second one and hope to finish it up maybe this weekend. I'll take it with me to Connecticut to have as my mindless knitting for when I don't want to focus on Hanami.

Well enough alone

2011-05-18T15:25:00.000-04:00

I just can't leave well enough alone. I kept browsing through Ravelry patterns for wedding shawls and found one that I had fallen in love with before but forgot about. The Hanami is beautiful and delicate and I think it's the one! Naturally I didn't order enough yarn for that pattern so back off to the Loopy Ewe I went to get yarn for Hanami. It took awhile for me to pick out a yarn. I browsed Loopy and Knit Picks and kept waffling between getting purple, a neutral or a wacky color. That stole is so pretty in any color it made it difficult to decide. In the end I decided on Dream In Color It's Natural Purple Rain. It better be worth the price. Now I have to wait even longer to get my yarn to start my shawl. I hope I can actually knit this thing in 4 months. It looks kinda big.

Wedding Inspiration

2011-05-16T15:33:00.000-04:00

I've been contemplating the idea of knitting a shrug for myself for my wedding. Just a little something to wear after all the formal stuff was done to keep my arms warm once the sun goes down. I really liked the Dream in Color shrug but was iffy on if it was really what I wanted. Then last week I saw this post on the off beat price and absolutely fell in love with this bride's shawl. First of all, that blue is gorgeous! And second of all, that shawl doesn't look old ladyish at all (which is something that's held me back from knitting them before). Something like that would be absolutely perfect to wear for my wedding so yesterday I browsed around on ravelry for ideas. I came up with two shawls that I liked a lot that looked like they were within my capabilities.

I really like Ishbel and Haruni. I ordered yarn to go with each pattern, Dream in Color Absolute Magenta (in smooshy, not classy but the smooshy link is gone now) and Malabrigo MB Cuarzo. I haven't settled on which one I will knit with what yarn. I got purple because my bridesmaids will be wearing purple so that would match. But I don't want to be super matchy matchy so I got a crazy color too just in case I just decide to be an odd ball. I'm thinking the Haruni would just be the tits in that Magenta color. But could I actually buckle down and knit that thing by September? I'm sure a talented and disciplined knitter could knock that bad boy out in a matter of weeks but it'll probably take me from now until September and I might be finished with it if I'm lucky. Ishbel looks easier and probably a quicker knit but it doesn't quite have the wow factor that Haruni has.

In other knitting news, I'm working on a new pair of socks. I know, I know! They're like my comfort knitting. I can't think of anything else to knit so I always go back to socks (because really, knitting scarves and hats in May would just be silly). But these are cute little ankle socks that will be 1) quick to finish and 2) might actually see some use this summer. They are the Breeze socks from knitty. I started them yesterday and I've already turned the heel and started the gusset decreases! I like this whole 'not knitting a leg' thing with socks! I might actually have a sock by the end of the week.

Harry Potter Jaywalkers

2011-05-11T08:47:00.000-04:00

So I finally got around to finishing my Harry Potter Jaywalkers. The pattern got kind of boring the second time around and I'm still not in love with the yarn so I didn't knit on them as often. I maybe picked them up once or twice a week and knit a few rounds here and there. But they are done. I did the second pair on a slightly smaller needle size so the second sock fits much better. I didn't bother lining the starting point of the yarn up so they're definitely fraternal twins.

The weather is warm now so it will be awhile before these guys see any use. Maybe by the time cool weather comes around I'll warm up to them a bit.

Now I need to find some small, warm weather appropriate projects to knock out to get my average back on track. Taking 2 months to knit a sock totally threw me off track for doing 1 project a month.

Warm weather knitting...

2011-04-09T21:49:00.000-04:00

So I normally start slacking off on my knitting about this time of year. And I kind of have recently. I'm only a 1/3 of the way through the second Harry Potter Jaywalker. I should just buckle down and finish it up but I'm a little bored by it so it's hard working up the gumption to get it done. I would work on another project but I'm not exactly sure what to knit for warmer weather. What do people work on when you don't need warm cozy knits to bundle up with? I'm stumped!

I could maybe make a leap and knit some sort of garment. Maybe a light weight top? I do want to knit some sort of shrug for my wedding but that involves buying yarn that isn't in the budget right now and won't be until next week. What to work on in the mean time? Does anyone have any fun warm weather patterns they like to knit? Please share! I'm in desperate need for ideas. Socks really won't cut it either since I won't be wearing them much until it gets cold again. My favorite thing about spring is NO SOCKS. Yay!

I guess I'll keep working on the jaywalker 2 rounds at a time until I finish it. Maybe sometime next month. Or the month after.

Harry Potter is a Jaywalker

2011-03-24T21:02:00.000-04:00

I finally finished the first Jaywalker. Really, it should've been done over the weekend but I jacked up the toe decreases and had to rip it out and do it over. Usually when that happens I get annoyed with the project and will put it down for a day or two which is what I did. Then it took me another day to finish it up and get around to grafting the toe. I think the fact that I was rather uninspired by the pattern and
the final look of the sock didn't help.

As you can see the zig zags did finally show up. There's a lot going on in this yarn. The sock itself is kind of big too. I can wear it, but it's a little looser than I like. I knit the smallest size w/the recommended needle size so I can only assume Grumperina just has huge feet. Most other sock patterns I've done call for casting on 64 stitches or so. This one is 76. What's that you say? Gauge swatch? Surely you jest! Seriously, Grumps just has big feet. You can take my word for it.

I just cast on for the second sock. I'll do the same cast on number but I decided to go down to a size 1 needle to see if that helps with the fit any. I think these socks will have to grow on me. So far I'm not in love.

Not knitting related at all.

2011-03-13T14:26:00.000-04:00

This has nothing to do with knitting but it's something I felt worthy of documenting. I've been doing weight watchers since late July. As of this past Thursday I've lost 36lbs. Today I actually decided to take a progress picture just to see if I can tell a difference. I have a hard time seeing it in day to day life and just looking in the mirror. I think it's safe to say that I can finally see it.

Pre weight watchers, July 4th weekend at my cousin's wedding.

Today, before going on a nice walk in this beautiful 65 degree weather. 36lbs gone. My head is positively tiny!

I've still got a ways to go, probably another good 25-30ish or so to goal but even if I don't lose that much I'm still really proud of how far I've come.

100th post!

2011-03-08T19:30:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting to blog all week but I've not really had anything especially witty to say and no finished objects to show off. I didn't want to post my 100th without at least having a picture or two to share.

So I finished Kevin's Christopher hat last night. I started it sometime last week but I'm not sure on the exact date...probably when I finished my helix socks but I restarted it a few times because I didn't trust the pattern. The whole time I was knitting it I was sure that the hat was going to be way to big. It just seemed so dang huge. I actually stopped knitting about an inch before the pattern called for it. It's not too short but that extra inch wouldn't have hurt anything.

Red Side.

Blue side.

I knit it with Knit Picks wool of the andes in New England Patriot colors. Just in time for there not to be any football next season! Not to mention that it's been in the 50s for the past two weeks so we're past hat season. But it's extremely cozy and Kevin is really happy with it. I expect him to wear it constantly next winter.

I also started a pair of Jaywalkers with some Opal Harry Potter yarn that my dear friend Manda gave me...oh ages ago. I thought it was about time I actually knit something with yarn in my stash. The pattern is ridiculously easy, but the yarn is pretty crazy and it's hard to see the zig zags. I'll keep it going for awhile just to see how it turns out. I've never really used a self striping yarn before but so far I'm not really seeing any stripes.

In other news, I've discovered that I like mangos.

Dislike

2011-02-28T21:22:00.000-05:00

I'd like to state for the record that I seriously dislike starting a hat top down on DPNs. It's too damn fiddly. This Christopher hat has had about 3 false starts. Also, you can't try it on as you go top down. That's annoying.

helix done!

2011-02-24T20:57:00.001-05:00

That's right my friends. A pair of finished helix socks done ahead of schedule.

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Helix Pictures

2011-02-20T20:00:00.001-05:00

I know, I promised Helix pictures days ago, but you know I'm lazy. I'm sure you guys are used to it by now. I wasn't completely unproductive. I did work on the second sock and have made some good progress on it. I think I might even finish it before the end of the month. Can you guys imagine that? Me finishing pair of socks (plus a honey cowl!) in a month? That's just crazy talk!

A progress shot, plus what they look like in the book.

This one shows the color pretty well.

The yarn is Fiesta Baby Boom dyed for the Loopy Ewe. The color is called Spring Chill. It was the free skein they sent to me with my Loopy Groopy package. I have to say, I'm a big fan. It knits wonderfully and the colors are pretty much all of my favorite colors ever.

So that's where the Helix socks are. Hopefully by next weekend I'll have a finished pair to show off.

Helix Sock

2011-02-17T20:37:00.000-05:00

Helix Sock number 1 is finished. This was probably my easiest sock yet and I'm definitely getting the concept down more without having to refer to the pattern multiple times. It fits good and the yarn and pattern play well together and I can't wait to get sock 2 done. Pictures should come tomorrow when I have some decent light.

Honey Cowl V 2.0

2011-02-15T10:19:00.000-05:00

Honey cowl V 2.0 is complete. Well...mostly complete. I still need to weave in the ends. But I did take pictures!

As I was working on it I wasn't sure how I felt about the color combos (Knit Pick's Chroma in Midwinter and Regency). I felt like there was a lot of grey and it was making it look kind of drab but after seeing the photo the blues, pinks and purples seem to come out a lot.

The chroma is soft and should be quite cozy to wear. There were knots in the yarn though in both skeins so that was a little annoying. I'm debating on blocking it to see if it will grow any. It seems smaller than my malabrigo honey cowl even though I used bigger yarn and the same number of cast on stitches.

Too bad it's going to be 60 all week so no real reason for the recipient to wear it for awhile! Hopefully we'll get one more small blast of winter before spring comes roaring in like a lion.

The problem with multitasking...

2011-02-10T20:02:00.000-05:00

Knitting two projects at once is nice when one project is boring (Honey Cowl) and the other is not (Helix Sock). It breaks up the monotony. But it just makes both projects just go that much slower. Which is frustrating when there are about 15 other projects that I want to get started on like, right now. But both projects are coming along just fine. I'm hoping I'll have at least one of them finished by this weekend. I'm past the heel and working on decreasing the gusset stitches on the sock and the Honey cowl is about 2/3 of the way done. I think after Honey Cowl is done I'll cast on for Kevin's Christopher hat while working on the second Helix sock. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to come this weekend.

Just a quick reminder

2011-02-01T13:35:00.000-05:00

I started the Helix Socks from Brave New Knits on 1/30.

Also, now everyone at work wants a honey cowl. What did I do?!

Honey Cowl Finished

2011-01-30T19:53:00.001-05:00

Honey Cowl is finished. I used the two skeins of Malabrigo Silky Merino that my Future Sister In Law gave me for Christmas. The two colorways played well together I think. I alternated them every two rows. I actually used a bit more of the lighter blue but for some reason have more of it left. That's a little odd as the skeins should've been the same yardage.

Either way, the cowl is oh so soft and I own shirts in pretty much every color that shows up in it so I can wear it with just about anything. Hopefully this warm spell will pass over soon so I can actually wear it. It took a little longer to make than I wanted, mostly because I assumed row 4 was the exact same as row 2 and it's not so I had to start over when I was already about 3-4" in.

I believe the socks are next up on my list. The cowl was a very simple knit and I need something to work my brain a bit before casting on for an all knit hat or really long ribbed scarf.

Oh! And I finished it in January! I started it and finished it in the same month! Score one point for averaging one finished project per month!

New knit picks loot

2011-01-29T23:16:00.000-05:00

I got some loot from knit picks. This is my little birthday splurge for myself.

I got the 6" DPNs. I like the harmonies but my 4" DPNS are just too short, especially when it comes to turning heels. I also got a smaller needle sized circ to try the magic circle for a pair of socks in my Brave New Knits book.

As for the yarn you see there are 3 balls of Chroma, Regency, Midwinter and Mix Tape. I plan on knitting a Noro Striped Scarf with that yarn. It's SO soft and luscious. I can't wait to knit with it.The colors are really lovely. The smaller balls of yarn are knit picks shine worsted for Kevin's Christopher hat in New England Patriots' colors.

I'm still working on my honey cowl. About 2/3 of the way through it. It's looking really great, I can't wait to share pictures once it's all finished up. Now I just have to figure out which project to start next. The socks, hat or scarf? So many choices!

Jane hat

2011-01-26T12:51:00.001-05:00

Picture of Jane from my phone new test

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testing

2011-01-26T08:32:00.001-05:00

Trying to post from my new phone

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Nutkins Finished!

2011-01-17T16:20:00.000-05:00

My nutkins are finished! I redid the toe on the first sock and it came out great. There was a wee nubbin on the heel of the second sock but blocking took care of that. They're a little big, but significantly easier to get on than my Spring Forward socks.

The Cherry Tree Hill yarn was great to knit with. Very similar to Dream In Color Smooshy. The red is a fun color and I've already worn them a few times. I can't get enough of them.

I also went ahead and finished my Jane hat. It was snug when I cast off, but blocking has loosened it up quite a bit. Malabrigo grows like a mofo when it's wet. No photos of that yet but they'll be coming soon. I cast on for a honey cowl this morning and it's going pretty quickly. I'm alternating the two colors every two rows and I think it's turning out ok so far. I also ordered the yarn for Kevin's Christopher hat so I should have that in the new few days and should be able to get started on it once I'm done with the honey cowl.

Good news and bad news.

2011-01-12T21:07:00.000-05:00

Good news. I finished Nutkin 2! I got better at the short row on the toe and it looks good. It's a little big on my foot but whatever, I can live with that.

The bad news is, the toe on this sock highlights exactly how bad the toe is on the first Nutkin. This one is nice and round and very toe like. The first Nutkin toe came out really boxy and square. So, I have to rip the toe out and redo it. I'm not going to rip all the way back to the heel. The heel just doesn't bother me that much but the toe most definitely needs to be fixed. I've actually already ripped out the toe, that was fairly painless and I think I can redo the new toe and finish it by tomorrow so that's more good news. By this time tomorrow I will have a new pair of socks to wear!

Nutkin Round 2

2011-01-10T18:44:00.000-05:00

So I did decide to go with finishing a pair of socks (can you believe I've only finished one pair after knitting all of these socks?). I'm making good progress on Nutkin 2.

I'm about halfway down the foot and I made it through the short row heel thanks to this tutorial that someone directed me to last time I whined about my Nutkin. The pictures and detailed instructions were great. I can't say that I'm a fan of this heel though. It's just so fiddly and even though I did it right I still think it's messy looking.

Messy messy! It won't be as gappy as the original sock, so that's nice but I'm not crazy about how it looks. I think the heel flap is much neater. Oh well, at least I'm getting another pair of socks under my belt. That is, unless I decide to rip up the first one and do it all over again the right way.

In other yarny related news, I got two luscious skeins of Malabrigo Silky Merino for Christmas. One in the Marruecos colorway and the other in Bobby Blue. What should I knit with them? Perhaps I'll consult my other Christmas gift Brave New Knits to see if it has any ideas. Whatever it is, it will need to be small, I've only got 300 yards to work with...

Happy New Year!

2011-01-04T14:04:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year Y'all! I'm sure most of you are being good little knitters and already working on your first projects for the new year. I'm not. I'm sort of moseying along with a Jane hat I started for myself over Christmas but I'm not fond of how it's fitting right now. It's kind of tight and I'm struggling with the realization it needs to be ripped and done again. The brim took AGES to knit and I just don't want to do it again so I'm sort of ignoring it.

Other than that I'm currently waffling on what I want to do next. Before Christmas I had this crazy urge to do a Honey Cowl but I don't have the right yarn for that. I'm also pondering casting on my Citron again but then there are those socks that are languishing in some random project bag with no partners. And of course the house needs a good cleaning since I slacked off on that totally over the holidays and there are Christmas presents that still need to be put away and I need to drag my happy ass back to the gym again after taking the holidays off. While that didn't cause me to gain that fabled Holiday weight, I don't want my slack ass ways to come back and bite me in the ass. So all of that naturally eats into knitting time.

That brings me back to my original dilemma...what to knit? I'm uninspired by the Jane right now. The pattern is nice and the yarn is lovely but I think I burnt myself out on hats over Christmas. Same with mittens. That leaves socks and shawls/scarves. I'm kind of poor so clearly I should knit with yarn I have in my stash. None of that seems suitable for a Honey Cowl so that rules that out for now. There are those socks that need partners. Maybe I'll actually finish up my Nutkins and really learn how to do the short roe heel/toe. But then there's the Citron...You know what...f it. I'll start the sock. What's the point of having one sock laying around? You can't wear it by itself! That's just silly.

In other news, here are a few of my knitting related resolutions.
1.) Average at least 1 FO per month.
2.) Teach myself a new technique with each FO. Whether that be a new stitch, way to hold my needs, finishing, blocking or method (2 at a time circs for example). Just something that will improve my skill.
3.) Do some sort of big project. A shawl or a sweater or blanket. Something nice and big.
4.) Knit Christmas stockings for me and Kevin for our first Christmas as a married couple.
5.) Finish my friend's Chthulu that I've neglected since last Christmas. I'm a bad, bad friend.

We'll see how far along I get with these goals. The biggest problem I forsee is just avoiding that knitting rut I got into last year. Especially since I do have a wedding to plan this year (which I am still fastidiously procrastinating on). I have a feeling that might throw a kink into my plans somewhere around August-September.

Torture in the form of lace weight yarn...

2010-12-22T11:53:00.000-05:00

So y'all remember the Citron I was working on last year? The Citron has loads of issues. I missed pattern repeats, had weird yarn snags and generally I didn't give it the attention it deserved. After the last mistake of cutting one of the pattern repeats short I just stuffed it into my yarn box to hangout in the naughty corner for awhile until I felt like dealing with it again. Well, it's that time again.

I pulled it out of the box the other night and studied on it and thought maybe I could thread a lifeline so I would only need to rip out the last pattern repeat. But the fact that it was lace weight and there were rows with increases and decreases and I couldn't tell which was which I quickly gave up on that thought. The fact that I couldn't even remember where I was in the pattern didn't really help much either. So with a heavy heart I frogged it. It was being knit with Malabrigo Lace so I wasn't about to let that languish in my yarn stash forever.

Once I finish my last hat for my Christmas knitting I may try again with the Citron in January and really give it the old college try. It's such a pretty little shawl and the yarn is a magnificent shade of blue. It must be knit, just not while riding the T in Boston.

Until then, I'm working on a cute honey comb pattern hat and I think I'll knit myself up a Star Cross Slouchy Beret or a Jane. In some Malabrigo worsted that I have sitting around pleading to be knit into something warm and cozy for myself. I also have plans to make Kevin a Christopher in Pats colors in January. So I've got plenty of plans for knitting and I don't think I'm going to lose any steam anytime soon. It's going to be a productive winter!

Minor Gripes

2010-12-15T10:51:00.000-05:00

So I'm normally the type of knitter that hates screwing up. I'm not talking about minor things like stitch counting being off by one or two since I can fudge that with making new stitches. Or even repeating a row too many. As long as it doesn't effect the over all look of the knitted item I leave it alone. But if there's an epic screw up like missing a pattern repeat or screwing up a heel gusset or anything that involved ripping out and starting over I usually just opt to throw the project into some dark corner and forget about it. I HATE do overs. It's strange, since I knit because I enjoy it you'd think that just reknitting the same project is the same as any other knitting but it's not. It just annoys me and makes me hate that project. I guess I'm more into the results rather than the process.

The point to this post is that I'm working on another pair of Bella's Mittens for one of my nieces (I don't like just giving gift cards as gifts so I'm knitting up some quick projects to add to the gift cards). I thought I was almost finished with my 2nd mitten last night. I had gotten as far as closing up the top and weaving in the ends and was ready to start the thumb. I tried it on just to make sure it fit and it was SHORT. Like a good two pattern repeats short. It was dwarf mitten compared to the first one. I have no idea how that happened or how I completely missed it when I was knitting it (and trying it on!). So I got annoyed and shoved it into my miscellaneous box of knitting and went to go wind up some yarn for the rest of my Christmas knitting.

I got through 3 skeins of cascade 220 (that's quickly becoming my go to worsted weight yarn, it's warm and comes in great colors and it's cheap!) and finally calmed down enough to look at the midget mitten again. I had to cheat and snip the top open because I couldn't figure out how to pull my yarn end out and then I had to rip back pretty much the entire hand to the thumb stitches after trying and failing to pick up my stitches 3 times without dropping any. I'm most of the way through the hand again, fortunately for me this is a super fast knit, but it still doesn't look completely right. I'm still not sure where I came up short so I'm adding an extra pattern repeat to make it long enough. If I'm unhappy with it after I finish it I might wind up keeping these for myself and just doing two hats cause I'll be damned if I'm going to reknit this stupid mitten a 3rd time. I'm not that dedicated.

I'm also trying to decide on what hat pattern I want to use. It'd be for a teenage girl. I don't think they're into berets but I could be wrong. I keep going back to the same patterns I've already done and it feels repetitive. I'm drawing a blank so I'm definitely open to suggestions. It needs to be for worsted weight and I've got 3 pretty bold colors to choose from.

In other news, I got my latest shipment yesterday from The Loopy Ewe and I'm an official Loopy Groupie. They sent me a neat little tote with a calendar, some free yarn and a sock pattern! They're probably my favorite place to order yarn from and have definitely cemented themselves as my go to online yarn shop. I highly recommend them to anyone!

Baby Knits

2010-12-12T09:40:00.000-05:00

I've got a friend having a baby at the beginning of the year. I knew I wanted to knit up something for her for the baby, but it kept getting pushed aside for Christmas knitting. Well she invited us out to dinner last night so when I got up in the morning I decided I wanted to have something to give her since I only get to see her every few weeks and wanted to make sure she got something before the baby came. I cast on for the hat around 10:00am yesterday and around 5:15pm I finished up the last mitten. I was a knitting machine yesterday. Though I did manage to go to the gym and color my hair too. All in all, a good Saturday.

The hat is Cabled Baby Hat and the mittens are just Baby Mitts. Anna might wind up being the recipient of all sorts of neat baby things in the future now that I know just how quick baby stuff is to knit. It's perfect for getting that instant gratification feeling and for getting a knitting fix when I'm not really interested in diving into something complicated or time consuming.

Elizabeth

2010-12-09T20:17:00.000-05:00

Elizabeth is done.

The yarn I knit it with isn't as drapey as the yarn in the pattern but it is warm and cozy. I did it one repeat short, I got impatient, but I like it fine as is. This one will probably be a keeper for me.

Now I'm stuck. I really want to cast on for another hat, but the yarn I want to use is yarn I want to keep for myself but I feel like I should keep knitting things to give away but I can't really think of anything to give to anyone I haven't knit for that would appreciate it. I could knit something for Mom, but I've already given her a hat and mittens and I don't really have the patience for a scarf.

Decisions, decisions.

Pictures!

2010-12-08T19:16:00.000-05:00

Pictures! Proof that I really have been knitting all of these things I've said I knit! First up, Bella's Mittens. I mostly did this pattern because I had this yarn and wasn't quite sure what it would look good as. I didn't think it'd work as a hat, it needed to be smaller. So I did mittens. I basically did the pattern as written but I had to add a few extra repeats of the horse shoe cable to make them long enough for my hands since I was using smaller yarn.

If you look closely you can probably tell that I knit one longer than the other. It was the second mitten and I'm not exactly sure where I went wrong but somehow it came out maybe about a half inch longer. Nobody but me really notices though.

Second up, Hermione's Cable and Eyelet Hat. This is probably for Kev's Mom. It's really, really cozy. I definitely want to make one for myself at some point.

After finishing this up last night I cast on for Elizabeth. I bought some Lion Brand Alpine Wool bulky yarn at Joanne's the other day with a gift card I got last Christmas. It was more or less the only yarn there that tripped my trigger. I thought of making Shroom with that but I think I'd really like to have some Spud and Chole Outer to knit that with. But Elizabeth is going swimmingly. I'm about a 1/3 of the way through it right now. Bulky Yarn + Hats = Instant Gratification. (I'm thinking part of the reason I got so burned out was small yarn + tedious socks = OMG I don't want to knit!) I know, I love having handmade socks. And I'm proud of them. But I can't get over my need for instant gratification. I'll have to learn how to stagger my projects better.

Pictures of the other mittens and Star Crossed will come after Christmas once they've made it to their rightful owners.

Fin!

2010-12-07T20:44:00.000-05:00

I finished Hermione's Cable hat. It fits my head beautifully! It actually covers my ears completely which is a nice change considering I suffer from a severe case of short hat syndrome.

I think this will be Kev's Mom's present, but I'm still undecided. I've got yarn that's calling to be made into a hat and if I can find the right pattern and whip another one up she might get it.

Either way, I think I'll be making one of these for myself in some lovely purple Cascade I got in my last shipment from the Loopy Ewe.

I'm on fire.

2010-12-05T22:11:00.000-05:00

Seriously y'all, there's smoke comin' off my needles. Since my last update I've finished the Bella Mittens, a Star Crossed Slouchy Beret (in some luscious Malabrigo) and I'm halfway through Hermione's Cable & Eyelet Hat (and I just cast on for that hat today!). My hands are actually starting to cramp up a little from all this knitting. But Christmas is coming soon and there's no rest for the procrastinator.

I've decided to keep the mittens, and I know who the Star Crossed is going to, but I'm undecided on Hermione's hat. I was going to give it to Kev's Mom, but he made a fuss about how she asked for a matching hat for her mittens. I don't have enough yarn to do a matching hat, so I was doing a beige one that sort of goes with the roving I used for the thrum's in her mittens but now I have my doubts. I could order some more yarn to make the hat. But beige is a neutral and goes with anything... Thoughts? Stories? Good jokes?

If Hermione's hat doesn't go to Kev's Mom then I might give it to one of my nieces. It's cute, right? Teenage girls like Harry Potter, yeah? Anyway, I've enjoyed this knitting I've been getting done. It's nice to be motivated and inspired again. I did take some pictures but I'm not sure how many will get posted before Christmas. Can't be giving away too many secrets!

Confession...

2010-11-27T00:23:00.000-05:00

I have a small confession to make. Tonight I FINALLY got around to learning how to do the magic loop. I was always intimidated by 2-circs and magic loop. It just seemed so complicated and fiddly with all those loops and cables (and yet somehow I never flinched at DPNs). Honestly, magic loop isn't bad at all! I don't mind it and may start doing it more frequently. I don't get the DPN stabbing me in the palm pain or ladders. That sounds like a win-win to me.

Also, I did finally finish those mittens. There may or may not be pictures to come. I'm not entirely sure if the intended recipient of them reads this blog or not.

I've started a new pair of mittens (the new magic loop project). They're the Bella's Mittens (ravelry link). Not that I have any interested in Twilight but I like the look of them and they're for a niece and most teenage girls are into that sort of thing so hopefully they'll be appreciated. I'm working on these since I had to order yarn for my other present ideas and it'll be a few more days before that gets in. Maybe I'll actually work on these at a reasonable rate and get 'em finished for Christmas.

Neglect

2010-11-10T16:03:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry. I'm a lousy blogger and a lousy knitter. I'm a total slack ass about updating and keeping up with my knitting. And I haven't even paid any attention to you guys either! My apologies!

Basically all I've accomplished in the past month is one thrummed mitten. ONE. Maybe at this rate I'll finish the pair before Christmas. I'm just lacking the excitement that I had last winter and I can't quite figure out why. It's not even like the wedding planning has completely over taken my brain. I'm stalled on that too as I am unable to make decisions about anything.

So basically there's a whole lotta nothin' going on in my neck of the woods.

Ugly toes!

2010-10-10T17:51:00.000-04:00

I realized I promised pictures of my ugly toes like...oh 5 days ago but I'm lazy so here they are now. I haven't fully decided exactly what I'm going to do about this sock yet. Knit sock two and figure out how to do it right then come back? Go ahead and rip this one up and redo it? Frogging still terrifies me a bit so I'm hesitant do jump right into it but one way or another it will need to be done. The toe on this thing is AWFUL. And the heel is holey. And not the good kind of holey either.

I haven't been completely unproductive. I did start a pair of thrummed mittens as my first Christmas project. I'm about halfway through the first mitten and it's coming along swimmingly. It is kind of hard to knit a mitten when it's still 80 degrees here in VA. Dude, seriously, the weather has no idea what it's doing anymore.

Back into the swing of things...

2010-10-05T11:23:00.000-04:00

Alright, so my brain has finally slowed down on Wedding Mode. We have a venue selected and I'm putting the deposit down on the photographer today. Those were the two things that mattered most to me so now that they're taken care of I can not obsess quite so much over wedding stuff. (though I do enjoy looking at pretty dresses!)

I picked up my Nutkin last night and finished off the toe but I have to say, I'm not very happy with it. I'll take pictures of it today when I get home and the lighting is better. It's a square looking toe and it's kind of gappy where I did the short row toe. And the 3 needle bind off just looks weird. I'll watch a few videos to see what may have went wrong but I think I'll knit the second sock and use the usual heel/toe method that I'm used to and then go back and fix the first sock. Overall I do like the sock, the body is nice and the pattern was easy to remember. I'm just not satisfied with the heel and toe.

Also, I'm considering knitting myself a cute little shrug for my wedding. It's in September but at the top of the mountain so I anticipate it getting chilly in the evening once the sun goes down. Right now the top contender is the Dream in Color shrug (ravelry link). If anyone else has any nice suggestions I'm all ears!

Distractions...

2010-09-22T16:41:00.000-04:00

Sorry I got quiet again guys. I was on quite the knitting kick, tearing through my first Nutkin and back on ravelry browsing for more knitting patterns and ideas for Christmas knitting. But something happened that got me right back off track and my mind is preoccupied...My boyfriend and I went on vacation and...

He proposed!

Iiiieeeeeee!! *squee*

So now I am currently obsessed with wedding thoughts and ideas. My poor sock is still missing a toe. But I'm hung up on the short row toe anyway. My heel came out holey and my toe is having the same problem and I'm not a big fan of it. Any suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong? I may find the will power to tear myself away from etsy and the knot long enough to finish the toe if anybody has any suggestions.

I'm getting married guys! September 17th, 2011!:)

Short row heel?

2010-08-29T10:46:00.000-04:00

So the Nutkins have something new that I haven't encountered yet. The short row heel. I'm following the pattern but I think I keep screwing up the yos on the purl rows. It kind of looks like a hot mess right now but I'll keep going with it and hope that it starts to make sense soon.

See, don't these stitches look so...wack?

I'm not sure how this technique is better than the usual way heels are done but I'll stick with it until the end just in case I wind up liking it more. I think the toe is going to be short row too so no grafting at the end! I was just finally getting the hang of that too.

I may actually get this sock done in the next week or so, which is like some sort of record for me and sock knitting. Nice.

Nutkin Pt 1

2010-08-27T14:32:00.000-04:00

So the Nutkins are coming along swimmingly! I'm really loving this pattern. I love that it's simple and easy to memorize. I don't have any problems putting it down and then picking it back up again. I can always tell where I am in the pattern. I love it when stitches are easy to read like that. I love the red color of this yarn. It makes me think of candy apples and cherries and suckers. I love the fact that I've knit this much of the first so and I've been working on it for less than a week. It took me like 3 months to do this much of the Hedera's. I think I'm discovering more of my pattern preferences when it comes to knitting. I really don't dig complicated patterns that require concentration. I don't like yoing after purling. I like simple patterns with minor interesting details in them to keep them from being a total stockinette snoozefest. But just a few details so I can still watch Psych and Project Runway without messing things up.

The only thing I wasn't a big fan of was the folding over of the cuff and knitting it together. I'm not exactly sure what the point of that was.

Anyway, yay! I'm knitting again!

Finished Hedera

2010-08-23T19:06:00.000-04:00

Here is the finished product.

I'm still not in love with it. Maybe it will grow on me while I work on a pair of Nutkins in the meantime. It took me a while to pick a new project. I really debated on doing a shawl or a new pair of socks. In the end socks won, but if I'm not digging it once I really get into the pattern then I'll start something else to hopefully keep the mojo going.

Finished!

2010-08-21T21:02:00.000-04:00

OMG y'all, you won't believe it! I finally finished my Hedera sock. It only took 7 months to complete! Unfortunately I don't really think I enjoyed the pattern that much over all and I'm not sure if I'm crazy about how it looks so I don't know if I will do the mate yet. I'm seriously considering doing a second Spring Forward pair because I love those socks and that pattern was wicked fun. Now that fall is creeping ever so closer my knitting mojo is finally coming back.

I did make a sad discovery though. My previous sock I finished, Synesthesia has a hole in it in the soul of the foot. I have no idea how to deal with that atm. Boo. :(

Pictures to come tomorrow when it's daylight and I can get some decent lighting.

Not dead yet...

2010-07-22T11:12:00.000-04:00

I'm not dead yet. Just still on a knitting hiatus thanks to my seasonal hobby switch. My poor sock is still 2/3 of the way finished (and just the first one!) and I just can't bring myself to knit right now. I do need to get on it soon though. Kev's sister's birthday is coming up in September and she requested a pair of thrummed mittens like I made for their Mum. I figure I might as well get them out of the way for her birthday instead of Christmas so she can actually enjoy them when it starts getting cold up there (which it does way sooner than down here). Maybe I'll get crazy and start working on those next month. Mittens (made with worsted weight yarn) work up wicked fast and can feed my instant gratification need.

Until then I'm reading Un Lun Dun by China Mieville. It's a children's book but it's a very quirky, fun, easy read. I got bored by his Iron Council. Way too political and it just drags on and on. Not his best work in my opinion which is a shame since I adored Perdido Street Station and The Scar.

So that's what is up here. I promise, I will get back to knitting eventually!

Totally not knitting related....

2010-06-09T15:52:00.000-04:00

But I don't think you guys will mind.

What's been going on you ask? Why have you been too busy to knit? Why are their no updates on that one sock you've been working on since like January?

Well, to answer your questions, I will post a picture.

Meet Gracie.

She's my new kitten!

Kevin and I adopted her this past weekend from the local SPCA shelter.

She's 3 months old and enjoys running around the house like a bat out of hell, playing with the dangling rope toy, pestering Jack and Mischief into being friends and taking turns sleeping on mine and Kevin's heads at night.

She also is fascinated by my knitting and has taken to trying to "help" me with the yarn when I'm working. This slows me down significantly (and it's not like I'm very fast to begin with!).

We're not completely settled on the name Gracie. It's the name she came with from the shelter. We're contemplating other options but haven't decided what we like best yet. It's between Willow, Neko, and V(iolet) right now. (Her face looks like the Guy Fawks mask from V for Vendetta) Or we could just keep it as Gracie. We'll see.

So I hope you can forgive my lack of knitting updates (and book updates. Kittens are much cuter than books.). Enjoy the pictures!:)

Summer hobby switch...

2010-06-02T16:56:00.000-04:00

Dang, it's been over a month since I last blogged! I feel like such a slacker. I promise I haven't given up knitting completely. I've got my Hedera sock that I'm limping along with, maybe an hour here and there through the week. It's about 2/3 of the way through and looks nice so far. I've mostly put my knitting needles down though and started reading again. I seem to switch my hobbies when the weather changes. Knitting for fall/winter and reading for the summer. I'll update once I finish the sock, but don't expect it to be anytime soon.;)

On the other hand if you want to know about the books I've been reading I can tell you all about a pig's orgasm. (Reading Bonk, by Mary Roach)

Synesthesia pictures

2010-04-25T12:31:00.000-04:00

Here are the pictures I promised and proof that I have indeed been knitting (sparingly, but still knitting).

I haven't decided if I want to go ahead and cast on for the second sock yet. I did find this pattern a little tedious after awhile. I don't think it helped that this yarn is closer to lace weight than fingering weight and takes FOREVER to work up into anything. I may go back to the blue socks I was working on during the Olympics for a change of pace.

The Citron is still living in the naughty corner. I think I just need to start over on it completely but the thought of frogging a couple hundred yards of lace weight yarn is really daunting. Ugh.

6 months to knit a sock?

2010-04-24T20:08:00.000-04:00

That's a reasonable pace, right?

I finally finished my first Synesthesia sock. Pictures to come tomorrow when I have some natural light (I always finish when it gets dark!). I do my best knitting when binging on Dexter.

Arg.

2010-04-05T22:43:00.000-04:00

So after looking at my Citron a bit more closely, something definitely seems off on my section 5. I'm now at the point of either needing to rip out about 6-7 rows or just have two 'bunched' sections spaced a lot closer together than all of the other bunched sections. If I can't even manage to knit this simple shawl without screwing it up, there's no hope for me to do lace.

I do think Citron is going to hang out in the naughty pile for awhile and I'll bring out some of the socks I had been working on. That seems to be more my speed (and it's much less painful when I need to go back a few rows).

Citron Part fourhundredeleventymillion

2010-03-30T10:24:00.000-04:00

Ok, I'm still working on the Citron. I'm up to section 5 now, so there really isn't much left to do, but now that I'm at like 400+ stitches (or something like that, I can't bear to count that high) it takes ages to do like one row. Even more so if it's a purl row. I keep screwing the pattern up too with the increases so I know my stitch count is off but I can't really be arsed to rip it out and fix it. Not when it takes like a half hour for me to do a row. It still looks more or less the same as the picture so I'm even less inclined to fix it.

I only get snatches of time here and there to knit so that's the only project I'm really working on right now. I pick it up during 24 and get a row or two done. Then maybe I'll take it outside for a few minutes when Kev is brewing on the weekend and work on a row. I'm the type that hates to put a project down midrow too so I usually only work on it when I know I have a decent chunk of free time.

I'm concerned about the size of it though. It still seems rather small even though I'm on section 5. My ball is getting small, but I've probably got 1 or 2 hundred yards left to work with so I can finish it but it may be tiny. I guess I'll finally get to try some blocking magic once it's done.

Hopefully once my class is done this semester I'll have more time to knit and be inspired. Though I am taking on a few spring time projects (scraping, cleaning and repainting the bathroom walls and ceiling) and starting a container garden for fresh herbs and vegetables.

So that's all I have going on now. Eventually, one day, maybe, this Citron will get finished. It does discourage me a bit from thinking about tackling a larger shawl. Maybe I am meant to stick with just sock knitting.

Knitting lull...

2010-03-16T15:58:00.000-04:00

I worked through the mess that I created in my Citron. I think it was just a stitch that was pulled really taunt that created one big loop. It's still a little messy looking there but not so much that I care enough to rip it out and redo it.

But I haven't worked on it much lately. I've had a lot of outside forces taking me away from my knitting time. My Dad had a mild heart attack last week so I was distracted then. There was a movie night out with friends. Mom and my niece came up for a visit and didn't leave me much free time this weekend.

Then my poor, dear cat Frodo was hit by a car on Sunday and I had to put him down last night. I spent Sunday night and all day yesterday torn to pieces and trying to hold myself together while trying to figure out what to do for him. I feel kind of silly being so upset over the loss of a cat, but Frodo was pretty special. He was the nicest cat I've ever known, and he never met a stranger. He loved people and he loved being the center of attention. He was friendly and playful and enjoyed playing with children. He tolerated being held and carried around in all sorts of crazy manners. He slept at my feet every night and drank the milk out of my cereal bowl. He was just a fantastically awesome cat.

I've got loads of homework to do today that I put off during all of this and then there's class tomorrow night so knitting will still have to wait a bit before I can get back to it. Which is ok, I guess. I'm still having a hard time feeling inspired by anything.

The perils of urban knitting.

2010-03-09T20:17:00.000-05:00

So Kevin and I went to Boston for a long weekend. Just a quick trip up to visit his family and see my friend Manda (and I didn't even get to see her in her scarf! Stupid warm weather!).

I decided to get in some urban knitting on my T ride into the city. I took the Citron since it's basic and straight stockinette right now. Things went swell until my needle came unscrewed a little from the cable and my stitches got caught in the thread. I tried getting it unstuck and screwed back in but there was a snag I had trouble getting loose. I was left with this mess once I got it all cleared up.

Honestly, I don't know what that is or how it happened. It almost looks like a stitch that was pulled super tight and now has a lot of slack on top. I'm concerned and worried this is going to cause a massive frogging of the Citron.

Arg.

I'm swearing off urban knitting.

Many projects = little progress

2010-03-01T15:41:00.000-05:00

The problem with working on a lot of different projects is that all of your progress is spread out in a bunch of different directions making it hard to judge and keep track of (it also makes for very boring photographs). I'm most of the way through section 3 of my Citron. I'm halfway down the leg of my first Hedera sock. I gave up on the Riply and just started making a striped beanie instead. That's 3/4 of the way finished. I've even worked on my poor little neglected brown sock and it's halfway down my foot now. I tried it on the other night. I'm not sure if I love it. So that has me stymied.

I'm feeling uninspired still and not very motivated to knit much. I may get in a hour or so most days, and I'm a slow knitter so I don't see much progress in that time. I think the biggest problem is that I'm not knitting With A Purpose like I was for Christmas gifts. Therefore I tend to slack off and get distracted and start lots of little projects. I need to Focus Danielsan.

I need some sort of Instant Gratification project that is also challenging and interesting. The hat I started was supposed to be IG, but it's boring (stockinette w/stripes. Blah!). Things take so long in fingering so even small projects like socks take forever. I need something small but in worsted weight that will work up quickly and give me something to show off to people. Any ideas?

Citron complications.

2010-02-22T19:37:00.000-05:00

So I got my Knit Picks Options last week. I was so excited to slip the Citron over to them and start working on it I screwed up my pattern. The slipping was fine. Starting section 3 was great. The Citron slides around smoothly on the cable, no snags, no bunches. The needles are a little slick, I prefer mine to have a bit of grippyness to them, but overall they're great. And it comes with TWO 24" cables and TWO 32" cables so I still have extra cables laying about if I want to cast on something else if I get bored. Yay.

But anyway, back to the Citron. I started section 3. I did the increases for row 1. Then I did row 2 in pattern. Then I did the k2tog row and then did another row in pattern and then I realized that I skipped...oh about 5 pattern rows that come before the k2tog row. Doh! (Actually in my brain it was more 'shitshitfuckcockersuckermotherfucker') I thought I was epically screwed. I couldn't unknit a row of k2tog! I really didn't want to frog the whole thing. That's a lot of work with little tiny yarn! Then I remembered those little thing called lifelines. I'm not sure what kind of pansy ass would need to do a lifeline on a project like Citron, but apparently that pansy ass would be me. I took my next smallest needle from the options (the smallest needle left in the set) my second 24 cable (yay for two cables!) and carefully tried to pick up what I thought were the stitches from the original increase row for section 3. Approximately 3 rows down. It wasn't pretty, and the frogging of those 3 rows resulted in broken yarn at least once. But it was done and pretty close to the actual stitch count (I.E. Good Enough).

That row isn't quite as pretty as I'd like it to be now, but once the whole thing is finished I doubt it'll be that noticeable. And I learned how to fix a stupid mistake that I would've easily thrown across the room in frustration before. I think that's called Growing Up.

So I've got that going on, and I started another pair of socks (I don't know why, I was just bored and wanted to cast on for something while waiting on the options). They are Hedera socks. I'm not entirely convinced that the socks look like the ones in the picture, but it's hard to tell as I'm knitting them with the midnight blue knit pick's gloss yarn. I know I'm doing the pattern right, it just looks...different. I'm not even sure I love the pattern. It's interesting but the Love At First Sight feeling isn't there like it was with the Spring Forward socks. Maybe they'll wind up being a gift in the future. That is if they ever get finished. I've only got oh...4 projects going right now.

I'm still trying to do a Ripley. I did the lace band version, but I can't quite figure out the picking up stitches then turning it into a hat. I keep winding up with purls on the outside. It's not a hard pattern but it's frustrating the crap out of me. I just want a cute hat dang it.

So that's what's going on in my world. Lots of little progress on lots of little projects. I think it'll be awhile before I have a FO to brag about.

Knitting block

2010-02-15T20:10:00.000-05:00

I'm having a knitting block. I've got two projects going right now. The Citron and some socks. I'm on a pause on the Citron right now until my knit picks options show up. I'm not enjoying knitting it on my denise needles so I want the smoother feel of the options and hopefully a thinner cable that will make my yarn catch less. I'm not feeling the socks right now. I kept casting on for different projects yesterday. I wanted a hat. Something quick and easy. I cast on for a ripley using my purple/green malabrigo worsted. Unfortunately it looked like dinosaur vomit. So I scrapped that. Then I cast on using my sandy cascade 220. But I think the needles are too big for the cascade and it looks too...airy. So then I worked on a hat from the boutique knits book I started like, ages ago. But that is just going too slow and I'm not making any progress there. I want some socks but I couldn't decide on a pattern. I want a hat, but I need the right sized needles. I want to work on my Citron but I need my new options.

I'm feeling so uninspired. Blah!

It's almost enough to make me miss the Peak Island.

She likes it!

2010-02-15T14:18:00.002-05:00

Manda modeling her new scarf. She seems to like it.

Peak Island Hood Pictures

2010-02-10T17:37:00.000-05:00

Photographic proof of completeness.

Just an idea of how long it is.

Get a load of all that f'n seed stitch.

Finished!

2010-02-10T15:29:00.000-05:00

I finished and blocked the Peak Island Monday night. It's definitely cozy and warm. I tried a few different ways wearing it but couldn't really settle on the best place to put the buttons on. So I'm gonna send them to Manda with the scarf, let her figure out how she likes to wear it best then she can put the buttons where they work for her. The beast has finally been slain! I was going to stick it in the mail today on my lunch break but then realized I hadn't taken any pictures! So sorry Manda, it'll have to wait until I take a few quick pictures for posterity's sake.:)

The Citron is going along quite nicely right now. I'm not too far into it yet since I've had like 6 hours of homework to do and I've been furiously working on the Peak Island, trying to get it finished. I've only finished the first section and am 3 or 4 rows into the second. I am LOVING this Malabrigo lace. It's SO soft. I imagine once it's finished it will be my go to wrap/scarf for pretty much everything (I never match my accessories to what I'm wearing. Or to each other really. Today I'm wearing a blue scarf, purple hat and pink gloves.). If I had more patience I would knit a sweater with it. It's just that wonderful. I'm not really enjoying knitting it on my denise interchangeables though. The yarn keeps getting stuck at the join. I'm tempted to order some knit picks circs in 24" just to make the process that much nicer. I've been eyeing their harmony interchangeables lately but $70 is a lot to part with at the moment...

Pictures tonight! Promise!

Quick update on the Peak Island Hood

2010-02-08T14:38:00.000-05:00

I officially have 15 rows left to do on the Peak Island Hood. Then I am D-O-N-E. Well...there are buttons to be sewn on. But then I am D-O-N-E. Well...I should probably block it. But after THAT I am DONE! Really and truly done! I may have to put off doing homework tonight just to finish this darn thing off so I won't have to worry about it anymore and can start on a new project (who am I kidding? I already started a Citron!).

So be on the look out for pictures within the next few days. Oh I'm so excited, it's almost over!

Lace weight vs Fingering Weight

2010-02-05T12:24:00.000-05:00

I've never really thought that fingering weight was a very thick yarn. And it's not. Really. But when you wind 470 yards of lace weight yarn by hand and then turn around and wind up 420 yards of fingering weight by hand it sure does feel a lot heavier!

Just take a look at this picture for comparison.

The blue ball actually is 470 yards. The red ball is 420. But the red ball is much bigger and it wound up so much faster (probably just as fast as worsted).

Even Jack finds the discrepency curious.

And I'm toying with starting a shawlette in the lace today. God, people who work w/lace must be completely crazy.

Thorpe V 2.0

2010-02-01T11:44:00.000-05:00

I decided since I was snow bound this weekend I wanted an instant gratification project. You know, for sanity's sake and all. I wanted a hat, and I had some yummy purple Malabrigo to use so I spent late Friday evening browsing through hat patterns trying to settle on one. I almost made an Amanda hat. And I was tempted by the Star Crossed Beret but I didn't have the right needles for it. I kind of wanted a Koolhaas but that totally doesn't seem like an instant gratification project at all. After all that I just settled on making myself a Thrope. I wanted a warm hat (my Odessa doesn't cover my ears and my Divine hat is kind of drafty) and I wanted something that I knew I could finish fast enough to wear while the snow was still around and Thrope just totally fit the bill. I started it late yesterday morning and finished the second ear flap late last night (I would've had it done by 7ish but we had plans for dinner at a friend's place). I did the trim and braids this morning just to finish it off.

My dear friend Chris modeling my hat for me.

The colors are a bit twee and more suitable for a 12 year old girl, but I don't really care. It's adorable and warm and that makes me happy.

I love the purple. The striping is subtle but interesting.

You can see the spot where I joined the new yarn in garter stitch and doubled it a bit is a hot mess. I made the large size since the yarn I used was thinner than what was called for in the pattern. That worked out nicely. It's pretty much the perfect size and my ears are no longer cold.

General consensus is that it needs a ball on top. Maybe I'll get around to adding one to it this week just to finish the look.

OMG Y'all!

2010-01-25T22:16:00.000-05:00

I need this yarn. Like, seriously.

Zombie BBQ? That yarn was made for me!

Free yarn!

2010-01-25T14:32:00.000-05:00

There are few things I love more than getting free yarn. My lovely boyfriend gave me a $25 gift certificate to the Loopy Ewe for my birthday on Thursday. I just picked out what I wanted and I'm pretty excited about my purchase.

I got a hank of Cherry Tree Hill Fingering Semi-solid in Cherry (on sale for $12! w00t!) and a hank of Malabrigo lace in Taureg.

I'm definitely thinking I may make a Citron with the Malabrigo. That blue is just gorgeous and I think I'd just look smashing with it next to my face with my blue eyes and red hair. Not sure what I'll do with the Cherry Tree Hill. Maybe a pair of Monkeys? That would be awfully fun. I just couldn't pass it up at that price and I don't have any red yarn to speak of.

I also recently purchased some Malabrigo worsted from the Loopy Ewe. I'll post pictures of that as soon as I wind it into balls. Still no ball winder thanks to Joanne's website being ultra stupid. Grr.

I did knit a fair amount on Manda's scarf last night while watching the new Star Trek movie. I knit through the whole thing, only taking a brief break for cake. I still didn't get entirely through the hood portion but at least it was progress.

Just a quick progress update.

2010-01-18T14:02:00.001-05:00

Guess what I'm still working on? Yup, that's right, Manda's Peak Island Hood Scarf. Yes, still. But I feel like I'm making some progress. I took some pictures just to show yes I am working on it!

I've got through the hood increases. Now I'm working on the length of the hood before doing the decreases and finishing the body.

I can tell it's going to be seriously warm and cozy. My Mom liked it and said "Oh you can make me one when you're finished!". Ha. Yeah, I laughed. I'm never doing an all seed stitch project ever again. I could perhaps see doing this one in straight garter stitch and just following the method for the hood increases. That would make it go by a lot faster. But now I've learned my lesson about seed stitch.

I've also picked up my poor neglected sock that I started before Christmas. I turned the heel and I am now decreasing the gusset. I'm only working on it when I can't handle the thought of another row in seed stitch, just as a monotony breaker.

I'm still loving how colorful this yarn is for a brown and can't wait to wear these socks.

So there you go! Sorry for not having much to update about, but I don't want to keep boring you guys with all the whining about seed stitch. I did want to post though so you wouldn't think I had ditched this blog for the food blog (seems as though my meals have been way more interesting than my knitting lately).

Only moderately related to knitting.

2010-01-12T11:09:00.001-05:00

And by moderately, I mean not at all.

I just wanted to post a link to another blog I've started. It's a dedicated food blog that I've decided to start now that I'm experimenting more with food and branching out trying new recipes. I just figured I'd share it here in case any of you guys are into food too.

http://booandmae.blogspot.com/

Don't worry, I'll still blog my knitting! Still slowly trudging away at Manda's hood scarf. Halfway through the hood now. A scarf really shouldn't take this long but I swear when I'm working in seed stitch I'm only getting like 2 pattern repeats done in an hour!

Finally finished a project!

2010-01-10T08:51:00.000-05:00

Alright, I finally finished a project despite my winter blahs. I worked on the Thorpe yesterday afternoon so I could finally give it to my friend Mike after promising him an ear flap hat, oh, say 3 months ago? I was worried as I was making that it was going to be way too big. And the problem with knitting top down is you can't try the hat on as you go if you're using 16" circs.

It is a very easy and quick knit. I got a little confused towards the end when switching from working in a circle to going back and forth but I just worked through the pattern and it turned out ok. It took most of a ball of Knit Pick's Wool of the Andes bulky weight.

And of course there are pictures.

It was a wee bit too big on me so I was worried at first.

But no worries. It fits Mike just fine!

My only problem is now Kevin wants an earflap hat. He was totes jealous of Mike's hat. Arg!

Winter blahs kicking in...

2010-01-06T11:03:00.000-05:00

I didn't knit at all yesterday. Not one stitch. I'm not even sure I knit anything the day before either.

Must not let lethargic tendencies take over. Must keep knitting. Have scarf to finish. Still need to add wings to Cthulu! (First, figured out how to crochet again!)

I'm such a slacker!