There's nothing magic about Judy.

This my friends, is a picture of success.

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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!

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.

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

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

Today's photo challenge is shoes.

I love my toms. They are so incredibly comfortable.

Orchid Thief FO Pictures

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

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.