The Adventures of Traveling Ann

If you love it so much, why don't you knit it?

2012-01-21T20:13:00.000-05:00

This is something I've been wondering lately as the new year has arrived.

It's not really a stash-busting impulse, but I suppose it can be viewed that way.

I've just been thinking of all the lovely yarn in my hoard.

I go to local yarn stores and I go to fiber festivals and I see yarn that I just can't live without.
That yarn comes home with me and then proceeds to languish in the dining room credenza.

Feeling alone and unloved. Well, alone except for the all the other languishing yarn.

Lucy Neatby uses the slogan "make your yarn happy, knit it." And I remember my mom saying about various things as I was growing up that it was "their life's ambition" to be used in the way they meant. (This could apply to anything from a doughnut wanting to be eaten to nice shoes wanting to be worn).

Love and UFOs

There is supposed to be a coorelation.

You hear knitters and crocheters all the time talking about getting bored with their current WIP and wanting to start something new and they don't know why.

The consensus is that if you really love the yarn and the pattern this won't happen. And when it does happen, people usually say you must have learned what you need to from that pattern and are ready to move on.

This phenomenon is partly behind my impulse to knit small projects this year so I can finish them. But, really, I just want to finish things.

But then I thought if I use some of these yarns in my hoard that I'm so in love with maybe that boredome won't set in.

On the other hand maybe what I need to be doing is sticking with mindless projects I don't have to focus on.

After all, look how quickly I finished the Electric Bunny Sweater.

Drawing the Line
This was all going through my head as I was finishing the Electric Bunny Sweater and beginning to contemplate my next project.

Should I try to finsh on of my WIPs that was approaching UFO status? Or should I use one of my "precious" yarns that I just had to have at the time? If those yarns were so compelling, why was I avoiding them?

And I decided to go for it.

The first weekend in December Hubby and I went to Portland, Maine.

He was taking a wine appreciation class so was locked away all day. I was along for the ride and ran loose in the Old Port area of the city. I was able to track down three yarn stores to visit.

Including Tess' Designer Yarns. Now back in, oh, 2005, Cynthia gave me a hank of Tess' hand painted silk...which I haven't knit up yet. Just terrible. See what I'm talking about? These poor neglected yarns.

Anyway.

She does lovely stuff and I came home with a hank of Kitten, a 65% Cashmere, 35% Silk blend that is just to die for and cost a pretty penny to boot.

I brought it home and tossed it in the dining room credenza to join all the other precious, expensive yarn I don't actually use.

But when the Electric Bunny Sweater was finished I said, "Enough!" and I got out the Kitten. And I told myself I would not complicate things. I would not find a pattern with lace or cables or something else that would slow down my progress.

I would just knit the damn yarn. And then I would wear it. And the ownership of it would be justified.

Random Scarf
So I present to you the Random Scarf. Eleven days from start to finish. It would have been less if I didn't have a couple false starts.

First I cast on 100 sts and decided it didn't look good and was too short. That was fairly annoying because I'd done a knitted cast on, which took forever, because I didn't want to guess for a long tail.

Then I accidentally cast on 50 sts and decided that was too wide and would get annoying.

Finally I cast on 400 sts (I was aiming for 300, but decided to use the entire tail because I wasn't doing another dang knitted cast on).

Then I just knit. I alternated stockinette with reverse stockinette and drop stitches and I didn't sweat it.

It also would have been finished sooner if the cast off hadn't taken two or three days.

The end of the yarn was approaching as I was working a double wrap row. I decided to listen to the frantic little voice that kept saying, "You aren't going to make it!" and picked it out.

I knit a regular row and started casting off. The frantic little voice came back and got all smug when I ran out of yarn half way through.

Do you know how much of a pain picking out a cast off is? Then I had to unpick the last row to have enough yarn.

Finally I cast off using one size larger needles, but it still came out a little tight. All the ladies in Library knitting said to blow it off, so I did. Since I was supposed to be relaxed about it.

I ended up with more leftover yarn than I expected since I'd run out before. I couldn't bring myself to clip it off so I worked a crab stitch with it along the cast off end. Only made it about half way, but noone whould be close enough to my scarf to know that but me!

Anyway. It was pretty cool to not only use up some precious yarn so quickly but to actually finish a scarf. (Scarves usually bore me to tears.)

I'm on to my next precious yarn. I was thinking of using the Maple Creek Farm Fredricksburg that I'd bought at Rhinebeck in 2010 and have actually used to cast on a sweater. But the Merino/Silk blend I bought at Ellen's Half Pint Farm during the 2011 New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival has been calling my name since it joined the family.

So I'm going to go for the Spring Pansy. My reasoning is that the NHSW is in May, which is right around the corner, while Rhinebeck is in October.

After all, I'll have to prioritize these lovely yarns somehow.

A Lack Of Tact

2012-01-03T07:34:00.000-05:00

Not all knit and crochet patterns can be free!

If they were all free then designers would get other jobs because they couldn't pay their bills and then where would we all be?!

Phew. Sorry. Third post in my attempt to start blogging again and I go with a rant. But I just had to get that off my mind.

It's a debate that has been held before and will be held again and I probably won't add anything new to the conversation, but I think it's stuff that needs to be said.

I don't know if it's that our society has developed a culture of entitlement that causes people to not want to pay for thing or respect other people's efforts.

Or if the internet is to blame because people expect things on the internet to be free and they aren't.

Or if people are just spoiled brats.

But this expectation that all patterns are going to be free really gets on my nerves sometimes. And the annoyance builds up and eventually boils over.

I could bitch to Hubby about it, and he would listen, but I'm not sure how much he'd truly understand my complaint, so it's not very satisfying.

And I can't always say it to the people pissing me off for a variety of reasons.

Mainly because I'm annoyed enough to say it I won't say it politely.

That would be bad because I don't want to get into a debate with them because chances are they'll be closed minded and not willing to listen to reason (no, that isn't kind and is a sweeping generalization, but it shows you how annoyed I am that I'm being closed minded myself.).

And, of course, when you aren't polite you end up alienating people and that is contrary to all of my goals.

So I keep it bottled up and end up waking up at 3 am because it's just one more thing on my mind then I remember I have a blog, which is my personal opinion and a bully pulpit and I can declare...

Not all knit and crochet patterns can be free and you should stop expecting them to be!

Don't get me wrong.

I like free patterns as much as the next knitter and have quite a collection of them.
But I also purchase patterns. I buy books. I buy magazines. I buy individual patterns.
I appreciate the fact that someone went to the effort of figuring it out, writing it down, and making it available so I don't have to.

I have also not bought patterns.
I have not bought patterns that I know I could figure out for myself.
I have not bought patterns that I think are lovely but know I wouldn't make or wear.
But I haven't not bought a pattern because I think it should be free.

There are two type of "it should be free" people who annoy me. There might be more types of them, but here are the two I want to slap.

The ones who sniff and say "I could design that."
Well, sure, you probably could, but don't go making noise about it. You are A) not helping anyone and B) undercutting the designer.

Someone worked long and hard to design that pattern and get it to a state that another person could use to create the object and it's not polite to loudly announce that you are going to, basically, steal their idea without offering any thanks.

I mean, if you're going to do that, at least do it quietly.
We're talking intellectual property here. And I appreciate that you can't own an idea. And I appreciate that an experienced knitter or crocheter can probably look at pictures of a finished object and replicate it, I've probably done it myself, but for goodness sake don't brag about it.

I think I'm not getting to the heart of my complaint here.....Yes, you can duplicate it by looking at it, but you didn't think of it until you saw the designer's version so shouldn't you show some appreciation?

Isn't that inspiration worth something?

The ones who can't design it for themselves.
They don't have the ambition, knowledge, or skills to design their own patterns but they want all pattern to be free.

This shows a serious lack of appreciation for the designer's time and effort.

As I mentioned, it takes a lot of time and effort to dream up a design, work it up, write it down in a way that other people can understand, get it tested, and produce and distribute the finished pattern.

And if you're talking about a garment with multiple sizes, well the time involved just escalates.

Part of this might just be ignorance (as in a lack of understanding).
Having never designed a pattern themselves they don't appreciate what goes into it.
Or they might have made up a project but never written the pattern down in a comprehensible fashion so they don't realize how hard that part can be.
It might be possible to show some of these people the light. It might be possible to say, "Hey, it takes a week of 8 hour days (i.e., a full time job) to make that pattern you don't want to buy," and they'll say, "Oh, I didn't realize! Here is my money. Thanks for creating such a lovely pattern for me to make."
Or they might be unimpressed and still expect it for free.

We're partially to blame.
Depending on what you're trying to sell, free patterns are a key component.

Designers might offer a few free patterns to introduce people to their designs.

Book publishers offer free patterns to entice people to buy the book.

Yarn manufacturers offer free patterns because their goal is to sell yarn.

I have a few free patterns of projects that seemed so simple or generic that there didn't seem a point in trying to sell them. Something so basic that I was sure other free versions already existed. But even those patterns took me a few hours to create.

But the internet, the internet is a key to this free pattern expectation.

The internet, as a free publishing platform, allows anyone, with or without design experience or expertise, to post a free pattern.

Some of these patterns will be very good. Some of them will be very bad.

You would think the bad ones would make people more willing to pay for patterns with the expectation that they went through a more rigorous editing process. (And, yes, I've seen the shouting online about errors in magazines and books, but come on, we're only human and humans make mistakes so cut people some slack.)

But, anyway, it seems to me that people are being groomed to expect free patterns at every turn and we must stop that.

There must be a way to get them to understand that some patterns are free and others you have to buy.

And to get them to appreciate that fact.

And to make them understand in a tactful way that won't piss them off.

After all, some restaurants give a free dessert on your birthday, but you don't expect it every day of the year, right?

Done: Electric Bunny Sweater

2012-01-02T04:18:00.000-05:00

I suppose this would be the first finished object of 2012, but that just doesn't seem right since most of the knitting was done in 2011.

In fact, the sweater was really basically done on New Year's Eve, I just had to seam the underarms and ran out of time before we went out and about. The knitting was done. The ends were woven it. There were just two inconvenient holes.

We had a nice, quite New Year's Eve with some family. We have a niece about 45 minutes south of us and she had her parents and siblings over as well. Just some finger food and Hubby brought a bottle of sparking wine.

Anyway, when we finally woke up on January 1 I took the time to finish it off.

I was a little concerned about the seaming since the fabric in that area is fairly pastel and the yarn I was using was dark purple and white. Happily, like any good mattress stitch seam, the purple yarn was swallowed up and is mostly invisible. Yippee!

The colors are fairly accurate in this picture. You can't see that the sleeves are slightly different in both color intensity and sequence, but I think that is part of the charm.

The yarn is hand dyed and spun so there are slight variations. And, actually, it does run through from bright primary to slightly softer.

I knit the right sleeve first, with the orange band at the top. When it came to the left sleeve I considered trying to make them match, but it would have involved a lot of cutting and reconfiguring of yarn and I decided against it. I figured with the yellow start the sleeves would be similar enough.

Besides, how annoying would it have been if I'd gone through all that effort and they still hadn't matched, right?

In addition to being a finished project that is warm and snuggly, this sweater is knit from Rhinebeck yarn.

Yipee!

I'm very proud of myself for having used the yarn in the same year I bought it. haha!

Project Recap
Yarn: http://jamierainbowyarn.com/ that I bought at Rhinebeck.
I used about a skein and a half of her standard rainbow/white yarn for the yoke and cuffs. (The yoke took one entire skein.)

align="left" hspace="5" vspace="5"The body and sleeves are in a custom color she spun for me that is a more solid rainbow. The color changes are more gradual with just slight overlaps where the color transitions from one to the next.

I had 4 skeins of the custom color. I used about 2.5 or 3 skeins. (Which is to say I have one entire skein leftover and about 1/4 each of the two skeins I used for the sleeves.)

So the fourth skein, which was an insurance skein, wasn't needed. But I'm happy I had it. If I'd been knitting the sleeves, watching the skeins decrease, I would have been sweating.

Needles: US 10 for the body. US 8 for the ribbings.

Pattern: My own design. Based on the principles outlined in Righette’s Sweater Design in Plain English and Bernard’s Custom Knits.

For now the leftover yarn will be put into stash, but I'm thinking I'll make another cropped poncho with it.

I considered a triangular shawl, but when I free-form those I'm not usually happy with the results. And scarves bore me to tears. And I really like my cropped poncho. And I think the yarn should be used for something I can snuggle into.

Well, knitting production is off to a good start. On to the next project!

Backward and Forward

2012-01-01T22:08:00.001-05:00

New Year's Day.

A day for resolutions and goal setting.

I do my best not to fall into that. I try to keep the mindset that every day is a day to improve and make changes.

Not that I always follow through on that.

But, as we've already established, I'm susceptible to peer pressure so a few vague resolutions always get made.

To be a better person.

To be more organized.

To practice better time management.

Unfortunately, these seem to be the same resolutions I make each year. But aren't they all?

Knitting resolutions are easier to make, partly because there is usually more hope that they will be fulfilled.

This year I shall resolve to knit more.

Oh, sure, we all say that and we all mean it, but it has new meaning this year. I swear that I have less knitting time since we moved to New Hampshire.

I'm really not sure how that is working out since I'm supposed to have more free time considering I don't have a commute any more. Apparently I'm managing to suck up that time in other activities which don't include knitting.

tsk tsk.

Slacker

I am also resolving to blog more. Looking back at the blog archives for 2011 I'm appalled at the low number, which is about half of previous years.

We can laugh at this goal considering how badly I crashed and burned during that November blogging challenge. Two whole posts. Ha!

Of course this goes right back to that time management goal.

It's not that I haven't had stuff to blog about. It's a matter of taking the time to sit down and do it.

I suppose all these goals speak to being more mindful of how I'm spending my time.

But those two goals also go hand in hand. If I'm going to blog more I'm going to have to knit more.

According to my Ravelry project--although I wasn't blogging I was at least putting information into Ravelry--I completed 24 projects in 2011. Actually I think it's 28 as I made four Christmas ornaments that I didn't enter into Ravelry.

In what turns out was a moment of over ambition, I had declared 2011 the Year of the Sweater.

That was a massive bust as I only ended up finishing two sweaters! The Green Schleppy Sweater and The Electric Bunny Sweater.

To my credit I did work on both the Yellow Lace Top and the Three Lace Cardigan.

Can't tell you what happened with this sweater resolution business last year aside from pointing your to my comments about having less knitting time last year.

Think Small

Having learned my lesson I'm declaring 2012 the Year of Small Projects.

I think focusing on projects that have short term completion dates will be more satisfying. Something to show for my efforts.

Also, I'm concerned that of my 24 projects last year only five of them were socks! One of those pairs was started a few years before.

I need more socks. Aside from all those socks I darned recently two more pairs exploded. My sock production has fallen behind and my wardrobe is feeling the pain.

Additionally, I have a ton of lovely sock yarn to begging to be knit. I know sock yarn doesn't count as stash, but it can still get lonely.

Not to mention finally having found yarn for my Autumn Road Socks, and those two fancy kits I bought a Rhinebeck two years ago.

Yes, socks will be a priority this year.

So, where does that leave us?

Knit more.

Blog more.

Focus on small projects.

Focus on socks.

Sounds doable.

What knitting or crocheting goals are you setting this year?

Electric Bunny 99%

2011-12-31T13:47:00.001-05:00

Through a Knitting Filter

2011-12-18T13:37:00.002-05:00

You see a charm bracelet....

I see stitch markers!

From The Adventures of Traveling Ann

A friend had a jewelry party.

You know like a Tupperware Party, but for jewelry.

I thought it would be a good opportunity to do some Christmas shopping. I wasn't going to get anything for myself.

But there were all these incentives, buy this get that half price.

And she had the big version of this bracelet as a sample, with the cute red heart charm.

I saw those lobster claw clips and it was all over.

What a convention way to keep stitch markers on hand. (pun acknowledged!)

The jewelry was just delivered on Friday and as you can see it has already been pressed into service on my Electric Bunny Sweater.

As you may or may not know, but could tell from the random pictures I've posted, I'm working this sweater top-down.

I had considered working the sleeves two at a time to keep the decreases the same, but that wasn't possible.

For various reasons, instead of using the ball in a cake, I've been using it off my swift. Doesn't make it terribly portable or flexible. I was worried that if I tried to work both sleeves that way I'd end up with a hopeless tangle.

The end result was I worked the first sleeve, clipped removable markers to the decreases to make them visible, then worked the second sleeve to match by counting rows.

Yesterday (a Saturday) Hubby and I had a "Pillars of the Earth" TV marathon. We have to clear out our DVR and had to watch something.

I knit practically the entire second sleeve while we were watching.

There is something to be said for plain stockinette stitch on US10 needles!

I just have to finish the cuff then work a collar of some sort and the sweater will be done.

Well, aside from grafting the underarms and weaving in the ends.I should have a finished sweater before Christmas!

Electric Bunny Sweater Sleeve 1

2011-12-10T09:23:00.001-05:00

Electric Bunny Sweater Progress

2011-11-19T14:11:00.001-05:00

Second Post Syndrome

2011-11-02T22:10:00.000-04:00

Here it is Nov 2 and I'm already questioning this decision to try to do the blog everyday thing. Good thing I didn't officially register!

While I might have a blogging block, what I don't have is the dreaded Second Sock Syndrome.

Even if that second sock was resisting my attempts to knit it.

As you know, despite those Dissonance socks, I like my socks to match. I don't think it's asking too much.

So after I finished this first sock you see here I sat there, minding my own business, reeling out the yarn to find the same point in the colorway.

I passed through the speckled green bit.

I passed into the purple bit. There was a splice in the purple bit but I didn't think anything of it.

Then I started passing through a speckled bit again.

"Wait a minute," I thought, "that's not right." Of course I kept going and things just looked more wrong as I went along.

I went back along the yarn to the spliced part and started forward again. I finally realized that not only did a section get skipped but the sequence reversed.

Bah!

To confirm my suspicions I got out the ball winder and rewound the skein. Indeed it was reversed.

Oh well, at least yarn has two ends and you can usually work from either one, which I promptly did.

I'm 12 rows into the second sock and it looks like I did a pretty good job matching them up.In my book that makes all that winding and rewinding worth it.

The yarn is Indulgence 6 Ply Distrato. It is a 75% Extrafine Merino Wool, 25% Polyamide blend. I'm working it on a US 1.5 needle. It's a soft, smooth yarn. It seems a wee bit thicker than the sock yarns I usually use, but it's so pleasant and the colors are so lovely who am I to resist?

So, November

2011-11-01T22:52:00.000-04:00

What is it about November that attracts all these challenges?

You know what I'm talking about.

There is National Novel Writing Month. That so isn't going to happen around here.

There is National Knit a Sweater Month. That is more likely, however it's not going to happen this year since I'm not going to cast on a fresh sweater for it.

The only sweater action around here that I can guarantee will be resuming my Electric Bunny Sweater when my new yarn arrives.

Then today I heard about National Blog Post Month. I'm not sure whether I've heard about this before. I know there are challenges out there to blog every day, but I don't know if this is it.

However, since I'm been bemoaning for months the fact that I have to get back to blogging, maybe I'll actually take up this challenge.

Not officially though. It looks like there is some website you're supposed to register with, but it's probably not mandatory so I'm going to blow it off.

I've always ignored such challenges in the past since I used to blog consistently. Recently it's obvious I need outside motivation.

From the very, very brief skim I gave that website, the goal is to blog every day as a way to improve your writing. I guess that means those wordless picture posts I've been doing when I'm lazy don't count. But then again, I've long known that my photography skills aren't good enough to pull off picture only posts.

On the other hand, if I keep babbling like this (as I tend to do) the challenge won't be sustainable.

Anyway....knitting!

Since hitting the wall on the Electric Bunny Sweater I've focused on some small projects I've been meaning to get off my plate.

Oh, don't worry, I haven't actually turned to any WIPs or UFOs.

Over the weekend I knit a pair of fingerless mitts using Mirasol Tuhu in the "Apple Green" Color. The pattern is the T'ara Mittens from Book #24-Tuhu.

This yarn is so dreamy. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it in my KFI sample box. It tanked my resolve not to fall into a stripy sweater trap again. On the other hand, I haven't cast on for said stripey sweater, so I guess my resolve is intact.

Although the other day I was wondering if a crocheted, stripey, top-down sweater would be practical and if I would have enough yarn to finish it.

Anyway. A few months ago, maybe even in the summer?, I'd told my walking buddy Judy that I'd make her a pair of fingerless mitts. She didn't ask. I volunteered after she admired a pair of mine. As you know, this is very unusual behavior for me. Even more unusual that I followed through. ha!

Well, with the pause in the EBS, but with the safety net of resuming it as soon as the new yarn arrived, I was free to finally whip out these mitts. I gave them to her yesterday and she professed much affection for them.

The mitts done I cast on for a hat using Mirasol Hancho. Again, lovely stuff. 100% hand-dyed Merino. Stunning colors. It's a one skein project so it will be interesting to see if I can finish it before the sweater yarn arrives.

Ok, that's enough for now. Don't want to blow all my topics at once and not have anything to talk about all month!

Applie pie after. I hope it tastes good.

2011-10-28T22:22:00.001-04:00

Applie pie before. Um, that will cook down, right?

2011-10-28T21:18:00.000-04:00

Electric Bunny Sweater Sleeve

2011-10-27T15:40:00.002-04:00

Almost as soon as I started knitting the first sleeve the doubts began to creep in.

How brilliant was my brilliant plan actually?

As the sleeve progressed the panic took hold.

Was I really going to have enough yarn?

What if the first sleeve used all the rainbow yarn?

Or, worse, what if I was able to knit only half of the second sleeve?

The rest of my yarn is the solid color stuff in a different gauge. There would be no way to salvage the situation.

Since I'm getting a gauge of 3.5 sts per inch on US 10 needles the sleeve is flying along. Last night it looked like I had made enough progress to bother trying it on.

It already reached to my elbow. The ball was starting to hollow out. Things weren't looking good.

Today I took my nerve in hand and called Jamie.

Problem Solved

Happily, I did not have to resort to groveling.

I started by telling her I'd been to her booth the Sunday of Rhinebeck. That got a laugh. So I told her I was wearing an Adult Surprise Jacket and what yarn I bought. That narrowed things down for her and she was able to remember me.

I reminded her that despite her warnings I bought two different weight yarns because I was overcome by yarn fumes and sure I could make it work. But in the cold light of knitting I'd realized it wouldn't work, and could I exchange the yarns?

She said yes right away. phew! Yarn people are so awesome.

Then we had a fun conversation discussing my options for my new yarn. I'd thought it would be easiest to just get three new skeins of rainbow with white, but I did want something more mellow.

After tossing ideas around we settled on a more solid rainbow colorway. No white. She's going to vary the other colors so there is still some variety but it's a bit more subtle.

Or at least that is how I understood/remember it. She made her self good notes. I can't wait to see what she comes up with.

The she was like, oh I have other orders I'm working on I want to set your expectations for the turn around on this. Um, two weeks from now. I was like, seriously? Because I thought she was going to say late November or December.

We also agreed I should get a fourth skein of the new yarn she's making for me. It's a custom order in a colorway she hasn't done before so I might not be able to get more if I run out. It's easier for her to make it all at once so it matches. That was sort of my idea because it will give me more options for balancing the yarn.

The new plan is to rip out what I've done on the sleeve so far. Then work the sleeves and the body in the new yarn saving the rainbow and white yarn I already have for the cuffs and bottom ribbing.

Tomorrow I'll have to run to the post office and mail these solids back to her.

Now the question is what project shall I work on until my new yarn arrives?

Electric Bunny Sweater

2011-10-25T21:35:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I haven't blogged about our trip to Rhinebeck despite declaring that I would do so straight away.

I really need to get myself in order and start blogging more regularly. (Like I haven't said that before, and won't say it again.)

But then it occurred to me that I don't have to blog in order. I can blog whatever and whenever I want. Just like knitting. Unlike knitting, however, I still have the option of back-dating blog posts.

Anyway, let's get on with the actual knitting content, shall we?

So, last year toward the end of our Rhinebeck time mom and I came across a booth with angora yarn in bright happy colors that were still somehow buttery. Probably because of the halo from the angora.

There were lovely sweaters on display and they were bight and happy and soft...but it was the end of ur second day and I'd already bought a ton of yarn and we were tired and I didn't buy anything.

A few months ago, maybe halfway between last Rhinebeck and this year's Rhinebeck, I called mom and said, "Do you remember those angora sweaters? I think about them on a regular basis."

And mom said she did, too.

We agreed I'd have to get some of that yarn this year, which I did.

I tried on two sweaters. One was a little too big. The other was a little too small. From that she declared I'd need five skeins of yarn.

Since she didn't have five skeins of the rainbow yarn I decided I'd get two rainbow skeins, and one each of red, yellow, and blue, and make a striped sweater. She warned me they were slightly different weights, but they looked fine in the skein, and I had on my festival yarn goggles, so I figured I could make it work.

The alternative was to order the yarn and wait for her to mail it to me, which was in conflict with my desire to own the yarn immediately.

I would make it top down so I could target the rainbow yarn on the yoke.

Well, everything was going swimmingly. I used one skein of rainbow for the yoke and it was enough to divide for the sleeves and work a couple more rows.

It was time to bring in the solid colored yarns.

Wow. The texture and weight are a lot different in the knit fabric than they seemed in the skein.

I'm working the rainbow yarn on US 10 needles. To get a similar drape in the fabric I had to go up to US 11 needles for the solid colored yarn.

This made my stitch gauge go from 4 sts per inch to 3.5 sts per inch, which you might think isn't very much, but it made the sweater explode from 33" to 37". And it's flaring out a bit.

The situation threw a monkey wrench in my idea of alternating solid stripes with rainbow stripes. The difference in gauge would make the sweater ripple.

I debated calling her and asking if I could make an exchange. Before I did anything hasty I decided to sleep on it.

This morning I work up with the idea of making the sleeves entirely in rainbow yarn and restricting the solid colors to the body. My yarn would be distributed so that I should still have enough to complete the sweater, but I wouldn't have to worry about the difference in gauge.

At this time I've done the math to quickly decrease on the body after I switch to the solid red to get the measurement I want.

I'm going to go ahead and knit the sleeves first, then do the body.

Wish me luck!

Samson pup in knits

2011-10-12T21:46:00.000-04:00

Yellow Lace Top Progress!

2011-10-09T22:22:00.001-04:00

Sudden Progress

2011-10-02T16:41:00.000-04:00

You can't really tell in this picture, since it's a dark and gloomy day here, but I've suddenly made a lot of progress on my Yellow Lace top.

I had put it aside because it wasn't good TV knitting since I had to pay attention to it because of the lace.

Well, it turns out I've more or less got the lace pattern memorized. I've had it memorized for a while now. You don't knit that much of a pattern without ingesting it eventually.

Because I've got it memorized I don't really need to look at the pattern any more, and really I only have to look at the knitting maybe for the decreases.

Let's see if I can explain what you are seeing in the picture.

First off, the back is done. Second, the left front is done and the shoulder is joined.

See? I told you I'd made progress.

The dark line is the scrap yarn I'd used as a holder when I divided for the front and back. The needle is on the stitches for the right front.

So I'd been plucking away at the back when I could. Then I suddenly realized I just had a few more pattern repeats to reached the desired length. Having finished the Uncooperative Green Striped Schleppy I was filled with the desire to finish other projects and started focusing on this top.

Then yesterday as soon as I finished the back I plunged into working on the left front. That was quick and easy because with the deep V of the neck shaping I was working on fewer and fewer stitches each row.

Of course, doing that keep me up later than I should have been. Oh, it was well past 11 o'clock. But I came down with a cold at the end of the week and had spent most of the day either sleeping or lounging on the couch knitting, so I wasn't sleepy until after 11 p.m. anyway.

I'll take a stab at getting the right front done tonight. At that point the sweater will be at least 50 percent complete, if not closer to 75 percent.

I'll do the sleeves two-at-a-time. I just hope they go quickly.

Viking Hood

2011-09-29T21:34:00.001-04:00

See, I don't blog and you miss out on all kinds of good things.

One of these days I'm going to snap, write a bunch of blog posts, and back-date them. You'll never know what hit you.

Anyway, while I was ignoring you I knit this adorable hood!

I will be all set for the cold weather when it arrives. I will laugh at the wind!

You'll remember that back in June mom and I went to the Knitting Along the Viking Trail Exhibit when it was it was in Philadelphia.

I then went on a quest to acquire all three of Elsebeth Lavold's Viking Knits books, as well as The Small Thing Matter book, as those were the ones represented in the display.

One of my favorite items was the Skjalf Hood from The Second Viking Knits collection. The picture in the book doesn't do it much justice since it's focused on the sweater, and frankly my picture doesn't either, but trust me it's uber-cute in person.

I was dithering over what yarn to use to make it when a skein of Juniper Moon Farm Chadwick came into my possession. Actually, several skeins did. But it was the Clear Skies (#8) that caught my attention and made me think of the hood.

It was blue. The hood in the book was blue. It was a logical connection. (As an aside, the color #1-Indian Paintbrush is such an awesome shade of red that it fills my heart with greed and makes me want to do bad things to acquire more, but it didn't seem right for the hood.)

The main concern was that Chadwick is 202 yards, which is a little less than the 218 yards technically called for in the pattern. I was taking my life into my own hands and running the risk of running short of yarn.

My plan had been to finish the ribbing around the face in a different color, if need be, and maybe throw a few rows onto the neck ribbing to make it look coordinated. Happily that was not necessary and I think I know why.

Change it? Me?

As you would expect, I ended up making some modifications as I worked along.

First, I worked the neck ribbing for 3" not the recommended 4". I think I felt the 3" was long enough, but that might have been an early move to conserve yarn.

Then as I was working the main body of the hood I reached the recommended length on row 10 of the second pattern repeat, not row 16.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I was in the more or less plain spot between knots. I read the pattern and took a hard look at the cable chart and realized that I wasn't going to reach the knot again in the allotted space. Or if I did it would only be the first few rows.

After considering my options I skipped ahead to row 23 in the cable chart, which is where the knot starts again, and followed the pattern from there.

It's kind of easy to tell what I did since the ribbing connecting the first half knot to the full knot in the middle is considerably longer than the ribbing leading to the knot at the top of the head. By the time I got to that point I wasn't in the mood to rip back and try to balance it.

You, however, can perhaps plan ahead.

Of course, since I sort of shortened the hood, I guess, I ended up picking up fewer stitches around the face opening. But that's a minor change compared to moving the knots around!

Short Row This
The only other tricky part was the short row shaping for the crown of the hood.

Boy howdy, I don't know if the pattern is just vague or I'm dense, but it took me at least three tries to get it right.

Well, the first time it turned out that I'd worked too many decreases at the center back and didn't even have the correct number of stitches to short row. Also, the book doesn't say to wrap and turn, so I didn't and it just looked horrible. That got ripped back.

Then I tried to short stitches at both the center back and the front opening. That was just weird looking and obviously wrong, so that got ripped back.

Then, since I didn't understand what the pattern wanted I thought I'd just do it like a sock heel just over the stockinette stitches at the back. That pooched out unattractively, was obviously wrong, and got ripped back.

Then I went and read the section about short rows in Rhigetti's "Knitting In Plain English" and something finally clicked.

With the correct number of stitches, I worked to the center stitch, wrapped and turned, worked back across to the beginning of the row. And that's how it went. I only shorted on the stockinette stitch portion at the back of the hood, as directed, and worked the rest of the stitches in pattern. Once the stockinette section was eaten up, I worked back across the row, picking up the wraps, and worked out across the second half in pattern.

The process was repeated for the left side of the hood, only I had to work the short rows on the wrong side of the work. It is possible that the left side of the hood has one more row than the right side, but I was too happy to have it done to try to sort out a way to avoid that.

I did, as you might imagine, briefly consider trying to Kitchener the top shut, but in the end I just did a three needle bind of as prescribed in the pattern.

I am very pleased with it and am fighting a burning desire to make another one. In a different color. With a different cable.

But there are so many other projects to knit, I think one Viking Hood is enough for now.

It does, however, fill me with a desire to toss all my other WIPs and skip ahead to the yarn and hood pattern I bought back in June.

Fully Cooperative

2011-09-22T22:29:00.000-04:00

I am pleased to announce the Uncooperative Green Striped Schleppy Sweater is done!

Aside from weaving in ends, that is. Despite having knit in many ends as I went.

It always comes down to weaving in ends.

I used a sewn bind off on the collar. Of course as soon as that was done I had to try it on to ensure it fits.

Wouldn't that have sucked to to all that work and have it not fit?

I guess that is the benefit of a custom pattern, even if it was originally written for entirely different yarn.

Speaking of that, the sleeves are just a wee bit short in the cuff. I mean, a little, bitty, wee bit short that you'd probably never notice if you weren't wearing it.

Which you won't be, since it is mine.

I know just how that happened.

After I washed the original Schleppy Sweater for the first time it grew at least an inch longer. The second Schleppy Sweater I intended to make was also going to be out of Zara yarn, so I revised the pattern to account for the growth. Then I used that revised pattern for the Uncooperative sweater.

I can only hope that one of the yarns involved in this new sweater also decided to grow just a wee bit and then my problem will be solved.

Pattern Stats
Pattern: Schleppy Sweater by Traveling Ann Designs, i.e, my own personal pattern.
Needles: US 7
Yarn: from across a spectrum of companies. I'd have to check my Ravelry project page for the list. I can tell you I used almost all of each ball with little to no leftovers from each. Good thing I'm petite!

What I learned?

Um, stripes look nice, but I don't like working them. I'd rather have someone else figure out the color sequence and repeats and I don't like weaving in all the ends. Probably won't stop me from making more striped sweaters in the future.

Creating a sweater from single balls of yarn with no access to additional balls is just crazy and adds a new level of stress as you worry about running out. Much safer to ensure you have way more yardage than you'll need before casting on.

Also, make the stripes narrower so the various yarns spread further. Although I think the yoke ended up quite nice and is kind of attractive with the repetition of just the three yarns in contrast to the body.

Ok, I have to go weave in ends now.sigh.

99% Cooperating

2011-09-21T08:40:00.000-04:00

Are you seeing this?!

Ok, it's a bad picture, so probably not.

I'm on the neck ribbing!

15 rows of neck ribbing and the Uncooperative sweater is done! (again. Well, aside from weaving in the ends.)

Neck shaping in the Uncooperative Sweater!

2011-09-18T09:50:00.000-04:00

After ripping back the lovely yarn that was the wrong shade of green I've been plucking away at reknitting the yoke using what remained of three of the original yarns.

I decided to cut the dark green Snuggly in between the two Crofters so there would be some separation since they are so similar. Six rows of the dark green alternated with 10 rows each of the other two.

I'm very excited that I've made it to the neck shaping.

It looks like I won't run out of yarn and won't have to add any random yarns after all!

Socks, word.

2011-09-08T14:34:00.001-04:00

I went to check the mail today and found a package from SoHo Publishing waiting for me.

"Hmm," I thought. "I haven't ordered anything from Vogue Knitting."

I wracked my brain on the way home trying to figure out what it could be, personal, business, a present.

Turns out it most closely fits in the "present" catagorey.

I follow Vogue Knitting on Facebook. What, don't we all?

A few months ago they put a call out on their wall for people to submit sock knitting tips for a special section they were working on for an upcoming issue. If your tip was selected you'd receive a copy of their book "Knitopedia: The Ultimate A to Z for Knitters."

Well, how cool was that?

Since I knit socks all the time, and have had my Rainbow Swirl and my Eyelet & Feather patterns published, I felt qualified to weight in.

I won't tell you what my tip was (that would be stealing the magazine's thunder), but I will give you a hint about the topic.

The tips are in a special advertising section that starts on page 59. I have the last word, which amuses me greatly.

Even more amusing, the tip right above mine is from someone I know!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go flip through my new book.

Uncooperative Sweater

2011-09-03T19:09:00.000-04:00

Why are you resisting my efforts to knit you?

The sooner I finish knitting you the sooner I get to wear you. And isn't getting worn the ultimate goal of any sweater?

First you wanted this entrelac top. We all know how well that was working out.

Despite everybody else loving it, when I returned to you after a little break all I could see were the holes. Lots of holes. And the next tier I started pooched out funny.

I finally followed my gut and ripped that all out. At the same time I was still worried about running out of yarn. Fortunately a new batch of sample yarn arrived from KFI and I was able to dig through for potential greens and blues to round you out.

I settled on this delicious Ella Rae Lace Merino Worsted. It was so soft and lovely to knit with. It has a whopping 230 yards giving me confidence I would be able to finish the yoke without an issue.

We had a wonderful week together. I knit you happily, even ignoring when I skipped a raglan decrease and had to make it up on the next row.

We were making progress. You were going to be finished in time for the cool weather.

And all that time I turned a blind eye to the fact that the new green yarn wasn't the right shade of green. It's was too bright, we both knew it, and yet you lulled me into acceptance with your promises that since it was the yoke it would look ok.
That since it was variegated people wouldn't notice.

I knit all the way to the neck shaping, believing your lies, and that had to face the truth.

It looked terrible.

Hubby, who I can always trust to be honest and have my best interests at heart, said it was a lovely sweater except the top didn't match. Even the ladies at the Library Knitting group had to take a polite breath, then admit that it didn't look good.

Out it came.

I had selected other options from the new yarn and left them laid out on the sweater for a while on the porch so I could get natural light and debate about them.

In the end I decided to try to see you through with what remains of the three yarns left from your original yarns. I'm going to keep the light blue Willow Tweed on hand just in case I need it to finish the collar.

And I have a feeling that might be the case. Maybe I should start mixing it in on the yoke so it won't look out of place.

But know this, uncooperative sweater, I will have my way in the end. Eventually you will be cast off and worn!

Roar!

2011-08-29T14:17:00.001-04:00

I have a lot of stuff I need to scan for work.

Only I couldn't because the inside of the glass was dirty so all the images looked like crap.

Then I found these directions on the HP website for opening the bugger up to clean the glass.

Yeah!

Then I was thwarted because it calls for some special T10 screwdriver, which I didn't think I had. Not that it mattered because I couldn't get past the first step of removing the front plate of the control panel.

I was pretty ticked off about it last night.

Then today I ransacked the barn again and discovered a T10 bit in Hubby's big wrench and screwdriver case. There were also little bitty screwdrivers just the right size for jamming into front plate gaps.

Victory was mine!

Even more importantly, after cleaning the glass I was able to put it all back together and it seems operational.

I am 21st Century woman! Roar!

Cheating

2011-08-24T15:45:00.002-04:00

The industrial revolution has arrived!

I asked Hubby if the people opposed to the Industrial Revolution were called "frame breakers." I don't know where I got that from, which is why I asked.

He said they were called "Luddites," but that they went after the mechanized weaving looms.

So I should be safe.

Yarn Everywhere

I bought the knitting machine on Sunday.

And, contrary to the weaving loom I acquired at the beginning of the month, the knitting machine did come out of left field.

But it is a logical step.

You see, since I have the best job ever, I recently received three big boxes of sample yarns.

Once again, it's a lot of single balls. Which is to say if I have multiple balls of one type it won't be 10 balls of blue, it will be ten different colors.

So the options are just knitting and crocheting random swatch squares or trying to come up with striped projects.

I told myself that this time I won't fall into the striped project trap like I did last year.

Two Hands vs Two Tons of Yarn

Since I only have two hands and there are only 24 hours in the day all I would ever knit would be swatches.

As nice as all this yarn is that prospect is unacceptable. I am both a process AND project knitter.

How can I be both? Well, I like the finished project, but I also enjoy the knitting process that gets me there. Although I enjoy having a mindless stockinette stitch project to work on when I'm tired or watching good TV, I like to know there is a goal in sight other than keeping my hands busy.

Hence the knitting machine.

If my cunning plan works I'll be able to zip out squares, crochet off a few rows, then get back to my projects.

Stumbling Along

The first square I did on Sunday was an ordeal. But it was a fun ordeal since the machine was new and shiny.

Also, I had figured the first square would be a train wreck since I'd never used a knitting machine before.

I didn't watch the instructional DVD because the booklet had very nice clear pictures allowing me to just plunge in.

Monday morning I got up and zipped out another square of the same smooth, worsted weight yarn (in a different color) in about an hour. I was feeling pretty good about my plan.

Then Monday night I tried a bulky boucle yarn.

And I tried.

And then I tried another bulky singles sort of yarn.

And it was just as frustrating.

And I found it necessary to pack the machine back in it's box because I was so uptight I was either going to crack a tooth from clenching my jaw or throw the machine out the window.

This was disappointing because the bulky yarns are the ones I was really looking forward to doing on the machine. Turns out I don't like knitting with big needles. US7 or US8 is about as big as I generally go.

Then on Tuesday I reassembled it and tried another smooth worsted yarn and everything was sunshine and light again.

Today it is also playing nicely. The square on the machine in the picture is Louisa Harding Grace Silk and Wool. It knit up very easily. I'm back to thinking my plan might work.

I think I'll give each yarn a go and if it doesn't work in the first couple rows I won't fight it. I'll just redirect to hand-knitting the swatch. It won't be a big deal since there are other yarns I've already eliminated from machine possibility for being either too thin, too thick, or too novel.

One way or another I'll show all this yarn who's boss!

Done: Dissonance Socks

2011-08-11T11:47:00.002-04:00

Such a mean name for such pretty socks.

It's not a judgement on the socks. It's a reflection of what was going on when I started them.

Well, it's a bit of a judgement on them, too.

I started these on our trip home from California. The day started with a delayed flight out of San Francisco. We weren't worried about it because our connecting flight had already been changed to a later departure and then delayed so we had time to make the connection.

But we ended up missing the connection anyway, being redirected through Midway, spent the night in the airport, and got home the following morning. Twenty-four hours after we'd first set off for home.

See? Conflict and discomfort were the rule of the day.

I got a lot of knitting done on the sock with the blue leg in those 24 hours.

I had debated making them punky distressed socks with random yarn overs and patches of ribbing, but I came to my sense before I implemented that plan.

Really, I like my socks to match. I would have tried to make the patterns match. That probably wouldn't have worked out and would if it had worked out it would have defeated the purpose of the "dissonance" name.

So I went straight stockinette. There was enough stress going on without getting freaky with my knitting.

Feeling Lightheaded
However, in honor of the whole dissonance thing, and contrary to me need to have matching socks, as soon as the first one finished I cast on for the second.

I went with the flow of the Noro Silk Garden Sock colors.

I did not reel out yarn trying to find the correct point in the color pattern for them to match.

This made me feel a little uncomfortable.

As you can see, until I got to the ankle of the second sock (the one with the red leg) there was really no relation between them color-wise at all.

In case you're wondering, yes, I did seriously consider starting the second sock over and making them match.

But I fought the urge. There was already a lot of knitting time invested in that sock and it would have been a shame to waste it.

In the end I persevered and finished them as is. They are still a bit jarring to look at, in my opinion.

But I guess that's the point.

Folly

2011-08-10T13:31:00.002-04:00

We interrupt this blog for some breaking news.

That, my dears, is a loom.

A, uh, Harrisville Designs A6, 4 harness, 6 treadle loom, to be precise. Don't worry if not of that means anything to you, although I'm typing the words I don't understand them either.

Now you might be wondering what a nice knitter and crocheter like me is doing with a loom and I would responds, um, seize the day?

Left Field, Not the Bleacher
I can't say I've had a burning desire to learn how to weave, but it's been out there.

I passed on a couple opportunities to take a class when I was working at Knitting Central and I'm on the wait list for classes at The Elegant Ewe. So the interest has been there.

Then last Monday I was fooling around on Ravelry and saw down in the tools forum (which I never read) a post titled "Free to good home (in Maine)" and I thought, "I'm not in Maine, but I'm awfully close." And saw the information about the loom.

Well, it seized my imagination and I was not dissuaded by the fact that it was on the coast of Maine, which is a 5 hour drive from me.

I figured when Hubby got home he would talk sense into me. However, he didn't bat an eye but proceeded to ask practical questions like "Does it work?" and "Why is she giving it away?" He was also hopeful that they could meet us somewhere to shorten the trip. They couldn't, but I pointed out that it's an expensive piece of equipment that they were giving away for free, so that was a reasonable stance.

Road Trip!
With satisfactory answers received to all the questions we hopped in the car last Thursday afternoon and headed out. (The delay gave me a few days to start second guessing myself and worry about it not fitting in the SUV, but I persevered!)

Of course, we left later than we intended and the drive took longer than we expected, so we didn't get there until 7 pm.

But it was lovely countryside.

When we arrived we found a very nice couple, confirmed by them immediately asking if we needed to use the bathroom.

Can I pause here to tell you that she had a fabulous knitting room? Well, the whole house was nice, a mix of modern and comfortable. They live on a island off the coast of Maine and have grand views of the water. Well, they would have if it hadn't been foggy. Anyway, her knitting room was on the second floor, steps from the bedroom, and one entire wall was picture windows looking out over the fog-obscured water. She had a kitchen island type table stuffed with yarn and a comfy couch.

Really, it looked like a very pleasant place to plan and work on a project.

Human Fuel
The loom and accouterments fit in the SUV with room to spare.

Our plan had been to got back to Augusta for dinner, but we had to scrap that since we were behind schedule. They suggested we eat at the Whale's Rib Tavern and called and made us a reservation.

Since we were at just about the last seating, we got to sit in the owner's favorite table in the bar. This allowed Hubby to have a grand time discussing wine and beer with the owner and the bartender.

We also enjoyed a lovely meal. For appetizers Hubby had the pate and I had a cold asparagus salad. For entrees Hubby had the lamb and I had pan roasted chicken. Hubby also got a bottle of wine and said their wine list prices were very good.

By the time we finished eating it was kissing 10 pm and we had a five hour drive ahead of us. (We couldn't stay over because the pups were unattended. As it was we were pushing the limits of their ability to be alone.)

Getting to Know You
The drive home was, happily, uneventful. I did most of it. I suppose I was hyped up from excitement because I was very alert despite the late hour. Still, we didn't get home until 3 am!

This, of course, meant that we were rather useless on Friday. I managed to get a little work done. But really, I wanted to play with the loom.

She had given me the assembly instructions and I read through them touching all the various parts as I went along. I rehung the harnesses and retied the treadles so everything would hang straight.

Then we moved it into the front foyer, where it fits quite nicely. I'll have to pull it out when I want to use it, but that shouldn't be a problem.

She also gave me some learning to weave books and I got a couple books from the library. It's starting to make just a wee bit of sense, but I won't really know until I try.

Monday night I decided to plunge in and got out the warping board she gave me and wrapped some old Peaches and Cream yarn I have on it before bedtime.

That's as far as I've gotten so far. I actually had to do laundry last night and decided to spend my time between loads finishing the socks I started on the way home from California.

Hopefully this weekend will see some free time to play around some more.

Wish me luck!

Are you surprised?

2011-08-09T16:38:00.001-04:00

Calif Trip: Yarns on First

2011-08-02T19:39:00.005-04:00

We took a trip to California from July 15 through July 25 to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.

There was also a party for my uncle & aunt's 40th wedding anniversary and we used that as the excuse for our trip.

The focus of our activities was wine tasting, which is Hubby's passion so I was his driver. Because of this we spent four days in Napa and three days in the Sonoma area.

I was having a little trouble getting to the yarn store because its hours coincided with the winery hours. Since we were wandering the countryside it wasn't like I could just drop in. (Ah, I was just on their website and see they now have later evening hours than when I was there.) By our third day I was starting to get a little stressed out about the situation. Hubby was buying souvenir wine; I wanted souvenir yarn to balance it.

Hubby reviewed the schedule for Tuesday morning and saw his first appointment was in town so it would be an easy matter for me to drop him off and scoot over to the store for a half hour or so.

Yarns on First
The store in Napa is Yarns on First and it is right down town, which made parking a little tricky.

Hubby's appointment was at 10 am, so I dropped him off, raced back to town, and bounded up to the store...only to see she didn't open for another 20 minutes.

Woe was mine, but she saw me outside the door and came over to tell me she wasn't open yet. Which, of course, was a major tactical error when dealing with a knitter who needs a yarn fix.

I looked as pathetic as possible and said in a small voice, "Oh, well, we're here on vacation and it's our last day in town. This is my only opportunity to stop by." And I turned to walk sadly away.

As you've already realized, she took pity on me and let me in, "as long as I didn't mind she hadn't vacuumed."

Well, as soon as the door opened I raced to the back corner of the store before she could change her mind. I did feel a little wicked. Having worked in a LYS myself I understand how important those first few minutes are for getting yourself organized before the store opens. I told her that as well.

I would also like to point out that in the brief time I was in the store two other people wandered in. So in the end it wasn't just me she opened for. :-)

Sock Yarn!
It is a nice store. Long and narrow with high ceilings, but well lit.

The stock was arranged by colors, which I've heard of but never seen in person. It looked very nice. But I still have to wonder how easy it is to browse. I mean, if you find a yarn you like and want to see all the color you have to run all over the store. Still, plenty of places do it that way so it must work.

Since I was working on a tight time frame there wasn't really time to browse. I had to be focused.

Although I always try to make a token purchase when I visit a LYS in this case I knew I definitely had to buy something since she opened early for me.

I was relieved to find that she had Collinette Jitterbug, which is one of my favorite sock yarns. Couldn't tell you why. I just love the stuff.

There were a couple colors available, but I snatched up with magenta one. It is much more of a neon hot pink than the picture indicates.

(There was also a skein in white, tan, and pale blue that was very nice, but I had to control myself. However I keep thinking about it...I wonder if it's still in the store....)

Anyway.

Local Yarn
Having secured at least one purchase I was able to calm down and ask if she had anything unique to the store or area. Yarn I can get at my LYS here in NH would hardly be adequate as a souvenir, right?

She pointed me to the Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks yarn you see at the top of the post. It is dyed in Willits, Calif, which sounded local enough to me.

Sadly, she didn't have any of their sock yarn in stock, which is always an easy purchse.

The labels on the two skeins I bought are a little incomplete, so I'm not really sure what I have here.

They say "Kid Merino. 180 yards. Juniper Berry." No gauge info or line name.

I'm thinking Juniper Berry is the color name. The yarn looks worsted weight, singles, just a wee bit thick and thin.

I was able to find the brand name on Ravelry, but nothing that really matched my yarn because none of them have the same yardage.

Oh well. Using it will be an adventure. I'll just swatch a little to get gauge and go from there. I bought the two skeins because I figured that would be enough to make a scarf, small shawl, or shrug like thing.

Whatever it ends up being it will remind me of our trip.

4:1

2011-08-01T14:53:00.003-04:00

That is the ratio of knitting projects taken to knitting projects work on during our July trip to California.

I think it's fairly decent. Actually, it's more like 4:2 since I finished my active project and cast on a new one on the flight home.

That, of course, means I worked on half the projects I brought, which is pretty good, all things considered.

Some of you, however, might think I was being an under-achiever since I brought only four projects along on a 10-day vacation. Still, I knew it would be an active vacation, and I didn't want the stress of unworked projects weighing on my mind.

In the picture I am relaxing with my knitting at the William Hill Estate Winery. Hubby had a 10 am tasting appointment. They had lovely Adirondack chairs with lovely views out in the garden where he could do the tasting (as opposed to inside at the bar). This allowed me to easily sit and knit. While this was very relaxing, it meant we were there for at least an hour, if not more, which cut into our progress for the day. Regardless, Hubby joined their club, which indicates he likes what he tasted.

Sock Love
The project of choice was the Cotton Swirl Socks I cast on when Summer of Socks 2011 started. I hadn't been focusing on them as much as I should, it being the Summer of Socks and all, and the trip seemed like a good opportunity.

Socks are my favorite travel project for a number of reasons:

They are small and portable so they fit nicely in both checked and carry on luggage.
I often knit plain stockinette stitch socks so I don't have to worry about carrying a pattern or stopping and starting.
I usually have a SIP (sock-in-progress) so it is easy to grab and pack without needing to dig around for the pattern, notions, extra needles for swatching, etc.
One skein usually makes a pair, so I don't have to worry about bringing extra yarn or running out, etc.

There was (is?) a pattern for these socks. Namely Summer Spiral by Jersey Knitter. However, I had the PDF on my iPhone so I didn't have to worry about carrying it around. Also, the pattern was easy to memorize so I probably would have been ok going from memory.

Easy, Peasy
This is a nice pattern that is easy to memorize. She gives lots of notes about working the pattern along with a few different stitch pattern options.

As you can see, I opted for the mirrored spirals. I rebelled against the pattern and worked a princess sole, which I prefer for cotton blend sock yarn.

I also changed the heel flap just a little. The pattern has you slip the first stitch and knit the last stitch of each row. It's been so long since I've worked a heel flap that way that I didn't work it very well. One edge was tighter than the other so it was lopsided. Really strange.

As I was gawking at that I realized I was working the flap over the wrong number of stitches. The combination of errors made it easy to rip the flap out and rework it on the correct number of stitches with a garter stitch edge.

Although the pattern is straight forward, clearly written, and easy to memorize, I would rate the actual pattern for an advanced beginner who is confident reading patterns.

The stitch pattern is just charted, not written out. Because of this the written part of the pattern is a little abbreviated in that it refers you directly to the chart for X number of repeats. As opposed to having the stitch pattern written out and then saying X number of repeats.

This is probably a common way to write patterns, just different from the way I do it, and maybe a style to which you are accustomed.

Anyway, it takes like 3 seconds to figure out what is going on then you'll be happily knitting. And, really, it's not like I found any mistakes or anything, so it's a pretty minor "issue."

Project Stats
Pattern: Summer Spirals by Jersey Knitter
Size: XS
Needles: US1.5 for ribbing. US1 for sock.
Yarn: Crystal Palace Yarns Panda Cotton Print.

Not so sure about how I feel about this yarn. It was soft and felt nice to knit with. However, it is made up of several disparate plies and I found it just a little bit splitty. Nothing major. I either caught it as it happened or found it on the next round and fixed it. But it happened enough for me to feel the need to mention it.

I wore the socks on the flight home and have not washed them yet, so I can't yet tell you how the yarn holds up.

Not a Yarn Receptacle

2011-07-28T19:12:00.006-04:00

Remember how at the end of June I blogged almost every day and then I stopped again?

Well, the contrast reminded me that I really enjoy blogging and that I have to start making it more of a priority.

Starting next week.

In the mean time, a vaguely knitting related post.

I've been working from home for a year now. It's fitting into our lives nicely and looks like it will be continuing for a while, which is good.

Because of this we decided it was time to finally get me a new, better desk. We'd had the desk we brought up with us for 10 years. It was older than that as we'd inherited it from the previous tenant at our last boarding school.

As you can see, it is a student computer desk and very much inadequate for our needs. We knew we'd have to replace it, but with the move, and the school year, and getting accustomed to a new place, it wasn't a priority.

New and Improved
But now comfort will be mine!

I will no longer be a nomad in the apartment moving from the kitchen island, to the dining room table, to the couch seeking a comfortable place to work.

Of course we bought me a new chair along with the new desk. The old chair was also 10 years old and was frozen at the height Hubby needs so my feet dangled when I sat in it.

It was a three day ordeal for Hubby to assemble the desk and hutch. There was a bit of foul language involved and mutterings about "Why can't assembled furniture be purchased?"

Oh, but it was all worth it. I feel so official now. I have to finish moving in (he finished it just before our trip to California in mid-July), but I'm already enjoying having it.

Not a Yarn Receptacle
You can see that rule has already been broken. That's my souvenir yarn from California on the desk waiting to be documented and added to my hoard.

You can also see my crocheted shawl has taken up residence on the chair back.

Really, if you don't expect the objects in my life to get covered in yarn (and dog hair) then you don't know me very well.

Samson also likes the new desk as there is more room for him to stretch out. Although he's a little too comfortable in this picture—there is no room for the chair!

Back in 2008 Hubby gave me a nice, large, Coach purse for my birthday. At the time I told myself I wouldn't put knitting in it. That vow lasted until May 2008 when I found it necessary to put a sock-in-progress in it.

Then last summer when we were discussing buying me a laptop since I'd be working from home Hubby asked, "Are you going to fill it with knitting stuff?" And I said Of course I will, but it is my job so I kind of have to.

We did not discuss yarn in relation to the new desk but, boy howdy, don't those cupboards at the top of the hutch look perfect for yarn storage?

App Review: Yarn U

2011-07-02T10:45:00.004-04:00

Ya'll know I have an iPhone, right?

And once you get an iPhone you get iPhone apps. I mean, that's the whole point, right? Why have a such a fancy phone just to make phone calls.

On the other hand I have not gone app crazy. I have a few select ones to make my life easier. Mainly ones that have turned my phone into a glorified, electronic notepad.

But if you had ever seen my appalling handwriting you'd understand the necessity of that.

You would think that I'd also load up my phone with knitting and yarn related apps (goodness knows Hubby has loaded his with wine apps), but you'd be wrong.

I have a few basic row counter apps, but I haven't pulled down any of the paid versions of those apps that are supposed to track your projects.

You know the ones (if you have a smart phone) where you can enter the yarn, needles, pattern info, and take a picture. Not only do I feel they are redundant to Ravelry and my blog, but I find typing all that info on the wee keyboard on the iPhone annoying. (I would want a version that I could enter the info on the laptop and download it to the iPhone, but still don't know that I'd actually use one like that.)

Yarn U
Which brings us to the Yarn U app. The Yarn U app is not a project tracker. It is a repository of yarn information and reviews.

At this time I will, in accordance with FCC regulations, point out I was given a free review copy by virtue of being the KFI social media manager. Happily, there are a lot of KFI yarns listed.

Most of the other heavy hitters are represented as well: Knit Picks, Blue Sky Alpaca, Debbie Bliss, Louisa Harding, Quince and Co. Although there are many yarns from each, none have their complete lines listed (yet?).

The iTunes page (which is where I stole the screen shot from for the image on this post) says there are currently 170 yarns listed, and I imagine she's still adding more.

Yarn!
There are reviews of varying lengths and depths on each yarn listed. Some are compilations of reviews/comments found a Ravelry (and say so in the entry), while others seem like they might be based on the author's own experience with the yarn.

The reviews also include "ball band" information such as content, suggested gauge, and yardage.

There are links to online purchasing options and, in some cases, pattern books so you can see projects, or free online patterns. (The entry for Louisa Harding Kashmir Baby links to my Basic Ribbed Fingerless Mitts pattern. squeee!)

There are also occasional random links. For instance, I was looking at the entry for Debbie Bliss Amalfi. When I clicked the Amalfi link I was taken to the wikipedia page for the Italian Alamlfi Coast. Uh?

You can also "favorite" a yarn, email the entry to a friend, and leave a comment for other people to see. You can navigate to the comments from the specific entry, but all comments are also collected in one area.

Browsing is done from the alphabetical list on the front page, which can be sorted by brand name, weight, or fiber.

Pictures!
The other main section is what is commonly referred to as "yarn pr0n." A mass of pretty pictures of balls and hanks of yarn, swatches, and completed projects. Some of the images are official company pictures from the pattern books and some are from private knitters. They all have copyright info in the corner.

The pictures, although very pretty, are a little iffy on usability.

The official company images list the name of the pattern and book where it can be found.

The private user images rely on how completely they fill out their Flickr description. When you click on a pretty sweater or gloves you could find anything from all the info you need to just the yarn to nothing at all. (Which makes me feel bad about my own sparse Flickr entries.)

Of course, this is not really the app's fault. And after the first such encounter you know what to expect.

You can sort the pictures by brand and weight. You can swipe through them, or let the slide show play. There is also a cloud option with wee thumbnails you can navigate through.

One Complaint
I've been playing since yesterday and I only have one main beef, which might say more about me than the app.

Some of the yarn reviews have a "pro and con" section. This is a nice feature as it gives quick and pointed information.

But I noticed that a consistent con was that the yarn is "expensive." In some cases that was the only con listed.

It turns out I have luxury taste in yarn (which is not a surprise) because most of the yarns I like and have used are flagged as "expensive."

That seems an arbitrary adjective to apply to a yarn, especially since not all yarns have a cost measurement applied to them. Where did this "expensive" tag come from? Comments on Ravelry? The author's experience and research? Is the ratio of cost to yardage considered?

Seems to me that the word "expensive" is too open to interpretation to be useful. One person might think yarn that is $5 a ball is expensive, while someone else might go has high as $10 or $20 a ball before flinching. And would that same $5 yarn person spend gobs of money on shoes without a second thought?

I mean, don't get me wrong, I have my limits, but yarn is the luxury item I choose to spend my disposable income on. I'll gripe about spending $60 on a fill-up for the car, but won't blink at dropping $60 on enough yarn to make a project.

My point is we all have our own priorities and without knowing the authors I can't place much value on the word "expensive" and feel it might prevent some people from trying a new yarn because they mistakenly believe it's out of their price range.

Instead of "expensive" I think the app should have a dollar sign scale. You know, like on other review sites and in Zagats. I think dollar signs would be a little less subjective.

And, in case you're wondering, yes, I did submit these observations to the author.

Why?
Now that I've told you more than you could ever want to know about this app, you might still be wondering why one would want it.

Well, aside from the pretty pictures, it could come in handy when yarn shopping.

Think about it, you're in a new yarn store where you aren't familiar with the staff so they don't know you're tastes and you want support for their recommendations. They have yarn you've heard of but never used, or maybe that you've never encountered at all. You can whip out your iPhone and see the reviews in Yarn U. (I would however, suggest you not check while the staff member is standing in front of you, that would be rude.)

Or you're at your own LYS where they do know your tastes, but all the staff is busy helping other customers. A quick glance at the app can inform your discussion when someone is available to chat.

Now I read through the comments on this app in iTunes. Most of them were positive, but I noticed a theme in the critical ones that pops up on any new yarn related app. "I can just get that info on Ravelry."

There is some substance to that comment, but it depends on your pain points. Have you tried to surf Ravelry on an iPhone? I have. It's not so easy. Also, you have to dig for the reveiws/comments on Ravelry while in the app they are the key feature.

And, here's the kicker, if you don't have internet access you can't get to Ravelry off your iPhone. Or it might be a killer slow connection. The app stores all the info on your phone. You can't follow the links, but the main review and all the user comments are available. I know this for a fact because I put my phone in airplane mode and tested it.

So there you have it, a useful and pretty little app. It appears she is continuing to add yarns and make improvements based on user feedback, so it should just get better as it goes along.

Tiers and Gnashing of Teeth

2011-07-01T20:58:00.003-04:00

See what I did there?

Each section of entrelac is a tier, but it sounds like tears?

Never mind. If you have to explain it, it isn't funny.

Anyway. I haven't actually cried, but I have been frustrated and annoyed.

After finishing the base row I was flummoxed on how to proceed for the first oblong row. The magazine just blithely says to knit the first oblong row and decrease one stitch in each oblong. Well, I had a devil of a time figuring out which direction to go.

I finally pushed the stitched for the last base triangle down the left hand needle and crawled down its back for the first oblong. The first oblong was thus connected to the first base triangle worked. Not really sure at this point whether that means I reversed directions.

I do remember that it took me a couple tries to figure out. And, in case you're wondering, entrelac is not easy to pick out.

Six of 19
The next problem is that entrelac is tedious to work.

It's repetitious—pick up the stitches. Back and forth, back and forth. Pick up stitches, back and forth, back and forth.

But at the same time it enough attention that you can't knit on auto-pilot. Because you have to pick up and purl two together and repeat.

After two hours of knitting yesterday I manged to work six oblongs. I surveyed the remaining expanse of sweater and was filled with dread. Thirteen more oblongs on this row. Three more rounds of oblongs and then a round of triangles.

It's going to take forever.

And my hands were a little cramped.

Rapidly Loosing Interest
This all caused me to look critically at the sweater as I decided whether I wanted to forge ahead.
I decided that my technique wasn't good and there were sloppy, gappy parts where I didn't pick up stitches well. I thought it was blousing out where the entrelac started, but to be fair it didn't have the weight of the sweater or being on my arm to help it out.

I told myself that frogging back to the top of the green section wouldn't be so bad, despite all the work I'd already put in.

After all, knitting is supposed to be fun. If I wasn't having fun what was the point.

I discussed the matter with my walking buddy, Judy. Turns out she used to knit and crochet when she was younger. (I don't think she does anymore.) She in the "you come so far" camp, but agreed that if it was pissing me off I shouldn't carry on.

I decided to put it on scrap yarn to get a better look at it before doing anything rash.

Into Rotation
Of course I decided to run that test when I was at the library knitting group. I was fairly sure they'd all tell me it looked like hell and I should take it out.

You are not surprised to hear they didn't.

Noooo, they all said it looked awesome. However, none of them wanted to take over for me.

There was one voice of doubt at first about how there is a lot going on in the sweater anyway that it didn't need the entrelac, but once I pulled it on everyone loved it.

I explained how tedious it was to work. I pointed out the sloppy bits. I said I might run out of yarn.

They would not be dissuaded. They pointed out how far I'd come and how much it would suck to rip back. They pointed out that each round would go faster because of the ever decreasing stitch count.

Add to all this the fact that I made the tactical error of only bringing the sweater with me. I meant to grab my Cotton Spiral socks but forgot. So the whole time I was whining about the sweater I was also knitting on it.

I'd like to point out that for the hour or so I was there I only managed to work three oblongs.

Lame!

Anyway. The consensus was that instead of focusing on the sweater I should put it into rotation. I should just have the goal of working two or three oblongs every day and eventually it will be done.

Really, it's the first day of July. It's not like I need to wear the sweater tomorrow. Plugging away at it might be the best solution.

It had better be worth it.

Whose brilliant idea....

2011-06-29T19:36:00.001-04:00

was this entrelac yoke nonsense anyway?

What a pain in the patootie to work.

Nineteen little eight stitch triangles. Back and forth and back and forth.

Ok, that was an exaggeration. I'm knitting backwards instead of turning and purling. Turns out it's a useful skill to have, you should learn it.

Not that it makes things easier. I'm totally taking a break because my fingers were cramping a little.

Also, don't try to multi-task while you're working entrelac. And by "multi-task" I mean watching something on TV that you actually want to see.

I finished off this first round while "watching" Shrek Forever After. Yeah, almost restarted it because I didn't really feel like I saw it.

No Turning Back

On the other hand, I feel like I've come to far to change my mind now.

I thought the 10 rows of decreasing (every other row) at the start was going to kill me, but this foundation row was a killer.

Still, it would be a shame to waste all of my hard work so far by frogging it and doing a normal raglan yoke.

I'm going to move forward with the faith that it's going to look awesome and be worth the extra effort.

However it does make me wonder about the insane people who knit entire sweaters in entrelac.

Entire Sweaters. shudder

Yarn Worries

Of course it will only look awesome if I actually manage to finish it. If I run out of yarn it's going to look pretty sucky.

Does entrelac take more yarn than stockinette? It must, right? I mean, it's a stitch pattern and stitch patterns always take more yarn.

Sigh.

Well, I have another, different, blue skein on tap for when this one runs out. Then there are some green yarns left to fall back on.

But what if I run out in an akward place? What if I don't even make it through the first oblong row?

Man, I should have worked those decrease rounds in green yarn and saved the blue stuff for the real entrelac.

Wish I'd thought of that two days ago.

Ok, time to put the kettle on and start picking up stitches. There are oblongs to knit!

Green Schleppy: Join Sleeves to Body

2011-06-28T17:55:00.003-04:00

The Green Striped Schleppy Sweater is back in play.

Have I mentioned the Green Schleppy to you? Oh, once, back in April to complain about the sleeves.

I started this sweater during my single ball, striped project, hoard wrangling phase several months ago. Specifically February.

I'm following the pattern for the Schleppy Sweater I designed for myself last year.

Wow, was that already a year ago?

Anyway.

The idea was to use up many single balls of green yarn I have. The stripes on the body are each 15 rows. The mess up on the sleeves came because I didn't account for the fact that the sleeves were going to have more rows than the body and didn't plan to make the sleeves stripes either narrower or wider to account for that fact.

Nope, the sleeve stripes are each 15 rows as well.

This led to me working through the stripe sequence and coming up short on length. After pouting over it for a bit I decided to restart the sequence and also accelerate it to get the top of the sleeves on the same yarn as the top of the body when I joined them.

I think it will be fine.

Entrelac. Are You Insane?
Since I knew from the cast on that I probably wouldn't actually have enough of the green yarns to finish the sweater I also selected two blue yarns for the yoke.

I figure it's the yoke, it can break from the rest of the sweater.

Then in March I came across Meg Swansen's article in the Holiday 2010 issue of Vogue Knitting about working an entrelac yoke.

This seized my imagination. I was already working the yoke in a different color. Making it in entrelac would just make the color change appear justified.

I looked up her other articles in the series in case they had helpful information.

I tracked down my Spring 2007 issue of Interweave Knits and taught myself entrelac using the tutorial.

I did some math to prepare for the entrelac even though I was still working on the sleeves.

Knitter's Block
And then the sweater stalled.

I had too many WIPs and this one was tossed aside in an attempt to pair down what I was working on. After all, summer was coming, I wouldn't need a long sleeved, wool blend sweater for a few months.

I know I function better with just one project at a time. Ok, maybe two. I can see progress. I don't have decided what to work on. I just pick one up and go. Still I can't stop myself from casting on multiple projects. Especially when I get mad at an uncooperative striping sequence.

Ironically, my abundance of WIPs was a contributing factor in me getting this sweater out again.

The thought of my multiple WIPs overwhelemed me and I decided that I just needed to finish something. The Green Schleppy seemed closest to completion as well as easiest since it is mostly stockinette stitch. (At least until I get to the entrelac part.)

Another inspiration was the copy of Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard I picked up on Saturday.

It's an interesting book. The patterns are nice, but really I'm after the instructions about knitting top down sweaters in the back of the book. I intend to apply the knowledge to all those lovely skeins of sweater quantity yarn I've bought at fiber festivals lately that are destined to be other Schleppy Sweaters.

Also, the Green Schleppy was sucking up a large number of needle resources. The body was on a long Denise cable. The sleeves were being worked two-at-a-time in the round so they were taking up a set of DPNs as well as a long cable and set of Denise tips. Not to mention numerous stitch markers.

Heading for Disaster?
I don't know if it was the idea that I can't start a new sweater until I finish an active sweater or the desire to be knitting one of my own designs, or a need for US6 needles, but I ran and got the Green Schleppy out.

Having joined the sleeves to the body last night I've freed up all those needle resources and reduced it to a long cable and needle tips. I've also freed up the knitter's block and feel like I have good momentum to finish it.

Now I'm working through the initial raglan decreases and heading toward the entrelac. I've already realized my initial math was based on incorrect numbers. I'm smart enough to wait until I finish these first 5 decrease rounds before I start crunching numbers again.

And then the fun really starts.

Hoard Enhancement

2011-06-27T19:17:00.002-04:00

Hubby and I had a busy day on Saturday.

We had to take the car for an oil change. Since the dealership is in the southern part of the state near Hubby's new Karate Dojo he decided we should get an early start so he could go to the Saturday morning class.

Then we developed a laundry list of things to get at the mall since we'd been in civilization.

But I'm not here to talk about boring mall shopping. I'm here to talk about yarn!

After I dropped Hubby off I scooted over to The Yarn and Fiber Company over in Derry. This store was recommended to me by Pam's sister Nancy. I'd seen their booth at the NH fiber festivals I've attended but hadn't been to the store yet.

It's a big place, with big windows, so it's well lit and has aisles you can actually walk down. They also have a wide variety of yarns. I could hear laughter and chatting from a class, which I discovered at a big table in one corner. Another corner had big couches and chairs. Probably where the knitting group meets.

I didn't go with the intention of buying anything, I was just looking to kill an hour while waiting for Hubby. (True, I could have sat in the dojo lobby watching the training and knitting, but why do that when there is a yarn store within striking distance)

Then I stumbled on the book section. I was reminded of my quest for the Lucy Neatby finishing book (no dice) and the other Elsebeth Lavold viking knits books (also no).

They did, however, have a number of other Lavold books, which I flipped through. This led me to decide that although I like all her designs it's really her winter patterns that make my heart pound.

This led me to flip through The Embraceable You Collection a couple times.

The pattern that forced my hand was Worf. How can I resist a pattern named after an awesome Star Trek character? It is described as a sweater with detached sleeves, but it looks like a tunic vest with matching armwarmers to me. Although the sweater is neat, it's not really my style. But I'm all about the armwarmers.

Also, as you may recall, I'm currently obsessed with her hoods after seeing them at the museum. The ones at the museum just had ribbed necks. The Niella hood in the book flairs out to a cowl reminicent of my beloved Solo Cropped Poncho.

Although the armwarmers and the hood aren't a pair, they have the same feel, so I figure I can totally wear them as a set.

So I decided to get the book and take my chances on finding yarn that would work since I knew it was an older book. Until I came around a corner and found a display of EL's Designer Choice Angora right there at my eye level.

How very convenient to find the actual yarn for the patterns I as about to buy! No worries about yardage, or drape, or texture substitutions. Obviously I had to get enough for the two patterns I wanted to make. Especially since I knew the yarn was discountined. I might not have the opportunity again, at least not as easily.

The color selection was, admittidely, limited, which made it an easy decision to go with my tried and true blue. Logically, I got the same color for both projects since I'm going to call them a set.

The Worf pattern calls for 2 skeins for the sleeves. I wonder if these means each one will take one skein. I haven't read the hood pattern through, but suspect it starts at the cowl. Still, I'm thinking I'll make Worf first so I can put any extra yarn toward making the cowl longer.

Of course another option would be to make the hood first and use any spare yarn to make the armwarmers longer.

But, who am I kidding, it's going to be a while before I actually make either of these projects.

Summer of Socks: It's a Start

2011-06-23T17:59:00.002-04:00

Or a cuff, as the case maybe.

In either event, I finally started my first Summer of Socks sock. This morning.

Last night I ended up fooling around online, then when I settled down to knit I realized I had to clean the kitchen. Of course doing that made me rather pissy. Then when I was able to sit down and relax again the closest project was the Yellow Lace Top.

Well, I did manage to cast on about 6 sts last night, but they weren't going well.

I started with the outside tail of the Panda Cotton as the inside tail seemed fairly buried.

It wasn't pretty. Or, more accuratly, I stopped before it got ugly.

As I worked my long-tail cast on the yarn started untwisting on one side of the needle and kinking on the other. Uh-oh.

This morning I jammed the guts out of the ball to find the inside tail and the cast on went much more smoothly.

You can really tell in that bad picture I took (it's a very gloomy day here in NH) but I'm using my new Darn Pretty Needles that I bought at the NH Sheep & Wool Festival.

They are presenting another hiccup. First, and some people may like this, the points are really, really pointy/sharp.

Some people really like pointy points, but I'm not one of them. I can see the advantage for working pattern stitches that pull the yarn tight, but they don't work well with my knitting style. I tend to push the tip of the left needle with my right forefinger and pointy needles lead to a sore finger.

Another issue that they are size US1.5 and I think they are a little big for this yarn. The ribbing is just a wee bit soft, which is fine for the ribbing, but I think won't translate well to the body of the sock.

Now that I'm done the ribbing I'm going to transition over to my faithful Brittany Birch US1 DPNs, which should solve both the gauge and painful finger issues.

Well, I think that is all I have to report at the moment.

Onward to the leg and the pattern stitch!

Done: Flashy Socks

2011-06-22T19:42:00.005-04:00

This is not a Summer of Socks project.

This is an attempt to distract you from the fact that I didn't actually start my first Summer of Socks project yesterday.

When Hubby was outside grilling our dinner the neighbors up the hill started squawking at him. This resulted in us carrying patio chairs and our plates up the hill to hang out on their front lawn with the other miscreants.

And me without my knitting.

These things happen. You understand?

Project Recap
You will perhaps remember the Flashy Socks from the beginning of May when I originally cast them on. I've been working on them idly since then. Eventually I hit a point where I was more done than not and decided to focus on them.

They were also helped along by a business trip I went on last week (which was the cause of my recent lack of blogging. Although at this point it's more a surprise when I do blog). Socks, of course, being my preferred travel project.

Anyway.
Yarn: Aussi Soxxi from Oasis Yarn. Color #4
Needles: US 1
Pattern: My generic stockinette stitch to fit me formula

Of course the exciting part of these socks is that this is Rhinebeck yarn! Bought back in 2009. Phew! I've finally used some Rhinebeck yarn.

It's nice yarn. Was soft but otherwise not terribly remarkable in either direction to knit with, which can actually be a good thing. The magic happened when I put the finished socks on. So nice and squishy under foot!

I always wear my socks (almost) as soon as they are done without washing them first. This pair in the hamper now. It will be interesting to see what the washed yarn is like.

Not that I'm implying I'll remember to report on that topic.

Ok, let's see if I can get these cotton socks cast on now.

Summer of Socks!

2011-06-21T19:30:00.002-04:00

Ready, set, go!

Yeah! Summer of Socks is here once again.

Another summer dedicated to at least the idea of knitting socks, socks, socks from now until Sept. 21.

I did not do very well last year, what with the move and all, so I'm determined to do better this year.

Good thing there aren't actual quotas to meet!

This is another low key, go at your own pace year. phew! Although there are three featured patterns this time. One for each month. We aren't required to knit them, but it gives the whole period a KAL kind of feel.

Solidarity in stitching!

Anyway, the first pattern is Summer Spirals by Jersey Knitter (as in New Jersey). It's a cotton anklet, but the pattern says it will work with blends.

But cotton she wants, so cotton I'll use. Specifically the Panda Cotton pictured at the top of the blog.

Thanks to the wonders of Ravelry I can see that I bought this yarn all the way back in 2008 (gasp) and had peg it to at least two other patterns that I obviously haven't knit.

Maybe it's finally this yarn's time.

Still Hoard Wrangling
This fits in nicely with my current stash control idea, since the Year of the Sweater thing is working out so well.

Anyway, the current idea is to have one new-yarn and one old-yarn project on the go at any given time. Eventually consumption will meet in the middle and the hoard will be depleted.

Or the new yarn will be replaced as rapidly as it is used (or faster). Nature abhors a vacuum, after all.

So do the puppies and I, for that matter, which is why I try not to use mine much.

Anyway. Although Summer of Socks 2011 only officially kicked off at 10 am ET I've already seen people posting about finishing the first sock of the pair.

Either they are really fast knitters or it's a really fast pattern.

In any event, I haven't knit a stitch on any project today so I better at least get the sock caught up.

Field Trip: The Belknap Mill

2011-06-10T13:52:00.002-04:00

Last Friday the trouble makers in my Library Knitting group informed me that Patternworks was having it's annual tent sale over the weekend.

Of course I didn't need new yarn or new books, but when has that ever stopped us before? Another thing not stopping me was that Hubby was out of town (he's home now) so I was running loose.

I managed to avert my eyes from the yarn and waltz out with just "Getting Started Knitting Socks" by Ann Bud and "Sock Innovation" by Cookie A. Both on sale, wheee! They did not have either the Neatby finishing book or the Lavold books I've been seeking. Might have to break down and have someone do a special order for me.

Socks! Socks in a Museum!
After finishing at the store I headed over to the Historic Belknap Mill to take a look at their sock knitting machines.

I'd found out about this place a few months ago. One day Hubby came home from school and said he was bored and we should go exploring. I checked out the Visit NH website for nearby day-trip type activities, but by the time I'd settled on the Mill Hubby had fallen asleep. So perhaps he wasn't bored as much as he was tired.

Not that I think he would have found sock knitting machines as fascinating as I do, but he's a good sport. (Well, we both are, really.)

Anyway.

The sock knitting machines were so cool, even if I didn't get to see them in action.

The museum doesn't really have Saturday hours, but they were open because there was a wedding reception on the third floor. The downside was I could only explore the first floor because there was a wedding reception on the third floor.

Historical and Stuff
The first floor was the gift shop and one big room with a bunch of knitting machines.

Apparently the area was a hot bed of not only sock knitting but sock knitting machine building back in the day.

I found a script they use when school groups are in and it gave instructions when to turn on the machines. I could also tell some of the machines were functional because they had in-process socks on them. But the real clue was that the mill sells socks knit on premises in the gift shop.

The were plaques on the walls explaining the knitting process and how different machines made different parts of the socks. Of course, different people were trained on each step and there were even little kids who had to turn the socks inside out for one part and then back right-side out for the next.

As is often the case, the plaques said the first machine operators were men and then women slowly took over. But while the operators switched over to women, the machine fixers continued to just be men. Of course my modern sensibilities were annoyed by this.

It's not like these people where going to school and college for this; it was all on the job training. Did no women express interest in being fixers? Where they laughed at because women were too delicate or not smart enough?

It made me feel fortunate that we live in a time (and country) were (most) people realize that although there may be biological differences in the way men's and women's brains work we can equally rise to the challenges placed before us. And that with proper training I can complete a task even though I'm a woman.

Oh, another thing that gave me a turn was realizing some of the people quoted in the plaques might still be alive. Or were until very recently. The place was built in the 1800s but operational until the 1960.

In addition to the machines that knit socks there was a machine that knit I-cord! At first I wondered why they would want all that I-cord then turned around to a table of toe-less socks and saw shoelaces.

The socks were of a very fine weight and fabric. The yarn coming off the cones looked lace weight and you wouldn't catch me hand-knitting socks with yarn that thin. Driving over I'd wondered if there was a machine that did the ribbing for the cuff. Turns out they did a reverse stockinette cuff. That was one of the jobs, switching the sock from one machine to the other to make the cuff.

It made an attractive cuff for the socks at the Mill, but I think I'll stick with ribbing on the socks I knit.

Souvenirs
Part of me had been secretly hoping they'd have functioning, tabletop replicas of the machines for sale.

Boy howdy, could I blast through my sock yarn stash if I had a sock knitting machine! I could crank out the legs then do the feet by hand. I might have to knitting the ribbing by hand first, but that would have been fine.

All those day dreams were just that, though, since they didn't have machines for sale.

They did, however, have an original hand cranked machine for the home knitter. It was as big as any of the electric machines. It was not for sale, but there wouldn't have been room for it in our apartment anyway. And I think my sock yarn stash would have been too thick.

The museum doesn't have an admission price. It is supported by donations and sales in the gift shop. As I mentioned, they sold socks knit on-site in the gift shop. They also sold the shoelaces and loops of knit fabric like kids use to make those loom woven potholders.

They were very nice socks and decently priced, but I was pretty sure they'd be too big for me. Instead I bought a pair of the "Darn Tough" hiking socks, which are made in Vermont. They will come in handy if Hubby and I follow through on our declarations of doing more outdoor activities now that we're back in NH.

I also bought a cute little wooden ruler.

Knitters Everywhere
I would be remiss if I did not mention that half the fun of the museum was that the staff member on duty (another Ann) was also a knitter!

We had a grand time talking about knitting in general and knitting socks in particular. I confirmed things she'd been told about how wonderful Ravlery is and we found each other on Twitter.

All in all, it was a fun and educational afternoon.

Ruben Revisted

2011-06-09T14:40:00.005-04:00

In a paroxysm of Elsebeth Lavold love brought on by my visit to the "Knitting Along the Viking Trail" exhibit I hauled out the supplies for the Ruben sweater after I got home.

This is another sweater for which I bought the supplies back in 2004. So, yeah, it's been in my stash a while. Like I said yesterday, at the time I bought it I wasn't up for cables.

I'd also like to point out that I bought these during my one month stint of working at Patternworks. (It was only a month because right after I got the job Hubby got the job offer that took us to Connecticut.) At the time I had just turned into a yarn snob. I was unaware of the existance of yarn stores across the country. I was very sure I would never see such fabulous yarn at employee-discount prices again and I stocked up!

And then I moved to Connecticut and got a job at another yarn store and continued to stock up, but that's a different story that has been told in posts since I started this blog.

Rejected and Saved
In addition to my lack of cable skill, Ruben was held back because I'd secretly bought it to make for Hubby and was biding my time until he might want a sweater.

When that time finally arrived in 2009, he promptly rejected it. sigh.

At which point my older brother swooped in and claimed it for his own.

He asked after it when I was down there for Memorial Day. We were both surprised that it was two years ago.

Swatching, bleh
I knew that I'd gotten as far as swatching unsuccessfully before I tossed it aside for other projects.

When I dragged it back out I found my swatch, but no indication of what needles I'd used. sigh.

At that point I decided to take a knitting hiatus. My elbow was still sore from when I hurt it back in February. My chiropractor has been telling me to stop knitting to give it a chance to heal, but I haven't been listening to him. I decided maybe he knows what he's talking about.

Of course the knitting hiatus lasted for all of three days before I snapped on Friday and started working on my Yellow Lace Top.

With the knitting door reopened I returned to the mysterious Ruben swatch.

The pattern calls for US4 and US6 needles. I figured I probably started with US6 and went to US7 when I didn't get gauge.

I ripped out that old swatch and tried with US7 again. The first swatch was so long ago, who knows what in my life has changed.

Didn't get gauge so I moved on to US8 needles.

Didn't get gauge and the fabric was starting to look floppy and gross. The middle section of the picture is the US8 section.

Wrong Direction
I stared at the swatch unable to comprehend why I wasn't getting gauge.

Then I realized I was getting too few stitches per inch. The gauge is 21 sts in 4 inches and I was getting around 19 sts in 4 inches.

I wanted to be getting more stitches per inch. I should have been going down in needle size, not up.

With the light bulb flipped on I abruptly dropped down to a US5 needle and instantly got gauge.

Phew!

The part I knit on the US5 is at the top of the swatch in the picture. See how much narrower and denser it is than the other sections? Now that is a nice fabric.

Now that I've got gauge all I need is time to knit.

Field Trip: Knitting Along the Viking Trail Exhibit

2011-06-08T20:34:00.002-04:00

The "Knitting Along the Viking Trail" exhibit opened at the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia in March 2011 and closes July 3, 2011. If you are reading this when I actually wrote it there is still time for you to dash down there and see it. The trip would be worth your while.

As I was preparing for the visit to mom's house and the museum over Memorial Day weekend I wracked my brain to figure out why I didn't go in March when the exhibit opened and Elsebeth Lavold was there doing workshops. Then I remembered it was the same weekend Hubby and I left for our March Break trip to Park City, Utah (which I never told you about). Well, a girl can only do so much.

Since we were there on a Friday afternoon, mom and I had the exhibit hall to ourselves, which gave me plenty of time and space to run from one end to the other examining each piece from many different angles. It was very exciting to see in person the sweaters I've been mooning over for years in the pattern books.

Trud
I discovered Lavold's designs in 2004, pretty soon after I learned to knit. Even at that time I knew cables would be a love of mine and bought the "Viking Patterns for Knitters" as soon as I saw it. Seeing the sweaters in person gave me a new appreciation for how they are put together and the details that went into the designs. It seems silly to say that seeing them in person allowed me to see them in a new light. Of course the sweaters look different in person than in a picture.

I was especially excited to see the Trud sweater, which is from the first Viking Knits Collection book. I fell in love with Trud in 2004 and bought the book and the yarn even though it was beyond my skill level at the time.

Then my skill level caught up and I wondered if I really wanted all that fabric from the pleats around my hips. So I started considering other ways to use the yarn, but kept coming back to Trud.

Well, seeing the sweater in person I found that the pleats don't add a lot of bulk after all. The Silky Wool yarn is light and has good drape so there isn't really a massive amount of fabric around the waist. That was very exciting to see. Trud was back on my to-make list! All I have to do is scale down the top. The size small has a 34" inch finished chest, which will be around 3" of ease for me and a tad more than I like.

Hoods
The other change in perspective I had was from seeing Vigdis from Viking Patterns for Knitters and Skjalf from the Second Viking Knits book.

They both have these form fitting, detached hood. I always thought the hood on Vigdis was a little goofy looking in the book. Turns out they are really cute in person! The Vigdis one is just plain stockinette stitch, but the one for Skjalf has cables on it.

In fact, mom and I left the museum discussing how practical they looked. They keep you warmer than a hat since they cover your ears and neck, but they don't block your peripheral vision and catch the wind like a traditional hood would. Having seen them in person I really want to make one now.

Dragons!
It was also inspiring to see the dragons in person that I want to use in my Celtic Critter Cardigan. There don't seem to be patterns for Urd and Saga, the sweaters I'm standing with in the first picture on the post. But they gave an idea of what can be done with the cables. Getting to examine the details of the sweaters up close and see how they were put together was very informative. I took lots of close up pictures of shoulders, sides, collars, and other parts unseen in the pictures in the pattern books.

Well, I could go on and on about how wonderful all the sweater were, but I think you get the idea.

I'll wrap up by mentioning the blanket picture from my last post.

The afghan was massive! It was all her swatches from Knitting Along the Viking Trail sewn together. Once again, some of the patterns that didn't impress me in the pictures in the book turned out to be very attractive in person.

But I think my favorite part of the blanket was the filled in spaces. Little areas where the swatches didn't come together square that were just filled in with grey garter stitch. That amused me terribly.

I guess because those little grey spots showed it was handmade.

Book Bonanza

2011-05-30T21:17:00.002-04:00

Well, I had quite the exciting weekend. I wasn't sure where to start, but now it's late so I'll start with the easy stuff.

On Thursday I trooped down to my mom's again. My weekend odyssey covered eight hours, five states, and four yarn stores.

Actually, 16 hours if you count the drive home, too.

Anyway.

Since I've realized I have more pictures to take, I'll start with the easy stuff of the books.

Ooooh, the books. A veritable plethora of knitting books.

As I told you back in April, in a moment of insanity I signed up for the Master Knitter program. I've been conspicuously silent on it since then because I haven't actually started it. I bought and set up the binder then hit a wall.

There are a lot of questions you need to answer and that report to write...anyway I convinced myself I couldn't start until I'd bought a few basic, knitting overview type books. Sure I might already know the stuff, but you are supposed to sight references in the report.

Well, right before my trip I got I postcard and email announcing a sale at The Elegant Ewe down in Concord. I figured the books I wanted might not be on sale, but since I'd be practically driving by it wouldn't hurt to stop.

I bought "Knitting in Plain English" by Maggie Righetti and "Power Cables" by Lily Chin. I was aiming for the Righetti book as one of my reference manuals for the MK program. I figure I liked her "Sweater Design in Plain English" so I'll probably like this one. It was not on sale. The Chin book was an impulse purchase because it was on sale. But then I like cables and after flipping through it thought it might also make a good reference manual.

They were out of Lucy Neatby's new book "Cool Knitters Finish In Style," proving I should have bought it when I saw it a few weeks ago.

Back In My Store
I continued on to Westport Yarns to pick up the yarn I'd ordered when I passed through for mom's heart attack. (I still have to take pictures of it.) (Um, the yarn that is. Not mom's heart.)

I had a nice time chattering away for a while, then decided I should get back on the road.

They also were out of the Neatby book. However, I bought a tin of the lavender scent Lavishea lotion bar. It's very pleasant and seems to be doing a good job.

Philly Stores
On Friday mom and I went up to Philadelphia to see the "Knitting Along The Viking Trail" exhibit at the American Swedish Historical Museum.

That is a big post for tomorrow, but here is a taste. The exhibit is from the Elsebeth Lavold book "Viking Patterns for Knitting." This afghan is made from the swatches she knit when researching the book.

How very cool to see the swatches I've mooned over all these years! I like the way there are odd bits of grey knitting to fill in gaps between the swatches. I guess they wouldn't jigsaw together properly and someone said, "Well, just fill it in."

We took a turn around the rest of the museum as well and hit the gift shop. (As Dr. Who says, "I love a little shop.") I wasn't really expecting to see anything, but I found this very cool book called "Swedish Knits" by Paula Hammerskog and Eva Wincent.

I don't believe I've ever heard or seen this book before. I flipped through it several times before I bought it. There are basic instructions, tips, a stitch dictionary, and patterns. Once again, I think it might come in handy for the MK program.

After leaving the exhibit we got a bite to eat and then went questing for yarn stores since I knew there were two within spitting distance. I was still looking for the Neatby book but was also fired up to get the Second and Third Viking Knits Collections books by Lavold.

First we tracked down Rosie's Yarn Cellar. It was a cute little store with wall to wall yarn. They had yarn I've knit with, yarn I'd heard about but never seen in person, and a few yarns that were new to me.

Which is what you would want in a yarn store, no?

They did not have either the Neatby or the Lavold books I was after. However, having been in the biz (actually, I guess I still am) I always like to make a least a token purchase when I visit an LYS. In this case I bought a handful of the sample size Soak Wash laundry soaps sitting on the counter.

Then we moved on to Loop. This was a little of a jackpot. Once again the yarn ranged from the familiar to the new. Once again they didn't have the Neatby book, but they did have the Second Viking Knits book. score!

They also had a offer on FourSquare. Yeah, I set up an ID on FourSquare. I don't know, it's another social media site. When you go places you check in and can leave tips and see other tips and...yeah, I don't really get it. Probably because I only have one friend on it and he doesn't even live near me.

Anyway, sometimes it amuses me to spend the day checking into places, especially when I'm on a trip.

Well, Loop had an offer of 10% off a $20 purchase for you first check in. Finally, I found a place that actually had an offer I'd be interested in! That, of course, opened the flood gates. I would have bought the Lavold book regardless, but since I was getting a discount I also bought both "Sensational..." and "More Sensational Knitted Socks" by Charlene Schurch. They are good books and I've been thinking on and off for a while that I should have them since I love knitting socks so much, and there they were, so now they are mine.

I also bought some yarn, which I need to photograph.

In the end I bought six knitting books. Combined with the book I bought at the NH Sheep & Wool Festival and the book JelliDonut gave me, I acquired eight new knitting books this month. phew!

Not Knitting
You will notice in the top right corner of the picture that a non-knitting book slipped in as well. We stopped at Barnes & Noble on our way home from Philly because mom had some coupons to use and titles she wanted.

B & N also did not have the Neatby book, but since mom's coupon was going to expire over the weekend I thought it was about time I read "The Princess Bride."

This could be dangerous. I like the movie very much and I understand the book is a bit different. However, William Goldman wrote the book and the movie script, so I hope it isn't too shocking.

ASJ Pockets Progress

2011-05-25T15:40:00.002-04:00

Our trip to the wool festival the other weekend inspired me to haul my Adult Surprise Jacket out and work on the pockets.

It was a combination of being surrounded by all that wool and knowing that if the pockets had done I could have worn it to the fair.

Well, maybe not as it was threatening to rain on Saturday and did rain on Sunday so a rain coat was the way to go...but the potential had been there.

I'm going with the construction EZ gives in the pattern for an afterthought pocket. On the right you see the flap for the first pocket knit and waiting to be sewn down. On the left I'm working on picking up the stitches for the second pocket.

This method requires cutting the fabric of the finished sweater, which might give you some insight into why I've been dragging my feet.

When I settled down to do the task it wasn't as bad as I expected. Perhaps I had selected a "sticky" section of yarn to place the pocket because all hell did not break loose when I snipped the strand.

I was able to carefully pluck the yarn out of the stitches while placing the newly live stitches on double pointed needles.

There was a false start because I messed up the increases she recommends, which can only be expected when you knit while watching TV. When I saw the pocket was going sideways I just ripped it out and worked increases at the beginning and end of every knit row. Heck, it's a pocket. No one should be looking at it.

I knit the first pocket to be about a deep as my iPhone is long on the assumption that I will mainly be dropping my iPhone in it. Also, that should be a good depth for a curled up hand. Actually, any longer and it would have gotten dangerously close to the bottom of the sweater.

You will note I typed "the first pocket." The second pocket is still in the state you see it in the picture. Which is to say a state of potentiality waiting for the rest of the stitches to be picked up and knit. I seem to remember we were watching something good on TV and the stitch transfer was too fiddly so I put it aside.

I really should finish it. But today the temperature has jumped up into the mid-70s F. Not really sweater weather. Did you hear that rushing sound my motivation made as it went by?

Sourdough Update

2011-05-23T10:10:00.004-04:00

The mystery of the missing starter has been solved!

On our walk this morning Judy reported that with all the young ones home for various college graduations the starter was found on the porch, brought inside, and left on the counter.

If you know sourdough you know where this is going.

As I typed yesterday, it's a vigorous starter.

Left on the counter it outgrew the little container I'd put it in and made a run for it.

Oops.

I guess that means it did get up and walk away....

The horrified young ones cleaned it up and threw it away.

We are not crying over the lost starter. Technically that was a cup of starter I was supposed to discard anyway. And there is more where that came from! She said this also gives her time to acquire a crock that would be an appropriate starter home.

In other bread news, I sat down with the nutritional labels from the flour and the store bought bread and did a lot of math to figure out where my bread stands.

It's not perfect calculations, but it reinforces my feelings that my bread (eaten in modest slices) isn't all bad. Sure it's a little higher in carb and a little lower in protein than the store stuff, but not as bad as one might have expected.

What did surprise me is that the Ancient Grains Blend didn't up the nutritional profile as much as I was expecting. In fact the traditional Whole Wheat has a higher fiber content. If I make my next loaf with whole wheat it will be even healthier.

Still, the Ancient Grains does have a nice flavor to it.

In other, other bread news, I have sent an e-mail to the KAF Bakers Help people to find out if I can use a cup of my sourdough starter in place of the starter in the Scali Bread recipe. That was late yesterday so I haven't heard back yet, but personally I don't see why not. Think of the time that will be saved if I can! Especially if I can use unfed sourdough.

Knitting content will return soon, I promise. :-)

Hello, Sourdough.

2011-05-22T14:11:00.003-04:00

After Mom and I were done at the NH Sheep and Wool Festival last Sunday we skipped over the border into Vermont to visit the King Arthur Flour company store.

Since I've been using KAF products exclusively for my baking since the 1990s the prospect of visiting their store in person was fairly exciting.

In fact, I've suggested this as an outing to Hubby a couple times since we moved back to NH but since he doesn't bake he's always squirmed out of it. Mom doesn't bake, but she likes baked goods, so I knew she'd be up for it.

If you get their catalogue then you have an idea of what we saw. Basically, all those items in the catalogue right there in front of you so you can actually make all those impulse purchases that pass through your mind when flipping pages or looking at the website. In addition to more flours out of more grains than you can shake a whisk at.

Lunch?
In addition to shopping part of the plan was to get a bite to eat. It was a rainy day that Sunday so we thought soup would be the way to go.

The soup of the day was Vegan Tomato Bisque. That raised warning flags because I haven't met a vegan soup I liked. Even during our trip to France summer before last I had a vegetable soup that was so tasteless we figured it must have been vegan. But mom and I ordered the tomato soup anyway.

Sorry, guys, but it was really....bland. Mom and I agreed it needed cream or a chicken stock base. Either of which would have defeated the vegan purpose. Happily, the dull soup was the only disappointing part of the trip.

Treasures
My wallet did not escape unscathed despite my attempts to control myself. Mainly I bought a bag of the Ancient Grains Flour Blend to have a healthy option on hand, a bag of dough improver to make bread easier to knead, and a present for my mother-in-law.

But the piece de resistance was a container of their fresh sourdough starter. (This is not a picture of how the starter comes from the store. This is a picture of my starter after I started waking it up. The starter from the store is in a little bitty container that isn't intimidating at all.)

Now, I already killed some of this sourdough starter back in the 90s when I was living in Texas. Although after reading all about sourdough on their blog in the last few days I wonder if that old sourdough was really dead. But that was more than 10 years ago, so I'm not going to mourn it.

You might also recall that I recently killed a sourdough starter while living in CT. But that was from a very old, powder souvenir starter from California. I think it had issue to begin with.

Anyway.
On Thursday I finally got the container cleaned and woke that sucker up. All day Friday it was going gangbusters, which was very exciting. Actually, I just took a peek at in the fridge and it still looks bubbly and happy.

I have dubbed it Seymour, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Although it might be more logical to name it Audrey 2.

On Friday I whipped up a batch of bread following the Rustic Sourdough Bread recipe that comes with the starter. Only I subbed in 1 cup of the Ancient Grains Blend for that whole "healthy" bread illusion.

I'm rather pleased with the results. It might have come out a little denser than I anticipated, but I think that is the influence of the whole grains. Also, I haven't been baking bread from scratch much lately. Additionally, it's been raining, like, all week here and I'm sure the humidity affected things.

When it first came out of the oven Hubby had a sliced and declared it good. This was a breakthrough because the only bread I've baked that he's really liked so far was the Scali Bread, which is good bread, but limiting in baking options.

Since then, however, Hubby has denounced me as both a siren and a saboteur and declared that he won't be eating any more home made bread until he has reached his weight loss and fitness goals. Mainly because there is no way to know the actual nutritional value of my bread. sigh.

I, on the other hand, have chosen to put on nutrition blinders and finish the loaf. Sure, my bread probably isn't as good carb-wise as that sprouted grains stuff we buy in the store, but I can't imagine it is all that bad.

Of course, this puts me in a pickle where Seymour is concerned. As you might know, if sourdough starters aren't used every week they at least have to be reduced and fed. Well, I'm not going to continue to bake loaves of bread that I'm the only one eating. I guess I'll just maintain Seymour, discarding a cup each week, until such time as Hubby is ready to play along.

Disappearing dough
Speaking of maintaining a starter...there is a lot of feeding and dividing involved before you can actually use it.

At one of those steps the directions say to remove a cup and either discard it or give it to a friend. Anticipating this step I had arranged to give that cup to my friend Judy. Well, I plopped it in a container and left it on her porch since she was out and about when the time came.

She sent me an e-mail that it's missing!

Now it's a very vigorous starter but I can't imagine that it managed to get up and walk away on its own.

At least, I hope it didn't.

Maybe I should check the fridge again.

Dear MLB

2011-05-21T21:26:00.001-04:00

We are sitting here in NH staring at a blank TV screen rather than watching the Yankees and Mets inter league game because Fox has some kind of superpowers to control which games are available to us despite our MLB Extra Innings package from DirecTV.

As I'm sure you are aware, we're paying a pretty penny for the MLB Extra Innings package so we can watch the Yankees even though we had to move out of the NY area.

I don't know how the arrangement works, but I'm pretty sure MLB has to be benefiting from the subscription fees we're paying.

It seems to me that since we are basically paying you for the privilege of continuing to watch the Yankees we should be able to actually watch the Yankees.

I understand the goal is to force us to watch the local game on the Fox broadcast. And this makes sense when the Yankees are playing the Red Sox. In those cases we suffer through the Red Sox broadcast. But tonight the Yankees are playing the Mets.

There is nothing that is going to make us watch a random Red Sox game.

Maybe you and Fox are concerned about loosing our eyes because we're watching the out of market game. But you have to realize you've lost our eyes entirely because now we're going to watch something off our DVR since we can't see the baseball game we want to see.

What makes even less sense is that Fox was also broadcasting the Yankees/Mets game. They could at least have had our eyes on that.

The entire point of buying the MLB Extra Innings Package was so we could watch the Yankees even though we're no longer in the Yankees "market."

Please stop defeating the purpose of this subscription and allow us to watch the out-of-market games we want to watch rather than forcing us to watch no game at all.

Thank you.

PS--Also, the 500 character limit on the feedback form on your website is annoying.

Thanks, Jelli!

2011-05-20T20:37:00.003-04:00

I have an online friend named JelliDonut.

I started following her on twitter, because she is another knitter.

Then, since most people link their blog to their twitter account, I started reading her blog and subscribed to her RSS feed.

Once I did that I had to track her down on Ravelry to find out more about her projects.

This is all fairly normal for the way social media connections progress. At some point I added her as a Flickr contact as well, which is weird since I haven't grown that network at all. Flickr is just a place I post photos so I can get them into Ravelry.

Anyway.

JelliDonut likes to do giveaways on her blog. She gave away a digital scale once.

It was her birthday recently and she had another giveaway...and I won!

Honestly, I felt a little guilty when I first saw my name on her blog since most of the time I'm just driving by sassing her. But she seems a little sarcasitc too, so she probably appreciates the sass.

Then, of course, I came to my senses because it's sock yarn! And I shook that guilt right off and sent her my mailing address. :-) hehehe

The picture is of the awesome goodies she sent me (yes! even the project bag!). She even printed the errata from the book. How organized is that?

It's not the best picture because it's been raining for days and days here.

So there is a skein of Socks That Rock lightweit in "The skein with no name" colorway, sort of oranges and browns. A skein of Mountian Colors in "Evergreen," dark blues, greens, and purples. And a skein of Classic Elite Alpaca Sox in Color #1858, red, orange, purple and green.

As you know red and blue are two of my favorite colors. And I do need more dark socks in my wardrobe, so everything it just spot on. It was meant to be. sigh.

The women in the Library Knitting group were rather impressed with everything. Especially the spiffy knitting bag. It has lots of zippered pockets for organizing things and it big enough for a large amount of yarn. (Sorry, no tag so I can't tell you the brand.)

You should stop by and check out her blog. It's a fun read. And you never know when she's going to start tossing stuff around again.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go pet my new yarn.

NH Sheep & Wool Festival, Part 2

2011-05-18T15:24:00.002-04:00

Yarn nibbles!

Sock hors d'oeuvers!

Wee skeins of beauty.

Call them what you will, but during the NH Sheep and Wool Festival they made success mine.

You see, back in 2009 Mom bought me the set of landscape sock patterns from Borealis Sweaterscapes. You might be most familiar with the lighthouse pattern. There is also an autumn road, pine trees, and cows in an apple orchard.

They sell kits that include the pattern and the yarn, but at the time I was working at Knitting Central and thought it wouldn't be a problem getting the yarn on my own.

Then the patterns arrived and I was stopped cold because I found out I would need small quantities of a large number of yarns (especially for the autumn road socks). I was facing a situation where I might use 25 yards out of a 400 yard skein. This would not only be expensive but would also lead to me knitting striped socks for the rest of my life to get rid of the leftovers.

Also, even if we'd had all the colors I needed in stock, which we didn't, I would have been brand hoping with unknown results.

So I made myself a spreadsheet of the colors and quantities needed, then put the patterns aside to bide my time.

In the past I've come home from Rhinebeck and kicked myself for forgetting to bring the spreadsheet, but really I just would have been in the same large skein situation I was in at the store.

Victory!
But then on Saturday Nancy and I were walking by the Holiday Yarns booth and saw a bin full of wee skeins of yarn. There was a sign about blah blah and at the bottom big red letters that said "A handful = $20."

Well, who can pass up an offer like that? We made jokes about needing bigger hands. I confirmed we could select colors rather than acting like a prize claw and taking whatever handful we came up with.

As we picked through my landscape socks suddenly came to mind. It wasn't a coherent enough thought to regret not having the spreadsheet, but it was enough to guide me toward autumnal colors that could be in the tree leaves.

My first "handful" was the top picture. I knew I needed blue for the sky. I knew I needed brown for the tree trunks. I basically did my best.

Then mom and I headed home. We discussed what a nice manageable fair it was and how we sort of conquered it one day.

Filling the Gaps
However we quickly realized this "one day" stuff was nonsense. I, of course, immediately fished out the patterns and spreadsheet and spread my precious wee skeins out on the dining room table. More colors were needed. I was so close. At the same time Mom realized she didn't buy any handmade soap. The book signing was Sunday. Then the final straw came when Hubby announced he had too much school work to hang out with us Sunday.

Obviously we needed to go back.

This time I took my patterns, spreadsheet, and the colors I bought Saturday.

I got to the booth in a slight lull with gave me the opportunity to show Jennifer the patterns and explain to what I needed. She was smitten. We spread out my stuff and she helped me select the missing colors. I ended up purchasing three full size skeins a well mainly for the foot portions but also because of cross over between patterns.

She was very helpful and supportive of the cause. She said she will knit vicariously through me. I'll have to do a good job so I can send her pretty pictures.

Divide and Conquer
I have decided to start with the Autumn Road socks. You can see the pattern picture peeking out from under the yarn in the bottom right of this corner.

I matched up the colors I bought with the colors in the pattern with a slight amount of fudging.

Then I put them in Ziplock baggies with their pattern color names being careful to keep similar colors separate, i.e., poppy, garnet, and Chianti are in different bags.

Now all I need to do is ball all the skeins and I can get started.

It's so exciting.

NH Sheep & Wool Festival, Part 1

2011-05-17T14:45:00.003-04:00

You had to expect me to drag a weekend wool festival out over multiple posts.

This was my first time attending the NH Sheep and Wool Festival. The first time around living in the state I had not yet realized the glory that is wool festivals, but after attending Rhinbeck two years in a row I had to check the local one out.

My hope was that it would be smaller and more manageable than Rhinebeck, and indeed it was. It was busy and there were many vendors, but it wasn't overwhelming. One thing I liked about it was all the vendors seemed to be from the NH, VT, ME area with a few from farther afield. It's not that I was really pulling a "support local" attitude (which was nice), but rather I figure if I want more of their products they'll be easy to get to.

People
Mom came up for it. We'd planned it before her little heart attack at the beginnig of the month and the doctors said there was no reason she shouldn't. Once there we met up with Pam's sister Nancy (who does not have a blog).

We also ran into Marcia and Patty from the Library Knitting group, several of Nancy's friends, and Pat who I worked with briefly at Patternworks my first time around.

Now that I work from home full-time I often feel that I never see other humans aside from Hubby. It made me happy that I already know enough people to encounter them out and about despite only being in the state since the summer and never leaving the house.

On Sunday I also got to meet Vicki Stiefel, who I follow on Twitter. I saw on Ravelry that she'd be a the festival doing a book signing and thought she looked familar. Her book is 10 Secrets of the LaidBack Knitters. I had a chance to flip through it on Saturday and determine it was worth owning. She was so very excited that I'm a Twitter follower that at first I thought she was yanking my chain. But she really was excited (and of course I was excited too, not often you actually meet your social media friends). She was also very sweet and we had a nice chat. She even had Mom take our picture so she could tweet about meeting me!

Speaking of pictures. Of course I can't go near a fiber festival without my Felted Ravelry ID Bag. Trust other knitters and crocheters to appreciate the insantiy of it. I do enjoy basking in the compliments. hehehe.

Yaaarnn!
Of course I go to these festivals for the wool part, not the sheep part. Although I do try to swing by the stalls and thank them for their contribution to my happiness.

The first thing I fell in love with was this beautiful bundle from Ellen's Half Pint Farm. It is 1,375 yards of 50% Silk 50% Merino goodness. As you can see in the opening picture, it was love at first sight. I bought it in the "Spring Pansy" colorway, but there were many other lovely colors. I was briefly distracted by some of the other colors (there was one that would have matched the Flashy Socks I recently started) but I decided to stick with the first one that caught my eye. I plan, of course, to make a Schleppy Sweater with it.

Listen, that raglan I designed for myself fits well and works fine with colorful yarn, so I'm just going to stick with it. At this rate, if I actually knit all the Schleppys I plan too, I'll be able spend the entire winter wearing just them!

While Mom and Nancy both stopped at Leslie Wind's booth to have some pins made while they watched (website has sound effects) I wandered through the Ball and Skein booth right next to it.

The Ball and Skein booth was well organized and well lit. She had sample shawls displayed around the booth and I became enamored of the Ceder Leaf Shawlette from Never Not Knitting.

Ball and Skein was selling the pattern as a kit with her Sophia yarn for $30, which struck me as a very reasonable price since the yarn is a Merino/Nylon/Cashmere blend.

The sample was in orange, which was nice, but not really me. I decided green would be too easy, because of the leaves. So I went with this nice shade of red called "Rusty Nail."

Imagine my surprise when I discovered this pattern is similar to one I already have queued on Ravelry. Between this and my Trellis Leaf Mitts, I guess I'm totally on a leaf kick for some reason.

Needles
That is not the end of my yarn purchases at the festival, as you might imagine, but I'll leave the rest for tomorrow.

I'll wrap up today's post with the needles I bought. Well, I suppose the Denise companion set isn't actually needles, but they are close enough.

Oh.my.goodness, are they not beautiful?!

Really, I need more Denise cables about as much as I need more yarn, but how could I pass them up? As you might know, I have a set and a half as I bought a set when I learned to knit then acquired Pam's cast off set before I left CT. But those all have the traditional blue cables. These, these are colored cables!

The booth I bought them in had the range of colors and it was hard to select, so I defaulted to happy yellow. A woman watching me dither suggested I get a color that will contrast with the colors I normally work with. That was a good idea and reaffirmed the yellow since I tend to knit with red and blue.

The other needles I bought are a set of US 1.5 "Darn Pretty Needles" double points. They were out of US 1, but I figure these are close enough. You can't really tell in that bad picture, but they are multicolored wood needles.

Now I just need an excuse to use them because goodness knows I have the yarn.

Yellow Lace Top

2011-05-11T19:48:00.000-04:00

Works in progress be damned!

Knit from your stash? I laugh at the concept!

Because I have yummy new yarn and have finally decided on a pattern.

You will remember (perhaps bitterly) my recent bragging about receiving sample balls of the new Juniper Moon Farm Yarn "Findley" to play with.

Hmm, that doesn't sound quite right...anyway.

I had settled on a knit sweater, a crocheted sweater, and a shawl, but was dithering over the colors to use for all of them. Of all the colors I'd received I only had solid plans for two of them, but there was heavy math involved before I could start either of those.

Last week I laid out the patterns and yarns and made Hubby decide for me. Don't laugh. He has a very good eye. And perhaps not as much at stake.

For the crochet sweater he suggested the robins egg blue. For the shawl (which will be the cover pattern from the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Debbie Bliss Magazine) he selected the grass green.

Finally, for my friend Pam's Lacey V-Neck Top that is in the Holiday 2009 issue of Vogue Knitting he selected the soft, buttercup yellow. Interestingly, it is also the one the women in the Library Knitting group suggested.

Away I Go
With a color selected, I cast on last Tuesday and have been clicking away.

The lace pattern only has an 8 row repeat and it's a fairly regular progression, so I hope I ingest it soon and can stop looking at the pattern. That will speed things up.

The sweater has waist shaping, but instead of having you increase and decrease Pam cleverly has you change needle sizes. In fact I'm already at the first change. I was surprised it arrived so quickly.

So surprised that my US 3 circular wasn't available. It was still in the lace scarf I've been knitting for, what, a year because scarves just kill me and now I only work on it during the Library Knitting group. Anyway, I knit it onto a pair of bamboo straights I own for some reason and freed the circ for the sweater.

Of course sweater progress was derailed when I skipped town over the weekend. But I'm back at it.

Another nice thing is that it's knit in the round so there won't be much seaming to worry about at the end.

Well, considering I've only knit around 3 inches of sweater there isn't much more to say.

I think it's time to stop typing and start knitting.

A Need for Socks

2011-05-10T18:50:00.004-04:00

Last week I swore project monogamy to a lace sweater about which I haven't had a chance to tell you.

However, since knitters plan and G-d laughs, that all went out the door Friday morning.

On Friday morning my mom called to tell me she was in the hospital because she might have had a heart attack the day before but they were still waiting for test results to come back. She assured me she felt fine and not to bother coming down.

That was a relief on all counts since it's an 8 hour drive. Of course, by the time I got out of the shower I'd come to my sense so when my older brother called to make sure I was up to speed I was able to assure him I was packing.

The final word is that she did have a mild heart attack and had had a silent one sometime in the past. They determined that she did not need a stent because her heart had grown new veins to bypass the blockage.

Despite these amazing regenerative powers she assures us she is not a Borg.

We were able to take her home Saturday afternoon and informed her that it was a hell of a stunt to get me to come down for Mother's Day.

I ended up staying the weekend and coming home Monday. It was a very nice visit in the end. It would have been a better visit if it hadn't been for a health issue and if I'd been able to bring Hubby and the pups along. (Hubby had school duties and the puppies would have added to the chaos anyway so I left them all behind.)

Road Trip!
About a hour into the eight hour drive I began wishing I'd made Hubby come along, mainly so he could do the driving. Then I began wishing I'd followed his suggestion of taking the train. I thought it would be inconvenient on the other end, but it turns out my brother had the day off and my mom was in a hospital across the river from Philly, so it would have totally made sense.

But I drove.

On the way down I was happy to see that my intense dislike for the Garden State Parkway was both undiminished and still justified.

On the way home I followed the GPS suggestion to take the George Washington Bridge. Famou last thought, "It's mid-day, how bad can it be?" Actually, it wasn't any worse than the Tappen Zee and the Garden State Parkway combination, but the toll on the GW is $8 which I was totally not expecting and I'm pretty sure made it a more expensive option. (Oh! I just checked my EZPass account online and it looks like I got a discount so the GW was only $5.90.)

In the end the drive both ways was fine and I made good time, so I guess I can't complain (much).

What Does This Have To Do With Socks?
Despite the jarring phone call and the rapid pace at which I packed I had the precense of mind to realize that a sweater which was all lace all the time being knit with lace weight yarn held doubled was not an acceptable project for the situation.

I will remind you that she sounded fine and perky when she called so worrying about which project to pack was a legitimate activity. If you don't understand that you are obviously not a knitter or crocheter.

I realized that the situation called for a pair of plain old socks. Small, portable, and mindless.

With that goal in mind I threw open the dining room credenza to fish out some sock yarn.

I was after this blue and purple Seacoast Handpainted Sock Yarn that I bought over Columbus Day weekend in 2010 and never told you about.

But when I opened the cabinet doors the first thing I saw was the brown/yellow/pink Aussi Soxxi yarn pictured at the top of the blog. I bought that yarn at Rhinebeck in 2009. The age and the extreme brightness of it made me decide to go with the Aussi Soxxi instead.

I figured I would need something cheery and obnoxious to knit with to combat the potential gloom of the weekend.
I didn't get much knitting done, but it seems to be moving along quickly.

The first night I was knitting, Saturday, I was a bit nervous because I thought I felt my fingers tingling like they do when I have an allergic reaction to some yarn. But the sensation didn't come back the next night so I think I'll be fine.

The question now is do I abandon the new socks for the lace sweater or try to juggle them?

Because project rotations always work out so well for me. ha!

Schleppy Socks

2011-05-04T16:06:00.004-04:00

This project has come, been, and gone.

Or, more accurately, cast on, knit, and ends woven in.

With all the sock carnage lately I thought it might be best to knit myself a pair to take the burden off the existing pairs.

Socks were my second project after I learned to knit, so I've been knitting socks for a while now. Once I hit around 14 pairs I transitioned to wearing hand knit socks almost exclusively.

This puts a lot of wear and tear on them. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that some need repairs.

Despite all that it's been a while since I knit myself a pair of socks. According to my Ravelry notebook the last pair I knit myself was in September 2010. In fact, I haven't knit many pairs of socks in general lately.

The last pair I knit was for my sister-in-law. I started them around the time we moved last year and didn't finish them until our vacation in March. She likes them very much.

I could not tell you what caused this sock dearth recently. Although judging by my Ravelry notebook the last pair I attempted to knit myself were those Skew socks. That was traumatic and I guess put me off.

Of course, I've also had a lot going on recently. Lots of projects on the needles. Spreading myself thin knitting wise.

Still, I always seemed to have a pair of socks on the needles regardless of other projects, so being sockless is pretty odd.

Back On Track
Anyway. After all that darning I snapped and decided it was time to whip out a pair.

This pair took 3 weeks, which is a little unusual.

There is nothing exciting to report about them because they are just plain old stockinette stitch, which is a nice soothing pair of socks.
There was a brief moment of excitment when I tried to work the gusset decreases in a different place just to mix things up.

Instead of working the decreases from the point where the instep and the heel flap joined I worked them in the middle of the sock. I left two stitches in between. I thought it would make an interesting decoration on the instep.

Nope.

I guess I placed the decreases too close together because it created a tight spot on the sock. I seem to remember they were hard to put on and not comfortable at all. Unfortunatley I didn't realize that until the first sock was almost done.

Still, I did not hesitate to rip back to the heel turn and rework them in the traditional fashion.

Rhinebeck!
Actually, there is something exciting about these socks. I made them with yarn I bought at Rhinebeck.

Finally, a finished project using Rhinebeck yarn.

It's Alexandria yarn from Maple Creek Farm that I bought in 2009. I called them "Schleppy Socks" because they are the same colors as my "Schleppy Sweater."

It's nice yarn. It's a merino/nylon blend and felt quite normal while knitting. It has also softened up nicely with washing.

Of course with my little feet I have half a skein left. Guess I'll keep it on hand for any darning that might need to be done many years down the road.

Done: Trellis Mitts

2011-05-02T20:32:00.003-04:00

I finished knitting the second (left) Trellis Mitts last night.

Technically I still have to weave in the ends, but it's done enough for me. Especially considering I'll be weaving in the ends when I finish this post.

Not much to say about it since I wrote all those other posts in mid-April about making them bigger or into gloves or into socks.

I will be happy to have another pair of fingerless mitts to wear. You can almost never have enough pairs. You never know what color you will be in the mood for on any given day.

One amusing thing...according to my Ravelry project page I started them on May 16, 2010. So they took me almost a year. haha. Of course they didn't because I wasn't actively knitting them all that time.

Still, it's interesting to see how pauses and stops influence how quickly you finish a project. I'm sure if I'd worked straight through I would have finished in two weeks.

Oh, my finished pair took about half the skein of Ella Rae Lace Merino. I'm looking at the rest of the skein trying to decide what to do.

I wonder if I can figure out a crochet version?

Darned Socks

2011-04-30T10:13:00.002-04:00

After the success of darning the blue Jitterbug socks I turned my attention to other sock repairs.

I made these pink socks in, oh, 2007 during a Nancy Bush class at . Since it was a one day class we used DK weight yarn in order to have our projects move along quickly and cover the sections we needed to in the allotted time. The problem is, in my opinion, DK weight socks are too thick for wearing with shoes.

Since I didn't want to waste a perfectly good pair of socks I started wearing them around the house as slippers.

Well, that didn't last long. The soft yarn, Zara, wasn't up to that sort of abuse and the heels quickly blew out. At that time I was not motivated enough to learn to darn.

But now that I know it is much less harmless than anticipated I fished these slipper socks out. The irony of repairing them with the same yarn that quickly died is not lost on me.

Of course, after I fixed the heels I was happily wearing them again, only to hook the bottom of the toe of one on the edge of my nightstand and rip open the cute little braid. That is the trailing yarn you see on the right hand sock.

Not even sure where to start with that so I might just pull the ends inside and weave them in.

Ounce of Prevention
With the death and repair of the blue Jitterbug socks I thought it wise to examine my other Jitterbug socks for signs of weakness. The red ones look fine but I found a thin spot on the purple ones.

The weird thing is only one sock has a thin spot. The other sock looks fine. I didn't bother to take pictures because they weren't very exciting.

In this case I took all the pithy sayings about not procrastinating firmly in hand and worked a duplicate stitch darn on the thin spot before it progressed to an actual hole. I guess I'll have to keep an eye on the second sock to see if it thins out too.

A Pound of Cure
Turns out March was a bad place to be a sock in my house.

This is a bad close up of the heel of one of my Joy of Charlene socks. It's upside down, i.e., the cuff is going down my arm and the foot is at the top of the picture.

I took these socks on our trip to Utah. When I put them on something didn't feel right and I looked down to discover this massive blow out. Needless to say I took them back off and didn't wear them.

These socks have a lace and rib pattern and I think the hole started in one of the eyelets which just ran for the hills when it broke free.

The lesson I have learned is not to place eyelets at the top of the heel flap.

Despite the fact that I never use an entire ball of yarn on my socks because I have small feet I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to repair these with the actual yarn. In 2009 I got to clever for my own good and made a pair of socks using leftover yarn from these and the purple Jitterbug socks.

I was sure I'd have to repair them with purple yarn, but then stumbled across a small amount of the Sol Joy in the project bag of another WIP which I'd apparently been using for a provisional cast on.

I worked a traditional darn but it was a little tricky because of the pattern. I wasn't concerned about obscuring the pattern. The issue was a lack of fabric to grab onto because of the eyelets. Also, these socks have a Cuban Heel and I think that unusual shape influcenced things as well.

In the end I got the hole closed up. Three passes seemed enough to close it up.

The second sock of this pair had not yet developed a hole, but I thought it was better to be safe than sorry and worked a traditional darn over the area at the top of the heel just to firm things up.

The repairs to the purple and orange socks took around 2 hours. I can safely say that because before I started I put the Simon Pegg movie "Hot Fuzz" into the DVD player for a little background noise.

Still, it was worth it to be able to return these socks to circulation. However, I hope my other socks stay stable for a while. Knitting is much more fun than darning!

Poor Socks

2011-04-28T20:53:00.002-04:00

Hubby and I ran off to Park City, Utah, for a week over March break. I did not mention it because it was during my blogless time. The only hint of it you had was the picture of the stitch markers I made when we got home.

While we were gone my mom came up to puppy sit, as she does. This was a much bigger deal since we live eight hours away now instead of just 3.5 or 4 hours. We were very appreciative of her doing this because we didn't have to kennel the poor pups.

While she was here she got a little bored, which is understandable, and kindly did some laundry for me.

My Girlfriend's Cable Socks survived being washed, but slipped through into the dryer. Where they promptly shrank.

On the bright side the red Jitterbug socks did not pay a visit to the dryer.

Anyway. As soon as I saw them I knew something was wrong and as soon as she answered the phone mom knew why I was calling and confessed everything.

Not want to just toss them, I made a rescue attempt.

Someone on Ravelry had a war-time solution: "Dissolve 3 oz epsom salts in boiling water; add sufficient cold water to cool and the make the solution up to
about 2 gallons. Soak garment for 2 hrs., then pull it into shape, squeeze gently and dry."

Well, I didn't want 2 gallons of liquid, so I used a smidge of epson salt in 2 Quarts instead. Then I forgot about them so instead of soaking for 2 hours I ended up soaking for 2 Days. oops.

Much stretching and cussing ensued. In the end I managed to jam my feet back into them. I let them air dry for a day but noticed they were starting to shrivel up again so I jammed them on and wore them to bed while they were the littlest bit damp.
For that week I was able to wear them around the house as slipper socks.

That can be hazardous to a pair of socks health, but I figured they are kind of half out the door as it.

I was feeling pretty pleased about having rescued them. Until this past weekend.

After wearing them for a week I felt obliged to wash them.

Cold water, gentle cycle, air dry all as usual.

They shrank down again. Can't get them on my feet.

It didn't occur to me they would revert so I had not manipulated them while they were damp.

It's very sad. I don't think I have the energy to go through the effort to revive them again.

Messed up those sleeves

2011-04-26T20:19:00.003-04:00

Hmmm, I don't know how to rotate a picture I uploaded using the mobile app.

Oh well, you get the idea that it's an in-progress sweater body and sleeves.

Wow, those colors are not accurate at all. That's what happens when you take pictures at night.

Two mistakes have been made on the sleeves, which might tempt you to say is proof I have a lot to learn from the Master Knitters program. However, these mistakes are more from lack of planning and inattention rather then lack of skills.

I'm following my Schleppy Sweater pattern. I found coordinating green yarns all in the same weight (DK).

The body was worked in stripes of 15 rows each. I stopped the body at the underarms and then started working on the sleeves.

The 15 row stripes continued on the sleeves and that is where things went wrong. You see that both the body and the sleeves are not at the same yarn. The problem is the sleeves should be 16.5" long and are currently only 12.5" long.

I suppose this means I should have worked wider stripes on the sleeves. Or narrower so I could move through the sequence more quickly.

Either way, you won't be surprised to read that I'm not going to rip them out and rework them.

No, I think I'll restart the stripes. I'll work 15 rows, or as many as I can, with the cuff yarn, then more stripes in the faux Fair Isle. That should bring me to about the correct length. After that I might work a few rows in the yarn to match the body just because I can.

In the end I suppose it will be fine.

The second mistake I made is less noticeable. I placed stitch markers to designate where the increases for the sleeves will be. Instead of keeping the increases lined up in the center of the sleeve around the end of the round I kept working them inside the stitch markers. This caused the increases to continually shift out around the sleeves.

Ooops.

Well, the increases are mostly on the bottom of the sleeve, i.e., on the under arm. So, once again, I'm not ripping out!

Leveling Up

2011-04-25T21:45:00.003-04:00

Oh, what have I gotten myself into now?

In a moment of insanity recently I signed up for the Master Hand Knitter Program from TKGA.

If you aren't familiar with it, the program is a correspondence course that helps you improve your knitting skills. After completing all three levels you get bragging rights, a pin, and a certification you can put on your resume if you're in the business.

For each level you have to knit several swatches, a project, answer some questions, and write a report. Then you send it all away to the review committee and they either pass you or give you constructive criticism suggestions on where to improve.

Harmless, right?

Sure, if you're going off my description. If you check out the details on the TKGA website you'll see that I'm totally downplaying it.

People agonize over this program. You have a year to complete each level and many people take that long or longer.

So why am I doing this to myself?

I'm not entirely sure. I had considered signing up for it a year or two ago but chickened out. It's not the knitting that worries me, it's the reports. Which is silly since I write for a living. I totally know how to write a research paper. But, bleh.

Now suddenly I've taken the plunge. I told Hubby about it and he thought it sounded very cool and encouraged me to go for it. Of course, he also asked if I get to put it on my resume as a professional development thing. To which I responded, "Hell, yes, I'm putting it on my resume!"

On Saturday I got to hang out with my friend Pam and her sister Nancy and they basically expressed the opinions that I was insane and why was I putting myself through it?

I explained that I want to re-engage with my knitting in a new way. Oh, sure, I'm still knitting and thinking about knitting, but I've realized I'm not relating to it in the same way since we moved over the summer. This has been reflected in my lack of blogging.

I think there are a few factors at work (aside from me still developing a work from home routine). The first is my wonderful lack of commute. I would use that soul sucking time in the car to compose my blog posts in my head and otherwise think about my current project. No commute equals reduced pondering time.

The second, and perhaps bigger one, is no longer working at a local yarn store on weekends. When I was at Knitting Central and then Westport Yarns I was constantly surrounded by other knitters and crocheters, talking about their projects, thinking about projects, etc. Even if I wasn't actively taking a class at the store, you can't help but learn things and pick tips up in a situation like that.

Now, as when I first learned to knit, I'm back to stitching in isolation. Well, that's not entirely true. I have the Library Knitting group on Fridays, but we tend to chat more about life than our projects.

Anyway, I've come to the realization that I have to make an effort to learn things and challenge myself now. And also to get back to thinking critically about my knitting and crocheting in a way that will make me want to write about it.

Being Serious
Thinking critically will be a key to my success. I'm going to have to work hard to remember not to dismiss the lower levels as skills I've already conquered. I mean, I'm starting out with knitting garter stitch and stockinette stitch swatches. yawn! But at the same time I know that my edge stitches aren't always the best, and my transition stitches around cables can be a little loose.

Still, at Level 2 you have to knit an argyle sock and helloooo I've already knit two pairs after designing my own charts. Granted, on one the lines didn't cross properly, but I corrected that on the second pair. That's the kind of thing I'll be strugging with.

Oh, and another thing, the website says you'll learn to write patterns. Yeah, well, I've had patterns published in books, soooo, right.

However, I know there is a lot about knitting that I still need to learn. There are things that I know how to do but not why they are done a certian way. I'm sure there are tricks I'll pick up in the research that I might not have encountered because I'll probably be reading varoius books that I wouldn't otherwise read.

Actually, I think that's a total bonus part of the program. I'm going to have an excuse to buy a bunch of books I've been waffling about owning because I'll need them to research the short answer and essay questions.

So far I've enjoyed buying the supplies for the notebook. Office supply stores are fun.

And I stopped at The Elegant Ewe on my way home Saturday to get some smooth, cream colored wool for my swatches. As well as B, D, and E crochet hooks! When I told the nice lady at the store I'd signed up for the Master Knitter program she congratulated me, but also looked at me as if I was a little crazy. She said another customer just finished Level 3 and made a beautiful sweater. There was admiration in her voice for crazy knitters like us, but she also asked why.

If I keep telling people I want to challenge myself, eventually I'll start believing it, too.

Progress? Oh, aside from making my binder all I've managed to do is read the directions and make myself light headed.

I did say I have a year, right?

KFI: Findley! Yummy new yarn

2011-04-21T21:01:00.005-04:00

This blog post is mean on so many levels.

First this yarn I'm in love with won't be in stores until the Fall 2011.

Second none of the colors I have are going to be available in stores. However, the 12 colors that will be available are just as stunning.

Best.Job.Ever.
Perhaps you have heard of Juniper Moon Farm. Susan Gibbs did what many knitters and crocheters dream about. She quite her desk job and started raising sheep.

Instead of the resulting wool being spun and sold to yarn stores for years she sold it directly to people. You can buy a CSA which entitles you to a portion of the wool production while Susan and her team takes care of all the messy, hands on business.

Pretty exclusive stuff.

Now a different door to her creative sensibilities has been opened. She has teamed with Knitting Fever Inc. to design a new yarn line that is spun and dyed in Italy. Her little flock of sheep could not grown enough wool to meet the demand of nationwide distribution, so they had to call in reinforcements.

The new line is also called Juniper Moon Farm and is starting with three yarns: Willa is a bulky 60% Merino, 40% Super Fine Kid Mohair blend, Chadwick is a worsted weight 60% Merino Wool/40% Baby Alpaca blend, and Findley is a lace weight 50% Silk, 50% merino blend.

Tanis Grey, formerly of Vogue Knitting, has designed patterns for all the yarns. I did not get a pattern book to go along with my yarn, and I suspect it's because they aren't finished yet! There is a sneak peak of some of the sweaters on the farm blog (scroll down). They look very interesting.

Oh, Findley.
This yarn is so soft and lovely. As soft and lovely as you would expect a silk merino blend to be.

And the colors are just lovely. I especially like the yellows and the blues, but the green is lovely too and well, I could just list them all as my favorite, but that would be silly. Really, they all deserve to be worked up into some fabulous project.

Considering I have four balls of each color (well, two of white) and each ball is a whopping 800 yards, I can make multiple fabulous projects.

Which means I'm totally spoiled for choice and was just a wee bit paralyzed when I first opened the box.

But I'm pretty sure I have it sorted now.

I was considering the Abotanicity sweater from Knitty. To that end I started swatching with the yarn held single on a US 1. That was kind of insane. It occured to me after several rows that people don't usually try to get a dense fabric with lace weight yarn. Also, since that pattern calls for fingering/sock weight yarn I don't think it will work out.

Since I'm not really a lace shawl knitter, I decided to expand my options by holding the yarn doubled on a US 4, which is this blue swatch.

That made me think of my friend Pam's Lacy V-Neck sweater that is in the Holiday 2009 issue of Vogue Knitting. (It's the middle one of the second row of the "A Softer Shade of Pale" patterns.) Those lacy bits you see in the blue swatch is the stitch pattern. I'm pretty sure it's going to work, which is very exciting.

The trick is deciding which color to use. I might stick with this robin's egg blue one. Although I'm debating the silver grey one, which I know is the influence of the magazine picture.

The next sweater I'm considering making is from the 2004 issue of Simply Creative Crochet magazine. I don't see a picture of it online. The sweater had a plain body and lace sleeves made with wee square flower motifs that are connected as you go along. I've had that pattern in my library for quite a while. The pattern calls for crochet thread, so I think this lace weight yarn will work. I crocheted a little swatch but it calls for a D hook and I only had a C available. My B, D, and E hooks have all evaporated!

Again, I'm not sure which color to go with. I'm debating between the burnt red and the pale yellow.

The last of the published patterns I have my eye on is the Jade Sweater from Elsebeth Lavold's "Book Two: The Sentimental Journey Collection." This book is very possibly out of print so if you see a copy grab it. This is another pattern I've had my eye on for a while. No hesitation on color here, I'm totaly using that royal blue. The trick with this one is the pattern calls for 5 sts/inch and I'm getting 6 sts/inch so I'm probably going to have to rewrite it for my gauge. Considering the small would have been big on me I would have been fussing with it anyway.

The final color I have plans for is the deep yellow goldenrod one. I want to knit something fabulous that will take lots of buttons because I think that yarn is a fabulous match for the tartan buttons I made. For this sweater I'd like to do something clever with a non-traditional neck line that goes diagonally across the sweater. You know, from the center neck down to one armpit.

The question is whether my knitting math skills are up to the challenge.

I'm also tossing around several shawl patterns that would use the yarn held single. And, of course, I'll have to reserve some for when the pattern books are available so I can make an official pattern.

KFI: Trellis Mitts KAL—The Pattern!

2011-04-20T10:04:00.004-04:00

Knitters! Start your needles!

I have posted the pattern to Ravelry. You don't have to be a member to access it. Download Now.

It is a 5 page PDF with one picture. The charts are on page 5.

Sizing
I made the mitt to fit my 7" circumference hand, but it will stretch to comfortably fit a 8" circumference hand.

I suggest you make it with zero to negative ease so the lace pattern will open up and be visible.

If you want to make it bigger you can add a few stitches.

The smocking is in multiples of 4 stitches.

The pattern calls for a 48 st cast on. The next size up to make the smocking work would be 52 sts.

You can hide the extra stitches in the ribbing on the palm. Just remember your stitch count on each needle has changed.

If you do add stitches you might want to adjust the thumb hole placement instead of following my directions blindly.

I have you place the thumb holes 3 sts away from the design on the back of the hand. When you are ready to make the thumb, try the mitt on and see if you like where the thumb will end up. Is the pattern straight? Is it centered?

It sounds weird, but it will make sense when you can actually try it on.

If you do move the thumb remember to write down how many stitches in from the pattern it is so you can adjust the second mitt as well.

Connect
I've started a discussion thread for the KAL on the Ella Rae Facebook page for questions and chatter.

I've also started a discussion topic in the KFI group on Raverly. I'm hoping to keep the discussion confined to Facebook so questions and answers are easy for everyone to find, but I realize not everyone is on Facebook.

Enjoy!

KFI: Trellis Mitts KAL—Socks?

2011-04-19T19:52:00.003-04:00

The KAL starts tomorrow morning!

How exciting.

In the mean time, here is another set of vague ideas for altering the pattern. This time for socks.

Using the stitch pattern on a pair of socks was another suggestion thrown out by a Facebook fan. It almost derailed me because I do like knitting socks. I'd been so fixated on making a pair of mitts with a leaf motif that socks hadn't occurred to me.

Once the idea was presented I really liked it and might have to make a pair of socks to match my mitts in the future.

Since I haven't actually made the socks, these suggestions are once again untested, but here's what I can tell you so far.

Ribbing. Smocking. Whatever.
I was surprised to discover that the smocking was much more flexibile than I expected.

Why, yes, I did try to mitt on my foot. :-) My stitch count would be the same.

I think the trick will be not to pull the wraps on the smocking too tight so it can expand like ribbing. You might want to do a little swatch to see how it works for you. If you are going to need to make a sock cuff bigger than the as yet unrevealed mitt I can tell you the smocking is a multiple of 4.

Alternatively, you can ditch the smocking and just do normal ribbing, but where is the fun in that?

Stitch Patterns
The mitt fit my leg rather well and it if wasn't for the thumb I could have easily converted it to a sock.

I think part of the easy fit could be attributed to the fact that the palm of the mitt is 1 x 1 rib. That would have ended up the back of the sock leg. It strikes me as a little boring and I would want to do the Triple Leaf Motif on both front and back, with ribbing between, but I don't know what that will do to the sock fit.

The motif has some stretch to it, but I don't know if two motifs will have the cling that the ribbing provides.

The Triple Leaf Motif is over 15 sts (although as you'll see the stitch count does vary). I have it framed by twisted stitches, adding 4 sts to either side.

If you decide to work a motif on both the front and the back of the leg I would say add ribbing to the sides to make your stitch count work.

Heel to Toe
If you're taking the plunge to turn a mitt into a sock I imagine you are an experinced sock knitter who knows how to work a heel, gusset, foot, and toe.

Why not take the motif all the way down to your toe decreases?

In that case you might want to consider working the gusset decreases on the side or bottom of the foot to keep them from interferring with the motif.

The motif seems to have some vertical stretch to it as well, so you'll probably want to try on the sock regularly as you work the foot to get a good fit.

That's about all I can think of. I hope to see you tomorrow!

KFI: Trellis Mitts KAL—Gloves?

2011-04-18T19:59:00.003-04:00

Look at this, the pattern isn't even available yet and I'm already suggesting how to modify it.

Please Note: These ideas are theoretical, which is to say un-tested as I have not knit through them.
I'm presenting them as a jumping off point for you. I hope you are either an experienced enough glove knitter to run with them, or can modify an existing glove pattern you own to incorporate them.

You want fingers on those mitts?
When I posted the first in-progress picture of the Trellis Mitts on the KFI Facebook page someone asked if they could be made as gloves instead of fingerless mitts.

That had not occurred to me because I don't knit gloves. Not only do I think the fingers are fiddly and annoying to knit, but my hands get so cold in glove weather that I need the wind break of leather or fabric.

But, of course the question got my wheels turning and I came up with two options. I'm presenting them now before the KAL starts on April 20 as you'll need time to think about and prepare for them.

Provisional Cast On
The mitts are knit from the fingers down to the cuff, which has the potential of making it tricky to add fingers.

My first idea is to start with a provisional cast on. Knit the mitts. Then go back and knit the fingers up.

Keep in mind that when you reverse directions you loose a stitch so you'll have to account for that in your stitch count. It shouldn't be too noticeable visually.

You'll probably want to move the thumb up.

As you can see in the picture, I have the cast on edge starting rather high up on the fingers. This works nicely for mitts but won't be so good for gloves.

It's a simple fix. After you've worked through the smocking directions try the mitt on and decide where you want the transition from hand to fingers to land. Then start your thumb gusset there instead of where I tell you in the pattern.

After you finish knitting the mitt, pick up the stitches from your provisional cast on and work fingers according to a glove pattern that fits your stitch count.

Keep an eye on your yarn consumption if you knit the cuffs much longer that I tell you in the pattern. You don't want to run out of yarn while working your fingers.

Top Down Fingers
A few years ago I stumbled across directions on the nonaKnits blog for knitting gloves by starting with i-cord fingers.

She instructs you how to knit each finger, join them, then knit the hand. This method might be easier since you are traveling in the same direction as the mitts. Also you'll be able to place your thumb more accurately since the fingers will hold it in place when you try it on.

The gauge and stitch count look about the same, which will make this an easy addition. I would say start the smocking either right after you join the fingers or work a few extra rows of ribbing after the join then start the smocking.

Cuff up?
This option has to be addressed although I don't like it very much.

First, I don't like the way the Triple Leaf Pattern looks going the other direction. You can decide this for yourself either by tilting your head so my picture is upside down (haha) or knitting a swatch and twisting and turning it.

Second, this will require a lot more heavy lifting on your part. You'll be on your own for knitting the thumb gusset and placing the thumb hole.

Really, if you want to go cuff up, I'd suggest you find a glove pattern with a similar gauge and try to drop the lace pattern into it. Of course that leaves the fit a real wild card.

Join in!
There is an event for the KAL on the Ella Rae Facebook page.

I started a discussion thread for once the KAL get's going.

If I need to, I'll start a discussion in the KFI group on Ravelry, too, but I'd rather try to contain questions to one location so they are easier for me to find and respond.

KFI: Trellis Mitts KAL

2011-04-13T21:08:00.005-04:00

You don't hear from me for ages and then I show up announcing my first Knit-A-Long, which I'm planning to start on April 20.

I have some gall.

I'd also like to ask why KAL doesn't translate into Knit-Along. I mean, that the proper spelling of the word, right?

Anyway.

That picture is of the unfinished right mitt. It is finished now but I haven't had a chance to take a picture. I'm working on the left mitt now and if I spent less time on the computer and more time on my knitting I might actually finish it.

On the other hand (hehe) part of me says not to finish the left mitt so I'll actually be knitting along with the, um, knit-along.

I've never run a KAL and I've actually only participated in one KAL for my Audrey sweater that I knit back in 2004 before I had a blog. And even then I just lurked and read what everyone was talking about.

That all means I'm kind of making this up as I go along.

A Gathering Place
The first thing I did was set up and event for it on the Ella Rae Yarns Facebook Page. I have 40 people attending and 20 maybes. That's pretty exciting, especially considering the only promoting I did was post that picture on the wall of the main KFI FB page. Well, prior to this blog post.

I had it in my head that I'd be able to send updates and such to event attendees, but I don't see that capability. When the time comes I plan to try to channel everyone to the discussion section. Of course I'll also set up the pattern on Ravelry and start a discussion thread in the Ella Rae group there.

Materials and Gauge
Yarn: Ella Rae Lace Merino (Fiber: 100% Superwash Merino Wool
Yardage: 460 Stitches: 6.5 Needle size: 4 Ball weight: 100g)

Needles: Set of 4 size US 2 dpn (or size needed to obtain gauge)

Gauge: In stockinette stitch 7 sts x 10 rows per inch worked in the round.

Sizing: I made the mitt to fit my wee 7" circumference hand. But I also made the palm in ribbing so it would have some stretch. On Friday I took it to the Library Knitting Group and let several people try it and then measured their hands. It comfortably fit up to a size 8" circumference hand. I suggest you aim for zero to negative ease, which will open up the lace pattern. The mitt I made it about 7 inches long, so it comes well down the mitt.

When the KAL starts I'll give suggestions on stitch count to make it a little bigger in circumference. I'll also give suggestions on making the section between the fingertips and the thumb shorter. As with my Top Down Alpaca Mitts the Trellis Mitts are worked from the finger knuckles down to the wrist as I feel this gives more options for length modifications.

The pattern is almost ready. I've written it up and sent it off for proofreading. My friend Danni has already sent it back and Pam said she'd have a look too, but she was having trouble opening the document.

I was going to dole out the pattern a section at a time, but now I've decided to just release it and let people work at their own pace while I'm availalbe to answer questions. Hopefully everyone will chat and share progress pics as well!

I've decided that Facebook can't be trusted not to eat the pattern based on it's tendancy to eat status updates and discussion entries. Therefore I'm going to see about having posted on the KFI website and just link to it.

Other Yarn Suggestions
I attempted to post this information on Facebook, but it disappeared, so you can understand why I'm bitter.

Lace Merino from Ella Rae, the yarn I'm using, is a fingering weight yarn. The "ball band" gauge is 6.5 sts/inch on a US 4 needle. The pattern gauge is 7 sts/inch on a US2.

Here are some other yarns for you to consider based on weight:
Araucania:
Itata or Ranco Sock.

Debbie Bliss:
Casmerino Baby or Rialto 4.

Louisa Harding Kashmir Baby.

Noro:
Taiyo Sock or Silk Garden Sock or Kureyon Sock.

Queensland Collection Sugar Rush.

Sirdar Snuggly 4 Ply.

Sublime Baby Cash Merino Silk 4 Ply.

Phew! Ok, what else would I need to tell you? Well, nothing at this point. Really, the picture is all the persuasion I probably need.

I hope you'll decide to knit along with me!

Souvenir stitch markers

2011-03-27T19:17:00.000-04:00

KFI: Crochet Mesh Scarf

2011-03-04T20:52:00.000-05:00

I actually made this scarf back in January, but since I wasn't blogging at that time it's all brand new now!

According to my Ravelry notes it took me about two days to crochet. I find that very surprising because scarves should take longer than that, but I suppose it makes sense when you keep in mind I used a big hook and an open stitch.

I suppose if you tack on the swatching time it was a bit longer than two days.

Let's get right to business, shall we?

Crochet Mesh Scarf
Materials: Euro Yarns Thick 'n' Quick Merino (100% merino, 176 yards)
Hook: 10 mm (N/P) (or size necessary to obtain gauge)
Gauge: 5 sc and five ch-4 spaces equals 6"
Size: 6" wide by 75" long

Note: US crochet terms used throughout.

Abbreviations: ch=chain. sc=single crochet

Pattern:
Chain 22

Single crochet in second chain from hook and in each chain across (20 sc)

Set up row: Turn, *Chain 4, skip next 4 sc, Sc in next (5th) sc, rep from * across, ending with sc in last sc (5 sc and 5 ch-4 loops)

Pattern stitch: Turn, *ch 4, sc in ch-4 loop, rep from * across (5 sc and 5 ch-4 loops)

Repeat pattern stitch row until almost out of yarn.

Last row: Sc in each chain and sc across. (20 sc)
Fasten off last st and weave in ends.

Background Blather
I know you are just burning to know how I came up with this pattern. I shall keep you in suspense no longer.

Thick 'n' Quick Merino is a textured yarn. It is a loosely spun thick and thin merino base wrapped with a tightly spun merino binder. This makes it all soft all the time. It is also a chunky yarn with a suggested knit gauge of 2.5 to 3 sts per inch.

When I first saw it I felt it wanted to be a big loopy scarf that would show off its texture.

I started with knitting. I worked a swatch of diagonal openstitch (May 8 in Perpetual Calendar) on US 15 needles. The knit swatch is in the left in this picture.

I kept messing up the first two rows, or my stitch count was off, or something that I don't quite remember aside from the fact that it was a rough start.

Once I got it going I worked one pattern repeat and decided I didn't like it. The false start biased me against it, of course, but the stitch in general took more concentration than I wanted to give. Also, it wasn't as open as I had envisioned.

Then I fished out the N crochet hook and worked what is essentially the market bag stitch. First I worked it with ch-5 loops, but deciding that was too open I switched to ch-4 loops. The crochet swatch is on the right, with the bottom half in the ch-5 version.

I guess it was a little Goldilocks and the Three Bears, because that final incarnation was just right.

I was pleasantly surprised by how long the scarf ended up. It is long enough to wrap once and still hang down to my waist. It is also long enough to do that thing where you fold it in half and tuck the tails through the loop.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the final result and hope you enjoy it, too.

Temptation Is Everywhere

2011-03-02T20:01:00.003-05:00

This knit and crochet hiatus is really starting to wear on me. As I'm sure you can imagine.

Even the slightest hint that my elbow might be feeling better makes me want to grab one of my WIPs and go to town. But I know I must stay strong. Still, I don't know if I can last the week.

What am I going to do Friday at the library knitting group?

I was hoping I'd feel better by then but now I'm not so sure. I'll have to find something else to do with my hands so I don't yank projects away from other people and start working on them. I don't think that would go over very well.

Staying strong is especially hard when we sit down to watch TV. It's so automatic for me to pick something up and start stitching that I have to remind myself not to get up and get a project.

It's a really good thing I tucked everything away at the beginning of the week.

Or Did I?
That picture at the top of the post is of a stripe of Sirdar Crofter DK in a Green Striped version of my Schleppy Sweater pattern. It's a blend of 60% Acrylic, 25% Cotton, 15% Wool so it has a nice tweedy feel and the faux Fair Isle patterning is just adorable.

I bring it up because I was staring longingly at the in-progress sweater today. Turns out it wasn't tucked away so well. It's in a clear plastic project bag on the bookshelves in the living room—right next to where I've been sitting on the couch.

It would have been so easy to reach over...take it down...and start knitting the sleeves...so easy.

Spring Yarn
Another temptation is that with the changing of the season comes the changing of the yarn.

This is the time of year that yarn stores start changing out the bulky wools for cottons, silks, and other lighter blends. When I was working at Knitting Central and then Westport Yarns this was the time of year that any yarn diet would get blown. Over the months I'd build an immunity to the yarns we had in the store, but once the new stuff started rolling in I'd usually snap and have to buy something.

I suffered a virtual version of that today. I noticed a critical mass of yarn entries labeled "new" on the Knitting Fever Inc. website, so I tore through and made sure they are all entered into Ravelry.

As I looked through online colors and read the content I kept saying to myself, "Oh, I'd love to get my hands on that," or "Man, I hope they send me a sample of that."

Top temptations included Lanthe by Louisa Harding. A 50/50 merino cotton blend that works up at 5.5 sts to the inch and comes in 16 awesome colors. I do love me some DK cotton/wool yarn.

Sublime Baby Cash Merino Silk 4ply is a fingering weight yarn in 11 pastel colors. It is a blend of 75% Extrafine Merino, 20% Silk, 5% Cashmere. Doesn't that sound delicious?

Sweet Pea is a 100% organic cotton yarn from Queensland Collection. It is a bulky weight that comes in 10 colors and has an interesting ripply texture in the pictures. And, hello!, Sweet Pea is the birth month flower for April so I should totally have some of that yarn.

Oh, and don't get me started on the four new Noro yarns. I am a total Noro addict after using so much of it in my Adult Surprise Jacket, my Coquille Shawl, and my Kureyon Hat.

Really, I could go on and on as I daydream about one day going to the mail room and finding a massive box full of yarn waiting for me. Yes, getting it down the hill would be a good problem to have.

Only my daydreams came to an abrupt end as I remembered that I can't knit or crochet at the moment, so if they do send me samples to post about I hope it's not for another week or two!

Still, injury aside, I have the best job.

Hooray, Crochet!

2011-03-01T21:18:00.004-05:00

Today begins National Crochet Month.

Yippee!

Since I cannot crochet at the moment with this bum elbow, let's just talk about it instead.

I first learned about National Crochet Month in 2008. I was inspired enough to design a Crocheted Guinness Dog Toy in its honor.

Samson destroyed it by pulling out all the stuffing a few days after I made it, but they still have the fabric. I suppose that makes it an empty Guinness can dog toy?

Anyway.

A Crocheter is Born
As I've mentioned in the past, I was so young when I learned to crochet that I don't remember that first lesson.

I do remember learning the double crochet stitch.

It was in the summer. We were visiting my aunt and her family in upstate New York. Grandma was sitting in a lawn chair crocheting. My younger cousin and I were sitting on the grass next to her "crocheting." We must have been making squares of fabric using just slip stitches because I remember Grandma saying that whatever we make would be nice and warm, but it would take us forever to make.

And she taught us the double crochet stitch.

Now this next bit is going to sound crazy, but you must keep in mind this was in the 1980s before the internet was widely available...for years after that summer the double crochet stitch was the only one I used.

You are probably asking yourself how I managed. Looking back I wonder that, too.

But then I was a kid. I owned one H hook. And I mainly made afghans and maybe a few scarves from the super inexpensive acrylic yarn you could get at craft and department stores.

I couldn't even tell you if any of those childhood projects still exist, but I suspect there weren't many of them. I don't think I was as prolific back then as I am now.

But I was happy in my double crochet world.

Everything Changes
I also remember the project that inspired me to learn more stitches and techniques.

My younger cousin had a magazine with a pattern for a stuffed cow in it. (Actually, it has horns and no udder, so I guess technically it's a bull.)

I coveted that cow something fierce. In fact, I still have him. Tucked away somewhere safe where Samson can't eat him.

In order to make that cow I had to learn how to work a single crochet stitch and how to work in the round.

Thank goodness for library books, because my Grandma was dead by then!

Strangely, I can't remember when I originally got my hands on the pattern, but I know I didn't finish him until I was in college. I had him with my on my Junior Year Abroad. I might have finished him while I was in England. At least he didn't have a name because it was then that he was dubbed Junior.

In any event Junior, and the books I had to track down to make him, opened up the possibilities for me. I learned lots of new stitches. I started designing my own stuffed animals.

Seek Inspiration
As you can see by the doily at the beginning of the post, my crochet skills have advanced from those days of just being able to chain, slip stitch, and double crochet.

However, even though I've been doing this almost all my life, I know there is still a lot about crochet left for me to learn.

These crafts help us grow, develop, expand our minds, and challenge ourselves.

My point is, don't expect to know it all and be an expert overnight. If you are just learning, expect to be frustrated, but keep your eye on the goal. Crocheting is a specialized skill and skills take time to be acquired. (Oh, this is where I should say something trite about hand crafts helping us slow down in our busy, digital world.) After all, you didn't learn to ride a bike, drive a car, or cook a decent meal on your first attempt, did you?

And if your craft is stagnating, look for a new inspiration. Maybe you need a new project that will offer a challenge and inspire you to take your skills to the next level. Or maybe some squishy new yarn in a fiber you haven't used before will wake you up.

Go forth and seek your stuffed cow!

My Elbow Hurts

2011-02-28T20:49:00.003-05:00

It would appear that in my effort to have a healthier lifestyle by exercising regularly I strained or sprained something.

Oddly, Hubby is suffering from a similar pain. Although we are pretty sure they are exercise induced injuries we haven't ruled out the possibility of alien abduction.

Anyway, it would further appear that this injury is being aggravated by my knitting.

I think the original injury actually happened a week or so ago. Of course I've been dealing with it in the classic and illogical method of ignoring it and hoping it will go away.

But I can ignore it no longer. I have come to my senses and acknowledged that if I want it to heal I'll have to rest it. A little rest now will prevent longer knitting downtime later. Hopefully. Shame I didn't have that attitude when it first happened.

I know that posts whining about ill healthy and injuries aren't the most fun to read. I've even seen survey results where people say they move on and might not come back to blogs that have them regularly. Unless that's the point of the blog, I suppose.

Anyway, this is knitting/crocheting related.

Mainly to say that I won't be doing any for a least a week, if I can stand it for that long, to allow this issue to resolve itself.

Also to remind us all to stop, rest, and stretch. Even if we aren't the Bionic Woman (or Million Dollar Man) it's important to remember that our bodies are marvels of technology that require proper care.

I find this hiatus a little ironic while I'm in the middle of attempting a blogging revival. Hard to blog about knitting and/or crocheting if you aren't actually doing any.

It will be an interesting challenge to see if I can milk the projects I completed during the blog blackout for at least a week while I heal.

Of course, if you've spent any time reading my blog, or flipped through past entries, I'm sure you are familiar with my ability to provide such excruciating detail about the most insignificant event that it turns into an epic post. Therefore neither of us is at all worried about my ability to post during this dry spell.

I have warned Hubby about my fiber hiatus. He expressed sympathy that my oowie has progressed to such a degree that such extreme measures have to be taken.

I don't, however, think he has realized my yarn hiatus could result in mood swings, fidgeting, anxiety, and other symptoms that will generally make everyone unhappy. On the other hand, he might just think I have PMS.

In order to support my effort not to knit for the week I have pushed all my current projects to the edges of the room so they are out of sight and hard to reach.

I think I'll feel it most in the evenings when I'm watching TV. I don't know how I'll sit there, still, for hours on end...I might actually have to fold laundry...or go to bed early.

Sock Triumph

2011-02-27T14:55:00.003-05:00

Ta-da!

You knew, of course, that I wouldn't leave well enough alone. On the left you see a sock repaired by traditional darning. On the right is a sock repaired by knitting a patch.

I couldn't bring myself to throw them away, but keeping holey socks around would have been silly. And my knitting schedule is so overbook at the moment that tossing aside all my other projects to knit new legs up from the existing foot seemed a little extreme.

Another motivation was that "these" are some of my favorite socks. Might that explain the holes? I still blame the snow boots.

If you ask me what my favorite sock yarn is, I'll probably have a done answers and reasons. But if you look at the socks I've actually knit, as opposed to yarn in my hoard, six pairs have been from Jitterbug yarn. That is counting counting a pair I knit for Hubby and the two pairs of scrappy, ruffled, ankle socks I made myself.

Acquiring Knowledge
Having made up my mind that I would darn the socks I did what any knitter would do in this modern age.

I went to Ravelry and did a search on "darn." People use it as a mild exclamation rather regularly in the Ravelry forums. Then I targeted the "Sock Knitters Anonymous" group and search on "repairs."

That led me to a thread about darning socks and an old Knitty article about reinforcing socks that included darning at the end.

I looked at the pictures on Knitty and said, "Huh?"

Then I did a general Google search on "darning socks" and the top two hits were for YouTube videos. The first one was for darning in the traditional method. It was clear, but I wondered if there had to be a method more in keeping with my skill set, i.e., knitting.

I didn't see why I couldn't pick up stitches below the hole, knit a little piece of fabric, and Kitchener the top down. I thought it would be good if I could attach it on the sides as I went along.

The second video Google offered up was actually a series of 6 that covered making repairs by duplicate stitch and by knitting a patch, which was just what I was after.

Patched
I plunged in and it wasn't too bad.

The method used knitting skills/techniques I employ on a regular basis. The first step was picking up one leg of each stitch along the bottom of the hole. Then picking up the ladders between stitches in a column on either side of the hole a few stitches away so you are in a stable area.

In the video she just free handed the Kitchener stitch at the top row, but I thought it would be easier to target it if I picked up those stitches as well.

Then I just knit a little stockinette stitch flap. Turns out marking my top row was a little too clever. The flap had more height than I anticipated so when I grafted to my selected row the patch was baggy. I had to pull that out and see where the patch wanted to end.

The result is a covered hole, but I wasn't too thrilled with the results. The sides where I either knit two or purled two together to connect the flap to the sock are a bit of a train wreck. I suppose that would improve with practice.

But my real complaint is that it strikes me as baggy. I don't know if that is because of me, or the method. I used US2 needles, which is what I knit the socks in. Maybe I should have gone down to US1. On the other hand, you don't remove the damaged fabric from underneath, so there are two layers there. Now, in theory (and I think they said this on the video), the two layers will eventually felt together, but for now it annoys me that there is a floppy bit there.

Also, despite being knit and despite using the same yarn, I think the patch is pretty obvious. Now this is probably because I used sparkling new yarn on a sock that has seen around four years of use. Some fading is to be expected, but I think the slight bagginess of the patch makes it thick and obvious as well.

Darned
My dissatisfaction with the patch drove me to attempt a traditional darn.

I started out by marking my target rows with wee safety pins. Then I plunged in. I reeled out a nice long piece of yarn. One of my worries about this method was not knowing how much yarn it would use and I didn't want tons of ends to weave in.

In the video, the people went horizontal then vertical and they were done. The Knitty article mentioned a third pass.

I did the first two passes, once horizontally, then turned the sock sideways and wove "vertically" crossing my strands from the first pass. Every so often as I worked I would give the sock a tug against the strands I was weaving in order to introduce some slack and reduce any pulling on the side anchor stitches.

You can't tell very well in that picture, but the area over the hole is kind of thin. Lots of air and light were still getting through.

I decided to ad-lib and made a diagonal pass, but it didn't look good at all, so I pulled it out.

I ended up turning the sock again to the 6 o'clock position (I'd already done 12 and 3) and making another horizontal pass. It looked pretty good, but I figured I'd gone that far I might as well complete the circuit, so I turned the sock to 9 o'clock and did another vertical pass.

The four pass darn is what you see in the very first picture. Now, of course, by the third and fourth pass things were becoming obscured so really I was just picking up any strand I could grab, but the hole was filled in and that is all that matters.

I think I'm more pleased with the traditional darn.

As you can imagine, it is a bit thicker and firmer than the original sock fabric, but not terribly so. Also, I think it blends in a little better, despite the brighter yarn. I suppose that is because some of the old, faded yarn is showing through.

But most of all it feels more stable. Since it was accomplished by weaving in and out of the original sock fabric there isn't a goofy loose bit on the inside. Everything is held together securely. I like that. I don't have to worry about extra fabric inside the patch doing strange things.

This last picture shows the inside of the repaired socks. The darned one is on the left and the knit patched one is on the right. As you can see, there are still a few loose strands on the inside of the darned sock, but far fewer than on the patched sock.

Well, I'm glad I finally attempted this technique. It not only adds to my knitting knowledge, but saves my socks.

However, you won't be surprised to hear that I hope I don't have to apply these skills again any time soon.

Sock Tragedy

2011-02-26T08:45:00.002-05:00

Yesterday evening I discovered this horrible situation.

It's a shocking and graphic image, and I apologize for any discomfort it may cause you. But we all have to face the fact that it could happen eventually to any one of us.

Holes!

Holes in our hand knit socks! aaaaahhhhh!

As you can see they are in the back of the leg, just above the start of the heel flap. It strikes me as a strange place to get holes in your socks.

Yesterday I wore these socks in my big Sorrel snow boots when I walked to the library for the Friday knitting group.

No one else was there, by the way, probably because of the horrible weather. Of course two out of the three librarians knit, so they stopped by and chatted. The library in general was pretty deserted, which made it really, really quiet, even for a library. I'm not accustomed to knitting in such silence. At home I knit while watching TV. If I'm knitting out and about I'm usually with other knitters.

Every Sock Matters
Anyway, back to my poor socks.

When I discovered the tragedy at then end of the evening I showed them to Hubby while making little whimpering noises and blamed my boots.

He said he thought the yarn was just worn away and the boots were probably the final blow. Then it's possible he said something exceedingly absurd along the lines of "You have other pairs."

Yes, and you have a lot of bottles of wine, but it's not like you wouldn't be upset if one fell and broke. Of course, since I was grieving last night his ridiculous comment didn't really register.

A Good Run
Hubby's comment about the fabric simply being worn away made me wonder just how old these socks are. Happily, I was able to look them up in my Ravelry notebook.

According to my notes I made them in 2007. It must have been early 2007 because they appear to predate both my Ravelry account (Dec 2007) and my blog (Sept 2007).

I seem to remember having entered all my pre-Ravelry socks into my notebook at one point so I could track the colors.

Anyway. That means the socks are about four years old, which is a pretty good run, I suppose.

On the other hand, my first socks, which I made using Regia, still seem to be going strong. And they are from around 2003. I guess that bit of nylon really does make a difference in durability.

Darn It?
I'm in a quandary about how to proceed with the poor blue Jitterbug socks.

If they were store bought socks I'd throw them away without a second thought.

However, despite owning 23 other pairs of hand knit socks and Hubby's implied suggestion to the contrary, I can't dispose of a pair of hand knit socks!

At the deepest part it looks like I've lost 5 or 6 stitches and about 6 rows.

Part of me says this might be a good opportunity to learn to darn. Although the need to build a little grid to work over sounds like a pain.

Part of me says to snip the yarn below the hole, cut out the bad parts, and reknit the leg up. It might end up a wee bit shorter but that shouldn't be a problem. However, I'm not sure about the integrity of the heel flap, so I might fix the leg to only end up with a hole in the heel flap down the road.

What I can't do is open the toe, frog them entirely, and reknit them. The soles are just a wee bit felted so I know they wouldn't frog. No, any repairs will have to take place above the gusset.

Wish me luck.

Hubby's Sweater Update

2011-02-20T16:05:00.002-05:00

After all that big talk in the blog post on Wendesay I came down with a bad head on Thursday. Spending most of the day hiding under the covers is not condusive to blogging, or many other activities come to think of it.

Then Friday I was feeling better but was busy catching up from Thursday.

Regardless, I'm here now.

Let's go with Hubby's Vertical Stripe Box Stitch Sweater as today's focus project.

How We Got To This Point
At the beginning of the fall Hubby declared he was ready for me to make him another sweater. This time he wanted vertical stripes because they are slimming.

I quailed inside because vertical stripes are a challenge to knit, but what Hubby wants Hubby gets.

Now his announcement may sound obnoxious, but it's not if you think about it. I don't bother wasting my time knitting for him until he has made one of these declarations. Well, except for socks. I knit those for him randomly and he only has after purchase approval rights on the yarn. If he doesn't like the yarn I keep it for myself. Socks are small and harmless so I feel safe being bold with them.

Hats, scarves, and sweaters require a larger investment of time and should be approached with caution.

When I first learned to knit I made Hubby a hat, which he promptly rejected for various valid reasons (unrelated to my skill, it was a perfectly fine hat). That was all I needed to lay low and wait for him to request things.

In fact the rejection of that first hat made me rather surprised when he requested a hat at the beginning of the winter. But he had input this time and has worn this new hat everytime he's gone skiing, which has been almost every day.

The problem with waiting for declarations is that once they are made communication breaks down. Although very fashionable, Hubby doesn't "speak yarn" and mostly knows what he likes when he sees it.

So vertical stripes was a good start. And I know he likes colorful (really, he wants something in tweed yarn, but I haven't found one I like that would be good for an entire sweater). The box stitch came about when he got into my stash and found some swatches.

Sideways
I was going to knit the stripes bottom up using intarsia style twisting on the wrong side, but it didn't look very good. Instead I'm going sideways. I'm knitting in the normal direction, cutting the yarn after every 12 row stripe repeat but when I'm done I'll turn it on its side.

Things were progressing nicely until I had worked my way through all the stripes I thought I would need. Despite my calculations that 13 stripes would be 25" wide my piece kept measuring 23" wide. This was not going to be wide enough.

I kept checking the math and measuring the piece and the numbers didn't change. Finally I rechecked my gauge and sure enough I was getting about 7 rows per inch instead of the 6 rows per inch I got in my swatch. sigh.

I went ahead and knit the next color in the sequence and it seems to be the right width now. phew.

I started with the back, since it wouldn't have neck shaping or anything. Now I'm working on the front. I'll be able to measure the back piece and use it as a guide for which rows should include the neck shaping on the front. I'm doing a drop shoulder style so I don't have to worry about armhole shaping.

Of course I'm being clever, because I never learn. I started both pieces with a provisional cast on and left the other end of the back live. My plan is to graft the side seams using kitchener stitch. It seemed to me that trying to seam over the cast on and cast off edges would be too difficult. The shoulder seams are, of course, going to be sewn especially since they are the side of the work and there was no way to leave it live. I was also clever on the side edges and worked the first and last stitches in garter stitch as a selvedge.

I'm hoping this makes the shoulders easier to seam. On the bottom edge I'm going to use those stitches to pick up and knit down for the ribbing.

Far From Over
There was a while when the back seemed to be taking a long time to knit. Then suddenly it was done.

Hopefully the front won't take long.

But I don't anticipate finishing the sweater quickly, mainly because I'm stumped about the sleeves.

It would be easiest to just do them in horizontal stripes, but I don't know if that will clash with the vertical stripes of the body.

I've been mulling the sleeves over in my mind and can't decide how I would work them in vertical stripes and accomplish shaping. My current brilliant idea was be to start provisionally in the center and work out toward the end decreasing by shortening each row. Then go back and work the other end out.

That might be easier than trying to start at the side of the cuff, increase up to the center, and decrease down again.

Maybe when I get to the sleeves I'll knit a swatch and explain the stripe directions to Hubby.

He'll be the one wearing it, after all.

Sweeping Update

2011-02-16T22:16:00.003-05:00

Oh, there has been plenty to blog about, I just haven't been blogging.

I really need to be sure to make time for it. I mean, I like blogging. It's another creative outlet. I just have to make time for it in a way that won't be stressful.

Really, if I'm blogging for myself to keep a record of my projects it's important for me to do it. On the other hand, if I'm doing it for myself it's also ok if I don't.

Anyway.

Judging by my Ravelry notebook I've finished seven projects about which I haven't blogged one word. So I'll have to weigh the benefits of going back and writing about them after the fact.

Actually, if I'm going to once again swear I'll start blogging more regularly I'll need those finished projects as fodder because goodness knows my current active projects are booooring.

Well, they are at boring points for blog content but are still fine for knitting.

But then considering I can foment paragraphs of anxiety over the most minute details, I guess I don't really have a lack of blog content if I put my mind to it.

Some Substance?
I hadn't actually planned for this post to be all stuff, nonsense, and angst.

When last you heard from me, more or less, I'd declared 2011 the Year of the Sweater. I'm still adhering to that declaration, more or less. As you can imagine, my seven finished projects are not sweaters. Ha! I wish.

No, in between my sweater WIPs I've tossed off a few smaller projects.

The sweaters endure.

In fact, at the beginnig of the year I got a little overwhelmed with all the works-in-progress I had. I was beginning to feel like I was spinning my knitting wheels since I had so many projects on the go and nothing finished to show for my efforts.

I have frequently extolled the virtues of project monogamy. I've clearly seen that working on one project at a time results in actual finished objects in a relatively quick time frame. However, I can't stick with it.

One project isn't enough. On the other hand seven or so projects is too much. Especially if more than one of them is a sweater. Talk about not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

To free myself from the anxiety of so many WIPs I went through my Ravelry notebook and shifted many into "hibernating" status. If you use Ravelry you know this shifts them from the top row of your project page to the bottom row. Out of sight, out of mind.

At the same time I wrapped (most) of those now hibernating WIPs up and put them away. I say most because the Bias Striped V-Neck is in limbo. It's hibernating on Ravelry but still on the bookshelf in the living room because of the over crowded conditions in the dining room credenza.

The result is that my "only" active projects are Hubby's Vertical Stripe Box Stitch Sweater, a Green Schleppy Sweater in KFI sample yarns, and the Lace 101 scarf in gift Hand Maiden Camelspun yarn that I work on at the Library Knitting group.

This has been working out well. Until I hit stupid walls on both active sweaters the other day. Happily I was able to just reach over and grab the Bias-V for some emergency knitting. It's a good thing I didn't pack it away after all.

Jumpstart
A girl can only dream that this post will get me started blogging again. I've given myself plenty of jumping off points for a post tomorrow.

I can blog about one of the active sweaters.

Or I can blog about one of the many projects I finished during the recent blog blackout.

I just have to stratagize about how I want to approach all these topics.

For now, I think the best course of action will be to take the pups out and go to bed.

KFI: Basic Crocheted Fingerless Mitts

2011-01-27T13:28:00.005-05:00

Why should crocheters be excluded from the fun of making and wearing fingerless mitts?

After all, they can fold a square in half and seam it shut just as well as any knitter can. Better, maybe, since crocheting a seam shut is so much easier than mattress stitch.

I would take a moment to mention that I've been crocheting since I was a child. I was so young when I learned that I don't remember being taught! Although I remember my grandmother teaching me the double crochet stitch, which leads me to believe she taught me in the first place.

Anyway, you don't see me crocheting much because extended crochet sessions hurt my wrists. booo! Knitting does not, unless I really, really over do it.

Happily, these little mitts only took a few hours to work up so I think I escaped unscathed.

Sizing
Let's put the sizing discussion up front today, shall we?

This finished mitt has a circumference of 8". My hand, as we established yesterday, is 7.25" around. That's a lot more ease than I like in my mitts, but if your hands are bigger than mine you might be fine.

Single crochet fabric isn't elastic in the way knit ribbing is. These mitts aren't going to cling for me.

To size for yourself you might want to do a little math. I got a gauge of 4.5 sc per inch. Multiply that by my 7" hand and I get 31.5. So I should have gone with either 31 or 32 sts for fit consistent with what I prefer (i.e., snug).

Clear as mud? Excellent.

Yarn Quantity
Then next thing to consider is that crochet takes 1/3 more yarn than knitting does. While the knit mitts yesterday only took around 11 grams of yarn each, leaving wiggle room for resizing with a single ball, this single mitt took 22 grams out of a 50 gram ball.

These mitts, at these dimensions, will very likely use up the entire ball of yarn. If you will be resizing at all you'll want a second ball. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Let's get down to business! I think this pattern will be suitable for a beginner. You just need to know how to chain, single crochet, and slip stitch.

Actually, the concept is suitable for beginners, hopefully my directions are as well.

Basic Crocheted Fingerless Mitts
Materials: Louisa Harding Kashmir Baby (55% Merino Wool, 35% Microfibre, 10% Cashmere; 143 yards) 1 or 2 balls.
Hook: F/5/3.75 mm (or size necessary to obtain gauge)
Gauge: 4.5 single crochet per inch
Size: Finished mitt is 8" around and 6" long

Note: The mitts as written will very likely use all the yarn. I suggest you divide the ball before starting to ensure you have enough for both mitts, or buy a second ball.

Note: US crochet terms used throughout.

Abbreviations: ch=chain. sc=single crochet

Pattern:
Chain 38
Sc in 2nd chain from hook and in each ch across, turn (36 sc)

Ch 1 (does not count as stitch), working under both loops sc in each sc across, turn.

Repeat this row until piece measures 6" from beginning, or desired length.

Finishing:
Secure last loop, but don't break.

Lay fabric on a flat, firm surface. Lay your hand and wrist on the fabric positioned the way you want the finished mitt to fit. Attach markers above and below your thumb to designate the thumb hole.

Fold fabric in half long-wise. Beginning with last loop, seam the mitt shut by working single crochet down the open long edge to the first thumb hole marker. Break yarn.

Reattach yarn at the other end of the mitt and work single crochet up to the second thumb hole marker. Working through one thickness of fabric, slip stitch up one side of the thumb opening, slip stitch or single crochet across break of first seam, slip stitch down the other side of the thumb opening. Break yarn, weave in ends.

Turn mitt inside out before wearing.

Embellishing
In the pattern I have you work under both loops, which gives you a smooth fabric. Another option is to work under just the back loop, which will give you a little ridge on every other row. Personally, I like the ridge usually, but I wasn't in the mood for it this time.

The smooth surface of the fabric lends itself to embellishment. If you are very clever you could embroider flowers or some other design on them. (I am not clever in that way and know it would probably be a train wreck if I attempted it.)

Another option is to attach cute buttons or flower or some such. Really, the possabilities are practically endless.

KFI: Basic Ribbed Fingerless Mitts

2011-01-26T14:09:00.004-05:00

Fingerless mitts are very useful garments.

They are good for wearing indoors in the summer when the air conditioning is a little to enthusiastic and in the winter when the air is nippy because you keep the heat low to save money.

They can also be nice when driving to protect your hands from either a very cold or very hot steering wheel.

An advantage they have over full gloves or mittens is they leave your fingers free for tasks like typing or picking up change.

Fingerless mitts can range from very simple to very complicated, which makes them a good project for all skills levels. They work up quickly since they are small, which makes them a good option for gifts. Their small size also make them a good pallet for testing out new stitches.

But you probably already know or suspect all that. So let's get down to business and magically transform that wee bit of fabric pictured at the top of the post into a mitt.

This pattern is suitable for a beginner who knows how to cast on, knit, purl, cast off, and seam.

Basic Ribbed Fingerless Mitts
Materials: Louisa Harding Kashmir Baby (55% Merino Wool, 35% Microfibre, 10% Cashmere; 143 yards) 1 ball.
Needles: US5 (or size needed to obtain gauge)
Gauge: 8 sts per inch in K2, P2 rib stretched and allowed to snap back [5.5 sts/inch in stockinette]
Size: To fit a hand 7.25" around at the knuckles with zero or negative ease. [See resizing notes at end of pattern]

Note: I suggest you divide the ball of yarn in half before you begin knitting to ensure you have enough for both mitts.

Pattern:
Cast On 33 sts

Row 1: K1, *P2, K2, rep from * across
Row 2: *P2, K2, rep from * across, end P1

Repeat these two rows until piece measures 6" from cast on edge.
Bind off in rib.

Finishing
Mark for thumb hole: Place the fabric flat on the table. Lay your hand and wrist flat on the fabric so it is lined up in the way the finished mitt with fit. Clip markers above and below your thumb.

Fold fabric in half and seam open long edge using mattress stitch. Break yarn when you reach the first thumb hole marker. Reattach yarn at the second thumb hole marker and finish seaming.

Repeat for the second mitt. Wear with pride while enjoying warm hands.

Resizing
Now you're probably saying to yourself, "Holy Smokes! A little 4" x 6" piece of fabric isn't going to cover my hand." Or maybe, "My hand is much larger than your little, bitty 7" hand. This will never work."
Well, don't panic. You can make these mitts with a little extra thought.

My finished mitt took 11 grams out of a 50 gram ball. The pair will take about half a ball. That leaves plenty of yarn for up-sizing.

First, remember that ribbing is very stretchy. My finished mitt has some give to it so it could fit a larger hand. However, if you want to be on the safe side you can add a few more stitches. Add them in groups of 4 to maintain the ribbing. (37, 41, etc.) Also, remember the extra stitch is for the seam so the ribbing will appear continuous.

To make them longer, just keep knitting. I'd suggest knitting an inch more at a time and then measuring your progress by laying your hand on the fabric on a firm, flat surface. Position the top edge so it is under where you want it to be on your fingers and judge the cuff length based on that.

If you do make the mitts wider or longer I suggest you either split the ball before you start knitting OR get a second ball. Consider how much bigger you are going to make yours to help you decide.

Yummy Yarn
I like light weight yarns for my fingerless mitts. I mainly use them for indoor wear so I don't want a lot of bulk hindering my movements.

Louisa Harding Kashmir Baby is a great choice for mitts because it is light weight but warm, soft, and machine washable. As you can imagine, it's easy to get mitts dirty so easy care yarn is important.

This yarn has a chainette construction. Instead of being plied in the traditional manner the strands have been knit into a little tube. It made a nice, springy fabric in the rib stitch. It is also cabling very nicely, but that is for another day.

Down the Clay Button Rabbit Hole

2011-01-22T15:19:00.003-05:00

You may remember that when I finished my Adult Surprise Jacket I was a little stuck for buttons.

Don't worry if you don't remember it was several months ago.

Anyway. I worked the button holes recommended in the pattern, which are over three or four stitches. At a gauge of 3.5 stitches to the inch they are some big button holes, which means I needed big buttons.

Also, it's such a colorful sweater I knew they'd have to be either really boring buttons to not compete or really fancy buttons to hold their own.

At the time the women in the library knitting group suggested I get some Fimo clay and make my own buttons.

Of course at the time I laughed because I don't do those kinds of crafts. But the idea got into my head and I mulled it over on a regular basis.

Mulling led to watching many videos on YouTube which led to me believing that I could make buttons if I put my mind to it.

By the time I came to that conclusion it was after Michael's had a sale on clay. Not only did I miss the sale but their supplies were pretty devastated.

It wasn't really a problem in the end since I just wanted the primary colors along with black and white. I wasn't looking to make a big investment. After all, I just needed 5 buttons and didn't know if I would be successful or enjoy it.

As a result, instead of buying actual Fimo brand clay I bought the off-brand for $1.29 a block. It seemed to work fine, but since this is the first time I've ever used such a clay I can't really compare.

Plotting
Before plunging in I wisely took the time to consider how I wanted the buttons to look.

This led to perusing Flickr for "fimo buttons" to see what other people had done. There are a lot of pretty buttons out there!

Because of the size of my buttonholes I decided my buttons would have to be around 1" across. I also thought square buttons would be good to echo the angular stripes in the jacket.

I knew wanted some of those classic stripey buttons you see. They seemed attainable because a YouTube video from TheCraftsChannel made them look really easy.

I liked the flowers as well, but they looked harder and I didn't think I felt that ambitious.

Since a template was in order I drew several 1" x 1" squares on a piece of paper and doodled some ideas. Then I finally plunged in.

Stripes!
The first cane I made was the black/white and purple ones. Imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when I cut a few slices off and it actually looked like it was supposed to!

All excited I showed it to Hubby. "Is that how it's supposed to look?" he asked. I confirmed it was. He said he was proud of me.

He's so supportive.

After making that first cane it was time for dinner and I wasn't able to return to the buttons for a week. It was very annoying.

But then last Saturday I woke up at 3 A.M. and couldn't fall back to sleep. In my sleep deprived state I thought it would be a good time to work on the buttons.

I made the green/yellow and blue cane. Then I made the red/purple swirl. The goal was to use as many of the colors from the jacket in the buttons as I could.

I found that it was easier than I expected, but also took longer.

I didn't invest in tools at all, just used what I had around the house, but I could see how the supplies available at the craft store would have been helpful.

For instance, the stuff I bought is labeled "non-toxic" but I didn't want it on food prep equipment. Therefore, although I was using my normal rolling pin, I was putting the clay between sheets of cling wrap.

Also, I was using a box cutter and a razor blade to do the cutting. The box cutter was fine for trimming, but the striped blocks were often longer than the razor blade forcing me to make two cuts. The people in the videos had long blades that allowed them to slice down on a block in one smooth motion.

Flowers!
Eventually, I started to get sleepy again, but I was on a roll and didn't want to have to clean up and then haul everything out again.

Perhaps because I was sleep deprived I decided to give flowers a whirl. Once again, they were easier than I anticipated.

I'm pleased with them because they are my first attempt, however I learned some things right away.

I should have made the red part of the petals thicker.

I also should have made the notch in the white part of the petal and the purple stripe that filled it deeper.

I am, however, very pleased with my black/yellow center swirl.

Oh, there's another thing, I kept making things scaled down because I didn't want to them to be huge or use up all my clay. Well, bigger is sort of better. I think you could get the details, like the purple stripe in my petals, better if you make them bigger. Then you just roll it down to the size you want. Of course that means more buttons but you don't have to bake them all at once.

A problem I had was consistency in thickness when I rolled the slabs out and when I cut slices. I think you can tell the thick/thin issue in a few of the buttons. Both problems probably stemmed from inexperience.

Buttons!
Once I finished making the four motifs I packed them together with blue clay, rolled them to smooth things out, then wrapped them.

And immediately realized I should have used a different color core for the green/yellow cane or packed it with a different color. Oh, well, too late by then.

Oh, and another reason bigger would have been better is for size consistence. First I tried to roll the other canes down to the size of the red/purple swirl. Then everything got reduced again once I was shaping the final square button.

Finally the moment of truth came. I sliced up my buttons...and was disappointed.

They were smaller than I wanted and you couldn't see the motifs well.

Since I'd already invested all that time and clay in them I had nothing to loose.

I laid them all between two pieces of cellophane and took the rolling pin to them.

Magically they expanded and the designs were more visible. Huzzah!

After working so hard on the individual motifs I decided I didn't want them obscured by holes and yarn. I rolled up some scraps, sliced it up, and made shanks for the square buttons and the two big flower buttons that were test slices. I made holes in the other test slices since they have blank spots that won't suffer from being obscured.

The square buttons look good on the jacket, if I do say so myself. They aren't all 1". I took the biggest ones for the jacket, but I'm still going to have to sew some of the button holes shut a little. I suppose that is better than having to make them bigger. And I'm totally going to put a smaller one on each pocket...once I knit pockets.

More to come?
I didn't use up all of the canes to make the square buttons. I also didn't use up all the clay in general. I've wrapped it all carefully in cellophane and a Ziplock bag to keep it from drying out.

I think I have enough buttons for now, but I'm prepared if I get the bug again.

You will not be surprised to hear that I'm trying to figure out ways to put buttons on everything now.

I'm going to make another hot water bottle cover (oh, I never told you about the first one) and I'm going to put buttons on it.

And I'm trying to figure out how to work buttons into the next Schleppy Sweater I knit.

Seriously, I created a (controllable) monster.

Bias-V Progress

2011-01-18T14:36:00.002-05:00

It took me a few days to recover from the chaos of the stripes colliding with the shaping.

I resorted to building a massive chart of the entire sweater in Excel to see how it would all work together.

Yes, that took an hour or two.

Why the entire sweater? Because I thought it would be easier to have the stripes progress up the chart and seeing where the colors end up rather than trying to start at the armholes and having to determine the color placement from the sweater.

The chart turned out to be a good idea not only for the stripes but also for the neck shaping.

Despite having reworked the numbers for the v-neck shaping I rebelled against the new figures and was going to go with my original math.

However, when I plotted it on the chart I saw that it did indeed not work. The neck shaping stopped at a point beyond the end of the shoulder shaping. There was a distinct lack of stitches where stitches needed to be for both sets of shaping to happen.

It was a simple matter of flipping the page over to get to the new neck numbers. I plotted them with a red boarder so I could really see the difference. I also had to replot the shoulders since they were based on the top of the v-neck. I was able to cross-reference the revised chart rows with the number of rows I had predicted for the armholes in my original round of number crunching.

I'm pretty sure everything is happy now, but the real test will be when the sweater is done.

The result of plotting the stripes was that I decided to maintain the charcoal grey on left shoulder even though it's only going to be three stitches. I like having the colors continue.

I was also able to see that the dark blue was not going to jump across the gap and eat the black/white yarn until all the way up at the shoulder.

What I did was box out the shape of the sweater, then copy paste the colors up to the neck shaping.

Then when I got to the neck shaping I used a lighter version of all the colors to plot them across empty space. This allowed me to follow their natural progression. Also, it gave me a chart of the back of the sweater.

After all that work I realized there was something I could have done to make my charting life easier.

I made the chart by copying each individual color two rows at a time, moving my cursor up and over, and pasting.

The next day, after I was all done, I realized I could have copied the two rows all the way across the sweater. The relation of the colors to each other would have been maintained just as well.

sigh.

Pockets?

2011-01-17T23:19:00.001-05:00

I want to put pockets on my Adult Surprise Jacket.

In the pattern EZ says not to try to position them in advance.

She suggests putting on the finished jacket, noting where your hands naturally want to go, and placing the pocket in that location.

Now that I finally have buttons (a whole other saga. Oh there have been things to blog about, I just haven't been blogging) I can get a better idea of how the jacket actually hangs.

I put it on, buttoned it up, and pretended to put my iPhone in my non-existent pocket.

Then I froze and attached stitch markers to either side.

I spent the next hour walking around trying to spontaneously put things in my pretend pockets.

I'm not sure how much I actually managed to surprise myself, but the positioning seemed to work.

Now I have to take some measurements to make sure they match in distance from the front opening and bottom hem. I might also make them just a twinge wider.

Cutting?!
I'm a little worried about the idea of cutting the sweater to make the pockets.

Pam asked why I'm going to cut if I'm scared of the idea.

I pointed out that if I don't cut I'll have to do patch pockets. Now I suppose patch pockets would work for some people. But in my matchy-matchy world they won't work.

I'm out of most of the yarns I used to knit the sweater so I can't reproduce the stripes.

And, let's be serious, the jacket is eye-catching enough as it is without patch pockets adding to the visual interest.

Return of the Bias Striped V-Neck Shell

2011-01-04T13:13:00.002-05:00

I recently finished a cabled hat for Hubby. I designed it, so it was no small feat. There was a lot of reworking involved. I'll tell you all the gory details in a future post, hopefully after I have the pattern written up.

I bring the hat up because it was one of those projects that left me...unsettled?...feeling at a loose end?...those phrases are a little too negative for what I'm trying to describe. I can't think of the right word at the moment, but I'm sure you felt it too.

I finished the hat and had to cleanse my knitting palate. I had to take time and savor the accomplishment of finishing the hat. I wanted to knit, but nothing I had in progress seemed appealing. What I really wanted to do was cast on for something new with some of my Rhinebeck yarn, but that would have been irresponsible.

Since I wanted my hands to be moving, but didn't want anything taxing, I fished out the Bias Striped V-Neck Shell.

Yeah, Stockinette
This is a little top I'm designing fro myself using yarn leftover from the striped sweater I made Hubby last year. I was very excited when I started it, but hit a major wall after I took that design class with Shirley Paden in July and she declared that my v-neck shaping numbers wouldn't work. Oh, and moving didn't help the situation either.

Anyway. I hauled it out and discovered that I had reworked the neck shaping numbers at some point. Also, I could still understand the pattern I'd written for myself, which was very exciting. After a quick measure to check the length I was able to jump right back into knitting it.

Boo, Fancy Stripes
However things got ugly pretty quickly.

As you can see the stripes march across the sweater to the left. On each right side row I work one more stitch in the color to the right maintaining the stitch count. So, to clarify, each color has 13 stitches (although one has 15 because the math didn't work). The light green eats the dark blue which eats the black/white and on across the sweater. As the color drops off the left I attach it to the right and continue the pattern.

This was working out very nicely, expect I didn't plan for how the armhole and neck shaping would affect the pattern. Actually I probably figured I deal with it when I got there.

Well, I'm there and I'm stuck.

As you can see in the picture the stripes already when squirrley because of the armholes. This is actually attempt number two. For my first attempt I continued the grey on the right but it ended up with only like three or four stitches between casting off the armholes and having to add in the tan/white when it dropped off the left.

(Also my pattern said to decrease two stitches each side but I bound them off and didn't end up liking how that looked. Frogging was necessitated by the double whammy of ugly shaping and bad stripes.)

On this second attempt I abandonded the grey when it was down to two stitches. It's alittle abrut, but I tell myself it's OK becuase it's under my arm. No one should be close enough to notice.

Now my problem is the chaos the neck shaping is causing. Between the neck shaping and the slide of the colors the black/white yarn in the center is rapidly disappearing. The dark blue already ate one side. Technically on the next right side row I work the dark blue is going to jump the gap. At this rate the black/white is going to get cut off in the middle of the row!

Since I'm using leftover yarn I made a lot of decisions based on conservation. I thought I'd be clever and start with the front so that if I ran out of colors it would be on the back and maybe less noticible. The v-neck was also an attempt to save yarn (less territory to cover). My ability to make sleeves will be dictated by how much yarn is left after the body is done.

I'm debating not letting the dark blue jump the gap yet. Give the black/white a chance to get ahead. But I don't know if that will distort the stripes. After all, the dark blue is being encroched upon by the green as well as the neck shaping.

Now I wish I had knit the back first so I would have complete stripes to refrence. I would have been able to plot the flow of the colors on the front against the colors on the back and decide how to work the slide.

Lightbulb!
Seriously. As I was just sitting here typing this post it occured to me to work up a chart with the colors. Brilliant! It won't be easy because of the shift, but I can color it all in then slice out the neck.

Excellent. This should fix the problem and is easier than knitting and ripping.

I know what I'll be doing tonight.

2011: The Year of the Sweater

2011-01-03T16:14:00.003-05:00

My resolution this year is to be more organized.

Might as well set my sights high!

Part of my new organized lifestyle will be blogging regularly again. One could say the year is off to a bad start since it's already Jan 3, however I don't usually blog on the weekends so I gave myself a pass.

At the end of last year my grand plan was to blog in the morning as a way to get the creative juices flowing. We all know how well that worked out. Now my plan is to blog after lunch, like I used to. We'll see how that goes.

Enough babble, on to the yarn and knitting content!

Needs Must as the Needles Drive
I own a lot of yarn.

Not as much as some people. My yarn collection doesn't take up an entire room in the house, but it is getting a bit tight in the dining room credenza.

This would not have been an issue when we lived in Connecticut, since that was a three bedroom house with a 1/2 finished basement and a walk up attic. It is an issue here in New Hampshire since we're in a spacious one bedroom apartment.

I've owned some of this yarn for a while now and feel bad that it's being ignored. I also own some very lovely stuff that I'd like to knit already.

In this hoard of mine I have yarn to make several sweaters. These quantities of yarn were generally bought with a project in mind.

Since sweaters take quite a bit of yarn, I figure if I set myself the task of knitting some of these long coveted sweaters I'll make a serious dent in my hoard.

Based on previous sweaters it takes me between one and two months to knit a sweater if I stay focused. If I work through my list it should carry me through the year nicely.

In no order the sweaters I have on tap are:

My Celtic Critter Cardigan
Hubby's Vertical Box Stitch Sweater
Finishing my Bias-V Neck Sweater
Aunt Kim's Vines and Lace Sweater
Brother's Ruben
My Cap Sleeve Cabled Sweater
My Rainbow Schleppy Sweater
My Sherbert Schleppy Sweater
Red Top-Down Cardigan from KFI samples

Not Sweaters Exclusively
When I like a yarn I won't randomly buy several thousand yarns for a patternless sweater I might make someday, instead I'll try to buy a sock yarn equivalent. The result being that I have quite a hoard of sock yarn in addition to my sweater hoard.

So although I say this is The Year of the Sweater I'll be knitting other things as well. Primarily I have a number of UFO WIPs I have to finish. Some socks, a pair of fingerless mitts, a scarf. It would be nice to finish those things up.

Also, I got a hot water bottle for Christmas. I asked for one so I could knit it a cover. This morning I finally cast on for one.

I know I usually advocate project monogamy, but I'll have to be good about having a project rotation this year if I'm going to accomplish everything I want to.

The important thing to remember in all this is to be relaxed about the situation. Knitting should be fun and should not add stress to my life. I have a goal, and a list, but it's all for guidance. None of it is required.

What goals are you setting yourself?

Rhinebeck 2010: Sweater Yarn

2010-12-06T17:59:00.006-05:00

What I should have done was blog about the yarn I bought at Rhinebeck in the days after Rhinebeck. Then I would have benefited from the extra traffic of people looking for news from the festival.

That, however, would have required organization and I had other things on my mind when I got home.

In fact, I didn't even enter the yarn into my Ravelry stash until this weekend.

Since October my haul has been sitting on the dining room table. Hubby straightened up the dining room a few weeks ago and asked if I could please get my yarn of the the table now? His follow up question was if the was room for me to put it away.

I assured him there was, I just hadn't cataloged it yet. Of course when I did go to put it away things got a little dicey, but it all fit.

Fun With A Purpose
I went in with some goals. More to avoid disappointment than to prevent overspending. I figure if I'm going to make impulse purchases I should at least have projects in mind so I could buy an adequate amount of yarn.

A top goal was to correct an oversight from the previous year. Last year I saw a skein of yellow and orange yarn in the Brooks Farm booth that I really liked but didn't buy. I told myself that this year I would go straight there and buy one to make a second cropped poncho.

Well, as you probably guessed, they didn't have any. Nothing even resembling it. Since I still have all those Solo I bought in 2009 for my Celtic Critter Cardigan, I did want to buy more. I started looking for yarn that might make a good sweater for Hubby, but nothing was really catching my eye.

Finally, Mom asked something along the lines of, "Why are you so determined to buy some of this yarn?" And I said, "I don't know." After which we moved on.

However, the orange and yellow theme kept recurring during the show.

I had fallen in love with the Odette sweater from Verena Knitting Magazine and decided it getting yarn for it would be a Rhinebeck goal. It's a hip length, long sleeve pullover, slightly flared at the bottom, with interesting cables at the waist and yolk. We left the Brooks Farm booth and went into the booth that sells Aussie Wool. I'd bought some of their sock yarn last year in a wonderfully eye popping color (which I still haven't knit up).

As soon as we hit the booth we saw the great golden yarn pictured at the top of the post. It was the right gauge, right quantity, and a good price. Sold!

I also saw a skein of black and gold sock yarn, which are the school colors for Hubby's new school. Of course I just had to get it to make him a pair of socks.

Orange and Yellow and Pink!
We made and effort to target the booths up by the 4-H structures this year. We missed most of them last year because we didn't realize they were there.

As we wandered through them I encountered a booth with lovely hand dyed yarn that was super soft. It turned out to be Maple Creek Farm, where I had bought some lovely red/black/white sock yarn in 2009 (which I still haven't knit).

I started out by once again looking for yarn for a Hubby sweater. Plenty of stuff was catching my eye, but nothing that seemed appropriate for him. Then I stubmled across this fabulous color of Fredricksburg which took my yellow and orange obsession a step further by throwing pink in the mix.

Oh my goodness, it is soooo soft and snuggly. Each skein is 660 yards and it's about 5.5 stitchs to the inch. Which makes it a prime candidate for a Schleppy Sweater! So I snatched up two skeins.

Hubby Yarn
My last sweater quantity purchase was for Hubby.

He had requested a vertically striped sweater, which would be sold colors. I knew that if I could find a nice varigated yarn I could get away with knitting a simple sweater and letting the yarn do the work. I was on the prowl for jewel tones because Hubby likes strong colors.

I finally found what I was looking for in the Creatively Dyed Yarn booth. I follow her on Twitter and when I saw her tweeting about attending Rhinebeck I made a note of her booth number so I could be sure to swing by. So in this case her social media efforts paid off!

She had all these cool, cyberpunk colors that were varigated but also had splatters on them. They were enchanting. They were also a little too much for a Hubby sweater without him there to approve. Then I found some solid and semisolids in the corner. The colors were nice, the yarn was soft, and it had a good weight to it so I knew Hubby would like it. I did attempt to select one wild yarn to surround with solid colors, but the booth was crowded so it was hard to really poke around for such an involved project.

I settled on her Woodbrook yarn, which is 100% superwash wool. There was a nice silk/wool blend that I kept picking up based on colors, but I didn't want to mix fibers by having one color wool and the next color a blend.

I got two skeins each of five colors in these lovely jewel tones. Of course by the time I got home I started worrying I should have bought one color heavy. I'm sure it will work out fine. I'll just have to make sure all the colors appear with the same frequency.

Since I ended up liking the yarn, and buying quite a bit of it, I told her I follow her on twitter, which was fun. (Of course, if I'd been disappointed she never would have known I was there!)

Friends
In addition to yarn we saw a few friends. Mainly we kept running into Pam and her friend on a regular basis. This was good because we could scout out different things and suggest places to check out. We also got to each lunch with them one day and breakfast on another. So it was pretty cool.

We saw other people too, but I don't remember now.

If you think this is the only yarn I bought you don't know me very well. You have to realize I bought more sock yarn than that single skein for Hubby. But that is a post for another day.

Done: ASJ Epic

2010-12-04T13:47:00.008-05:00

The last end was actually woven in on Dec. 2, but as I've been caring for sick puppies I was a little too distracted to blog.

The pups are feeling better, by the way. They seemed better Wednesday during the day, but relapsed that evening after bedtime.

I went to the vet Thursday and they said it sounded like colitis, which is an inflimation of their intestines which points to something they ate.

Now they have medicine they have to take three times a day for a week. At least it sounds like something passing (no pun intended) that isn't life threatening or chronic.

Anyway, the sweater.

Sleeves, again.
I really can't harp on how narrow the sleeves are following the original pattern. Mine would have have been about 12 inches around, which would have been negative ease for me.

Even with my slick little flap they are a little snug, probably since I'm wearing them over shirts, but they seem to be streatching out a little.

When I made my little shoulder flaps I didn't think about the neckline at all. After you knit the body you go back and knit an edging that includes the front opening so extra depth it added. It worked out ok because as you knit this border you increase at the beginning of each row and that little flare fit in nicely along the edge of my shoulder flap.

Still, what I think I should have done was pick up along the entire cast on edge, instead of targeting the sleeve section.

By knitting two seperate flaps I ended up making the back neckline deeper than it should have been.

Of course now that I know how it works out if I ever make it again I'll follow the alternative directions for deeper arms.

Collared
My alterations made the neckline very open. That made it look unfinished, sloppy, and oversized when I first tried it on.

I knew some finished was required and a simple collar seemed the best bet.

The collar in the pattern seemed more about the baby size. I got out my big Vogue Knitting book and discovered that collar was basically the same.

My first attempt didn't work out because I didn't pick up stitches along the front evenly. One side went all the way down to the outside edge of the neck opening and the other side fell a few stitches short. It made the entire sweater look crooked. sigh.

I pulled it out but despite being careful still fell a stitch short on my pick up. This time I figured it was close enough.

I just picked up each stitch around and worked in garter stitch. I worked Sl1, k2, kfb, k to end on each row. Additionally on every, oh, fourth row I worked a KFB one stitch in from the corners on the back section to give the back a little more fullness for the fold over. I worked the collar for about 18 rows.

Buttons? Pockets?
Now all I need are buttons. And they are going to have to be big, honking buttons. I followed the button hole directions in the pattern, which are over four stitches and at 3.5 sts/inch they are some big button holes.

My need for buttons makes me wish I was still at Westport Yarns. Not only did we have a good selection of buttons, but I would have had a ton of advice on which one to select.

Turns out the women in the library knitting group are as much of a bad influence as any knitters you would meet. They suggested I should make buttons out of fimo. They were like, "You could get blue and green like in your coat" and they made it sound all easy.

Of course, the big problem is now I have that idea in my head....

I think I'll also probably end up adding pockets. But I want to wait until I have buttons so I know how it will actually close.

Project Stats
Pattern: Adult Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann. I have the ABC booklet with all the sizes and expanded directions.
Needles: US 10
Size: I aimed for a 35" chest.
Yarn total potential yardage: 1131


  Yarn Name                  Yardage         Amount Used
Noro Kogarashi                  165 yards            used all
Queensland Collection Sandstone 65 yards             used all
Noro Kochoran                   176 yards/100g       41g left
Queensland Collection Mist  2 at 54 yards=108 yards  used all
Ella Rae Country Tweed          82 yards             used all
Araucania Coliumo               95 yards/100g        17g left
Araucania Azapa                 147 yards/100g       17g left
Ester Bitran Tirua              163 yards/100g       34g left
Louisa Harding Millias    2 at 65 yards=130 yards    used all

Remember, if you want to see the specific yarns, I made a little map on a close up picture.

This pattern was a lot of fun. It only took me a month of concentrated knitting. Project monogamy for the win! I'm sure the big gauge helped speed me along.

I do have a desire to make another one, which is saying a lot since I'm not usually a pattern repeater. However, I'm resisting the urge.

I think my next sample yarn sweater will be a top down cardigan. On the other hand, a small project to cleanse my palate might be in order first.