Happy March

Magic Loop how to.

2010-06-18T03:05:00.000-07:00

Magic loop is used if you're doing small circumference knitting on needles with a longer cord. I prefer magic loop for knitting socks, and while I have short circulars for doing hats I like using magic loop for hats too.

First order of business is to cast on an amount of stitches:

Slide the stitches back so that they are on the cord between the two needles:

Look at the stitches to determine where the middle of your stitches would be (or count them if you like, that also works well)

Expose the cord in the spot you determined to be the middle:

Pull that section of the cord out, pushing the stitches down to either side of the cord:

And pull all the stitches down towards the needle tips. You will now have two little rows of stitches on either side, joined on the end where the cord is hanging out and open on the end where the needle tips are.

Hold the needles so that the needle in the back is the one that has your working yarn dangling off it - so the last stitch you cast on. You will pull this needle tip out of the stitches so that the stitches are all hanging out on the cord:

You are now ready to pick up your newly freed back needle tip and use it to knit into the first stitch on your front needle (that first stitch on your front needle being the first one you cast on) - before you knit the stitch, have a quick look at your knitting and make sure that your cast on edges are both sitting straight with now twists anywhere.

Knit your first stitch:

at this point, your needles should look like this:

Knit to the end of your row:

And pull the right needle free, at which point you'll find that you know have a circle of knitting sitting on your needle and on the cord, joined at either end:

Turn the knitting around so that the needle with the stitches on it is again at the back, and the cord is closest to you:

Pull on the cord on the left of your work to bring the dangling needle point back up into the stitches that are currently sitting on the cord:

You are now again ready to pull that back needle forward, moving the stitches on to the cord as you're doing so,

You've now knit half of one round, and your knit stitches are sitting on the cord with the working yarn dangling from them

Use the free dangling needle to knit into the row of stitches

Once you reach the end of this row, you will have completed one round.

If you'd like to see big pictures showing exactly where all parts of the needles are, the tutorial over at Knitting Daily is pretty good.

You can do the magic loop method on a 32 inch circular, but it is generally easier to use a longer cord. If you're new to circular needles - the length is measured needle tip to needle tip.

gathered cowl

2009-12-31T04:08:00.000-08:00

I bought some Patons Bamboo Angora (55% bamboo, 35% wool,10% angora) a few months ago without any clear plan as to what I would make with it. I really am trying to be better about this and ask myself "and knit what with this?" when I think that I just HAVE TO HAVE some or the other yarn.

The Bamboo Angora is super soft and fuzzy and drapes wonderfully. The drape probably makes it less than great for a cowl and after I finished knitting this project I thought that cables probably would have been a better choice in order to provide some structure to the yarn.

Because the yarn is so incredibly soft I wanted it up by my face and touching my neck. Because I have 4 balls of this it was not quite enough for a scarf, but a bit too much for a cowl. I looked through my stitch dictionary and chose a pattern that looked like it would use up more yarn to make the same amount of fabric and settled on the gathered stitch.

Gathered Stitch:
Cast on an even number of stitches
Knit until you have three garter ridges,
next row, knit every stitch front and back
knit in stockinette for a section (I did 6 rows)
next row, knit two together throughout the row
repeat the whole thing.

I cast on 120 using size 8 needles and paid no attention at all to gauge(gauge? what's that? who cares!) I knit and knit and knit until I used up almost all of the yarn and thought that there would not be enough yarn to do another section of gathered stitch, then I cast off loosely using just plain simple cast off since I could tell the thing was pretty wide.

It turned out to be slightly wider than I anticipated. It's not quite wide enough that you could pull it over your shoulders, which is a pity, and it hangs pretty loosely and far away from the neck. Because the fabric is so limp, I mean drapes so well, it doesn't want to sit up by your neck.

On the last cast off stitch I made a small loop of single crochet and then added a cool vintage button to the other side of the cowl so that you can button it around your neck if it gets a bit nippy. This works ok, but is probably a better solution for something that is pure wool that is a bit stiffer and would stand up some.

After I wore the cowl for a little I admitted to myself that I would like it better if it was smaller all round. We made a quick trip to Michael's (it's a large crafts store, mom) where I bought some stretchy cord that is intended for making beaded bracelets.I ran this elastic cord through my top rows of garter and immediately liked the whole thing better - of course now the button is way too close to the loop and executes a choke hold on you. It will have to be moved over a little.

I will be running the elastic cord through all the other garter sections to try and give the whole thing structre. If it's still rather limp I think I might take drastic measure and see about lightly felting it in the sink. The idea is that the wool and angora would felt up a bit and the bamboo of course would not. This would possible also help with the small issue of inhaling microscopic bits of green angora while wearing this.

I will update on what I ended up doing to this. It is the exact same shade of green as my eyes, but I am also considering starting an Etsy shop to sell some hand-knits and if all else fails, I'll see if maybe somebody else would like to buy it! Ha!

Story of a shawl.

2009-09-15T19:46:00.001-07:00

First, the hanks of yarn were wound into center pull balls on my ballwinder, to facilitate the knitting process

One of the hanks met Gogo and felt pretty nervous. I told the yarn not to worry, and that I would protect it.

Then, the yarn became the cast on row for the shawl, and when the shawl was big enough to behave itself, it got to come with the visit Mr. Husband in the hospital. The shawl felt pretty silly and got on Mr. Husband's head.

The shawl and I looked out the hospital room window and were both pretty impressed with how high up we were (4th floor! wow, that's 3rd floor for you non-Americans)

The shawl had to have some emergency surgery, but the presence of a crochet hook in my handbag made the whole thing as painless as doing surgery on a black, fingering weight shawl can be.

The shawl then had a little rest on the hospital window sill and contemplated how much larger it was than when we first arrived.

To celebrate Mr. Husband getting out of the hospital, we decided to have sushi. The shawl got to come with to sushi, and got to meet the waitresses. (The shawl got to go back about three weeks later, and the waitresses were pretty impressed with how much larger the shawl got)

The shawl accompanied me to work and hung out on my desk and met some of my coworkers. The shawl was pretty impressed with how square my cubicle is.

The shawl was pulled back a bit after I realized I really should have started the lace part already, and while off the needles, the shawl posed on Mr. Husband (check out that nephrectomy scar, the shawl and I were both pretty impressed by how much of a badass Mr. Husband is. )

With the lace part growing steadily, and Mr. Husband back in the hospital, the shawl and I went to visit and the shawl behaved much better this time around.

Earlier today, the shawl was completed and decided to pretend like it was a kitty and try to make Mr. Husband feel better. Mr. Husband was not really amused and said the shawl was too hot.

Right now, the shawl is blocking on my bed, although this picture was taken before Gogo and Elsie realized that there is something new and unusual on the bed for them to lie down on.

Thanks to my models, Mr. Shawl and Mr. Husband. I love you both! (Mr. hubs gave me permission to feature his pictures here)

This shawl: Icarus by Miriam Felton
This yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine - not quite 100g worth.

I made yarn!

2009-09-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

And not Kool-aid florescent practice yarn either, but honest to goodness pretty two ply that actually has enough yardage that I could knit something out of it. I finished it yesterday and took it with to the hospital to show husband, and then today, I considered taking it with again just to keep it on my lap while driving and pet it during the day.

Lots of pictures:

Can't wait to make more!

Handspun!

2009-09-12T05:57:00.001-07:00

This is my very first handspun on my Ashford Traditional Double Drive:

I'm not sure what it is, but it's pretty course. It's the first fiber I ever bought. The lady at my LYS said she thought it was Corriedale and that it's good for beginners to use something with lots of crimp. I think I disagree. It wasn't fun to spin at all.

Second hand spun: blue faced leicester from Blue Goose Glen. I wanted to just experiment with what it would be like to spin roving that was dyed in blocks of colour - since there are so many on Etsy.com, but I really didn't want to buy it and then not like it.

First I dyed a bit of the roving using Kool-Aid

It was a pretty cool experience. I glance over some dyeing directions online and took to the kitchen hoping for the best. I mixed up some Kool-aid with water, dumped it on different sections, wrapped the whole thing in clingfilm and then stuck it in the microwave for 6 or so minutes.

Then I let it cool (so as to not felt it when I rinse it out), then washed it several times to try and get the sickening child-birthday-party smell out of it, then let it dry. The next day I spun it into a single, trying to not mix colours at all - I think I was pretty successful there.

After spinning up a single, I decided against plying it with something else (like undyed BFL) and instead had a quick look on youtube to see how to Navajo ply. I practiced Navajo plying on the scratchy first spun single and then did this one, resulting in the YARN seen below.

Yarn! I made actual yarn. I felt like Tom Hanks in Cast Away when he makes fire and stand on the beach going "I made fire!". I wanted to jump up and go "I made yarn!" but the cats were napping, so I kept quiet and just smiled in a gloating way.

Last night when I got home from the hospital where husband is currently staying I had some superwash merino roving waiting for me and immediately started spinning. I think I'm getting much more consistent and that I'm putting a reasonable amount of twist in now.

I can't wait to actually finish spinning and ply it up and then knit something out of it. The roving is Mocha Java from Fiber Optic on Etsy.

What a very very fabulous invention

2009-09-04T04:10:00.000-07:00

It's a swift, and it's my new best friend. here it is spinning away on the next hank of yarn for the old shale stole for my mom.

I received a hank of Kauni Effektgarn en beige in the mail today, and when my husband saw it, he said "good thing you got the swift, since I'm not holding that".

The hank of Kauni is a monster.

Here is it swallowing my cellphone

And here is it intimidating my cats.

(this photograph made me realize that my curtains really could use a trip through the dryer to de-hair them, that or I should shave Elsie too)

With the swift however, it will be such an easy peasy conversion to a center pull ball.

I've admired this Revontuli knit by Wolligkeiten on Ravely for quite some time, and now that I have this yarn, I can reproduce it. I'm excited.
This photograph is from Wolligkeiten's flicker photostream and is her property and I am borrowing it to show how lovely her shawl is and will put it back if she needs me to. It's one of the first things I ever faved on ravely. I love it.

a sad decision

2009-08-06T23:28:00.000-07:00

I am very close to being done with Buttercup and then decided to frog it to just under the bust. I haven't done the frogging just yet. I'm trying to work up the courage, but I really believe that I'd rather put more time into something and have a result that I'll love and want to wear a lot than skimp and cut corners and have something hanging in my closet and not getting worn.

I originally bought 10 balls of Rowan cotton glace in colourway "buttercup" on sale for $1.50 each. i was concerned that I'd run out of yarn since the pattern Buttercup has A-line shaping. So, I decreased, did some waist shaping, just sort of made it up as a i went along. Then, I found a fellow raveler who had some of the exact dyelot of my discontinued yarn and provided me with 5 more balls (thank you entricot! love ya!).

So, now that I have plenty of the right yarn, i want the A-line shaping back. I just tried to halfway finished project on, and there is just too much negative ease. i want more slouch, more movement. So i think i'll do all the finishing on the neck and sleaves and then rip back the body and reknit as the pattern is written.

Of course, If I just lost 20 pounds it would fit perfectly, but there you have it. Here is the right now:

Yes, not fabulous pictures, but it's 1am, and it's in my bathroom and I'm saaad about pulling this back. Stupid cotton yarn.

First socks

2009-07-29T22:53:00.000-07:00

I finally bucked up and finished the first pair of socks I ever cast on. They only needed a toe to get to completion and for whatever slacker reason I just let them sit in the back of my works-in-progress cubby

First off, friends should not let friends kitchener drunk. I so painstakingly kitchenered this to together, saying I would finish it before going to sleep. Only to realize close to the end that I had 6 stitches left on one needle and 16 on the other. Complete mystery. Had to be yanked out and I admitted defeat and went to sleep.

The next day I gave it another go and complete the dreaded grafting without a problem. Here, I present to you, a pair of finished Classic English ribbed socks, modeled by the pale husband:

This is Kroy Socks in Glencheck, 2 balls, size 10 feet, so quite large. The yarn was quite stiff before washing, but they've since been through the machine and they are much softer and nicer. I think these will serve mr. Husband nicely once we finally stop having triple digit weather.

What my taste in art says about me

2009-07-11T13:48:00.001-07:00

Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test...

Balanced, Secure, and Realistic.

25 Impressionist, 21 Islamic, 6 Ukiyo-e, -27 Cubist, -29 Abstract and 9 Renaissance!

Impressionism is a movement in French painting, sometimes called optical realism because of its almost scientific interest in the actual visual experience and effect of light and movement on appearance of objects. Impressionist paintings are balanced, use colored shadows, use pure color, broken brushstrokes, thick paint, and scenes from everyday life or nature.

People that like Impressionist paintings may not alway be what is deemed socially acceptable. They tend to move on their own path without always worrying that it may be offensive to others. They value friendships but because they also value honesty tend to have a few really good friends. They do not, however, like people that are rude and do not appreciate the ideas of others. They are secure enough in themselves that they can listen to the ideas of other people without it affecting their own final decisions. The world for them is not black and white but more in shades of grey and muted colors. They like things to be aestically pleasing, not stark and sharp. There are many ways to view things, and the impresssionist personality views the world from many different aspects. They enjoy life and try to keep a realistic viewpoint of things, but are not very open to new experiences. If they are content in their live they will be more than likely pleased to keep things just the way they are.

Take What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test at HelloQuizzy

Why it's hard to knit with cats.

2009-07-03T00:32:00.000-07:00

I tried getting some pics of my works in progress. Elsie and Gogo were both feeling helpful and decided to interfere with me.

First I took a picture of some fabric I bought today from Hobby Lobby (on sale!) for two yarn/fabric combining patterns from Berroco called Bell and Nell:

I take pic one sans cat, and immediately Gogo wonders "oh my goodness, what are you doing without me, what is this and what does it smell like". Must investigate! I haven't quite decided which fabric will go for which shirt, but all in good time. The yoke on Bell is exactly like Blouson and I have the pattern book for that. I plan on knitting the whole thing one day, but doing the body out of fabric for now is pretty much instant gratification.

Second, I'm knitting buttercup. Picture number one is progress as of last night before I went to bed. Picutre two and three are progress as of right now, with Elsie joining the investigation of just what this stuff is and what it smells like.

Can you tell I'm super exited about finishing this? I knit for an hour or so at Bennu Coffee knit night and then met friends at the Draught house and knit some more. This cotton (Rowan cotton glace) is really hard on my hands as indicated by the red indentation that I get on my index finger I use for throwing the yarn if I knit on this for more than 30 minutes straigt.

To give my finger a break, I'm also doing Ishbel in Malabrigo Lace. It's sooo much better than the Blue Sky Alpaca alapaca/silk I was using before. The malabrigo will be like a litte cloud around my neck. (By the way I adore the way Ysolda Teague is wearing her hair in that link to Ishbel. I wonder how she gets it to stay up)

The colourway is called Pearl. I really adore how there are tiny little subtle lines of lavender and grays. So pretty. The cats agree.

Lastly, I started knitting mousie last night, worked on it some more watching NCIS reruns and now have only the front feet and the ears to do. I stuffed the body with a combination of cotton wool, corriedale and catnip. I also stuck some dry rice in the bottom to give it some weight.

I briefly put it down while pulling out my other WIPs and both Elsie and Gogo got a turn messing with it.

I think they don't really care if I weave in ends and add the cute little eyes and ears or not. They really are not critical when catnip is involved.

I don't really mind if the cats mess with my knitting too much. I also mess with them as seen in "Gogo being annnoyed about the seamless baby kimono being on top of her derriere."

knitting daily

2009-07-01T03:09:00.000-07:00

It's all I've been doing. It's a disease. I keep waiting for a good opportunity to take pics of my finished objects, but I work nights and am sleeping soundly during the daylight hours. What to do?

Recently I finished the lacy gift sock and a seamless baby kimono. I ripped out a yellow sweater I started and reused the yarn to start Buttercup by Pipibird/Heidi Kirrmaier on Ravelry (the rowan cotton glace I have is in the colourway Buttercup - what could be more perfect?).
I knit Ishbel out of Bluesky Alapca Alapaca/Silk and then ran out of yarn one repeat form the end and ripped it back a few days later since the yarn is surprisingly scratchy. Not something I want up around my neck at all. I've restarted Ishbel in Malabrigo Lace colourway "pearl" and it's so pretty, I am totally in love with it. I've also started the summertime tunic by Katie Himmelberg in Patons Bamboo silk and swatched some cheap cotton I have for moska.

Today, I ordered some Brown Sheep Cotton fleece and am giddy for it to arrive so I can swatch and cast on for Vesper It's a gorgeous top and I want mine to look more like Roko's version of it. I like the way she did the pleats a lot.

So pictures forthcoming when I am awake at the same time as the sun.

Yarn harlotty goodness

2009-06-07T19:17:00.000-07:00

I saw the yarnharlot! She's in the middle of organizing sock summit and their website was overloading and she is probably pretty frazzled and yet she got on a plane to come and chat to us. What a trooper.

I meant to post about it sooner, really I did. I stuck my memory card in the little card slot on the side of mr. Husband's laptop, only to discover that my memory card is actually quite a bit smaller that the slot. So I carefully had to extract it with two tiny little DPNs held like chopsticks. We are not going to talk about this again, because it will doubtlessly upset the hubby.

Talking, and taking the infamous sock pictures - so if you check on her website, you can locate me right behind the person with the big white hat.

The event was at Bookpeople, and the space next to the book store used to be occupied by Wholefoods, which is now in its shiny new space across the street. I think it must be because the parking garage used to belong to Wholefoods that you have these on it:

I adore Austin.

Guess what! guess what!

2009-05-26T03:21:00.000-07:00

I am so freakin excited I can hardly contain myself. On Thursday (3 days from now), the Yarn Harlot, aka Stephanie Pearl-McPhee will be in Austin, at Bookpeople, and I am going to see her! Since I worked overtime yesterday and have more overtime scheduled for tomorrow (12 hour shifts, ya'll), seeing miss Harlot will be a very lovely treat.

Oh, and guess what else, I bought a buckload of yarn from Smiley's Yarn warehouse. The carry a lot of acrylic and novelty yarns that I pull my nose up at, being such a yarn snob. I do however have silk/cashmere tastes on an acrylic budget.

You have to spend a minimum of $50 and shipping is $12.95. Not cheap shipping, I think next time I'll see if anybody at knit night would like to order something too and we could split shipping.

Here is what I bought:
10 skeins of Rowan cotton glace in Buttercup at $1.50 a each
10 Nashua Creative Focus cotton in Seafoam , $1.50 each.
10 Filatura Lanarota super cable in Grass at $1.99 each (also a cotton)
and 2 Red Heart Symphony in Juniper - 100% acrylic. I had to buy it though.

I bought two skeins of it ages ago, like maybe 7 years, and then just didn't know what to do with the crap. So I decided, granny square afghan it is! Great way to use up any odd bits of yarn, and I can use the red heart for every other block, pulling the whole thing together. It worked great until I ran out. So I had to find more, but the store no longer carried it. So I looked online and wasn't about to pay freak $5 for it. So I had to order it from Smiley's, and I had to make my order $50, but I saved so freakin much money on how much the yarn would have cost me otherwise that I actually saved at least $50, so if you really think about it, the yarn was free. Right?

I'm knitting a light weight 3/4 sleeve v neck pullover with the Rowan,and just let me tell you, the yellow is MUCH more vibrant than you'd think. Much. I'm a bit afraid that it's totally going to wash me out.

I leave you with a picture of my wheel. Isn't it lovely?

F.O.! Kitty Pi

2009-05-20T04:26:00.000-07:00

I did it! I actually finished and object. Completely and utterly done. (Husband's grey socks just need a toe, and that's done too).

Without further delay: Kitty Pi Blocking (small laundry basket turned upside down on the dryer. See the rust/yellow yarn? I spun it on my spindle. It's Corriedale), then Elsie sniffing it, then Austin chewing it (with crazy eyes), then Austin relaxing.

The last picture was taken 0.1 seconds before he catapulted himself off the bed and out the door. He's moving to Germany on Saturday. Don't go! We'll miss you too much. Bruce is going to be heartbroken.

Hello, I am Bruce, I have chest hair. This is my sad face.

By the way, those socks for Austin's human, they fit her skinny ankles perfectly with the accidental decrease. So my crazy crazy lady plan is to NOT FROG, but to knit the second sock with the same mistakes in it.

Yeah, obsessive much? Maybe a tad. Mister husband accuses me of being OCD and I challenge him "oh really, name one incident! just one!". Needless to say, he can usually come up with several, and then he ends his sentence with "crazy lady".

prettiness

2009-05-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

Would you look at this beautiful sock? It's pretty, right? When I started the ribbing I thought, this seems a bit snug. When I counted I discovered 66 stitches rather than the 72 I started with. I know I had 72 at the heel, since I counted them then. Do you see the mistake on the second picture? See how the stockinette rows get awfully thin towards the top? I forgot several yarn overs, causing a reduction in stitches.

If the sock was loose enough, I may have been able to live with it, (that's a lie), but since the mistake seriously messes with the fit (as in, you can't pull it over your ankle), it has to be ripped back. Damn it all, this is supposed to be gift socks for Hanni, who is moving back to Germany on Saturday. Saturday is in 4 days. I haven't even cast on for sock number two. I fail.

Would you look at this beautiful wheel? And that is mister Husband's legs and ratty jeans in the corner. I really have no idea how to spin. I can apparently not figure out a several hundred year old craft by myself. I'm a bit afraid to just crazily go for it, due to that rusty rusty orifice, see it? Is the flyer salvageable? I really don't know how to clean the rust off without damaging the wood.

Would you look at this beautiful cat? His name is Bruce. I image Bruce yarn all the time. Clearly I am nuts. Oh, and if there was any doubt, I'm seriously, officially a Knitter, since I actually bought storage just for the yarn. Yup, this is the point of no return.

Cuties

2009-05-17T22:51:00.001-07:00

It never ceases to amaze me how clever people can be with their knitting. Have you seen these?

The seller on Etsy, French Press Knits says that she can't keep them in stock. I can well see why! they are adorable. If you click on the link you can see other pictures - they have little non-skid soles. I wish I was clever enough to make up a pattern like this. I wish she had the pattern available for purchase. These sell at $52 a pair, which is a bit steep for slippers for me (I actually have only 2 pairs of shoes that are over $50).

Knitting time!

2009-05-11T19:07:00.001-07:00

My goodness you really can get a ton of knitting done when your husband is in the hospital (as mine is right now). He's fine-ish, and they will let him home by tomorrow, hopefully. Of course I don't have a camera with me to show off my knitting - I didn't expect there to actually be wireless in the hospital room, but we are picking up the free wireless of the clinic across the street. Yay!

I knit quite a bit on my work friend Su's yay-no-cancer-treat-for-feet socks (I'm knitting it with Peruvian baby cashmere from Elann). Su was given a 15% chance when her cancer was diagnosed in 2007, but she's currently in remission - which is a great reason to have super decadent socks.

I knit quite a bit on our wonderful German roommate's auf wiedersehen socken. She's going back to Germany at the end of the month, and we will miss her and her sweet kitty cat terribly. They are being knit out of a vintage yarn bought on e-bay called Fleisher's ever match.

Something very exiting happened. I mentioned to husband that I was thinking about buying a spindle (which I did, and some corriedale batting, and I spun some yarn, and already knit it into a kitty pi bed, currently still in progress). I told him I thought a spindle was the way to go, since spinning wheels are rather dear and we always (really always) have lots of medical bills to pay. Husband said, "my mom has a spinning wheel" and then "she never uses it, it's in the barn". So a quick text to Mo-in law confirmed it, and when I asked if I could perhaps borrow it, she said "you can have it" Gasp!!

It's an ashford traditional she bought it 1981 on her honeymoon in New Zealand. It is GORGEOUS. If I can get the day off from work, I will sign up for the spinning class held at Hill Country Weavers in the beginning of June. It's a two day class, on a Saturday and Sunday, but I work on Saturdays, so fingers crossed that I can have the day off. If not, I'll think I'll still sign up, mostly because I have unrealistic ideas of things that I am able to accomplish. I work on Friday from 6pm to 4:30am, the spinning class in on Saturday from 10:00am to 2:00pm, and I work on Saturday from 6:00pm to 4:30am. I have Sundays off, that the last part of the class is 10-2 on Sunday. So, if I can't have the days off, I will be a zombie at work. totally a zombie, but a happy one who knows how to make yarn.

I've been a busy girl.

2009-05-01T01:21:00.000-07:00

I went to Hill Country weavers about bought: 3.00mm dpns (plastic, and actually really blunt points, so I now hates them), Blue Sky Alapaca alapaca/silk, this light pink laceweight for $16, it just yards and yards and yards of the stuff, Malabrigo lace weight in "Sealing Wax" and that blue Isager lace weight alpaca, so now I have two and started on the Highland triangle.

I attended my very first knitting meetup at the uber posh Steeping room, which is a tea house. I drank an entire pot of English Breakfast. It was delish. I knit on grey sock number two.

Here's grey sock number one, finished, and infinitely more handsome than the previous attempt, which is slouchy and ill mannered.

I finished quite a bit of the leg on sock number two, and am probably less than an inch away from starting the heel (short row, I've decided I like that look best, by far).

I got some Russet tweed sock yarn from Knit picks and started a toe up pair, since I also got a book on the subject in the mail today. Today was a really good day for mail.

Just look at those gorgeous little flecks of colour. Even though this sock will be pretty plain, the donegal will keep me entertained. I think I'll do a set of small cables running up the side of the foot and leg. The recipient of these will be male. ( by the way, I love love love the book. Wendy is a genuis.)

I visited e-bay and bought some vintage yarn, this is what is spilling out the top of my yarn basket. The basket is really not that big. Miss Gogo included for scale. As soon as I make a kitty Pi bed out of that gigantic skein of Fisherman's wool, there will be a lot more space.

See the blue/purple shiny yarn on the top there, it's a wool/bamboo sock yarn, also bought on ebay, but a while back. It is up there due to me having had to rip back my knitting. The yarn was being stubborn and made some really ugly pooling, even though I was giving it a lot of rows as oppotunity to get is shit together.

Obviously no good. I didn't mind ripping it back, I wasn't liking the needles anyway. They are very blunt. The yarn is so pretty, but the big area of vomited purple was just not doing it for me. So I think I'll switch to smaller needles. That should help avoid this, right?

Well darn it.

2009-04-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

I learned an important lesson about gauge! The lesson resulted in the lovely little one skein wonder being frogged. Sigh.

I knit knit knit until I reached the point where I would be doing the border for the arms. I put the one arm's stitches on a needle holder and thought, well, that looks a little bit small. I laid the whole thing flat to look at it and realized that it's just too bad I don't have a 8/9 year old, since it would fit a child Perfectly.

As I was knitting I thought, wow, I am getting such good mileage out of this yarn, I've only used half the skein. Wow, what luck! I did have this niggling little feeling that I maybe should have given the gauge a little more thought.

I am really and truly appallingly poor at math. I read the pattern and saw we needed 16 stitches per 4 inches. I don't stress too much about the row gauge, thinking I can just look at it and knit it longer if needs be. I counted my gauge and saw I was getting 24 stitches per 4 inches. I thought for about one second and decided that this was good, since I have more stitches, mine will be bigger, hurrah! Knit away!

What I didn't consider is that I was using fingering weight yarn, not the heavier yarn called for in the pattern, so my actual stitches are smaller, so I really should have cast on an additional 8 stitches for every 16 stitches called for (because 24 minus 16 is 8).

My lesson is this, if I'm using which ever yarn I fell like (which is what I like to do), and the garment is something that needs to actually fit on limbs, (not scarves or shawls), I really need to sit and work out the gauge math. I found this incredibly useful website where I can plug in my gauge, the called for gauge, and it'll tell me what to do.

I've checked out Folk Shawls for my local library and cast on for the Highland Triangle. I fell it's the simplest one that is still very pretty. I really wanted to try a triangle shawl, but didn't quite feel ready to attempt those fantastically intricate shawls on Knitty. One day though.

In incredibly exicting news, my mother in law said I could have her spinning wheel. Have it!
She bought it 28 years ago on a trip to New Zealand and planned on spending all of her time knitting, but then had one baby, then another and then one more. The spinning wheel has been sitting in their barn I told husband that I wanted to get a drop spindle since I didn't want to invest in an actual wheel incase I don't take to spinning like I think I'll do and he said "my mom has a spinning wheel." What a lovely man for remembering that!

The inlaws may be coming to Austin some time in this next month, and will bring the wheel with then. There are some parts that may need replacing, and it might have to wait a little since we have some super expensive immigration shennanigans coming up.

Later, Pictures!

One Skein wonder shrug

2009-04-19T12:52:00.001-07:00

One Skein wonder shrug, originally uploaded by happymarchmail.

Living in Austin TX I don't really have use for proper sweaters for much of the year. This will be enough to keep my comfy when they blast the A/C at work or when I want to sit outside at night. I'm anxious to get it done.

It's the OSW by Stephanie Japel from Glampyre, in case you're not familiar with it

Hill Country Weavers

2009-04-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

All of my fingers feel stiff. The way your legs feel after running really really far. This is because I knit A LOT today.

I realized I had no dpns in between a 3.25mm and 2.50mm, so I thought, what a perfect opportunity to go check of the one local yarn shop I haven't seen, and pick up some extra dpns. Tis was a very bad idea. I spent an hour in the store, and left with 3.25mm dpns (yes I know, I already have two pairs, in fact and bought yet another. idiot.) I picked up one Rowan felted Tweed, with the intention of knitting the husband a English driving cap with it, and one skein of Isager, which is a laceweight 50% wool, 50% alpaca, with the inteniton of holding it and giving it a pet name. This stuff is so incredibly soft. It's 250 yards. What can I do with it? I knit up a little piece of pinecone lace with it, and of course made a mistake that I didn't notice until bout 4 rows later, so that will have to be ripped back. The lace looks really lovely.

I knit some on husband's jolly roger sweater. I'm doing it in the round, and if anybody suggests to me that knitting neverending ribbing is fun, I will hit them in the face. I'm looking forward to getting to the body, so I can do calm, mindless expanses of knit knit knit, creating a perfectly stockinette stitch. It is going to be awesome.

I started a sleeve for the Whisper Cardi in the last Interweave knits magazine, but didn't check gauge (I know) and realized that the sleeve would fit around my thigh. So i ripped it back.

Then I started child's first socks from Knitting Vintage socks. I should have had the good sense to knit it in a plain colour yarn, but no, I had to use the blue and purples wool/bamboo yarn. So i could not see the pattern of the little shells, and had no idea if I was doing it wrong, and didn't like how it was looking, so I ripped it back.

At least I didn't rip the endless ribbing for the jolly roger back. There is at least that.
My fingers hurt now. I think it's mostly the fault of the damn sock.

Stashy

2009-04-14T05:29:00.001-07:00

When I grow up I want to be a sock

2009-04-14T05:24:00.001-07:00

I turned the heel! It is not a very good job at all. I've started the second sock since I've taken these pictures, and I suspect that I may want to rip this one back and redo it. It is my first sock ever, yes, but it should be better.

So what's on the needles right now?

2009-04-09T03:02:00.001-07:00

Project one:

I just finished my first sock ever. It is riddled (I tell you, Riddled) with mistakes, but I couldn't be more proud. It's in Paton's Kroy socks in Glencheck, which is a grey with brown flecks. Hubby is the unfortunate recipient of this sock, and it's eventual partner.

Here is it before I finished. Knitting on Baylene needles.

Project two:

Plain stockinette stitch sock in Red Heart Heart & Sole, Toasted Almond. I'm not really liking the self-striping sock yarn too terribly much. I might be the only knitter out there who do not think stripey socks are the way forward.

Prjoect three:

A little shrug knit from Bernat Bamboo, I think the colour is Linen. The pattern is free on Lionbrand.com. Whoever is in charge of our a/c at work must be having crazy hot flashes since it's freezing the one day and normal the next.

Intended projects:

Jolly Roger sweater for Husband.

I got a box full of yarny goodness from Knitpicks.com today, and in there I have a large amount of black and some white sports weight yarn. Sports weight because I want the sweater to be lightweight. Like me, he works in a environment were the a/c is controlled by a crazy person. I may be setting myself up for intense disaster on this one. I plan on following a straight forward v neck sweater pattern. I will be using the chart from The Happy Hooker's Crochet Jolly Roger sweater for the skull and bones, and I will be knitting endless stich upon stich of stockinette. This will be good TV knitting. I won't have to pay much attention at all. I do intend to swatch and wash. Did I mention that I've never knit a sweater before - not counting the Bad Idea sweater from when I was 13?

Lacy shrug or one skein wonder for me.

I visted a local yarn store, The knitting nest, on Sunday with the intention of only buying number 8 bamboo dpns. $40something dollars later, I am the proud owner of bamboo circulars, size 8, Brittany dps, size don't remember, and the skeins of dreamy dreamy Malabrigo 100% laceweight merino. I took it home with me and petted it. I placed it next to the book I was reading and stroked it gently. It is wonderful. I don't know if I'm ready to commit to knitting anything with it.

The knitting history

2009-04-05T06:51:00.000-07:00

Both of my grandmothers knit. I remember Ouma Bettie knitting impatiently. She was never a very patient woman. I don't remember owning anything that she knit me. My mom said that she used to like knitting Fair Isle, since it was more challenging. Mom particularly remembers a sweater with Fair Isle ginger men on the front.

Ouma Duppie was always knitting. When we went to visit them she'd let me choose a stitch out of her bit 70s knitting book, and next time I went there was a little sweater or cardigan waiting for me, knit in the stitch of my choice. Ouma Duppie passed away last year. When I last saw her, her Alzheimer's were increasing, and she couldn't remember how do to mitered corners. She asked me but I had no idea. She had a fantastic knitting bag. I wish I knew what became of it. I'd love to have it. Before she passed away I asked my father if I could have some of her knitting needles one day, and he said "your stepmother took them". Thanks a bunch. Due to not being able to inherit my grandmother's knitting needles, I bought a bunch of vintage needles on e-bay. It's not quite the same, but as close as I'm going to get.

My knitting projects before I reached adulthood included the very boring garter stitch worm, and the bad idea garter stitch sweater. Both were knit for a home-ed class in elementary school. i think the worm was in 6th grade and the sweater in 7th. (we don't have middle school in the Old Country. It's elementary school until 7th grade and then straight to high school.)

the very boring garter stitch worm was basically a wide scarf that was sewn up, stuffed with filling and tied up to look like body segments. Mine was pink and blue. I hated knitting it. the stitches were so tight that I couldn't slide them off the needle. My dear Ouma Bettie knit a lot (A LOT) of that project for me, carefully making purposeful mistakes so that it would look like a surly 13 yo's knitting.

The Bad Idea sweater was composed of 16 blocks of garter stitch. All the same size. 4 blocks sewn into a square for the front, 4 blocks for the back and for blocks into tubes for each arm. Since this is not how adolescent girls are shaped, the sweater was never ever worn. I knitted mine out of different shades of blue yarn and again, had copious amounts of help from Ouma Bettie, who were lived with at the time.

When I was 19 or 20 and frustrated by how the scarfs in shops are not as long as I'd like them to be, I bought two large balls of red yarn and a set of needles from Micheal's and knit myself a simple garter stitch scarf. I adore the scarf. It's made of some Lion Brand Acrylic boucle type yarn. I am wearing it in my driver's license picture.

I love scarves. I knit several more. I knit one scarf as a gift for my friend ML at the dead of winter at a rugby game. Some of the players asked me what I was doing.
Player: are you crocheting?
Me: knitting, crochet takes one hook, knitting too sticks.
Player: why? wouldn't you rather be doing something more exiting?
me: nope, knitting is the new premarital sex.

That shut them up. In confusion, I think.

I got married, started to crochet, crocheted some scarfs and a made up cat toy stuffed with cat nip. My hubby bought me the book Happy Hooker and I crocheted a fat bottom bag, the one skein scarf and a stripey scarf. I then started to wander in the yarn aisles, stroking the various yarns, looking longingly at the notions. I would buy a stray ball of bamboo yarn, an impulsive soft acrylic-on-sale, and I started collecting more and more needle crafts books.

The other day, say a month and a half ago, I thought, I'll knit lace. How hard could it possibly be? So I pulled out a orphan ball of alpaca I bought and started a Horseshoe lace pattern from the Reader's Digest complete guide to needlework (the one from the 70s, bought at Half-Price books.) I knit up a lovely scarf (what else?) and gave it to H. as a goodbye gift because she is moving back to Germany next month.

Here's the scarf, not quite done, but getting there.

Now I'm knitting socks. I bought a scary amount of yarn on Ebay. I also bought some knitpicks Peruvian highland wool to knit hubby a Jolly Roger sweater, as requested. It's all onwards and upwards from here!