there’s a box

There’s a large box to the right of my computer right now. Sealed. The return address is my yarn supplier. I know what’s in it, but I can’t go open it because I’ve got my own private wonder on my lap right now and I’d really rather not wake her up. Still, it’s hard to contain myself. A box. Containing mostly undyed cashmere. and some worsted weight I’d like to dye to make this, even though I’m working on this. That reminds me. Almost out of yarn for the second project there. Seriously, Madeline Tosh? How did I ever believe I could get away with using only one skein!

baby s and the sheep

It’s raining; it’s pouring.
The old man is snoring.
He went to bed with a bump on his head
And he won’t get up ’til morning.

That’s they way I remember it anyway.

Josh and I have been singing a lot to Baby S and every day there’s a new nursery rhyme I half-remember. What nursery rhymes do you still remember?

On Saturday we went to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival.

This made me think of a few lists.

Things I got to see/do

• Several sheep and rabbits – We tried to show Sasha the sheep.
• The barn raising quilt by Larrisa Brown
• The parents of a member of the knitting group; and her little brother. Her Mom was buying her Blue Moon Socks That Rock, which was great.
• Show off Sasha to Tina and Donna (Tina definitely thought the baby was better than Sock Summit, which is great!)
• My first inflatable mannequin (which led me to a hilarious internet search while I tried to remember the correct search terms, starting with inflatable doll, moving to blow-up dummy and gradually getting to mannequins). I was wondering if they market inflatable legs, which would be a handy thing for sock yarn sales. Or I could make some out of plaster of paris if I happen to know anyone with mannequin shaped legs. I’ve got this plan to be a vendor at Black Sheep or Oregon Flock and Fiber next year.

• Buy some Blue Moon Fiber Arts; this is a ritual. This is when I learned that there won’t be a Barn Sale this year. I’m hoping for a party though. I should have realized that they are a bit burnt from this August.

shop update

Last post for a bit. I updated the shop yesterday with a lot of Lachesis sock from Sock Summit. Sometime this fall there will also be some of a new sock yarn that is a cabled two-ply and also the 80-10-10 merino, cashmere, nylon sock yarn that has everyone talking. I also got some of the silver yarn base so if there’s something you want dyed in it please let me know. I ordered a very limited amount and am already going to do some reds, pinks or navy blues. I’ve gotten half my crockpot replaced so far, so I’ll be able to kettle dye maybe as soon as two weekends from now. (This coming weekend is Oregon Flock and Fiber after all.) This is a lot harder though with a baby and her dad will need to have the time to watch her. He’s really busy teaching, even with a smaller load this term.

I’m offering 20% off all yarns from now until October 31st in honor of Socktoberfest. Just be sure to type in “Socktoberfest” in the notes. I’ll refund the price difference through Paypal as always.

non-knitting – freezer paper stencils

So one of the things that has kept me pretty busy is the near constant stream of parents. I have two sets, Josh  has one. They were here for a total of 5 1/2 weeks all told and were both a blessing and a curse, each set in its own peculiar way. I’m glad they were here though and we had a terrific time with all of our visitors.

When my Mom was here, we did some freezer paper stencils on onesies. All of our parental sets have at least one very artistic member. Josh’s mom is a professional artist;  my dad was a graphic artist who still designs a lot of sets for the opera and blogs about the arts; my mom wrote and illustrated 11 children’s books in her younger days. Originally, I’d planned to do some iron-ons for onesies, but then I saw the freezer paper stenciled onesies Kristi and her friends did on Knitter’s Anonymous.

A quick hint for those of you who wish to try this. When googling for images, you want words like “silhouette.” I got the best ones though from the baby center.com and martha stewart living. There are some good tips in the Freezer Paper Stencils Flickr group also.

I’ve got lots more downstairs waiting to be painted. Some will be gifted away. And I’ve got another one somewhere I haven’t photographed yet.

1. P9190049, 2. P9190048, 3. P9190047, 4. P9190046, 5. P9190045, 6. P9190044

I should really get those side-snap t-shirts on her. We bought them when she was newborn, so they aren’t going to fit much longer. The onesies are in a much larger size.

we’re different

There has been a lot going on, mainly not knitting. I’ve mainly been taking care of baby. This is a stash post, not a knitting post so it will go quicker. There was some knitting though.

Shortly after Sasha was born, I moved my computer in front of a fold-down couch that we use for guests in our second bedroom. It’s a good place to nurse the baby. And since she’s mostly a snacker, there’s a lot of sitting around waiting for to wake up and eat again.

I decided to read my way through the “How to get Wollmeise” thread on the Wollmeiseholics Anonymous forum on Ravelry. This is where I learned about Update Scanner. This is a little utility for firefox that lets you know when a particular webpage has been updated. It’s darn easy to use. Only, while I was installing it, there was a shop update. So I’m not sure whether it was update scanner working for me exactly.

Hooray for late night nursing, because I totally scored a grab bag of Kunterbunt, a package of 5 skeins of Wollmeise that are all different. Fortunately for me the dollar has gone up against the Euro since the last time I bought Wollmeise over a year and a half ago. So the price per skein was pretty comparable to most US Indie Dyed yarns. Cheaper really, though that’s because these are supposedly seconds. They aren’t all seconds though; some of the We’re Different can just be left over from other updates. There’s no indication though that there’s anything less than pure gorgeousness here. It’s Wollmeise, so I bought it with 0 thought of how I was doing on stash busting. Since I do my annual yarn budgeting based on yardage, ~2850 yards is really going to blow my budget. And I just had bought yarn for Seneca and some from the Sock Summit.

Here is the Frog Creek Fiber yarn from Sock Summit’s Dye for Glory Contest.

In need of a baby photograph? Well, this is a knitting blog.

another bootie

I’m trying to see if I can get a pair of the other popular baby bootie on Ravelry: Saartje’s Booties. I’m using the ones done the Bockstar Way though, which involve quite a bit less sewing. I’m using a bit of my new colorway Poodle Skirts and Saddle Shoes. On the booties, it pools, but in the most delicious way with patches of pink or patches of black and white.  For whatever reason the second one is driving me crazy. I can’t seem to knit them when at group. I’ve never been very good at doing increase rounds and this is always compounded by distractions whether it be other people or television.

some new magazines

I’m always on the look out for new publications that feature knitting patterns. My favorite magazines are the oft-read Interweave Knits and Knitty and more recently Twist Collective; however, I’ve been known to occasionally pick up Knit Scene and Spin Off also. If it wasn’t so expensive, I’d get Rowan’s publication, even though I don’t really consider it to be a magazine in the same way as the others.

and now for something completely different

(with apologies to MP).

Today I did something a little differently than I have as of late. I read a book – Julie and Julia in fact. I heartily enjoy reading the occasional food related memoir. I haven’t been reading very much for the past 38 weeks or so, unless you can count the six or seven baby books we’ve been browsing our way through. As a blogger, I emphasized with a lot of the emotions that Julie must have been going through as she worked through her project. And it was lovely to sit down and read again. I was completely taken out of my head with her experiences; something that is lovely when you are 38 weeks pregnant and feeling larger than a house.If you want to read about what inspires bloggers to blog or to take on the projects they do, read Julie and Julia. If you want to read more about her adventures in cooking, than I refer you to her blog archives. I’ll be reading more of them and I expect that a short blog entry will be what my attention span while breastfeeding Sasha after she makes her debut.

Knitting, while it will always be one of my favorite passions, will never replace books for me as my first love. I learned how to read at a very early age (somewhere between 2 and 3) so I could be in the church choir and was instantly taken by the written word. I’ve read fewer books than I might have over the past few years that I’ve been blogging about knitting. Even fewer this last year with the pregnancy and the dyeing, especially if you discount the books on pregnancy and labor.

What’s worse, is I’ve been spending less time writing. I started the blog, believe it or not, to maintain and strengthen my writing skills during one of my hiatuses from paid work. The hope was and still is that someday I’ll kill my writers block sufficiently to write something else. Knitting is a great vehicle for me to focus on the craft of the writing without having to worry so much about the content. Unfortunately for the past couple of years or so, there less of a focus on the writing and and more on knitting and related crafts. Don’t get me wrong, I love the dyeing and the knitting, but it was always about the writing FIRST. I’ll still be dyeing and knitting for the time being, but hopefully this fall I’ll be able to bring a little more to you in terms of writing about the dyeing process.

In the meantime, please feast on Christine’s Stay On Baby Booties [r] by Christine Bourquin. They were knit with Three Fates Yarns Bluefaced Leciester Platinum Sock on Size US 1 needles. Thanks to my husband for the fabulous photographs. It’s 75% Superwash BFL and 25% Nylon and comes in 437 yard hanks that way approximately 100 grams. These were knit in my new Sock Summit inspired colorway, Aqua Vitae in the light version. The remainder of this skein (about 395 yards) can by found at my Etsy Shop, Three Fates Yarns at a discounted price for the yardage. I can only say that this was a fateful project I only did it since the skein broke on my new winder. Can you guess how much yarn was left over when I finished the booties from the lump I left off the finished product? About three inches.

finished objects

Well, the good thing about the crazy all over the place, non-focused, ADHD knitting I do is that sometimes multiple things get finished in the same week.
These are  Christine’s Stay On Baby Booties [r] I’ve got to go buy ribbons, but they are ready for being at the Sock Summit Booth (Knit A Bit, #808).

And this is Baby Mine by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, aka the Yarn Harlot. I think it would fit a 6 month old, not a 3 month old, but we’ll see. I’m hoping I can get it on her without it being too large around late October, early November. Pattern available from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. Size 4 US needles. Used 1 skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock medium weight in Moirae. Quick knit really. I finished the 80% of the yoke during a marathon 8 hr baby class – it was a make up session.

black sheep

When I went to Black Sheep, I checked out the prize winning table. There was a really really cute baby surprise there. I was looking at it and my name just popped off the tag. It turns out, three of my friends from Eugene got together and spun, dyed and knit it for the baby and then entered it into Black Sheep. It won first prize! I mean of course I examined it; it was a baby surprise! They gave it to me later, along with the ribbon, but it was a great surprise. It’s newborn sized, so I’ll be happy if she gets to wear it a few times in October. They suggested I try blocking the heck out of it. We do still have some colder days in Oregon though; Monday was one of them thank goodness. I’ve been melting down into various puddles   caused by heat stroke, hunger (I don’t eat enough when it’s hot I think) and hormones. One more H and well, a whole a of 4-H breastfeeding jokes would seem to be in order. Thank goodness the last factor is thirst and not heiferdom.

Also, I picked up this prettyness from Creatively Dyed. I was tempted by her luxury yarn base and by the one that’s like Wollmeise’s yarn base (I think it’s Steele), but in the end, I had to have this skein of Calypso in Annato. I’d oggled her yarn some while at Stitches West and it was either go after that or Miss Babs. Next time it will probably be Miss Babs unless I can make it to Sock Summit in person. I’m mildly concerened that fewer vendors will be at Oregon Flock and Fiber this year due to Sock Summit. I certainly hope it will be as vendorful as always.

some purples (mostly) reskeined

I finally labeled and named some more yarn that you haven’t seen unless you’ve gone off to my flickr account. Now it’s in the shop or in the box marked “sock summit”.

1. lacheis sock – grapevine, 2. brower – lachesis sock, 3. lachesis sock – star thistle, 4. lachesis sock – magnolia, 5. lachesis sock – summer sandals, 6. lacheis sock – bittersweet, 7. lachesis sock – cranberry bog, 8. lachesis sock – larrkspur, 9. lachesis sock – prince

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

1. lachesis sock – delphinium revisited, 2. lachesis sock – a world of purple, 3. lachesis sock – evil stepmother

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

some baby things

I started this project in the spring, but left it behind in San Francisco. It has recently come back to me. I panicked, thought I was knitting the newborn size, and began my attack. It turns out I’m knitting a 3 month size and it’s sized either generously or my loose knitting is showing. Probably the former rather than the latter. It’s Baby Mine by the Yarn Harlot and I’m knitting it in Socks That Rock medium weight in Moirae. What other spirit would I pick for the baby? I put the sleeves on some temporary needles and unfortunately they’ve come off a few times and will need some repair when I get to the yolk. For now though, I’ll leave them be.

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

shop update

I’ve updated the shop with

• BFL Platinum Sock; a 75% Superwash BFL and 25% Nylon Blend.  Most of it is a hybrid kettle-dyed, poured watercolor technique. Some is hand-painted. A few are nearly solids.
• Lachesis Sock; a 100% Superwash Merino that is a little squishier than the HA I was using on Fatalist Sock
• 100% Superwash Australian Merino Top spinning fiber. It’s smooshy and wonderful.
• A couple skeins of Knit Picks Bare in Periwinkle.
• A skein of culture sock in orange crush

I recently entered a new colorway, aqua vitae in[r]  bfl platinum sock, in the Sock Summit contest, Dye for Glory. It’s also available in the shop in lachesis sock and comes in mostly medium and dark shades, occasionally light. My items will be sold at Sock Summit through Knit a Bit, LLC. I also entered a colorway called poodle skirts and saddle shoes [r] in the lachesis sock. So please support me on Ravelry! Since you can’t vote right now, consider eyeing it and pushing the love button for now if you like it.

1. orange crush – culture sock, 2. aqua vitae dark – lachesis sock, 3. under the lilacs – lachesis sock, 4. wisteria lane – lachesis sock, 5. people eater – lachesis sock, 6. grape rocket – lachesis sock, 7. if the devil wore purple, lachesis sock, 8. wisteria lane – lachesis sock, 9. newbury street – lachesis sock, 10. prince – culture sock, 11. sweedish fish – bfl platinum sock, 12. creamsicle – bfl platinum sock, 13. chartreuse – bfl platinum sock, 14. green dreams – bfl platinum sock, 15. aqua vitae light – bfl platinum sock, 16. orange crush – lachesis sock, 17. aqua vitae – bfl platinum sock, 18. pink panther – clotho australian merino top, 19. peppermint stick – clotho australian merino top, 20. phoenix feather – clotho australian merino top, 21. just ducky – clotho australian merino top, 22. prickly pear – clotho australian merino top, 23. laurels – clotho australian merino top, 24. winter plum, 25. marizpan pumpkin, 26. hippie chix – clotho australian merino top, 27. marizpan pumpkin – clotho australian merino top, 28. fox tail – clotho australian merino top

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

I’ve been knitting a pair of baby booties in the light aqua vitae for a display at sock summit. I used just a bit of one skein; the remainder is being sold as a discounted skein. It’s 395 yards. It’s a bit lighter than in this photo as you can see by photo #2.

On a more personal note, here I am full of baby at 35 weeks.

more to dye for

In preparation for Sock Summit, where hopefully I’ll be participating on a consignment basis I’ve been dyeing up some yarns. I’m hoping eventually to create repeatable colorways and am getting a little closer. In the mean time, there’s been some older dye solution that needed using up. This resulted in the kettle dyed yarns below. These are “Moirae’s Limited Edition,” which is the name I’m giving to the new 100% merino superwash yarn base I obtained. It’s a every so slightly heavier than the Kona Fingering Weight I was using before for Fatalist Sock and has a tigher twist. I used it to dye my Twilight inspired yarn. I may continue to dye the Fatalist Sock, but am still not sure about it. I’ll be winding this yarn up soon and then it will go into the shop. Some of it might go for samples at Sock Summit.

Below are some more. The first grouping is some kettle dyed yarn where I’ve experimented with Hot Fuschia and Burgundy and have layered in black and brown (in different skeins). I’ve got three more paler one’s in the basement in which I’m layering browns and pumpkin on top. In the middle chair, there’s green, cream and pink and a black white, fuschia and pink yarn. The latter is for Mia. I’m not sure I matched her wild pink crocs. In keeping with the shoe theme, the first two skeins of the  third chair match my own Teva’s. The one’s on the far right represent a darker version, without the teal.

So here’s a question. I’ve got to have some knit samples at Sock Summit. What socks should I make? I’m making Viper Pilots out of my bamboo. I will need to do socks in a semi-solid and in a multi-color yarn. I will probably let the person decide, but any ideas? How about Nebula by Cookie A for the wine colored yarn?

fiddle dee dee

I finished something! I think this is only my 4th FO of 2009, even though one was a sweater.

Pattern: Fiddlehead Mittens by Adrian Bizilia (Hello Yarn), Needles: US Size 3 (Crystal Palace Bamboo, DPN), Yarn: Cascade 220 in Heather Grey and overdyed natural in Lilac, Mussel Shell Blue, Tuquoise, Emerald Green and Spring Green (I think). Started April 11, 2009, Finished May 9, 2009. Here they are on Ravelry.

night and day

So, it’s probably worth the $ for me to get Adobe Light Room eventually.

Check out the comparison between what my camera shot and what the shot looks like after development in lightroom. It’s much closer to the actual color now. (We’re looking at the fifth roving here. The ‘blue’ one.)

It’s all named now btw.

1. Brown Betty. 2. Apricot 3. Preserves 4. Marionberry 5. Blueberry Picnic

Uh huh. Something just isn’t right with the color sensor on the camera. It’s what we get for getting a cheaper model I guess. It’s an Olympus Stylus FE-340, quite light weight and it has a great zoom. But it’s ideas on colors are less than stellar, even if you manipulate the white balance. So I’ll add it to the equipment list. Adobe Lightroom and a skein winder. My scale apparently is still quite good, as long as it’s fully charged.

Loppem

I took a lot of pictures on Sunday. I realized I didn’t ever show off my Loppem with the buttons actually on it. So here it is.

And here’s the button shot.

little liza jane and a yarn crawl

This is the progress I’ve made on Little Liza Jane, which I’m making for my cousin. Her baby is due a couple of weeks before mine. I’m making the 6 mos. size for her. It will have to be worn over other clothes, since it will be cold out when her baby is the right size to wear it. I made kind of an ironic discovery, which is that the Cotlin feels a lot (to me) like Debbie Bliss’ Cathay yarn, although obviously without the slipperiness of the silk and rayon that’s in the Cathay. What’s ironic is that I have six skeins of the Cathay in an extremely similar color and another six skeins in orange.  I guess that just means I could make more dresses .

actual size

Currently this blanket is 18″ x 20″ or 360 square inches. According to the pattern for Joseph’s Blankie of Many Colors, the finished size is 47″ x 47″, or 2209 square inches. This means I’m about 16% done.  I’m doing about 40 inches square per stripe at the moment, less than 2% of the total finished product. I guess it’s gonna be a while if I do only one more stripe a day. Good thing the stripes start getting bigger, although not significantly enough to make much of a difference in terms of the percentage of the total. So assuming I’ve got to do 42 more stripes, that’s 10 more rows of stripes, or 4 total repeats of each color. Wonder if there’s enough yarn for that. Well, I’ll knit until I’m done and then decide if I need more yarn from knit picks.

In the mean time, enjoy the parade of partially finished blankie shots. If only those were something you could do like Tequila. Not so quick.

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

more bamboo, dyeing and mittens

This is more culture sock. 430 yards. 80% superwash merino, 20% bamboo.

mitten progress

These  Fiddlehead Mittens [r] from Hello Yarn (Adrian Bizilia) are a quick knit. At least the outside is. But there is a liner that needs to be done afterwards… I hand dyed this yarn. I’m hoping to get inspired to design a pair of mittens with my own hand dyed yarns, but in a DK weight yarn. Should be fun. I think kits would be a great way to sell heavier weight yarns.

another semi-rainy semi-sunny day in april

This is the Vintage Baby Cardigan from Shibui Knits. It happens also to be the Staff of the Month pick over at Knit Purl. I’m using the Lorna’s Laces that I got with a birthday gift certificate to the Loopy Ewe. The colorway is pilsen. It’s mindblowingly perfect for someone with pregnancy brain. No thinking. Just pure accomplishment. So there’s 5″ of garter stitch there and I’ve got another 1 3/4″ before I start working on sleeves. It’s the six month size. I’ve got a gorgeous glass button I picked up in California in 2008 and that will finish the whole thing off beautifully. There’s the added bonus of getting me on the board in the Lime and Violet Sock Marathon. I’ve had a lot of trouble finishing a pair of socks since becoming pregnant.

This is some Cascade 220 that I was supposed to be using for the TKGA master’s program, but I reallocated it for my Fiddlehead Mittens. I’m not sure what happened during the measuring processs, but it came out 3 skeins minus the swatch or two I’ve done already. It shouldn’t have. They should have been 50 yards each and one at 60 making 360 yards, not 660. So I don’t know what the heck I did. I’ll weigh it and figure that out later. Because I didn’t have any left over of the original cream, I’m going to use a heather grey for the main color. You’ll notice there’s one extra color there. I wasn’t sure how they’d turn out and wanted to be able to pick and choose. I’m leaving off the last color.

out of character (somewhat)

I was reading about a special offer from Webs on Tahki Cotton Classic, which I’ve been hoarding for a couple of years for different Mason-Dixon projects and this reminded me about Babette. And I thought yeah, I could make that for the baby. Or for my distant cousin’s baby (she’s also having a little girl). My cousin is due a couple of weeks before I am. And I could start now and just dig into what I’ve got.

I opted for a relatively limited color palette. I’m using maybe 12-15 colors (I keep adding a couple one at a time) in pinks, browns and neutrals. I am probably going to add a springy green also to keep the whole thing lively or this very purply blue I’ve got. Maybe both. I keep realizing that this thing is actually a very small blanket, so I’m going to have to make another panel more than I’ve planned and that will require more yarn…

Loppem

I bought this incredible yarn, Berroco Palace in Shanghai Blue, from Webs while at Stitches West and started on my Loppem [r] sweater as soon as I got home. I think I must fall in love with patterns based on the colors the designer uses, because this is the second time in recent years I’ve knit a sweater in the exact yarn and color the pattern was in the picture.

twilight

Some friends my local knitting group thought it would be cool if they could have some Twilight themed sock yarn.

100% Merino Wool and Hand-painted by me.

This is a new base and I’m thinking of calling the whole thing Evening Sock. Thoughts?

a continuation of a sale

I owe you

…a work-in-progress shot of the Twists and Turns Socks [r] by Stariel (Ariel Altaras) from How to Knit in the Woods. I’m a bit stalled because I have trouble coordinating the gusset count and the cable count. The yarn is Sea Wool from Fleece Artist. I love these socks and will go back to them soon.The yarn is not quite as orange as it is appearing in this shot.

a bit behind

I’m a bit behind on doing stuff for the blog. I did a fair amount of dyeing in January and I’m not done yet. Here’s a shot of the first batch. I gave one skein away, but nothing has been posted yet for sale. If you see something you want, just tell me what it is. It may be a while before I get it together since I’m still dyeing the last half of the order.

Some of them are bamboo and wool blend and some are a merino nylon. Most of the semi-solids are Cauldron sock. The green is gone as is one of the Cauldron sock pinks. So because I’ve got new yarn, I need new yarn line names and so that’s really what the hold up is. I’ll still be using Henry’s Attic too. I just wanted to expand.

earth day swap 2009

Hey,

Welcome back. I’m going to start accepting sign-ups for the Earth Day Yarn Swap 2009 pretty soon. I’ve gotten a bit more organized this year and it’s all happening through Ravelry through the Earth Day Yarn Swap group! Sign-ups are open beginning February 1st and close on March 21st. I’ve got a great online form for people to fill out which should really help me out.

Most of you who signed up last year are welcome back. About 95% really. Unfortunately there were a couple of borderline cases where I just put out too much personal energy to solve and don’t feel like coping again this year or your situation required a swap angel and/or my own personal intervention. My perogative I’m afraid. If you think you might be one of the borderline cases you can e-mail me to see if you are going to be okay. If you plain old ditched, you can forget it. This swap got a lot bigger last year and I think it will again this year. Forgive me for knowing my own limits.

The great news is that there are so many more exciting yarns on the market claiming to be eco-friendly. We’ll be debating the environmental merits of the newer fibers, talking about buying locally and offering each other encouragement for reducing our impacts on the planet.

Hope you join us.

-Moirae

knit a hat, a work in progress

When I first saw this hat on a blog somewhere’s, I had to have it. It was a blue one and I loved it. There are a surprising number of these hats from the Knit a Hat – opskrifter pattern put out by by Ruth Sørensen visible on the web but not on Ravelry. This is probably because she was using them as a teaching tool for her many beautiful Kauni yarn based sweaters and the pattern wasn’t widely available until this past fall. It seems like a pricy purchase at $10.00 US (assuming the conversion rate is the same) but it’s a five hats in one book.

I started mine as soon as I picked up the pattern, but it took me a while to get the right needle size and I spent a really long time on the brim. Then I put it down for a month or two. I picked it up again early last week and here I am.

This is the inside.

a few pics

You have until Friday to enter the brilliant crafters contest. In the meantime, I will work hard not to buy something from all the great people you mentioned so far.

Here are some more pictures. I divided them into a couple of posts because this was getting very long. I had a very negligent blogging sumer and I’m still catching up.  SPOILER ALERT: If you click on the more link, you will see what I got from Scout’s Swag for the sock yarn club for October.

Happy late Halloween. This is what my husband’s first-year class did.

This is the best picture I have of the Ostritch Plume scarf. I’m knitting it in Ella Rae’s laceweight merino, which is a fingering weight yarn. Basically, it’s sock yarn without the nylon. It’s beautiful and I will enjoy blocking it.

The Coriolis socks are back on track. Once I get the heels done, they will go really fast.

In the category of yarn that I haven’t shown you, when my inlaws were here in July, they bought some yarn for me to make hats for them. My father-in-law has a 24″ head and hats don’t fit him. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do just yet, but I’d better get going!

Here’s some Wollmeise I got from the Loopy Ewe Sock Club. I never photographed it. It was a busy summer. The color is called PIllars of Fire and there is a very generous 540 yards.

more distractions

After making a few more miniature items for my swap pal, I decided for no apparent reason to go visit the Bead Trunk. Ostensibly I was hunting for some copper wire to fix my now broken umbrella swift. I fell in love with way too many beads and thought well I can make a few sets of each, keep some and sell some.

But, I got a parking ticket, which completely eliminates any profit I may or may not make from the sale of the resulting stitch markers. I forgot how vigilant the parking meter folks are at the Bead Trunk. It’s a great store and customers frequently get distracted and lose track of time. Unfortunately, the city is quite aware of this fact.

I also have to go back tomorrow, having bought an extra joy instead of a love. I need love don’t you? I will also go get some more pins so I can finally hang my ABCD beads. Note to self: putting an extra quarter in the meter saves you $14.75.

Love, joy and peace

Sterling silver and turquoise bear stitch markers

Hand made

so freaking cute

As I mentioned before, I do knit. I’ve just not been taking a whole lot of pictures.

If you are BluEyedPenny on Ravelry in the Holiday Swap, no peeking!

preview

Here it is, nearly the end of Socktoberfest and what do I have to show it?

Yes, I’m knitting. I have no knitting photographs. Worse, I have no complete pairs of socks. I’m rotating through my WIPS though, a few rows here and a few rows there. Pretty dull really. I’ve done a few rows of the left front of the Katherine Hepburn Sweater from Lace Style, fixed the Ostrich Plume Scarf so I actually know what row I’m on, cast-on for the Bird In Hand Mittens by Kate Gilbert, bought the Pacific Island Shawl pattern from Fiber Dreams, worked on a pair of plain (striped) socks made from one of my own yarns, untangled a few skeins of yarn, bought another skein of yarn for the EZ February Baby Sweater and knit most of a panel for a Lizard Ridge Afghan.

What I do have to show for it are these. I’m pretty pleased overall.

february baby sweater

Despite all appearances to the contrary, I am doing plenty of knitting. I’m not making a lot of progress on any individual project though. I started on Anne Hanson’s Ostrich Plume Scarf/Stole before getting confused as to what row I was on (in a yarn I’ve yet to show you), ripped and reknit a few roes on my Saffron Cables Blanket [ravelry link] from Interweave Knits, done a ton of work my Juno Regina and decided that my next cast-on is either going to be the Cookie A’s Zanzibar [r] Sock pattern that I got with my last Loopy Ewe Sock Club shipment or a plain sock in my own yarn (edited).

On Friday night / Saturday early in the morning I realized that I was due to attend a baby shower the next morning and that I HAD NOT CAST ON. I rummaged around. Do you know, I do not have enough baby appropriate worsted weight yarn just lying around? Um, if sock yarn isn’t stash, than my stash is small enough to fit in a couple of dresser drawers. (Well, no, but I can rattle off the projects pretty easily: 4 sweaters (2 for frogging), 3 blankets for me, 1 blanket for charity, 2 bags a hat and some odds and ends I think). There were 3 skeins of Brown Sheep, 12 skeins in 2 colors of DK weight Debbie Bliss Cathay, 5 skeins of DK weight Cotton Patine and several color inappropriate skeins of Brown Sheep Cotton Fine as well as a few other odds and ends. I wanted a sort of light worsted. I gave in and used the Dream in Color Classy I had been saving for a hat. It’s that yummy forest green color. I decided on the “Baby Sweater on Two Needles; Practically Seamless” by Elizabeth Zimmerman from her Knitter’s Almanac. I’ve wanted to make this for a while and the fact that a couple of days ago I was listening to Lime N’ Violet talk about the grown-up version aka the February Lady Sweater cinched it.

In progress: Elizabeth Zimmerman's 'Baby Sweater on Two Needles; Practically Seamless', aka the February Baby Sweater from Knitter's Almanac

shop update

I added a lot more of the yarn to the shop. There are about 5 skeins left to go.

I’ve put one line called test sock. These are varying yarn bases and I’m really experimenting with colors here. It’s a lot of work – when I’m feeling like a pro, I will probably develop some actual colorways. In the meantime, benefit from the learning process and get some great yarn at a great price!

I will always be wiling to send your yarn via first-class mail. Just let me know that that’s what you want and I’ll make sure you get the difference in purchase price. The trouble is that it costs another .75 or so for the mailer, so most of the time you might as well have it sent via priority mail.

some pretties

On Monday I started dyeing the yarn I picked up over the weekend, so of course my real yarn base arrived, so I set to work making skeins on my new Niddy Noddy and dyeing up a cone. Whee. Both my arms hurt. There’s another purple skein from the weekend around and I have yet to take the after-shots. I had to rinse all the bamboo again; too much of a vinegar smell. It’s a bit tangly at the moment, so I’m going to have to tie my skeins better. I’m excited though to see how it looks all finished. As soon as I get a chance I’m doing to dye up some laceweight. I’ve got three hanks at 880 yards a piece. Hopefully that’s sufficient. Solids? Semi-solids? What would you prefer?

Bamboo 2 - Before

Lime Getaway - Before

Before

Acid Pop - Before (I spent an eternity untangling this.) Rule #1 - don't drop half the skein!

Cold Fusion

Hidden Depths

overdyeing

Ever since my first encounter with hand dyeing last week, I’ve been hunting around for my place undyed yarns that I could dye. Why on earth did I trade away the cream colored Mountain Mohair I have? Couldn’t I break into my Cascade 220 that I bought for the Masters Program? (No.) Who sells cream colored / unbleached sock yarns at a reasonable price?

When I was at TKGA I was surrounded by wonderful blank yarns, but I couldn’t bring myself to buy any of them with a huge order on the way. I haven’t really found much nearby either. I suspect a trip to Abundant Dyeworks could work out once in a while, given a recent conversation I had with the owner. (They can always order it for you too.) And if I really wanted to trek, I could always go to Knot Another Hat in Hood River; however, at that point you might as well go to the place in Washington where I’m ordering my unddyed yarn and do a pick up.

This is just to tide me over until my order shows up in a couple of weeks. There was some Happy Feet at the Purl District nearby but it was $18.75. Just knowing though what a wholesale price I could be paying has put me off buying anything for now.They are having one of their quarterly knitting dinners tomorrow night, which won’t work out since I’ve got other things going on. In addition, I’ve bought too much stuff recently and Oregon Flock and Fiber is coming up next week. And then I thought about overdyeing. Hooray! I have some Nature’s Palette yarn that is too pale a color for me. I fell in love with one of their rich purples yesterday and boy was I jealous.

dyeing to see?

I hope you are interested in seeing what I dyed last week. Not very much really, since I only had three skeins of undyed sock yarn lying around and a skein of worsted.

Initially I decided to take one of the sock yarn skeins and make mini skeins to see if I could make up colors. I ended up dyeing it all though. I’m afraid results aren’t particularly reproduceable…yet. When I made the initial stock solutions, I did so without a funnel and as a result some of the dye powder ended up in the sink rather than in the bottle. Next time I’m going to use a paper coffee filter or a plastic baggie with a triangle cut out of it to make sure the dye ends up in the bottle. That way I’ll be able to reproduce my results. I hope. I’ve got some base yarn on the way in October, so that should be really fun! Maybe it will even be saleable. That’s my long-term hope. I also hope to have enough money to open an account with Louet or find another yarn base that I like.

I am also going to plan on dyeing deeper richer colors. Hooray. The baby skeins are Knit Picks 100% Sperwash Merino – Fingering Weight.

dyeing fiber

I started preparing my dyes today. I made red, blue, black and burgudy. I have several other shades of stuff, although I’m not clear on how to prepare the Jacquard Acid Dyes that I got at Knit Picks. The reason I’m not sure is that all the instructions are for kettle dyeing and include the vinegar straight away as opposed to making dye solutions. So I’m wondering what the appropriate ratio of hot water to powder is for those dyes. It’s probably in my hand dyeing book, so I guess I’ll start there.

fiber day!

Fiber day at Veneta’s Downtown Market (the link takes you to the slideshow in case you need more incentive to check out the market during September) takes every Friday afternoon starting at 2:00 p.m. and ending at 6:00 p.m. Look at all that yummy Alpaca! These are shots I grabbed last week with my old camera, which has now been replaced. And now with my AmeriCorps year gone and the project nearly finished, regular knit blogging should resume.

She dyes roving too! Obviously I will miss my old camera. Of course, any half-way decent camera is good during the day.

We had an Olympus Stylus 4.0, which died because of a problem with the sensor and the door. It was sad really, because if the door is open, it works fine. That being said, we messed around with it for a month or two and it finally stopped budging. After some hemming and hawing, my husband and I finally chose the Olympus FE340. It’s a nice camera; 8.0 megapixels with a 5x optical zoom and a sweet little super macro mode. The super macro mode is what won it over for me. We liked the old Olympus, even though it is a bit on the sluggish side. On the other hand, we were used to it and not running around taking action shots.

Here is a photo taken with the super macro mode of some recent knitting I did. It’s the Branching Out Scarf I finished during the Ravelympics. I unfortunately failed to post about the finished project so I will not be receiving a medal. It’s okay though; I love this soft alpaca silk (Blue Sky Alpacas) and the scarf is reward enough.

in which I reveal myself to be an olympic quality spaz

Day 4 Ravelympics- Veneta, Oregon

Despite only 14 days left until I need to leave my job and having a huge project to finish, I had to sign up for the Ravelympics. Of course this event provides great blog fodder so how could I not. I had not been around much when the 2006 winter games took place, but I have been training hard over the past two years and felt that I could be a contender.

pearl buck

Yes, it can be done. You can get a three-year old W.I.P. out of of your closet without having to make it into a R.I.P.

But first, a gratuitous photograph.

Sorry. Two.

Proof that though I was driving around with no idea whether or not I'd come out on the right road, that I was not LOST.

new knitting magazine

I decided I’d catch up on my Mason-Dixon reading this morning after realizing their new book is out. And boy I’m glad I checked out their blog this morning, because there is a brand new knitting magazine, twist collective, out! It looks fantastic and I can’t wait to go play. I guess I’ve had my head in the sand, because apparently they’ve been talking about it on ravelry for months.

I only had time for a brief poke around, but the pictures are amazing and the site appears to be easy to navigate. While there are some great looking articles, only a few of the patterns are free. Still, the free patterns are doozies! One is for a Giant Knitted Flower by Tatyana Yanishevsky. I don’t knit things like that but I do enjoy hearing about it and about the techniques required to do so.

This first issue includes There are sock patterns in it to, including Houdini Socks by Cat Bordhi. I particularly like how this sock is put together and it appears to be another new architecture, specifically an alternative to the after-thought heel. I agree with her notes; it does give you some freedom about which part of the sock you want to be the “top” and which you want to be the “bottom.” Those of us who knit socks with hand-painted yarns on a regular basis certainly get it.

the end of the ripping

Dare I say it? With only 445 729 stitches to go I’m done ripping back. The thing is sewn. Ends are almost all woven in. 445 stitches. I’m holding my breath. Want to guess what it is?

777

Did some number of people come by yesterday and hit my page 777 times? For real? If so, I’d love to hear from a few of you. I have no idea what triggered this and can’t figure this out. Usually there’s some reason when something wacky happens.  I will blog something new soon, but August is going to be slow.

black sheep purchases

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene. Here’s the loot. I bought Socks That Rock Lightweight in Kawkaw.

I also bought Mediumweight Mill Ends. These are seconds so they are discounted. I love the colors.

The Grass is Greener on the Other Side

There have been some changes in WordPress recently to photos, so please bear with me while I try to figure out how to use their new system.

Baby Surprise by Elizabeth Zimmerman

It’s really driving me crazy. I put in text then pictures and then it puts the pictures over my text from before! Theoretically it should be really great though. And then the captions disappear and things.

And I got a photo of baby surprise #1 being worn. His mother is so sweet to send it to me. And, Happy Fourth of July!

Jacob wearing his baby surprise.

a note from a friend

I received this letter from a friend in my email box a few days ago. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

“Last night (probably a whole 1/2 hour ago) I had a dream about you.  In the dream, I was in a supermarket. You and Josh appeared, having come to visit me (well, Josh appeared first and then you about 1 second later) and you brought me a birthday present.  Neither of you looked quite like yourselves, as sometimes happens in dreams; Josh was skinny (and taller?) and you were blonde with blue or green eyes (same hairstyle, though!).  The present you gave me was in a white box, tied with a strand of sherbet-colored variegated yarn (slightly lighter than sport weight); the yarn had a sheen as though it were bamboo or polished cotton.  (And now, you can start to see why this was a dream about you, not a dream about you and Josh…)  The box was like a rectangular prism, about 4″ square on one end and about 6″ long.  (Now we all know what was in the box, not that you hadn’t guessed…) In the box was (not a shock) a skein of yarn.  But! The yarn was slightly fuzzy, not in the mohair sense of “fuzzy” but in in the nylon sense of “fuzzy,” round rather than ribbon, with a mildly glitzy strand sewn through it so that one could only see the sparkle at the right angle and such.  So it felt not particularly nice.  It was also slightly lighter than sport weight and variegated, but in dark magentas and purples and blues and reds.   My conscious mind, in the dream, said to me, “Why is she giving me this weirdly yucky yarn?  This is so not a yarn she would be attracted to…”

But the crowning glory of this dream was the ball band!  I couldn’t guess from the feel or look of the yarn what kind it was, and I had to ask you because the ball band didn’t say—it did have the logo for the Gap on it, and fiber content.  You didn’t remember the name of the yarn.  And the fiber content?  98% some-word-that-isn’t-elastane-or-any-fiber-word-we-know-but-ended-in-ane, 6% something else, and, then I stopped reading the ball band for the (hopefully) obvious reason, and woke up and started laughing.”

world wide knit in public day 2008

For the 2008 World Wide Knit in Public Day, a few members of the Salem Area Ravelers (Salem, OR) [r] went down to the seasonal farmers’ market and knit in public. We picked up a new knitter, Eric. And we spoke with four or more. Pretty good for a group of 3 that met at 9 a.m.

We may knit more at the farmers’ market this summer. It’s quite pleasant. Look for us by the food court.

I also put all the buttons on the 2nd Baby Surprise. The word was that the mother was in labor on Monday. The buttons are from the Button Emporium in Portland. It’s a great shop, although I recommend making sure they are open before going because they keep unconventional shop hours. For example, their hours on Saturdays are 11-3.

In the photograph of the Salem Area Ravelers, I am knitting Baby Surprise #3, although apparently its for mommy #2. Ia was born on June 11th at 7:15 p.m. She is a beautiful child and I’m sure both mommies are very proud. I am using the Blue Moon I Heavyweight that I bought over the weekend. It’s actually nearly done and it will mark the sixth completed project in three weeks.

In case you have been on Jupiter, the Black Sheep Gathering is in Eugene this weekend. I’ll be there on Saturday, so say hi! Don’t be shy. I’ll buy the fifth new person I meet who says, “I read your blog” a drink.

I have started on a market bag of sorts. I’m making up the pattern as I go. I used a circular cast-on, although I’m debating the strength of it. I guess I will reinforce the cast-on when I weave in the end. The pattern for the base is a simple open-work pattern. (Knit odd row # of stitches, yo, knit a row.) I am planning to use a piece of cardboard wrapped in cloth in the base. The bottom three inches of the bag will be some sort of lacy pattern and then I will use a very open stitch on larger needles for the remainder of the bag. I decided that this Debbie Bliss Cathay, a silk/cotton blend, has been in my stash for too many years. So to hell with practicality! It’s teal.

a few calculations…justifications that is

Here’s a photo of what I’m busy with in my professional life. The market started last week and went well despite the weather. This Friday ought to be great though (including the weather). I’m planning to buy some more baked goods, strawberries and grass-fed pork. But also, I’m going to get some tomato plants. I bought some seeds earlier this year and lost them. Then I finally planted some others that I bought (from a much less interesting place, a.k.a. Loewe’s) and they are about 2 centimeters tall. So is the basil.

Having finished three projects last week and what with the mid-year sneaking up on us, I shall now tell you how many yards I’ve knit (in terms of completed projects). The idea was to knit in a way that only sustains and shrinks the stash. I’m allowed to buy up to 9,578 yards unless I’ve knit more than that.

I’ve knit 3,461 yards. I’ve bought 15,783 yards. Some of it came from the Earth Day Yarn Swap and I’d bought 300 yards and received 800 yards in return. So we can call it 15,283 yards right? And I gave away two skeins of Regia and a skein of JKnits last week. So that’s minus another 856 yards, bringing me down to 14,427. 360 yards was a gifty for being Earth Day Swap hostess. So that’s 14,067 right?

Then, I sold 137 yards of Craft because some poor sod needed it to finish a project. I know what that’s like! And I sold my Yorkshire Tweed to a collector (360 yards). That leaves me at 8, 153 yards for 2008 or more than twice I knit this spring.

Erp. Of course, it’s also true that the Pearl Buck Cardigan is unfairly stalled by the lack of adequate yarn and worth 1233 yards. And I’m working steadily away on the Katherine Hepburn Cardigan that is 1575 yards. (I can’t really call the right front a swatch anymore because I started on the armhole and neck shaping.

I started a pair of the Child’s French Socks by Nancy Bush (360 yards).

I should finish the mitered mittens. That’s 218 yards of credit for another 3hrs of work. Whee! This photo is a little out of date. I’ve finished the body of the mitten (and they are close enough in size for me to consider that part done). But now I have to cut into the mitten and put in the after thought thumb. I’m a little frightened that I won’t do it right, so I’m going to have my knitting group witness my efforts tomorrow night at knitting.

I’ve also bought more yarn, but I should save that for another day. I will point out though that it is for two more baby surprises. No more pregnant mathematicians or their spouses! I can’t believe I’m knitting four of these in one year. Everyone else gets something different.

simply socks yarn contest – your favorite sock yarn

The Simply Socks Yarn Company is holding a contest. They want to know what your favorite sock yarn is and why. Here are some of my favorites. The deadline is June

1. Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight (Bouncy yarn, pleasurable to knit with, gorgeous colorways and locally dyed).
2. Colinette Jitterbug (Bouncy yarn. Very full feeling. Pleasurable to knit with.)
3. I can’t believe I didn’t tell them Koigu. What the heck was I thinking? It’s KOIGU.
4. And I forgot about Shibui. (Also locally dyed and a lot like Koigu and Louet).
   
5. Lorna’s Laces (Gorgeous dyes, hard wearing)
6. Louet (great stand bye)
7. Scout’s Swag. Yummy colors. Some day I will finish a pair of socks with this.

Anyway, knock yourself out!

jaywalkers

The thing about knitting so many projects at once is that I go along time between finishing projects and then I finish several in a row. It feels like its taken me a dozen years, not two dozen months (not really) to finish these jaywalkers. They’ve been awaiting toes for over four months. Anyway, they are done and here they are.

Pattern: Jaywalkers by Grumperina
Yarn: Koigu from Needleworks Unlimited
Needles: US 1 for the main sock and 0 for the toes (Takumi Bamboo DPNs)
Started: December 2006, Finished May 2008
Toes: Pointed Toe by Nancy Bush from the book: Vintage Knitted Socks

baby surprise

I hate that I’m so busy these days. I never even got to post about this project while it was a work-in-progress. I suppose we could pretend though. Nah. Who am I to hold out like that?

I bought some Noro Silk Garden from the Yarn Shop on May 5th.

By the 12th, I had something that looked like this.

And by the 19th, I had something that looked like this. Now I just need to find some buttons.

rusted root

I finished Rusted Root on Sunday afternoon. Hooray! I was cruising away on it while I was on the plane from Las Vegas, so I just kept going when I got home and now it’s done. It’s hard to believe how little there was left to do and yet it seemed to take forever.

blogiversary

My second blogiversary was last Sunday. I can’t believe I missed it. I’ve been tied up with the Earth Day Yarn Swap. Nearly everyone has gotten their package now and as far as I know of, everything is as it ought to be at the moment. I assigned a swap angel for someone yesterday and that should take care of the last of the issues, although it does not take care of the oh so yucky task of explaining to some people why they won’t be invited back next year.

There was also a trip to Las Vegas for the American Planning Association Conference. I stayed downtown, which was rather nice. I saw this guy at his work. I think I missed seeing Cher live, but heard her in the hallway. Whoops.

There should have been a contest.

book review

For me, color is one of the biggest attractions of knitting. In the winter, I practically drown myself in it in an effort to replace sunlight. Unsurprisingly, I’m interested in doing some hand dyeing of my own. If you read this blog regularly, you may remember that I received several jars of jacquard acid dye for Christmas, although I have yet to dye a hank.

Over the past year, I’ve been picking up hand dyeing supplies. Kool-aid here, sponge paintbrushes or gloves there. I’m down to the big one – the pot, microwave or other device I need to actually cook the skein in.

So it was natural that I picked up a copy The Yarn Lover’s Guide to Hand Dyeing: Beautiful and Simple Knits by Linda La Belle. This book appears to have slid under the radar. There are three things I really like about it: comprehensive coverage, cute projects and interviews with professional hand dyers. It also happens to have clear instructions and well chosen photographs. Any one of these things alone would make a decent book. All three together make for a magnificent introduction to hand dyeing.

The book covers multiple techniques for hand dyeing – kool-aid acid dyeing, eucalyptus dyeing, cold pad dyeing, ktiton immersion dyeing, jacquard acid dyeing and the list goes on. Yep, it’s all there. It even lets you know the pros and cons of using the different dye types. The book coversJacquard Acid Dyes and Ashford Wool Dyes and Procion mx fiber reactive dyes dyes and you can see some sample results.

There is probably one too many ‘little projects’ in the pattern section, but I enjoy the fact that some are knit BEFORE the dyeing, while others used the finished yarns. All of the projects show the dye job beautifully, which is probably the important thing.

I think my favorite aspect, the one making the book worthy of being a permanent reference book, is the interviews with hand dyers like Cheryl schaefer, Maie, Taiu and Kersti Landra (Koigu), and Nancy Finn (Chasing Rainbow Dyeworks.)

Available through and from Amazon.Com for $15.28 – $19.80 US.

I’ll recommend this book at four and a half yarn cakes. Sweet!

in knitting news

I’m behind. Way behind. So much so that I have an unfinished post from a month ago. A while back I bought another skein of Dream in Color Classy in the Happy Forest Colorway. Green is definitely a hot color for me right now.

During the break between Round 1 and Round 2 of Sock Madness, I started on the second sock of my Jitterbug Pomatomus Socks. Everyone loves the Jitterbug and I get compliments on that sock wherever I go. I was trying to continue a trend of finishing projects. First, I finished the Sock Madness Round 1 Zombies and then I finished my plain Socks That Rock Socks.

The arrival of Round 2 of Sock Madness thwarted my attempt to finish a third pair of socks (in a row) in three weeks. I’m not planning on finishing the Sock Madness Round 2 socks. They just weren’t for me. I’m wondering when I’m going to start the Round 3 socks.

They are intriguing, but the pressure is off now. I bet you want to see the yarn for those though. I nearly forgot! It’s Tess Yarns. It’s really pretty. I’m going to have to get some for lace projects some time. It’s an effort not to develop a lace weight stash though. I hardly think my small amount of lace weight counts as a lace weight stash. (I’m crossing my fingers.)

I got the Earth Day Swap going and a very nice knitter (Doulton on Ravelry) sent me a bonus package of applewood bacon flavored chocolate and Silkie Socks That Rock in Pallas Athena. I REALLY want to play with it but I have a lot of other projects in the works. My package arrived but I’ve got into more trouble with registered mail and my husband may need to pick it up.

socks out

The second round of Sock Madness went fast. Way too fast by half. In a week where I moved my out of my home away from home (a small 10′x10′ bedroom) to a much more spacious apartment, I tried to faithfully knit on my socks, whilst furnishing the new place with things ferried from home number one. It didn’t work. I got about half a repeat into the socks before I got home last night where I saw, to my dismay, that the Tennessee Vols group had 19 completed pairs. Even had I stayed up ALL night, there was no way in.

These aren’t my favorite pair of socks so far, even though I find the stitch pattern intriguing, so I’m going to toss these and participate at will. And I’m going to save that Sweet Georgia Concord for something else. I do have the coveted laceweight yarn for whatever round they are in, so I’m certainly going to be knitting that pair of socks. But now I can go back to finishing some other projects and having a more normal knitting life.

I think I knew I was going to be out earlier this week when I thought, ‘Crap, this is keeping me from working on x, y & z.’

Picture to come soon.

up and down

On the downside, I’m home sick. I hate having a sore throat. I think tomorrow I’m just going to take whatever sudafed crud I can find (I’m NOT supposed to take this stuff for a variety of reasons) and go back to work. I’m movied out, bored and probably just have another sinus infection. Of course, my doctor is located near my job anyway.

maw of the zombie

I finished the heel flap of my Zombie Sock for Sock Madness 2 last night and now am staring directly into the maw of the foot.

These are surfer zombies by the way. As in, “Dude, I’m totally dead.”

hypnosis

I’m finding the Zombie pattern that I’m knitting as part of Sock Madness completely hypnotic. I guess the zombie state that one gets into after knitting for several hours straight is a lot like being hypnotized. Or maybe it’s the yarn. Or how it looks in this pattern. Of course my socks look more like rippling waves than a zombie, unless the zombie is pretty fresh and just bruised. I tinked out 8 rows, so I feel that way myself. Maybe the pattern will turn me into a knitting zombie.

After 3 1/2 hrs of knitting and tinking, I just finished pattern repeat #2, row 8. More tomorrow night after work most likely. Though maybe tomorrow lunch will be one of those longer lunch breaks. Good thing I’m being sent home early on a delivery mission!

mad knitting

Yep, Sock Madness started this afternoon. So I’m knitting as much as I can in between work and commuting home, which means I’ve done all of 7 rows of ribbing. Here’s a pic.

The yarn is Blue Brick Wall by Blue Moon Fiber Arts. My husband bought it for me this weekend at Twisted. That makes two shops in Oregon (other than the company itself and for that you have to place an online order) that I know of that carry Blue Moon. The other is the Farmhouse Knit Shop, which is in a Portland suburb (Beaverton). So I guess Twisted can claim that they are the only shop in Portland that carries Blue Moon. Regardless, they have a lot of it in right now and they’ve had it in for two weeks. I can only imagine what they must have gotten initially.

I know I owe you posts. They are coming . Now back to knitting those socks! I really want to make it out of Round 1 again this year and I musn’t let the fact that the new Knitty is up distract me. Nor that I want to tell you that I got into the 3-month version of Scout’s Swag Sock Club, which will start in October.

Sock Madness

I’m getting prepared for Sock Madness. I really hope to make it past round two this year. And maybe even be a first knitter in a bracket (highly unlikely what with my lack of knitting speed and job). I need to have all the right yarns. I am enjoying going through my stash and trying to pick out

I seem to be in the UConnCastons  Tennesse Twisted Knitters Division. I realized I was in there twice and had them remove the one with my real name on it.

So the yarn requirements look like this. And next to them I’m dropping in a photo of what I think I might use. I haven’t seen the patterns yet, so who knows what I’ll actually pick. It’s fun dreaming though.

Yarn	Needles	Gauge
A	About 360 yards of fingering weight yarn – Louet Gems Merino/Claudia’s Handpaint	US Size 1	8.5 st /inch

earth day swap update

We’ve been discussing some interesting questions over at the Earth Day Swap on Ravelry like, ‘What makes a fiber planet friendly’ and ‘What are the most eco-friendly needles?’ I thought I should post my answers to the blog too, so here they are.

The planet friendly fiber question was so tough that I sent in a question to Sierra Club’s Mr. Green, who I hope is still mulling this one over.

I’ve sent a letter in to Sierra Club’s Mr. Green.You know, Ask Mr. Green?

Anyway, he’s looking into it, but here’s what he sent back. “Thanks so much for sending this info. Wow, it’s even more complicated than I suspected. For example, fiber made of soy, milk, corn, or bamboo is from a “natural” product, but if it is raised in an unnatural way with pesticides and land-eroding practices–which a lot of farm products are–then its value as a sustainable product could actually be quite dubious, and in some cases not significantly better than conventional cotton, which is notorious for its dependence on chemicals. (Even something like shrimp shells raises questions, because a lot of shrimp-growing damages coastal environments.)”

Here is what I sent: ”I’m glad you are interested in my question. Here’s a little background. In the past few years, many yarns have come on to the market claiming that they are environmentally friendly. Some are recycled fibers, but others are manufactured. Some is organic cotton. Many of the fibers are plant based blend. This is a particularly confusing issue because we don’t always what the source is for the “eco-friendly” portion of the yarn. Add to that the distances these fibers travel and the dying process…well the textile industry isn’t the most environmentally friendly. So we’d like to encourage it in whatever way we can.

Yarns and fiber claiming to be environmentally friendly may contain Soysilk™, Silk Latte™ , Inego, bamboo, milk-fiber, Tencel(R), organic cotton and hemp.

Fiber(s): Soysilk(R), Milk Fiber Brands: Soysilk(R) and Silk Latte™ Company: Southwest Trading Company Company Location: Australia Website: http://www.soysilk.com. Yarns: Tofutsies: 50% Superwash Wool, 25% SoySilk™, 22.5% Cotton, 2.5% Chitin (Shrimp and Crab Shells) Vicki Howell’s Craft: 65% Organic Cotton, 35% Milk Fiber They are working on two other fibers that are currently only available for spinning: Silk Latte™ is fiber and yarn made from Milk proteins and Ingeo is made out of corn.

Other companies of note selling Soysilk products: Patons.

Fiber: Milk Fiber Company: Cyarn claims to be the largest producer of milk fiber. I don’t know if they are tied to Craft. Website: http://www.cyarn.com/products/fiber/fiber_036.html

Fiber: Corn Company Website: http://www.ingeofibers.com/ingeo/home.asp Company Location: Minneapolis, MN

Company: Southwest Trading Company Location: Australia Yarn: AMaizing – 100% Corn Fiber (not sure if made from Ingeo I think).

Company: Crystal Palace Yarns Company Location: Richmond, CA Company Website: http://www.straw.com/cpy/yarns/Maizy-scans.html Yarns: Maizy – 82% Corn Fiber – 18% elastic nylon

Yarn Company: Kollage Company Location: Birmingham, AL Website:. http://www.paradisefibers.net/Kollage-Cornucopia-Corn-Yar… Company Address: Kollage Yarns 3304 Blue Bell Lane Birmingham, AL 35242 USA 888-829-7758 toll free 205-408-5815 phone 205-408-5813 fax info@kollageyarns.com

Fiber(s): Bamboo Company: possibly Bambrotex – may also have something to do with corn fiber Company Location: China Company Website: http://www.bambrotex.com

Yarn Company: Classic Elite Company Location: Lowell, MA Company Website: http://www.classiceliteyarns.com Yarn: Bam Boo – 100% Bamboo

Yarn Company: Alchemy Yarns of Transformation Company Location: Sebastapol, CA Company Contact Information: P.O. Box 1080 Sebastapol, CA 95473 Phone: (707) 823-3276 alchemyyarns@pacbell.net Company Website: http://www.alchemyyarns.com/yarns.html Yarn: Bamboo – 100% Bamboo

Yarn Company: Zitron Company Location: Germany Company Website: http://www.atelierzitron.de/ Yarn: ProNatura 75% Merino Wool and 25% Bamboo.

Fiber: Seacell(R) Company: SmartFiber AG Company Website: http://www.smartfiber.de/index.php Location: Might be Germany

Yarn Company Handmaiden Fine Yarn Company Website: http://handmaiden.ca Yarns: Sea Silk 70% Silk and 30% Sea Cell, Great Big Sea 50%Silk, 30% Wool 20% Sea Cel(R)

Yarn Company: Fleece Artist. Related to Handmaiden Company Location: Nova Scotia, CA Company Name: http://www.fleeceartist.com/ Yarns: SeaWool – 70% Wool and 30% Sea Cell(R)

Fiber: Tencel. Tencel is a trademark for lyocell and made of wood pulp cellulose. I usually see Tencel in products sold by Independent hand-dyers. I don’t know what their source is.

Yarn Company: Classic Elite Company Website: http://www.classiceliteyarns.com Company Location: Lowell, MA Yarn: Premiere which is 50% Tencel and 50% Cotton.

Yarn Company: Blue Moon Fiber Arts is a dyeing company. Company Website: http://www.bluemoonfiberarts.com/fiber_type_detail.php?fi… Yarn: Seduction – 50% Wool, 50% Tencel.

Fiber Organic Cotton

Company: PeruNaturetex Fibers Company Website: http://www.perunaturtex.com/ Company Location: Peru Notes: FairTrade

Company: Vermont Organic Wool Company Company Location: Middlebury, VT USA Company Website: http://www.vtorganicfiber.com/ Yarn: O-Wool(R) Notes: Certified Organic, makes fabric in addition to yarn

Company Name: Blue Sky Alpacas Company Website: http://www.blueskyalpacas.com/ Yarn: Organic Cotton – 100% organic cotton in natural and dyed colors. The natural cotton was bred for color.

Fiber: Hemp Yarn Company: Hemp for Knitting Company Location: British Columbia, Canada Company contact information: Lanaknits Designs / hempforknitting Melissa Duarte Suite 3B . 320 Vernon Street Nelson . British Columbia . V1L4E4 . Canada ph/fx: 250.352.6985 . tollfree: 1.888.301.0011 email: melissa@lanaknits.com info@lanaknits.com Company Website: http://www.hempforknitting.com

These are just some of the many companies that are using the new “earth friendly” fibers. Other fibers contain banana and coconut. And then there are companies that use recycled silk. A good one for that is Sari Silk which is made from recycled Saris.

my slog along update

This post was written for my Mason-Dixon Slogalong update.

I’m a delinquent slog-blogger. Go figure. Anyway here’s the post from January 28th that I wrote on my Pearl Buck Sweater and one from February 1st. I’m not sure where the last few months went in knitting time. I mean in knitting time, my head thinks it’s the beginning of January and here it is the middle of February.

So now onto some new information. Back on September 9th, I was stuck on the back of this sweater. And then I finished it and was stuck on the yoke. No idea why. So after a few months of not doing anything, I took the fronts on the plane and did those. And then today I did the yoke.

you know you want to

You know you want to watch me do this. No matter how many times it’s been done before, it’s a trip to watch. (For the video, jump to the last page.)

The first thing I did when I finished knitting the baby surprise was to fold it up and then determine which side the button placket went on. Before doing anything else, I sewed on the button. This established a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong side’. THEN, I wove in the ends. I only used one skein of yarn, but those of you who read my blog regularly know about the wool chewer in the house. You know, the one that specializes in variegated yarns.

must knit faster

It is 11:09 PM on Friday, February 08, 2008. The baby is due on February 10^th. Assuming the baby is on time, which will probably happen because I’m knitting under a deadline, I have just over 25 hours to finish the Baby Surprise. What’s left? ~680 stitches, weaving in an end, sewing it together, finding and adding a button, washing and letting it dry, wrapping it and delivering it so that it will be at her house before she gets home with her new one.

I was doing really really well on Monday, until I realized I’d forgotten to increase across the back for fullness. Ten stitches is not the sort of thing you can flub on a little sweater. While it’s true that if I don’t make it, there is a back-up plan (a baby baseball tee in blue and brown), this particular project is a good one to give a mathematics professors. For some reason, perhaps because a high percentage of our pregnant friends are mathematics professor, I’m going to have to knit a lot of them. I must impress the topologists.

The sad thing is that I was granted an entire day off from work yesterday. Unfortunately, this was not for a fun reason. Someone came along and smashed the passenger window of my car. They did not steal anything (and now there is nothing in there to steal, trust me), but it took quite a lot of my time yesterday to deal with. And because I work quite a ways off and I live in a rainy state, it was better to leave the car in the garage and then take it to the glass shop. (Normally they come out to you, but this was the only way to get fit in on such short notice.)

I’m sorry that you do not get a photograph. Honestly, you are lucky to get a blog post. I must finish this sweater on time. It’s newborn sized! And he’ll probably be a big child.

pearl buck guardian

The cat is a slave driver. I could swear that even from 80 miles away she’s breathing down my neck. So last night I finished the left front of the pearl buck sweater. Because it’s not blocked, it keeps rolling up and it’s hard to photograph.

you can’t rush good knitting

Frankly, I thought these socks would be done by Sunday. As much as I want to be done with the Jaywalker socks and no matter how hard I try, I keep finding myself in the same place. The other day I was down at the toe of the second sock and realized that I’d failed to do the same decreases for the foot as the first sock.

My socks have to match! What’s funny is I don’t care if the yarn pools differently, but the actual stitches have to be the same. And I don’t like the toe for the first sock either. So as soon as I get down near the toe for the second sock, I will rip the toe out of the first sock and put both socks on to two circular needles. I will probably put in a star toe or a rounded toe. I like both of those.

I think the photograph is of the sock before I ripped a whole lot of it out, but it’s nearly back at the same place.

Still, I want them to fit and last and they will be so much better if I don’t find myself obsessing about so called mistakes in the future.

let me count the yards

Ravelry, how do I love thee? Let me count the yards.
I’m determined that my stash will shrink this year in terms of number of yards. The important fact though is that in my accounting system, I can’t count any skeins as out of stash until the project is finished. So even though the back has been done for two years, the balls knit are still “in stash.” This means that finishing old projects is worth more yardage credit than I actually have to knit to complete.

In 2007, I knit 9, 758 yards. So this year, I can’t buy more than 9,758 yards of yarn, unless I’ve knit that much to begin with. This is subject, of course, to budget considerations. So far this year I’ve knit 450 yards from the Dream in Color Bells and Whistles Socks. (It doesn’t matter that there’s yarn left over. The point is that I made the project that the yarn was bought for.)

The Pearl Buck Sweater is worth 1,233 yards! Can you see how this encourages me to finish up old projects? The biggest problems? The Saffron Cables Blanket is 2,538 yards (141) done, while Juno Regina is worth 1,000 yards (none done) and the Katharine Hepburn sweater is worth 1,575 yards.

before and after

I have some yarns on cones. I don’t know what they are. I fished them out of my mother’s stash some time ago and she won’t take them back, although I’m sorely tempted to just mail the both back to her.

Anyway I took the dark green tweed, which is beautiful but rough and washed it. It probably needs a second wash. I had a lot of trouble getting the color right with this and so the second time I added some yellow to the background. Maybe I should have added more yellow or tried the flash. There is about 336 yards of it.

startitis or finishitis

Is it startitis or finishitis?

This is Malabrigo Laceweight in the color Azul Profundo. I got two skeins the other day for Juno Regina.

I tried casting on with a pair of size 3 Addi Turbo Lace needles, but I’m pretty sure now that I want to use a size 4. I talked myself into buying the 3s because I don’t any and I didn’t have the 4s with me.

Don’t tell me you’ve never done that.

Does anyone want to buy a pair of size 3 Addi Turbo Lace needles? Or trade for a pair of size 5 or 6’s?

mitten mitten who has got the mitten

Raise your right hand if you became infatuated with Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Mitered Mittens (May in the Knitter’s Almanac) after seeing the pair made by Brooklyn Tweed. These will involve installing an after-thought thumb. Should be fun.

Why these mittens were a good idea.

• They are gorgeous in Silk Garden.
• Any excuse to knit Noro is a good excuse.
• Everyone runs out of mittens.
• I always wanted to try a new technique and an after-thought thumb sounds good. I’ve never even done an after-thought pocket.

I didn’t realize that I would need two skeins when I went to Knit Purl over the weekend, so I will have to go back and get another one. Oh dear. Another trip to Knit Purl. I already used up my Christmas gift-certificate. (Gift from husband.)

My other comment is that Jared has recently proved what a bargain the Knitter’s Almanac actually is. Where else can you get a dozen great patterns for $7.95? I only like two patterns (so far) and that’s a still a steal.  It’s a good read on a cold day too.

the accidental knitter

the accidental knitterOriginally uploaded by moiraeknitting.

This is a skein of yarn dyed by the Accidental Knitter, I won at the beginning of 2008 from Rachel of Cattywampus for donating money to Heifer International. I give my Mom part of a knitting basket for Christmas every year. I saw the contest on Stumbling Over Chaos.The yarn is a bit pastel but I am sure I will find a good use for it. It is so soft.

the blog is dead long live the blog

Bells and Whistles Socks

Originally uploaded by moiraeknitting.

The blog isn’t dead and neither am I, but I feel like it a little bit. It’s flu season, go figure and I picked up something that attacks your lungs. My lungs are unhappy with the smallest of bugs, so this thing has knocked me for a loop. These socks were finished last week some time and now you finally get to see them. A better photograph would just take too much effort.

So:
Bells and Whistles Socks from Holiday Interweave Knits 2006.
Dream in Color Smooshy
Clover Needles, Size 1
Notes took out one repeat. If I were to make them again I’d do the cuff and 1 repeat in Size 1.5 before going further. This is a lovely sock with a cool toe. Possibly needs two or three more rows before starting toe. These are my December socks for Sock Knitter’s Anonymous on Ravelry.

blog cleaning

Ever since WordPress added tagging capability, I’ve been slowly going through archived posts and tagging them. For those of you who don’t use WordPress, the original way you could file your posts with through the use of categories. I ended up having 99 categories and no way of archiving those no longer in use. The number of categories made it difficult to file them. They weren’t sorted very well and I’d have to sort through several pages (in a very small window) of categories to file things. In short, posts were often misfiled. I’m much happier with the tagging system.

I also updated the gallery page and it looks really great now.

One thing I’ve noticed about Ravelry is that now I’ve got a tendency to forget whatever wasn’t documented. You know, hats and sweaters that were gifted away without photographs. I’m thinking of my first sweater, a Vogue Knitting top, a dinosaur sweater I made for my cousin Aaron when he was two years old, a hat I made for my grandmother and several things that I only own pictures of in celluloid! Of course, I do own a scanner now. Hmm.

Neat freak? Only theoretically.

Happy New Year!

I got all the way down to the ankle of the second Bells and Whistles sock, but I don’t think I’ll finish it in time for the Socks In the Cities Knit Along as I’m throwing a party.  It will have to wait until 2008. Good thing that it will still qualify for Sock Knitter’s Anonymous (r).

r=ravelry link

Earth Day Yarn Swap 2008

I’m setting up for the (r). It’s a lot easier to set it up through Ravelry, so if you don’t have an account, sign up now! I bet you’ll get in before the swap sign-up deadline, which is a month or two away.

You will need a Ravelry account.

This is a swap for eco-friendly fibers. This would include: organic yarns, yarns made from more renewable resources such as bamboo, soy (byproducts) or corn (byproducts). In addition to the many fibers being produced by the Southwest Trading Company, the Vermont Organic Fiber Company, Blue Sky Alpacas, Trekking (ProNatura) and even Classic Elite produce more environmentally friendly yarns. Lots of Indie Dyers are using the new fibers too. Let’s influence the market for environmentally friendly yarns.

1. Sign up for the swap by March 17th and fill out the questionnaire (to be posted on my blog and to the Ravelry questionnaire thread by February 28).
2. Fill out the questionnaire and to the questionnaire thread by March 17th!
3. This is a secret swap!
4. If you do withdraw, please please let me know so I can try to get everyone matched up. Please don’t drop out without contacting me (MoiraeKnitting at gmail dot com).
5. Buy locally if you can.
6. Send out swap packages by April 7th – the idea is to get your package to your partner by Earth Day in the US (April 22nd).
7. Post about your swaps and enjoy your new fibers.
8. I’m sorry this is for North America based knitters only, because it’s not very eco-friendly to send yarn half way around the world. (It’s bad enough to mail it at all.)

Rules: 1. Dropping out without letting anyone know will earn you bad karma. 2. The suggested spending limit is $35, not including shipping. 3. Have fun!

Signing Up (Added 01/01/2008)

To sign up, please email me (moiraeknitting at gmail dot com.) Do NOT send me a message on Ravelry. Also drop a message on the Ravelry sign-up thread.

I need: Your Name, Your Ravelry Name, Your Blog Name, Your Address and Your Email Address. Otherwise you will not be signed up.

r=ravelry link

the italian tubular cast-on

I wonder if I took a hit to the head last year. The reason I’ve never really cast-on for either the Endpaper Mitts or the Anemoi Mittens is that I had trouble with the Italian Tubular Cast-on. I used the tutorial from Fluffbuff, following the instructions to the letter, or so I thought. It’s a no yarn waste version. I tried it on three different sizes of needles and I could not make it loose enough. There wasn’t anything wrong with my floats – it was the cast-on.

I figured it out this weekend. I’d neglected to pull the cast-on end out of the tube.

So hopefully I’ll be able to work on Anemoi and I’ll have warm hands this coming January.

One thing I’d recommend is adding a third round of the main color before adding the second color. This way your first row of floats won’t hang down.

in knitting news

I just saw a bit on Ravelry about Sweet Georgia Yarns. She’ll be reopening in 2008! Hooray. And she’s having a contest, so go check it out. I’m still knitting all the things I stashed last year. Good thing the US dollar was stronger against the Canadian at the time. (Sigh.)

a quick fix

I have to admit, the Yarn Harlot’s An Unoriginal Hat(r) is the perfect solution for getting yourself out of a knitting funk. It’s small enough to be a swatch, so you don’t have to swatch. I used some Nashua Creative Focus Worsted weight wool I’ve had lying around for two years. It’s a bit of a chunky weight, but I had to go up to Size 11 needles (US). I wish I had Canadian sized needles. A set of 7.00mm DPNs would have been perfect. US Size 10 1/2 needles are 6.50mm and US Size 11 needles are 8.0. Is that not insane?I’m glad to have used stash, but I’m seriously tempted to buy some Leticia and make another one. I love the mottled colors in the original hat. I’m thinking I’d do it in Sugarplum. Still, if I do so, I lose on my 2008 stash reduction plan.

(r)=ravelry link

actual knitting – bells and whistles

So here’s the sock I promised. I finished a bells and whistles sock. I have lots of works-in-progress shots. I just didn’t have the time to post about it before I finished the first sock. I’m about shot 3 into the second one now. This sock is my Sock Knitters Anonymous sock. It’s also my project for the Socks In the Cities Knit-Along, so I’ll have to post about it. Sock Knitters Anonymous is a Ravelry knit-along that a fellow Oregonian put together where you knit a different type of sock each month. Currently the assignment is a cuff-down sock OR a Miriam Felton (aka MimKnits) pattern.

sock toes

Despite all appearances to the contrary, I have been knitting. I’ve been working on rusted root and a sock. Getting to this sock took a long time. Not because the sock is difficult. The pattern is, in fact, quite hynpotic, easy to memorize and therefore goes quickly.

No, the problem was trying to figure out what sock to knit. Can you name the socks below and guess which one I actually finished? No peeking at my flickr account! You may recognize a couple and I definitely got much further on them than I had before. But one of these yarns actually represents a whole completed sock.

I apologize for the blurry photos. I need stronger lamps for my homemade light box.

1. Shelridge Farms – Little Shell Socks, 2. Socks That Rock Lightweight – Coriolis, 3. Art Yarns Ultramerino 4 Bayerische, 4. Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock – Ripple and Weave, 5. Hello Yarn Tough Sock – Firestarter, 6. Dream in Color Smooshy- Bells and Whistles

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

miters

I’m still short several miters for the blanket and only just have made any time to do one. I did this one about a week ago.

So, in short I’m still accepting contributions for the Afghans for Afghans blanket.

a quick plug

In case you hadn’t noticed any new photographs lately, that’s because I left my camera to computer cord at my job and was out sick most of last week. I picked it up today. In the mean time, I thought I would plug a book for a a couple of friends. They didn’t ask me. I am just doing it.

The book is Making Mathematics with Needlework: Ten Papers and Ten Projects (Hardcover) and retails for $30.00 at Amazon.Com. My friends Carolyn Yackel and Sarah-Marire Belcastro are the editors. Sarah knows my husband well, but I met them both during a knitting session at a mathematics conference my husband was attending. Here is a link to some more detailed information on the book.

In case you are math phobic, you should know that the book has been carefully written for both crafters AND mathematicians. There are also bits included for teachers. Remember there are a mathematicians that think crafters do things more complicated than brain surgery (see Yarn Harlot: Secret Life of a Knitter).

I looked through Sarah’s list of projects and I recognize several of them from attending a session on mathematical knitting at the joint meetings of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and Mathematical Association of America (MAA) in Atlanta in 2005. Having seen them and listened to the accompanying talks, I feel I can recommend checking out this book. One project I loved was Amy Szczepanski’s Quilted Mobius Band. Warning, her web-page is for mathematicians. Another one was D. Jacob Wildbaum’s crocheted Sierpinski Gasket shawl. It’s a study in self-similar crochet.

show and tell 2007

 

Finished Objects 2007

1. monkey socks, 2. central park hoodie, 3. another one skein, one day wonder hat, 4. mad cow socks, nancy division by Moirae, 5. mitered bag, 6. aurora cabled sweater, 7. rapid river socks in envy, 8. toe up socks, 9. multi-directional scarf, 10. monkey socks, 11. lizard ridge (knit for charity by bloggers), 12. hedera, 13. puff baby, 14. little raglan, 15. clapotis, 16. monkey socks for swap, 17. sky socks, 18. swallowtail shawl, 19. baby baseball tee, 20. monkey socks, 21. kim’s hat, 22. bff socks

Works in Progress 2007 (uncompleted or frogged)

1. Lorna’s Laces, Desert Flower, 2. failed anemenoi, 3. failed anemenoi, 4. frogged vesper toe-up, 5. madtini – frogged, 6. plain sock, frogged, 7. madtini, frogged, 8. wave socks, wip, 9. fabric for a knitting bag, 10. baby baseball tee, 11. chevron scarf in Mountain Colors, 12. multidirectional scarf, 13. Pearl Buck, 14. miters, 15. baby surprise, 16. plain sock in rare gems, 17. My creation, 18. pomatomus 2, 19. rusted root, 20. wool miters, 21. bayerische socks, 22. ripple and weave socks, 23. debbie bliss argyle sweater, 24. crochet larger than life bag

Warning, the next page is not for the faint of heart.

adventures in san francisco pt 2, all things sheepy

Anabel, her friend Christina and I went off to Japantown where all things sheepy can be bought for less than $2.00 at the Japanese dollar store. Okay, some things aren’t sheepy. But they are wonderful, no?

 

 

1. oven mitt, 2. sheep box cutter, 3. sheep clips, 4. chop sticks, 5. push pins, 6. animal rubber bands (includes sheep), 7. sushi project bag, 8. sheep pad and led key chain, 9. Christina’s New Sheep Tote* (which matches her previously purchased sheep decorated converse shoes. Yep with a black sheep on the heel.)

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

we interrupt this blog for an important announcement

It’s National Ninja Day. Because this is a knitting blog, I will share some On-Line Knitting Ninja information with you.

The Winter Knitty is up.

Knitting Daily is having a contest where you could win a gift-certificate to your local yarn shop.

Have a great day!

actual knitting and uh…crochet

I finished the BFF socks on Monday night. Finally. One year and a couple of days later…

Pattern: BFF Socks by Cookie A.
Start Date: November 10, 2006. Finish Date: November 26, 2007
Yarn: Green Mountain Madness in Cherry Tree Hill
Needles: Addi Turbo Size 2, 12″ Circular and Clover DPN Size 2
Pattern Review: This is a nice basic sock; however, a couple of the directions aren’t entirely clear. If you are an experienced knitter, you should be able to get through the trickier bits around the heel and toe without too much trouble. I made the size mediums and I’m not sure I did the right number of cables down the front of the foot. I did three because there wasn’t quite room for four. Four would have looked nicer and been a better fit.

I think the yarn must have been cursed. I cast on for at least one other pair of socks with it and then it got tangled and then and then…

I was also at work at my Larger Than Life Bag over last weekend. Now I’ve lost the pattern of course. I think I’ve finally arranged the blocks in pairs that I like. What do you think? There are a couple more blocks that need polishing off. And then I need to do the actual bag. Now where did I put that blasted pattern!

my awesome monkey sock swap three package

My package came from the Monkey Swap Three from the Swap Hostess, Rebecca of Socks For Mum. The paper was really cute and the address label had monkey stickers on it as did the note! This package included a huge pile of my favorite monkey things.

The socks are lovely and even have the picot edging I so coveted. I’ve been really good not checking out Rebecca’s blog. It’s hard when you know who your partner is. Anyway, she solicited information on what stuffed monkey to send and you guys definitely picked the right one. Although, you can’t see his red tail in this photo.

rusted root

I started Rusted Root earlier this week. Here are the photos. I just hope the sleeves end up fitting. I’m using Classic Elite Premiere in Tidepool, which is really lovely and soft. I bought it last summer from Knitter’s Palette and it is really soft. I’ve been wondering what to do with it. I also hope I don’t run out. I’ve got five skeins and I can get two more if need be.

must… not… buy

Noro Kureyon Sock. $18.95 per skein, unless otherwise noted. 70% Wool, 30% Nylon, 462 yards. 7.5 stitches to the inch on #2 needles. Here’s a photo of the pure wool prototype, which they’ve improved on by adding nylon to the yarn.

• at the Yarn and Fiber Company Windham, NH. Dearie me. Shipping free shipping to all US destinations and Canada with no restrictions. Does not ship until the first week of December.
• at Bartlett Bulky in Bath, ME. $18.95 per skein, but less if you buy in bulk. Oh my. (8 or more $16.95) (20 or more $15.00). Shipping is going to start at $6.95
• at Main Street Yarn and Fibers in Watkinsville, Georgia. Shipping is $4.50 to $7.00
• at the Yarn Market. $6.49 shipping for each pre-order. Not to be shipped until December.
• at Nestucca Bay Yarns in Lincoln City, Oregon. $18.95 per skein. Crudders, this one is basically local to me. They also sell Simply Shetland kits, including one designed by Eunny Jang. It looks great on the model anyway. I think mine would cost $95.50 including the book. Shipping is $8.00

Why list all these stores? So you can shop locally of course! Think of all the Carbon Dioxide you can prevent by at least getting it from a store nearer you or waiting until your LYS has it. It’s only a matter of time after all. Nestucca Bay is only an hour from my home, so I’ll probably head over there sometime, visit my friend Alex and eat at the Otis Cafe on the way!

Finished objects and a knitting needle recovery program

Here is the Baby Baseball Tee from Knit 2 Together with the buttons actually sewn on (as opposed to sitting on the sweater pretending to be sewn on).

Pattern: Baby Baseball Tee
Pattern Source: Knit 2 Together
Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Truffle and Nymph
Yarn Source: Digs in Northfield, MN
For: An unknown baby. It was going to be for a baby my friends’ adopted, but then I realized I didn’t have the faintest idea what size baby it would be. I made them a bigger sweater that won’t fit him for a year or two.

And here is the hat I promised my friend Liz. I said she probably wouldn’t see it until November.

Pattern: Kim’s Basic Rolled Brim Hat
Pattern Source: Last-Minute Knitted Gifts
Yarn: Malabrigo
Yarn Source: Nestucca Bay Yarns in Lincoln City, OR
Needles: Size 8 METAL DPNs. That was a really loud hat to knit! I have needles belonging to three people and I only have one set of size 8 dpns or circular needles (i.e., I own no Size 8 Circular needles). What is that, Stephanie’s Law?

Cherry Tree Hill Possum Paints

I picked up this yarn over a month ago at Artistic Needles in Salem, Oregon. It was not cheap, at $17.50 a skein. Yarndex says the MSRP is 16.00 a skein. Ah well, at least I didn’t spend $2.00 on gas to buy it. Possum Paints is a DK weight Possum Merino Blend with 80% merino and 20% possum (some sources say it’s 70%-30%). And I bet it will make very very warm fingerless glovesThis yarn could be on sale by now. (Artistic Needles is downsizing slowly over the next several months in preparation for the owner’s retirement.) It is on sale for $12.00 a skein at Fuzzy Mabel. Possum worsted from Cherry Tree Hill is on sale from Seaport Yarn at 8.00 a skein.

I also note that the Cherry Tree Hill Silk and Wool is on sale for $24.00 a skein at Fuzzy Mabel also. This is good news if you want to make Roam.

blue moon destashing

Stop the presses:

Blue Moon Fiber Arts is holding an on-site destashing sale in Scapoose, OR on November 10th at 10AM. Apparently they’ve run out of room.

Checkbook be still!

I think I owe you

I owe you one post about Cherry Tree Hill’s possum yarn and a post about Trekking that I bought and Thimbles and Threads, right?  What’s a knitting blog without full disclosure. I still have like $20 in yarn money too and I’m staying near Hood River (in Cascade Locks). Seems like a good time to head to Knot Another Hat to me!

I’m having a lot of fun in doing the training of my new program and hanging out with the other participants. Its back to hard work (but rewarding) in my community next week.

baby week

What I did this week was buy a new computer, set up a knitting group in Salem, OR, get past the halfway point on Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Baby Surprise from my copy of the all invaluable Knitter’s Workshop, and sew up the side-seams on the Baby Baseball Tee from Knit 2 Together that I finished knitting this past summer. I went to a spinning group where I repeatedly spun counter-clockwise (oops). I also wrote an oral and a written presentation about Veneta, OR, distributed flyers, attended a community gathering, showed my husband my second home and set off the alarm at work. What I did not do is finish a pair of socks. Good thing I have a couple of extra days to finish my monkey swap socks.

The EZ sweater isn’t due until March, but do you have any idea how hard this is to stop? Actually, it’s my knitting group project. I figure it’s the one thing I can work on and talk at the same time! Unfortunately, I think it will be done in a week or two (in two more meetings).

I’ve also wanted to be more disiplined about finishing projects I started, so I’m trying very hard to polish off anything that just needs a little help. Thus the side-seams on the Baby Baseball Tee. This project does not have a home as of yet, but I’m sure someone will turn up for it sometime. I just have to put on the baby bird buttons. You can see them here. The main thing I don’t like is that it’s not perfect. That’s the thing about knitting with cotton. Anything you do wrong, especially with color work shows!

the makeover

miters

Finally, all my ducks are in a row and I’ve got the photographs of the miters for you.

 

There are more still coming my way I hear. It’s not too late. Send some in!

 

@#$! early bed times

I am working very far away from home. Far enough that I have a home away from home, which currently does not have internet access. I got far enough on the Swallowtail Shawl today that I am binding off. It’s a an i-cord bind off as near as I can tell. Unfortunately, there are 323 stitches to bind off and because it’s an i-cord bind off it’s like binding off 642 of them or so.

I went home tonight so I could go out to dinner with a friend of mine (and my husband’s), so it’s an hour and a half commute to work in the morning. So it’s 10:30 and it’s bed time. Just as well as I haven’t got time to block it now. I suppose I can take it to knitting group tomorrow night, where I will be a brand new member. Then I can magically bind it off. So, expect to see a picture of one blocked Swallowtail this Sunday.

Since I’m here, I’ll also mention that I got more miters from Karrie (Girl on the Rocks) and that I do have some photos in the camera of the other miters. There will be internet access in the room I’m renting very soon I’m told. So until then, hold tight. Thanks for the pins Karrie! And the miters are gorgeous. They are going to look fantastic with the others.

I don’t have enough miters, so I’m thinking I will extend the deadline to December 1. Remember we like green cascade 220. They don’t have to be green, but some green is definitely appreciated.

And Sock Wars starts very soon. If you knit in the Salem, Oregon area and want details about the knitting group that is meeting this Sunday afternoon, please leave me a note.

healthcare 2, automotive 2 (addi Lace needles in review)

I had a lot of errands to do this morning. The first one was the doctor’s office, where I had to have an appointment so they could order a bunch of fun blood tests. Some of this stuff drives me crazy – where you need an actual appointment so that they can send you elsewhere on another day. Anyway, in the office, I knit two rows on my Swallowtail Shawl.

Then I did some failed errands (I attempted to buy blocking pins) and managed to end up in Silverton at their knitting shop. I caved and bought some Size 6 Addi Lace needles. And then I had to try them out. So I knit three or four rows there. I’m going to have to get the pins at the hardware store or maybe at OFF. They will be cheaper at the hardware store.

Then I decided to find out why the car has been rattling, so I took the car to the exhaust guys and they had a look. They decided to remove an after-market part and the car seems to be quieter. Cost to me? Nothing. Score one for the car guys While there I knit another two rows or so. The funny thing is that of all my errands, the car one was the shortest. I’m thinking it’s the new Addi Lace needles. They really are faster.

There is no way that I’ll be done in time for OFF. In meantime, I’m in denial and knitting as fast as I can knit lace, which on these needles, is pd fast. I’ve finished the 10th repeat on the Budding Lace 2 chart and am working had to get to the next set of charts. I suspect I’ll be slowed down significantly by those. If anyone has any advice on blocking sea cell, let me know please. I hear I need less soaking time.

second sock september prize

I haven’t been reporting on second sock September, because I haven’t knit much on my own second pair of socks. There are about 27 people signed up through Ravelry. It’s incredibly easy to start knit-alongs and groups there. I decided that people there needed enablement motivation so I’m ponying up some kind of prize, to be determined later. Chances are I’m buying it at Oregon Flock and Fiber. Let me point out that the Duet people and the BFF people are going to OFF.

To get an entry, you must finish a second sock of an uncompleted pair. You must have registered your first sock from an uncompleted pair by Sunday noon PDT either here or in the Ravelry group. You get an entry for every second sock that you have ‘registered’ and completed by Setpember 30th.

yarn change

I ripped out the beginnings of my Swallowtail Shawl and replaced the Cherry Tree Hill with the Sea Silk. I love the Cherry Tree Hill, but it was knitting up way too small. After doing half the repeats, it’s starting to get a bit unwieldly. Do you think I can finish it in time to have it blocked and cry for the Oregon Fiber Festival?

Have I mentioned that this is my first fiber festival? I’ve been to the Scottish festival in Vermont and that includes some fiber related activities (sheepdog trials for example), but never one wholly dedicated to fiber. And this after living a few hours from Estes, Colorado. Although, Estes looked like it might be a crowded that weekend. The last time I didn’t go because I’d been to a wedding in Boulder the day before and hadn’t felt like driving over 2 hours north 2 days in a row.

I want to take a class, but I can’t justify it unless the apartment I end up with turns out to be less than $500 a month.

sock wars ii

Be still my competitive beating heart. I just found out that Sock Wars II (which I think should be called The Sock Strikes Back) is going to take place in the middle of October! Will I make it past round 2 (previously I made it past round 1)? Will I receive a beautiful pair of socks? Will there be a repeat winner? Stay tuned to find out.

second sock september, pair one

The first pair of socks that I’m trying to finish for Knit Your Second Sock September are the BFF socks by Cookie. Cookie and Kristi’s website, Knitter’s Anonymous went kablooie and while it will be up again soonish, there is no link available to the pattern currently.

I freaked myself out because I’d misplaced the final page of instructions. So I cleaned house a bit and put away all my newer knitting patterns and it surfaced.

The first task on these socks was to trip out the foot of the finished first sock. The leg of the second sock has been done for a while, but when I got to it, I noticed that the way the cables were placed over the foot didn’t match on both socks. I realized that I did it wrong on the first sock and ripped it all the way back. It’s a bit unfortunate, because that sock fit beautifully and I fear that I’ve already misplaced the notes that I made detailing the number of rows in the heel and the number of cables made before I did the toe.

I didn’t like the toe on this sock, so I will probably redo it. The only other change that I made was to do a five-row cable instead of a six-row cable. I read a good suggestion somewhere about throwing odd numbered cables into patterns knit in the round just because you can. It probably came out of Cables Untangled by Melissa Leapman.

I keep forgetting that I did this though, so I keep ripping out the cables. And then of course I lose count. It’s a simple sock. Really.

I am resisting the temptation to redo the heel on this sock. I’ll know if I did it wrong if I run out of yarn!

Reduce Speed, Decreases Ahead

Does this picture look familiar? I knit 10 rows on my Pearl Buck Swing Jacket about two weeks ago This brought me up to row 83. Then I ripped them back down to row 79. Repeat. Repeat. Knit 14 rows. Rip back 4 rows. Repeat. Repeat.

For some reason I have a blind spot when it comes to the directions for the Pearl Buck Jacket. This is the third time I’ve knit the initial back panel in full. I’ve knit the bottom 10 rows four times also. There’s nothing too hard about this pattern except that there are a lot of decreases. And I keep knitting past them.

Stitch markers are one thing. But I really should buy a row counter that will ding when I hit the rows where I’m supposed to decrease. Like some kind of weird knitting timer. Does anyone know of one? Or maybe that counter program for your PDA does it?

Since then, I actually finished the back and now I’m stuck on the yoke.

what I don’t know about copyright laws

I wish I understood copyright laws better. This is mainly because I want to do some sock designs, but it seems like every lace pattern ever made is in a book somewhere. So far, it seems like it’s okay to do whatI’m about to do, which is to take a motif and transform it to produce something wholly new, yet still very familiar. I think the original motif is really very recognizable, but it’s so simple, I’m not sure there’s a way around using it. It’s a very basic small chart, but I’m changing the numbers and the repetitions and the placement in a very unique way, I think. I’m really just guessing, so wish me luck with the socks I’m designing. They are going to be pretty. As in PURTY.

Resources:

• The Girl from Auntie
• Knitty
• Ravelry Discussion Thread (You must be logged in.)

miter illness

This spring I met Ann and Kay in Portland and since then, I’ve been slowly collecting Tahki Cotton Colors, ostensibly for use in a blanket of my own design. Of course, I also read this thread from Cara over at January One and between the two events, I’ve kept the Mitered Square blanket in the back of my mind. Still, I wanted to copy a quilt I saw on some guy’s knitting blog. The person’s blog was one of the people listed by Franklin on Panopticon, but now I can’t remember where the photo of the quilt went. I’m sure I have a copy of it on the backup I made of my hard drive before we moved. The design is pretty complicated and I’ve been working on graphing it with the help of a professional mathematician (i.e. my hubby).

now returning to our regularly scheduled program

I may have gone a little overboard during my vacation. Honestly, I didn’t think there was that much shopping or knitting going on, but I guess I overcompensated in the last few days of my trip.

Now that my friend has gone home to New York, I can catch up on the blog.

Overall my vacation was pretty awesome. I’ll be posting about it here and there for a few days to come. On the downside, I dropped my engagement ring somewhere at the Oregon Sand Dunes Recreation Area in Reedsport. It’s not an expensive ring, but it does have a lot of sentimental value. I had a brainstorm this morning and I’m working with some folks who perform metal detecting services to see if maybe they can turn it up. What a place to drop your ring!

While I was gone I finished my third pair of Monkey Socks. These are for my Sockapalooza 4 partner, who is excitedly anticipating their arrival. I’m also sending her a few other goodies, but I’ve got to go to pick up a few more things to make the package complete.

my post blew up

My post blew up and I’m none too happy about it. Seeing as how I spent this afternoon, working on my machine, only to discover that all it needed was a new battery, I’m in no mood to rewrite it. So more expect more delays, while I’m in Walla Walla, Washington this weekend visiting friends. In the meantime, here’s a sock. I have to say, I love how the Colinette Jitterbug knits up. It’s so nice! I just hope it wears well. I’m saving the second one for my knit along, Knit Your Second Sock September.
That way, you can start Socktoberfest with a clean plate.

no sheep for you

My No Sheep for You swap package arrived on Monday. It’s great! I got some Vicki Howell Craft and some Hemp for Knitting yarn. The greens are lovely! I’m not sure what I’m going to knit yet, although the bag pattern my secret pal included looks intriguing.

Thank you Secret Pal! Please contact me for my new address in Salem. I’m moving July 14th!

green bean

This is for a new green bean of some friends of mine. He’s around 12 weeks old. I think he’ll like it, even if it is 100% wool.

Pattern: Easy Raglan by Elizabeth Mills
Size Made: Age 2
Yarn: Araucania Nature Wool
Yarn Source: Knitter’s Palette Yarn Shop
Needles: US Size 5 and 7
Start Date: Approximately June 15, 2007
Finish Date: June 28, 2007
Project Cost: <$25.00 (Regular retail price)

design rules for sleeves?

I had a brain fart last night. Thank goodness for the net. My instructions for an Easy Raglan baby sweater, say “Work straight until sleeve measures 7″ or desired length to cuff, ending with a purl row.” Without the usual statement of from underarm to cuff, I was utterly confused. Obviously I don’t knit much for other people.

I used my brain though and I examined it by holding the sleeve against the garment. Like the sweatshirt I was wearing, it seemed that if you fold the sleeve at the shoulder seam towards the center of the garment, the bottom of the sleeve (with the underarm at 6″) would hit the waist of the garment after 7″ and the ribbing.

must be fo week – puff baby

Pattern: Heavily modified version of Puff Baby from Jill Eaton’s Minnies
Yarn: Lane Borgosesia dal 1850
Yarn Source: Probably Holly Berry Needleworks or Green Valley Weavers in Colorado Springs
Needle Size: US 11
Started: 2004? Completed: 6/26/2007

It must be FO week. (This does not mean that there will be an FO tomorrow.) Note the total lack of a rear side and the absence of the 272 bobbles. I conferred with Josh and we agreed that the bobbles, in fuschia, would be ‘a little over the top.’ Now that’s an understatement. I also replaced the i-cord edging with the ruffles to make up for the lack of bobbles. I also left out the second side, which I thought would be too warm. Besides, I had planned for it to be teal god, the color would have been awful. I’ve taken the nearly 3′ x 3′ square of stockinette, frogged and some of it and wound it (go ball winder go). I’m sure I can felt something nice out the remainder. I originally had a second blanket planned in Lamb’s Pride Bulky and I felt that it would have been a better color choice, but I sold that one.

Maybe tomorrow you’ll see a giant teal bag (or not – it’s super wash). Moving sure is inspiring.

colorado springs weather for babies

Hmm. I finished the first sleeve of the baby baseball tee and it just occurred to me. July is hot. It’s hot here though. Here it’s 90 degrees and humid. In Colorado Springs, where this sweater is destined, it’s 74 and dry during the day and 52 and dry at night. So here’s the question for you. Would you put a long-sleeve sweater/tee on a 3 month old baby in this weather? It’s 80% Cotton and 20% wool. The parents probably don’t have air conditioning.

I can see I’d better write an article on knitting for babies. For my own edification if for no other reason. I’m clearly having issues with the variables of size, sex, birth timing and weather. It will be called knitting for babies for dummies.

A Beached Cat or Monkey See, Monkey Too

My second pair of Monkey Socks.
Yarn: Koigu
Yarn Source: Needleworks Unlimited
Needles: Size 1 1/2 Addi Turbo DPN
Pattern: Monkey Socks by Cookie A (available from Knitty)
Finished: June 14, 2007

one down, three to go

Pretend its winter

Originally uploaded by moiraeknitting.
Pattern: Multi-directional Scarf
Pattern Author: Karen Baumer
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden
Yarn Source: Needleworks Unlimited
Needles: Addi Turbo Size 7 circular
Finished: June 6, 2007

One down. Three to go. See ya when I get back from my high school reunion.

multi-madness

I finished my HUGE job application last week and spent the weekend in recovery. I’ve been a bad blogger and left you photoless recently. I bet you’d actually like to see the scarves I’ve been working on. The first two shots are of one scarf that’s made of scrap Noro Kureyon.

juggling scarves

Even when I’m under a deadline, I still make time for knitting. I went off to the Wednesday night meet up and had a good time again. I was a little late because I’d made a stop at Needleworks Unlimited to spend the last amount on my card before I got a $20 gift certificate. So I bought a pile of stuff. It’s not yarn diet breakage.

I purchased a couple of things for my No Sheep for You Pal which I can’t show you. I also made a huge mistake. The basic rule behind the No Sheep for You swap is the entire lack of wool fiber in the yarn and I picked up TOFUtsies, thinking it was mainly soysilk. Ooops. I guess I’ll bring it back. The other skein is pretty nice though and I’ll send it off over the weekend.

I guess I’m a little scarf obsessed at the moment. Not only am I working on two chevron scarves, but I started two Multi-directional scarves as well. One is in Noro Kureyon and the other in Silk Garden. But hey, I learned how to juggle scarves in college.Just not 4 at a time.

This weekend I’ll be working on my slightly overdue Hurricane Sock party project. SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My essays took priority.

the perfect sock

I love these socks. Just how I like ‘em, which is the whole point of knitting them yourself right? (Kind of.) Actually, next time I might make ‘em a little taller. I finished them on Wednesday, but I needed to finish writing about New York.

My favorite thing about these are the Lucy Neatby garter stitch heel I used. No holes and no gusset!

Also great is that these are my Project Spectrum 2.0 socks, my May Socks for the knit a sock a month KAL and count towards the Lime and Violet Sock Marathon. (I’ve down about 900 yards so far.) Next I’m going to finish up my Koigu monkey socks.

By the way did you know there’s a knit 52 pairs of socks in a year KAL? Check out the 52 Pair Plunge.

Pattern: My Own
Style: Toe-up on two circular needles
Stitch: Used continental style knitting! Yeah!
Heel: Lucy Neatby’s garter stitch heel
Yarn Source: Three Bags Full
Yarn: Sweet Georgia – Afterglow (temporarily discontinued)
Needles: 32″ Size 0 Addi Circular (two pairs)

They are the best fitting pair of socks I’ve made for myself. I had 56 stitches around at the beginning, but after the heel I’d increased it to 62 so they’d feel nice around my leg. I might make a taller pair sometime.

sox and travel

Wow, I’m down to the wire again with the whole packing thing. But first, let you know that Karrie won the contest. I’ve gotten her choice, but I’ll leave it to her to reveal it to you on her own blog when she gets it.

Oh dear.

Spartacus among the saffron

Spartacus among the saffron

Originally uploaded by moiraeknitting.

Maybe a skein a day is a tad ambitious. My slogging has come to a dead halt. See why? Maybe she’ll do a few rows for me? That would be great! The row I’m on, 27, is a doozy.

slog and other random things

I think I got sick of ribbing and garter stitch. That last sweater I made may have looked like a cable nightmare, but those cables are 16 rows apart. So it was a lot of ribbing.

I’ve been on my saffron cables blanket for the Mason-Dixon Slogalong. Yep, just in time for summer. I’m on ball 2 of 18.

I’d gotten stuck around row 25 or so for a while. I ripped back multiple times and I went down to 19 the other day and now have a mistake free (I believe) project. I’m up to row 26 of 225. There’s only 141 yards in a skein, so I’m wondering if I could knit a skein a day and still have time for my other projects. (That baby is probably getting too big for the outfit already. NEVER make newborn sized clothing.) And I’ve got some sewing to do on Lizard Ridge. And I want to make the second perfect fitting sock. I’m on the toe.

done with sock yarn purchases for 2007

This is my new sock that I’m working on. It’s just a basic sock, only I’m knitting it all continental style. I’m wondering if anyone wants to do a continental along. You could join if you were new to continental style and trying to switch or if you were a new knitter, learning continental knitting. Isn’t the Sweet Georgia heavenly? This is Afterglow and only one of many skeins that I will show you in this post. I’m adoring it’s utter lack of pooling.

socks to envy (rapid river socks)

1. Rapid River Socks, 2. in Lorna’s Laces, 3. Pattern By Sock Bug

 

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

Completed 04/26/2007 (early in the AM)

Pattern: Rapid River Socks by Sock Bug
Yarn: Lorna’s Laces – ~1.2 skeins
Yarn Source: Needleworks Unlimited
Needles: 2x Circular Addi Turbos Size 1 (2.5 mm) 24″
Eye of the Partridge Heel: Size 0 Addi Turbo DPNs

a nfo

Check this out. I’m so excited about the way it felted! Tonight, I’ll attach the bag handles and I’ll take it with me on my trip to Portland. I might have to add one snap to the bag so nothing falls out of it. Also, I’ll have to locate a sweater shaver and do a little triming.

I really like the way I set it up to dry and I do think it’s drying much more quickly than it would otherwise. Those are two metal cookie racks and a cookie pan. The pan prevents the racks from spreading apart and catches the drips. There were a lot of drips! The racks are tied together at the top with some Noro ends.

Also, when I was hunting around on the Mason-Dixon knitting blog, I discovered that Ann and Kay are going to be in Portland Wednesday night at Abundant Yarn! If only my husband will let me/take me, I can go! I’m also supposed to be having coffee with a friend, so I hope it will all work out.

Whee. That would give me a huge chance to meet Portland and Oregon knitters before I move. The other thing was that they were collecting urls of Portland knit bloggers, so I can add them to my list of all knitting things Oregon…

catching up

This is what I’ve been up to.

These are some squares made from Noro Kureyon inspired by Amy Swenson, the designer behind indiknits‘. The pattern I’d been eyeing was the Saratoga Sunburst, felted handbag. I saw one someone else had made and had to have something like it! It’s slow because I can’t count to 100 and I keep losing the 5th needle. Seriously, I can find my size 0 needles more easily than one 11. What’s with that?

a free hat pattern – one skein, one day wonder hat

Hi. This is a free hat pattern and is free to you under a creative commons license (listed in the pattern). There are actually two versions of this hat in the pattern. It’s also free for yarn shop owners to give out, but you might want to read it over first, because it’s my first pattern. I hope some day to actually be able to sell patterns, so I’d love feedback. This is meant to be a quick hat, but it still has a few nice details for a little bit of a challenge. It features cables, picot edging and some interesting decreases, all of which result in what I think is a pretty cute hat.

Note: The stitch repeat is 12, not 6, because of the decreases.

I would have liked to issue a child sized hat, but the only feedback I’ve gotten on head-size is that my friend’s four year old has a 20″ head. Given that that is a size for an average adult woman, you could probably cast on 96 stitches instead of 108 and go from there for a kid’s hat. I haven’t tried it yet though.

Here you go. Have fun. Push the “save a copy” button in the upper left-hand corner of your screen to save a copy to your computer. Print away and feel free to distribute the pattern freely. But please, don’t mess with my picture!

2/15: Author’s Note: A friend of mine has recently knit this hat and we think some errata are necessary. So I’m knitting the hat again following my own directions and will probably write up a nicer pattern with color pics and with more sizes.

11/19/08; new pattern with errata is loaded.

I’d happily accept any monetary contributions you’d care to send my way if you like the pattern via Paypal. You can donate here if you think it was worth it.

knitters gone wild at the mall

Over 500 (that’s my rough guess) knitters ran wild this weekend at the Mall of America for the Knit Out. The Knit Out was sponsored by the Minnesota Knitter’s Guild and featured knitting and crochet lessons, book signings, displays of the latest knitwear, speed knitting competitions, and a dog sweater fashion show. Knitters of all ages were spotted standing in half-hour long lines for free crochet hooks, coupons, knitting needles (Clover in various sizes), yarn (from Michael’s) and other swag (sometimes known as Stuff We All Get).

One or two people found the event disruptive. A non-knitter was overheard remarking that the mall was overrun and it made parking and shopping difficult. On the whole, people enjoyed the event. In particular, the doggy sweater fashion show and the speed knitting competitions were well attended.

The models (Abby depicted above) were provided by the Animal Humane Society and are licensed therapy dogs. They serve as ambassadors for the Humane Society and frequently travel to cheer up the sick and the elderly. Many different types of animals are licensed therapy pets; more information can be found here.

If you are interested in learning more about knitting for your dog, check out Dog Gone Knit, a Squidoo site. It’s a sort combination of a blog/catalog about knitting for your dogs and has some free patterns. I have a cat myself and there’s no real knitting for cats. They’ll sit on or play with all of your knitting.

Now for the sickeningly cute part. I asked if I could photograph the models and addition to being allowed to post the photographs on my blog, I got to pet everyone too! I’m sure my blood pressure dropped a bunch.

first things first

Okay, it’s the third. And I already posted a blog entry, but it was short, so it doesn’t count.

I got back from visiting friends and family over the holidays yesterday. I also had an interview, which I think went well but I’ll see if that was good enough later.

I saw my Mom, which also allowed me to take some pictures of some knitting gifts I’ve given her over the past few years.

This first sweater is the Norwegian Roses Cardigan and knit in Green Mountain Spinnery wool. I know that some of the colors I used were Ice Blue and Periwinkle. Whenever I see it in person, I always say the same tthing. ‘What crazy person made that?’ I had a close look at it and I think I was fairly consistent about keeping one color in front of the other on any given pattern. You used to be able to order this pattern individually. It’s not listed that way on their website, but you could always call and ask.

fustration nearly saved by yarn pr0n

After messing around with yet another sleeve on the Huntington Castle pullover yesterday, I realized some more things about sweater design, sleeve changes and whatnot and decided I really hate the entire thing. I sewed the shoulder seams first and tried it out. I’m not happy with the length. I’m not happy with the width. I hate the dang sleeves and I’m going to redesign the whole thing…..someday. I’m going back to my Pearl Buck sweater for now. I still have high hopes of finishing it by my birthday next month, so I have to pack it for my Christmas vacation.

celebrating the solstice with increases – m1 (make one)

My main order of business is to tell you about some the knitting techniques I’m using to work on the sleeves for my Huntingtion Castle pullover (Interweave Knits Fall 2004). But first, there are a couple of things I want to catch up on and then we in the Northern Hempisphere can go and celebrate the winter solstice. I’m a bit of a pagan if anything at all.

I promised a couple more pictures of my One Skein, One Day Wonder hat. So here is the best I could do in this rainy, grey weather we’re having. Sorry about the focus, but if I used a flash, the color would be off.

Also, I knit another Lizard Ridge square on Monday and have been debating about whether it goes into the Afghans for Afghans or not. I may still knit another blanket for myself at some point. But I haven’t blocked it, so I haven’t photographed it yet.

slow socks

For what it’s worth, I finished my Conwy socks. Aren’t they gorgeous? They are also the best fitting socks I’ve made to date. I want to thank Stephen at the Yarn Garage, who helped me master the stitch back in July. I have a couple of other completed pairs, so don’t be surprised if more finished objects surface before the end of the week. After that I should be able to get started on the speed knitting, that I so want to do. I wonder, would the RPM sock work as speed knitting? Can you believe the amount of left-over yarn? Anyone got more or need some of the Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Wildflower?

thanksgiving cabins and yarn sales

But, first a quick Sock Wars update. I just didn’t have time yesterday. Heraldis won! In the spirit of fairness, the Yarn Monkey changed the rules for the final round. Rather than being targeted with a pair of socks, she had people send her a note, postcard, or other mail. In a stunningly brilliant move Heraldis used Interfloral to tag the Yarn Monkey. Congratulations to all the Sock warriors out there. Everyone else out there should be finishing up their last pair of socks so that everyone gets a pair of socks out of sock wars. Not bad. I know mine are keeping my feet toasty.

On the way up to our friends’ lakeside cabin, we went stopped the 3 Kittens Needlearts Yarn sale (formerly known as Three Kittens Yarn Shop). All I can say is OMG.

That sale rocked!

sunday update

I took a picture of a hat I made for my husband in 1997 (after he lost the orginal). It’s chenille of all ridiculous things and made on Size 2 needles. I’m at a loss for fiber for him. The chenille works because it’s knit at a tight gauge and it’s more or less meant to keep heat from escaping his head, although generally it goes on my head when we’re out because I haven’t got a hat made yet for me. In a way it’s the only pattern I ever wrote or adapted. I think I actually measured his head when I did it.

socks in snow

Must knit faster.

I woke up earlyish this morning to a winter wonderland. Then I went back to bed.

I really would like to finish the sock depicted in this photograph soon – I’m nearly down to the toe and I’m a bit worried I won’t have enough yarn left. I’m not even sure how this is possible. You can’t see the sock right now, sorry, it’s not done. You really shouldn’t stretch your uncompleted sock over the handle of a shovel without expecting some stitches to come undone. And the big stripe in the photograph? I had to leave the ball of yarn in my pocket.

It’s a BFF sock in Cherry Tree Hill (by Cookie). There are several possibilities as to why I am worried about the amount remaining yarn. One is that the cables eat yarn and I mean EAT. Another is that when I divided the yarn into balls I did so unevenly. A third is that 420 yards isn’t what it used to be. We’ll see.

modifications to the sleeves of the pearl buck jacket

These are notes primarily meant for me, but feel free to try to follow along and watch me struggle through the knitting math involved in modifying the armholes to fit my non-model arms for the Pearl Buck Jacket shown in the Winter 2005 issue of Interweave Knits. I have never done this level of pattern modification before, so if you are also new to rescaling patterns at least wait to see how it turns out before following my lead. If have some more experience in this area, please chime in with any suggestions you might have.

some semi-fos

Here are some shots of the the Nordic Mitten from Interweave Knits that I showed you the other day. I am very disappointed by it and so will probably set down the project for a while. I wove in most of the ends, but the thumb is also a bit short and I should fix that. The cuff is tight, despite the fact that it seemed fine earlier and there’s a very wierd puff between the cuff and the hand. The pattern asks that you use smaller needles on the cuff and I’m thinking that was a bad idea. I will either scratch this mitten entirely or finish the set, give it to small person (probably impossible because I have small hands and anyone smaller that these would fit will not necessarily have smaller wrists….), or just go ahead and make a new set for me at a later date. I’m quite grumpy about it. I will probably do the thumb in a week or two and then wash and block them in the hopes that the wrist can be blocked to a more comfortable size.

my pretend rhinebeck loot and yarn diet 2007 contest

I have to tell you that I never even knew Rhinebeck existed until sometime this summer. And now I know this, because the Internet is EVIL EVIL EVIL. I didn’t go to Rhinebeck and I missed Estes Park – too tired from a crazy week even though it was only a 1 1/2 hr drive so I yet again have failed on the fiber festival front.

misty chunky ribs and ruffles scarf

That went quickly and that’s one soft yarn! I kept touching it over and over again.

Pattern Name: Misti Chunky Ribs and Ruffles Scarf by Misti International, Inc. and Nancy Kleiber. The pattern came with the yarn.
Yarn: Misti Chunky Baby Alpaca, 108 yards per 100g skein (wierd on Yarndex. com it says 50g)
Fiber Content: 100% Peruvian Alpaca
Color: Aquamarine (#3317)
Yarn Source: Knitter’s Palette
Finished Size: ~ 4″ x 53″
Project Price: $13.80
Time for completion: Less than Season 1 of Battlestar Gallatica, not including the two hour mini-series. I’m guessing 6-8 hours. I started last night after Episode 4 and finished this afternoon during some of the DVD extras.
Needles: Size 13 / 9.0 mm by Aero
Notes: The pattern says to stop when you have eight yards to go. I measured it out when I thought I was close and this worked really well. After binding off I had enough of a tail to go almost all the way across the ruffle. I used a long-tail cast-on and wished I had been a little more careful with the yarn there as I probably could have gotten four or five rows out of the two yards I chopped off.

a finished object

I finished a dish cloth! I still want to take a creative shot for the Hilltop blog contest though. (Okay, I still need to weave in the ends. I can’t find my sewing needle vial!) Doesn’t it look just like the one in their photo under Ball Band Wagon update?

Finished 10/16/2006
Yarn: Made with Sugar ‘n Cream
Source: Needleworks

the first of the lizards

The first batch of Lizard Ridge has arrived, which is really reassuring. Pattern author, Laura Aylor sent one in Kureyon #170 along with a Peacock Blue skein of Cascade 220.

Not to be outdone, Kate sent me two squares (I’ll publish their colorways as soon as I know them). I compared square sizes and they all are about the same size.

my woolly death

I am now among the fallen. They are a nice fit, but they were really cold when I put them on. I guess they sat in the mailbox for an hour or so. My feet are warm now, but it was cold going outside to photograph the socks. I guess revenge is a dish best served cold. They are a little darker than in the picture, but I love how they look black or blue in different light.

Killed by Vautrey77 on October 12 at 2:45 PM. I’m not entirely sure whether the yarn came from Sunni or not, but Yarn: Jo Sharp DK Wool. 100% wool.

She also sent me a nice California magnet, which is now on my fridge with a few other magnets that I have gotten with yarn purchases. How’d she know I needed a magnet? Lucky Vautrey, the yarn your next victim has will be really nice to work with and your assassin is TurtleKnits. Go get your next victim, I’m rooting for you.
I’m really happy that I got to knit two pairs of socks.

Here’s a little statistical information for you all.

Sock Wars Participants	no status	26	dead	389	living	241	deserters	25

a few notes on Lizard Ridge squares and other KAL updates

Lizard Ridge Notes
I’m on my third lizard ridge square and have a few notes for you all.

Please consider taking a picture of yourself with your squares or knitting your squares and posting it on your blog or other downloadable spot like our flickr group – I could send some pictures along with the completed Afghan.

I’m also accepting Kureyon scraps, though you would have to send a lot of scrap Kureyonto get a ticket in the raffle.

The official blocking size is 10.5″ by 10.5″. Block it however you want, just don’t iron the wool.

If you are going to slip the first stitch of every row, you probably don’t want to do it on a color change row, because it won’t have the right color and may detract from the overall design (probably not), even if that stitch is part of the sewing.

If working with only one skein of Kureyon at a time it may be good to designate the inside strand as rows 1-6 and the outside strand as rows 7-12 (or vice versa) and do it consistently so you always know which set of six rows you are doing. Sometimes the colors are very close to one another; and I’ve never been great at counting rows, even though I know how.

Eucalyptus wool wash seems to keep my cats off the wet wool. I know this because the main culprit (depicted here) has a chronically dry nose. At one point we took the vet’s advice and attempted to help out his poor nose by painting it with Eucalyptus balm. From the first minute he saw us open up the balm, he hated the smell and he still hates it. I’m not even sure if I’ve ever got it on his nose. Yesterday, after soaking the wool in wool wash I got a little on me. Elmo came over to say hi, took one sniff and ran for his kitty life. I picked it out because the lady at the shop thought that there was some anecdotal evidence that suggests that it repels moths, but apparently it also repels cats!

Sock Wars and Socktober Fest

1833, 1835, 1970, 2003

Oberlin College was formed in 1833 and began regular admissions of African-American two years later in 1835. The town was a hotbed of Underground Railroad activity. The college is also the oldest continuously operating co-education institution. In the 1970, Oberlin became one of the first colleges in country to have co-ed dorms. Perhaps not nearly as momentously important, in 2003 knitting took off at the college and now many students knit in class.

To my great delight and consternation, I spotted this wonderful change to Smith’s Furnishings. Somehow, I managed to resist buying absolutely anything. I don’t know how I did it. Today’s Yarn Erotica might explain why. Actually, I just thought they’d be open on Sunday and ran out of time on Saturday to go back. Check out the entrelac they had in the window.

loom identification

Can anyone help me identify what kind of loom this is? I never use it and am probably going to sell it. It was bought around 1991.

twin cities knitter’s picnic / day of knitting

Rose Garden, Lake Harriet, Minneapolis, MN

For those of you who don’t already know, there are tons of knitting groups available online. Joining them is a great way to meet new people and advance your craft. That being said, I went to the Twin Cities Knitter’s Picnic today and had a blast. I met at least 30 other Twin Cities area knitters out by the Rose Garden at Lake Harriet. It was a beautiful day for a picnic and our host got us a great fountainside spot in the shade.

I passed a pleasant couple of hours in a shady spot, listening to the gurgling fountain, knitting and oggling everyone’s projects. One woman had an incredible looking shawl. I did a little more work on my second Baudelaire sock. That’s right, the SECOND sock. I finished the first one yesterday, but without a photograph it seemed pointless to bring it up, but whatever. I can throw the photo in here later.

I also went back to work on the Conwy socks and I’m doing the toe for the first one tonight. It’s wonderful in the Bearfoot and everyone admired the yarn. I thought they were a bit dense at first, but someone said something today that reminded me that they will wear well (unlike my Baudelaires which aren’t at the best gauge in the world at 6.5 stitches to the inch). Obviously they’ll be warm too. I’d actually forgotten all about how socks wear. I think in the back of my mind I know that I usually lose socks well before they even have a chance of wearing out. Part of this is my lack of concentration and part of this is because I have a wonderful cat who loves to dig around in my sock drawer, remove the socks, and transport her sock babies around the house in her mouth. I look under the bed every couple of weeks and rescue 80% of them. I find the others behind the dryer when I move and in other strange locations.

I met several fellow bloggers at the picnic. It was very exciting to match up faces with blogs. Among the bloggers were, Christy from Purling Away, Knitty Mama along with the adorable knitty baby, Nancy from Clicking Sticks and Tipper, from Daily Fiber Therapy. Rina took the picture shown above. She took more and they can be seen here. One blogger, Chris of Stumbling Over Chaos, even had her own blog card. I’m jealous and I think I’ll have to make up a few before I go off to see Stephanie. I want to impress, but I’m sure she has her own card.

I can’t remember everyone’s names and blogs but I’m sure I’ll get my hands on a more complete list soon. When I do, I’ll be putting up links on the newly created Minnesota page. I realized that my sidebar was rapidly becoming a mess and that the best way of coping with it was to give Minnesota resources their own page.

The Knitter’s Palette

I also went by the Knitter’s Palette on my way home from the picnic. I had thought about doing this earlier, but had not managed to organize myself enough to download directions. Fortunately, Betsy had. (To the best of my knowledge, Betsy does not have a blog so I can’t include it here.) The Knitter’s Palette is a relatively new shop in Lakeville and it hosts a knitting group from 1:00pm to 3:00pm every Sunday.

I thought it was a very nicely laid out shop and full of wonderful yarns like Lorna’s Laces, Trekking XXL, Andes, Rowan Big Wool, They have a decent seating area.

I bought some pretty blue Trekking XXL. I had to.

As a bonus, they are next door to Kowalski’s market, so I picked up a couple of treats to take home. My husband was pleased because he scored a can of his favorite brand of caffe espresso coffee, Caffe Nero’s Medaglia D’oro. He’s been rather unhappy since it is not available at Cub, Just Food (our co-op), or Whole Foods.

I had a lot of fun today, but I paid the price in exhaustion when I got home and had to have a two hour nap. The latest cold that I had caught is still stuck to me by a thread. I get wiped out very easily and I’m planning to head to the doctor’s office to make sure I haven’t got another sinus infection. I honestly thought I was well enough to hang out with people; clearly I haven’t been getting up very much lately. I hope it wasn’t contagious. There was an adorable baby there, but I did not handle him if that helps.
Word Press and Badges

Somehow, I just figured this out today after a dicussion at the picnic and some exploring in the help files. I still think an actual tutorial is needed, so here you go.

To insert a badge into your blog on wordpress.com go into the sidebar widgets section of your presentation page. Drag a text widget into your sidebar and customize it by double clikcing on the widget. Common code includes <a href=”the link here”> <img src=”your image link here” width=# height = #</a>.

Here’s an example.
<p><a href=”http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kotr-sock-kal/”><img src=”http://threefates.files.wordpress.com/2006/08/kotrbutton2.gif”></a></p>

Center the entire thing by enclosing it with <div align=center> and </div> and you are off and running.

For the image link, the best thing to do is to save the image to your desktop by right clicking on it. Open up the post page and upload the image. Drag it into the post, select the image and click on the little image picture. A window containing the link will pop-up. Copy the link and ditch the post.

*It is not polite to link the image back to the source. This is called stealing bandwidth and is highly uncool.*

I think my battery comes tomorrow, so look for images then. They will likely go straight into the posts they belong in.

saffron cables

I can’t help but notice that I’m getting a little traffic from people looking for others knitting the saffron cables blanket from Interweave Knits. I also can’t help but notice that only one other person out there (to my knowledge) is really posting about working on it. So as a little incentive, let me announce the saffron cables knit along.

Knit along with me and I’ll post a link to your blog and a link to a photograph of your blanket (when you have a photograph of your blanket in any stage) on the saffron cables gallery. Please let me know the brand of yarn, color of yarn and needles that you are planning to use. Also if you are planning any modifications let me know!

I think we lonely few could stand from a little encouragement from each other.

Have fun!

baudelaire socks, needles & saffron cables

Baudelaire

Let me start with the Baudelaire socks since they’ve driven me crazy six ways of sideways. I was having some trouble again and I decided that the yarn has been reknit a few too many times. So, I wound the other skein and started over on that one. I will “refurbish” the old yarn by unraveling it, wetting it and hanging it to dry with a weight, as recommended by Vogue Knitting. It’s just been stretched too many times from the frogging and I’m afraid my socks won’t match unless I do this. The new sock is going well.

In the proces I realized that some of the trouble is due to the fact that I was using my Addi Turbos for these socks. Now they say they are US #2 on the package, but they also say they are 3.0 mm. My Brittanys are 2.75 mm and the pattern calls for 2.5mm. All of which claim to be US Size #2.
I actually have never really considered this before because I do gauge swatches. As long as you do the gauge swatch it shouldn’t matter. It just means more tools in your arsenal. FYI, US #2 knitting needles are 2.75 mm, 3.0 is nothing in US and I think Cookie & Knitty just dropped the 7 in the 2.75mm.

The real trouble stems from the fact that this is a toe-up pattern in a yarn I’ve used before on Addi’s. I used the toe-up as sort of a rough swatch since I generally know how Lorna’s Laces knits up with Addi’s. But the toe didn’t really fit on the Addi’s so I did the toe on the Brittany needles. Oops. This explains a lot why the sock part seemed a little loose. Normally I use the Brittany’s to finish off the sock and if it’s a little tighter around the toe it doesn’t matter because I have little feet.

I’ve switched to the Brittany’s for this pattern and now it’s going much better. I love my Addi’s but from now on I’m going to be more careful.

Saffron Cables

I’m trying to do about 5 rows a day. I’m about fourteen rows behind, including today’s five rows. I’m at 6 1/4″ including the 3″ border (skein 3/18 and on row 19). I’m using a whole host of the stitch markers I made recently and they are doing their best to slow me up enough to recognize what graph I’m on. I’m sort of wishing I’d made some alphabet stitch markers so I could have an A in front of chart A and a B in front of chart B and so on. (Although, how would that work on the reverse side?)

The cables are going well now that the cable rows and seed stitch patterns are set up. I don’t have to look at the chart as often as I thought I would. This is because there are only three elements to these cables, all of which can be determined by looking at your work as you go. The cables are either four-stitch or six-sitch cables. They go either left or right. In the four-stitch cables the 1-sitch part of it is either a knit or a purl and you can tell this because the reason it’s either a knit or a purl stitch is because that fourth stitch is part of a seed stitch pattern. Finally some of the cables are part of an increasing/decreasing V and some are vertical. If you know what’s what, it’s not so bad.

In short it’s going faster now and I’m not unventing and redoing cables from previous rows anymore (fingers, toes and eyes crossed).

Another Shopgirl is also knitting Saffron Cables. We’re both crazy.

I hope my battery will be here next week. I miss being able to illustrate my blog.

uber geeky road trip

I’m feeling a lot better, though still at considerably less than 100%. My nose looks like I’ve blown it two million times, which I have, but I’m a lot less tired.

I’m going go on a road trip. I’m going to go on a road trip with the Heathen Housewife to see the Yarn Harlot in Eau Claire, WI at Yellow Dog Knitting. Doesn’t that sound great? I’m also planning to drive, so I probably won’t be able to knit much, but I can’t knit for 2 1/2 hrs straight anyway.

Also some books came for me from the Crafter’s Choice people. (I paid $14.25, if you must know. Of course, they are going to send me a TON of junk mail and I have to buy one more book. Also there’s that junk about them sending me stuff unless I return the little mailer saying that I don’t want it on time.)
The books I bought are:

Mason-Dixon Knitting
Sensational Knitted Socks
Vogue Knitting Stitchionary, Volume 1 Knit & Purl
Vogue Knitting Stitchionary, Volume 2 Cables
The Yarn Girls’ Guide to Beyond the Basics

I’m really happy to have the stitchionarys. For a long time I’ve felt that just Vogue Knitting wasn’t enough. The others are books that I’d like to have, but I didn’t feel I’d make enough items in them in order to justify their purchase. Now they are MINE! Volume 3 is coming out soon I hear.

One thing I found that was disappointing was that Crafter’s Choice didn’t seem to have the Nicky Epstein books, although one was shown in their advertisement in Interweave Knits. Maybe I’ll ask them about it. The other thing was that I just barely found five books that I wanted and don’t already have. They had a few other nice ones, but I feel I got the best ones. There is one more I want, so I’ll be able to fufill my part of the devil’s pact.

low energy

Alas, the battery people tell me my camera battery is on backorder until August 27th, so I have no pictures to show you. I think this may be a ruse on their part, but we’ll see. I have some kind of chest cold so I’m running on low energy too. Going out for half an hour make me exhausted.

In the mean time, for no apparent reason I’ve decided to work on the Saffron Cables blanket from this fall’s Interweave Knits, despite the fact that I have a fever. I decided that I’m hot and I’m going to be hot and it doesn’t matter how hot… I’m using the Valley Berkshire from WEBS in Blue Ming. I can’t imagine what I’d do with the orange in my house, although it would be nice for a Bronco’s tail gate. It’s 85% Wool and 15% Alpaca. I’m also glad that I ordered the 40″ needles to go with it. The largest size I had were the 32″ needles and I would have had stitches slipping off the needle left and right. I can’t imagine what the project will be like when I have 10 square feet on the needles. (That’s half the blanket.)

anti-clockwise

Some days it feels like life is going backwards or even anti-clockwise. I found out our belongings won’t arrive for yet another week. I’ve also found out that going two weeks without access to my computer, my books, all my knitting, and the television is tougher than I would like to admit. This has a lot to do with me not having a job and being married to someone who works all the time, whilst having the appearance of having the summer off. Normally, when I’m unemployed, I apply for jobs while trying to distract myself from being a housewife as much as possible. I’m lucky; I have a low-maintenance husband who cooks, does dishes and laundry. He even likes to do it because then he can listen to his audio books. A lot of people ask me how I avoid insanity. Now I know. (I am habitually unemployed because this is a by-product of being married to a professor without a tenure track job.)

Today, I finished a Widdershin sock and pitched a fit trying to do so. It is not my husband’s fault that he had the car and that he got caught up in work so that I ended up incredibly bored in the house. I was annoyed with everything and everyone and I only had two things I could do; I could either read a book or work on socks. (No computer, no job hunt.) After three hours of sailing away on the Widdershins sock, I started having a lot of trouble with the pattern. I couldn’t decide how long to make the sock and every time I tried it on to see how long it was, it looked like it had gotten shorter. So I’d tell myself, one more cable and then I’d be done. After a while of doing this, I suddenly found I couldn’t do a cable row properly anymore! I had been doing quite well up until about two o’clock this afternoon. At which point there was a kaboom and the universe blew up. Or maybe it was just me.

My husband came home and cheered me up by going with me to do some errands that included returning something to a store and going to IKEA for some dishes. (Of course, I forgot to buy the dust pan that I meant to buy there). When we got home, I finished my sock, no problemo.

The lesson is never knit cables while mad. Pick something simpler to knit while calming down.

roughing it

The Widdershins socks are made with a very interesting heel. I’m not sure exactly what I was supposed to do with the wrapped stitches, but I tried to follow the directions and I appear to have a rather nice looking sock heel. I think the Widdershins pattern looks great with the Trekking XXL, don’t you? (Spartacus included for scale. No animals were harmed in the taking of this photograph.)

Knitting in the new apartment is done on the floor, in a folding table, or on the air mattress. Our furniture is still with the movers in Denver and hopefully it will be here Tuesday or Wednesday. We only had an air mattress to sit on for a few days, until some of my husband Josh’s colleagues graciously lent us a few chairs and a folding table. Practically, this has translated into two chairs for the cats and two chairs for us. I suppose we could have people over and put the cats on the bed, but we’re not really set up for entertaining at the moment.

We’ve bought a number of survival items that we were unable to pack in the car. This included a new toaster oven (which we needed anyway), some cheap silverware and dishes from Ikea, dishtowels and potholder. The cups were $0.50 each, the silverware was $1.99 for a four pack, the steak knivers were $1.99 for a six pack and two plates and two bowls totaled $6.00. The one thing I did pack in our gear was the wireless router. After all, the router is smaller than a toaster oven and not covered with rust and grease.
We’ve been cooking in our toaster oven and microwave. We’d use the stove, but we haven’t got any pans! So we’ve had a lot of packaged food (microwavable Mac N’ Cheese and some packaged Indian), sandwiches and a bunch of fruit. One thing we made in the toaster oven was sausages with green peppers and onions. What do we care if we can’t roast a chicken? It’s brutal outside and we’re not accustomed to humidiy

In the meantime, it’s pretty hard to keep entertained and that’s why I’m knitting socks like mad. I’ve got lots of sock yarn, a couple of books and occasionally I get to login to the web and hunt for a job. My main job search will begin in August after we get back from London and I’m determined to find a good job It’s either that or give up buying yarn.

trekking widdershins & toe-up sock strategems

I started on the Widdershins socks from Knitty last night using the new Trekking XXL I bought at digs in Northfield, MN. It took a few tries to get a smooth cast-on and to get the right needle size, but I learned how to do the toe-up cast on using Judy’s Magic Cast-on for Toe-Up socks.

As Judy points out in her article, the toe-up cast on is great because you can try on the sock as you go. It seems to be that the toe-up cast-on is especially amazing when you using cables and lace in your patterns. Assuming that you do what I do and use your sock as your gauge, swatch the toe-up sock is your best friend.

This method is faster because you don’t have to do with the ribbing before you get to the pattern on your sock and because once you get to the pattern, you presumably are only going to be using pattern stitches on the top of the foot. The number of stitches in your sock depends on more on your foot than the yarn. Doing the toe-up sock allows you to be completely indecesive about what your sock is going to look like until you get the number of stitches that are appropriate for your sock. And I guess I should mention that you don’t have to bother with the kitchener stitch. Consider it mentioned.

So I’ve decided to knit my next pair of socks as I go without a set pattern in mind. It’s not as if I have no idea what I’m going to do. I’m planning a lace or cable pattern with a repeat of 8 stitches. So I’ll start with a cast-on of 8 stitches, increase every round until I get to my pinky toe and then alternate increase and knit rounds until I get to the width of my foot. Then I’ll check the gauge and pick out a lace or cable pattern that suits and go forth from there.

But first I have to finish the Conwy socks.