Notorious K.N.I.T.

Long Time No Blog!

2006-03-23T21:05:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in what seems like years, so I could very well be writing this to no one by now. No matter. I will persevere.

Much knitting has happened in the last month or so. I finished my Manos sweater (blurry photo below), but haven't quite figured out how to close it. I was opposed to using buttons, so I was closing it with a kilt pin but it kept snagging on my babies when I picked them up. I ended up using a pin my aunt gave me that's a metal pea pod with pearl peas. It works perfectly.

I took a little business trip to San Francisco, which was quite inspiring. My hotel was not far from the Lotta Jansdotter store, which as you can see was surprisingly nondescript.

And quite to my dismay it was also…

Extreme disappointment. I must go again when it is open. When? How? Sometime. Somehow.

Not far from my hotel in SF was an interesting retail slash creative concept slash business. It was called Craft Gym.

It was closed when I walked by early one morning, but they have a huge loom you can see through the window and a variety of sinks and work tables and shelves with craft supplies on them. Everything you need for an invigorating craft workout.

Speaking of workouts, here's me casting on for the knitting olympics:

My project was a blue, garter-stitch cardigan sweater with pockets and an i-cord binding. I did not finish it by the closing ceremonies. And that is because I changed the rules to the knitting olympics and decided to cast on for a new project every night of the olympics rather than complete anything. I didn't wholly succeed at this, either, but I did do a lot of knitting. None of which I can remember at the moment, but perhaps I'll try to recall these projects and photograph them in the light of day. However, I can make no promises.

Now I am in a post-olympic knitting rut. I did finish the olympic cardigan (as I always say, photos to come), but I have not finished the endless socks I've been working on since late January (wouldn't you like a photo of these?). I am now not working on anything I like. So I'm starting a pair of socks from Leigh Radford's new book, One Skein Knitting. I'm doing the cabled footies. I am also going to start a new sweater using some beautiful green Araucania Nature Wool. I knit two gauge swatches—one in stockinette and one in garter—and they're drying as we speak. Building on the "success" of my Manos sweater, I am going to attempt another sweater for myself of my own design. It will be a cardigan with a tie at the neck due to my button and buttonhole aversion.

It's Never Too Late For Fuzzy Feet

2006-01-13T20:38:00.000-08:00

Here are photos, finally, of most of the rest of my Christmas gifts.

First, a tiny glimpse of my aunt's pink fuzzy feet there in my suitcase with what looks like a dirty, balled-up disposable diaper sitting there in between them. And it might very well be. Oh, and I just noticed that the diagonal stripe scarf I knit for my mom is over there in that plastic bag in the far left corner of the suitcase. Forgive the quality of this photo. I know you're used to perfectly art-directed shots from me. This pair of fuzzy feet was knit using coral Cascade 220. I had to do MUCH shrinking of these (washer/ stewpot/washer/stewpot/dryer). I like the texture of felt I get with C220, but for slippers I prefer something bulkier…

…like Lamb's Pride Bulky, which I used for these fuzzy feet I made for my cousin. Lamb's Pride Bulky is my absolute favorite fuzzy feet felting yarn. I embellished these with what were supposed to be four-leaf clovers. Can you tell which one I did post-vino?

And finally, the socks I knit with Koigu for my mother-in-law. I started these out as two socks on two circulars, but I separated them after the heel turn. They simply weren't getting along. I found that doing the two socks on two circulars was not all that fun. It was a long, slow haul getting down to the heel flaps, which you knit one at a time.

In other news, there is a grand-opening sale at my FYS tomorrow and I found out about it by the skin of my teeth. It starts at 10am and I'm weighing the opportunity cost of being there when the doors open versus spending quality time with my children. Dare I take them?

I've also decided to knit a pair of socks per month for my friend Alli's Christmas present. I bought some self-striping yarn for her January pair, and I think I finally understand how it works. See, it doesn't matter if the color change starts and ends where you start the round, because it's a circle, see? So it can just go around and around and the color will always change in the same place even if it's not where you would change it if you were changing it yourself, see? As long as you knit consistently, that is. And I don't know what happens when you do the heel flap and pick up stitches and then have gusset decreases. Sounds like some crooked stripes could come of that. So I'm going to avoid that trap altogether and do one of those other kind of heels that I'm going to learn about from the book I just bought—Sensational Socks. Because I needed another knitting book.

Actually, I needed two more knitting books, because I had to have Handknit Holidays, too. After all, it was 50% off. And it is one gorgeous book with lots of wonderful ideas. I'm going to get a jumpstart on next year right now.

Christmas Roundup

2005-12-29T20:33:00.000-08:00

So here's what I've been knitting for the last several weeks (minus some of the things I sent off and forgot to photograph—stay tuned for those images later). First we have the bear-iffic fuzzy feet. These were knit in Lamb's Pride bulky and when I took them out of the washer it was as though a fuzzy wild animal had gotten into the load and lost its feet. These really got hairy. It was quite horrifying. Plus they were way too big. I worked on them some more by washing them another time, then boiling them in my giant stewpot (which is pretty much exclusively used for boiling fuzzy feet). I got them down to a reasonable size and then did the embroidery. Cute, yes? They seem very Scandinavian to me. Tomorrow my friend is coming down from Seattle and I plan to give them to her as a belated Christmas gift. If I can part with them. I have been wearing them—ostensibly to shape them, but really because I love them. Must knit pair for self.

Next we have a modified cabled newsboy cap in Manos blue rainbow neutral, the most fabulous color/non-color/everycolor known to knitting man/woman/child/manchild. I knit this for someone who admired my by-the-book cabled newsboy cap. She offered to pay me to knit one for her, which was preposterous of course. I knit it as a learning experience and it worked out great. I did the brim and doubled it over so it keeps its shape but it's soft instead of stiff. I have plastic mesh in the brim of mine and I find it annoying.

And then we have my second attempt at a felted ballet slipper. The first one is simply too ugly to photograph. This slipper has a long way to go before it's working, but I'm excited about it. I'm going to knit the second one, felt it, then get to work on boiling and felting and whatever else I have to do to get them the same size (and a bit smaller). I also need to knit a thick strap to go over the upper. This will be the touch that really sells you on these slippers. Just you wait.

Christmas Roundup Sans Images

2005-12-27T22:34:00.000-08:00

I got most of my Christmas knitting done, but not all of it! In fact, there are some presents I still haven't started. So some people will be getting unexpected Valentine presents. That will be nice for them.

Here's a semi-complete list of all the things I knitted and finished:

Baby Cashmerino fingerless gloves
Pink fuzzy feet
Red & blue striped fuzzy feet
Brown bear fuzzy feet
Nature wool chocolate brown Clapotis

Well shoot, that doesn't seem like very many things. I still have one pair of fuzzy feet to finish (or start, if you want to get picky), and a pair of felted ballet slippers. I started the ballet slippers and made one in Manos, color number 34 (what I like to call rainbow neutral). This yarn does not seem to felt well. Plus I didn't follow the pattern because it didn't seem right. I made the slippers too deep so the foot opening was funky—like those old lady slip-on footies. Uncool. I would say this was a real waste of my beautiful beautiful Manos, but I can see exactly where things went wrong with this slipper and I know how to make it right next time. Learning experience! My goal is to make a square-ish toe and have the body of the shoe be pretty low-cut. Then I'll sew a felted strap low across the upper. If I can get these to turn out right you will ALL be wanting a pair.

I'm very happy with the way the baby cashmerino fingerless gloves turned out, so I will have to ask the recipient to wear these so I can take a photo. Forgot to do that before I gave them away.

I also made a modified newsboy cap in my favorite Manos (color number 34!) for a friend, and it turned out great. I have photos of this that I'll post later. Promise.

Unicorns Sleep on Zippered Pillowcases

2005-12-18T20:24:00.000-08:00

For starters, I lost my blue Clapotis last week for about 18 hours. When I left the office on Wednesday I couldn't find it, but when I got in the next morning a co-worker had emailed me saying I left it in his office. He told me he would have kept it, but it made his ass look fat. So I didn't end up having to post my signs (below).

I'm in a frenzy of holiday knitting right now and I can't reveal too much about it or I'll ruin Christmas for a few people. Let's just say that the twelve lords a leapin' could all be wearing fuzzy feet this year. I have a pair felting in the washer right now in separate Donald Pliner shoe bags. I discovered that shoe bags make the perfect felting fuzz managers. Of course everyone recommends the zippered pillowcase, but have you ever seen one in real life? The existence of the zippered pillowcase is urban legend. Unicorns sleep on zippered pillowcases, OK? So I use shoe bags. And because my aunt used to sell high-end shoes, I have many many shoe bags. Chanel, Manolo, Donald Pliner, Prada. You name it.

I also knit another Clapotis in chocolate brown Araucania Nature Wool, and it is luxe. This is one of my favorite yarns, and I just discovered a whole bunch of new colors over at my FYS (favorite yarn store) on Saturday. I bought up a bunch of pear green with which I plan to make a really cool sweater. I tried drawing a sketch of it in photoshop to post here, but I lack that kind of mouse control. I also bought an entire 10-skein bundle of Manos in a color I call "rainbow blue neutral." It's kind of a blue-gray, but it has a lot of depth to it and it alludes to many other colors. It's very difficult to describe and I'm sure it won't photograph well (especially at night, which it is right now), so please use your imaginations. The reason I bought all this yarn for my own projects is because my knitting students gave me a very generous gift certificate. And although it was very generous, I still managed to spend $98 of my own money. So Christmas will have to be canceled for those of you whose presents have not been purchased yet. So sorry.

Tomorrow I will post photos of my latest knitting experiment—the diagonal stripe scarf in the round. I had emailed Alison over at the Blue Blog because she was knitting all those Harry Potter scarves as double knit/in the round. I asked her if she had a way of making the scarves diagonal like the Jilly Scarf, but with no wrong side. She said she was working on it. I think I figured out a way to do it, but it will be a stranded thing, and I'll be carrying lots of yarn along with me around the scarf (3 colors), so it will be sort of thick on the inside. We'll see if it works.

That's all for now—gotta check on the feet!

Circuitous

2005-12-06T22:43:00.000-08:00

I have figured out how to knit two socks on two circulars (simultaneously). It's not as hard as it looks, but it is a yarn clusterfuck at times. I found an excellent tutorial at the socknitters web site. Once I figured out how to knit one sock on two circulars, it wasn't a huge leap to do two. But the set-up is very difficult, so read through these instructions slowly and carefully. And definitely master the art of one sock on two circulars before you try two. Last night I bought some Koigu in a rainbow colorway, and this is what inspired me to knit the socks simultaneously. I simply have too much Christmas knitting to do them one at a time at this point. I've never worked with Koigu and it feels really nice. I'm not sure about the color (and I'm sure you aren't either because it looks like barf in this photo). It's not my style, but I think it will be good for the recipient of this pair of socks. And it doesn't really look like barf.

And here's my second Clapotis. This is in Auracania Nature Wool, just like my first one, but this is in chocolate brown and is for a Christmas gift. I don't think I'll make this one seven feet long like I did mine. But then again, I might. Sometimes you get going on these things and you can't stop.

YARNSANE!

2005-11-28T22:10:00.000-08:00

It's been yarnsanity around here for the last week or so. First of all, I got a gift certificate from my very kind and generous boss to the yarn store by my office, which coincidentally had a BIG 40% OFF SALE the day after Thanksgiving. I bought a bunch of Auracania Nature Wool (hand dyed) in denim blue and chocolate brown, plus some Cascade 220 in two different shades of green (for Christmas fuzzy feet). I also bought Teva Durham's Loop d Loop and Knitscene magazine. I spent my gift certificate plus $14.01 at the sale. Pretty good!

On Sunday I had a birthday-related shopping day and visited two other yarn stores. One was a brand-new store on Alberta called Close Knit. It is a very nice shop and I saw some beautiful colors of Manos there that I haven't seen elsewhere. I was pretty restrained on this trip and only bought two skeins of yarn. But you know how it is when you go to the stores. You get ideas and you have to go back.

THEN I got a 20% off coupon from yet another local yarn store -- good for 30 days from my birthday. I will get a lot of use out of this.

Man, you can't spit in this town without hitting two things: 1) a bicyclist wearing all black at night and 2) a fabulous yarn store! This has caused me to invent an array of new abbreviations, since "LYS" (local yarn store) is just not specific enough around here.

FYS = favorite yarn store (this rotates)
KYS = knittier than thou yarn store (I won't use names, but this is the one where they have tons of yarn but you can't find anything and the people are too wrapped up in their own issues to help you)
HYS = hipster yarn store (this is the one on the fringes of the trendy part of town that's run by cute young hipsters)
OYS = office yarn store (the one I go to that's near my office)
NPYS = North Portland Yarn Store (self-explanatory)
CYS = Cozy Yarn Store (the yarn store that has cute couches, dressers and armoires in which they display and store the yarn)
LCYS = Low-Ceilinged Yarn Store (a nice store with a cafe, but it has low ceilings and it's kinda dark)

And folks, I haven't even made up acronyms for any of the fine yarn stores in the suburbs because, frankly, I don't need to go there. That's how freaking spoiled we are in this town. When I started knitting again about three years ago, the only store I knew about was the KYS. In just three years, at least SIX more stores have opened. And ALL of them appear to be very successful. Can this market support as many yarn stores as it does coffee shops? Makes you wonder.

And now for some talk about knitting. I am working on a few things using my yarn purchases, plus I'm using up some yarn in my stash. I knit this poncho from Loop d Loop using Rowan Big Wool. This pattern was a breeze. It only took a couple hours to knit and I really like the design. This garment is for a one-year old whose birthday is next week. I plan to make a little yarn flower as an accessory for it. It's a little plain as it is—plus this "color" of yarn doesn't photograph well. Especially at night on my shiny floor with a flash.

And here's my third pair of fuzzy feet. This is for a certain someone whose birthday is on Wednesday. I hope she gets them in the mail before she reads this blog. I took this photo of the fuzzy feet on my desk at work about one minute before I put them in the box to ship. And yes, that is my tape.

I can't show you photos of my second pair of fuzzy feet because the person I knit them for got all fancy, took a computer class, bought a laptop, and is now out there surfing in the blogosphere. I recently learned she found this website and read about her fuzzy feet. I don't want to ruin Christmas for her by posting a photo of them, so I'll do a Christmas present roundup of all my knitted gifts on Dec. 26.

Catching Up

2005-11-20T22:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything for my devoted readership (of three), so here's a post chock-full of news about what I've been up to, knit-wise. And that lame pun as a little bonus!

This is the French Market Bag using Cascade 220 in navy and french blue. I have felted this and it's great, but I don't have a photo. Just be gratefull I remembered to take a work-in-progress photo. I'll post the finished product tomorrow.

In other felted news, I completed a pair of fuzzy feet (stripes, above), and also forgot to take a photo of the finished piece. I might be able to take a photo of the finished feet next time they're up here for a visit. They turned out really well. They feel so good on your feet and they knit up really quickly. I made a pair for my aunt that I still need to felt (photos to come), and I'm definitely knitting a pair for myself.

I've also started teaching a very informal knitting class. I actually advertised my class online, but no one responded to the ad. So I drummed up some students at work and by word-of-mouth, which has worked out just fine. I have some co-workers, some former co-workers, and some friends of former co-workers in the class. In this photo of my first "class," you can see I'm teaching Student K (I won't use real names in order to protect the innocent) to tie a slip knot on his needle. This was my first teaching mistake. My complicated slip knot took almost all night for two of my students to master. Ridiculous!

In this photo you can see my special knitting class guest. We will call him Interloper T, and here he is cozying up to Student M (not visible due to my poor cropping) so he can reach the chips. Before this photo was taken, he ran off with Student M's knitting needles and hid them in his toy box.

Here's a photo of my second knit night. Even more people showed up to to this class which made it fun, but harder to teach. Student M ended up doing a lot of my job for me.

My goal was to practice "teaching" on some guinea pigs, then get a real gig at a yarn store (along with a nice discount). I've learned that teaching absolute beginners is HARD! You need to be a much better teacher than knitter to do a good job of this. I'm also learning that teaching people at different levels in the same class is hard. Next time I do this I will be more structured and have everyone working on the same project. I may try to get my students working on the same thing in our next meeting, which will be a week from Thursday.

And yet more knitting students -- my cousin and her husband who came through town this weekend. We walked to the yarn store and bought supplies, then came home and got started on some circular knitting. They picked it up real fast. I'm worried that they aren't following a pattern, so I might have to email them some links to patterns that will keep them going.

Inspiration all Around!

2005-10-23T14:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a cool Orla Kiely sweater I found on eBay. You should knit something like this!

There are lots of neat knitted things in the holiday catalogs this year. Yesterday I received the Garnet Hill catalog and I could go through it about fifty more times and still be inspired by something different each time. It's full of boiled wool slippers in bright colors with cute flowers on them. These have inspired me to knit a pair of Fuzzy Feet and try to make them look a little more delicate with polka dots, flowers or other ornamental accents. Someone on my Christmas list will surely appreciate these.

Then there's the Anthropologie Gift 2005 Catalog. If you don't have the printed version of this, get it. There are so many wonderful things in it. Including this $98 knitting kit and bag! It's a lot of money, but I can't say I'm not tempted by its cuteness.

Finally, a Post and some Finished Projects

2005-10-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

Finally, the finished fingerless gloves from Holiday Knits. It was a little difficult to get the two gloves to match exactly. I think the cable on whichever one I did last wasn't centered in the same place as the other one. Nevertheless, I think these turned out OK. My next pair of fingerless gloves aren't even going to have fingers at all. Check out all the cool free patterns on Knitting Pattern Central.

These booties are from 50 Baby Booties. They're supposed to be for a 0-3 month old, but they're almost big enough to fit my 23-month old. Problem. I knit them for a friend who's having a baby in November and I think it's unreasonable to give someone a gift they have to hang onto for a year before they can use it. I may find a way to downsize this pattern and re-knit it. I love this book, but the sizing seems way off. If I had knit these in the Rowan Wool/Cotton they called for (and bigger needles), they'd be even bigger.

I have started knitting Christmas presents, none of which will be featured here for obvious reasons. Hopefully I'll be able to knit enough non-present items to blog about.

In the non-Christmas present arena, right now I'm working on the French Market Bag using Cascade 220. Navy blue for the bottom and handles and a french blue (what else?) for the body. I was very excited about this bag, but then I found a website devoted to French Market Bags and became afraid. Afraid of the freakish shapes and sizes this bag could become. There is so much variation in the bags on this site that it's scared me into sticking to the pattern. (I don't want to single anyone out, but you'll see what I'm talking about if you go to the site.) I don't need another freakishly misshapen hand-knit thing I'll never use.

While I was purchasing yarn for Christmas presents, I discovered two new kinds of Cascade that I hadn't seen before. One is Cascade 128, which is heavier and ropier than Cascade 220, and the other is Cascade Eco. Eco comes in huge skeins of almost 500 yards, and it is so soft. You could easily knit a beautiful and generous wrap with one skein, which is exactly what I might do. The colors are earthier than some of their other yarns, but very interesting. Cascade is my favorite brand right now, with Brown Sheep a close second. Cascade is a real workhorse with lots of great colors and a nice, finished look. Brown Sheep also has wonderful colors, but it's not for everyone since a lot of it is one-ply. It seems a little more primitive to me for that reason. Of course I love Rowan yarns and all of the incredible designs they have to support it, but it's so expensive and the colorways are hit or miss for me.

Far out Fingerless Gloves

2005-09-25T20:31:00.000-07:00

I started knitting the fingerless cable gloves from Holiday Knits last weekend, and I finally had time to get past the wrist. As usual, I am knitting this in a different yarn/gauge than the pattern called for, so math had to be done and charts had to be drawn. I am using Dalegarn Heilo in a black and white tweed pattern and I think it lends itself to this piece very well. Since this photograph was taken late yesterday afternoon, I have finished the whole glove and now I just need to weave in the ends. Oh yeah, and make the other glove.

I have a whole bunch of things I'm thinking about and have sketched for my next project, but I don't know how to get started. And what I should probably do is start knitting Christmas presents, since it's always my dream to give only handmade gifts. Unfortunately I usually fantasize about this up until Christmas Eve Day when it's too late to do anything about it.

There was a great article about Andrea Zittel in the arts section of today's New York Times. She is a very non-traditional artist who starts doing something that interests her and then decides later how it will fit into an art context. Her work encompasses a variety of media. Some of her pieces are like industrial design, some are clothing, but all of her work revolves around daily living, as far as I can tell. What I'm most fascinated with is her Personal Uniforms series. The article says she paid a tailor to make her a sturdy black linen dress to serve as her uniform when she was a gallery assistant back in 1991. She wore it every day for six months. On Zittel's web site there are photographs of that and subsequent uniforms. Go to www.zittel.org, click on works in the top bar, then click on A-Z Personal Uniforms in the side frame.

This got me wondering what my uniform would be if I could only wear one thing for the next few months. And what would I add to it to give it daily flair? I hope to have an answer to this in the next few posts.

The article also mentions a knitter friend of Andrea Zittel's named Lisa Anne Auerbach. Her site is well worth checking out.

Guess Who Hates His New Sweater?

2005-09-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of my top-down, raglan baby sweater with shoulder saddles. I don't recommend constructing a sweater with shoulder saddles for an 8-week old. Newborns don't have the shoulders to support them, so my saddles are these weak little strips that were pretty much superfluous.

Also, this cotton/acrylic yarn (ggh Samoa) knits up unevenly. Is it lame of me to blame the yarn for how uneven my stitches look? I'm just not a great cotton knitter, I guess. And I'm pretty bad at picking up the right amount of stitches for neckbands and such. I have so much territory to cover before I achieve perfection. What an adventure it will be.

The lesson I learned from this sweater is that I should stop making things up as I go along (or knitting things of my own design) unless I want my kids to look like urchins, which I do not. I'd like people to ask me "did you knit that?" with a tone of awe in their voices instead of a tone of derision.

So, in short, my ideas = good, my skills = crude.

In other news, my sockapal2za pal Nathalie sent me my socks ALL THE WAY FROM AUSTRALIA. The fact that she lives in Australia seems so exotic to me. It's summer there! Does she knit upside-down? Does she know Naomi Watts and Nicole Kidman? Do they knit? The mind reels.

Hey, whose white legs are those? Not mine.

Anyway, I love my socks. I'm wearing them right now. They were knit with self-striping yarn, which terrifies me. How do the stripes come out right? Someday I'll know. You can't see it in the photo, but there's a little metallic silver fleck in the yarn that gives it a little bit of disco.

And now I'm going to knit on my fingerless gloves as long as I can until someone (besides me) starts crying.

Knit Lit

2005-09-12T20:56:00.000-07:00

There are so many great new knitting books right now, and I just purchased two of them.

The first is Alterknits by Leigh Radford, art director of Interweave Knits and teacher at my local yarn store. I can't say enough good things about this book. The projects are creative and inspiring and the book itself is a work of art. The photography is beautiful and it has a cloth binding with a scallop-edged die cut. This is a real keepsake. Leigh is an inspiring teacher and I'm happy to see a collection of her designs all in one place. She has another book coming out in the spring called One Skein Knitting, or something like that, and I can't wait for that, either.

I also bought Holiday Knits because the woman ringing me up was looking at it and it was just too good to pass up. This book has projects for various skill levels, many of them good for gifts, but also some nice Christmas stocking patterns and other wintery stuff. Again, the book is gorgeous, but what do you expect from Chronicle Books?

The yarn store was having a sale on some gray and white Rowan Biggie, so I bought two skeins of that and a skein of cream Brown Sheep Aran weight Naturespun. I will use the Rowan Biggie to make another diagonal-stripe scarf.

Tomorrow I'll have photos of the baby sweater I just finished. Note to self: stop trying to knit with cotton! It is so unforgiving. My stitches look a little uneven and choppy. I always forget cotton does this, even when it's a heavier weight.

Sockpal GWTF

2005-09-03T19:44:00.000-07:00

The Go With The Flow socks for my sockpal are finished! They've been finished for a few weeks, but I have been too busy to post about it, then when I did my last post I forgot to upload the photo. So I tried to upload the photo and suddenly Transmit wouldn't work anymore. I went back to using Fetch, and that seems to be working (for the time being, anyway). Blog probs!

Anyway, I hope my sockpal likes these. Now I just need to mail them to her. That will be the real test for me. Finishing two socks is nothing, but going to the post office? Forget about it.

Oh, and here's a brief review of my new (used) Boye NeedleMaster set. I like it! I don't like it as much as my Denise set.

Cons: The cords are a lot more rigid than the Denise cords and feel much harder to work with. Right now I'm working on a project that isn't in the round. I'm thinking the rigidity of the cords is an advantage if you're actually working in the round, which is what the set was designed for.

Pros: The points on the needles are sharp and the aluminum needles really glide. I am knitting a baby sweater right now and the stitches slide on and off the needles effortlessly.

Long Time No Blog

2005-08-31T13:54:00.000-07:00

I'm back from a long blog absence, and I have much to report.

First of all, I have finished my sockpal's socks—and ahead of deadline. That is, of course, until I have to mail them. Mailing things is always a challenge for me.

Second, I have completely cleaned, rearranged and reorganized my work room. Part of the renovation was installing over-the-door clear vinyl shoe organizers, which I am using for yarn. I started out with just one shoe organizer. When I hung it on the door it was folded in half and stuck to itself, so for a few days I thought it was about half its actual capacity. Then I went to screw it into the door (because the over-the-door hooks wouldn't work on my door), the bottom half unfurled itself to reveal 12 more compartments. This was after I had already driven down to the Container Store again to buy another one. Which was still a good idea, because now there is one on each door in my room and they are both full to capacity.

As you can see above, I also finished my Jilly scarf. I really enjoyed working on this scarf. It's Lamb's Pride worsted weight in cream, orange and turquoise. I made a random-ish stripe sequence that I think worked out OK. I'll probably do something a little more regular next time, or a little more random. I think the sequence I did for this one is hard for people to figure out.

My copy of Folk Mittens arrived and I cannot figure out how to do thumbs. The introduction of this book talks about all the various kinds of thumbs and thumb gussets, but none of the patterns get specific about how to do them. It's very frustrating. I'm going to have to get help from an expert or something, because the mittens in this book are incredible and I have to start knitting them as soon as possible.

And finally, I purchased a used Boye NeedleMaster set from a knitter who is moving and liquidating her stash. I don't know how much I'll like these since I don't use aluminum very often (although I do like the pretty colors). I basically bought them because they start at size 2 and my Denise set starts at size 5.

Notorious N.O.T.H.I.N.G.

2005-08-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

People, I have not posted in a while and for that I am truly sorry. I know too well how annoying it is to visit your daily blogs only to have them be oh so un-fresh.

Unfortunately this is just going to be a placeholder post, wherein I tease you with the things that I am going to write more about tomorrow.

Stay tuned for details and photos of the Jilly Scarf. It's a bias-knit beauty in orange, beige and turquoise stripes of worsted weight Lamb's Pride.

Come back and read about my trip to the Container Store and my purchase of a clear vinyl over-the-door shoe organizer, which I have cleverly re-purposed for yarn storage.

Gee, I thought I had more than just those two things to write about, but now I can't think of anything else. Until tomorrow!

I HATE GGH KID SOFT (but maybe you'll like it?)

2005-08-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

Like many of you, I'm sure, I'm very taken by the designs in Rebecca magazine. Last year I bought the winter issue and was going to knit a wrap using GGH Kid Soft mohair. I bought all the yarn and started knitting the pattern. It was a fisherman's rib stitch, which was really hard to get going. I had major problems working with the yarn because it would stick to itself whenever I needed to rip it out. I wasted a lot of yarn getting started, and then I decided that I just couldn't take it anymore. I went back to the yarn store and bought some Rowan Kid Classic, which is much easier to work with and a slightly heavier gauge. I knit this wrap using the Rowan yarn and it went much better. Until I left the whole project on the bus (when I was almost finished) and thought I had lost it forever. I got it back a week later after calling the Tri-Met lost and found offices daily, but that's not really the point of this story. The point of this story is that I HATE GGH Kid Soft. It's very hard to work with and impossible to rip out.

So the other day I was downtown visiting the yarn store by my office, and thinking I would purchase some Rowan Kid Classic mohair with which to knit the Jilly Scarf. Unfortunately there are no colors I like in Rowan Kid Classic right now, so I started looking at the GGH Kid Soft mohair and found some colors I do like. I somehow talked myself into buying several balls of this unknittable yarn at great expense ($11.75 each). I came home and started the scarf, and then realized I would need at least another ball of each color. So I went to my other local yarn store and bought three more balls (at $12.50 each!). Then I came home and started working on the Jilly scarf, doubling the yarn as the pattern calls for, and I hated it. I hate working with the yarn and I hate how it knits up. I'm so depressed. I'm drowning in yarn buyer's remorse. Why didn't I learn my lesson about this yarn last winter? Why? And now I can only return two of the balls, because the rest I started knitting with (on account of the doubling it up).

Does anyone want to trade for some GGH Kid Soft mohair in lime, ecru, pink and orange?

Baby-Gami!

2005-08-11T19:42:00.000-07:00

I was recently browsing at a local shop and came across the cutest book. It's called Baby-Gami, and it shows you different ways of swaddling a newborn and how to make a variety of baby slings out of a piece of fabric. The photos are hilarious. I had to buy two copies. One for myself and one as a gift. That is, if someone I know becomes pregnant and can appreciate this book as much as I do. Then and only then will I part with my second copy.

And because it's such a terrible waste of all the fossil fuels used for shipping to order just one (or two of one) thing on Amazon*, I ordered up a bunch of other books, including Folk Mittens, which I've had my eye on for a while.

Oh, that reminds me, I saw a gorgeous baby blanket pattern on Knitty that would make a great swaddler. Here's a photo:

*If it's such a waste of fossil fuels to have things shipped, why didn't I just purchase the book at the shop where I originally saw it, you ask? Because they only had the one well-handled copy.

I'm standing seven feet one…

2005-08-06T19:36:00.000-07:00

…instead of five feet seven

My Clapotis is finally finished, and it is LONG! If the pattern instructions had said "keep working straight rows until scarf length measures 85 inches," I would have said "NO THANKS," and looked for another project. But since I was having such a good time knitting this and it was so hard to tell how long the scarf was while I was doing it (on account of the bias knitting), it just got out of control. Nevertheless, I'm happy with the length. Most of the time I err on the side of making scarves too short but I have now redeemed myself dramatically.

And here's the money shot:

The dimensions are 12 inches wide x 85 inches long (a little narrower than the original design). This project was immensely satisfying and I completely get why the Clapotis has taken over the knitting and blogging universe. I get it, but I don't know if I can explain it. It's exciting to be knitting along in the pattern and to then get to the row in the sequence where you get to drop the stitch. Then you go back to the regular knitting, and before you have a chance to zone out and get bored, you get to drop a stitch again. It's all so perfectly timed to keep you going and going and going.

I have an entire skein of yarn left over, which I will now use to knit a vest of my own design (just as soon as I design it).

Clapotis Revisited

2005-07-31T20:50:00.000-07:00

I restarted my Clapotis yesterday, and I'm thrilled to be working on it. It is so much more interesting a knit than the felted ballet slippers, which I now fear I will not finish. I really love the subtly variegated blue yarn (scroll down to see the swatch I knit). It is perfect for this project. However, I think I bought one skein too many. What will I do with it? Make a baby Clapotis, perhaps?

I don't have much time to surf the internet these days, and I'm dying to explore the members-only parts of the Rowan web site. Frustrating! Maybe I can squeeze in a few minutes tonight.

I Like Stripes

2005-07-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

I am a sucker for anything in stripes. I saw that Alison of The Blue Blog was knitting this, and I had to get the pattern.

This is a striped scarf knit on the bias, so the stripes are diagonal. If you check out the version on The Blue Blog, you'll see that it looks like a candy cane. Mmmmm.

It's called the Jilly Scarf, so I did an internet search and found that it's available in the Rowan free pattern archives to members only. So I went to the Rowan site and charged myself a membership, which instantly let me login and have access to all the online privileges. I've thought about purchasing a membership before, but was always put off by the $44 price tag. Why? I don't know, because I've spent $78 on a tissue-paper thin tank top at Anthropologie, so it doesn't stand to reason. I'm glad I took the plunge, and only wish I had done so sooner.

Back for the Attack 2005 Y'all!

2005-07-26T19:43:00.000-07:00

I had the baby, did a little knitting, and now we're home.

Here's a photo of me in the hospital working on my felted ballet slipper in Cascade 220. Oh, and that's my new baby! He was 6 lbs. 2.5 oz. and 19 inches long. So far he is a real sweetheart, but at this point he's just eating and sleeping. I'm well aware of how quickly that can change.

It's 95 degrees right now and I just can't do any knitting in that kind of heat. Plus, I'm tired, in pain, and my brain is incapable of following a knitting pattern.

Until I have more knitting to talk about, I'll sign off. I hope to update the blog in two days, so please keep checking back.

Inspiration Board

2005-07-20T21:31:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog, I planned on doing inspiration boards at least once a week. That was a few months ago, and this is only my second inspiration board post. I'll work on that!

The images above are some random things I've gleaned from the internet over the last year or so. I can't even remember where I came across these, but I know that fruit sweater was designed by Patricia Roberts. I wish I knew where the TV cozy image was from so I could go back there and see if they have done any more knitting for appliances. And the mittens might be from Anthropologie, but who knows anymore? I'm just in a mittens mood because I was looking at the Folk Mittens book earlier today when I went to the knitting store…

…And purchased two pairs of #2 double points so I can try knitting two socks at once on circular needles. I found a great tutorial at www.socknitters.com/2circs/index.htm. I love a technical challenge.

I am taking a break from posting until at least Sunday, but I'm all ready for the hospital (where I'll be having my baby). The checkbook is balance, the bags are packed, the knitting projects are organized, and the announcement email is composed!

Moving Right Along

2005-07-16T23:08:00.000-07:00

I finished the first of my Go With the Flow socks and am very pleased. It looks a little chunky right now, but maybe it will snug up after I wash and block it (or when my elephantine ankles shrink back down to normal size after I have this baby). I really like working with the Brown Sheep Wildfoote. It's very nice. I just wish they had colors similar to what they carry in the Lamb's Pride.

Almost immediately after I finished my sock, I re-started the Clapotis scarf in the new blue hand-dyed yarn I bought for it. It's looking very nice and even so far—much better than the other yarn I used. I'm already well into section two. I'm changing the proportions so my version of the scarf is narrower, but I am using smaller yarn on smaller needles than the pattern calls for, so maybe I won't have to make major pattern adjustments. I am checking my width after another repeat of the section two pattern sequence.

Tomorrow I will get started on my second GWTF sock AND the felted ballet slippers in shrimp Cascade 220, so I will then have three projects established when I go into the hospital to have the baby. They're all different levels of difficulty so I can choose what to work on according to my state of dementia.

In the Pink Again

2005-07-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

Please appreciate this photo. At 37 weeks pregnant it was very difficult for me to get this sock on, get down on the floor, take this picture and get back up again.

As you may recall, last night I had to rip out my sock down to the end of the heel flap (undoing all of my picked up stitches, the turned heel, etc.). I puzzled over how to fix it as I was falling asleep last night and I came up with a solution that shifted the instep pattern back into place.

The mistake had to do with how I picked up stitches. When I did this originally, I did just what the pattern told me to do, which was to pick up 19 stitches along the heel flap, knit the held stitches according to the chart, then pick up 19 more on the other side. Unfortunately picking up 19 stitches along the heel flap caused me to start the instep in a place that didn't correspond with the pattern chart. So after analyzing this, the second time around I picked up 17 stitches along the heel flap (with one needle), took two of the stitches from the needle holding the instep stitches and put them on the first needle (making the 19), knit the instep according to the pattern chart (starting with purl 2), then picked up two purl stitches to add to the instep (ending the instep on purl 2, like the chart said). Then I picked up 19 along the heel flap. It worked! I don't know if this was a problem with the original pattern, or if something I did leading up to it caused it to be off. I'll find out when I do the second sock.

This whole experience was frustrating, but it taught me that I can make some pretty major repairs to my knitting—even when the stitch pattern is as complicated as this one and it's hard to know what row in the pattern sequence you're on when you rip out.

So after getting this all set up again, the problem I had tonight was that stitches kept falling off my instep needle when I was knitting on the other two needles. I had to keep picking them back up. Finally I started putting rubber ends on that needle when I finished with it, but then I kept forgetting to do my yarn overs and would have to fix that. Still, I got a lot done and most of it was smooth sailing. I quit while I was ahead, though.

Tragedy Strikes

2005-07-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

Look at that perfectly turned heel.

Now look at the traffic jam I circled in the photo on the right. Can you see what happened?

I was cruising along on my GWTF sock off and on today and feeling pretty perfect about it all. I showed it off to a few people. But when I sat down at home tonight to crank out some serious rows, I noticed something (after already knitting an inch or two). My lacy pattern was off kilter by two stitches. How did this happen? I followed the instructions to the stitch.

Things got shifted somehow when I picked up stitches along the heel flap and started the pattern on the instep. I ripped out the perfectly turned heel and ripped out all of the off-kilter pattern rows. I've ripped it down to where I have the heel flap (finished) on one needle and the instep stitches on the other needle. Now I'll have to turn the heel all over again, then redo the picking up of stitches along the heel flaps and join them with the rest of the sock. This time I will make sure I start the pattern back up in the right place. I lack the brainpower to do this tonight, but at least I have a clean starting point for tomorrow.

This has all been so deeply upsetting, but I want you all to know I've kept it together and didn't cry.

All wound up with someplace to go

2005-07-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

Surprise! I bought some more new yarn today. This is all part of my effort to organize my knitting projects before I go to the hospital to have my baby. Forget what I said before. I am now working on two new projects (besides my Go with the Flow socks) while I'm in the hospital.

1) a new version of the infamous Clapotis, this time in a beautiful hand-dyed wool by Araucania. I was this close to buying a solid color of Cascade 220 in green, but I decided this scarf is much better suited to something with more variation. I don't usually like variegated yarns, but the Araucania is hand dyed so the variegation is not extreme (or intentional). I knit up this swatch to see what it would be like:

and it's the perfect amount of variation. I love it!

I shopped at the yarn store near my office, and they offered to wind my hanks into balls. I've never worked with these center-pull balls before, so I said OK. I sat down to read some knitting books while the saleslady put the hank on the thingy, and a giant tangle happened in the center (because that's what you get when you buy hand-dyed hippie yarn). The whole thing became a nightmare. She asked me to come back later for everything, so I went to lunch, came back, and she was just finishing untangling the first of three hanks! I felt so guilty. Then I realized that I paid $9.25 a skein for this yarn and they added sufficient value to it, what with all the winding and untangling, that I don't mind the price as much. The other skeins went fairly effortlessly, but the whole ordeal took two people (the saleslady and the store owner) about an hour.

So, I've now got my gorgeous new yarn and I'm fixing to re-start my Clapotis in a few days. (But first I really must put some more time in on my socks).

2) I bought the two skeins of Cascade 220 in Shrimp (pictured above) so I can knit the Fiber Trends felted ballet slippers. (I'm not supplying a link to the pattern online because that one is the crocheted version). I recently became obsessed with these slippers for unknown reasons, and am picturing them as Christmas gifts for everyone on my list. I'm starting now so I'll at least have a couple pairs done by the holidays. I tend to change my mind a lot when I start things early, but I really want to stick with this idea. I have my own ideas for embellishments to the slippers, so look for those photos to come.

For the first time in a long time, I'm working on things I like!

On an unrelated note, I am listening to a french podcast right now, most of which I don't understand. It's an interview with someone about Sarkozy. If I listen to enough of these podcasts, perhaps I'll become fluent. And if I wear my Clapotis while listening to them, so much the better. If you haven't already, you should listen to the podcasts on Knitcast. They're very inspiring.

And finally, here's a photo of my GWTF sock. (Note: this photo is too dark and not representational of the true Crystal Pink color. I am knitting on my bed at night, blogging wireless, and taking photos using the available light instead of my glaring flash). I love this yarn and the stitch pattern, but does it look right? It seems kind of twisty.

In the Pink

2005-07-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

Today I've been working on the Go with the Flow socks (in my Crystal Pink Brown Sheep Wildfoote), and they're going pretty well. However, I do think I'm knitting off-gauge. I happened to notice that I'm knitting on 1.5 needles (instead of size ones). Oops! I'm going to continue anyway and see how they turn out. I think they'll be fine. But I've said that before and been so, so wrong. Oh well.

Going along with the pink theme of today, I bought a pink backrest pillow with arms at Target today. I couldn't find a photo of it on the web site, but this is something similar (at three and a half times the price) from the Pottery Barn Teen web site. It is the most comfortable thing ever, and it's got side pockets for my remotes, Grundig radio, knitting needles, whatever. I think I should sew straps onto it so I can just have it attached to me at all times so it's there whenever and wherever I sit down.

Here's what it looked like just before I ripped it out

2005-07-09T19:46:00.000-07:00

Top five reasons I decided to rip out the Clapotis I've been working on all week:

5. The knitting looked crappy. You can see in the closeup that the stockinette looks very rough. Was it me, the yarn, or my needles?

4. The yarn was just wrong. The superwash merino tweed blend I bought on sale last weekend that seemed so soft and luxurious now feels synthetic and looks like it has bits of paper in it instead of tweed. Something that's this much work deserves the best yarn money can buy.

3. I had made a number of mistakes which I was unable to correct back to perfection.

2. I don't like the proportions. I want to re-knit this (with nicer yarn) as a narrower, shorter version.

1. I was going to run out of yarn before I finished—this yarn was on closeout, so there was no buying more.

You can see in the photo that I got through sections one and two and was about halfway through section three (finally to the part where I got to drop stitches) when I made the executive decision to cut my losses. I could see I was headed toward heartbreak when I was almost through my second (of three) balls of yarn and still had more than half of section three and all of section four to complete. When I realized that, all the other problems with this piece went from background noise to deafening and I knew I had to rip it out.

I'm now going back to my sockpal assignment. Tonight I will cast on for the go with the flow socks from Summer 2005 Interweave using my new Brown Sheep Wildfoote in Crystal Pink.

Clapotastrophe II

2005-07-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

Well, this morning something happened while I was knitting Clapotis and I ended up with an extra stitch. I didn't know what to do, so I knit two stitches together. Then I had a hole. Why? Where did I go wrong? And how do I fix it? I am going to try to rip it out to the row before the hole appears, but this crazy bias knitting is scary to fix. You can't just rip things out and know what row you're supposed to be on. Here's hoping I can restore my work to its pre-extra stitch/hole condition.

Since I had to quit working on my knitting, I read the new fall Interweave Knits instead. There are so many fabulous things in this issue that I want to make. Pick up your copy today!

Knitting is Magic

2005-07-06T21:53:00.000-07:00

How this…

…becomes this…

…is a perfect example of why I knit.

photo: Kate Gilbert
model: Emilie Vandenameele

Last night I started knitting Clapotis with the bargain yarn I purchased last weekend. I had some trouble getting started because I couldn't figure out how to pfb, but the very helpful Purly Whites sent me a link to some excellent pfb instructions.

And this afternoon I started over on the Clapotis. Here's what happened: I went to my doctor's appointment and found out it was cancelled. My doc had been called to do a delivery. Instead of going back to work I went over to the nearby yarn store, bought some Brown Sheep Co. sock yarn and the new issue of Interweave, and proceeded to knit on my Clapotis for an hour before going home for the day. It's uncharacteristic of me to shirk my work responsibilities like this, but it felt so good just sitting on that knitting couch for an entire hour and focussing on my knitting.

It's really hard to imagine this caterpillar of a scarf turning into such a butterfly just by looking at the beginnings of my Clapotis, but I have followed the instructions to the letter and will try to have faith. I suppose it all starts to take shape once I start dropping those stitches in the fourth section, but I'm not thinking about that right now. I'm just focussing on not messing up what I'm doing so far.

Clapotastrophe

2005-07-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

Maybe some of you coming to this site through the link on the Blue Blog can help me with the wicked and cruel Clapotis. I started it tonight (too late, I admit), and I got hung up on a little thing called pfb. How do you purl through the back of the stitch? I can purl through the front, no problem, but then I just end up moving my yarn to the back and knitting through the back of the stitch (instead of purling) to make it come out right. Is there a trick to this that someone can point me to, or am I doing it right? I also forgot how to SSK, but I can look that up in a book tomorrow. If I can get this stitch pattern established and it actually works (which seems impossible), I will knit this scarf using the bargain superwash navy merino tweed I bought on Sunday, although I will have to downsize it.

Unwearable Art

2005-07-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is. The first draft of my sockpal sock, entitled 'Bastille Day.' And mes amis, it is le guillotine of socks.

I have narrowed the problem down to two areas: 1) the heel and 2) the front ankle where it lines up with the middle of the heel. I think I could have done a couple of things differently to make this better. First of all, I should have knit the heel on a bigger needle. I am now sure that the red and white yarn is a finer weight than the blue. This made the heel way too tight. If I had knit the heel on a larger needle, I think it would have loosened things up in the ankle, too. Everything up to the heel is great—the toe and the foot are fitting fine, even with the stranded knitting. But getting this thing on with that heel is too challenging a thing for me to inflict on a poor, unsuspecting sockpal.

So, I'm putting this away for a while and am not going to start a new one and try to correct the problems. I'm going to work on something easy for a while. Something I know will turn out nicely. Something that will build my knitting confidence.

Frankly, I'm considering knitting a Clapotis right along with the rest of the knitting world. I just listened to the Knitcast interview with Kate Gilbert, the Clapotis designer, who lives and works in Paris, and was very inspired. All I would have to do is master the stitch pattern and not worry at all about fitting. Oh, and pick pretty yarn—no problem. I'm not usually one to jump on a bandwagon like this, but I did jump on the knitting bandwagon in the first place so what makes me think I'm such a lone wolf?

A word about Knitcast—this is a site with recordings of interviews about knitting. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to download them from the site, but I read the comments and discovered that you can access all the programs through iTunes if you have the latest version that lists 'Podcasts' in your source sidebar. Click on 'Podcasts' and search for Knitcast. This brings up an option to subscribe, which downloads the current show. Then click on the triangle to display past episodes, which you can then choose to download. Very fun! I'm downloading episode 09 right now and can't wait to hear it.

For even more inspiration (of the non-audio variety), go to the Victoria and Albert Museum web site and look at their knitting collections, interviews with designers, free patterns, and information on regional knitting.

Bastille Day Sock!

2005-07-03T21:29:00.000-07:00

Here's the re-knit of my sockpal sock. I like the motif better now—it's not as cluttered and it has a fleur-de-lis feel to it, which is why I'm calling it the Bastille Day Sock. That and I probably won't have it finished until Bastille Day. As you can probably see in the photo, I broke one of my needles when I tried the sock on my foot. This resulted in a yarn store odyssey with my mom, who is visiting today and just took up knitting.

We went to the Yarn store down the street in search of a new set of Brittany #2s for me and some yarn and needles for her next projects (a scarf and a purse). They had NO #2 double points in the whole store—outrageous. This did not stop me from buying two skeins of orange worsted weight Lamb's Pride, two skeins of Dalegarn Heilo charcoal tweed, and three sale skeins of a navy blue Campus tweed (a nice merino superwash) for only $8. All of these yarns with no specific project in mind. Plus I talked my mom into using different yarns that what her patterns called for, and I think she'll be much happier with her projects as a result.

I still needed those #2s, so we went to another yarn store across the river, but they were closed for the holiday weekend. Too bad, but not the end of the world. I can knit this sock using four needles without too much trouble. But now I'm going to order those special Comfort Zone Needles I've heard about in size 2.

So, back to the sock. I knit the heel in solid red first, but decided it needed to be redone in a pattern because it was so much thinner than the rest of the sock. I didn't want the heel to wear out faster. Now the re-knit heel is pretty tight. This could be because I inadvertently used a lighter weight of Dalegarn than in the body of the sock, although I don't know for sure. I have a mix of Heilo and Hauk (but mostly Heilo) that I bought a quite a while ago (ball bands long since removed), so there's a chance. I think it will work itself out, though.

Born on the First of July

2005-07-02T12:35:00.000-07:00

Here's the begining of my sockpal sock! The color scheme is seasonally appropriate, even though the sock is not. The first photo is looking good, but you can see in the second photo that there is some kind of pattern line-up problem. I thought this was just a weird jog, but no. The motif is not working with the number of stitches I cast on, at least the way I started the repeat.

I went back to the drawing board and decided to make some other improvements. Since I think the motif is a little crowded, I spread it out a little by adding some extra space between each repeat, both horizontally and vertically. Then I filled in that middle stitch so it looks more like a flower. Take a look at my grid if you're interested.

If you'll excuse me, I'll be ripping out this work and starting over now.

Packing a Bag

2005-07-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

This is the bag I'd like to pack for the hospital when I have my baby. The designer's name is Margaret Nicole. She's based in New York.

You see, my baby is due on July 21—but it could happen at any time now. I don't yet have a bag of clothes packed for the hospital. After some thought I decided to spend that energy packing a bag full of things I want to knit instead. Anyone can throw some underwear in a bag for me—they did just fine the last time. But no one can organize my knitting and bring me things I want to work on. Especially the way I have my stuff all over the place at home. No one could make any sense of it. So this weekend I am going to get three projects organized and have them at the ready.

Those projects will be: 1) a moss and lime green striped felted bucket hat from bulky Lamb's Pride 2) a brown newsboy cap with multi-colored bobbles, also in Lamb's Pride and 3) two versions of sockpal socks— the Nordic style pair I'm starting tonight and a red and pink polka-dot pair I purchased yarn for today.

The question is: will I be too loaded up on meds to concentrate on my knitting? Perhaps a garter stitch scarf project is more in order.

The Really Great Unraveling

2005-06-28T21:13:00.000-07:00

Here is photo-documentation of how I picked up stitches above the ribbing at the bottom of this sweater and then ripped out the ribbing so I could add some more length.

Here I am picking up stitches a few rows above the ribbing at the bottom of the sweater from the backside. I chose to start at the red row because it was easily visible. I made sure I picked up exactly as many stitches as I had cast on when I started the sweater (luckily I still had my notes on this).

Here's my row of held stitches. You can see how I pulled out some of the ribbing stitches from the bottom where I took it apart at the cast-on edge. It didn't really unravel in the way I had hoped. I pulled the cast-on end yarn through the stitches individually and it sort of came apart, but it was still hanging together somehow. At some point I stopped pulling these stitches out from the bottom and tried pulling out the light blue rows of stockinette stitch above it. That worked much better. It separated the chunk of ribbing from the garment, so I then unraveled it from the top down (instead of from the cast-on edge) and saved the navy blue yarn for later.

This is a better shot of a hanging chunk of ribbing and the rows of light blue yarn that came out so easily.

After I got the light blue rows and the ribbing rows off the bottom of the sweater, all I did was start knitting in my stripe sequence again (using my round of held stitches). Piece of cake. I don't know why, but the stiches didn't even change direction even though I originally knit this from the bottom up. You can't even tell I ripped anything out and added on! It's like a knitting miracle.

Here are two photos of my little boy wearing the finished product. He did not want to put the sweater on, he did not want his photo taken, and he would not stand still. But you get the idea.

A note or two about fit: the sleeve stitching is really bulky and the armhole is a bit tight over the 2-layered shirt the baby was wearing today. If I had done a more flexible bind-off I don't think this would be as big of a problem. Again, I need some help with finishing techniques. The ribbing around the hood edge is a little floppy because I picked up a few too many stitches. This is always a problem for me. Finishing techniques 101, please!

I'm taking a break from knitting tonight because I don't have the brainpower to start a sock. I'm going to look at magazines instead!

Frustrations and Realizations

2005-06-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of Orla Kiely I clipped out of a magazine. I am very inspired by this elbow pad. I'm filing this away for future use and thought you might like to do the same. This in no way relates to the headline of this post.

Work on the striped hoodie sweater continues. After sewing this all together and being very frustrated with my crude skills and even cruder results, I realized I need to take a class in finishing techniques. My knitting is very nice and even, and it just feels ruined when I sew the pieces together and am faced with such a hideous, bulky, seamy underside. I resolve to find the next available finishing techniques class and sign up immediately.

And though this garment is completely sewn together, do not think that I'm finished. I'm working on the ribbing around the hood edge and hoping that my dwindling yarn supply holds out until I finish ripping out and adding length to the bottom of the sweater. The hood is too small, but it turns out that my little boy refuses to even let me try the hood on him anyway, so why should it fit? He won't be wearing it. Oh well. Tonight I will finish the ribbing and then try to unravel the bottom!

Yesterday I started a little test swatch for my sockpal project. The swatch went OK, so I decided to start a sock based on the pom squad footie. And for the life of me I could not find my notes on this project. If I hadn't transcribed the heel turn in the pages of this blog, I would be totally screwed. Blog saves the day. I also had to reprint the pattern from the Magknits web site. Internet saves the day. So I started working from the pattern and then got all confused by the toe increases. Why? It all seemed so easy when I did it before. Has my advanced pregnant state caused me to lose even more IQ points in just the last couple of weeks since I knit my last sock?

I Can See the Finish Line

2005-06-24T21:55:00.000-07:00

I bound off the hood of the sweater tonight and sewed the seam. Then I wove in all the many, many ends that I had because I was using leftover yarn. I didn't end up needing the new ball of yarn I bought yesterday. I was able to eke out the second sleeve by using yarn from a swatch I had knit using the navy merino aran. I washed the sweater and sleeves and am blocking it out right now. The body may turn out to be long enough after blocking. We'll see.

Tomorrow I'm going to start on another newsboy cap. This one will be made out of brown Lamb's Pride, and will be covered in multicolored bobbles. I might felt it if I decide I'm up to the math this would require. Tonight my brain hurts a little.

After the newsboy cap (or maybe during), I will begin my sockpal socks. As I mentioned before, I anticipate having to knit many versions of these before I'm satisfied—it probably makes sense to just get something going now and have it ready to work on in between everything else.

The Hoodie Saga Continues

2005-06-23T19:31:00.000-07:00

I tried the hoodie on the baby, and it's pretty small. And guess what else? I'm running out of the navy blue yarn. I went to buy some more, but no place seems to have the Debbie Bliss Merino Aran anymore. I found Cashmerino Aran in what I thought was the same colorway, but the dye job is way off and the color doesn't match so well. I'm going to keep knitting with what I have and hope against hope that it lasts. This is unlikely since I still have to do the ribbing around the hood, and that's all in navy blue unless I change the color scheme. I knew this yarn was jinxed. But if I can get through this sweater, I am done with it. I just hope the sweater isn't jinxed, too.

So the other thing I'll have to do is rip out the bottom where the ribbing is and add a few stripes of length. I've never done this, but I've seen a demonstration and it didn't seem too intimidating once you get past the horrifying part of cutting into your knitting with scissors. I will have to search online and see if I can find some instructions. I will document this process with photos and post them so people can see that it actually works.

While at the knitting store, I picked up that little Vogue Knitting Magazine offshoot called K1 (or whatever it is) and read a short item on a music video for the band Steriogram, directed by Michel Gondry, that uses knitting and animation. You can check it out on the Steriogram web site. The song is Walkie Talkie Man. The version on the web site is really small, but you can get the idea. If you haven't seen Michel Gondry's other work, it's incredible. He did a video for the White Stripes using lego animation that is totally mesmerizing.

Better Sweater

2005-06-21T21:41:00.000-07:00

As predicted, I did not have enough of just the blue and light blue to finish the sweater I was knitting, so I had to rip it out and add a red stripe. It's going pretty well considering I am not using the same yarn the pattern called for, my gauge is totally different and I'm just knitting it to fit my 19-month old's measurements instead of following the dimensions in the pattern. He's very fussy (impossible, actually) about letting me measure or try anything on him, so there's some guesswork. But it's looking like it will turn out all right. I didn't think a hood could be this easy to knit, but it's just a rectangular flap that gets folded in half and seamed at the top. If I ever stopped to analyze a hood, I'd have known that. This hood seems a little shallow, but adding the ribbing around the edges will add some depth.

When I first added the red stripe to the blue and light blue, I was unhappy with the color combo. It was too close to being red, white and blue—colors that I feel have been co-opted by the right wing. But I'm over that now and am co-opting them right back for my own political (or just knitting) purposes.

The stitches in this photo look so choppy and uneven. Will this even out when I wash and block the finished product? I hope so. I am now working on the sleeves, which required some measuring, math and more guessing. Photos tomorrow.

In other news, it turns out many other people involved in Sockapal2za are already knitting away on their sockpal socks. I've learned this from reading other (more interesting and more frequently updated) blogs. The September deadline seems so far away, but perhaps I should start working on mine since I'll inevitably knit several versions, rip them out, re-knit them, and then want several perfect pairs of socks from which to choose. Gotta get a head start when you need extra time for the crazy.

Updates

2005-06-16T21:31:00.000-07:00

Here is the finished cable newsboy cap I knit in the strange Icelandic yarn. The yarn worked very well, and I still have some left over. The hat needs to be washed and blocked. It was shoved in my knitting bag for several days, so the brim is off-kilter.

And now, instead of trying to knit a shrug with the blue Debbie Bliss Merino Aran, I am knitting this baby sweater. It's from a Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino book a friend of mine loaned me. She knit a version of this sweater in cashmerino that is total perfection. She loaned it to me for my baby, but he has long since outgrown it, so I'm knitting this bigger version (in bigger yarn). I'm worried that I STILL won't have enough of this yarn, even after supplementing with yarn from the sweater I ripped out. It seems like this merino aran was never meant to become anything. Such a shame for such a nice yarn.

Sock Madness

2005-06-14T19:55:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to sign up for the blue blog's Sockapal2za knit along, so I now have a purpose in my life. It's very exciting to be knitting socks for a mystery person. Who knew it would be this thrilling? I will post photos on this site, because I highly doubt there's any chance of my sock pal ever visiting. However, there is now a link to my site on the blue blog, so there is now a remote possibility that someone besides me will read my blog.

Anyway, I am making a pair of Eiffel Tower inspired socks. That is all I'm going to say for now. Use your imagination.

As for the Debbie Bliss Merino Aran shrug, so far it's a non-starter. This yarn is so jinxed. Now I think I'll (try to) knit something for one of the babies with it. I have a pattern for a hooded sweater that calls for Debbie Bliss cashmerino, so of course I would have to do major math in order to make it work. What else is new?

The Great Unraveling

2005-06-05T20:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was on self-imposed bedrest, so I started a new knitting project (off-list, as usual). I decided to knit a shrug using some leftover navy blue Debbie Bliss merino aran. I had two skeins, which I thought would be plenty. I started knitting a top-down raglan design, and didn’t even get to the end of the sleeve caps before I ran out of yarn.

Because I’ve been trying to use up this merino aran forever and have never figured out the right project, I went to the yarn store to buy another skein (or two?) to get it out of my life. The store had almost no colors in the merino aran weight, least of all navy blue. I thought about finishing the shrug in another color, but there weren’t any colors I wanted to use. Then I remembered this top-down raglan sweater I knit about a year and a half ago in the same merino aran (different colors), but never wove in the ends because it was just too chunky to wear. I decided to rip it out and use the light blue with the navy blue and re-create the shrug in small stripes. Ripping out this never-worn sweater was unbelievably therapeutic. I’ve never ripped out an entire sweater before.

But don’t think I walked out of that yarn store without buying anything. I found this fabulous Icelandic yarn in pink and red tweed that I’m using to re-knit the cabled newsboy cap. My first attempt was in a cotton that didn’t have enough stretch. If this yarn is from Iceland, why is the text on the label in some kind of Asian language? I do not know. I don’t think that’s Icelandic. I also don’t know how many yards are in this skein or what the gauge is supposed to be, but I knit a swatch on US8 needles and it is the same gauge the hat pattern calls for.

I also purchased this handy see-thru, zippered vinyl bag with plaid trim. It’s perfect for containing my unraveled raglan striped sweater and shrug.

And after several days of shaping and drying, the Rainbow Brite Popsicle Purse is done, filled with fun loot, and ready to be mailed to my friend Alli. My only regret about this project is that I couldn’t find the perfect gold awesome pin with which to accessorize it, but I have no doubt that Alli will be able to find something in NYC that appropriately captures the gestalt I was hoping for.

Rainbow Brite Popsicle Purse (To Be Felted)

2005-05-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

There are so many trade names in that headline, if only I knew how to typeset the small cap TMs required.

I have been in a knitting rut lately, but a couple of nights ago I got inspired by some leftover Lamb's Pride that I knew would felt perfectly. I used up some colors that I had from some felted puppets I knit last Easter. At first I thought the colors were gross together, but then the whole project started to grow on me. I made it with a special person in mind who I know will be able to pull this off. Now I'm totally into the 80's Rainbow Brite look and feel. I only wish I could add the perfect accessory, such as a pin that says "AWESOME" in gold lettering. I did some looking around online, and this is the best I could find:

Can't you just see it? Before I special order something online, I'll take a quick trip down to Claire's in the mall and see what they have.

Anyway, this bag knitted up very quickly. Here's how I did it:

Yarn: Lamb's Pride regular weight (i.e. not bulky), size US 10.5 needles

Begin by creating the bottom of the bag. Cast on 24 stitches.

Row 1: Knit
Row 2: K1, K1 f&b, knit to last 2 stitches, K1 f&B, K1
Repeat rows 1 & 2 until you have 36 stitches on the needle
Begin decrease
Row 1: Knit
Row 2: K1, K2tog, knit to last 3 stitches, K2tog, K1
Repeat rows 1&2 until you are back to 24 stitches on the needle; leave these 24 stitches on the needle and pick up stitches around the base. These stitches will become the bag. Place marker where you would like round to begin. Work even until bag is desired height, do a gradual decrease if you would like the top opening to be slightly smaller than the bottom.

I did a purl ridge, knit 4 more rows of stockinette stitch, and used that to tack down to the inside of the bag. Here's what I'm talking about:

Then you decide where you want your straps placed. Pick up 5 stitches in that place, knit I-cord of the desired length (I made mine 25 inches long!), and then pick up 5 more stitches where you want to attach the other end of the strap. I kitchener-stitched these together. There are probably other, better ways to do this, but I figure it will all even out in the wash.

I am felting it tonight and then filling it will fabulous gifts from the 80's for my friend before I send it to her. I hope she doesn't see this and ruin the surprise! Probably not, because no one visits my blog.

Striped Footie Seeks Similar

2005-05-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

I finished the first of my pom squad footies after working on this heel several different ways. I finally made up my own method, using some instructions from one of my sock books plus some common sense, and it worked! The heel looks the same on both sides and it's sturdy. As promised, my revised instructions to the heel part of the pattern are outlined below.

Tonight I should cast on for the second footie, but I don't feel like it. Perhaps I can summon the will after taking a bath and elevating my pregnant feet for a while.

On Saturday I had the last of my Alterknits classes and learned how to do bobbles. I think I will make a felted bag with rows of bobbles on it. I have a lot of Lamb's Pride remnants that I'd like to use up. Bobbles are very cool. I can think of many uses for them.

Revised Pom Squad heel instructions:

(Refer to the pom squad footie pattern and use my instructions when you get to the part about the heel).

Row 1: K31 (one stitch remaining on left needle), sl 1 (using the wrap & turn method*)
Row 2: P30 (one stitch remaining on left needle), sl 1 (using the wrap & turn method)

Wrap & Turn, KNIT rounds:
1. Slip stitch pw onto right needle
2. Move yarn between needles to front of work; return slipped stitch to left needle
3. Move yarn between needles to back; turn work

Wrap & Turn, PURL rounds:
1. Slip stitch pw onto right needle
2. Move yarn between needles to back of work; return slipped stitch to left needle
3. Move yarn between needles to front; turn work

Continue in this manner (knitting or purling one less stitch per row as you go along); the row where you purl 16 stitches is where you stop.

Now begin the short rows up the back of the heel.

Row 1: K16, K2tog, sl 1 (using the wrap & turn method*)
Row 2: P17, P2tog, sl 1 (using the wrap & turn method)

Continue in this manner until all stitches are "live," (now go back to the pattern's instructions)

As the Heel Turns

2005-05-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

Or, HEEL HELL, if you prefer. I have been working on turning the heel on my pom squad footie for what feels like an eternity. I've ripped it out and redone it about five times. In a fit of despair, I went to the yarn store by my office on Friday to get some help. The owner was there and COULD NOT HELP ME. THE OWNER of the store. What is up with that? That yarn store has lost points with me. This weekend we went to the beach, so during some quiet time I decided to knit a sample turned heel instead of working on my actual sock. After a couple of bad attempts last night, I puzzled over it some more while I was trying to fall asleep and came up with a plan. On the way home from the beach in the car I tested my idea a sample heel and I think it worked. As soon as I finish this post I'm going to try it on the real thing.

The challenge is that this is a toe-up sock, and somehow turning that heel and making it look the same on either side is harder than doing it from the top down. I don't know why, and the instructions are very confusing and don't work. I even emailed the magknits people to see if there was a correction to the pom squad pattern—that's how confusing the instructions are. Besides that, I couldn't find any toe-up sock patterns in any of my books to use for reference. If anyone out there reading this is an expert in turning a heel on a toe-up sock, please post a comment.

If my method does work and I am able to turn this heel symmetrically, I will write about how I did it (and I'll email it to magknits!).

Knit First, Then Blog

2005-05-12T22:06:00.000-07:00

I say knit first, then blog because I tend to get sucked into reading blogs and adding to my blog before I actually knit anything for the night. Not a good way to generate content for the blog!

I wore my winter garden socks today and they were surprisingly comfortable. I think I might like them now. I may not be able to go back to wearing machine made socks again. One problem is that the fanciful heel really takes a beating when it rubs against the inside of my shoes. A pair of open-heeled clogs would solve this problem. The pair I ordered is on the way!

Still working on the pom squad footie. I knit up to where I have to turn the heel, and am baffled. I don't understand the wrap and turn thing. The instructions don't make much sense to me, so I looked it up in my sock-shaped book and there seems to be a better explanation. I will try again tomorrow (because I don't start things that are mentally challenging after 9pm).

I spent a bunch of money on magazines today. I bought a French children's haute couture magazine called Milk for $11.95, and the latest issue of Home Companion (only $4.99). The children's fashion magazine has some amazing sweaters, and the Home Companion has some neat shadow boxes.

A Sock that Won't Mock

2005-05-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

I have started knitting the pom squad footie from an archived issue of Magknits in the hopes that it works out better than the winter (garden sock) of my discontent. This sock is from the toe up, which I've never done. I had a hard time remembering how to do a m1 increase, so there are some holey areas at the very beginning of the toe that I am not going to fix. They won't matter. I am fearful of the heel because I can't imagine how you do that in reverse of the way I'm used to doing it.

Even though I'm happy to be knitting my new pom squad footie, it's completely off topic. I'm not following my mental list of projects. So here is my mental list of projects, in writing, on the record, so I can stick to the program from now on. Unfortunately I can't put it in any kind of order. That is too restrictive. And other, more interesting projects may come along. But I will try to keep it updated and cross off projects that I'm no longer interested in doing.

Here goes:
baby shrug & legwarmers
strip stripe scarf 2.0
giant buttonhole bag
felted bucket hat
ggh Samoa Mouliné baby sweater & hat

Cruel Socks

2005-05-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

The winter garden socks are finished at last. My second sock is a bit smaller than the first. This may be because I was supposed to use two different size needles for different parts of the sock, but I used my number ones throughout on this one. I don't remember switching on the first one, but I think the pattern said to do the cuff in larger needles. Anyway, the difference isn't that huge. Now I am in hell weaving in all the ends. But so happy my first pair of socks is finished!

I can't decide what to do next. I have yarn for a felted bucket hat, but I don't know what pattern to use, or if I want to make up my own. I have a lot of ggh Samoa tweed in light blue and red-orange that would be good for a baby sweater and hat. I could make another felted purse, but bigger this time. Oh, and a pair of striped footies with leftover yarn from my winter garden socks and my Christmas stockings. So many possibilities.

Special Delivery

2005-05-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

My Japanese craft books arrived today! After stumbling across these on several knitting and craft blogs, I went crazy on Amazon Japan and bought SIX! For a gallery of covers complete with ISBNs, go to Buzzville. I'm so excited about these! There are so many great project ideas. I bought two books on making felt purses (with the needle felting technique), and a bunch of others with various projects, some felting, some sewing, some knitting and sewing combined. I hope I actually make something from one of these books. The instructions seem pretty clear, even though they're in Japanese.

I'm slogging away on my second winter garden sock, and am still hating it. I finished the heel flap and am now into the foot (and gussets). I'm afraid I'm going to run out of yarn, and I DO NOT want to buy more yarn for this thing I hate. But I do want to finish it.

It's Finished

2005-05-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

My yarn scrap scarf prototype is finished, and it's a moderate success. These colors and textures work pretty well together and I like the varying lengths. I attached the strips together with buttons. My next version is going to be a wilder color combo, which will be more interesting. But for a prototype, this turned out ok.

I'm now finishing my second winter garden sock. When it's finally done, I hope to work on something I actually like. It seems like I spend a lot of time on projects I don't end up liking very much. I'm tired of that!

Strip Stripe Scarf Prototype

2005-05-02T21:10:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of my Strip Stripe Scarf Prototype being blocked on a towel on my bathroom floor. I am on a using-up-old-bits-of-yarn kick, and this project is an idea I got from my Alterknits class. I used up some brown Lamb's Pride, light blue Rowan Kid Soft mohair, light blue Debbie Bliss cashmerino, and some other bit of brown acrylic/wool blend. Yes, the theme is brown and light blue. I'm hoping these colors look good together when it's all stitched together in the light of day. The light blues are a little bit off. Anyway, the idea is to knit these skinny strips in varying yarns and widths, and then assemble them together with strategically placed tacking stitches. The example my teacher had in class was knit with much crazier yarns, then embellished with beads and buttons and was really cool. And then someone stole it from the yarn store! Next I will knit one using my leftover Christmas stocking Dale of Norway yarns. I plan on knitting different width stripes on each strip, then I'll connect them with colorful buttons. This will be a gift for my son's babysitter who's last day is in June.

Today I came really close to spending $63 on an apron! It was by Hable Construction, and it was a small, utility-belt style that would be perfect for carrying around knitting or baby supplies. The only thing that prevented me from purchasing it on the spot was that I forgot to bring my wallet. I promised myself I'd sleep on it, but I may go back tomorrow and buy it for myself for mother's day. The price is outrageous and someone with even the slightest of sewing skills could make one, but I don't sew anymore. I knit. When I try to sew, it just reminds me why knitting is so much better.

Feed Me

2005-04-30T19:34:00.000-07:00

This is the giant flower I knit in my Alterknits class today. The class is very inspiring. The instructor is Leigh Radford, art director of Interweave Knits magazine. She is an art-brain knitter. Her work is very sculptural and unconventional, but manages to also be functional.

So today we learned how to make this knit flower and a corkscrew shape (not pictured, and which I haven't figured out how to incorporate into anything I'd ever knit, but it's still good to know). Leigh brings in bags and bags full of yarn for us to use, so the sky is the limit. Every color and texture you could ever want is in the yarn pile. It's overwhelming and fun.

Leigh is an expert at knitting things out of strange materials. My favorite of the things she showed us today were crowns knit out of crepe paper and embellished with beads and ribbons. I can't wait until her book, Alterknits, comes out and I can learn how to make one of these.

Last time I came home from class inspired to knit cupcakes and houses and other three-dimensional objects. I still don't know how to do this yet, but there's one more class.

Swatches

2005-04-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

Here are close-up swatches from my inspiration board post:

Inspiration Board

2005-04-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

This is a collage of things with inspiring patterns. I especially like the blue linen jacket on the upper left. I cut this photo out of the newspaper because the colorblock design was so striking. It's cool enough to make me want to knit it in intarsia on a pillow.

I call the pattern on the lower right "Swedish Argyle." The funky white shape in the diamonds has a real Scandinavian feel to me. Here is the chart I transcribed.

The bead bag is just cool. I think those shapes could be charted pretty easily and knit as a motif. Or better yet, buy the purse if you ever find it!

An Unfortunate Event

2005-04-27T21:52:00.000-07:00

I knit the rest of this cuff in front of the TV (Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events), and had to rip out one round. When I try to watch a movie and knit, sometimes I don't do either very well. I'm happy to be moving past the chart and onto the stripes (at least until I get to the heel flap). This sock has become a real chore.

Cool for Cats, Bad for Hats

2005-04-26T20:18:00.002-07:00

Right after I painstakingly sewed elastic on my newsboy cap, took photos and posted them (Read All About It), I turned right around and ripped out the elastic. Because it was ugly. So I won't be using this new Samoa Mouliné (tweed) I bought on Saturday for anymore newsboy caps. Too bad, because the red/orange tweed with solid red/orange stripe (swatch at left) would have looked cute. Unfortunately this yarn has no stretch and I must now accept that it cannot be used for hats.

Now look at this pretty color!

Ahoy, Matey

2005-04-25T20:42:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night, while watching the documentary Bush's Brain, I started knitting my second "winter garden" sock from the sock-shaped Knit Socks! by Betsy Lee McCarthy. I knit the first one several weeks ago. It's my first pair of socks for wearing. I went on a Christmas stocking frenzy this winter, but it's different when you don't have to make two of the same and they don't have to fit. Or is it? This fits like a Christmas stocking. Due to my choice of colors, it looks like one, too. Maybe I should just stick to Christmas stockings.

Oh, and—no surprise here—Bush's Brain was a real downer.

Read All About It

2005-04-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I finished my cabled newsboy cap from Stitch 'N Bitch Nation. Of course I used a completely different yarn than the pattern called for (GGH Samoa Mouliné in a blue tweed) so it has no stretch. I put plastic mesh in the brim, but the corners may need reinforcing. I will add elastic when I go to class on Thursday because the band is very loose. I bought an additional ball of Samoa Mouliné in a beautiful red-orange tweed, so I will knit another of these hats starting with smaller needles so the brim is tighter. I also need more red-orange yarn, so I am thinking about striping it with a solid red-orange (or lighter orange), doing ribbing instead of cables, and adding a little nub on the top!

UPDATE:
I decided to add elastic to the back of the band my own way. I took some thick elastic, tacked it down on either end (using the sewing machine), then sewed it in place. It was horrific! But I actually think it makes the hat look better. Now I need to knit a little band on the back or something to cover up the ugly zig zag stitches.

The Incredible Shrinking Bag

2005-04-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

I had two skeins of Lamb's Pride Bulky that needed a project, so I decided to make this felted bag. The colors are a little weird together, but the combination has grown on me. I envisioned this as a big tote bag, but it wanted to be a small purse. Unfortunately these photos give you NO idea of the before and after sizes and I didn't write down the dimensions—even though a big part of why I started this project was to see how much Lamb's Pride Bulky would shrink down so I would know how to size the bucket hat I plan on knitting soon. So unprofessional!

Sweater Coat

2005-04-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

I saw this fabulous sweater coat at Anthropologie. It was knit by machine, I'm sure. I analyzed the pattern by looking at the close-up photographs, and I came up with a chart. Here is the pattern I transcribed. Maybe someday I will make a handknit version of this coat. Or maybe I'll just knit a swatch and see how that goes.

Always Be Closing

2005-04-15T19:35:00.000-07:00

I started this blog so it would motivate me to write about, photograph, and most of all, FINISH my knitting projects. Stay tuned.