April 2007 Archives

Last Friday, I met up for a yarn swap with local knitbloggers Meredith, Brianne, Brianne's mom Linda, and Tammy (who attended by proxy - she's brave girl, but don't worry, we didn't send her home with ANY fun fur!  Except that kitty fun fur - right, Linda?)

Several of us have pledged not to buy any more yarn during the summer (my "yarn diet" goes until August 1 - no exceptions!) so we wanted to refresh the yarn stash without buying anything new.

I brought a LOT of yarn, but I wanted to keep my options open once I saw what everyone else brought to trade.

I made some lovely trades... wanna see? 

First up, we have the Mama E C*eye*ber sock yarn, in a sickening shade of sorbet orange.  I'm going to try to dye it or do something to make it look pretty - Brianne dared me. 

Next I got several skeins of recycled sari silk from Meredith... she says she has a purse pattern I just have to make.  

I plan to use the Diakeito and the Chunky AL for a fake-isle hat... hopefully I'll have enough yarn. 

Last but not least, I got two skeins of Jo Sharp Tweed - can you ever have enough? - and two skeins of Cotton Tots to make something for my nephew who's being born this summer.  I keep talking about him, but I really need to start KNITTING for him. 

I'm getting my carpet cleaned tomorrow - yay!  But do you know how hard it is to have your entire house picked up at once?  (Okay, maybe I'm just a slob....)

I may not have been blogging much lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been knitting! I finished the first of this pair of socks last last week, and I'm well into the ribbing for the second one.

I like the way the yarn turned out with this pattern - there is a little bit of a color-swirl going on around the leg, but it's so minor I really can't complain.

Also, the pattern calls for a very short heel flap which didn't fit my foot at all. I added about 6 rows - so I had 16 slipped stitches along the edge of the heel flap, instead of 13. Then I just did some extra decreases on the gusset to get back to the right number of stitches.

Wow... it's been a while since I posted, huh?  I guess it's just like anything else, you get out of the habit and don't even realize how long it's been.  I'm still reading blogs and knitting, but I just haven't felt like posting lately.  I even thought about taking the site down.  Then, this morning I get an invite to join Ravelry, a new onling knitting/crochet community (myspace for knitters?  That's pretty funny, actually.)

Anyway, I'm going to try it out, plus I am going to try to blog pretty regularly for a couple of weeks, even if I don't feel like I have anything interesting to say.  

It doesn't count if I don't buy it, right? 

I swear, I had no clue this was coming - it just showed up on my doorstep yesterday.  It's a late b-day present from my friend June.  We've been friends since around second grade - my first memory of her is when she threw up in the school lunch line (turned out she had appendicitis).

Anyway, life goes on, as it tends to do, and we don't see each other too often anymore, since she lives in Oregon and her parents moved away from our hometown.  But she was visiting Missouri not too long ago, so we met for breakfast... and that's when I spotted her handknit sweater... and handwarmers... and socks.  Oh my goodness, she's as bad as me!  (actually worse - she's a spinner, too!)

 So, long story long.... here's my birthday present from a fellow knitter - isn't it awesome?  That purple yarn in the middle she spun herself.  It's so pretty and soft (merino superwash), I'm trying to figure out the perfect project for it.  I'm guessing it's about DK-worsted weight, and it feels about as heavy as a skein of Cascade 220, so probably whatever you could make with one skein of that would work.  Any ideas?  

Thanks again, June! 

 

So, a couple years ago I bought this great book of patterns, Rowan Classic Summer 11. I've never made anything out of it, but I really like all the classic, 50s-inspired styles. This spring, I've decided to knit a couple of my favorite sweaters from it - Julia and Tea Time.

This is the beginnings of Julia - I couldn't find the called-for Cashcotton 4-ply when I was in St. Louis visiting Annie, so I went with Elsbeth Lavold Hempathy instead. Plus, I figured the hemp/cotton blend would be really cool and comfortable in late spring and early fall. (It's a long sleeved sweater.)

I swatched... and got gauge on size 2s, rather than the size 3s called for in the pattern. Egads. An entire long sleeved sweater on size 2 needles?!?!? Oh well, is it really that different than size 3s anyway? I'm sure the sweater will look really nice at that small gauge. So away I go!  (I started knitting this about three weeks ago... so it's pretty slow going.)

I've finally got the lace pattern down, thanks to my nifty KnitPicks chart keeper. (I took the row-by-row written instructions and charted them out.) I think there's a mistake in the 5th row of the lace pattern, but I'm not a lace expert so I wouldn't swear to it.

This is going to be a slow and steady process, without too much excitement along the way, but I'm going to try to post pictures fairly regularly to encourage myself to keep working on it.

I hope everyone had a happy Easter!

I'm taking it easy this Easter, just a quiet dinner at home with my husband and maybe a friend who's all by herself for the holiday. It's quite a change from the Easters of my childhood, with the huge holiday meal at my grandma's, followed by either (a) either anticipating the egg hunt while my aunt and uncles hid the eggs or (b) as an older kid, hiding the eggs for my younger cousins. There are certain places that eggs were always hidden - I'll let you in on the secret since they aren't any cousins young enough to do an egg hunt this year: in the mailbox, in the gutter downspout, at the base of the tulips, balanced in various tree branches too high for the kids to reach, in the clohespin bag hanging on the clothesline, and in a crevice of a tree where a branch used to be.

Whew! Luckily, we won't be running short on kidlets next year, because my aunt and uncle are in China right now picking up their new two-year-old daughter! I'm very excited to meet my new cousin.

Oh yeah - the picture! I finished the Moss Stitch Hand Towel from Mason Dixon Knitting. Here's the details:

Yarn: Euroflax linen - 1 skein

Needle Size: Size 5

Skills needed: cast on, knit, purl, cast off

Pattern Modifications: None!

Time to knit: March 24 - April 4 Ahhh... a nice quick knit. Actually, it got a little tedious by the end, but I wanted to finish it to see what the linen fabric would be like after it washed.

Final impressions: Well, I doubt I'll be knitting a whole collection of linene handtowels, but it does make a really nice finished product. The moss stitch squares provide a nice texture when you're drying your hands, and the towel dries really fast after use, which is something I can't say for the cotton warshrags from MDK.

After about 6 false starts, with various combinations of yarn and pattern, I finally found one that fits! Hooray!

I started knitting Child's First Sock in Shell Pattern (from Knitting Vintage Socks) last weekend, and it's looking good so far (if I do say so myself!)  =)

For some reason this pattern always looked really complicated to me, but once I started knitting it, I realized that it is really intuitive and easy to follow.  I love the subtle variations of the Tess superwash sock yarn, too.  I think I'm moving towards using only solid and semi-solid colored sock yarns.  The multi-colored ones look beautiful in the skein, but it's such a hassle to get them to look right when they're knitted up.  (Just this knitter's opinion!) 

I mention this because part of my no-yarn-buying plan is to trim the yarn stash down to a yarns that I really love.  That is good news for my local knitty buddies, since I may be looking for some yarn swaps or giveaways in the next couple of months.   

 You know I love a good yarn sale.  I don't go crazy, but I do try to find good deals on projects that I know I will love - I have to have a project in mind before I buy!  Every spring Simply Fibers holds a sale to clear out the winter merchandise and promte the spring stuff - at least 15% off everything in the store!  I managed to find a few items....  

First up, 6 balls of Rowan cashcotton DK to make this pretty short-sleeved cardigan (pattern in Rowan Classic Summer booklet, which is proving quite inspiring to me!).  I think if I do the little extras to make this look really nice (ie - tubular cast on, setting in the sleeves well etc.) I could probably wear this to work.  Plus, it's in DK weight yarn, so compared with most of my other projects, it should knit up super fast!

(I have plans for another sweater out of this book in Hempathy, but I need to do a practice swatch to get the lace pattern down first.  I keep screwing it up, and Hempathy is tricky to rip back (very splitty).

Speaking of practice swatch, I also got a couple balls of a linen/acrylic blend (WAY cheaper than Euroflax linen) to make a practice swatch/handtowel with.  I'm itching to get started, but I'm forcing myself to finish the moss stitch handtowel first.   

Last but not least, I got this gorgeous skein of Colinette Jitterbug (superwash sock yarn) to make another pair of socks for my husband.  It's actually a little darker than it looks in this picture - I think it strikes the perfect balance of interesting color cahnges for me but dark enough for his tastes. 

This will probably go into the stash to marinate for a while, though... I finally got a pair of socks started that I like!!  I'll post pictures tomorrow.  (Oooh.... the suspense!)

But on that note, I am formally declaring a moratorium on yarn purchases until August 1!  I have yarn for two summer sweaters, plus plenty of random skeins of sock yarn and other stuff.  No free days, no excuses.  I know I can do it!