193 posts tagged “knitting”
I finally (FINALLY!) finished the mermaid costume I was knitting for a friend's daughter's 5th birthday. It's the Splash pattern from Vickie Howell's book, New Knits on the Block. (Rav link to my project.) The 5-year-old in question loved it and put it on immediately and had it on for the next two hours that I was at her house at least. I hope she didn't sleep in it because I'm not sure it would be comfortable.
I want to make another one for another of the girls who was there because I didn't make her a birthday gift this year and she looked like she would love one too. I'm thinking of Knit Picks Comfy bulky in either sea foam or marlin. Thoughts? I wish I could stash dive for this project like I did for the purple one but I don't think anything I have is bulky enough or in my stash in large enough quantity to use doubled to make it the right weight.
Finishing things is always satisfying, of course, but finishing gift knitting even more so. Especially when the recipient is as enthusiastic as today's was! She could barely wait for me to finish sewing in the elastic before she put it on.
I have one of the looms warped for this week and a few picks woven onto it to get the kids started. I'm going to show it to my friend Victoria tomorrow, who is a much more experienced weaver, and maybe she can give me some tips. She also loaned me a warping mill so I can measure the warp for the other two looms. Look! I'm even learning the lingo!
I visited my friend who is about to start her chemo today and delivered her shawl. (I've also figured out a way to upload photos so you get to see it.
For the back I followed the pattern exactly (the Chunky Highland Wool Wrap from Elann.com) -- other than not using wool of course. If I were to do it again I'd change the cross of the top left cable of the fleur de lis pattern to make it so that it doesn't go over twice in a row. I'm not sure if you can see that in this photo or not.
For the front I changed the pattern completely. The cable they had on the front pieces was very pretty but it pulled far too much in this totally synthetic yarn (Crystal Palace Puffin). Since I couldn't block the pulling out it had to go. I fiddled with a couple of more simple cables but ended up just using a stitch pattern from Barbara Walker vol. 1. I like the way it turned out. My friend liked it too. She said that the nurse told her that some people get cold sitting in the chemo chair during the treatments and it would be perfect for that. I hope it is.
I need to dig out a chemo cap pattern. I'm thinking about making one from some Sock Candy I have. I'll have to soak it in vinegar before giving it to her though, since my Sock Candy always loses its color on the first wash. I need to get a good picture of my post-wash Holey Socks to show you. It's really astonishing.
I think I may have gone overboard with books for Niels. He seems to be overloaded a bit. He took a book out of his class library and has been reading that. It's from the Guardians of Gahoole series about a group of owls. I haven't read them so that's all I know. I'm still hoping that he'll want to read Fergus Crane because it was such a fun little book. I also think he'll want to read to second of the Magic Thief books when we finally get to it.
I tried that tomato soup in my blender again, this time with less onion and it was red. It's still too oniony, I think. I have a can of pumpkin so I might try the pumpkin soup recipe next that uses sautéed onion and roasted garlic. It sounds really good.
My sweater is still growing in a very boring and unphotographable way. I mean, I could take a picture but it's not much to see.
Day 6 and I'm running out of stuff to say already!
It turned out that I needed to knit a few more rows before I could bindoff on my socks so I did that last night and didn't end up knitting on my sweater at all. I have a cool new pair of socks though. I love them so far. I am curious to see how this yarn holds up because I have definitely durability issues with some cotton sock yarns. Time will tell!
These are the Upstream Master pattern from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways book 1. I think it might be my favorite architecture. The increases happen on the sole and there's something about it that makes a sock that hugs my foot well.
I also finished a woven scarf today. I started it waaaaay back in May when I first got my loom and just kind of lost my oomph. I will be teaching the kids at Niels' school how to weave this week, though, so I need my loom for the class and had to finish off the project that was on it.
My sweater continues to grow. I have started the waist decreases but the edges of the fronts continue to increase more rapidly so the quantity of stitches is still growing fairly quickly. I can take it though. I'm tough like that.
We got a Scholastic order from school today which included a copy of The Invention of Hugo Cabret. I had been considering buying it and thought it was a bargain in the catalog. I see now that it's 39 cents cheaper on Amazon but this way we earned points for our teacher to get more books for class! I feel a bit guilty buying books like this because I feel like I am trying to turn Niels into the same kind of reader I am: the kind who also enjoys comics and graphic novels. This book is half pictures, if not more. I haven't started reading it yet but I flipped through it and it looks really interesting. He already likes comics, of course, but this will help that along too.
I was running around all day so far and the only knitting I did was on the ribbing of my stripey socks. I'm done and am going to bind them off as soon as I finish posting this, which doesn't help me reach my sweater goal, of course, but gives me a fun new pair of socks to wear tomorrow! I will probably knit a bit on the sweater too. I want to watch yesterday's episode of V before I go to bed, even though the things I've read so far have not been terribly positive. It could get better! Right? Right!
In NaNoSweMo news I am up to 5 inches of my sweater. This sweater has an inset front panel but I didn't see any reason not to knit the two fronts and the back in one piece so that's what I'm doing. That makes it difficult to photograph. But here goes. (Plus, you're getting iPhone photos for the next little while until I can figure out why my iPhoto hangs up when I try to export to Flickr.)
Paraphrased: A slim sleeve makes for a flattering garment. But! Knitter, know thyself =)
Well, I know myself and prefer a less slim sleeve! I'm glad it's not just me though.
Because I'm crazy, I've decided to participate in NaNoSweMo (National Sweater Knitting Month?) and NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I am going to try to post on my blog every day in November and I cast on today for Anhinga, by Norah Gaughan, which I am knitting in All Seasons Cotton, of course. I am having issues with uploading and there isn't much to see so there's no picture yet. Hopefully I will work out my upload issues. Having pictures would certainly help my blog posting too. We'll see how that goes.
Since I last posted I finished a cowl for a friend's birthday.
A baby turtle for Stefan.
A robot for my friend's son's second birthday.
A top...
a bear in a hot air balloon...
and a blanket bunny for Kristi's baby.
I have to send the bunny off soon, she only has about a month left to go although I know, from experience, that the last month is the longest.
The BobaKnitters also made her this beautiful blanket, which I designed with in put from Cookie. I didn't knit on it but I did most of the seaming.
I also finished a gift for a friend who preparing to battle breast cancer. The day I found out I cast on for this gift because that's what knitters do, we cast on. I hope that my gift and the warmth it provides help her in her fight. I don't have a picture to show you because of my aforementioned uploading problem but that's probably for the best since I think she reads my blog and I haven't given it to her yet.
Wish me luck in my endeavors!
I left someone out! My holey socks. The name of the pattern is Bosnian Toes and Turkish heels from one of the old issue's of Knitter's that my aunt gave me. I will always call them my holey socks, though. I was ready to post about them last week with this photo.
They're a little slouchy around the ankle but I think if they weren't in this yarn they'd never fit over my heel. I might try this pattern again in Fixation at a smaller size. I'm not sure what Fixation would do to those holes though. We might see, some day.
Last year I dyed some yarn. This week I tried to use it. I knew I was going to have to wash the item afterwards because the yarn never rinsed clear but I didn't realize just how much I was going to have to wash it. I washed it in the sink with textile detergent (the Dharma version of Synthrapol) then I soaked it in vinegar and washed it in the machine with hot water and the textile detergent. It's still bleeding. On everything. I'm very frustrated. Dyers out there, any suggestions on setting this crap? It's procion fiber reactive dye on a cotton/rayon yarn. It's frustrating because I think the color is pretty and I loved how it looked in this pattern (the darkside cowl - Rav link).
Last, but very much not least, a pair of socks in the self-patterning cotton sock yarn I got at Sock Summit.
Like many other knitters, I was at Sock Summit this past weekend. I drove up with my whole family and we stayed with some friends just outside of Portland so my trip was a mix of Sock Summit stuff and visiting friends and family. I don't feel like I got as submerged in Sock Summit as some.
I took "Knitting without Wool" with Amy Singer. I got to see a bunch of socks knit with nonwool yarns that I had heard of but never seen. Wick, for one. I'm glad now that I never tried it for socks because it is very thick and I like my socks to be on the thinner side. We also learned a stretchy bind-off that will be in an article in the next Knitty. Ironically, the socks I was working on at Sock Summit and the pair I started on the drive home are both top-down. Generally, I knit all of my socks toe-up! I'll have to do a pair next to try that bind-off.
I didn't take many photos at Sock Summit, but here's one of the cool pendulum in the convention center, of Freecia at lunch with a giant pita at Nicholas Restaurant and of the luminary panel.
On Sunday before the panel I walked around the marketplace a bit with Cookie and Anne Hanson, who I had never met before and who was very nice. She was working on some gorgeous orange socks (seen in her most recent blog post) that were making me sad that I can't knit with wool. Ah, cootton, why can't you take color like wool? I did do a bit of shopping, but not much. Like Stitches, the nonwool, nonlace options are few and far between.
Anabel told me that she tired the square circular needles in size 0 and she wasn't crazy about them for reasons that totally sounded like I wouldn't like them either. In the heat of the moment at the marketplace I forgot that and bought the exact same needles and am having the exact same problem: the cord is too flexible and the join too bumpy for magic loop. The actual knitting is fine but when it comes time to pushing the stitches back up to the tip of the needle to work on them it's incredibly time consuming and a big pain. I am considering emailing the store where I got them and asking if I can trade them for something larger with a shorter cord because I think they'd be great for actually knitting in the round. I haven't tried the hook yet, but I have a couple of their square hooks in larger sizes (this one is an F) so I expect to like it.
The yarns are, from left to right, Sockina, Kollage Luscious and BMFA Sock Candy. They're all cotton blends. Luscious and Sock Candy both just have elastic and Sockina has Polyamide and Acrylic. i'm looking forward to knitting with all of them but have to settle on a pattern, and finish the sock I started on the trip home!
That would be the Bosnian Toes & Turkish Heels sock by Lucy Neatby (Ravelry link) from Knitter's Magazine. I usually just get Interweave unless I see something I really want to make in one of the other magazines. My aunt, however, gets Interweave, Knitters and Knit n Style and has decided that she doesn't like any of them. She gave me a big stack of Knittters and Knit n Style and a book she doesn't want any more!
I need to go through them, decide which ones have stuff I want to make, read the articles I want to read and then I will probably be sharing the wealth at BobaKnit.
I was considering calculating my stash number again but I think it's a bad idea. I have been mostly working on gift projects with yarn that came from outside of the stash so I don't think I've taken much out of the stash recently. The Lucy Neatby socks are going quickly, though, so that yarn should be taken out soon. I don't think I'm going to make my goal this year of using up 5 more miles of yarn. That sounds ludicrous to me right now since I just bought yarn and Linda destashed some cotton and silks to me. Oops.
