Merry Christmas Yarn

Josh's parents gift to me.  Some yarn money.  And my favorite downtown yarn shop announced a sale yesterday.  I ran over after work and grabbed these three skeins.  I'm very into the idea of fingering weight lace wraps.  I keep buying yarn to knit them, but have not yet started to knit any.  Odd.  Anyway, I love the color and the yarn is so soft, 100% merino.  Yum.  

Knitting Like the Wind

My sock!  I know it looks rather odd to you non-knitters, but it is actually progressing very nicely.  The part at the bottom where it gets a bit skinnier and has the needles in it is becoming the heel.  and the peach thread running down the middle is just to mark how far I've knit.  I'll pull it out when I'm done.  That is one day's worth of obsessive knitting interspersed with real life.  I hope to finish this one today and cast on for the next one tomorrow.  I do have to stay up until midnight.   

Happy New Years Eve! 

Not Josh's Gloves

Cast on last night. A little sock. For me. This is my seccond attempt at socks. Last time I got bored and ripped out what I had started. This time the yarn is more interesting and I'm knitting on double pointed needles instead of one long circular. I prefer double points.

I should be working on Josh's gloves.

Damp Wool

The hat, now blocked, on our bathroom counter drying.

Click on the image to view full sized!

And a Hat

When I used up the second ball of yarn for Stephanie's scarf I checked the length.  It was longer than I am tall, and will probably stretch more when I block it.  Usually you make a scarf as long as the wearer is tall and I am a bit taller than Stephanie.  I sent her a quick email to see if she would prefer a very long scarf or a ridiculously long scarf.  She chose very long, and I offered to knit a hat with the remaining yarn.  This is the hat, as yet un-blocked.  

Blocking is a process where you wet down the knitted object and stretch it to it's final dimensions.  Depending on the type of object/garment you are blocking you will stretch it more or less vigorously, using one of many stretching/wetting techniques.  This guy was supposed to be wet down and stretched over a dinner plate.  The hat seemed smaller than a plate while dry, but once soaked, it grew on it's own.  The hat is now larger than a dinner plate, so I didn't bother with it.  I simply shaped it by hand on a towel.  Blocking smoothes out all the bumps and wrinkles you see in these pictures.  

The bottom of the hat, I'll weave in that loose strand of yarn.  The ribbing won't fold over on itself after blocking.  

Several Projects at Once

My techno-geek gloves, still very much in progress. These were sort of a prototype for gloves that I wanted to knit Josh. His gloves are pictured below. As you can see I am also not very far along on that pair.




Steph's scarf, also very much in progress. I'm almost done with the second ball of yarn (Stephanie bought three). So not too much more to go.




And some sock yarn I just bought for myself (I had cupons). It is a rather pretty self striping colorway, in a yarn that the Harlot speaks very highly of.





I've been reading the Yarn Harlot's site, and some Elizabeth Zimmerman books this past week. They've got me all worked up and ready to knit (I hadn't been working on Josh's gloves at all before yesterday). Worl wears me down, I arrive home in a semi-comatose state and get very little knitting done.


I've been spinning too, but it looks pretty much the same as the last photos. Today my clunky wheel repair kit arrived! I'm excited to fix my wheel, and a little nervous. I have to drill into the hub of the wheel to install the new axel. Taking drill to wheel is giving me pause. I'll work up the nerve soon.

Spinning

This, is becoming yarn!

I've started spinning the birthday roving.  It's really beautiful.  This photo looks browner than the real stuff, but there's no accounting for computer monitors.  

I wanted to make this into a lace weight two ply.  It might end up being more of a fingering weight though, which will still serve my purposes very nicely.  

Drop Stitch Stephanie

I'm using this beautiful yarn that Stephanie bought to make her a scarf. She found a really lovely dropped stitch pattern that she liked. It's my train knitting because it shouldn't get to big or too intricate to haul around.




I had almost three feet of scarf knit. On my lunch break the other day I lay it out to take a blog photo, when I noticed a giant mistake. And the giant mistake was only about a foot from the beginning. Argh. I had to rip back, it was a little demoralizing. Now that I've knit back to where I was, I can talk about it again.


The scarf pre rip. You can see where my circular needle is, way back by the beginning. That's where I had to rip to.




And the offending row. You can see how the scarf is all wavy lines and offset openwork. But mid frame there is a big honking straight line, where I did not offset the openwork. There was no way I could leave it.



This is actually very addicting to knit.

Sorry for the poor photo quality, all taken with my iPhone.

New Hat?

Every year I tell myself that if I knit a really great hat, that I will like wearing it.  I hate wearing hats, I live in Chicago.  I need to wear hats.  It never really works.  

This year I'm going to make a really great hat from my own hand spun.  Maybe that'll do it.     

My hand spun in a little skein.  I have more than 100 yards of an almost lace weight (it's heavier than true lace weight).  

I'm not sure how much lace weight I'll need, I feel like I have enough.  

This is what I'm working on.  Adapting it to be a hat.  

A crazy lace doily!  I love it.  

Here is my sample.  This isn't quite big enough for a hat.  I'll have to add more patterning to the edge.  I'm going for a beret type cap.  I need something bigger and slouchier to fit all my hair inside.  

And the close up shots.  

WollPanda

Wool Panda in German!
Who knew panda=panda? New blog name?
Probably not.
Thanks Sandy.