Quick Update

I've been super busy, here are a few shots of what I'm doing right now.

Plain sock, knit with colorful yarn and contrasting heels and toes.

These were my train knitting, brainless and entertaining.

Now I'll have to come up with something else simple to work on while traveling.

I just started a swirl scarf, from the Swirl Shawl pattern that Mom gave me.

Knitting these little hexagons is probably not the best train knitting. They're easy enough, but don't seem like they'd be good for frequent stopping and starting.

Beauty Shots

The hand painted sock yarn that I took with me to knit a wrap while on vacation.  

The two colors of tweed yarn that I bought at This Is Knit in Dublin.  

The roving and drop spindle from the Handweavers Studio in London.  

Silk top also from Handweavers Studio.  

Eggplant colored wenslydale wool from I Knit in Waterloo.  

Hand painted roving, also from I Knit.  

Silk lace weight (yes it's from Habu, but I never see Habu here in Chicago), also from I Knit.  

Lovely soft merino cashmere blend that I bought at Loop in Islington.  

And lambswool, also from Loop, that I have now seen all over Chicago!  Oh well.  

One of my yarn buying goals was to try for things that I can't get here in the states.  

Dress Update

Two cell phone shots of the dress so far.  I have all the skirt pieces cut out, and most of them are sewn together.  I just need to sew the outer layer together and attach them all to the bodice.  Then I'll still have to put the zipper in and hem the thing.  The skirt is very full and has three layers, the plum colored silk you see, a cotton under layer to give the silk more strength, and the lining layer.  Hemming all that will be a while.  The silk feels great though.  

Stephanie's Socks

I finally finished Steph's socks!  Just in time for the event that they were intended to celebrate.    

We work together, and I enjoy sending odd things through inter-office envelopes.  So I inter-officed her present to her.  The next thing I see is Steph, coming down the hall towards me, 'modeling' the socks!

I'm pretty happy with how they worked out.  My own split rib pattern in Knit Pick's Essential Peacock Multi.  I was a little annoyed that the yarn striped, Knit Picks sells a striping yarn, so you'd think that the 'multi' wouldn't stripe... anyway, they came out really well.  

Lia's Blanket

A blanket designed for my friend Malika's little one, Lia Christina Barros.  

I adapted the Northern Lights stitch pattern from one of Barbara Walker's stitch dictionaries, and added a contrasting seed stitch border.  I might rework this pattern.  Then Lia will get another blanket. 

Fern Cowl

Stephanie's birthday present. Fern stitch cowl out of Cascade Pastaza, a wool and llama blend. I didn't block the cowl because it started developing a really nice sculptural quality that I thought the birthday girl would like.




And two "detail" shots. The picture quality is pretty crappy since I had to use my phone.

More Sock

One down, one to go. No sign of the dreded second sock syndrome. The sock toe is actually very pointy, I have posed it for maximum roundness. And the sock is a bit short. Not by much. I think that my toes are longer than Ann Bud thinks my toes are. Oh well, I'll keep that in mind for the next pair. This second sock needs to be slightly too short with a very pointy toe. I am compulsive enought that matching is more important to me than fit.

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.  

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.

More Spinning, and the Kureyon

I started working on the brown wool again. You can see I spun a lot more this time. I have to figure out what to do with the portion already on my drop spindle. This is so much faster, it's great!

Yesterday I also ripped out my Kureyon wrap and cast on for gloves. I wasn't sure that I had enough yarn to make a wrap the size and shape I wanted. And I had read that it wouldn't soften up as much as I was hoping. So I ordered another yarn from the same company that contains a hefty percentage of cashmere. I will make the wrap with that and I will make fingerless gloves from the Kureyon. I am calling them my iPhone gloves (you need your finger tips for iPhone manipulation).

The Kureyon wrap, before destruction.

The new Kureyon gloves, in progresss.


Sandy just said that these are very "Fame!"

Kureyon Wrap

I just cast on for this yesterday. I'm knitting up another wrap with the fishtail lace pattern. This one should be smaller than my purple one, better to wear as a scarf.



I've been wanting to try Kureyon, but didn't want to purchase a sweater's worth. This, their sock yarn, was on sale at Loopy Yarns when I took my parents there this weekend. I might have to buy another ball, still cheaper than a sweater. I'm not sure that I want to commit to a whole sweater in these colors either. A wrap seemed like a good idea on several counts.

The last week (or so)

This is what I've been working on for the past week.

Actually the past year. It was supposed to be Josh's birthday present last year, and it didn't get done in time, or anywhere near time. One thing after another would go just a tiny bit wrong and it made me want to forget the bike existed for a long while. Then Josh kindly offered to help with his own present, and it's done! Well, mostly, bikes are in that class of object where something can always be done, improved, tweaked, upgraded, swapped out, etc. But it's complete enough to be considered done. We still have to adjust the bottom bracket's set screws (hopefully a five minute job) and next weekend I'll most likely be teaching Josh how to true the wheels (teach a man to fish and maybe he'll fix your bike while he's at it, actually I really like truing so we might have to fight over it). But we can both look at it and be proud and happy now. Yay!

Next post, back to the knitting.

I'm working on a brown ribbed cable front sweater. Right now I'm trying to design the cable, with mixed success and much grumpyness. I'll have photos of the swatches soon.

I'm also bouncing another cabled sweater around in my head, out of that red/purple Happy Feet sock yarn that I purchased a sweater's worth of. I haven't been swatching anymore of that though.

I bought new needles to knit Josh's gloves on. The yarn I bought and the sock needles I have were not playing nice. Their slick metal-ness would slide right out of the stitches at inopportune moments (not that any moment would really be a great time to drop stitches). I marched over to Loopy yarns Thursday after work and bought some nice pointy little bamboo needles. They should be much stickier, relatively speaking, and not give me the same trouble. I really want to take them out and play, but the brown cables are sucking up all my attention.

More Bear!

Another guy for a coworker. No name yet.
Photo taken with my iPhone instead of a real camera.

Brown/Pink Three Ply

I'm making this into this...

My weekend was mostly spent on it.  

The first single of my planned three ply yarn from the Stitches roving.  And yes, I made a new little drop spindle. The two I already own have singles in progress that I didn't want to remove or finish first.  

See how much I have!  That wool rat is longer than my palm.  The wire is coat hanger and the whorl is about a 2" diameter (for scale).  I don't know how much more I can fit on the spindle.  My stubborn nature wants to spin it all as one continuous single, I'm thinking that won't happen though.   

Or this for scale!  You can see it's a bit thick-thin, not bad though.  

I pulled off the dyed mohair, then I split the brown wool down the middle, for three separate singles.  The only thing is that the ball of brown I've been spinning from doesn't seem any smaller (it's the bottom left ball).  In this photo it seems larger than the untouched brown ball, go figure.  

I'm pretty excited about this stuff.  

Stash Enhancement!

Purchases at Stitches Midwest this weekend.


Wool/Mohair roving. The pink is the mohair.



I'm planning on spinning the pink as it's own single, then splitting the brown and spinning two more singles and plying all three together.





Happy Feet sock yarn, I bought what should (crossing fingers) be a sweaters worth.






Alpaca, yum. Black, brown, and camel plied together.






Some wool/nylon sock yarn to knit Josh a pair of gloves with.