Sock Summit Recap

It was great!!!

I took a class on knitting and designing fair isle socks with Janel Laidman.

Great class, already designing a sock, here's the swatch.

I volunteered as a TA for Syne Mitchell in an eTextiles class, also very cool, working on putting some lights into my knitting (no swatches yet).

I got to meet Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.

I had VooDoo Donughts.

I finished knitting a pair of stripy socks for me.

And, of course, I shopped!

Hand knit green cowl (made by me, worn at Sock Summit), yellow fluff is a verb for keeping warm BFL roving in the Nugget colorway, blue fluff is Sincere Sheep BFL roving (they are destined to go together in some project or other), and the yellow yarn is Jezebel in colorway 710.

Earrings by Jennie the Potter.

Blue and white merino/bamboo blend sock yarn.

The Jezebel 710 pictured above, this time on it's own on my desk.

Blue Moon Fiber Arts, rare gem colorway in Earth.

Hand dyed alpaca lace weight yarn in the limited edition (oh my) colorway Broadway from my new local yarn shop Yarn Garden.

More alpaca lace wight in Silver.

And yet more in Provence.

And some merino lace weight from the Carolina Homespun booth, this is going to be knit up into a stripy shawl with the Silver alpaca.

I had a great time all weekend, it was like summer camp.

Cat, no hat

With fish!

This is my first completed crochet project. I'm already making another one, and I have plans for a third.

I stitched up her little fish too.

I'm very pleased with myself. My cousin Laura taught me the basics more than a year ago when we were in London. I started two scarf/shawl type patterns, but never completed them.

I saw this pattern in a book (Hello My Name is Amineko) at Borders. The book was on a super sale, and the cat looked basic enough that I could figure it all out. It was a great first project. It's all single crochet, but you learn how to increase, decrease, and change colors. There is one fancy decrease on the mouth that I may not have done 100% correctly, but it looks ok to me.

The Infamous Hat

Last week I entered a design competition at a local yarn store, sponsored by a big yarn company. You had to use their yarn, so I designed a three color hat with a graphic olive branch pattern around the sides of the hat with a fancy "braided" edge and fancy two color decreases at the top.

Friday night I found out that I took third place, and that I was going to have my pattern published by the big yarn company!!!

Originally only first place was going to be published, but Mr. Charles liked our designs enough that he decided to publish the top three.

So I spent the rest of the evening feeling rather giddy (the whole weekend really, well, actually I'm still feeling giddy). Josh and I went to our favorite Thai place to celebrate.

So here's the side view. It looks better on a real head, this form is a bit small.

And the front view.

The card listing my info, I didn't realize that they wanted the title of the piece where it says "description". I would have put "Olive Branches" instead of "color work hat". Oh well.

And my Certificate.

Peanut!

Two skeins of Peanut, ready to be knit up into something awesome.

A close up shot of peanut.

Peanut ended up becoming about 100 yards of three ply yarn. I had one thicker single and one skinnier single. I plied the skinnier single back onto itself, but it was all overspun and coiled because I hadn't put enough twist in when I was plying. The thicker single was also coiling up on itself. So I plied the two ply with the single, and voila, it all ended up a pretty calm balanced three ply. Not exactly what I had planned, but it should work out just fine.

Handspun!!!

This past Sunday Loopy Yarns held a spin in. It was great. They had a table of free fiber, two drum carders, and snacks. I made a crazy batt of stuff from the free table, and I carded up my alpaca fleece. And I spun like crazy. Look at all this yarn!

This is Peanut, partway through being plied up. Not sure how many yards of Peanut I've got. I plied it further and will wait until it's dry to try to figure it out.

This is the crazy skein made from all kinds of stuff from the free fiber table, about 30 yards. It has some merino, some tencel, several colors of angelina (the sparkle), some mohair (I think), and some mystery wool. Pretty random and pretty awesome.

This is a merino/tencel skein, about 140 yards. I bought the roving from Miss. Babs at Stitches last fall.

This is the skein of mostly alpaca, about 75 yards. Sandy's dad brought me a bunch of alpaca that I had no way to card. Luckily Loopy had those drum carders out. I threw in some dark brown wool, some purple wool, and some angelina (the sparkle).

The alpaca on the wheel.

Yay! So much fun.

My Shawl and Steph's Scarf

Stephanie's scarf. Made from two skeins of yarn she bought on a little vacation she took. One was handspun, the other hand dyed. I striped them together to make a little dropped stitch scarf. Now I want one for myself.

The last time you saw the scarf it probably looked like this...

My Olympic Knitting!

The Onvera Shawl being blocked on our futon. I know, red shawl red futon, not the best shot. I'll have to find one of me wearing it.

As you can see it's pretty big. It's nice and warm too.

Olympics

I have decided to participate in the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics!

Last winter olympics, because knitting is clearly a winter sport, she organized this event, where basically you pick a project that will challenge you, you cast on during the opening ceremonies, and you knit like the wind to complete the project by the closing ceremonies.

I chose the Onerva Shawl because I have tried to knit it three times already and it keeps kicking my butt. I am determined to win.

The shots above are what I have accomplished so far. I did have to restart the thing three more times during the opening ceremonies.

Hat and more of the Mittens

I have decided that I need a hat that won't clash with my Bohus Mittens.
I started playing with excel, and have cast on for a Bohus inspired hat.


Knitting close up.
It will never be as delicate, or look as blended, as the true Bohus. This yarn is heavier (though still fine at 7 stitches to the inch) and doesn't contain any angora.



The yarn, the chart, the knitting.

I'm reworking my charted ideas as I go. Some things that looked great on paper just don't seem right in yarn. I was going to try a tam type of hat, but then I decided that I shouldn't mix colorwork and major shaping in my frist color design. So it's slated to be a basic beanie style hat, with colorwork going around the side, one color ribbing, one color top.


And, a mitten update.


Close up of pretty cuffs attatched to mitten hand.



Left hand progress, hand is done, thumb is almost done.



The two in-progress mittens together. Phase one is almost complete, just a little knitting to go on the left thumb. Next I knit the flip top part of each hand. Then I'll work on the lining.

Then I can wear them.

Secret Knitting

I have been doing a little secret knitting.

I designed a little cozy for the teapot that Sandy & Derrick wanted. Sandy liked a teapot with a little leaf detail that Derrick wasn't so into. They opted for a simpler teapot, I put leaves on the cozy.

Great little fabric buttons.

And their tea tray. You can barely see the tray because our table is almost as dark as the tray. That scone mix is my all time favorite, super easy and always delicious. I like to add things like dried cranberries or almonds, but it's great plain too.

Sweaters

See this sweater that I am knitting, see how far I am?

I am going to rip it all out.

It was going to be like this green sweater... Very cute, right? Good design, nice shape, flattering on the model. Only problem is I'm not built like the model. And my yarn is a bit bulkier than called for, making the sweater even less drapey than the original. Not good.

The February Lady by Flint Knits.

See this sweater? (Tiny picture I know) It's made from a yarn as bulky as the red yarn above. It's also pretty cute, good design, etc... And I think it will look much nicer on my figure than the green one.

Carmela's Cardigan by Patton's Design Team.

So I am ripping the sweater, to use the yarn for a something I'll actually wear. Maybe I'll try the green one again some day.

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.