20 posts tagged “knitting”

Been a long time since I've written: Mea culpa, mea culpa. Life tends to grab me and run away at top speed.

This past week, I got my hands on a yarn winder for half price at JoAnn.com, and I've been using it with my umbrella swift to wind up any and all hanks of yarn I have lying about the house.
This also means that I finally had the tools to frog my Malabrigo merino poncho and ball it up for a new project.

I loved my poncho: It was my first big project, the first larger-than-a-scarf garment I was actually able to wear, and the Malabrigo meant it was insanely soft and cuddly. I'd been looking at it lately, though, and finding some amateurish mistakes: Parts where the stitches were seriously uneven, parts where the pick-up for the hood gapped and pulled and left holes, parts where I'd dropped stitches and never noticed. That poncho was always warm and something I was incredibly happy to wear, but I knew the longer I wore it, the more it would come apart and eventually fall apart irreparably.
So I took it apart and salvaged the yarn, frogging the six to seven skeins by winding it onto the swift, and then wound it up into a center-pull cake on the winder. (Which prompted the fiance -- who had patiently helped me with the project by playing engine to keep the swift rotating while I frogged lengths of yarn free -- to comment that the night's work sure looked pointless now.  ... I then grinned at him and reminded him that all the hanks of yarn I get require winding into balls, and the balls are then knit into projects, and that's all part of the process rather than wasted effort -- and that seemed to leave him a little more gratified.)

I'm now halfway through the back of a modified Roam -- I'm opting out on the seed stitch, since my left wrist started hurting when I was working up a Roam as written (in the shade redwood forest of fingering-weight Memories), and because the Malabrigo is decidedly heavier than DK weight, I've had to do a little math to keep it sized appropriately. I'm having fun doing it at any rate, and I'm getting to intermittently cuddle my Malabrigo again.

Honestly, I love that wool. If only it weren't so expensive, I swear I'd use it to the exclusion of all other yarns... Excepting for the friends of mine that are wool sensitives, of course, but for me? I'd live in the stuff, especially since they seem to now offer it in both lace and chunky weights, and I'm pretty much hopelessly in love with all things merino.

I'm rather fixated on the current pseudo-Roam I've got going, though, so with any luck I'll have pictures of a finished hoodie in the next couple of weeks.

... I'll admit to increasing the stash by a cone of cobweb-weight cashmere, but that serves a purpose otherwise known as the veil I'm knitting for my wedding. But. Even that had a purpose, and it wasn't a "Well, I want to knit this for myself just because. Present time, happy unbirthday to me!!" project.
I've been designing my freakin' wedding dress, for goodness' sake. I can see it in my head, and I should really be picking up my needles and the appropriate cones to start up on that.

So what happens instead?
The Fall Knitty comes out, and I go and fall head-over-needles for Roam.

'No,' I tell myself. 'If you're going to focus on a pattern from there, put down the lace section of the Stitchionary and look at Muir. That's something that could work for the wedding, right?'
So my knitting Id largely shushes, but simmers and grumbles.

'No, I'm not making Roam,' I tell my noisy little Id.
'No, I'm not adding to the stash.'
'No, I can't find the recommended Great Big Sea yarn. Yes, I've looked. Everywhere. All right, I'll prove it, you pushy little underbrain.'

So I search, and today? Today, I see this, written a couple days-ish after my last hunt.

Well, feck.
Now she's pointed out substitutions, and I actually have ten skeins of the now-discontinued Memories from Knitpicks -- which is a fingering weight uber-soft merino that I originally bought in three shades to make Thermal, and would fit the looser gauge for more drape requirement.
I keep having images of the red, brown and black yarn in a drawer in my bedroom, neatly balled up for my use.
It would be a perfect Roam, you know.

... Pardon me.
I have to go cast on and make my inner yarn ho shut up.

Awww. Swap's over for me. ;)

Juni: Thank you! The Summer Linen you sent over arrived safely yesterday, and I'm quietly going mad trying to decide what to do with it -- since, as you know, I've never used linen yarn before (and I was curious about it).
I'm also endlessly amused at the term 'muggle blog' -- I'm going to have to steal that one from you.
Thank you for all your work as my upstream pal -- It's been a really fun experience for my first skein swap. (And also, one more thank you for the birthday wishes -- It's been a blast so far.)

... But, I still have one more package coming for each of my downstream pals.
I've picked up the dye needed for Pal 1's massive skein of raw silk, and now I just need to un- and rewind the hank into sections a little longer than 4' around. (I'm going with the dip-dye method and depending on how pleased I am with the results, may over-dye the whole thing with a lighter color... but if I'm going dip-dye, I think a little more length in the skein keeps things interesting.)
Pal 2's last package is just waiting on some non-wool roving I picked out for her to show up on my doorstep: She's a spinner, I asked if she wanted non-wool roving, and I am also including some yarn, so. She's getting lots o' love through the mail in the next week or two.

I've discovered that I apparently spoil my downstream pals. Another of my knitty friends once told me she's guilty of the same thing: I laughed at her at the time, but I think I know where she's coming from. I tend to overbuy and grab more than one thing for my pals as I want to make sure they've got the thing they want -- I suppose I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to giving gifts. ;)

I'm really glad to have gotten to know a few individuals in this swap... And perhaps that was the point? :)

What a day.
I'm a wee bit tired, but I've been sleeping weirdly lately -- my dreams have been too odd and vivid, and I've been waking up intermittently through the night with feelings of off and discontent: If only I could remember what I'm dreaming, perhaps I could pick it apart and resolve it. C'est la vie.

Picked up a cheapie digital camera that was actually 2 whole megapixels, mostly so I can take pictures of friends, cats, and finished knitting projects. (And I'm going to mock Fry's Electronics a little here: 2 MP camera for what you were charging for a Spider Man licensed digicam with 'VGA Resolution' -- which I forget, but I think was something like 720 x 480. Or less. Hmm...) After all, isn't the whole point of having a blog mentioning knitting and food to share pictures with the world? :)

I'm so pleased that I finished that simple shrug yesterday -- It's done, it's over, woo hoo!
I have a rather guilty love for Caron's yarns, but I've decided their patterns (albeit their free ones) leave much to be desired. And alternately, I love Lionbrands' free patterns for ideas and picking apart, but I'm none too pleased with their yarn these days. There's no winning, is there?
Current project: Twinkletoes in Cascade Fixation, color: black. I couldn't give up that project for long; I'm clearly either stubborn, a glutton for punishment, or both -- but the stretchy cotton is proving so much more satisfying to knit than cotton-ease.

The fiancé asked me two days ago what I wanted for my birthday, and I had a lot of ideas: I was eyeing the dark blue dreadnought acoustic in the Guitar Adoption Center's window, but since my best friend is already responsible for me getting my paws on a tiger striped acoustic from the same place, it might be a little overkill on the guitar front.
I suggested some plastic containers from the local JoAnn's for yarn storage, and he gave me a look for asking for something practical -- I about died on the spot laughing, since there have been times in the past that he's accused me of eschewing practical gifts in favor of frivolous things. (Rightly, perhaps, but hey. Gifts are meant to be fun.)

And then it occurred to me. Rockler's.
I want to make a spinning wheel: A few months ago, I bought Richard Schneider's No-Lathe Saxony-Style Spinning Wheel Construction Manual with the intention of making a spinning wheel, though life conspired to keep me from getting into the project. And, we have a Rockler's Hardware locally, which is honestly the best source in our area for non-pine woods. Red oak. Maple. Exotic woods.
So this weekend, I've talked him into setting foot in the Rockler's with me and figure out what it's going to cost to pick up the materials for making my spinning wheel. If it's more than half the cost of a Kromski Prelude, he's agreed to go halvsies with me on the Prelude itself.
I'll be over here, doing a happy little dance over getting a spinning wheel one way or another and mentally running the benefits of finished vs. unfinished.

Guess this means I have to figure out the best way to make him a space invaders sweater for his birthday. ;)

Last week, Jaime from the No Sheep Swap put out a note requesting notification of abandoned pals: I piped up expressing my concern (and thankfully, my swap pal was just running late -- Late, I can handle! I've been guilty of that myself many, many times) but told her I'd wait a little longer and then asked if she needed any more replacement pals.
Turns out she did, so I've got myself a second downstream buddy.
We've already mailed back and forth a couple times today, and dude. She's hilarious. I think I like her already, and it may help that she's got a mischievous cat prone to messing with her projects, too.

Also means the second skein of raw silk yarn that I bought almost a month ago has a home: I'd originally bought the pair with the intention of dyeing the first one and seeing if it was fit for my downstream pal and having the second on hand in case I threw a small fit over the results -- but now, it seems fortunate as I have one downstream buddy to dye for, and the other is a dye fiend herself and will probably have a blast figuring out what to do with it left plain. Excellent!
I also have feelers out on other things to send her, and I suppose I'll see where that goes.

I'm also just glad that the fiancé ended up in a better job, as money was the main reason I'd been afraid I wasn't able to play backup swap pal -- but he took care of that nicely, and better yet, he's doing what he wants to be doing.
I may still be exceedingly proud of him, creeping toward two months later.

Anyway, point was, I've signed up to do the gift-giving pal for someone else, and I'm just pleased about it. Knitters (and crocheters, and other craft-ers) are good people, I think.

Project update: One skein of tonalita's pink zebra down, turned into Fetching -- as mentioned earlier -- and the second's still up for grabs for something, though I have yet to decide what. Perhaps I'll abbreviate a pair of Dashing and have a nearly matched set, since 100 yards seems a little short for other options -- Scarf? Hat? Really not enough, unless someone can point me toward a decent pattern calling for worsted weight.
The Simple Shrug from hell is almost finished! Note: Caron's site lies, it takes 5 skeins  for the large size if you follow their directions, not 4. Though, I suppose I'm cheating by working in the round, but I can't even imagine having enough yarn with 5 skeins if I'd had to seam the thing, too.
Two inches to go on the center ribbing, and then it's done: I suspect I can probably wear it to my birthday dinner tomorrow night without any issues.

Thirty.
I'm going to be thirty in about twelve hours.
My dad keeps joking that he can't trust me anymore -- Darn Pat Boone quote.

... It's really not as horrible as all the 30-year-olds who went before me have made it sound. ;)

This was one of those days: Too damned long for being a short week, too many times that I felt abandoned to the phones at work, and just too tired in general for a single half hour of hand-holding through using Outlook, let alone three back to back. I pulled up to the curb at home, largely convinced that I should set to making myself a margarita before I stopped to feed the cats, and then I found it.

Today was Yarn Day!

Two packages of yarn: One from my No Sheep Swap buddy, and the other from my Yarn of the Month club.
I knew the latter was coming, as Paypal told me I'd been charged for my subscription, but that doesn't make me less happy about it.

Firstly: Thanks, o Yarn Swap Pal! I've always been curious about Debbie Bliss yarns, but never really put my hands on them -- and a cotton/silk/viscose blend was definitely a good choice for me. Now, to figure out what I want to do with the 110-ish yards of Cathay. Hmmm....

Perhaps something with the Celtic knot cable pattern I've been looking at, posted by the Girl from Auntie. It seems like the yarn would have nice stitch definition for that sort of thing! I was also gifted with some recycled sari silk yarn that looks suspiciously like the yarn I buy from Stephanie at RecycledSilk.com -- and that's a good call, too, since I already know how to work with the stuff and enjoy the results. :)

I shall have to post results of what I knit. Hee hee hee. :D

So, Yarn o' the Month. I love getting the little samples of yarn, and I actually dug out my June samples so I could mark each bag with the month I received them: June brought me Lana Knits' hemp, Cascade's Luna, Nashua's June and Maraja by Ornaghi Filati -- only two producers that I'm familiar with, Cascade and Nashua. I haven't knit up the samples into swatches yet: I've been lazy, and mostly content to pull out the little bags and admire the colors. They're nice, they're just not something that I know what to do with, precisely.
July's offerings seem to fire my imagination a little more. It's probably because all the little packets are shades of red or orange or gold, and I respond so much better to those shades: I also recognize three of this month's manufacturers, familiar with Gedifra (Korella), Louet (Kidlin) and Rowan (Damask). I haven't heard of Louisa Harding, but the colors inherent in her Cinnabar rather tickle me, and she's got one hell of a blend going. Viscose/Cotton/Acrylic/Silk/Linen/Polyamide/Acetate? That's a mouthful.
Still, the Kidlin seems to be the one that speaks to me most in the July haul: I look at it, and I can only think of Knitty's cactus flower from Fall last year. It's tempting.

Anyway! I've been burning through my current projects before I can even write about them: Ball 1 of the pink zebra Tonalita has turned into a single pair of Fetching mitts: I'm a little sad that I won't have the option to wear them for another couple months. (Thank you, heat wave.)

Of course, this still leaves the last 100 yards of Tonalita up in the air: I can't decide whether I should make more mitts, a cabled scarf or a hat. Do I even have enough for a hat? Hm.

The Manos yarn is untouched as of yet, but I went and decided this weekend was an excellent time to knit up a tam in black viscose -- It was a whim, there was yarn begging to be used in my stash, and I've gotten to the point that I can quickly freestyle hats. They make me happy.

Again, I need to find my darned digital camera.

So, in general: Thank you, people that conspired to send me yarn and (however unintentionally) cheer me out of a rotten day.

You gave me a smile, and that's all I can ask of you. :)

Many, many weeks ago, I mentioned that I was up north, visiting a friend in the San Fran area, and that we'd stopped at at Marin Fiber Arts and at Dharma Trading, but never said exactly what it was that I picked up.

At Dharma, it ended up being the most recent Spring copy of Interweave Knits (since my subscription started with the Summer edition) and a hank of Manos del Uruguay yarn that literally leapt off the shelf at me -- It fell off as I walked by, so I bent down to pick it up and went, "Hm. I like those colors."

Manos del Uruguay - Lava (color 105)

So it became part of my stash, and I'm currently intending to make a hat out of it: After all, I already have one souvenir-yarn scarf. More than that would be overkill.

At Marin Fiber Arts, I picked up a skein of di.vé Autunno -- apparently in color 14630, though I don't see any blue in it  from here... Then again, I haven't actually gotten into the thing yet, still content to hold the über-soft yarn and consider what to do with it. Not quite 100 yards of it ... Perhaps cabled fingerless gloves,  like just the top half of Dashing  or Fetching, now that I've decided cables are fun. Something small but memorable, right?
However, if that weren't enough, I found Tonalita.

Ordinarily, I hate pink. Passionately.
It takes something really special to get me to even consider wearing pink (curse you, StitchDiva!), though I will suffer through making pink things for friends. While I'm on the topic, I seem to have several friends that don't understand my dislike for pink -- It's not rational, and it's just a color, but it's like my problem with purple: I can't wear it, it makes me look dead, and when it comes down to it I just have to be contrary... I'd rather wear black when I'm being girly.
There is a point to this.

If Marin Fiber had possibly had sunset in stock at the time,  this would've gone a little differently. I'd have my hands on a skein of that instead, blissfully enjoying the yarn's softness while debating how to best show off its striping properties and not having to feel defensive for liking...

Well.

Pink Zebra Tonalita

I've hit that dreaded point in my knitting career: I have to reduce my stash.
The fiancé hasn't said he'll leave me if I don't, but we did have a talk about how we're both hating the clutter -- and to be fair, my yarn collection is contributing to the problem.

I'm an impulse knitter. I have that awful habit of walking into a yarn shop without a plan in the world, and the moment I touch the pretty offerings they have there, I'm overcome with potential and possibilities.
I have a very nice poncho that came from the first time I got my hands on some Malabrigo merino yarn, but that's neither here nor there: It's a bad habit, and while I'm not pretending I'm going to break it, I can at least make sure to work on what I have before my next little spree.

This means I need Ideas.

Now.
I've been a member of Knitting Daily since before the site officially opened -- To the tune of about two months, actually, but that's neither here nor there -- and they're full of ideas. In fact, recently posted was the Tomato shirt out of Amy Singer's No Sheep for You knitting book as one of their free patterns.

You have to understand how excited I was to see this: That shirt was one of the main (but not only) reasons I wanted the No Sheep book: I now have that pattern in my hot little hands, gleeing like a fiend over it. However, I don't really have the yarn I want to make it. (Cue the head-thunking against the desk.) Irritating, especially since I'm now on a 'Reduce My Stash Before The Fiancé Kills Me' kick, but livable... Guess it means I wait a little while to dive into that particular project.
Side note regarding what I want to do with it, so that I don't forget: Thanks to my explorations of Yarncountry.com, I've decided that Cascade's Fixation yarn looks like love. Since I have this hopeless affection for almost any variegated yarn, I'm thinking that eight skeins of Fixation in black and one to two skeins of Fixation Spray-Dyed in Tequila Sunrise for the color work would be an exquisite use of that pattern -- Honestly, since the pattern itself calls for a cotton yarn, I think a cotton yarn with a bit of stretch could be just the thing. I really need to find myself a local-ish yarn shoppe so I can go handle the stuff and see if it's worthy of my current adoration before I let myself really commit to the idea. (... My recent experience with Lionbrand may have unfairly put me a little off with cotton yarns. Mea culpa.)
Aside: anyone have any experience with the Cascade Fixation yarn, color unimportant?

However, if I were serious about stash reduction without any ideas of what to do? One of About.com's more recent Knitting entries led me to an exhibit of knitted hero costumes.
No, really. Take a look -- It's worth it. :D
I personally love the (original) Batman and the Iron Man costumes, but the photo toward the end of Spidey knitting his own costume is priceless.

Another factor in my stash size: I have some unfinished projects.
Three are things for other people and one's a charity donation that I really ought to get on, but the sad truth is I've gotten bored. Having four projects at once tends to make sure that I always have something else to pick up when my knitting's gone a little too mindless for my liking... But I've gone over my self-enforced three-to-five active projects limit.

I did finish Interweave's Summer Tunic in salmon 'terracotta' cotton-ease last Thursday, because I was going to kill something if I didn't. (I have two skeins at two-thirds unused, and found three more balls of the damned cotton-ease in a drawer, and I'm about ready to just throw them on the mercy of the internet and say take them, personally. That's too much even for use as waste yarn.) The 1" satin ribbon in chocolate and the two copper-embossed amber glass beads I used to adorn the ties worked really well... I suppose I need to either charge the digital camera or visit my parents, see if Mom will take some pictures for me. (My mother's a shutterbug, and I'm often sad that I seem to have not inherited that talent.)

One down, with how many to go...?
I'm still only halfway through my Dashing cabled mitts, probably because I'm still debating whether I'm frogging them and re-working it or not.
I'm giving up on Twinkletoes for now: I made a poor yarn choice, and I don't want to add to the stash, I want to reduce. Maybe after I make the Tomato in that Cascade Fixations or Nashua's Cilantro, I can think about giving twinkletoes another shot.
My two-socks-at-once double-knitting is still going well, if slowly.
I frogged the entirety of my Simple Shrug in Caron's Opal Twist because it was displeasing to me in its as-written form, and I'm now working it in the round instead: If that works (which I'm certain it will), I'm intending on making a second in Mardi Grey. Now, keep it for me or find someone to give it to... Hm.
Still full of intentions regarding the making of Knitty's Thermal pullover in Memories: I have the requisite skeins on hand, thankfully.
I have started Stitchdiva's Sahara sweater in simply soft, color bone. I doubt it's going to see wear outside before, oh, September -- unless there's a sudden cold snap or the promise of really frigid a/c inside -- but I'm pleased with how well it's working up already.
I also seem to still have the long fingerless gloves to make in Malabrigo, since my arms always look naked when I'm in my poncho.

So many projects, so little time.

This has been a little while in coming: Mostly, I've just been trying to figure out what it was that I was noticing while I knit with this particular brand.
The longer I work with the Cotton-Ease, the less impressed I am.

Case in point: The current skein I'm using to make Interweave Knits' Summertime Tunic has been knotted four times in the last three inches worth of rounds. And I'm not talking, "Oh, oops, my yarn tangled and knotted" -- No, I mean that the yarn itself had been broken, and was then knotted to keep the ends together. Four times in the last 24 rows of 206 stitches on size 6.
... I don't feel like doing further math to scream 'OMG that's four breaks in seven yards!!' or what have you, but it seems excessive. I've found less breaks in my recycled handspun sari silk yarn, and I think that says something.

Not impressed, Lionsbrand. Not impressed at all.

So, yes. My trend lately has been less and less lionbrand, and this only serves to reinforce why. And it's an honest shame -- I wanted to try things like their sport-weight cotton Muse and their linen yarn, Jazz. I wanted to get my hands on their newer yarns and try the fibers that weren't wool or acrylic -- Jiffy and Wool-ease have their place, but they just don't feel as good as other acrylics and wools out there, in my opinion.
(I've developed a preferance for Caron's simply soft line when it comes to widely available acrylics -- Otherwise, KnitPicks seems to be my current supplier.)

But. Honest review of cotton-ease: My experience has been that the colors are WIDELY variable, from the lot of salmon-shade yarn that ended up on my door step when I was expecting the color named Terracotta to the considerably deeper, almost rusty shade of the same name I found at Michael's last week.
I'm rather dismayed at the number of knots I've found in the skeins I'm working. It's a very splitty yarn, which while annoying is not exactly a deterrant for me: I'm a little crazy when it comes to that trait. I've had earlier battles with bamboo yarn and sworn never again, no sir, and yet I continue seeking out new and interesting bamboo yarn.

Cotton-ease and I do not have the same love-hate relationship.
If I were rating cotton-ease on a scale of one to ten... Well, before I do that, let's get some context.

Overall, against all yarn I've worked with, I'd give it a three.
I've found and used yarn that felt more difficult when knitting, and I've worked with rougher. It is an evenly twisted yarn (although I'm of the opinion that if it's mass-produced, it damned well better be), though it's now lost points for one of the aforementioned knots -- now counting seven in a single skein, though I'm three skeins into the project and can't bring myself to unravel it back to the beginning -- since one of the joins gave way and left me scrambling to frog back to a point at which I could repair it. ANNOYING.

Against the other primarily cotton yarns, though? It's a two. Maybe a one and a half.
Now, I've taken to working with some pretty high end cotton. I love Dharma Trading's alpine cotton: Softest cotton yarn I've ever felt. Not merc'd, I believe, which is probably part of that. And then there's KnitPicks' Shine series -- Soft, silky, easy to knit with a very low split factor, and the end result has a pleasant weight and feel... And true to its name, Shine has this fabulous sheen.

So, yeah. Not my favorite yarn ever.

I'm going to keep plugging on my summertime tunic, because I think it has true potential (and I have to use the seven skeins of cotton-ease on something), but I won't be purchasing it again.

I'm currently writing in from San Fransisco, where I've been visiting one of my best friends for the weekend: We stopped in at the San Rafael knit-in yesterday, since it was World Wide Knit in Public day -- And I had a small group of highschool students park and watch me work my cabled Dashing 'gloves.' (The girl was a crocheter who gave me mad props for knowing how to knit, and I handed the project over to her so she could have a close look.)

I had a good time. :)
And I also picked up some more souvenir yarn while we were out and about, both at Marin Fiber Arts and at Dharma Trading.

And it was also a good day to go since the San Rafael street faire is also on this weekend. It was FANTASTIC to see the pieces in their working phase yesterday, and I can't wait to go back today and see the finished art.