where have i been?!

apparently, i vanished for like three weeks there.  wooooooops.

of course, the knitting front has been slow.  know what i still haven’t finished? the skating sweater.  it’s terrible! i need to learn how to do magic loop or two circs still so i can work the sleeves, i’m dying over here! but a progress pic for danielle, all of 3 weeks after she commented me!!

<br><br><br><br><br><br><br> that’s my skating sweater so far.  the color is surprisingly accurate.  i should take a picture of how the pattern stretches once it’s on, but that’s for another day.  god i am the worst blogger ever!!!

i also bought some super deliciousRowan Soft Lux yarn in Basalt and Pearl.  it was on clearance at sit n knit so i grabbed four balls for a thick-stripe scarf.  about 5″ wide, maybe 5.5″, with 4″ stripes of each color.  its pretty classy if i do say so myself, incredibly soft and the shot of sparkle makes it a little more than ordinary. ill have to get picture of that up, it’s fantastic.

tychus!

i just thought i’d say i’m really bad with linking to things that i talk about, so soon enough i’ll put in links on all the names of things i’ve mentioned.

anyway, i just knit a tychus!  it’s a great hat pattern from knitty which provides some really excellent shaping sans knitting in the round!! i only wish i was clever enough to think of making a hat in wedges of short rows.  no decreases, just one seam, what’s not to love.  i did it in some black and dark grey patons classic wool for a friend, who has a black wool pea coat.  the yarn is held double and knitted on size 10 needles rather than the 9 that was specified.  it’s a bit big on me, so i’m hoping it will fit him.  i only did four wedges instead of 5, because the 5 looked massive, and since i don’t know if mattress stitching works with vertical rows of garter, i just single crocheted the seam together from the wrong side.  personally, i think that sc the seam is a really good idea for mattress-stitch-phobes, although the seam doesn’t lie as flat(ish) as a mattressed seam, it’s fast and pretty neat, and theres no poking of yarn needles through the middles of stitches.  i wouldn’t crochet, say, an entire sweater side seam this way, but for things like hats where a nice flat seam isn’t totally necessary, it’s pretty useful.  it saved some time on finishing, and i like that.  especially considering i did the whole hat in bouts of intense knitting today, which is rather speedy for me.  i definitely have to refine my technique so i can knit a little faster, so i’ll pay more attention to how i make stitches and see what can be done. 

the skating sweater is coming along well.  i’ve knit the front and nearly all the back, so soon it’s just seaming and sleeves, which i still havent gotten needles for/learned a new technique for yet.  too bad!  i tried it on and it seems a smidge shorter than i anticipated it being, and again, scared to block.  and at this point, i’m just not going to rip anything out and reknit, so i’ll have to deal.

it’s so scary that there’s only a month left in the semester (not even).  the time has flown by.  i only wish that i had reconnected with someone earlier in the semester, it would have felt so much more fulfilling.  lately i’ve been hanging out with a girl who i’d totally lost touch with, who was my absolute best friend in high school.  funny how college does that.  but anyway, we’ve been having dinner and coffee a bunch lately, doing some shopping and scrabble-ing (that is what ALL the cool kids do…don’t hate on the word nerds), and it’s probably been the best last week of the entire semester.  i couldn’t ask for more.

-A

too much turkey, not enough knitting

although it’s not even thanksgiving anymore, happy turkey day to those who celebrate it, and a belated wish it is.

i didn’t get to knit much today, but i guess that much is a bit of a relative term.  after some tea and general ‘f this’ attitudes, i decided to cast on for the Skating Sweater from big city knits.  google that if you must, i’m far, far too lazy to post a link or picture.  it’s frickin one in the morning.  anyway, i began to knit the body (i’m typically a size small or medium depending who’s asking, but i cast on for the large because i knew my gauge was off and if i knit on bigger needles for the smaller size like intended, i’d end up with lace) and HATED it.  with every  particle of my knitterly being, i thought the sweater looked like hell in a hairball.  so, naturally, i kept knitting.  and then, when i was about halfway up the first section of the pattern (which brings me to about halfway up halfway up the sweater) i looked at the sad lump of green acrylic/wool and decided, maybe i should try this on.  so i put the stitches on some waste yarn, tied a knot so they wouldnt slide, and wrestled the beast over my head. 

it was glorious.

i’m really glad i knit the large, because the medium just wouldn’t have cut it using the wool-ease on 17s for me.  i don’t know exactly what gauge i’m knitting at right now, didn’t bother measuring, but i do know for darn sure that it isn’t the right one, but the sweater fits.  it looked good, well, the tube of tummy that i had done.  and i was so, so ready for more.  i’ll show my progress once it’s not obscenely late andi’m not about to suffer a turkey hangover.  after knitting through a couple scrabble games and juggling needles with eating several clementines (it’s that time of year!!) i got up to where i’m ready to divide for the front and back/shape armholes, and i couldn’t be more excited to finish.  but i wish i had thought about the fact that now i need dpn’s in size 17 to do the sleeves, mainly because i don’t have the patience to learn magic loop or 2circs just to do these sleeves.  then again, maybe i should.  we’ll see when i finish the body, how i feel.  but the sweater feels lovely and warm, and the pattern truly does open up gorgeously, but i’m scared to block.  i test-blocked a teeny little swatch just by soaking and pinning, and i’m afraid to wash the sweater.  it gets really fuzzy, and that troubles me about the wool-ease.  i’ll probably just wear it and see if it self-blocks to a degree, though i doubt blocking is even necessary because the whole thing has to be stretched into anyway.  oh boy.  i really hope it doesn’t get funky or anything, because i am so dreading washing, even hand-washing, despite the fact that the yarn claims to be machine washable.  with this sweater, not on my life.

long story short, thanksgiving has been wonderful, i was hoping to be done with the sweater by friday night (HAHA!), but i’m terribly excited.  i can’t wait for the FO!!!

-A

woe is me!

i’m about to get wayne brady a-la chappelle’s show on someone right about now.

i bought a bunch of wool ease yarn in cilantro (such a gorgeous color, seriously) so i could try either the twinkle hoodie or the skating sweater from twinkle’s big city knits.  of course, i have size 11, 17, and 19 needles.  i am not getting gauge, and i guess it would be a good idea to get 13s or 15s and keep trying but i’m slightly more than annoyed, because i get the correct number of stitches with the bigger (17s, 19s) needles, but the stitches are open.  OPEN.  are you kidding me?!  i wonder if many of you other knitters are finding this to happen, the openness of the yarn rather than having a nice fluffy cloud of wool (ahem wool blend) filling each stitch.  i’m dying, and trawling madly through blogland to see how other people made it work, for i am at wits end.  and if i buy size 13s or 15s and i get gorgeous little stitches, i will be a mite upset at the waste of time i had today.  and also, i’m really concerned about the ease….wenlan says that her yarn will stretch a lot and all those tiny measurements will bloom, but i definitely do not feel like that kind of stretch is happening with the wool ease.  (too much acrylic, i imagine).

anyone battled the wool ease monster?  tips and tricks or soothing words to calm my forthcoming bout of insanity?

-A

more musings.

i always feel as though right when i get really excited about something else i’m knitting, the actual knitting itself grinds to a horrible, rusty, ear-splittingly creaky halt.  it leaves me with nothing to blog about!  and that’s just a sad day.  anyway, i ripped out my entrelac scarf and cast on again with one less column of diamonds so it wasn’t quite so unflattering wide.  being pretty petite and not a waif does make knitting some accessories a little bit difficult, because anything that’s too wide looks very unbalanced, but having broad shoulders and hips makes knitting many more delicate things look almost too small.  which is why i’m really hoping to start branching out into modifying patterns more for myself and also designing my own.  i’m going on the hunt for a yarn that inspires me to create and submit something for publishing in knitty, hopefully for the next fall issue.  obviously i’m still not jazzed about my chances of publication, since thousands of very skilled knitters put in projects, but a girl can hope.  but about that entrelac scarf, well, now i just don’t feel like the yarn lends itself to the entrelac pattern; the color changes are a little bit too abrupt to really make good use of the pattern.  and too bad, too!!  i found this teeny tiny swatch i made (literally maybe 3″, blocked) just to test the pattern from the cherie amour body in that yarn to see if i could do it on straight needles instead of circs, and realized that the yarn looked much better as a lace pattern.  so there just may be some more ripping in store for this scarf, which really is kind of sad, because i just want to be done with this yarn already.  i spent more money than i could have wanted to on it and it’s such an odd amount, i don’t know what to do.  maybe i should just do a set of heavy weight socks and a pair of mittens and then see what i’ve got left, for i am at wit’s end.  these will, however, be the most expensive socks i will ever have made, because honestly, $13.50 for a ball of yarn is more than i’ve ever spent.  of course, that’s not even that much considering what i got for that price, but when you’ve got to save money and you’re not working because you’re taking classes, it hurts.  plus i want to buy some of the twinkle soft chunky so that i can do a twinkle pattern properly, since most internet reviews seem to say that substitutes are hard to find, and twinkle’s yarn does not come cheap.

so my really cool thing of the week was going to see stevie wonder perform last night at mohegan sun.  it was a really excellent show and stevie’s music is not only beautiful and invigorating live, but he’s an extremely passionate person and really tries to raise awareness of some hot issues through his music.  the one thing that did make me a little sad though, was watching and hearing everyone cheer as he begged them to be the change that must be seen in the world, to do something when they get home to try and make the world a better place, and knowing that almost every single one of those people was going to go home, go to sleep, and go on with their lives unchanged.  it makes me want to do something, and now i just have to figure out what.  i’ve long wanted to make my knitting and passion for it into something that can help the world, and maybe now i can start to make it happen, by selling notions and small finished knits and donating proceeds.  we will see.  i’m going to have a lot going on now that there’s only just over a month left in the semester (scary scary), but maybe over christmas break i can start to make a difference.  i would feel much better as a knitter if i did, and although it’s one thing to donate chemo caps and things, i want to go another route.  reach out beyond the in-your-face-obvious ways to help with knitting.  again.  we will see.

it’s rainy and cold and a little bit windy, which means that it’s ace weather for curling up with my knitting and a cup of tea.  i’ve discovered a really excellent tea company, actually.  their tea is certainly not cheap either, but it’s a splurge i’m willing to go for, since it’s still cheaper to feed my warm-beverage addiction than buying more yarn for my knitting addiction is.  the company is St. James Tea Company, and they make marvelous green tea blends.  i’ve had green tea with honeybush, green tea with nana mint, and green tea with sunflower; all of their blended green tea line i believe.  and what i really love is that the tea comes in these little nylon sachets which really release all the goodness without a paper taste, and the leaves aren’t pulverized; they’re large-cut leaves and you can see everything.  you can see the little blue dried up cornflowers, and the big chunky green tea leaves, and little bits of yellow petals.  i highly recommend it, it’s the best green tea i have ever had, and i’ve had a few, that’s for sure.  you can find it on amazon, and you can buy a pyramid of 20 sachets for around $20US.  not bad for that kind of quality!! <</end sales pitch>>

you know, i should think about getting a job at my LYS.  i can’t believe it never occurred to me until now, but i’m really going to have to check that out.  so, blog, don’t let me forget, because excuse the awful pun, but it would, in fact, be grand.

-A

well i’m still clueless as to how i’m going to be able to fix that beast of an entry with all the pictures.  what an irk.

anyway, i bought my first knitting book!  i’ve solely used the internet and a little intuition to knit so far, so i thought maybe it was time.  i went into the bookstore planning on buying the standard copy of Vogue Knitting, that is, until i saw Twinkle’s Big City Knits.  i had heard a lot about the book in the online knitblog buzz, and i was really intending to get a technique book rather than a pattern book, but the photos were so pretty, and so many of the patterns were things i might wear, or adapt a little and wear, that i impulse-bought it. 

and i guess it’s not too bad.  some of the patterns are downright adorable, and some are a little less adorable.  there are a couple that i simply would not wear, but i imagine there is no pattern book that any knitter would want to knit everything from.  the sizing does run quite small, and i do understand that this is the whole concept of fit for the garments, but honestly.  if you’re going to tell me that a sweater measures 22″ around the bust….how the hell do i know if it’ll stretch to a 34?  maybe it will only stretch to a 32, then i’d be screwed.  but since the sizes go 20, 22, 24….there really just isn’t a way to be sure.  i wish that wenlan had included a few more notes about sizing.  i noticed that there are some errata on the internet….which is excellent, i’m glad some errors were fixed.  however, i was not at all thrilled with the fact that there were a couple of glaring spelling errors in the text.  i may be a bit of a spelling stickler, but when in bold typeface ‘Short Shirt’ has been written instead of ‘Short Skirt’, i become concerned.  who edited this?  what’s with the spelling?  the attention to detail by the editors threw me off, and made me really hope that the patterns plus errata are correct.  the layout of the book is really clever, like a fashion show, but it’s those details that get me. 

my other gripe is the yarn.  twinkle’s yarn is freakin’ expensive.  and i felt it in the yarn store, and honestly didn’t think it was that soft.  to be honest, i wish that joann’s made their Sensations Dolcetto yarn in a super bulky, because i think it would be perfect for all of twinkle’s chunky designs.  it’s not plied, heavenly soft, and it’s got a lot of wool in it so it’ll block up nicely.  i might consider doubling some Dolcetto for a few of the smaller designs, like the (personal fave) Aspen Hat, but only smaller ones, because doubling that yarn makes it pretty pricey, too.  probably i’m going to try some of the lion brand wool ease thick and quick, even though it’s only a quarter wool so there will be blocking issues, but it’s cheap and big, and until i find a good stash of something else (like brown sheep burlyspun) on ebay, it’s all i can really afford to use.

i haven’t knit anything from the book yet, and i do look forward to because even though i am not very tall and thin and flat chested like the model, i’m pretty sure some of those garments won’t look bad.  i’m hoping the patterns are fully correct.  but i’m positive about the book, and at the least it makes a good coffee table book with the relatively dramatic front cover. 

-a

knitty surprises!

the knitty surprises went live today, and i’m interested in Juno and Oblique.  both are really nice looking, and super classy.  i should consider juno as a christmas gift instead of Muir …it looks a little faster-going.

since knitty is pretty much my knitting bible, i thought maybe it would be neat to try and design something for the mag.  i’m not the greatest knitter (i probably fudge things way  more than i should sometimes *cough, seaming, using the correct increases, cough*) but i think if i really just paid attention and thought it out i could make something i’m proud of.  and heck, if amy or any editor doesn’t think it’s good enough….whatever, i still did it all by myself!  i got some inspiration from a friend’s new winter coat the other day and it’s been nagging at the back of my mind since.  of course, the next-fall submission deadline is june 15, so i have plenty of time to plan it all out.  i can’t wait!

i’m frogging the entrelac scarf (oh, the pain!) that i was working on so that i can re-cast on with one less triangle at the base.  the scarf was just too wide to be flattering on me, so it has to go.  but i can’t bring myself to pull out ten inches of stitches….not yet at least.  but give me four cups of eggnog coffee (!!) and a platter of sushi over the next couple of hours and we’ll see what happens…

not-so-triumph!

as you can all see, the last post didn’t quite work out for me as far as readability goes.  i keep editing that post so that the words go under the pictures and each picture has its own row, but wordpress just does not want to work with me here.  i’m trying my best to fix all that writing and make some of the pictures re-appear.

thanks for the patience!

-a

 P.S.  By the way…. Cass over at Shut Up Im Counting is having a CONTEST!!  personally i think her blog is really good and i’ve been a lurker for a little while now, but what’s better than a contest?  i don’t know!!! so here are the goods:

http://shutupimcounting.blogspot.com/2007/11/333-contest-few-of-my-favorite-things.html

triumph over technology!

let’s be straight with each other.  technology really, really hates me.  it helps explain why i have the most boring blog in the blog-o-sphere.  until now.  (well actually, that judgment is still yours to make…)

anyway, time to match faces with names.

firstly, the neverending feather and fan scarf.  made of Angora Extra 75% angora/25% wool.  Color: rose.  Size 4 straight needles, started a hell of a long time ago.  Yarn is pre-strung by me with some size E seed beads in clear, turquoise, green, purple, and pink.  The up-close and the whole deal.

 

it’s really too bad it itches beyond belief.

Next up:  the first sweater i made, in Bernat Soft Chunky 100% acrylic (some shade of grey), on size 10 straights.  The general body shaping is adapted from knitty’s Starsky (but it isn’t quite the same), and the cable pattern is my own approximation of a horseshoe cable, since i didn’t want to deal with the leaves on my first project. 

you’ll notice the front bottom at the button band rides up.  i can’t block the acrylic, and the neck ribbing is what’s pulling it.  i’m considering killing the bottom 4 or so inches with the iron….has anyone done this to their acrylic?  will i wish i didn’t?

 following is the yarn that i kool-aid dyed.  it was Cascase 200 Superwash, color 840 (i believe…i threw the tag out, oops).  originally a nearly violent shade of lilac, it’s now this bit of beauty after a run-in with some grape and cherry kool-aid and a voracious dyer:

i had forgotten to tie up the skein i wound in multiple places, so i ended up with a huge tangled mess post-microwave.  that is the reason i didn’t wrap it back up into a twisted hank to show off the color; i was too busy unknotting it and having no swift, there was just no way.

stockinette on size 7 needles.

and last, but not least, something better of that gorgeous Brookside Yarn Studios <br>superwash hand-dyed merino.  ohhhhh, yeah.  looking at that stuff, and touching it, and knitting with it, is like grabbing a hot stranger’s butt on the street.  you feel a little guilty doing anything to it, but it sure as hell felt satisfying**.  here, it’s cast on for that Shimmer sleeve, but i ripped it and a picture of the (too large, i’ve decided!) entrelac scarf shall come.

lovely.  i’d say i’m about all caught up right now =)

and i hope i never have to do all this picture-posting ever again.  cheers!

-a

entrelac…who knew it was so simple?

…apparently every single knitter who’s actually tried it.

 anywho, hello there! once again i’ve been blog-neglectful.  oh, the shame.  of course, school has been getting kind of intense and i’ve been doing a lot of going out lately, so of course the blog will be taking the backburner.  the past few weeks have been pretty enjoyable though…between football games and rainstorms, the sox winning the fall classic, yarn stores, pumpkin pie, and butterbeer (yes, i have a secret recipe, and YES, it is absolutely amazing, i can’t imagine anything closer to what Rowling imagined), i haven’t been massively productive.  but i’m damn well trying!

can you believe, i still haven’t finished the feather and fan scarf?  it’s been weeks and weeks, but even though i pick up the needles probably almost every day, it’s like no progress is being made.  it itches and it goes slowly and i hate it.  but it’s so darn pretty, and i could never rip it out.  especially because i don’t want to knit anything else with that supreme itchiness (i’m more than annoyed over that) and it’s a promised gift to my sister, whenever it’s done.  i’m thinking christmas.

when last we left off in the saga of the luscious hand-dyed yarn initially intended for the cherie amour, i was searching for a wrap to knit up.  well, i cast on for a pretty standard drop-stitch wrap and hated it.  then i casted on for a sleeve of knitty’s ’shimmer’….and hated that, too.  conundrum! (in my best natalie portman voice).  then i thought, perhaps entrelac.  and so my current entrelac scarf project was born.  i actually really like the way the wool feels (it is merino), and although i’d have preferred some much, much longer stretches of color in the variation, it’s looking quite pretty.  AND i took pictures of a bunch of stuff, so as soon as i put them up on a photo site, the blog will be a proper one indeed.

i went to sit n knit, in search of some size 8 double points, and was immediately confronted with the lack of inexpensive dp’s.  i asked the saleslady for help in finding more, and she pointed me immediately to the section of Clover needles, and plucked a packet of bamboo dp’s right off the shelf.  there were no other kinds and i was stressing paying $10 for needles (pah! i’ve never paid more than $5 for any set of needles), but i felt awful putting them back so i bought them anyway.

best. decision ever.  or maybe the worst…because they are my favorite needles in the whole wide world.  no lie.  i’ve never knit with bamboo needles before and it’s somewhere along the lines of heavenly.  this is good, because now i want to knit on them all the time.  this is bad, because i’m now a needle snob and want to completely overhaul my entire set of needles.  granted i don’t have every size, but i have a lot of needles, all of which are aluminum and none of which i enjoy any more after using the clovers.  what is a girl to do?

i’m also planning on buying some really luxe cashmere off ebay for a pittance so that i can knit up the Muir shawl (knitty again) for the boy’s mother.  i’m probably going to have to give in and buy some bamboo circulars for it, especially because i really will need the stickiness of the wood with all those lace stitches.  i might also consider knitting with a lifeline, although i haven’t done that and almost feel like it’s cheating, even if it is the smartest thing i could do for when i (inevitably) mess up.  i’m also designing a hat for the boy for christmas, based on the typical chullo, but with a twist i’m sure he’s going to love.  i’d write more about that, but he reads, so that would just be silly of me.  he already knows too much =)

anyway, the entrelac scarf is one of the fastest knits i’ve done, in that gauge, and that thoroughly pleases me.  i have a ton of stuff to do for christmas, so i’m trying to start now (should have started in september but i’m always the procrastinator), and try not to drown in the busy-ness.  i’m also about to hunt down a copy of the spring interweave knits because i’m lusting for those entrelac socks, and some other designs from that issue.  but since i seem to be incapable of a single FO, we’ll see about all that.  plus pics later!

-a