The Moebius Sock

Featherweight Cardigan

2011-06-03T21:16:00.001-05:00

So after an extended hiatus, I've finally returned to this blog. I didn't manage to get much knitting (or crafting in general) while I was away at school, but I did finish this cardi up in the few weeks after finals were over.

Quite happy with the way this turned out. Very simple, but very wearable. Also, there is something to be said for a simple stockinette stitch piece when one is trying to jump back into knitting ;)

Ravelry Project Page

Yarn: Elann Lustrado

I enjoyed working with this yarn. I would reccomend knitting it at a large gauge though (this was perfect). My first attempt with this yarn was for Arisag, and at that smaller gauge I felt the fabric was too stiff.

The pattern: Featherweight Cardigan by Hannah Fettig

Just as fun to knit as the first time :)

I did make a few mods to the pattern. Namely, lengthening the cardi and opting for 2x2 rib instead of a stockinette collar.

For the lengthening, I definitely should've added waist shaping, it drapes kind of oddly in the front at the moment.

For the collar, the 2x2 rib is currently ruffling up, which could be due to the cast off, or because I picked up too many stitches. Either way, I'll need to figure out a fix, because sadly blocking didn't improve matters.

Also recently, Celeste and I hit up Shepherd's Harvest again this year (goodness, it's already been several weeks since then!). Super fun as usual, though this year I refrained from buying anything. Oddly enough, I was super lazy this year and didn't get any pictures, so check out Celeste's post for those :)

Not sure when I'll be posting at this space next (hopefully more often!), but thank you for visiting! :)

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2010-08-26T18:59:00.001-05:00

Autumn is just around the corner (yay, I love autumn!) and with it my schedule is changing up as well. The world of academia is calling me into a season of prolonged busyness, which means less time to craft and participate in the crafty blog realm. :(

I'm pretty sure I'll be able to keep up with most of my favorite blogs, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have to write posts. Hopefully some random words or photos every once in awhile, but not much beyond that.

Oh, I really wanted to post about the McCall's 5523 pencil skirt, but I never got to hem it! Hemming a skirt is a lot more time consuming than I expected! But I really loved the pattern, very easy to sew and really cute. My skirt is just a little big on me (the wool I sewed it with had more stretch than the muslin I used to test the pattern) but it fits my sister quite well, so that worked out nicely. Will definitely be sewing another one of these soon, I love all options for the back panel, it'll be a lot fun to try them out!

Refrigerator Pickles

2010-08-16T15:51:00.001-05:00

Thanks everyone for your sweet comments on my last few posts. I love reading your thoughts :)

I've been working away on the pencil skirt pattern from the last post, and am nearly ready to photograph. I'm pretty happy with the way it's turning out, though I may consider going one size smaller next time. Can"t wait to share with you!

Over the weekend I made some refrigerator pickles to preserve a boatload of cucumbers that were given to me. I used my grandmother's recipe for these, and it was quite easy to make. Vinegar, sugar, celery seed, and onions. Simple simple.

I cut my cucumbers into 1/4" slices (or roughly around there) and that seemed to work quite well. Make sure to pack these tightly. Oh, and it'll work a lot better if your cucumbers are smaller in diameter. Mine were a bit oversized and it made it harder to pack them in

Patterns, patterns!

2010-08-04T14:37:00.001-05:00

My mom and I got to spend some time antiquing this previous week and we opted to scope out some new (to us) shops. We were disappointed to find that several smaller shops had closed, but we still really enjoyed the few we were able to visit. I, of course, was on the lookout for vintage fabrics and my new favorite, vintage patterns (1950's being the decade of choice).

I managed to find some large pieces of this vintage fabric (not sure how old, the print looks a bit 1930's to me, but I'm not sure how to tell for sure)

Other than the fabric, I didn't find anything too spectacular, but this 1965 blouse pattern did catch my eye (view 1 in the yellow/orange is my favorite). There were several sizes and I was lucky enough to find my size in the pile. It was only $1 so I wasn't too worried about whether or not I'd actually sew the blouse, but now after looking at it a bit, I'm fairly certain I will be sewing this at some point (though I may be editing the collar). It'll be great with a pencil skirt.

A pencil skirt?

Perhaps this model from McCall's would do?

Yep, I picked this up several days later from the 99c sale at Hancock's without thinking too much about it. Now I realize, these two will be great together.

When I bought this skirt pattern I was quite a distance from home, meeting a friend. I thought I had a Hancock's close by my house so I figured I'd be able to stop in later if there was anything I really wanted. Not so, unfortunately. Apparently that was my closest Hancocks. Wah :( Now I wish I'd spent more time checking out the fabric.

I also grabbed this tank pattern:

I love the ruffles here. Now I just need to find fabric and trim that match as nicely as the sample pictured!

My last purchase from Hancock's some simple muslin fabric. I have to say, even though this is just "practice cloth" (basically you cut and sew your pattern in this, make any changes and then cut your official cloth using the muslin pieces) I'm super excited. This should definitely save me some headaches! I'm hoping to make a muslin this week for the skirt so I can purchase some good fabric for it, but I have some other projects going as well so we'll see if it happens!

Fiber Dyeing: The Process

2010-08-03T14:08:00.001-05:00

Here's the promised fiber dyeing process photos! :)

Celeste removing excess vinegar from fiber braids (the vinegar allows the dye to absorb into the fiber)

Mixing up new colors: The most popular color of the day was light blue. I think we each used about two to three bottles over the day. What can I say, it was a great base!

Working on my samples:

Celeste working a few of her braids:

As I worked on my two braids, I realized I used much of the same color combination. The main thing I changed was the amount of each color used/blended. My first braid was predominately pink, with minimal blending and fairly saturated (though still pastel-like) colors.

I also added brown to my first braid:

Finished product:

With my next braid I chose to color nearly all the fiber with the light blue dye and then add in medium blue, light green, and light pink, being careful to really blend them into the blue. Not all of the colors got wholly mixed, but I love the way it looks now.

After I braided my fiber up I was even happier with the way the colors looked. There's just something about braiding that makes the colors so pretty.

This was such a fun experiment. There's one thing I definitely learned, I LOVE colorful fiber. I came home very excited to spin, when previously I'd been a little "meh" about it, even though I have many beautiful (but neutral colored) fibers in my stash. I think in the end I'd probably prefer the neutral yarns for knitting, but during the spinning process I much prefer the colors! Conundrum? Probably :)

Make sure to check out Celeste's finished braids too, so so gorgeous!

Fiber Dyeing

2010-07-28T10:58:00.001-05:00

Celeste was dyeing more fiber this past Saturday and invited me to have a try as well. We had quite a bit of fun playing around with the dyes.

Celeste started me off with a a few ounces of fiber separated into four chunks to give me a chance to experiment. I quickly learned several things I didn't like in the finished product, so I'm really glad I started off with samples!

(four samples from far left: 1. pink, brown, white; 2. green, blue, yellow, white; 3. yellow, pink; 4. brown, blue, white)

I learned that white areas, while cool, don't necessarily look great with most color combinations.

My pink and brown sample (far left) actually has a white tip and I like that one, but the white with darker colors didn't look as nice. Actually, most of the white spots are hidden in this photo!

I also learned the yellow dye was quite bright! We dubbed it "highlighter yellow". However, after Celeste played around with a bit, we ended up with a nice banana tone. Much better.

Oh, and blue and brown? It could work in the right context, but somehow as I look at this fiber now, all I can see is a bruise colorway. ;P

After the samples, it was time for a larger braid. I was a little nervous, but took my time deciding how I wanted to dye the skein and I'm really happy with the way it came out.

I started with pink, then added a bit of brown and green and finished up with blue. I love how the blue blended with the pink looks (the purple areas in the above photo).

Next up, I dyed this braid.

By this time, I was ready to hit my home base, so this fiber predominately my favorite color, blue. :)

I decided to start with a light blue base and blend pink, light green, and dark blue into it. I love this one. I wish the photos were more accurate, but my camera isn't photographing blue and green very well lately so this is the best I could do!

It's a bit lighter than this photo, but here you can see the color variations better than in the top photo:

While we were dyeing, I took quite a few process photos, so those will probably be making an appearance on one of our blogs soon! :)

A new haunt of mine

2010-07-21T18:00:00.001-05:00

BurdaStyle

I recently started reading The Selfish Seamstress blog (check it out if you have a bit of time, her sewing is just fantastic; here's a link directly to her finished objects category) and since she sews using a lot of Burda patterns I became quite curious about Burda. After a bit of googling I found the pattern magazines and the BurdaStyle community website. After a bit of looking around last night I made an account. My username is The Moebius Sock if you want to look at my (currently empty) page.

Basically this is a sewing site that appears to me to have similarities to Ravelry and even a bit of Facebook. It's a Burda site however, so it doesn't have a pattern library like Ravelry (just Burda and user patterns it appears) and it isn't purely a community sewing site. It also has some annoying ads. I'm still learning the format, but so far I've discovered a lot of things that appeal to me. I've already added several projects to my favorites and a few tutorials to my "toolkit" to try out in the future.

I'm still keeping up with knitting of course, but for now I've hit the point where I really want to improve my sewing skills (and production levels for that matter!) so I'll probably be focusing on that for a little while.

Have fun looking around :)

Pay it Forward!

2010-07-12T14:13:00.000-05:00

A while back I got the chance to sign up on Celeste's blog for a Pay it Forward event. I'd wanted to try something like this for awhile so when Celeste posted about this event I jumped at the chance to join in. Just a few days ago I received this gorgeous hand-knit scarf from Celeste.

You can find her official blog post on it here, but here is one of her photos (used with permission of course!)

It's so so so soft and pretty.

I've gotten a bit spoiled through this gorgeous weather we've been having and I'll admit that up until I received this scarf I was pretty much dreading winter. After receiving this scarf though, I've changed my tune. I'm now excited for the chance to pair this up with my wool coat. :)

I also received two of these paper garlands. I read the blog post about these and thought they were wonderful, and now I get to have some too! (photo Celeste's)

Now for the Pay it Forward part:

I need three people to sign up to receive a gift from me and be willing to "pay it forward" to three of their friends as well.

I will probably be selecting one of the people from among my "in real life" friends, but if several of you sign up I think it'd be fun to choose you all from my blog. Also, if there's more than three I'll do a random drawing.

I'm pretty excited about this. It's always fun receiving gifts, but I love giving even more, and getting to give something handmade? Oh yes, even better!

Here's the details if you would like to join in!

Pay it Forward Details (main points stolen from Celeste)

1 - You must be willing to Pay it Forward to at least 3 other people.

2 - Those people must be willing to continue the Pay it Forward event.

3 - What you give needs to be something from you. It's technically a 'deed', so what it is depends on you. It could be something knit, sewn, baked, even a huge pot of stew, be creative.

4 - I have 6 months to send something to you. Once you receive it you have 6 months to send it on again. (I consider the 6 months a guideline...I know I'll be quite busy in the next several months so my projects may take a bit longer to arrive!)

5- If you want to join in, you have until next Monday (July 19th) to comment here to sign up.

Spring Ruffle Top II

2010-07-07T11:06:00.000-05:00

I loved my first top so much, I had to give this another pattern another go.

Pattern: Spring Ruffle Top Tutorial
Fabric: Remnant from a local fabric store...I think the whole piece (2yds and 60" wide fabric made quite a piece) was something like $4-5...and this top barely made a dent in the fabric. I'm quite happy.

As you can see, this fabric is very light and see through (hence I'm wearing a tank top underneath). It also has a bit of a stretch to it, and no apparent right side/wrong side; it was harder than cotton to sew, but still pretty doable.

I made the same mods as last time, and ended up having to take in the sides a bit as well (I'm guessing this was due to the stretch of the fabric). Both of these tops will be seeing a lot of use this summer. I'm very happy with how this tutorial has worked out.

My knitting needles and spinning wheel haven't seen a whole lot of use the past few weeks as I've been sewing so often, but they are still my go-to projects when the tv is on so eventually I'm hoping to finish something in those departments!

Spring Ruffle Top...minus the ruffles.

2010-06-29T21:45:00.000-05:00

This weekend I finally got around to burning through some of my fabric stash (ok, I only used about 1.25yds, but every bit counts!).

I decided to give Made By Rae's Spring Ruffle Top a try. I knew immediately I wanted to make the simpler ruffle-less version.

I began drafting my pattern on Friday.

By Saturday night I had a finished top. It only took about 300x of alternately sewing seams and ripping seams. Every seam rip was completely my fault. ;)

Mods: Originally this pattern called for pleats on both the front and back. I followed the instructions and sewed it that way. Then I tried it on. Eek. Extremely tent-like. A lot of finished projects that others sewed look great, so it was probably just me, but at any rate I knew something had to be done.

After contemplating a few options, I ripped out the band seams, side seams, and the pleats of the back (to the tune of an I Love Lucy re-run to maintain my sanity) and then I re cut the back subtracting the 6" designated for pleating. After resewing (without pleats) I was much happier.

The other part I had trouble with was the straps. I didn't have anyone to help me with placement so I struggled for quite a bit trying to find the correct placement. I still ended up making them a bit too short, but they work!

Fabric: Quilter's cotton from Joann. Enjoyed sewing with this. It has a pretty good drape, and is so comfortable to wear.

Overall, I really love it. So super comfortable and really fun to sew. :)

Fabric Coasters

2010-06-25T13:53:00.000-05:00

Pattern from I Love Patchwork

I actually made this set of coasters several months back, but never got around to taking photos for a blog post. My favorite fabric in these is the Japanese print with the little milk jug, it's just so cute! The print also has several other little food items including this baguette:

This coaster I just finished a few days ago.

This time I decided to make just a single coaster since I have a lot more fabric combinations I want to try and I only need so many coasters!

Favorite fabric here? The Russian dolls.

I have a few more in-progress coasters I still need to finish up, but this weekend I'm hoping to do some apparel sewing, so the patchwork will be set aside for awhile.

Today

2010-06-10T11:09:00.003-05:00

It's raining and I love it when it rains. It's just so refreshing.

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I'm currently reading Little Dorrit (Dickens) and have just finished watching (for the third time) the Masterpiece Theater adaptation. Since I still have about 300pgs of the book to finish and I've already got the story resolved in my head from finishing the movie I can't decide whether to keep reading or switch to a different book. Hm.

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I'm extremely excited about Alicia Paulson's new book on embroidery. I rarely pre-order books, but this may very well be an exception.

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My craft table. It is quite messy. And I really really need to use it. But cleaning? Err, we'll see if it happens.

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I have recently accumulated quite a bit of fabric for apparel sewing and am now seeing the need to actually begin sewing it, rather than just thinking about doing so. Again, the messy table comes to mind.

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I recently began knitting another Featherweight cardigan. This time I'm planning a longer cardigan with feather and fan edging for the collar and sleeves. Pretty excited about this one. Downside? I'm ripping the sleeve of my Arisag cardigan and using that yarn for Featherweight instead. I hope to try Arisag again eventually, but the simpler Featherweight is just a better fit for me right now.

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I'm very excited for Saturday. I don't really have anywhere to be, which means I can spend the entire day crafting if I wish, and I think I do. :)

Weekend

2010-06-08T10:21:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday found me and Celeste on a little road trip/yarn shop tour. We made it to four yarn shops (the first one was where we met up), a quilt shop, and Ikea. It was oh so fun.

I found this Rowan 4 ply cotton at the second yarn shop we stopped at. The first thing I saw in the clearance was several skeins of this 4 ply in a lime green color. I was so bummed that it wasn't a color I could ever use and reluctantly put back the skein I had picked up when my eye fell on these. Five skeins, all the same dyelot. Perfect. Oh, and did I mention they were $3.25 per skein?

Not quite sure what I'll use these for but I do have a few ideas (maybe Geodesic Cardigan or Audrey in Unst).

The next stop was to a quilt shop just across the street from where we had parked. It was a bit of an impulse stop. I saw the sign for a quilt shop and just had to drag Celeste in.

It was a great shop, they had several popular lines of fabric I've been wanting to see in person and I'll readily admit I picked up several new pieces.

These are 1/4 yd pieces, which is the yardage I usually buy. Buying so little yardage can be a bit limiting, but overall it's working well for me with these little cotton prints)

From left (sorry about the lack of links): (Wild Thyme collection, Wild Thyme collection, Storytime collection, 1933 collection, 1933 collection, Posies Yellow-1933)

And here's a closeup of the 1933 prints. I think I may very well end up purchasing this whole collection eventually. Such cute prints!

As I was waiting to check out I caught a glimpse of a display of embroidered dishtowels. As I admired the towels I was hit by a sudden desire to try embroidery (I've dabbled a bit, but never made more than a sampler). A dishtowel for $1.97 (it's huge by the way, almost a small tablecloth) and iron-on transfers for $1.50 a package? Yes please. It was an impulse buy all the way.

Here's a close-up of one set of transfers.

And the other set I purchased. Absolutely love these!

We also stopped by Ikea (my first experience setting foot in the store) and had a lot of fun there. We admired the kitchen set ups the most I think, there were a lot of great appliances to sigh over.

Overall, great weekend. :)

Little Visitors

2010-06-06T15:10:00.000-05:00

Duckies.

Poor things lost their mother and were wandering across the yard. Watched them for sometime, but didn't see them meet up with their mom. I'm sure the noises of twelve little babies alerted her eventually though!

This one had a bit of a strut going on ;)

And then there's this bird. A bit of an unusual sight for my area, but I'm pretty sure it's a type of flycatcher.

As you can see, he perched on a quilt that was airing out outside.

Shepherd's Harvest-Fiber!

2010-05-17T14:38:00.001-05:00

1. Morning Sun-Merino, Alpaca, and Silk , 2. Morning Sun-Rom&BL , 3. Winterwind-Gray CVM , 4. Morning Sun-Wool, Pygora, Mohair, and Silk , 5. Spinning , 6. Winterwind-Romeledale , 7. Three Rivers-Wool Roving , 8. Briar Rose Fibers-Wool , 9. Riverwinds-Cormo&Alpaca

I love each of these purchases. As you can see, I began spinning the blend of wool, pygora, mohair, silk. It's a roving and pretty easy to spin. A bonus was that it was only $2 an ounce. It's spinning up as maybe a worsted or DK weight and I'm not quite sure what I'll knit with it when I finish.

I purchased about 11oz of some wool fiber Celeste and I ran across after buying from the Winterwind Farms booth. The fiber was only $1.13 per ounce and super soft. It has a lot of vegetable matter in it and the sheep breed was unnamed, but I decided to go for it anyway. I'm planning on spinning it up fairly fine (fingering weight or sport) for a sweater project.

I think my favorite purchase is the BFL top from Briar Rose Fibers. Their booth was one of the first we looked at and I knew I really wanted to purchase something from them. Their prices are fairly high so I ended up deciding to wait until I'd made some other purchases, but at the end I came back and got this roving. I'm very excited to spin this one!

Shepherd's Harvest 2010

2010-05-15T01:17:00.000-05:00

This is the 2nd year I've gone to the Shepherd's Harvest Fiber Festival and it certainly won't be the last!

I got to go up with Celeste and we had so much fun fiber shopping and exploring the rest of the festival. Her post is here. :)

I still have yet to photograph my newly acquired stash...but let me assure you, it is quite extensive.

After we'd worked on exhausting our fiber budgets we headed over to watch some sheep herding.

This is an Old English Sheepdog:

Can't really see the dog in this shot, but I just find it funny to watch the sheep running right past the pen...oops:

Stampede! Er, sortof ;)

Celeste:

We also checked out the animal barns.

This little guy was so cute!

"Cute" doesn't really describe this guy, but still, look at that fiber!

Of course, I still have yet to share the fiber purchases, but if I can get my camera to cooperate I should have some details (as well as a new spinning WIP I may have started the evening after the festival) later this weekend. :)

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2010-04-27T13:09:00.003-05:00

The deadline for Spring Top Week is in just a few days (the 30th) and my tops still aren't finished.

Sigh.

I had to do a little (ok, a lot) seam ripping on the first top, but it's all fixed up now and I've got about an hour left of sewing to do.

The second top is going better, but probably needs about two more hours of work.

I'm going to be cutting it close for sure.

In other news...

I think it's time to learn how to darn socks. :(

Simplicity 2593 View B

2010-04-13T18:04:00.001-05:00

Thank you for your comments on the dress! :)

Here I have one more sewing project. :) I actually sewed this up around January, but never got around to blogging it.

Pattern: Simplicity 2593, View B

I was really happy how this pattern came together. It was easy to sew, and I love wearing the resulting top. The one mistake I made was to choose a "suiting" type fabric. It drapes nicely and looks pretty good, but it frays a lot! Fraying isn't necessarily a bad thing (especially if it's a great fabric), but it did add more time to making the shirt since I had to finish off rapidly deteriorating seam allowances!

I usually wear it underneath a cardi, like my Featherweight below:

I'll definitely sew this one again. It's a good fool-proof pattern, and for me (an ultra novice), that's a good thing!

Simplicity 2942

2010-04-08T12:14:00.000-05:00

Here it is...the aforementioned dress. In need of a bit of ironing :)

Pattern: Simplicity 2942 Dress, with no sleeves.

As I had noted in my previous post, the dress uses ties to achieve a waist (actually the ties were to be placed a few inches above the waist). This may have worked fine with a lighter fabric, but I was using a mediumweight (though still drapey) cotton plaid so it didn't work out very well. The dress didn't have any shape to it (even when I tied it) and the general fit was not quite right.

I recut the pattern starting at the armholes (taking about 1/2" fabric on each seam, so 1" total per side) and then came in a lot at the waist (probably took about 8" total of fabric off), I then shaped these changes down to the hem of the dress, to maintain a gradual A shape. I also omitted the ties.

Verdict: The pattern was easy to sew and I enjoyed it, however I probably wouldn't sew it again. I like the finished dress, and it fits a lot better now with the mods I made, but I just don't like it enough to sew it again! :) It turned out looking pretty good in the photos, but in person I still feel like something is a bit off. And that could just be that I don't like this style of dress on me, so don't be put off from trying this pattern, especially if you choose to use a fabric that drapes really well.

FO: Audrey

2010-04-05T14:19:00.000-05:00

Ravelry Project Link

So I finally got FO photos for Audrey :) I ended up wearing it this weekend, so it wasn't until after I got photos that I realized I had meant to photo it over the dress I just finished sewing! Oops.

Anyway, this was such a fun knit. It's already seen quite a bit of wear as well. The only mod (excepting a few other minor things) was that I knit this to pattern gauge with a laceweight rather than a sportweight yarn. Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud is great to work with, it's a very fine and soft laceweight. I love the fabric I got with the gauge/yarn combo, but after seeing how it's wearing, I don't think I'd do it again.

Of course I'm still planning on finishing this one (with merino laceweight), so I guess I shouldn't speak so soon!

One of the other troubles with this fabric is that it doesn't have enough structure to hold up under closing the buttons. I chose the 30.5" size (to fit 33") and I'm really happy with the way it fits (my gauge was a tad off, so the measurements are a bit larger than the pattern...31.25" I believe, but I'd have to block it again to check). If I had knit this with a sportweight, the negative ease would be perfect, but since they pull badly with this combo, I'm sticking to leaving it as an open cardi. Which is fine, since I love it that way.

One of the few troubles I had with the pattern (which I believe was directly related to my yarn choice) was the twisted ribbing. It looks great on the finished sweater, but I never quite got the hang of purling through the back loop. Needless to say, it was slowwwww going!

Overall, I highly recommend this pattern, it was very easy to follow and so great to knit. I'm constantly envisioning more versions with other yarns. :)

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2010-04-01T16:53:00.003-05:00

So I think I may have salvaged my dress. I was surprised at just how much I had to edit the pattern to get to fit right, but finally I was fairly satisfied. I'm not thrilled, but the finished garment is wearable and I'm happy with that. I'm hoping to get photos this weekend to share with you. Oh, and it matches perfectly with Audrey, so I may finally get my FO photos of that too!

Because I apparently enjoy inflicting crafty pain (or at least challenge) upon myself, I've decided to join Made by Rae's Spring Top week. All tops submitted must be sewn after March 1 and submitted to the flickr pool before April 30th. All the information can be found at the above link, if you would like to join me in this :)

Currently I have fabric for two more tops, and I think two is a reasonable amount to make in 30 days. Especially if I have to err, modify again. :)

I don't think this is going to work...

2010-03-25T18:02:00.003-05:00

So I just finished sewing the all-important side seams on the aforementioned dress:

Then I proceeded to try the dress on. "Dress" might not be the right term actually. Plaid paper bag might be more correct. I can certainly see why this pattern includes ties at the back. I needed them to cinch up about 8" of extra fabric. Ouch. :(

I think I can make this work, but only with some serious modification. Like adding a waistline. I might eliminate the ties too.

Back to the sewing machine with some chalk and a good ruler.

What I've been up to...

2010-03-23T16:02:00.000-05:00

Started some socks with this Pagewood Chugiak yarn that has been in my stash for a lonnnnng time. I think I've posted about this yarn before, a good project for it has alluded me for quite some time, but I finally settled with toe-up socks. Yeah, the coloring isn't the greatest thing in the world, but I need to make room in my stash for new purchases and I think for socks I'll be able to live with the pooling...
They'll be cozy at any rate...this yarn is great to knit with. :)

I sewed up this little cosmetics bag a few weeks ago:

The pattern is from I Love Patchwork (which is a lovely book by the way), and interestingly enough I chose a color scheme very similar to the author's. I'd like to try making this again, but larger. I was hoping to be able to use it for a knitting project bag, but even a small lace project is a bit too large for it.

Next up, my latest project. I'm currently about 1/3 of the way through sewing up this dress. So far I'm really happy with how it's going. I've even made myself re-sew bad seams (I'm usually waaay too impatient for that!).

I'm making the sleeveless version of this (so that's easier to wear a cardi over it) and omitting the buttons.

Finally, here's a photo from a walk I took several days ago:

Spring is definitely arriving! Everything is still pretty brown, but hey, the water is running again! Personally, I've already pulled out my collection of spring/summer shoes...and that's good enough for me! :)

FO: Olympic Blues

2010-03-09T21:13:00.000-06:00

Yikes, I haven't blogged in quite a while! It's been a very busy last few weeks, but thankfully things are slowing down again so I have some time to write a bit.

Ravelry Project Page

As you Ravelers will know, I finished my Olympic Blues cardigan within the time limit and was very happy to have done so! It was certainly a lot of knitting!

Knitting Olympics Medal

Overall, I'm not entirely thrilled with this project. At first when I tried it on, I loved it. But after a quick peek in the mirror, I was a bit disillusioned. The drape of the cardigan makes it sortof swing out around the body, which means any waist I have disappears and so it accents my hips.

I think I'd like to try this with a belt, because I prefer the way it looks when pulled around more like a blazer shape. If I ever purchase a belt (finding a cute one that fits my waist is a challenge...they're all too big to wear at that point!) I'll get some more photos to show you what it looks like. Otherwise, I may consider adding a button closure with a crocheted button loop.

Ok, sorry! Now for the positive!

The yarn is pretty nice, it blocked soft and drapey and is fairly comfortable to wear. I like the stitch pattern and the sweater is cozy to wear (though the construction tends to make it feel like it may fall off my shoulders) so I know I'll get use from it. And of course, since I finished it in 17 days I don't feel like I wasted eons of knitting on it! Even though I sort of did...I just don't feel like I did. ;)

My swatch lied.

2010-02-20T17:55:00.004-06:00

I'm blocking out the first piece of Solaris, and while I managed to arrange it so that the width measurements are correct, the piece is a whole 3" longer than it needs to be.

Yeah. This should be interesting. Hopefully the other pieces follow this new gauge otherwise I will be in deep water.

On a different note, I've been taking lots of breaks as I knit to keep my hands feeling good so that has left time for sewing...these are some new fabrics I recently bought from Sew Mama Sew:

This one is so sweet:

Progress: Day 3-4

2010-02-15T11:07:00.000-06:00

I had a great time kicking off the Olympics with Celeste on Friday. Though I didn't get a ton of knitting done that night, the pace certainly picked up the next day.

I watched quite a bit of Olympic coverage over the weekend, and my highlights were the Pairs Figure Skating last night and the Speed Skating Short Track 1500m race the night before with Apolo Ohno and J. R. Celski. Great race to watch.

Anyway, here we have the progress of three days of knitting (haven't knit yet today) on Solaris:

Back: Completed

Front piece (both fronts and the collar are in knit in one very long piece): About 8" down.

So far, I'm on track (in fact, I'm ahead of my self-imposed schedule).

I am definitely concerned about yarn quantities. If I don't have enough I will either have to make shorter sleeves or go over the craft store and try to match my dyelots with another skein. Eek.

Olympics Project

2010-02-12T14:11:00.000-06:00

So, I finally made my decision on my Olympics project!

It took me forever to decide, but eventually all patterns but one were ruled out for some reason or another. I hope to knit most of the sweaters I posted sometime during the year, but for the Olympics I think the perfect 17 day sweater for me will be...

Solaris

Random updates will be appearing throughout the Olympics :) Good luck to everyone else who is participating!

random

2010-02-02T11:22:00.003-06:00

Thanks for your help with my Ravelympics patterns! I think I've almost decided, I just need to measure my swatches and double check pattern specs.

It's been a very busy last couple of weeks, and it shows no sign of letting up. I feel really bad I haven't gotten photos of Audrey up yet, but I've just been way too busy to try to work out another photo shoot. Sigh...anyway, I'm going to publish one of the less then superior photos from the last try so you can at least get an idea how Audrey turned out. I will get some better photos eventually!

You can tell the light was fading fast, the noise in this pic is rather incredible ;)

Ravelympics

2010-01-26T11:12:00.001-06:00

The Ravelympics are coming up fast, and I'm still trying to decide on the perfect project. I knew instantly I wanted to knit a sweater, but I just haven't been able to decide on the perfect pattern.

I've included Rav link to each of the six patterns I'm considering (as well as any particular projects I like).

I'd love some feedback on these! I need serious help choosing! ;)

1. Geodesic Cardigan

Photo from KnitScene: http://www.knitscene.com/issue/spring-2010/geodesic-cardigan.asp

This came up on my Rav friend activity a while back, and I knew instantly that this would be one issue of KnitScene I had to purchase.

Gauge is about sportweight and the sweater is knit with laceweight. I have a LOT of laceweight in my stash right now, so to de-stash a bit would be fantastic. (this super yummy alpaca/silk blend is just one possibility for this knit)

Downside to the sweater? I'm currently knitting my 2nd Audrey sweater at this same yarn/gauge combo and part of me is getting a bit restless for a larger gauge. Also...according to the pattern, this has seaming. Eek.

2. Solaris

Photo from Berroco: http://www.berroco.com/exclusives/solaris/solaris_lg.html

I saw this a long while back, and thought it would be cute and cozy (maybe with a bit of modification to slim it up a bit). It's a lot of garter rib, but I do enjoy knitting that! Also, it has a very interesting construction. I probably wouldn't consider this sweater based on the pattern photo, but this project by Moonstitches is very cute.

3. Arisaig

Photo from Knitty: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall05/PATTarisaig.html

I've had the yarn for this ever since the beginning of summer last year. I'd love to get this knit up, but it's a lot of knitting! Fingering weight gauge and all. Plus, I'd be adding several inches of length (though I'd be shortening up the sleeves too). canarysanctuary's project is worth taking a look at, such a beautiful knit (in fact, it's the reason why this pattern is so high in my queue).

4. Four used to be the Alpaka Tunic from Interweave, but last night I swatched and my yarn isn't going to work out. Sigh...someday.

Photo from Interweave Knits: http://www.interweaveknits.com/galleries/bonus/fall-2009/alpaka-tunic.asp

5. Boulevard Zip

Photo from KnitScene: http://www.knitscene.com/issue/spring-2010/boulevard-zip.asp

This is another great sweater from the new KnitScene. I don't know that it's something that would usually be my style, but it is very cute! Worsted weight too...

6. Farmer's Market Cardigan

Photos from Interweave Knits: http://www.interweaveknits.com/galleries/bonus/fall-2009/farmers-market-cardigan.asp

Another worsted weight knit. If I knit this, I'll probably be eliminating the pockets and carrying the cables down the side.

So, that's it! Any thoughts? :)

Cranberry-Lemon-White Chocolate Scones

2010-01-24T13:10:00.001-06:00

I did get photos of Audrey this week...but they're not that great. I started just as dusk started to fall, so I didn't have nearly enough light to get decent photos. I'm going to try again later this week, but for now, here's a recipe for scones I worked out this week. :)

Cranberry-Lemon-White Chocolate Scones

Makes 18-24 large scones.

Ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour

6 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

10 tbsp slightly softened butter (in the case of using salted butter, use a scant tsp of salt)

1 tsp lemon zest (you'll need a medium sized lemon to get that much)

1 1/2 cups milk (I used 1%, but I've found almost any variation of fat content works fine)

1 1/2 cups dried cranberries

1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Sift (or whisk) the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Add the lemon zest and whisk it in. Cut the butter into 1/4" cubes and cut them into the flour mixture. When the mixtures resembles something like breadcrumbs (you want tiny pieces of butter) fold in the cranberries and white chocolate chips. Add about 75% of the milk and fold in with a large spatula. Add the remaining milk as needed.

Place dough on a floured surface and gently pat into a large rectangle (about 3/4" thick).

To make 18 scones, cut the rectangle into three strips, then cut each of those strips into three squares, then cut each square across the middle and you'll have 18 triangular scones.

To make 24 slightly smaller scones, cut the rectangle into four strips, then cut each strip into three squares, then cut each square across the middle and you'll have 24 triangular scones.

Line two baking sheets with parchment and place the scones about 1/2" apart (the scones rise up, not out, so you don't have to worry too much about spreading).

Bake for approximately 15-20 minutes. Remove scones from oven after they have browned slightly and resist when pushed with your finger.

If you try this recipe, I'd love to know what you think! Enjoy! :)

Almost...

2010-01-19T11:48:00.000-06:00

I've just finished up two large projects.

First is Audrey (technically I still have four ends to weave in, so I better work on that). I love love love the way this turned out! I'm hoping to get photos tomorrow to share with you. Thankfully the days are getting longer again, so it will be easier to get good photos.

The next FO is something that's a little new to me, it was a quick project, but the finishing took quite a while. Will hopefully share this by the weekend. ;)

I've also been doing a little sewing...I got this great book last weekend and have had a lot of fun looking through it and dreaming up some more sewing projects. I have to admit, I'm really on a patchwork kick right now. I doubt that I'll ever become much of a quilter (I'm not good at precision measuring!) but I love quilting. So for now, I'm sticking to small and managable projects.

I've also been inspired by some more projects from Pink Penguin , I think these pincushions are just adorable. I decided to use up some of my fabric scraps making something similar:

The word fabric is actually a bit of a selvage from one of fabrics. I love word fabrics in patchwork and since I haven't added any to my fabric stash yet, this worked out pretty well.

And this one is still a wip:

I wish the quilting was a bit more defined. I should probably invest in some better quality thread. I think a cotton would work out better than the polyester I'm currently using in my machine. I also need to think of something better than polyfill to stuff these with! My finished pincushion is very light, and I don't think I'll actually use it until I can figure out something heavier to stuff it with.

That's it for now! I'm working on a post about the Ravelympics as well...I have a lot of ideas for what I want to knit, so now I just need some help choosing!

2010-01-07T09:45:00.000-06:00

So last weekend I decided I needed to make myself a new notions bag. When I first started getting really involved with knitting, I made a small bag to start carrying around a tape measure, scissors, and stitch markers. At this point, I didn't have a lot of sewing know-how. So this is what I came up with:

Note the how the bag is 1/2" longer than the zipper. and how the white backstitching adds a nice contrast to the gray fabric. That way you can easily observe how crooked it is. ;)

So, time for an upgrade.

I've been reading this blog for awhile now and love it. I always get excited when I see a new post. I've been wanting to make her little pen case for awhile and this seemed like a great opportunity since it would be a good bag to replace my old notions bag. So I went for it:

Love it. In the future I'd change a few things, like the sides. Currently, they are basically a trapezoid that folds into the bag, and there is a bit of space left at the top too. I'd do a triangle next time and try to avoid that space.

My favorite part though is the quilting. So much fun to do. I want to sew more!

I love the way the stitching along the seams seems to almost blend the fabric together.

The fabrics I used for the quilting section are Japanese cottons, except the stripe second from the right (the lining and polka dot fabrics are from my local fabric store) . Overall, I'm very pleased with this bag. It does a great job of holding all my knitting stuff.
Oh, and here's another fun thing I want to share:

Some backyard visitors.

2010 Goals

2010-01-01T09:25:00.000-06:00

2010 is going to be a big year for me for many different reasons, but here I'm going to take a few paragraphs to outline my crafty goals for the new year.

1. Eight Sweaters. One of my goals this year is to knit eight sweaters. For my purposes "sweaters" will be defined as dresses, pullovers, cardigans, or vests. It'll all even out in the end. I'm counting Audrey as my first sweater (since I'll be finishing her in 2010).

2. Three Designs. This year I really want to knit up some more of my designs I've been working on, so my official goal is to knit three patterns that I can publish for free or sale.

3. Sew Garments. I want to work at improving my sewing skills and hopefully gain some cute clothes in the process. My goal here is to sew at least four tops. In order to count, they must be made from good fabric, be well-sewn, and ultimately be wearable.

4. Spinning. My goal for spinning is to create yarn that is more consistent. I'm going to take pains to develop a more solid drafting style and spinning rhythm. If I see enough improvement by the time this fiber festival rolls around, I'm going to purchase enough fiber for a sweater's-worth of yarn. Of course, if I don't see enough improvement I'll purchase fiber anyway, just in slightly smaller quantities. ;)

So there it is, my goals for craftiness in 2010!

A few things

2009-12-31T20:32:00.000-06:00

Here's a few little things I wanted to mention before the New Year. :)

A while back Celeste gifted me this beautiful yarn she'd purchased from Joji, a woman who hand dyes in Argentina. The yarn is just lovely, the coloring is subtle but still defined and the yarn is very soft as well. I was so surprised by this gift, and am treasuring this yarn until I decide on the perfect project for it. It's 460 yds of fingering/sport weight so I have a lot of options!

Check out Celeste's post about her other purchases from Joji, or Joji's blog to see more of this lovely yarn.

This lovely alpaca laceweight was my Christmas gift from Celeste. (She knows my color preferences really well!) The color is a bit closer to a green (though it's still a blue-green) and has some subtle heathering. Very pretty...this is what I'm planning on making with it. Oh, and note the scale too. A Christmas present from my brother. I don't think he had any idea why exactly I wanted a scale, but he delivered! ;)

With the yarn, Celeste also said a pattern was included. She'd had a pattern in mind, but then realized it wasn't the right yarn weight so she had me choose one instead. I knew almost immediately I wanted to knit the cowl pattern linked above with the yarn and that that particular pattern was free so I suggested Audrey in Unst (even though I wouldn't be able to use the yarn for it, so I kind of cheated) and a few days later:

Audrey

The pattern is written for sportweight, but I'm knitting it with Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud (a laceweight) and loving it. The fabric is just lovely, I wish you could feel it!

FO: Christmas Tree Scarf

2009-12-31T20:07:00.000-06:00

2009 Christmas gift for my mom.
Even though I had to race to finish this (I think I had it blocking Dec 23rd?) I enjoyed this project a lot. This is one lace patterned scarf I can see myself knitting again.

Ravelry Project Link

When I first began knitting, I realized that this pattern looked a little like Christmas trees, especially when taking the green yarn into account! I still liked it (and knew that the five knit rows per pattern repeat would be an asset to finishing in time) so I continued on. I knit two strands of Knit Picks Gloss Lace together to get a fingering weight yarn and I subtracted one pattern repeat (width-wise) from the pattern to end up with a 8" wide scarf. I was surprised by how much the yarn grew after blocking the entire scarf. It ended up growing nearly 15" lengthwise (finished dimensions 8"x65").

Overall, very happy with this scarf. And mom liked it too. :)

And thanks again to my sis for modeling!

FO: Slouch and Pebble Cowl

2009-12-31T19:58:00.000-06:00

A couple more 2009 FOs. Both of these have been finished for quite some time (though it was just recently that I put buttons on the cowl).

1. Pebble Cowl. Mmm, mindless knitting. Just a seedstitch pattern with an added buttonband (because I realized that the cowl was going to be too small). The cowl has five buttons total, it seems to be easier to wear when three of the buttons are left open however, so I don't think I'd do so many again!

2. Slouch
This was a fun project to knit, and overall I like the hat, but I think I might like a beret better, maybe something more like this beautiful project from Celestial.

Thanks to my sister for modeling (hehe, I roped her into it after she agreed to model items that I actually made for her!)

2009 in Review

2009-12-31T11:53:00.000-06:00

I have lots of fun plans for this New Year's weekend and of course knitting is involved! I decided to re-publish my goals from last year with evaluation and then tomorrow I'll publish my 2010 goals. So here we go!

2009 Goals and Evaluation

1. I will totally conquer stranded knitting (and Fair Isle). My misshapen swatches will not have the last word. Selbuvotter, here I come. NHM #7 fulfilled this goal!

2. I will knit a gigantic shawl, one of them 5 footers...ok maybe next year on this one. Errm, nope, and quite honestly I don't think I'll get to this any time soon!

3. Knit from my stash. I'm not avoiding buying yarn (I love my LYS too much!) but I'll try to stick to the stash for several months at least. Meh, I did ok. My stash boxes are still overflowing though, so I should have probably paid more attention to this one.

4. Gift knitting. I'm a selfish Knitter, I admit it. I'll try to be better. I did good on this one (I gave knitted gifts to six people), those Selbuvotter especially were definitely a trial of patience and perseverance.

5. Try new yarns (umm, is this negated by #3?). Tried Kathmandu Tweed, Berroco Ultra Alpaca, Sandnes Garn Lanett, my own handspun (!), Cascade Heritage, Reynolds Sunday Best, Elann Lara, and Elann Camila to name most. I enjoyed knitting with most of these, though I'll think twice before buying any more Kathmandu.

6. Knit from my pattern books. At least one pattern per book. NHM #7...otherwise, not really.
A lot of my pattern books are for socks, and currently I'm more excited about sweaters so I don't know that they'll see a lot of use this year either.

7. Work on some of the pattern designs floating around in my head! Yep! I knit two shawls from my own designs and a tank top. This shawl (tentatively named Bramling) will hopefully be published for sale by late January/February.

8. Buy a good stitch dictionary (suggestions?) and use it! Most are divided into books of Knit and Purl, then Lace, then Cables so I don't know where to start! Hehe, nope.

9. Take Risks. (cough Victorian Lace Today cough) Frogging allowed. Well, I consider knitting my own designs a bit risky, but the whole Victorian Lace thing didn't happen so yes and no.

10. Think before knitting. I chose a few projects last year that were more of a punishment than a joy to knit so I'll be a little more careful!I'm excited for Knitting 2009! Stay tuned, Corona is practically flying off the needles! With a few issues ignored (cough NHM #7 cough) I enjoyed all the projects I knit this year.

FO: Kathmandu Hat and Mittens

2009-12-30T15:48:00.000-06:00

Ravelry Project Link Hat

Ravelry Project Link Mittens

My first actual project with this yarn (though I had several failed swatches as well) was a feather-and-fan lace scarf. It didn't go very well. The Kathmandu Tweed yarn doesn't have much stitch definition at all, so while I loved knitting the scarf, I really didn't like the way it looked. I finally put the scarf away and decided to take the yarn out again if I came up with a better idea. A few days into December, I finally thought of something. A pair of simple stockinette mittens. Knitting up at 4sts to an inch, the mittens fairly flew off my needles and I was done knitting within just a few days. After finishing the mittens, I had an entire skein of yarn left so I decided to knit up a matching hat. I started with a 1x1 ribbed band, which I grafted together and then picked up sts around the band to knit the crown of the hat. This is my favorite way to knit a hat, even if it does involve grafting! I believe I finished this entire set in about a week. I gifted these to my sister for Christmas and I'm happy to say that she loves them! (She's modeling them in the photos).

FO: NHM #7

2009-12-27T17:23:00.001-06:00

Ravelry Project Link

I was so glad when I finished knitting these mittens! I started with my row gauge too small thinking that I'd just re-chart the tips of the mittens if they ended up too short. Not as easy as I thought it would be at all! I also had to spend quite a bit of time working out the thumbs. The back of the thumb is left uncharted in the Selbuvotter book, so I worked it out in Microsoft Excel along with the front of the thumb which I edited from the original (in the original, the middle diamond is solid and split down the middle).

Once I finally got the tips and thumbs re-charted and knit up, I was happy with the way these mittens fit me, but I still wasn't sure how they would fit the recipient. Luckily when I gifted them I found that they not only fit perfectly, but the recipient loved them. Yay!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-26T11:22:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Though the giant snowstorm over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day complicated travel plans a bit, it was still a great holiday.

I did a little work in the kitchen:

Chex Mix from the Pioneer Woman Yum.

Made some more Christmas cookies. Decorated by holiday guests.

And I still have great plans for this Caramel Corn Recipe, but didn't get around to it for Christmas. Maybe New Year's Day?

And now that I've gifted all my hand-knits I'll be able to share details and photos throughout the week. This hat will be the first:

Made this in September from Knit Picks MerinoStyle yarn,. Gifted to my brother for Christmas. He liked it. :)

Christmas Cookies

2009-12-15T11:33:00.000-06:00

One of the Christmas things I wanted to do this year was to make Christmas cookies. I got a few great books from the library and found lots of yummy-looking recipes, but when I turned to the decorating section in this Martha Stewart book (I'm not normally a Martha person, but this book is worth a look) I knew I'd found what I wanted to do.

Royal icing on top of sugar cookies.

I decided to go to my tried and true Betty Crocker sugar cookie recipe and then did a little research on royal icing. Royal icing is traditionally made with powdered sugar, water, and egg whites, but for edible icing it's suggested you use meringue powder instead of the egg whites. I didn't have any meringue powder on hand so I tried searching for an appropriate substitute. I ended up using the recipe found here that calls for Ener-G egg replacer (oddly enough, I had some of that exact brand on hand, yay!). It seemed to work out pretty well, but since I've never made royal icing before I'm not sure how close it came to traditional icing. One note if you use the recipe, you'll need a lot more powdered sugar (I think I added maybe 1 1/2 cups more)

You can find a lot of great information about decorating cookies this way at the link I provided for the icing recipes. I had so much fun doing this, and I love the way the cookies look. Much better than I've ever been able to get buttercream frosting to look! I'm planning on packaging four to six of these in some cello candy bags I have and giving them as small Christmas gifts.

February Baby Sweater

2009-12-12T14:29:00.000-06:00

Ravelry Project Link

This little baby sweater was such a fun knit. I wish I could have knit it in wool, but I had to make sure it was machine washable/dryable so Berroco Comfort Baby it was.

My favorite part of the sweater ironically ended up being something I'd done unintentionally. Elizabeth Zimmerman only mentions knitting buttonholes after she instructs knitting about 1.5" of the yoke, and because I didn't read ahead, I completely missed that instruction until it was too late to add knitted-in buttonholes. As you can see, what I did here was crochet one row across the garter yoke edge and then crochet another row adding three buttonholes (I chained three per buttonhole). I love the way it turned out.

Because I had to modify the pattern to work out an appropriate size with my tighter gauge, the division for the sleeves/fronts/back didn't work out exactly right. The sweater will still fit a baby, it just doesn't lay correctly because the fronts together are wider than the back.

I also knit the sleeves in the round, which was a lot quicker than the seaming method. Overall, I loved this project, even if I was knitting with acrylic!

Star Ornaments

2009-12-11T14:48:00.000-06:00

I found this Star Ornament Tutorial a while back during the Scrap Buster Contest at Sew Mama Sew . I thought it was adorable, so I immediately grabbed some scraps and started sewing one up.
After finishing my first, I cut out the pieces for about six or seven more. Yes, I got excited.

I finished two more and also have several in various stages of progress.

It was a fun project to sew, and a good way to use up small scraps as well as lone buttons.

One note if you decide to use the tutorial, it doesn't include a template for cutting out the star so you do have to make a diamond pattern on your own. The height of my diamond was about 2" and my finished star ended up measuring about 3".

...

2009-12-08T16:26:00.003-06:00

So I just found out that Ravelry added a "sort by color" option for stashed yarn. I love this site.

http://www.ravelry.com/people/RivendelLN/stash

I don't have the "closest color" box filled in for all my yarns, so there is a little group at the end of my stash page with some random skeins, but for the most part it looks pretty darn cool.

I find it a little ironic that a method of organization that would annoy me in a yarn store looks so charming on Ravelry. I may change it back sometime, but for now I'm rather enjoying it.

Oh, and my plans for photos today were dashed by a mild (but still potentially camera-damaging) snowstorm. I did finish those Selbuvotter mittens though! I just have to weave in ends! So happy.

A Short Update

2009-12-07T12:54:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since my last blog. I've been crazy-busy and have been able to squeeze in just enough time to work on knitting some Christmas presents. Unfortunately keeping up with blogging has fallen by the wayside. My schedule this week though is already more open and I'm hoping that trend will continue!

Here's a few thoughts, until I can get some photos of everything I've been working on.

1. I'm still finishing up NHM#7. I'm praying these fit the recipient. So nerve-wracking.
I currently have a thumb and a half to finish. Oh, and knitting thumbs in colorwork? Not fun. But these mittens are due next Wednesday so I better hurry and finish!

2. I knit a slouch hat about a month ago and never got around to blogging it. Wasn't sure how I'd like the slouch look, but it's actually a really cute hat. Pattern details and photos will commence eventually.

3. Finished knitting the February Baby Sweater. SO CUTE. I sewed the buttons on and couldn't stop holding it up to admire it. Baby clothes are the best. This will be gifted sometime in the next few weeks.

4. Working on some secret Christmas knitting. To be revealed after Christmas.

5. I can't wait to be done with Christmas knitting. I have so many sweaters I want to knit and I miss spinning on my wheel. Admittedly I've been spending some of my precious free-time browsing hand-dyed fiber on etsy and making a little wish list in my head. Oops.

6. Black Friday Shopping...I went to Joanns this year to take advantage of the 50% off button sale, plus the additional 20% off coupon. I got some great buttons, can't wait to show you! The check-out line was loooooong but it went pretty quickly. I felt bad for people who came to buy fabric though, the line was longer than the check-out line, and moving far more slowly.

6. I'm excited about all the gifts I'm giving this year. Being a knitter and being able to give beautiful handknits (even if knitting the thumbs on one particular gift is driving me crazy!) is wonderful. :)

7. Photos eventually. It's currently freezing outside so I've been a bit reluctant to photo knits and other projects out there, but I'll try to get to it later today or tomorrow!

Thanks!

2009-11-16T18:08:00.002-06:00

Oops, forgot to say thanks for your input on pattern choices when I wrote that last post!
So, thanks! I really appreciate your pattern comments...Right now I'm between the first pattern and last pattern. I think I'll end up with the last because it will be more unique from the other scarves I've knit my mom.
Now I just have to choose yarn! I'm wavering (of course) between two choices, but I'm making myself choose and wind it tonight so I can get started. :)

wips

2009-11-16T14:40:00.000-06:00

1. Miniature mittens...

I'm on a roll with these. It started last night. Funny story. I was cleaning my desk off and managed to clear off exactly 0% of the clutter when I got distracted by some Knit Picks Palette leftovers I found buried under the rubbish. I then decided I needed to make some mini mittens. Got out my stash bins because the color of Palette I really wanted wasn't out and promptly added several more skeins to my already overflowing desk. I then sat down and knit a few mittens. My desk remains in shambles.

2. Purple:

Malabrigo worsted. Cowl in seed stitch. Five button holes. No buttons. Yet.

3. Big mittens:

My current pride and joy. Unfortunately, they'll be too short for the recipient, so eventually I must rip the top of the pictured mitt and re-knit. I've knit the cuff of the second mitten and am hoping to finish these by December 1st. We shall see. A slight problem is that I seem to be running out of yarn. I really really really hope that I don't.

4. Baby sweater knit in...acrylic. I really wanted to use wool, but I knew that machine washable and dryable (dryable not a word, I know) had to take top priority for this gift. At least it's soft?

Some pattern help?

2009-11-12T10:53:00.001-06:00

One of my Christmas gifts just isn’t working out.
And unfortunately, this is one of the gifts I can’t fudge on, my mom’s.
I started with some socks using this yarn. I didn’t the like the pooling, and I knew the colors weren’t really my mom’s favorites. Rip rip rip

Next, I moved on to an entrelac scarf with this yarn. Didn’t like the way it looked at all. Rip rip rip.

After that, I used the same yarn to knit a Feather and Fan scarf. For the most part I liked the way it was looking. Then, when I saw Celeste earlier this week, she pointed out something I was surprised I missed. The sides of the Feather and Fan pattern are imbalanced because the first side has two knit stitches (technically k2togs) followed by a YO, the second side has a YO followed by three knit stitches (a knit, and then two k2togs). I knit exactly following the pattern, but the pattern itself had that error in it. Besides that, I’m not sure I really like the actual scarf. The yarn is a very heavy weight with lots of tweed bumps, and the texture is almost a boucle. So it’s a little novelty yarn feeling and looking. The scarf is currently blocking, but I don’t have very high hopes, so in lieu of all this, I’m enlisting you to help me choose a new pattern.

Obviously most of you don't know my mom, but I think any of these patterns would be great for her, so just let me know which one you personally love and why.

1. Peacock Tail and Leaf Scarf

Project from Zwaalie
Zwaalie's Flickr

If I made this I'm considering omitting a repeat, but I need to check finished dimensions first.

2. Madli's Shawl

Project from Agata

Agata's Flickr

This is a gorgeous piece. I would also consider making this a repeat or two smaller across.

3. Party Lace Scarf

Project from Kellelynne

kug1's flickr

This project is lovely. My one concern is curling, which has happened with the other scarves I've given her. Maybe a three stitch garter border on each side.

4. Three Sisters Scarves # Two

Project from cindym

clmadden2's Flickr

Love this photo and the project itself.

Any thoughts on these patterns?

2009-11-10T10:18:00.000-06:00

My Google Reader is broken. I'm rather depressed about it.
I came home this weekend after a short trip to find 40 unread blogs sitting in it (yes, my blog roll is quite substantial). I wasn't too daunted by this as I had some time on my hands, but as soon as I tried opening a post, Google Reader told me that the feed could not be accessed at this time and to try again in a few seconds. Well I've been "trying again" for the last two days, but to no avail.
Today I finally resigned myself, and added all blogs I read to "blogs I'm following" in my Blogger account. After doing so, I opened every single post in a new tab (I love tabs by the way, so much better than opening new windows) and at this point in time I'm about to start reading.

Wish me luck. I have a lot of tabs to conquer.

Blown Away

2009-11-02T21:42:00.001-06:00

Apparently I'm the last to know about the Kim Hargreaves pattern book, Precious (unless I unwittingly faved a pattern on Ravelry without realizing where it originated). But oh my, now I that know...I'm utterly blown away.

I was intrigued by my LYS noting that a new Kim Hargreaves book came into the shop, so I googled Kim and immediately found her gorgeous website and patterns. The knits in her latest collection are just fantastic, and the photography and styling? Stunning.

http://www.kimhargreaves.co.uk/acatalog/Precious_Book.html

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/sources/precious

I love love love the cabled dresses, but this model seems to be a lot slimmer than I'll ever be. Yeah, I work out and I'm definitely in shape, but unfortunately "in shape" and "skinny enough to wear a cabled dress that will add at least a few pounds to one's frame especially to any parts of one's frame that are in constant rebellion against slimming down" aren't exactly synonyms.

Bah. I want me a cabled dress ;(

I won't post the photos directly on this post, but seriously, check these links out if you haven't seen them yet. The photography alone is worth it.

Dusty: http://www.kimhargreaves.co.uk/acatalog/DUSTY.html
I think I gave a little squeak when I saw this one. Can you get cuter than that? I think this one would be a little more forgiving to the hips than the other option: Aaren

http://www.kimhargreaves.co.uk/acatalog/AAREN.html

Roko on Ravelry is currently knitting one of these though and I'm eagerly awaiting the result: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/roko/aaren

Of course either of these dresses would of course take A LOT of yarn to complete. As in, I'd have to starve my stash for a good six months to compensate.

Honestly, I could go on and on. I think I love every piece in this book. Sigh. Off to dream dreams of gorgeous knitwear and completely ignore the reality of my non-selfish Christmas gift knitting experiment.

Francis Revisited-Mods

2009-11-01T15:20:00.001-06:00

Disclaimer: In order to make sense of these notes, you’ll probably need to have some familiarity with the “top down raglan” sweater construction. My notes might be a little confusing otherwise, since I didn’t take a lot of notes with this sweater, just enough so that I could repeat the knit later on if I wanted to.

When I began looking at the Francis pattern, I knew immediately that I didn’t want to knit at the large gauge suggested. I made several gauge swatches with my yarn (Patons Classic Merino, a worsted weight) and decided to go with about 5 sts per inch. After I began knitting the actual sweater I realized my gauge had become a looser 4.5 sts per inch, so I ripped the sweater and adjusted my calculations accordingly. Thus, all notes below are for my sweater knit at 4.5sts per inch. As for row gauge, I have 6 rows per inch written on my notes, but I didn't double check that after I began knitting.

Ease:

I ended up with about 1.5” of neg ease around the bust (sweater measures 31.5 at that point) and 2” of positive ease around the waist (sweater measures about 30” at that point).

The Pattern Mods:

I cast on 112 sts and divided them as follows:
40sts for front
2 sts for between increases (the sts that I increased on either side of)
12 sts for sleeve 1
2 sts between increases
40sts for back
2sts between increases
12sts for sleeve 2
2sts between increases

Raglan Increases:
I increased using a “make 1” increase on each side of each 2st increase column. So I increased 8sts each increase round. I knit two plain round and then did an increase round, I prefer the look of a steeper increase slope, but in order to adjust to the large neck opening necessary for the cowl I did the increases every two rows.

Side note: If I were to knit this sweater again, I would change the cast on ratio of front/back/sleeve stitch counts. For this sweater, by the time I was ready to put the sleeves on stitch holders and begin knitting just the front and back, the sleeves were still too small while the front/back sections were growing too large. I would probably subtract about 5sts from the front and 5sts from the back cast on section and add somewhere from 2-4 into the sleeve sections.

I knit in this increase pattern until the sweater measured 6.5”
Stitch counts (not including the 2 sts increase columns, or so my notes read):
Sleeve: 38sts
Front: 66 sts
Back: 66sts

When I removed the sleeve sts to st holders, I added one st from each "two st increase column" on either side of the sleeve (so each sleeve had one st added to each side of it, 40 sts). I also cast on two sts after removing the sleeve stitches to the needles.

Knitting the Front and Back:

Knit until top measures 4.25 from underarm cast on (the sts I cast on in place of the sleeves).
Work decrease row. (decrease 4 sts evenly placed on the sides of the sweater)
Knit until sweater measures 5.5” from underarm cast on.
Work decrease row.
Knit until top measures 9.5” from underarm cast on.
Work increase row. (increase 4 sts evenly placed on the sides of the sweater)
Knit until top measures 11” from underarm cast on.
Work increase row.

At this point my notes disappear. But I continued knitting plain (no more shaping) until the sweater was about 3” shorter than I wanted, and then I worked 3” of 1x1 rib and finished off with a tubular bind off.

Sleeves:

I cast on two sts for the underarm of each sleeve (42sts) and knit until the sleeves reached just to my elbow and then added 2” of 1x1 rib and bound off using a tubular bind off.

Cowl:

The most important part of course!
I picked up all the sts from the original cast on (112) and knit in 1x1 rib for 2.5” with size 8 needles. Every 2.5” I switched to a larger needle size (I used 8’s, 9’s, 10’s, and 10.5’s) and the cowl finished off at about 10”. I bound off with a tubular bind off. The tubular (or kitchener) bind off is the best finish I’ve found for 1x1 rib because it doesn’t give a ruffled edge. You could also use a standard “k2, slip first st over 2nd st” bind off, but I can never make that bind off loose enough.

To finish I just seamed up the underarms and wove in the ends. It’s really a very easy and fun sweater to knit, and I’ve already wore mine quite a bit!

Hope you found these notes helpful!

Francis

2009-11-01T15:18:00.002-06:00

Ravelry Project Link
Pattern: Inspired by Francis Revisited
Mods are here

This was a great knit. Even though it's a sweater, it still became my "mindless knitting" project. Just basic stockinette with a little 1x1 rib and some shaping thrown in. I've already worn this a lot. It's really versatile and having the extra warmth around my neck from the cowl is perfect for chilly fall days.

I'd love to make this again someday with a really luxurious yarn, it's a simple enough pattern that a great yarn would really have a chance to shine. The yarn I used for this was Patons Classic Merino (bought before Patons changed the blend to what is essentially "misc wool") and it's holding up really nicely. As I mentioned when I started this project, the yarn was already knit up into a sweater that didn't turn out so well. After I frogged that sweater and washed the yarn, it went back very closely to its original state and appears to have survived the ordeal nicely.

Overall I'm very excited about this sweater and right now it's all I can do to stop myself from casting on for another sweater project. But Christmas presents must come first!

Scrap Buster Tutorial

2009-10-27T07:53:00.006-05:00

Voting is open for the Sew Mama Sew Scrap Buster Tutorial Contest!

I posted my entry last week.

If you'd like to vote for my tutorial please check out this page:

http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=1419

My tutorial is in the second group, but check out all the projects, there's a lot of fun ideas!

The polls are open until Thursday and the winners will be announced Saturday.

Thanks! And stay tuned for knitting-related post! :)

...

2009-10-26T11:21:00.004-05:00

Naming knits. When I posted my about my latest design project last week you might have noticed that it didn't exactly have a name. "Design Project" doesn't count.

Anyway, I've been trying to come up with something creative, memorable, and relevant. Not necessarily the easiest thing. My main inspiration for the project came from a great movie, combined with some great yarn, and the concept of a creating something very textural and different than the usual lace shawl. After a few original ideas, I didn't end up finding a name from that inspiration.

Currently I'm thinking of naming the shawl after an English village, which will at least be somewhat related to a bit of my original inspiration (the movie/book was North and South in case you're curious)

After finding a few names I really like (even though they are completely random!) I decided it would be fun to post here and see if any of you have some input. I probably won't make a final decision until the test knit is finished but I'd love to hear what you all have to say!

The villages listed below are all located in Kent, England...and as I said, completely random choices. ;)

1. Bramling

2. Denstroude

3. Eynsford (pronounced Ainsford)

4. Fawkham

Let me know what you think!

Scrap Buster Tutorial: Mini Ornaments

2009-10-22T13:19:00.000-05:00

Scrap Buster Contest at Sew Mama Sew

Finding projects to use up scraps just a few inches square is always a challenge, and since many of my scraps are from treasured fabrics, I can never bring myself to throw them away. This little ornament project I created is quick, easy, and can use up even some of the tiniest scraps. It's also a very versatile project. You could decorate your Christmas tree with some of these ornaments or use them on your packages as gift tags. Try adding a few sprigs of lavender to them and throw a few in with your wool sweaters. At a finished size of 2" square, the small canvas is also great for trying out new embroidery or quilting techniques before approaching a larger project.

Tutorial follows below, enjoy!

1. What you'll need:

Two (per ornament) fabric scraps that are large enough to be cut into 2.5" squares
A scrap of fleece batting large enough to be cut into a 2.5" square
7" of yarn or ribbon
Matching sewing thread
Embroidery Floss for decorating your ornament, if desired.

2. Cut two fabric scraps into 2.5" squares. Cut the fleece batting scrap into a 2.5 square.

3. Embroidery Option Only (if you wish to add quilting, then you'll wait until later in the project): Sketch your embroidery design on the the solid scrap (for a faster option, use a rubber stamp and fabric ink in a light color).

4. Embroidery Option Only: Pin the scrap to the fleece batting and embroider (go through both layers with your needle).

5. (All options) Now it's time to 'make a sandwich'. Fold your yarn or ribbon in half and position on the right side of one of your scraps with about 1/2" of the ribbon hanging off the side. (see photo to ensure correct ribbon placement). Place the next fabric scrap (right side down, so scraps will have their right sides together) and place your fleece batting on top of that. (note that for the embroidery option, your fleece batting will already be attached to your second scrap).

6. Sew the 'sandwich' together, leaving a 1.25" opening on one side. After sewing, you may wish to trim the corners a bit to allow for neater corners when turning your ornament.

7. Turn the ornament right side out and poke out the corners with an orange stick or similar. Sew the opening closed using an invisible seam.

8. Add any quilting you may desire to your ornament. I used a blanket stitch around the edge of some my ornaments and added a basic running stitch to a few as well. Be creative with this part! You could add buttons, rosettes, charms, or even initials to customize your ornaments.

Design Project

2009-10-19T17:20:00.002-05:00

I finally have photos to share! (and yes, I do need a haircut)

When I first saw this skein of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine, I knew almost instantly what I wanted to do with it...and now a few sketches, swatches, and several thousand stitches later, this:

My goal was to create a light gauge ultra-textured shawl (click on the photos to see the detail)that could be easily wrapped around the neck like a scarf. A great accessory to wear with a sweater in the fall or to wear over a coat in the winter. In fact, you can even wear it over a sweater and under a coat; the shawl shape fits well under a pea coat (which is how I've been wearing it). Ravelry Project Link

Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine (great to knit with, and priced really well at about $10 for 433yds)

I'm currently in the process of completing the pattern and getting it test knit. I'm planning on having the pattern written for two different yarns, an alpaca fingering (the Berroco) and a merino fingering.

WIPS

2009-10-13T17:50:00.001-05:00

I was on an eight hour (round) road trip this past Saturday, so I got a lot of knitting done. ;)

1. Francis:

I finally decided on knitting this cowl neck sweater. I'll probably knit the cardigan design idea mentioned in the last post after I get my Christmas presents finished.

I'm pretty much working out my own pattern for this sweater, I'll have details on the mods upon completion.

2. Christmas Present One: Ribbed Hat

I finished this but haven't gotten an FO picture yet. Once it's blocked I'll have it on Ravelry

Super simple little hat. Knit for my brother.

3. Hat for me:

This one didn't exactly work out. But I did knit nearly an entire hat in just a few hours. Even though I was able to knit a hat this exact same size for my brother out of one skein of yarn (and had twenty yards leftover) I didn't have enough yarn to finish this hat. I'll need to go back and add a stripe of a different color or something I suppose. I may also find a bit more of this yarn in my stash box. I know I had leftovers from a couple of projects I made with it, so I'm holding out hope!

4. Fountain Pen Shawl

Technically I didn't knit on this project at all during the road trip. This is for a Christmas gift, and honestly I've been stalling on it. My deadline is shorter for this project though (mid-December) so I better get knitting!

5. Design Project FO

Preview photo ;)

Hehe, you'll have to wait a few more days for this one. I'll get some FO photos (was hoping to get some once it snows again actually) and then post details.

Think Think Think

2009-10-03T12:31:00.002-05:00

I've been out with a bad cold the last couple days and haven't been online much at all. Between that and some other annoying stuff, it was kind of an interesting week. I definitely feel like I need a little yarn therapy. ;)

So, here's what I'm thinking for my latest project. This one will be the fall sweater I mentioned back on my Christmas gift list post.

I've thought of a few different ideas I wanted to try, including some from my design notebook, and I think I'm close to a decision.

The yarn I'll be using is this:

892yds of worsted weight.

Right now the yarn doesn't look so neat and tidy. About 75% of it is currently knit up as a self-designed sweater. The plan with the sweater was to create a bottom up raglan pullover sweater with a lace neckline. But it didn't work out so well. My ambitious short-row shaping went awry, and while I know I could fix the project, I honestly don't want to.

It just wouldn't be a sweater I'd love. And since I have to frog the entire yoke and sleeves (sleeves are too tight) anyway, I think I just need to frog the whole thing and begin a sweater I'll enjoy.

Now for my fall sweater ideas:

1. Cardigan from my design notebook

Thinking a nice long thick cardi, with long thick sleeves and a thick collar (can you tell I'm really cold right now?). It would be mainly stockinette, with the collar, sleeve cuffs, and the bottom edge done in a waffle pattern or seed stitch. It'd be sooo cute with a tee and skinny jeans. Or regular jeans. I'm flexible. If I had it right now I'd be wearing it.

My original sketch has some similarities to this (Interweave link here) a design from Connie Chang Chinchio, so it might fall somewhere along those lines. No pockets though, I don't usually like the bulkiness of pockets anyway and am pretty sure I wouldn't appreciate knitting them. ;)

But the problem with this design comes down to the yarn. I know that nearly 900yds won't be enough for what I have in mind. I'd definitely have to go for shorter sleeves and a shorter cardi. I don't know if I'd like the cardi as much if it wasn't knit exactly how I'm envisioning it.

so...here's the next idea:

2. Francis Revisited (blog link here)

I've had this queued for eons. Okay, about a year and a half.

The one thing I really don't like about this pattern is the gauge.
3.25sts per inch...in worsted weight! Worsted weight that should normally be knit at 4.5-5sts per inch. I worked on a gauge swatch yesterday with the suggested needles and really disliked the result. And when I measured gauge, it wasn't even large enough! 4 sts per inch, not 3.25. So I know I'd want to mess around with the gauge. I did some math yesterday and knitting the 39.5" size at 4.5sts per inch should give me a perfectly fitting sweater. Made to fit 33" with a few inches of negative ease.
I know the 3.25 sts per inch would make a sweater with great drape, but I think it might be more likely to look stretched than drapey. Looking at the Rav projects, the sweater is rather see-through as well.
I think if I was knitting it at the smaller gauge I'd probably cast on more sts at the beginning to make sure the cowl has enough room. I definitely wouldn't want to end up with a turtleneck.

I love this piece, and it would be fun to knit something that I've had queued for so long.

So...any thoughts?

I think I've decided what I'm leaning towards, but we shall see. :)

Hanspun Mill Ends

2009-09-28T08:23:00.002-05:00

-Spun from more of those mill ends I keep talking about. The color is a mix of blue and purple.
-260yds
-Approximately 2ply sportweight (though I was trying for worsted).
-I think there's about 4oz of yarn here, but I don't have a scale yet so I can't be sure.

This was a really fun spin. It goes fast when you're spinning a thicker yarn! Still a little underspun though.

I'm excited to find a project for this one.

Handspun Shawl

2009-09-21T13:16:00.000-05:00

This is my first FO with some of my handspun. I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

Ravelry Project Link

The yarn doesn't have much stitch definition, so the lace pattern is a little indistinct. It's supposed to look like a basketweave pattern.

I started this off as a simple stockinette shawl for a "mindless knitting" project. About halfway through I got bored and decided to add a lace border. I had to do quite a bit of re-working to the lace pattern to get it to fit with the increases, but eventually I got it figured out. I was excited about how the edging chart turned out too, it fits in perfectly with the basketweave.

Working with my handspun was a little nerve-wracking because of how thin and underspun the yarn was. One spot got so thin that I even considered frogging back to fix it. Hopefully the yarns I'm currently spinning will be better in that respect.

I have a skein of sportweight I have yet to blog about and I'm currently spinning up 4oz of merino top into some sockweight. I've already finished half of the singles, so I should have some more finished yarn within the next weeks. :)

Peach Pie

2009-09-16T14:54:00.000-05:00

I was recently accosted with the reality that the peaches I had procured from the grocery were, shall we say, less-than-stellar. I had hopes that they might ripen up, but after cutting open a few peaches to find that one side was over-ripe and mealy and the other was hard as rock I gave up hope and started thinking of solutions.

After doing a quick search through my cookbooks for appropriate recipes, I decided this might be the perfect time to try a recipe that has always tempted me.

Peach Pie.

It had always seemed a shame to me to use fresh peaches for baking. After all, a good peach shouldn't need any help from sugar, spices, or the accompaniment of a buttery crust. But these peaches were a completely different story.

So I began. I made my pie crust (note to self...I need a pastry cutter. Cutting 2+ sticks of butter into 3 cups of flour is not a job for the faint of heart...or the dinner fork). I cut my peaches (which alternated between the messy mealy peaches, and the "I think I need a better knife because this blade just isn't cutting it" peaches).

Please enjoy that pun by the way, I know I did.

After all that, I finally got to the fun part.

The lattice top.

The American Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (which contains the recipe I used) recommended working with chilled dough to roll out the lattice strips and then freezing the cut strips for approx. 30mins (I did more like 10...yes, I'm impatient, but it worked just fine).

Then, after carefully weaving the strips, the dough is left to thaw out on the pie and then trimmed and crimped after it's softened.

The extra step of freezing the stripes made it so easy to create the lattice crust! In the cookbook they have a photo of a "bad lattice job" and it was quite disturbing, so I was determined to get it right.

My crimp job around the edges wasn't really satisfactory, but I didn't worry about it too much.

A few notes I wanted to make for myself (and which you'll find helpful if you ever use this recipe) follow below:

1. After cutting the peaches, I'd let them "drain" a little bit before adding the sugar etc. When I made this pie, I added those ingredients to the cut peaches and let them sit while I rolled out the pie dough but realized I was left with a lot of peach juice in the bowl, which brings me to:

2. The amount of cornstarch (the recipe calls for potato starch, but I substituted) was not enough to compensate for the juice. I added about 2.5 Tbsp. I'd go close to the maximum suggested for the potato starch (around 5 Tbsp) even for peaches that don't seem to have any juice in them at all.

3. Sugar. Again my peaches were not exactly sweet, but I still went for the minimum amount of sugar suggested. Still, a little too sweet in my opinion.

4. Crust. It was quite thick (which didn't bother me at all, but might be worth considering) and I still had leftovers amounting to about 1/3 Cup.

Overall, this was delicious. Perfect use for those peaches that lacked certain peach-like qualities.

Just looking at the photos again makes my mouth water. I might have to go back to the store and buy some more of those peaches. ;)

FO: Sailor Socks

2009-09-08T20:37:00.000-05:00

Ravelry Project Link

I began knitting these socks as a way to use my leftovers from the Featherweight Cardigan and a 185yd skein of Louet Gems that I purchased with apparently no forethought (what CAN you do with 185yds of fingering, besides mini fingerless gloves?). I blame the wool fumes.

It was a little interesting knitting with these two yarns. The Cascade Heritage is a tightly spun (as in, don't try to break it with your hands...ow) four-ply fingering weight. The Louet Gems is a very soft and fluffy two-ply. They aren't two yarns I'd normally put together, but I really didn't want to buy another skein of the Louet to make striped socks when I had something that work just fine. Now my stash is a little smaller, and I have a pair of socks that makes me smile.

One thing I don't like? The line of yarn running up the sides of the foot and leg from the stripes. It's a little uncomfortable to wear. But that's not enough to keep me from wearing these socks(and perhaps even making more?!).

Thinking Christmas...

2009-09-03T17:53:00.000-05:00

So. It's September already and suddenly my knitting needs to get organized.

It's time to start thinking about Christmas gifts, and my list is slowly getting written.

I haven't completely decided what I'm making as far as patterns but currently my list looks like this:

Three pairs of mittens (or hats)
Two hats
Three shawls
Possibly a scarf
A large project (again, not completely decided on this either, so more details later)

This seems reasonable. Though on second thought, I have a feeling I'll be in the middle of project-overload syndrome a few short weeks from now.

Oh, and did I mention I want to make myself a fall sweater?

FO: Aeolian Shawl

2009-09-01T10:59:00.002-05:00

Ravelry Project Link

Pattern: Alternative Narrow Edging for Aeolian (used the regular Aeolian Pattern and then this edging because it was shorter than the original and I was ready to be done knitting)

Pattern Size: Kind of did my own thing here:

Yucca Chart: 6 repeats

Transition Chart: 1 repeat

Agave Chart: 1 repeat

Edging: Alternate Edging

Center Back (from CO to tip) Measurement: 22.5"

I started this knit in April but I took several months off, so I only just finished it a few weeks back. I think the amount of stitches is what got me. The final BO took me almost 2 hours (though I do attribute some of that to the fact that I was watching Little Dorrit, and was probably knitting at a much slower speed than usual)

I love how the final piece looks, it's just gorgeous. I'm a little unhappy with the yarn that I used though (Knit Picks Shadow) because even though it's a fine yarn and the colour is great (I love heathers) it has a tendency to be "sticky", which leads to "felty" and with a piece that I put so much time into, I wish the yarn was higher quality.

Overall though, I'm happy. :)

I think I've got it covered...

2009-08-31T17:43:00.000-05:00

So I finished the Aeolian shawl a little while back and got all ready to block. It was wet and everything.

About 1/3 of the way through pinning the shawl I ran out of pins. Bother. So I let it dry, unpinned it and put "flower head pins" on my crafty shopping list.

A few days ago when I was wandering the aisles of Michael's craft store, I stumbled upon the flower head pins.

Sidenote: Having a crafty shopping list is completely pointless for me, because upon finding the flower head pins, I realized that had I not chanced to walk down that aisle I would have walked out the of the store without even attempting to find the pins listed on my crafty shopping list.

But back to the point, I was about to grab a 100 pk when I spied something even better:

A 500 pk! After almost 15 minutes of deliberation and calculating I went with the 500 pk (it was about $6.20 after the 40% off coupon in case anyone wonders).

Today with my new trusty pins I re-blocked the shawl (FO pics soon by the way). I used exactly 150 pins. I guess I didn't really need 500. But now I can block multiple pieces if I want.

Yup, that's a lot of pins:

For sure:

More Handspun

2009-08-25T09:22:00.003-05:00

Ravelry Link

Sportweight
121.6 yds
Spun from more mill ends
Navajo Plied

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, I'm actually seeing some improvements. I've currently got more mill ends (I have 2 lbs, so I'll be spinning these for awhile) on the wheel. I'm shooting for a 2 ply worsted weight so hopefully that works out!

Here we go...

2009-08-17T08:52:00.001-05:00

I finished it. The design project aforementioned.

(isn't the scenery in this pic great? I wish I would realized and moved over about 4 feet)

Ravelry Link

I call it a tank top, but after taking photos it stuck me that that it would look really cute over a button-down shirt. Tried it on, and it looked great. (I'll try to get a few photos later)

Thinking this might be more of a vest? I may just do a re-knit in some wool.

After finishing, I've definitely decided that I want to sell the pattern for this top...I think. ;)

I'm planning on an eventual re-knit because there are several things I want to fix before finalizing the pattern (I may also get a test-knit done too, but at the very least there will be two complete projects before the pattern is out)

1. I want the straps just a bit closer together.

2. The selvage on the sides of the straps don't do what they're supposed to, which is keep the straps from rolling. I'll need to adjust the pattern from 2 selvage sts per side to 3 or 4.

3. The cast on had too many stitches...the decreases worked perfectly but there's a lot of "slack" at the back of the top. It doesn't "bell" or "flare" so it's not really the most attractive thing.

4. The straps are too long. You can't tell from the pictures, but I'll need to re-do those so that this fits a little better. ;)

Oh, and if you're curious about the pattern I had mentioned in my other post...it was the Beaded Cami. I accidentally chose the same lace pattern as this top, but after finishing I'm not really concerned about it, the tops are completely different and I didn't reference any other patterns etc. to design and knit this top (save the stitch dictionary of course).

Let me know what you think! :)

...

2009-08-14T08:23:00.001-05:00

I finally finished a few projects this week and even picked up work again on some hibernating WIPS. After I block and photo the projects, I'll get them on the blog, but until then here are some photos I took last week.

Here you can see about 1/15 of the yarn cluttering up my desk (be assured that it's on my to-do list for today)

And here you can see that my last few projects (as well as a few I've yet to blog about) are evidence that I've developed a slight obsession with garter rib:

Veggie Pizza

2009-08-09T19:20:00.001-05:00

I love summer vegetables. Unfortunately, I never was much of a gardener so I usually have to rely on local farmer's markets. I've been able to get a lot of really good veggies this year so a few nights back I made one of my favorite meals, a simple veggie pizza.

I started out with my mom's basic crust recipe and rolled the dough out into my pizza pan.

Then (this is my favourite!) instead of using tomato sauce I brushed the crust with extra-virgin olive oil and added fresh basil and garlic.

Then I chopped up a green pepper and added that over the top. Then I sliced up some tomatoes and a zucchini (all fresh of course) and spread those around too.

Finally I topped it off with some mozzarella cheese and into the oven it went.

And out it came.

Oh yes. That was one good pizza.

I love homemade pizza. Takeout pizza can be fun and I love it, but sometimes nothing beats a good homemade one :)

Handspun

2009-08-06T11:31:00.000-05:00

Merino Handspun (singles blogged about here).

This didn't really turn out as well as I hoped. But I did get quite a bit of yardage...408 yds.

This will probably mittens or a lace shawl...haven't thought about it too much though.

The weight fluctuates between a fingering and a lace weight.

Next: Mohair and Wool Mill Ends

A light fingering weight.

Navajo Plyed (3-ply).

167 yds.

Not sure what to do with this, it turned out pretty well, but it seems too rough to use for the projects I would be considering (a hat or cowl). I'll have to knit it up and see how it feels.

I mentioned the singles over here, and as I noted then, I did need to run the singles through the wheel again to get enough twist into them. After that, plying the singles was very easy and I'm pretty happy with this skein. It is a little hard to see the way the 3-ply looks in the photos because the halo from the mohair is so excessive. I only used about 1/3 of the singles by the way...still have to plenty to re-spin and ply. :)

Currently on the wheel, I'm spinning up some superwash wool mill ends. So far it seems to be going well, but I haven't gotten a chance to work on the singles for several days so it might be while before I finish.

Patchwork Bag

2009-08-03T17:30:00.001-05:00

Thanks for the encouraging comments on my last post! After reading those and looking at what I got done after the weekend's knitting I'm feeling a lot better about the wips situation. :)

I also spent a little time knitting (and unknitting since my pattern theory was a bit flawed) my Malabrigo skein. Good reminder for why I love knitting though.

This is a project I finished about a week ago. From the tutorial I used previously: http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2008/09/tutorial-reversible-patchwork-bag.html

This is my smallest bag yet (I sewed it following the original measurements on the tutorial) and I love it. This certainly won't be my last of these little bags. They're so cute and very handy to tote projects around.

In this photo you can catch a sneak peak at some of my recently finished handspun. Posts on that coming soon. :)

The Case of the Exploding Queue

2009-07-30T12:00:00.005-05:00

I've been knitting a lot lately.

But it's not showing.

I have two projects I really really need to finish and some ancient wips that I've resolved to ignore (but that are still taunting me).

I knit more than 6" (over some 150+ stitches and in sportweight, gah!) in one day and I don't have a finished or near-finished product to show for it.

And I'm getting a little frustrated.

My Ravelry queue is (as my title suggests) exploding. I buy a yarn, think of a perfect project and queue it. I see a project that inspires me and queue the pattern. I decide I need a new top to wear and queue another pattern (or five). Now I have 38 items queued.

My "head queue" (which is the more unreasonable of the two) is also threatening me. For some reason I haven't been sleeping all that well and rather than being the morning person I usually am (after I've had breakfast at least) I've been becoming a night person...so at 11 pm I have all these design or project ideas coming to me in record numbers. I used up several pages in my design notebook in just a few nights. And now I really really want to knit some of these ideas.

But my wips persist.

The first is the checkerboard scarf which is for a birthday gift (I don't need to have this done until mid August, but the sooner I cast off, the better I'll feel about casting on for something new).

Two, my design project (the one that is seemingly endless).

They are both formidable projects.

And I imagine I'll be knitting for awhile.

So I've resigned myself that the exploding queues on Ravelry and in my head will just have to wait.

But my Malabrigo from Christmas is still calling to me. (I mean look at that skein...and I have two more too!)

And I'm still going to write that chart that's floating around in my head.

I guess I'll just have to knit faster.

But in the meantime I'm going to dash over to Rav and see if I can't do something about that queue.

Busy Weekend...

2009-07-28T18:07:00.001-05:00

As you may have noticed, I didn't get a chance to blog about any of my new projects this weekend.

It was a busy one.

Here's what happened on the knitting front:

I had blogged briefly awhile back about a new design project I started. Well, it had been set aside for a more important project (that will be blogged eventually) and I finally got a chance to pick it back up this weekend.

I had modified a lace pattern to use in the project and found some problems, not with the lace pattern, but with my knitting of it, and decided to frog.

Several thousand frogged stitches later I went back to one of my original considerations for the lace pattern.

And began knitting.

And knitting.

Then I examined my knitting.

And realized I should have done that a bit earlier.

The lace pattern looked strikingly familiar...I thought about it for a bit then dashed over to the computer and began scouring Ravelry.

Sure enough one of the most popular patterns in the same category as mine had the exact same lace pattern as the one I was knitting into my project.

And since I didn't take any time to modify this pattern as I had with the other previous lace pattern I had been knitting, I was stuck.

I'd done so much knitting that at this point I couldn't bear to frog again. I resigned myself to the fact that at the very least I would be able to enjoy my project, even if I couldn't sell the pattern for it.

But, after sitting back and thinking on it for a bit I realized my design is really so different then the pattern I saw on Rav that it may end up working out, even if the patterns do use the same lace pattern...

I also did a little more research and found the stitch pattern in more dictionaries beside my own...so it's not a very unique lace pattern either...

We'll see how it goes, I should be finished with the project in about another week so I'll see about posting some photos etc. here and getting some opinions.

Apple Crisp

2009-07-24T14:42:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week I made Apple Crisp from the American Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.
Here's what happened...

1. Chop apples (was making for a crowd, so this took 'forever and a day' (name that poet)).
2. Zest and juice lemon.
3. Add lemon zest and sugar to apples.
4. Eat half of the lemon sugar apples because they were just so good.
5. Begin making the crumble topping by spending 10 minutes walking in circles around the kitchen glancing at the cookbook for ingredient amounts, retrieving ingredients, checking the cookbook again and then finding the appropriate measuring utensil...That's me!

6. Cover apples in the crumble topping which I somehow managed to finish even through my unfocused efforts.

7. Go downstairs and completely forget I have a pan of apple crisp in the oven.
8. Rejoice that even in my forgetfulness, I did not burn the crisp.
9. Let cool.
10. Realize I don't have any vanilla ice cream.
11. Serve it anyway.
12. Ignore subtle comments like "imagine if we had some sort of sweet high fat dairy product to go on top of this"
13. Realize the next day that I completely forgot to take pictures of the finished product.
14. Take picture of the now revolting looking post-refridgeration crisp (which actually remained quite tasty in spite of its appearance)

I'll do better next time.

I still have a few more things to blog about, so I'll try to do that before Monday. :)

Weekend Photography

2009-07-21T10:33:00.001-05:00

I spent a lot of time this weekend working on my photography. As pdxknitterati asked about a few posts ago, I've indeed been working on depth of field as well as some other techniques.

I'm trying to get comfortable using my camera in Manual mode, and it's been a really good experience so far.

I took some photos starting in the early to late evening (after most of the natural light was gone)to practice getting good photos even with unnatural light. I still have a lot to learn in this department, but it gave me a new appreciation for how different light works and just how much I need to value the natural kind!

The natural light in some of the photos is a bit greater than others.

I took these at a wide (2.8) aperture and very slow shutter speeds (I messed around with these, but most are slower than 1/60).

Some of these have a very yellow tinge to them. Now I have to learn how to adjust that! They have an interesting look to them too...not sure how I feel about it yet.

The next two photos were taken in the evening using Sepia mode. I love the way they turned out. Now if only that one petal was straightened out!

This photo was taken the next day with natural light. Not as focused/sharp as it should be though. The framing isn't that great either, need to remember to pay more attention to that!

My camera is a Canon Powershot a630 and while I love it, it doesn't have all the benefits of a pro or semi-pro camera so I'm a little limited in that. For instance, a question for those of you with DSLR cameras; does having different lens (50mm or other) make a difference in getting the "bokeh" (the out-of-focus/blurry background stuff) effect? So far, I've only really been able to get that in macro mode. Even when I have the camera set to the widest aperture (2.8) I still can't get the dramatic focus/out-of-focus looks...

If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I've been reading some of the tutorials from PioneerWoman Photography but I've still got a lot to learn! :)

Merino Singles

2009-07-20T00:16:00.002-05:00

Before I begin, thank you everyone for your wonderful comments on my last two posts! :)

I have actually have several posts to write this week, but I'll start off today with my fresh-off-the-wheel singles. ;)

These are spun from 2oz of merino fiber I bought at the fiber festival I went to in May.
The colour in the fiber photo is pretty inaccurate, it's really more of a mauve.

I had a big singles disaster just a little while back. I'd spun about 600yds (very rough estimate there!) of singles, intending to Navajo ply (3 ply) them.

The problem? I could only get through about 12" of singles before they just fell apart. Luckily Celeste had come over that day to spin with me and was around to help me figure where I'd gone wrong. A quick inspection of the singles and she announced the verdict: not enough twist.

It was a sad time.

But a few Disney/Pixar short films later, I felt better and moved on. Sortof.
At any rate, my focus for this yarn was to put enough twist in. Maybe even more than enough. In fact, I almost wanted to experience that phenomenon that I've heard to be so common with new spinners. Overspinning.
So a few days later, I began anew and per Celeste's suggestion, I started counting treadles per length of fiber I drafted and developed a faster rhythm with my treadling.

Also, each time I moved the yarn to a new hook (the hook that helps wind the yarn onto the bobbin evenly) I did a "twist check". Basically it's just letting the yarn "ply itself" until it's balanced and examining the finished product. As I was spinning I really felt like I was finally getting a yarn I'd be pleased with.

And as I was winding onto the niddy-noddy I didn't experience any breaks in the yarn (well, excepting a few snaps where I had obviously drafted too thin) so I was pretty happy about that!
Of course, now I have to wind this up into a center pull ball and ply it.
Here's hoping it will work out!

Busy busy

2009-07-16T21:35:00.000-05:00

This isn't everything I've been working on, but it's still a good sample. ;)

Spinning merino...

Design Project...can anyone guess what it is yet? ;)

Scarf...need to finish this by mid-August (gift project). I wasn't really in love with this yarn/pattern combo, but after a blocking (photo is pre-blocking) I liked it better.

Working on photography...have soo much to learn!

And getting inspired for new designs by beautiful yarns (this is Berroco Ultra Alpaca fine)

More on the way...I've been crafting up a storm!

FO: Featherweight Cardigan

2009-07-13T17:03:00.000-05:00

Ravelry Project Page

I really enjoyed knitting this sweater and love wearing it! Such a simple and cute pattern. I'll probably make this again down the road. I knit the cardi in fingering weight (calls for lace) and I think it worked really well. If I make the "sister cardigan" Whisper, I'll probably use laceweight.

On the yarn, Cascade calls this colour "snow" it would probably be more appropriately termed "butter". ;) Other than that, a great yarn (and priced really well too).

Another note on the pattern, I sized my cardi down to fit me (33"), which meant subtracting about 2.5-3" worth of total stitches from the pattern. The pattern doesn't include a schematic, which I found frustrating since it would have been helpful while I was trying to figure out how many increases to do. Other than that though, the pattern is well written and easy to follow. :)

Independence Day

2009-07-06T09:05:00.001-05:00

Had a great weekend (LOVE 3-day weekends!).

Celebrated Independence Day.

Took (bad) photos of fireworks.

Knit...a lot.

Featherweight Cardi-From 25% to 75% in three days. (I'm thinking I'll be finished by Wednesday)

Spinning- A couple ounces of mill end fiber spun up into singles. I have no idea what I want to do with these singles. 2 ply or 3 ply? yardage to spin? potential projects? Well, I'll figure it out eventually.

Overall, it was a good time. :)

Handspun-Merino

2009-07-02T11:02:00.005-05:00

OK, here is my last finished yarn for a little while.
I have two skeins of this yarn (technically I still have to ply the second one) and the first is 91 yds so the second should be somewhere around there.
This is a DK/Sport weight yarn.

This is spun from 1.5 oz of fiber I bought at the Fiber Festival in May.

I spun the singles of the first skein on Celeste's Ashford and then plyed them together on my Ladybug.

Here are the singles (second skein) that I spun on my Ladybug:

Handspun-Mill End "Practice Yarn"

2009-06-30T09:22:00.000-05:00

I'm posting photos of this yarn with a few caveats.

1. This yarn was spun as I was still getting my wheel adjusted. It is not spun evenly by any means.

2. I used several colours when I spun the singles. I would otherwise never dream of mixing lime green and dark blue. I probably wouldn't be in favor of the red either.

3. This was also my first time "Navajo plying". I focused so much on getting the technique down that I neglected a few really basic things. Like plying evenly. There are also several large knots where I repaired breaking singles.

There. Now, with all that in mind you may look at the photos. Not too closely please. ;)

Handspun-Bamboo Sample

2009-06-29T11:58:00.002-05:00

A small sample skein of bamboo. Spun on my drop spindle. 22 yds.

Handspun-Cranberry Merino Top

2009-06-29T11:48:00.004-05:00

This was actually spun quite awhile back on my drop spindle, but I've neglected to blog about it long enough so here it is!

This was spun from merino top. It's not very even, but I had fun spinning it.

My Ladybug

2009-06-26T13:09:00.000-05:00

Yes, I finally did it. Purchased a spinning wheel. The Schacht Ladybug.

Image from Schacht Website.

I love it.

At Detta's Spindle on Saturday I tried out several wheels, but I still ended up deciding on the Ladybug. It was the last wheel I spun on that day and I knew my original feelings about it hadn't changed. It just feels perfect for me when I spin on it.

Once I got home and assembled my wheel (very easy, just had to attach the treadles and flyer) I tried spinning on it.

It took me awhile to get the tension adjusted but once I finally got it I pretty much spent the whole weekend spinning away.

(Please ignore the bobbin with the blue yarn on it. I was experimenting with Navajo plying and was paying so much attention to the making the yarn that I completely forgot to change hooks, thus it wound on quite unevenly.)

Oh, and thanks everyone for helping me to decide what yarn to use for the Featherweight cardi! I'm pretty sure that I'll end up using the white Cascade sock yarn. Based on my previous projects using the Misti alpaca I'm thinking that that yarn might actually have more of a tendency to shed on the black dress than the white Cascade so I'm going to make a swatch in each yarn and double check that before I get started.

Stay tuned for some spinning FOs. :)

P.S. Where's the signature ladybug on my wheel? Behind the drive wheel, centered between the two back handles.

FO: Lovegood Cardigan

2009-06-17T18:23:00.000-05:00

Ravelry Project Link

Pattern: Lovegood by CanarySanctuary (there is a very good reason why I have knit 3 of this designer's patterns!)

Yarn: Elann Camila (LOVE this yarn, I'll definitely be knitting with it again. It did leave some fuzzies on my clothes, but it didn't make me sneeze or anything so I was able to ignore the fuzzies. It's also very soft and drapes really well) I'll be commenting on this yarn on Ravelry so watch for that if you want more info.

I love the pattern too; I think I'll probably knit this again.

(oh and big thanks to my sister for the photos!)

Mods: I lengthened the cardigan by a few inches and I cast on less stitches at the beginning. My motive for doing that was to create a smaller neckline, but it didn't really work out that well. I may add some reinforcement along the edge of the neckline so that it doesn't fall off my shoulders. I'll post details if I decide to do that. For now though, I'll need to do a bit of shopping for a new tank top (a tee-shirt looks fine underneath it, but I prefer the way it looks with a tank so I just need to find one with wider straps.)

Onward

2009-06-16T20:51:00.000-05:00

I finally finished the Lovegood Cardi tonight. I'm so happy with the way it turned out.

I'll get photos as soon as possible, but since the forecast is rain, it might be a few days.

I really dragged my feet finishing it the cardi, mainly because weaving in ends isn't really the most exciting part of finishing a sweater.

Tell me, is there any way to sew on 9 buttons without having to weave in two ends per button? I figure if they were closer together I could have just used a single piece of yarn, but they're about 1.5" apart so I did them individually.

Anyway my new theme is "onward". I love the satisfaction of finishing a project and having that great feeling of "I can knit anything now". I do have one project I need to keep working on but I think I'll be able to finish that on the side of something more entertaining.

Also, either tomorrow or Saturday (depending on how it works out) I will be going to Detta's Spindle to try out spinning wheels. I'm so excited; I'll let you know what happens!

But now, for the new knit on the block.

It will most likely be the Featherweight cardigan. I planned on making the Whisper cardi first, but I know I'll find the Featherweight more versatile for right now so Whisper will wait. Probably not for long though...I may have a bit of cardi fever.

But now, to choose the yarn. My main point with this cardi will be to wear over a black dress for a wedding I'm going to in July (yes, I know I'll be smoldering, but bear with me), so what color to choose?:

I have 1. Cascade Sock Merino fingering weight in "Snow". (Originally intended for Whisper actually)

Or 2. Misti Alpaca Lace in "Merlot"

The fingering weight will make for a thicker cardi, but the the color will be more appropriate. The laceweight will make for a lighter cardi, but the color doesn't really scream "July".

Opinions?

...

2009-06-11T14:05:00.000-05:00

Knitting pink child's mittens...
Experimenting with bamboo on the drop spindle...

Sketching knitting designs...

And finishing up Lovegood.

Long week.

2009-06-05T18:37:00.000-05:00

I just came off of an amazingly busy week. I'm exhausted, sunburnt, and so glad it's Saturday tomorrow!

Because of the busyness, my high hopes of finishing the Lovegood cardi this weekend were dashed. I still have about 3-4" on the body (I'm lengthening it), plus the sleeves. I also need to figure out what to do about the neckline, because the ribbing is folding downward onto the cardi.

My other projects (both of which are my own designs) haven't gotten worked on at all. I'm hoping to finish one of them within a few weeks and publish the pattern by the end of June .

Anyway, I'll be doing a lot more knitting after this week (which also happens to be very busy!) and hopefully purchasing my spinning wheel by the end of the month. Eek, I can hardly wait! Of course I still have to decide which wheel to get...but I'm sure I'll get there!

Beautiful Handspun

2009-05-26T18:36:00.000-05:00

Ok, I'm getting a little "cart ahead of the horse" with this, but I was on Ravelry today scouting out some handspun yarns. I found some beautiful skeins. If you're one of my friends on Ravelry you probably already noticed my frantic favouriting of handspun yarns, but in case you didn't, here are some Ravelry stashes to check out:

myyarns (she actually works at my LYS, and she's a fabulous spinner)

SourCherries

jsandell

woolamina

UptheMudCreek

Very fun stuff!

And for wheels, here's what I'm thinking (in case anyone is interested ;) )

If anyone has any suggestions/comments about any of these wheels I'd love to hear them! I do plan on trying all of these out before I make a final decision. I think that will really help me choose!

Basically my criterion are these:

1. Double Treadle
2. Scotch tension (having the ability to spin in double drive as well would be nice, but not necessary)
3. Fast. I want to spin primarily sock yarn and laceweight, so high ratios (14:1 and up) are a must. Some of the wheels I name below have the option of purchasing whorls or flyers to speed the wheel up, which is a nice (although somewhat expensive) option.

1. Lendrum Folding Wheel, Double Treadle (have treadled this one, it's really nice)

2. Schacht Ladybug (I've spun for about 30mins on this one and enjoyed it. But it didn't seem quite as smooth as the Lendrum until I moved it up to faster speed. It's so cute though!)

3. Kromski Sonata

4. Kromski Minstrel

5. Louet Julia

Can you tell all I'm thinking about is spinning lately? ;)
Don't worry though, Lovegood is coming along well, in fact, I may be almost ready to block it by the end of the week!
I'm also finishing up plying the merino top (spun on the drop spindle) that I've been working on, so I'll be blogging about that soon too. :)

Long rows and new yarn.

2009-05-23T21:15:00.001-05:00

As previously mentioned, I'm currently knitting the Lovegood Cardi and loving it. But dudes, the rows are getting so long! I can't wait until I get to put the sleeves on stitch holders and just knit the body.

I bought the buttons for the cardi at Joann's this weekend. It was a hard choice, the selection was a lot larger than I expected. But I finally decided:

Also, this weekend my LYS had a 20% off sale, which was fun. In addition to some other things, I picked up the last two skeins of Cascade heritage in the "snow" colourway for the Whisper cardi (from the Spring 2009 Interweave Knits). At first, I was worried the colour would be too "cream/ivory" for me, but I think it will be fine.

I went to the LYS twice, once on Friday to scoop up some of the clearanced 50% yarn (and ensure I got the skeins of the Cascade!) and again Saturday morning with Celeste. On Saturday I got to try out the Schacht Ladybug Spinning Wheel out and I found I liked it a lot. I'm still not exactly sure which wheel I want to get though. It's a tough choice, and since I'm a newbie spinner, I can't really evaluate each wheel as effectively as I'd like. I do plan on trying out a few more before I finally decide. And, like I told Celeste, since I've only saved up 1/3 of the money I'll need to buy one, I certainly have plenty of time to dwell on the decision. ;)

Fleurette

2009-05-20T12:35:00.000-05:00

Fleurette is a French name meaning "little flower". I think that for a top scattered with eyelets, that is quite appropriate. And now I can refer to this knit as something other than "lace top". ;)

For the most I enjoyed this knit a lot. I got bored of the colour towards the end, but other than that, it was good! Though the pattern did have some vague spots, they were nothing I couldn't figure out.

The pattern is very "off the shoulder". After pulling the drawstring a lot tighter it was better, but it tightened the whole shoulder area up, so it wasn't as comfortable to wear. The photos are with the tightened drawstring.

Ravelry Project Link

Pattern: DROPS 65-6 Lace Top

Made for: Me

Needle: size 2 circ

Yarn: Elann Lara, 5.5 skeins (see the brief review below)

Mods: CO 200 (instead of 216) sts, to eliminate most of the positive ease. The yarn is quite heavy so I'm glad I did that. Knit only 3" of rib. I didn't do any increases or decreases for the body, I just cast on 200 sts and started knitting away. That's it I think!

The yarn: I like this yarn and will probably use it again. It has 10 plies (gasp) so it is splity. I used my knit picks needle (very sharp point) and didn't have too many problems, but it is definitely something to consider. This yarn was harder on my hands than wool, but it was still fairly nice to work with. Perhaps the best thing about this yarn is that it is mercerized gassed cotton. I don't know much about what this means other than what information my brief search of the Ravelry forums yielded, but I do know this. No fuzzies. None. Love it.

I can't knit with the standard dishcloth cottons, because they make me sneeze, itch, and turn into a walking fuzzball. But this, this is good stuff. I would definitely recommend this yarn.

And there it is. Fleurette. I like the way it turned out and will probably use this pattern again. I don't know if this will ever become one of my favourite tops, but I do think it was a success.

WIP: Lovegood Cardigan

2009-05-19T14:18:00.000-05:00

I finished the lace top yesterday; I still have a few ends to weave in, but I wanted to get started on the blocking process right away, since cotton takes so long to dry. I know that technically the ends should be woven in before blocking, but I threw caution to the wind in the hopes of being able to wear a dry sweater to church on Wednesday. ;) I'll have the FO photos by Wednesday or Thursday.

Yesterday, in addition to finishing the lace top, I cast on for the Lovegood cardi. I'm really excited about this cardigan. It's a top-down raglan, which is new to me, and I'm enjoying the construction. I'm making a few mods, one of which is a smaller neckline (I loved the wide neckline in the original, but decided the smaller neckline would be more wearable for me).

It's going pretty fast too (though the increases do slow it down a bit) I went from this:

To this:

In an evening of knitting.

Hmm, that actually doesn't look like that much knitting in retrospect, but I felt that I made substantial progress at the time. ;)

This past weekend was wonderful, on Saturday I spent the day with Celeste. She blogged briefly about it here. She helped me learn how to use a spinning wheel and I had so much fun with it! I made this little skein of yarn (46.2yds) and started also started spinning singles with some of the merino I bought at the fiber festival.

This skein is waaay underspun. It was falling apart as I unwound it from the wheel :(

It's very soft though. :)

My current singles are going pretty well, I think they are still a little underspun, but they won't fall apart this time! I think they're fairly even too.
As we spun, we watched one of my favourite movies, Jane Eyre (it's right up there with this edition of Pride and Prejudice ). Celeste really liked it too :)

Toby Stephens is fantastic in the role of Edward Rochester. It's a brilliant movie. I highly recommend it! :)

The end of the old and the beginning of the new.

2009-05-15T15:01:00.000-05:00

I'm finally knitting the last rows (ok, about 4" worth) of the Lace Top. I'm excited about it too. So far it's looking good. ;)

Anyway, because I'm nearing the end of that project, I know I'll need a new project, perhaps as soon as tomorrow!
I have the Aeolian shawl on the needles but I'm SO not motivated to work on it. I also don't feel like reading the directions for the edging. (whistles nonchalantly) I want to knit something relaxing and a bit mindless.

I have some design stuff I really need to work on, but personally even though I enjoy designing, it's definitely NOT relaxing knitting. So for now, designing is out.

What to do?

I have several sweaters in my Rav queue I really want to cast on for. Unfortunately I don't have the patterns for my current favorites: Pucker by Norah Gaughan and the Classic Silk Open Cardi by Pam Allen.

My LYS has the Norah Gaughan book, but the Classic Elite book is trickier, I'm going to a new yarn store tomorrow and I'll see if they have it there. I don't really like ordering online unless I have to so I'm hoping to find it in a shop somewhere!

I also don't have the yarn, and I do want to de-stash a little more before buying more.

But I do have yarn and patterns for:
Arisag by Ysolda and the Lovegood Cardi by CanarySanctuary

I don't want to cast on for Arisag yet, because I think the colour of yarn I chose will fit the Autumn season better than the Spring season. I also might be a little nervous about the the seaming. I may just mod this into a bottom-up raglan actually...

Lovegood. Have the yarn and love it. But, it's closer to a sportweight (Lovegood calls for a DK) so I really need to swatch and evaluate it.

Here it goes I guess!

Treasures from the Fiber Festival

2009-05-11T14:00:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend I went to my first fiber festival.

I loved everything about this experience (Except freezing to the bone. At a fiber festival. Oh the irony.)

There were three buildings of vendors, so I started at the one closest to me and took it slowly. I saw some things I thought I might come back for and made a few mental notes. There was so much beautiful fiber, and some gorgeous skeins of yarn. At first I was a little overwhelmed and didn't know how I'd manage to choose anything. I took a deep breath and then decided to focus in on the fiber.

My first real stop was at the Little Gidding Farm Suri Alpacas booth, where I saw some beautiful alpaca yarn. Very, very soft. At the booth, I talked with one of the ladies for a few minutes (forgot which one, but the names are on the website) and as I was leaving she pulled out a small sample for me to take home. Then, upon learning that I was a spinner she also brought out some of the "really nice stuff" and added it to my bag. So nice!

Coming out of the first barn, I saw a lady spinning with an antique (she said around 18th century) spinning wheel and talked with her a little. She was selling some beautiful bamboo fiber, one of the things I wish I would have come back for. It was soft and silky and I had a really hard time believing that 100% bamboo felt like that!

I think one of my favourite parts of the festival was watching everyone spinning. I really enjoy using the drop spindle, but since I know I eventually want a wheel I'm beginning the long process of saving up for one.

Next barn, I let myself go a little and purchased these two little beauties from the Morning Sun Fiber Barn. Soft and yummy. Good prices too. They are both merino and the blue/green was $3.75 for 1.5oz and the purple (it is purple by the way, more of a light grape, than the pink it looks like here) was $5 for 2oz.

Plans for these? Not quite sure yet, I know I want to experiment with thick singles (think Malabrigo), so maybe I could do singles with the blue/green and a light 2 ply with the purple?

From the same booth I also found this Alpaca/Silk blend (90/10). There were several baskets of lovely fiber, but once I felt this blend I was sold. Amazing stuff, so silky smooth. I came away with 2 oz and am wishing I would have bought more.

I couldn't resist spinning a little yesterday to see how it would spin up, and I found that it spins like a dream! This is destined to be a 2ply laceweight (or light fingering) and depending on the final yield, a knitted cowl or scarf.

Last barn, I saw the Pack River Yaks booth, and knew I was buying something there. I saw more bamboo, some soysilk, and a few other interesting fibers. But what really caught my eye was this beautiful Camel/Merino blend. I don't know what I thought I'd do with it, but I knew I had to have it. It was $5 an oz, so I just bought 1 oz to sample it. It's very soft and I'm excited to spin it up!

Next up after the vendors was observing the sheep shearing. It was interesting to see how it's done. Over here Celeste and I met up briefly and showed each other our purchases, then it was on to the animal barns.

The sheep were super adorable. I recall in one of Stephanie Pearl Mcphee's books, she voiced a plea for "patio sheep", sheep bred to be the size of a small dog. I officially sympathize with that request and join the plea for "patio sheep", because I could hardly walk away from these little cuties! ;)

After briefly walking through the goat barn, it was off to the Llama Magic barn. It was filled with llamas (several for sale), alpacas, and some angora rabbits.

When I saw the rabbits for sale, I melted. I pictured myself, rabbit in hand, gently harvesting the glorious fiber, blending it with a soft wool, and then spinning it into a yarn to be proud of. But sadly, my life does not have room for a rabbit. Even if said rabbit would produce fiber. :(

After evaluting my purchases, I feel like I really could have bought a little more, but since I'm saving up for the wheel and I have some sweater yarn in mind I'm pretty happy with how I did.

And so, that is my fiber festival experience. I eagerly await next year!

Knit 'n Spin

2009-05-08T16:25:00.005-05:00

Here (finally!) are the promised photos of the top. I wanted to have the sleeves attached (they are just sitting beside the top in the photo) before I took pictures so that I could have a modeled shot too, but if I waited for that, it could have been weeks before I got photos up!

I'm still trying to decide how to finish the bottom of the sweater (currently it is just a provisional cast on). Since I subtracted a lot of the positive ease from the pattern, the top is a lot more fitted now. At first I was a little bummed that it wasn't quite as "puffy" as I'd wanted, but since this yarn probably would have "drooped" more than it "puffed" I'm glad I made it a little smaller. Also, cotton is Heavy, so I think it will be more comfortable to wear without those extra stitches.

But anyway, now I'm trying to decide if I should go with the pattern's ribbing for the bottom of the sweater or try to attempt my original plan of the drawstring.

I think I'll pop a lifeline in and do a little experimenting. Somehow "experimenting" over 200sts doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but I guess I'll have to go for it!

Now for the spinning part of the post. I've been busy with the drop spindle again, and am still having a lot of fun with it. Unfortunately I had more of the merino top (first batch blogged here) than I first thought, and I think I'll be working on this a lot before I finally finish!

Also, I'll be going to my first fiber festival this weekend and I am SOO excited!

Expected purchases?

I'll probably just look and take business cards for the most part, but I do hope to purchase a .5oz drop spindle for some laceweight spinning, along with lots of different blends of fiber to experiment with.

I'm not going to make any huge purchases (though I'm so tempted to pick up an angora bunny!) I just want to buy some things to have fun and experiment with. Full details will be posted! :)

The plight of season change.

2009-05-03T13:00:00.000-05:00

You know you have a problem when you begin searching closet for a spring top and upon finding nothing, begin browsing Ravelry instead of dashing off to the mall.

I may have that problem.

And because of it, I'm currently having a massive startitis attack.

I'm knitting the Lace Top (photos are coming!) and I'm loving it. But, it's not going fast enough (arguably I could actually knit on it, which may solve the problem).

And I need spring clothes. Soon. Even though the air still holds a chill left over from winter, there is no denying that spring is here and long sleeves just won't cut it anymore.

So, I really need to go clothes shopping.

But I hate clothes shopping.

I would much rather peruse Ravelry for hours trying to locate the perfect pattern and yarn than spend hours trying on clothes just to be disappointed in my efforts. You see, I'm notoriously picky. Because of that, I've been know to find the perfect top just to place it back on the rack because it has an unfortunately placed bow, gather, or other embellishment.

In the face of this problem, I've found a friend in knitting. Now, before even beginning a project I can modify the pattern to my heart's content and address all of the issues that would bother me if I found the top in a clothing store.

The only problem? I can't keep up. I have dozens of tops I'd love to knit, but knitting time is scarce and I've suddenly remembered that knitting isn't exactly an instant gratification sport.

Instead of perusing Rav, I should actually be knitting, then I might have hope.

But for now, I think I've resigned myself. I need to go shopping. And not on Ravelry and WEBS.

Mise en place

2009-05-01T18:18:00.000-05:00

I was reading Smitten Kitchen today and she posted a link to this post (which is worth reading for more than one reason):
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/03/a-mild-obsession/

I think I have a new obsession. I'm going to need to get me some nesting bowls. In pretty colours. Like the light blue-green ones shown. Oh boy.

Mise en place (French for "put in place") has just taken on a whole new meaning for me.

(I'll have more to blog about later, the Lace Top is coming along, and I had my birthday this week too! Unfortunately I was out-of-town most of the week so my birthday cake extravaganza will have to wait a bit. But it will happen!)

Drawstring Bag

2009-04-24T13:05:00.000-05:00

Another one!

I really love this tutorial, it's so easy to follow, and the bag is so much fun to sew.

I used a sheer fabric for the lining. I was pretty sure it was going to be 100% unsuitable, but since it matched the bag and I wanted to de-stash it, I used it anyway, and in the end it worked out pretty well. I tacked the corners down and that helped make the bag feel a bit more sturdy.

I used 3" squares instead of 2.5" and ribbon for the drawstring, like the last bag.

So far, the other one has gotten a lot of use, I've been bringing it everywhere. It's so handy to have everything I need for my knitting project in one bag, ready-to-go. And it's so much cuter than a ziptop bag. My yarn doesn't get caught coming out of the bag either.

Even though I had a lot of fun sewing this, I must mention that the sewing machine and I are officially irreconcilable. I had to sew at least 50% of this bag by hand. I think I need to start saving up for a machine of my own. A nice, fresh, new one. That actually umm, sews. Yes, that sounds good. ;)

Now I just have one more reason to stay on my recently self-imposed yarn-diet. "Diet" meaning that I can't buy yarn unless it's 1. at the Fiber Festival, 2. on sale at my LYS, or 3. an amazing deal that I really, really, really can't pass up.

Hmm, maybe I should get a little more serious about this... ;) I really am going to try to stick to it though.

I'm going to use this bag to carry around my next sweater project, but after that? Well, I think might have an idea...

Swatching: Part II

2009-04-22T16:01:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I made a larger swatch for the top (here is a non-Rav link). This time, I cast on 64sts in the round and knit in the eyelet pattern. I got results 100% different from last time.

Now, rather than planning on knitting with a size 4 or 5 needle, it looks like I'll need to choose either the 2 or 3 needle.

With the larger swatch, I also found a new problem. I tried the swatch on my arm to see what a potential sleeve would look like. It seemed perfect, but then I checked the pattern's stitch count for the sleeve and it's not 64 sts. It's 80 sts. Which means that according to gauge, I'd have a sleeve almost 3" larger than my swatch!

Now I'm totally confused. The top is supposed to be knit with positive ease, and that is how I plan on knitting it. But with the positive ease I already had, plus the 3", I'd end up with about 4" positive ease on the sleeves!!!
That's not what I want at all.
I also checked the schematic again for the bust measurement and that will end up at 36", so I'd have 3" positive ease around the bust.

I'm almost 100% decided on the smaller needle, (size 2), because the gauge I got there was closer to 6.5 sts per inch and the "sleeve" measurement there seems like it can handle another 16sts.
I also have one more problem. The original top is knit with ribbing at the bottom that incorporates hip and waist shaping, but I'm modding that to eliminate the rib.

This is the waist look I'm going for.

My plan is to eliminate the ribbing and begin with a provisional cast on. I'd start the lace pattern right away. Then, after doing the bust increases (which would happen on the 1st or 2nd row) I'd knit up the entire sweater and then come back to the provisional cast on, work a row of "hip increases" to correspond with the bust increases (the prov cast on wouldn't have the increases included) knit a drawstring row, and then knit in the lace pattern until cast off time, where I would either do a picot cast off (by the by, do you think this would this would curl?) or a turned hem.

Now, here's the question. Should I just cast on including the bust increases and then ignore the increase row (which increases 48sts in one round by the way) the pattern specifies? It seems like the aforementioned way of knitting bust and hip increases on each side of the smaller cast on could have the potential to look odd...

Also, I think the drawstring would account for any "shaping" necessary.

I'm totally unsure what to do at this point...suggestions anyone?

Swatching

2009-04-17T19:01:00.000-05:00

Yummy. New yarn.

"Lara" from elann.com in white.

The plan: Drops 65-6 Lace Top.

I worked on a small swatch this week to start on the project (by the way, by small I mean a pitiful 30st in-the-round swatch). I used a size 2 (2.75mm), 3, 4, and 5 and knit about an inch and a half with each needle (yes, it's official, I'm a lazy swatcher).

I achieved perfect gauge with the 5 and was a hair off with the size 4 (it would probably translate to about a .5"-1" in the finished sweater). I prefer the fabric made by the size 4, so I think that's what I'm going to knit the sweater with. I also got the chance to show it to Celeste, and she agreed that the size 4 looked the best. She also suggested knitting a larger swatch to ensure that over the hundreds of stitches required for sweater the yarn wouldn't behave differently. Will do. ;) I'm imagining the yarn will stretch a bit in a larger garment, so I think the 4 will end up being perfect.

I have also had this next skein casually shoving itself at me every time I open the stash box. I finally agreed to let it out and begin the swatching process.

Lorna's Laces Sock-Colourway: Liberty

This skein was my Christmas gift from Celeste, and I was really excited about it, because literally a few days before she gave it to me, I had seen this colourway on someone's blog and became really curious about how it would knit up. Then I received my very own skein!

So far, I'm quite enjoying it. :)