Anisa knits

Warmer on the inside

2012-01-20T15:48:00.000-05:00

How about this? I'm going to try to update my blog more by cross-posting from Ravelry. Here's something I just posted on the 12 socks in 2012 forum, but with more pictures:

Finished a pair! These are TARDIS socks for DH.

The white is a little undyed Knit Picks Stroll and the main color is Lorna’s Laces Solemate. This is my first experience with Solemate. It’s 30% Outlast, which is a fiber that was apparently developed for NASA to keep astronauts from getting too hot in their suits. It has a substance in it that undergoes a phase change when it reaches a comfy temperature, so it won’t get any warmer after that. DH hasn’t noticed a difference yet between these socks and his other wool socks, but we’ll see how it goes. The colorway is Cookie’s Deep Dark Secret, which is absolutely gorgeous.

I was making these socks using the instructions, which are for a women’s medium, and slightly larger needles (US2 instead of US1.5.) I’m a tight knitter and I thought this might result in men’s large or even be too small, but as it is they are pretty big and saggy. Nope, I didn’t check my gauge. I should do that. I decreased on the foot to 60 stitches instead of 72, and they seem pretty ok. Anyway, he likes them.

1 down, 11 to go!

knitting in 2011

2012-01-01T20:09:00.000-05:00

I'm back for my annual update on how much I've knit in the past year. Whoops, it looks like I haven't updated this blog since mid-February. Whooops. Here goes!

finished in 2011, started previously:
EZ's 100th pi shawl designed by Wendy Johnson
Dan hat (says Dan in binary, represented by two colors of stripes)
Plivver, a lace turtleneck tank top designed by Gudrun Johnston
Yogini Bolero, designed by Wendy Bernard
Hallett's Ledge, designed by Elinor Brown

started and finished in 2011:
Summer Solstice out of Rhinebeck yarn, designed by Heidi Kirrmaier
Snowflake's blue mittens, with flip tops
Snowflake's Habitat hat, designed by Jared Flood
Appletree mitts out of lovely Three Irish Girls yarn, designed by Churchmouse
Presley's owl sweater, designed by Kate Davies
Tangled Yoke cardigan, designed by Eunny Jang
Shalder, designed by Gudrun Johnston, out of yarn that I got from ripping my lumpy, ill-fitting Dollar and a Half cardigan
Li-Mei's wedding blanket, Girasole designed by Jared Flood
Sam the Ram, a sheep that John McCarthy called a "tour de force", designed by Rita O'Connell
Snowflake's gansey, desgined by me using the methods in Beth Brown-Reinsel's book
Wonky cowl, designed by Brittany Wilson
Quincy hat, designed by Jared Flood
Goose Rocks sweater knit for a blog reader who took me up on my offer in February, designed by Tonia Barry
Featherweight cardigan knit for my friend Emily, designed by Hannah Fettig
Ackert Hook Hat, designed by Laura Chau
Pole sweater, designed by Joji Locatelli
Zora sweater, designed by Kristen Rengren
LazyKaty shawl, designed by Birgit Freyer
Dumpling bag, designed by Sharon Dreifuss
Sabbatical sweater, designed by Connie Chang Chinchio
Amelia sweater, designed by Laura Chau
Silures vest, designed by Norah Gaughan
a cowl to match Snowflake's Habitat
Hitchhiker shawl, designed by Martina Behm
Thermis cowl, designed by Kris
Lilac Leaf shawl, designed by Nancy Bush
Foliage hat, designed by Emilee Mooney
Lissajous knee-high socks, designed by Cookie A.
Twisted Flower socks, designed by Cookie A.
Dunes pullover sample, designed by Kirsten Hipsky
Acer cardigan, designed by Amy Christoffers
Balrog cowl test knit, designed by Susan Pandorf
Snapdragon mitts, designed by Ysolda Teague
2 Kerreras for kids for 2 babies, designed by Gudrun Johnston
Breast Cancer awareness scarf for charity, designed by Heather Bagni
Paulie sweater for my friend Carrie, designed by Isabell Kraemer
Whitby stockings for my new housemate Claire, designed by Courtney Kelley
2 dog costumes
another Rose's wristwarmers for Kyra, who wore out her last ones
Aidez for my mom, designed by Cirilia Rose
Time Warp cowl, designed by Susan Pandorf
Versio, designed by fallmasche
5 pairs of felted clogs, designed by Bev Galeskas
Deephaven infinity scarf, designed by Bonnie Sennott
Stockholm infinity scarf
Cole cardigan test, designed by Helen Rose
Green cables blanket, designed by Kathy Zimmerman

started in 2011, not yet finished:
Gretel hat, designed by Ysolda Teague (actually, this is finished, and is my first FO of 2012)
TARDIS socks, designed by Keladry Bonnett
In Dreams shawl, designed by Susan Pandorf
Neville cardigan test knit, designed by Glenna C
Cambridge jacket for Snowflake, knit from reclaimed yarn from his second sweater, designed by Ann Budd

In total, I knit 39827 yards this year, which is 22.6 miles.

In total, I finished:
19 sweaters
1 vest
2 baby sweaters and 1 toddler sweater
2 blankets
4 shawls
5 hats
7 cowls/infinity scarves
1 regular scarf
2 pairs of flip-top mittens and 2 pairs of fingerless mittens
2 dog costumes
1 toy
2 pairs of knee socks and 1 pair of regular socks
1 bag
28 things for me, or for which I have not found homes
5 things for Snowflake
25 things for other people (or dogs)
3 test knits/samples
1 project out of yarn that was dyed in my own house

Designers of the year: Bev Galeskas, who sponsored The Christmas of the Felted Clog, Jared Flood and Gudrun Johnston, many of whose designs I knit.

Yarns of the year: Malabrigo Twist, which made knitting Li-Mei's wedding blanket so enjoyable that I finished it in about 2 weeks, Valley Yarns Amherst, which made knitting Snowflake's blanket and gansey very enjoyable, Valley Yarns Northampton, which I used for all the clogs, and many Three Irish Girls yarns, which were coming to me in the mail every month.

Things I did this year:

I participated in the Three Irish Girls Stash Menagerie yarn club, which brought a lovely skein of yarn to my doorstep every month, and then the Pick of the Knitter yarn club, which brought a skein of one of my favorite 3IG yarns to me every month. I now have lots of single skeins, but I also had my wonderful Appletree mitts (until I lost them) and I have my fabulous Pole sweater.

I tried to get myself to knit socks, and I was going pretty well for like a month and a half there.

I participated in an informal sweater club with my friend Li-Mei. We (theoretically) knit 2 similar sweaters a year. This year, we did blue sweaters in Madelinetosh TML (my contribution was Zora) and Mary Jane (which I just started today, whoops.) Next, we're going to make Twinings from Twist Collective in Mission Falls wool, colorway Heath. Let me know if you want to join! (You don't have to use Mission Falls.)

I participated in Nerd Wars Tournament 3, which has somewhat dictated my choices of knitting projects for the past 3 months. It has been fun, but I think next time I'll do it as a Ninja Warrior, so I can blow it off if I want and not feel guilty for letting my team down.

I participated in the International Sweater-a-Month Dodecathon for 2011. I think that next year, I will participate only as a cheerleader. I think it's a great thing, but it's not a challenge for me right now.

I bought a rigid heddle loom (Ashford Knitter's loom, 20 inch) and wove a scarf!

I taught 3 of my friends to knit. First, there was Emily, whom I had recently "taught" to crochet. We did a small Quincy KAL for her first project, and then she launched right into a hoodie pullover with crochet edging that she finished and wore at Rhinebeck. Next, I taught my new housemate Claire and my friend Brian. Claire is what you would call a natural and has taken to it like a fish to water. Brian has become a master of the long-tail cast on and knit his first sampler swatch a few days ago.

Discovered the joys of ripping and fixing. I ripped out my very sad Dollar and a Half Cardigan and reknit the yarn into Shalder, which is now one of my favorite sweaters. I am now really excited about ripping everything I don't like that much and fixing it. Also, my faith in the felted splice has been solidified. I couldn't even really find the splices when I ripped that whole sweater.

Next year, I will:

Continue with my informal sweater club with Li-Mei.

Stop getting 3IG yarns in the mail. It's been great, but I need fewer single skeins coming into my stash.

Try to get myself to knit socks. I am participating in 12 in 2012, and challenging myself to knit 12 pairs of socks this year. I've got one started!

Be part of the Cookie A sock club! Snowflake bought me this subscription for Christmas, which he told me by wrapping up a box of Oreos and a pair of socks I already owned and putting them under the tree. I'm so excited! There's pretty much one thing that can get me to knit a whole pair of socks, and it's a Cookie A pattern.

Participate in the Finish, Frog, and Slog-along with the Doubleknit podcast listeners. I hope to get some of my UFOs done that have been haunting me, especially the many things I knit and never bothered to block. Whoops!

Other than that, I'm gonna knit what I want!

Here's a picture that pretty much summarizes my year.

New house, couch, laptop, and dog trying to keep me from my knitting.

Happy new year!

who wants a sweater? (#2)

2011-02-14T20:22:00.000-05:00

So! I am churning out sweaters at an alarming rate and my apartment is now full of sweaters. I would like to offer to make you a sweater, dear blog reader! I have many sweaters that I would like to make but do not need to own. Here are some sweaters in my queue that have no recipient in mind:

Azami, a hoodie pullover with some lace
Goose Rocks, a hoodie cardigan with cables
Mary Jane, a tee with some texture
Orange Pop, a pullover with some interesting colorwork
Jamesey, a casual guernsey-style mens pullover
Castlegar, a fine-gauge cardigan
Hay Cardigan, a simple cardigan
Freija, a dramatic cabled cardigan with a high neck
Plum Frost Cardigan or Pullover, a sweater with a fair isle yoke

Here are the ground rules:
1. If you are allergic to dogs, don't let me knit a sweater for you. You might die.
2. You pay for the materials, including pattern, yarn, buttons, whatever. I will handle the knitting.
3. I only like to knit from yarn made out of the fur/hair of a mammal. If you want me to knit a cotton sweater for you, I probably won't do it.
4. Hand knitted sweaters are not cheap. Do not expect them to be cheap. Beautiful hand-dyed yarn like the yarn you see in the Hay Cardigan is especially not cheap.
5. This will be for you, so we can modify it to be perfect for you! We can change the colors, sizes, lengths of things, pretty much whatever you can think of. We can use different yarn from what is shown in the picture, too.

And! To show you what I can do, this is what I've been up to in 2011 so far: (Sorry for the bad pictures, at some point I will figure out how to take a decent picture, and then I will teach Snowflake to do it.)

knitting in 2010

2011-01-01T12:49:00.000-05:00

So, apparently I only blog from January through August. I guess that means I'm right on time!

What did I knit this year? Hmm...

started and finished in 2010
Misato's hat with a crocheted flower on it
Lily
POLAR BEARS hat
Enchanted Wood shawl
Ting Ting's Apres Surf
Lisa's Lorelei
Kihnu mitts
Henley Perfected (I started this earlier, but totally ripped it out and started over.)
Amused
morfo's Luminen knockoff
Ampersands! hat
Gee's Bend
Kristi socks
Snowflake's orange slippers
Brown Cauchy
PBP Knit-a-thon square
Li-Mei's Waist Cincher
Evenstar shawl
Chelsea skirt
Moonfleet
Fiddleheads
Alya's Arwen
Poplar + Elm
Sleepy Monkey
Piper hat
Green and Simple
Miralda's shawl
Preemie hats, 1-3
Skew socks
Manly, Yes socks
Deuce's Salute
Snowflake's Par 5 socks
Dat's M'gonigle
22 leaves shawl
Fabulous Mitts
Brian's Boneyard
Aynat's Farinelli
Emily's Classic Canadian sweater
Audrey in Unst
Nai Nai's mitts
Ben's Guernsey Wrap
Two Hats
Autumnal Hat
Gizmo warmer
Paw Cozy & matching mitten
Yggdrasil

started in 2010, not yet finished
EZ's 100th pi shawl
Wild Apple
Hallett's Ledge
Plivver
a stealth hat

finished in 2010, started earlier
Snowflake's Feldspar
Ben's Urban Aran (zipper insertion, no knitting in 2010)
Snowflake's Gentleman socks
Koigu scarf
Mystery Stole 4
Snowflake's Woodside
Cherie Amour (seaming and blocking, no knitting in 2010)
Malabrigo Houdini socks
Wisp (blocking and buttons, no knitting in 2010)

Also, I crocheted two brain slugs for Snowflake's and my Hallowe'en costume, and wove a scarfy thing.

So, of the things I finished in 2010, there were:
17 sweaters
9 shawls/scarves (10 if you count Wisp, 11 if you count the woven scarf thing)
12 hats (including 3 baby hats)
8 pairs of socks
1 blanket
1 baby blanket
6 pairs of mitten-type things
1 skirt
1 square for a charity blanket
2 brain slugs

It comes out to 34252 yards, which is 19.5 miles.

This year, I participated in IntSweMoDo, a challenge to knit 12 sweaters in a year, and I finished! I acutally knit 15 (I didn't count sweaters for which I didn't actually do any knitting in 2010.) I also did Single Skein September, an attempt to knit some single skein projects, and I won the prize! Yay! I also won a prize in the WEBS 200th podcast giveaway, which was awesome! I tried to participate in Socktober, but all the socks I knit in September had worn me down, and I ended up pretty much just knitting the Yggdrasil blanket instead. I took my very first knitting class: an Estonian mittens class with Nancy Bush, which was super awesome! I also "taught" one friend to crochet and urged another friend to pick up dyeing. Hurray!

Next year, I plan to participate in IntSweMoDo2011, and to knit down some of my stash. In particular, I have 10 sweaters of yarn in my stash, and I want those to be 10 of my sweaters in 2011. I also have a couple of stealth projects in the works, one of which will be big. Plus, I really need to focus more on my schoolwork, and I've made a resolution to read 6 books in 2011. Wish me luck!

Sleepy Monkey

2010-08-22T13:30:00.000-04:00

I have wanted to make this blanket pretty much since it came out. I love it so much. Things just kept holding me up somehow. It's knit in a cheap yarn, Valley Yarns Superwash from my very own WEBS, but somehow it required lots of balls and wasn't going to be cheap. Also, I didn't really know what baby it was going to be destined for... Anyway, a post on Mira's knitting blog made me think of this blanket again (see the comments on that post.) Then, when I was in Kentucky, I found out that Superwash was on sale, and I made Snowflake go out and buy it. And then, finally, I started the blanket.

This blanket is just great. (It's the Sleepy Monkey Blanket by Mary Ann Stephens, by the way.) Each side is done as a colorwork tube that is then steeked: one side with monkeys, one more colorful side with rings. Then stitches are picked up all along the perimeter of each side and the two sides are knitted together. Then you work a colorwork border along one side, pick up stitches from the other side, and work the same colorwork border on the back. Then you knit those two borders together, and finally finish it all up with a garter stitch border. Quite complex, and at a thickness of two layers of stranded worsted-weight wool, this is a very warm blanket.

I did the monkey and ring sides, and then I stalled on the blanket because I realized that you really do need three 40-inch circular needles to do this. (Actually, if any of you are thinking of doing this, an even longer circular needle might make this more comfortable.) I am always finding myself short on cables anyway, so I ordered two more sets of 40" cables, along with some other stuff. (If you're interested in Knit Picks interchangeable needles, just ask me, I am full of opinions.) Then, when the cables came in, I sewed and cut the steeks and finished up the blanket.

Now for the final question: who to give the blanket to? Well, my good friend Li-Mei was visiting, and we decided to give some of our mutual friends a call. They live in the area, but somehow I hadn't been in touch with them in a year or two. So, we sent them an email, and surprise! They had just a had a baby, two days before we sent the email and two days after I finished the blanket. Magic! We delivered it to them the next day and got to meet their adorable baby and catch up with them and their two-year-old.

Here's a link to my sleepy monkey blanket on ravelry.

Poplar and Elm

2010-08-22T12:59:00.001-04:00

Ok, so I haven't blogged in almost a month. Maybe you think this means that I haven't knit anything... hehehe, that would be incorrect. But I think I can still keep to the one blog post, one project thing.

Today I will tell you about Poplar & Elm, a truly lovely sweater from Twist Collective. This one caught my eye immediately -- I'm sort of obsessed with the idea of wrap sweaters like this, but there is often something unsatisfactory about the pattern. Poplar & Elm has the shape of a wrap sweater, but is actually fastened by two buttons, one on either side. This is a great idea, I think, because knitting and belts often don't go together as well as you'd like.

This sweater has two lace patterns: the Poplar pattern on the back and fronts, and the Elm pattern on the sleeves. They are really the same pattern, except that where the Elm pattern has yarn overs, the Poplar pattern has right- and left-leaning increases. The result is the same look, but more open sleeves. A simple, elegant idea, I think.

I modified this pattern pretty heavily, just in the way it was constructed. I don't like to set in sleeves, and I've recently figured out how to modify a set-in sleeve pattern to be done without the seam, and so I've been trying to do that a lot. This was no exception. I did the fronts and back in one piece up to the armholes. My intention was then to knit the arms in the round up to the armholes and combine it all into a sort of yoke with set-in sleeve cap shaping. However, very soon after I started the sleeves, I realized that if I wanted to do them at the same time, I was going to have to do them flat, or else do some extreme fiddling to make the lace pattern work. So I ended up doing the sleeves flat. Then, when I got to the point where I joined them to the yoke, I basically pretended that they were done in the round and proceeded from there. I sewed up the sleeve seams at the end. The only other seam was to attach the back neck edge to the back neck, and there was a small graft at each underarm and a three-needle bind-off at each shoulder. Finally, I just sewed the buttons right onto the sweater, rather than putting the inside button on a string (crochet chain) as the pattern suggests. The point of this was probably to have the inside button attach to the strong side seam, rather than the weaker main part of the fabric, no matter where you wanted the button to actually meet the buttonhole. Since I didn't have side seams anyway, this wasn't really relevant for me.

The only thing that stressed me out at all about this project was the gauge. I was getting a little under gauge, and I did the instructions for a size up to compensate. However, I was still scared the whole time that the sweater would turn out too small. As it is, I think it's fitted, but not too small. Success! The yarn I used was Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine, when I probably should have used Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light. The pattern calls for a sport weight, and WEBS lists Fine as a fingering weight and Light as a DK. I also misread the gauge: it says 34 sts/5.5 in, and I just assumed it was 34 sts/4 in, a fine gauge for fingering weight. Also, the Fine was on sale, so I went for that. Now I think the Light would have gotten gauge better. Also, when I bought it, I didn't realize that Fine had 20% nylon in it, making it a different fiber content from the other yarns in the Ultra Alpaca family. I wasn't really a fan of the 20% nylon, it made the yarn feel less nice than the Ultra Alpaca I've worked with in the past. But hey, maybe it will be stronger.

All in all, I was a little stressed while knitting this, but I'm pleased with the result.

Chelsea skirt

2010-07-26T22:45:00.000-04:00

I had never had the slightest desire to knit a skirt, but that all changed when I saw this one. Meet the Chelsea skirt. Here's my version.

This skirt is from a book called New England Knits, which just came out and has been getting a lot of hype since before its release. When I first looked at the pictures from this book that had been posted on ravelry, few of the patterns jumped out at me, but some of them have been growing on me since. This skirt really caught my eye, however, and was available as a free download from interweave before the book release (as it still is now.)

The bulk of this skirt is done in a simple herringbone pattern that is easy to do and not at all annoying. For some reason, I came into this thinking that herringbone patterns must be annoying to do, but that was not the case here. It was the second project that I was working on at that time that made heavy use of the pick-up type increases, the ones where you knit into the stitch below. (The other project is Poplar and Elm, which is still in the works.) You start at the bottom and use smaller and smaller needles, switching to ribbing at the top. The top ribbing is also done holding elastic thread along with the yarn. Then there are button bands and that little strip of lace at the bottom.

Perhaps I should talk about my feelings about tweeds. I have complicated feelings about tweeds. Sometimes, I see them and they just call to me. But I rarely have a good time using them. I find that the neps make it difficult for the yarn to slide against itself so my tight knitting habits require me to use an unusual amount of force. Also, I often dislike tweed colorways. Either the neps seem to cover all the colors of the rainbow with no sensitivity, as in Valley Yarns Williamstown, or they are flat and unimaginative, as in Knit Picks City Tweed. The City Tweed uses the same neutral neps for each colorway, no matter what the main color is. The colorways I really enjoy are those for which the color of the neps seems to have been carefully and artistically considered. Blackstone Tweed, which I used for this skirt, seems to have this property. This colorway (Concord) was mainly a very dark purple, with neps in navy, pink, and light purple. I loved this almost as much as the Queensland Kathmandu DK I used for Riding to Avalon, which was off-white with neps in white, pink, and maroon. Lovely. But yeah, I have complicated feelings about tweeds. And I hate seaming with them! They always break. Fortunately, this skirt didn't require any seaming.

For the lacy bit at the bottom, I used some leftovers of Yarn Chef Mulligatawny that I used a long time ago for the Wine and Roses mitts. I had to block the main part of the skirt, knit most of the lace, block that, see how long it was compared to the edge of the skirt, and then knit and block the last bit. Because of that, I was able to take this excellent picture in which you can see the blocked end and the unblocked end:

Blocking works, people! At least it does when you're using non-washable wool.

Then I sewed the edging on. Oh, I guess that was a seam. Well, I did it with thread, so it doesn't count.

Then there were the lovely buttons and the thing was done... but the top is nowhere near tight enough. As you can see, the bottom part of the skirt fits me nicely, but slightly small needles, ribbing, and elastic thread were not nearly enough to keep the skirt on me at the top. Right now, I can't wear this thing unless I buy some suspenders. I don't really know what happened. Maybe I was supposed to pull the elastic thread tight as I knit with it? That would be weird though. I'm thinking of taking the leftover elastic thread and sewing it around inside top of the skirt. Do people think that would work? I am open to suggestions!

One more picture for good measure.

Fiddleheads

2010-07-26T22:05:00.000-04:00

Hello! I am back from a vacation to Kentucky, followed by a Flaming Lips concert that was my anniversary present, followed by our first anniversary, followed by Snowflake's first day of work at a new job. Very exciting! I will now tell you about a pair of mittens that I knit during this time.

Meet the Fiddlehead mittens. These babies have been in my queue for a long time. When I realized how much of the Classic Elite Fresco I had left over after I made the Enid Cardigan, I looked for a pattern to use up the scraps and this is what I found. About a year later, I finally got around to making them.

The instructions start with an I-cord cast on, which sounds like a brilliant idea. You cast on stitches and make a lovely I-cord at the same time. However, I knew from my Luminen sweater that, at least when I do the I-cord cast on, it looks like crap. (Whoops, is that another sweater I knit and forgot to blog about? Bad blogger!) The stitches are way looser than the I-cord... it's a disaster. So instead, I used a slight variation on the cast-on for the Yellow Harvest mittens. I knit a 4-stitch I-cord for n-1 rows, where n was the number I intended to cast on. (I should have gone for n rows, but I'll just know that for next time.) Then, being very careful not to twist the I-cord at all, I used the cast-on tail to graft it into a ring. Then, using the live yarn which I had not broken, I picked up n stitches from the I-cord ring. Not only did it produce an absolutely lovely cast on edge, it also avoided the ubiquitous problem that the cast on always feels weak for the first few rows. This was strong and structural right from the start, and a perfect start to knitting in the round.

From there, things went pretty simply. More simply than usual, actually, because I didn't worry about long floats. When there were long floats, I simply kept them long, and did not worry that my fingers would snag since I planned to knit a lining. And so I did!

For the lining, I used the seventh and final color from the Enid cardigan, a lovely reddish purple. I picked up stitches from the inside of the I-cord and proceeded. If I have one regret about these mittens, it is that I think the lining is too big. It is done on fewer stitches, which helps a little, but if I were to do this again, I would have used a fingering weight for the lining (this time, I used sport weight for the whole thing,) and also gone down a needle size or two. The decreases in the lining are more round, which makes them shorter than the pointed outside mittens. I think that was a good idea on the part of the designer.

Oh, and did I mention how much I love this yarn? This is pretty much the best yarn ever. It is so soft and addictive to knit with. It feels like butter in your hands. The Enid cardigan has developed a crazy halo, but I don't even care. I love the feel of this yarn. Oh, and I didn't use it up. Each of the contrast colors on the outside mittens used less than 10 grams, and I still have a hank and a half of the brown left over. Only the purple I used for the lining is almost gone. So I guess I'll have to figure out something else to do with the remnants of this lovely yarn. For now, it's in my "Will trade or sell" section of my stash.

Now, if it were only cold enough to wear wool/alpaca/angora lined stranded mittens, then we'd be in business.

trying to be a better blogger - Moonfleet

2010-07-13T01:41:00.003-04:00

So it occurs to me that this blog would be more readable if my posts were on a single topic, like maybe a single project. And I would be a better blogger if I managed to post every time I finished something. So let's try this for awhile. (That paragraph is going to be embarrassing four months from now when I haven't gotten around to posting anything... oh well.)

My most recent FO is Moonfleet! Moonfleet was one of those mystery KALs that I love so much. This one was a KAL run by The Unique Sheep, and the pattern was for a laceweight stole in Eos, their 50/50 merino/tussah silk blend, with beads by Earthfaire.

I got this yarn in plenty of time to start the stole when the first clue came out, but I didn't. My excuse was that I wasn't done with Evenstar, and its beads were taking up the bead bowl I use, but I'm not sure what my real reason was. I guess I'm a fairly monogamous knitter at heart, and I wasn't having startitis or anything, so I just didn't cast on. The yarn, however, was lovely.

I chose the Casual Friday colorway, dyed with the Unique Sheep's gradiance method: that's one hank of yarn divided up into four little hanks, each one a little different in color. Mine was a particularly subtle color selection, going from sky blue to a light greyish purple. You can definitely tell in person, but it's even a little hard to see the color change in pictures. Speaking of which...

The left end is the blue end and the right end is the purple end. The bottom end is my dog.

The beads, chosen by someone at Earthfaire, were perfect and gorgeous. There are size 8 seed beads in a color called Metallic Navy Iris. They were mainly a very shiny navy blue, but did vary from bead to bead... some more purple, some more green, some more blue. I loved them because they were all a lot darker than the yarn, and so they were easy to see against the knitting. There are also magatamas (drop beads) at the points on the ends, these were in the color Gunmetal.

I finally started the shawl on Midsummer's Eve, just before clue 7 came out. Mostly, the knitting went very well, but there were a few setbacks. I think the worst part was when I noticed that I had forgotten a bead, nearly two repeats down. Now, I'm a bit neurotic, so I decided I needed to rip and re-knit. I dropped something like 11 stitches down an entire repeat before I noticed that I was one repeat off from where the error was. (Actually, first I tried dropping less than 11 stitches, but I soon found that dropping an entire vertical and horizontal repeat was easier to pick up again.) So then I reknit that repeat, moved to the next one, dropped those 11 stitches down one repeat, and then just dropped the center stitch down another repeat. I put the bead there, re-knit what I had dropped, and moved on. Yay!

Um, and that particular variety of neurotic may have happened again later in the stole. At least I know what I want and I'm not afraid to go for it.

Other than that, things went swimmingly and I was caught up in time for number 9, the final clue. Then I finished that one and blocked a couple days later. Weirdly, I felt that this didn't need extensive blocking, despite being lace. The holes just seemed to open up when I lay the (soaked) thing out. I did pin out the points on the border. I think it worked very nicely. My theory is that the beads were heavy and held down the fabric wherever I put it.

And that was it! All done!

All in all, it was a fun knit. I liked the yarn ok, although even 50% silk makes me like a yarn less. I am tickled to death that it's tussah silk, and I think that this stole may be destined for my vegan friend, just so that she can appreciate that no silkworms, or buggies of any other sort, died for it. (I know, the stole is not vegan, but she has particular reasons for being vegan that she tries not to lose sight of, and I think she'll like it.)

I really liked this, but I think I might not be signing up for the next Unique Sheep KAL. I may have just made a large, irresponsible yarn purchase from Quince & Co., and I'm feeling somewhat guilty.

Oh, and if anyone's wondering, Evenstar is dry now and has been given away to a dear friend who, I believe, will make good use of it.

How about one last Moonfleet pic for the road?

Evenstar is blocking!

2010-06-20T12:33:00.001-04:00

Finally, finally, my Evenstar Shawl is blocking.

This shawl was quite the adventure. It was one of those mystery shawl knitalongs that I so enjoy. In case you don't know what this means, it means that you sign up before you even know what the pattern will look like, then every two weeks you get a clue that gives you a little more of the pattern. I really enjoy these because it's pretty much a guarantee that the shawl will keep changing the whole time you knit it. Not a lot of repetition.

These KALs tend to make me a little competitive (although I try not to show it in the forums and stuff) but I was less competitive for this one than I sometimes am. There were 7 clues, and when they were released, I was sometimes caught up, sometimes a little behind. If I remember correctly, I didn't actually start until clue 2 or 3. I managed to be behind when the errors were discovered in the clues, so they didn't really affect me.

I kind of want to say something about the errors. In every mystery KAL I've been in (I think) there have been a few errors. I think this is just a byproduct of the system. For most knitting patterns, by the time they reach you, they have been test knitted, proofread, and knit by dozens or hundreds of other knitters over the course of weeks or months before you even start. These test knitters and dozens of knitters at home have found errors and talked to the designer and have worked out all the kinks. Mystery KALs are not like this. Generally speaking, they have been test knit, but the number of test knitters has to be small in order to keep everything secret. Then, all of a sudden, the KAL starts and hundreds of knitters are knitting the shawl all at the same time. Many are chomping at the bit and start knitting each clue the moment it appears in their inboxes. This means that when the inevitable error happens, it happens to dozens of knitters at once, and that generally means that somebody is going to make a stink about it. They say mean things about the designer, and the designer feels bad and cries and maybe thinks about not doing any more mystery KALs.

To the knitters of mystery KALs, I say: stop being mean! A seemingly large number of errors is a natural part of the process, because of the reasons I listed above. If you are going to get that worked up about errors in your patterns, you need to consider not doing mystery KALs, and only knitting from patterns that many people have knitted before you. You are negatively affecting my life by making some of my favorite designers not want to do mystery KALs any more. What you should do is be prepared for errors: put in lifelines, maybe don't start the clue the moment it comes out, prepare yourself mentally. And if you find an error, tell the designer and the community in a nice way so that we can all benefit from your eye for detail. That's my position on this whole issue.

As far as this KAL, I had a really good time doing it, mostly. The design is just gorgeous. It was my (approximately) my first time knitting a circular shawl, and it did become tedious when there were 560 stitches on the needles. For me, the worst part was the border. It was worked perpendicular to the rest of the shawl, and for each of the 560 stitches, I had to knit two border rows and place 5 beads. Slooooow going, and repetitive. It took me about a month and a half just to do the border -- a month and a half of knitting, getting bored, taking a break for two weeks, and then starting again. It made the end of the KAL kind of anticlimactic, but I am overjoyed now that the border is done.

Now the shawl is blocking, and all I can do is wait and hope that it will dry before we want to use the bed for sleeping. All of the pictures you've seen so far are during blocking. Here's a pre-blocking picture for your enjoyment:

who wants a sweater?

2010-05-21T15:55:00.001-04:00

Ok. So I've been knitting a lot of sweaters. I blame the IntSweMoDo, as well as myself. I have a tendency to get sort of competitive about these things. Problem: I now have way, way too many sweaters.

One of the sweaters I plan to make this summer is A Cardigan for Arwen. It's a lovely cardigan hoodie with reversible cables. I've been planning to make it for a long time, and I've been planning to do a KAL with my friend Li-Mei, which we are planning to do this summer. Here's the problem: a cabled hoodie cardigan is not something I need. I have lots of them.

So: do you want this sweater? I will knit you this sweater if you buy the yarn. I can make it fit you. It would be very affordable and lovely out of Valley Yarns Amherst or maybe a discontinued color of Peruvia. I was thinking of modifying the sleeves to be seamless set-in sleeves rather than drop shoulders, but I can do the drop shoulders if you want. I think the sweater will be ready by this fall.

Do you want this sweater? Tell me!

march of the sweaters

2010-04-10T10:17:00.000-04:00

So I'm participating in IntSweMoDo2010, a KAL in which I attempt to knit 12 sweaters in 2010. I am well on my way.

The first was Snowflake's Feldspar, which I blogged about in the previous entry.

The second was Lily, a sweater I knit for me out of Elsebeth Lavold Baby Llama. This was my first experience with Llama, and I loved it!

Sorry, I don't have any good pictures of this sweater.

The third took me a solid month, and was the Apres Surf Hoodie for my friend Ting Ting. This is in Valley Yarns Colrain Lace.

Many adventures with this sweater. It is designed to be knit in pieces, but I knit it in the round and figured out how to do seamless set-in shoulders. Fabulous! This is especially exciting because I love the look of set-in sleeves, but I don't like sewing them in. Now, I can have the best of both worlds!

Sweater 4 was another Twist Collective pattern, Lorelei. This one was for my professor/committee member Lisa. She had commissioned a sweater from the department secretary a long time ago, and she had not gotten around to it, and so outsourced it to me. The yarn was a sport-weight Bond acquired from Australia. It was just lovely to work with.

It just fits her perfectly. I think I'm starting to get good at this fit thing!

Finally, number 5 is a UFO from 2008. I'm on a UFO kick right now! Yay! This is definitely the most expensive sweater I've ever knit, very possibly the softest, and probably the simplest. I bring you Woodside, out of Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk Aran.

A note about the pose: he is pretending to be Barney from a recent episode of How I Met Your Mother.

Here's one with a dog.

Gizmo was sort of sleepy for that one. It feels so good to get that off the needles after two years!!

And that pretty much brings us up to date!

I'm currently knitting my second attempt at Henley Perfected. Why is it my second attempt? This is another UFO from 2008. I started it and had pretty much the whole torso knit up, but when I picked it up again, it felt like it had expired. So I ripped it out and started over. I made some changes... I went up a needle size for improved gauge, did the hems a little differently, and modified it to be knit seamlessly in the round. My new favorite thing for set-in sleeves! I am very close to being finished with this sweater. I will try to let you know in a timely manner when it's done.

I've also knit a few things that aren't sweaters. Maybe I will tell you about those another time. :)

things without polar bears

2010-02-10T23:39:00.000-05:00

So... I have been doing some knitting this year that has not involved polar bears. (Goodness knows why, I am thinking of never knitting anything without polar bears ever again.)

I made an Urban Aran cardigan for my brother. It was intended to be done for Christmas and/or his birthday, but I ended up miscalculating how long it would take the zipper to ship, and it was not done until mid-January. Regardless, here it is!

And yes, he is totally the sort of guy who would love to be covered in that much orange.

Shortly after, I made Feldspar for Snowflake out of Norah Gaughan men. It was fantastic!

I have to admit, Chloe helped me pick the colors here. I think that they worked out really well. Sort of a fall colors thing going on. I like it a lot.

With the Feldspar, I started the practice of measuring things hanging, not laid out on the ground. It makes sense: when he's wearing it, it will be hanging! As you can see, the fit is darn near perfect.

I've been participating in the Enchanted Wood shawl KAL from The Unique Sheep. It's been really fun! I want to post pictures, but there is a spoiler problem, so I'll just link you to my project on ravelry.

I also made Lily from the first Twist Collective. A great, fast knit. I love how the shaping is done.

Apologies for the bad picture. As you can see, I did not take it (although I take many bad pictures.)

My friend Misato wanted a hat with a flower.

And I guess that's pretty much it!

I also finished up the knitting on my old Mystery Stole 4, which is now waiting for blocking. And I'm working on an Apres Surf hoodie for my friend Ting Ting, which I have modified for working in the round. And I'm working on a very silly felted bag project. I will show you when next there are pictures!

In the meantime, feast your eyes on Gizmo:

This little guy's hair is in everything I knit now.

POLAR BEARS

2010-02-10T13:08:00.001-05:00

Snow day! This seems like a great day to update the blog. I need to tell you guys about my knitting for this year, but I really want to just talk about this awesome Polar Chullo. Maybe I'll make two blog posts, bringing me to a total of 100! Here we go!

So, for the past week (well, since Friday night, after I finished clue 4 of the Enchanted Wood Shawl) I have been obsessed with knitting this super fun hat! I finished it up last night. I made it in the recommended yarn, which was my first experience with Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift. I like it! It is not that soft but I can see why people love it for Fair Isle. I think I do want to make the Autumn Rose pullover out of it.

Here's the hat!

By the way, this is what happens when you try to take pictures of yourself wearing a hat... I'm not exactly centered in the pictures here.

I didn't block this hat last night because I wasn't sure if it needed blocking and I wanted to show it off at school today. But there was a snow day today, so I'm blocking the hat now.

I love this hat so much. SO MUCH. I think I just really like to do colorwork. I'm starting to think that I want to completely reknit the Bauhaus for Snowflake. It came out too small and actually fits me. I was thinking about knitting side panels, steeking, and inserting them, but now I kind of want to knit the whole thing over. It was fun!

What will my next crazy project be? Hmm...

knitting in 2009

2010-01-03T00:04:00.000-05:00

Happy 2010, everybody!

I know I haven't posted in awhile, but it's time for my annual review of the knitting year.

started and finished in 2009
Snowflake's turtle buddy and Tom's Sheldon
Aynat's Balsam
Fabulous hat
Riding to Avalon for me
purple Maelstrom socks
Mosey legwarmers for me
Snowflake's gray socks
a square for GL's baby blanket
Gytha for me
Aeolian shawl in smoky plum
Heartland shawl for our retired department head
Wagtail yarns test knit shawl
Nat and Dori's wedding blanket
Rose's wristwarmers for Kyra's sister Suzy
my wedding stockings
tiny wedding socks to stave off cold feet
Bauhaus, which was meant for Snowflake but ended up fitting me :(
an argyle vest, my intro to intarsia
Olive Branch Hoodie out of blanket leftovers
Enid for myself out of lovely buttery Fresco
two Knit for the Cure hats
two squares for an Olympics peace project
Rockaway sweater for Brian (first completed project on ravelry for this pattern!)
Greenjeans for Li-Mei
Knucks for Snowflake out of Green Mountain Green
head-to-toe frog suit for Alazne
Give a Hoot mittens for Molly -- my first project with Madelinetosh
Blackberry mitts for Dad -- he loves these
Pretty Thing for Nai Nai
Toasty Topper for Deuce
Vivian for GL
hooded scarf (Pfeiffer Falls) for Mom
Nob Hill sweater for me
two pairs of Cruiser mittens for Freddie and Kendrick out of Berroco Vintage

started in 2009, not yet finished
Malabrigo Houdini socks for me
Snowflake's Gentleman socks
Ben's Urban Aran (just needs a zipper)
Koigu Multnomah scarf (just needs blocking)
Yogini Bolero out of Bambool
a number of things that got rethunk and frogged, or are waiting to be frogged
Snowflake's Feldspar sweater (current project)

finished in 2009, started earlier
Jabberwocky socks
Snowflake's Earl Black socks
Anemoi mittens commissioned by Misato
Yellow Harvest mittens out of Mirasol Qina

SO of the things I finished in 2009, there were a total of:
10 adult sweaters (counting Ben's Urban Aran)
1 vest
1 baby sweater (actually it had pants and stuff)
1 blanket
5 hats, including the hooded scarf
2 toys
6 pairs of socks
8 pairs of mittens
4 shawls, including the Koigu scarf
3 square type things
2 cowls
1 pair of legwarmers

15 things for me
24 things for friends and family
4 things for charity
1 test knit

Also: I have knit more yards than last year. At some point, I did a count and determined that I had knit about 18.5K yards last year. This year, we passed that point in October or so. The final count is at a little over 26K yards this year. Whew! That's a lot of knitting.

KAL-type things that happened:
I signed up for the finish or frog it KAL, and I did in fact finish some things on Fridays. Didn't actually make much progress on the WIPs though.
I signed up for the sock stashdown for half the year. My goal was not to gain sock yarn. Miserable failure.
I signed up for the Ram's Club 3 sock club. I haven't knit any of the socks yet (we've had two shipments so far), but I'm excited about them.
I also signed up for the Enchanted Wood mystery shawl KAL. It hasn't started, but I'm super excited about it, and the yarn is gorgeous.

At the end of the summer, I made a resolution to stop knitting sweaters for myself for awhile. Since then, I made Brian's Rockaway sweater, Li-Mei's Mr. Greenjeans, GL's Vivian, Ben's Urban Aran cardigan, and Alazne's frog suit. I think sort of broke the resolution by making Nob Hill for myself (it's sort of a weird shape, I'm not sure it's a sweater) and I've decided to end the resolution for sure with the new year. I just bought yarn to make Lily from the first Twist Collective, and I'm super excited. However, I think I learned a lot from not knitting sweaters for myself. Mainly, I learned that I can manipulate people into buying yarn for me to knit with if they get a sweater out of it later. Yesss.

Finally, I signed up for the IntKniSweMoDo2010: in which I attempt to knit 12 sweaters in 12 months. I think I've decided that Snowflake's current sweater, which will be knit mostly in 2010, and Snowflake's Woodside sweater, which will hopefully be knit about half in 2010, should maybe count as one sweater together for the purposes of this KAL. If I finish the Yogini Bolero, it won't count, since it's almost done. Wish me luck!

vacation knitting, in sweater form

2009-08-14T21:01:00.002-04:00

Perhaps you were wondering what I've been doing for the past month and a half. The answer: knitting sweaters!

For awhile I was just knitting on the Bauhaus sweater (Ravelry link) for Snowflake. This is a big deal project for me! It's the first time I've done 2-color knitting with more than two colors, by which I mean, different colors on different rows.

I knit the torso.

Then I did my first steek!! Snowflake took pictures.

Then I picked up and did the first sleeve.

And repeated again for the second sleeve.

...But my progress stalled when the Sarlacc (also known as our couch) ate one of the needle tips. Whoops. Here's a picture of it eating some other stuff.

Meanwhile, I also started on the Olive Branch Yoga Hoodie, also known as Sweater 2.

I did eventually buy a zipper for it, but I haven't gotten thread to sew it on with. Other than that, it's done.

I also started on Mr. Greenjeans for Li-Mei, also known as Sweater 3.

It's waiting for a button, and then it'll be done.

Oh, and I finally finished my wedding stockings... in time for my wedding! There are better pictures than this, I promise, but we haven't gotten them from the photographers yet.

Plus I made two tiny socks that Snowflake and I carried during the wedding... to prevent cold feet! :)

Oh, and I made a pair of wristwarmers for Kyra's sister. I don't have any pictures of them, but they look just like Kyra's.

Now I'm working on an Enid cardigan. I love the insides of the hems!!

It's out of Classic Elite Fresco. This yarn is really really nice. I love it. I think it's the 10% angora.

And some Houdini socks out of Malabrigo Sock in Velvet Grapes. Some crazy pooling!

Ok, so I didn't actually read the pattern. I sort of skimmed it like a year ago to get the basic idea, which I thought was awesome. Speaking of a year ago, I can't wait for the new Twist Collective!!

blanket blanket blanket

2009-06-25T12:04:00.002-04:00

The last few weeks have been aaaall about this wedding. What? No, not my wedding. The wedding of my dear friends Nat and Dori.

Step 1: Knit them a blanket.

Yeah, Snowflake discovered that he could get under the blanket when I wasn't even done with it, and he stayed under it after I bound off. I eventually wrest it from his grasp and sent it to Nat and Dori.

...Eventually.

This was the Saffron Cables blanket by Kathy Zimmerman, originally from the fall 2006 issue of Interweave Knits -- the same issue that brought us the Swallowtail Shawl and the Father and Son Socks, both of which I've made. It was a good issue.

Step 2: Get to San Diego a solid week before the wedding and help Dori and her family out. Talk about CRAZY.

Step 3: Get home and realize how comparatively little I have to do for my wedding. Relax.

I've also knit a few other things since my last blog post, but mainly it's been all about the blanket.

This is a shawl I made for the (former) head of the linguistics department, who retired this year.

Blocking...

Done.

This was the Heartland Lace Shawl by Evelyn Clark, who brought us the Swallowtail.

And I also test-knitted a shawl for Kristin Omdahl. I bring you the unblocked Wagtail Wrap.

Yup, I'm sure it looked better after blocking.

Meanwhile, I've been working on a pair of fingerless mitts for Kyra's sister. They're a replica of Kyra's, more or less. :) Pictures later!

photo dump

2009-05-08T00:24:00.004-04:00

Well. Apparently I haven't posted photos in a long time. Fortunately, I haven't been knitting that much in that time. So here we go...

As you know, I finished my Riding to Avalon hoodie. Then, my roommate Emerson helped me take some pictures of it.

I also knit a gorgeous pair of Maelstrom socks from the first Twist Collective. It was my first Twist pattern to actually make (rather than just drool over) and I could not be more pleased. This is a truly gorgeous Cookie A. pattern. These are out of Dream in Color Smooshy in Visual Purple. It was my first experience with Smooshy, and I just loved them. Also, the color is way more gorgeous in person than it is on the Dream in Color website, which is really a good thing to know. Also, I would like to rejoice that WEBS now carries Dream in Color! Yay!

I also made a pair of socks for Snowflake. These are out of Knit Picks Essential in gray, and they are the Father and Son Socks pattern from some past IK. They were simple but not too simple and fun to knit, and I am very glad I did them. I think they look great on him. And I loved the yarn. I'm considering having it be my go-to yarn for solid sock yarn.

I also made a pair of legwarmers for me. This is the Mosey pattern from Knitty. They're out of Cascade Eco Wool, most of the leftovers from my dad's Christmas sweater. I love them, but I don't really know how to wear them. The pom-poms are probably my favorite part.

After that, I made Gytha, my second Twist pattern. Again, I just loved this. Possibly the most exciting part of this was the border: you have to pick up a bunch of stitches, and then just bind them off in the round. Not only does it do a LOT to make the (essentially) stockinette not curl (after blocking), it also looks really great! I was worried about the gap that occurs at the beginning of the round, but TechKnitter's awesome instructions told me how to make that gap totally seamless. It looks great! I just love this sweater.

I also FINALLY got Emerson to pose for some decent gansey pictures. I think the pictures are pretty decent indeed.

Since then, most of my time was taken up with knitting an Aeolian shawl from the current Knitty. This thing took forever. First of all, it has a ton of beads, which really slow things down. The beads also cut down on knitting time because they made the project non-portable. Also, the rows get longer and longer, which is a difficult thing and I had almost 1000 stitches near the end. Also, I ran out of beads and had to go get more. Finally, I ran out of yarn. I made this out of Silver Moon Farm fingering that I got at Rhinebeck in colorway Smoky Plum. This yarn was so great, and even better, I was counting it as sock yarn. It was about 1100 yards, and I juuust ran out. I had about 20 stitches left to bind off. Fortunately, my knitting buddy Eleanor had bought the exact same yarn and was happy to let me use a tiny bit of it to finish my bind off! Yaaaaaay!!!! I used 9-stitch nupps and my only mod was that I just did the bind off normally, not holding two strands. If you were to do exactly the same as me, using 7-stitch nupps and the alternative border, I'm pretty sure this could be enough yarn. Some pictures follow.

Soooo... now I'm working on a couple things, mostly surprises that I can't talk about. I'm also doing a mohair shawl test knit for Kristin again, so that's working.

Oh yeah, I should mention that I just realized that I can write comments on my own blog entries replying to other comments, and those comment people might be able to hear me. Yay! This means I will start answering those questions I get in comments.

And phew! I'm sleepy. Good night!

I love Twist Collective!

2009-03-01T09:25:00.002-05:00

The new Twist Collective is up!!

Twist Collective has done so many things right this time.

1. LOTS of guy patterns. I love them guy patterns!
2. The most adorable babies ever wearing super adorable baby clothes.
3. Some awesome socks.
4. Some stashbusters.
5. Awesome fair isle.
6. Sweaters I want.
7. Lastly, someone has the same philosophy of knitting as I do and has published it in this prestigious online magazine.

I'm not that pleased with the allover-lace sweaters. I'm just not really sure I like that.

My heart was only broken once in the course of looking at this magazine. You see, I know a very cute toddler by the name of Alina, and I have been looking for something that I can make her out of the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Alina colorway. I think Little Liza Jane is this pattern, but sadly the Alina colorway has been discontinued. Weep!

In other news, I got yarn for Gytha yesterday
and am eager to start. In fact, I got $77.95 worth of yarn for $42.36. Thank you, WEBS, for having awesome discounts, and GL, for giving me an awesome gift certificate!!

counting: sweaters and socks

2009-02-24T12:54:00.002-05:00

Today Snowflake commented that he thought I had made more socks than sweaters. So I did a count.

Of course, it's not true. I have knit more socks than I sweaters. By my count*, I've knit 33 socks, and I've only knit 16 sweaters**. (Why the uneven number? Well, I'm more than halfway through a pair of socks right now, you see.) So hah! I've knit more socks than sweaters.

Of course, what Snowflake meant was that I've knit more pairs of socks than sweaters. I've knit 16 pairs of socks, and I've knit 16 sweaters. So yeah, it's pretty close. But judging by the way this last sock is going, I should be up to 17 in the very near future.

By the way, my Riding to Avalon hoodie is dry and I'm wearing it right now! Yaaay!

*It wasn't that hard to do the count. Yes, I've been knitting since I was 6 or so, but I haven't been knitting sweaters or socks that long. I knit my first pair of socks near the end of my freshman year of college, and I knit my first sweater near the end of my senior year of college. So all my sweaters and almost all my socks are on ravelry.

**To be a sweater, it had to have sleeves. Vests and sleeveless tops don't count. Baby sweaters do count. I've knit two baby sweaters, so if you don't want to count those, we're down to 14. I've got a number of sweaters at near-completion, and I didn't count those.

sock thoughts and a happy Ravelry story

2009-02-22T15:26:00.003-05:00

As some of you know, I'm a sweater knitter, not really a sock knitter. Despite this, I have recently started thinking about sock knitting. For one thing, Snowflake discovered that he loves handknit socks. (He recently called his one pair of handknit socks his "reward for doing laundry".) For another, I joined this Sock Marathon KAL where we try to knit down our sock stash between February 1 and August 1. Now, I don't have that much sock stash, so after I counted it all I decided to try not to increase the sock stash by August 1. So far I haven't been doing too well. Here's how it has gone.

Initial count:
1 pair's worth Araucania Ranco Multy in purples
1 pair's worth Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Lightweight in Lenore (black)
1 pair's worth Dream in Color Smooshy in In Vino Veritas
1 pair's worth Malabrigo Sock in Velvet Grapes
1 pair's worth Maple Creek Yarn Bamboo in Forest
1 big shawl's worth Silver Moon Farm Fingering in Smoky Plum
2 pairs' worth Zitron Trekking XXL in blue stripes

Bought since February 1:
1 pair's worth Dream in Color Smooshy in Visual Purple
2 pairs' worth Zitron Trekking Pro Natura in off-white

On its way:
1 pair's worth Knit Picks Essential in gray

Knit since February 1:
1 Maelstrom sock in Smooshy Visual Purple. The second sock has been started.

I decided to use the DiC for the Maelstrom sock for practical reasons. For one thing, this beautiful semi-solid is gorgeous, and yet does not fight with the fairly simple lace pattern. For another, the DiC is in one big hank. For me, this means it is not conducive to socks two-at-a-time. The Maelstrom sock pattern is also not conducive to two-at-a-time, since it is sort of chart-heavy and there are different charts for each sock. Put those things together, and I am very pleased with my decision to combine this pattern with this yarn. Sadly, I probably won't have pictures to show you until the second one is done, but it shouldn't be too terribly long.

Now I need to think about what to do with the rest of this sock yarn.

The Trekking Pro Natura is for my wedding stockings. Perhaps you guys can help me decide! Which should I make: option a or option b?

I bought the Smooshy In Vino Veritas with the intent of using it for Jared Flood's Druid Mittens. I still think this is a good idea.

For the STR in Lenore, I'm considering buying the Lenore pattern and actually using that. I've heard it's a great pattern.

I bought the Maple Creek Bamboo with Vinnland in mind. I still think this is a good idea too, although I keep forgetting about it.

Since I have so much of this Trekking XXL and since it's self-striping, I think that the best idea would probably be some striped knee socks... or however tall it goes, anyway. I'll go toe-up and just keep going until I run out of yarn.

And finally, I plan to make a pair of gray socks for Snowflake with the KP Essential. I have a few pattern ideas for this one too.

So the only stuff that doesn't have a plan is the Malabrigo Sock and the Ranco Multy. I do really want to try out the Houdini sock idea, and the best way to do this would probably be to do a plain one with a lovely multicolored yarn. Perfect! Maybe I'll try out the first pair two-at-a-time with the Malabrigo, since it is neatly wound into two balls due to the awesome knot that they put halfway through, and figure out what to do with the Ranco Multy later.

Phew!

I promised you a happy Ravelry story! Here's what happened. I was knitting on my Riding to Avalon hoodie hood, when I discovered to my dismay that I was about to run out of yarn. (It's Queensland Kathmandu DK, I got it on closeout at WEBS, and they don't have any left.) I was sad, but hopeful that I would find a solution. I went onto Ravelry and searched people's stashes for this yarn in this color. I was delighted to find that not only did people have this yarn, but they had it in the same dye lot as well! Yay!

I found one person (AmandaCathleen) who had used a small amount of the yarn for colorwork and had 4/5 of a ball left. I figured she didn't want it anymore, and I was right! I gave her a mere $7 through PayPal and two days later, the ball of yarn was in my mailbox! So great!! Since then I have used this ball of yarn to finish knitting the sweater, and it's now downstairs blocking!

What with the fact that the sweater is soaked in these pictures, the flash, and the fact that I'm generally not a good photographer, you can't really tell what's going on. But I'm loving the buttons!

And no, I don't really know how to block a hood.

this hat is fabulous

2009-02-16T12:20:00.003-05:00

Well, some things have happened.

For one, the Turn a Square hat that I'd been wearing all winter? Lost it. :( I think I left it on the bus.

We are now more than two weeks into February, which is the first month of this 6-month sock yarn destashing marathon. I haven't been doing so well. I've bought 3 pairs of socks worth of yarn, and I've knit... nothing. Yeah, not so good.

However, I did finish the Jabberwocky socks back in January! Yay! They're the ever-popular Leyburn socks pattern in Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock lightweight in the absolutely gorgeous Jabberwocky colorway. They're much darker in real life, I had a terrible time trying to capture the colors with my camera.

Also, I knit a lovely cowl for my friend Aynat. The pattern is called Balsam, and it's a lovely simple spiral lace. She wanted to be able to pull it up over her nose, so I substituted 2x2 ribbing for the garter stitch edges. The yarn is Berroco Palace, which is just a dream to work with. 50/50 wool and silk, worsted, squishy, gorgeous. I loved this quick little knit.

I may have made a trip to the yarn store on Valentine's day. My friend Wendell needed moral support, I swear! I ended up walking out of there with some off-white Trekking Pro Natura, hopefully for my hypothetical wedding stockings.

I also made off with a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in Visual Purple to be friends with my In Vino Veritas that was already in my stash.

I also grabbed Knitter's Workshop by EZ (can't believe I didn't own any of her books before this!) and some reeeally pretty buttons that are intended for my Riding to Avalon. Oh yeah, my Riding to Avalon is almost done. I'm about halfway through the hood right now.

And finally, I picked up one skein of Malabrigo Worsted in what is possibly the most gorgeous colorway ever: Oro y Vino.

Yes, that was only half the skein. That's because I made the other half into a hat yesterday.

So fabulous!! I love this yarn and this hat. There are lots of pictures, but since I took them all myself, some of them are more successful than others.

But I think they all capture the colorway beautifully.

Oh yeah, and I finally got some pictures of Tom's Sheldon. Here he is, posing with my Silver Moon fingering weight.

And I finally took some pictures of my long-since-complete Central Park Hoodie.

I just bought the Maelstrom pattern from Twist Collective. I will knit some socks!

and THAT's how you line a hat!

2009-01-23T20:14:00.003-05:00

I have successfully lined a hat!!

Ok, let's back up to the beginning of the story. It's late August 2007. I am just moving into this apartment in Northampton with my new flatmates, Noah and Muhammad. I am knitting my first Short Row Hat by Veronik Avery for my friend Kyra. Noah loves it, and he sees how little time it's taking me. He wants one.

Noah, sadly, is allergic to wool. And not just wool: it seems that any animal fiber gets him. After about a minute of touching it, he starts itching. We tried really nice stuff... merino, alpaca, angora... no dice. He says that it feels really nice before he starts to itch. With that, we set out on a quest to find a worsted-weight non-animal yarn that has a long color change, because without the long color change, the Short Row Hat doesn't do its magical thing. Sigh.

For any of you who might wonder what the results were of such a search... it just didn't happen. We didn't find any non-animal yarns with the requisite properties. I thought of a few things, like maybe holding some self-striping sock yarn double... but it just didn't really pan out the way we'd hoped. The saddest part was when we took a trip to WEBS and searched the place high and low for our magical yarn. Noah learned some things about yarn that day. He learned that the nicest, most beautiful yarns are made of wool and not cotton, and he fell in love with a beautiful swatch of what I'm convinced is Noro Kochoran (although he's sure it was some other Noro yarn.) He loved this swatch so much that we had to visit it one last time before we left the store. It was very touching.

That's when, in desperation, I suggested that I could make a hat with wool and line it with something else. That way, Noah would get the beauty and warmth of the wool and hopefully none of the itchiness! This coincided with a very empowering series of posts on the TechKnitting blog about lining a knit hat with fleece. It was a plan. We spent some time searching the internet for the beautiful yarn that the swatch was made out of, and we came up with... well, something pretty close at least. Over the summer of 2008, I knit the hat.

Noah wasn't living with me after that, so it took awhile for us to get on top of the whole liner part of the project. I intended to go to a place very near my apartment called Valley Fabrics, but when I finally made it there, they mostly had cloth for quilting, nothing stretchy that could go inside a hat. My friend Wendell, who was more versed in the ways of sewing than I, informed me that what I wanted was "jersey", the stuff that t-shirts are made of. So I kept that in mind.

This winter break, I acquired some jersey at Hancock fabric in my hometown. I got that double-sided jersey, which is I think teeny tiny 1x1 ribbing rather than normal t-shirt stuff, which is teeny tiny stockinette. That turned out to be a good choice, because the rest of this story would have been more difficult if the fabric had a tendency to curl. Today, the first day I saw Noah after break, I wrapped the jersey around his head and stapled it to indicate how big around his head was. Then I used the shape of the knitted hat as a guide while I pinned, sewed, and trimmed the fabric to make a little hat. Finally, I pinned the jersey to the hat as per TechKnitter's instructions and used the overcast stitch to secure it on there. And voila! Hat is done, and it only took me a year and a half!

This next picture is the inside-out view.

And that's all finished except for one more step: delivery! Yay!

In other news, the recent giveaway of all my old acrylic yarn has significantly changed my Sock Marathon 2009 plans. First of all, I didn't realize that the whole thing actually starts on February 1st and ends... August 1st I think. So the Jabberwocky socks, which I'm working on right now, don't count. Also, my calculated yardage (which I don't think I shared here on this blog anyway) is different. New numbers:

My starting yardage for the marathon will be about 2.5 miles, or 4468 yards. This includes Maple Creek Farm Bamboo from Rhinebeck, Silver Moon Farm Fingering from Rhinebeck (lots of yards, that is), Araucania Ranco Multy, BMFA Socks That Rock ravens, Dream in Color Smooshy, Malabrigo Sock, 2 pairs worth of Trekking XXL, and Lana Grossa Meilenweit. All amounts are a pair's worth, except for the Silver Moon Farm, and the Trekking. Things I am not counting: anything that is not sock yarn, anything that qualifies as scraps, and the BMFA STR in Jabberwocky. I plan to have the second Jabberwocky sock done by February 1. I'm almost done, it's totally reasonable. My resolution is still to have the same amount of sock stash or less by the time the end of this marathon rolls around.

In truth, I'm chomping at the bit. My plan is to cast on for Jeanie with the Silver Moon Farm stuff as soon as the clock strikes February.

P.S. I gave the Anemois to their owner today. Yay!

This feels so good!!

2009-01-22T18:00:00.003-05:00

What? you may ask. Are you talking about the inauguration? Well, that felt really good, but I wrote about it in my seldom-updated LiveJournal.

No, I'm talking about something amazing that happened today and yesterday. First, I found this. It's a call for yarn donations to a group called Girls, Inc. so that girls ages 5-18 can learn to knit. Now, I don't have a lot of money right now, but I do have a lot of yarn in my stash that I never ever want to use. I feel weird about giving stuff away that I wouldn't want to get myself, even as a gift, so I shot an email to the person organizing this whole thing and asked if it would be ok. Of course, this is all stuff that I bought when I was young and naive and hadn't been seduced by the siren song of alpaca and merino. So it makes total sense that young and naive new knitters who also haven't been seduced by natural fibers would love this stuff. The organizer lady thought so too, and with that, I gathered all the yarn I didn't want any more to be sent away forever!

Just because it makes me so happy to do so, let's make a list.

This is no fewer than 17 balls of Lion Suede, 12 balls in blue, 3 balls in purple, and 2 balls in teal. I bought the purple and teal because I thought the colors were great (still do, actually) and then I bought the 12 balls of blue for an ill-conceived blanket. Many bits of the blanket also got made, and I wasn't able to frog them all before mailing them off. I'll let them do what they like with that.

1 ball of Plymouth Socotta, less than a skein of navy Caron Perfect Match, less than a skein of white Lion Pound of Love, less than a skein of Wolle Rödel sock yarn, less than a skein of bright red Plymouth Encore.

Nearly 4 skeins of Lion Brand Homespun, two in mauve, one in indigo (although some of it is in the form of a mitten, and less than one in blue-green. 1 ball of Lion Bouclé in colors that remind me of Superman, although I think the colorway was called something like "Jellybean". Less than a ball of pink and white cotton (I think). A skein of some variety of Lion Brand chenille in black with little neon-colored bits. A ball of Lion Incredible in autumn colors. A ball of Lion Chenille Sensations in black.

2 balls of Plymouth Bella Colour. Less than two balls of Reynolds Saucy Sport in a yellow-green, with which I made Emerson's awesome knitted tie. Less than three balls of Moda Dea Sassy Stripes, with which I made my first pair of socks. 3/4 of a ball of Berocco Comfort Sock in black, and 1/4 of a ball in white. A ball of Lion Microspun in turquoise. A ball of Lion Magic Stripes sock yarn in blue, red, white, and brown.

10 lbs of yarn, and it's all gone!! I am so thrilled!

Just for posterity, I also took pictures of that mitten, which was my first mitten. I hope the girls rip it apart and make something nice out of it.

And yeah... I was using a pattern that involved seaming, and I didn't know how to seam.

Yaaay!

All this has made me reminisce about my knitting past up until now. Maybe I'll post about it...

2009 begins, continued

2009-01-14T13:50:00.003-05:00

So in my last post, I totally forgot to mention the other 2009 KAL I've aligned myself with! The girls over at the Limenviolet Ravelry group are doing a sock marathon. Basically, you count up all the sock yarn in your stash and make a resolution regarding how much sock yarn stash you want to have by the end of 2009. This was great for me because it coincided with finishing Snowflake's first pair of socks, which he loves. I am in a different state from most of my stash right now, but I decided to have the same amount of sock yarn stash at the end of 2009 as I had at the beginning of 2009 (in a week or so, I can figure out how much that is.) I also want to knit lots of socks for Snowflake.

By the way, Snowflake noticed that on socks, the toe is symmetrical, while on feet, the toe area is not symmetrical. He wanted to know whether you could make a sock that conformed to the shape of the toe more. I told him that you could, but you would end up having left and right socks that are different. He seems willing to deal with having left and right socks, but I'm not sure it would be worth the trouble. It may be something to try this year. Has anybody else done this?

So far, 2009 seems like one big finishfest. I'm going to be indisposed at MIT's Mystery Hunt this weekend, so I'm getting a head start on Finish or Frog It Friday.

When we left Anisa, she had just finished a couple of WIPs she had going. She had one more thing she needed to do: a Sheldon. Faithful readers will remember that this Sheldon was destined for a guy who happened upon a previous Sheldon that Anisa had made, and had developed a fondness for it.

The new Sheldon is done!

He's on Snowflake's shoulder in this next picture.

As you can see, Snowflake has developed a fondness for him.

...Which leads us to a pattern I have observed. After this, Snowflake wanted one. Fortunately, I got twice as much yarn as I needed for the first one, so I was able to make a second! Sadly, though, my camera ran out of batteries, so I have no more pictures for you.

Snowflake's turtle buddy is also finished. Yay! For the record, you can make two Sheldons out of two balls of Valley Yarns Valley Superwash in the MC, and one ball in the CC. That is, if you're as tight a knitter as I am (few are,) and you use size 3 and 4 needles. I actually never measured, but my gauge was probably smaller than the pattern said. Snowflake has spent the last couple days hiding the turtles around the house so that I will find them staring at me when I least suspect it.

Last night, I also finished up two Yellow Harvest mittens from the Fall 2008 Vogue Knitting in the absolutely lovely Mirasol Qina in a lovely periwinkle. I love them. Not enough to be happy to be going back to a cold place tomorrow, but almost.

I also finished the first Jabberwocky sock. 50% there!

Meanwhile, I'm still working on the Yogini Bolero and thinking really hard about the skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in In Vino Veritas that I have burning a hole in my stash.

Resolutions, KALs, and other possibly bad ideas

2009-01-09T11:17:00.004-05:00

It's Friday! This is highly relevant, because I have recently aligned myself with a new KAL!

It's called Finish or Frog It. Basically, on Fridays in 2009 (however many Fridays you like, not necessarily every Friday, you look at a WIP and you either finish it or frog it. This is good, because I have entirely too much stuff sitting around on the needles. Maybe this will even motivate me to block the tons of lace knitting that has been sitting around NOT BLOCKED for over a year. Talk to this knitter if you want to be involved in the KAL.

Of course, I first heard about this on a Saturday, and I was eager to get started, so I decided to finish Snowflake's socks by the following Friday (that would be today.) However, the foot went way faster than I thought it would, and I finished it by Sunday.

Yeah, these pictures are terribly blurry. I really need a camera that does small things. Like knit stitches. Anyway, it's the Yarn Harlot's Earl Grey pattern, and has a cute little cable running up the side. It's done in black Valley Yarns Huntington from WEBS.

This is really a great pattern. I think the only thing I would change if I were to do it again would be to change how the ribbing goes into the cables. But it's really very lovely. Some firsts in this project: first men's socks, first socks two at a time on magic loop. The magic loop thing worked out nicely, except that I had to rearrange the stitches partway through, which sucked. Anyone have a good way of doing this when you're doing two at a time on magic loop? Oh, also I'm wasn't really sure how to handle the heel turning. I ended up slipping a bunch of stitches to get from one sock to the other.

I'm thoroughly pleased with these socks. I love the gauge. It's 9 stitches per inch, which I achieved with large size 1 Knit Picks Harmony needles. And the best part... Snowflake loves them! He wants more socks! He is looking forward to the day when his hand-knit socks outnumber his hand-knit sweaters.

Next, I finished up a pair of mittens that my friend Misato commissioned from me. And here they are!

I LOVE how these turned out. This is the second time I've made this pattern, and the first time was me learning to do stranded knitting. The first time, I held the two colors in different hands and the gauge ended up very uneven, probably because I am a totally incompetent knitter in Continental. Also, my attempt to even out the gauge for the second mitten resulted in a significantly smaller second mitten. This time, I did the mittens two at a time on magic loop and held both colors in my right hand. The result was that although keeping the yarns from getting ridiculously twisted up in each other was a total pain, the gauge is beautifully even, the mittens are the same size, and I'm thoroughly pleased. I also LOVE this gauge for stranded work. I used small size 2 Harmony needles and ended up with a gauge of 40 sts and 40 rows to 4". I'm so excited about colorwork now! In fact, I'm thinking of making Snowflake the Bauhaus sweater (Ravelry link.)

Oh, the inside looks really pretty too.

In other news, I added some length to Snowflake's second sweater, which has made it much more wearable.

What else am I working on? I've got a long-sleeved Yogini Bolero in the works. I'm using purple Elsebeth Lavold Bambool, which is 80% bamboo and 20% wool. I usually hate working with plant fibers and... I sort of hate this. But it didn't start getting to me for quite a while. It's going nicely, I'm working on the sleeves right now.

I'm also working on another Sheldon. The first time I made this pattern, it was for charity through a project with Knitting Liberally. It ended up at Tina's house for quite a while, where her husband Tom developed a bit of a complex about it. Later, Gina-Louise (of Knitting Liberally) decided it would be a great present for Tom, and commissioned one from me. So I'm working on a replica. Right now, I've done almost all the knitting I can do without involving Poly-fill, and I've also recently acquired Poly-fill, so I should be able to finish it soon. Hence, this is my choice for Finish or Frog It Friday!

We'll see how it goes!

2008 knitting

2009-01-01T23:49:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure what I feel like knitting. I think I'm antsy from being separated from my stash. So I thought I'd look back over 2008 and see how that went.

started and finished in 2008
Nat's Koolhaas hat out of Frog Tree Merino Melange
my Anemoi mitts
Sheldon for charity (NELCWIT)
silk lace jacket test knit for Kristin
Snowflake's second sweater
Alina's first peapod hat, which did not fit
bmp (space invaders socks!), commissioned
a pair of socks for my mom out of Austermann Step
two rainbow acrylic scarves for the gay Presbyterians
mom's vest, which she now wears all the time
Noah's hat... actually, this is not done. The knitting is done, but it needs lining.
Spring Forward socks for me out of Misti Alpaca
Baudelaire socks for me out of Huntington
Flaming Hot Faroese shawl test knit for Kristin
Tilli Tomas shirt test knit for Kristin
Rose's wristwarmers for Kyra
my Olympic Dollar and a Half Cardigan
Emerson's gansey
Bayerische socks out of Shibui
Alina's Peapod sweater and second Peapod hat, which did fit
Turn a Square for me
Central Park Hoodie for me
a cropped cardigan for me
Dad's Cobblestone
Mom's Oblique
Molly's Dashing
Kendrick's Dashing
Deuce's Miittens
Deuce's Baby Yours sweater
a first cat blanket for charity out of acrylic from Michael's

finished in 2008, started earlier
a sweater for me

started in 2008, not yet finished
Jabberwocky socks
Snowflake's first pair of socks
Snowflake's third sweater
Anemoi mittens commissioned by Misato
a second cat blanket for charity out of acrylic from Michael's
Yellow Harvest mittens out of Mirasol Qina
Mystery Stole 4
Henley Perfected
Clapotis (ugly colors, I don't know what to do)
a SURPRISE for Snowflake (was supposed to be for his birthday in May)
Mystery Shawl 6 (just needs to be blocked)
Cherie Amour (which needs sewing and blocking)

worked on in 2008
Dayflower Daydream shawl (I think)

SO of the things I finished in 2008, there were:

10 regular sweaters and 2 baby sweaters
5 pairs of socks
3 regular hats and 2 baby hats
3 pairs of wrist warmers
1 pair of adult mittens, 1 pair of baby mittens
1 toy
1 vest
1 cat blanket

9 things for me
16 things for friends and family
7 test knits, commissions, charity things, or other knitting for people I don't really know

So far in 2009, I have worked on Snowflake's socks and a bolero for myself. I also learned to do Tunisian crochet yesterday and worked on that today.

Hmm sleepy...

Christmas knitting and more!

2008-12-31T00:26:00.004-05:00

Alright, this is the part where I try to tell you all the stuff that I've knit since the last time I told you what I had knit... which was apparently November 2. Ok, here we go.

First, I blocked the gansey. This happened after I had given it to Emerson, during a warm snap.

I made a Turn a Square hat out of black Valley Yarns Northampton and some Noro Kureyon. No pictures yet, but I use it whenever I go outside. I also finished up the Central Park Hoodie, but neglected to take pictures. I also finished up a cropped cardigan I started a long time ago.

Then I guess it was all about the Christmas knitting. I decided to make a sweater for each of my parents this year. It was a big deal, as I usually don't do much thinking or planning about my Christmas knitting. Dad's Cobblestone got finished first.

As you can see, the sleeves are quite a bit too long, but the main problem is that the weather is far too warm here in Kentucky for such a sweater. Knitters: we must band together to end global warming! I think he really likes the sweater though.

My mom's was more of a problem. I realized shortly before Thanksgiving that I couldn't work on in during Thanksgiving, or after I went home for Christmas, because I would be in my mom's presence. Still, I managed to get it done, and I blocked it at my friend Ting Ting's apartment (thank you Ting Ting!)

It turned out well, I think! My mom really likes it, as she likes long tops. It's hard to tell, though, because she hasn't worn it yet... but then, it is also far too warm for this one. I should mention that my buddy Bronwyn made this exact same sweater for herself. I was going to make it in a different color or something, but it was clear that she had the best idea. So there it was.

I did a couple of pairs of Dashings for my aunt and uncle.

They were very appreciative. They definitely go on the list of people to knit presents for in the future. In fact, when I gave my aunt Molly her present, still wrapped, she gasped and said "Did you knit? I love it when you do that!"

For my new baby cousin, I made a Baby Yours sweater.

That last picture is totally the wrong color, but you can see the detail.

Then at the last minute, I also made him a pair of Miittens.

I also got a couple of knitting-related gifts! I got a lovely knitting needle case from a lovely Etsy store. As you can see, I haven't totally moved in, but I love it already. And it smells nice for some reason!

I also got Shear Spirit, which looks like a wonderful book.

And that was Christmas! I've also been knitting some other stuff. For one thing, I've decided that I should do more knitting for charities, rather than just making myself more and more sweaters that I don't need. So I joined a Yahoo group called AC4C (all crafts for charity) and participated in their pet blanket project for December. I went to Michael's and bought some acrylic yarn (something I hardly ever do) and knit it up real fast with big needles. I haven't delivered it to an animal shelter yet, but I will soon.

I'm also working on some Earl Grey socks for Snowflake. I would have liked to have them done by Christmas, but it wasn't in the cards. You can't see the cute little cables unless the sock is stretched out over a foot or something, but I'll take some finished project pictures on his feet when they're done.

I've also been working on a pair of mittens for myself (Yellow Harvest, in the Fall 2008 Vogue Knitting), out of some lovely Mirasol Qina I got at Magpie. The picture is too blue and too light: it's really more of a periwinkle. I LOVE this yarn. It's 80% alpaca and 20% bamboo, and super super soft.

This is also my first experience with bobbles. I think I sort of like them, at least in this project.

Other things in the works... a classmate commissioned a pair of Anemoi mittens, which I hope to have done before I go back to school at the end of January. I also have a request for a second Sheldon. I need to add some length to Snowflake's second sweater in the back... I may use short rows. I want to finish up the mittens, Snowflake's socks, and the Jabberwocky socks pretty soon. I also just got a ball of Cotsoy, which I hope to use to learn how to do Tunisian crochet. And 7 balls of Elsebeth Lavold Bambool, which I want to use to make a long-sleeved Yogini Bolero. Whew!

About the Oomingmacks: I love these slippers and I really want some. Sadly, they don't really look like a fun project to me. First of all, I'm not excited about felting because I don't have a washing machine. Second, the whole assembly part doesn't seem like fun to me, especially the part with sewing on the fur. BUT, my friend Li-Mei has agreed to make a pair of Oomingmacks for me!! So awesome!!!

Want. Musk. Ox.

2008-12-12T16:18:00.001-05:00

Dear amazing knitters,

If one of you makes me a pair of Oomingmacks, I will make you a sweater. I'm not kidding.

Anisa

new website at WEBS!!

2008-11-11T10:54:00.002-05:00

The new WEBS website is up!!

I love this for several reasons. The biggest one is that the old website didn't work on Chrome, my browser of choice. I kept meaning to tell someone about it, but then I forgot, and then I heard on the podcast that they were overhauling the website, so I thought I'd just wait it out. And here it is! And it works beautifully on Chrome!

Another reason I love the new website: WISH LISTS!! Wish lists are my favorite thing ever. When I was younger, the only thing I ever wanted was books, but my friends and family could not buy books for me because I already had so many and they didn't want to buy duplicates. The answer was my wish list at amazon.com. For many years since, I have avoided spending lots and lots of money by putting things I want on my wish list rather than buying them. Then I would just hang out and wait for holidays. But the yarn continued to be a problem. This new website is my answer! Yay!

(I feel as if the previous paragraph made me sound very materialistic. I probably am that materialistic, but I don't usually make it so public.)

Other reasons I like the website: I like the generally more sleek and attractive appearance. I like how the pictures of the yarns are arranged on the yarn pages. I REALLY like how it remembers where I've been recently. I will like how I won't have to put in my information over and over.

I realize that there is a chance that I am the first non-WEBS affiliate to create an account and wish list on the new WEBSite. I also realize that my friends who work at WEBS might be able to actually find out whether this is the case. I ask you: if it is, please don't tell me about it. Just save it for the intervention.

Off to continue stalking Twist Collective and Knotions!

baby pictures!

2008-11-02T19:46:00.002-05:00

Wow... it looks like the last time we checked in on my knitting, it was the Olympics. That was awhile ago... I guess the semester has been pretty busy. Let's see what I've been working on.

First things first. I finished the gansey!
(Footage not found.)
Emerson, for whom the gansey was made, does not like to take pictures. However, as it was starting to get a little chilly, we made a deal that if I worked on nothing until I finished the gansey, he would let me take pictures of him wearing it. Yet, these pictures have not yet happened. I'll let you know.

I put a lot of stuff on hold to finish up the gansey, so after the gansey there was a bit of a finishfest. Pictures!

These are the Bayerische socks, a totally crazy Eunny Jang pattern.

In Shibui sock yarn. Just gorgeous, if I do say so myself.

I also finished all the pieces of my beautiful Central Park Hoodie in Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed. I'm stalled out on the seaming, though, because I hate seaming with tweed. I think I will probably pull out some Valley Yarns Northampton to do the rest of the seaming.

I also finished a baby sweater for an adorable baby! The lovely parents fed me dinner in return for it. After they invited me, I frantically remembered that I had intended to make a baby hat as well, but that was alright because baby hats take no time at all.

This girl loves to remove hats. We managed to get a picture of the hat on her by acting quickly. Still, you can tell she's on the way to taking it off.

And it's off!

So adorable.

Meanwhile, I finally started working on Mystery Stole 4. Much less blurry (and longer) in real life.

I'm doing the two sides one at a time. This is uncharacteristic for me, but it's because it's cone yarn. (Valley Yarns Colrain lace with beads that are also from WEBS.) I love this yarn with these beads. Anyway, I started this and then I realized that I didn't have enough beads. By this, I mean that I brought half my beads on a trip and ran out before I was done with Clue 2. (Clues 1 and 2 have way more beads than the following clues.) During this same trip, Snowflake accidentally sat on one of my size 4 tips and snapped it. So I ordered some new ones. They just came in this weekend, and I've been knitting away (with some more beads) ever since. I'm about halfway into clue 3 now.

I've been working on a Cobblestone for my dad. This is probably my first serious attempt at knitting things for Christmas. I'm up to the armpits on the body.

And about halfway through the sleeves.

Knitting the sleeves has been sort of crazy. As you may know, I like to knit off the hank without first winding it into a ball. I also like to knit things two at a time, so that makes two sleeves at once on magic loop. Furthermore, I'm knitting this in Cascade Eco Wool, which has about a million yards in a hank. So basically whenever I knit on these sleeves, I have two ginormous hanks spread out all over everywhere. It's quite a scene.

I've also been working, slowly but steadily, on a raglan sweater for Snowflake out of the melt-in-your-mouth Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk.

And some gorgeous socks out of Socks That Rock, Jabberwocky colorway. The colors are darker in real life, but somehow no less gorgeous. This also has pretty much the best stitch definition I have ever seen. (Less blurry in real life.)

This is my first face-to-face encounter with Socks That Rock, and let me tell you, I think it's the beginning of a long and expensive love affair. Clue: my friend saw the hank of Jabberwocky and immediately wanted something made out of it. (Just days before he said he didn't need any more knitted stuff, and in fact he was good for material possessions in general.) Clue 2: Socks That Rock has a colorway apparently named after that baby up there^. I can hear my bank account shrieking now...

In other news, VOTE ON TUESDAY. And if you're in Massachusetts, VOTE NO ON QUESTION ONE. This is very important.

Rhinebeck!! Take 2

2008-10-19T23:01:00.002-04:00

This weekend was Rhinebeck! The second time I've been. Just like last year, I made a day trip of it and just went on Saturday. I was there with Diana, a visitor to our department this year, and Chloe, a classmate of mine who I taught to knit on Wednesday. It was pretty great. Highlights:

Hot apple cider. Mmmm.

We hit every yarn booth, I think. It was fabulous. I bought yarn...

This is yummy Bargain Bunny from Oasis Farm. It's 10% angora and 90% merino and really really soft. It will totally make a great pair of Dashing, maybe, for Snowflake.

Silver Moon got me last year, and they got me again this year. I wasn't planning to buy yarn from there, and then this absolutely gorgeous 1000 yards or so of fingering weight superwash merino caught my eye. I don't think it's enough for the Apres Surf Hoodie (a real shame, that) but I may be able to pull off Jeanie.

In the afternoon I finally made it over to the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth...

This is sock yarn in Lenore, one of the colorways from the Raven series. For those who don't know, these are colorways that are overdyed in black. Basically, the amount of color you see relates to the amount of light there is around. Love this.

This is a great colorway called Jabberwocky.

By the time I got there in the afternoon, the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth had definitely sold out of a lot of stuff, and the line to pay was still pretty long. But pretty much everyone in line with me had been there that morning and glanced at the ridiculously long line then. They were glad they waited, even though they just ended up with the occasional hank of yarn, rather than huge armfuls. This was actually my first experience meeting Socks That Rock in person, and it was really great.

And that's all the yarn I bought. But... I met Veronik Avery!! I didn't know she would be there. I was hanging out in some tent and I heard an announcement that she was doing a book signing, so I rushed over. She is one of my favorite designers and I was reduced to a fawning fangirl in front of her. And I was wearing my Dollar and a Half cardigan, which she designed! It was great! I have been thinking about buying her book Knitting Classic Style but hadn't done it yet, so that was great opportunity for me to buy it and get it signed. Yay! (Meanwhile Diana and Chloe humored me by coming along and waiting for me, and Diana ended up with $75 worth of lovely gray DK alpaca for a sweater.)

Although I didn't go crazy buying yarn the way I did last year, I did have a lot of fun shopping with Diana and Chloe. They were fun. Chloe went a little crazy with all the beautiful yarn around, and Diana got some great stuff too. Big fun.

The other crazy thing that happened was with the knitting competition. I finished the Bayerische socks last week. I immediately wore them to school, where Kathy (big knitter/owner of sheep/etc., also part of our department staff) told me I should enter them in the competitions at Rhinebeck. I thought about it, but then I sort of forgot. Well anyway, we saw that the item that won the small items competition was the EXACT SAME PATTERN as the one I used. Bayerische socks out of Wollmeise, while mine were out of Shibui. I still haven't decided how to feel about this development. But I think that it has made me realize that maybe my knitting is good enough to enter in competitions. Next year!

We also saw some fun animals: sheep, alpacas, llamas, goats, and from afar a huge turtle, lemurs, and a kangaroo. Then we went home. Yay!

Olympics, etc.

2008-08-26T01:33:00.002-04:00

I've been negligent on this blog. The entire Ravelympics happened and I didn't post once! Many apologies.

For those who don't know, the Knitting Olympics goes like this: you decide on a project ahead of time that would be a personal challenge for you. Then you do it within the time span of the Olympics.

I decided to do the Dollar and a Half Cardigan by Véronik Avery. I used a lovely colorway of Valley Yarns Northampton. And here it is!

And I only had this much yarn to spare!

Here's a picture of it on me. An unfortunate picture of me, but we do what we can.

I finished the cardigan in nine days, including blocking and drying. I feel like I should have challenged myself more. Then again, I really didn't do anything else during those nine days. I think the biggest thing I learned was how far I've come as a knitter. Two years ago, for the Knitting Olympics, I attempted to make socks, and I failed. This time I tried a bigger project and really breezed through. Wow. Maybe next time I'll make a blanket. Or maybe I'll get really into insane fair isle and do some really amazing Starmore pattern. Hehe, very ambitious.

Since I finished the cardigan, I finished some wristwarmers for my friend Kyra.

They're the Rose's wristwarmers pattern, inspired by a dramatic episode in the new Doctor Who series. They're made with Classic Elite Inca Alpaca. This yarn is amazing, soft, beautiful, and warm.

I've also been working a very little bit on Emerson's gansey and the Bayerische socks. In the meantime, I started the Pea Pod baby sweater (a Kate Gilbert pattern) for Alina, the daughter of some friends. I've got the body done and started one sleeve: one and a half sleeves to go, sewing up, then the collar. Next on the list is the Yarn Harlot's Baby Yours sweater for my next cousin-to-be.

Still, I feel like I'm in a bit of a knitting lull post-Olympics. I finished up a lot of stuff so I wouldn't have to do it during the Olympics, and now the stuff I have going has been in hibernation for awhile. Maybe I'll start the Christmas knitting. Two thirds of the year is already over!

stuff I've eaten

2008-08-22T12:52:00.002-04:00

This doesn't relate to knitting at all, except that some of my knitting friends have done it too. But it's fun!

Here's the original list with Wikipedia links.

Note: a lot of my answers are guesses. There are many things I've eaten in Taiwan that I don't know the exact identity of. If I wasn't sure, I mostly said I hadn't eaten it.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a ~~fat cigar~~
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more -- probably, I've had malt whiskey with Scott, whose tastes run really expensive.
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel MMM one of my favorites
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal -- that's right, never had a Big Mac.
56. Spaetzle mmm another one of my favorites. I want some right now...
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian -- and I don't know why people think it smells so bad.
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini -- but not together, as far as I can remember.
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate -- no idea
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor -- I think yes, but it may have been lobster Newburg.
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Total: 57.5/100. Pretty good, I think!

Free Tibet!

2008-08-08T17:05:00.001-04:00

None of us are free until ALL of us are free!

Students for a Free Tibet

In other news, Knitting Olympics are go!

summer knitting again

2008-08-03T19:11:00.003-04:00

So... I've sort of given up doing work this summer and am now spending all of my time knitting. What have I been knitting, you may ask.

Well, for one thing I finished those Baudelaire socks. I knit the second one with the instructions for the larger instep, decided I liked it better, ripped out the cuff of the first one, and reknitted it. I'm pleased with the results.

Then I started the Bayerische socks, which are basically totally nuts. They're out of a gorgeous shade of Shibui sock (much darker than pictured.) I love them to bits. I've finished one and most of the cuff of the second. I put them down for a bit because I think the tiny needles and twisted stitches were beginning to hurt my hands. Also because Snowflake gave me the new Civ game for the DS (!!!).

The scariest thing about the Bayerische sock was that I came really close to running out of yarn for the first sock. That is, I bought two hanks, and was really hoping that the first sock would take only one. I made it! This is what remained.

I've also been working on a couple of test knits for Kristin. A Faroese shawl, much closer to maroon in real life.

And a Tilli Tomas one-shoulder top, which will eventually have a sleeve.

I also dragged my friend Kyra to Woolcott on basically the flimsiest excuse ever. (She mentioned that she didn't have a measuring tape, we were in the area,...) So now I'm making her a pair of wristwarmers, the ones that Rose wears in that one episode of the new series. One is done, and it's in a lovely browny-purple shade of Classic Elite Inca Alpaca. Also darker in real life. I think I should learn to take pictures.

In other news, I've signed up for the Ravelympics, Team Cellular Peptide Cake, Sweater Sprint event. I'm planning to make the Dollar and a Half cardigan by Veronik Avery in a gorgeous heathered browny-maroon colorway of Valley Yarns Northampton. It's all I can do but keep from casting on before the 8th. I even swatched.

to frog or not to frog?

2008-07-15T16:28:00.003-04:00

Have I been talking a lot about frogging lately?

Well, I made a beautiful sock.

It's Cookie's Baudelaire pattern out of Valley Yarns Huntington. In real life it's darker (a lot like that second picture) and a little more red.

Here's the thing. Although the sock fits me nicely, the cuff isn't particularly stretchy. This means that while it fits, it's difficult to get the cuff on over my heel. So I'm thinking of frogging the cuff down to the heel, and then re-knitting it on needles one size bigger. Or just leaving it. What do you guys think?

off to frogland

2008-07-09T12:06:00.002-04:00

My knitting has sort of reached a halt right now. I'm doing two test knits: one out of silk Tilli Tomas yarn, and one out of alpaca. I've been working on the alpaca one because I like working with alpaca way more than I like working with silk. However, there were some errors in the (as yet unpublished) pattern, and now I have to frog it back. This is a pattern that started with "CO 630 sts." Ah well, I guess this is the whole point of test knitting: to find the errors before the pattern gets put on the market. So I've been hesitant to do this frogging and instead been playing a lot of Planet Puzzle League for the DS.

But I think I have pictures for you guys!

Emerson's gansey sleeves are coming along. According to the pattern, they're long enough to start decreasing, but I'm worried that Emerson has extra-long arms. So they're sitting for the moment.

I also knitted a hat for my other roommate, Noah. This is out of Noro Kochoran and is the Veronik Avery pattern Short-Row Hat. I love this pattern and this is the third one I've made. I need to make a fleece lining though, because Noah is allergic to wool.

This is what the Tilli Tomas deal looks like.

Also, inspired by Zarzuela, I knit a couple of Spring Forward socks. Love these! This is out of Misti Alpaca Handpainted Sock yarn, which is the best thing ever, although not machine washable. So worth it.

changing colors

2008-06-09T17:07:00.002-04:00

My house is changing colors. The inside. That is, we're painting.

So my family went to Australia, which was super awesome. While we were there, the floors of two rooms in our house were redone. (They pulled up the carpet and refinished the original hardwood floor.) Then in the couple days after, they redid the floor in another room. (They pulled up the carpet and installed a floor of laminated bamboo.) Then we decided the walls didn't go with the floor anymore and spent the weekend picking out paint colors and starting to paint. The room with the bamboo floor is going to have "Cosmic Ray" colored walls and "Kimono" colored trim. I hate color names that say nothing about what the color is. The walls will be a light aqua and the trim is a lovely blue. In the rooms with the hardwood floors, we're doing "Linen Ruffle" walls and "Earth Rose" trim. Slightly more descriptive. And in the stairs we're doing the same colors but also with "Aster Petal" kickboards. That's a very light blue. I'm just writing all this on the assumption that knitters like colors.

By the way, I could totally knit on planes in Australia. Before going, I read a ravelry board about security in Australia, and it really seemed like a crapshoot. I was worried about losing my needles, so this is what I did. I have the Knit Picks Options Harmony needles, so before going through security I unscrewed the tips and stuck them in a separate part of my bag, hoping that they would look no more dangerous than wooden pencils. I stuck a pen in that pocket too, to further invite the comparison. My knitting was just on the cables. Then once I was on the plane, I reassembled the whole thing and nobody gave me grief about knitting on the plane. This got me through an international flight to Australia (no problem since that was from America, where they don't care if you knit on the plane,) a domestic flight within Australia, a domestic flight within Australia that was continuing to an international location, so we had to do some of the international security stuff, and an international flight out of Australia.

What was I knitting on these planes and all over Australia? I was knitting Emerson's gansey, which now only needs sleeves, button band/collar, and finishing. I was also knitting two rainbow scarves for some Gay Presbyterians.

Here's the first one, done in the Yarn Harlot's one-row scarf pattern:

Here's the second one, done in a drop-stitch pattern of my own devising:

And the two together, where you can see how interesting and exciting the pooling was.

You can also see our lovely new bamboo floor in these pictures.

Actually, working with the terrible acrylic yarn wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be. I think it was because I had spent weeks going to Knitting Liberally and listening to people gripe about it, since we were all doing this project. Also, I had a really good time watching the crazy pooling effects. Kind of cool.

I also finished the socks for my mom in Australia. Hurrah!

Now I'm working on a vest for that same mom. It's this pattern, very heavily modified. I am making the front to look like the back, so absolutely no plaid. It's in brown. And it might not have buttons, I haven't quite decided. I'm making good progress: armhole shaping is now underway, and I'm about to start the neck shaping.

Last, I have finally made a move on a hat that my other roommate Noah has been coveting for some time. See, back when I made a hat, nay, two hats for my friend Kyra, Noah liked it a lot. The problem is that the pattern (Veronik Avery's Short Row Hat) really calls for a yarn with a very long color change, and Noah is allergic to wool. We went to WEBS to look for an appropriate yarn, but to no avail. Noah also became quite sad on this trip when he realized that the best yarns are made of wool and he has been longing after a swatch he found there ever since. The only yarn I've heard of with a long color change and no wool is Noro Sakura, which is discontinued and very hard to find. However, since TECHknitter has started talking about lining hats with polar fleece, I gained hope that I might be able to make a nice wool hat lined with fleece that will not make my roommate itch. So then we embarked on a quest to find the yarn that made the swatch that Noah loved so much.

I was pretty sure it was Noro Kochoran, but Noah didn't think so, and it looks like WEBS doesn't carry Kochoran any more. Much internet research happened, and finally today I placed an order for a ball of Kochoran in a discontinued colorway on eBay. I'll let you guys know how it goes!

Mom's Steps

2008-05-18T15:23:00.003-04:00

I'm back home in Lexington and my mom tried on the first of the Austermann Step socks I made for her. It fits!

More accurate colors:

Close up:

The colorway is number 32. I think that pretty much all of the colorways stripe, but I don't know how to find how they turn out other than to try. This is the striping I tried to describe awhile back.

I've cast on the second one.

picture time!

2008-05-17T10:20:00.002-04:00

I've been knitting some bmp socks. They're done!

These socks were a commission by Julie, a friend of a friend.

She's vegan, so I made these out of Berocco Comfort Sock, half nylon and half acrylic.

This is my second real colorwork project, after the Anemoi mitts. For this one, I learned how to twist the strands together so that there would be no floats. Good plan, for socks.

I feel like the stitches sometimes came out a little uneven, but I guess it's alright. It might get better with washing, too.

The shooter is done in duplicate stitch. The last equals sign above is also done in duplicate stitch, because I forgot it the first time around.

Anyway, I think they're a success. I didn't really like working with the acrylic, and it definitely fought my new Knit Picks harmony sock needles. But I've also been using those needles for my mom's Austermann Step socks, and I love them. The upside of the acrylic is that it really resisted ladders. I was perfectly ladder-free on the plain foot section.

In the meantime, I've been working on a gansey for my roommate Emerson. It's been fun! I'm using Valley Yarns Northampton and loving it. It feels good and it's exactly sheepy enough. Smells great.

Emerson likes cardigans so this is not really a traditional gansey. I'm using the Seahouses Cardigan pattern from Patterns for Guernseys, Jerseys, and Arans by Gladys Thompson. I used a channel island cast-on that I learned from Knitting Ganseys by Beth Brown Reinsel. I plan to knit in Emerson's initials as well (seed stitch letters from the second book) and so I left a stockinette section on the back, followed by 5 rows of garter.

I started this project using size 7 needles, but I had all sorts of gauge issues and it turned out too small. I was past the armhole shaping on the back before I decided this. So I pulled it off the needles and cast on a new one one size up. I've done about one and a half repeats of the pattern and it looks much closer to the right size.

Here's the first one, now doomed, in an early stage:

Here's the new one in its current state:

The colors are pretty accurate here.

Here's some detail, with a wholly inaccurate color:

Emerson is totally into this gansey. He gets very excited talking about it. He's started to use "gansey" as an adjective, as in "That's definitely gansey." Shortly after I started the first one, he asked how soon he could wear it. I told him he could wear it immediately, and then he proceeded to spend an hour watching tv and holding the gansey to his torso. It was very cute, but he doesn't want me to post pictures of him. :(

Meanwhile, I've started a Clapotis.

What was I thinking when I chose these colors? I'm enjoying the knitting, but I don't like the colors at all. I hope that I can find someone who will love it. The only thing is that now I'm using the same needle size for the gansey and the clapotis. I only have one set of size 8 tips, so this means that I'm not really actively working on both at the same time.

Phew, that was a lot of pictures!

yarn lust, lust for yarn

2008-05-15T21:29:00.002-04:00

I have a dream. A dream to make a Central Park Hoodie out of Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran Tweed. But... it would be lots of money. I think about it sometimes.

Let's not think about the 6 WIPs I have going right now. Or the 4 papers I still have to write.

some socks

2008-04-29T23:20:00.002-04:00

I bought some Austermann Step at WEBS the other day. It's treated with aloe vera and jojoba oil. I decided to make a pair of socks for my mom, since her feet get really dry. Plain vanilla socks: these will have a 2x2 ribbed cuff, a heel flap, and a stockinette foot. I wasn't sure what the colorway would look like, so I decided not to risk some sort of pattern clash.

I'm a few inches in and here's what the colorway looks like: thick stripe of dark blue, thin of cream, thin of gray, thin of cream, thick stripe of light blue, thin of cream, thin of dark blue, think of cream, thick stripe of gray, thin of cream, thin of light blue, thin of cream, repeat. In other words, thick stripes in three colors. In between, small triplet stripes which consist of two cream stripes sandwiching a stripe in the color that does not appear on either side of the triplet stripe. Yeah, a picture would have been better. You guys will just have to wait.

I love the way the stripes are coming.

I also got a skein of Misti Alpaca Handpaint Sock, which is amazing. It's like a dark maroon/purple. It's for me, someday.

A Very Harlot Sunday

2008-04-27T18:03:00.002-04:00

Whee! Today the Yarn Harlot came to WEBS. It was super fun. Here's how things went.

The WEBS event is, of course, huge. Stephanie was there from 11-1 signing books, then went to the Calvin for speeching at 2, then back to WEBS to sign. I'm sure she's still there now.

I showed up shortly after 11:30 and found WEBS an absolute zoo. Mobs of people at the cash registers. I found Tina and then got in line with Knitting Liberally. I acquired my Knitting Liberally t-shirt and made my way through the line. It was kind of fun to move slowly through WEBS as we went through the line. I usually move so quickly through there that I don't have time to peruse the yarn the way I did today. Anyway, there were so many people that we almost didn't make it to the signing table before 1. We gave Stephanie a Knitting Liberally mug, learned a little bit about the Canadian political system, and broke for lunch. Oo, and since there was such a mob at the cash register, we got to leave our signed books on hold so we can pay for them later this week. It pays to know someone on the inside.

We stopped for lunch at Luna before making our way to the Calvin. Poor Luna - they were totally unprepared for the fact that they were one of the most convenient eateries between WEBS and the Calvin. Mimmo's (the pizza place across the street from Luna) wasn't open when we went in to Luna, but they were opened by the time we got out. I think someone sent them a memo.

The Yarn Harlot's speech was hilarious and insightful. I'm so glad I went. It was very funny, and she also convinced me that as a knitter, I am in a healthier mental state, better at learning, happier, and less susceptible to mental trauma. Score!

In other news, I need to finish the surprise. I think it will involve un-knitting about 700 stitches and then re-knitting a large number of stitches. No worries, though. I've more or less finished the first bmp sock (the one with the little dudes) and I'm going to start the second (high score) sock soon. I'm also making some good progress on the Henley Perfected. Cherie Amour needs sewing up. And I should probably do some homework one of these days...

Oh, also, I just discovered that sometimes people post comments on the blog! I've changed the settings so now they'll be emailed to me. Thanks for the comments, guys!

IK summer 08

2008-04-25T23:26:00.000-04:00

The Interweave Knits Summer 2008 preview is up. Aaah! I love it so much!! So much lace! The lace hoodie is a the very top of my list, but there are tons of patterns I want to make in here.

babies!

2008-04-08T08:00:00.003-04:00

I have some square dancer friends who moved out the western Mass about a year and a half before I did. They had a baby 7 weeks and 1 day ago and so I decided to knit her a hat. Yesterday, I went to their house to deliver it.

Sadly, the hat was too small. But that's ok, baby hats take like no time to make and I'm happy to make another one. They mentioned that she might have a doll who the hat could fit on. So I have another hat in the making. Pictures:

with flash

no flash

I am one of (it seems) the minority of knitters who don't really care about photography. I may get into it at some point...

Anyway, it was really great to see Seth and Bethany again, and to meet baby Alina. I haven't seen them since I moved out here, so there was lots of catching up to do. I couldn't stay for dinner because I needed to run off and write a paper, but I definitely want to visit them more.

The hat is from the Pea Pod set from Interweave. When I make the new baby hat, I think I will go for the matching sweater as well. Probably aiming for about nine months here. When she's six months old, it'll be August, and you won't need a sweater, not even in wintry Pelham.

While I'm posting pictures, I might as well show you a test knit I recently finished. This is a "Bamboo" Lace Jacket (made out of silk) by Kristin. The lace turned out lovely...

...although my photography, as usual, did not.

startitis continues

2008-04-05T12:54:00.002-04:00

Woodside is coming along nicely.

Cherie Amour was looking really good in the below-waist skirt (peplum?) area. Then when I got to the ribbing, the colors started spiraling, which I found incredibly pleasing. Unfortunately, the return to lace after the ribbing resulted in nasty pooling. It was upsetting. So I ripped back to the ribbing and now I've been working two rows with one hank, two rows with another hank, on and on. So that's going, although I've put it aside for the last few days.

My mom visited and I managed to convince her to take me to WEBS and buy me $100 worth of yarn. ON SALE, so it's even more yarn than it sounds like. I got 9 skeins of RYC Cashsoft DK, which I plan to use for Henley Perfected from the winter Interweave Knits. I'm doing this as a mini-KAL with my friend Vera. This was actually premeditated yarn: I put some yarn for this project on my wishlist for Christmas. My mom was all set to get it and then realized that the store was in Northampton, and decided it was silly to ship it to Kentucky, then fly it back to Northampton. So instead she forgot about it, and then we decided to go get it. I'm glad because I requested Dale of Norway Falk, which I have not met in person, but I felt some Dale of Norway Hauk and did NOT like it at all. This RYC is a much better call, I think. Hmm, the WEBSite tells me that Hauk is treated with Teflon, while Falk is "wonderfully soft". Well, anyway, the yarn we did buy is delightful.

I also got 4 skeins of my very first Cascade 220. It's in a color and will be used for a project that is a surprise. If you're on ravelry, you can probably click on the SURPRISE WIP bar and find out more about it. I'm about 1/4 of the way through the project and really enjoying working with this yarn.

Last, I got 5 skeins of my very first Cascade 220 Superwash, in a reddish-brownish heather. This is for a vest for my mom. Mine will looking nothing like those pictures, as it will all be in one color. I hope to make the front a little like the back in terms of ribbing and cables. Hopefully it will work out.

In other news, I have pictures of Sheldon! This is a project I knit for Knitting Liberally's charity knitting project. I believe he is currently at NELCWIT. He was super fun to make. I made him in two colors of green Valley Yarns Superwash, generously donated by WEBS, and using needles sizes 3 and 4. He is much lighter in person, these pictures came out a little dark. I love this little guy.

it doesn't count as startitis if you're finishing things

2008-03-31T20:21:00.003-04:00

Recently, I finished a really big project: Snowflake's second sweater. It's Anniversary from Knitty, in Knit Picks Andean Silk, Cranberry colorway with Slate stripe. Snowflake hasn't tried it on and I'm not sure about the sleeve length and bagginess. I might hem the sleeves. I LOVE this yarn. The sweater is so soft and nice. It does shed a bit, but it's so lovely it doesn't matter.

Right after, I started a baby hat for Alina, a new baby out here. It's the hat from the Pea Pod baby set. I had all sorts of problems with it because I'm too dumb to read the pattern, and so I reknitted it about four times, but I still got it done the same day I started. Yay baby hats.

After that, I cast on for Snowflake's next sweater, Woodside. It's a lovely pattern and I'm really enjoying it. I also cast on Cherie Amour for myself. I'm up to the ribbing around the waist and I love how it's looking.

I will take some pictures eventually, I promise.

colors!

2008-02-23T22:50:00.002-05:00

Tina and I have decided to have a mini-KAL in which we learn colorwork while knitting the Anemoi mitts in the month of February. We see each other at Knitting Liberally on Tuesdays, so that's been pretty much when we check in with each other and whatnot.

First Tuesday of February: Tina is not at Knitting Liberally. KAL is postponed.
Second Tuesday of February: Tina and Anisa swatch during Knitting Liberally. All goes well.
Third Tuesday of February: Anisa has not cast on because she does not have size 0 needles. Tina has cast on on size 0 needles and found that the cuff is too small.

That Wednesday: Anisa casts on on size 1s.
That Thursday: Anisa decides the cuff is too small and does a different cast on on size 1s. Anisa becomes obsessed with the mittens.
That Friday: Totally obsessed.
That Saturday and a couple languishing homework assignments and ignored knitting obligations later: Anisa is done with mitten 1 except for the thumb.

I ran into Tina at WEBS and brazenly showed off mitten 1. Tina is paying attention to her more pressing knitting obligations and is sad about the mittens. I do feel bad about that.

Totally obsessed though.

vacation knits

2008-01-10T15:31:00.000-05:00

A LOT of knitting has happened on break. More knitting than anything else, really. Well, maybe more tv watching than knitting. Sadly, I think I left my camera cord in MA, so no pictures for right now. I'm including lots of links to make up for it.

I did a pair of Wine and Roses Mitts from a favorite Interweave Knits magazine, out of the lovely light purple fingering weight from yarnchef.

I did three hats for my aunt, uncle, and cousin. My aunt got Le Slouch (link is to a pdf) out of SWTC Karaoke in Mermaid Mix, which she loved. My uncle got a plain stockinette-stitch hat with rolled brim and raglan-style decreases, out of Araucania Nature Wool in a light blue. My cousin got a version of Blue Hills in an incredibly soft bright orange Elisabeth Lavold Chunky AL.

I also finally finished these gloves for my brother. They are Cigar, except with full fingers. They are in Louet Gems, bluebird colorway. I absolutely love that yarn and I need something to make with the rest. :)

Since break started, I have almost finished Roam. It's a sweater I started in October, but by December I had really only made about an inch of the back. I've done a ton of knitting on it. It's almost entirely plain seed stitch... back, two front sides, two sleeves, and a hood. By the way, hoods are ginormous. It was all out of my first cone yarn, a sport-weight tweedy purple that I got from Rhinebeck. The seaming was the worst part, because although the yarn was well-behaved during knitting, it broke repeatedly during seaming. Very annoying! Then came an applied i-cord on the zipper sides, which was surprisingly not that annoying, and blocking. Ready for the zipper!

Sadly, there are no stores in the area (Kingsland, GA) that sell zippers. We found a sewing store, but apparently it was the sort of place you take things to get them hemmed. They said that the only place to get zippers was Wal-Mart, but they didn't have any separating ones. So no go there. I went online and found pretty much the perfect zipper: 22", plastic, fuchsia, separating, but they don't really let you buy $2.30 worth of stuff online. So I bought about $10 worth of thread along with it and paid like $6 in shipping... yeah, but eventually I'll have my zipper.

Since then I've been working on Mystery Shawl 6 out of some laceweight off-white alpaca that I got at Magpie in Lexington. J. Knits Lace-a-Licious in colorway Eureka. Ooh, I just noticed that their Kentucky colorway is a gorgeous blue! Anyway, the Mystery Shawl is not that mysterious, since I didn't start it until all the clues were out. It is really pretty though. I'm just a few rows into Clue 3 right now.

In other news, Snowflake loves his sweater even more than I was aware of. He wears it all the time, he gets upset if he accidentally gets it dirty, etc. He is now way more interested in my knitting and really wants more sweaters! It's really exciting! I made the mistake of showing him some Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk in the yarn store in Wilmington, and now he really wants a sweater out of it, even though it would be like $200. I briefly forgot how much he likes silk when I let him see that. As a compromise, we ordered some Knit Picks Andean Silk for another sweater. Can't wait until that comes in!

Back to knitting!

some pictures

2007-12-11T19:37:00.000-05:00

I think it's about time I posted some pictures.

These are the sock wars socks, II. I did not finish making these, but rather mailed them off shortly afterward.

This is the shawl in a state of frogging after I made a critical error. This shawl is now done, blocked, and mailed off. More pictures to come.

This is Snowflake wearing his Saranac. It turned out beautifully! I completely forgot to do the row of single crochet around the neck, but I was so excited by my success in sewing in the zipper that I just didn't care. We'll see if I go back and fix it.

This is some lovely yarn that I bought from Yarn Chef, an Etsy store. It is even more gorgeous than this in real life. The lighter one has almost become a pair of Wine and Roses Mitts.

These are the thoughtful add-ons that came with my Etsy order. They made me feel so special. The yarn also came with color-coordinated stitch markers! These are the first legitimate stitch markers I have ever owned. They were featured in the previous picture. I used them for the Wine and Roses Mitts as well.

This is some alpaca that my parents bought me from some random Kentucky vendor they found. It's lovely.

More of the same.

I don't think I posted about this before, so I'll post about it now. I made a Veronik Avery Short-Row Hat for my friend Kyra:

I absolutely loved this project, by the way. She loved it too. After a couple of days, the hat was STOLEN off a pile of coats. She was really upset. So I promised to make her another one just like it. Luckily, WEBS still had some of the same dye lot left and so I could use the same yarn (the first hat took just over one ball, so I had a lot of that left) although it really wouldn't have mattered if the dye lots were different. Anyway, I made that and Kyra loved it. Pictures of that to come as well.

many things have happened lately

2007-11-14T15:48:00.000-05:00

1. I joined a knitting circle called Knitting Liberally. We meet in a cafe and knit for a couple hours on Tuesdays. It's fun! We chat about stuff. We're supposed to talk about liberal-type things, which sometimes happens. We are also organizing some charity knitting, which will be fun.

2. I participated in Sock Wars II. It's a KAL where everybody knits a pair of socks really fast and then mails them off to their "victim". When you get a pair of socks in the mail, you are dead and you mail your unfinished socks to your assassin, who then tries to take out your former victim. I got my dossier on a Friday evening, when I was totally unprepared. I went out and bought yarn on Saturday morning and had the socks in the mail Monday before I left for school. Then I waited about a week for my victim's socks to get to me. The second pair were less interesting, so I more or less dawdled until my own death came. Whee!

3. Rhinebeck was totally awesome!!! I went with a girl from my Finnish class, Colleen. She was looking for fleece for felting and I was looking for yarn. I bought some lovely purple tweed from Ginger Hill Farm for Roam. It's on a cone! I got some merino lace in a lovely gray and some green bamboo-blend sock yarn from Maple Creek Farm. I got five skeins of Morehouse Farm Merino for Cherie Amour. I got some angora/wool blend in a really pretty light blue from Oasis Farm Fiber Mill. That's going to be a neck warmer type thing, I think. Last but not least, a deep purple lace merino from Silver Moon Farm. It was totally awesome! I spent a ton of money but it was well-timed: I got my paycheck, including six weeks of backpay for my second job, the day before. We also went to the totally awesome petting zoo and played with tortoises, baby goats, kangaroos, and other awesome animals. I communed with some roving and decided that I really needed to take up spinning, but also that I probably shouldn't buy any totally beautiful roving before I knew what to do with it. We saw the sheepdog trials, which were really fun, touched some qiviut, which was craaazy soft and craaazy expensive, and ate fried ravioli, cheese fries, and apple crisp. It was a really good day.

4. I started a Dayflower Daydream shawl, but was quickly distracted by the test shawl.

5. I have been working on Snowflake's Saranac. It's getting huge and really close to done. I have a few more rows, then I just need to bind off, pick up and knit the collar, bind that off, sew the zipper, graft the armpits and sew the collar, and weave in the ends. Really really close. It's getting hard, though, because it's not at all portable any more.

6. I started Roam, but I haven't done much with it either.

7. I've been test-knitting a shawl. I started out sort of stressed because the thing is pretty big and I wasn't getting it done in a timely way at all. But then I found out that I had done triangle 2 (there are 4 triangles that make up a rectangle) totally wrong and I needed to rip it out. So I'm stalled there. The designer wasn't mad, and so now I guess I sort of have a break since it's obvious I won't be finishing it any time soon.

8. I've been listening to lots of knitting podcasts recently! So far, my favorites are Stash and Burn, Lime & Violet, Sticks and String, and Knitters Uncensored. Podcasts are awesome.

9. I've noticed that if I don't knit enough, I get a little testy. I've advised my housemate to tell me to knit some more whenever I get grumpy.

Ok that's all for now!

issues include:

2007-10-28T16:22:00.000-04:00

1. I have agreed to test knit a shawl and it's big and very repetitive and the person wants it in three weeks. Sigh. It'll be pretty though.
2. What I really want to knit is Snowflake's sweater. I have the body done up to the arm holes and 1.5 sleeves done. So close! But I have to knit this shawl instead. Which isn't really fair to Snowflake, but what's he going to do with a wool sweater in southern Georgia anyway?
3. OMG WORK. I am applying for an NSF fellowship, which means I've been spending all my time writing essays for that. Unfortunately, this precludes me writing essays for semantics, which are due tomorrow. Crappity crap. I also have two problem sets due on Tuesday. Double crap.

In other news, I ordered some blocking wires. I hope they come in soon!

a list of things to come

2007-10-24T13:01:00.001-04:00

Knitting Liberally - a knitting circle I joined up with last week
Sock Wars II - my continued struggle and eventual fuzzy death
Rhinebeck!!!
Dayflower Daydream shawl
Snowflake's Saranac continued
Roam
knitting podcasts continued
knitting as stess relief
perhaps some pictures!

WAR!

2007-10-15T15:54:00.000-04:00

So this weekend, I was engaged in a war. A sock war. Sock Wars II, to be exact. The way it works is everyone gets a victim. We all knit the same pair of socks. When you finish a pair of socks, you mail it to your victim, and when she gets it, she's dead and mails her unfinished pair of socks to you. Then you finish those socks and mail them to her victim. And so it goes until only one person is left standing.

I was behind. They told us what yarn and stuff to buy like two weeks in advance, yet when my TOP SECRET DOSSIER came on Friday evening, I had nothing on me. I was also picking up Snowflake from the Boston airport and all sorts of stuff, so I couldn't do a thing. On Saturday morning, Snowflake and I went to WEBS and I got the stuff for the Sock Wars sock, as well as some Trekking XXL that I plan to make into a helmet liner for my new friend Emerson. I spent the weekend working on those socks and finished them last night. I mailed them off first thing in the morning today. They are supposed to reach my victim by 3pm tomorrow. (Note: this is not quite as impressive as I make it sound, because the socks are knit in sport weight on size 3 needles. I'm not actually the fastest knitter there ever was.)

When we mail off the socks, we have the option of changing our victim's status from "Alive" to "Dying". Right now, my status is "Dying", but I haven't seen any socks yet and my assassin might just be trying to psych me out. At any rate, I think that my personal goal was to get my first pair of socks done before being killed. So, mission accomplished! I don't really need to spend the next few weeks frantically knitting other people's socks.

I suppose I will post pictures after my first victim is good and dead.

I'm knitting other stuff too. I finished the cabled green thing.

I also knit a rendition of this cap that costs a ton of money if you buy it off this store. Some people on Ravelry saw it and loved it, and I caught the fever, and I basically used Melody Parker Narvaez's sketched-out instructions for the thing. I like the result, although I may look a bit like a lobotomy patient in it.

Then I started on Saranac for Snowflake. He picked out the pattern from a few choices and picked out the yarn as well. It's Knit Picks Swish Superwash in Deep Ocean and I'm loving it. The color is a lot brighter than it looks on my computer screen, and I'm enjoying the experience of blue and more blue. Snowflake likes it too, and we think it will fit him. This is it so far.

Now what, you might ask, is missing from my life? Well, I've felt a little bit antsy not having any serious lace on my needles. I really need to grab a thousand or so yards of laceweight and just launch into a new shawl or something. That would be awesome.

In other news, I've been venturing into the world of knitting podcasts (and the world of podcasts in general.) First I downloaded an episode of Lime & Violet, which I enjoyed. Then I downloaded another episode, and also an episode of Stash & Burn and an episode of Cast On. I think so far I like Stash & Burn the best, probably because it is short enough to suit my attention span. The others are good too, though. I think the talking from Lime & Violet is more entertaining, but Cast On has really good music. But I will explore many more before I make any rash decisions about which podcasts I like and which podcasts I don't like.

Yes, so my knitting life is going quite well. Let's see how school goes this week...

birthdays and other such things

2007-09-25T16:19:00.000-04:00

I had a birthday! This is the knitting-related haul:

the whole set of Knit Picks Options in Harmony Wood, they are beautiful and amazing and I love them. Thanks Mom!

A Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara G. Walker, one of a series on which, like, every other knitting pattern book is based. Or so someone told me once.

Shawls and Scarves: The Best of Knitter's Magazine, a book with some really beautiful patterns. Thanks Dad!

Yaaay!

I am currently knitting a (sadly) acrylic bright green cabled... rectangle. I'm knitting it because I really wanted to try out the new needles. So much fun! I think it's going to be a hand towel or something. It depends on how long it is when I run out of yarn. Thankfully, I don't have too much of this stuff.

Pomatomus

2007-09-17T18:25:00.000-04:00

I've been working on the Pomatomus socks. These are likely - no, definitely my favorite socks ever. They are made out of beautiful purple Trekking XXL, which has a subtle striping thing going on that I just love. Plus, the pattern is just beautiful. I am thinking of doing lots more twisted 1x1 rib after this.

Nevertheless, these socks are taking forever. School really puts a crimp in my knitting habit.

I've also entered in the Sock Wars. You have to knit socks fast in order to "assassinate" other people, and at the end, you get a pair of socks. Yay!

driving over knitting

2007-08-28T11:01:00.000-04:00

I have spent that last two days driving myself and my car full of stuff from Kentucky to Massachusetts. As I had no other drivers in the car, there was no knitting done in these two days. However, I feel very accomplished as I have made it despite the fact that I was driving alone and the fact that I have only been able to drive a manual for about a week. Huzzah!

Anyway it was all for a good cause because I am near to Mecca, also known as WEBS. I also hope that on Wednesday I can meet the Noho knitting group, although it seems to be up in the air whether I can actually move into my apartment today. Eek!

Other than learning to drive, I have spent the last week casting on a ton of stuff, including:
Snowflake's blanket - third attempt, this one is with the Blue Fern Lap Robe pattern and I am optimistic although I don't like working with this yarn.
some gloves for Ben - out of this lovely Louet Gems superwash merino. My first attempt at round things on two circulars: I have found it sort of confusing, but it has been getting easier and the addi turbos and this yarn LOVE each other. I am using the pattern for Cigar from knitty, but I plan to put on all the fingers.
the Penobscot Silk Scarf - except I'm not making it out of silk. This is a simple little scarf from Interweave Knits about a year ago, the free patterns. I'm using up the Malabrigo laceweight from Wisp.
Lake Park hat - this is to go with the Lake Park gloves I made, and use up that ball of TOFUtsies. Unfortunately, I think it's coming out too small. I plan to frog it and either redo it with more stitches around or go a size up on needles.

Mystery Stole!!

2007-08-18T12:24:00.000-04:00

My Mystery Stole 3 is done but for blocking! Here are some pictures.

The whole thing!

The wing.

The "cat's paws" part.

The fancy diamondy part.

Of course, it all looks crappy not blocked. But it will look good soon!

mystery stole draws to a close

2007-08-18T01:19:00.000-04:00

I thought that when the last clue of the Mystery Stole came out, I would just race to the end and then throw the stole in the air and do dance. But somehow I'm lingering. I do a couple rows, I set it aside, eat a snack, play on the internet, pick it back up. I'm 5 rows away and I'm thinking of turning in for the night. Can it be? Maybe it's because the rows are pretty long.

In other news, I stated the Penobscot Silk Scarf to use up the leftover yarn from Wisp. it's not silk. It's fun though.

I'm pretty sleepy so I think I'll turn in.

how many socks in one ball of TOFUtsies?

2007-08-15T12:02:00.001-04:00

I'm going for another 4-sock ball of TOFUtsies. So... socks for Rachel!

2 seduction socks + 1 Rachel sock + 1 toe. And counting!

wispy

2007-08-14T01:35:00.001-04:00

Again, I've been knitting and watching tv all day. Ah, the summer. Today is different in that I'm also obsessing over Ravelry.

I was unhappy with the I Do that I was making out of Malabrigo Lace. Also, I am far away from both my stash and yarn stores and I am very short on yarn. So I ripped it back and cast on Wisp. It's super pretty!

It's pretty cool. It's a really easy lace pattern but it looks really nice and it's reversible!

ravelry!

2007-08-13T04:05:00.000-04:00

I'm in Ravelry! Yay! My name is anisa. Look me up!

Seduction socks

2007-08-10T02:06:00.001-04:00

Seduction socks, by Ann Budd. Tofutsies again. I love them.

4-day project. I am doing nothing but knitting and watching tv. And I played some Wii Sports today.

gloves!

2007-08-09T01:18:00.000-04:00

At long last, I have gloves!

Lake Park Gloves, by Marnie MacLean, from here.

Made with Tofutsies. Fun!

using up some yarn

2007-08-02T23:42:00.000-04:00

So I made a hat for my friend Ted, the last in the waiting list of people I promised hats to. I ended up with a whole extra ball of MC, so I decided to make some matching fingerless gloves.

Good times.

It's kind of interesting knitting right now because I'm separated from my stash and so I feel like I don't have a lot of options for new projects. Which is why I'm finishing projects I meant to do months ago and using up the leftover yarn from them. I might go to the yarn store tomorrow and buy a ball of Tofutsies for the new sock club socks.

I have a little bit of leftover yarn still from the hat and gloves. Maybe I could make a washcloth. Although, who wants a washcloth in 100% alpaca that will shed on everything and has to be hand-washed? I think not.

By the way, stuff I've made since the convertible:
Snowflake's hat, designed to match...
Snowflake's scarf, knitted to replace a similar scarf that accidentally went into the washing machine
June/July sock club (spiral) socks
short-cuff socks for my mom out of leftover yarn from sock club socks (that's 4 socks from one ball!!)
Ted's hat
Ted's knucks (above)
Mystery Stole 3, clues 1-4

Clue 5 comes out tomorrow!

mysteries, etc.

2007-07-31T02:53:00.000-04:00

No Blogger in China. Apparently The Party doesn't like blogger.

Three words: Mystery Stole 3.

the wild, wild west

2007-07-14T00:00:00.010-04:00

I'm in Lanzhou, China, once one of the most polluted cities in the world. It's crazy over here. It's "developing" and the cleanliness leaves something to be desired. I've been sick since we got to this city, although I felt sick before we got on the plane, so I can't really blame Lanzhou.

Knitting! I have finished the sock club socks. They were sort of an experiment. They ended up loose at the top and snug at the bottom, but they are wearable so I am keeping them. I had yarn left over so I made my mom a pair of socks with very short cuffs. That's a record 4 socks for one ball of yarn! Yay for Tofutsies!

Now I'm working on Snowflake's scarf again.

I should probably shower.

crazy travel, etc.

2007-07-01T20:33:00.000-04:00

Alright. I've been traveling all around and so knitting has fallen by the wayside a bit. I recently knitted a simple cable hat for Snowflake out of Baby Alpaca Grande and now I'm working on a matching scarf. The scarf is to replace one that I made awhile ago but his dad accidentally machine washed it. It was a sad time. Pictures of the new hat to come later.

I should start thinking about the June/July sock for the sock club. I bought a ball of Tofutsies already.

Convertible is done and stylin'!

2007-06-13T12:31:00.000-04:00

Pictures!
Blocking:

Wearing one way:

Wearing another way:

Convertible

2007-06-13T00:21:00.000-04:00

Convertible is almost done! It's all knitted and it's blocking right now. I also made the buttons. So all I have to do is wait for it to dry, yay! It's out of 2 skeins of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, blues and greens. Pictures later.

I'm back working on the trellis scarf now.

I just heard about ravelry.com, which looks super cool even though it's not open to the public yet.

quick update

2007-06-09T23:46:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy week and not much time for knitting! Still. I finished the Wheat Ear Cable Sweater sometime near the beginning of the week. Sunday, maybe? Well, finished except for some steaming, which isn't likely to happen soon, as I have packed the sweater away.

Ah, right, I should explain what has made this week busy. I graduated, I got engaged, I've been moving out of my dorm room and saying goodbye to all of my friends, my parents, brother, and boyfriend (oops, fiance!) have been visiting, and all that.

So the sweater is packed because it's wool and thus it would be unlikely for me to need it over the summer. Since then I've still been working on Convertible from Knitty and I've also started I Do from Knitty with a beautiful skein of malabrigo Lace I recently bought. (Color: blue surf.)

Yay!

new sweater

2007-05-29T02:18:00.000-04:00

I'm now making the Wheat-Ear Cable Yoke from Interweave knits, summer 2007. (It's the cover.) My friend Li-Mei and I are both making it at the same time, like a mini knit-along. She's got a head start on me, I just started it last night (Sunday night.) It's fun, even though I can hardly stand the stockinette after the Sunrise Circle Jacket. It knits up fast. I'm doing the front and back at the same time. I'll probably get to the cables tomorrow!

Also still working on Convertible from Knitty, although not today.

There's going to be a whole lot of knitting this summer.

now if only it weren't 95 degrees outside

2007-05-26T01:08:00.000-04:00

I finished the circle jacket!

Sunrise Circle Jacket, Interweave Knits, Spring 2006 (free pattern online.)

Made out of Knit Picks ShineWorsted (60% Pima Cotton, 40% Modal, machine washable,) Terra Cotta.

And with buttons I bought this afternoon from Northampton Wools.

Thanks to Meghan for taking the pictures. Yes, I am wearing my pajamas in these photos.

Yay!

half a sweater!

2007-05-23T20:17:00.000-04:00

I finished knitting the sweater! I sewed up all the hems and I've done one raglan seam, one sleeve seam, and one side seam. And I've woven in lots of the ends. Half a sweater!

I just have to sew the left side on, then buy and sew on the buttons. Er, toggles. And the toggle loops.

Half a sweater!

orange and more orange

2007-05-23T01:30:00.000-04:00

I'm so close to finishing the Sunrise Circle Jacket. Death by stockinette.

condom cozy is done!

2007-05-20T21:24:00.000-04:00

I have completed a project! I began this condom cozy a long time ago, but I was super lazy about sewing on the snap. I sewed the snap on today!

This one is with the condoms removed.

It's out of Lion Cotton. I think the color is called Orangeade. If I remember correctly, I made a 7in x 3in k2p2 ribbed rectangle on size 7 needles. Then I sewed it up, leaving 1.5in for the flap. Then I sewed on the snap. Yay!

I am trying to think of a reason someone might want a condom cozy. I am thinking that maybe it's simply a pouch for carrying around condoms so they're not just loose in your bag or whatever. Or maybe it can prevent a condom ring in your back pocket! Anyway, I just need to send it off to the intended owner (my friend Ryan) and I'm done!

going broke

2007-05-18T17:20:00.000-04:00

I am a bad person. Bad things I have done in the recent past:
- Bought all that yarn for the circle jacket. Although, as it turns out, it is just enough and I'm actually using it.
- Bought four different circular needles from Woolcott. I think that was last week.
- Bought $30 worth of yarn for a new project, which I fully plan to do. My friend and I are knitting it together, in different colors. It is the cover of the current issue of Interweave Knits. Wheat-Ear Cable Yoke, it's called.
- Gone to Woolcott again, even though I didn't need anything, and bought another circular needle and two (2) balls of Cherry Tree Hill.
- Convinced my friend that she should buy the entire set of KnitPicks Options. She's the same one who is making the Wheat-Ear Cable Yoke with me.
- In addition, I have set aside the Trellis Scarf (Interweave Knits, Spring 2006) for the Sunrise Circle Jacket (Interweave Knits, Spring 2006, also one of their free online patterns), and then set that aside for Convertible from Knitty, which I am making out of the Cherry Tree Hill. And I'm already thinking about the Wheat-Ear Cable Yoke, obviously.
- Not written my last two papers for college.

Marginally ok things I have done:
- Worked on the Sunrise Circle Jacket. The back and the left side are done and I have made a good start on the right side. After that is hemming and hawing (seaming), then something about toggle buttons, weaving in ends, and then we're done.
- Relaxed (I do have mono after all.)

addi natura

2007-05-13T14:59:00.000-04:00

My new love: addi NATURA needles. Mmm bamboo circular goodness. Also they're really pointy, yay!

Sunrise Circle Jacket

2007-05-09T12:59:00.000-04:00

Hello,

Alright, so on Monday I started the Sunrise Circle Jacket from Interweave Knits, Spring 2006. It's a really intimidating pattern actually: it's nine pages long (with pictures). However, I'm pretty good at following directions, so we will see.

I am using KnitPicks Shine Worsted, in the Terra Cotta color. Right now I'm just working on the back of the sweater, so nothing too intense so far.

news: more hermit sheep found in New Zealand

2006-04-02T14:50:00.000-04:00

http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2006/03/29/more_hermit_sheep_found_in_new_zealand/

Hahahaha.

Snowflake's hat

2006-03-20T00:40:00.000-05:00

I just made Snowflake a hat. It matches his scarf: it's out of Lion Brand Homespun and it's ribbed. No picture, sorry. I gave it to him immediately after I finished it.

knitting olympics

2006-02-25T09:49:00.000-05:00

Guess what's on my number 2 dpn's right now? NOTHING. That's right. I finished sock #1 around 3:30am last night and I haven't cast on sock #2 yet. Can I do it? A sock in two days? We shall see.

Olympic socks

2006-02-13T01:21:00.000-05:00

Olympic sock number 1 is going! It's gorgeous. I just turned the heel. Pictures later.

meme

2006-02-05T01:16:00.000-05:00

I don't usually do memes, but I felt like it, so here goes. Tagged by Jayne.

Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. Lab job cloning stuff.
2. Linguistics research.
3. TA for general chemistry.
4. Lab job fighting fruit flies.

Four movies you could watch over and over:
1. The Big Lebowski
2. The Hudsucker Proxy
3. Grosse Pointe Blank
4. High Fidelity

Four places you have lived:
1. Lexington, KY
2. Palmerston North, New Zealand
3. Zürich, Switzerland
4. Cambridge, MA

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. Coupling
2. Frasier
3. Futurama
4. Family Guy

Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Beaufort, NC
2. Acidalia, NY
3. Vancouver, BC
4. Goose Creek, SC

Four websites you visit daily:
1. Google
2. LJ friends
3. Webmail
4. Xanga friends

Four places you'd rather be right now (these are a bit of a stretch):
1. On my bed
2. South Carolina (in a bed)
3. New Zealand
4. In a recliner (possibly in South Carolina)

And I don't tag on principle.

just a quick update

2006-01-31T18:40:00.000-05:00

Squares for the afghan are going well.

Still stoked about knitting olympics!

My friend Kyra is considering learning how to knit so that she can join Team Wales for the olympics. Yay!

Contemplating starting some socks. The weather sucks, I need to be knitting something warm.

Team Wales!

2006-01-28T14:20:00.000-05:00

I'm on Team Wales! Team Wales comes with lots of awesome buttons, and I love them all, so here they are:

not sick anymore

2006-01-27T23:52:00.000-05:00

I'm well again! Whee.

And I have new buttons!

From here:

And, unrelated to knitting or the olympics:

2000 socks

2006-01-26T12:22:00.000-05:00

Yet another button! This girl named Amie wanted to see if bloggers can knit 2000 socks in the year 2006. I told her about the rainbow socks I finished earlier this month.

Button:

rings and things

2006-01-26T11:54:00.000-05:00

Ugh, I'm sick. Well, sick or something. I can't figure out what sort of illness I might actually have, and I've pretty much settled on the idea that it's probably allergies, but why would I have allergies in January? I looked at some website or other's pollen thingie and it did say that it's "4.3" around here, which is on the lower border of "Medium". As opposed to Boston, where it's "0.1", on the lower border of "Low". I don't really know what any of these things mean, but I feel miserable and just want to sleep and not do anything. Including knitting. I know, it's very sad.

But meanwhile, I have been looking at blogrings and things! I have joined New England Knits (see button on my sidebar, whee!) I wanted to join Knitting Blogs, but I read their rules very carefully: Must have a knitting blog (check), said blog must have existed for at least a month (check, I'm at a month and a day), said blog must have a post once a week for the past month (oo...) It seems that I didn't post for a good two weeks there. So I'll keep blogging and try it again in a couple of weeks.

This whole business is entirely too much fun.

blanket for Snowflake

2006-01-25T15:55:00.000-05:00

current project: blanket for Snowflake
designer: ??
pattern source: Vogue Knitting Stitchionary, number 198
yarn: Lion Suede prints in seacrest. machine washable but not dryable. 100% polyester.
yarn source: Michael's at Regency Centre. on sale!
needles: size 10 1/2, circular.
date begun: 2006.01.09ish

I'm making these squares right now and I have a vague plan to eventually paste them together using some sort of knitting/sewing/making a border in another color scheme. Yeah.

This is one of the squares.

If anyone read this blog, comments and suggestions would be welcome.

more knitting olympics!

2006-01-25T15:02:00.000-05:00

Ok, now I'm super excited. Lots of new buttons!

This one is from someone called The Mysterious K. I got it off Yarn Harlot.

These next are from Team Boston, with whom I have now joined up.

And these two are from the MIT team.

knitting olympics

2006-01-20T18:34:00.000-05:00

So, I have joined .

Yay! The deal is that I cast on a project during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, and finish it by the end of the Olympics. I've decided to make socks. More details later.

Therefore, thanks to some people named Jen and La, I have this button:

Woohoo!

rainbow socks

2006-01-06T18:18:00.000-05:00

finished project: rainbow socks
designer: Rose Limke and Bonnie Brockburg
pattern source: Knit It! magazine, 2004
yarn: Sockotta, The Plymouth Italian Collection, color #30. machine washable. 45% cotton, 40% superwash wool, 15% nylon. sort of a pastel rainbow mix.
yarn source: Ting Ting bought it for me during a sale at Windsor Button, in Boston.
needles: size 3 double-pointed
dates: 2005.12.14ish - 2006.01.06

picture

So I haven't really gotten the whole self-patterning thing down, but hey, they're sock-shaped.

They're for Mom.

socks/book

2006-01-04T22:50:00.000-05:00

The socks are all done except for weaving in the ends. Which I don't feel like doing right now, as I am in South Carolina and don't have anything on me except for double-pointed needles.

Also, I just read Yarn Harlot, a really funny book written by this woman. If you like knitting, I highly recommend it. She reminds me of the woman who wrote Eats, Shoots & Leaves in that the one is crazy about knitting the way the other one is crazy about punctuation. Except that Eats, Shoots & Leaves is more of a how-to about punctuation, and Yarn Harlot is more a collection of funny knitting-related anecdotes. Anyway, I recommend it.

Molly's shawl

2005-12-30T16:00:00.000-05:00

finished project: Molly's shawl
designer: ???
pattern source: Lion Brand website
yarn: Lion Suede prints in two colors: canyon and orchard. machine washable but not dryable. 100% polyester.
yarn source: Michael's at Regency Centre. on sale!
needles: size 13 circular, size K crochet hook.
dates: 2005.12.27 - 2005.12.30

It's gorgeous! Yay! I'm so excited. I think I'll get to give it to her tomorrow.

Pictures!

the whole thing
zoomed in a little so you can admire my handiwork
zoomed in even more

I ended up doing the pattern 12 times instead of 10 because it looked small. I hope it's big enough. Of course, as per usual, I didn't even pretend to check my gauge. I used up two balls of "canyon" for the orange bit and then one and a half balls of "orchard" for the pinkish bit.

All done!

Molly's shawl

2005-12-28T01:49:00.000-05:00

current project: Molly's shawl
designer: ???
pattern source: Lion Brand website
yarn: Lion Suede prints in two colors: canyon and orchard. machine washable but not dryable. 100% polyester.
yarn source: Michael's at Regency Centre. on sale!
needles: size 13 circular, size K crochet hook.
date begun: December 27

I'm putting the socks aside at least until I finish this shawl. That's the plan, anyway. The shawl looks awesome and Molly's really going to love it. The "canyon" color is a mix of oranges and the "orchard" color is more a mix of dulled purple-orange-red shades. I'm going to use up two balls of the "canyon" and then start with the "orchard". The shawl is worked from the top center out, so this should look pretty cool.

rainbow socks

2005-12-26T00:43:00.000-05:00

current project: rainbow socks
designer: Rose Limke and Bonnie Brockburg
pattern source: Knit It! magazine, 2004
yarn: Sockotta, The Plymouth Italian Collection, color #30. machine washable. 45% cotton, 40% superwash wool, 15% nylon. sort of a pastel rainbow mix.
yarn source: Ting Ting bought it for me during a sale at Windsor Button, in Boston.
needles: size 3 double-pointed
date begun: December 14 or thereabouts

status: I finished one sock and I'm most of the way through the cuff of the second.

I suppose I will post pictures when these are done.

Other things I'm thinking of:

Snowflake (boyfriend) wants me to make a throw for his new couch. The couch is off-white, so I'm thinking maroon, or maybe some type of blue. I just got the first volume of Vogue Knitting's Stitchionary and Snowflake picked stitch number 198 for the throw. But I didn't bring the book home over break and I don't really remember what it looked like. I think I will do it in pieces and sew it together, unless I get a better idea.

Molly (aunt) would like me to make her a triangular shawl. Her requests: a pretty open weave, grey, maybe with fringe, fuzzy. I'm thinking of using Lion Brand Moonlight Mohair if it's soft. Molly especially liked this pattern I found, so I think I'll go with that. Need to buy: yarn, size 13 circular needle, size K hook. If Michael's is well-stocked, I might be able to get this done before I leave for Boston again.

I love this cape. Ooooh.

new blog

2005-12-25T13:20:00.000-05:00

Hello, I'm Anisa. If you want to figure out who I actually am, you might consult Deviating or MIT. But for right now, this is going to be my knitting blog.

I'm 20 years old and I've been knitting since I was probably about eight. I'm not a particularly fancy knitter: I like to make hats and scarves, and I'm recently getting into socks. I'm pretty good with lace, and I'm not so good with things like color, modules, felting, etc. I expect I will get more practice with felting when I don't live in a college dorm where washers are 75 cents to use.

I am currently working on a pair of socks that I started near the beginning of finals week. They are made from some rainbow-colored sock yarn that my friend Ting Ting bought for me. More later.