The feats and foibles of a fiber fanatic.
12/29/2005
About 2 weeks ago, Snow tagged me with the knitting meme about the projects you’ve knit. I’ll go ahead and play, but I must warn you that since I’ve only knit for two years it probably won’t be the most exciting set of answers you’ve seen in knitblog land…
Make a List of all the Different types of items you’ve knitted and completed:
1. Dish Cloths
2. Wash Cloths
3. Scarves (garter, lace, multi-directional, seed stitch, etc.)
4. Tank Top
5. Socks (mostly variations on a rib, but some lace as well as many clog/sandal versions)
7. Hats (felted, fair isle, ribbed, cotton, fruit, baby, etc.)
8. Bags (lots and lots of felted, but a non-felted one as well)
9. Mittens (plain and fair isle, though only one fair isle, the mate is waiting patiently to be CO in the new year)
10. Bracelets and Necklaces (lace)
11. Gauntlets
12. Gadget Accessories
13. Christmas Stocking
Of all the things you’ve knitted what was your favorite type and why?
I *love* socks! I love that I can just plug in a stitch pattern I saw on a sweater in a restaraunt or in a magazine or catalog and do a little math and have my own original pair of socks. I also love the portability of them. I actually usually have one in my glove compartment so when I’m stopped at a train I’m not so irritated and instead can get a round or two knit. Often, they are easy enough that I can also knit them when visiting friends or watching a movie/TV etc.
List the types of items you haven’t finished yet, but intend to either finish or knit at some point.
1. I need to pick up and knit the edging on one arm and the neck of Skyway Scoop
2. I need to do the arms of Wear Everywhere Pullover
3. I need to tink back until I’m on track with the Leaf Lace shawl
4. I’d like to do cables this year
5. I’d like to do more colorwork this year
6. If it is in the budget, I’d like to knit a few sweaters for myself this year
7. I *really* *really* want to conquer this block I have with lace shawls. I love the idea of lace shawls, but so far, I’m 0 for 2… I must, must get over this!
Have you ever knitted anything that at one point you had sworn you would never take the time to knit?
First, I thought it would be sooo stupid to take all that time to knit socks when they are so cheap. But, like most others who have tried them, I’m in love. They are a relatively inexpensive sort of knitting project and because of their portability they are in some ways faster than other projects even though they contain roughly the same number of stitches as larger projects. Plus, I can make them to fit my feet perfectly. I’ve also found that the heel flap variety don’t rotate on my foot so the heel is on the front of my ankle like most of my commercially made socks.
Second, I never thought I’d do colorwork. I thought I’d leave it to the machines. But working on that first Mitten from Halland really grabbed me as did working on Grandpa’s Alpaca hat. Now, I’m thinking of an outrageously colored beret with perhaps equally outrageously color mittens to somewhat coordinate and wear with my new parka. I’m not up to committing to something like Torino (though I have to say I love the pattern) yet. First, I think I should finish a more basic sweater in my size 
But, it may just be on my list for 2007, you never know!
If Snow thought she was one of the last ones to complete this meme, then I must definitely be the last seeing as it is two weeks later. So, I’m not going to play the popularity game of specifically choosing people to fill out this meme. Instead, I’ll just leave it open. I found it kind of a nice aid for me to start formulating my knitting goals for 2006. So, if you haven’t done it, please feel free to do so and leave a comment here so I can check out your answers to the meme!
12/28/2005
Pattern: Kind of based on KnitScene’s Issue 1 Pattern 37
Yarns: This, This, and This (doubled) Handspun Yarns
Needles: Bamboo US 10s
Recipient: Me!
Because I actually got some decent self-portraits here is another shot, this time straight on…
Over on the side bar is a hat all alone shot.
I really like this hat. It’s a tad on the large side, but not enough so that it falls down and it does mean my hair doesn’t get plastered to my head when I wear it. It’s also *very* warm. I followed the dimension of the pattern and next time, for my head, I’d shorten it another inch as I don’t really need the ear flaps on there at this depth.
I started this on Wednesday the 21st and actually completed all of the knitting that day and then washed and blocked it that evening and it was ready to wear on the 22nd. It looks pretty fun with my new parka too. This is my first significant handspun knit item for myself (this excludes the warmlets) and only the second significant handspun knit all together, both having been knit in December. Overall I’m pretty happy with it.
I was laughing as I was knitting it, as the greenish yarns in the hat are my first and third skeins of singles ever spun on my own wheel and I was really, really, happy with them. They are crap! LOL! What progress I’ve made!
I’m a day late at coming back from what I had mentioned in my last post last week because yesterday I just needed more recuperation time. I had a restless night of sleep on Monday night so when I woke up I just grabbed my book and had been determined to read just a couple chapters and then start my day. Before I knew it, it was 1pm and I had only 6 pages left (having read over 250) and my mom called. I talked to her for a little over an hour, finished my book and then my best friend from college called to catch me up on the goings on in his life and letting me know he is moving to Chicago and we talked for over an hour as well. Before I knew it, it was 3:30 and I had accomplished nothing, LOL! So, I did a couple loads of laundry and played this new PS2 game SIL3 turned us onto and DH decided to pick up on Monday night. It’s just my sort of speed of video game, but I needed to practice so I could compete semi-fairly with DH in the battle mode
Oh, and one more note… C&)*@$t is out in our neighborhood yet again. I’m posting from the comfort of wonderful Catalyst Coffee once again. There is no estimate on the resolution of this outage so I may or may not be back tomorrow. If WordPress had auto posting like TypePad I would utilize that, but alas, I’m not equipped to do that so you shall have to wait with baited breath to see if I return tomorrow or not…
I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season!
12/20/2005
Emma and I wish you a wonderful holiday season of whichever variety you celebrate. We have visitors arriving tomorrow and then we all will be venturing to our final holiday locale together, so I shall be neglecting the blog until next Tuesday probably.
Save travels to those traveling!
12/16/2005
Aside from it needing blocked, it doesn’t look too bad. That is of course until you measure the size - 11.5 inches across by ~9-9.5 inches deep. My head circumference is 21.5 and I kind of like the fit on me because it won’t cause hat hair, but it’s secure enough it isn’t going to go flying off. Grandpa’s hat size is 7 3/8 which translates roughly to a 23 inch hat circumference. That is of course for hats that don’t have stretch etc. That means the hat just matches his head circumfrence and should fit a little snugger than on me…
However, will those three rows of corrugated rib ever lie flat, even with blocking? That was the end of my yarn. If I ripped back past the last increase round I did (oh yeah, I did this hat from the top down, ala Susan’s live dangerously, don’t swatch hat pattern - there is PDF link in the right hand column) I would be sure to have it snugger (and it is alpaca so it doesn’t have the bounce back of wool and, might it grow in the blocking process???), the Norwegian Star motif would have to be a little shorter going from the 14 st version down to the 12 st version. Couple that with the decrease in circumference by 8 sts and I should be able to get another 2-3 rounds of corrugated rib in there at the bottom which would hopefully make that curl a little easier to block out…
Please note, the problem with sizing on this hat is all mine, and not of the base pattern. But, I was worried about making the final circumference 10% smaller because of the stranding and the alpaca. I was afraid if I went that small it wouldn’t stretch enought to fit and I figured a little large was better than too snug. Add to that the fact that it’s hand spun and somewhat early hand spun and measuring gauge was really kind of like throwing darts. Thus I have this alpaca hat dilemma…
I did do the entire straight part of the hat yesterday. Though I was pretty dilligent and did not much else from about noon onward through almost 10 pm. Well, I took some breaks to give my wrists a rest, but not much. Oh, and also to add into the equation - DH is staying home from work again today…
So, what would you do?
12/15/2005
Pattern: FiberTrends Felted Clog Slippers
Designer: Too lazy to go look…
Yarn: 2 Skeins + a little of Lamb’s Pride Worsted in Persian Peacock M124 and 3 skeins Paton’s UpCountry 80930 (discontinued)
Needles: Addi Turbo’s in Size Recommended
Size: Smallest Man’s Size
Recipient: Amber (my sister), Size Wm’s 11
I substituted a thick Lopi-like yarn (the Paton’s Up Country) for a doubled worsted for the soles and color of the slippers because there was NO brown worsted yarn to be had at the LYS when I was acquiring the yarn for this project. It ended up working out just fine. I did nearly run out of the Lamb’s Pride, but luckily had enough left over from a previous project to finish. Since they are just slippers I didn’t worry about dye lots and it didn’t seem to make a noticible difference in this project.
I did have issues with the weaving in of ends distoring the slippers, though that was mostly on the soles so I’m not worrying about it. They feel find, the edge of one just looks a little odd. I should shave these, but I’m suspecting my sister will need to do little additional hand felting to get them to match her feet so I’m debating. At this point I don’t have a sweater shaver (and well, I would like one, I have a sweater stone on my Christmas list with the in-laws so…) and don’t relish the idea of hitting the retail jungle on December 15th. So, we’ll see if I get somewhere that has them before I get the package ready to ship than great, if not, oh well.
Some gals at one LYS last year were discussing using the liquid latex for dipping tool handles in from the hardware store to put non-skid bottoms on slippers. I was thinking it would probably work even better to get a little texture to that so was thinking about stitching on some of the sticky, bumby shelf-liner stuff and them dipping them, but I’ve decided my sister needs to finish sizing them before doing that. So, I’ll give her a little certificate entitling her to have me do that the next time I’m visiting or she can just ask for the directions to do it herself.
This color combo is her favorite right now and I had been hoping to lcoate some flannel loungewear in that color combo to go with them, but no such luck. But, as it turns out this next week she’ll be moving into her own place once again so I’ll just stick a Target gift card inside of them so she has a little help in setting up house once again. I know how expensive it is to have to rebuy all those cleaning supplies etc. Plus, each place has different requirements in terms of storage solutions and such. I think it’ll be well recieved.
Here’s a bit better, but not so original look at the slippers…
12/14/2005
*Finally* I can share this dyeing experiment that took place during dyeing week in late November…
This yarn was dyed for fellow SnB gal, Amanda. Her birthday is on Friday, so I brought this yarn to her on Monday night at SnB. It is also dyed with Wilton food coloring like the other yarns I dyed that week, but this one got a special treatment as well that will result in 8 or 9 *matching* stripes per sock, so kind of thick stripes.
How did I do this you ask? Well, let me tell you…
I used one skein of KnitPicks Color Your Own Sock Yarn and the 4 main red/pink colors of Wilton’s food coloring. You can use any colors you want, though I suggest when you start to use analogous colors (colors that appear next to each other on the color wheel) or different shades of the same color family because it isn’t an exact science and some bleeding of colors can occur, especially the first time you try it.
1. Take the hank of yarn and wind it into a center pull ball.
2. Take the center pull ball and with both ends together, wind it into a doubled center pull ball. Clip the loop so you now have the skein split in half.
3. With your swift at it’s widest (~2 yd circumference), wind the double yarn onto the swift between 10 and 15 rotations. I tie a little bit of scrap to one support of the swift so I can more easily count the rotations. Then, tie this round of yarn in 4-5 spots. It may seem excessive, but it is *very* helpful to the process. Just be sure the ties are loose enough that the dye will still penetrate the yarn.
4. Repeat step 3 until all the yarn is used, tying the most recent group of rotations together and making sure not to get any other rotations tied in with it by accident. This will result in roughly 20-30 yd lengths of yarn for each skein of sock yarn in each section.
5. When all the yarn is hanked and tied into these mini 20-30 yd hanks, figure eight tie very loosely all the groups together with one large tie.
6. Soak yarn for a couple of hours in a strong vinegar/water solution.
7. Prepare your dyes to the strength you desire and put in large squirt bottles (I used ketchup bottles from the dollar store). Since I was using food coloring I mixed it with a strong vinegar/water solution.
8. Prep your dying space with protective newspapers and such, then lay down a run of plastic wrap long enough to easily incase the length of your hank.
9. Lay down the first mini-hanked section, apply the desired dye, wrap in saran wrap and move slightly to the side.
10. Lay down another sheet of plastic wrap and repeat step 9. Repeat this until the entire hank of yarn has been dyed.
11. I had a few sections that weren’t as well contained in their plastic wrap so I then wrapped the whole darn thing in plastic wrap again.
12. Place in a wire mesh strainer (dedicated to dyeing) over boiling water and steam for at least 45 minutes. If you are using a hard to set color like red, you might consider steaming for up to 2 hours. Be sure to flip your wrapped up yarn over a couple of times during the steaming process to ensure that all areas get plenty of direct steam heat.
13. Let cool before rinsing. This can aid in exhausting the dye in some cases.
14. Rinse.
15. Let dry.
16. Now, you need to reskein it into two separate skeins. It’s a piddly process because in winding the doubled center pull ball and putting it on the swift, the two strand of yarn have twisted around each other. So, I recommend making two center pull balls by hand as you pull the yarn off the swift. This way you can easily untwist the two strand of yarn as needed easily. I used two poor man’s nostepinnes (empty toilet paper tube and an empty paper towel tube) in this case. You can hook one strand up to a ball winder, but I personally found it easier to just have the two handmade balls in my lap.
17. You may keep them in these center pull balls. If you used a ball winder or nostepinne there shouldn’t be any problem with storing them long term in the ball form. If you did not have the open space for the ball to expand into you may loose elasticity in your yarn and you should then use your swift to put it into skeins again for storage. You might want to flag the matching ends of each skein if it isn’t obvious which ends match.
Now, with the red, I of course had trouble with the color setting, but I had steamed for a solid two hours. So, I unwrapped it and put it into the water and set it further in simmering water. This caused some bleeding of the different reds together, so the striping is subtle, but more noticeable than I thought when I first removed it from its bath. Also, because I tried rinsing for a while before putting it in for another bath it made the sock much more pink than I was originally intending, but I actually quite like it.
I decided to name it strawberry trifle because I figure the thicker stripes in the socks will look like the layers of a trifle and I thought the color was quite reminiscent of strawberry flavored things (like DH’s liqueur etc.).
When I was making the center pull balls of this yarn the one on the paper towel tube worked out much better for me (look at it, it’s the one still in a ball up there). I think that was because I have more room to hold onto so the movements could be smoother, which then resulted in a much more uniform ball of yarn. It makes me want a nostepinne or two
I’ll try talk Amanda into letting me blog the completed socks whenever she decides to knit them up so you can see the truly final result of this dyeing experiment.
12/13/2005
Pattern: Alberta Scarf from Stahman’s Shawls and Scarves
Designer: Myrna Stahman
Yarn: Fiesta Heaven in Adirondack, 1 skein
Needles: US 7 Addi Natura’s
# of Pattern Repeats: 3 wide plus 6 sts wide borders and 7.75 repeats lengthwise plus 8 row border
Dimension: 49.5″ X 8″ pre-blocking, 55″ X 12″ post-blocking
I don’t know why I ended up with 7.75 pattern repeats on the first lace panel, but that’s what it was when I went to match the second one. Go figure. But, I don’t think I had enough leftover yarn to have finished that quarter of a repeat on both ends anyway, so it was good luck! I have maybe 3 yards remaining from one skein.
Overall, I like the idea of seaman scarves. They do lay quite nicely. However, with a yarn that gets blocked severely, most of those scarf patterns were much too wide, IMHO. The finished dimension on these is 22 X 12 inches for each lace panel and 11 inches for the ribbed section. It will definitely cover well, but I don’t think it will double as a nice fashion accessory, as it covers all of my ample sized body. It will no doubt be plenty warm though. I could reduce the width a bit by decreasing those borders, I think I could easily cut them in half which would reduce the width by about an inch or so. The yarn also pooled quite unusually in little dashes of color making it appear somewhat stripey. It isn’t quite my taste, but I love the color combination and it will look lovely on Grandma’s complexion and she’ll be bowled over with the lace work I’m sure. I know it’ll be well loved and probably shown off to the ladies are the hairdresser’s and at church.
Snow saved the day with the blocking as she let me steal her blocking wires on Sunday afternoon. It went quite slick to block this scarf with those and our steamer. It was really odd to watch the yarn swell and relax when the hot steam hit it. It cause little undulations. I thought about taking video, but ultimately decided it was so subtle it probably wouldn’t come across at web resolution.
I’ll leave you with a closer look at the lace pattern…
I started Grandpa’s hat last night, but more on that later in the week…
12/12/2005
My mom has been neglecting me. She’s been way toooo busy making fibery things and stressing about the in-law visit and having to take something for a pot luck Christmas dinner when we’ll be staying in a hotel for two nights. I’m kind of mad at her for not paying me the attention I deserve, so I broke into her shopping cart system and marked all those tags and wrappers for your hand knits and hand spun or hand dyed yarns she slaved over a couple of weeks ago down by 50%!
I figure in a week I’ll be over it and a lot of her fibery things she is making have to be completed by then to either be mailed to the owners of my friend, Gaston, in Minnesota or so the in-laws don’t see what she is making. So, things will only be marked down through next Monday. And, hopefully I’ll be able to report that she’s too busy to blog because she’s thowing all of my favorite toys for me to fetch!
So, go check out the damage I did!
12/9/2005
While I’ve been busy distracting you with a virtual attendance at what has been decided to be the first annual holiday knitting tea, I’ve been busy knitting. Ashley was needling (ha!) me a bit on Saturday night about the number of WIPs I have laying around the house. Well, after she left on Saturday night I cast on for another one, LOL!
I was lacking good TV/Movie/Visiting knitting and I had a project that was coming upon a bit of a deadline. So, I cast on for the sock pictured above. It’s a design exclusively for No No Kitty Yarns and is knit in her Kona Superwash DK weight yarn on US 4s and US 3s in the Graffiti colorway. It was a blast to knit with and I had sock #1 done by Tuesday evening! That’s less than four days - late Saturday night to early Tuesday evening! I think that is one of the fastest socks to fly off of my needles. I now have the pattern written up and will be anxiously casting on for #2 and follow my pattern to test it. I think Danielle is planning an early New Year pattern release extravaganza. I’m thinking I’ll call the pattern Dimple socks and it will contain both clog and standard heel flap directions. Like the name? Have suggestions for something else?
Here’s a closer look at the ribs…
It has distracted me from holiday knitting though so I need to get my butt in gear. Especially because I have this coat on the way, which means I *need* new winter accessories pronto… Hats, scarves, gloves, mittens, the whole shebang! Please, please, feel free to leave comments with pattern, color, and/or yarn suggestions. I think I want to go with colors that contrast with the green as greens next to my face can be a bit fickle as to whether they wash me out or not. But, you can see a recent pic of me here to see my hair color and complexion. It’s slightly yellow because it was taken in our yellow-y bathroom under incandesent lights. But it should give you an idea of my current looks.
12/8/2005
If you’ve had your fill of goodies and tea, please feel free to hang out and knit in the living room. I can light the fireplace if anyone is interested…
I do have a little party favor for those in attendance…
The much asked for Nifty iPod Nano Necklace pattern has been written up and added to the free knitting patterns section of my web site. So, those who are giving Nano’s this year for Christmas may knit necklace cozies to go with them. Or, knit one for yourself if you have a Nano. While the directions only contain info for fitting the Nano, a little experimentation and/or math should allow you to adjust the pattern to fit any of the iPods or other personal MP3 players of your choice. The Nano sized one takes less than 50 yds of sock yarn and only day of dedicated knitting of a weekend of sporadic knitting.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. Tomorrow we will return to the regularly scheduled fibery news.
EDIT: This was quite late in being posted because the diesel wouldn’t start this morning because of the cold so I had to take DH to work. There were some network troubles getting me on the Internet this time around. Also, I still can’t always answer e-mails do to these troubles, so I apologize. It should be warm enough and he won’t be leaving before 7am for a dental appointment so I should be home and have full e-mail access so I’ll reply then. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.
