I did it! FO Friday!

Pattern: Flatiron Clog Socks from Designedly, Kristi
Yarn: 3 skeins KPPPM, it’s been too long, I no longer know what colorway it is, sorry - vast majority of skein 3 remains
Needles: Sock 1 was done on Swallow Caesin US Sz 0, Sock 2 was done on Wright’s Aluminum US Sz 0

Notes: Once blocked the size discrepancy wasn’t nearly as much as I had feared, though sock number 2 was definitely tighter and much more to my liking actually. That said, I won’t be ripping sock 1 and redoing it. It’ll be fine and it will give me a sock I can wear when our friends cats decide to hunt one of my feet and it swells up again.

As for the needles, I will not bother with the Swalloe DPNs again for socks. They are even less sturdy it seems than the birch DPNs. For US 1 and smaller I’ll be sticking to metal from here on out!

I won’t mention how long this took me to complete this pair! The important part is it is done, done, done and I have one more pair of hand knit socks to add to my sock drawer!

Some additional views…

Then, since it’s Friday and I’m totally ready for some sillyness, I have an Avatar as per Jenla’s meme…

Okay, so it isn’t so much ugly as they were looking for, but it is utterly ridiculous - a mini skirt and strapless top in snow and ice? Sure, there is a stocking cap and scarf, but look at all that skin exposed to the elements??? How about that horse and the corgi in a rain coat?? Silliness, pure and simple!

Have a great weekend everone!

Out with the Old and In with the New!

Happy 2006! It seems the holidays have taken heavy tolls on many in (just to name a few) blog land so here is hoping that 2006 is better year for everyone!

Like many of you, I’ve taken some time to look back on my knitting accomplishments this past year. I don’t have nearly as many FO’s to count. It was definitely the year of felting and of small accessories for me. I did start out on the path to some garments, but kind of dropped the ball when it came to finishing. Actually I’m finding that I have quite a number of unfinished items hanging around now with the new year.

I have an ever-so-close to being down Skyway Scoop, I have two socks without mates, one mitten without a mate, one lace shawl somewhat in progress but needing tinking to try find the error, and one long sleeve pull-over sweater that I suspect is about 1/3 done, but got sidelined when the pattern wasn’t quite specific enough and I waited for a response from the designer for a few weeks and then was caught up in other “must complete now” projects which were followed closely by the holiday knitting.

I’m sure some of my decrease in FO’s can be attributed to the taking on of these larger projects than I had tackled in 2004. I also suspect some of it can be attributed to having added spinning to the list of fibery pursuits as well. In fact, I’ve spun 264-yds of singles and 1594 yds of 2-ply. This excludes all the spinning done in the class I took in Boulder in August. Because I was one class from having a double major with math, I had to do a little further figuring…

264 yds + 2 * (1594) + 1594 = 5046 yds to pass through the spinning wheel, assuming that 2-ply yarn is exactly half of the singles, which isn’t quite true, but close enough. That is just shy of 3 miles of fiber which would nearly get me to the SnB watering hole of Catalyst Coffee! Though I do wish my wheel hadn’t been collecting dust so much during November and December, but that holiday gift thing kind of kept me away. Now, I’m itching to get back, but can’t make a decision on what fiber to use…

While it seems to me that I didn’t accomplish as much as I would have liked, I did manage to release four knitting patterns for sale as well as two free patterns in 2005. That isn’t too bad and I have to say for being a rather low rated and new knitting blog my sales on the sock patterns have been pretty good. So, that is something to be proud of.

As I mentioned previously, I do have some goals for 2006. But, before I jump into those headlong, I’ve decided to heed the cliche - out with old and in with the new. I’m declaring January as clean-up month. Now, I don’t expect to get everything that is on the needles wrapped up, but I would like to complete the mates to the two socks and the mitten by the end of the month and perhaps finally finish Skyway (though I have to say I’m not so excited about that because firstly it is quitely likely going to be much too big now that I’m 35-lbs lighter and it is a tank top and it is January). I’m going to try my best to only allow myself to cast on for a hat for DH’s birthday until those lonely socks and mitten have mates. Though making of said hat might not happen either since he isn’t wearing the scarf he had specifically asked for last year for his birthday. I haven’t decided yet and his birthday isn’t until the 25th so I’ve got some time to decide if I think it’ll get used and if DH is worthy of the soft, yummy alpaca/silk/merino handspun goodness. (Given that with the assitance of mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa paying a little over half of the total I will have this new knitting chair and ottoman [in a different color] in the upstairs where there is sunlight in 8-10 weeks, he probably does deserve it, but he has a beret he wears all the time and forbode me to knit a tam for him last year and I’m not sure he’d wear a stocking cap much and when I mentioned gloves which I was first planning for when I spun the yarn he didn’t seem too interested in those either… - how is that for a run-on???)

This weekend, DH brought to my attention that fact that my sister hadn’t forgotten me for the holidays (which I wasn’t upset about as usually she gets around to sending something when my birthday comes around in April and she started a brand new job just two weeks ago and was moving so I wasn’t expecting anything on time). But, it seems she enlisted DH’s help and it all somehow involves Woolen Treasures. However, she set it up, then needed to call them presumably to pay for it and when she gave the go-ahead to DH he was sick so never got over ther. So, he has promised me lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in Loveland tomorrow which is right up the street from Wool Treasures and then we’ll be going over there to obtain this mysterious gift that DH has been teasing me about all weekend long. He has assured me that I would love it and that he helped her (I’m presuming in ways beyond forgetting to pick it up)… So, probably some fun fibery news of some sort will be ready to report on tomorrow.

Holiday FO!

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!

FO Thursday too?!?!? Yep!

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…

FO Tuesday!

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…

FO Friday!

On Saturday and some of Sunday I kicked out a home for my Nano using about 1/2 oz of the remaining Bearfoot from the gauntlets of last week on those Pony Pearl US 1.5 needles I was bitching complaining about yesterday. I *love* this design, though there would be a few tweaks in another one. But, I’m so glad I was struck with the idea of use attached i-cord to “seam” the bag and make the necklace portion all in one. I think it’s a nice touch in the design. The best part? Even with the iPod in there the thing only weighs 2.3 oz! It’s almost imperceptible.

FO Friday!

Pattern: Elegant Gauntlets from The Purl Stitch by Sally Melville
Yarn: 3 oz (~263 yds) of Mountain Colors Bearfoot Sock Yarn in color “Meadow” from TheKnitter.com
Needles: US 3 Bryspun DPNs

Notes: I *loved* working with this yarn and the large amount of st st in the round combined with this nice to knit yarn made these fly off my needles in less than 5 days time! I think it would have been even faster if it hadn’t been such a busy week this week. I’d definitely consider knitting these for a gift. That said, the one person on the “I’d perhaps like to knit for this person for Christmas this year” for whom these would make a nice item I already have about a dozen other ideas for… Though one of those ideas would likely transfer over to someone else on that list. So, it might be an option yet. If I knit another pair I would definitely lengthen the ribbing at the top. I find when I’m wearing it that it likes to curl down a bit and I think an additional 4-6 rnds of ribbing would correct that. If you weren’t going for speed and simplicity they would look great with a cable going down the top or that too.

Now, the observant of you no doubt noticed something peaking out from under the top gauntlet, yes? Well, to say that our actual anniversary night was a dud is an understatement of monumental proportions (with much thanks to Dine for America). However, even though the gift from DH was backordered and only shipped on Wednesday, it arrived at his work yesterday morning and I got it last night and we went out to the originally planner dinner last night as well which was so good we can’t hardly believe we were eating in Ft. Collins. I am now the proud owner of a white 4 Gb iPod Nano that has been engraved on it’s shiny back…

That almost makes a cool sort of self-portrait, doesn’t it? He also had been magically taking in some of my favorite CDs from the massive music library to work and ripping them there so my iPod came pre-loaded with ~1Gb of some of my favorite albums. We are planning on scratching our ripped music and starting over. We had been ripping at a very high bit rate that no only reduces the amount of music one can put on players like the Nano and DH’s Archos, but it eats up hard drive space and we don’t have such fantastic home audio speakers that we can tell a difference anyway. But, I’ve temporarily put a couple more Gb of music on there so I could have my full line up “Chill Out” music I’ve been favoring lately. DH did have almost half of that playlist on there already and almost the full “Get Up & Dance” playlist. So, he did an awesome job of loading it up! I was wondering why we was looking for the Keane CD and why there was such a huge gap in the K section (Diana Krall and Alison Krauss and Victor Krauss) last week

Now, since mom has an audible subscription and I do all the downloading for her I need to figure out how to make the Nano work with that. I’m soooo excited! It’ll make knitting and spinning even that much more enjoyable and I’ll get my number of books read this year back up and closer to last years total!

My only complaint about the Nano is that there is no place to hook a lanyard. I like to be free to move about the house cleaning or taking care of Emma or spinning or knitting etc. and I don’t want such a thin thing in my pocket where I’m likely to forget about it and sit down. And, yes they sell a lanyard/headphone combo that is awesome in idea, however I have funny ears and the ear bud type of headphones really don’t work for me. Not to mention they are backordered by nearly a month!

It does seem there are some silcone sleeves that include a lanyard option so I’ll probably end up going that route. However, those aren’t to be released for another 10 days or more either and then there is the time it will take them to get to Ft. Collins. So, in the meantime I think I’ll take that final ounce of Bearfoot Meadow and turn it into an Nano Sock with an i-cord strap to wear around my neck. I should be able to whip one up pretty quickly.

As much as I like this, I know it isn’t practical for my Nano use. But darn that would be such fun!

Oh, I’m open to any recommendations on PodCasts. I listen to most of the NPR ones and KnitCast of course, but now that it’s more convient for me to listen to them I’m definitely interested in adding some more to my line up, so leave me a comment!

Oh, and I’m nice and warm today. It seems if you hold out you can get the heat turned on!

One More Classy Closure…

I finally finished the attachment of the closure for the Not-so-Squatty Sister Sidekick yesterday and got it photographed this morning.

You can see the purse as a whole in the left side bar again. But, I once again used a gemstone donut. This one is a touch bluer than the purse, but I was assured by the gals in my spinning class that it looked nice even though it didn’t match and wasn’t hugely contrasting either.

I did a four strand round braid with left over Manos and then tied a decorative knot in it to hold the gemstone. Then I needle felted the braid so I could clip it to length and then stitched it to the body of the purse with the yarn and again did some needle felting to secure it well and to obscure the stitching.

I sure hope my sister likes this purse!

Buttons & Cheese!

If you take a look over at the left side you’l see I’ve finally added my Sophie Bag and my Scrappy Squatty Sidekick to the picture roll over there. That is because they both have their proper closures in place now

I love Sophie, but I didn’t like how it splayed open when I wore it over my shoulder with my things in it. Not that Ft. Collins has a huge problem with pick pockets, but I wasn’t comfortable with it wide open to anyone passing by. So, while on the hunt for the perfect closure fot he Not-so-Squatty Sister Sidekick I wound two gemstone donuts that looked super nice with Sophie so I picked them up. I took some of the remaining yarn and did a 9-strand flat braid and used that to attach the donuts to one side of the purse. The weight of the gemstone donuts is just enough to keep the bag nicely closed so the purse retains the majority of it’s ease to put things in and take things out of it, but it also hangs nicely closed. The photo looks like the bag is a bit lopsided, though it isn’t - it’s just that my “things” are lopsided which are in it. I stitched the braid with the same yarn and then took out some frustrations with a felting needle for a nice seamless look.

I also found a good button for my larger, Scrappy Squatty after spinning class on Thursday at Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins in Boulder. It’s a hammered bronze button and it brings out the metallic novelty that I carried along for much of the purse. I think it finishes off the purse quite nicely.

I’m still working on the attachment for the Sister Squatty and the embellishment design for Lucy, but they are both coming along. I got felting needles and some roving for Lucy on Thursday as well.

I tried to go get the two Fibertrend shawl patterns I was interested in on Friday, but Lambspun had almost nothing when it came to shawl patterns. Their lace stuff was mostly scarves. I guess it makes sense since they sell basically no lace weight except mohair. They do carry Fibertrends patterns. Then, Woolen Treasures is closed today so I *still* can’t satisfy my *need* for a lace shawl project. I’ll probably go down tomorrow and have lunch with DH. Though I’m tiring of the dining choices there. . .

Tonight is SnB! Though I know two people who definitely will not be making it tonight One of whom I haven’t seen since BEFORE my trip to MN! I’ve gone through withdrawl. I have *no* idea what I’m going to work on. I suppose I’ll dust off the second Flatiron sock so I can get that added to the sidebar soon too. Or maybe I’ll cast on for the sport weight Lucy that I’m thinking of also giving my sister so that there is some surprise element to her birthday gift…

I mentioned cheese in my title because this weekend DH cut into his first wheel of homemade cheese. See, each Monday we get 2 gallons of milk delivered from a local dairy and he makes cheese while I’m at SnB. We cut into one wheel of his first batch of Gouda. It was quite nice. Speaking of cheese making, I suppose I should get on the task of sweeping up as much stray dog hair as I can so that I can perhaps be a little rested before SnB this time…

FO Friday!

I bought the yarn the Friday before I left for MN thinking I’d just whip one up over the weekend and would have a new purse for the trip. I did, however, fail to take into account the fact that a good friend of ours would be visiting and that there were other people with whom it was desired I socialize with before leaving. So, I picked it up on Wednesday, finished the knitting on it yesterday, wove in ends, fulled and blocked it today.

Sophie from MagKnits
Designed by Julie Anderson
US 10.5 Needles, 1 Skein Cascade 220 (9476)

This was a fun and quick pattern to knit up. I’d definitely make another one and if it weren’t for the drying time I’d probably use it as a last minute gift idea. Though, with 3-4 days notice I could probably still whip one up, full it, block and dry in time.

I continue to be amazed that my front loading washing manages to felt these things. I do help it along with a pair of slippers and a pair of plastic sandals in with two pairs of a jeans to help beat it up a bit more. I also generally add hot water from an electric tea kettle 2-3 times during the process to reheat the water. It only took 3 passes through the first wash cycle, so not too shabby.

Next time I make the bag I think I want to twist the i-cords a few more times. I also had enough yarn to make the handle longer. I knit the i-cords to about 36 inches and still had a bit of yarn remaining. The handle will now be long enough to fit me over a bulky winter jacket should I choose to carry it in the winter.