Tagged!

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!

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!

Happy Holidays!

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!

FO Friday? Not Quite!

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?

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…