Kraftie

I've Moved

2006-12-23T17:44:00.000-05:00

I decided to move my blog.

kraftie.wordpress.com

Who has the coolest SP8 pal ever?

2006-12-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

ME!

Yes... SP8 is loooong over, but I got something in the mail today.

I've been awaitng some sock yarn that I'm supposed to test knit, so it was a complete shock when I realized it was from Valerie my old SP8 pal. I knew I liked her.

Color is called Christmas Tree and it's from Matahari Spinnery. Very, very pretty stuff. I'm half tempted to start spinning now since it IS a christmas color.

I love you Valerie!

More Acrylic!

2006-12-17T14:56:00.000-05:00

Bought some acrylic today. All with projects in mind though.

The massive pound of acrylic are going into an afgahn for me. I already have an afgahn, but it's just to small so I'm going to start on a massive one cause I get really cold at night. :-D

Also some TLC which is going to be a scarf for my boyfriend. He wants the binary scarf from the latest knitty. You know.. he hasn't even seen a picture of the scarf, but he wants it because it's in binary, and he's a computer science major or something like that. He likes the computer stuff.

Also because I promised a picture of the recently completed handspun.....

Ta dA! It's pretty. The colors in the picture are very exact too.

It's 100% alpaca from Moonlight Meadow Farm and I bought it off them at the fiber fest last summer. Gorgeous stuff... 3oz... 310yards.

I wanted to make a hat, but the stuff is definitely a sock weight yarn. Makes me mad. I made it 3 ply hoping that I would get a worsted/light worsted, but no... sock weight.

I guess I just need to spin stuff a little thicker. I'm thinking it might make nice scarf though, maybe lacy. 310 yards should be enough for a scarf right? Opinions are welcome!

Well.. I'm off to start my acrylic afghan. I'll post when I actually have something to show.. hehe.

Another fun fur hat....

2006-12-17T00:31:00.000-05:00

I've been a bad, bad blogger. I have nothing to show except another fun fur hat.

This one, two strands of yarn held together, PLUS! a strand of fun fur for the ribbing portion of the hat.

It's okay. Looks like your typical fun fur hat. It is a typical fun fur hat. I've actually finished the ribbing so I'm on the body of the hat. The nice thing about these hats is that they don't take long to do.

Why is there no cool knitting to show? I've become completely obsessed with my spinning. All I want to do is sit and spin. I finished plying some yarn today, about 310 yards, and it's drying right now it the bathroom. Once it dries I'll stick some pictures up. The water was very dark when I set the twist, so I'm hoping when it dries it will look the same as it did before it went into the water.

Knit From Your Stash 2007

2006-12-15T14:44:00.000-05:00

Wendy from Wendy Knits! is doing a Stash bust kinda think in 2007. I'm so in.

Especially since I can still buy yarn.

The Rules:

Knit From Your Stash 2007

1. The Knit-From-Your-Stash-a-Thon will start January 1, 2007 and run through September 30, 2007 -- a period of nine months.

2. We will not buy any yarn during that period, with the following exceptions:

2.a. Sock yarn does not count. What? You think we are made of stone?

2.b. If someone asks for a specific knitted gift that we really and truly do not have the yarn for, we may buy yarn to knit that gift.

2.c. If we are knitting something and run out of yarn, we may purchase enough to complete the project.

2.d. We each get one "Get Out of Jail Free" card -- we are each allowed to fall off the wagon one time.

3. We are allowed to receive gifts of yarn.

4. Spinning fiber of any sort is exempt.

Muhahaha

2006-12-12T13:48:00.000-05:00

It came yesterday. I was at work, so I didn't know until I got home after going out to dinner last night. Walked into the house and found it waiting right inside the doorway.

Before leaving for work everyday last week I asked my sister to make sure she signed for it if someone came. The bad thing about UPS is that they can come any time during the day, especially when I'm not home. The mailman, I know when he'll show up.

Well yesterday my sister didn't go to school cause she was sick. And again, before leaving for work I reminded her to answer the door if someone came with the wheel. She did. She was tired but stayed up just because I annoyed her so much. Then she gave up. Changed her mind, crawled into bed, and right when she started to fall asleep the doorbell rang. She was ticked, but she still got up and got the wheel for me. Gotta love her for that.

So of course I opened it, assembled everything then went to find the next exciting fiber to spin. I grabbed some alpaca from the fiberfest last summer. It was some hard stuff to spin. It's very soft and I was really trying to figure out how the wheel worked. Oh well... I think I've figured it out. Never fear! I haven't neglected my knitting. I'm still making major progress on Autumn in Oregon sock number 2.

Remember this?

2006-12-11T13:52:00.000-05:00

Remember this hat?

I had to take out the decreases last weekend and make the hat body a little bigger. With the nasty cold weather we had last Thursday and Friday, the girl realized the hat didn't cover her ears all the way. It was PERFECT when she tried it on last month... but when the weather turned cold, she wasn't so happy.

It was an easy enough fix so I really didn't mind.

That's all I've been up to. I've done a lot of spinning, but I think I'm going to really work on this test knit sock that way I can count it for SAM2. This sock that I was test knitting... I'm currently on sock number two, but the pattern for it recently went up on her site and it's great so go check it out. She's even selling a cool sock kit with Mama-E's C*EYE*BER fiber sock yarn. Yea... good sock yarn. You know you want it. She's also selling the pattern by itself it you have more yarn than you can handle.

I'm still waiting on the spinning wheel to show. The company e-mailed me back and said that it should be here by Tuesday and if not to let them know so they could look into it. Yay... Tuesday is tomorrow. I really hope it shows up.

Scarf fringed.

2006-12-08T13:07:00.000-05:00

The fringe has been added. It it's dye lot issues are now leaving my life forever.
Pattern: Hold two strands of yarn together, cast on a few, knit until you feel like stopping. Feel like adding fringe? Go for it.
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft Brites in color Lemonade held together with Violet colored Fun Fur from Lion Brand.

So I have this spinning obsession lately. All I want to do it sit around and spin. Oh... the colors... I love the colors.

I love Break.

2006-12-07T20:11:00.000-05:00

Last day of exams today! YEA! The first one today was bad. No clue how well I did on it. In fact I feel the same way about all of my exams.

The only one that I know... is bad. BUT it was high enough that it didn't hurt my grade so I got the B- I needed to pass the class! (This is all I really cared about.) Hopefully my other grades will be high enough so that I keep that 3.0 I need.

I've ordered some things online recently. A lot of things actually. I decided last Friday night that I needed some knit picks circulars so that I could make socks two at a time. So I ordered my needles and some patterns. NO YARN! I didn't need my stash any bigger.

Then after I frogged an entire sock on Saturday I decided I needed a spinning wheel. (Why I decided this... I'm not sure.) But I think it had something to do with the fact that I decided I didn't want to take a spindle if I join the spinning guild. I wanted a portable wheel. This led to researching wheels.

Somewhere along my search I saw something reminding people to order early to get their things in time for Christmas. I panicked. I wanted a wheel before January... so that order was placed on Sunday. The wheel was shipped first thing Monday morning and along with the wheel came a $40 gift certificate to the store. I had to use it right away. You never know.. I might forget I had a gift certificate... So that order was placed Monday night (I only spend $1.40 over the certificate price so I paid shipping plus $2) I got fiber. Nice fiber. The fiber shipped Tuesday morning and it showed up on my door today. The last thing shipped and the first to arrive.

80 Merino/20 Kid. The color in this picture is exactly the way it looks.

70 Merino/30 Tencel. Again the color is pretty acurate, it's a little darker pink though.And last but not least. SILK! It's pretty... I took it out of the packaging to feel in and it was sticking on my horribly dried hands so it's staying in it's baggie until my hands are smoother.

Breast Cancer Yarn.

2006-12-07T14:18:00.000-05:00

Everybody go here: Click me!

Then go buy the yarn. You know you want to because we all get excited over a good cause. THIS IS A GOOD CAUSE.

Go spend all your money because I know you guys love yarn.

Spot the error!

2006-12-05T21:49:00.000-05:00

Can yoooou spot the mistake? I didn't notice it either. In fact, I was done with the scarf before one of the girls I tutor spotted it. She continued to harass me about it for the rest of the time I was there. It was a stupid mistake. I'm not one to worry about such things as dye lots. The skeins looked no different in ball form, but knitted up, oh you can tell. Note to readers: CHECK DYE LOTS. The left side of the scarf looks darker in the picture, but it's not because of the camera flash. The difference is that obvious in real light too.

Oh well.. the girl getting it doesn't care. I told her if anyone asks, tell them they're seeing things. lol.

Getting rid of Junk.

2006-12-02T13:25:00.000-05:00

I threw away fiber today.

Yes, Fiber.

I had been spinning this up for awhile now, and I was amazed that the fibers were so short, and the shed everywhere. I kept spinning though and had almost two bobbins full of a very, very thin yarn. Today I started plying it. It was so, horribly scratchy. That and it was shedding all over me again.

Why on earth and I wasting my time spinning and plying yarn that I just wouldn't want to knit with. It's gross and scratchy. Most of the wool in the bag I bought was like this so I gave up. It went to the trash. I thought about passing it along to someone, but it was just too bad.

This fiber was bought at my first fiber festival, so I figure I just had no clue what I was doing back then. It was cheap fiber, I thought I was getting a deal. nope. I got crap. :-D

So then I drug out the massive (probably around a pound) bag of fiber that I got also at the first fiber fest. Same bag of crap. But this bag of crap looked much better from the outside so I had higher expectations for it. It smelled really bad, and felt horrible, like it hadn't really been cleaned properly. In fact I'm sure it smelled because it hadn't been washed right. This could have been fixed, but the fibers were just so short at some points it wasn't worth it.

I'm only buying roving from now on. It's a bit expensive for a reason. I've realized that.

Of course, these bags of crap were also purchased when I was only using Red Heart yarn. Ah.. how things have changed.

After purging my room of all nasty old fiber that wasn't worth my time I decided to ply some fiber I had been spinning on my drop spindle. It's some Cherry Tree Hill roving, and I'm still in complete love with the color. 20 yards. Not bad for 3 ply on a drop spindle.

The drop spindle is a pain though. I don't mind spinning on it, but I hate trying to get the yarn off the spindle once it's spun. If anyone knows how to solve this little issue let me know.

It's navajo plied and it's still really, really thin. I think I'm going to spin the rest of this up on the wheel.

I give up!

2006-12-02T10:23:00.000-05:00

I give up on christmas knitting.

Totally give up.

After frogging an almost complete sock because it was way to small, I realized I just couldn't knit everything I wanted in the next 23 days. Impossible.

So I'm done. I'm going to keep working on the items, but they're going into a bin for the next holiday season. Should some gifts get done, they may be passed out, but we're not going to race anymore.

I'm going to ENJOY knitting.

FUN FUR!

2006-11-29T18:37:00.000-05:00

What am I working on? Top secret Christmas knitting!

Other than that.. a fun fur scarf.

Ugghhh...

Can't wait for school to be out for break.

I have a take home test for Calc that needs done. I really should be getting started on it.

Vacation

2006-11-27T21:13:00.000-05:00

Want to see how much yarn was left when I got back from vacation?

Just scroll down to the picture I took before I left...

... yup. It all came home still in skein form!

I did knit though. I knitted a lot. There were two socks I was working on. The first one was a test knit. I knit until the pattern all of a sudden stopped... Just stopped. But, I had no access to the Internet so it went on hold till I got home. The second sock is a Christmas gift and I'm going to hold off on showing those until after they are received.

My boyfriend got me something. I was thrilled when he told me he got me something. He told me not to be too excited, because it was nothing big.It's so cute though! It's a tape measure. His sister went to some event at her work and they gave her a bunch of crap including the fishy tape measure. She didn't want it so he took it to give to me. He knew I use my red one all the time when knitting.

Gotta love him.

Well.. I've procrastinated long enough. I have one more essay to write tonight. I've already finished two projects today and did a presentation earlier. One more paper due Wednesday, and a take home test due Friday and I should be in decent shape for the rest of the semester.

Expect more updates in the future once school gets out of the way.

Off we go.

2006-11-21T21:54:00.000-05:00

I'm leaving for vacation. The big question? How much yarn should I bring.

I decided I must make socks. Sock yarn doesn't take up much space, and I remember just how much yarn I drug along last year for one hat along (it had lots of colors). Socks take a long time, but not a lot of space.

I've decided that this much yarn is good. There is definitely more yarn than I should have time to knit; however, should major knitting get accomplished, I should have plenty.

On the rare chance that I use up all that yarn... at least almost all of my Christmas knitting will be done. I would have just one more pair of socks to complete and plenty of time to do it.

Now I will search for patterns to make sure I have enough interesting things to knit while I am there.

Should be a fun trip.

Oh, and my birthday is finally here... I'm one more year older. (well... not that old.)
I'm so proud of myself for not spending my new birthday money on yarn. (This will happen while I am on Christmas break and I have time to stalk the mailman.) The ultimate goal is to save money, and only buy yarn if it is really needed. ex: I have no sock yarn! Buy sock yarn. I have no lace-weight! Buy lace-weight yarn. I'm going to try to stick to this. Key word: try.

Happy Early B-Day too me.

2006-11-18T00:07:00.000-05:00

So I bought myself a spindle kit. That came in the mail earlier in the month.

A few weeks ago my boyfriend started asking me hypothetical questions about yarn, where he could buy it, and what I thought was good yarn. I knew what he was up to so I just went to a few different websites and showed him yarn. I didn't give him any links so I was really curious as to what he remembered (especially since he only listens half of the time).

Well... he gave me my Birthday present a little early. (I was getting very impatient.)

So I present to you Socks that Rock in color "Christmas Balls". Unfortunatley my mind tends to go right to the gutter whenever I hear that name.

Conversation went as follows:

Me: So did you actually remember some of the sites I told you about?

Him: No.

Me: So how did you find the site?

Him: I did a search for "Christmas Balls".

Me. Haha.... How long did it take you to find the right site?

Him: It was the second one on the list.

Me: What was the first?

Him: Porno.

He gets major credit for this one. lol. Yarn is going immediately into the stash until I finish up all Christmas socks, or until Christmas actually happens. Whichever comes first.

FO Socks!

2006-11-11T17:51:00.000-05:00

I finished the Sock Wars SOCKS!

These came to me as yarn... took forever to finish them because I couldn't take this pattern one more time.

They will be shipped first thing Monday. Unfortunatley they will take FOREVER to get to Spain.

Pattern: International Socks of Doom
Yarn: Heirloom Cashmino

Oh well. This is hopefully the last pair I'll have to make.

Next up: A TEST KNIT!

Technically I've started the test knit. Now to see if I can finish it before the end of November.

2006-11-09T22:04:00.000-05:00

I don't like my spindle. It wobbles and just looks like it's off. I don't care though because it was cheap, and it is lighter than my ashford meaning I can spin thinner yarns.

After getting some blue sample roving off the spindle I dug out my Cherry Tree Hill roving. It's gorgeous... and I love it. Funny thing, when I went to the Cherry Tree Hill site it said this was for felting... you think they would aim towards spinners? Maybe I'm missing some horrible flaw. lol.

These socks are currently nagging me. I'm just so freaking sick of Sock Wars.... This is the 3rd pair. Sock number 6. I'm bored... I want to spin. I'm almost done... so hopefully it'll happen this weekend.

Good Mail.

2006-11-03T12:21:00.000-05:00

Bad Week this week. But I got some good mail today.

My spindle kit that I ordered from Helloyarn.com came. So I got my spindle, I got my 8 oz of roving, and I got some other little added bonuses. I got some blue roving and a letter that explains that the blue roving has been broken down in to what you would actually be using to spin. It's very beginner friendly and I love it. They also gave me instructions on how to spin with a drop spindle. I know how to spin, I didn't need directions and I didn't need the extra bit of prepared roving, but I think it's really great that they did as much as they did to help the beginner spinner. So if you're thinking about learning with a drop spindle, I recommed helloyarn.com

Oh, and I also got the Winter Interweave... my week's been made.

November

2006-11-01T23:23:00.000-05:00

Monthly Dishcloth KAL started today. I like this KAL thing. The color suggested was brown, ecru or tan. I'm using tan with flecks of color. I like it. It might look messed up in the end... we'll see.

I like November. Favorite time of the year. I like Thanksgiving, and my birthday isn't too bad either. I'm looking forward to my birthday actually, because I've bought myself yarn related things. When they arrive, I'll take a picture and go on and on forever about how great it is.

I like yarn things. My boyfriend knows this; however, he doesn't know good yarn from bad yarn. I know well enough not to expect yarn related things from him. He did buy me a gift certificate to JoAnn's last year, so I will give him some major credit there.

This weekend is going to be a busy one, and in order for it to be a little less chaotic I need to get some stuff done Tomorrow. I say tomorrow, because it's 11:30 on Wed night, and I haven't done Calc or Stats homework yet (which is due tomorrow). Thank goodness they don't collect homework. I'll be gone Friday to Saturday night, which worries me. My bulliten board has to be up by 5pm on Monday, and I'm paranoid about that bulliten board. I just don't like this education class. The teacher makes me really nervous. I don't know what to expect and I have no idea what she wants. I'm going to try not to think about it though. It isn't worth worrying about tonight.

When this semester ends... I'm going to go buy more yarn. Maybe socks that rock. Or maybe roving. We'll see what mood I'm in.

Good bye Socktober.

2006-10-31T22:22:00.000-05:00

Last day of Socktober. I feel like school really got in the way of my Socktober.

I did knit socks... The only thing I knitted that wasn't a sock was two washcloths, and I started a scarf at my first guild meeting. Haven't touched the scarf since.

During this month I finished:

My second pair of Sock Wars socks. When they arrived I only had a cuff. So we'll say 1.75 socks.
The Toe-Up Pomatomus socks for my boyfriend were finished. These were longer than average Pomatomus socks too. 1.5 Pomatomus knit during Socktober.
The THIRD pair of Sock Wars socks has also made major progress. 1.25 knitted during Socktober.
Also a Christmas gift (socks) was worked on 0.25 for that one cause it wasn't worked on till my boyfriends socks were done.

Total socks for the month: 4.75 socks this month. It's a lot when you look at it like that. Just imagine what I could accomplish if I didn't have massive homework getting in they way all the time.

Here's a picture of the Third pair of sock wars socks... This is some really nice yarn. I'm half tempted to keep them for myself they're so incredibly soft.

Toe-up FO

2006-10-26T13:36:00.000-05:00

Toe-up Pomatomus are finished. Toe-up socks look so awkward, especially with these ribbing patterns that make the shape look funky. These socks are a little off anyways since I had did both of them differently in the heel. But that was me experimenting.

Pattern: Pomatomus modified to be toe-up

Yarn: Knit Picks' Memories in color Yukon

These are going into the box of wool and mothballs until Christmas. The 3rd Socks of Doom are going to be picked up and knitted with fury, and I'm going to get working on more x-mas gifts. Maybe a test knit. Who knows. My mom made the comment the other night.... "Maybe you should start shopping for gifts." I don't want to buy all my gifts. I want to knit something for everyone, or at least the majority.

There are only 5 more pairs of socks that I plan to make, and according to my counter there are 1 month, 4 weeks and 1 day till x-mas. Since I can't knit right up until x-mas, I'm going to say I have about 8 weeks to make 5 pairs of socks. Which means I'd have to knit 1.25 socks a week. Hm... can I do it? Maybe, maybe not.

Plus I have socks of Doom to make. This sock wars is slowing me down.

Yarn Mail

2006-10-23T19:55:00.000-05:00

Some lovely yarn arrived in the mail today. To bad it's going to be turned into Socks of Doom!

I worry there won't be enough. One ball does say 50grams, and there are two of them so I hope it's plenty!

I love Dishcloths.

2006-10-21T22:55:00.000-05:00

Remember that dishcloth I started a few days ago for the Monthly Dishcloth KAL? It's finished. Well, it's finished in all it's dishcloth glory. What makes this my new favorite dishcloth?

I like the shadow knitting stuff. I like it a lot in fact. I realized what this was the day the orange was started and from that point on I was thrilled. My sister adores candy corn, so she was thrilled that it was a candy corn dishcloth. As soon as I showed her that it was candy corn she asked me if I would have enough yarn left to make her one. Her birthday is tomorrow, the ends were woven in before dinner and it was passed on to her. She was thrilled. She kept trying to show my dad just why it was so cool.

Pattern: October's Mid-Month KAL from Monthly Dishcloth KAL

Yarn: Sugar 'n Cream in colors Hot Orange, White, and Yellow; Lion Cotton in color Black

Socktoberfest

2006-10-18T22:59:00.000-05:00

More Socktoberfest!

Still pumping along on the Pomatomus socks. I'm half way through the heel and all is good. Cross my fingers and they'll be finished by the end of October. Cross my fingers again and I will have gotten my next Sock Wars socks in the mail to complete and those will also be finished by the end of October. I'm just awaiting my package.

Socktoberfest and Dishcloth KALs

2006-10-16T20:47:00.000-05:00

I recently joined the Monthly Dishcloth KAL. What can I say, mystery patterns that you don't figure out till the end.... there's nothing better. And it's a washcloth, not a mystery sweater, sock, or other project that could take much longer.
Here's what I did today. I was irritated at the lack of colors at the store, then I realized later that they did in fact have all the colors so I angrily went back and bought the colors. I decided I'm going to go through and make a list of colors needed for future KALs and write them down so I can buy one at a time with all my coupons. :-D

And since I shouldn't deprive anyone of a Sock update. Here it is. Pomatomus number two has make progress! Mm...more pooling. I'm actually getting annoyed with this pooling. I just don't like it. Oh well, maybe next time.

Sock Wars Socks II

2006-10-14T13:25:00.000-05:00

Second pair of Sock Wars socks completed and shipped! This time I remembered to take a picture. The photo doesn't do it justice though.

Pattern: Socks of Doom...duh.

Yarn: Muskoka? Not sure, but that's on the label. It's merino and it was sent to me by the lovely lady I killed.

Also I bought something today.... MOTHBALLS! Lavender scented moth balls in little clear pouches. So I take the mothballs, throw seven pouches into my yarn and hopefully I will never see moths.

I've never had problems with moths before, but when I say that I don't do anything to protect my yarn, people flip and tell me I need to. So now there is protection.

More additions to the stash.

2006-10-12T22:45:00.000-05:00

I said back in September I was going to have all yarn into 2 boxes by the next year.

So far it isn't going to well. I've been buying cotton like it's going out of style. Just yesterday I decided I needed cotton, especially since dishcloths/facecloths/washcloths are quick and could make some great gifts. Well, I figured since I'm always getting these 40% off coupons for JoAnns I might as well buy one ball of cotton with each coupon. This was purchased today. Upon arriving home from JoAnns I was informed there was a coupon in the paper sunday, so I think I'm off to buy another ball of cotton tomorrow. Then I got another coupon in the mail today. Yup, I'm on a major buy cotton mission. I figure the more cloths I have in a variety of colors, the easier it will be to gift them whenever needed.

My ultimate goal is to get a container of just finished gift projects that can be given away as presents, if I can't find anyone to gift them too, they can eventually go to charity.

Unfortunately there wasn't much knitting today because all I wanted to do was spin. I'm really starting to like the way this roving looks spun up. It's nice. I can't wait to see what it looks like plied. It might be awhile though, it always seems like I'm not making a dent in the bag of roving.

My Knitting Life is Over...

2006-10-11T22:08:00.000-05:00

ETA: I added a link to the pattern since everyone was curious to where I got it. It was off a Bernat label I had, but they've got a link on their site if you sign up with them. Doesn't cost anything, except they might send you some junk knitting mail, but is it really junk if it's about knitting?

I knit a dishcloth/washcloth/facecloth! I like it! This has nothing to do with the title of the blog, but this is here to make this post much happier. If you chose to read on, you'll understand my pain.Pattern: Got it off that blue cotton yarn label I bought last weekend. Online Pattern
Yarn: Peaches and Creme color Pink Lemonade

Now for the life is over knitting news:

I have acne. Or at least that's what I was blaming the massive blemishes that randomly appeared and disappeared from my face.

I hadn't had any sort of horrible acne in years, but all of a sudden it was back with fury. No matter how much I washed it wouldn't go away, and it just itched like no other.

Then tonight my mom brought up an interesting point. The conversation went as follows:

Mom: Did you pick your face today?

Me: No! I haven't picked my face; in fact, when I woke up this morning my skin was great, even said to myself don't have to put cover-up on because it looks good. Then I show up to my observation and see myself in the mirror. My face looked like crap.

Mom: Maybe you're allergic to that yarn.

Me: No, this yarn is cotton, I can't be allergic to cotton, all of my clothes are cotton.

Me: Oh no... what if I'm allergic to wool?

The more thinking I did the more I think it may be the wool. I looked fine when I went to my boyfriend's Saturday, but upon leaving for a movie I lost my mind because the "acne" had flared up again... Prior to my looking in the mirror I had been working on his blue Pomatomus socks made from 100% merino wool. I also looked fine when I woke up this morning before doing a few rounds on the Sock Wars socks...

All the other socks I've worked on recently for Sock Wars have also been 100% merino wool...

It's not looking too good. Then I thought back to summer. My "acne" wasn't horrible then, but I didn't really knit with wool all summer, it was mostly acrylic. I use a lot of acrylic.

What to do? All my Christmas gifts that I was planning on making were to be done out of wool yarn. So I'm going to keep knitting them, stop touching my face and see if that helps. If not we'll move to plan 2: keep knitting, stop touching face, and add some allergy medication into the mix.

The real test will come after Christmas knitting is done. I'm going to stop using wool for a month or two and see if it goes away.

I've heard a lot of people say they get allergies from chemicals used when wool is processed, but not actual wool itself, so hopefully spinning my own wool and using it will still go over. It's something I'm going to test and play around with. We'll see what happens.

No More Fun Folks

2006-10-10T22:16:00.000-05:00

Fall Break's over. Fun time's gone. Back to the evils of college. My weekend full of knitting adventure was great even if my hands are so cramped that I can't type right now.

Went to my first local guild meeting tonight. It was fun. I paid dues for the rest of the year, only to go to a Pep Band meeting afterwards and find out that I can't make it to the next three official guild meetings. Bummer. That's the bad thing about pep band. When I first discovered the world of blogging last year, it was during pep band season, so I couldn't make it to these SNB groups because the meetings were on Pep Band game nights. The practices never conflict, just the games.

Anyways, we started scarves at the guild meeting. I dug some Red Heart from the stash for the occasion. I hate this scarf. It isn't the yarn though, I think I'm just using needles that are too small. It's too hard to cable with fabric this thick, so I'm going to go up to size 10 and see what happens.

In other news, I cast on for Blue Pomatomus #2 yesterday, and actually started knitting today.

One Pomatomus

2006-10-10T08:55:00.000-05:00

Finished the first Pomatomus. Finally. It was actually finished yesterday morning, but because my boyfriend and I have practically spent all weekend together, nothing really got posted about. As soon as I finished the sock I tried it on my foot out of fear it would be too small. And it was TIGHT! So I worried, tried to assure myself his legs were thinner than mine, and forced him to try it on when he got here last night.

I made him pose for pictures, but then he wouldn't take it off, because it was his and he wanted to wear it.

I know, I know... hard to see. But he likes blue. It's easy to see the pattern in real life, just impossible to take a picture of.And it pooled everywhere except fort he heel and toe. Go figure.

This makes me wonder. The washing instructions say hand wash. The thing I want to know is whould it hurt the socks if they were machine washed cold on a delicate or gentle cycle? This has been bugging me. My mom told me to go ahead and wash on cold, but I don't want to ruin them either. Opinions please?

Now comes the real task of remembering how I made the first one. I took very little notes, and I faced so many stupid little issues making it toe up, things that could definitely be fixed on the second, but I feel like I should make the second the same as the first.

Stash Enhancement

2006-10-08T13:05:00.000-05:00

At Walmart of all places. Can't beat cheap cotton though.

Did everyone know Bernat is doing Cotton now? I don't think I was aware. The story starts with my trip to Walmart, I just had to take a look at the yarn section, I always do. Usually I don't buy anything, although I'm a Red Heart fan, I have a small store I usually shop at that is owned by a lovely women who runs it out of her home.

Not only is she cheaper than Walmart (by $1 sometimes), but she has 10 times the color choices. She stocks Bernat, but I haven't seen this at her store. I'll have to ask her about it next time I'm there.

So I purchased two of the colors. They are 12oz each and were $5.97? Something like that. Not bad, and much better color choices than the Peaches and Creame yarn also stocked at Walmart. Not only that but they have some pretty cool dishcloth patterns on them too. I'm actually considering making one of the patterns on the lable.

In socktoberfest news? I'm really close to finishing the Pomotomus sock, which would mean just one more left to go. Sock Wars socks are coming along too but I'll save that stuff for future updates.

Pictures of Sock Wars Socks

2006-10-07T09:45:00.000-05:00

Pattern: The Sock Wars Pattern
Yarn: KnitPicks Merino Style in Hollyberry

Here are the pictures of the sock wars socks that were sent to Astabeth. She took these pictures because if you remember correctly, I forgot to.

The boyfriends socks are going to be somewhat abandoned. They're not going to be the sole project I work on. I'm going to mix some other socks in the mix so I can get several pairs done by Christmas.

Socks in the Mail.

2006-10-05T19:40:00.000-05:00

Socks in the mail today, but these weren't socks of death.

I sent my socks to Astabeth last Saturday, and she promptly shipped her unfinished socks to me after she was killed on Monday. What a sweet person. I'd been talking to her via e-mail throughout the whole thing, so it was sad to ship the socks, but it had to be done.

And the partial sock she sent me is really pretty. I like green, and this yarn is really soft. I may have to look into buying some of it for myself (once the stash is reduced of course).

Speaking of stash... didn't I say last month that I was going to get it all into two boxes before next September? So far, I haven't gotten rid of anything. In fact, I might have even more yarn now than I had before. Oops.

The hecktic part of my week is over. I hope to have more posts with lots of knitting content all weekend.

My boyfriends socks? Our anniversary is still Monday, and I'm still on the first sock. It isn't looking promising, so I think I might aim for Christmas, or even his birthday. If I put them off for his birthday it would give me a chance to get other relatives knitted gifts done for Christmas. It isn't looking too good though.

ughhhhhhhhhhhh

2006-10-02T22:58:00.000-05:00

That's how I feel right now so this will be a quick post.

It's midterm week.

I have tons of things due this week in school, and I think I'd be okay if it weren't for this midterm tomorrow. It's one of those classes where I just feel like the teacher doesn't get it. She tells us one thing, and the other classes another.

This test is taking me away from other things, like the take home test and paper due on Wednesday. I don't have much to show for either of them. The take home test will be easy enough, it's the paper that I worry about. I also have a bulliten board proposal due Thursday, but that was started this morning, so I'm no longer afraid of it.

Oh, and I have to do 6 hours of observation this week. That's far worse than it should be.

The only progress on knitting, is a heel in the boyfriend's socks. The goal of finishing them by next Monday isn't looking too good.
Then again, maybe I should look at the bright side. I don't study for anything and do reasonably well. So as much as I've studied, I should be in phenominal shape.

Socktoberfest!

2006-10-01T08:51:00.000-05:00

It's October 1st, and Socktoberfest has officially started.

So I've been thinking about what I wanted to do for Socktoberfest. I missed out last year because I had no clue about the wonderful world of knit blogs and the online knitting community.

Sock yarn isn't hard to find ideas for, it's very easy. Hey, maybe I should make a pair of socks with it! It's discontinued? Socks for me then! We all know we can't give away yarn that we may never find again.

Sometime this summer I decided it would be a great idea to knit my entire household a pair of socks for Christmas, and of course my boyfriend would get socks too because he's my boyfriend and I always knit or crochet him something for gifts. Then, the Grandmas got thrown into the picture. They should get socks too.

I've already collected all the yarn for these gifts, the trick now is to get every last one of them knit before Christmas.

My boyfriends are the farthest along. In fact, these socks are being aimed for our anniversary. Unfortunately it's a week from Monday. 9 days. I'm to the heel on the first sock. Probably not possibe, but I also have fall break coming up so hopefully they will get finished, even if I have to sit around on the day of our anniversary and finish up the last sock.

I worry about how these socks will hold up to use. They're on size 2 needles, but the needles are just too big for the yarn. They were the needles called for in the pattern though and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to alter the pattern enough to make it work. He could care less, tells me they'll be great, he knows he's getting them so it won't be a surprise, but I still care. I still worry. Chances are when he wears through the bottoms because the gauge was so loose he'll come running back to me insisting that I fix them.

FO!

2006-09-30T15:06:00.000-05:00

Finished the Sock Wars socks... and they've been shipped!

But guess what... I forgot to take a picture.

So hopefully my victim will be nice enough to take a picture when she gets them which probably won't be until Tuesday.

Why have there been so little posts? College is sucking up all my time. However! Fall break is the 9th and 10th so I can guarantee you a post then!

Tale of Two Socks

2006-09-21T19:37:00.000-05:00

Hi. I'm killing time! (I really don't feel like doing homework.) And I really don't have much homework so maybe I'm not in too bad of shape.

So I decided way back when SP8 started, and I bought some cool sock yarn, that I would make my dad socks for Christmas, maybe his birthday. All depended on when I actually got around to doing it. So for the last two weeks I've been saying, "two weeks to make dad socks before his birthday. two weeks left. two weeks. two weeks." Well... it's not always two weeks, which is a fact I guess I just overlooked.

Dad's Birthday was today, and his socks aren't quite done. They aren't quite started either, so now we're aiming for Christmas. However, I'm going to try to finish my boyfriends socks for our little dating anniversary things. You know how us teenagers are, we celebrate every little thing. So he's getting socks, hopefully. The good news? I'm a lot farther along on his socks than on my dads. Our anniversary is 18 days away. So if I only knit his socks, I just might be okay.Can we say pooling with the boyfriend socks? I think so. Major pooling.

Fuzzy Hat. Part III

2006-09-20T09:31:00.000-05:00

Yet another fuzzy hat completed.

Can you guess what it's made out of?

I really like how it pooled, too bad those decrease rows destroyed the pooling.

One side:

Other side:

Pattern: It's the basic hat everyone makes. Ribbing, knit around and around and around, then decrease.
Yarn: Lion Brand Fun Fur in color Hot Pink, and Red Heart in color Plum Pudding.

Opinions please?

2006-09-19T13:50:00.000-05:00

My favorite teacher in the world, and one of the only ones who can teach at my university was turned down for tenure. This means he may only be there for about another year. My problem is that I have 3 years left including the current one. Rumor has it another teacher in the same department probably won't get tenure either, and a third is thought to be soon retiring. The problem? This only leaves the university with One full time professor in this department. It is also this one professors first year at the university.

So I'm concerned with the state of the department. This is a subject quite vital to my graduating and being successful. So hire more teachers you think. Well, while many universities are hiring now for next fall, ours doesn't start hiring until the spring. This means our University doesn't always get the best candidates. We tend to get who's left. So if three professors aren't coming back next year, will they be able to replace all three? I don't really think so, and it's scary.

My thoughts: Where can I transfer? and When should I transfer?

I like my university, but I don't know what they were thinking. And if anyone out there knows a thing or two about the way universities usually work, please, e-mail me or something. I would love to hear more about it.

Major lack of knitting content

2006-09-18T22:08:00.000-05:00

My dad's birthday is Thursday. I was going to make him socks. Key word: was. I said to my mom Sunday after winding yarn for his socks, "I'm going to make dad socks for his birthday, think I can do it in two weeks?" She replied, "His birthday is Thursday."

WOah... I swear I had two weeks like yesterday.

If you haven't noticed, school has taken over. I'm swamped with math homework, 8 chapters of it just last weekend. Plus there's always a couple reports to do for the education classes.

I did manage to clean my chair off though. For awhile it's been piled with clothes because I have no room in my dresser, and my spinning wheel was blocking my closet. So this morning the spinning wheel was moved so I can get into my closet, except now I'll trip over it when getting out of bed. My homework buddy is really happy. He loves to sleep in the chair while I'm on the computer, even if I leave random clothes on it during the day.

I'm really hoping I can get all this homework on track this week. That way I won't be behind for the future, and there will be much more knitting to show. That and if I don't get everything all caught up, I'm a sitting duck for sock wars.

2006-09-13T18:32:00.000-05:00

My sister loves her socks. She wore them to school today too. She also has reported that her feet aren't gross from acrylic socks. Who knows, it's cold enough she could prolly get away with them.

She showed everyone at school her socks, running up to people yelling, "look at my socks" and hiking her jeans up so they could see. She also had a few people say, "cool socks" without her even saying anything to them. So she told them her sister made them, which was followed with strange looks and even more questions. Apparently people were also feeling her socks. I think it's funny. She's so happy with her socks.

oh, and I started another charity square. No shocker there. The yarn is very bright and happy, and I actually want to knit this square. Usually I have to force myself to sit down and work on squares, but when I like the color of yarn, it isn't bad at all.

FO.

2006-09-13T08:29:00.000-05:00

I finished my Spring Socks. The second one was a little snug because I got a bit tight on my gauge. So I asked my sister if she wanted to try them on, and they fit like a dream.

So I gave them to her. She'd been in love with them all week, and she usually doesn't give a crap about the things I knit, so it was a big deal.

She's happy. She wore them to bed last night. She wanted to wear them with flip flops to school but couldn't because of band practice. I warned her their acrylic content might not absorb sweat, and she told me she would put them to the test. Oh dear.

Pattern: Wendy's Toe-Up Sock Pattern
Yarn: Moda Dea in color Spring (a little more than 1 ball of yarn)

Charity Square

2006-09-12T07:59:00.000-05:00

Finished another one. This one was actually started mid-August. Which is sad seeing as how I can make a square in less than 3 hours. Unfortunatley they're boring. Squares are boring. Which is why I play with patterns and color. In fact, I think I might start going through more books to find more cool patterns.

Yesterday was 9/11. I sat around and cried whenever it was mentioned. It's just so sad, and I can't watch the specials on TV because it's too soon. 5 years isn't much.

In other knitting news, I haven't had time to knit with school. I think the big problem is that I put off homework during the weekend because I want to knit. That and after a week of doing homework/school/clubs, I just don't have the energy to homework after all that. So I had a whole 30 minutes to knit yesterday, and today isn't looking great either. My goal, is to start doing homework when I should, and do homework on the weekend, but allow for frequrent knitting breaks to keep me sane. That's what I did the first weekend of school, and I feel like I learned more that weekend, and got more accomplished than any other weekend. Another goal. Notice my goal of projects on the needles went down the tube. It's called Christmas, and travel projects, and just wanting to bust some stash.

Spring Socks

2006-09-10T22:03:00.000-05:00

Remember those socks that just knit up fast. I'm almost done with the second, and believe it or not, I'm still on the first ball of yarn. I know. Shocking. I love the length of them too. Enough to cover my ankle, kind of like my store bought socks, but not too horribly short.

The second sock was started sometime last week. I remember working on it Wednesday night, and Friday morning. Since then it's come far, especially since I don't work on it that much. I have maybe two to three feet of yarn left on the first ball, and I'm getting ready to start the second. I think I could probably get another pair of ankle socks out of this yarn as long as I stop at the ankles.

So now I'm thinking it is possible to get a pair of adult socks out of 50 grams of DK weight sock yarn. When that was announced for Sock Wars, I knew short socks were possible, but these aren't that short, and that's 50 grams of DK weight yarn there. I consider these socks good practice for Sock Wars. With yarn that thick and needles that big, Sock Wars could get really interesting. The hardest part will be sending the packages and waiting for them to arrive.

Allow me to direct your Attention

2006-09-09T11:02:00.000-05:00

The lovely lady in charge of the Socks-A-Month knit-a-long also does some pattern designs. One of her latest to come out was test knit by another lady with diabetes who will be participating in a walk to raise money for Diabetes Research in October. As a result, she decided to place this pattern up for sale on her blog. $5 for the pattern, and ALL proceeds go towards the test knitters pledge drive. I think it's great. And it's a lovely sock pattern too. I'm all about Diabetes research. My boyfriend's diabetic and recently ordered a new insulin pump which probably cost more than his car (or at least pretty close).

Oh, and another bonus. If you order the pattern you'll be entered into a drawing to win three balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran yarn, which was used to make the socks in the sample. You have up until the 15th of October to order and have the proceeds go to the Walk for Diabetes.
More Info

Mmm... Acrylic

2006-09-09T10:31:00.000-05:00

So I've been house sitting for the past week (I didn't fall off the face of the planet). Took a lot of knitting when I left including my Candle Flame Shawl, the Blue Pomatomus, the Spring Socks, and the Purple Peasant Top. I also took some more yarn in case the Spring socks should have been finished. Close, but not too close. Most of my time was spent doing homework, going to class, club meetings, and chasing a cat around who didn't want his shots. Progress was made on everything. I won't post now though, I'll wait until I have nothing else to show. ;-)

For now, I'll show you the hat I finished last weekend and completely forgot to post about.

Pattern: K2P2 ribbing, double stranded, get rid of the fun fur, increase and knit round and round until it's time to decrease, then decrease. Not complicated.
Yarn: Red Heart in color Shaded Dusk, and Lion Brand Fun Fur in color Light Blue.

Oh, and the yarn and needle sizes were announced for Sock Wars, and because I don't have any DK weight yarn that isn't baby yarn or scraps, I stopped by the yarn store to pick up more Sassy Stripes. It is a DK sock yarn.

Edited To Add: I did some long hard thinking about my choice of sock yarn. There are many down sides to knitting socks from acrylic, mainly the issue of: if my feet sweat the socks won't absorb it and that's gross. I've knit acrylic socks, but I've never actually worn them for long periods of time with shoes. So I broke down and placed an order online... to Knitpicks. And you should all be glad to know that the bulk of my purchase was a book. :-D A book and enough yarn to make 3 pairs of socks. One for sock wars (which was cheaper than the stupid acrylic yarn I bought) and two more pairs, one for each grandma.

The Stash will be Busted.

2006-09-03T22:59:00.000-05:00

My goal: To get my stash down to two boxes. They are big boxes though so don't be too afraid. There are currently 3 boxes and a clothes hamper that hold my yarn and roving. There's is also a bag or two of roving hiding in the clost. Getting the stash down to two boxes would be ideal. One for yarn, one for roving. The other empty boxes would then be used to store finished objects, charity things, and whatever other knitting related crap I've accumulated.

I am determined to use my stash. I love my yarn, but I've collected so much, and with every coupon I get to JoAnn Fabrics, I'm dying to run out and buy more cheap acrylic. I like acrylic. It's ideal for baby sweaters, and I don't feel bad if they get puked on. I also wouldn't mind if they're destroyed. When a baby sweater is made out of scrap Red Heart, it's cute, it's functional, and it only cost $2.15. Definitely not breaking the bank. Will I make a Red Heart sweater for myself? Time will only tell.

I've been really wanting to make a baby sweater, so I decided to start one. Made out of the purple red heart that was on top when I opened up the laundry hamper of yarn. I have two shades of purple that look good together, but hopefully I'll only need one shade. I'm making the smallest size and it's probably going to charity anyways.

Progress... Amazing progress.

2006-09-02T23:06:00.000-05:00

Look. I've progressed on my sock. Quite good progress seeing as how I completely ripped the sock this morning when I realized I forgot to add in the negative ease. Oops.

The sock was restarted at around 4 o'clock and it's now midnight. That's approximately 8 hours. Amazing.

I'm going to credit this success to the fact that it's a heavy sock yarn and I'm using size 3 needles.

I want this sweater

2006-09-01T23:20:00.000-05:00

September MagKnits is up and I want this sweater. The yarn prices aren't too horrible either. In the yarn called for it would cost somewhere over $50 which isn't horrible for quality yarn. Whether or not I would actually use that yarn is another story. It's likely with my stash issues I won't be buying yarn for awhile.I've been knitting as much as possible considering the math homework that has collected from three math classes. My favorite thing is "travel" knitting. aka socks. While finishing up my purple pomatomus my boyfriend decided he wanted a pair of purple ones that went much higher. Unfortunatley for him yarn was already purchased for his socks, and it was a color that he picked out. I'll give him his pomatomus, but they're going to be toe-up, that way I can make them as high as possible. These are a pain to knit when traveling, so I started another pair of regular socks with that cheap acrylic yarn I bought a few weeks ago along with the massive amount of baby yarn. The colors are growing on me. They're just so spring like. Or maybe it's the self-striping addiction that I have.

Either way, they're going to live in my purse and entertain me between classes at school and at red lights should traffic be horrific like it was today.

So I started the blue hat Tuesday because we needed one to match the pink one. Did the math, all went well. Casted on. Casted on too many. Didn't noticed. Increased, to an even bigger size, got ready to start the decreases, and I counted my stitches. Oh! The frustration. So it got ripped. I'm determined to finish it pretty quickly, and it won't take long at all.
Here's what progress I've made tonight.

Hopefully there will be tons of knitting (and homework) completed over the weekend. I guess I should probably put homework first, but it's just soooo hard. I know there's yarn in my bag and it taunts me during class.

First Day of School and another FO

2006-08-28T22:03:00.000-05:00

First day of classes today. Fortunately for me my first class on Monday's is at 12:40 which means I can stay up all night on Sunday either cramming for exams, hanging out with my boyfriend or knitting. Or I can get up semi-early, at 8-8:30 and get some quality knitting time in before I head off to school.

This morning it was all about the second Pomatomus sock. My goal this time was to make the toes a bit more square so that they would actually fit my feet. I finished up the chart and started decreasing before I was forced to leave for school. After completing two hours of Calculus homework I was able to finish sock number 2 tonight. Wove the ends in and everything. Then my attention was turned back to sock number 1. I ripped a good inch on it until it matched the stopping point of sock number 2, but the live stitches back on DPNs and finished up the toe. It was large before and it still isn't as snug as I would like. I think I'm going to blame the ribbing in the heel for the looseness of the sock. Why on earth would you put ribbing in the heel flap? I just don't get it. It is a technique though and I plan on using all these little techniques I learn to make my ideal socks. I like short row heels. :-D I don't mind the gussets though and I might try some other version of a heel flap when it suits me.

Pattern: Pomatomus from Knitty
Yarn: Bernat Sox in color Jazz Hot
Modifications: I ripped back so it would be a tad bit smaller and fit my feet better. Unfortunately my feet aren't pointy and the pointy toes did me no good. I have square feet. And I will make socks to fit my square feet!

An ever-growing stash

2006-08-27T10:57:00.000-05:00

Bought trekking yesterday. It's gorgeous.

Now it's time to face my stash. I dug out the boxes of yarn that have come to live with me since I started crocheting again in late 2003 and started knitting in 2004. Then of course there's all the spinning fiber I've collected. I took so many pictures, I don't think they'll all fit in this entry, but I'll try.

First, let's start with the spinning fiber.

I new I had a lot. The good thing about this portion of the stash is that it will be easy to use up and hopefully not increase. I've really been working through the blue/green/black bag in the back of the pile. It's going down, but not too quickly. There aren't many stores around me that sell fiber, so it shouldn't be hard not to buy any. My goal is to use this up before the next fiber festival comes around next summer.

Now for my natural fiber stash.There's handspun there, enough yarn for about 16 pairs of socks, and some laceweight yarn as well. This will be my stash problem. I love the sock yarn, and I want to buy more all the time. It's just so pretty, but it's expensive too. So maybe, just maybe, if I limit my yarn money, I won't be able to afford really expensive yarn.

Now for the baby yarn.

Lots of baby yarn. The majority of it was inherited from my great aunt and is over 20 years old. That's where I got most of my knitting needles too. There were also two odd skeins of baby yarn not shown, they were found when digging through my other acrylic yarn.

Speaking of acrylic, it requires two pictures.There is overlap between the pictures. A lot of this stuff I had plans for, and others was just sort of gifted to me. Most of it will probably turn into charity projects or baby sweaters because it's washable. This portion of the stash needs some major busting, the problem is I do a lot of enhancing to this portion when other people want knitted items. There were also two more full skeins of red heart found hiding beneath the natural yarns. They aren't pictured.

Last but not least, I have some doily stuff! Two skeins that I haven't touched in a long time. I do like doilies though.

Finished Hat, and more Pomatomus

2006-08-25T11:46:00.000-05:00

Finished the fuzzy pink hat yesterday afternoon. Isn't it pretty? It looks much better in person or on a human head, but there was no human head this size around when I took the picture. It fits her perfectly and she's thrilled. Her little sister wants a blue one with the exact same yarn as the leg warmers, headband, and scarf that she's already received.
Pattern: Mine. I held a strand of fun fur, and a strand of the sassy stripes together and did a K2P2 ribbing, then I dropped the fun fur and increased so I'd get the right stitch count for width I wanted. Knit for 4 inches and started decreasing.
Yarn: Lion Brand Fun Fur in color Hot Pink and Moda Dea's Sassy Stipes in color Crush.

I love this stuff... the striping is just so much fun! I think I'm going to go through and make a billion pairs of self-striping socks. Doesn't matter what kind of yarn... I just want the stripes.

A view from the top:

Since finishing, I've been working on Pomatomus with small breaks for charity squares.
Pomatomus is coming long nicely, which is a good thing since I have to finish by the end of the month for the Sock A Month KAL.

Speaking of Pomatomus, I was showing someone the chart the other day and noticed something... When making the first one I had issues with the foot part of the pattern. Turns out I compltely missed an important stitch in the chart. hehe... oops. I may frog the foot of the old Pomatomus and redo it. This time I can make the toes less pointy. :-)

Go Visit!

2006-08-22T22:20:00.000-05:00

Now that my SP knows who I am... everyone go visit!

Her name is Brenda and she blogs here.

You can look at all the cool things I sent her like the handspun/hand-dyed yarn that I never posted about here. It was hard parting with that yarn...

They originally gave her all my info and she was told to spoil me... then they took it back and gave me her info. So of course I couldn't even hint at what I was doing here... instead I lied profusely. Little lies like, "I shipped my package today!" When really I had shipped it two weeks before... sneaky, sneaky me.

Before I disappear.

2006-08-21T19:37:00.000-05:00

My boyfriend is over and he's taking my router when he leaves. We have two computers, but I might just not post until I get a new router. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. This should entertain you for two seconds.

That's a picture of my boyfriend...wrapped up in a blanket... he thinks he's an egg roll.
First, my works in progress. There are five total, but only four in this picture. There's the pink candle flame shawl that hasn't progressed very much, the second pomatomus sock with part of a heel flap, yet another square for charity, and last but not least a hat with a fuzzy border to match the mini-jaywalkers.

When I went to buy the yarn for the hat I came back with some other things as well... like more sock yarn. I like this sassy stripes stuff. I'm not sure why, but I like it! It's probably because I use size 3 needles, the socks just fly off the needles. I figured I could use some more since I joined the socks a month knit-a-long. I also like the color.

Then I wandered over to the clearance yarn. I love this color. I like bright colors... it's a fact widely known, and I've always loved this color yarn. I can't believe they're discontinuing it... oh well... more for me. I figured since I may never see this yarn again, and since it was only $1.50 a skein, I might as well buy it. All of it.

Did I mention that I had a 10% off coupon? That justified all my purchases. The three skeins of sock yarn came out to just less than what the nine skeins of baby yarn cost.

We have Bats

2006-08-19T22:06:00.000-05:00

We have bats. Or at least one bat, but once we find one, there are many others lurking. Good news, we haven't spotted them in the house yet. Bad news, they're outside my bedroom window, I'd be the first to know.

In other exciting news, I found I can trick my router into working! Because of this I'm online right now ready to tell you that I know who my secret pal is. Yup, it's no longer a secret. I've been dying to go check out her blog all day, but haven't been able to because of the evil internet situation.
It's been Valerie who has been spoiling me all along.... She sent me pens. That's exciting, especially since RSVPs have been my favorite pen of all time since I discovered them 9 years ago. She's great. She practically reads my mind, and it's almost scary.

Go visit her blog!

All in all it's been a great SP8, but I think I'm going to stay out of SP9. Swaps are fun, but I think I'd rather do some personal ones, so if anyone is interested in a personal swap let me know. I know there are so many cool things in different parts of the world that you just can't find where you live.

Conventions and knitting...not so great.

2006-08-16T15:19:00.000-05:00

I've been at a convention since last Saturday. Before that I hadn't updated because our internet stinks. Turns out it wasn't my router going bad, instead there was some issue with the cable line. Apparently too much power was going into the house. hurrah! Not only that but they aren't charging us to fix the problem. Because of that I wasn't able to update before leaving for the convention.

Before leaving I spun this:
Into this:
Or at least I'm trying to. It's very, very difficult and I can't get an even yarn. It makes me wonder what kind of sheep it's from because some of the wool is almost spongy feeling, but the rest feels like the roving I'm used to. Did I mention this wool is still in lock form? Hasn't been carded. I have carders, but when I purchased the wool I was told I could spin it like it was. I'm not too sure how I feel about it but I love the colors.

While at convention I finished squares number 10 and 11 for charity. There wasn't much time for knitting at the convention and I wasn't allowed to take my needles on the plane. :-(
Upon arriving home I was greeted by a post card from my Secret Pal and a package as well! The following items were in said box: the most gorgeous regia sock yarn I've ever seen, altoids gum, intense dark chocolate, another post card, and "A" shaped sticky notes.
What more can I say? I'm thrilled. I love my SP... It's going to be so sad to see it all end in a few weeks. I didn't manage to get a picture of the first postcard but it's beautiful as well and is also of Vancouver.

I'm glad to be back. I would have loved to explore Boston more, but the convention took up the entire trip. The convention was a blast though. I'm really looking forward to next years which will be held in Portland, a favorite city of mine.

I spun yarn.

2006-08-09T11:36:00.000-05:00

I spun yarn this week.

Ta dA! Approximately 4 oz of white handspun wool. What kind of wool? No clue. Unlabeled so it must not be that fancy. If it was anything horribly exciting they would tell you.

It's nice. I like it. It's waiting to be washed so the twist can be set. Then it will go live in the stash until I figure out what I want to make with it.

I now have 12 skeins of handspun, and no clue what to do with them. Oh dear...

In other news... my boyfriend snapped one of my knitting needles in half. He was using it for the scarf that he's been working on for the past two years. To make a long story short, he has his yarn/needles/scarf in a plastic bag which has a large hole. Needle fell through the hole, landed on his bed, all his weight was put on it, and it snapped. He never saw the needle. I was a little heartbroken. The broken needle was one of my great aunt's which is why I always warned him to be careful. Oh well... it happens.

I've also promised my boyfriend that once he finished his scarf that I would put it on my blog.

Not much to show...

2006-08-03T21:26:00.000-05:00

Every time I go to update... my internet goes down. I've worked on a charity square. I figured since I had some two little articles in one issue of a Club magazine written about my little project, I probably should pump out some more squares. Guilt got me. Occasionally the shawl comes out, and Pomatomus as well. I'm getting closer to starting the heel, but thats about the extent of my exciting knitting life. Oh... and I've been working on a test knit.

Then there were 4.5

2006-07-31T07:45:00.000-05:00

Now after some plying this weekend I have four and a half skeins of my lovely self-striping kool-aid dyed yarn. Not sure what I can make out of it. I really have no ideas when it comes to things like this. Right now, I think it'll take me all four and a half skeins to get a scarf. But in total, this was 8 oz of fiber (before dying), and I feel like I should have more than enough to make a scarf.

Sock Wars.

2006-07-29T08:31:00.000-05:00

So I joined Sock Wars this morning. Maybe it's a mistake. Maybe I won't have time to do it seeing as how I'll be in school. But it should be loads of fun trying.

If you haven't joined.... go do it now. It looks like some serious fun.

The wheel is calling.

2006-07-28T14:52:00.000-05:00

My spinning wheel is calling. I did some spinning earlier this morning before I sat down to work on my candle flame shawl. I did a little, but I just need to spin. That's my problem. I spin because I want to spin. I like spinning. I like fiber. I never have a specific project in mind when I start spinning. Because of this I don't make much with my handspun. I'm always afraid I'm going to run short. I guess I just don't know how much yarn it takes to make everyday kinda items.

I've played with the idea of selling my handspun, but I just don't know if it would sell or not. I don't know if people would want it. AHHH! It drives me crazy... What do you think? Is it worth selling it just to see if there's much of a market for it? I guess if it doesn't sell I could always keep it, or even gift it. Does anyone out there actually sold some of their handspun?

Does this count as a FO?

2006-07-27T08:04:00.000-05:00

I made this.
Actually I made this on Tuesday, and it was drying when I was posting about Adamas. I would have updated yesterday about it but I spent all day in Delaware, OH, because we went down to visit my sister for parents night at band camp.

In other not so great news... My cousins apartment burned to the ground. They barely got out in time. The more we find out the worse the story gets. The smoke alarms had been beeping so apparently they took out the batteries. So then of course, when the apartment caught fire there was no warning. Two of my cousins, and the oldests baby live in this apartment. The baby is not two weeks old. So the boyfriend/father of the baby was staying the night. He heard an explosion and woke up, to flames. No one else was even awake, so he woke his girlfriend up, grabbed the baby and then got the younger sister up. They made it out by pure luck. The pets survivd too even though they were forgotten about in all the chaos. So three families are without homes, it was arson, and everything is gone including the car that was in the garage.

Adamas-finally

2006-07-25T16:16:00.000-05:00

Finally I can post a picture of Adamas. It isn't the world best picture. I've found that this shade is very hard to photograph, or at least it is for me. I tried going outside, where the sun, and furniture just washed it out. Then I tried the living room. It was okay. The pure glory of the color doesn't show through, but you can see the general shape.

Pattern: Adamas from Knitpicks
Yarn: Shadow in color Oregon Coast, also from Knitpicks

Okay.. I know, not that exciting.

Also, I finished square number 7 for charity. Square 6 was finished either earlier this week or late last week, and because I didn't include a picture before, there's one now.I've worked on Pomatomus, it's coming along.

Fun with Mail.

2006-07-24T12:19:00.000-05:00

I would love to post about the shawl and show you the finished pictures, but my mom took it to work with her to show everyone, and it probably won't be back till tomorrow night.

Until then I will entertain you with what came in the mail today. A cute little package from my SP!

All sorts of goodies.

There's a crochet hook/dpn/other random thing holder, cute little notecards with a knitter on them, some magnet like things, dark chocolate (which looks amazing), and of course there was yarn. Hand-dyed sock yarn to be specific. The yarn has all sorts of colors in it. There's lots of blue and some browns. One skein seems quite a bit darker than the other, so I'm not sure if I'm going to do the whole every other row with a different skein kinda thing, or just knit one sock with each color and ignore the fact that there's a slight difference in color. I guess I could just make each skein into two smaller balls, then just do the whole alternating thing.

Blocked...

2006-07-23T22:20:00.000-05:00

It's been blocked. Looks great.

Only took about 10 hours maybe to dry.

I was eager to get it off the blocking board, especially since my cats took a liking to pull the pins out and chew on them.

I tried to take a picture but it just wasn't happening. I hope to get one outside tomorrow, and maybe eventually I'll get a picture of it on me. Who knows. I'm not very photogenic.

Completely FO

2006-07-23T17:25:00.000-05:00

Finally got some buttons today when I bought a blocking board for my shawl.

Shawl is still blocking. It feels dry to me but I'm scared to take the pins out. I have this horrible feeling it'll just bounce back to the way it was before.
In the meantime I sewed the buttons I bought on the sweater. They were perfect for the top and bottom button holes that were done in the size 6 needles. They were too small though for the other three holes. I was upset, and I mean upset. (I might have been a little tired) So I went back to the store and bought some bigger buttons for the middle 3 holes. Doesn't look too bad.

I really want to do some spinning.

Adamas

2006-07-23T13:07:00.000-05:00

Adamas is blocking. The cats are quite interested in it. Kitty number 1 was caught sitting on it, he wandered off, and no sooner than he did kitty number 2 showed up and took his turn.

This could be potentially problematic.

I might just spend the rest of the day spinning while babysitting Adamas.

Cross my fingers, maybe it'll be dry by tonight? Not likely, but possible.

I really don't like thinking of titles.....

2006-07-23T08:28:00.000-05:00

I came close to finishing Adamas before I left. Not close enough to get it off the needles though. I have maybe 1/4 of it casted off, so it should be off today. I'm really thinking I might go get a blocking board. I was going to just use a cardboard box but I have a bad feeling it won't be big enough. I'm waiting for the 40% off coupon that we will hopefully get in the paper today.

Still need buttons for my baby sweater. I need to start another one too for a baby that's been here for several months. Last September my other cousin had a baby, and I had been working away on a baby blanket but it had 222 little pieces and after sewing them all together and weaving in 21392083928 ends, I wasn't giving it up. But I saw the baby again yesterday, I really think he needs a sweater... he's just so cute!

Started the second Pomatomus, I have a cuff so far. There really hasn't been much knitting happening. Hopefully I'll have more to show in the upcoming days.

Adamas

2006-07-20T09:29:00.000-05:00

I was hoping to have a blocking Adamas to show you today. I'm going to be away from home for the next few days and it would have been perfect. Finish it, block it using my bed. Leave it there for a few days. Take it off when I got home.

Looks like it won't happen. There's still a small chance, but it's a very small chance.

The Headband.

2006-07-18T15:42:00.000-05:00

Casted on for this while tutoring this morning. I was only there for an hour which was amazing! The girls got their work done in record time. I'm so proud of them.

The older of the two who play my little points game got her mini Jaywalkers and was excited. I told her she couldn't see them till her work was done. It's amazing how motivated she was. After getting them she stuck them on her feet and slid through the house. Is it just me or are all hand-knit socks really slippery? She loved them, her mom loved them, the neighbor who just happened to be there loved them. Everybody is happy. Finished the headband this afternoon. I think it took a total of two hours from start to finish. I'm happy with how it turned out. I love how the light blue in the varigated just happened to match perfectly. It was knit back and forth and the side that you see is actually where it was seamed. I love what varigated yarn does by itself. I've decided I should probably include in my blog the source of the pattern, yarn used and all that other junk because it always seems to be my luck that I can't remember which book/magazine/website that I got the pattern from.

Pattern: Child's leg warmers from Winter 2005 issue of KnitSimple.
Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver color 0984 Shaded Dusk.
Modifications: Childs head was 20 inches so I did a gauge swatch, took away 10% so it would be snug, then added stitches to get a multiple that fit the pattern. Casted on 58 stitches with two strands held together, followed pattern until my final piece measured 3 inches. Nothing to it.

She'll be thrilled when she gets it tomorrow.

My day has been made.

2006-07-17T19:56:00.000-05:00

Jeanne totally made my day with the comment on Adamas. She said she started her second ball of yarn in the 12th repeat, and I started mine about halfway through said repeat. I'm thrilled. Her's was a good size, and she used the same yarn. So technically mine should be at least half as great as hers. That is assuming I don't screw it up blocking it.

Nothing new and exciting in knitting to show. I've been working away on Adamas, and a square for charity. I really should start the gift headband tonight. Wait no! Need to measure kid's head first. I need to find the magazine that pattern's in.

ETA: I lied... I was in the very beginning of the 13th repeat when I started my second ball of yarn. Maybe I'll just add an extra 10 rows and cross my fingers.

Two new FOs... sort of...

2006-07-15T23:01:00.000-05:00

Finished the Jaywalker surgery... I now have fuzzy cuffs on my mini-Jaywalkers. Went much better than planned.

After finishing that I finished up the knitting and even wove all the ends in on my orange baby sweater. All that's left to do there is finding some cute little buttons and
sewing them on. Practically done, but I guess it can't really count as an FO.

Next up on my To Do List? One more Pomatomus sock (so I'll have a whole pair). Also to be cast on in the near future is the headband for the other girl I tutor. She changed her mind. She no longer wants a Pomatomus headband, which I found very disappointing, she now wants the same pattern used for her scarf and her legwarmers, what she doesn't realize is that they were two completely different stitch patterns. The scarf was lace and the legwarmers were a purl/knit combination. She chose legwarmer pattern so that should get finished really quick.

I'll also be attempting to finish ADAMAS! Haven't worked on that one in awhile. I watched P&P yesterday and started listening to the Craftlit they did with P&P. It really made me miss my shawl. My big worry is the final size. I never did a gauge swatch and I've barely used more than a skein of yarn when the pattern called for two. Maybe I'll take the time to put the whole nasty thing on scrap yarn and see how big it is. That seems like so much effor though and I really don't want to do that. Maybe I'll just guess, bind off, and hope it stretches when blocking.

Mini-Jaywalker surgery

2006-07-15T09:09:00.000-05:00

They've been driving me mad. I finished both socks and fixed the little hole created by the pattern. Life was good. Then I got out my fun fur that I was going to just slip around the top of the sock to make the cuff fuzzy. Apparently just weaving in fun fur may work well, but it completely kills the stretch that the cuff originally had.

This I found out yesterday. I want to get the socks out of my life forever. I had to restart that first one so many times it makes me want to scream. I kept sewing in the fun fur, then ripping it out, then sewing again, and ripping out again. That's all I did as far as knitting/crochet/spinning goes yesterday. I played with fun fur. It really drove me mad, and I drove my boyfriend mad worrying about it. The thing with him is that he likes to give advice. Impractical advice that would never work in the real world.

Him: "Staple the fur to the socks."
Me: "That won't work."
Him: "Sure it will, and staples are cheap!"

He loves to suggest things, even when he knows it won't work. The best advice he gave was to unravel it backwords and knit it again.

Waking up this morning my mind went back to the socks and the fact that I should blog about it because, maybe, just maybe some amazing idea would come to me when I'm blogging. Then it hit me. One of the many blogs I read showed where they had to fix the middle of a sock before, and how amazingly easy it was. Then it occured to me that I could just use the same technique to fix the cuff. So I'm off to fix, I'll take pictures once completed.

ETA: One down, one to go. I'm not sure that I have the energy to finish the second one today, but it will be done this weekend. I want to get some new projects on the needles.

Late again!

2006-07-12T22:15:00.000-05:00

So I took out my new needles last night and cast on the first sleeve of my orange baby sweater. I immediately hated the needles. They drove me mad. I like plastic better than wood needles, but I still feel like the yarn just sticks to them. But I had no choice. I couldn't just post about how the needles were driving me insane... that would be mean, especially after my SP was so kind to send them my way.

This was yesterday. After almost finishing the first sleeve tonight and getting over halfway done with the second sleeve, I'm now in love with these needles. They are amazing.

Yes, the needles I hated yesterday, are my absolute favorites today. I love my SP. I really, really love my SP. Just when I thought I really wasn't going to like them, I figured out the correct tension for using them and things are flying along. I'm very, very happy.

As for the title "Late again!". Baby was born at 11:06 this morning, and as of that time I had just started the first sleeve. She was a little early, so that's my excuse. Apparently mom and baby are good. I now have two second cousins. Both boys. Someone really needs to have girls.

Another FO!

2006-07-12T10:47:00.000-05:00

My first finished pair of socks! Wooo! Actually they were finished last night around 7:30 and the ends were woven in as well. I was going to post about it last night but the second I finished weaving in the last end, my sister yelled that the internet was down again. AH! Just my luck.

They fit great. I would have taken a picture of them on my feet, but my feet are sandy because I just came back from kayaking.

I bought a kayak last weekend and I'm in absolute love with it. I was going to take a picture, but I never got the chance. It now lives at my uncles house so we don't have to carry it to the lake every time we want to go out. Hopefully I'll get my kayak out a lot this summer. It was so nice this morning, half the lake was calm, so I tried to stick to that half...lol. Bonus is I get exercise at the same time.

Finished scarf

2006-07-11T13:09:00.000-05:00

Finished my scarf for charity. Feels great to get something off the hook. Unfortunatley I still have yarn left. I was hoping to use it all up. Looks like the yarn's going back into the stash until I have some use for it.

Square 5

2006-07-09T11:45:00.000-05:00

Look what I finished. My guilt of having not worked on charity stuff is over. I finished another square. Now I'm down to one charity project on the needles... or well crochet hook in this case.

I still have two me projects on the needles and two gift projects on the needles. Two of those could be considered travel projects so really as soon as one more project is off the needles I'll only have four. Yay! Hopefully things will be flying off the needles in the future, as soon as September comes around school is going to cut into my knitting.

MAIL! MAIL! MAIL!

2006-07-08T13:22:00.000-05:00

Guess what came in the mail from my lovely SP. It shouldn't be too hard to guess because she told me what it was on the blog. lol. Needles! More specifically DPNS in extremely cool colors. Bright colors! Like pink! I really love pink.

I'm looking forward to using them too, but first I'm going to try to finish these Jaywalkers. I think I'm going to try to cut down on my current WIPs. My goal is to have only four WIPs by the end of August. One Gift knit, one for me knit, one travel knit, and a charity knit. Speaking of charity I wanted to finish 50 squares... gotta get working on that.

semi-FO

2006-07-06T22:48:00.000-05:00

I have a Semi-FO! I casted something off the needles! (at least until I run into needles for the sleeves.) Yup. This sweater looks long. Really long for how thin it is. I'm really hoping when I add sleeves it'll even out a lot. I'm starting to think about the next baby sweater, and the other 2130298098 projects I want to start. There are now 3 shawls I really want to make, but every time I see another shawl pattern I want to run out and buy it. Speaking of buying yarn... I'm on a yarn diet. Not so much that I can't buy yarn because I have to much, but an actual food diet. So I was looking for motivation. I like yarn! Let's use that! I like point systems. Do something good you get points! Do something wrong... points go bye bye... After I get so many points they will turn into yarn money. My boyfriend is in charge of my points... and he's not nice about stuff like this. I find if I lock myself in my bedroom and don't go near the kitchen, I'm not hungry at all. But it's the second that I walk into the kitchen, or living room that's attached to kitchen, that I'm starving and I need to eat everything in sight. So while I'm hiding out in my room expect many, many posts. Hopefully my hands will be kept busy knitting.

I'm still working on the mini jaywalker. It will be tried on tomorrow.

And it will fit like a dream!

ETA: It fit! It fit! It's a little snug but she seems to like it.

Third time's a charm

2006-07-05T16:50:00.000-05:00

This is the third attempt at this post today. Cross my fingers and blogger will like it.

First off Knitty updated. Lots of feet/leg/arm/wrist/hand warmer things. I really like this knitty. I like sock patterns and there were several and i'm looking forward to the toe-up lacy pattern that's on there. There were lots of cool patterns... I like the beaded socks too.

Oh... I decided last night (after finishing and sewing the ends in on the mini jaywalker) that it was too big. So I frogged it and started over with one size bigger. Things were still going quite well when I sat down with my mini jaywalker to watch TV this afternoon when blogger wouldn't let me update. While watching TV I finished the gusset and thought to myself... "it looks like my foot would fit in here." It did. my foot is about 9.5 inches around... hers is 7.5. So I ripped it again and am re-starting the original sock.

Cross my fingers and this sock will get finished and it will fit.

lots of projects!

2006-07-04T09:51:00.000-05:00

I've made so much progress lately it's amazing. I'm going to credit it to the fact that I've been at home and I haven't worked lately.

I've been working on red sock #2 and I'm at the halfway point.

I've worked on the orange sweater and have just one inch of ribbing left to go before I start the sleaves. As soon as the inch of ribbing is finished the sweater is going to take a little break until I wander upon some size 8 DPNs.

I also worked on the mini Jaywalker socks some. I got them out on Sunday, along with a childs sock pattern I had, ripped the old one and started a new one on bigger needles. This time I actually read the label and saw the recommended needle size was 3-6. I was using 2s. Usually I use the smallest size they recommend so I upped my needles to a 3 and it's going much smoother. The yarn is just too thick for 2s. This means my 2s are now free! I could start my other Pomatomus!

I think I'm going to hold off though. I have so many things started and almost finished. Note my percent bars in the side, everything is well over half done (aside from my Pomatomus), I really should finish some of them up.

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

2006-06-30T17:02:00.000-05:00

I'm back. No yarn either... Funny story about that actually. Before leaving I searched yarn shops in the area, and when I searched Hershey it came up with two one of which was on a Derry St. I really couldn't remember which was where but I didn't worry about it too much I was simply focused on yarn... I would look for yarn.

Then I saw Derry St. near Hershey and I whined about stopping at the yarn store evertime we passed it. So on our third and last day in Hershey we had this nice little break in the day so I begged to go yarn store searching. We went, couldn't find the store on Derry. We gave up and went to an antique mall. I looked for teapots, found tons of them, and didn't buy a single one. I was good. My mom said something to one of the employees about the so called yarn shop and she had no clue; however, she came back 10 minutes later and said another employee knew exactly where it was and gave me directions. We went off again in search of yarn shop which apparently was not on Derry. Still couldn't find shop, so we stopped in a quilt shop which was where we thought the yarn store should be. Figured crafty people would know about other crafty stores, they were under the impression it went out of business. hm.... but it's in the phone book! Then again there wasn't an address in the phone book which was unusual. So we gave up and went back to the Bed and Breakfast. I sat around and worked on my red sock.

We left again for dinner and went to this little diner in Hummelstown, ordered our food... waited. They had those paper placemats with advertisements on them, and it was the Ks that caught my attention. I tend to associate every letter K I see with knitting and this ad with the letter K also had a yarn ball and knitting needles. AH! Knitting store, and it was on Derry. It was on Derry in Harrisburg, not Hershey. Oops. That would explain why there was no knitting store on Derry in Hershey, it was sad to find this ad at 6 pm when most yarn shops are closed. I called and got an answering machine.... closed. Of course. Harrisburg was somewhat flooded though so I'm not sure if that's why it was closed, or if it was closed simply because it was closed for the day.

Oh well... I tried. Good news though, I finished a red socks! Now I have two finished socks, neither of them have partners though. It's definitely improvement though. hehe.

Here is a picture, pretend like you can't see my messy desk in the background. I have lots of red things. Red/pink mug. Red candy, and now a red sock.

Even better news, I started the second one!

I still need size 8 DPNS. My mom searched the craft stores for me last Sunday but nobody had size 8 or 2. Looks like I'll need to make a trip to the Yarn Shop, or maybe I'll just go to the LYS in North Canton. Who knows... I think I'm going to try to do some more charity knitting/crochet. I've been a bit lazy with it lately.

More Red Sock

2006-06-25T10:37:00.000-05:00

Got a decent bit more done on my red sock. Yay!

It's going quite slow on the size 1 needles but I really like the way the Regia knits up on 1s. I was planning on buying another set of size 2s so I would have them on vacation but I don't think I'm going to have a chance to get to the stores before they close tonight so I may just have to see which yarn works with size 1s and drag that on vacation. I like this pattern. It's mindless, and I have it memorized. Great for the car and because it's on size 1s, it takes forever.

My big issue tonight will be what knitting to take. Possibly the baby sweater, but I need size 8 DPNs for that, and if I don't get to a store the sweater won't be going. If I do get the size 8s I might take another baby sweater along. Hmm... tough decisions.

I'm off to lunch with my family and then to a CK meeting. Hopefully the meeting won't last all afternoon and I'll be able to drop by Pat Catans or JoAnns.. I wonder if Walmart has my DPNs... As much as I hate Walmart their hours are convienient.

MapMuse

2006-06-24T17:23:00.000-05:00

Ever been to MapMuse.com? If not... go now. It's amazing. First good sign, on the homepage, the most viewed page of the day was the knitting/crocheting/yarn shops... YES!

Oh.. it's definitely great.

So I'm going on vacation next week. Not to far, but it's out of state. Being the obsessed knitter/crocheter that I am... I want yarn. My mom seems to think that I have enough yarn, but it doesn't hurt to look for shops in the area right? I had no real plan going into this trip. I was hoping I could just keep my eyes open and begg if I actually managed to find one. I tried consulting my boyfriend being that he has lots of family in the Pittsburgh area. He was no help at all. He did notice a knitting mill though on his drive to South Carolina so he does get some points there.

Ok... back to MapMuse. I searched Hershey, because that is our first destination. They have a yarn store! Nice! We're not actually staying in Hershey though, we're staying in some other city about 30 minutes outside of Hershey. I'm waiting to figure out what city that is so I can search the yarn shops there. Our second stop is Pittsburgh because my sister has to see the Andy Warhol Museum. MapMuse came up with 8 different yarn shops in Pittsburgh. Cross my fingers and I'll get to at least one while I'm on vacation.

Now to actually knitting. I made a heel in my red sock! I know... shocking. Unfortunatley I started the heel half an inch early thinking it would turn out perfect since my last sock was a little big. Wrong. It was exactly half an inch too small, because I did try it on. So I ripped back, knit half an inch and started the heel. So far I'm half done. I hope to take it to my friends house and finish some more of this sock tonight.

Update!

2006-06-22T09:42:00.000-05:00

I've been working on my baby sweater. Most of the progress on this was done after SNB and yesterday before work. It's starting to look like a real sweater and leads me to believe I'm almost done.
Started the ankle Jaywalkers today. I'm using size 2s and I went down tons of sizes in the pattern until I got to one that looked like it'll fit the 10 year old. I've just barely started the heel flap so once I finish the heel flap I'm not working on it until I see her again and measure it on her foot. Or I guess I could just keep knitting through the gusset and try it on her then to see how everything's going. I don't know. She has such little feet!

Don't have a car today... It's getting fixed! Yay! I will finally be able to get into my car via the driver side door! HURRAY! I don't want to know how expensive it's going to be. I have a feeling it's going to be bad. We will see.

I won't be around until Saturday, hopefully I'll have tons of knitting progress to show you.

SNB

2006-06-21T11:19:00.000-05:00

Had our little knitting group last night. 4 people were there! It was amazing! Usually it's somewhere around 3 people. I can only remember one other time (that I've been there) where there's been 4 people.

I got some stuff done on my sweater.

Denise pointed out that I'm a liar because my sock wasn't really finished (the ends haven't been woven in yet). Oops...

Came home, worked on the sweater even more and found another mistake in the pattern so I'm doing the math to work around that one right now. I think a lot of the numbers in the pattern are based off the number of stitches that were casted on, and we know that one was wrong. It's not so much that the pattern is wrong, I have a feeling it's just bad pattern writing. I have the right number of stitches on my needles, but I'm supposed to do another increse row, which if I do that I'll have too many stitches.

Who knows, no real big deal.

Hope everyone's having a great day so far. I hope this rain doesn't last long because I volunteered at Orientation again this weekend and that's where I'll be for the next few days.

Frogged.

2006-06-20T14:17:00.000-05:00

The baby sweater has been frogged. After unknitting 1 1/2 rows I decided I was better off ripping the whole thing and knitting four rows, than unknitting 11 rows. In the end it'll be faster.

Hopefully I will have lots of baby sweater to show after it goes to SNB tonight, most likely I won't have tons to knit. I usually do more eating and talking and not so much knitting.

;-D

My Summer is half over in 10 days and I'm not half way to my 8 inch square goal. Oh well.. I can do it! I can I can!

1/2 Pomatomus

2006-06-19T21:57:00.000-05:00

Ta DA! Knew I just should have waited to post. Looks great in that picture. In real life it looks huge. That of course is my opinion. Someone who has never before completed a sock and isn't exactly sure how it should fit.

Pomatomus has quite the pointy toes, my toes aren't so pointy. My red socks are pretty pointy too though. Speaking of red socks I think I might pick those up again. I've come to the conclusion that my bizzare lines can be blocked out. I was mad at them last night though (the red socks), so mad that I stuck it on my boyfriends foot to prove to him that my feet were screwed up and his were normal. Red Socks fit him perfectly. AH! I guess that's good news though. If socks fit me, they'll fit him too as far as width is concerned, meaning I only have to worry about length. Maybe I'll start his socks soon. I'm going to try to kick out Christmas presents early this year.

Pomatomus

2006-06-19T19:25:00.000-05:00

Because everyone's just dying to see my sock... Here's a picture.

That sweater I started a few days ago is not going so well. It started off with the wrong cast on number, which was discovered after the ribbing was completed. So I ripped... started over with the correct number. The second time I forgot to switch from size 6 to 8 when I finished my ribbing, so out came about 3 rows. This time (since I was using my Denise Interchangable Needles) I switched over one of the needles so I was knitting with an 8 off of a 6. Except when I got to the end of the row I forgot to switch the other needle over to a 8. I noticed 3 rows later... ripped again. Continued on, everything going great, when I realized I forgot all about the button holes. Oops. I was supposed to put the first one in row 4. I'm somewhere around 17. It needs to be ripped back, but I haven't had the will to do it lately. I'm going to make a push to get Pomatomus sock #1 off the needles (2 1/2 inches left!) then I think I'll take the baby sweater to Panera tomorrow for our little knitting group. I think I'll start the second Pomatomus once the ankle Jaywalkers are finished. I have a feeling I'll need the needles for the Jaywalkers.

Quite the Progress

2006-06-16T18:30:00.000-05:00

I'm coming along on Pomatomus. I turned the heel and am now working on the gusset. WOo! It's just beautiful... brings a tear to my eye...

Anyways, the beautiful Pomatomus is trying to convince me to rip my red sock that was bothering me. I did find out what was making my lovely lines, I was pulling too tight where the needles joined. My fear of ladders got the best of me I guess. So... I think I'm going to rip. Maybe I'll start the red Jaywalkers I've always dreamed of.

Speaking of Jaywalkers, we have a lovely little thing going with my tutoring job where if they behave/do their work/not give me headaches, they get points. After they get so many points we can have things knitted for us. One of the girls decided she wanted ankle socks. But she wanted slipper socks, not real socks, just ones to wear at home with fun fur kinda stuff around the cuff. Easy enough, slipper socks and red heart would work well, and wouldn't blow my budget at the same time. And as far as fuzzy yarn, it can't be hard to find some of that. It's everywhere and I hate the stuff! It's fun to knit with, and looks cute with kid's clothing, but I personally don't see myself wearing it unless I weave it into a purse or something. Well lately I've been dragging my Pomatomus to tutoring with me to entertain myself when the girls are actually working. They were quite fascinated with that sock and the pattern on it. So the girl who wanted socks decided she wanted a pattern on her sock, so she took to the internet in search of patterns. I directed her towards magknits and told her they had some cool patterns there. Guess what she found. Jaywalkers. "I like that one." She also decided she wanted real socks instead of slippers, but she likes the ankle ones which will cut the knitting time in half. Sounds great to me. Her sister decided she wanted a headband with the same blue yarn that I have already made into a scarf and legwarmers, except she wanted a pattern on her headband. She like Pomatomus. So looks like I'll have a Pomatomus headband in my future as well.

This means... an excuse to buy more yarn! So I drove out to the yarn shop, because I had several projects I needed yarn for, and there was good news and bad news. Good news: they had the yarn for the headband, and yarn for the baby sweaters I want to make. Bad news: they're out of the yarn I'm using for Pomatomus which is what the girl wanted for her socks. I got her some lovely pink yarn though that I hope she'll like.

I also started another baby sweater today. I have three more that I have to make (we found out my cousin was pregnant a few weeks ago. apparently we were the only ones who didn't know about the whole thing) They're all having boys too! So I bought some nice "kinda boys" colors at the Yarn shop and decided that the citrus TLC I had would make a nice little sweater for any baby gender. It's getting knit up first.

I even swatched! Aren't you all proud of me! My stitch count was right on, my row count not so much. It shouldn't matter though.

I've also casted on for the sweater but it's not very far yet.

ah!

2006-06-12T10:47:00.000-05:00

Blogger ate my post. I hate when it does that.

My Secret Pal sent me cool things that arrived in the mail today! I apologize for the blurry picture and the fact that I really couldn't find a cool way to arrange the cute little things they gave me.
First off, the cute little items were wrapped in the coolest paper ever. It has duckies with devil horns. Also I was gifted with more fiber, a 66% wool, 34% angora rabbit blend. Also I got cute little school supplies! I love school supplies and colorful school supplies are even better. I also got little notebooks and bright little notecard things which are just fun. I love cute little school supply things.

Haha.. so much fun. This really did make my day though. My mom told me my sister should be getting a package in the mail today, so when the mailman rang the doorbell I was shocked to see two packages sitting there. Fun fun. I've become too addicted to this SP thing.

Oh, in Pomatomus news, it's pooling. If you didn't notice in the last post (I didn't), go back and look, it really shows it. I love it though. The stripes continue all the way around the sock so it has almost that candy-cane look too it. It's just great.

Pomatomus

2006-06-10T22:05:00.000-05:00

It's been forever since I've posted. I've done lots of knitting, just nothing exciting I could show you.

I've been gone since Thursday helping with a Freshman Orientation at the college. That went okay. I did take my sock along in case I should have down time. Turns out I had quite a lot the first night.

Did a few more rows tonight, a couple of them done in the dark at a friend's house.
Pomatomus is growing, bit by bit. It was going quite slow, but it's starting to pick up a bit now.

I was hoping to finish Adamas for Knit the Classics but the deadline's today and it's definitely not done.

I bought yarn for another shawl though. It's gorgeous. The picture on the website doesn't do it justice. I'll post some pictures whenever I get around to casting on. The bad news is I'm already drooling over other colors of laceweight yarn. For future shawls. I think I've convinced myself I need a shawl for every season. It's all just so pretty.

I think I need some sleep. This weekend has really worn me out so far. I hope to have exciting future posts with many finished objects.

Baby Sweater

2006-06-03T15:07:00.000-05:00

Finished sewing up the baby sweater last night while playing computer games. Went quite well. Knitted the collar this morning, and went button shopping.

I'm glad to say it's done.

It has its share of flaws, but it's my first sweater so I guess I can't complain. I'm sure it could have been much, much worse.

Mittens

2006-06-02T14:05:00.000-05:00

I decided I wanted to make loads of these little mittens when I first started this project. After making one pair I don't even want to consider another.

I don't like the thumbs... they just don't look natural to me. I have other mitten patterns that I really love so maybe I'll try one of those out.

Oh! And I've decided I'm going to try to make 50 squares for charity before school starts again in the Fall. I have three months now, and I have a feeling I could do it.

I'll post that up on the side somewhere next to my charity squares percent bar thing.

Pomatomus

2006-06-01T19:04:00.000-05:00

Oh... I did finally ship my pal for SP8 the first package. Technically I shipped it earlier in the week... now we wait until it arrives... muhahahaha.

I'm working on my Pomatomus sock.. out of acrylic! WOO!

Exciting, exciting.

2006-05-31T17:24:00.000-05:00

Finished a square and cast on for another. There's such excitement in my life. :-P

Not this weekend, but the following I'll be helping out at Orientation for my college, I'm already dreading the fact that I won't be able to knit. Whatever will I do...ahh...

The sock with lines.

2006-05-31T10:01:00.000-05:00

Here is my sock. I tried taking pictures from above, and the stripe I keep refering to just wouldn't show up.

It isn't "laddering" or anything. And the fabric where the stripe is is really tight, so I'm thinking that was my problem.

The sock just feels big though. But I've looked at other people wearing their socks, and some of them seem big.

Just how is a sock supposed to fit? I've never worn hand-knit socks before. I think mine are too big, but what am I comparing them too? The skin-tight, one-size-fits-all socks I buy at the store?

I haven't frogged this sock yet. I've started Pomatomus, put it on waste yarn, and all's going well so far.

The needles I use for my socks are Susan Bates DPNs. All my DPNs are those brand. Most of my needles in general are Susan Bates. I just love the metal needles.

I was working on a charity square yesterday, and it made the coolest swooshing sound. It was great. Of course I was working on this square while I was tutoring. It isn't really tutoring. The kids have packets that they have to do. My job is more of a babysitting job. Make sure they do it, which usually involves chasing them through the house, checking their work, and helping them when they get stuck. So if work is going well and the kids are doing good... I just sit there. Well, the mom and 2 out of 4 daughters know how to knit. The younger of the two also knows how to crochet because I taught her sometime last summer. She's right handed and everyone she knows is left so they were having a harder time teaching her. So I was plugging away on one of my squares, and the younger of the two knitters decided she really wanted to knit. I haven't seen the girl knit in about a year. She stopped whenever the yarn store I used to go to closed. She ran up, grabbed her bulky yarn, some fun fur, and what had to be size 6-8 DPNs, and casted on for a scarf. She wanted to learn my way of casting on though. I use the long-tail cast on, which she decided was much faster than knitting the stitches on. I showed her twice, and she got it right away. That girl is definitely amazing.

I was right!

2006-05-30T09:40:00.000-05:00

I was right! There are 4 ounces of buffalo stuff there. I'm starting to think there may be other things mixed in with it.

We may never know.

ETA: Yup... it is a blended fiber. So I have 4 ounces of buffalo/wool/alpaca.... my other favorite fibers, only one which I have previously spun. :-D