Cool blue sahara

In between packing boxes, I finished up my Sahara for the Sexy Knitters Club knitalong. I guess this makes me sexy. Or perhaps it makes me a knitter. Or perhaps a club. (I have been known to be a bit blunt.) The colour isn't quite true; it's more of a dark denim-y blue than a navy blue. In all the moving chaos, I haven't had a chance to block the sweater yet; I expect blocking will make it softer and drapier than it already is.





I made the following modifications:

• Decreased the neck depth. I felt the sweater looked better proportioned on bustier people with a shallower neck.
  
• Reworked the bust/waist shaping. I made the bust larger, the waist smaller, started the shaping further down (under the fullest part of my bust), and changed the shaping accordingly.
  
• Added a bust dart. I put bust darts in all my sweaters. They fit much, much better with this feature.
  
• Increased neck trim. I needed four repeats of the neck trim pattern to meet in the middle of the neck.
  

Yarn: Silky Tweed, somewhere around 7-8 skeins. I have a lot of this floating around, so it was a bit difficult to count in the moving chaos. Silky Tweed is soft and lovely, but a bit splitty, even with Stumpi Bluntos.

Needles: One Addi Turbo 16" circular in size 4. If these had pointy points, they'd be perfect! In this case, I appreciated the dull tips, because the Silky Tweed was splitty enough on its own.

Oopsies

It's been one of those weeks. First, I got stuck on a grounded plane for several hours on my way to California and back. Because of this, I missed my connection. Then the airlines canceled/delayed the next possible connections. I was less than pleased when they offered me alternatives that involved red-eye flights and extra connections. Every time I went into an airport there was chaos that just couldn't be blamed on the passengers.

Oopsie #2: sea of foam!


Oopsie #3: I assumed that if dye was coming off my socks, it wasn't going to stick to other socks.

It looks like I was wrong. I loved this cheery colour (though I wouldn't wear it outside of my boots!), so I'm sad to see the green dye stains. I'm not sure that Socks That Rock makes socks as cushy and comfy as Artyarns supermerino, but I'm happy to give it a try. More warm socks are always good!

Yarn: Socks That Rock heavyweight in Sun Drops
Needles: Crystal Palace size 3 DPNs
Pattern: toe up socks over 40 stitches with magic cast on and 10-deep short-row heel over 24 stitches

Neverending carnival of excitement

How could I have knitted so many pairs of Artyarns Supermerino socks and not know that they make self-patterning sock yarn? Cathy and Sandra D, you rock for picking out this yarn!

Aren't those fabulous? I love the spiraling stripe of different colour stripes. (Click on the photo to enlarge it; the entire sock is pink/dark stripes, but the spiral is formed of a bold salmon and grey on a background of pink and brown. It's a spiral of stripes on stripes!) I wonder if the other yarn I have from them will do the same thing. Sadly, these mark the last socks for my trusty bamboo needles, which started trying to kill me with splinters. They've been found guilty of pointy treason, and will be burned at the stake or put out to pasture.

Pattern: my standard 48-stitch toe-up sock with magic cast-on and 9-deep short-row heel (may I suggest an afterthought heel instead?)
Needles: treacherous size 3 crystal palace bamboo needles
Yarn: Artyarns Supermerino in colour 141

I've gotten tired of knitting random bits of a shawl while I wait for my tailored cables sweater to dry (every. few. inches.). I'm a bit tempted to leave the sleeve as-is.

It's kinda punk, don't you think?

In any case, I'm starting another sweater. Meet Phroggy:

All I have is a Delphine-Wilson-inspired swatch, because I swatched, washed the swatch, cast on, frogged, then totally ignored the swatch, switched to different needles and a different pattern, and started cranking away. I'm winging this one much more than anything I've done before. If the waist decreases work out, I'll let it out in public.

Now the kitty wants to be petted. He'll breathe his terrible kitty-breath in my face until I do, so I'd better go for now. Here's hoping for a bunch of snow so I can work from home and be productive tomorrow!

Quarantine

Poor, poor stash!


I opened a bag with the pieces of my alpaca wrappy sweater and a worm fell out on me! Two cones of yarn are freezing whatever insect larvae may or may not be in them... the rest of the stash is freezing in the garage, mixed in with some freaky moth-killing objects that smell like urinal cakes (or so my husband claims). I'm not sure what a "urinal cake" is, but if it smells anything like those moth-objects, I'm not getting it anywhere near my mouth.

Kitty will attack birds on the screen, so perhaps he'll take care of whatever moths we have around here. (Watch The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill with your cat today!)

I haven't actually seen any moths and my stash was all bagged, so this may not end up being a major issue.

There are only a few things out for knitting. I finished some socks, which ran me right out of worsted-weight sock yarn. I just had to order more Artyarns supermerino and a little bit of something new to try.

Pattern: Toe up socks using magic cast-on and short-row heel on 48 stitches
Yarn: 1 skien of Artyarn Supermerino per sock, a truly super boot sock yarn in colour 125
Needles: Size 3 Crystal Palace DPNs

After a truly dangerous bout of second-thumb syndrome, I finished up a pair of mittens for my SIL. To make them extra snuggly, I added a ktbl lining to the cuff (one mitten is turned back so you can see the dark blue lining).

Frankly, I'm not sure I'd use this yarn for mittens again. Sure, it's soft (though processed-feeling). Unfortunately, it doesn't stick together like the Finullgarn in my beloved Frostrosen mittens, so I don't believe these will end up being really warm. Since the entire point of mittens is to be warm, I'm going to send these off to my SIL with an offer to knit her something else as well. I love the pattern, and the mittens are cool... unfortunately, the mittens may well be too cool for Canadian winters.

Pattern: Latvian Mittens chart 69 with extra ktbl cuff liner
Yarn: Dale of Norway Baby Ull

Long time no... type

I'm sorry about the long hiatus since the last real post. It's been an interesting few weeks. First, my friend and his girlfriend came to visit. More importantly for kitty, their luggage came to visit.

Then I went to the doctor a few times. I'm doing fine, but the cardiologist did find a few heart defects. If they're the kind of defects that take over 25 years to find, then they're not really the important kind. This did, however, coincide with an attack of the intestinal flu that's been going around Boston (either that or a lot of us have been eating the same tainted food, since I just thought I had food poisoning) and then the death cold that put me down for the last week. If I passed either on to anyone else, I apologize profusely. I haven't been knitting in favour of lying down and groaning occasionally, but I did finish up a few things for my inlaws.

Ah, blocking lace. I just love this Prime Alpaca. Frankly, I think everyone loves the Prime Alpaca. I'd never knitted anything in "feather and fan" so I made this little scrap of lace for my MIL.

I swear, blocking lace has got to be the most fun finishing technique of all time, bar sewing mattress stitch seams.

There it is: a soft little warm hug for my MIL. I really hope she likes it.

Yarn: Prime Alpaca in Mist Grey
Needles: Size 6 Denise
Pattern: Two repeats of feather and fan. Repeat until scarf-sized.

I also made a (much bigger) scarf for my FIL. I hope this will successfully replace his worn out golfing scarf! He likes bright colours, so what could be nicer than Noro in entrelac? (If someone knows of something he'd like better, perhaps I could him something else... knitting for other people is a bit of a shot in the dark for me.)


Yarn: 4 skiens of Noro Kureyon in colour 164
Needles: Size 8 Denise

So fly off, my little scarfies. I hope they'll be loved. Otherwise I think I might go kidnap them back (and replace them with something the recipients like better), because I certainly like them.

New scarf and renewed desire

I finished a scarf! It's just in time for the freaking wind of the arctic that's decended on Boston. My husband says it's not so cold. My husband's been working from home and not walking to work at 8:30am. My husband is full of it.

I wandered into Poor Little Rich Girl today while killing time after work. This vintage/consignment clothing store has an interesting (in a nice way) selection, including this lovely suit for $40 in my late grandmother's favorite colour.

I almost bought it, until I rememberd that I could knit my own with bust darts and waist shaping. I am way too excited about this. Given how badly hemp turned out for my poor fingers, I think some Euroflax is in my future.

Our houseguests are amusing kitty to keep him off my yarn, since he was all annoyed that we cleaned the house. Yes, we took the crap off of the floor and put it in... containers on the floor. It's a good thing kitty hasn't figured out the door handles, or he might try to smother us in our sleep. Instead he'll watch and wait...

I don't know about you, but I'm scared.

Yarn: Fleece Artist Baby Alpaca, a wonderful gift from my parents-in-law, in a burgundy colourway
Needles: Denise in #8 or #9
Pattern: Garter stitch on the bias, slipped stitch edging

An honest-to-goodness finished object

Kitty and I have been lazing around all day

but I did get a bit of knitting done.

Here's my husband modeling his new string market bag filled with cans and other tasty food items.

Pattern: Market bag with the following mods: picked up radically different number of stitches for top of bag, then did trim and strap in stockinette instead of garter stitch.
Yarn: Valley Yarns Winsor
Needles: Denise transformer robots-in-disguise tree trunks (#15) and tree branches (#10)

My row and stitch gauge turned out radically different from those (not) specified in the pattern. I put the bag together anyway, to see how it'll work out. (I'm sure it can still carry OJ, which is what my husband goes out nearly every night to buy.) I'm not sure the stitch pattern is sufficiently dense to keep things from falling out. I'm not sure it is sufficiently structured to do much carrying of heavy objects. It's certainly worth a try, at least, but I won't be using the pattern in this form again.

As for the yarn, it's great for this project, since I don't care about it being knocked around/pulled on/stained, but it's probably too randomly tuft-y and rough for me to choose to use it in an actual garment. I like the texture, but there are spots where it just breaks down and becomes a big poof.

Happy new year to all and sundry. I think kitty and I will be asleep before then!

What on earth?

Dear Lea,

What could this possibly be? A post? From Krista? My goodness.

And not just a post? But a finished object?

Yes. During my first semester of law school, I knitted about 1/2 of a scarf and about 1/2 of one sock. During the first part of my winter break, I finished the scarf - my first FO in SIX MONTHS! SIX! Law school is not conducive to knitting. You'll recognize this yarn as the Manos you bought my husband for his birthday last summer. I used one hank for this scarf, in a pretty basic mistake rib - he wants a long hat with earflaps and a tie from the other skein. Norton was happy to help with the unpinning.

I couldn't get a good close up of the ribbing, but here's the whole scarf:
It's been such a mild winter that I don't feel pressed to start on the hat right now. Instead, I'm going to make something from the Arctic Lace book that you bought me for MY birthday (you're so generous with the knitting related gifts) ... so look for pictures of that in another six months or so :)

Have a wonderful New Year's, everyone!

Krista

Turn the gifting crank

If you're related to me by blood, stop reading now. Then again, if you're related to me by blood, you're rationalizing to yourself right now that continuing to read is the moral equivalent to peeking in the corners of a package. My family has a long and glorious tradition of peeking, and they're probably feeling deprived of this since I'm so far away. So be it; surprise is in your hands.

My knee is oh-so-attractively modeling my sister's scarf in the "it's so cold I'm strangling myself" configuration. I tried to get the cat to model, but he was a bit disturbed by the amount of yelling I do when I watch Jepardy. This scarf is everything my sister asked for: big, fluffy, pretty, and soft. It's also geeky: if you look closely, you can see that I've used Fibonacci numbers as the basis for the striping. The number of ridges of Silk Garden in each stripe are {1,2,3=2+1,5=2+3,3,2,1}.

Yarn: Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran and Noro Silk Garden
Needles: Size 10 Denise
Pattern: Cast on enough stitches for length of scarf. Knit garter stitch until scarf is wide enough and/or you run out of yarn. Cast off loosely.

I have a surprise for a certain member of my family who kept fondling the same yarn every single time we went to the yarn store. I've been hiding this in my stash until now, when it begins to realize its destiny as mittens.

You can't convince me that Sinsation is for anything other than mittens. Why use that fuzzy yarn on anything other than your hands, where you get to actively feel it all the time? Seriously, I think Yarndex is insane when it suggests that sweaters would be an appropriate use of this yarn. (If I'm off base here, send me a picture.) First, it's thick and heavy, so it'll stretch out terribly. Second, it's thick and plushy, so it'll make you look like a caterpillar just before entering the cocoon. Babies look cute in sweaters like that, so I'll make an exception for them.

Anyway, I made a mitten using "two" size 10.5 Denise circulars and one ball of Sinsation. As I only have two of each size needle tip, I used size 10s to hold stitches while I knitted off of them with the size 10.5s. My pattern, however, was a little loose: magic cast-on, then increase like for socks until they were big enough, then knit until they're long enough, then knit back and forth to make a slit for a thumb, then knit a few rounds, then pick up and knit the thumb from the other end of the ball, then knit until you almost run out of yarn while decreasing around the base of the hand, then use the EZ sewn bind-off. Note the complete lack of numbers in this pattern. I was so worried that one ball of yarn wouldn't be enough that I didn't bother to note exactly what I did. Given the six inches of yarn I have left over, reproducing this mitten may be exciting in the "what do you mean I need to un-darn ends on a thick chenille yarn?" kind of way.

Tomorrow I'll attempt to reproduce this mitten while on the way to hike up a mountain. I will point out that hiking up a mountain in mid-December was not my idea, but it does sound fun. I even get to wear the least flattering pants ever made! They make me look like my bottom half has suddenly gained 30 pounds in some bizzare experiment to graft different-sized people together. Perhaps if I wear my fluffy down jacket I'll look normal again.