Holiday Break Knitting

Who won the competition: knitting or finals?
FINALS.

I feel like I haven't picked up a pair of needles in months.
My Grandmother gave me a copy each of
KnitLit

and ChickKnits

for Christmas, and my aunt Linda gave me subscriptions to Vogue Knitting and Interweave Knits(very excited!!!).
Some people also gave me gift cards to Barnes and Nobles which I immediately used to by Last Minute Knitted Gifts and Alterknits, and the newest Interweave.

I'm working now on a knit bolster (a tootsie-roll shaped pillow) cover. It's gray 110% wool and I'm using a two by two rib with black ribbon accent. I knit the ends in a circle using straight needles and short row shaping. I'm so excited to post up pictures! More soon!

Since I'm in the middle of this attention-demanding raglan sleeve cable sweater:



(the accuracy of color is better on the second picture, it's more of a plum color than a salmon.)



















I decided to do a little side project to make me happy instead of stressed.
I'm making a randomly striped double thinckness scarf in KnitPick's Wool of the Ande's in Blue Bonnet, Grass, and Winter Night. The colors make me think of Peacock Feathers, and I think I'm going to knit up some fake feathers and attack them to the ends for a little more detail. I might have to get a different yarn for the purple though, since I don't see a good one in the Wool of the Andes.


The Showdown of the year will take place in the next few weeks:
HOLIDAY KNITTING Vs. FINAL EXAMS!

who will win the most of Elaine's Time!?!

Another SP6 package, out of favour with fibers

It seems that I am out of fiber's favor lately.
The underwire in my bra not only has puctured through the lining into my underarm, but for what seemes to be no reason at all, the strap just broke.
I have recently found holes in the underarms of two of my sweaters.
And All the aprons I put on at work are torn or ripped.

Is it tattering season??

I got a package from my secret pal today!
She (I'm assuming) sent me a box of bath salts and soaps, a copy of KnitLit too, and some facy schmancy beaded stitch markers (That would also make fabulous earrings... idea!)
Thank you very much to my thoughtful pal!

I've been very sick with some kind of throat infection thing lately, and my doctor keeps misdiagnosing me. I am off to see an ear, nose, and throat doctor on Thursday. I apologize that I haven't been posting much, but I actually don't have a lot of knitting going on right now because of being sick, and also making up schoolwork from being sick two weeks ago.

My honey Neil and I are going to be having our one year anniversary on Saturday, which I am very excited about. Hopefully I will be well enough then to go to dinner with him. Wish me good health!
I will always wish the same of you.

And finally, a prayer for you and your knitting:
May your sheep be woolly,
Your dye vats be vibrant,
Your spindles spin steady,
May your yarn never tangle,
May your stitches be strong and even,
Your needles be smooth and far from hungry pets,
May your projects never bore you,
May your imagination and creativity be infinite,
May your hard work be appreciated,
Your care always returned trifold,
Your garments go to whoever shall need them most,
and never ever shrink (unless you want them to.)

SP6 Package

I got home to find a package from my secret pal!

It's a little hat kit with two skeins of alpaca/acrylic blend in a chunky pink color (very soft,) a set of Fiddlesticks wooden dpn, a card, and a chocolate bar (from Trader Joe's, my fave!)

Thank you very much pal!
I can't wait to start my first winter-prep project!

Usually by mid-October I have my winter-prep going strong, but until this week, it's been humid and 70 degrees out. This week it's been rainy, damp, cold, and blustery. The leaves are finally falling, but I think mostly because they're being forced off the trees, still green, by wind and rain.
So with a chill finally in the air, warmer garments are on the brain, and a chunky pink hat is the perfect way to start!

The piece that is no more

I woke up, went to the drier, and there it was.
My very first finished knit garment: a red merino wool wrap sweater from Hollywood Knits 2.
Shrunken.

It took me all day to get through the denial.
It took me four and a half months to finish.
It took me fifteen minutes to explain how much work went into it to my aunt, who had accidentally put it into the washing machine on warm water.

It took me another five to finish crying.

R.I.P wrap sweater,
I do not have a picture of thee,
but you will hopefully make a small child very warm this winter...

For SecretPal 6

1. Are you a yarn snob (do you prefer higher quality and/or natural fibers)? Do you avoid Red Heart and Lion Brand? Or is it all the same to you? I like high quality fibers, especially all naturals, but I will do acrylic or acrylic blends if they feel like the real thing and aren't itchy or stiff.
2. Do you spin? I try to! I need more practice/rovings
Crochet? A little, but I enjoy knitting more.
3. Do you have any allergies? (smoke, pets, fibers, perfume, etc.) Not allergies, but perfume and smoke scented fiber would make me queesy.
4. How long have you been knitting? I think about three years now?
5. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
6. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products etc.) Apples, fig, cherry, almond, honey. Mmm, sounds like a fruitcake.
7. Do you have a sweet tooth? Oh hell yeah.
8. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? I do paper crafts sometimes, I like to sew handbags every once in a while. I made sewn juggling balls last summer.
9. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) See my Myspace page for this one. Music interests are on the left side. Yes I can play MP3s, better yet, I can put them on my iPod.
10. What's your favorite color? Or--do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can't stand? I love all colors, especially cool colors, but all are great.
11. What is your family situation? I live with my mom and step-father, my aunt and her boyfriend, my cat Sweetie, and my 'rents two greyhounds Sweetheart and Mikaela McBones. I did not name the dogs. The cat came first and I did name him. My bf has a pig, I mean English Bulldog named Rune.
12. What are your life dreams? (really stretching it here, I know) Either to be a fantastic politica working in environmental legislation, or going to school for knitwear design.
13. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? I love knitpicks Wool of the Andes and Shine.
14. What fibers do you absolutely *not* like? Itchy 70's acrylics
15. What is/are your current knitting obsession/s? Making lots of swatches and being indecisive about projects.
16. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? I love to knit funky wearables, and hats for others.
17. What are you knitting right now? A berry-colored raglan cable sweater.
18. What do you think about ponchos? They aren't really flattering on my figure cuz I'm big on top and skinny everywhere else.
19. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? straight
20. Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? wooden needles all the way
21. Are you a sock knitter? The only sock(singular) I ever made was argyle, and didn't fit. I've left socks alone after that.
22. How did you learn to knit? I taught myself so I could knit this intarsia pattern from Knitting in the Nordic Tradition. I didn't know it was supposed to be hard. I just did what the instructions said. Here's a pic:
23. How old is your oldest UFO? egad. I don't want to think about it.
24. What is your favorite animated character or a favorite animal/bird? No thanks.
25. What is your favorite holiday? Halloween!
26. Is there anything that you collect? Other than yarn, not really.
27. What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? None
28. Any books out there you are dying to get your hands on? Some of the Rowan knit magazines, Knitting on the Edge
29. Any patterns you have been coveting, but haven't bought for one reason or another?? I bought some lace-weight yarn and I don't have anything lacy to knit up, no pattern, and I've never done lace before, so if there's a good pattern out there, I'm open to it.

Commissioned Hat, Mulled Wine Sweater, and Loop-d-Loop

As I was showing off my One Skein Wonder recently, I got two requests: a OSW for a goth-y girl at The Tap and one for a grey and black hat for Mike, also from The Tap, bf of my co-worker Linz. I'm working on the hat now, and simultaneously planning a sweater with my new batch of yarn from Knit Picks. I bought 12 skeins of the Wool of the Andes in Mulled Wine to make a raglan-sleeve cable sweater. I found a couple of patterns that I like, but nothing I love. I've taken my measurements, and I might just write the pattern myself. I want the decreases on the raglan seam to be cabled too, so I have to incorporate that part. I'm going to make up a decreasing swatch to see how it works.
Why am I such a technical knit geek?
I'm just glad to be working on new projects.
I got a new job recently, so I may not be able to knit as much as I would like to in the fall, especially with classes coming up and everything. Pictures soon.

On a trip to Barnes and Noble looking for a pattern for the sweater, I ended up with a copy of Teva Durham's new book Loop-d-Loop. I love the patterns. Her techniques are really different and cool. I love the woven scarf/wrap. The photographs are beautiful, and the book is broken up into four sections so that each one has a introduction with just pictures and descriptions of the patterns, and then a second part of the sections has the pattern instructions, accompanied with more photographs, so the book isn't front half pictures and back half instructions. I would suggest this book for any knitter who's looking for something out-of-the-ordinary.

The OSW

I finally found a great project for the skein of Fundy Fog Briggs and Little yarn. I was worried it would become another darn scarf, but Glampyre's One Skein Wonder pattern saved it from certain scarf doom.
The short-sleeve shrug pattern is genius, making use of false seams to make for very little piecing, and the seed-stitch edging gives the sleeves a very finished look.
Everywhere I go with it now, I get comments on it, and its cool enough to wear out on summer evenings (read: i don't have to wait around a few months to wear it!)I've had two people ask me to one for them too.
I also have been getting more hat orders for fall from some of the guys I know. I never would have thought that they would be so excited about a knit hat, but they're all willing to pay $25 each for them, and they only take me two hours, so I'm excited for the extra cash.
Picture of the OSW to come soon.

Knitting in Canadia

On the way to Halifax, I decided to make a hat for myself with the same pattern as Neil's new hat. I used a white, purple, and pink variegated cotton and knit it for part of the 12-hour drive to Nova Scotia, to visit with Nicholas' (The guy I was travelling with, my best friend) friends from University, and to go to his 3rd Annual Sangria Party. His roomate Norm makes the red wine for the Sangria, and it always comes out fantastic.

During the party, I was informed that Norman's girlfriend, Natalie, is an avid knitter as well.
(Then Natalie told me that Norman knows how to knit...convenient that he left himself out...) She showed me this beautiful lace shawl she made, and told me which yarn shop to stop by before leaving the city.

I've been home for over a day now, and I'm still winding up my new yarn from L K Yarns in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Nick and I waited to get on the road on Monday morning so I could hit up the yarn shop before leaving the city, and it didn't open until 10 am.

The woman in the shop was very nice, and helped me find local-made yarns. I bought four skeins of Briggs and Little's Regal worsted weight from New Brunswick. The color variety was very wide, and I ended up with Turqois, Violet, Fundy Fog, and Oatmeal for colors. I also bought a beautiful hand-dyed yarn in pastel colors from Fleece Artist. It reminds me of rainbow sherbet.
It's a very fuzzy yarn, and when I wound it, the fibers kept sticking to my nose and mouth and getting on my clothes (although I'm sure the wind coming in the truck window was not helping).
So now I have new yarns, and no new project. The yarn was so inexpensive, I was surprised. The Briggs and Little was $4.75 and skein Canadian, about $3.89 American. The Fleece Artist yarn however was about $24 American.
In hindsight, I should probably have gotten six more skeins of Briggs and Little instead of the hand-painted yarn, so that I would have had enough for a large project. But I never plan ahead like that when I'm yarn shopping.
So now I am off to dream about what my fibers will become...
Ciao!

Neil's finished Hat

He's so excited, I even put a little tab on top because he liked the last one that I did for him with a tab. Here he is:

Cable hats and free raw wool

After a short period sans knitting, I am back in action. I went to Newburyport on Sunday to go to Yankee Homecoming, a festival with art shows, antique cars, live music, street venders, etc. While Neil and I were there, we stopped into the yarn shop there, Three Bags Full.
For the last six months or so, Neil has been begging me to knit him a hat with vertical cables out of this beautiful Irish tweed from Tahki that he bought. I have had a LOT of trouble finding a pattern, but when we were in the shop he saw a picture of one on the back of a Rowan catalougue.

I brought the pattern home and immediately started on the hat. It felt so good to have needles in my hands again. I started the pattern twice, misreading the pattern each time, before I realized I had to modify it to knit it in the round without a seam allowance. It's coming out really well, check out the pictures.
I should be done by tonight, so I'll update the finished hat when it's done.

PLUS!!! Fantabulous news for spinning!

My mother has a friend who has two pet sheep, a white one, and a dark one. She shears them every year, but doesn't know anyone who will take the wool. She's going to give me all the wool she's every sheared off of her sheep and now I am going to learn to spin like a maniac. I found a great video from the DIY network show "Knitty Gritty" that shows how to wash, card, and spin raw wool. It's exactly what I was looking for. I now know why my fibers were pulling apart when I was spinning, and I fixed it. I found a spinning wheel on ebay for $9.99 and it's in Halifax. (I'm leaving for a weekend in Halifax tommorow morning.) Maybe I can buy it and skip the 60 bucks for shipping by picking it up instead! (I'm getting all bubbly just thinking about it.)

If anyone knows any good yarn/knitting places in Halifax, let me know, and I'll be back blogging on Tuesday!

Knitter's Block

I think I am having a period of knitter's block.
Usually when I stare at the mounds of colorful yarn in my room, the skeins call me to project after project, idea after idea, and today: Nothing.
I have five skeins of a strangely variegated gray and pink/blue/green/yellow Greek yarn that my grandmother gave me. I want to use itbut nothing is coming to mind.

I think some of this has to do with the weather. It's not Phoenix or anything, but the weather here has been between mid-80s and low 100's for the last three weeks now, and very very humid. Everything is sticky; not exactly knitting weather. I'm actually afraid that if I start my fall knitting now, the fibers will stick to me and feel gross. So I'm either waiting for: a) cooler weather, or b) cooler yarns. And I mean temperature here, baby. So get the hell down there thermometer!

Camping

I apologize for the lack of posting this past week, but I now I am officially back from my sort-of escape from civilization. My camping trip to the Franconia Range in NH. Niel and I spent two nights and three days out in the woods, enjoying the very hot and muggy weather from underneath a canopy of trees. We stayed at Russel Pond State campground. We had tried six other grounds before we found an open spot, and I think we only found the one we did because it was sort of hidden from the road, and I stumbled across the stairs to it when I flashed my flashlight around. It ended up having three sets of stairs, and we later learned that our lot was nicknamed "Cardiac Hill" because of all the stairs.

On Saturday, we drove up the Kancamagus highway to the Flume, and hiked the whole path. The breeze coming down the canyon from the rushing water was such a relief from the heat and humidity.

I searched in town for a yarn store, but the only craft store seemed to specialize in quilts only. They carried knitting needles and books, but no yarn. I was dissapointed.

I also believe that I was bit by a spider? I need to see my doctor to confirm or rule it out.

So, I didn't do any knitting while camping. It was pretty wet the whole time, and I spend a bit of time hiking. The leaf and rock patterns gave me some ideas for some really organic knitting, so I'm excited to start new projects. More on my knitting tommorow!

The matching handbag!

It's been a few weeks of my mom wearing her new tank around, and it has been (surprisingly) nice weather to do so. Being in New England, you just never know. She asked me about a week ago to make a matching handbag for her. I made two rectangular panels edged in seed stitch. Here's the pic:
I finished the flat knitting, and I folded it up to sew the sideseams. Right now I'm adding hemp (bracelet-making hemp, not hemp yarn) to the top and knitting the handles out of it. I just picked up stitches all the way around the bag, knit up 4 rows, and then binded off all but eighteen stitches, four groups of six stiches. There are two groups on each side of the bag, and my plan is to knit them up and then increase on the inside and decrease on the outside until they meet, then make three or four rows to connect them and finish the handles. I'll post a pic when I have a chance to take a picture. I think it lookes great, and the earthy color of the hemp doesn't take away from the vibrant colors of the cotton.
Thanks to Scott for taking the pics.

knitting GIANT

Check out this giant knitting I learned about in Thursday's Boston Globe:
The Knitting Machine
click on "work" and "big projects"

This man has made two 25-ft long knitting needles and knit a 20ft x 11ft American flag with CRANES (yes Cranes) for Independence Day.

A tank for my mother

While my mother was in Los Angeles becoming a yoga instructor, I was here in Massachusetts planning and knitting her a tank top. I found a beautiful hand-dyed cotton yarn on sale at the North Andover Sheep Shearing Festival. I wound it into three and half good size balls, and knew it would turn into something for my mother, as a surprise for when she got back. I thought of something that she could wear in the summertime, throw a jacket over in fall or spring, and something she could wear in the yoga studio. A tank top seemed to be the right choice.
I measured a sweater of hers that I know fits her well, and I made a pattern, using a gauge swatch that I had washed and dried in hot water, and on high heat.
It took me about two weeks to finish. I shortened the distance from the shoulder to the underarm decrease because it looked too long when I tried it on. Also, the space between the shoulders sagged outward. I wanted to tighten it up without frogging the whole top, so I added a tie to cinch it tighter.
I was so excited to give her the shirt and have her try it on to see if the fit was right! When she finally came in from L.A., I gave it to her. Her response: “Cool.”
That was it! I was pretty heated that she didn’t seem to appreciate the amount of time and energy I spent making it for her.
A few days later, though, she was wearing the tank, and telling me how many compliments she’s gotten on it. She even asked me to make her a matching handbag. But we’ll save that for another post.

Here’s the finished tank:

Adventure Knitting!

You appear to be a Knitting Adventurer.You are through those knitting growing pains and
feeling more adventurous. You can follow a
standard pattern if it's not too complicated
and know where to go to get help. Maybe you've
started to experiment with different fibers and
you might be eyeing a book with a cool
technique you've never tried. Perhaps you
prefer to stick to other people's patterns but
you are trying to challenge yourself more.
Regardless of your preference, you are
continually trying to grow as a knitter, and as
well you should since your non-knitting friends
are probably dropping some serious hints, these
days.
What Kind of Knitter Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Shine and Shine Twist

I just got in the mail a sample of Shine in turquoise from Knitpicks.
I also ordered the color card so I could see the other color options. I'm a little disappointed that there isn't a light purple color, but otherwise everything looks beautiful.
Time now to think up a project for the yarn.

I knit up a swatch shaped like a hat so I could see the cast-on edge, a bit of seed stitch, decreasing, and i-cord.
The color is gorgeous.

My goal: join this little club: