The Clueless Crafter

Baby Caps for a Good Cause

2011-08-16T00:31:00.001-07:00

This quick and easy baby cap was designed for the "Click for Babies Period of Purple Crying Caps” organization, a group trying to educate new parents about normal baby crying and how to respond to it.

It's called "Purple Pigtails (or not) Baby Cap" because, while it looks cuter with the corners embellished, Click for Babies wants donated caps to be plain, so, not on the caps for donation.

This pattern is free for anyone who would like to knit it for charity or for their own use. Click here to download the pdf. The pattern has quite a few illustrations, but all of the directions are on the last page. Look at the pretty pictures on your computer monitor and just print out page 3 to save paper and ink.

The Purple Pigtails (or not) Baby Cap has the Sachi Cat seal of approval.

Thank you so much to all of the fine Ravelers who test knit this pattern for me. Couldn't have done it without you.

Amil Fingerless Mitts

2011-07-29T01:40:00.000-07:00

These simple, knit in the round, fingerless mitts are intended to celebrate the beauty of the yarn. They can be made in any length from wrist to elbow. They are identical and interchangeable, so no need to worry about mirroring the thumbs. A quick knit in worsted weight yarn, they would be a good first mitt for a new knitter.

RockLady, whose first name begins with an A, came to me before Christmas and asked if I could knit a pair of fingerless mitts for her mother-in-law. The word "No!" is rare in my vocabulary when it comes to knitting. Heck, if someone actually wants me to knit something for them, I'm tremendously flattered. So I sat down and knit the mitts, which were a great success.

This spring, another friend was having trouble with cold hands as a result of chemo therapy, so I knit her a pair for her birthday and decided to formalize the pattern.

Thus were born the Amil (A's Mother In Law) Fingerless Mitts.

The pattern is free to good homes. It comes in pdf format in three parts:

The full, illustrated pattern -- gotta download this one, it's got all the bells and whistles.

A bare-bones version suitable for printing (I don't know about you, but I sure don't want to print out the color photos and extraneous verbiage.)

An addenda describing how to customize the longer mitts for more muscular (or voluptuous) arms.

And there's even a MAN size -- if you can manage to get a man to wear a pair of fingerless mitts...

Her Humie's Kitteh

2011-02-04T00:46:00.001-08:00

What's this?

Sniff?

Yarn!

Can you tell she's my kitteh?

Campolmi Roberto Filati

2010-10-16T00:32:00.000-07:00

When I was in Florence in September, I went to the biggest yarn store in town, Campolmi Roberto Filati.It presents a modest storefront tucked into a small alley under the shadow of Il Duomo. If I hadn't seen the two bright skeins of yarn tacked up by the open door, I might have passed it by.

The store had two rooms packed floor to ceiling with yarn.

I bought two skeins of this

to make baby stuff.

And, I thought, this single skein of shiny cotton.

Turns out the cotton was a mistake. It's several lengths all tangled together. I am trying to untangle it and wind it into a ball - or balls. I suspect it's going to take forever. I like the yarn, though, so shiny, so soft, such a wonderful color.

Dang, I hope that one day I actually get it into shape to knit with...

Italia Filati

2010-09-23T02:14:00.000-07:00

Filati is how you say yarn in Italian. I know this because in the last week I've been to yarn stores in Siene and Florence. (Woo-hoo!) Look for the full report with photos when I get back to the USA.

Yes, I did buy yarn, but not enough.

So How Am I Going to Do This?

2010-09-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

I've decided to make fingerless mitts for my Minnesota nieces for Christmas. It seems that fingerless mitts are a hot fashion statement this year. I messaged the elder niece on Facebook and asked for current favorite colors: red and orange.

The mitts need to fill several requirements.
1. Warm for the Minnesota winter.
2. Machine washable - a biggie.
3. Bright and colorful - got a leg up on that with red and orange.
4. Unique, yet not in an Aunt Ethyl ruffled underwear sort of a way.
5. Relatively quick and easy to knit.

Numbers 1, 2, 3 and 5 can all be covered in one fell swoop. Superwash worsted weight wool, variegated for interest.

The red was pretty easy:
Cascade 220 Superwash Paints in colorway 9958 (such an evocative color name.)

I think a simple big cable down the back and we're cooking with gas. I can sound like Aunt Ethyl even if I'm trying to not knit like her.

But try to find a nice, bright, orange worsted.

Ha!

I finally ended up deciding to combine two yarns, Cascade 220 Superwash Sport colorway 822, two 136 yard skeins, and Knit One Crochet Too Crock o' Dye sock yarn in #250, variegated oranges, one 416 yard skein; held together to knit doubled.

One thing I really prefer to do when knitting pairs is knit both pieces simultaneously on one circular needle. That way they're pretty sure to come out the same.

Geeze, I thought, ain't this gunna be fun, knitting with two skeins of orange sport yarn and one skein of variegated sock yarn, pulled from both ends. The possibilities for tangles would be endless.

Fortunately, in my case, laziness is the mother of invention, and when I realized I was going to have to ball all three skeins anyway, I decided to try to pair up my strands early on.

The Cascade and Knit One Crochet Too skeins were almost identical in circumference once I got them unwrapped, so I placed the sock yarn on my swift first, then stacked the first sport skein on top, making sure that both would unwind in the same direction and start at about the same place.

Know what? It worked! I now have two skeins of doubled yarn all ready to knit with.

Let's hope that my offerings, unlike Aunt Ethyl's ruffled undergarments, are kid-cool enough not to end up living out their lives in the back of a dresser drawer. That's requirement item number 4, by the way. The one I still have to make sure I cover.

What I Did on My Vacation

2010-08-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

I didn't go to Disneyland. I didn't go to Hawaii. I went to the cabin in Idaho and spent a good bit of time there knitting. And knit on the eight+ hour drives each way too.

I finally finished the bunny slippers! Yay! Hurray!

Their story is: He's a country bunny, come to the city to visit, and she's a city bun who's no better than she should be. Let's hope he doesn't lose his tail. (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)

For a good friend who's undergoing chemotherapy, I knit two hats. The russet colored one is knit of Elsebeth Lavold Cool Wool, 50% wool, 50% cotton. Very nice. Soft. It's intended to be worn purl side out, so it's smooth on her sensitive scalp, as a sleeping cap. Since socks knit with the smooth stockinet side in on the sole are called "princess sole", I named this hat the "Princess in Disguise Bed Cap."

The other one is just for fun, knit from Crystal Palace Splash, 100% polyester. I call it the "Ditzy Blonde Cap."

And, just to keep things even (heads and toes, don't yah know), I knit a pair of bed socks out of Patons Shetland Chunky Tweeds, 75% acrylic, 25% wool, machine wash & dry - I know the habits of the person who's getting these, they've gotta be indestructible.

I thought I was selecting an elegant pattern. It looked elegant in the sock book. Of course, when knit with chunky brown yarn instead of delicate, pale saffron, sock yarn... What can I say? Something was lacking in the translation. The "lace" looks like Tootsie Rolls appliqued to the socks. So I decided to call them the Tootsie Roll Sweet Dreams Bed Socks.

Does that make it sound like the end result was on purpose? (I hope.)

P.S. Yes, I do name all of my projects. I want them to feel important.

Choices, Choices

2010-07-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

I'm headed off to Idaho in the morning - way, way too early in the morning. The trip does involve long stretches of sitting in the car, however, so I'm trying to decide what knitting projects to take with me.

Hmmm...

Chemo cap? Bed sox? Lace?

I'd better hurry as the Engineer has decided we need to leave at 4:00 a.m.

Is it any wonder that one of his many nicknames is, "my Insane Travel Agent"?

Back in nine days.

Sophisticated Circular Needle Storage

2010-07-21T23:50:00.000-07:00

My friend, GuiGirl, who has taken up knitting, asked me how I store my circular needles. I said I'd send her a picture. I'm sure she's expecting something very elegant.

Here it is GuiGirl.

Yep. you guessed right in one. It's a gallon zip lock bag. If I could be bothered to take the time, I would write the size and length of each needle that I generally keep in my fancy storage container on it with a Sharpie, but instead I use a tape measurer and one of those little ruler thingies with holes in it to measure the circs when I need to select one.

Hey, I never claimed I was efficient.

Then I got extravagant and ordered a complete set of Knit Picks Options Harmony Wood interchangeable needles. I love 'em! They're just right for me most of the time; smoother than bamboo, but not so slippery as Addi Turbos.

The Knit Picks set came in a plastic case with the needles elasticed to a card and the cables in little cellophane envelopes that fit into a plastic wallet. There are sleeves on both sides inside the plastic case for the needle tips.

Not being a huge fan of plastic (other than zip lock bags), I bought a fabric needle case at Tuesday Morning for $2.99 on clearance, mostly because I like the blue print fabric. I numbered the needle sleeves in Sharpie and tucked the needles into them. Now I don't have to measure them every time. That's nice. I fold the fabric case in half because just the tips are a whole lot shorter than 14 inch needles. If I ever get around to it, I think I will put a couple of elastic bands with Velcro fasteners in the unused top half, lable them with the length of the cables and clip the cables into the same case.

When I get around to it.

As an added benefit, the last little needle sleeve works well to hold the Knit Picks tightening key.

So that's my system.

Except for the needles that I have scattered other places around the house.

Darned if I know where some of them are.

The Big Tink - Step by Step

2010-07-04T14:45:00.000-07:00

#1. Knit over to where the mistake is and put a stitch holder on your needle so you don't lose good stitches as you work on your repair.

#2. Drop the necessary stitches.
I dropped one full 12 stitch repeat to make sure I didn't make any mistakes following my pattern. Do this one or two stitches at a time - carefully is the byword here.

Since this is lace, I made sure to drop back to a purl row, that way I knew I had the right number of stitches and they were all the same. Dropping back to a knit row would have meant coping with yarn overs and knit togethers - why do that if you don't have to? The green locking stitch marker neatly holds the strands I've unravelled. It keeps the strands from tangling and me from using the wrong strand to knit with.

#3. Place the dropped stitches on a dpn one by one as you unravel them.
I've read that you should put the dropped stitches on a dpn that's a size or two smaller than the original needle. I don't agree with this as it boogers up my tension, so I use the same size. It makes it a little tougher to do the last couple of stitches in the group, but I think it looks better in the end. If you have trouble picking up the stitches with the working size needle, use a smaller one, then transfer them.

#4. Put a stitch holder on the needle you haven't gotten to yet so those stitches are secure as well.
The only loose stitches should be the ones you've dropped on purpose. (Since I was knitting this on a circular needle, I just pulled the two sides of the needle through so the stitches were on the cable instead of the needle - I'm kinda lazy.)

#5. Knit.
Carefully select the correct strand of yarn by seeing which is closest to the dpn your stitches are on. Take that one strand out of the locking stitch marker and using another dpn knit it as per your pattern. I use my pinky to control the tension until there is too little yarn to grip, then I pinch it between index finger and thumb.

#6. Purl.
I purl back to try to keep my technique as similar to the original knitting as possible. Purling back is also a good idea because your tension might be different at the beginning of a row where you have more yarn to work with than at the end of the row when the yarn is tight. Working both ways will help even this out a bit. If you hate purling, it is possible to knit the purl rows too by not turning your work and always starting at the right hand side since the work in on dpn's.

#7. Tah-dah!
When you have completed all of your reknitting, just take the stitch holder off your right hand needle, knit the stitches off the dpn, then move on to the left needle.

Your repair probably won't look identical to your original knitting, but massage it a bit both while it's dry and when it's blocking, and nobody besides yourself will ever be able to tell. (Unless, of course, you point it out to another knitter, who will say, "Oh, yeah, I see," but be impressed nonetheless.)

The Big Tink

2010-07-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

I'm knitting on a deadline. You know what that means... Big Time Screw-ups. I was eight rows past the boo-boo before I realized I'd made it.

Evil Language!

The pattern has a twelve stitch repeat, so I dropped the whole repeat that I'd slaughtered down eight rows and stuck the stitches on a dpn. I'm going to wait until it's light tomorrow to try to reknit so I can photograph and blog the joyous experience.

Cross fingers for me.

Still Knittin'

2010-06-28T23:28:00.000-07:00

Though my fingers may not have been typing lately, they have kept busy with knitting. Here's the apropos section from my Ravelry projects page. Have about a half dozen other things in progress as well.

I'm afraid I read like I knit. Right now I have 15 library books checked out. I'm in the middle of three, have finished one and read bits and pieces of most of the others. (Or, if I'm really honest, looked at the pictures. What? I like pictures.)

Is it any wonder I have trouble keeping track of things?

I Thought It Was Just a Fling...

2010-06-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

but it looks like it's going to be a long term relationship.

Last week was World Wide Knit in Public Week, so Saturday I went to the most L of my LYS's, Blazing Needles, to do just that. Cynthia, the owner, was totally geared up, she had food and drink, lots of extra chairs and temporary tattoos for her knitters. Since Blazing Needles has a way cool logo, I immediately stuck out my arm.

Woo-hoo, I be bad to the needles!

Got some real double takes as I went about the rest of my day's activities. It was fun. The Engineer thought it was atrocious, which was also fun. What good is a spouse if you don't tease him occasionally?

Well, 52 hours, two showers, several spot washings and a couple of body lotion scrubs later, it looks like I'm in this for the long haul.
And it's to dang warm for long sleeves, so it's gunna show.

Dye Lots

2010-06-03T00:04:00.000-07:00

I bought some stuff from KnitPicks.com a few weeks ago and to get my order up over the $50 mark (FREE Shipping, don't yah know) I bought one skein of "Last Chance Colors" yarn. 462 yards/100 grams of 75% wool, 25% nylon sock yarn in kettle dyed "Grasshopper" colorway - $6.99, not bad.

It arrived promptly and I liked it.

Then I stepped on my size 4 needle and broke it.
Yes, I should know better than to try on the tabi toe socks while they're still on the needles, but how else am I going to know if the toes are long enough and when it's time to turn the heel.

So, since I had to order new size 4 Harmony needles from Knit Picks, I decided to get four more skeins of that nice Grasshopper sock yarn. That would be enough to make a dandy big shawl.

The KnitPicks box arrived promptly.

The new skeins of yarn are not the same color. Nor are they in the same format. The first skein was "Stroll", the sock yarn formerly known as "Essential." The second order was that former yarn known as "Essential." Same yarn, really, except for the dye lot. The four new skeins are yellower and less variegated than the original skein. I don't like them as well.

Ah well, live and learn. And four skeins, 1,848 yards, is still more than enough to make a dandy big shawl. With the favorite skein left over for getting creative -- socks, hat, scarf, mittens, who knows what it will become.

Where Have I Been?

2010-05-24T16:12:00.001-07:00

I really am trying to crawl out...

Yarn Lust Redux

2010-02-03T01:01:00.001-08:00

Almost since learning to knit two years ago, I have been afflicted with a serious case of yarn lust. I've always had the potential. I've never been able to walk through a fabric store without running my hand over the bolts of cloth and fantasizing, I've always loved buttons and fine papers, things that seduce my sight, touch and other senses.

I have boxes in my office closet of fabrics of vintages from my undergrad years to current. I have beads and pheasant hackles, art paper and jewelry findings, paints and markers, clay tools and macrame cord.

The yarn lust didn't overwhelm me immediately upon learning to purl. I'd learned to knit in grade school, but wasn't able to wrap my mind around purling until I went at it Continental style two years ago. The yarn for my first few projects came from my closet boxes (yes, I already had some yarn from college days as well as my Mother-in-law's antiquated stash) and JoAnn's. Then I discovered real yarn stores and all hope of abstaining from gratuitous yarn purchases was dead.

Now looking at my stash page on Ravelry, it shows I have 175 individual yarns stashed, 30 "used", 1 that I'm willing to trade or sell (anybody out there want 5 skeins bright red-orange eyelash yarn?) and 8 "traded/sold/gifted". Which makes a grand total of 214.

Geeze louise!

What's really sad is I think it's contagious... She's got a thing for alpaca. It's a good thing cats don't carry credit cards.

Knitting for NPR

2010-01-28T15:18:00.000-08:00

The NPR station I keep my car radio set to, KCPW, is having a Valentines Online Auction. What, I asked myself, would be a romantic bit of knitting I could donate? I'm not good enough to knit a slinky, see-through tank top. Nor did I think it would be a good idea to get into the more risque type things that they rate for "Adults Only" on Ravelry.

And, oh, by the way, the auction starts Friday, February 29th.

Hmmm...

How about a spa set?

Custom designed, one-of-a-kind. Add a bar of organic lavender goat milk soap, a couple of sea shells and a candle for romance.

Oh yeah, mushy!

Another Free Pattern

2010-01-24T16:56:00.000-08:00

For Christmas knitting, I wanted things that were quick but nice with a bit of elegance. For my favorite sister-in-law-in-law I made a neck wrap of baby alpaca.

Ooh, soft!

Click here or go to the links on the side for the free Reversible Lace Neck Wrap pattern.

Back With a Touch of Elegance

2010-01-21T21:31:00.000-08:00

Perhaps a celebration is in order since this is my first blog post in over a month.
Step in, relax, have a glass of wine.

Over the holidays I knit two wine bottle sleeves and sixteen coasters. They were great travel knitting because both bottle sleeves and coasters are relatively mindless knitting. I used circular needles for everything so I wouldn't have to worry about dropping a needle on the airplanes. I did need to get home to felt them, which was fine as I've been in and out (and in and out) of town for the past month.

I knit one bottle sleeve larger and gave that one away before I could take a picture. Below are some in progress photos.

And here is a link for a free pdf of the patterns.

Fantasies, Math and Willie Nelson

2009-12-08T01:12:00.000-08:00

I have a very nice digital kitchen scale that gives me valuable information; it tells me how much yarn. I don't have one of those devices that measures the actual length of a skein of yarn, but set my scale to grams and do a little math and I have a pretty good idea.

I used 15 grams of a skein of Cascade 220 on Kate's leg warmers. It's called 220 because there are 220 yards in the 100 gram skein. 15 x 2.2 = 33, therefor I used 33 yards of the skein, leaving 167 yards for future projects.

That's a good little bit of yarn, so I fearlessly set out to knit a watch cap for another friend with it. The watch cap weighed 72 grams, times 2.2, makes 158.4 yards.

Now to weigh the remaining yarn. 13 grams, times 2.2, makes 28.6 yards.

Let's check for accuracy. 33 + 158.4 + 28.6 = 220 exactly.

Woo-hoo! Math works!

A side question to this is: In my Ravelry stash, should I declare this skein of yarn to be "All used up," or should I let it stay listed with 28.6 yards remaining? It certainly isn't enough for another project, but I don't want to forget I have it -- one never knows when what might come in useful.

This is Willie Nelson.

No, obviously not the country singer with the gray braids.

Willie Nelson is an alpaca. Here's his baby picture.
He's a Utah boy, born and bred, from Blue Moon Ranch.

The lovely skeins of yarn are hand spun from his first sheering. Three skeins, natural Willie color with no dye, and no idea how much yardage.

I have a serious case of yarn lust for these skeins. I pat them, I rub them on my cheeks. I want them! I've been knitting for 22 months now and have yet to knit anything for myself. I deserve this yarn!

The weather is also adding fuel to my yearning. It was 9° out this morning. Never got up to 20° all day. I want a warm cozy for my neck and head. I'd like a tapered scarf, kindof a half scarf, half shawl, that I could flip up over my head like a kerchief or fold down around my neck like a collar.

Do I have enough yarn?

Weigh the three skeins: 59, 61 and 62 grams. Measure 10 yards from one skein, weigh it: 7 grams. Do the math 59 + 61 + 62 = 182 ÷ 7 = 260 total yards. Do it by the skein and I get 84 yards + 87 + 89 = 260 yards - if I spit splice to maximize my yardage.

That's not a lot of yarn. Guess I'd better look for a high mileage lace pattern and plan on frogging my swatch to use in the project.

Wish me luck!

The Oh So Stylin' Puppy Ear Hat

2009-12-02T22:42:00.000-08:00

You can wear it with the dangles hanging.

Or you can knot them snug under your chin when the cold wind blows.

If it's a bit warmer out, you can tie the dangles up top for the classic Dutch girl look.

But wait, there's more!

Don't you think the tassels look like puppy ears and tail from the back?

Woof!

Back From Hiatus and Off On a Project

2009-12-02T00:09:00.000-08:00

Took off for a month of trying to write a novel. Didn't finish it, but got it well under way. I did do some knitting during the silence in BlogLand.

PixelChick asked me to knit her a hat because her ears get cold when she chases wild horses in the winter time. She's a would-be professional photographer, that's why she's chasing wild horses. She surely doesn't want to catch them, just have them smile pretty for the camera.

"What color?" I asked.

"My coat's black, so I guess black," she answered.

Okay, black... I never quite understood my Mom's reaction for so many years when I told her I wanted black mittens -- Mom knits the best mittens in the world. I lose mittens like it's my avocation, so Mom's knit me a bizillion over the years. Now that I knit, I understand her "Are you sure you wouldn't like some other color?" It ain't easy to see all those little stitches on black, plus it just doesn't have a whole lot of pizzazz.

So I munged it around in my head trying to think of a way to make black more interesting.

Hmmm... PixelChick has a cocker spaniel. More accurately, she is owned by a cocker spaniel. She is a devoted slave to a cocker spaniel. She has cocker spaniel themed everything.

The dog is black and white. Cold ears. Stranded color work -- if you can call B&W color.

Now we're getting some place.

So I scribbled around until I came up with the concept drawing. An ear flap hat with a parade of cockers around the circumference.

How many stitches do I have to work with? Measure the head, make the swatch, get gauge, do the math. How to do the cocker spaniels so that they're recognizable? First draw some simple cocker outlines then translate them to graph paper.

But regular graph paper has square holes and knitting stitches are wider than they are tall. I've done my swatch, I know my gauge -- go to that Japanese web site and print out some knitting graph paper. (Pay attention gentle readers, this is an excellent resource, http://www.tata-tatao.to/knit/e-index.html.) Draw cockers on graph paper.

Knit them puppies.

Note what works and what doesn't.

One of the things that doesn't work is my eyes.

Draw the dang thing bigger. Figure out how to do the ear flaps without seams. I'm not real fond of seams.

Now... Start Knitting.

On the Road Again (not to plagiarise Willie or anything.)

2009-10-21T22:20:00.001-07:00

My flight leaves at 5:50 in the morning, pity me for the hour, but not for the trip back to North Carolina to see relatives and friends. I have GoatGuy's scarf all knit and blocking, it's folded double in the picture, to give to him when I see him. Even knit his initial, "H", into the last square. (Come on now, you didn't think his name was really GoatGuy, did you?) I have my knitting bag packed with three small projects: #1 finish off Brother-in-law the Wiser's Expando Sox; #2 GuiGirl's red fingerless mitts with shiny red beads to go on the cuff ruffles. #3 (and a big maybe) The sock blank I died to make another pair of fingerless mitts for a friend with a late November birthday.

And I'll probably have SEX while I'm gone too! I'm planning to hit the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair Sunday morning while the Parents are at church. (Each of us should worship in his or her own way.)

S.E.X. = Stash Enhancing eXpedition, such a titillating acronym.

How's This For an Excuse

2009-10-20T14:03:00.001-07:00

The reason I've been such a bad blogger (besides my inate badness) is that I've been knitting birthday presents.

Last night they went to the birthday girls. They are leg warmers for the charter members of the Friday Afternoon Hiking Club. I shall blog about the creative process within the next day or so.

Sunglasses added, as usual, to protect the innocent.

Today's Blog Entry Is Cute

2009-09-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

This is the baby hat I knit for Zack. See the "Z". Doesn't my Ted make the handsomest model ever? I think the cap looks like a batter's helmet on him.

When I was 15 months old, I told my Gramma that the only thing I wanted for Christmas was a black teddy bear -- not a brown bear, not a panda bear, a Black bear. She searched the entire Detroit metro area and finally found one. I loved my Gramma and I love my Ted Bear. When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was The Velveteen Rabbit because Ted Bear had been loved into "real" and every kid in the neighborhood knew it. (You too can probably tell by how smooshed and worn from kisses his nose is.)

I have my Gramma's good sterling flatware and a lovely eggshell thin porcelain sugar and creamer set, which are both very fine, but not a patch on my Ted. You can't cuddle cutlery.

************

Hmm... Today's blog entry didn't go where I thought it would. I was going to make a snotty remark about saccharine subjects, but then I thought about my Gramma. She died before I turned five and I missed her horribly. I was totally disconsolate until my Aunt Mary, her oldest daughter, assured me that we could send her oranges in heaven.

Sometimes I wonder if the reason she shines so perfect in my memory is because she died before I was old enough to see her feet of clay. They say that everybody has them. But I don't think that she did. She was perfect.

Battle Bowl, The Happy Afterword

2009-09-25T00:13:00.000-07:00

Finishing off the Battle Bowl was a snap. I followed Liat's pattern without a pause or problem. I knit one strand of the Manos silk blend into the round of 40 stitches for a bit of highlight.

I like the subtle gradations of the Cascade 220 yarn (9872-Thunder) color way. This picture is pretty accurate.

The finished bowl was almost nine inches in diameter and quite floppy. I tried it on as a hat and it looked very silly, though vaguely Elizabethan. The contrasting Manos silk blend showed strongly against the dark wool.

After two cycles in the washer on hot-hot-hot, it was still pretty limp, so I ran it through once more for a total felting time of about 28 minutes. At some point in the third cycle, it felted. It felted like a yurt. (I think that's going to be my felting motto.)

It came out smaller than I expected, about six and a half inches in diameter, with creases in the bottom where the Möbius twists pulled at the structure of the bowl. I stuffed it with a saucer for shape and a couple of dry cleaner bags for bulk and let it dry overnight.

The felted Battle Bowl lost most of the lovely color spectrum and the Manos felted right into the wool, showing very little. I think it looks like a rock.

But that's okay, the Engineer is getting it and he works in geoscience, so it's apropos.

Lessons Learned

Use larger needles next time for a looser fabric. I think this may decrease the pumpkin-like appearance of the bottom of the bowl.
Brighter colors, more contrast between body and rim of bowl - so much of that was lost in the felting.
Manos Del Uruguay Silk Blend felts easily, but the gleam of the silk is lost in the process - so don't felt it.
Pin it out on a blocking board in the first place instead of turning into a screaming maniac trying to pick up the stitches freehand.

Battle Bowl, Week 2, Part 2

2009-09-23T23:29:00.000-07:00

Fini - Rebellion and Retribution

Saturday night I waited until the Engineer was snoring; I didn't want him to witness the full and ugly wroth of GrumpoGirl. I seized the monstrous Möbius, yarn, ball, needle and all, and frog marched it into the antique bedroom. I turned on the bright overhead light and whipped out a big box of T-pins.

"You're going down!" I snarled.

I pulled my blocking boards out from under the bed. What color would be most intimidating?

Blue or green? No good. Those are soothing colors of nature (plus poor contrast against the dark gray of the Möbius.)

Red - the color of blood! But would that subdue a bloodless, mindless hunk of yarn? I thought not.

Yellow - bile and venom! (and good contrast.) The choice was made.

I slammed the Möbius twist down on the board and stabbed it with the first pin, then held it, spread pentagrammed, against the poison yellow board as I rammed pin after pin into its unresisting i-cord bind off.

Panting, I leaned back and surveyed the splayed knitting before me.

Five folds.

Evenly aligned.

HA!

The Möbius was helpless before me, but I feared if I removed a single pin it would contort again. I pulled out my orange crochet hook.

"If you so much as twitch, I'll sharpen the tip of this and show no mercy..."

Then I thrust the crochet hook through the loops of yarn, picking up stitches and transferring them to the following circular needle, cackling like a demented woman as I worked.

(No pictures illustrating these dreadful doings, this is, after all, a G rated blog.)

When all the stitches were on the cable needle, I pulled out the T-pins, one by one, chortling and drooling with each tug of cold metal. Then I knit. I knit six rounds and posed the tamed Möbius on the rack of its yellow blocking board to document my triumph, stark in the 60 cycle per second illumination of the overhead fluorescent light.

(Can you tell I've been reading a rather violent fantasy novel? Do you think it might have influenced or inflamed me at all?)

The Battle Bowl, Week 2 - Part 1

2009-09-22T23:38:00.001-07:00

Most of the week between the two Möbius bowl classes, I spent knitting a baby hat for a baby who had arrived prematurely. It was a rush job. I didn't get around to knitting any more on the bowl until Friday evening.

I picked up the stitches as directed and knit away.

After a few rounds, I realized I'd done something wrong because it was coming out all twisted. Darn!

So I studied my mess and noticed that some stitches had been picked up from one side (does that have any meaning on a Möbius topology?) and some on the other. Ah, well, that must have been my mistake.

Tore it all out and started again, making sure that I picked up from the same "side" this time.

It still came out all twisty.

Okay, I muttered to myself, must have been because I was watching a video (Billy Elliot) as I was trying to do the deed and paying insufficient attention.

Frogged that puppy again.

Picked up the stitches again. Twisty, twisty, twisty - froggy, froggy, froggy - try again.

Knit another half dozen rounds.

It looked like an acrobat going through some pretty intense moves, so I frogged it and tried again.

Still twisty - and it was almost 4:00 a.m.

Ouch! I had to pick the Engineer up at the airport at 9:00 the next morning, so I stuffed the yarn contortion into my knitting bag and tucked myself into bed for three hours of sleep.

I did get an hour's nap between picking up my Beloved and going to class, but I was not (to put it delicately) in tip-top mental condition when I arrived at Blazing Needles.

One of the other students had finished her bowl, in multiple colors, no less. Cynthia, the owner of Blazing Needles, modeled it as a hat. It looked quite Elizabethan. Then it went into the shop washer for felting. It came out three cycles later looking marvelous.

Poo, I wanted to felt my bowl too.

"Liat, what have I done wrong?"

"You've picked up the stitches wrong, you're going to have to pull it all out."

She gave me further instructions. I replied, "But that's what I've been doing."

Ripped it out again, the yarn was looking a little shopworn, and started again. Are you counting? This was start number five (5!)

Still twisted.

Evil Language! Frogged it again.

Liat laid it out carefully on the table for me and once again told me how to pick up the stitches. I was muttering and cussing under my breath.

Try number six. My eyes were crossing. I couldn't focus on the stitches.

STILL TWISTED!!!

My growling and cussing was no longer subvocal. I tore out the errant stitches with unnecessary vigor.

Liat offered to pick up the stitches for me. I wanted to do it myself so that I would learn, but I also wanted to get the dang thing done, so I told her to go ahead.

She flattened it out on the table and looked it over. It wouldn't flatten properly.

"That's odd."

She turned it over and tried to flattened it out again. It wouldn't flatten.

She examined it carefully and announced, "I think you have six twists in it. It won't work."

I took the monster Möbius back and threatened to throw the whole mess at the rapidly spinning yarn twaddler just to see in which direction it would fly when it hit.

Liat pointed out that might mess up the lovely peacock colored silk that was being twaddled.

I restrained myself.

So I decided to make the smaller bowl to try Magic Looping a Möbius. You can probably guess how much success I had with that...

GrumpoGirl reared her ugly head and snarled at the universe. How embarrassing. She's supposed to stay hidden from view at all times. Never show her face in public. I followed Liat out to her car after class and apologized. Liat was gracious. Thank you Liat.

But now it's getting late and this post is getting too long. I'm going to finish this sordid story tomorrow night.

(So who you think is gunna win this battle - GrumpoGirl or the Monster Möbius?)

The Battle Bowl, Week 1

2009-09-22T00:58:00.000-07:00

I truly enjoy taking classes, partially because I'm lazy - I like having knowledge poured into my head - and partially because I'm bright enough that I usually grasp the subject matter quickly. When these two criteria are not met, GrumpoGirl emerges. (This isn't the only time she rears her ugly head, mind you, it's just one set of conditions which tends to call her forth.)

It's no secret that I think the Möbius topology is fascinating and that I really enjoy messing around with it, So when Liat, who designed a totally cool Möbius bowl, taught a class on it at my LYS, Blazing Needles, I presented myself on Saturday afternoon with cable needle at the ready. I was all set to turn out a good looking bowl like Liat's. These three (and the photo) are hers.

First thing she taught was Cat Bordhi's Möbius cast on. I'd already learned that from the video on YouTube, but refreshers are always welcome. It seems a little weird at first, but once you get into the rhythm, those stitches just swing onto your needle.

Then comes the hard part -- counting how many stitches you've actually cast on. I'm not good at that part. I think it has something to do with being a klutz and trying to hang on to the needle and the yarn and count all at the same time.

After that Liat showed us another hard part; getting four more twists into the Möbius.

Okay, putting the extra twists in wasn't hard. Making sure they actually were there and that there were as many and no more than wanted, that was the hard part. The klutz factor again.

I put the twists in and Liat checked them out. I was good to go,

Knit, knit, knit.

Did something wrong.

Frog, frog, frog.

Knit, knit, knit.

Looks good this time.

The last part of the first class was doing an i-cord bind off. I really liked that.

Here's what my embryonic bowl looked like at the end of the first class:

P.S. You can visit Liat's web site, or Ravelry, to get a copy of her bowl pattern.

The Mother Who Raised Me Is So Tight She Squeaks

2009-09-14T00:27:00.000-07:00

As a relatively new knitter, I am still trying to answer that timeless question: "What the heck do I do with the ends of all these skeins?"

The Engineer suggests throwing them into the trash can.

Waste!

Sacrilege!

You know that within a week after throwing something out, it's going to be needed in a very urgent way. Besides, if my Mom was dead, it would make her spin in her grave. (Fortunately, she's alive and bouncing off the walls like a ping-pong ball.)

I do have some uses for the remnants:

Tie up hair (or other things) when it's getting in the way.
Use instead of ribbon when wrapping small packages.
Keep some of the shorter left-overs in a baggie in my knitting bag -- especially cotton yarn, it's good for provisional cast-ons.
Use as contrast color/texture in new projects.
Test out new techniques/stitches instead of ruining part of a new skein.
Stick in plastic bags and save forever - this is the most commonly done.

Came up with a new idea a couple of days ago in response to the Engineer grousing that I have been horribly remiss in sewing a button back on to his work shorts. Not that I don't have a very good excuse...

My sewing machine is in the basement along with all the rest of my sewing gear. To sew a button on his pants, I not only have to remember to do it in the first place, I have to remember to go downstairs and get the stuff to do it with and not get distracted before getting back upstairs to actually do it.

Then, of course, there's the problem of finding the right color of thread. Or to be more accurate when trying to match the Engineer's wardrobe, the right colorless of thread. He goes in for such stimulating shades as taupe, khaki, beige, putty, etc.

So I decided to make up an upstairs sewing box.

I had an empty stationary box with a magnetic clasp on the lid (way cool, that's why I bought the stationary, I liked the way the lid thunked shut) and filled it up with the necessaries. JoAnn's was selling thread for a dollar a spool, so I bought a selection of drab colors along with a box of straight pins, a packet of needles and a pair of embroidery scissors and put them into my little box. It fits into the drawer of my nightstand. I wanted a pin cushion too, but all of the ones at the store were too big to fit in my cool box.

Then the light bulb went off. I got out the remains from the Technicolor Dragon Skin Scarf. Though it was only a couple of yards, it was already rolled into a bitty center-pull ball. I went at it with my felting needle. With only one shallow stab wound and minimal cussing, I ended up with a lovely little pincushion.

Still looks like a ball of yarn, but it's one fairly solid mass; it won't unwind.

Spiffy, huh?

Continuing the Kool-Aid Saga

2009-09-11T23:53:00.000-07:00

Kool-Aid yarn number two came out even nicer than number one, partially, I'm sure, because I much prefer saturated colors to pastels.

But what the heck to do with my masterpieces?

If Kate wasn't allergic to wool, I would probably have knit her something from it. She did drool just a wee bit over it. But it's 100% wool and kinda scratchy to boot. She's a friend, and I can't have her itching to death.

Then I remembered a vest I'd seen at one of the Yarn Quest stores; a vest I'd liked enough that I'd actually spent $5 on buying a copy of the pattern even though it would have cost $80 to knit using the suggested bulky alpaca yarn.

Hmmm... Maybe if I knit with strands of both yarns held together it might be bulky enough. Added advantage: knitting it with two different skeins should break up any potential pooling or striping.

Sounded good, so I knit a swatch. The gauge came out to about four stitches per inch instead of three, so I cast on 33% more stitches to compensate and away I knit.

And knit some more.

I really like the way the fabric came out; the colors meshed better than I'd anticipated. It sure as heck doesn't look like it was dyed with something as fluorescent as Kool-Aid.

I'm the queen of cutting it close. I ran out of the lighter yarn half way through casting off, so I spit spiced the other end of the dark yarn to the tail end of the light yarn and bound off with that doubled. After I sewed the side seams, I had all of about five feet of yarn left. (And, yes, I did hyperventilate more than a little while finishing up.)

Once the object was finished, it went onto the back of the best (and most obliging) model ever for documenting.

She even wore her own top secret sun glasses so I didn't have to Photoshop them in.
(Thanks KC, you're a pip!)

Lesson's learned:

If you cast on 33% more stitches, you'd darn well better have more than 10% over the suggested yardage to start with.
Holding one's breath and crossing all appendages can help.
If I do it again with doubled worsted weight, I will cast on 200 stitches, go down one needle size in the middle section, make all of the sections a little bit longer, and have lots more yarn to start with -- say at least 66% over what's called for of both yarn strands.

Dried and Still Saturated

2009-08-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

I like this darker dye job better than the pastel one from last month, but if I do it again will use still more packets of Kool-Aid. The one area that I thought might be insufficiently covered, where I added the impromptu purple grape, was not covered. Ah well, dye and learn. I will use maybe 20 or so packets of Kool-Aid next time, make the brown with food coloring and orange Kool-Aid and reinforce the blue. I'll also use a chopstick to gently smish the yarn around to increase the mechanical penetration of the edible dyestuffs.

Of course, the real test of the dye jobs' success will be in the knitting. Cross fingers.

The Blue Took

2009-08-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

Drained the water off, rinsed and rolled it in an old towel to dry a bit.
Cross fingers that the color stays as intense once it's all the way dry.

Kool-Aid Dye Job #2

2009-08-19T12:59:00.001-07:00

This time I used a skein of Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool in Oatmeal shade instead of the creamy colored Natural and used a lot more Kool-Aid and food coloring. In fact, I was so generous with my sprinkling that I ran out of blue and green and used purple up one side of the second layer.

I did the first layer much as previously: poured a long "S" of brown food coloring from lower right to upper left corner and sprinkled two packs of orange Kool-Aid over top of it. Instead of straight blue Kool-Aid, I used blue food coloring diluted with white vinegar (and a pack of blue Kool-Aid thrown in for good measure) to outline the brown on one side and sprinkled green Kool-Aidon the other. Then I flopped the second half of the yarn over top and sprinkled on the rest of my blue and green Kool-Aid, for a total of two packets orange, six blue and five green.

Whereupon I decided I needed more colorant and mixed up some green food coloring with vinegar and poured it over the lower left quadrant. And decided it still looked a little scant and added two packs of purple Kool-Aid up the left edge - 'cause I was all out of blue and green.

About a gallon of very hot water with two packs of yellow Kool-Aid added (for brightness) was poured over the mess in the Pyrex pan.
I gently smooshed everything down and stretched plastic wrap over the pan. Then on to the cement for cooking in the bright sunlight all afternoon.

Can't wait to see how this skein develops. Cross your fingers for the blue coming out okay, but I think it looks pretty good so far...
P.S. The Engineer's in Saudi Arabia this week, so I get to do messy stuff. ; ) Didn't really make any mess at all anyway, I forgot to use gloves and this was all the more colorful my fingers came out:

Off Away Into the Wild High Mountains

2009-08-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

It's time for the annual Idaho trip. The Engineer insists that we leave before daybreak tomorrow morning. I have my knitting bag packed.

Once I recover from traveling with my BelovedSpousalUnit, I will try to soothe out the rough spots on my soul by sitting on the creek bank and going with the flow.
E- you again in a week or so.

Interim Projects

2009-08-05T00:29:00.000-07:00

So what's a knitter to do when she's got aches and pains in her shoulder?

Be chauffeured around by a fine and excellent friend while yarn questing -- such a loverly friend who wins the grand prize and insists on sharing.

Done. (July 25)

Go buy more yarn for when she gets better.

Done. (July 24)

Just for the heck of it, dye some yarn with Kool-Aid.

Done. (July 29)

Abandon the multicolor baby blanket that requires juggling five skeins of yarn.

Done, sadly and temporarily. Baby's due in September, so I'd better get back on it soon!
Knit on little projects that don't strain the shoulder.

A. Napkin rings - eight down, four to go. B. GoatGuy's scarf - half done. C. The Snakelace - knitting's done, now to make a head and tail for it. (The head it has now, I drew and pasted on in Photoshop.)

Learn a new technique: entrelac. Knit a little something for my generous friend out of one of the prize yarns she shared with me.

Working on this one.

And last, and definitely least, ignore the blogging.

Bad Blogger!

Experiments in Kool-Aid

2009-07-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

A few years back, I had a teenage friend with chameleon hair. It was a constant surprise to see her because you never knew just what style - or color - her hair would be. One day purple ponytails, the next time green and curly, another day straight with pink and red stripes. Being naturally nosey, I asked her how she did it.

Kool-Aid.

I had a leftover big and boring skein of natural color wool and, as I was contemplating how to mutilate it in the most entertaining way, memories of chameleon hair came to me. So I surfed on over to Google and typed in "Kool-Aid dye yarn" - which came up with a mere 24,000 results. After reading a few of the more promising looking entries, I devised my color scheme. Next grocery store run, I stocked up on assorted flavors and colors of unsweetened Kool-Aid and got a box of gel food coloring for backup. Then I bided my time...

The problem, you see, in any colorful endeavor is the Engineer. He's just a wee bit anal retentive when it comes to project cleanliness. Whenever he's working on something in the house, the vacuum cleaner is sitting right next to him and he uses it constantly. Neither crumb nor grain of detritus escapes his radar sight. Every night after I cook dinner, he looks at the kitchen and announces that my middle name is "Mess." Imagine the high hysteria should he realize I was planning to dye something.

When The Engineer was out of town for several days, I used my yarn twaddler (alias: swift) to take the sacrificial yarn from its skein and turn it into a long hank. Using the two ends, I tied the yarn securely into a big loop.

Now, I've got to admit that the Engineer does have some basis for saying my middle name is mess, so I decided to do the potentially dirty deed outside on the picnic table instead of in the kitchen. If worse came to worse, the sun should eventually bleach any sins from the wood.

Following what I had garnered from the web, I soaked my yarn overnight in warm water with a bit of dish soap and rinsed it the following morning, being careful not to rub or squeeze it since it was not superwash. I boiled water in my big stainless steel pan and added a packet of yellow Kool-Aid and mixed up food coloring in a couple of tablespoons of white vinegar to make a brown color. I thought I would have more control mixing small drops of food coloring than I would with packets of Kool-Aid.

I placed my biggest Pyrex pan on the newspaper and garbage bag covered picnic table and arranged about half of the wet yarn in it, then I poured the food coloring in a long "S" shape over it. A couple packs each of blue and green Kool-Aid were sprinkled around the brown and some orange went right over the brown food coloring to brighten the color. I flopped the rest of the yarn into the pan, sprinkled it with my last few packets of blue and green Kool-Aid, then poured the hot water (with yellow Kool-Aid) over it. After stretching plastic wrap over the pan, I placed it on the cement in full sun to cook all day.
By the end of the day, the dye water was clear and the Pyrex pan was so hot I had to use pot holders to move it into the kitchen. Once it was cool enough to handle, I drained it, rinsed it, and squished the water out using an old towel. The wool was then draped over a wooden drying rack until thoroughly dry. I put it back over the yarn twaddler and made an oversized muffin out of it.

Final analysis: No mess was made, not even any stains on the towel - yay! hurray! Overall, the wool came out much lighter than I had expected. Very little of the blue Kool-Aid stayed in the wool, though the green, orange and brown did well. The colors were less neon than many web sites had warned to expect, more pastel.

I think it looks pretty darn good.

Yarn Quest - Chapter Two

2009-07-25T22:41:00.000-07:00

About a week after KC and I went questing, I received a phone call from her.

"Let me pull over, I'm driving."

"Oh, yes, you'd better pull over."

Her statement sounded kinda like one of those TV "Before I tell you this, you'd better sit down." statements. What the heck, I wondered, I hope everything's okay.

So I pulled into the nearest parking lot and asked, "What's going on?"

"We won! We won Yarn Quest, we won the grand prize!"

Turned out that KC's punch card was the one pulled for the Grand Fibery Prize!

Yahoo!

KC, being who she is, insisted on sharing it with me. I tried to demure, but she insisted that she would never have gone questing without me.

And what a bunch of loot it was we split. This is my half of it.

But the real prize is the one I've had for the last several years... my friend, KC.

Thank you for being my friend, you are treasured.

Yarn Quest - Chapter One

2009-07-24T23:41:00.000-07:00

Since I've only been knitting a year and a half, I'm not sure how long it's been going on, but the Local Yarn Stores in the Salt Lake Valley have an annual "Yarn Quest." This year seven stores put on the Quest: The Black Sheep, Blazing Needles, Kamille's, Three Wishes, Unraveled Ewe, Unspun, The Wool Cabin (links to all the stores are on the right side bar.) Questers received a punch card at the first store visited. After visiting all seven, the filled out punch card was turned in and the participant entered for prizes of amazing fibery goodness.

My friend, KC, and I met at 10:00 at Blazing Needles and started questing. KC driving, we forged bravely ahead for several hours (okay, I admit, we did stop for lunch) until our cards were completed.

I am a weak woman, consumed by yarn lust. I opened my wallet in every one of those seven stores.

But look at the great loot I got:

Hey, some of this stuff I really needed. Like the Nutmeg Tones Panda Silk, now I can knit the last four napkin rings to complete the set of twelve the Engineer wants. And the two skeins of green DK Panda Silk. I'll make a set of a dozen napkin rings for ForceOfNature for Christmas -- she's 110% Irish, green's her color. And the Feather Duster Shawl pattern, it's Susan's newest pattern, gotta support Susan, not to mention it's gorgeous. I have big plans for the other stuff too, but can't mention them on my oh so public blog, the intended recipients might guess what is headed their way eventually.

There was only one - well, two - totally impulse buys. The baby jacket pattern and the multi-color handpaint. But it wouldn't have been right to buy from five stores and ignore the other two, now would it?

Tomorrow, Chapter Two

Flying On One Wing

2009-06-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

and typing with one hand.

Reinjured an old injury, so my left arm is now in a sling and my brain on a painkiller (yay! horray! codeine!) The cats have appointed themselves my nurses. Unfortunately, cat nursing tends to involve climbing all over the afflicted human, shoving cat head into human face and purring loudly. This makes typing just a wee bit challenging and knitting nigh onto impossible. Won't know how long I'll be bound up until the X-rays come back (Monday?), so I shall bid y'all adieu for now.

Aloha...

AmbiCrafterous

2009-06-24T00:07:00.000-07:00

Being an incredibly graceful creature, one of my problems when knitting is the amazing escaping yarn ball. Of course, the cats are always more than willing to help the yarn misbehave as well. So what to do?

Mostly I've been using onion bags. They make excellent yarn keepers, but they're light and I have a tendency to pull too hard when getting yarn and end up dumping the whole shebang on the floor. Plus they just aren't very... sophisticated... looking.

Fortunately, I like to play with clay too, so I made myself a couple of prototype yarn bowls.

Came out pretty well if I do say so myself.

I think the hook bowl is the more versatile. I've knit half a washrag using it. Just stuck the skein into the bowl and fed the center-pulled yarn through the hook. It draws easily and the yarn seems to sit securely.

The upside down bowl with the hole is more kitty proof, but you can't quickly and easily change yarn like you can with the hook bowl. If you're not going to be changing yarn that shouldn't make a difference.

Analyzing the bowls for this blog entry is giving me further design ideas. I think I'll go play in the mud some more to test them out.

I do enjoy being ambicrafterous.

Girding My Loins For a Marathon Knit

2009-06-10T11:43:00.000-07:00

One of my very long-time friends recently found out she's going to become a grandmother. The embryo's parents live in New Orleans, so no wooly wear is needed. Hmmm... I think I'll knit a baby blanket.

First job: Find machine washable and dryable yarn that's soft and has good cotton content. (Don't forget blankets take a lot of yarn, so not too expensive would be nice.)

Ooh, Lion Brand Cotton-Ease comes in some nice colors. Don't know what sex Embryo is yet, so let's get green and blue and purple and cream.

Second job: Select a stitch pattern -- remember to try for something two sided.

Browse through all of my stitch dictionaries and decide I liked "Pucker Pattern" the best. Looks like it should be presentable, if not virtually identical on both sides. Besides, of course, I like the weird name.

Third job: Knit a swatch in pattern and measure.

Knit, knit, knit, purl, purl, purl, cable to the front. Ten inches wide, about four inches long. Four stitches per inch on the suggested size 8 needles. Took somewhat less than a quarter of the skein for 40 square inches.

Fourth job: Do the math.

Need more yarn. Job 4B: Back to the store, get another skein each of blue and green. That makes three blue, three green and one each of purple and cream.

Fifth job: Okay Brainiac, you bought the yarn before you had a firm design in mind, so now design for the yarn you already have.

Draw, draw, draw, calculate, calculate, calculate.

Got it. I'll be cutting the blue and green yarn tight, but if I run too low, I can simply make the blankie a wee bit shorter. (Considering as how I've already spent close to $50 on the yarn.)

Sixth job: Knit the thing.

Now there's the hard part...

The Three Faces of FoamHead

2009-06-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay, if you want to get technical, one of them is the back of her head.

Taking Some Lace - and My Mind - 'Round a Möbius Twist

2009-05-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

Being more than a little bit of a nerd, I've been fascinated by the Möbius topology since I was a kid. One surface and one edge on a three dimensional object is simply totally cool.

.

So cool in fact, that the first thing I knit 16 months ago (it was my learning project) was a wide, flat scarf for SuziTheFloozy that I twisted and sewed into a Möbius scarf.

Then I discovered that a Möbius cast-on existed.

After trying unsuccessfully to get a Cat Bordhi book at the public library, I found the instructions on YouTube. Yay! Hurray!

My friend GuiGirl is a bigger nerd than I, so I decided to do the next Möbius for her.

It was not one of my more successful projects.

It was intended to be large enough to wear as a shoulder shawl, and GuiGirl is pretty busty, so I did the math and cast on leventybillion stitches hoping to get a forty-five inch functional circumference. That part worked. The sticking point was that I used Lion Brand Suede yarn and put those leventybillion stitches of it on a 40 inch circular needle.

Never again.

Never.

I'm a fairly tight knitter, and trying to move over-packed stitches of that totally nonelastic yarn around the confusing twist of a Möbius needle formation was maddening. Even though it was straight knitting, not a single perl stitch involved until I did a few rows of seed stitch so the edge wouldn't curl, it took me two and a half months. And the end product was not aesthetically pleasing.

But I'm a stubborn critter (either that or it takes me longer than the average bear to learn something.) I am venturing onto the Möbius strip again, knitting a lace cowl as a thank you for a friend who was kind to my Daddy.

I had been given some antique alpaca blend yarn in the perfect color, so I knit up several lace patterns in it to see what would work best. Some I frogged to reuse the yarn -- not an easy task as the yarn is very fuzzy -- a couple I kept.

This one looked nothing at all like the illustration in the stitch dictionary after I knit a short sample. Was it my funky knitting or the big needles and fuzzy yarn?

This one, supposedly a traditional Orenburg lace pattern, looked the same on both sides, so I decided it was the one. I did the math (always), cast on and started knitting.

What's coming off my Möbius needle looks nothing like my swatch.

Why?

Because regular knitting goes back and forth. Knitting on circular needles goes round and round and round. The pattern repeats on this lace are not perfectly symmetrical, thus not the same coming and going. Realizing that was a classic "well, duh!" moment.

Add in a Möbius twist and...

Ah well, I think I like it anyway. And I'm learning a lot. Yep, getting smarter every row.

I hope.

At Long Last...

2009-05-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

I knit Kate of High Altitude Gardening a hat and a neck warmer last winter. I've been bugging her ever since to let me have a photo of them being worn. Gotta have a complete rogues gallery.

Finally ended up hauling my camera up the canyon and backing her into a corner.

Tah-dah! (The good lookin' grey and white dude is Buddy.)

As promised, Kate, you have on the top secret sunglasses, thus retaining your Woman of Mystery aura.

BEM Hat on CLB

2009-05-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

or, to be a bit more verbose: Bug Eyed Monster Hat on Cute Little Boy.

I do like it when I get photos back of my knitting in use.
Thanks CLB's Mom.

Community Knitting

2009-05-28T11:34:00.000-07:00

Spent a couple of evenings community knitting all by myself.

Hmm... That doesn't make sense.

Went in to Blazing Needles looking for some special yarn. While I was there, I saw a kindof a yarn and knit squares Christmas tree sorta thing. Of course, I asked what it was.

They had made little yarn muffins out of Shibui sock yarn, placed the muffins in plastic bags along with an instruction sheet, and were giving them out to any customers who were willing to knit a square and return it for a charity quilt.

So I took a bitty bag of Wasabi colorway sock yarn and knitted my community project square all by myself. Now does it make sense?

Sure takes a lot of stitches on size 2 needles in sock yarn to make a 7.5" square.

The big plan is to stitch all of the squares together on World Wide Knit in Public Day. If I can, I will show up with my camera and document the sew-in.

Terminally Cute

2009-05-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

Some months ago I hibernated the bunny slippers I was working on for Twin'sWife. I'm not sure why the inspiration faded, it just did. But I finished number one last week and took it along on the annual Houston trip so she could try it on before I made number two. Good thing I did. I need to make it narrower and shorter.

This is the bun before surgery. Cross fingers and hope he survives.

Since I'm making this up as I go along, I am taking careful notes and will post the pattern after I finish slipper number two..
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P.S. Even Cats like bunny slippers.

P.P.S. This is why I keep all ongoing projects in plastic bags - extra very good cat help.

Civil War Shawl Reenacting

2009-05-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

My sister received the Civil War Shawl before the reenactment and took it along with her. As per my request, she took some pictures of it. She did not model it herself, however, as it "went with (friend)'s outfit better."

In keeping with the shawl's tradition of all possible boo-boos being made, the friend modeled it wrong side out.

Ah well, ain't that the way it always goes...

Chemo Cap Pattern

2009-04-27T22:41:00.001-07:00

I just found out that a friend's teenage daughter has leukemia. She's been undergoing treatment and seems to be responding well, but, you know how it is with hair, it doesn't like the insult of chemotherapy.

As is so often the case these days, I decided to say I care by knitting her a gift, a chemo cap.

The Patons Bohemian is increadibly soft, machine washable and quick and easy to knit.

Cuddly Chemo Cap

This cap can be knit either on a 16" circular needle, changing to double points when necessary, or by using the Magic Loop technique on a long circular needle, or two shorter circular needles.

20" circumference, but stretches
Gauge, 2 stitches per inch.
1 skein Patons Bohemian (uses about 2/3 of the skein)

Size 11, or size to get gauge, needle(s) for knitting in the round

Tapestry needle

Pattern

Cast on 40 stitches using long tail method.

Join circle, making sure not to twist stitches.

Place marker at first stitch and knit about 6 inches.

Decrease Rounds

Row 1 Beginning at marker *k2tog, K7*

Row 2 *k*

Row 3 *k2tog, k6*

Row 4 *k*

Row 5 *k2tog, k5*

Row 6 *k*

Row 7 *k2tog, k4*

Row 8 *k2tog, k3*

Row 9 *k2tog, k2*

Row 10 *k2tog, k1*

Row 11 *k2tog* Leaving 5 stitches on needle(s)

Finishing
Cut yarn leaving 8 inch tail, thread onto tapestry needle and run through 5 stitches remaining on knitting needle(s). Cinch tightly and weave in tail. Weave in tail at bottom edge of hat.

Cut a 24 inch length of yarn, thread onto tapestry needle at pull through stitches at top of hat. Adjust so approximately half of yarn is on each side, then tie a bow. Knot the ends of the yarn so it doesn't disintegrates.

Can be worn with edge flat or rolled as in picture.

Glamorous But Featherweight

2009-04-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

She's prettier than GlassHead was and way less breakable, but, somehow, I don't think I'll ever forget my first head. And I'd, just a couple weeks ago, bought GlassHead her very own Miley Cyrus wig. I'll bet GlamFoamHead would look down her patrician white nose at $6.97 synthetic hair.

But she is purty.

Glass Disaster

2009-04-23T11:38:00.001-07:00

I'd soaked the Bryce Canyon Cap and stretched it over the glass head to block.Sigh. I guess the smell of wet baby alpaca was too much for Sachi to resist.

Fortunately the sink contained all of the glass shards and the cat wasn't cut.

Unfortunately, none of the Pier 1 Imports in the valley have any glass heads in stock, some guy doing an art installation bought them all up.

Now where can I find a new head?

Travel Knitting

2009-04-23T11:38:00.000-07:00

You know you're addicted when you take your knitting along with you on a photo expedition. Not that it's unreasonable; one cannot, after all, take pictures twenty-four hours a day. So while I was touring the red rock country of southern Utah, I brought along a skein of half priced yarn to while away those evening hours in the motel room as GuiGirl and I talked about color, shadows and light conditions.

I must have been inspired by the landscape. The end product of my knitting was the Bryce Canyon Cap, seen here modeled by GuiGirl.
Note unexpected undulations of rust and ocher so reminiscent of the geological formations of the area. There are swirls of dark green like the omnipresent junipers along with leaf patterns and twisting trails in the lacework. Wow, after that analysis, I'm thinking I maybe should have been an English Lit teacher. I can find hidden meanings in the knitting of a hat like they can find hidden meanings in the prose of Moby Dick.

Either that or I can really pitch some bull...

Latvian Baby Jacket - and Beanie

2009-04-17T09:47:00.001-07:00

I'm headed out of town for five days, but managed to finish my latest project before traveling. Of course, when I get back and have time to write the accompanying letter, the baby togs are going to be traveling as well. All the way to Latvia. Which is way longer than my trip.

When I get back I will post the pattern for the little hat and a bit of commentary about the making of the items.

Later --

Shawl On Lovely Model

2009-04-08T23:11:00.000-07:00

Sunglasses have been added to protect the innocent.

Thanks again KC.

Blocking, Blockhead, Something Like That...

2009-04-08T01:01:00.000-07:00

The Civil War shawl is finally blocking in the primary guest room. (Are the Engineer and I weird? All of the rooms in our house have names.) KC, who is one good cookie, has said she will model it for my camera tomorrow, so watch this space for further photos.

I went on Ravelry to look at some of the 1354 versions of Susan Lawrence's Forest Canopy shawl just for comparison and was amazed at looking at how quickly so many of the people who knit this pattern turned it out. A couple of days in many cases.

Took me a month.

I think I must be the world's slowest knitter.

Or maybe I just make and fix the most boo-boos.

Big Tink or Little Frog

2009-04-05T22:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just have to wonder...

I had knit all of the edge rows on the Civil War shawl and was doing a final count of stitches to make sure everything was copesetic when I saw one big mess. Dang! How did I do that? More to the point, how did I not realize I'd done that?

Sure as heck didn't want to frog a dozen rows to fix a localized problem like that.

One of the things that Susan had taught in the shawl knitting class was backtracking and repair. I'd already done some of it before her lesson, so it wasn't entirely new material, but it's always good to have necessary skills reinforced.

Here goes...

Unraveled the offending stitches. Good grief, look at all those loose strands. I'm not going into the details. Don't want the air to turn blue with the required colorful language. Suffice it to show...

Tah-dah! It ain't perfect, but I think it will look okay once it's blocked.

Civil War Shawl Redux

2009-03-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

Redux is my word of the day. ("Like a Phoenix from the ashes" sounded a little overly dramatic.)
I am now on pattern repeat thirteen and a half. Took a long time to get all of the dropped stitches back on the needles in proper order. I doubt it's perfect. My sister is not a knitter, though (except for idiot cloths, which she learned to knit so her hands would be authentically occupied), so I doubt she'll notice.

This does not look like 15 pattern repeats plus edging will be big enough...

As God Is My Witness, I'll Never Frog Lace Again!

2009-03-28T13:36:00.001-07:00

The Civil War Shawl went down with the South last night.

I do have excuses...

My first alma mater is Michigan State. They got to the Sweet Sixteen and were up against the University of Kansas. The Jayhawks were kicking Spartan butt, so I was knitting away, not paying too much attention. (I'm not a big fan of pain or humiliation.) Then the tide turned and the feathers started flying. It was neck and neck down the final stretch. Michigan State won by 5 at the buzzer!

And the crowd went wild!

The TV went to the UNC, Gonzaga game, which, since I'd lived in Chapel Hill for several years, could have been interesting, except for that UNC was blowing Gonzaga out by more than 20 points, so I looked down at my knitting and realized that instead of knitting pattern rows seven and eight, I'd knit rows one and two.

Evil Language!

No cure for it but to frog the two offending rows.

Now I'm sure you're all are thinking, "She's a thinking woman's knitter, so I'm sure she had a life line." And it's true that just last Sunday Susan had demonstrated life lines in the shawl knitting class. But my excuses are: I didn't have any crochet weight cotton to make a life line with, and, besides, it's a simple lace pattern, easy to tell where you are, and I check every half row, making sure I come out even and I count stitches on all of the purls rows.

Here's where you find out why I'm the Clueless Crafter...

I decided tinking back two 200+ stitch rows was just too time consuming, so I pulled my circular needle out and started unraveling. When I was almost to the end, there was a sudden explosion of cat on my lap.

"Ohai Mom! Whatcha doin? Can I halp? Ooh, yarn!"

It's amazing how much damage can be done in under two seconds.

Three quarters of the shawl is back on the needle in passably good shape. The last quarter, however... excuse me while I shed some tears... is not a pretty sight.

But I swear, however long it takes, the South shall rise again!

And when I'm out at the grocery store this afternoon, I'm going to buy some cotton crochet thread.

The Civil War Shawl

2009-03-28T00:27:00.000-07:00

Among the things I truly enjoy are taking and teaching classes. When I saw that my LYS, Blazing Needles, was offering a lace shawl class, I jumped on it like a duck on a junebug. The instructor is a local knitting designer (and all 'round nice person), Susan Lawrence. She has a pattern in this season's Interweave Knits magazine, the Fountain Pen Shawl.

Ooh, ahh, ain't it purty!

And I had just the yarn for it, dark red Skacel Merino Lace I'd bought with the thought of eventually making an evening wrap for Twin'sWife. True, Susan was planning to use her Forest Canopy shawl as the teaching example, but she's good natured and willing to customize her instruction.

So I got out my size six KnitPicks Harmony Wood circular needles and cast on for a swatch.

One little problem.

I couldn't see the yarn against the needles.

Dang, my eyes have gotten bad.

I chickened out on the Fountain Pen Shawl and dug through my stash for something I had enough of for the Forest Canopy.

Hmmm... Elsebeth Lavold, dark gray silk, cotton and wool blend, DK weight. Not exactly razzle dazzle, but BabySister is a Civil War reenactor and she and Mom are going to a big reenactment in April. How's about I knit it for her.

Started knitting, analyzing the pattern as I knit.

I think I'm finally starting to comprehend this. The structure makes sense. I don't have to tote the pattern around with me because I know what I'm supposed to do.

Of course knowing and doing are two different things. I am the Queen of Frogging and Tinking. I've become quite adept at finding and fixing my mistakes. Good thing since I make plenty of them. Or maybe not since it means I have lots of practice. (Hmm... I think this is turning into a circular argument.)

Knit, knit, knit, purl, purl, purl. Ooh, ooh, I'm starting to see the pattern!

Knit, knit, knit, purl, purl, purl. Geeze, Susan says she can knit one of these in a couple of days, wonder how she manages it.

Knit, knit, knit, purl, purl, purl. It's turning in to a lumpy gray bag looking thing. Doesn't look like it's ever going to be big enough to be an actual shawl, but they say it will grow when it's blocked.

Susan brought a mini version to the last class to show us how to block it.

How smart, I'll knit me a mini version, measure it, block it, and measure it again. Then I can do the math and see how much I actually have to knit to make a respectable shawl.

So I knit a cute little mini shawl (gotta get me a dolly to model these samples.) I measured it. I soaked it, blocked it and measured it. Then I took the shawl swatch off the pins and measured it again after it had relaxed.

I did the math and figured I needed a to do 15 pattern repeats to get it as long as I want it. Or, if you want quick and dirty, I also measured the length of a leaf, about two inches before blocking, I want the shawl 30 inches long before blocking, so I need to knit 15 repeats. How nice when the math agrees with the quick and dirty.

Now to do a bit more math to see how much I have to go.

************** Stunned Silence **************

Right now I have eleven pattern repeats done, say 8,360 stitches. If I want to do fifteen pattern repeats, that would make 15,240 (fifteen thousand!) stitches.

I'm only half way done.

I need to sit down.

P.S. Thanks to Susan for letting me use her Fountain Pen and Forest Canopy Shawl photos.

Knitting a Hug

2009-03-18T22:34:00.000-07:00

I think one of the reasons I've been so silent of late is that my Mother-in-law-in-law was diagnosed with an uncommon and lethal form of leukemia. It is quite far advanced, so they are not going to try to treat her. A month and a half ago, they gave her around four months to live.

She is one of those people who is so good and kind that it shines out of her with a gentle, glowing light.

I don't want her to go. More than anything right now, I would like to put my arms around her and tell her how well loved she is. She does not want visitors, though, and has asked that people, please, not come. So I've spent the last two weeks knitting her a hug. I think she will understand what I'm trying to say.

In her honor, the pattern for "Ember's Embrace" is downloadable here. It was designed with love and I hope it will be knit again, with love.

(Thanks to KC for modeling.)

Is It the Light Or Is It My Eyes?

2009-02-24T23:43:00.000-08:00

I wanted thread to match the yarn I'm knitting with right now, so I dug through my sewing stuff and found a spool I hoped might work. It was not quite right, the color was a little too flat and gray, maybe leaned a little more towards red tones than the hinting-green blue of the yarn.

Thinking I'd stuck a sample in my purse, I went to JoAnn's to find a better match. Of course, when I got to the thread display, there was no sample yarn in my purse. Evil language!

I have a pretty good color memory, though, so I looked through all the similar blues in Coats and Clark. Found one that was a maybe, but I wasn't happy with it, so I moved on to the Gutermann rack.

Wham, bam, found it ma'am.

Bought it, took it home, put it next to my yarn, and did the success fist pump and grunt. Got it!

I was so tickled at my long distance color matching that when I come downstairs I brought the yarn and thread with me so I could scan it and admire my own mad skillz.

My jaw dropped when I saw the scan. The colors looked nothing alike.

I ransacked some of the less likely spots I might have stashed a spool of thread and came up with one more candidate, but upstairs, in natural sunlight, it looked too green.

So, nerd that I am, I decided to conduct a scientific experiment. My results are below.

Natural sunlight:

Scanner illumination:

Incandescent light:

Fluorescent light:

The camera doesn't lie. It records the light that falls on its sensor - within its limitations.

It's amazing the way the human eye compensates for differing wavelengths and intensities of light. The yarn and threads looked about the same to me in all instances.

So how should you cope with chameleon color?

Consider where the item will be seen for the most part: in the office under the fluorescents; at home in the evening incandescent; outside on a sunny afternoon - and don't forget the quality of natural light changes depending upon the time of day, season and weather conditions. If I have two items to compare, I will usually carry them to a window if possible just to make sure the store lighting isn't playing tricks on me.

One sure bet, I won't be sitting on a scanner when I'm wearing my colors...

Kinky Yarn

2009-02-19T13:55:00.000-08:00

Nah, I'm not talking the titillating kind of kinky, though it is intriguing to try to imagine how yarn could be that kind of kinky. I'm talking about been knit, blocked and frogged yarn.

I'm trying to resuscitate the yarn I took out of the toe of the Engineer's sock. I know I'm going to need it in the future when his toe pops through, and I only had a few yards left of each skein after knitting the socks.

Perhaps, I thought, if I hang the yarn up in the bathroom, gravity and a mild dose of shower steam will relax the bad permanent wave. So I hung it over the towel bar for a couple of weeks.

Still kinky.

So I hung it right in the shower with me -- away from the spray, of course.

Still kinky. Maybe a little less kinky, but still...

How's about another shower, a hotter one this time?

Don't know how that would have worked because at the end of my hotter shower I managed to knock the hanger off the top of the shower door and get the yarn all tangled like crazy trying to snatch it up before it got too wet and dropping it two more times. Did you know that wet yarn and wet skin stick together very effectively?

Not much I can say about that except there has been great debate over whether my middle name should be "Mess" or "Grace." Either fits me quite well, but I will claim "mess" as my avocation and "grace" as a sarcastically accurate description of my physical prowess.

The yarn did relax enough after that -- possibly from a mortal fear of being subjected to more of my attempts to straighten it -- that I decided it was acceptable and made a wee center pull ball of it.
I'm ready for toe holes.

Elitism Vindicated

2009-02-15T01:23:00.000-08:00

In the past year, I have become (brace yourself) a Yarnie. I have no shame in this. It may seem a bit snobbish, rather like claiming to only watch PBS if watching television, but actually, it's purely sybaritic. Running your fingers over a skein of acrylic just ain't the same as stroking baby alpaca.

To make this effete affectation more acceptable, it has been officially declared as politically and ecologically correct by no less than the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

2009 has been declared the International Year of Natural Fibers. Check out the web site; it's good looking, comes in six different languages and is very educational.

Such Loverly Friends

2009-02-12T17:07:00.000-08:00

Some of the brightest things in my world are my friends. I can be proud of the excellent job I've done in selecting them and even prouder that they've chosen me back.

Yesterday one friend and I met for lunch and a computer session -- I am the friendly neighborhood nerd and act as computer guru for many. (Unenlightened self interest, I enjoy doing it.) She brought me a cat cartoon clipped from her paper, a yarn catalogue and what she claimed were a couple of results of her library thinning.

Ooh, I've had Mason*Dixon Knitting on reserve at the library for ages.
Thank you Friend! Your thoughtfulness is just one of the many reasons I appreciate you.

Socks

2009-02-05T01:21:00.000-08:00

I had to pick the toes out of the Engineer's birthday socks because he thought they were too long, but here they are, done and modeled on his hairy legs.

Wonder how long it will be before his toes poke out the ends.

When You Have To Fly

2009-01-30T16:48:00.000-08:00

Times they have changed since 9-11. Used to be a person could carry all manner of things on a commercial aircraft, but no longer. At least they've gotten past the initial hysteria when a person wasn't even allowed to take toothpaste or Chapstick in their carry-on. For a while there, knitting needles were a no-no. As my Mom wondered, "What do they think I'm going to do, knit an Afghan?" Needles are acceptable now - I always make sure to carry bamboo or wood instead of metal because you can never tell when they might go hyper vigilant on you. (Beware the Detroit Airport; TSA employees there tend to be excitable.) The security folks are still a little weird about anything with a blade, though.

So what's a knitter to do if she needs to cut her yarn (besides buy a heavy and kinda homely Clover yarn cutter pendant or gnaw it off like a wild animal taking care of the umbilical cord?)

The answer, my friends, can be found at local office and card stores.

Yep, the Scotch Gift Wrap Cutter. I got this two pack at Sam's Club for under $4.00. It looks like a toothbrush, but instead of bristles, it has a sharp little blade hidden behind an underslung jaw. It won't cut your fingers or your yarn flush with the fabric, but it does a great job of cutting while leaving a bit of a tail.

If you get a two pack, save one for Christmas. It works way better than scissors on gift wrap and it's safe for the kiddies.

(And, no, 3M is not paying me to advertise this, I just like to share things that work for me.)

Initial Sockitude Achieved

2009-01-29T16:50:00.000-08:00

Sock one finished (with all of 5 yards left of the skein after grafting the toe - had me worried, you betcha.)
Sage two in progress!

If I'm lucky and knit fast like the wind (the wind knits?!) I may get both done in time. Cross your fingers for me.

But It Was On Clearance Sale!

2009-01-27T22:52:00.000-08:00

I have to work on my self control, but who could resist Manos on clearance?

My First Heel

2009-01-26T16:42:00.000-08:00

The things I like to knit best are things for the people I care about. The Engineer, my BelovedSpousalUnit, is one of the people I care most about (as it should be!)

The Engineer, however, is not one of the easier people in the universe to knit for. Here's the saga of the first thing I knit for him, a ski headband: http://thewitlesswanderer.blogspot.com/2008/04/interim-knitting-or-my-first-design.html and http://thewitlesswanderer.blogspot.com/2008/04/keeping-his-ears-warm.html.

He has yet to wear it because I gave him a ski helmet to protect his tender parts when he's on the slopes and the headband won't fit under it, nor does he need it for warmth with the helmet. (So I tell myself for consolation.)

He grumped a lot this fall about not having any good warm socks, so I decided that would be my next, hopefully not futile, project for him.

These are undoubtedly the world's most expensive socks. I bought three (just in case two weren't enough) skeins of Shibui superwash worsted merino and did test swatches on several different size needles. I presented the test swatches to the sock expert at Blazing Needles and was told to knit the socks on the size 2. Worsted, on size 2! These socks are going to be able to stand up on their own! Since I don't like dpn's, I had to buy an Adi circular needle in size 2. I really need the Adi slipperiness to be able to work the worsted on size 2 needles. Also bought a sock book so that I wouldn't have to return it to the library before the socks were done.

I started knitting on my Carolina trip back in November, but hibernated the socks after returning home to work on Christmas stuff. Then I had to knit thank you scarves for Mr. & Mrs. Good Neighbor. As soon as I was done with all that (last Thursday), I dove back into knitting on the socks.

And did not understand the directions on turning a heel. Went to Friday morning knit group at Blazing Needles where SockLady and a nice fellow knitter gave me some tips on heel turning.

Got that done, then came to the gusset instructions...

Huh?

Off to the library to get a more profusely illustrated sock book. Got the gusset done -- Yay! Hurray!

Now I'm working on the foot. I have no worry about the toe decrease, nor the Kitchener stitch to close the toe -- I can do that.

The one remaining problem is that the Engineer's birthday is Saturday. I hope he likes getting a sock and a half (maybe) for a present.

Meme Whacked

2009-01-26T15:38:00.000-08:00

Thank you so much Kate, just what every blogger wants is to be whacked with a meme.

The 6th Folder Meme Rules:
1) Go to the 6th folder on your computer.
2) Select the 6th picture in that folder.
3) Write about it.

Kate's difficulty with this is that she claims only to have two folders on her computer: Good Ideas and Bad Ideas, She selected the 6th image (a quaint Irish cottage) from the Good Ideas folder.

My problem is just the opposite. I have eleven drives on my computer and multiple (multiple) nested folders on each drive. Ewww.

So I selected drive #6, which serendipitously happens to be H:\Images2, then folder #6 on the drive which is 11-8-06 and image #6, _MG_3587.CR2.

Here it is turned into a .jpg and ready for viewing.
Absolutely has nothing to do with knitting because I didn't learn how to knit until 15 months after the photo was taken. I think it does, however, show that I've always had a love of color. The crabapple tree with the lovely yellow fruit is outside the library. I had a great time at the library with my camera that day. I'll need to think about whom I can whack in my turn with this meme...

Designing

2009-01-23T23:38:00.000-08:00

My big present at Christmas was a bitty baby laptop computer, a Dell Mini. At 9" x 6.75", it's way too small for a regular notebook case (and a wee bit of a strain on the eyes, but that's another story.) I've decided what I need to do is to knit and felt a case for it. This will be the first thing I'll knit for myself. I want yarn with beauty, character and dignity. If I'm going to use it for business at all, it can't be pink or ruffledee. (Not that I've ever tolerated pink or ruffles in my life, but one must occasionally exaggerate a bit to make a point.)

Enter Manos del Uruguay in colorway 101, Jungle. Ooh, yarn lust! It's dark enough to look businesslike, but has strong green tones with an occasional turquoise glint. Perfect.

I knit a sample with a single strand of yarn, size 10 needles, 20 stitches wide, 20 rows of garter stitch, 20 of seed stitch and 20 of stockinet. Unfelted, I think the stockinet shows off the colors best, but I shall not make a choice until after felting. A double strand swatch will also be knit and felted -- I must have multiple options. Must measure carefully both before and after felting. And time the felting process too. I'll need to watch that like a hawk because the Engineer just turned the water heater temperature up to the point it's dangerous if one is not careful.

Now comes the needs assessment: Do I want a simple envelope to keep my baby Dell from getting scratched in transport, or do I want a case that can carry the charger, mouse and maybe other accessories as well? Do I want a strap? Hand or shoulder? Knit or leather? What kind of fastening?

Better line it, I don't want fuzz getting into the fan and causing problems.

I'm sure the Engineer would have me drawing up a spreadsheet at this point, but I'm going to do concept sketches instead. I do like plotting and planning....

Watch this space for further developments.

Twaddled!

2009-01-19T16:40:00.000-08:00

Set up the swift, oops, sorry, Yarn Twaddler and baller this afternoon and twaddled my first skein of yarn. It was the Manos del Uruguay I bought today to make a carrying case for my new baby laptop.

I didn't guess the right end of the yarn on the first try, but since there were only two choices, the second try was golden.

.
Ta-dah, here's the end product.

The Saga of the Yarn Twaddler

2009-01-18T23:46:00.000-08:00

The Engineer's family requires a Christmas list be submitted by no later than Thanksgiving evening each year. Should one miss the deadline or fail entirely to send his list, dire fates such as receiving Chia Pets or nose hair trimmers are considered suitable punishment. This is definitely incentive.

Among the items on my list this year were a yarn swift and a yarn baller. Didn't really expect to get them, but, what the heck, a list was required.

Christmas was spent in Michigan. When the family gathered on the 23rd, Twin'sWife began asking EldestNiece if she had received a particular shipment yet. The answer was no. At the traditional Christmas Eve Opening of the Presents, it turned out that the missing package was a yarn swift for me.

Of course, no one else in the family had the faintest idea what the heck that thing was, so it was quickly dubbed "The Yarn Twaddler."

Seems that Twin'sWife, who lives in Texas, had ordered the Yarn Twaddler immediately after Thanksgiving to be sent to EldestNiece, who lives in Michigan. Instead, the box arrived on the doorstep in Texas. Probably a good thing, as it was not what she had ordered. So the beginning of December, after much time on the phone with the owner of the company, she sent it back to the place she'd ordered it from with their promise that as soon as they received the returned merchandise, they would send the proper item to Michigan in plenty of time for Christmas.

Murphy rules in all things. We left Michigan on the morning of December 26th. The Yarn Twaddler arrived at EldestNiece's house the afternoon of... December 26th.

This caused great excitement with the Engineer, his Twin and Twin'sWife. They tasked EldestNiece with sending it ASAP to Utah so I could begin twaddling my yarn immediately. My attitude was more along the line of "whenever you can get to it." EldestNiece works full time, has a sports crazy teenager that she chauffeurs constantly from game to practice to game, and her Dad's been in the hospital since August. Just a wee bit of stress on her.

We were informed that the Twaddler had been mailed on January 5th. It had not yet arrived by the 9th, when the Engineer and I had to go out of town for the weekend. I had hired the 10-year-old next door neighbor to pick up the mail. When the Twaddler wasn't with our stockpiled mail and newspapers when we got home, the real hoohah commenced. I kinda figured they don't call it snail mail for nothing.

Friday, the Yarn Twaddler finally arrived. In the bottom of the slightly battered box was a yarn baller as well.

Thanks so much to my sister-in-law for giving it to me and my niece for sending it to me. I appreciate both of you. (Though if I'd known it was going to be so much trouble, I'd have asked for a nice toaster instead.)

Guess I'd better set it up and get my yarn a-twaddlin'.

You Don't Want to See My Ugly Mug

2009-01-13T19:14:00.001-08:00

So far my knitting has mostly encompassed things to go on the head and neck - scarves and hats. I want to post pictures of my works of art, but I'm sure as heck not going to use myself as a model (I think there might be some kind of an aesthetic law about it.) What to do, what to do?

I bought a glass head at Pier 1 Imports, which was fine for hats (and does dual duty for blocking hats as well), but it simply didn't cut the mustard for displaying scarves or fancier gewgaws. Yeah, I could keep on using the back of my recliner, but that just feels a little... two dimensional.
I put on my thinking cap and devised an elegant solution.

First you get a four pack of toilet paper (can you tell how truly sophisticated I am?) and place it in the bathroom where there's good illumination from the skylight and a mirror to reflect the back of the item. Then you cover the toilet paper with a high quality bath towel. Next, place the glass head atop the draped paper. Artistically arrange the FO (finished object for non knit nerds), and snap away.Does this presentation not simply ooze class? (Especially now that you know the secrets behind the magic?)

Hmm, I think maybe I need to get a wig for the glass head so you can't see clear through it.

Never Volunteer

2009-01-12T23:52:00.000-08:00

That's what I've been told.

Have I ever paid attention to the things those older and wiser than myself have told me to try to save me from finding out the hard way?

Nope. What fun would that be?

Last Thursday I was at the "Stitch Effect", the once a month Library knitting group. Knitbasket, the usual group leader, had her baby early (It's a boy!) so she wasn't there. None of the other regular knitting librarians were either, which left bgulley, who's pretty much a newbie to the group, in charge. She was looking a little stressed, said she didn't think knitbasket would be back by the February meeting and that she didn't know what to do.

That's when my mouth opened itself and said, "Would you like me to teach Magic Loop knitting?"

So now, on my one year learning to knitiversary, I get to teach a group how to do Magic Loop.

Courage, I have. Sense, I suspect I lack.

Ah well, it should be fun. Or at least entertaining for the attendees.

Now to get to work assembling material list, samples, handouts... I'll post up some pictures when I have them.

(All names have been Ravelryized to protect the innocent.)

How True, How True

2009-01-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

Ended up on Lindsay Dayton's web site due to a reference from Iron Needles and saw this.
ROFLMAO! Sounds like an excellent motto to me.

P.S. First post made on the road from my new baby 'puter.

When Neighbors Go Good

2009-01-08T23:34:00.000-08:00

I have the best across the street neighbors imaginable, they are good and kind and thoughtful. Don't believe me, check out the other blog... down towards the bottom of the entry.

So what, I asked myself, can I do to show my appreciation?

Bet you've already guessed the answer.

Knit them tokens of my esteem.

Here is the Mrs. Good Neighbor Scarf.

It was serendipity. I had one skein of Stacy Charles Ritratto that I'd purchased on clearance sale several months ago. When I saw it, I thought, this looks like Mrs. Good Neighbor, but I hadn't gotten around to knitting it up. Guess what, her favorite color is red. And the yarn worked perfectly with the stitch pattern I decided on. Best of all, she loves it.

Now to finish the one I'm knitting for her husband, Mr. Good Neighbor.

The Technicolor Dragon Skin Scarf

2008-12-27T23:04:00.000-08:00

On my way to Michigan for Christmas, I started knitting a scarf for my favorite cousin. She's a big fan of "jewel-tone" colors, and I'd made two abortive attempts at knitting her a scarf of Bernat Boa in brilliant, mottled, orange and red. I won't make any editorial comments about the Boa yarn as this blog is rated PG.

So there I was, on the airplane, knitting as fast as I could with five skeins of Queensland Collection Big Wave in Rainbow Bright Multi colorway in my bag.

The Big Wave is a lovely yarn, which, sadly, is no longer being made. It's 90% merino and 10% cashmere (soft, soft, soft), thick and thin with a nubbly texture due to a thin binder cord.

I didn't manage to finish the scarf before I arrived at my cousin's house, but I did finish it before I left.
Most of my projects (the ones I like, anyway), get named. This one was a no brainer, I called it what it looks like, Technicolor Dragon Skin.

Hope my cousin enjoys her scarf as much as I enjoyed knitting it.

2008-12-18T23:04:00.000-08:00

Best Wishes to all of you
for a lovely holiday season.

.. .

I'm leaving Friday morning and will be back on the 27th; e- you then.

Puttin' On the Dog

2008-12-11T01:33:00.000-08:00

My friend KC has two dogs she's pretty much crazy about, so I decided that the best thing to give her for her birthday and Christmas were puppy presents. Puppy Protectors to be precise. I saw an extra very cute pattern for a "Doggie Mac" in Jil Eaton's Simple Chic and decided to go for it.

Since the dogs' names are Ruby and Rusty, there was no problem picking out colors for the coats. I hunted around until I found a red I liked for Ruby that went with a rust I liked for Rusty, bought the yarn and knitted up a swatch. Even tried running a couple of lines of contrasting color through to see how they really looked.

I was not enamored of the color combo I'd thought would be a winner once I'd finished the swatch. When I felted it, I decided to deep six making a plaid Doggie Mac and went for a contrasting color bordered Puppy Protector instead. In the end, the main thing I used from the pattern was the general shaping; I changed the yarn from bulky to worsted and changed the fastenings as well.

As senior dog, Ruby is getting the first Puppy Protector. It looked kinda shabby at the knit stage, kinda okay once I'd crocheted on the border, and pretty darn good once it was felted.

What really makes it look good, though, is Ruby herself. Cute little bitch, ain't she?

Thanks to KC for the puppy portrait.

Rusty won't get his Puppy Protector until after Christmas, it may even be as late as Ruby's was after KC's birthday - 10 weeks (yes, I'm blushing, but I had to do a custom fitting and find the buttons, knit the belly band, needle felt the button holes and...) Rusty will get his jacket before the weather warms in spring. Then those puppies will be, to quote Kate, "stylin'".

Color coordinated dogs. What a hoot.

Knit, Knit, Knit, Knit, Knit...

2008-12-09T21:54:00.000-08:00

I've been working my needles to the bone lately, trying to get the Christmas knitting done. Trying will probably be the operative word. I've already fessed up to GuiGirl that she's not going to get her Christmas handcraft until well after the season to be jolly. I'm allergic to one of the yarns I'm using in it and my fall cold was too recent. Every time I pick it up to knit, I start coughing.

But that's okay, it means I can finish up (or start on) other projects.

I finished the dish cloths for my favorite Mother-in-law-in-law. I think she'll like them.
I'm half way through elf hat number last. It must be finished by this Friday because that's when I go to the Christmas party for the company were Mom and Gramma of the two toddlers and one fetus work. That's a gimme, though, it should only take about another hour of knitting and maybe a half-hour, forty-five minutes to sew up and trim.

I still need to fringe scarves for Cousin-in-law and her daughter, that won't take long. And block a few scarves. And finish this hat by tomorrow evening since my friend's coming to dinner and it's probably the last time I'll see him this year.

Yeah, I scanned the hat and the pompoms below instead of photographing them. I'm in the basement, it's after dark and the scanner's sitting right next to the computer. So they look a little squished. Live with it.

I haven't even started on the planned felted bunny slippers, or the scarf for FavoriteCousin. Actually, I take that back, I did start a scarf for FavoriteCousin, but I frogged it and consigned the yarn to Perdition. Must start anew with new yarn and new design.

No missed deadlines for me, no sir.
But I've had fun too. I needed to make some pompoms for Kate's hat. She wanted a clone of the Remorse Hat, but she's not as conservative as the renewed friend the Remorse Hat and Scarf went to.

Kate just isn't a spherical pompom sort of person, she's more of a free spirit, more adventurous, so I made Official Free Spirit Pompoms for her hat. And just to add my own little touch of nerdishness, I used my solar Casio graphing calculator as a base to wrap them on.

How's that for classy?

Like Mother Like Daughter...

2008-12-07T21:17:00.000-08:00

regardless of species.

She has a thing for yarn.

The Knitting Critic

2008-12-02T15:16:00.000-08:00

Traveling and Knitting

2008-12-01T23:26:00.001-08:00

Home again from my travels. Actually got back late Friday, but the Engineer has kept very busy keeping me busy. Sometimes I wonder whether he sees keeping me busy as a hobby or an avocation...

I knit quite a bit while I was traveling, working on two Christmas gifts (can't blog those yet) and making dishcloths.

At the home of each friend I stayed with, I knit a dishcloth as I talked with my friend. When I completed it, I gave it to her. Three dishcloths knit and given away -- I guess it was the hat-trick of my trip. It seemed to go over well. I did not knit one for Mom, though I stayed there the longest. She knits her own. She's been knitting her own since before I knew which end of the needle to stick into the yarn.

I've knit one and a half more on the plane and since being home because I plan to send a set of three to my beloved Mother-in-law-in-law. It takes longer now that I'm home and the cats are trying to "help." I've not been as insistent about "Not yours, mine!" because I have a case of the guilts for abandoning my fuzzy darlings for two weeks. They're still in VelcroKitty mode. Both of them crowd onto my lap whenever I sit in my knitting chair. Right now Kitsu is curled up on top of my forearms as I type. I am not psychologically capable of evicting a purring cat.

Maybe I need to go on the road again to finish up my Christmas knitting.

Auf Wiedersehen For Now

2008-11-14T21:45:00.000-08:00

Goodbye for two weeks. I'm off before dawn on my annual trip east to visit parents and friends.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Knitting For Mom

2008-11-12T00:13:00.000-08:00

I'm headed east at the end of the week to visit friends and family and spend Thanksgiving with my parents. I want to take Mom a knit present, but that would kinda be like taking gold to Fort Knox.

Mom learned to knit from her Grandmother when she was about three. She's good, darn good. I figure she can knit anything. She knits fast too; the clicking of her needles sounds like a train coming down the tracks. I tried to learn to knit from her when I was in grade school, but she was so intimidating I ran screaming from the room every time I heard the word purl until I gathered my courage and borrowed "Knitting For Dummies" from the library last February.

In short, there's nothing I could knit for my Mom that she couldn't knit better, and faster, herself.

But... but... All she ever knits with is Red Heart; a mundane, but perfectly serviceable, acrylic yarn. I'll bet she's never felted anything in her life.

So I bought some 100% merino roving wool and I'm knitting a tote bag to felt. Chose the color especially for Mom. I know she'll like the color. I just hope the bag comes out well and that she likes the whole package.

BEM Hat

2008-11-04T21:59:00.000-08:00

If I'm honest, I have to admit that I (mostly) like the end results of my knitting. Oh, some of the things don't seem quite so shiny after a while, but I think that's partially because I'm a new knitter and still learning the tricks o' the craft.

This evening, I finished the best project ever. I am so tickled with it that it's practically unbearable. Unfortunately, there was no head of an appropriate size around to model it.

Then I remembered Bear, the teddy bear my paternal Grandmother gave me the Christmas I was a year old.

Is this not the coolest BugEyed Monster hat? I almost wish it was big enough that I could wear it (and what does that say about me?)

True, the eyes are a bit like Marty Feldman's, but that's part of the BEM mystique.

Another First

2008-11-04T14:52:00.000-08:00

Iron Needles likes my blog.

Thank you so much Iron. I am very honored.

This is my first YouDoneGood blogging award.

Ain't it shiny?

Here are the rules for the award recipients (not required):
1. Please mention winning of the award on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.
Iron Needles, fellow knitter, a spinner, hiker, mom and grandmom extraordinaire.
3. You must nominate at least 4 fellow bloggers for this award.

Now I have to figure out which blogs to pass the happy along to. Let's see, in alphabetical order:

Bioephemera - the intersection of science & art, good brain food

High Altitude Gardening - plant caretaker and killer

Needles of Iron (back at yah) - multidimensional knitter

Sendy Illustration - she doesn't post often, but she's trying to make it in a foreign country (the USA, she's from Indonesia) as an illustrator, gotta admire her.

SpinDyeKnit - she knits lace shawls from the heart

I hope receiving this makes y'all as happy as it made me.

My Very First Eyeball

2008-11-02T22:33:00.000-08:00

And only a couple of days late for Halloween.

Now I know how to crochet a sphere.

I plan to make a couple of amigurumi Christmas ornaments for a friend who said she wanted something soft and textured to appeal to her 4-year-old grandaughter as her own Christmas present. (She doesn't know about the red elf hat which I've already knit for her grandkid.)

I do have plans for the eyeball, though.

Bwaaa-haaa-hah!

More Elf Hats

2008-10-30T00:50:00.000-07:00

This is the first in the coming parade of Elf Hats for kidlettes.

I knit this with plain old "Bulky" instead of "Super Bulky" since it's supposed to be for a newborn. I think it looks more in proportion, but now I understand why the pattern calls for the really thick stuff.

The long pointed end on this hat is just a wee bit... flaccid.

Dancing Grannies Hat

2008-10-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

I knit in color like TV,
No black and white nor monochrome,
And all that's best of brown and green
Meet on the white of granny hat.

For some reason, when I want to be pretentious and overblown, Byron comes to mind. So apologies, Lord George, but your copyright's long since expired.

She walks in beauty like the night,
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;

Actually, I think that stanza is one of the most beautiful in poetry.

The first full size color project has been knit.

And knit just a wee bit too big.

When I plopped it onto my head, it hung down to my chin. Oops. The pattern, Dancing Grannies Hat, from The Knitting Man(ual), should have told us innocent followers to knit the ear flaps and bottom, textured, part of the hat on a size smaller needles than used on the color work areas. The bottom belled out like a blueberry flower.
I wasn't a Girl Scout for nothing. I'm resourceful. I can come up with workarounds. So I decided to felt Granny to make it fit a normal human head.

Took it down to the washer, set up a low water load, hot wash, cold rinse. When the washer was filled I added a trickle of Woolite and Granny Hat.

Checked it every couple of minutes.

Nothing happening.

Kept checking.

Nothing happening.

Got distracted...

You have to know what comes next...

Granny felted. Oh yeah, she felted like a yurt.

Bad, Bad, Bad Yarn Junky

2008-10-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

Went to JoAnn's today to get inexpensive machine wash and dry yarn for baby hats. This is really kindof bizarre for me, baby hats...

Anyway I've already knit one elf hat (see last post) for a four-year-old. It was quick and easy, so I decided to do one for a friend's baby who's due to make her initial appearance on the 10th of November. Then I thought I should make one for S's one year old boy. Oh, I has a one year old girl. Crum, I can't make a hat for I's baby if I don't make hats for L's two granddaughters (one still in utero), their desks are right next to each other. Geeze o' pete, that makes a total of six baby hats.

That's why inexpensive yarn from JoAnn's. The machine wash and dry requirement is due to the nature of babies. (I don't have to have a baby to know about that.)

So I blithely waltzed in to JoAnn's Moonlight Madness sale this afternoon. Okay, rock me back on my heals, fifty bazillion women with small children running amuck with green grocery carts. But I'm brave, so I grabbed a cart and plowed into the milling masses.

Onward to the yarn department!

Of course, it's not possible to go to the yarn department and not push my cart up and down all of the aisles. Nope, not possible.

Wowzer! Cosetta on sale 75% off. So I went through the whole bin and got the seven that had the same dye lot.

One skein of Moda Dea in a loverly color, looking so lonely rattling around in its big bin.

Pacaboo, what the heck's Pacaboo? Feltable... wool, alpaca and bamboo... cool. Just one skein to experiment with, that's not much.

I hadn't even gotten to the baby yarns yet.

Ah well, I guess $45 for 15 skeins of yarn ain't bad. And I smuggled it down to the basement before the Engineer got home to make editorial comments on my excess too.

<

Baby Hats

2008-10-21T01:31:00.000-07:00

There are four little kids in town who I think are in need of Christmas hats. Warm and cozy Christmas hats. I've found the pattern. It knits up fast, it's cute and out of the ordinary.

Elf Hat #1

Now to decide on the colors for Elf Hats numbers 2 to 4.

Two Colors, Two Hands?

2008-10-10T00:54:00.000-07:00

When I saw that Blazing Needles was offering a "Basic Two Color Knitting" class, I decided that the time had come (as the Walrus said) to learn how. I called up, signed up and showed up Wednesday night.

Now, I've got to say that I am right handed. Been right handed all my life. Though I'm neither hopelessly unidextrous like my Mom nor ambidextrous like Dad and my brother (Dad can wiggle his ears too), I definitely favor my right hand. Which, to me, makes it rather surprising that I cannot knit English style. I am simply unable to purl if I'm holding the yarn in my right hand; it makes no sense to me.

Left handed -- easy-peasy.

So I got to the class, pulled out my number 7 circular and dpns and selected two shades of practice yarn. Then the teacher, Terri, gave us the bad news...

We had to learn to knit using both hands.

Simultaneously.

Main color in dominant hand, second color in other hand. Alternating. Not dropping the whole assemblage.

Dang.

First Terri set us to knitting several rounds of the main color with our "other" hand for practice. Thank goodness there was no purling involved. The other students were somehow able to toss the yarn over the needle without swinging their whole arm. Not me. I had to pinch the yarn between thumb and forefinger and move the hand in a circle around the needle. I tried to do it like the rest of them, but that was a sure recipe for dropping at least the yarn if not yarn, needles and all.

After I'd managed to knit about three rounds, the teacher announced that it was time to take main color in dominant hand, other color in other hand and knit two, knit two.

Evil Language!

How could it be so hard when I'm right handed?

But I persevered. It wasn't easy, but I did manage to knit with two colors, one in each hand.

Then I went on and committed cute. (I'm so ashamed.)

Ah well, at least I know a four year old who probably needs a dolly hat.

SEX In the Rain

2008-10-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

A very strange thing happened here over the weekend. It rained. All weekend long. Weird.

But I am an addict, I went out into the cold and damp to visit the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair. I slogged through the mud and breathed the aroma of wet sheep, goats and alpacas. I met some Ravelrousers and was given my very own Ravelry button, ooh, ahh!

It was a small arts fair, maybe a dozen or so tents and no food vendors other than a honey guy. Amazing the fragrance three sheep, two goats and three alpacas can generate. Of course, I've always liked barnyard smell. I went to an agricultural college my first time around and always enjoyed it when the breeze was coming off the cow barns.

And as for the SEX...

My stash was enhanced with my very first local handspuns.

Two skeins of
grey undyed llama.

Four assorted skeins of undyed alpaca neck and leg fiber.

And three skeins of hand dyed alpaca.

Yarn lust once again made me sucumb to the temptation I led myself into.

The Newest, and Cutest, LYC In Town

2008-09-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

The Grand Opening was September 6. The hardwood floors were brightly finished, the stock and furniture were in place, and a faint smell of fresh paint lingered in the air. Blazing Needles had officially arrived in Salt Lake. Cascade yarns form the basic backbone of the stock -- from Cascade 220, the yarns go high end. Manos del Uruguay, a personal favorite, was well represented. There were ultra feminine yarns with beads and sequins scattered throughout the skeins, yarns with textures from ultra smooth silk, to warm and fuzzy wool, to rough raffia. Needles, books, samples, notions and accessories were placed conveniently about the store. Cynthia, the owner, understands the need to touch. (I would guess she also understands the direct connection between touching and wanting...) My fingers wandered over fine wool. alpaca, silk. Yarn lust seized me.

Then I walked into the room that leads into the lovely outdoor courtyard and saw the Shi Bui trunk show. The coolest knit pillow ever immediately drew my eye. I've visited Shi Bui's web site, but images on a screen simply cannot compare with the reality of the knitted samples. As I was examining the spherical pillow, the Shi Bui lady herself came over and spoke with me. Nice lady, nice yarns, next time I have some discretionary funds burning a hole in my pocket I know where they'll go.

Last Thursday evening I attended Blazing Needle's Knit Night. It was held in the room where the Shi Bui trunk show was still displayed. Chairs were drawn up around a dark wood table for a wide demographic range of knitters and crocheters from a cute male college freshman to women of (how to put this delicately) wisdom and experience. There were light refreshments provided, even a couple of bottles of wine (in Land o' Mormon!) and a congenial atmosphere.

Yes, I will be going back to Blazing Needles.

And, Cynthia, love the name, Blazing Needles, it brings to my mind a dynamic theme music.
(Click on the note and mentally make the obvious substitution of words.)

Trust In the Math?

2008-09-15T22:54:00.000-07:00

I bought some very appealing Patons Bohemian yarn thinking it would make a nice chemo cap to give away. The cats thought it looked appealing too, just like a mousie, so they shredded the bag and were starting in on the first skein when I saved it.

I knit a swatch. Okay, I admit it, I'm weird, I like knitting swatches. I like seeing how the yarn feels and works and getting the hang of it without worrying about making mistakes. Then I usually frog my swatch and use it in my project.

Anyhoo, I knit a swatch on the suggested size 11 needles (ooh soft) and got the gauge - 2 stitches per inch.

To make the hat more one-size-fits-all, I decided to knit it in a 2x2 rib, so I cast on 44 stitches and knit a few rows. When I tried it on my head, it didn't seem nearly big enough. No way would it encompass my noggin -- and my head ain't that big.

So I frogged it and cast on 52 stitches.

Tried it on after a dozen rows or so and it seemed to fit fine.

Knittidy, knit, knit, knit. Try it on. Hmm... seems long enough, let's do the decreases and finish this puppy off. Once it was off the needles, I tried it on again.

Ever seen the old Cosby Kids cartoon? Remember Dumb Donald? Yep, that's how my hat fit. Less the eye holes, of course.

Crud. Shoulda believed the math.

So I decided to make it into a beret. I cast on 44 stitches. Since I'd found the yarn wasn't the least bit stretchy, I used the backwards loop cast on and knit several rounds in 1x1 rib. My yarn was running way low, so rather than casting off and sewing the band onto the hat body, I sewed it straight from the needle onto the hat.

Looked good...

Tried it on. The yarn relaxed, the ribs turned into ripples and it was still - too - big. Dang.

Guess I just learned to consider the yarn as well as the math.

Know anybody with a really big head who'd like a brown teddy bear
beret?

Stress Knitting

2008-09-09T01:59:00.000-07:00

Life has been being difficult for the last few weeks and I've found knitting to be helpful as a tranquilizer. I can't really seem to focus on anything though.

I knit the Purple Pod Pouch for a friend and embellished it with shiny things. It isn't the best job ever, but I'm not together enough to go for perfection.

I knit, and lined with fleece, a pouch for a friend who's in a nursing facility due to breaking his back in a motorcycle accident. His glasses disappeared", so I bought a pair of dime store reading glasses for him and made the pouch with a carabiner clip so he could keep them safe.

I'm working on a thank you bag for my ChosenSister, just a little bag with XO cables on two sides and Aryan cables on the other two designed by Chrissy Gardiner. I hope the cables don't get lost in the color changes of the yarn, but it's the yarn she unknowingly chose when she ooh'ed and ah'ed at it when I slyly took her to a yarn store.

And a pair of fingerless gloves for BeadLady. She has rheumatoid arthritis and I'm hoping these will make her hands hurt less when she makes her bead jewelry in the winter.

And, of course, The Project Which Cannot be Named. (Yes, I'm a Harry Potter fan.) It's in worsted weight yarn and pretty plain knitting, so I'm using it for cruising and recovering from the fiddly cables and the fiddly two on one circular needles and fine yarn to boot mitts.

And crocheting a couple of flowers and butterflies to embellish scarves for a cousin and her daughter.

Scattered, scattered, I'm scattered all over the place. But I think the knitting's helping me stay level if not together.

Interim Knitting - End of August

2008-08-28T02:03:00.001-07:00

I don't know why, I can't seem to get into the project which cannot be named. I've chewed it around in my head until I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do. I've knit the first few inches. I like the yarn, the color has real depth. It simply isn't calling my name.

So I decided to knit something obnoxious -- PURPLE! Lion Brand Microspun -- to try to inspire me to want to work on anything different.

I am now about 2/3 of the way through the making of the Purple Pod Pouch for a friend who's a hard core nerd. It's actually for her iPhone, but Purple Pod Pouch is so alliterative and it's fun to pop those P's.

I followed Iron Needles' good advice and bought a set of Knit Picks double pointed needles to magic loop knit it with. Thank you Oh Queen of GrandBebe dress knitting, they work way better than the cheap-o needles.

Here it is photographed on my standard background chair.

And here's why I don't photograph things on the floor where they will often show up better.Extra very fine cat assistance.

Just for good measure, I'm knitting a little sack for a pair of reading glasses I got for a friend whose glasses "disappeared" while he was in the hospital. I think I have the magic loop methodology pretty well down, though I still spend more time than I would like moving the knitting around on the cable instead of knitting.