Ain't that always the way?

So, I was looking at the amount of yarn I have left for the sweater for my brother. And I was comparing it to how much yarn I've used. Bad things ensued. Basically, I realized that I'm more than likely going to run out of yarn, and there's really nothing I can do. I thought to myself, it'll be fine, I'll just order more. So I hopped onto the KnitPicks website to order more.

The Knit Picks Swish Superwash yarn in the Deep Ocean colorway I'm using won't be available until after 1/17/2007.

I'm getting nervous.

Edited to add: Since I more than likely have enough yarn to do the second sleeve but probably not the front, I think My tactic is going to be to do the sleeves in the same dye lot and then get more yarn for the front if I need it.

Greensleeves - the Blue edition

I finally got around to winterizing the blog! Now if I could only find some time to work on The Reflection Aran Pullover for my brother so it might have a chance of getting done before christmas (HA!), but more importantly so I can actually get progress shots, I can start actually blogging again. I kinda miss writing about my knitting.

This project really doesn't have too much going on in it to blog about. There's a lot of knitting the same thing. I feel like there's really not anything worthy to blog about until I actually finish a part of it. So I blogged after the back was done, and I'll prolly do so again after I finish this sleeve, but then the front will take me FOREVER. What I should do is get another pair of fours and start the front so that when I get bored knitting the sleeve I can hop on over to the front, and when I get tired of the front (there's a lot of cables and it looks like something I'm going to have to think about), I can go back to knitting a sleeve.

Some long awaited progress!

Yes, I'm alive, and once you see what I've been working on, you'll realize that I'm not only insane, but, in fact, had to step away from the blog for a bit. You see, I've got this sweater I'm knitting for my brother with size 4 needles. Yes, that's right. Size four needles. So, it's no wonder it took me a month to knit 26.5 inches of this:


That's it! The back is done! Now I just have that completely complicated front and two sleeves! Oh man. This is never getting done before Christmas. Ah well.

I'm finding that the more I knit with the Swish Superwash, the more I can't get the blue dye off of my fingers. At least I like blue. I hope the dye doesn't turn my brother into Grover.

I started the bottom of the first sleeve at SNB on Tuesday night.


You can see with clarity the evil size four needles there can't you? Thought so. They will be my undoing. I know you're generally supposed to do the sleeves one after the other, but if I did that, I was going to really go insane. So I decided to split the sleeves up and work on them seperately. I can't wait till this sweater's done and I can go and knit up that really quick Weekend Pullover from Weekend Knitting.

I just wish there were a prayer in hell this would get done before Christmas.

One step forward and two steps back

Sigh.

Here's the progress so far on the second take of the Reflection Aran Pullover for my lovely brother.


You may notice that this is radically shorter than the previous progress shot that looked something like this:


The new and improved sweater back is the right width for the finished product. Since I haven't been sitting in front of the TV this week knitting like I had been last week, what you see is what you get. Instead, I've been trying to dig myself out of a vacation hole work wise, and haven't been able to take a lunch break to knit.

I should rephrase that. I see these girls from HR all the time eating lunch in the pantry on my floor at work. They constantly see me knitting because that's what I do the most on my lunchbreaks. One of them emailed me to ask if I thought there would be enough people that knit in the company that would want to join a knitting circle. I told them there would probably be a lot more people than they thought that would be interested. So they sent out an invite to everyone in the company (I work for Penguin, so the comapany's pretty big). They got 65 responses back, which far exceeded the capacity of the room they had reserved. So while I went to that during lunch, I was mostly teaching two people how to knit instead of knitting myself.

However, I have been doing a decent amount of knitting on my Mountain Colors Jaywalkers. Mostly on the subways when I'm going somewhere and I don't want to carry a lot of stuff. The book I'm currently reading is Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. I've only got about a hundred and fifty pages left, but it's kinda too big to carry around on the subway. Lo and behold the astonishing amount of progress reading Tolstoy has afforded me:



I just started the heel flap is where that gets me pretty much. These jaywalkers go so much faster in magic loop! Even on a size 0 Addi!

In an almost complete non sequitor but not really....I've bought the domain name www.knitternet.org. I can't really tell you what I'll be putting up there, not because I don't know, but because I kind of want to shock the knitting world with it. I think it'll be pretty cool. Right now I'm looking for server space (I'll probably be getting some from my friend at Ashpool) and a logo, and once I get that stuff, I'll be getting even more adept at this webpage writing thing. I might move my blog there, but I haven't quite decided yet. I've got time to figure it out at any rate. If you go to knitternet.org you won't find anything yet, but once I get something going, I'll let you know!

All for Naught

I got about 15 inches through my brother's sweater. He came home this weekend, and I told him to bring a favorite sweater with him. After having seen the sweater, and discussed its fit with my brother, I have to completely rip out the sweater. Good thing is that I can just follow the pattern for the measurements though. The sweater's 26" long, and 44" across, but he said he wanted a bit more ease, so I'm just going to knit it with the instructions written in the book.

A whole week worth of work wasted. At least I can make up for it a bit on the bus home today if I don't sleep the whole way.

A Little Vacay and a Lot of Knitting

Ayup. I've been in Rhode Island all week playing nurse for my dad who had knee replacement surgery last week. He's been looking forward to getting the surgery done, and he seems pretty happy. They sent him home earlier than they usually send people home because he's been recovering rather quickly. The physical therapist came yesterday and she seemed to be very impressed with the amount of movement and bendability that he's got, which is always a good thing.

So, since he's more or less self sufficient, taking care of dad has meant sitting in front of the TV all day watching Orange County Choppers or American Hot Rod (neither of those are as boring to me as you might think, I am after all a tomboy when you take my knitting away) or other sorts of documentaries. To keep my hands occupied, I've been knitting the back of my brother's sweater to beat the band.



I've got 13.5 inches so far. I need about 27.5 inches. This might not make sense at first. I'm kind of knitting a small. This has been a math intense project. The smallest size in Knitting Nature is for a 46" bust. My brother's got about a 35 inch bust (he plays baseball and is in pretty good shape). So I had to narrow the middle section a bit. There's less ribbing since I had to get rid of about 5" on the front and the back. Also, my brother's torso's a bit longer so instead of knitting the back for 26.5 inches as described for the small size, I'll be knitting it for 27 or 27.5 inches. I've sort of done the math for the front, but I'll have to make a nice little color coded chart for the cables in the front, which I'll also be shrinking a little to account for the 5 inches that need to be taken away from the front for the smaller bust. It's so much easier for me to figure out what I need to do from a chart with colors than a chart with symbols.

Oh, and have I mentioned that I'm knitting this on size 4 needles? Good thing I've got all this time to knit it before Christmas!

November first means more space on Flickr!

Which means more post for you!!!

Where to start? At the beginning! The weekend of the 21st was Rhinebeck, so I jumped into a car with blogless Ruth (who's a pretty good driver I must say!) and we worked our way up to the beautiful land of upstate New York. The trees were extremely pretty!


I didn't do a lot of picture taking on Saturday because I was too busy spending money on yarn and navigating the THRONG OF PEOPLE that suddenly all decided to go to Rhinebeck on Saturday. It was a gorgeous day! Warm, sunny, and the lines for lamb made me really glad that I had brought my own turkey sandwich. The line for the hot cider was waaay shorter!

I'm told that at Rhinebeck there were tons of celebrities. I only ran into Stitchy McYarn Pants. She looked pretty much the way I'd expect her to look. The only other celebrity I ran into was the lovely Nicole Forrester, of Guiding Light fame and most importantly, the cover of Greetings from Knit Cafe. She's in the front left of this photo.



That night found us at Jill's (she's the redhead in the above pic) parents' place in some town up north there. I was amazed when I stepped out of the car and found that I was surrounded by stars! Gorgeous stars could be see so brightly! You could pick out the milky way and all that! I've always been fascinated with astronomy. Oooh! That just gave me a great idea for a sweater. It would be navy blue with sparkles, like that RYC Soft Luxe stuff and then the yoke would feature a string of stars all the way around. That might be my next design venture!

Anyway...enough about stars...

We had a great night, woke up the next morning and went back at it. I followed a few people around, like Heather, who convinced me (so, fine she didn't actually say anything, just helped me along in line) to get some Mountain Colors sock yarn with great greens, yellows, blues, purples and *gasp* pinks! But that's ok, because I got this great picture of her trying to eat the yummy lime green mohair:



Having totally spent all the money I wanted to (and a bit more too!), I decided that some damage control was in order. It was time for me to get friendly with the sheep.


And friendly we got. This one in particular was quite photogenic. But there were others as well. One had the most sproingey fleece. He was fortunately wearing it so I didn't disturb him too much. Just petted him A LOT. This one had horns that reminded me of Rhody the Ram. Actually, the fact that it's a profile is also very Rhody like. Yes, I've some pride for my alma mater.


And then there was the fuzzy cute odd dwarfy looking sheep. I just thought it was too cute. And with the bandana it almost looks like it wants me to take it home with me and keep it as a pet!



After all was said and done, this is what I have to say for myself:


Some Morehouse merino Bulky weight yarn for the Weekend Pullover from Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick.


A bit of Maple Creek Farm Superwash Merino that's destined to be an Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, some Mountain Colors Barefoot in Mountain Tango colorway that's destined to be a sock of unknown pattern, and a bit of Springtide Cashmere that will end up being part of some intarsia piratey cuffs. I cleaned up pretty good. Spent a bit more than I wanted to on account of the Morehouse Merino booth being there. I've wanted to knit that one sweater for forever. I just can't imagine knitting it with anything other than this yarn. It's just too sproingey, too weekendy to not knit with.


So that was Rhinebeck weekend. Last weekend I went to my friend's baby shower. I was very nervous giving her the Baby Bobbi Bear because its eyes and especially its nose weren't quite up to my standards (my standards tend to be pretty high though). But it was a hit! My buddy John seemed to really like it a lot (he mentioned something about bringing it to bed with him that night!), and I think he named it Molly. In all her glory, I introduce you to Molly. Molly, the world, World, Molly:



Molly was knit with size nine needles (though I probably should have knit her on 8s) with Blue Sky Alpacas Cotton yarn. It was quite easy to knit, though if you're going to knit this, I strongly suggest that you read the errata along with the pattern. Otherwise the pattern doesn't make a smidge of sense.

On the needles right now is the Brother's sweater. I've done most of the math...I just hope I did it correctly. I have to rip back about four rows of the back (not a big deal at all) because I think I misjudged the ribbing in the middle. I'm also working on a pair of Jaywalkers in Mountain Colors Barefoot but in a different color way than the hank I got at Rhinebeck. I thought I should use up that yarn before I use the new hank. To be honest, I'm having a hard time getting gauge. I think I'm on a size zero and I'm pretty sure that the smallest size is still going to be a bit big. I really love the yarn, and am afraid that if I use a different stitch pattern that's a bit more intense that either the color or the stitch pattern will get lost. So I'm in the hunt for another decent sock pattern. If you find one that looks hot with a bit thicker variegated yarn, pass it on over!

So, I hope that satiated all your needs for pictures and color and words! :)

Got the Point?

Heading to The Point this afternoon if anyone's interested. I gotta get me a pair of size 4 needles for the brother's sweater.

:-/

The first of quite a few changes!

It's getting chilly again, and I'm thinking that the light colored linen background is only going to work for just a little more time. I'm looking around for things to replace it with, and I'll probably end up changing almost all of the layout anyway if I can get my bum moving on this HTML book. Again, this is all going to have to wait until this nasty sinus infection takes its leave of me.

I took some pictures of my Rhinebeck Augmentation Project (RAP for short!), but unfortunately I've surpassed my flickr bandwidth for the month. Looks like my Rhinebeck update will have to wait until next wednesday, sorry folks!

EDIT: I got rid of Haloscan because I couldn't figure out how to change my template with it the way it was.

Ms. Passionknitly is MIA

Aye, that I am.

Sorry kids, and this post isn't really anything except telling you that I'm still alive, I'm still knitting and I'm suffering hardcore from the worst sinus infection in my life. A bullet to my head would hurt much less than what's going on in my head right now.

Quick status update:

• Baby Bobbi Bear: Just need to sew the ears on and duplicate stitch around the neck (hopefully that'll cinch in the head a bit so it'll look more like a bear. Then I have to embroider the facial features. That should be fun. Deadline is Saturday. The baby shower's at noon!


• Icarus Shawl: We're making progress but we still have a long way to go. I've got about thirty rows yet before I'm done with chart one.


• Brother's Sweater My GOD. I can't quite get the gauge right. Because it involves a ton of thinking, I'm dropping it until this sinus infection goes away.

Right now I think I'm going to cast on for another pair of Jaywalkers. I jsut need a project right now that I don't have to think about.

That's all I've got right now. Rhinebeck was, indeed, a blast! But my head just hurts so much that I can't deal with explaining it's awesomeness right now (yup, it hurts that bad!). More to come...

FO: River Rapids Socks

Indeed, they are complete! I love what the colors did!



These socks knit up extremely quickly. When I add up all the knitting time the second sock took me, I think it was a little less than a week. Which is saying something. I think the pattern was just enough to keep me occupied without getting bored, but it diddn't really work well with the colors in the yarn I don't think. I don't really mind though, because they were a pretty quick knit.



You can see that I didn't make them too high. I realized that I was used to that height sock from the store-bought socks I usually wear, so I thought I'd try it out with the socks I knit myself. However, even if I made the socks just a bit taller, I'm not sure it would put that much of a dent in the amazing amount of sock yarn I have leftover:



I'm thinking I might even be abele to get a whole other pair of socks out of this. Though I'm not sure. Anyone have a precise scale? No? Anyone have any idea as to what to do with all this sock yarn that's left over?

I liked the yarn, but wasn't a huge fan of it. It's got an inconsistent thickness to it, which really bugs me. Especially with socks. But it's really soft yarn and I love the colors.

The Last Knit

Blogless Ruth sent this around last week, and I thought it would be fun to put it up here. I thought it was a really cute animation! To see it bigger, I think you can click on it to go to the YouTube website.

Melodramatic Headline Involving a Bear

NEW YORK, NY SEPTEMBER 27, 2006
Baby Bobbi Bear is in critical condition today after her knitter decided to do a bunch of random things instead of knitting her this weekend. The headless, armless Baby Bobbi Bear (left) was not available for comment yesterday as she has no mouth or head. "The pattern is going smoothly," insists the knitter, Ms. Passionknitly, who has yet to be charged with any serious crime. "I was worried about how to pick up the stitches for the butt, but after reading the pattern notes, I found it was simple." Ms Passionknitly states that she has been quite busy with adventures tied to her 25th birthday which took place September 26th, yet still thinks she should be able to completely finish her work on Baby Bobbi Bear in time for the nascent recipient's baby shower sometime in mid to late October. "I'm actually wondering what the child will be like as I'm knitting this piece. With every stitch I'm wishing it a happy and successful life." Only time will tell how the O'Shea daughter will turn out, while the search for a name for Baby Bobbi Bear continues...

In other news: after having felt a hat made of some Karabella Bulky merino wool, Ms. Passionknitly's brother decided it would be fine to knit with and exclaimed "that's wool!?" His girlfriend was also shocked saying "It feels like cotton!" While Ms. Passionknitly's mother also commended its softness while stating that she would call the brother's allergist to determine if he really is allergic to wool or not. While the jury waits for the final decision (mom's had a rough time with dad who has some sort of internal infection - he'll be fine after a few antibiotics kick in and hasn't had a chance to call the allergist yet), the brother chose a color of Knit Picks Superwash (there's more superwash colors and I thought he would like them more - it may still be wool, but it'll be fine for him. He's decided on Swish Superwash in a beautiful Deep Ocean colorway. As soon as Ms. Passionknitly gets the "all clear" from the allergist, she will order the yarn and the swatching can begin. Ms. Passionknitly expressed her first nervousness regarding the pattern questioning: "Any idea how you swatch for a pattern that big?"

I have a goal!

It's a fairly silly goal, but worth a shot anyway.

I'm going to attempt to knit Baby Bobbi Bear in a weekend. Specifically this weekend. I have quite a bit of time on the bus, and I'm hoping it won't take too long to knit. I bought some Blue Sky Alpaca Cotton at Downtown Yarns last week. It's for my friend's baby. I kept thinking of what I could knit for the baby that would be really special. I wanted it to be something that the baby would be able to use years on down the line, not a sweater that it would out-grow in a heartbeat. I didn't want it to be a baby blanket because I feel like they'll probably get a ton of baby blankets. While she'll probably get a lot of stuffed animals, this one will be VERY different. Hopefully I'll be able to not pass out for the WHOLE trip home so I can start it on the bus.

This weekend is also the attempt to placate the brother with merino yarn. Let's hope that goes well too, otherwise this sweater could get ugly...

Congrats to Heather!

Heather's book hits shelves on National Talk Like a Pirate Day!!

We had a little soireé to celebrate the book's publication on saturday and good times were had by all. Unfortunately, I used Jill's camera to take pictures and don't have any of my own.

I do, however, have a picture of the River Rapids Sock I finished while I was there:



I'm using Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn in a color called African Grey. I really like what the orange zig zag is doing. It makes my day! I did a different heel than the sock pattern requested. I used the heel from that leaf sock pattern in the Spring Interweave Knits.

I'm also coming along quite well with Icarus



Though I think I'm going to take a break on it for a while so I can get going with this other sock and so I can get something knitted for my friend's baby! The shower is sometime in October, so I would seriously need to get a move on with regards to that project. But it'll be way cute when it's done.

I've found it hard to discuss knitting when I don't have any problems with what I'm knitting. There's just that one issue with the sweater that I hope will be alright soon, and that's about it. My friend did send me a link to this though: Knit Converse sneekers. However interesting, I'm not sure I want to knit them. I think I'm going to try to knit a shawl out of the Brooks Farm I got last year at Rhinebeck. Ravi, who I keep meeting at The Point but don't have her blog address if she has one, knit the Summer Shawlette staff pattern from the Summer IK. It's so adorable, that I was thinking it would work well with that yarn which is so unbelieveably soft.

More proof that I'm insane!

First up, I'll do a progress post later on this week. I've made quite a bit of progress on both the Icarus Shawl and the River Rapids Socks.

Way back in January, my brother decided he wanted me to knit him a sweater. I said alright, and added that he *might* get it by Christmas (I took pains not to mention which Christmas). Originally, I took his measurements and wanted to knit him one from scratch. Having only knitted one sweater before, I thought that this might be a bad idea. So I started the quixotic task of trying to find patterns that he would like and wear and that I wouldn't shoot myself while making. Last weekend while on Cape Cod for my grandfather's 80th birthday party (my brother and I rarely get a chance to see each other) I showed him the Knitting Nature book by Norah Gaughn that I had with me. I needed to fix the straps of the Roundabout Leaf Tank. There are a few sweaters in there for men, and I found that it would be fitting if I did one of the sweaters since my brother lives in Connecticut and Rhode Island and is pretty in touch with nature himself (seeing as how he's looking to get into turf grass management like my dad). My brother found this sweater:
Now, I'm not going to lie. This is an ambitious project, especially ambitious to complete before Christmas. I would need to start this like, NOW. But given that I almost finished the Angie sweater in two weeks, I think this is a possibility. The chart is mad crazy. But I love to cable. I especially like the cables that go on the sides all the way to the back. I think they'll be fun and particularly easy compared with the rest of the sweater.

He thinks he's allergic to wool because it always makes him itchy. I maintain that he just needs to wear a shirt under the wool sweaters he has, but like everyone else in my family, he doesn't think so and doesn't want to find out. So I decided I'd use Knit Picks Main Line in the color Blueberry:


In other crafty news, I'm trying to teach myself how to sew. My grandmother gave my mother one of her old sewing machines and my mother is giving me hers. I'm trying it out this weekend on a jean skirt. I'm recycling a pair of jeans that are beyond their usefulness as jeans and am going to flare it a bit and turn it into an a-line skirt. I'll be trimming the bottom of it with some fabric I found at Purl Patchwork that has been on my mind for quite some time now. I'm pretty excited about it. We'll see how it goes. I'll post my finding sometime soon!

I haven't blogged this much since February

Yup. I'm up at 3:30 am.

I'm not, however, knitting at 3:30 am, what kind of a knitter do you take me for!?
I was working on the Mod Dress from Knit 1. Here's where we were when I last posted about this monstrosity:



Since then I had seamed up the sides and the straps and tried it on. It was entirely too big. I am currently awake because I was working on this dress. Here's where I'm at:



I always liked that TV show Square 1. Now, I know what it's like. The first go around didn't actually take me all that much time to make. This time around, there will be less stitches so it might be a bit quicker. Also, this time I can make it so that the flower is on the correct side of the dress. Not a big deal, but something that will be nice. Going along from the success of the Roundabout Tank, I'm going to be knitting the smallest size. Now, if only I remembered what size needle I used to get gauge! I should really write those kinds of things down somewhere.

While at The Point this afternoon I bought a pair of size 2 bamboo circs. Knitting Icarus on size 3 Addis was akin to knitting with goop - it just felt gross and gooey. The bamboo needles are giving me the friction I need to be able to figure out what it is I'm doing, and I'm able to keep track of the pattern a bit more. I re-started for the millionth time, but I think this time will stick. I'm a trooper at heart.

Speaking of trooping...I think I'll troop off to bed.

Two Projects

One good

The River Rapids Socks are going quite well. I love what the Cherry Tree Hill is doing! The spiraling is really cool I hope it continues doing that! See for yourself:



One bad

The Icarus Shawl is not going so well. I keep losing track of where I am in the pattern, and I never get farther than a few rows into the first chart. The damn charts are easy, I don't see why I can't do it! But here I am, completely incompetent at reading charts and figuring out where i am in the pattern. I'm typically really bad at fixing errors when they have something to do with yarn overs, so this is a pretty big problem project for me. I'm looking at starting all over, though I guess I could tink back. Problem with tinking back is that I'd have no idea whatsoever what line I'd be on by the time I finished tinking back. I guess this is telling me that I should start with life lines or something like that. I'll have to look up how to do those sometime soon.

Until then, here's the profile of the perp:



I just realized that this photo is looking at the wrong side even though i stopped when I was knitting on the right side...the problem I'm having is with the left side in the picture. For some reason, I don't have enough stitches on the needle for the row that I'm on. Now that I'm thinking about it I guess there's a decent way to fudge it, but if I keep on fudging it, the whole things's going to look like crap (fudging it once leads to a slippery fudgy slope and a hideous looking finished object - at least for me). I guess I should start checking out the Icarus KAL that's out there...maybe someone there will have some insights.

Oh, and I think I'm going to try Sock Wars...I have yet to sign up though.

Thank you all for your generous comments on the Roundabout Leaf tank! I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and if all goes well, I'll really wear it to SNB this week. I got sidetracked by work friends (and my boss) and hijacked for dinner (free dinner - you see, I had to go!) on Tuesday.

Finished Roundabout Tank

It's been a while since I've had a finished object to show off, and it will probably be an even longer time until the next one. I managed to finish the Roundabout Leaf Tank from Knitting Nature on Friday night as I was watching the Red Sox. It was probably the most comforting action I could have undertaken at such a shameful moment. So I present to you the ROUNDABOUT LEAF TANK:



Yarn: Berroco Denim Silk in color Absynth (yup, followed the yarn procedure to the letter). I think I ordered 9 balls and have about three and a quarter left over
Needles: size 8 Denises (love them Denises, but found that the cord has as much memory as an elephant which became annoying later on.
Modifications: I think I joined somewhere closer to 33 or 32 inches instead of the 41.5 or the 36.5 the pattern suggested. I just held it against me to try to gauge the correct lenght the piece had to be before I joined it. Because of that the part where the strip tapers off at the top ended closer to the middle of the back instead of towards one of the edges. Also, joining it a bit closer created more negative ease which was a very good thing. I found that because I made it so tight across the chest it kind of gave it its own shaping. This might be mistaken for being "too small," but in actuality, I think it works out quite well. It's quite comfortable and I don't feel awkward not wearing anything underneath it, and it's not so tight that it's uncomfortable. It just seems to go to my shape, which is good.

All in all, this is the first project I've ever knitted for my top that's been wearable. The Olympic Project was really supposed to be the first one, but it kind of petered out and looked horrible on (I think because the gauge was too big to be flattering on me). My roommate's going to try it on though, and I'm going to tailor the neck to her specifications. I'm hoping to wear it again this week...hopefully tomorrow to stitch n'bitch, but we'll have to see.

On the needles currently is the Icarus Shawl and the first of a pair of river rapids socks (yup, that's a link to the pattern folks!). I'm not sure I've got the gauge for the socks quite right. I'm somewhat worried that its a bit too small. I'm having issues with Icarus because I can't seem to keep it straight. I think that's kinda pathetic because it looks like such an easy pattern.

I'm also looking around for a Wallaby Sweater pattern that someone told me about at Barnes and Noble a few months ago. I randomly ran into this woman and she started telling me about the sweater and we kinda kept in touch for a bit, she copied the pattern for me, and then I lost all the information that she gave me and when she called me we just kept playing phone tag and trying to connect and it just wasn't happening (psst - if you're that woman, you're really awesome - and I still want to see the sweater - I'll swap you something for it, really!). I really like the idea of it, but the manifestations I've seen online have me a bit worried. Mostly for the armpit area and below. I'd like the sides of mine to be more or less straight with no shaping, but I definitely don't want it to get wider around the chest and taper towards the bottom. I've been thinking of designing something, but we'll see. It seems like such a simple idea that there has to be a decent pattern out there for it.

Knitters Pinky

I had been skeptical of knitterly pain. I didn't think such a thing existed. Until now. My pinky is in quite a bit of pain. It hurts if it's extended, or even if it's curled up. The most interesting thing of all of this is that my pinky is in no way related to the knitting event. It just sits next to my hand as I insert the needle and wrap the yarn around it. It sits there, curled up, and goes along with the rest of the hand for a ride. I've no idea what to do.

I promise I'm not trying to be like those cool kids at Michelle or Jessamyn. I stay far far away from the kitchen and don't touch such sharp knives. The (arguably) good thing is that I don't think I'll be knitting much today so my pinky can have a rest. There's a couple people leaving our company, so we've organized a happy hour to see them off. Hopefully the booze will help where Advil could not!

The Trials and Tribulations of Knitting Clothing

I don't knit a lot of clothing. This is probably the reason I don't exactly know what size I should be knitting when I knit clothing. For example, remember that Mod Dress from Knit 1? The size options were: 32, 36, and 40" across the bust. Now, my bust technically is about 39" across, so it made sense to me to make the 40" size. While making the Roundabout Leaf Tank, I realized that I should be knitting a MUCH smaller size than I originally anticipated. I joined the piece when it had reached only 31 inches across. I kept testing it as I was knitting it around to make sure the fit was the way I wanted it to be. So it appears as though I've realized the wonders of negative ease!

This kind of sucks because the Mod Dress is already complete. The seams are seamed, it's all together - it would be ready to wear if I weren't so damn thin. I got some amazing advice while I was at The Point tonight from Illana. She suggested that instead of re-knitting the dress from scratch that I just seam the edges in a bit. I'm not sure if it will really work because it'd be such a large difference, but it's worth a shot before I un-seam and completely un-knit the whole garment. I'm soo sad. I was so excited to wear it!

In the meantime, I'm knitting the Roundabout Leaf Tank like a fiend. Here's where I am on it:



I'm on the third roundabout, and I'm thinking of starting to do the decreases sometime soon, but I really just need to sit down and do some math to figure out where I need to start the decreasing. I might just knit my heart out until then.

I still haven't even really read the new Interweave Knits, but I've already found another project that I'm planning on knitting:



The Bianca Jacket...

(you can all stop oohing and aahing now...I haven't started it yet!)

Just a little quiz!

What NYC yarn store are you?

You are The Point!http://www.thepointnyc.comYou want it all. You might have a hankering for the most luxurious handpainted silk yarn. Or maybe a couple of skein of Kureyon. Don't worry, you can sit down, have a latte and absorb it all...
Take this quiz!








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Did we really expect anywhere else? That place is like Cheers to me!

I've been a busy knitter!

So many FOs!

Firstly, the hand towels for Zoe's wedding were finished and given to her on her wedding the fifteenth. Yay Zoe and Jason - congratulations!


Here they are with their fancy tags sewn on. That's the backside though. Here's the front side:



They came out really well and are highly absorbent based upon the fact that they took forever to dry once I washed them. But Mom was awesome and waited till they were dry then dropped them off at the reception for me! She even wrapped them individually and then put them in the gift bag I had prepared. Mom's great!

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I had cast on for the Mobius Capelet from the Spring/Summer issue of Vogue Knitting before I left for Rhode Island. The idea was to have something to wear in the chill of the evening for the reception which was held outdoors. Well, I didn't quite make it. But I did finish it last week. It's extremely soft because I knit it with Misti Cotton which is Pima cotton and Silk. I changed the gauge a bit for it to account for the yarn, but it still came out quite well. I only had to dip into a smidge of the third ball of yarn - leaving me with enough for a baby hat for a co-worker's newborn babe.


Isn't it cute? Hell of a project though. Threw me for a loop (literally) when I tried joining for the non mobius part, and I never knew it had a mobius in it until I started knitting it (thanks to VK's impeccable design team). All in all, it was pretty simple, fun and different to knit. I enjoyed the project, but seriously think twice about it if you want a "quick knit" or a brainless project. The beginning will seriously throw you off, and you'll want to kill the designer.

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I haven't done a thing on the Mod Dress from Knit 1. All I have to do is steam block the edges (cause I'm lazy and don't block anything) and sew it up, but I've been so busy with the bachelorette party and the wedding, then work picked up a ton and I've been really busy there (staying really late). I had a week from hell last week from which my leg is still recovering, and by the time last weekend rolled around I wasn't going to do anything but knit - not even seam!

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However, I did cast on for a new project because after the capelet I didn't have anything going on. A while back I got Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan. It's got a TON of patterns inside that I really want to knit. It seems like this book was practically created for me. So many of the patterns are inspired by the beach, water, shells and fields - which is pretty much all Rhode Island is when it comes down to it. There are beautiful sweaters in the book that I really want to knit - and soon!




For the first project from this book, I settled on the Roundabout Leaf tank. You may recall that it looks something like that on the side. The cast on edge is the side you see that's perpendicular to the bottom of the garment. Yup, it's knit in a spiral.


I haven't quite gotten to the point where I have to join the strip I'm working on to itself to start the tube effect, but I'm getting there. It's a pretty easy knit anyway. I'm actually using the suggested yarn, as I believe I showed in an earlier post. It's Berroco Denim Silk. I kinda like the feel of it. I'm curious to see if it will feel as soft against my tummy as it does against my fingers as I'm knitting it. It's exciting to knit because it's so different!

I guess that's my kick right now. Different ways of knitting. It's fun!

It's interesting to see what the Mod Dress is doing to my blog. It seems to be the thing that people recognize from me. I ran into Illana at The Point (obligatory post link! heh) sometime last week (was it the week before?) and we instantly recognized each other. Anyway, she remembered the dress. Everyone remembers the dress...and it kills me that it's not done yet!

Regardless, you should all go check out Illana's blog because she's uber cool. One of those people that I met and was just like, we totally click and if you didn't live in Arizona for most of the year, we'd probably be awesome friends. heh.

I'm getting a little tired, so I think I'll just post this beautiful picture of the beach at night and imagine I'm there knitting....

Mobius Whaaa??!!

First things first, I finished the front of the Mod Dress from Knit 1. Proof:



All I need to do is steam block it and sew up the edges. I'm going to try it on to see if I really need a slip underneath it. It's pretty heavy though. I'm uber excited! I need to see if I can rope someone into taking action shots for me...

Also, I started working on the Mobius Capelet from the Spring/Summer Vogue Knitting

I think it's going to end up looking something like this:


Right now, all I've got is this:



You'll notice that this is a circle with two sets of live stitches. The Yarnharlot has described this as "crazy" I believe in this post. I had a lot of fun doing the mobius part. It twisted my mind a bit, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm ready to continue now. I'm at the point where I start a picot bind off. This is the part where I get a bit tripped up.

I think it's mostly a math issue. Before you suggest it, the corrections page for the pattern does not specify any changes. Forgetting the fact that I'm knitting at a larger gauge and am using 3/4 as many stitches, let's check it out.

You start with 120 stitches, then you pick up a stitch for all these stitche so you end up with 240 stitches (that creates the whole mobius thing). So we've got 240 stitches. We're supposed to knit 60 stitches, then do a picot bind off for 120 stitches, which will leave us with 120 stitches to work over a different sized needle (this is the part where we move from the edge to the actual capelet I'm assuming). Let's run that math through again:

240
-60
-120
60
I didn't even need the TI-85 to tell me that. Please tell me how I'm supposed to bind off 120 stitches and still be able to have the right number of stitches left over to work the rest of it.

I'm also having issues trying to figure out how to do the whole picot bind off. I think I have to cast on to the left needle so that I can bind off the right number of stitches. It's just a really odd pattern though. I have a bit more than a week to go to finish it. I'm going to have to start internalizing the pattern so I can knit it on the subway...

Back in full effect!

I've been going through this general phase of apathy. I haven't really wanted to knit or to even read recently. Instead, I've been busying myself with social activities (which is odd for me since I'm usually not the social type). I think part of this apathy was caused by working on the same few projects for months on end (since around April I'd say). I'm still working on the Mod Dress (I'm going to update the progress bar after I finish writing this post), I canned the African Grey Jaywalkers for the moment while I get over my frustration with them, and I'm almost done with the last installment of Zoe's Wedding gift.

The positive news of all this is that I haven't really bought a lot of yarn. My credit card thanks me for that because it was starting to feel like a woman of the street recently (red lipstick and low cut dresses if you know what I mean). This week, however, I managed to whip it out again, and gently abuse it with future projects.

At Stitchn' Bitch this week I found a nice new color of the Misti Alpaca laceweight I was planning to make Icarus out of. I'm not really planning on joining the KAL, although I'll probably post a link to it because I'll want to check out fellow Icarus knitters' progress. Katy and I are planning to start a knit along at SNB on tuesdays. We'll probably start at the next SNB. I've never knit lace before, so I feel a bit better that Katy's going to be knitting the same shawl. The yarn I'm using is a nice denim color:


Those needles actually aren't for Icarus. They're for the African Grey Jaywalkers. I'm sick of knitting socks on DPNs. Unless I'm really going to be on a plane with them, I say screw it. I have to do some swatching for Icarus to see how I the stockinette portions work up (which will determine my needle size).

Also, since I'm almost finished with the wedding gift for Zoe, and since I found a nifty strapless dress, I realized that I might actually want a shrug or capelet or something to put on over the dress for when i start to freeze and am beginning to be bitten by bugs (ahh...Rhody!).


I decided on the Moibus Capelet in the spring issue of Vogue Knitting. Now, I've got about two weeks to get this done. I think I can do it because it looks like a small enough project. I'm going to swatch for gauge tonight and see if I can't start working on it tomorrow after I get back from the beach. Or - if the weather doesn't cooperate, maybe I'll just start it tomorrow at the laundromat. I'll be knitting it with Misti Cotton which is partly pima cotton and partly silk. It's divinely soft!

I'm really happy I went to the Point today. It jolted me out of whatever apathy I've been experiencing as of late, and it was great to just sit and chat with Alexis, Sandy and Rebecca. I also met Carrie of Every Word's a Purl there today. I've been reading her blog for a year now and commenting every so often and it was great to meet her face to face. Unfortunately, you're just going to have to believe me because there are no pictures. She noticed the Mod Dress from Knit 1 that i was working on and put two and two together...she's what us Rhode Islanders would call "wicked smaht" (that's a compliment Carrie!). But she's also really sweet and pretty nifty too. You should check her blog out if you don't believe me.

So between meeting Carrie, chatting with the Point laidies and searching for a pattern for a capelet (something Beth (we're full of links today eh?) might call an "overy thingey" cause it goes over a dress...get it?) I feel quite regenerated and ready to take the knitting world on by storm! Which is exactly what it's doing outside, so all of this is quite apt isn't it?

Why is this post pictureless?

Because to accurately portray my productivity this week, I'd have to take photos away from the blog. I'd rather not do that.

Despite attempting several different times to start the African Grey Jaywalkers, I have ripped them back. The Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn is sitting in the stash bucket because it's been bad. There's really only so many times I'll try to start something. I'll probably pick it up in a bit when I really want to knit a pair of socks.

I forgot backup yarn for the Knit 1 dress, so I didn't work on that. Not to mention that I would have had to have pulled out a chart and soemthing to keep my place on the chart and a pencil and all that jazz. It's just too much effort and takes up too much room on the bus (I ended up sleeping on the bus to and from RI mostly anyway).

I've made a bit of progress on the gift for Zoe's wedding, but I can't show that, now can I?

In case you're wondering where I went this weekend, I went to Rhode Island for an impromptu trip to Block Island. Pictures can be found on my flickr site or here.

I can't say much, but...

I've finished another installment of Zoe's wedding gift! That means I only have one more to go!!

Here's the FO shot:



Come now, you didn't think that I'd actually be showing the gift here did you? in public?! That has to wait until the gift has ben given. But they're turning out lovely!

I've also decided that I'm going to make the Perfect Pie Shawl from *gasp* Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick with some of the mohair I have. I need a shawl for work in a bad way. Since I have all this mohair, I might as well use it. I think I'll try to make it a bit bigger, and if it looks alright, I might use the pattern for the hip scarf I plan to make with that sparkly Blue Heron. We need a gratuitous Blue Heron skein shot again I think....



ahhh....much better....

EDIT: Kay from Mason Dixon Knitting responded to my post on the KAL page!!! :D

The Internet's back!!

YAY!!
Firstly, responses to comments:
Jessica: AC is installed and means I can knit in peace this summer!
Carrie: Genuinely glad I could be of amusement!
Schrodinger: They actually did show up, and I've got a whole new modem now!
Mud: Your yanks are a whole game behind now...even with that loss. It was still a great game to watch.
John: Completely unfrazzled!
Karen: The rest of the week was great! And the Sox are currently winning their game now too! (Let's leave out the fact that I root for a knitting related team...)

Sweet.

So what have I been up to? While I flaked out on the yarn crawl last weekend, I did manage to meet up with folks at Knitty City (their website is looking better than it was...but still needs a bit of work). I really liked the store even though there was one older woman customer who pretty much destroyed the Knitty City experience for me. They have all sorts of yarns I haven't found anywhere else. I want to try some of their Frog Tree yarns and a few others. They have some of this there too:


This is Cherry Tree Hill's Supersock yarn in color way African Grey. It's not very grey actually. If I were going to name the color way and it needed to say the word "African" in it, I'd probably call it African Sunset or something. Regardless, it's a pair of nascent Jaywalkers you see there. I'm totally bored with the jaywalker pattern, but the colors in the yarn should provide a bit of amusement and I can do it without thinking. Besides, I looked at a bunch of different patters, and am not entirely sure what other pattern would show off the yarn so beautifully.

I've also been working on Zoe's wedding gift. I'm done with the first two phases, and am really close to finishing the third as well. I think the gift will actually be done on time!

Also, since I didn't have the internet last weekend, I spent considerably less time conversing with people, updating my rediculous number of blogs and much more time knitting while watching the first season of Boston Legal. I'm in love with James Spader. Also, Boston Legal is obviously the best live action show I've seen in forever (Family Guy and the Simpsons have been my favorite tv show for quite some time). So I bought the whole first season of Boston Legal at Target last weekend since I knew I'd need something in the background while I knit to keep my mind occupied. It worked.

Because here's where I am on the dress from Knit 1:



That's my couch modelling it for me! Notice anything? The flower's on the wrong side. I'm incapable of reading directions it seems. So, I decided to let it be. The flower will be on the left side. Since I tend to heavily favor my right side, I don't think this will be a problem. I'm hoping that the dress will fit, I'm still a bit unsure of this, but we'll see.

I started in on the back too:



I haven't done anything more with the back since last weekend. I'm hoping to give it some action tomorrow.

EDIT: I should say that I was actually reading the chart in the "normal" way for reading a chart. The chart when you do the back of the dress, however, is supposed to be backwards, while the front of the dress is supposed to be normal chart reading. I tend to not follow directions I guess...