Packing for the North Shore Knit-Out is on target. I got a couple inches of the Lion Suede sweater jacket done, enough to get over the ribbing at the beginning. Now it's a good knit-out project, rows and rows of stockinette stitch without too much else going on. So I put that down to be packed.
Last night I finished a pair of traveling socks in a self-striping blue and grey which have been taking up the sock needles. So tonight I'll start the fair isle socks. I'd like to get through the first few rows of the toes, they're the hardest part and require some concentration. Once I get into the swing of the toe cap increase pattern, I'll put them down as well. I want to work on the plain foot part on the flight out. K1Frog2 claims the knit-out starts when I step off the plane on Thursday, but for me it will begin approx. 7 hours earlier when I check in at BWI. I like to get there two hours ahead of the flight, almost all the flights to Milwaukee have a stop, and I like to have at least an hour layover in case I have to change planes. I also don't like really short hops, so I picked flights with stops in places more out of the way than Chicago. So the flight itself is taking 5 hours where a direct flight to Chicago would take 2, but what the heck, I said to myself, it's more time to knit. Let's get into the spirit of this thing. Besides, I gain an hour on the flight west, and I thought arriving later in the afternoon would be less disruptive for my wonderful friends who are going out of their way to pick me up at the airport. Is this making it all too complicated?
Now I need to line up a good project for the flight back. The sweater jacket is too bulky to carry in a purse, and if I'm lucky I'll get into the color work on the fair isle socks before I come back, which means they're also too bulky due to the many balls of different colors that need to be on hand. Another simple pair of socks, what I like to call "traveling socks". Something in a self striping yarn is ideal. Hmm, that means I have to find my second set of sock needles this weekend. Let the hunt begin.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
The Packing List
Okay, the C word is out. Knitting rocks.
NSKW (North Shore Knitting Weekend) - 15 and counting. Preparation of the projects begins. What to take? The Fair Isle socks? The Lion Suede sweater jacket? K1Frog2 says both, but will I have room? My disdain for flying only increases. I am hoping to go with just a carry-on bag. I can fit clothing for a long weekend in a carry-on, but will it leave room for 20 balls of sock yarn (Fair Isle with 10 colors x 2 because I knit them both at once) AND 16 balls of bulky yarn? It's squishable, but really....
Ah, these are the pleasant dilemmas in life. Finished the gauge swatches for the Suede, and I have decided I like the somewhat tight fabric that size 7's give. Almost a wide wale corduroy look. Pleasing in a jacket, in my opinion. Now I am deliberating how best to work the two colors I have. Had to get a second color to get enough yarn for a whole jacket, so now I have to figure out how to combine them, given the relative amount I have of each color. I'll probably just play with this one for a while, not really try to get a lot done before the trip.
The foot part of the Fair Isle socks would make a good travel project for the trip out. The foot will be plain, which is ideal for knitting on the go. K1Frog2 is writing so glowingly of stranded knitting, I'd love to work on these with her!
Hmm, assuming I get into the Fair Isle pattern during the visit, that means I'll need another simple project for the return trip. I'm trying to fly cheaply, the 2 hour flight to Chicago is going to take me 4-5 hours clock time each way, I have to have something to do. I guess I'll throw in stuff for another pair of traveling socks. Not a bad idea anyway; it's too easy to make mistakes on a complicated project when knitting in company. Need a simple project to switch to sometimes.
Okay, this is firming up. If only I can fit it into my bag.
NSKW (North Shore Knitting Weekend) - 15 and counting. Preparation of the projects begins. What to take? The Fair Isle socks? The Lion Suede sweater jacket? K1Frog2 says both, but will I have room? My disdain for flying only increases. I am hoping to go with just a carry-on bag. I can fit clothing for a long weekend in a carry-on, but will it leave room for 20 balls of sock yarn (Fair Isle with 10 colors x 2 because I knit them both at once) AND 16 balls of bulky yarn? It's squishable, but really....
Ah, these are the pleasant dilemmas in life. Finished the gauge swatches for the Suede, and I have decided I like the somewhat tight fabric that size 7's give. Almost a wide wale corduroy look. Pleasing in a jacket, in my opinion. Now I am deliberating how best to work the two colors I have. Had to get a second color to get enough yarn for a whole jacket, so now I have to figure out how to combine them, given the relative amount I have of each color. I'll probably just play with this one for a while, not really try to get a lot done before the trip.
The foot part of the Fair Isle socks would make a good travel project for the trip out. The foot will be plain, which is ideal for knitting on the go. K1Frog2 is writing so glowingly of stranded knitting, I'd love to work on these with her!
Hmm, assuming I get into the Fair Isle pattern during the visit, that means I'll need another simple project for the return trip. I'm trying to fly cheaply, the 2 hour flight to Chicago is going to take me 4-5 hours clock time each way, I have to have something to do. I guess I'll throw in stuff for another pair of traveling socks. Not a bad idea anyway; it's too easy to make mistakes on a complicated project when knitting in company. Need a simple project to switch to sometimes.
Okay, this is firming up. If only I can fit it into my bag.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Dare I say the C-word?
Haven't been posting lately because I have been taking a real lunch break instead. I started teaching one of my coworkers how to knit, and next thing you know, we started dragging each other over to the pub to get out of our offices at lunchtime. It's nice to have a real break instead of eating in front of the computer. Saves on keyboards, too.
The circle vest is done. I haven't had so much fun knitting anything in a long time. Last weekend I blocked it, so it's laying out in the guest room now drying and relaxing into its desired shape. Okay, it's a circle, duh, but it turned out the center of the circle wanted to pouf out, so some blocking was required to flatten it. Tonight I'll unpin it and see whether it's ready to be worn to knitting group tomorrow. Except that the forecast is for temps in the 70's -- hardly the weather to wear a knitted vest of that weight. Well, we'll see.
Now I'm into -- gasp -- a crotchet project! My new lunch partner is a long-time crotcheter. When she learned that I also crotchet, she brought in a book of crotchet patterns she was having some trouble with. Basically the author of the book has come up with one really good technique -- how to use a crotcheted shell stitch and knit a top down, raglan sleeve, seamless garment by increasing the shells a certain way. She has developed the basic technique into about 20 different garments in this book. Because the garments are all variations on each other, though, the instructions go something like "start by following the instructions on pg. x until you have a first row that's 6" long, then follow the directions for garment A through the first 6 rows of the body, then follow the directions for garment C until the body is 10" long, then follow these instructions to shape the bottom" and so on. Then each garment has about 12 sizes, and some of them have entirely different instruction sets for different sizes, and it's just a lot to keep track of.
Well, I spent a weekend figuring it all out, and I made a cute little summer cardigan. It's almost done, just a couple inches left on the sleeves. It really works, and it looks good on! Very pleasing.
Clearly it's time to take some more pictures.
Mentally I'm now in that between-project zone which is a nice break sometimes, but I think I'm almost ready to jump into something new. What to choose? What to choose?
The circle vest is done. I haven't had so much fun knitting anything in a long time. Last weekend I blocked it, so it's laying out in the guest room now drying and relaxing into its desired shape. Okay, it's a circle, duh, but it turned out the center of the circle wanted to pouf out, so some blocking was required to flatten it. Tonight I'll unpin it and see whether it's ready to be worn to knitting group tomorrow. Except that the forecast is for temps in the 70's -- hardly the weather to wear a knitted vest of that weight. Well, we'll see.
Now I'm into -- gasp -- a crotchet project! My new lunch partner is a long-time crotcheter. When she learned that I also crotchet, she brought in a book of crotchet patterns she was having some trouble with. Basically the author of the book has come up with one really good technique -- how to use a crotcheted shell stitch and knit a top down, raglan sleeve, seamless garment by increasing the shells a certain way. She has developed the basic technique into about 20 different garments in this book. Because the garments are all variations on each other, though, the instructions go something like "start by following the instructions on pg. x until you have a first row that's 6" long, then follow the directions for garment A through the first 6 rows of the body, then follow the directions for garment C until the body is 10" long, then follow these instructions to shape the bottom" and so on. Then each garment has about 12 sizes, and some of them have entirely different instruction sets for different sizes, and it's just a lot to keep track of.
Well, I spent a weekend figuring it all out, and I made a cute little summer cardigan. It's almost done, just a couple inches left on the sleeves. It really works, and it looks good on! Very pleasing.
Clearly it's time to take some more pictures.
Mentally I'm now in that between-project zone which is a nice break sometimes, but I think I'm almost ready to jump into something new. What to choose? What to choose?
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Going in Circles
Finally went to the Westminster library last weekend and checked out their knitting books. This was prompted by the recent trip to the knitting shop with my gift certificate. When we walked into the shop, my eyeballs were positively grabbed by a sample project hanging up there. If you're on Ravelry, go there and look for the Circle Vest from a book called Silk Knits. It's a big circle with armholes knit with Noro Silk Garden yarns. Striking, fun, and relatively easy. All good things.
Well, I had 3 skeins of Noro at home that were given to me as a going away gift when I left Chicagoland, and with my gift certificate I could buy the other 3 skeins the vest would need, but the pattern was not available online or in the shop. So, off to the library.
What a nice selection of knitting books our library has! I may never have to by another pattern. They had the book I wanted, and I could check it out and take it home. Ideal! With the book due back in 3 weeks, I had the perfect excuse to start yet another project.
I'm now into the third skein, so between 1/3 and 1/2 finished. I've got the pattern down, so no worries about having to return the book. Life is good. I just got past the armholes, so it's about time to move it from the needles to a string and try it on to make sure the size is okay. It's easy to change if I haven't gotten it quite right. I am loving this!
I definitely have to bring this out to show off at the upcoming North Shore Knitting Weekend (the follow-on to last spring's Bell/Lambert Knitting Week). I am soooooooo excited! Can you tell?
Well, I had 3 skeins of Noro at home that were given to me as a going away gift when I left Chicagoland, and with my gift certificate I could buy the other 3 skeins the vest would need, but the pattern was not available online or in the shop. So, off to the library.
What a nice selection of knitting books our library has! I may never have to by another pattern. They had the book I wanted, and I could check it out and take it home. Ideal! With the book due back in 3 weeks, I had the perfect excuse to start yet another project.
I'm now into the third skein, so between 1/3 and 1/2 finished. I've got the pattern down, so no worries about having to return the book. Life is good. I just got past the armholes, so it's about time to move it from the needles to a string and try it on to make sure the size is okay. It's easy to change if I haven't gotten it quite right. I am loving this!
I definitely have to bring this out to show off at the upcoming North Shore Knitting Weekend (the follow-on to last spring's Bell/Lambert Knitting Week). I am soooooooo excited! Can you tell?
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Best Laid Plans
Another yarn shortage. Another project in UFO limbo. The green EZ gauge-changing sweater. Got most of the way up the body and reached the end of the first skein of bulky LanaLoft. Way too soon. No way I'm going to have enough of that yarn to do the remaining couple of inches on the body, both sleeves up to the armpit, and the 4" of yoke above the armpit, where the sleeves have joined the body. I only have one more skein! I looked up their vendors on their web site, and the closest one they list is the one in Annapolis where I bought this last year. I'll have to go back and hope they have more. A different dye lot I can deal with, I can probably work it in in such a way that a change in shade would look okay. I just hope they have some.
Frustrated in that but unwilling to start another big project, I pulled out my overflowing drawer full of partial skein leftovers. Back when I was knitting with k1frog2, she had the idea of making an afghan or blanket out of knitted squares made from leftovers. If you knit them corner to corner like a dishcloth, you don't have to worry about gauge, you just start knitting and increasing, and when the sides get as long as you want the square to be, you start decreasing. Brilliant! And you can make squares from different size yarns, since they're joined together later. So I started knitting squares. Since some of the leftovers have a lot of yarn and some only a little, I decided to knit different sized squares, some 2", some 4", 6", and 8". I can join the smaller ones to make 8" blocks, then join all the blocks together to make whatever I have enough to make. A knitted blanket would be nice, that's what I'm hoping for. It's fun to be able to change from the "big" project of an 8" square to the small project of a 2" square depending on how I'm feeling at the time. A 2" square is quite quick to knit, even in sock yarn, and it's just as satisfying to finish.
Thanks for the idea, o froggy one!
Frustrated in that but unwilling to start another big project, I pulled out my overflowing drawer full of partial skein leftovers. Back when I was knitting with k1frog2, she had the idea of making an afghan or blanket out of knitted squares made from leftovers. If you knit them corner to corner like a dishcloth, you don't have to worry about gauge, you just start knitting and increasing, and when the sides get as long as you want the square to be, you start decreasing. Brilliant! And you can make squares from different size yarns, since they're joined together later. So I started knitting squares. Since some of the leftovers have a lot of yarn and some only a little, I decided to knit different sized squares, some 2", some 4", 6", and 8". I can join the smaller ones to make 8" blocks, then join all the blocks together to make whatever I have enough to make. A knitted blanket would be nice, that's what I'm hoping for. It's fun to be able to change from the "big" project of an 8" square to the small project of a 2" square depending on how I'm feeling at the time. A 2" square is quite quick to knit, even in sock yarn, and it's just as satisfying to finish.
Thanks for the idea, o froggy one!
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
A Good Weekend
It was a good knitting weekend. First, here are some photos Peter took of my alpaca lace shawl:
I love how it turned out! The thing I liked most in the picture in the magazine was the tranlucent quality of the shawl, and it really did turn out that way! It's very lightweight, but the alpaca is much warmer than you'd think.
I also got to go to the yarn shop this weekend. A nice little place in Eldersburg called the Knitter's Nest, which K1Frog2 will recognize as the place with the good sushi restaurant next door. Do you remember that when we were there, a woman I know who is a spinner showed up? Well, last week I helped her husband, who works at the College, with a computer problem which had really stumped him and made him a little desperate. Being a nice guy and knowing the weaknesses of fiber addicts as he does, he bought me a gift certificate from the yarn shop. It made my day to get that in my mail at work.
In preparation for my visit to the yarn shop, I spent Saturday morning organizing the stash, balling up what needed to be balled up, and figuring out what I already have and what just needed a little more to go with it to make a complete project. You know, trying to buy things I actually "need" rather than just more random odds and ends that catch my eye at the moment. The startling revelation was that I have 10 projects for which I have all the materials waiting in the stash! I alternate between being stressed out that I really need to be knitting more, and being happy knowing that I will be well supplied with projects for quite some time to come. The only real dilemma is what to pick first.
But really, I've already made that decision. It's the green EZ sweater with the gauge-change decreases with which I have already regaled my faithful readers. I worked on that over the weekend and have already made my first modifications to the plan. It starts at the bottom, and a few inches into it I realized that the somewhat tight knit (to get the gauge I want) of the stockinette in the bulky yarn causes it to curl up pretty badly. I tried putting a row or two of garter stitch at the bottom edge, but wasn't happy with it until I broke down and started with a couple inches of ribbing. I don't usually make sweaters with ribbing at the bottom edge because I don't like the way it pinches in and makes it look balloon-like (not a flattering shape for some of us), so then I decided to just rib it all the way up. Normally I also don't think the clinginess of a completely ribbed sweater is flattering on me, but I think the bulky will counteract the clinginess and it'll look okay. That's the theory I'm sticking with for now. So I have a few inches of the body done.
But then in working with the stash I also unearthed a couple of UFO's which are so close to done I couldn't resist. One is the blue EZ sweater I made last year. Photos were posted. All that was left was to weave in the thread ends. And it's just the right weight for this early fall weather we are having. How could I not do it? See how much I hate finishing work? It took about 10 minutes. The other UFO is the brown Moonlight Mohair shawl made with EZ's pi are square pattern, also described previously in this blog. It was about halfway around the last row. Unfortunately, the last row has upwards of 350 stitches, I'm making a picot edging which means I'm knitting 8 stitches for every two that are bound off, and I'm pretty sure I don't have quite enough yarn to finish it. Now you see why I put it down. My one hope is that my sister-in-law, who was with me when we found the mohair for $2 a ball and bought about 3 times as much as I did, still has a ball of the brown in her stash. If she doesn't, I'll have to figure out how to fake that last 8" or so of the edging. Dang, it's going to be close.
If only every weekend could be so full of knitting!
I love how it turned out! The thing I liked most in the picture in the magazine was the tranlucent quality of the shawl, and it really did turn out that way! It's very lightweight, but the alpaca is much warmer than you'd think.
I also got to go to the yarn shop this weekend. A nice little place in Eldersburg called the Knitter's Nest, which K1Frog2 will recognize as the place with the good sushi restaurant next door. Do you remember that when we were there, a woman I know who is a spinner showed up? Well, last week I helped her husband, who works at the College, with a computer problem which had really stumped him and made him a little desperate. Being a nice guy and knowing the weaknesses of fiber addicts as he does, he bought me a gift certificate from the yarn shop. It made my day to get that in my mail at work.
In preparation for my visit to the yarn shop, I spent Saturday morning organizing the stash, balling up what needed to be balled up, and figuring out what I already have and what just needed a little more to go with it to make a complete project. You know, trying to buy things I actually "need" rather than just more random odds and ends that catch my eye at the moment. The startling revelation was that I have 10 projects for which I have all the materials waiting in the stash! I alternate between being stressed out that I really need to be knitting more, and being happy knowing that I will be well supplied with projects for quite some time to come. The only real dilemma is what to pick first.
But really, I've already made that decision. It's the green EZ sweater with the gauge-change decreases with which I have already regaled my faithful readers. I worked on that over the weekend and have already made my first modifications to the plan. It starts at the bottom, and a few inches into it I realized that the somewhat tight knit (to get the gauge I want) of the stockinette in the bulky yarn causes it to curl up pretty badly. I tried putting a row or two of garter stitch at the bottom edge, but wasn't happy with it until I broke down and started with a couple inches of ribbing. I don't usually make sweaters with ribbing at the bottom edge because I don't like the way it pinches in and makes it look balloon-like (not a flattering shape for some of us), so then I decided to just rib it all the way up. Normally I also don't think the clinginess of a completely ribbed sweater is flattering on me, but I think the bulky will counteract the clinginess and it'll look okay. That's the theory I'm sticking with for now. So I have a few inches of the body done.
But then in working with the stash I also unearthed a couple of UFO's which are so close to done I couldn't resist. One is the blue EZ sweater I made last year. Photos were posted. All that was left was to weave in the thread ends. And it's just the right weight for this early fall weather we are having. How could I not do it? See how much I hate finishing work? It took about 10 minutes. The other UFO is the brown Moonlight Mohair shawl made with EZ's pi are square pattern, also described previously in this blog. It was about halfway around the last row. Unfortunately, the last row has upwards of 350 stitches, I'm making a picot edging which means I'm knitting 8 stitches for every two that are bound off, and I'm pretty sure I don't have quite enough yarn to finish it. Now you see why I put it down. My one hope is that my sister-in-law, who was with me when we found the mohair for $2 a ball and bought about 3 times as much as I did, still has a ball of the brown in her stash. If she doesn't, I'll have to figure out how to fake that last 8" or so of the edging. Dang, it's going to be close.
If only every weekend could be so full of knitting!
Thursday, September 9, 2010
A New (School) Year
As Kate says, summer is over. Time to get back to blogging! And what a summer it has been. Vacation was had, company descended, living rooms were renovated (at least mine). I felt shell shocked by the end of it. Now, work is picking up, home life is settling down, and I'm breathing a sigh of relief.
On the knitting front, I am about 90% done with two different pairs of socks. Ooh, that's bad, more unfinished projects. The weekly knitting group at work will be starting up again next week, so I'm hoping that will take care of them. When I knit at home in the evening, I sometimes tackle ambitious projects, but at knitting group there's too much fun. If I work on anything complicated there, I'll mess it up for sure. So I almost always fall back on a good sock project.
The ambitious project for the summer was my first piece of lace knitting. A simple one, but still, it's lace. It's a half circle shawl made from lace weight alpaca in a variegated purple color which I bought at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool festival just before I moved East. It was knit from the edges in, so it started with almost 700 stitches on size 10.5 needles and 14 rows of garter stitch. Then the stitches were decreased by half -- the garter stitch is a slightly "gathered" border at the bottom edge of the shawl. The rest is mainly stockinette stitch, with a little bit of YO/k2tog fancy work to give a little pattern, and decreases to make the half circle shape. The lace effect comes mainly from the large amount of stretching out you're supposed to do in the blocking. In the end, though, the shawl is very translucent, it's almost gossamer in the magazine photo. So pretty. It's pinned out on my cutting table right for the blocking. With luck I'll finish that this weekend.
Now I'm starting on the EZ sweater that the blue Cotton-Ease sweater (pictures posted last year on this blog) was a trial run for. For this sweater I wanted to see if I could do the decreases in the EZ pattern using differences in gauge instead of actually decreasing the number of stitches. I have a bulky LanaLoft in a spring green which is working out to about 3 stitches per inch, a worsted weight called Shannon in variegated green and brown tones at 4 stitches per inch, and some medium brown Noro wool/silk in a DK or fingering weight at 7 stitches per inch. My plan is to start at the bottom with the LanaLoft and knit the body and sleeves. At the first decrease, instead of decreasing, I'll switch to the Shannon, which should decrease the size of the work by the right amount. At the second decrease I'll do an actual decrease, since I only have the three yarns, but then at the last decrease I'll switch to the Noro, which should take it down by the right amount again. I don't know, for some reason it tickles me to do this. Wish me luck!
On the knitting front, I am about 90% done with two different pairs of socks. Ooh, that's bad, more unfinished projects. The weekly knitting group at work will be starting up again next week, so I'm hoping that will take care of them. When I knit at home in the evening, I sometimes tackle ambitious projects, but at knitting group there's too much fun. If I work on anything complicated there, I'll mess it up for sure. So I almost always fall back on a good sock project.
The ambitious project for the summer was my first piece of lace knitting. A simple one, but still, it's lace. It's a half circle shawl made from lace weight alpaca in a variegated purple color which I bought at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool festival just before I moved East. It was knit from the edges in, so it started with almost 700 stitches on size 10.5 needles and 14 rows of garter stitch. Then the stitches were decreased by half -- the garter stitch is a slightly "gathered" border at the bottom edge of the shawl. The rest is mainly stockinette stitch, with a little bit of YO/k2tog fancy work to give a little pattern, and decreases to make the half circle shape. The lace effect comes mainly from the large amount of stretching out you're supposed to do in the blocking. In the end, though, the shawl is very translucent, it's almost gossamer in the magazine photo. So pretty. It's pinned out on my cutting table right for the blocking. With luck I'll finish that this weekend.
Now I'm starting on the EZ sweater that the blue Cotton-Ease sweater (pictures posted last year on this blog) was a trial run for. For this sweater I wanted to see if I could do the decreases in the EZ pattern using differences in gauge instead of actually decreasing the number of stitches. I have a bulky LanaLoft in a spring green which is working out to about 3 stitches per inch, a worsted weight called Shannon in variegated green and brown tones at 4 stitches per inch, and some medium brown Noro wool/silk in a DK or fingering weight at 7 stitches per inch. My plan is to start at the bottom with the LanaLoft and knit the body and sleeves. At the first decrease, instead of decreasing, I'll switch to the Shannon, which should decrease the size of the work by the right amount. At the second decrease I'll do an actual decrease, since I only have the three yarns, but then at the last decrease I'll switch to the Noro, which should take it down by the right amount again. I don't know, for some reason it tickles me to do this. Wish me luck!
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