Cupcake's Crafty Adventures

Last Post of 2010

2010-12-30T13:01:00.000-08:00

Before 2010 comes to a close I thought I would get one last post in for the year. There have been a lot of FO's:

First up my Fall Parallel Socks, pattern Parallel Twist by the very talented Jeannie Cartmel, the yarn is by Vesper Sock Yarn in Essential Autumn, which is a sock club 4 color striper (which I got in a destash) I love it! The pattern was a great knit, easy and makes the most out of self-striping yarn.

Next up my mis-matched pair from the November Rockin' Sock club shipment, I didn't take a picture of the yarn before I started knitting, but it did come with very cute and little stitch markers from Knitifacts. The skein has no name and Tina of Blue Moon Fiber Arts had a contest to see who could come up with the best name for the skein, winner gets a 2011 Rockin' Sock Club Membership, what an awesome prize.

There of course were two patterns, the first one is called Checkerboard Socks by Nancy Bush. This pattern was great for end of the year knitting, it was simple, complimentary to the color and patterned enough but simple enough that you can have a conversation with someone and knit at the same time.

The second pattern is Canopy Socks by by Samantha Roshak, another simple, yet nice pattern that would great in a stripe if you could get it to line up with the yarn. There is a nice picot turned and hemmed down top, and an interesting and new toe, so it was nice to try something new at the end of the year.

The next FO is Lindsay's Eclipse Lindsays, pattern by Cookie A., when I bought her book when it first came out I wanted to knit every single pattern. I remember that there was a pattern named Lindsay (with an A) which is how my best friend spells her name. When she was a kid she never had pencils or pins with her name spelled the way she spells it, so I knew I had to knit these for her. I could have made these out of any good sock yarn (which I have no shortage of) but the perfect skein of sock yarn came along a few months ago.

This is a special limited edition of Lorna’s Laces in Eclipse (it's a black and dark red), did I mention Lindsay is a huge Twilight fan (and no she is not a tween). So this pattern and this yarn were destined to be together. The only problem is that the yarn is soooooooo dark which makes it hard to see but it was well worth it.

Last but not least are two hats for my best friend's baby Danger.

The first hat is a replica of a hockey helmet, we are both huge hockey fans so I knew that he would love it, the baby wasn't even 3 months old, I made the 3-6 month size and it's way to small, so we are going to their house for new year's eve so I will attempt to make him another one that will fit his head. It's a great pattern, the helmet is really just like the ones they use in hockey, it even has a snap to close the chin strap.

The second hat is my own version of the baby Mohawk hat, I was going to buy the pattern but before I did I read up on it on Ravelry and people said that kitchener the fun fur was maddening (and I totally agree). So I knit at hat and then knit a rectangle of fun fur and then attached the fun fur, it was easier for sure. The hat looks a little bulb-shaped but it was just the way is was sitting for the picture, the hat is classical hat shape.

A few new yarn purchases, first off I love me a striped yarn, probably more that I will admit. So when I saw this yarn by AlaskanNancy (Fireweed Dyeworks on etsy) I HAD to buy it immediately, and there was only one left and I can't tell you how lucky it was me. I can't wait to see how the colors stripe up. Please let me introduce Holiday Kitsch:

Next up is from one of the talented ladies from my Ravelry home, KnittyK8, it's her Sparkling Stripe, in colorway Free the Grapes. I love the stripes and the silver together is amazingly great together, it gives the black a bit of pop. These are being knit into socks for my other college best friend Janice, who will be here in a few weeks, hopefully they will be done.

I was going to save the Free the Grapes for me, but they really wanted to be socks for Janice. I was a little sad that I wouldn't have sparkly black stripe socks but lucky for me KnittyK8 is a Ravelry friend and dyed a skein of Purple Octopus on the Run, for me the last time she was wrapping and dying (thanks Kate). It's in her Sparkling Stripe base (I love it) and it's blue and purple with a black stripe, gorgeous! Don't believe me, here is a picture.

The next couple of things are surprises, first of all after following The Loopy Ewe's blog for year and year the RNG (random number generator) picked me for a prize. I won a $25 dollar gift certificate. And just today I found out that I was picked by the RNG again today for a great prize, two skeins of The Loopy Ewe Solid Series, a pattern of my choosing, AND a tub of Heel (super awesome foot creme) from the people that make Soak Wool Wash. That is an awesome prize and very generous for The Loopy Ewe to give the prize packages away, I posted on the RAK thread, they wanted to know what nice things you do for others in the month of December. It's great to read what everyone's RAK's are over the weeks, it restores your faith in humanity. I will post pictures when the package gets here so show you what I picked out.

The very last thing is something so wonderful and special and it really made my holiday. On the CPaASG's board on Ravelry we love each other so much it's sort of odd for never meeting most of these people. But it's a place where we can go for friendship, support, to vent our "my-husband/kids-are-driving-me-crazy-because", love of all things fiber, and anything in between. This year we decided that we were going to have a holiday swap, the whole thing was put together by kbelle (thanks Kristin), she made a questionnaire, everyone filled it out, and she matched us up. Person #1 gifted Person #2, Person #2 gifted Person #3 and so on. It was so much fun post stalking your downstream swappner (that is swap partner) and find out what they liked and didn't like, get a swox (swap box) together for them. Everyone shipped their swox and on Christmas Day we all opened them up, took pictures, and posted on the thread, it was awesome to see what everyone got/sent. My upstream swappner was jeepgirl (Lisa I loved everything in my swox), she sent me this:

Here's what was in there, it was amazing!
An awesome blue notions case, I love it!
Tazo tea in Organic Chia and Zen Green
M&M’s
A notepad with magnet that says ”I’d rather be knitting”
A pair of puppy snips (super cute)
Ghirardelli peppermint bark (which might not be with us anymore)
2 gorgeous skeins of Sundara in Beaded Turquoise
And if you look really closely at the candy canes there are 2 sets of handmade (by Lisa, her first stitch markers), which I love more than I can tell you. It was a great way to end the year, and the first year that I can remember for the longest time that I wait to open presents on Christmas Day (it was way worth the wait). I hope we do another gift swap like this again.

The last part of 2010 was hard on a lot of people that are close to me, so I'm really glad to see it coming to a close and in a few days have a new year and put 2010 behind us. Here is to a happy, healthy, and joyful 2011!

A Little Bit of Everything

2010-11-14T23:42:00.000-08:00

We begin with a craft fair that was new to me. I went to the North Park Craft Mafia's Sunday Crafty Sunday event in North Park at Queen Bee's on October 17. It was nice to see a bunch of different crafts (not just fiber related). I would definitely go to another one of their events, it's great to support local crafters. If I have time in my crazy schedule I would love to go to their Holiday Hit List on December 5th.

Next up is a finished object, I finally finished my Sweet Pea socks. Since I've been knitting one sock in each pattern for the Blue Moon Rockin' Sock Club I haven't had to knit a second sock in the same pattern in a good long while, evidently I have been spoiled. Getting through this second sock was a bit of a battle, but I got finished the second one so that's all that matters. The border is knit in a "north to south" direction and was a bit fiddly but I think it was interesting.

Now for a little sock club update, I was lucky enough to be picked (by RNG, with less than a 4% chance) to be one of the newest members of the Gothsock sock club. I have a love for stripey socks that go way back and I'm always looking for yarn that will make awesome stripes. Earlier this year I found out about Gothsocks from my favorite board on Ravelry and ever since then I have been trying to get my hands on their yarn, but believe it or not it's a million times harder than getting Wollmeise (I know right?). The great thing about the club is once you are in, you are in the club until you don't want to be, which is great if you are in, but sucks if you want to be in the club. So I was super lucky and I'm in! The club is broken down into three month blocks, each three months there will be a non-stripe, a black stripe, and a non-black stripe. Steph (she is a one woman show, she dyes, sells, skeins, and is Gothsocks) has the best colors and names for her yarn, go look at her shop. So this is my first installment it's called The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun. Now if you are a child of the 80's and loved Downtown Julie Brown (like me) you know the song. And the yarn as you can guess is, light pink, hot pink and black.

Second sock club update, Rockin' Sock Club September installment has arrived, and funny enough the color is almost an exact match to our new couch. It's called Pining for Ewe, it's a great semi-solid, in the picture it looks gray, but in real life it's much more of a pine green with gray undertones.

The two patterns are Buggin' Out by Stephen Houghton (our first guy designer) and EZ's Mocassin Socks with Twisted-Stitch Motifs by Elizabeth Zimmermann and Meg Swansen. I have already finished Buggin' Out (sorry the picture is dark but the color is much more correct).

EZ's sock is casted on but it's VERY complicated so I haven't had knitting time where I can concentrate and knit so it has sat for a bit. But hopefully I will get to it soon because I have kept up will all the socks this year (which is a first for me).

And since we started with a craft fair, we will end on a fiber festival. For three years straight ItSheknits and I have been going to the Southern California Handweavers' Guild "Weaving & Fiber Festival (WeFF) in Torrance. We always have a great time, we normally go up with our "OC Girls" but this year they were all busy. But this year our friend Wendy of Knitters Brewing Company
had an amazing booth. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of their booth, but trust me it was super cute and they did a great job. I tried to be good, I only bought 1 skein of sock yarn (and yes I did re-set my yarn counter on the right side of the blog) and I finally won an awesome skein of sock yarn at the raffle.

Here is the skein of Sweet Butter, it's so soft and amazing, it's wool, bamboo, and slik.

And here is the picture of the sock yarn I won, it's the perfect color for me (I love a blue-red) and the cool thing is it has a strand of real silver twisted in with it. And the crazy thing is the yarn is really soft and you can't even feel the silver. The yarn is from Twist, Yarns of Intrigue in Sparkle, it's merino wool, silk, nylon, and silver -- super cool, can't wait to find the perfect pattern for it!

So that about sums up what's be going on as far as knitting. There should be some more progress after Thanksgiving ItSheKnits and I (along with our husbands) are going camping for the holiday so you know there is going to be some serious knitting, cooking, and eating.

Socks, Socks and more Socks

2010-09-02T15:03:00.000-07:00

I'm still trying to loose some weight so I'm trying my best not to knit sweaters (which is killing me since fall is coming soon) so I've been trying to knit my sock club installments instead. Last year I only finished 2 pairs (out of 6) for the Blue Moon Rockin' Sock Club, I was knitting a bunch of other things so I was distracted and my sock club installments got shoved in the yarn-moire. But this year with the two patterns to keep my interest, not knitting sweaters, I've been knitting away on my kits.

I finished my Flabella and Cascadia socks:

The next kit was My Wild Irish Girlie:

The first sock is Slip Jig by Carrie Sullivan and the second sock is Secret Garden by Janel Laidman.

I loved this pattern, it was a great little repeat and the cables are continued down the top and the sides of the foot. I want to knit this pattern again in another yarn.

I had a really hard time with this pattern, I have knit a Janel pattern before but for some reason the way the pattern was written and the way the way my brain is wired it was just ugly. I know some people had problems too, but other people didn't so it could just be me. Also I loved the little flower pattern on the leg.

The third installment was Sweet Pea:

When I first opened the package I swore that the yarn had no color but I think it might be one of the spirit colorways, there are subtle hints of peach and green in it, which you can see more easily when it's knit up. It's not a colorway I would have picked myself but I liked the way it knit up. I also really love the sock club because the color and pattern aren't up to me to it exposes me to things I wouldn't pick out myself.

I decided to knit socks in the same pattern since they were anklets, I choose to knit Ada Lovelace. I skipped this kit and came back to it, but I have finished one sock and I'm half way through the second.

This is not a pattern I would have picked out myself, but it's an interesting knit with cables on the heel, a lace pattern and the cuff is knit back and forth instead of around and around which was interesting and I learned something new so that was good.

The fourth kit is called Firecracker there were three patterns (and we got an extra skein of Sock Candy, mine is Granny Apple and an extra pattern for flip flop socks).

I love this colorway, it's my favorite so far, it's right in my color sweet spot. As soon as I got it I had to cast on right away.

The first sock is My ♥ Beets for you by Anne Hanson and the second sock is Dusty Corners by Linda Welch

You can't see it really well but there is a beet on the heel that the cables from the beet green pattern lines up perfectly into, super cute, love the pattern and Anne Hanson's patterns are always wonderful. I knit this sock in five days, I couldn't get enough of it. I will be knitting this sock again.

This was a great pattern to knit, I loved the zig-zag-ness of this pattern, it was great to knit and I knit this sock in three days, it was awesome, going to knit this again too.

So I think that's it for now. Thanks to ItSheKnits and her help with the Shipwreck Shawl of beaded doom (she helped me break down the 3 miles of beads into more manageable smaller pieces) I've picked it up again. It's going really slowly but it's awesome to pick up something that has been sitting since mid-February.

Catching Up and Crafting Up

2010-06-23T22:36:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I haven't posted since I got my awesome ball winder, but I looked and the blog doesn't lie. There is so much to post about I don't even know where to start. How about starting with a bomb? A sock-love-bomb that is, I got these beauties in the mail about a month ago.

One of the great things about Ravelry is that you get to meet people that love knitting as much as you do and if you hang out on the same board for a while you get to know the same people. My home on Ravelry is The Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Swap Group (CPASG), the girls there are awesome, their stashes are breathtaking, and they are a great support group. One of our members kippiann has been making amazing hand knit sock out of some uber nice yarn for other members and secretly sending them in the mail, she calls them "sock-love-bombs". I was bombed about a month ago with my very own pair knit out of Wollmeise Twin in Herzblut in Dancing Diamonds by Wendy Johnson. kippiann knit these socks for me out of Herzblut which is the most perfect red and in a diamond pattern to pay homage to my love of the Boston Red Socks. The socks are amazing, they fit great, the pattern is perfect and the yarn is Wollmeise, if that isn't love I don't know what is.

Here is a picture of the super cute and crafty label kippiann sends with her socks, on the back of the label is says the pattern, the yarn, and that there were made just for you.

While kippiann was bombing our board with socks (and before she bombed me), I decided that I wanted to make her a pair of socks. I knew I wanted to incorporate sock, love, and bomb. It took me a couple of days and a few pattern searches on Ravelry and I came up with a plan. I know kippi loves pink, I have only one skein of eye-searing pink sock yarn in my stash from the Politically Incorrect Sock Club in colorway Last Call, it was destined to become socks for kippi. I decided to knit my "go-to" sock pattern (Cat Bordhi's Simple Sock Pattern) because it's very forgiving when is comes to fit since it's a rib pattern. Then I decided to make a tiny sock, a tiny heart, and a tiny bomb to hang off the side of each sock. I already had a pattern for a mini-sock, I found a pattern for a little heart (I changed the gauge and needle size to make it tiny) and I found a cherry pattern that I could easily modify into bomb. This is what I came up with, I used a sheep button that I sewed onto the sock to hang the sock-love-bomb part in case she wanted to remove them and have a plain pair of socks to where outside in the real world.

The funniest part is that while I was knitting kippi her socks she was knitting mine, she finished my socks in a few days, it took me a few weeks, but she loved them all the same.

One more awesome thing from the CPASG, I won a prize, a super swanky prize no less, a skein of the highly coveted Wollmeise lace in Spice Market donated by the wonderful ngraham from VT. We had a KAL for breaking into your treasured skeins of Wollmeise lace (I knitted my Equinox Shawl) and my lucky number was drawn for the lace, woot, here is a picture to prove it.

And now for a FO, I knit my first sweater in the round from the top down. I haven't done either so it was nice to get to try out two new different techniques. I called it the Crayon Wrappers Sweater, it's the Lightweight Pullover by Hannah Fettig, knit out of yarn from Fresh from the Cauldron yarn in Poe's Absinthe Induced Dream, the color is a bit less bright in person (please forgive the horrible self-portrait).

Next up is a great cause that has a knitting connection, my knitting friends wenat and yarnfloozy in Vancouver had a raffle to raise money for The Canadian Cancer Society. Every year their wonderful husbands participate in a one day grueling 400km bike ride (that's almost 250 miles) and all the money raised goes where it counts (no administrative fees are taken out).

Here is a picture of the three of us from my trip to Seattle and Vancouver (which I still need to post about) and no we are not at all related to each other, why do you ask?

You can read all about the ride, see some of their pictures, find out why their write on their arms/legs with Sharpies, and hear why they put themselves through such a crazy ride, read the letter from Lance Armstrong, and be inspired here on their blog. This year I wanted to donate some prizes to help raise money, they raised almost $2,000 and their group raised almost $300,000, that is amazing!

Now back to actual knitting, how about the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Club 2010. I know I haven't posted any pictures from this year, but don't worry it's not because I didn't love them. This year's club comes with two patterns, one from a "known designer" and one from a long standing member of the sock club. It's pretty cool to get two different patterns with the same yarn. The first shipment's colorway was called "happy go lucky", and the tow patterns were Flabella by Christina Bain and Cascadia by Sivia Harding. Here is a picture of the first installment:

I decided this year that if I like both patterns that I would make one sock out of each pattern and that would be my "pair". I casted on my Cascadia while going on vacation to Seattle and Vancouver which was fitting because Sivia was inspired by the Cascade Mountain Range. This was my first completed toe-up sock, and it fits great! I really liked the little peaks on the front part of the sock and really loved the pattern on the back side of the leg part, so much so I might make a sock out of just that pattern. Here is the completed sock.

I'm half way through my Flabella sock, this pattern was inspired by rain running down a window pain. I'm half way through with this sock and it's a bit more fiddle-y because of the bobbles. There are bobbles on the first row of the sock so it takes a bit of getting use to, I had to cast on a few times but it all worked out. I really like the bobble fan pattern and the little lace pattern repeat as well. Here is a picture of the first half of the sock.

There are good and bad things about knitting a mis-matched pair, for example there isn't second sock syndrome, but on the other side you don't get to fly on the second sock. But I really like how both patterns have something to do with the Pacific Northwest and I will always remember my trip there when wearing these socks.

Now for a little sewing, for my favorite "almost 5 year old" who is coming to visit in less than a week. Our college friends Bob and Michelle are coming for a visit from Boston, I cannot describe how excited I am about seeing them and their son Noah. I saw these personalized towels on a few stores on etsy, they were $35 (and then $8 for shipping)and I thought I could make one myself. I found a super cute towel at Target ($10, thank you Target), found a great fat quarter of fabric in a beach theme (for $2) and went to work with my sewable HeatnBond. I was happy that my sewing machine could handle the thickness of the towel, the sewing isn't perfect, but I'm not that wonderful of a sewer so it will have to do. I hope that Noah likes it, I love the pirate octopus (which came on the towel).

There is one more big craft project that I worked on for a while that's finally done, but I'm saving it for later. I think that's all that has happened crafting wise, it was a bunch of random things but they are all crafty so I guess they all count. I changed the way the blog looks, I added just a little argyle because
I ♥ argyle completely and totally.

A Serious Ugrade

2010-04-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

Ever since I bought ItSheKnits a heavy duty ball winder for her birthday years ago, I have wanted to upgrade mine, I have the little blue and white plastic ball winder that everyone knows. I never made it a priority because the little plastic one was doing a fine job, that was up until I wound my first skein of Wollmeise lace. Wollmeise lace is gorgeous, lovely and HUGE, it's 1740 yards, that's right 5,220 feet, a crazy huge amount of string. A friend on Ravelry suggested to put an empty paper towel roll on the center to give mt added height and thus more room to wind, it was a great idea, but the tape that I used to hold it to the winder wasn't the right kind and it was sort of a pain to get off the winder. So I did a little asking around and the two winders that everyone suggested was the Strauch/Fricke Winder or Nancy's Knit Knacks Heavy Duty Ball Winder.

I tried Nancy's Knit Knacks ball winder at Churchmouse Yarns & Teas and a fell in love, hard. They use it in the shop, it's clamped to a cute table to anyone to use, and they said they have never had a problem with it and it worked great. That's all I needed to hear, I wanted one real bad. I did some research on their site and saw that they had made several upgrades to the first version which I loved and redirected some of our tax refund to the yarn ball winder (yes the husband knows).

I know it just looks like a ball winder made of wood, but here is the best picture to compare "the regular winder" and Nancy's.

Here is a picture taken straight on to show how much bigger and sturdier Nancy's winder is:

And here is an aerial view just to show the difference in the footprint and width:

I love it more than I can say, it spins wicked fast, it's almost silent, it's heavy, well made and made in the USA! Now all I have to do is figure out my next Wollmeise lace project to christen it with. I also think I'm going to name him . . . perhaps (Anti)Hank?

Gold Medal Winner!

2010-02-26T22:56:00.000-08:00

(Apologies for crappy self-portrait)

That's right my Kingscot sweater that has been sitting untouched since July is finished and two days before the Closing Ceremonies. I'm so excited about finishing this sweater it's not even funny. The pattern design was awesome (Norah Gaughan), the yarn was delicious, and my modifications worked (whew). It was the first time that I had made a sweater with bobbles, button band that had buttons, and a button band with buttonholes.

I had 90% of the left panel done but had to rip it because I forgot to decrease by 20 stitches (so the entire side was 20 extra stitches wide). I also modified the sleeves, the original pattern calls for 5 inches of ribbing, I only knit 3 inches. I also changed the neckband to a traditional 1x1 rib, instead of the every other row twisted stitch the pattern called for. I haven't seamed anything in a while, but thankfully I haven't lost that skill. I didn't do the buttonholes the way that the pattern call for, instead I decided to do a 1 row re-inforced buttonhole that I learned from this YouTube tutorial video. It was awesome to learn a new skill and I really like the way the buttonholes turned out. I also had to reknit the button bands a few times due to gauge and placement of the holes, but it all worked out well.

Knitting with Wollmeise Molly was wonderful, the color is gorgeous, the stitch definition is amazing and the final fabric is warm and so very smooth. The only problem is that Molly ha been discontinued, so this is the only Molly sweater that I will ever have (so sad).

I would love to knit another one of these, the pattern was great, and I highly recommend the pattern and design to anyone.

Ready, Set, Wait, Wait, Wait . . . O.K. GO!

2010-02-13T23:25:00.000-08:00

I was all set to cast on for the Ravelympics hanging out with my friends in the Complete Pointless and Arbitrary Swap Group, then about 5 mins past the "GO post" I realize that all my east coast and mid-west friends are watching the Olympics and I had to wait 3 more hours. I was really mad, the Olympics are in my time zone why can't I watch them live? I know I could have started but I waited until the flame was lit (on my 3 hour delay) once The Great One lit the outside cauldron it was on!

I decided that I would try to finish up my Kingscot, but first I had to face the "growing" Molly Monster. There has been much discussion about Molly growing during blocking and not recovering very well post blocking. I read all the warning, horror stories, and crying posts but I didn't swatch, I just dropped a size in the pattern. But I figured that since I wanted to wear it and have it look half way decent I would block the left front and back that were completed and see if it was going to grow out of control. The left front blocked a little loose and did grow a bit, but it was O.K., but the back was so much bigger than it was pre-block but I measured it and I think dropping a size in the pattern was the way to go.

So hopefully in the next 16 days I will make some serious progress on this project, I would love to finish it but being that I like to sleep in the next 17 days I will settle for a chunk of progress.

I finished my replacement sock from the sock I lost last year at Stitches West. I was really sad that I couldn't make Stitches West this year, but for some reason the universe decided to make it up to me, more about that later.

A Little Photo Shoot

2010-01-14T15:38:00.001-08:00

So I unpinned my shawl today and took it outside for a bit of a photo shoot. Here are some of the better photos.

First FO of the New Decade

2010-01-13T22:33:00.000-08:00

I finished my Equinox on the Solstice Shawl in 19 days. I found the pattern on Ravelry (and it's free), it had originally been offered as a "mystery shawl" meaning that it was broken up into clues and people knitted it blindly. The first time I saw it I knew I had to knit it, I love the combination of the geometric patterns and the edging was awesome. When I downloaded the pattern I noticed that the edging that I had fallen in love with was indeed a crochet chain bind off, there was only one problem, I don't crochet. At all. So I knit on the shawl and ignored the edging issue, I figure I would deal with it when I got there. I finally got there and I put it down for a few days, did some research, asked around, and found this really helpful tutorial, and decided to jump in. I figured it out and the best part is I didn't even have to fudge the stitch count at the end, it worked out perfectly, I was relived to say the least.

This was different from the other shawls I made because the lace motifs were larger and crossed over from repeat to repeat. Another interesting thing is that most of the increases takes places in the last row of each of the clues, which is something I had never seen. It was a great shawl to knit, the patterned charts only take up three pages of paper and you only knit one element at a time so that was nice. However it is only charted not written out, which is fine with me but I just wanted to warn those that only like the written out patterns. Also the purl rows were a nice break, but on the longer outside rows I wished the purl rows would have knitted themselves. There was a lot of frogging on this project because on clue 3 I misplaced a YO at a very obvious part and I had to frog over 1,750 stitches. It hurt but it had to be done. I figured that this shawl was well over 45,000 stitches and well worth it.

This was also my first (but so not my last) project in Wollmeise Lace in colorway Lavendel. Wollmeise Lace is great because it has over 1,700 yards and it's a bit thicker than regular lace weight yarn. It's great to work with and the stitch definition is wonderful, and the color is stunning. I already have an idea for my next Wollmeise shawl, I can't wait!

One Last Post for 2009

2009-12-31T12:47:00.000-08:00

So the end of 2009 is here, the year has gone by super fast. ItShe asked me what my knitting goals were for 2010, and I said I don't have knitting goals, I just want to finish my thesis.

There are three projects on the needles right now:

1. My replacement Jaywalker sock in Strange Little Mama
2. Kingscot sweater, back and right front finished, casted on for left front.
3. My Wollmeise Lace for the CPaASG-ers KAL, the objective of the KAL is to finally break into those highly coveted skeins of Wollmeise lace and knit something.

I decided to use my Wollmeise Lace in Lavendel and casted on for Vernal Equinox Shawl Surprise by Lankakomero. The pattern is great and it's the first time I have ever knit a half circle shawl. I've had to frog a few things here and there but a few days ago I had to frog 1750 stitches because I misplaced a YO and it was really obvious, it was a PITA but I did it. This piece of lace is different from the others I have knit in the past because it has larger lace motifs and not just little self-contained pieces that you repeat over and over. The original pattern was a Surprise KAL so it is broken down into 6 clues, I've finished Clues 1, 2, and 3 and I'm half way down with Clue #4.

Here is a picture of Clues 1-3.

So 2009 it's been a good year, but I think I'm ready for 2010 and a fresh new start. Happy Knitting!

A Great Way to Eat Your Veggies!

2009-11-18T09:19:00.000-08:00

I bought the book Hello Cupcake a while ago, there are some amazing things in the book and I have wanted to make something out of it for a while. My parents and their RV club came into town and they invited me to hang out for the day and join them for a Pot Luck dinner so I wanted to make something special to say thank you. So I decided to make the Garden Party cupcakes.

It took a while to make the vegetables but it was well worth it, they looked so cute sitting on top of their Oreos crumbs "dirt", the best part is everything is edible. It's a great book there are some awesome things in it, can't wait to try another one out.

There has been a little bit of knitting, a baby hat, a hat for a friend, and knitting my replacement Jaywalker Sock in Strange Little Mama.

Where Did the Summer Go?

2009-10-31T00:17:00.001-07:00

Seriously where did it go, if someone finds the rest of my summer please let me know.

Well the last thing I posted about was my Molly Kingscot sweater. I finished the back of it and I finished the left side with a lot of complications (knitter error, not pattern error). I've never knit a sweater with hand-dyed yarn so I never had to alternate skeins while knitting, and boy did it show. Between the cabling, chart reading, annoying bobbles, and alternating skeins there was a point where I thought I was just going to walk away in frustration. I didn't realize that when you cast on on the same side that you alternate you have to carry the yarn you aren't binding off (ask me how I learned this painful lesson). The top part of the left side almost killed me since there was binding off at different rates on both sides with the alternating thing, sucked, but at least I learned something. But as proof that I did finish the left front here is a picture (the color is not accurate, it's much more red purple). I have had a nice long break from this project and I think I might be able to handle the other side, so I might finally cast on for it. Also the word from the Wollmeise is that there will be no more Molly for sale (it was too costly to offer) so this will most likely be my only Molly sweater.

The second project is because everyone I know was having a baby this summer/fall. There were three baby boys on the way so I made three pairs of the ever so housebreakingly cute Moc-a-sock booties. The great thing about this project is they look like shoes and socks but they are one piece and you get to use up some sock yarn scraps. The first pair (cream socks) was for Baby Pearce, the second pair (blue socks) was for Baby Novak, and the third pair (Boston Red Sox) are for Baby Lebo (due any day now). The pattern was easy, it was fast and it was cute, you can't go wrong.

The third project I casted on and finished is my "Drop it Like it's Hawt" pooling scarf made out of a We're Different skein of Wollmeise in Pfauenauge (German for peacock feathers). A Rav friend is famous for her pooling stoles, and her pooling projects inspired me to pool my drop stitch scarf pattern I already had. It was great mindless knitting project because except for the first, second and last row it's all garter stitch. I knit it while watching TV, waiting in line at various things, Oktober-fest, and car knitting. The picture does not do the color of this yarn justice, the color is so much more deep in person. But I do have a picture of the finished project.

The fourth project is a basic pair of socks, I got the yarn for $2 a ball so these are my 4 Dollar Socks. The yarn is like Cascade Fixation but it's made by Knit One Crochet Two, it's called Soxx Appeal.

The last project was much more of an organizational move, but I'm proud of it none the less. I decided after some fabric crafts for the holidays that I need to get my fabric stash (which thank god is much smaller than my fiber stash) organized. So after about 3 hours of hunting it all down from all over the house, and folding for three hours and now it looks like this, I love it.

Last month I celebrated my sixth wedding anniversary in Boston, we went to two Red Sox games, spent time with old friends from college, hung out, ate some ridiculously good food, played with a 4 year old, went to a beer festival, went apple picking and generally had a wonderful time. Big A surprised me with a single tier replica of our wedding cake from the same bakery, it was delicious (but huge, it's was over 6 inches high) and I was so surprised.

And here is a picture of us and the Green Monster at the last game of the '09 season that the Red Sox's ever won, we had a great time.

Where Did the Summer Go?

2009-10-31T00:17:00.000-07:00

Good Golly Miss Molly!

2009-08-02T21:34:00.000-07:00

The woman I learned to knit from always told me to knit with the nicest stuff I could afford and that would work for my project. Great advice! And I have knit with some really nice yarn since I have become a knitter. There have been very few projects however that I can honestly say I never wanted to end because I like to have a finished project in the end. However I think I have found a yarn that I love knitting with the yarn and pattern so much I don't want it to end. I was lucky enough to get my hot little hands on some Molly and after swatching (and finding out from others that have knit it) that it acts more like a DK than a worsted weight yarn I knew I have to knit Kingscot with my Molly. Kingscot was designed by Norah Gaughan and released in the Winter 2008 Twist Collective (that same issue has also has Vivian which I HAVE to knit).

The only problem was I had 2 different orders of Molly from two different updates and they were so different it almost looked like a different colorway. I loved the dyelot of yarn that I got from FluffyKira (a Rav friend) in exchange for Wollmeise Lace. Thank the knitting gods from Ravelry because I found someone that bought yarn from the same update that Fluffy got her yarn from and she was more than happy to trade me my batch from her batch. Her batch matched mine a little better so I was excited but I knew I had to alternate skeins since they were different.

So I casted on and knitting with Molly has been nothing sort of a dream, I love it so much it's not even funny. It has awesome stitch definition, the color is gorgeous, and it's so easy to knit with, no joke.

Here is a picture of my progress so far, this is the back of the sweater. And I have been knitting on other things so I can make the Molly knitting last a bit longer. I finished three pairs of baby booties and finally finished that pair of house socks that have been waiting over a year for the other sock.

Got Molly?

2009-06-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

I'm sure lately that there has been an increase the the word Molly on a few knitting blogs out there, and this blog is no exception. Why the increase you ask? Well the Wollmeise has come out with a worsted weight yarn to replace Lammdochtwolle which was also worsted but more like Manos or Malabrigo (single ply) with Molly which is just like her sock yarn (many piles) just a bit thicker.

I wanted enough Molly to make a sweater. Wollmeise sells Molly in individual skeins, 400 grams, and 800 grams (which I call an 8-ball). There are 220 yards in 100 grams so I ideally I wanted 6 skeins. I got 4 skeins in the update 2 days ago, there are a few sweater patterns out there that I could have made but I went on the hunt to see if someone wanted to trade Wollmeise Lace for Molly. Luckily there was another Ravelry and swapper that wanted to trade with me. So now I will have an 8-ball of Molly, very exciting. I just hope that the two dye lots match, I will probably sort them and then knit from alternating skeins.

I wish that the color I got Fliederbusch, which is Lilac in English was a little more solid than variegated. Because I found a lot of patterns with crazy cables that I would love to make with Molly but I think the color will clash with a complicated pattern (sigh). I imagine that it's the darker lilac that this yarn is in tribute to.

Now to find the perfect pattern which you would hope would be easy.

Also I had to re-start my "I Haven't Bought Yarn In" clock, I've re-set it twice both times for Wollmeise.

My Favorite Thing (right now)

2009-06-20T12:09:00.000-07:00

I got a chance yesterday to take my shawl outside while I was running around town, and thankfully I decided at the last minute to take my camera. I took a few shots of my new favorite thing outside and I thought I would share them.

And now on to very cute small lovely baby things. There are three babies coming up in 4 months, gotta get working on gifts.

SIMURGH!

2009-06-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

A.K.A. The Stole That Used to Scare the Shit Out of Me.

That's right I'm finished.
It's blocking right now. Don't believe me?
Here are some pictures.

\

This was a project that scared me from the beginning, but I always tell people that knitting is just a knit stitch and a purl stitch in different combinations, and that they should be the master of their own knitting. SO I took my advice casted on and I'm happy to report I finished it.

There were several tinkings but over all it was fine, except for a dropped stitch on the first half. I tried to fix it but it was really bothering me but I let it go because the edging it very complicated and it sucked big time to do it the first time. I convinced myself that it was fine, no one would see it and I would just have to get over it.

So when I finished the second side I was so proud, but my lame "trying to fix the dropped stitch" thingy was really bothering me. So I ripped the first half back to the patch, and re-knit it. The bottom edge is directional and the first half of the stole is a pain in the ass because it has a bunch of P2TBL. So if I had to chose I would have much rather ripped the second half, but that's not the side I dropped the stitch. This project is probably the most complicated I have ever knit and since it's lace I didn't fudge anything, if I had the wrong stitch count I tinked it, every time, and I'm so glad I did.

I calculated that the stole takes 61,714 stitches to complete it, needless to say that there were tinked stitches and the entire two bottom sections that I ripped out and re-knit so I figured I was close to 65,000 stitche, pretty cool huh?

I'm so excited about this project I can't even describe it.

The Mail Fairy Was Good To Me Today

2009-06-05T16:27:00.000-07:00

Today the Mail Fairy was ever so nice to me.

First up Sanguine Gryphon in Bugga which is a merino, nylon and cashmere blend. People are going crazy over this yarn. I mean so crazy that the traffic crashes her site and she had to get a new server. And while her site was being move she decided to have a Bugga lottery. I didn't get picked in the first lottery but I did get picked in the second (and I think final one). There were colorway choices that you could choose from, two skeins total max.

The first one is called Hogwood Bonking Beetle, it's a bit darker in real life. This was outside my normal color box but I like it and with a name like that how could I pass it up.

The second one is called Agre Moth, this is more green/blue/dark teal in real life, the saturation is amazing and I can't wait to see what it becomes.

The next thing that I opened was a trade that I made last week. The great thing about trading is that both people get what they want and I didn't have to spend more than shipping cost to the other person (even better). I scored two Peppermint Prince (PP) lace skeins from the Wollmeise update that I caught, I figured I would just trade one for one of the purples that I was lusting big time over. I put in the note section of my stash that I would trade for purple lace. I didn't think anyone would bite, but I got a PM asking if I would trade my PP for a skein of lace in Fliederbusch (which was my number one choice). So I mailed off my lace last week and this is what I got today. I'm so in love with this colorway it's not even funny. It's so hard to capture the true color of this yarn, it's a bit darker in real life.

The next thing that came was the last installment of the Wollmeise Sock Club. Which come to find out from the Wollmeise herself will be the first and last sock club. There was too much drama so she said she didn't want to do another one, which is sad but totally understandable. The last two colors are Blue Bells and True Love. I love Blue Bells, I'm not so sure about True Love, I will have to find the right pattern for it I think.

True Love is on the top and Blue Bells on the bottom.

And last but not least here is the latest installment of the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Rockin' Sock Club. The colorway is called Pepe Le Plume and the pattern is called Fraggle Squiggle Socks by JC Briar. It was inspired by the old cartoon Fraggle Rock, I thought that it was going to be much brighter but the colorway is interesting. I haven't casted on yet, and I don't know if I will right now. Here is a picture of Pepe La Plume:

I Think It's Safe Now . . .

2009-05-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

. . . to admit I've been trying to knit a project that scares the shit out of me.

I've been hording my Wollmeise in Versuchskaninchen I(which means guinea pig) and looking for the perfect project. I first thought that since I had 4 matching skeins of it that I would knit a sweater. But I didn't know what pattern to chose and I didn't want something that would fall out of style or not fit me if a gain or loose weight. So the next thought was lace (I'm coming around to the thought of a a triangular shawl) but I have always loved stoles. And I have always loved Anne Hanson's lace patterns, and thanks to Ravelry I found the stole I wanted to make.

Simurgh.

Even typing it sort of scares me. But I keep telling myself that it's just a bunch of knit and purl stitches and that no one's life depends on it so just go for it. The only reason why I'm even blogging about it because I'm already 112 rows into it so hopefully I can hang in there. It's made in two parts from the center so when you get one part of it finished you have to remind yourself that you have to do it again. I have done a few beginning lace projects and my Lakeside knee high socks were a more complicated lace project so I thought I would try this pattern.

Here is a picture, it's a bit wonky because it's hard to get a picture of lace pre-block.

The colorway that I chose is more variegated than it should be for the pattern but it doesn't matter to me, I love this yarn and the pattern. I just hope that I can get it done and not stall or have a melt-down. Please keep your fingers crossed for me.

You Had Me At Lace

2009-05-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a really good day. I got my wonderful package from Germany. And all I have to say is you had me at lace. The lace is more than I can describe, it's amazing. The yardage is HUGE, 1740 yards per skein, per skein! I was lucky and I got three colors of lace, here they are:

Pfefferminz Prinz (Peppermint Prince): a really cool mix of green and blue

Miss May: purples, pink and little bit of brown

Rhabarber (Rhubarb) shades of green and red (it's a bit darker IRL)

I have some projects in mind for the yarn, but right now I'm not going to commit, I'm just going to sit and admire it.

Another reason why Saturday was also great because ItShe, Grape and I went to a book signing party for Knitting in the Sun because our friend Anne of CraftyDiversions has two lovely patterns in the book. It was great to see Anne again and met her friend Chia (hopefully we will see them again soon). It was really nice to be able to see the patterns from the book all knit up. There are a lot of really nice patterns in a lot of different categories, something for everyone. There are a few patterns that I wanted to knit right away, but I have something on the needles that scares the shit out of me right now and that's what I'm concentrating on right now. If the "project that scares the shit out of me" ends up working I will post pictures of it soon.

44 Days 16 Hours and About 6 Minutes . . .

2009-05-07T04:03:00.000-07:00

That's how long I lasted without buying yarn. It is with mixed emotions that I post that I have broken my streak.

What yarn could be worth breaking the "trying really hard to knit from the stash streak"? There is only ONE answer for me and that is:

WOLLMEISE LACE

I have been stalking Wollmeise lace since it first debuted. I have always wanted it, desperately. I have managed to catch about 7 or 8 updates but never bought anything because there was no lace. I even put up two skeins of matching Versuchskaninchen 1 to trade in hope of catching the elusive beast, but there were no takers.

But I have broken my no new yarn fast for a good reason. I was able to get my hot little hands on some Wollmeise Lace . . . I still can't believe it. This post is edited to add that I did the math (I know the horror of me doing math) and I figured out that the entire cost of the yarn plus international shipping divided by the yardage (which is incredible) comes out to about .0252 cents a yard, which is less than a cent a foot, which is a price I can totally live with.

When it gets here I'll take its picture so you can all see it! Yippie!

Cricket . . . Cricket . . . Cricket

2009-05-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

Well there isn't much knitting wise going on.

Why is that? Well I'm done with my Hemlock Ring Blanket and I don't have anything else on the needles right now because I wanted to make sure there was no other knitting distraction. Part of the reason why I was able to get so much knitting time in was because the husbands were brewing a double batch (20 gallons) of beer which thankfully takes a while. And even better ItShe was so generous in making all the meals we ate on Saturday and I didn't have to do anything. Which is why the marathon knitting day of over 12 hours was so successful. All I need to do it block it out, pack it up and mail it out to my old boss Ken and his wonderful wife Betty.

I don't know what I will cast on for, maybe a sweater with the yarn I got at Stitches West, or that shrug I've been wanting to start, or Vivan caught my eye, and of course I need a pair of socks on the needles at all times. So many patterns so little time.

It's Not a Sprint . . .

2009-04-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

. . . it's a marathon.

This weekend I made some serious progress on my Hemlock Ring Blanket which is really good since this project has been a "in progress" since last December. The phrase "in progress" is sort of misleading in this case it should have been categorized as "just sitting". But ItShe and I got some serious knitting time in Saturday and then I got to work on it again for most of Monday while Big A was working on his car on Monday in Riverside.

The blanket is now to big to be able to take a picture with it laid out flat, but if I were knitting a gigantic jelly fish made out of wool this is what it would look like.

I was able to get 6 repeats done, and now I only have 4 more repeats to go until the very long cast-off.

Going Rogue

2009-04-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

I finished my Rogue Roses Socks from the second installment of the Rockin' Sock Club 2009. When I got my shipment I was excited because the pattern was created by no other than the Yarn Harlot. I read the dyers notes and the little blurb that Stephanie wrote about how she was inspired by the 110 year old climbing rose bush outside her bedroom window that when "rogue". I love that fact that the pattern mirrors each other it makes it easier to have a dedicated left and right sock. The colorway (called Gertrude Skein, hysterical) isn't one I would have chosen but I like it. The only problem is that the medium weight (while faster to knit) is hard on my hands.

Here are a few pictures of my new socks:

Happy Terrier Day!

2009-04-14T14:20:00.001-07:00

Today April 14, 2009 in The City of Boston is officially Terrier Day.

I would like to thank Lindsay's former boss, Mayor Menino for the proclamation that he signed that makes today Terrier Day. I'm a proud alumna of Boston University home of the 2009 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Champions and having it be Terrier Day is amazing. I wish I could have been there today to watch the Duck Boat Parade and rally at Marsh Plaza in person. The church in the background is Marsh Chapel, where I got married in '03, its never looked more BU-tiful!

So what's with the "Burn the Boats?" here is an excerpt from The Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy to help explain:

All season long, BU players wore T-shirts emblazoned with "Burn the Boats."

After the game, Parker explained the theme. It turns out the 16th-century explorer didn't want to hear any whining from his men as they invaded what is now Mexico in search of Aztec treasures.

"The last night going inland to get the treasure he gave one last order and that order was 'burn the boats,' " said Parker. "They asked him why and he said, 'I want to raise the level of commitment. If you want to get this treasure, you have to raise the level of commitment because nobody else can do this.' His quote was, 'If we're going back, we're going back in their boats.'

"We decided that was going to be the theme for our team. Raise the level of commitment, boys. Every time you see the phrase 'burn the boats,' you're going to know the commitment needed here. The T-shirt showed a pot of gold with DC in the back. They got that pot of gold tonight."

Coach Parker wanted each guy on the team to be more committed to the goals of the season and to the team and once you "burn your boats" you have to be committed, no turning back.

I would like to thank the hockey team for bringing home the second National Title home to Comm Ave since I've been a Terrier, words cannot express how much that final game meant to every member of Terrier Nation. And to Jack Parker, I wish I could find a better phrase than "thank you" to express what you have meant to me and BU.

BURN THE BOATS!

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

Today was nothing short of amazing for many reasons here are the top four:

4. It is Bobmas (this will be the last knitting reference in this post)
3. It is my favorite baseball player's birthday Team Captain for the Boston Red Sox Jason Varitek (happy birthday Captain)
2. The Red Sox won this afternoon at Anaheim

And the number one reason why today was amazing is my alma mater Boston University Men's Hockey Team won the National Championship in over time.

I will post more about this tomorrow (and what the title of my post means) but here is a blurb from the The Terrier Hockey Fan Blog that I liked.

The championship game win--by the numbers:
• The win was the 35th of the season, setting an all-time Terrier record.
• It was also BU's 45th game of the season, another record.
• And it gave the senior class an even 100 wins over four season.
• Parker became the first Division I coach in history to earn 30 NCAA Tournament victories, passing crosstown rival and contemporary Jerry York of Boston College, who has 29.
• The victory was also BU's first and only overtime win during a season in which they were ranked #1 for much of the year.
• BU won six tournaments this season (IceBreaker, Denver Cup, Beanpot, Hockey East Tournament, NCAA Regional, Frozen Four) and seven titles, the seventh being the Hockey East regular season title.
• The Terriers remain undefeated in games in which Nick Bonino scores at least one point (25-0--3)
• Freshman netminder Kieran Millan extended his record away from Agganis Arena to 16-0-1. BU finished the season with a 17-0-2 record in its final 19 games away from home.
• Colby Cohen's NCAA-championship-winning goal was the #1 top play on ESPN SportsCenter. Bonino's tying goal was #3.
• BU has now played in 10 national championship games and has won five times (19771, 19772, 1978, 1995, 2009)

Cupcake Love from Ravelry

2009-04-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BOBMAS EVE Everyone!

Last year ItShe, Grape and I went to The Grove to celebrate Bobmas and I made cupcakes. And today on Ravelry there was mention of what kind of things people did to celebrate last year. Here is a screen shot of the homepage of Ravelry:

If you click on the link that says cupcakes it was a picture that someone took of the cupcakes that I made last year. I was so honored and proud that the cupcakes that I made were on the homepage of Ravelry.

Here is a picture I took last year, you can see more of the front of each cupcake:

Also how cute is that picture of Bob? And of course a special thanks to everyone at Ravelry for a site that had made life so much better, I can't express how great the site is and how much it means to all of us. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Hold My Mail Please

2009-04-01T15:49:00.001-07:00

*WARNING SPOILER FOR ROCKIN' SOCK CLUB in this post*

Last weekend was a big one for Big A. Last weekend was Spring Festival the biggest most important car show of the season. I won't go into it but it was fun and Big A's car got to be in "Horse Power Alley", which is a huge deal. We had our mail put on hold since we were going to be gone from Thursday until Sunday. And when we got back I had 3 fiber-y things in the mail.

You might have also notice that I have a counter on the top of my blog. I'm trying to knit out of my stash so I thought a little cute counter would keep me honest, I put it up there after Stitches West. I have had to re-start it only once so far and I consider it to be an exception because JanaA on Ravelry sold me a skein of Strange Little Mama to replace my lost sock. You wanna know the best part? The skein she sold me is from the same dye lot. The same dye lot I purchased almost 2 years ago. It's a fiber miracle. Here is a picture:

The second thing that came in the mail was my second installment of the Rockin' Sock Club. This shipment is out of my color palette but the pattern is from the wonderfully talented (and funny) Yarn Harlot. The colorway for this shipment is called Gertrude Skein, very funny, and the pattern is called Rogue Roses. I casted on last night with this little voice on the back of my head saying it looks a little big, the voice was right, I'm frogging later. Here is a picture of the installment:

The last thing is one of the best, I traded a skein of Wollmeise sock club yarn. Yes I did, but I traded it for Wollmeise in a colorway I have been coveting since the day I discovered Wollmeise. This shipment came with two skeins of yarn, Orient and Okzident, here are pictures of each.

I traded the Orient (the orange one) for Krauterbeet which is "herb garden" in German. It is the most perfect green that blends into the the loveliest purple. It might look like the Okzident above, but it's not.

Those Are Some . . .

2009-03-23T13:35:00.000-07:00

. . . Damn Sexy Knee-highs!

I took these picutures myself so they aren't the best or frankly all that flattering, but this is what happens when there is no one else around to take pictures. I told ItShe that taking pictures of knee-highs while wearing them should be a new type of yoga.

I finished these in 12 days, but it was so exciting I couldn't stop. I knit the pattern as written. There are several mistakes in them (but really I could care less) but it's not the patterns fault, that would be the knitter's fault. But the pattern was great, the charts were wonderful.

I seriously want to make every single skein of Wollmeise into this pattern, it is taking a good amount of self restraint not to break-out the swift and crank away.

I been looking for the perfect pair of Mary Jane shoes for many years now. I wanted a pair that had a heel but not to high, cute not clunky, and comfortable. For a while I really thought that it wasn't going to happen and thanks to The Red Hot Knitter I found the perfect pair. They are Dr. Marten's, cute, heeled, not clunky, cute, and very, very, very, comfortable! I love them so much I got two pairs (thanks to Big A who bought one pair for me) black-silver and plain black! They show off hand knit socks wonderfully.

Finished!

2009-03-22T21:17:00.001-07:00

I finished my knee-highs earlier today. I'm so excited. I will take some pictures tomorrow and post them up. But I had to shout it from the mountain tops that I finished the pair in 12 days!

If You Find Out Where All the Lost Socks Go Please Let Me Know

2009-03-21T15:53:00.000-07:00

It was bound to happen, but I was hoping it wouldn't. I have lost my first handmade sock. I took my pair of Vesper socks in Strange Little Mama colorway to Stitches West, I wore them and I think I brought them home, and now I can only find one.

So sad. I have torn-up my house for two days looking for the other sock, still can't find it. So I thought that I would hunt the yarn down and make another pair, the yarn it was made out of has been discontinued. So even if I wanted to make another pair I can't. So sad indeed.

Smitten

2009-03-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

I have always loved knee-high socks, there is something about them. Perhaps it was all those years living in Boston where you get so sick on winter you try to coax sping to show itself by putting on a skirt but it's still to cold to bear your legs so knee-highs are the answer. I have a collection of argyle (another addiction I have) knee-high socks but I have really muscular calves which really add to the problem of finding knee-highs that will fit me correctly.

So I decided to knit me a pair of knee-highs. But not just a "Plain Jane" pair because I wanted to finally break into my stash of Wollmeise. I have looked and looked for just the right pattern to show off just how gorgeous Wollmeise really is and to do justice to the yarn. Not to mention I wanted to use as much of the obscene amount of yardage you get in one skein, 575 yards, yes in one skein (for what she charges even with international shipping it's one of the best deals out there). I had casted on about 3 other sock patterns with Wollmeise but it just wasn't working so I frogged them all. Thank goodness for Ravelry (for many reasons) I was looking at what people had made with their sock club color Jultomte and jenniepoo made these amazing Lakeside's within the first second of seeing them I knew I had to have them.

The pattern for Lakeside is in the Winter issue of Knotions e-zine, it was free but I would have paid good money for this pattern. There are 5 different charts, very clear instructions and genius too! The designer Julia Vaconsin has you cast on with live stitches so you can make a casing for a length of elastic to be secured inside to help the sock stay up on your leg, genius I tell you. I also did a picot edge like jenniepoo (she is one smart cookie). The back of the sock is gorgeous (go look at the pattern page there are tons of pictures) but it is very difficult to get a great picture (that is close to flattering) of the back of a knee-high while wearing them. I know there are a few mistakes, but really I noticed them way, way, way to late to go ripping back to fix them, so I'm alright with them, normally I'm not the kind to let a mistake go but now they are "custom" lol.

Here are some pictures, more to come once I can find someone to take picture of the back of my sock.

The only problem is I have to knit the other one so I can wear them in public, but don't think I haven't been wearing the one I made around my house!

The First FO for 2009

2009-03-07T15:49:00.000-08:00

Sad but true, my first Rockin' Sock Club shipment is my first FO for 2009. Normally by this time of year I would have had few project completed but 2009 has gotten away from me big time. Most of the time I don't do any modifications to the sock patterns that I get from the club but this time I really wanted to do the Momoftwins toe mod which is to continue the diamond pattern. I really liked it and I think it looks pretty good.

But at least this year I finished the first shipment before the second shipment got to my house. I'm excited to see what the next shipment has in store for us. A lot of people on Ravelry were talking about yellows, and as much as I don't really care to wear yellow in clothing I wouldn't at all mind a bright sunny pair of yellow socks.

Well here are a few pictures of my lovely beaded blue socks.

I Learned A Lot , But Not How to Pronounce the Danish Word Skra-Troje

2009-03-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

But before we get to that I wanted to thank ItSheKnits, Grape, and socalknitgirl for their VERY generous birthday presents. They are remarkable, talented, and passionate women who showered me in so many birthday presents I had to bust out the second empty bag just to get it all home. Thank you all it was one of the best birthdays ever.

This year at Stitches ItSheKnits and I took only one class, granted it was a 12 hours class, but it was a great class. The class was the Danish Skra-Troje, yes that's right the Skra-Troje. Oh you don't know what a Skra-Troje is don't worry I didn't either. Basically it is a stranded color worked sweater that has a special gusset where the under side of your arm would rest if you held your arm down at your side. The class covers several techniques such as working with two different colors of yarn which are also two different weights of yarn. Making a half-gusset, a seam stitch pattern, working in the round and flat stranded knitting, two-end knitted braid, sew in sleeves, neck slit facing, and crochet ending. We tried our hands at some of the techniques while making a mini-version of the sweater.

The class was taught by the lovely and patient Beth Brown-Reinsel from Putney, VT. IF you ever have a chance to take a class from her I highly suggest it. Her handouts are wonderful and she has a great grasp on the historical context of what you are attempting to learn. She also did a huge amount of research on the original garment that was made and why she thought the original crafter made the decisions she did.

I had never done any color knitting and I really wanted to learn the technique for a while now. I have taught myself many different techniques before but I really wanted to learn from a highly qualified person and Beth was just that person. I have tried stranded knitting but could never really grasp it, I knew I wasn't doing it right, and it was really really ugly.

I would like to say that I did learn a lot and I think that I didn't do a half bad job considering it was my first project with two color knitting. Now before I show you a picture of my mini-sweater in progress (no I didn't finish it) I know that it is not perfect somewhere I got off in my chart reading. For this I blame the elderly ladies behind me who was counting and talking themselves through all the techniques out loud, very loudly right behind me (ask ItShe). But I'm proud of my little sweater in progress none the less.

Here is a picture of the back of the sweater:

Here is the picture of the gusset (which is the side view, the back of the sweater is on the left):

And the picture I'm most proud of is the inside of the sweater:

I know it seem ridiculous to be proud of the inside but trust me anyone that knows anything about knitting always flips it inside out, they might not do it in front of you but when you turn away they look. You can learn a lot about a knitter by the "private" side of a garment.

I really want to finish this sweater and hopefully I can get back to it before the information gets pushed out of my head. But now that I have all these techniques I can knit many more things, like this which I want to make, this which I have always had my eye on, and this which just come out in the latest issue of Twist Collective which I want to make into a rug for the side of my bed.

Stitches West Part II

2009-03-03T15:40:00.000-08:00

I promised pictures of the stuff that I purchased from Stitches West. I was trying to be very good and not spend a lot of money so I got 5 things, two of which were mill ends.

The first purchase was mill ends at Blue Moon Fiber Arts. I got 2 skeins; one light and one medium at a super deal, no wonder people kill each other to get their hands on mill ends. The only problem is that the skeins are hung on a display that hold about 8 skeins of yarn and if you want the one in the way back you have to get the other ones off first. The lighting wasn't meant to penetrate 8 skeins back so a color you thought you wanted finally emerged from the way back into the light of the Market to be something you didn't want and now have to put back on the rack. ItShe was brave and when for the yarn on the bottom of the display, I seriously thought she was going to get eaten alive.

Here is the picture of the lightweight in what I think is Dutch Canyon. The first time I saw this colorway it was a few years ago and I loved it. I have been keeping this colorway in the back of my head because I didn't have a need for it but always wanted it. The reason why I said I think it's Dutch Canyon is because the mill ends don't have a colorway on the label.

Here is a close-up of the same skein:

The second skein was medium weight in what I think is Puck's Mischief. I was so taken by the color (it's so me, seriously you will see why in a minute) and I couldn't tell what it was (no colorway on the label) that I bought it. When I got home I tried to figure out what color it was which is kinda of hard since not all the colors are on the site at the same time. So I was adding the newly acquired skeins to the Blue Moon section of my stash and I hold it up to the two skeins I have in heavy weight and what do you know they are the same colorway - Puck's Mischief. Oh well at least I got a great deal on it, it's in a different weight, and I'm consistent right?

Here is a picture, the darker color on the top is more maroon-ish in person.

Here is the skein up-close and personal:

The next thing I bought was a darning egg from Knitting Notions. They are a lovely family company from TN that makes all their own wooden fiber accessories such as swifts, pins, nostepinnes, wooden sock blockers, and darning eggs. I read about them before I left and wanted to check it out. I wanted an egg made out of cherry or mahogany and when I got to the booth there was only one left in mahogany so I bought it.

Here is a picture off their website because I ran out of light here to take a picture, mine looks like #1 not exactly but close.

The next purchase was from Creatively Dyed. I have got to know Dianne through the wonderful world of Ravelry and it was nice to meet her and her husband (who she calls Superman, and yes he is super indeed). I wanted to buy something that was sort of out of my comfort zone so I got fiber instead of yarn (for when I start spinning) and I got it in a colorway that reminded me of the beach and sea glass.

Here is a picture of the fiber, it's 20% milk protein, 20% silk, and 60% wool:

The last purchase was at Webs I wasn't going to get anything else at the Market but there were special circumstances that pushed me over the edge. Before I left home I got the latest copy of the Webs catalog, there were two projects that I really loved. One of them was the Taconic V-neck sweater made out of Valley Yarns Williamstown. I wanted to touch the yarn and look at the colors myself since a few of them look very close on my monitor. The yarn was softer than I expected and really a very nice tweed (I'm a sucker for tweed). I picked color #14, it's sort of a purple/maroon.

Here is a picture from the Webs catalog (sorry it's a crappy picture but it's the one that is on their website) it is a deep V-neck sweater with cables that run down either side of the v-neck and down the center.

Of course Webs has great prices and I like most of their yarns and of course it's something that I could have gotten at a later date but there were reason why I bought this yarn at the Market this year instead of waiting. One, a bunch of us girls did a big group buy so we could all get 25% off. Two I didn't have to pay for shipping. So I got a sweater's worth of yarn which would have cost me well over $60 for a less than $40 which I thought was a pretty good deal.
Here is a close-up of the yarn:

So that does it for the Stitches West '09 purchases. Later I will post all the wonderful birthday presents I got while we were at Stitches and a few free goodies too!

A Year Older and Hopefully a Little Smarter

2009-03-02T18:33:00.000-08:00

I personally think that it is a little gift from the universe that my birthday and Stitches West are very close to each other on the calendar. This year my birthday was on Tuesday and Stitches started on Thursday (really how lucky can one girl be).

This year it was the usual suspects (the OC girls) and a few new comers (Grape, Wendy, Denise, and Laura) and as always we had a wonderfully fun time. It is amazing how funny, talented, wise, and creative our little Stitches group really is. If only we could have that group together all the time, it would be the best!

This year ItShe and I applied what we learned from last year's Stitches West to this year's experience. We learned last year that eating 3 meals a day from a slightly swanky hotel adds up. We also learned that enjoying alcoholic drinks at said slightly swanky hotel REALLY adds up. So this year we checked into the hotel dropped our bags and headed out on the bus to the closest Trader Joe's. We stalked up on oatmeal, fruit, granola bars, yogurt, cheeses, crackers, egg white salad (super yummy), healthy "just add boiling water" rice stick noodle bowl soups and most importantly booze (many many bottles of wine and a bottle of champagne for mimosas). This allowed us to do two things, eat much healthier and save a huge amount of money. Lesson one learned.

Lesson two, last year we did the "Almost the Works" package, this left us with one time slot open, that is one time slot out of 8 possible time slots. This made it almost impossible to sleep (we got less than 16 hours of sleep in 4 days) hang out with our friends very late, and it was very exhausting(very fun but draining). This year we took 12 hours of classes as opposed to 24 hours of classes (which was also cheaper too). This allowed us to go to the gym (twice), sleep in on day two (which was key), hang out with our friends, and most importantly keep our sanity. Lesson two learned.

Lesson three, don't spend money just because you can. Last year we both stayed within out budget (we should be given an award for that alone) but both of our budgets were bigger and I think slightly more fluid (i.e. if we skipped on a few drinks we could move that money from food to yarn). But this year the main goal was to save as much money as possible on all fronts and that included the yarn budget. I still have a lot of what I bought at Stitches last year so this year I was very selective on what I bought this year. I added up what I spent last year without hotel, airfare and classes (because those are out of my control) so I compared this year's money spent on yarn and food and I saved $400.00. That's right 400 HUNDRED dollars and I saved far more calories as well. Lesson three learned.

Lesson four get in line at the Market early. Last year we got in line early (we waited almost an hour) but the Market opened later in the day. This year the market opened at 5pm and we were the FIRST people in line (pretty cool actually). There were people who were sitting in the chairs close to the Market area but we were the first people at the door waiting. I think the combination of the market opening early, people in class till 4:30, and the slow economy "helped" I'm sure. Lesson learned.

Lesson five, know where the good deals are and go there first. Last year we missed the mill ends at Blue Moon Fiber Arts because we didn't get there soon enough and by the time we got there it was a mad house and all the good stuff was gone. This year we were in line first (see lesson 4) and we went straight to Blue Moon. We were the mad house, but it paid off. Normally a skein of lightweight Socks That Rock cost $20, we got the mill ends for $12 (yes 12 bucks). I wish I had a bunch more money to spend on mill ends but I was trying to be very good at not spending money (see lesson three). But I did get two skeins, one of which I have been seriously wanting for over 2 years, and boy did I get a deal on them.

So this year I think we did a very good job of applying lessons that we learned from last year (go us!).

I will post pictures of my (very few) purchases and what I learned in class in the next few days.

Stitches West Rocked.

One to Go

2009-02-10T16:18:00.000-08:00

I finished my first sock from the year's first installment of the Rockin' Sock Club. Which is good because last year all I knitted was the last shipment. This pattern was great and since I don't knit two socks at a time I get to do it again (which I love). Did I mention I love this sock pattern and color, lol

I did the MomofTwins toe modification, which is to take the pattern in the center section of the foot all the all to the toe, very cute. I forgot to take a picture of it but I will when I finish up the pair.

This is just a little macro picture I took of something common but I loved the subtle shift in colors and the shape so I snapped a picture.

Just a Little Progress

2009-02-04T14:30:00.000-08:00

This is just a little progress picture of the latest sock from the Rockin' Sock Club. The pattern is great, I really love the look of the pattern and even more I really like knitting it. The colors of the yarn are wonderful, Blue Moon you did it again. I've never knit with beads before and surprisingly I don't mind it, and it really adds something special to the sock. So I learned that there are two methods to beading pre-stringing and using a crochet hook. The method that was recommended for this sock was pre-stringing the beads because you can set the bead between the stitches. I also got to try a new cast-on called the tubular cast-on. It worked great, super stretchy and it has a bit of knitting magic in it too. If you ever need a cast-on try the tubular method.

World Domination Has Begun!

2009-01-28T13:54:00.000-08:00

As previously stated I could not say no to this year's Rockin' Sock Club whose theme is World Domination Tour 2009. And today has reconfirmed the reason why I re-joined. First the designers this year are amazing, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Cat Bordhi, Cookie A., Melissa Morgan-Oakes, JC Briar, Ana Zilboorg and this installment is Sivia Haring. Second I wanted to join to expose myself to new things and new colors. And can I tell you that this month delivers.

The colorway is called "My Blue Heaven" and according to the Dyer Notes it is made up of sapphine, azure, colbalt, cerulean, indigo, turquoise, teal, navy, denim, cyan, prussian, periwinkle, and aqua.

The yarn is amazing the pattern is very nice and it includes beads, something that I have never done but was always interested in trying. This month we also got our standard mini-skein, a large oval sticker, the cover to a binder that we will decorate, a key chain, and a button, and of course the beads. Thank you Blue Moon!

In the Words of Carrie Bradshaw . . . . . . .

2009-01-09T15:54:00.001-08:00

. . . . . "Hello lover". I realize that when Carrie says it she was talking to shoes that cost her a month's rent. But I really love them and I have been stalking them for a very long time.

I have been wanting a pair of Fluevog shoes for the last 10 years (seriously its been that long). But these shoes are so expensive it's not even funny. So I would go to the website and just look at them, and check on them every month to see if they had gone on sale (they had but were still sooooo expensive). Checked and checked again for months and months and then they finally went on clearance.

And get this I got the last pair in the country, in the entire country people. How do I know I got the last pair? Here is the story, I originally wanted them in red, but I take an 8 1/2, but the red 8 1/2 was sold out so I ordered them in black. When you place an order on the website it goes to the brick and mortar store that has the pair of shoes you want, in my case it was Boston. When you order you can have them contact you to help you with sizing, which I did and they told me these shoes run small and to order a size larger. I asked if there was a pair of size 9 in red, the very nice lady in Boston (her name was Eleanor) said there was one pair left in the country and they were in L.A. at the Melrose store.

And they were just delivered, I'm so very very very happy. And many thanks to my brother who sent Christmas money that made these shoes possible. You will never know how much these shoe make me happy.

No Knitting Here

2009-01-05T15:03:00.001-08:00

Why is that you ask, oh because this has been getting the attention of all my free time.

When Life Gives You Lemons . . .

2009-01-04T13:01:00.000-08:00

The adage goes "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

But I believe that when your dad gives you 30 organic Meyer lemons you make limoncello. So that's what I did. It took forever to peel all of them but a bunch of lemon peels and 2 bottles of Everclear and in about 4 weeks we might have something yummy.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2009-01-01T12:59:00.000-08:00

Well 2009 seems to be really great so far and here are the top 10 reasons (in no particular order) why.

1. All of my friends and family are doing fine.
2. The weather is awesome (it's almost 70 degrees, bright sun shine and blue sky)
3. There is Center ice on Wrigley Field.
4. The Rose Parade was awesome as always.
5. Waiting for the Rose Bowl game, GO PENN STATE!
6. I can now play Guitar Hero in my own home.
7. I got Big A a really good Christmas present.
8. I got to sign up for the Rockin' Sock Club '09.
9. Basebal season is only 3 months and 5 days away (GO RED SOX!).
10. I'm looking forward to finishing my thesis and moving back to Boston.

We had a great Christmas it was just me an Big A, we had prime rib and Yorkshire pudding (and other stuff). Here are a few pictures.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T17:46:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! If you haven't read today's post by the Yarn Harlot you should. There are a million reasons to give. And hopefully there will be one million dollars of generosity to celebrate in 2009. I gave, please give even if it's a dollar, everything helps (click banner below to help).

Holidazed Indeed!

2008-12-16T13:59:00.000-08:00

I finished these a few days ago, but with the stormy weather we've been having I didn't have enough sun light to take a decent picture. However this morning there was some sun so I took a picture of my new socks Holidazed by Anne Hanson. It was the last installment of the 2008 Rockin' Sock Club (and the first on the club I have knit) the colorway is called Muddy Autumn Rainbow (I love it!).

And I also signed up for the 2009 club, the designers for next year's club sealed the deal for me.

Christmas Come Early

2008-12-14T13:12:00.000-08:00

While my friend JD was here on a visit we went up to Cedros Avenue Design District in The City of Solana Beach. It was a great time, there was all the shopping, all the galleries and there was even a farmer's market. We got some really fresh fruit and a great loaf of bread, roasted garlic and goat cheese, from Bread and Cie. Of course we had to shop at Leaping Lotus and I found these, Janice was nice enough to get them for me as part of my Christmas present. Needless to say there is no finer pair of slippers for a knitter that loves wool. Thanks JD you rock!

I Won the (Wollmeise) Lottery!!!

2008-12-11T15:20:00.000-08:00

If I don't write about this now I may never get to it and since it's half way over I thought I better get to it. I'm a very proud member of the very first Wollmeise sock club. There was a lottery and I signed up thinking that I wouldn't get in (don't do very well with lottery style things) but I was very excited to receive my invoice for the sock club. The details are these, there are four shipments each with it's own theme, in each shipment there are two different skeins of yarn, one pattern, and a few goodies. The yarn and the pattern will be available to the general public in a year (just like STR).

The first shipment came in September the theme was home land (Bavaria for Wollmeise) the colors and pattern was perfect for me. There is something about purple and green that I love more than words can express. The first skein of yarn is called Hollerstaud'n, which is elderberry bush.

The second skein of yarn is called Buxkranzl (box wreath), very green with it slight hint of brown. I think that I might have to make a forest canopy shawl with this yarn. It reminds me of the forests of New England.

The pattern that came with the yarn is called I Mog Di it was created by the wonderful Bockstark Knits (if you don't read her blog you should). I love the pattern and love the colorway too. I can't wait to cast on.

The "little extra in our first shipment was not little at all, it was a pair of sock needles from Holz & Stein. Words cannot begin to describe how lovely these needles are. They are made from wood that is used to make cellos I think the ones that I got were made of kingwood. An amazing present for sure. There was also a piece of candy marzipan coated in dark chocolate, not surprising there is no picture of it.

The second shipment just hit my door about 3 hours ago. This shipment's theme is childhood's dreams. The first skein is called Jultomte which I think might be Swedish version of Santa Claus.

The second skein is called Saami, it is called this because of the Sámi people (formerly known as the Lapps) are the indigenous people of northern Europe.
If I'm not mistaken the colors of the skein are a reflection of the colors and hues of the clothing of the Sámi people.

The pattern for this shipment is wonderful, it is called lille bror (little brother) and was created by Yarnissima (I love her patterns and kits). It's great and and I can't wait to make the Saami in this pattern.

In this shipment the little surprise was a small ball of worsted weight yarn with a tiny glass stitch marker I think that it's a pine tree with a red star. There was also I tiny metal cookie cutter (mine was a Christmas tree). It was great to unwind and find something lovely and now a have a little bit of worsted weight to make mini-mittens for my Christmas Tree. There was also a tiny package of Haribo gummie Christmas packages very cute indeed.

So I think that is it, we are half way through the club year and I wish it could go on forever! Thank you Wollmeise I love each and every package, skein, surprise and colorway.

With a Little Help From My Friend

2008-12-10T15:21:00.000-08:00

There has been a whole lot of crafting going on in the last few weeks. First of all I finished my Hemlock Ring Blanket (made famous by Brooklyn Tweed). This pattern was originally a pattern for a doily but made on 10 1/2 needles and with Cascade Ecological Wool (which I HIGHLY recommend, 478 yards for 15 bucks, in many lovely natural shades of wool). I choose the colorway Latte (used 2.5 skeins), and I love the way it turned out. Here is a picture of the blanket on a queen size air bed.

And here is a close up of the center and one of the feather and fan sections.
A big thank you to ItShe for letting me block this at her house on the extra bed (we don't have the room to block it at my house and we don't have an extra bed either). The wonderful things that knitting friends will do for you. She even set of multiple fans in the room to help circulate the air. Thanks ItShe you rock!

Then three friends decided to have babies in the last 3 months (must have been a cold winter in Boston last year). So in order to celebrate their arrivals I made initial painted fabric silhouettes and ones-ies. The instructions for the silhouettes are here, from Martha Stewart of course. I have made over a dozen of these and have loved them all. Here are the basic steps, you get a canvas, get fabric staple to frame, paint it with decoupage glue, then let dry and then paint on it. Here is an example of one I made last week:

Another Martha Stewart craft that I made was the appliqued onesies found here these are also really cute. here is a picture of one of the 8 I made:

My good friend JD who I met in college came to town to soak up some sunshine and take a break from law school. Not only did she learn how to knit, but was so good at knitting she started (and half way finished) a wonderful scarf made out of Rio de la Plata in a nice celery green kettle dyed (half off might I add). She took to it immediately, a natural knitter I tell ya. She was also looking for a really nice winter hat while she was here (in San Diego) needless to say she couldn't find one so I made her one, here is a picture of the hat
I have one last thing, I actually cast-on my first pair of socks from the Socks that Rock sock club fro the year. Very exciting, love the color and the pattern. Pictures later.

Wollmeise is in das haus!

2008-11-24T22:54:00.000-08:00

Now that ItShe and Grape (finally) have their birthday presents, it's time to unleash the parade of Wollmesie that has made it's way all the way from Germany to my house. There is nothing more I say about the Wollmeise that hasn't already been said, the colors are amazing, the intensity, the saturation, and the combination of colors are beautiful.

Let me say that I stalked and stalked and stalked and was finally rewarded. I don't want to tell you how may hours and how many times I tried, but let's say it was totally worth it, partly due to the fact that I could gift some to ItShe and Grape. I have had the extreme good luck of snagging some Wollmeise twice from The Wollmeise herself.

The first shipment was August 8, 2008. I had done my "homework" and found out that in order to get the most out of the higher shipping cost from Germany (which is exactly what Germany charges the Wollmeise) you should either order 2 skeins (for the small envelope) or 5 skeins (for the larger envelope). The thing about the updates are if you don't figure out what you want quickly you yarn can be bought out from under you by another fan of Wollmeise. I wanted to get 5 skeins so I spent some time on the website and found the colors I wanted for Grape, ItShe and myself and stalked. I got the skein I wanted for each of them.

Grape got Poison No. 5 (dark intensity) here is a picture of it:

ItShe got Rhabarber (light intensity):

I got Am kalten Polar (medium), Lowenzahn (dark), Miss May(medium):

The next time I caught the update on August 22 by pure luck I wanted more than a few skeins of Versuchskaninchen 1 (medium), and I happen to stubble across some 5 skeins of it. Here is a picture:

There is one more thing, I signed up for the lottery for the privilege of getting to be part of the first Wollmeise sock club, and the lottery gods were smiling on me, I got in, I'll show you later.

When Last We Left This Blog

2008-11-20T13:14:00.001-08:00

I had just came back from a Mediterranean cruise, it was wonderful and it seems like lifetimes ago, seriously. It was a fabulous time there is no way to sum it up, but I look over 1700 pictures if that gives you a clue.

So much has happened this summer but let's get to the knitting. First the FO's. The last thing on this blog was the Rivendell Socks from The Eclectic Sole (great book). It was a great pattern and the little rings were something I had never done before. They have been done for a while, here is a picture:

The next FO is my Italian Jaywalkers, I started these on the cruise ship and finished them on the ship. They are great an always remind me of darting in and out of traffic in Rome (which was crazy). Andiamo!

The next FO is my pair of Lite Brite Crusoe socks. Normally I knit a pattern the way that it is written but this time I change the top (I like ribbing on the top of my sock) and thankfully I looked up the pattern on Ravelry and saw that people were having sizing issues so I increased it to 60 stitches (the pattern calls for 48 stitches for the larger size). I really love the yarn, it's by Perchance to Knit in colorway Vintage and I (heart) it big time, I love the bold and different shades of familiar colors. Here it is:

That picture is really dark here is a better picture of the yarn: That's a much better picture.

I loved the pattern so much because it's great to break up pooling in hand dyed yarn, I decided to make my best friend Lindsay a pair for her birthday and to celebrate her running the Chicago Marathon. She is awesome, she finished in 4 hours and 38 mins, this is truly a feat I cannot even imagine. That same night she got engaged, very exciting. So I found the perfect yarn for her, it's called Lower Wacker Drive by Yarnzombie Gaslight Dyeworks. Lower Wacker Drive is a famous street in Chicago and it's a very important part of the movie Blues Brothers (which has a special place in Lindsay's heart) so it was perfect for her. Here are the socks:

The last FO is the Katarina Sweater from cocoknits, it was a great knit, fast, wonderful and lovely, the problem is I don't have a half decent photo of it. I have to get someone to take a photo of me wearing it so you can see it better, and it's black so the hope of me taking a good picture without me wearing it is hopeless. But here is the least crappy of them all:

O.K. so that I think that's it for FO, I have two projects on the needles right now, but I will save that for another day.

When This is Your View from Your Cabin Why Come Home?

2008-07-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

Seriously, why would you come home? Well there are a few reasons; one I ran out of Euros (damn that conversion rate), two I missed my husband, and three . . . well there isn't a three. Did you look at the picture?

Well there was a good bit of shopping, but I don't want to post pictures before the people I shopped for get their goodies. But there was yarn, food, and lots of postcards. My favorite place was Venice (pictured above), and the food remarkable, the house wine even better, and having gelato once if not twice a day is the way to go, trust me.

I finished my Jaywalker pair of Italian flag colored socks, and started the France/Croatia socks, so at least I got some knitting in there. Pictures to follow.

Leaving on a Jet Plane . . .

2008-06-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

. . . in 30 hours I will be in Rome! I'm taking 4 pairs of sock yarn with me on my trip. What's that? Yeah I know it's WAY too many projects, but I bought my 6 skeins of Regia Nation Colors sock yarn more than 8 months ago and I plan to take the yarn my vacation so it can soak up the air in each country, so when I come back home and knit it I know it took the trip with me (silly I know but it will make me smile).

So I have red and orange for Barcelona, Spain. I have red, white and green for Rome, Naples, Venice, Florence, Pisa and Sicily. And I have red white and blue for both Cannes, France and Dubrovnik, Croatia. It's all the same yarn basically (wide stripes of color not my favorite but it works so well) so in order to break it up I'm bring I'll Call You from Politically Incorrect (really such a treat, I can't wait to cast on).

So Ciao I'll return July 11!

Love At First Sight

2008-06-14T12:08:00.000-07:00

You know it when it happens, you see it and know that you are falling hard. This is what happened to me when I saw Politically Incorrect Yarns and Fibers website. The yarns and fibers are dyed by a super talented woman named Chris whose colors are nothing short of amazing. The intensity of her color are striking and the color combinations are truly beautiful. Sometimes with hand-dyed yarn you get parts that sometimes do not take up dye and you get some white through. But this yarn is fully saturated color with intense color and brightness, no muddiness at all. Here is a picture of the first skein that I ordered, the colorway is called "I'll Call You" gorgeous right? On the website "I'll Call You" was only available in a DK weight but I convo'ed Chris and asked it I could have it 400 yards of fingering to make socks out of and she generously agreed to dye it for me. Seriously go get yourself some of this NOW, before it ends up like Twisted Fiber Arts (how I long for the Etsy days gone by).

There were also a ton of extra goodies that came along with the wonderful yarn; two cards of the picture that is one the yarn label (the Mona Lisa with "funny glasses" with knitting in hand), a personal card from Chris, a pencil, a small spiral notebook, and lovely stitch markers. See?
super nice of her to send all the extra goodies.

So if course when I saw how wonderful this yarn truly is the moment I was done looking at it I went back and ordered to more skeins in "He's Just Not That Into You" and It's All About the O", I love the names she has for her colorways.

I also order a skein of Rio de la Plata from The Loopy Ewe, I'll show you when it gets here. I also ordered a skein of Red Sox Red in sock yarn from the Marta Vineyard Fiber Farms (of which I'm a shareholder). Needless to say there has been some online shopping going on lately.

Rivendell Sock Progress

2008-06-07T23:39:00.000-07:00

I'm not a Lord of the Rings fan but I really like this pattern. I pre-ordered the book and there are 3 other patterns I can't wait to cast on. I love the rings at the top of the sock (Janel Laidman calls them clusters) they were a bit of a problem for me, but once I understood how they are formed I got the hang of it. The chart is easy to read and I like the way it's turning out. I saw this pattern when Yarn Harlot finished them for her friend Denny in a lovely purple color (eggplant). I purchased J.Knits yarn in colorway Boston. It is very similar in tone and depth that the Harlot's yarn was, but I don't know if it's showing the pattern very well. The other thing is the yarn in places is splitty. I think this might be the kind of project that is a bit difficult to photograph well, sort of like my Koolhaas hat. The texture isn't easy to capture but I can tell you in person the pattern is a little more clear. Just like my Cables and O sweater I LOVE the twisted stitch they look so great.

Here is a close-up picture:

I'm done with both charts and with the heel so it's pretty much decreases, the twisted stitch pattern and the toe. Oh yeah and then doing it all over again for the second sock, but the dreaded SSS hasn't been a huge problem for me.

A WIP . . . nope make that a FO!

2008-06-04T09:28:00.000-07:00

It was a WIP for a very short amount of time, about 20 hours maybe. This is my new Koolhaas hat, the pattern is by the very creative Brooklyn Tweed. The pattern was inspired by the architecture of Rem Koolhaas. For those that aren't familiar Koolhaas a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and "Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design" at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. This picture is a picture of Seattle's Central Library this space is what inspired Brooklyn Tweed's pattern:
I would say it's a great reflection of that space.

The pattern requires a lot of 1 stitch cables and since I have wanted to learn cabling without a cable needle I thought this project would be a great time to learn since it was a small project and the yarn was easy to tink/rip. There are a few ways to cable without a cable needle but I liked Grumperina's the best, the pictures were clear the directions solid and it was nice to see that it just wasn't shifting the stitches. After the first repeat I was off and running, the pattern was really nice, it was easy to follow and once you knew what it looked like you could easily follow without much looking at the pattern.

I dropped a needle size instead of knitting with 6 and 8 I knitted with 5 and 7, I wanted a bit of a heavier fabric and reading what people said on Ravelry (thank goodness for Rave) dropping a needle size with worsted seemed to be a good idea. The yarn I used was part of my wonderful Christmas present from ItShe from last year. It's merino and 30% possum, yup possum, the yarn is wonderful perfect for the hat and I only needed 1 skein (so I still have 1 left), the color is great and I can't wait to wear it in Beantown when the weather gets cold.

Tuscany Finito!

2008-06-02T18:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a close-up:

My Tuscany for my mom is finally finished. I think I have figure out a little something about lace and I. I like it sort of. I know very decisive. I like the initial excitement of learning the pattern and seeing how it forms, but I don't really like all the repeat, but I do love the end blocking (really love it). So I think I might have to move to more complicated lace projects. Things that change panel by panel maybe. I love the look of the all the shawls that Guilty Pleasure knits perhaps in the near future I can tackle the Print O' Wave Shawl by Eunny Jang.

The details of the project are I used 2 a skeins of Handmaiden Seasilk (not cheap but well worth it) and my new Addi Turbo Lace Circular in size 5. The shawl will be a thank you present for my mom for taking me on a cruise to the Mediterranean. I knew I wanted to use the Handmaiden Seasilk because it is made out of sea cell (cruise on the ocean seaweed connection) and I chose the color Capri because we will be traveling close to the island of Capri and my mom really likes the color blue so it worked out well. The shawl is 75' x 55' so it's a nice size.

But anyways this is the last WIP I had, how is that you ask you had Big A's long over due sweater and the Twisted Flower Sock by Cookie A. O.K. I didn't have enough yarn to finish the first sweater that I started (which was within the first 6 months I learned to knit). Which leads me to the next problem I found the once "challenging" pattern super boring. So I told him I would attempt to knit him Na Crag by Alice Starmore (you know I love him now) we have been together for 11 years (married for 4) so I think I'm well outside of the sweater curse.

Twisted Flower was frogged a while back, I liked the pattern and the yarn but after Tuscany I'm giving lace a break for a while, I will get back to it, but since I frogged it it's not a WIP.

So of course this means that I don't have any, that's right no WIP's !!! Yippie! That is until 2 seconds after I publish this post, I have 2 projects I want to start.

And We're Back

2008-05-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

So sorry it has been a long long time since I have blogged, where should I start? Well I think the best place would be a short re-cap. Let's see there wasn't much of any knitting getting done around the end of the semester (that almost killed me). But I'm finally done with my course work (I won't have homework for the rest of my life!) and now it's on to my thesis in earnest, honest. There was a bit of knitting but no finishing, but now I'm proud to announce that there have been six finished projects since I last posted and 3 were finished in the last 3 days.

Let the FO parade begin!
First FO: Jelly Bean socks, so this is such a sad story, I started these socks somewhere around 2002/3? We moved from Boston to San Diego and I shoved them in with non-knitting and had totally forgotten about them. I recently found them and finished them.

Second FO: Nutkins, fun pattern with a mock cable and knit up in one of my favorite sock yarns Cherry Tree Hill Supersock merino in colorway Martha's Vineyard. The sock pattern was interesting because it was my first sock with no decreases. It has a interesting heel and toe (you use the same pattern for both) and you don't decrease the sock pattern (good I guess for patterns you don't want to mess up with decreases.

Third FO: Amy's Comforting Jail House Rock Socks, my friend Amy from college (who is a cancer survivor) dad was battling cancer. I knew I couldn't fix it or make it better but I knew I could knit her something. I decided on socks in my regular "vanilla pattern", she has size ten feet, so you know I love her. The yarn is Socks that Rock in Jail House Rock, she is a HUGE Elvis fan.

Fourth FO: Red Sox Socks, these were started last season when the Sox won the World Series, I decided to start the other sock when the season started this year in hopes that the good luck from last season wears off on this season. Color stranding on the top (so not my thing) with an after thought heel that ItShe helped me with via email.

Fifth FO: Branching Out Scarf, this will be a thank you present for my Auntie Bonnie for all the hard work she has put into planning our summer European vacation. The pattern wasn't too difficult (when I paid attention), would be a good beginner lace pattern, and it was nice to have a purl row every other row. The yarn was really nice Lorna's Laces Sport Multi, in colorway Tuscany (perfect for our trip).

Sixth FO: Baby Bolero for my co-worker's baby that is due in two weeks. Luckily I had a skein of Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton in orchid because they don't know if it is a boy or girl. I decided to do the little heart pattern. I casted on and completely finished it (I sewed it together and even blocked it) all in the same day.

So I went from having 5 WIP to only 1, my mom's Tuscany Shawl, which I worked on last night even after starting and finishing the bolero. I can't wait to be done with it, I started with one repeat and now I'm up to 26.

HAPPY BOBMAS!

2008-04-11T14:19:00.000-07:00

Happy 1st Birthday Ravelry! Last night ItShe, Grape and I celebrated at the Grove in North Park.

It is such an important day, and something of great importance needs something special to celebrate with, so I made these:

. . . is there anything better than knitting, cupcakes and Ravelry? I don't think so!

Stitches West 2008: Part I

2008-03-05T17:33:00.000-08:00

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I will warn you this post is long the yarn pictures are towards the end.

First off, I was so excited to be going to Stitches West with ItShe. I was even more excited when Big A said that I could go and take some classes (super wonderful husband, that man deserves a sweater). So ItShe and I decided on some classes (more on that later) did our homework, packed our bags and headed to the airport at 4:45 am, yes before the sun rises.

We got to the airport (it was still dark) and through security without incident (not unlike Hawaii), and sat at the gate until they called our flight and our seating order-thingy (gotta love Southwest). Our flight was maybe 1/3 full so everyone could have an entire isle to themselves, we taxied for what seemed forever, I swear we were in Orange County before we took off. Finally the plane took off and we landed in San Jose about an hour and a half later.

I had done some research before and figured out that we could take the bus and light rail to get to our hotel. It cost us $1.75 so we didn't have to rent a car or pay for a $25 cab ride (more money for yarn). We got to our hotel and checked in at 9:15. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara, it was a very nice hotel but the best part was that it was attached to the convention center. We dropped our bags and went to the Opening Ceremony program. The program was all about socks (one of our favorite things!) Cat Bordi, Lucy Neatby and Sandi Rosner all spoke. It was very interesting, Cat talked about her new architectures and how they differ from all other socks. Lucy talked about her first very cool and colorful sock and how she thinks about color. And Sandi talked about an entralac technique with self-striping sock yarn.

Then we had a luncheon, the food was actually good for hotel food (hummus and pita, Greek chicken skewers and a very good multi-grain rice nut mixture). Then off to our first class Don't Fear Lace with Debbie Radtke. The first part of class was how to read a chart, which we knew, but she went over an edging technique that was very nice and useful. It was very helpful for me to see the technique in person. When it comes to knitting I do much better if I can see it in motion.

Class ended at 4:30, then it was off to the Ravelry party. It was so cool to finally find some knitters our age that didn't have a tapestry bag with cats on it (not that there is anything wrong with it). We stayed there for a bit (it was super cool to see Casey and Jess) and then back up to the room to drop off stuff and get "ready to rumble" I mean shop. The market opened at 7 and we had 3 hours to shop.

ItShe and I knew that we wanted something to eat so we decided to grab some sushi to go so we could stand in line for the Market. Let's just say the sushi was good, it wasn't super expensive but it took forever considering that not one piece of it had to be cooked (over 40 mins of waiting). Once we got our food it was off to stand in line behind 150 people that were already there. While we waited in line the group in front of us started to chat with us. They were from the OC and we got to chatting but we were interrupted by the Market opening.

Now I knew I wanted all the Ravelry swag a girl could ask for, and I also knew that I wanted a Passport, they were only giving out a certain number per day and I wanted one. So that's the first booth I hit, I grab ItShe and I a passport and then bought a bag, a Bob head pin (I LOVE IT!). Here is a picture

Here is the picture of my Ravelry Passport and Bob Sticker

After the Ravelry bag was secured and Passport in hand we went shopping. It might have been the best fiber shopping opportunity that I have EVER had! There were over 250 vendors there there were a lot of things to see but I never felt overwhelmed just underfunded (hahaha). ItShe had a great idea of only getting things that we couldn't get on line or could never find (that ItShe is so smart) or just had to have. We also thought that doing most of the shopping Thursday night when there was far less people there was the way to go (and it was). So with map in hand we were off shopping.

We weren't allowed to bring cameras into the Market (sorry no pictures) but here is what I bought on Thursday night.

First up the bag I have had my eyes on for some time, it's the Knitter's Satchel by Jordana Paige, I bought her very first black bag she offered (at the time it was the only one) and I loved it and have been looking for another one of her bags since. I really like that snap closure and the pockets and all the stuff I can put in it.

Second Interlacements Tiny Toes, the same people that make Toasty Toes:

Third Shibui sock yarn 100% super soft merino in color Jewel which the website describes as Mulberry, Wisteria, Emerald and Wasabi (love the wasabi!).

Fourth KnitWhits Jewel Sock Kit, love the way this sock looks, and the yarn in the kit is Louet (which I love) I need to take a Fairisle class before I start this kit. The lady who owns KnitWhits was at the booth she was very nice and all her designs were wonderful. ItShe got a couple of things from there too, check them out.
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Fifth is some Claudia Handpainted fingering in Midnight. I kept seeing this yarn and picking it up over and over again, I must have picked it up at least 5 times and the price was good so I bought it.

Sixth Brooks Farms Primero which is 100% Kid Mohair, love it, so soft and very cool colorway (which I have no idea what it is, it wasn't on the label and there were only two skeins).

That was the shopping that we did in 2 hours and 55 mins (we had 5 mins to spare) not bad huh? After the market ItShe and I needed a glass of wine and some late night snacks (calamari and a crab cake). We were hanging out in the hotel lobby and the OC crew that we had met earlier was there too. So we hung out and chatted with them and knitted and drank until about 12:30, and then headed up to bed.

Presents from ItShe

2008-03-03T21:25:00.000-08:00

I know I have a ton of posting to do from Stitches but I first wanted to make sure that I posted some pictures of the wonderful Christmas presents and birthday present that I got from ItShe. They are so wonderful that they deserve a post of their own.

I got this book and I can't wait to make some of them, the designs are so me (if you don't know what the designs are you should go and look on Amazon) and I can't wait to get a stitching.

The second thing is this wonderful yarn that she got me for Christmas it's wonderful and soft and it's part wool and part . . . possum and merino. Pretty cool huh? And the color is great.

The last Christmas present that ItShe made for me was very proper tea cozy she used a melon stitch and made out of a tweedy maroon yarn. Very proper indeed, and to go along with my tea cozy a Brown Betty tea pot. It's one of the best gifts ever!

For my birthday present ItShe made me a wonderfully warm and beautiful handmade blanket. See I love it! As a matter of fact I'm sitting on my couch right now snuggled up in it writing this post. It's my go-to blanket! Thank you so much ItShe!!!

My Mom's Sercret Gift

2008-02-07T10:05:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a Tuscany Shawl for my Mom. Lace and I had a very difficult beginning, I attempted to knit a very complicated piece of lace very early in my knitting career. It was too much too soon and I didn't know how to correct my mistakes without ripping the entire project (so very frustrating and tear-inducing). So needless to say I have gathered a few more knitting skills and decided that I would give it another try. I knew that I wanted to start with something easy that had a purl row between every lace row. I found just that in Amy Singer's No Sheep for You book, which ItShe gave me as a birthday present last year.

The pattern is straight forward and since you add a stitch on each side every row progress is made every row (which is nice). Here is a picture of the lace pattern up close:

Here is a picture of the shawl at 5 1/2 repeats (I have about 8 1/2 done right now)

I decided to knit this with Handmaiden Sea Silk (not the Silken that was called for in the pattern) in color Capri and I'm knitting this on Addi Turbo Lace Needles size 5 in a 32" length.

There is progress being made in my knitting and school work (which is good).

Rockin' Sock Club First Installment

2008-02-05T22:17:00.000-08:00

WARNING THERE ARE PICTURES OF THE 1st INSTALLMENT OF THE ROCKIN' SOCK CLUB FOR 2008.

My very first Rockin' Sock Club installment has arrived and I must say I love it! I have a passion for the color red and after reading that Tina was overexposed to red as a child (and as a result doesn't really love it, hence the reason there isn't a lot of just red colorways in Blue Moon yarn) I'm even more excited and honored that she did different shades of red. I love red, my alma mater's colors were Scarlet and White, GO BU! So I was very excited to see the shades of red.

The colorway is called Dragon Dance and it's inspired by the red of Chinese New Year. The patter is called Serendipity by Adrienne Fong and it looks lovely, a little lace pattern and an interesting heel. I also ordered the binder which came with notes from the Dyer, a Sock Gauge Diary, a sock journal, how to measure your feet, a work area and a log of family and friends and their foot measurements. Of course the package also came with 2 buttons, a sticker, and the ever so cute and smile-inducing emergency sock yarn skein.

I'm so glad and very excited to be a part of the club even though I'm not casting on, I think I will try and wait till school is over and keeping the installments until I'm done will be a nice reward for me in the end. Let's keep our fingers crossed that I can resist.

Thank You Blue Moon, I love it!!!

Long Time No Blog, or if it's Tuesday it must be San Diego/Boston/Philly/Boston/San Diego/Hawaii/San Diego

2008-01-25T12:34:00.000-08:00

I have been so busy it hasn't even been funny. Let's just say I went to all of the places in the title of this post in about little over 2 weeks. So instead of recapping (trust me it would be to long of a post) all that has happened, let's just say that out of the 26 days in January I have been home for 11 of them. Craziness I tell you. Also in only 6 days I went from Boston where is was a balmy 0 degrees, to San Diego where it was about 65 degrees to Hawaii where it was a nice happy wonderful 75 degrees.
Here is a picture from the Hawaii vacation:

And during the 6 days I was home I also went to a workshop that Cat Borhdi was having at Common Threads to discuss her new sock methods, it was so much fun hanging out with Grape and ItShe all day in Encinitas knitting, trust me we had a great time.

One thing that hasn't changed is the lack of work on my thesis, I got so stressed out about it . . . it has sort of become this monster, but hopefully after my meeting with my Prof. on Monday I will at least have a plan of action, here's hoping.

Since I still have no idea where I am, what time zone I'm in or for that matter what city I live in (I mean San Diego verses Boston, sad I know), I will focus on knitting.

I have FINALLY finished socks for my mom (Socks that Rock in Lightweight Lucy, Jaywalkers) they are really cute and hope that she likes them. I also ordered her a mini sock blocker and I have already made her a mini sock out of the same yarn her big socks are made out of. Here is a picture:

I have also started another mystery project for her I started it while we were in Hawaii and I can't wait to give it to her. I will post about this when it gets a little farther along.

I got some great presents for Christmas this year and this is one of them. Let me introduce you to Sparkles the Peacock.

This is the perfect accessory to those that have the Knitcellaneous mini-sock blocker keychain, which ItShe got me for my birthday last year. The mini-socks were super addictive I never got around to knitting mini socks out of my left overs before but now I'm all caught up. These little sock were just what I needed, a small quick project to feel a large sense of accomplishment.

In total I made six socks from my left overs I had and then 2 more for thank you notes to ItShe and her parents for the awesome trip to Hawaii.

ItShe also got me very cool yarn it's part possum, can you believe it? It's very cool and I don't know what I'll do with it besides pet it (which I have been doing a lot of) but I will have to search Ravelry for a pattern. I also need to take a picture of it and post it and put in my Ravelry too.

That's all for now the next post will be the first Blue Moon Fiber Arts Rockin' Sock Club for '08 installment, and my mom's next present progress update.

I'm In!

2007-11-12T10:54:00.001-08:00

It is official, I'm a member of the 2008 Rockin' Sock Club. I know it's a lot of money but hopefully part of it will be my birthday present from my mom (keep your fingers crossed). I'm very excited I can't wait to get the packages and the new colors, but the thing that pushed me over the edge to sign-up was the designers, I can't wait!

I don't know if I will have time to knit them because I have procrastinated on my thesis (it would be great if it could just start/write itself) but I know I can stash them away and have something to look forward to when I'm finished, what a treat that will be.

I was nervous that I wasn't going to get in since I waited until the 6th to send in my paperwork but it looked like more than a few people did not renew their membership.

I can't wait to get the first package in the mail, mail-carriers watch out of Socks that Rock addicts!

A HUGE Stash Enhancement!

2007-11-07T10:20:00.001-08:00

For a very long time I was very good about not adding to the stash . . . but it seems that I might have caught the YarnHarlot's falling down and standing back up with purchased yarn, but in my defense I have been planning this for a while, and I purchased over a long period of time, it's my own sock yarn tasting.

This whole thing started with the acquisition of Vesper Sock Yarn, as previously stated I had been stalking this yarn for over a year and finally the correct planetary alignment took place (i.e. there was yarn when I checked her site) and so I bought me a skein. Then I was looking into investing in a sock yarn club the idea of getting yarn and a pattern in the mail was intoxicating. But I didn't want to invest that much money into something I had never tried (my justification techniques are amazing) and there were "brands" out there that I had wanted to try.

First up Socks that Rock lightweight in colorway Lucy, this is not new yarn but I wanted to make a pair of socks out of this for my mom for her birthday at the end of the month, and we used to have a cat that looked a lot like Lucy so I know she will love the colorway.

Second, Socks that Rock lightweight in colorway Dixie Chick, not something I would normally pick but as ItShe says it's good to go outside your "safety zone". I love how bright the colors are.

Third, Koigu KPPPM in colorway Eggplant Berry #527, I chose this to make me a pair of CookieA Monkey Socks with a picot edge, can't wait to cast-on.

Fourth, Red Rocks Fiber Works, in colorway Two Tickets, found this at Knitting in La Jolla, it was at the time exclusive to two or three shops in the country, I love her colorways and would love to get more.

Fifth, Scout' Swag in colorway Zulu Knitty, which I have coveted ever since it was made, love the colors.

Sixth, Yarn Pirate in colorway Culture Club, I'm a child of the 80's and this brings me right back to the days of jelly shoes and Garbage Pail Kids. This colorway is so bright I gotta wear shades, no seriously look at the pink it's so bright it reflecting off the beige chair, all on its own.

So after all this stash enhancement, I'm so excited I have such great yarns to choose from for the next few sock patterns, but what I think I really want is to be a member of the Rock'n Sock Club, by Blue Moon Fiber Arts, because frankly I have always been in love with their yarn and the 4 designers that have signed on this year might just push me over the edge. Stay Tuned!

Get Out the Broom!

2007-11-05T10:04:00.000-08:00

So that last time I posted the Sox were going to the World Series, we won on Wednesday and Thursday then it was off to Colorado for the Red Sox and off to Vegas for 6 days for Big A and me. First and foremost 6 days in Vegas went surprisingly well, we were there for SEMA (a huge car event) and it was nice to see people from all over the country from Big A's car club. Thankfully we did not spend a lot of time gambling, we went shopping, we went bowling (both hotels we stayed in had bowling alleys), ate a lot and hung out at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino bar. But for game 4 all of our friends indulged us by hunkering down for 4 hours to watch what we hoped was going to be the last game of the World Series (and thankfully it was, although it would have been so great to win it at home you take a win whenever you get it). I had started this sock the day before the Series and knitted on it a little bit for game 1 and 2, and not at all in game 3 (I was bowling) but kicked it into high gear for game 4. So here is my very lucky sock World Series Sweeping Sock:

It was the first time I had done color stranding in a sock (I didn't really love it, but it was cool) and the first time I did an afterthought heel (thanks to ItShe who told me how to do it). I think it came out to look a lot like the Boston Red Sox sock. I have started the second sock, and I have to start the pair that I'm making for my mother's birthday, I think they will be Jaywalkers with a picot edge.

We are going to the World Series!

2007-10-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

I will say that the Sox love to give you a hell of an ending, and the entire time the ALCS was going on I was knitting my Rocky Horror Picture Sock Show to distract me from throwing things at my TV. I tend to get very involved in watching the Sox play and this entire series gave me an ulcer (and I still have some from 2004) my stomach can't really take a World Series (nerves and stomach be damned, bring it on Colorado!)

So last night after watching the Sox and the Tribe battle it out in a very good game 7 (sorry Tribe, if it was anyone but the Sox I would have been pulling for you). I finished my sock 2 hours after the Sox won the American League Pennant. I really can't tell you much about it, actually I don't remember knitting most of it at all, the top of the first sock I remember and the middle of heel flap and turning the heel of the second one, but really I don't remember much of anything else because the game was on. I'm sorta nervous about playing the Rockies, they have a combined ERA of 2.08 . . . yes 2.08. Well hopefully Beckett will get us off to a good start come Wednesday.

Here are some pictures of the finished sock:

And in honor of the Sox going to the World Series I'm making pair of Red Sox out of Louet Gem because (being the good baseball fan that I am) I know that I knitted a pair of socks in the last series and we won so I have to knit a pair of socks this time too (supersition has its place, I don't want to make the Baseball Gods angry).

What's that Wally? You want to see my sock?

2007-10-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

This post is in honor of the Red Sox play-of game tonight at 7pm (EST), go Sox!

For those in the know you will recognize the celebrity posing with the two socks, for those that don't know this is Wally the Green Monster. Wally the Green Monsta (properly pronounced with a Boston accent) is posing with his new friends Lefty and Righty, who are mascot versions of the famous Boston Red Sox. And as a knitter and a sock knitter you gotta to love a team that has mascots that are socks, really it couldn't be better.

So here is my version of the picture above, this is my Wally the Green Monster only available from the Boston Build-a-Bear location (loving made for me by my friend and shipped across the country to me in the original box, you have to love that) with my Rocky Horror Picture Sock Show (in progress).

And I will close with a quote from Bull Durham "Hit 'em where they ain't boys!" GO SOX!

Stitch This!

2007-10-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

But in a slightly different way, ever since I have finished my Cables and Os I needed a bit of a knitting break, trust me after working 7+ hours a day for 4 days straight you'd need a break too. So this is what I have been stitching on, handmade pillowcases with hand embroidered messages for each recipient. I love to personalize gifts and this is no exception, each one will have a personalized message for the person that it will be given to, Christmas isn't that far away. The first one was going to be for me as practice to see it I was any good at it and to see if I liked freestyle embroidery (as opposed to cross-stitch, which I know I don't like, no offense to those that do, more power to you!). I knew I wanted to make it car-themed since oh so many of our car events start before 6 am and I always bring my pillow so I can attempt to catch a bit more sleep. So I found old-school pin stripping flames fabric at JoAnn's and decided it would say "Dreaming of more Horsepower" since the main focus has always been more horsepower. I was excited to start a new craft and told Big A all about it, after I explained it he said "I want one!", so the pillow became his and I had to find something else for me. Here is his:

And so I found new-school "fire" fabric for me and I came up with "Dreaming of a 6.4 liter Challenger" and this is how it came out:

So after a little practice I think I have a basic understanding of what to do. I want to add different kinds of stitches to my repertoire, but hopefully it will all work out. And it's so much faster than knitting, amazing what happens when you don't have to make the fabric. There are many more "dreaming" pillowcases to come, perhaps it will be the first in the series.

And on the knitting front, since my skein of Vesper Sock Yarn is here I might have to cast on for another pair of Jaywalkers. I know there are a ton of other things in my queue, but I just need a fix before I tackle Big A's sweater for the final time (damn that sweater). I knew that if I could ever get my hand on some Vesper that Jaywalkers were what I wanted to make with them since the stripe would be awesome. The colorway is Strange Little Mama, but it always reminds me of Rocky Horror (which I have always loved, and love to see "live") so that's what I'm calling them The Rocky Horror Picture Sock Show.

Happy Anniversary!

2007-10-04T14:23:00.000-07:00

(Photo Credit Suzanne Camarata)

Today is my 4th wedding anniversary, and this is what Big A got me! I'm so excited I asked for a nice camera but I wanted a small one that I could take with me without adding a lot of bulk or weight, and as always he did a super good job. Big A is really good at shopping for electronics and since he knows all about photography and cameras it was a match made in heaven.

I love it, it's so small and light, here is picture of it next to my Lantern Moon Sheep Tape Measure for scale (since most knitters know how big the tape measure is). It's great and it has a really big screen, and it's so slim. Now I won't have to take the big gigantic, super expensive, single lens reflex digital camera (that Big A got for his Doctorate graduation, which I'm always afraid I will break). I can't wait to take it to Wicked so I can take pictures of ItShe and I this weekend.

I have been stalking a certain sock yarn for over a year now, and this week I finally had the correct planetary alignment. I have been checking this website for over a year and I'm always 2 or 3 days late and there is never any left, but on Tuesday I finally got me a skein and it came in the mail today. Here it is, Vesper Sock Yarn, in Strange Little Mama, I love all her colorways, check it out here.

I few last pictures, here is one with the camera and my cupcake pincushion from Betz White. and one last picture of our wedding cake, I wish I was in Boston so I could got buy a slice (it was from Konditor Meister in Braintree) it was delicious as it was gorgeous!

Finished Cables and Os

2007-09-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

Pattern: Cables and Os, by Brooke Snow, No Sheep for You

Yarn: Queensland Collection Cotolino in Fuchsia

Yardage: About 1500

Needles: Knit Picks Options US size 2 and 4

Estimated Time: 6 months

Notes: I shortened the ribbing on the sleeves by an inch but besides that I did exactly what the pattern said

Finally! I loved this sweater pattern and I loved the yarn and I'm still not sick of it, but I didn't know if I was ever going to finish this sweater in time to wear it to Wicked next weekend, but I finished it a week early! I really enjoyed this sweater it was a very good pattern and the finished sweater it really cute.

I didn't change much of anything, all I did was shorten the ribbing on the sleeves by an inch. The only thing that I would say to anyone that is knitting this currently is when you count stitches make sure that if you are on a yarn over row that you don't count the yarn overs (it might be very obvious to some but hints never hurt).

Cancer Benefit, Yarn, A Piece of Home and LUSH-iousness

2007-09-25T21:32:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Big A and I went up to L.A. for a very cool car event called Cruise 'n for a Cure, it's the biggest one day car show and every single cent (no money is taken for administration fees) from the entry fee ($40 a car, and there were over 3,500 cars this year), the gate fees ($12 a person), and the t-shirt sales go to the UCLA Jonsson Conprehensive Cancer Center. We had a great time there were about 50 cars from Big A's car group so it was nice to see everyone, but I wished the weather would have been dryer.

And since we were in L.A. I (successfully) tried to get Big A to take me to Wildfiber in Santa Monica. It's one of my favorite yarn shops to visit (it was my second time) here is what it looks like (click to make bigger) The next time I go I would love to stay a while and knit. Wildfiber use to be owned by Mel Clark (author of Knit2) but she has sold it and move back to New Zealand. The store was just as wonderful as I remembered, light, lovely, and I love the way that the store is laid out. I saw on their website that they were carrying Socks that Rock I wanted to see what they had and was planning on picking up a several skeins. The knitting gods did not shine upon me, they only had medium weight, and I was looking for lightweight. So in order to appease the sock yarn craving I got this.
It's Ranco Multy by Araucania, it was hand-dyed in Chile and it really reminds me of Monet's Waterlilies, you can't see the green to well in the pictures but it's very similar to the painting, I'm glad I picked it up.

When you miss Boston there are a few places around town that you can go to to get your fix and one of them is Sonny McLean's in Santa Monica. If you are an ex-pat the minute you walk in you know exactly what this place is about; it's dark, there are multiply levels to the place, there is a no-frills attitude (wires hanging all over the place), there is a good sturdy bar that runs the length from front to back, the bathroom is old and has a strange tiny useless extra room with a small mirror (at least the women's did), there are pictures and references to all Boston Sports teams, and they served DUNKIN' DONUTS coffee (swear). It was a little slice of home, and the food was great Big A had fish and chips (of course) and I had a big bowl of clam chowdah it was one of the best I ever tasted. And of course the most prized possession of the day this
it's a t-shirt that's the front and the back says could it be any better?

The other place I got Big A to take me was LUSH. I fell in love with LUSH when I lived in Boston. It is a company that makes handmade cosmetics (not make-up, but more lotion/soap/shampoo etc) with a lot of organic/and or natural ingredients. This is a blurb from their website "We hand-make our cosmetics in UK, Italy, Canada, South America and Japan, in our own production facilities, so that every product available in our shops or sent to you by mail is as fresh as it can possibly be because fresh products work better and use fewer preservatives. Our aim is to have the youngest, freshest products in the history of cosmetics." They never do any animals testing and they sell their products, both in store and web, with as little packaging as possible. I love all of their products and the company's philosophy and mission, good all around!

I HEART Ravelry!

2007-09-20T22:24:00.000-07:00

I just got my Ravelry invitation yesterday, I was so excited, and for those who haven't gotten it yet don't worry it's totally worth the wait, and they are getting through the list. I know I wasn't one of the first ones, and I'm sure that there are many people who have said how wonderful the site it, but I would like to say that it is SO wonderful. It is also a sense of "hometown pride" because the two very caring and wonderful people, and one super-cute Boston Terrier (my alma mater's mascot) of Ravelry are based in Charlestown, MA! And since I'm an alumna of Boston University and lived in Beantown for 11 years and are hopefully moving back next year, I'm so proud! As soon as I saw the background in one of the pictures of the aforementioned super-cute dog I told my husband "that looks like a Boston apartment" and I was correct.

M first 24 hours with Ravelry has been awesome, I have added a few finished projects and transfered all my pictures from Photobucket to Flickr (which was a pain). One of things I really liked was adding all my books to virtual library, so now I know what I have an I can keep track of what I want (I can hear Borders thanking me now). But with all good things comes the (not really) bad, there is a place on Ravelry that is dedicated to keeping track of your Stash, that's right I said the "S" word. I have never ever taken out my entire stash and cataloged it, never. I know that my stash has grown over the years (I have been knitting for about 7 years now) both from an increase from starving college student income (I could only ever afford 1 skein) and because my interests in different kinds of knitting has expanded as my skills have gotten better. But today my friends not only did I take a picture of my ENTIRE stash in one place, but I took a picture of each and every ball of yarn in the stash so I can add each one to my little heavenly slice of Ravelry.

I know that for every knitter out there, there is a different kind of stash, and I believe that no one is right or wrong (and I know that this is a hotly debated topic). I do however strongly believe that you should "own it". I have always believed in honesty, if you are going to be a bitch, should should know it and own it. I may not always get along with every person but I respect them if they own it. So this is my "own it" moment. Here is the picture of my stash:

Now I don't know where everyone stands on the Stash topic, but there is mine . . . out in the open for everyone to see (and yes that is a corner of alpaca), and I'm owning it!

Happy Birthday Grape!

2007-09-19T20:55:00.000-07:00

You know how sometimes a hand-knitted piece finds its rightful recipient? I don't know if it has ever happened to anyone else but I have knitted this pattern a few times now and every time I think I'm making it for me but then someone else puts it on and it looks so fabulous on them you know that its found the person it should belong to. The first one of these I was knitting I really loved the yarn but it wasn't the best color for me. Then while I was finishing it ItShe put it on and she was jokingly thanking me for the time and effort I put into it, but as soon as I saw it on her I knew it should be hers. And then it happened again, I was working on the second one at the Stitch 'n Pitch in San Diego and Grape saw it and was so in love with the color of it, she was asking what the pattern was and that she loved it. Well I knew that she should have it for her birthday, and if I do say so it looks super fabulous on her as well, there is a picture of her in it on her blog here. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRAPE!

Here is a picture of it:

And here is the information:

Pattern: Monet's Water Garden Shawl/Scarf
Yarn: Trendsetter Tonalita
Yardarge: 400 (4 balls)
Needles: Size 10
Estimated Time: 3 months (but in actual time a week or so)
Pattern Changes: None
Notes: It was a quick and simple knit with a nice effect due to the drop stitches.

Cables and Os Progress!

2007-09-12T19:37:00.001-07:00

Oh yeah baby! Here is what my Cables and Os looked like a month and 3 days ago:
and since it was 288 stitches for each row it was still a mighty fine accomplishment. And as the Yarn Harlot says it is amazing how much knitting you can get accomplished if you work on a single project. It's so intoxicating I might try to keep the WIP's down to only one or two things (we'll see). So here is a picture of the sweater now:

Yes that is the back, the left front, and the right front all together in one piece, one fabulously finished piece. I wished I would have paid more attention to the twisted stitches because there are a few that are over twisted and a few that are not twisted, and since some of the ones that are not twisted are on the finished button hole band it's a bit annoying. But I'm trying to embrace the fact that this a hand-made article of clothing are there will be imperfections (I was just hoping that they would have been on the back were I can't see them). But I really feel a great sense of accomplishment that I have the entire body of the sweater done. Now all that is left is two sleeves, one button band, and a neck band and I will be done. I would love to get the sweater done so I can wear it when we see Wicked October 6th, hopefully grad-school work won't get in the way to much. Keep your fingers crossed!

Divide and Conquer (I hope)

2007-08-30T09:44:00.001-07:00

There is good news and bad news, the bad news is there hasn't been a lick of sewing accomplished since the last sewing update post. The good news is there has been a heck of a lot of knitting going on despite the hot weather (thank goodness for A/C). There has been a good bit of progress made since the last time I posted a picture of the wonderful Cable and O's sweater on the KAL for No Sheep for you. The last picture I had 4 repeats finished I felt pretty accomplished, 288 stitches per row is no small undertaking. I have finished 14 inches of the body, and the left front and I have made some progress on the right front (pictures in the next post I promise). This is the first time that I have knit the fronts and backs together, and I have to say that it took a lot of time and effort to knit the body and the two fronts together but once you divide the thing flies. Not to mention the fact that there will be little seaming since it's only the sleeves. There is however a button band, which isn't my favorite thing in the world, but it has to be done. Needless to say I haven't been working on anything else, you don't get this kind of progress knitting on 4 things at once. It's been a bit of a bummer not being able to switch off for variety but what I have lacked in choices I have made up for in progress. This is the first time in about 5 years I haven't had a sock on the needles either, scary but true.

On an academic note, this is the first day of the last year of school for me, I have pretty much gone to school continuously since I was 5 (there have been a few breaks but none were more than 6 months). I can't wait to be done, I have three more classes and my thesis and then I'm done. I would be freaking out but in the last two weeks everything has come together I have my thesis committee and my thesis topic so I really can't complain. Hopefully I will have time to get some knitting in too, but this next year is heavy on travel (can you believe it, finally) so hopefully I will get to do both!

Everything Rolled into One Weekend

2007-08-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

This weekend was chock-o-block full of hobby related things. First the fiber hunt we got an email from one of our favorite LYS Common Thread that they were having a yarn sale (yippie). So ItShe and I got on the train and went up to Encinitas to met Grape at the shop for the sale. We had to get the lay of land since some things were moved around do to the sale. The back room was filled with about 10 laundry baskets filled of fiber that was 30% off, some very nice stuff. I think that ItShe got some nice yarn to make leg warmer-ish thing with. If nothing in the back caught your eye not to worry your entire purchase was going to be on sale. Once you decided what you wanted you picked a balloon and inside each balloon was a tiny piece of paper that told you what your discount was (from 10% -50%). I will say that there were some serious discussion and very laborious decision making was involved for all. I was really proud of us that we took so much time to make sure we were getting things with a purpose not just because it was "on sale". And the big yarn news of the day was something that I think ItShe will tell you all about, let's just say it kicked the Koigu door WIDE open.

I decided to get two different things: the first thing was Austermann Step a sock yarn with aloe and jojoba in the yarn, and the second one was Cascade Quatro. The Step will be socks, I don't have a pattern in mind but I'm sure I will find one, if not my "vanilla pattern" with do just fine. The Quatro which was a really good deal, will be knee high socks, don't have a pattern either, but I will find one, the yarn is 4 ply: melon, green, magenta, and purple. I have been attracted to this yarn for over a year and never knew what I would do with it, but knee-highs are perfect.

Then the three of us went to the E Street Cafe to knit and grab a beverage, until the 5:15 train, we got on the train, got back to town and headed to my house so ItShe could change clothes for the movie. We had made plans with friends to go see Funny Face at Cinema Under The Stars it was going to be such a good time. Yes it would have been a great time if only they hadn't sold out of tickets 5 minutes before we got there. Super huge bummer!

We quickly regrouped decided to have sushi at San Sai (hand roll combo) and go back to my house and watch Shawn of the Dead. It's one of ItShe's favorite movies, and I can see why, it was the same people that made Hot Fuzz. I loved it and even though we didn't get to see Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire and ItShe's perfect outfit for the movie I think we recovered well.

Then it was off to bed for me because I had to be ready to roll at 5:30 am to go to cars and coffee in Irvine. Now most of the time car weekends and yarn weekends aren't the same but this weekend Big A had to work and I wanted to see the new Dodge Challenger (and take picture so he could see it too) so his friend R said that he would take me to Irvine to see it.

And here it is . . . I'm in love!

Made with Love (OR when you have friends this crafty do you really need Martha?)

2007-08-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

So we had a few friends over to the house this past Saturday for dinner (sorry I didn't take pictures of the food, I meant to I just forgot) it was a wonderful opportunity to have people over to try out the two new batches of home brew that the boys had made a few weeks before (in case you are wondering it was a batch of peach wheat and IPA that was made with rye, so we call it a rye-PA). The reason why I tell you this is because the wonderfully crafty ItShe gifted a super wonderful apron to me.

What's that you say . . . oh sure it's cute and yes she did a GREAT job on sewing it together, see the pocket matches up and everything.

But look closer . . . yes what you thought was plain bandanna material is much more subversive.

Yes it has skulls, and not just any skulls but skulls and crossbones with barbed wire squares, to cool huh?

She's crafty that one, very impressive and one of the best parts is that the bottom polka dotted portion is very ruffle-y when you put it on (something you can't see from the photo).

Where has the summer gone?

2007-08-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

No seriously . . . I have always had this theory that once the 4th of July comes around the summer is almost over. And (not) surprisingly this has happened again this summer. So much has happened since I (sadly) started blogging and didn't keep up with it, part of the problem is that I don't have a cute little easy to use digital camera that I can just take pictures with and since I myself love blogs with pictures I feel some how that my blogging cant' go up until I have pictures. I think I will have to break down sometime and buy a point and shoot pocket sized camera so I can have more pictures.

I will try to bring this blog up to speed with "how I spent my summer vacation" type posting for all crafty adventures. First I finally got the Bernina (yes I'm talking sewing) that I so kindly inherited cleaned (it really needed it) and once I got it back I wanted to use it. So I while on a tutorial hunt I found this Box Bag Tutorial, I made one and I was hooked. Which meant of course I could use what little fabric stash I had to make everyone a bag. If you believed that last sentence you don't really know me very well, this one event put the sewing gods in motion and I ended up increasing my fabric stash 4 fold (embarrassing, but worth it) and of course I had to get all the tools one would need to sew, this buying frenzy went on for about a month, but now I have everything I need (a-huh sure).

So ItShe had a wonderful suggestion that we take a (free, gotta love Continuing Education) sewing class this summer, it was for two Saturdays in June and we were suppose to "sew a simple sun dress" (try saying that 10 times, trust me we did). I wanted to start with something a bit more my speed so I made a skirt (sorry forgot to take a picture of it). After trying to decipher "sewing speak" (i.e. the pattern) I needed a bit of help from the teacher and asked her a few questions and I was on my way. When it comes to knitting I almost always follow the rules and understand what a pattern is asking me to do and why, with sewing I had NO idea, it was like magic, I'm not kidding. I would read the 2 sentence direction a million times and then try to do what it said, I didn't know why or how but it worked, amazing. However I had to Google for a zipper tutorial (thank goodness for the internet) it was a bit tricky (and a bit wonky) but I got the basic idea now. The fabric was from Jo-Ann's, it was 50% off and it's a Cape Cod in the summer type skirt, thank you to ItShe for the suggestion to use green ribbon (you rock!).

Up next . . . why yes that's another skirt but it's in a super wonderful and eye-catching Amy Butler fabric (thank you Beverly's).It's a half circle skirt, lots of fabric for the breeze to catch ask ItShe she made a summer-y blueberry skirt from the same pattern (although she finished hers) I hope to have mine done soon for the simple fact that the sewing machine's summer home has been my dinning room table and I would like to have the use of the table back (i.e. there are people coming over for dinner this Saturday).

Finally my "simple sun dress" it is a Duro Olowu inspired pattern from Butterick. I loved the fabric, bought three yards of it and didn't know what do to with it when I came across the pattern I asked ItShe if she thought it would be flattering (perhaps the most difficult thing to do is pick the best pattern for your body) we discussed, and I bought it. The fabric is once again from Beverly's and ItShe was kind enough to help again with the contrasting fabric color choice (I swear I wouldn't know what I would do without her). The only thing I have left to do is the bottom of the skirt . . . dreaded bottom of the skirt . . . let's just say it's been this way for about 3 weeks now. I just have to bite the bullet and finish it. You see part of the problem is I have no idea how, the directions are in sewing speak, but since I'm a very rouge sewer I will probably end up figuring something out myself that may not be the correct way but hopefully (fingers crossed) it will look fine.

Since this summer was consumed by a lot of sewing there hasn't been that much in the way of knitting, however I did barely manage to finish my Jaywalker socks, kitchener-ed and ends woven in, truly loved the pattern and I want to make another pair with Fire on the Mountain from Socks that Rock (I know it's bright and crazy but the pattern with this colorway is amazing).

However just because there has been little knitting doesn't mean that there hasn't been yarn purchasing, how does that work you ask, I'm an addict and I can't be stopped (at least that's the honest answer). So there has been 4 purchases; Malabrigo lace weight yarn, Handmaiden Seasilk, Ornaghi Filati Merino Oro in color 60 which is a teal, and Trekking XXL. Most of the yarn purchases were very budget minded, except for the Seasilk which is for my Mom.

What will I do with all this you ask? Well first the Malabrigo lace weight yarn . . . let's just say that I read some reviews and wanted to see for myself how super/so/amazingly/out of this world soft this lace weight yarn was. I happened to have a little bit of time so I decided to drive to a beach side knitting store I had never been to, they had Malabrigo but only in worsted . . . or so I thought, at the last second I saw out of the corner of my eye two skeins of lace weight in a natural color. I reached to take the skein off the hook on the wall, and all I can say is those people who kept going on and on were exactly right, this stuff was crazy soft. Not wanting lace weight in white, I was on an all out hunt, I called EVERY local yarn store that was suppose to have it according to the distribution page on their web site, no one had it and some hadn't even heard of the brand. Then I called all the local yarn stored I knew of and they didn't have it either (or they didn't have the colors I wanted) but tried to convince me that they had lace weight yarn that was just as nice, and they might have, but I wanted the Malabrigo. So I started to call yarn shops in the OC, no luck either so I decided after exhausting all the "local" shops I would try the internet, I found one shop that had the colors I wanted, Surf for me and Lettuce for ItShe. I ordered it went on vacation, camping on the beach for 4 days and when I returned it was there in my mailbox waiting for me. Little did I know that we both had surprises for each other in the same week, I gave her fiber and she gave me this shirt, to cute huh?
She came up with it all by herself, just for me, I'm so proud of her and I feel so privileged to wear it. And I did at the Stitch and Pitch at Pet Co. Park, the Padres got shelled but it was great fun to hang out with Grape and ItShe we all had on t-shirts that ItShe made.

Second on the list is Handmadien SeaSilk, slightly out of my budget, but it's for my mom, the colorway is called Capri (it's perfect!). The yarn is very cool is it 30% Seacell and 70% silk. What is Seacell, glad you asked the Handmaiden website says

Seacell is a cellulose based fibre made from seaweed. That’s right – seaweed! It is highly breathable and very soft. When worn, your skin’s natural moisture will release magnesium, calcium and vitamin E contained within the seaweed. It has anti-inflammatory properties and has been shown to protect the skin. Amazing.

I'm making the Tuscany shawl from Amy R. Singer's No Sheep for you (which ItShe got me for my birthday), the pattern is beautiful and I think it will be a good introduction to "lace" and it will be the first triangular shawl, and who doesn't love Knitty and Amy for that matter.

Third is Ornaghi Filati Merino Oro (and that concludes the Italian portion of the show) this is a WAY in the future project (I need to spend some serious time with my husband's sweater and my Cable and O's) but I wanted to get the yarn just in case it won't be available when I want to start the project and for about $20 including shipping for 1375 yards (yes that's right 1375 yards) of lace weight merino I couldn't (wasn't going to) let it pass me by. I plan to make the Print O the Wave Stole by the ingenious Eunny Jang. I love this pattern, I love the yarn, but the needles are becoming a bit of a problem for me, she says to use 00's. Sure o.k. 00's not a problem in 47" lenght, got it! Yeah the problem is places have 0's or 000's but not 00's and if they do they do not have the correct length so to the web I will go, but since I'm not starting it any time soon it's doesn't seem to be such a huge deal, I will continue to look.

The fourth and final of the current stash enhancement (I like the way that sounds) is Trekking XXL in color # 100, when I first met ItShe she was working on a pair of socks that she named watermelon socks because the colors were very watermelon-esq, I LOVED them and the yarn was so nice and ever since I have been looking for some Trekking of my own that was brighter and not so manly in color. I finally found some at Knitting in La Jolla and I bought it without even thinking about it.

I think that's about it, or that's all I can think of for the moment. More blogging later (I mean sooner than later).

2007-05-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

Yes I know that the world doesn't really need another knitting blog but I thought that I would use my blog much like my friend ItSheKnits and her friend Grape use their blogs, to keep tract of project progress. Plus I thought that it would be a nice place to me to keep all of my crafty things together in one place, and now is the perfect time to start this blog since I'm on summer vacation from graduate school. I don't really expect anyone to read this except me, it is sort of my craft journal . . . I can't get the picture of Dougie Houser, M.D. out of my head either, the Sports Guy unintentional comedy scale on this one does not escape me either.

So let's see . . . what I'm I working on right now? There are a few projects (as always) the first one is a pair of socks, Jaywalkers to be exact, knit on size 0, with Socks that Rock in Chapman Springs. Oh it sounds wonderful but it was a bit of a rough start. A little background about this project I always swatch (except when the size doesn't really matter like a scarf or a wrap) I had done some research to see what other people were saying about the compatibility of the pattern and Socks that Rock (which I LOVE). The word was that no one was having any issues, I was so excited (remember this later) that I casted on for a swatch, I swatched and I was waaaay off, so I dropped a needle size and I was really close (think about a half stitch)I was still a little nervous (you never know when that half stitch will come back to bite you) but I cast on and I was off. Then about 2 inches into it I convince myself that the sock will be too small, so I take it off the needles, rip it, and start again with the bigger needles, then I cast on again. Then about 1.5 inches into the new (read third try) sock I realize that it's WAY to big . . . sigh . . . try again (yes it's the fourth try). I went back to the smaller needles with the same yarn, cast on again and knit. The entire time I'm knitting I'm trying to figure out why I had to drop a needle size and the sock is knitting up really heavy and thick, not that that's bad it was just a bit perplexing, but I was getting into a rhythm so I wasn't really concerned but it was still bothering me. Days later ItShe and I were knitting in her office at lunch and she asked me what size needles I was knitting on, I said 1, she looked at me and ever so kindly said to me " I don't think those are 1's" of course they are 1's don't be silly I've been knitting these for almost a week, ItShe sort of shook her head and said "seriously I don't think so, here check them" she hands me a needle gauge and . . . . . what do you know they are zero's. Zero's! What the hell . . . how did that happen, of well they were fitting fine so I wasn't terribly worried, weeks later I realized that I was knitting with the medium weight . . . now it all makes sense, I had to drop a needle size because the yarn wasn't the right weight and why is that? Because I was going to cast on for Monkey Socks by CookieA with that yarn and then it wasn't the right color for the pattern and I was so excited to cast on for Jaywalkers and didn't switch the weight of the yarn because I was blinded by the Walkers.

The second thing on the needles is from No Sheep for You by the wonderful, talented and super funny Amy R. Singer of knitty.com. The book is wonderful, informational, and intersting (ItShe got it for me as part of my birthday present) the moment I saw Cable and O's I knew I had to make it. I love cables, any type, and I love non-crew neck sweaters but the problem is I don't normally like to knit with cotton. I ordered the yarn, Queensland Cotolino in the same pink that the pattern calls for and I must say even though it is cotton and linen I love it (picture from knitty.com, from Interweave Press)

The third thing will have to wait for another day because the story is rather long and I have gone on long enough. I will try to post pictures I soon as I can but ItShe and her DH and me and my DH are going camping over the long weekend and we are leaving tomorrow (read lots of time in the wilderness to knit!)