A Serious Ugrade

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!

(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!

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

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

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

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!

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.