I received an email from Blogger the other day informing me that they're shutting down ftp support. Since my blog is ftp-based, this means it will be disappearing unless I move it over to another format... which I don't plan to do because I no longer post here.
I've been thinking a lot about this knit blog lately... in between paper writing, research, readings for class, gardening, house cleaning, and trying to spend time with Kurt. I just don't have time to post here. I've tried scheduling it in but then I end up posting when I should be doing something else and the posts really aren't that great. Hell, I don't even have time to keep up with my Ravelry projects page lately! So, I'm giving it up. The blog, that is. I will leave up the archives at least for awhile but I don't plan to continue posting. I have never had many regular readers though I do appreciate the ones I've had. Thanks for reading, guys!! I still plan to read the handful of knit blogs I have in my reader, which includes all of you. :-)
So I promised an exciting post... because I thought I would be done with my sweater and I would have bought beautiful yarn in Fargo to show you all. I didn't end up find the yarn I wanted in Fargo and I still have a little over a sleeve to go on the sweater (not to mention the fact that I haven't bought the buttons yet). *sigh* I'm such a boring knit blogger.
To this...
To this...
I've been knitting a little. You don't really want to see the same sweater with just another couple of inches of stockinette (and decreases) added on, do you?
So the hat I was knitting for my sister ended up too small. My gauge swatch said it would be but it just looked so big as I was knitting it that I didn't believe it. I was about halfway done when I finally tried it on and realized there was no way it was getting over anyone's head. I ripped it out and flailed around for a project for a few days. My friend Courtney and I must have looked at just about every cardigan pattern on Ravelry...
It's Lambing Season over at Farmgirl Fare and the little tiny lambs seem even more cute this year than they have in the past few. Check it out but be forewarned that the cuteness will almost melt your brain.
I finished my blue socks with the annoying pooling and they actually look alright.
We're doing some spring cleaning today... it's not very fun but I will feel much better when the house is cleaner and a little more presentable because... Jenna and Brian are coming to visit on Tuesday!! I'm very excited. We're going to have a potluck with some other knitters and hang out and catch up.
Here are pictures from my sister of the Swirly Mittens.
If anyone else noticed the strangeness in my mittens yesterday and politely didn't say anything: thank you. I think. Because it took me knitting all of the second thumb, binding off, and weaving in the ends to realize.... I had two right-hand mittens. Dangit!
Anyone know of any good tutorials for slipping in an afterthought thumb when you hadn't planned for it? I've already ripped out and sewn up the offending thumb hole.
So I read over on Lab Cat's blog today about square needles. Have you heard of these? I'm intrigued. I'm bummed that the circs and DPNs will only come in aluminum though since wood is so much easier on my hands. Maybe the squareness would make up for it? In any case, I've bookmarked them in my Thinking of Buying folder.
I knit a little this week! The combination of tests and only having the stupid annoying thumbs left on Leah's (my sister) mittens put me off it the last couple of weeks. Does anyone else hate knitting thumbs or fingers on mittens and gloves? They're just so fiddly! Especially with the stranded colorwork. Anyway, I did finish one thumb and plan to finish the other today.
Then they definitely need a good blocking. Once I get them in the mail, Leah's hands can be warm again and I will have to order more yarn and start on her hat. To match the gloves, it will be the Swirly Hat by Joanne Jongsma.
I'm also still thinking of starting a pair of socks for myself. Maybe tomorrow. I have the day off from school and will be meeting with a couple of friends for an afternoon of knitting. I think my Fibranatura Yummy sock yarn needs to be knit into some pretty socks for myself. I just need a good pattern. I'm thinking about the Circle of Friendship socks that Jenna made once with yarn I gave to her (because I bought this yarn while I was visiting her in her new home last summer) but I'm a little worried about pooling.
Speaking of Jenna, look what she sent me!
The long-awaited Malabrigo sock yarn in a luscious brown. (I love brown.)
70% superwash merino, 30% alpaca, 3-ply
It was an early birthday and late Christmas gift. I'm really late blogging about this because I received it in early January... but it's been in my yarn drawer in my desk and I take it out and admire the handspun every once in awhile when I'm studying. I'm always so amazed by Jenna's handspun because she is fairly new to spinning and it's just so beautiful and perfect. I think she's a natural or worked her ass off when she got her wheel to learn how to do it right. Actually, I'm sure it was a combination of both, knowing her and what a hard-worker she is.
Okay, this post got super long and I apologize but when I actually have time to post I like to try to catch you all up on what's been going on, fiber-wise, with me.
I have a Biochem test tomorrow so I don't have time for a nice, insightful post. I'm knee-deep in amino acids and vitamin precursors but should be able to have a better post next weekend.
I did want to stop in and say that I finished knitting the main part of my sister's mittens but haven't done the thumbs yet. I'm having trouble picking up the "top" stitches. I think what I did was an afterthought thumb... I don't really know. I knit the thumb stitches with a scrap yarn and then slipped them back to the right needle and knit the pattern into those. On the first one I picked up the stitches under the scrap with no problems but when I picked up the ones on top... they turned out to not really be stitches. I don't know how else to describe it but I got frustrated and gave up. I keep meaning to search the Techknitting site but never take the time. Looks like I can't procrastinate much longer if I actually want to finish the mittens.
Anyway, I'll try to take pictures by next week! And I should have a new project started soon too!
Long ago I promised a post on my steeking experience but when it came down to cutting the steek the camera battery was dead so I had to resort to taking pics with my phone camera because... well, I wasn't going to wait to charge the camera battery.
I have to preface this all by admitting when I heard what steeking was my first thought was not "Yikes! Cutting knitting! Oh, the horror!" it was "Whoa, that's so cool! I have to try it!" I'm a process knitter and steeking is a damn cool process. I just wasn't expecting my first try to be on such an involved project... I pictured it more like a swatch or something.
So when it came time to cut the steek on Little Birds, the instructions said if I had used a nice, hairy, sticky yarn I didn't need to reinforce the steek. I used the recommended hairy, sticky yarn so I didn't reinforce. I just took the scissors, and cut.
I held my breath and was half-expecting the yarn to unravel even though I'd seen how crazy sticky this stuff was throughout the knitting of the sweater. I can assure you that it didn't and even now that I've worn it several (many) times, it's just gotten more sticky rather than less. This sucker isn't going anywhere.
I wish I had taken a picture as I was picking up the stitches for the collar because it was amazing how beautifully the steek stitches folded back and flattened down. I still find it a little amazing how nicely this all came together.
Here is me proudly wearing my finished, sans buttons, sweater for the first time. ...and you know the rest of the story. This is my favorite sweater ever. I highly recommend Ysolda's patterns as they are very well-written and well worth the effort.
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Current knitting: still working on my sister's mittens and sort of working on a hat/bonnet thing for myself. Thinking about starting some new socks.
I think it's a testament to my growth as a knitter and, hopefully, an increase in my patience that I can now...
...calmly hack up a sweater I knit in order to fix something. Here is my Scoop Neck Vest Sweater after picking out, stitch-by-bloody-stitch, the beautiful tubular bind-off of the neckline (132 stitches, to be exact). Next came the sleeves...
But you must be very, very careful which thread you cut or can end up swearing quite a bit...
...like I did here. Always cut the seam stitches from INside the sweater so it's easy to see which is the seam stitch and which is just a little ladder between stitches.
Ta-da! Hacked up sweater! And it barely even hurt (me; I can't speak for the sweater).
And here are the pieces that needed to be fixed. The whole reason I hacked it apart was because of something I foresaw when I made it: the front strap was about nine rows longer than the back strap. I thought it was odd but trusted the pattern, which I usually advise you do... unless, of course, the pattern isn't right or is seeming like it's going to cause serious problems which, in this case, it did. The shoulder seam, once this sucker was all finished up initially, fell beHIND the top of my shoulder. Those extra nine stitches caused the armhole to be slightly too big and so it was constantly falling off my shoulders. It was annoying and made the whole sweater look frumpy.
So yeah, we come to today: the actual fixing of the straps took about ten minutes. The deconstructing and reconstructing the sweater? An entire afternoon and the first quarter of a football game (we lost). Was it worth it? Hell yeah! I've had the sweater on now for a couple of hours and nothing has slipped off my shoulders even once! It looks the same as before though so I didn't bother taking any new pictures.
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The other sweater I hacked apart was my Not-So-Puff-Sleeved Feminine Cardigan. I added sleeves and I absolutely adore it now. I actually did the first sleeve right before Christmas while waiting for more Little Birds yarn and did the entire second sleeve yesterday. I've been a girl on a mission this weekend! I'll post pictures of the sleeved one soon.
Thanks to my perserverance, and knowledge that classes begin again in a week and I won't have time anymore for it, I now have two more hand-knit sweaters to keep me warm this winter. That's five total! Yay!
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I apologize for the extra-long post but I just wanted to say I'm so glad I took the plunge and "fixed" these two sweaters. I'd had them both for a long time (slightly over a year for one and slightly under a year for the other) and had only worn them a handful of times each because of the silly little problems: no sleeves make for a cold Katie and droopy shoulders suck. Now I know I'll wear them all the time! And all it took was a few hours here and there of fixing... but would have taken no time had I listened to my intuition in the first place.
I hope I've learned something...
Happy New Year, everyone!
Little Birds is done!
It's so cozy warm too. I can't wait to make another fair-isle sweater! Venezia may be closer in my future than I thought. ;)
The title says it all I think. Whew. Even though I liked all of my classes this semester I am definitely welcoming the break. I have another sock to finish for my Grandma for Christmas. Here is the first one:
That's an anklet version of the Japanese Feather Socks. This is the third time I've used this pattern and I still love it! I had to adapt the stitch count and the pattern a little because the yarn is thinner than called for but it's working out great - except for a little mistake I made on the foot that I'm hoping nobody will notice...
I also decided on the Kiehkuralapaset Swirly Mittens for my sister but have yet to buy the yarn for them... which is too bad because we had one heck of a blizzard here this weekend and I didn't have an official BlizzKAL project to work on! So I worked on Little Birds and my Grandma's sock instead. Worked out well but I really need to get my sister's yarn ordered so I have it for the next storm. I'm thinking about Dalegarn Daletta in a light green and dark green... or light green and black. Any thoughts?
Oh, I've finished Kurt's socks since I last posted too but I don't have a picture yet. He wore them the other day when it was blizzarding and cold (-50 F windchills!) but I forgot to take a picture. Whoops.
Also pictureless is my Little Birds progress. Just imagine another sleeve about half done. I think I'm going to run out of Eesit (the cream color) and I've done nothing about it yet. I'll probably regret it very soon.
One last thing: my friend who I'm gifting the green Socks that Rock booties and socks to had her baby last night! I'm so excited to go see him but I still need to wrap the gifts. I think I'll go do that and then study for my last final, which is tomorrow morning, until I can go up and see her and the babe.
The North Dakota Knitters Ravelry Group, of which I'm one of the founders and mods, is having a BlizzKAL. Basically, we are getting a hat project and various emergency goodies (candles, chocolate, tea) ready to work on when we have snow days or blizzards in the state. I want to knit my sister a pair of mittens and matching hat this year and I'm still having trouble deciding which to make. I tried having her make the choice but she was overwhelmed with all the wonderful patterns on Ravelry and ultimately decided I could just pick something. Here is what I'm thinking:
Vinterblomster mittens and I would use the little flowers to make a matching stranded hat. This pattern reminded me a little of her when I saw it.
Heather's Mittens which caught my eye because my sister LOVES green not because the pattern reminded me of her.
Kiehkuralapaset... again with the green. I'm not so sure she is a swirly girl though.
Fiddlehead Mittens. Not free but they do have the inner liner which would be helpful to learn how to do. Plus, I think the pattern might look really nice with a varigated background and solid fiddles. Or whatever it is they are.
My sister is kind of a hippy tomboy type, by which I mean she wears dresses and sandals all summer long but doesn't wear make-up or get all fancied up too often. She's beautiful in a simple way so I want mittens that reflect that.
So again, I will use the pattern from the mittens to make the matching hat which will be my official BlizzKAL pattern. What do you think?
Our Thanksgiving was really nice. We saw both sides of the family and stuffed ourselves with delicious food. Then on Friday we visited my 100-year-old Grandma Eleanor. The rest of the weekend has been spent buying groceries, cooking, doing some homework, and knitting.
I finally turned the heel on Kurt's second sock! Whew. These puppies are taking forever. But they aren't my #1 priority so it's okay. 
My #1 priority this weekend has been Little Birds. I only have one more row of birds and vines and I will have completed the first sleeve up to the underarm. I hope to do that tonight and start the ribbing of the second sleeve. I've read the directions past that and, um, I'm a little confused as to how all these pieces come together for the final bit of knitting but I'm sure I'll figure it out.
One thing to note is that while my stranded knitting got a little neater and nicer while knitting the body, it's gone right back to crap on the sleeves. I just have a harder time keeping the tension even when working around on DPN's. Maybe I should have gotten some 16" circ's. I don't really like knitting with them but I bet my tension would be a little more even.
Lastly, the Socks that Rock for my grandma's socks hasn't come in the mail yet. They must be overwhelmed with Christmas shipping because usually their yarn comes super-fast. I did get an email the other day though and expect it soon now... which is good because time is ticking!
Little Birds continues to fly by...
Last week, I had the idea that maybe I could finish it before Thanksgiving but today I realize how deluded that thought was. Two stranded sleeves in three days? Not going to happen. Oh well, I can definitely shoot for a Christmas finishing.
I've been taking Kurt's second sock around with me to appointments and such lately and have gotten about halfway down the leg. Speaking of legs... Kurt's is probably fractured but it's right along the growth plate and likely a very, very small fracture. Since it's the fibula, and most of a person's body weight rests on the tibia, he doesn't need a cast but just got one of those lovely giant boots. He even gave up the crutches already too which is really nice for both of us.
I also ordered some Socks that Rock in the Mochaberry colorway for my Grandma's Christmas Socks. It should be here tomorrow. She requested the Japanese Feather pattern last year and, since she likes ankle socks, they should go super-quick.
Talk at ya next week! Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!
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