kelp! knits

Komb!

2009-01-24T01:51:26Z

Now is the time when knitbloggers look back and reflect on the finished objects of last year. Here’s a mosaic of it all:

Twenty four things: half of them socks, 10 accessories, the Squares for Sharron blanket, and poor Phyllo Yoked Pullover, which turned out very unflattering, sigh. You can click on the photo for details on all of the projects.

A bit more interesting is the yarns of 2008. Specifically, handspun. I bought a used, somewhat rickety (well-loved, right?) Ashford Traveller at the end of 2007 and gave it quite the workout in ‘08:

clicky for linky!

That’s a lot of yarn! Looking at the mosaic, I can clearly see how I improved as the year progressed, from the overspun messes in spring to the relatively good quality yarns that I spun in the winter. In mid fall I decided that my fiber stash had gotten out of control, so I spun the last ten skeins in a relatively short span of time.

While I was getting good at spinning yarn, I wasn’t very good at using it. No, not at all. Had I actually knit with the early yarns I would have realized how icky and overspun they were and I probably could have spun better stuff sooner. Ah, well, hindsight and all. Regardless, I have a shelf of handspun sitting around, becoming yet another stash. I finally decided to do something about it, all at once!

If you read Lolly’s blog, then you’ve seen her posts about the Komb blanket she’s knitting. I have an unnatural love of hexagons and how they tessellate oh-so-perfectly, so Komb is perfect! I decided that all of the handspun, from crap to gold, was going to become a gigantic blanket. Knit it until it’s gone!

First came color selection:

Since my color preferences are pretty consistent (cool colors!), this was pretty easy! I omitted anything with brown so that the blanket could hang out on our grey couch. I also chose yarns that were relatively the same weight – dk to worsted. One bulky yarn made it in to the blanket, and my next post will talk about the issues with handling the gauge difference.

I knit a few swatches:

Which became a little flower:

Which then multiplied!

The cream border yarn is Knitpicks Bare Superwash in the worsted weight. I went back and forth (and back. and forth.) of whether to use the superwash or non-superwash versions. There’s quite a bit of a price difference between them, but I finally splurged for the superwash (after buying all that fiber, what’s a few more dollars a skein?) so that I could easily spot clean the border without accidentally felting the yarn.

In the past, I never considered myself much of a blanket knitter. I’ve knit one baby blanket, the Oat Couture Prairie Blanket, and at the time I thought that was the longest, most painful project ever. I’m really enjoying this blanket, though – I think the handspun makes everything much more fun! I have a huge bag that I keep all the yarns in and it’s entertaining to close my eyes, put my hand in, and pull out the next color. I’ve also been searching the internets looking for more! colors! and spinning additional skeins to add to the blanket.

Since I’ll be working on this blanket for the foreseeable future, I’m going to spread out the details until the blanket is done. Next up: construction and gauge, where I spill the beans on the fact that I’m not actually knitting Komb at all, just a very close replica.

Sock a month in 2008 – success!

2008-12-20T20:15:48Z

Way back in February I decided to knit a pair of socks for each month in 2008. I felt that my sock yarn stash was getting entirely out of control and I had just enough skeins to knit 12 pairs of socks.

Well, it’s almost the end of the year and I’m pleased to report that I’m DONE! 12 pairs, finished, ends woven in, mostly blogged. Before we get to the celebration, here’s pair number 12:

Pattern: Spring Forward, Knitty 2008
Yarn: Zen Yarn Garden Bamboolicious in Chocoplum

Yay! Done! These were supposed to be for me, but they turned out a bit small because when I try to “knit loosely”, it never works. They’re going to my mother in law.

The pattern: pretty, but ok in general. I closed my eyes tightly and ignored the fact that the ribbing doesn’t blend into the pattern in any way. I also made the socks symmetrical by starting the second sock on row 12. This is such an easy thing to do that makes the pair look even better!

Ok, time for a sock party!

WOO!

YEAH!

SOCKS!

Statistics:

One pair is knit with my handspun
Two pairs are gifts: Marina Piccola and Spring Forward
Three pairs are designs that were published in Knotions and Knitty: Oak Leaf Socks, Interlocking Leaves, and Hanging Vines
Eight pairs are lace (well, involve yos)
Eleven pairs are textured

So did I achieve my original goal, sock yarn reduction? Um, no.

Twelve pairs of sock yarn, all ready for 2009! Just kidding, I’m so very over socks. I thought that I wouldn’t be able to stop knitting them, as they’re the perfect portable project, but somehow I got over that all to easily. I have swatched the blue Wollmeise for a friend, but I’m in no rush to get started. I have a new, epic project waiting in the wings. For next time, sock lovers!

Kinetic (and another bonus scarf)

2008-12-07T23:21:47Z

Pattern: Kinetic by Norah Gaughan (on ravelry)
Yarn: Malabrigo merino worsted in Azul Profundo

Poor Rob’s only scarf is my very first knitting project – a two-by-two rib scarf that looks like it’s been around the block. I decided that I needed to remedy this and was on the search for the perfect manscarf. Enter Kinetic, the perfect manscarf!

I really enjoyed knitting this pattern. Large charts don’t frighten me, especially easy knit-purl ones. I used highlighter tape to keep track of my place which worked out perfectly. The pattern as written is more of a shawl, but I only worked the 36 stitch repeat section (plus two garter stitches on each side).

The best thing about the pattern? The wrong side looks pretty damn nice, too. The photo of me wearing the scarf shows both sides – wrong side on the left, right side on the right.

Pattern: Mistake Rib, baby! (on ravelry)
Yarn: Bertagna Filati Perla (the blue), Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran

The bonus is a simple mistake rib scarf for me that I knit over the summer but it never saw any blog time. I’ve been wanting a striped, mistake rib scarf ever since I made the red one a couple of years ago. I did a big stash reorganization (big because my stash! it is too large) and found the perfect yarns for this scarf.

The yarns are similar in weight but couldn’t be more different. The Italian yarn is a highly cabled yarn with a lot of sheen, while the Jo Sharp is a smooshy two ply that’s quite matte. I think that they make an interesting pair, although if anyone else notices then they’re probably standing entirely too close to me!

The scarf is a bit on the short side because each ball of yarn was less than 100 yards (I had two balls of each). Whatever, it’s still pretty and it just happens to match my Target Wave mittens. I am nothing if not predictable, apparently!

Two berets, with a side of cowl

2008-11-26T22:48:36Z

It’s the “winter” season here in TX, so time for some fall accessories! We can also call this the blog post about old knits, because two of these were finished ages ago.

Pattern: Trinity Stitch Hat from Craftster
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpaca Hand Dyed Cotton

I started this hat about a year ago using Manos. Imagine my disappointment when I ran out of yarn before I finished the damn thing! I’m too stubborn to buy another skein of spendy yarn for a handful of yards, so I reknit it in the Blue Sky cotton that’s been hanging out in my stash for a while.

I finished this poor hat so long ago that I barely remember the details. I think it involved p3togs? And I changed the stitch count? Everything is fuzzy at this point. Either way, I think it’s pretty and smooshy even though the ribbing is too loose.

Pattern: Selbu Modern by Kate Gagnon
Yarn: Hand Jive Nature’s Palette in Odd Duck #4 (MC), Tess Designer Yarns Super Sock and Baby (CC)

LOVE THIS PATTERN.

That’s all.

Ok, there’s a bit more – I went up two needle sizes based on the notes on ravelry, which means the ribbing is way too loose but the rest of the hat is only a little loose. I think I look quite silly in hats, but I may actually wear this one out of the house once I attack the ribbing with some elastic.

One more thing – most of the light blue was leftover from my Endpaper Mitts. Score!

Pattern: Cashmere Cowl No. 2 – Lace Rib from Purl Soho
Yarn: Fleece Artist Sea Wool in Ocean, held double

Ah, the bonus cowl. I knit this last spring when the cowl rage was happening. I’m kind of on the fence about cowls. I get them and think they can look cute, but if I’m cold I probably need more than a loose tube with gigantic holes in it to keep my neck warm. I might just stick with my old standby, the scarf. It’s not like I don’t have a zillion scarves hanging around competing for my neck’s time!

The yarn is fan-freaking-tastic, though. I swatched a lace pattern with it a while ago, and just might end up axing this cowl for a mini Shetland Triangle, which was my original plan for it.

I held the yarn double in knitting this and used size 9 needles. I think. I know I used way less repeats than the pattern called for because I wanted a snugger fit. I haven’t blocked this yet because I’m a bit afraid it’s going to get all loose and drapey on me.

Hanging Vines socks

2008-11-20T19:08:00Z

Knotions launched last weekend and I have a little green pattern in it:

Hanging Vines socks! These might just be my favorites of the three recent sock designs (Oak Leaf and Interlocking Leaves were the other two). They were inspired by the ooodles of jasmine growing along the fence in our backyard. The leaves are long gone, but the vines stay nice and green all year long.

I ripped and reknit the cuff seemingly endless times. I was damn sure to make sure it was perfect before continuing on, because I wasn’t going to do any crazy chop-and-graft action again. I’m still having nightmares about unpicking all those stitches!

The yarn was dyed by Roxanne of Zen Yarn Garden. It’s such a great yellowish green – my photos definitely do not do it justice. Louet is the base yarn, and I really like working with it – it’s the perfect weight for socks and has a nice plump twist.

The only thing I’m unhappy with about these is the photos. I took a boatload of pictures in our backyard near the jasmine, but the lighting was horrible back there and you couldn’t make out the stitch pattern. I resigned myself to doing a photoshoot on our porch, which is where I photographed the Ironwork Socks. The pattern name makes more sense if you look at the socks when the cuff is at the top of the frame – the leaves are actually hanging then, and I think they look even better that way!

This is the last of the sock designs, because I have finished my 12th pair of the sock-a-month plan and am very, very done with socks for now! Socks, you are old news! Berets? Now that’s where it’s at. Even if I look silly in hats. More news next time, dear blog.

Oak Leaf Socks, now available in German!

2008-11-16T02:14:00Z

The Oak Leaf Socks pattern (originally appearing in Knotions) has been translated to German! Thanks to Andrea (kaita on Ravelry) for doing all the work of translating the pattern!

You can download the German translation here (pdf). Enjoy!

Socks? Socks. Socks!

2008-11-01T16:59:12Z

Socktoberfest is over, so it’s finally time to catch up on all the socks I’ve been knitting. These are pairs 8 through 11 of my grand sock-a-month-plan, and I’m almost done with the last pair. Finally! No more socks! I’ll be very happy when the sock knitting is complete.

Pattern: Gentleman’s Fancy Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks
Yarn: Knitterly Things Vesper Sock Yarn in Crew

I originally omitted the calf shaping, but it was working up too small so I added it back in. It’s so nice to be able to follow a pattern verbatim for once!

There’s only one knit row between rib blocks. Also, I worked the rib blocks for two stripe color changes. Also also, I worked an afterthought heel and did my own thing for the toe shaping.

Pattern: Anna’s Socks by Kirsten Kapur
Yarn: Piece of Beauty Sock Yarn in October Day

I think these are a perfect combo of yarn + pattern! The pattern chart is pretty simple, yet I love the way it looks.

My gauge was smaller than the pattern’s (and I have large feet), so I modified the stitch pattern to be wider along the front and back (I think one extra repeat?) with less ribbing on the sides. I also extended the stitch pattern all the way to the toe.

Pattern: Marina Piccola by Kate Gilbert
Yarn: Knitpicks Essential. I overdyed the grass green skeins with a bluish green.

Overall, I love the way the pattern looks! I did have a few wee issues with it:

In half the sizes the ribbing doesn’t match up with the pattern. I did a bunch of increasing and decreasing to make the ribbing flow into the waves of the pattern. This is only an issue in sizes where you’re working an even number of stitches between pattern repeats.

The pattern comes with a great chart on which side to select based on your gauge and foot size. However, these socks are definitely on the snuuuug size (and I definitely knit a swatch!). I’d go up a pattern size if I knit this pattern again.

I had some tension issues – the left side of each stockinette section (the ssk and regular m1 side) is much looser than the right side. I think that ssks are out to get me. These socks haven’t been blocked yet – maybe the magic of blocking with solve everything?

These were supposed to be a gift for my mother in law, but my 12th pair of socks is a bit to small, so she’ll be getting those. The heel flap on these is pretty short, and I’ve learned from all this sock knitting that I have a huge instep, so I should really frog back to the heel flap and make it taller. The thought of ripping this pattern that I knit on size 1 needles and that I’m oh-so-very over pains me greatly. So we’re going to go ahead and call them finished for now.

These are a little preview of my design for the winter issue of Knotions! The issue looks awesome overall, Jody did a fabulous job putting it together. You can queue these up on Ravelry now – I’ll post more when the pattern comes out next week.

Reentry

2008-10-15T02:23:59Z

It seems like I’m beginning every post these days (er, months) with a statement of how long it’s been since last time I posted. So now that those formalities are out of the way, hi! We survived the hurricane! Which happened last month! We were very, very lucky – we only lost power for a couple of days, and we had minimal damage to the house. Losing power sucks, but the cat vs dog interactions in our house during that time kept us entertained.

Silver had our friend’s dog cornered at one point and took over his bed the next day. Good girl, Silver. Make him work for that bed!

I’ve been doing lots of knits and purls lately, hence the blog update. I have three pairs of socks to blog, but ugh, the blog and I were talking about this and we are sick! of! socks! So we’ll save that for a future post. I’m happily knitting away on my 12th pair of socks, my last for the year. One pair didn’t use yarn from my stash, which means they don’t really count (my whole purpose was to reduce the sock stash), but I’m beyond caring at this point!

I did start some non-footwear knits. Like a sweater!

This is Baby Cables and Big Ones, Too. Sweaters in the past have not been so successful for me, so I’m trying something different with this one. I’ve knit this for my high-bust measurement so far, and once I split off the arms, I’ll increase a bunch for my bust, then do waist shaping as normal. Will this work? Hopefully! This hasn’t been completely smooth sailing, unfortunately:

I’ve also been doing some craft room/study/spare bedroom organization. This room has been a dumping ground for crap, so I bought a bookcase with doors and have been organizing all my fabric and study stuff in it. I even reserved a small shelf for some yarn.

Like handspun! This almost makes me want to start spinning again. I haven’t touched the wheel in months.

I have big plans for some cool weather accessories, even though it’s still 85 and sunny here. Hate you, Houston!

Interlocking Leaves

2008-09-12T20:56:41Z

Hi blog! It’s been a while, but you know how that goes. I’ve been super swamped with work and we’re “sheltering in place” in preparation for hurricane Ike (we’re in central Houston, so no worries – we’re pretty safely out of harm’s way). I’m dropping in all quick like and tell you about these socks.

A few months ago we made the Squares for Sharron blanket. One of my squares had a stitch pattern that I fell in love with, so I sockified it and made these:

The Interlocking Leaves socks are available in Knitty, Fall 2008!

They’re worked toe-up in one my favorite sock yarns – Tess Super Socks and Baby. Yummy yummy stuff. I worked a toe-up heel flap, sort of Widdershins-esque, but a bit different (more true to top-down construction) in the heel turn. And of course they have an Eye of Partridge heel flap, as is my way!

I hope you like them! I’m still working my way towards the sock-a-month plan, and these are August’s socks, even though I knit them in May and I’m blogging them in September. I haven’t yet blogged July’s socks yet, but the next post will talk about those and September’s pair. I’m on a roll!

Oak Leaf and Marilinda Socks

2008-09-10T14:59:19Z

Hi! It is hot out. So I’ve been knitting socks!

First off, the Oak Leaf Socks!

The premiere issue of Knotions came out last Monday, and I was lucky enough to have this pair of socks included. Jody did a rocking job with the magazine (I totally understand how much work goes in to creating something like that from scratch) and there’s plenty of interesting patterns to knit. I have my eyes on Theodore for Rob, but I’m a bit short on yarn. Maybe I’ll make a skinnier version. I have some handspun that would be perfect for a manscarf.

Back to the Oak Leaf socks. I really love the zigzag line that happens when you alternate k2tog, yo and yo, ssk. A bit of swatching and travelling stitches led me to the leaves. The pattern includes a pretty transition from the mostly-purl stitch pattern to the knit stitch appearance of the eye of partridge heel. If you like how that looks, you can mirror it in the toe. I didn’t include instructions for handling this in the toe because it would have added a lot of complexity to the pattern (since the sock length can vary).

The socks are knit in Nature’s Palette sock yarn, in the Mallard colorway. I love this yarn. It’s soft and plump and this particular colorway is gorgeous – it very subtly variegates between grass and olive green. I also used this yarn in my Endpaper Mitts, and I just bought more for another pair of socks.

I’ve been slowly catching up to my sock-a-month plan this year. Let’s call these the May socks, since they were actually knit that month.

June’s socks:

Pattern: Marilinda socks
Yarn: Valley Yarns Huntington

I’ve been interested in all of the new yarns appearing in the Valley Yarns line. I used to live thisclose to Webs and tried the Longmeadow yarn at the time, but ended up destashing it because I really didn’t like the texture. The Huntington is a basic non-smooshy sock yarn. It’s 25% nylon but is very soft – it definitely doesn’t have the nylony scratchiness that I’ve been experiencing in recent yarns. It’s a bit splitty, which is most noticeable if you drop a stitch or are cabling without a cable needle.

I’ve been wanting to knit the Marilinda socks since they came out. The pattern is deceptively easy – all of the action (travelling stitches changing directions, cable cross) happens in the same row. I did make a couple of small changes, the most major of which is that I changed the double decreases. The pattern has double decreases where the center stitch is on top, but that center stitch is a purl background stitch that suddenly becomes a knit stitch. I think that changing those stitches to a k3tog on the right half of the chart and sssk on the left is a bit prettier.

One small thing to watch out for with this pattern is that the sizing runs very large. The pattern is worked over 75 stitches in the leg and there’s very little to pull in the pattern – only one four-stitch cable every 14 rows. I had a smaller gauge than the pattern (8.5 sts/in vs the pattern’s 8sts/in) and the sock fits my size 10 foot (9 inch circumference) and large calves perfectly – the pattern as written would have been way too large. Besides that, I’m very happy with the way that these socks turned out!

Spinning!

2008-07-24T23:16:41Z

Knitting? no. Spinning? Yes! In fact, I brought fiber to predraft at my Stitch and Bitch last week, rather than knitting on one of the many projects that I’m bored to tears with. Someone asked me if I joined the Tour de Fleece spinalong. Um, kind of? I clicked “join this group” on Ravelry. Does that count?

Pigeonroof Studios superwash merino in Harlequin. 99 grams, 13wpi, 170 yards. I’d take that WPI number with a large grain of salt – I very, very sloppily measured it before the skein was washed. Original fiber.

6oz of Crown Mountain Farms corriedale pencil roving in Stonehenge. 163g, 14wpi, 313 yards. Original Fiber. I was thinking about using this as the yoke of a sweater, but who am I kidding? 313 yards isn’t that much more than a standard handspun skein.

Julie Spins Rambouillet in Polar, original fiber. I haven’t weighed or measured it, so let’s just call it beyond categorization for now. This one’s for my Hush Hush Handspun Hootenanny pal.

My Ravelry handspun page is starting to look like a yearbook page of skeins, which pleases me! To tell you the truth, I don’t care for spinning that much. However, I love the end result and really, really like buying more fiber than I have room to store, so spinning must occur!

I think that part of my knitting issues lie in that I’m officially sick of socks. Whatever happened to the sock a month thing, you ask? And isn’t that my unpronounceable name in the Knotions preview, you wonder? Yes! May’s socks will be fully revealed in August when Knotions launches, very exciting! For now, here’s a little preview:

And I just finished June’s socks. See, I’m not that far behind!

Hush-Hush!

2008-07-08T02:57:33Z

Hi! We’re back from Europe and still trying to adjust to the time zone here. I’ve realized that it’s much easier to sleep through the night when you don’t have cats laying on your pillow and kneading your legs at wee hours of the morning. Yeah. But Switzerland was great, and I’ll have lots of photos to share once I go through the 600+ shots we took on the trip.

Thanks for all of the comments on the baby blanket and skirt! It was great to read them on our trip when I was waiting around for Rob to finish his conferencing. Thankfully all of that waiting happened where there was free wireless!

I have a little yarn to share with you that I completely forgot to blog about this before we left. It’s not much, just your standard two-ply handspun.

The fiber was Laughing Rat finnsheep in the color Flourite. This skein is 118g, 180 yards. I think that this is my best handspun to date! It looks extra pretty because it’s the first yarn I’ve wound on a niddy noddy. I was previously using my swift to wind yarn, but the niddy noddy is so much easier and neater looking.

Speeeeaking of handspun, I joined the Hush-Hush Handspun Hootenanny swap. I’m perhaps a bit late filling out the questionnaire, so after the bump are all of my answers…

1. How long have you been spinning? What skill level do you consider yourself? One yearish. I’d put myself on the low end of intermediate.

2. What kinds of yarn do you create (singles/2-ply/3-ply/art yarn)? Mostly two-ply, with a bit of navajo ply thrown in.

3. What do you spin with (spindle/wheel/both)? Wheel only. The spindle makes me crazy.

4. What are your favorite fibers to spin with? Anything you don’t like? I tend to spin a lot of superwash merino. I recently bought some camel fiber that I’m saving for when my skills improve, one day.

5. Who are your favorite crack dealers fiber sources (etsy or otherwise)? Pigeonroof Studios is my top favorite, although I tend to buy from lots of different sources rather than stocking up from one seller.

6. What kind of fiber do you want to try? The aforementioned camel!

7. Is there any techniques you would like to learn? Spinning cabled yarns – there was an article in a recent Spin Off on this, and the end result looked so cool!

8. Do you dye fiber? If not, would you like to learn? I dyed some crappy fiber a long time ago, and the end result was crap. I have dyes and more undyed fiber, but haven’t gotten to it yet.

9. Do you have fiber prep tools (and like to use them) or would you prefer ready to spin fiber? I don’t have any fiber prep tools, I’m not sure I’m ready for that step yet!

10. What do you do with your handspun? What projects have you completed? I made a pair of socks with some navajo-plied yarn, and a baby hat and mitt set with a two-ply yarn. I’m better at stashing that knitting with the handspun.

11. Are you in need of any spinning gadgets (WPI Gauge, threading hook, etc)? I’ve been wanting a WPI gauge for a while now.

12. What colors “fall into your shopping basket”? Any colors you just can’t stand? I like cool colors, especially purple, and am not such a fan of pastels or yellow.

13. What is on your wheel/spindle right now? Nothing! Sacrilege, right?

14. What other crafts/hobbies do you have? I like to buy sock yarn faster than I can knit it up. I do a teeny bit of sewing, too.

15. Other than crafts, what are you passionate about? Taking photos of cats? Hmmm.

16. Do you have an online wishlist? Nope.

17. Is there anything that you collect? Um, sock yarn?

18. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What magazine subscriptions do you have? I try to pick up a back issue of Spin Off whenever I see it – there’s so many interesting techniques in there! I subscribe to Interweave Knits.

19. When is your birthday? June 15th.

20. What book or movie character do you most resemble in personality? I don’t really have a good answer for this one.

21. What is the climate like where you live around this time (need to know for careful shipments of anything meltable)? It is too. damn. hot. here. So yeah, meltable is bad.

22. Tell us one weird fact about yourself! I get antsy if all of my dollar bills aren’t facing the same way in my wallet. I think this is caused by waitressing when I was young – all of the money had to face the same way in the registers. It pains me to open Rob’s wallet, which contains mayhem.

Favorites

favorite painting/picture (link):

Candy: Chocolate!

Food: Sushi! Mmm…

Drink: Coffee and beer.

Movie(s): Donnie Darko

TV Show(s): Arrested Development

Book(s): I really liked the Time Traveller’s Wife

Guilty Pleasure(s): Um, arranging my dollar bills to all face the same way?

Sew What?!

2008-06-30T13:01:09Z

Have I mentioned that it’s too hot to knit? Or the humidity? Knitting mojo is low, so I busted out the ancient Kenmore 8 for some fun sewing time. Where fun involves lots of tension issues and ill fitting clothing.

A skirt! Not without a fight, but still, it’s wearable and I’m wearing it! I got the Sew What! Skirts book for a gift last year, and I finally busted it open and attempted, wait for it, a skirt!

I had all sorts of issues with using this book to create a skirt that fit well. My main complaint is that the book oversimplifies things a ton. There’s a spread of two pages that tells you how to draft a skirt pattern to your own measurements, and the rest of the book is devoted to example skirts that use the basic formula. I feel that the drafting portion could use more details. For example, the book tells you to add 2 to 4 inches of ease to your measurements for the pattern. Well, which is it, two or four inches? I ended up sewing a muslin that was too small, then I made this skirt too large, cutting it down until it fit.

I realized that this skirt was too large after I inserted the zipper. Speaking of the zipper – looking for instructions on inserting an invisible zipper? Don’t look in Sew What! Skirts for the answer, as they don’t cover it. The sew? i knit blog has an awesome tutorial on invisibly zippering, and I finally figured out how to use my plastic invisible zipper foot!

Back to the cutting down part. I really didn’t want to rip out my wonderfully invisible zipper, so I started cutting down the other side of the skirt, a half-inch at a time, until the skirt fit. Back at step one, I painstakingly lined up the fabric pattern so that it would be perfectly centered. However, cutting down the size of the skirt on one side made the pattern off center. It’s not terribly noticeable in these photos, but I cut enough to make it look like a big, two inch mistake.

Trimming fabric from the edge of the skirt wasn’t enough – the waist was too large and the zipper stuck out, making me look larger in the hips than I already am. So I ended up adding darts to the back of the skirt, which mostly fixed the fit issues. I also dropped the front of the waistband about an inch more than the pattern called for.

For the waistband, I followed the book’s directions for the facing and understitching. The facing instructions are great, but I didn’t feel that the understitching was enough to hold the facing down. I think that understitching would work perfectly if you had the weight of a full lining to keep things in place. Speaking of linings, you better look elsewhere on instructions on lining your skirt, the book doesn’t even mention it. I can’t remember when was last time I purchased a non-denim skirt that wasn’t lined.

I wouldn’t say that this is the most flattering skirt that I own, but it’s definitely wearable. If I were starting from scratch, I would just buy a skirt pattern, make a muslin, and modify the pattern for my short waisted torso.

Jumping for joy that this skirt is done!

Squares for Sharron

2008-06-26T13:01:30Z

What do knitters do when one of their kind is pregnant? Well, they knit! Last month, I decided to organize a little square-along for a fellow stitch and bitch-er, Sharron.

These are my squares! We knit everything in Berroco Comfort in the Lavendar Frost colorway. The full-blanket photos show the color best. The good: Soft and machine washable and dryable. The bad: it’s splitty as hell. So, so splitty.

Then my two lonely squares were then joined by 14 others. Square party! In alphabetical order, the hip to be square knitters were: Amy, Esther, Jenny, Katharine, Laura, Liz, Maya, Mo, Meredith, Sarah, and Susan. A few of these fine ladies knit two squares so that the blanket could be a beautiful 4×4 square.

There were a few requirements – the squares had to be 9 inches square, it had to be bordered by one stockinette stitch on all sides, and the ends were to be unwoven for seaming. After that, anything goes. Isn’t this a pretty awesome mix of textures? Yes!

The disadvantage of organizing something like this is that the organizer is in charge of seaming. First, I arranged the squares into columns based on width, seamed them into strips, and then mattress stitched the strips together. The biggest challenge was that each square was a different gauge, so I had to get the maths involved for perfect seaming. Lastly, I picked up stitches around the blanket and did a single crochet border.

Fin! The crochet border curled when I first worked it, but eventually flattened out after the blanket was washed. Sharron is very allergic to cats, so the blanket went into the washing machine and directly into a gift bag, without passing Go or returning into the fur-infested house.

I think she liked it!

Hello, blog! It’s been too long

2008-06-23T20:19:05Z

Sorry about the whole abandonment thing, blog. I took a bit of a break to do some secret knitting, and then I wasn’t working on anything for a while, and then I became lazy. I blame summer. It’s do damn hot to do anything but sit around, drink margaritas, and bitch about humidity. Ugh, humidity. But! Now I can blog about the unbloggables, and I’ve even been knitting a bit. I started a sock.

Then abandoned it for another sock, which is still unphotographed.

I also started a new, non-crafty project – the 365 days, self-portrait one. I think it’s an interesting idea, and I’ve been at it for a little over a month. I’ve been maybe spending all of my blogging time on flickr these days. I’m planning on peppering this space with some of the 365 photos, so that we don’t have another of these long breaks apart.

I may be back, but I’m leaving again for a couple of weeks. Rob has a conference in Zurich and I’m going with him! I’m very excited to go far, far away, to a land that has (hopefully!) less humidity than Houston. However, I’m not leaving you out in the cold, blog! Time permitting, I’m going to write a couple of crafty posts that will magically appear while I’m away.

How to graft 2×2 rib

2008-05-21T17:12:38Z

All of my knits have been in the unbloggable category these days, but I managed to create some bloggable drama.

Drama! I was happily knitting along on this pair of socks when I decided to change the rib pattern after starting the second sock. I made the executive decision to chop off the almost-completed first sock’s cuff, reknit the cuff in the new pattern, then graft the first sock back together again.

This was a bad idea on two counts. First, chopping off the cuff (well, snipping a stitch and unraveling a row to separate the two halves) was a pain in itself, because I ended up with way too few stitches on the needles! I was way off, by three or four stitches per DPN. I had to slowly unpick stitches for a couple of rows in order to get the correct stitch count. Then, I was left with the prospect of grafting in rib. The book I have gives instructions for 1×1 rib, and it was pretty difficult for me to extrapolate the instructions to my 2×2 rib.

I ended up knitting a rib swatch with a one-row stripe of a contrast color, and then figuring out the sequence of steps by following the path of the contrast strand. Hopefully these instructions will help someone in the same predicament!

Here’s how to graft 2×2 rib, where you chopped up your knitting so that one of the pieces is shifted by a half-stitch (ETA – this will also work if you provisionally cast one of the pieces). The normal 2×2 portion is the Lower instructions and the 1/2 stitch shifted portion is on the Upper. Start with the K2 part of the rib.

The stitch in parenthesis is the type of stitch on the needle. K-p denotes one of the half-shifted stitches in the Upper portion, although I wasn’t very consistent in labelling them in my notes. Always drop the first stitch in a pair.

(k) Lower – draw yarn through as if to K
(k) Lower – as if to P

(k) Upper – as if to P
(k) Upper – as if to K

(k) Lower – as if to K
(p) Lower – as if to K

(k) Upper – as if to K
(k-p) Upper – as if to P

(p) Lower – as if to P
(p) Lower – as if to K

(p) Upper – as if to K
(k) Upper – as if to P

(p) Lower – as if to P
(k) Lower – as if to P

(p-k) Upper – as if to P
(k) Upper – as if to K

MDSW!

2008-05-09T21:03:51Z

I think I’ve figured out the reason why I’ve been such a lax blogger lately. I absolutely and totally procrastinate on writing the posts. Photos hang out on flickr for weeks before I can muster the motivation to sit down and write a couple of paragraphs. So! I’m going to try to post more and write less. Photos are the fun part, right?

Here’s my trip to Maryland last weekend in a series of pictures and minimal of pesky words. I managed to convince my friend Allison to accompany me, and it was mucho fun!

People! I’m the silly looking one in the green shirt. Everyone else is: Olga; Cristi; Lolly, Isel, and Jenna; Jess; Jody and Christy; and Christa (who recognized me from my mascot, Tissue-San!). We went to the Ravelry meetup in the afternoon, but didn’t stay terribly long. And go figure, I don’t have any photos of the people that we spent the most time with – Chris and NanC, fellow Texan fiber enthusiasts.

Sheepdogs! I want to get a sheepdog and watch it herd the cats. The sheep were hilarious. They were such sheep, all huddled together and generally clueless.

Baaaaaa! Heh.

DC! We skipped the Rav party to meet up another friend of mine in DC. Next year I will party with the knitters, next year. We did some touristy things on Sunday, including the adventure of finding street parking near the National Mall. Fun!

Of course, you want to see what I bought, right? I was quite restrained and spent a little over half my budget (where my budget was what I spent last year).

The last thing that I need is worsted-weight, scarf yarn, but the Brooks Farm Solana was irresistible. It’s a bit more purpley than it looks here, and I’m going to call the other color orange rather than brown, so that I can wear my future worsted-weight scarf with my black jacket.

Tess Super Sock and Baby. I heart this stuff, and I know I’ll use it. At this rate, I’ll never knit through all of my sock yarn.

Fiber roll call, from top to bottom (the links to go individual flickr photos):

Camel fiber from the Fold (we stopped by after all the crazy STR junkies left).
60/20/20 Angora/merino/silk batts from Wild Meadow Farms.
50/50 Merino/silk from Cloverleaf Farm.
BFL from Cloverleaf Farm.
70/30 Merino/tussah from Cloverleaf Farm.

As you can maybe tell, I really liked the Cloverleaf Farm booth. They had pretty awesome prices – the BFL was $10! I should have bought more. Now to get spinning!

Phylloing my way to the finish line

2008-04-30T04:10:20Z

Things that are dull:

1. Endless stockinette in black fingering-weight cotton.

2. Blogging about endless stockinette in black fingering-weight cotton.

I’m slowly phylloing my way to a completed sweater, but ugh! So much stockinette! I’m really trying to finish this one before I leave for Baltimore on Friday. There is one sleeve remaining, then the sweater gets a bath and a date with our dryer. My fingers will be crossed the whole time as I hope and pray that my row gauge really does shrink from 9 sts/inch to 11, as my swatch said it would. I’ve been doubting this the entire time I’ve knit the sweater, but swatches don’t lie, right? A side affect of the change in row gauge is that I get to knit the sweater 20% more than my desired length, which adds to the fun of endless, black, soul-sucking stockinette.

I did get a ton of knitting done over the weekend in the car to and from Austin! Our goal was to hit the Texas wine trail for some wine tasting, which was surprisingly tasty. We also celebrated Staci’s milestone birthday, had a tasty gospel brunch with Sarah (praise jesus for migas!), and visited with an old friend of Rob’s. Fun!

I’m endlessly amused by Texas’ love for, well, Texas, so I had to snap a photo of this as we left our hotel:

Um, maybe I kind of sort of want a Texas wafflemaker now. We’ll see how much money I end up spending on yarn this weekend.

A study of two plies

2008-04-18T03:57:15Z

I’ve been spinning like crazy lately! Knitting: meh. Spinning: whee! I’ve been practicing making a smooshy two ply yarn, with varied results.

Pigeonroof Studios superwash merino in Vintage Blue, 102g, 185 yards.

I love Krista’s yarns and fiber. I have two more braids of her fiber in the stash, and they’re the prettiest things around!

I became very used to spinning really thin yarn when I made the Funky Carolina sock yarn, so this is practice in spinning something thicker. I did pretty well with this – it’s worsted weightish. And pretty. That paw is Silver, making her entrance. I can’t take photos of yarn without the kittehs getting involved.

Pigeonroof Studios superwash merino in Nightshade, 100g, 180 yards.

So when I spin, I have a 50/50 chance of producing crap. This is crap. The fiber is great, more Pigeonroof Studios, but the spinning is awful. I tried to spin the singles tightly so that it would look extra smooshy when I plied it, and the singles had little corkscrews in them. I figured the coils would go away when I plied it (when some twist is removed from the singles), but they did not. Yuck.

Hello Yarn BFL in Insect Wings, 140g, 156 yards.

This is the February shipment of the Hello Yarn fiber club. BFL is like buttah. I heart it greatly.

I think I’ve mastered the art of two plies, and I’m ready to move on to something else. Maybe adding a ply? Spinning a soft single? I bought a Spin Off magazine last week, and it’s full of cool techniques!

There’s also been some knitting – I picked up the Phyllo Yoked Pullover again. I’m going to MDSW in a couple of weeks (yay!), and I thought I could maybe finish this in time to wear in the cool MD weather. When Blackie isn’t sleeping on it, of course. I’m about halfway finished with the waist increases and then I’ve got both sleeves to knit. Can our brave knitter conquer miles of stockinette in fingering weight yarn? Stay tuned!

Sock doubleheader

2008-04-05T14:36:16Z

Blog, I’ve been neglecting you again. I blame freaking Lost – Rob and I are working our way through seasons 1-3, which always trumps internet time. I’m about four projects behind on updates (if you count handspun), so here’s a little two-for-one sock action.

Pattern: Leyburn Socks
Yarn: Lisa Souza Sock!, the wool/nylon blend one

I’m in a bit of a knitting funk these days, and the only thing I can manage to finish is socks. So socks it is! I’ve had this yarn in my stash forever, because I’ve been stumped as to what to make with it. I really believe that slip-stitch patterns are the perfect thing for variegated yarn. I’ve wanted to knit the Leyburn pattern for a while, too (I swatched it in some Koigu last year), and this is the perfect marriage of yarn and pattern!

I followed the pattern very loosely, as I paired the stitch pattern with a Widdershins-esque toe-up heel flap. My heel turn is a bit different from the Widdershins one, though – for some reason Widdershins heel turn is half the depth of a normal top-down heel flap. I also worked a Magic Cast On for the first time, and it was like magic! Much better than dealing with a short-row toe.

I changed around the Leyburn stitch counts, too – the foot is 34 instep stitches and 31 sole stitches, and leg was 64 stitches. I should have increased some stitches around the heel flap (or worked a longer flap), since the floats are a bit stretched out there.

This was the first time that I’ve used Lisa Souza yarns. I love the non-pooling dye job, but the yarn felt very nylony when I was knitting with it. She also sells a 100% merino sock yarn, which my pampered fingers demand, apparently. I also love the generous 4 ounce put up – I have a sizeable ball of yarn leftover.

I wrote this entire post without mentioning the obvious fraternal nature of the socks, which is really a testament to my diminishing anal retentiveness. It’s part of the beauty of handpainted yarns, right?

I’m in the minority here, but I really prefer knitting socks top-down! I hate, hate, hate working the sewn bindoff for toe-up socks, and I hate even more undoing the sewn bindoff because it’s too tight. Knitting socks toe-up also requires a bit more math before you start, since you need to know your heel depth and the number of stitches before the heel turn to figure out how many gusset increases that must be worked. I probably won’t be working any more toe-up socks, unless I’m really, really afraid of running out of yarn.

In keeping with the sock-a-month theme, the socks above were March’s pair, and these are April’s.

Pattern: None – just a 64 stitch top-down stockinette sock with an afterthought heel
Yarn: My handspun! 3 ply (navajo plied) from some Funky Carolina superwash merino in the Missed colorway

Handspun socks! There’s not much to say about these, except that I spun the yarn! I can’t believe that these turned out so well. The handspun was mostly fingering weight (I used a US 1.5 needle and got 8 stitches/inch), but was a bit thicker for the second sock’s cuff. I think that the thick portion was where I started out spinning, and the uber thin portion was toward the end. I can say that spinning worsted weight yarn goes much, much faster than a 3 ply sock yarn!

My first afterthought heel! I chose the afterthought heel so that the stripes wouldn’t be interrupted, and I heart it. Normal short-row heels don’t fit my massive instep very well, so I worked a few even rounds before decreases to give me some extra ease in that area. The instep stitches are still stretched out, so I’ll try more even rounds next time.

The right sock has very short stripes, so I ended up cutting the yarn in a couple of places on the left sock to keep the stripes from getting too out of control. I also knit the first sock on the short side, since I was afraid of running out of yarn, and I extended it an inch after the second sock was complete. I must have missed this lesson in Knitting 101, but if you pick out the cast on edge to frog the top ribbing, you’ll have to pick out every. single. stitch. No frogging from the cast on edge. I ended up snipping a stitch and cutting off the ribbing, knitting an extra inch, and then grafting the sock back together. I can’t even tell where the graft is, so yay!