Category Archives: knitting

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I was so good this weekend, I kind of feel like I deserve a medal. Or a shopping spree at mryarn.com (I’m only half kidding).

First of all, I finished Beatnik! Finally! It’s currently pinned to my carpet drying at the rate of a snail’s crawl. I haven’t attached the sleeves yet because they came out a bit too tight so I stretched them out like crazy and I’m hoping it’ll loosen them up a bit so I won’t have to re-knit them.

Then I also finished my Waffle socks! They’re so cozy looking I want to just curl up in bed with a mug of hot cocoa and pet them. Except then I would probably fall asleep and spill hot cocoa all over them and me and that’s just not pleasant.

I also started two projects over the weekend that are making me squee with glee. One is a Hermione Stripey McRainbowpants v2.0. I made one a few months ago but as I mentioned previously, it was before I understood the concept of gauge and therefore it came out far too small. Plus the gray was too dark and I also hadn’t mastered the concept of mixing fibers and therefore I was using cotton for two of the stripes and it just turned out too shiny compared to all of the wool.

Second is what is turning out to be my favoritest project ever, except the “tbl”‘s. Those are driving me insane and if I get arthritis one day I’m placing all of the blame on this project. I reaaally wanted to knit Kim Hargreaves’ Demi after seeing the gorgeous one Mags made, but I couldn’t justify spending $30 on a pattern book when there was only one pattern I liked in it (ok, I might probably knit Aimee too).

Anyway, I had a Jo-ann coupon that was about to expire and I happened to be wandering through Jo-ann (*innocentstare*) and a skein of Lion Brand Fisherman wool happened to fall into my hands and somehow went home with me.

PS I love this yarn.

The only thing is that I’m about 25 rows into the pattern (holysmallcharts) and I can’t decide if I should frog it and make the XS instead of the S. I have kind of an annoying figure for knitting projects (long torso/arms, tiny waist, D-cup breasticles). I don’t want to look like a hobo in this sweater but I also want to avoid pornographic chest cabling.

Andd on that note, back to work. I miss the weekend already.

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Second Sock Syndrome

Kai Mei progress

Terrible photo, but yay sock!

I’m being indecisive about my Ripples n’ Waves socks. I got kind of tired of the design (and of staring at blue) so I ended one sock around calf length, but now I’m thinking it’d look much better longer. So instead of figuring what I want to do, I’ve set it aside and started Kai Mei instead.

Except I started having the same indecision. The big problem is that I greatly prefer long socks to short ones, but knee-length socks take about ten years to knit in fingering weight yarn and my queue of things to get to grows daily. (Not even joking, I went through my Ravelry queue with the intention of clearing out some stuff I knew I would never make, and somehow ended up with fifteen more projects than when I started. Whoops.)

Anyway, I’m at the end of a six day work week so I’m pooped and not making much sense. Basically I’m making short Kai Mei’s and long Ripples/Waves.

By the way, holy second sock syndrome. I kept telling myself “Nah, I’ll power through it,” but it just occurred to me that of the five pairs of socks I’ve ever knitted, one is a completed pair (Boyfriend’s birthday socks, couldn’t really just give him one..), one is still on the needles, and the other three are completed singles! Whoops..

I can’t wait to have enough pairs of socks to have a dedicated hand-knitted sock drawer! For those of you who knit your own socks, do you ever have a hard time wearing them? Right now I can’t imagine stomping around in my preciouses and getting them all dirty or messing up the pristine-ness. Does that go away??

 

 

 

 

Sock Frenzy

For someone who hates to wear socks, I’ve developed quite the unnatural obsession with knitting them. Last week I made one Easy Peasy sock just to get a better grip on sock construction before trying the fancy stuff, and then finished one reindeer sock before deciding that my yarn is too thick and the whole sock is too big. Whoops. Oh well, I’m too in love with the pattern to care too much.

This weekend I’ve been playing with Socks a la Carte 2! And this morning I even went to the library to pick up two other goodies that are going to keep me busy for a while:

CIMG1372

Seriously, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Anyone who knows me knows I hate wearing socks. I’ve been known to go through entire winters wearing nothing but flipflops (albeit this was when I lived in San Diego and could get away with that) just to avoid having to wear socks with real shoes.

I’ve already flipped through and found at least six patterns I want to do in the Joy of Sox book, and I pretty much want to knit everything Cookie A has ever designed.

But have I mentioned how cool Socks a la Carte is?? It’s like one of those animal flip books for kids where you put different animal heads with different bodies and feet, except with socks. I’m doing the Ripples n’ Waves body with the standard toe and origami heel*. Haven’t decided on a cuff yet.

CIMG1373

*Sidenote: If you’re knitting from this book and haven’t already, check the website for errata on the origami heel or you’ll probably end up spending two hours cursing and muttering to yourself about toe up heel construction and why it’s an evil evil conspiracy.

Note to self: sskWLS does not equal SSK.

Anyway, this is how far I’ve gotten:

CIMG1375

You can see in the middle photo where I got bored and decided to cast on the other sock. This pattern is kind of ridiculously easy, almost to the point of being slightly boring. I thought I’d change it up. It’s not helping that Cookie A’s cabley awesomeness are sitting there taunting me.

2 Comments knitting - - -

Sock Frenzy

For someone who hates to wear socks, I’ve developed quite the unnatural obsession with knitting them. Last week I made one Easy Peasy sock just to get a better grip on sock construction before trying the fancy stuff, and then finished one reindeer sock before deciding that my yarn is too thick and the whole sock is too big. Whoops. Oh well, I’m too in love with the pattern to care too much.

This weekend I’ve been playing with Socks a la Carte 2! And this morning I even went to the library to pick up two other goodies that are going to keep me busy for a while:

CIMG1372

Seriously, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Anyone who knows me knows I hate wearing socks. I’ve been known to go through entire winters wearing nothing but flipflops (albeit this was when I lived in San Diego and could get away with that) just to avoid having to wear socks with real shoes.

I’ve already flipped through and found at least six patterns I want to do in the Joy of Sox book, and I pretty much want to knit everything Cookie A has ever designed.

But have I mentioned how cool Socks a la Carte is?? It’s like one of those animal flip books for kids where you put different animal heads with different bodies and feet, except with socks. I’m doing the Ripples n’ Waves body with the standard toe and origami heel*. Haven’t decided on a cuff yet.

CIMG1373

*Sidenote: If you’re knitting from this book and haven’t already, check the website for errata on the origami heel or you’ll probably end up spending two hours cursing and muttering to yourself about toe up heel construction and why it’s an evil evil conspiracy.

Note to self: sskWLS does not equal SSK.

Anyway, this is how far I’ve gotten:

CIMG1375

You can see in the middle photo where I got bored and decided to cast on the other sock. This pattern is kind of ridiculously easy, almost to the point of being slightly boring. I thought I’d change it up. It’s not helping that Cookie A’s cabley awesomeness are sitting there taunting me.

3 Comments knitting - - -

Stitches

This weekend was highly productive in the realm of learning new stitches.

For example I learned how to make bobbles:

Bobbles

And nupps:

Damask

And the Kitchener stitch.

Kitchener stitch

Seriously, it’s like magic. Where did the seam go? Oh, yeah, it’s INVISIBLE.

I also finally figured out Row 31 (it gave me headaches for a week so it gets capitalized) of Damask, worked up to row 36, realized I’d made a mistake several rows back, ripped out to row 29, and then powered through to row 74. Have I mentioned how much I love this pattern?? She gives you directions in written and charted form, lots of lovely pictures from different angles, and three different shawl sizes. Plus the shawl itself is gorgeous. I still have about 50 rows to go, but considering it’s a bottom-up pattern, I should be done with it by tomorrow or the next day.

Yee!

I also got a library card (can I stop being an old person?) and checked out Twinkle’s Big City Knits by Wenlan Chia. The review online were terrible, but the patterns were so cute and so quick to knit up that I couldn’t resist trying one out. I finished about 80% of the Best Friend Sweater in about five hours. It’s super cute but I can’t decide if I like how huge the bobbles/cables are. I used the biggest yarn they had at Joanns but I might go back and pick up some Lion Brand Thick & Quick because it’s slightly lighter weight.

Sidenote: “Thick & Quick” = terrible nickname.

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