Continuing education

This is an interesting week, knit-wise. Not because I have started anything new, but because I haven't. It's a week for continuing projects. I have a strong drive to reduce, reuse, recycle. I was looking at beautiful yarn online, and it was almost painful to think about acquiring more. How strange it is to feel this way! My acquisitiveness is fighting with my yarn purging.

I'm reminded of my flying poodle. When I come home, there is often an internal tug of war between his desire to greet me and his desire to run back to his bed with his toy. It's so transparent: he trots one way, then the other. Happy! Toy! Greet, no, chew toy. No, greet. Chew toy!

Goal for weekend: gather the yarn stash for a family picture.

Slogger

Is what you get when you're a slacking blogger. The mini-E isn't going as fast as it was, but I finished a slipper and organized a little bit of the stash. And I went to a store with mucho yarn and didn't buy any. (Was it the cold that I was coming down with, or self-restraint? We'll never know.)

I'm in a spring cleaning stash-busting mood. Of all of the projects I have going, most are with yarn bought on a whim, or spun for no reason. Proof:

1. Mini-E: leftovers from Essential Stripe.
2. Slippers: Two huge balls of brown wool bought when I first was learning how to spin. I didn't quite know how much I was buying.
3. Green sweater: Not at all a stash-buster. Yarn from xmas, augmented by purchasing more.
4. Forever sweater: laceweight stashbuster. Hopefully turning out to be my one-ball wonder, as I only have one ball.

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snap out of it! No more spam genre!

Mini-E

I had leftover yarn from Essential Stripe, so what was I to do? Make Mini-E(ssential stripe), of course!

(Cell phone included for scale) Surprise, it's going a lot faster than the me-sized one! Very satisfying.

I hadn't -just knit- in a long time, but last night I did. After being driven batty at the coffee shop with the knitting girls by an unwanted live boy-and-his-guitar amplified beyond comfort, I came home and just knit. No reading, just music. It was nice. (Yes, I do knit and read at the same time.)

The newest addition to my to-knit list is in the bag:

Alpaca, Grignasco Top Print, 110 yds/50g, color 402. I have made socks/slippers from it before, and will do so again. The soles felt up from wearing, but it just makes them more slipper-like.

We'll leave today with a gratuitous poodle pic (with one of his new friends and the feet of the other new friend):


Details of Mini-E: I cast on the same number of stitches as for the small adult size, increased at the neck edge faster and with increasing frequency to make it scooped, until I had near the same number of stitches on the back and front. I made up the arm hole size, and I'm hoping it'll be ok for a wiry 2.5 year old.

Christmas in March?

For some reason, I actually thought about starting to knit for xmas. This is, after all, the only time of year where it actually would be possible to complete multiple kntting projects for other people by christmas.

So I thought I would share a project from a xmas past. Little quilt bags that held chocolate goodies:


No, don't worry, I haven't given up knitting. I started a stash-buster on saturday, and am making good progress. I'll share soon.

Fun

Other things in life that are fun besides knitting include x-country skiing.
This is the view from the ski trail last Saturday.

And another past project to catch up on:


This was a linen towel from one of the local thrift stores, it came with the pattern printed on it, and some of the green x's around the edge already done. I finished it using embroidery floss that was left over from one of my mother's projects from lots of years ago.

I have been seriously slacking on knitting. I restarted the green frogged sweater, but so far it looks pretty much the same as last time, with one modification.

I bought some wonderful yarn to make socks with, I'll take pics and tell you all about it next time.

Quilt Pics

As requested by ThreadandScissors!


Machine pieceing, um, a few years ago.

The layout.

The hand-quilting.

and a previous quilting post.

Lace update

Well, since we've last chatted, I've not knit too much. I got started on the lace scarf, but I'm not having too much fun with it. Something's not quite right. I think that I'm going to go through one repeat, put on the ending border, call it a swatch/sample, and start over on size 2 needles. The 4's are too big, I think, and even the breyerspun needles have a point that is a bit blunt for lace.

There is a stitch that involves knitting 7 together. It's hard. I took the suggestion and used a crochet needle, but it's still hard. It looks really cool though, and it's one of the reasons that I picked this pattern, the little dense spots in the lace provide a beautiful counterpoint to all of the airiness.

And I'm kicking myself for choosing a dark color, as it doesn't show the pattern as much. I'm still going with it for reasons of general fashion.

I still have not restarted Green Cash Iroha sweater. Have not started any other projects that are running around in my head either. It's just not a crafty week.

What's she up to now

Well folks, my initial blogging pace of every day is slowing a bit. I think part of it is my reluctance to post with no pics. I'll give it a try today.

I love Wednesday nights. Knitting night with the girls. I swatched for the hiking socks (I'll tell you about those soon). I have started a lace scarf, the one from the latest Interweave Knits.

Hey look, a photo that I didn't even have to take!

I'm knitting it in a dark purple Skacel merino laceweight (1400 yards per 100 grams. I just recently, like last weekend, started paying attention to yard per weight as a useful bit of information).

I frogged a sock that had been annoying me for months. It is now ready for reincarnation. I frogged the green sweater, which is waiting even more anxiously for reworking.

And let me tell you about my quilt. Just the fact that I'm hand quilting it, and the frame has been in my living room for months. (I don't think I'm quite up to years, but I could be wrong on that.) I bought a Quilter's Newsletter Magazine to read while I'm quilting to keep me inspired, and I managed a good 20 minutes today. That is record breaking pace for lately.

I'm going to go listen to Wait Wait (don't tell me), "The NPR News Quiz" and work on either lace or a quilt.

Frogs are Green

And that means what to you? If you're a knit blogger, it's a clever play on the sad sad day that all of us run into. The frogging. To unravel=to frog. I like to think that the etiology has something to do with four letter words beginning in F. So that green sweater in the post below.... well, you figure it out.

The v-neck was too shallow. By far. It didn't look like that in the pattern picture. Grrr.

This is where the increases were going to stop, i.e. the end of the V. You've got to be freakin' kidding me. This is what I wanted:



One of the Wednesday night gals has me yearning for more lace projects. Speaking of Wednesday nights, hop on over and see Thread and Scissors!

Recovery from Olympics-Green!

My christmas yarn is entering a new phase of its life. After a childhood in a skein, and a brief awkward phase in a ball, it is blossoming into a beautiful young sweater.




The impeccable taste of my sister-in-law combined with the purchasing power of the uncles brought me some Cash Iroha (color 100) for christmas. I went back to KnitPurl and picked up a few more skeins and a pattern. The above photo does not quite capture the greeney greeness of it all. Let's try again:
(click)


There. Much better.

The cardigan will be modified. Instead of a band of seed stitch running down the front, I'm planning on inserting a line of leaves. I'm not sure how I'll keep it from curling at that point, I might try lining the placket with grosgrain ribbon. It's something that I've wanted to try on a cardigan for a while now.

I'm also working on the forever cardigan, so named because I expect that it will take me forever to knit. I'm shocked that I've finished the back, and am starting one side of the front. And a lace band for edging the front, in star stitch as inspired by Marnie Maclean.

And for Tanya, because I'm slacking on emailing you directly, a short list of blogs to explore:

Yarn Harlot
Knit and Tonic
A Chance to Knit
Snitty
Grumperina
Knit Together...


You've already found Knitty, so here's another free knitting magazine online: Magknits

Hibiscuits writes the best drunken knitting magazine reviews. And Eunny would be a role model if I didn't think that emulating her would crush my soul with the knowledge that I'm not that good yet.

Happy Surfing!