January 2005 Archives

I've been busily knitting on my Philly Knitter's Secret Pal gift for the past week. Secret projects = poor blog content so I've been AWOL. I'm happy to report I finished the gift though.

I am really happy with the way this turned out! Although the picture would have you think otherwise, all the edges do V out in a nice pattern.

Specs

Pattern - Heartstrings Hanging Vines Scarf with 2 center panel repeats (73 stitches total). I purchased the pattern at Elann.
Yarn - Schaefer Anne, less than 1 hank
Needles - Addi Natura 4.5 mm (US #7)
Finished Measurements - 20"x60". It should really be longer and a bit narrower but that's as long as my blocking board goes. I'm going to have to either get blocking wires or an inexpensive rug runner if I plan to make more of these.
Comments - The yarn was a dream to work with. It didn't split and even behaved well on the K3tog's. Blocking took all of a couple hours. I washed it with Eucalan (the water did get pink but no noticeable color was lost), pinned it on my blocking board and turned on the ceiling fan.

As I mentioned above, I will look into buying blocking wires if I get the lace knitting bug. And since I have 3 more hanks of Anne in my stash I think there's a good chance I'll be making more lace scarves!

I considering posting my near-done sock #2, but it looks a whole lot like his near-done sock #1.

Instead, I'd thought I'd share with you all some links I've come across that you may or may not have seen before.

New Project Ideas

• Sideways Short-Row Seaman's Scarf -- Really interesting technique, and a great way to use just 1 ball of Noro!


• Breast Cancer Sock -- I need to make these for my Mom, who's a 15 year survivor!


• Saxony Sock -- While visiting Lisa's site for the Breast Cancer site I came across these cabled socks. Very pretty!


• Lite Brite -- I don't know why I didn't notice this pattern when it first came out. It has a solid-colored body, and uses Noro only on the raglan arms. I can get my Noro and avoid horizontal body stripes! Put this one in the hopper for next fall.

• How to test if your fiber is wool -- without the chance of setting your house on fire!


• Nicely illustrated knitting basics. This is the site I link to whenever someone asks me things like "How do I do a lifted increase?". Their illustrations are clear and easy to understand.


• No-wrap short rows -- By now you all probably know I LOVE the OzYarn no-wrap short row instructions. I was describing them to my friend Hope and she told me that they're called Japanese short rows. I thought you'd like to know that.


• Great resource for old lace stitch patterns. Warning -- the charts indicate the stitch you'd knit when you're on that row, not the way it would look on a RS row (the more common way). I find it hard to retrain my brain to knit this way and actually rewrite the chart beforehand.

I feel like I had more than this to share! I'll add to it if something comes to mind.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Added Later

In keeping with the randomness of this post, I have a question about Opal yarn. How do you know which Opal pattern you have? The only thing I see on the ball that would seem to indicate the type is "Farbe 5 Partie 16". I've googled and translated and searched all over the place and still can't seem to find a way to figure this out!

I just came across this sale item at Pearl and thought it might interest some of you. It's $40 for a large size wooden swift!

Here's the site.

I have some Baby Alpaca (OK, 16 balls of it) in my stash and I'd like to use it for smaller projects. It's a classic natural white color so I thought dyeing it would be the way to go.

I've played around with Kool-Aid dyeing. It's great -- easy and safe -- but the color choices are lacking.

I want to dye up a few balls in saturated purples and blacks. What kind of dye could I use? Can RIT dye be used? Their color chart shows a few good possibilities -- black, black plum, aubergine, and purple.

If I use RIT dye, can I follow the microwave technique? I can't dye it in a pot since I want to dye it multiple colors.

Since this is an experiement, I don't want to order a bunch of stuff online. So, I'm hoping RIT or something else that's readily available will do the trick.

I'm not an experienced dyer, so any and all opinions are greatly appreciated!

I finished the first sock last night.

A couple of notes:

• I used the Ozyarn no-wrap short row heel. Big surprise, eh?
• I used a much tighter gauge than what is specified for Wool-Ease. The ball band says 4.5 spi, but I did 5.5. Why? Wool-Ease feels rather loosely spun and I thought the sock would be more durable if I knitted it a little tighter. I'm very happy with the texture of the sock. It's still squishy but it has a lot of body
• I did a modified toe. I did a few sets of decrease every other row, but then I switched to decreasing every row. This made a nicely rounded toe, and may be my favorite looking toe so far. Here's a pic.

So, it looks like I'm safe for goal number 1 -- finish the pair by Friday.

Circular Needle Kinks

One of the Addi Turbos I've been using for the sock had a bad kink in the cable that never seemed to relax. It was slowing my knitting down because it would curl around the other needle and the yarn and make everything into a tangled mess. So last night I dropped the needle in a pot of simmering water. I left them in there for maybe 15 seconds, and used a pair of tongs to pull them out. And voila!

Perfectly relaxed cables!

A note of warning -- make sure you don't let the cable hit the side of the pot. The first one hit the hot edge for just a second and it had a small abrasion on it. I smoothed it out with an emery board so it's OK, but a few more seconds and it wouldn't have been pretty!

Blocking Board

When I posted the pic of the completed sweater, I was silly enough to think you all would be impressed with all that knitting! But it was the blocking board that stole the show. I've responded to everyone who left a comment asking about it, but since it was so popular I thought I'd post it here as well.

The board came from yarn-store.com. It was $78 plus shipping, and it took about 2 weeks to arrive. It folds in half and is pretty easily stored behind a sofa, large piece of furniture or under a bed.

I like to block my pieces under a ceiling fan because it significantly reduces drying time. Since the only room in the house with a ceiling fan does not have a table in it, I place the board on my ironing board. It's portable and easy to set up, and is steady enough for me to lean in and pin on it.

I've made some updates to Natalya:

• Gusset row 4 was missing a K1
• Added some materials to the list (cable needle, etc.) and fixed a few typos)
• Changed the filename to just be natalya.PDF. I noticed some blogs were linking directly to the PDF and since I had the version number in the filename, those links would always bring up the first version of the pattern I published. This way, your links will always work and you'll get the latest version. It does, however, mean that the links to the first version of the pattern will no longer work. Sorry about that -- I want to make sure everyone gets the updates though.

The new pattern can be found here. All updates are in pink so they're easy to find.

Thanks to Karen and Siow Chin for the feedback.

Timing is everything, and my timing for this Yarn Diet SUCKS!

First, Elann puts out their solid colored sock yarn in a gazilion yummy colors. For just over 5 bucks you can buy enough yarn for a pair of socks. Perfect for a pair of Pippi's, or those argyle socks I've been dreaming about.

Then, they go and put out new stock of their Peruvian Highland Wool. A couple colors I liked but didn't jump on fast enough are in there. I must have visited the site 20 times yesterday just to watch the inventory numbers change.

Then, KnitPicks goes and releases white sock weight yarn so now I'm dreaming up all the handdyed color combos I could make myself.

Finally, the new Vogue Knitting came out and I love about 50 projects in there:

• Thigh-high fair isles
• Flower basket felted bag
• Floral pullover
• And another pullover in the "Pattern Play" section that's not shown in their previews

The knitting goddess is really putting me to the test this week. So far so good though, and here's why.

Look what Kate sent me:

It's a wonderfully saturated shade of deep magenta mohair, and it goes perfectly with a hank of Manos I have in the stash (pictured on the right). I think I'll either make up a scarf with 1 strand of Manos and 2 strands of the Mohair, or I'll make up a wrap with just the mohair. I love love love this color!

And then yesterday I won 2 hanks of Koigu from Caryn for correctly guessing her TV trivia question! I can't wait to see what color shows up at my doorstep!

One thing is for sure though, not buying new yarn is really helping me keep to my goals. I'm a few repeats away from hitting my secret pal goal for the week, and then it's just 2x2 ribbing on Cabled and Ribbed sweater to finish the back.

I think I'll hit both of those goals this week, as well as the no yarn buying, thanks to Evelyn, Kate and Caryn. Thanks, girls!

Wow, my "To Frog or Not To Frog" post yesterday sure did elicit lots of response -- multiple offers to send yarn so I didn't have to break my diet, and sweet comments about the theft. Thank you all so much! The break in could have been a lot worse -- they didn't damage the cars, nothing of sentimental value was lost, they didn't try to get into the house, and no one was hurt. And after having a few days to reflect upon it, that's the way we're looking at it.

Now that that's over with, I hereby promise NOT to frog the sock. But, I do need to make a bigger pair and I'll do that before making sock 2 for myself. My friend Evelyn offered to send over some Encore that's in her stash in a medium blue color and that should be perfect. Plus, it keeps me out of Rosie's which is really the ultimate goal. I don't think I could ever leave there with just a few skeins of Encore!

Fun Scarf

I started a fun and quick scarf out of Kureyon in my stash.

It's a herringbone pattern that I found at Sheep in the City. Here's a closeup. Isn't it cool?

A couple notes about this stitch pattern:

• This pattern is SUPER warm and thick. I'm using US 13s to knit this and I typically knit with the needle size listed on the ball band. I tried it on 10s and it was so tight it felt more like a woven fabric than something that was knitted
• The back looks pretty much like reverse stockingnette. It doesn't bother me much because the Kureyon still keeps in interesting, but I thought I'd mention it.
• It knit up fast. Really fast. I knit through the first ball in a few hours.

New Rebecca!

Hey, did you notice? The Spring/Summer 05 Rebecca is up!

You asked for it so here she is -- the Natalya pattern. I will probably make a separate page for this later, but for now I'm just linking to the PDF. If you have any questions or problems don't hesitate to ask. And if you do make up a pair and like them, let me know that too!

Next week's goal -- a completed back!

I couldn't hold out any longer. Last night wihile knitting on Clapotis I decided to drop all the stitches. See?

I love it! The drape is wonderful and I continue to be amazed at how special such a simple pattern can be.

I think I spent 10 minutes in front of the bathroom mirror last night draping it a variety of ways. It's so much fun and I can really see why people say they plan on making more than one.

I'm using Over The Rainbow's 50/50 silk/merino yarn in the colorway Nite Rainbow. It's the same yarn that Kate is using. Kate mentioned a few days ago that she ran out of yarn after 9 straight repeats, so I've been concerned that I'd run out too. I'm done with 6 and still have a lot left but I'm still crossing my fingers that I don't run out.

Gauntlets

I don't think I ever showed you the gauntlet (note -- singular usage) I made for Kelly for Christmas. Here she is:

I'm calling her Natalya. The gauntlet took a little more than half a hank of Classic Elite Lush. I've been working on finishing up gauntlet number two when I noticed last night that I messed up a cable way down toward the end. I've been doing the crossovers every 4 rows but on one of them I did it at 4.5 rows -- so one half looks fine and the other half is elongated. I remember thinking at one point that a cable looked too tight. It must have been after that row because that would have only been three rows later. This gets back to yesterday's post -- trust your instincts!!!

So I need to frog most of it and fix the cable :(

On a positive note I really like the way these turned out. I've kept track of the pattern and have started writing it up. Let me know if you're interested and I can post it when I'm done.

This little, "quick" Snowflake sweater has taught me a few lessons:

Lesson 1: Follow your intuition. It knows all. The whole time I was knitting the top of the front I kept thinking "wow this looks long". I even put it up to me and thought it was too long. But I kept on knitting because it didn't match the measurement I scribbled on the notepad a few weeks back. Of course, I should have listened to that little voice and saved myself a night of ripping and reknitting.

Lesson 2: Fair Isle is always less stretchy. No, just because Nadia isn't the typical smooth and even FI yarn does not mean it will behave in a way completely unlike every other yarn you've ever used. I learned this lesson on Cheesylove and even remarked about how much tighter the edge of the sleeve is on this sweater (where the snowflake/leaf is). Yet I did nothing about it when knitting the front! The result? An edge that pulls in about 1-1/2 inches on each side. I'll be knitting a gusset to insert along the edges where the FI band is.

Lesson 3: If you frog a neckline and re-use the yarn thinking you'll have the perfect length because you're reknitting the same instrucitons over the same number of stitches and rows you will run out of yarn. On the final cast off row.

Lesson 4: Nothing beats the satisfaction of looking at a piece you knitted and knowing that you didn't take the shortcut and you did it the right way. Nothing.

I decided to stray from the original Lana Grossa pattern and do a band of snowflakes across the front.

I was a bit concerned about trying to get that much detail out of the thick and thin Nadia but it seems to have done pretty well! Here's a shot of the whole front. I still haven't blocked this piece but it's already reading pretty well.

I used a Norwegian Star pattern out of Fair Isle Mittens and Gloves. I have to admit that doing the two color work flat (meaning I had to do purl rows, too) with a thick and thin yarn held with a laceweight mohair really tried my patience as a knitter. I'm pleased with the final result but it will be a while before I consider taking on that task again!

I pinned together the front and back to give it a test run. The width is great -- perfect in fact! But the length from shoulder to armhole is about 2 inches too long. I must have taken a measurement incorrectly because the sweater measures what I was going for. So I need to frog back a few inches on the tops of both the front and back and knit the neck and shoulder shaping again. It's not a big deal and hopefully I'll tackle it tonight. Then all that will be left is a sleeve!

I did a LOT of knitting this weekend -- some Clapotis, some on the Cabled and Ribber sweater, some on a new Kureyon scarf, and a lot on the snowflake sweater.

There's a finished back and sleeve, and half of the front. I've already washed and blocked the back and sleeve. What a difference! See the poofy orbs coming out of the front piece on the needles? The washing relaxed all of them and even made the fabric more even. The Nadia yarn is quite thick and thin and washing helped give it a lovely texture.

I was a little concerned about what might happen to the mohair I stranded with the white. Would the red bleed? Would the mohair lose its fluff? But it made it through the bath well, too. Here's a closeup shot of the mohair.

Last Day of Vacation

This is it! My final day off. And my plans -- knitting, Tivo, more CSI on DVD, and takeout Chinese for dinner. All from the comfort of my living room in sweats and a T shirt.

It seemed only fitting that I give my favorite sweaters a bath today. I hate washing handknits! Wow, I'm sure that's a profound statement. I'm guessing you all just love it, right?

Well today I tried something new (for me) and it worked really well. I used my washing machine to spin them out after soaking in the sink. I have a front loader and I thought it wouldn't work -- but it did! I turned them inside out and switched on the spin cycle and voila! My sweaters weighed a fraction of what they did before they went in. I should have dry sweaters by the morning (with brand new Isabella paw prints on them to boot!).

I'm also playing around with my blog design. I don't think I'm done, although I am done for today. I wanted something cooler and with less color, but it's really hard to judge colors on this laptop monitor. So when I feel like hooking up a regular monitor I'll take a peek and do some tweaking.

I'm taking Margene's advice and making sure I do all the things I love today. Since I haven't knit yet it sounds like a fine excuse to do so! Make sure you do the same :)