Tuesday, October 30, 2007

rip it rip it rip it

The wash didn't help.
I'm having a fabulous knitting week - NOT. I started the Christmas stocking - I'm pretty sure I might suck at intarsia.
Puckers and pulls all over the place. I thought I was so clever with the two handed knitting. Oh well we're gonna consider that practice. No worries I forgot to change the needle size so it had to come out anyway - the stocking was way to narrow - no room for good goodies - and I did learn two cool things.

#1 - picots don't suck - they're actually very cute and almost fun to make. Doubt they'll be showing up on my socks but they don't totally suck to make.

#2 - it's a bad idea to rip intarsia / fair isle all willy nilly - regardless of the good blog shot. I'm not going to tell you how long it took me to untangle that mess.

And since I'm not an evil blogger...
The knee highs suffered no permanent injures from the taking of the above photo. They now have much shorter toes and fit much better. They still stretch a bit too much during wearing - I must get a handle on negative ease - but they're much better then they were.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Knitpicks Gloss???

In case anyone is interested this is what I did to the knee highs. It worked fabulously. Time consuming as all get out to do - also fiddly as hell - but completely worth the effort.


I used Knitpicks Gloss for these socks - it's very nice yarn. These are possibly the most comfortable socks I've ever made. Ya know how when you spend the entire day on your feet in your hand knit socks you can kinda start to feel the purl bumps on the bottom of your poor tired feet? It just occurred to me this may be an odd quirk singular to me. Well anyway if I'm going to be on my feet all day I won't wear my handknit socks cuz at the end of the day I can feel every purl bump and it's most uncomfortable. These socks didn't do that. After 6 hours of shopping till I was ready to drop my feet were still nice and comfy in my socks. HOWEVER - they did have this little problem.


What? You don't get it?? Let me push my toes up to where they belong and show you again.


Get it now?

These socks grew - A LOT. Anybody have this problem before? Think they'll shrink when I wash them? I'm hoping. Judge for yourself the depth of love I have for these socks... if they don't shrink up satisfactorily when washed I am prepared to rip out the entire foot and try again. Hows that for feelin the love?!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

The Haul

OK now that the computer is performing at something other than dead stop - we can continue.
It's been days and I no longer know where most of this stuff came from except Rhinebeck - which is way to general to be helpful I know. It's been pawed through too many times and the business cards and receipts where the fiber came from are no longer together with fiber it goes with. At least I have a clue what the fiber content is.... mostly.



Merino Tencel - yum. Totally afraid to spin it though. It will be marinating for quite some time.

Merino top - both the little balls came from the same place - at lease I know that much.


The needles & the peachy yarn (Aussie Sock) I remember came from Seaport Yarns. I remember this cuz they are very sneaky people those Seaport Yarns peoples - yes they are sneaky sneaky.

Here's what happened. I had the yarn in one hand and the needles in the other - aren't they pretty, is it any wonder I had to have them? So this guy comes up as I'm in line to pay and he says "I can take the money for the yarn but you've go to pay her for the needles." In the confusion of having two people asking me for money at the same time and handling two transactions simultaneous I wound up paying 30 bucks for these needles. See sneaky - they distract you with pretty colors and many people until you don't know what your doing - just blindly handing people money without a thought. Do I regret it? Hell no theses needles are fantastic - they actually did me a favor cuz a 30 dollar price tag would have made me put them down. But they're still sneaky as hell. (Before you ask yes there are five of them - I didn't notice till after the picture that one rolled off and into the couch.) I think these next two are blue faced lester but I can't swear to both of them - the pink for sure, and the shop I got them from had Diana in the name, or maybe Sara.

Here's a lesson about buying stuff in braids -when buying fiber in a braid be sure to turn the thing over and inspect it from all sides maybe even un-braid a bit and look inside. I was going through the haul looking at the things I bought and I saw this. "Hm, what in the world possessed me to buy this - it's kinda ugly."


This is why I bought it - the other side - much more like something I'd actually buy. I'll have to be clever when I spin it - make sure I break up that giant hunk of icky brown/black.



That's it - I know not much. I'm usually much better and I can't believe I only bough ONE skein of actuall yarn. Very weird. I must of been really high on wool or something - not only did I buy very little this year I also totally spaced on the blogger meet-up. I just completely forgot and I didn't see anyone. :( I'm such a spaz.







Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Rhinebeck

Two knitters... two days... packing light is obviously not in our vocabulary. It was so beautiful up there. Just amazing. The colors hadn't even reached peak yet and it was spectacular.



This is the house we stayed in. 7 knitters - one bathroom. Nuff said.
I was going to do a bunch more photos but it took so bloody long to upload these that my sanity (and the future life of my computer) is in serious danger. I'll do the haul tomorrow.



Thursday, October 18, 2007

Here They Are

How cute are these seed stitch heels? They're a little bulky in shoes but I luv them anyway.
I bought these shoes specifically for these socks... I might be a little bit strange - but I look cute.
I'm actually pretty impressed with these socks - they fit. I made so many modifications to the original numbers that I'm shocked surprised impressed as hell that they resemble socks at all. They actually fit really well - I think the sag factor is the yarns fault (shut up it is too!) I used Knitpicks Gloss and don't think it has the elasticity required to hold up heavy knee high socks. Speaking of ... I need to get to sewing - I'm going to attempt to put an elastic band into the top of these to help them stay up. If you don't see me wearing them on Saturday it didn't go well. Your probably better not mentioning it - I may cry.

I'm off to Rhinebeck - FOR THE WEEKEND!!! I'm very excited. I'll be back Monday to make you jealous of all the spinning fibers and sock yarn I buy.

;)



*Sorry G - my camera doesn't like you. Nothin but fuzz.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Three Days to Spare

The Clessidra's are done. I tried to take some pictures last night but my self portraits suck. G is coming over later - I'll make her take some pictures. They're beautiful as long as I don't move. Just going back and forth three feet to set the timer on the camera made them sag - there's no way I'll be able to wear them without making myself insane.

I went to Joanne's and bought some elastic to sew into the cuffs but they only had black. I bought skinny sewing elastic I was just going to weave it through the ribbing - but it shows. How do I sew black elastic into burgundy knee highs without it showing? Mom suggested a thicker elastic - like you would use for a waist band - and sew it in with needle and thread. I'm afraid that would make the socks uncomfortable - like wearing garters. She may have a point though - it would definitely be easier to hide burgundy thread. Maybe I'll try it - can't be any worse than pulling up my socks every four steps.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Sock-it-to-me Baby!

I finished the sock-it-to-me swap socks. They are currently on they're way to Cheryl. I like how they turned out - and she'll never have to worry about cold feet while she wears them ;) Hope she likes them.

I also got my SITM package. LOVE THEM!!! They're not really so orange - I had a rough time with the color & sorry but I'm too lazy to photoshop. I think the colorway is cabin fever.
The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill (one of my favorites) and they fit fantastic! Wish I could get the socks I make to feet my feet as well as everyone else does. My swap partner was Sherry . She put together an awesome package with some bath salts and lotion, the cutest heart shaped stitch markers (which have already been pressed into service), the Knitting on The Road book and a cute little decorator box type thing with notecards in it. In my enthusiasm to take photos of my new socks I totally neglected to take pictures of the rest. I totally LOVE the non-matchy!! And did you see the picots?? She made me picots! I must totally rate!
She also sent me a skein of my new favorite sock yarn Colinette Jitterbug!! Love the colorway - bright charcoal. She was even cool enough to ball it up for me - which is sorely tempting me to cast on for new socks right now! Alas new socks must wait - I want to wear Clessidra's to Rhinebeck. Thanks so much Sherry!!

Monday, October 01, 2007

THANK YOU!!

You guys are the sweetest bunch of peoples ever! Anytime I start feeling a little icky I'm going to go read all the wonderful comments yall left - thank you :D

I'm totally excited that I can wear this dress to a formal wedding but the consensus is that I need a fancy ass shawl to wear with it. A fancy ass shawl that I don't own. Chances of me getting a shawl knit in the next two months?? Slim to none. Maybe if it was January I might have a shot, but I can't abandon the yet to be started Christmas projects to knit a shawl. Crocheting something may be an option. Anybody have/know of any good crochet shawl patterns?

While I stew about the shawl issue I started a new project - a project that is not Christmas knitting, shame on me. Anyway I have a question - if you ran across these directions how would you do it?

Slip 1 st to right needle. Sl st to cable needle, hold to back. Twist stitch on left needle. Sl 1 st from right needle to left. K2tog. Purl st on cable needle.

It's the "Sl 1 st from right needle to left" that I'm getting stuck with. When I twist the stitch on the left needle am I moving it over to the right needle & therefore just moving that stitch back OR am I moving the last stitch I knitted back to the left needle therefore knitting it twice. Whaddya think?? Nevermind I totally just figured it all out - see how wonderful blogging is!! It helps too when you read ALL the directions I wasn't slipping the first stitch to the right needle before I slipped the stitch to the cable needle. I get it now. Thanks you guys rock!

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