Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Pink Tomato


My pink tomato is finished. It was a really fun, quick knit. It's knit with "stash", Summer Soft (Filatura Lanarota) 60% Rayon and 40% Acrylic from Smileys Yarns....at only $1.99 a ball. I made it in the 48", which gave me a negative ease of about 2" and really like the fit. I extended the length by a couple of inches and made the neckline higher than the pattern called for.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Big thanks once again.


As you can see I got spoiled once again in the second round of the Swap.
Big thanks to the fabulous Angela who got me and obviously has rad taste.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Yarn Question

Does anybody have experience knitting with KnitPicks "Shine" worsted or DK weight yarn? I'd like to know what you thought.

Thanks in advance!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

No Wonder...

...it wasn't working! I'm (trying) to make Tuscany in Handmaiden Silken and no matter what I did I couldn't get the stitch definition to come out right. I kept trying smaller and smaller needles until I was wondering if toothpicks might be a better choice. So onto the internet I go and do a little research. Turns I didn't buy Silken, I bought Lace. Oi! So at lunch I go home, get my #4 circs and a ball of Regal Silk I had lying around and knit up a swatch.... Lo and Behold! Stitch definition!!!!
Now my delimma is whether or not to go to my LYS and buy more of the Regal Silk (which is an alpaca/silk/poly blend I think and way cheaper) or splurge on Sea Silk or Silken.

TEDF

ETA: Regia Silk, not Regal Silk.

Meet Amy on the Road!

Amy Singer is making her way down the West Coast this week! Stop in at these shops to get your books signed and to meet Amy in person.

July 24 & 25 - Bainbridge Island (Seattle area)
ChurchMouse Yarns and Teass

July 26 - Portland
Knit/Purl
lunchtime reception & book signing
12-1:30pm

July 28 - Sunnyvale, CA (between San Jose and San Francisco)
Purlescene Yarns
Book signing & reception
2pm

And save the date for August 26 at Loop in Philadelphia!

Monday, July 23, 2007

The next "big" thing...


Well, now that the lime green Tuscany is done, I was contemplating another Interweave yummy from KNITS Spring 2007, the Cable-Down Raglan (very yummy ocean blue with wonderful cabling pattern), when I thought that maybe I could do the Morrigan, so I looked at the book again...it made my head spin...my life is WAY to complicated right now (zen meditation camp for a month in the mountains might be too complicated for that one, but I still want to do it someday...I applaude those that are doing it), so I looked at Cables and Os...I had a random skein of Debbie Bliss cotton cashmere in "cream" (85% cotton-15% cashmere...not totally "no sheep") and knitted up this geeky thing. It was my first time knitting with this yarn and it is FABU...I've placed a few bids on eBay to snag a "few" more skeins. I'll keep you all posted.

Update on my Morrigan

DSCF0656

I have finished the back and I am doing the front now. Lots of fun! I have taken a little break on it for the week but will be up and knitting on it again next week.

The Battle Begins


After swatching, buying yarn, photocopying charts and pasting them up, I finally cast on Friday night. Then I discovered I'd not left enough tail, so I ripped it out and started over. I got to the "end" of the first row and realized I'd left out the side charts, so I did that over. Things did improve though and now I've got about an inch of sweater and have changed up to the larger needles. The Rowan Calmer feels so very nice that it's a good incentive to work on it even when the cables are being pesky.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Lime Green Tuscany DONE!





At long last, this Tuscany is done! I LOVE this pattern. Thanks Amy.

Morrigan Sweater

more Morrigan


I just joined this group and wanted to say hello. My name is Janis and I am knitting "Morrigan". Here is a picture of my progess. I have to say that this is one great sweater and I can't wait to finish it. It is a challenge in the fact that it goes pretty slowly. Great pattern by Jenna and fun to knit.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

My Secret Pal Rocks!







I came home today to find a box on my doorstep, yay! I was a bit confused at first because it was making a lot of noise and my first thought was, "oh no, something's broken". Everything was okay, it was just the Cremesavers rattling around...and seriously, if you haven't eaten the apple pie and cinnamon bun ones, you must get some now!

Besides the Cremesavers, my box contained a super cute knitting cake measuring tape, a nice card and two lovely skeins of yarn. The first one is Panda Cotton in "fall herbs" which is a lovely mix of greens, burgundy and orange. I adore it. The second skein is Patagonia nature cotton in colorway 203 which is beautiful.

Turns out my secret pal is a fellow Oklahoman who is my age. Her blog is http://www.knitandfallbackinit.blogspot.com/ Check out her blog, she is funny...I have a feeling we would get along great in person:)


Thank you so much!

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

silken!




I have officially joined the Silken fetishist brigade - the 20% off sale at the LYS did not hurt any!

The above colours are Pewter and (I think, anyway) Peridot. Designated for the River Rock Scarf (which I should note, although lovely in the book, I only decided to knit when I saw Marianne's posted version on this blog (post of 8 May 2007). I'm nervous about the beads... but if it all works it will sure look beautiful!

Monday, July 16, 2007

Thank you , thank you, thank you

I got a very pretty skein of King Tut cotton in the mail this weekend from my swap partner. Visit my blog to see pictures.

Amy
www.knitandfallbackinit.blogspot.com

FO



OK, so it's not a pattern from the book, but the yarn was reviewed here on 4/3/07: Madil Eden. The pattern is from Knitty.com, called Soleil. The bamboo yarn has gorgeous drape, a very silky feel, and is a good price ($6.95 at my LYS). Unfortunately, the sweater is a gift for my sister so I can't enjoy it. I'm seriously thinking of frogging another project with this yarn so I can make a Soleil for myself.

I took it for show-n-tell at my LYS. The owner of the shop insisted on trying it on so she could judge which size to make for herself, and printed off the pattern right then.

This was actually the first of three FO's this past week, you can see the other two on my blog http://www.catnurseknits.com/

I'm starting to swatch my Plum Tomato, with checkerboard purls instead of herringbone.

Negative Ease in Tomato

I'm interested in how much negative ease you are using in all of the beautiful completed Tomato pictures. I have a sneaking suspicion that mine is going to be too big and I would like to frog it now rather than later when I've spent more time knitting it. I started making the size 40 and that is exactly my bust size. Then I saw Rachel's post and hers looks great with 3.5" of negative ease!

Susan
http://dogloversyarn.blogspot.com/

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Progress on my Cables and Os!!

I'm only 4 inches away from the armhole divide!! So, I am knitting like the wind to get there. Here is what I have so far:


I love this sweater already!!

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Sweet Indulgence

Hi! I'm Elizabeth and I just wanted to drop by and say hello. I plan to make the Sweet Indulgence robe, in cotton. I'm just waiting for my yarn order to arrive---RYC Luxury cotton DK in pink Damsel---can't wait, can't wait!

In the mean time, I'm enjoying reading this blog and looking at your projects!

A Striped Tomato

Well, I tried to resist. Really I did. I told myself I could NOT buy yarn for a Tomato. And since I didn't have enough to make one I thought I was safe. But then I realized I could make STRIPES! I used TLC Cotton Plus in the mint green, cream, and pink. Less than 1 skein of each. I made the 31.5 inch size which fit me (35") perfect. Excuse the slightly wonky photo, taken by my 6 year old which is why I look like a giant!! When can I make another?!


Thursday, July 12, 2007

More Progress

Photobucket - Video and Image HostingPhotobucket - Video and Image HostingWell, as you can see, I'm making progress, thanks to the Columbia Knitting Meetup at Borders:) I had a blast knitting in front of my cup of coffee, and blabbing away about knitting and whatever else came to mind last night. It was a nice, cheap fun way to enjoy myself. And I had been a good doo-bee and got my work done, so there!

It's interesting that I started this on regular straight needles, in size 2 and had a hellacious time cramming all 352 stitches on even the 14" needles, but now using the size 4 circular (this one's an Addi-Turbo) the linen (green) seems to behave better. Plus, it doesn't hurt that the cables pull everything in a bit. I think I'm going to hem up the ribbing to tone down some of the linen's poofy-ness and then use a green i-cord edging for all the "raw" edges of the sweater to match the "roundness" of the turned up ribbing. We'll see. Why not try a new skill, right?

I just love the way this is coming along - a lot of fun because the pattern is easy to remember yet not boring and deadly as I fear stockinette would have been.

Happy Knitting everyone!

Joan a/k/a fuguestateknits


Tuesday, July 10, 2007

No Sweat Socks


I finished the No Sweat Socks. I had to show off the awesome socks!

I want this book!!

but I'm having quite a bit of trouble getting hold of it. I've ordered it twice from suppliers who claim to have it in stock but then they start pushing the estimated delivery date back. And back. And back.

So I won't have much to contribute for a bit. But I have my eye on Morrigan...

In the meantime, it's great to see other people's projects in progress.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Cables & Os and Boy do I feel STUPID!!

Hello everybody! Please accept my apologies. I tried to import all my postings on the various blogs and KALs I belong to onto my wordpress blog. What happened was that all the entries posted by all of you wonderful people ended up looking like I had posted them (DOH!!!). At first I thought it might be OK to post a disclaimer, but I began to feel more and more like a thief and had determined that I would remove those entries. Then I got an e-mail from one of our list managers indicating that a bunch of you had seen what had happened and were concerned (or maybe even - understandably - confused, or even angry! Well, I am very very sorry - and I have removed those entries. There may be a few more left from another KAL, which I am also working on removing (I have to do them one at a time and there are thousands). In the meantime, should you come upon anything that I've missed in the deletion process, please feel free to comment here or on my blog and I will correct the situation immediately.
Again, my sincere apologies.
Still working on Cables and Os - but have to finish another item for which I have a bit of a deadline!
Happy Knitting everyone and thanks to you all for your patience,
Joan a/k/a fuguestateknits
+

Props to Silk and SPs

First - a big THANK YOU to Amy and all the other people who made NS4U possible. I love wool, and pretty much used it exclusively (plus alpaca & a bit of mohair), but now I've expanded my horizons into SeaSilk, hemp, and other lovelies. 100% Silk is really awesome! :) I'm also spinning and knitting in a finer gauge, so I should be able to crank out some wearables for the non-winter seasons. Yay!

Second - my Secret Pal is witty, devious, and oh-so-generous. Explore the marv goodies she sent me here.

See you at SeaSocks 2008! Ahoy knittys!
Sharon in PA

PS - I'm driving from Seattle to Philly later this month. Anyone who wants to put me up for a night can get acupuncture, bodywork, and a ride in a London Taxi! :)

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

He Gansey - done!

Detail:


Front:


Yarn: Rowan All Seasons Cotton.

Thanks to Jeannine Sims for this lovely pattern. DH will be a very happy (couch) camper!

More info on the blog.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

And another round on the River Rock Scarf.

The small beads that I chose the first time around kept sliding out & around the stitches. After 2 rows of completed rocks, I realized that this was just going to get worse the more the scarf was handled so I went out for more beads. I wound up buying beads that were too big & went back out for ones that are hopefully just right.
I started with the size 3 needles again. A few of the beads were too big & would have landed on top of each other in the row so I skipped a column.
I decided to switch to size 4 for the body of the scarf. Looking at the 1st 2 “rocks”, I need to focus on keeping the beads visually balanced rather than counting the number of beads since the beads are so different in size.
I broke down and bought some of the new Addi Turbo Lace needles. I really like my wood/bamboo ones but the yarn kept getting stuck in the joins. Considering what a royal pain sliding the beads back & forth without getting tangles is, I decided that the extra expense was worth having one less thing to fiddle with.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Just Joined

Hi all, I have just joined the No Sheep Knitalong and I am really excited to see progress of all your work. Please post all your pictures so that I can look and drool and be inspired to do the same.
Currently I am working on "Tomato" and really looking forward to finishing it. I am doing it in Cotton Ease in the Almond color with the contrast color being white. I will call it the Unripened Tomato.
Thank you for allowing me to join :)

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Finished No Sweat Sock!

Just wanted to share my finished No Sweat sock, my very first finished sock ever!


Introductions

Hello, I'm Susan aka Knitters-Delight. I still have to go out and purchase the book (I have a 20% off coupon from Borders - so I'm going to make sure to run out and grab it today), but I'm planning on doing Tomato as my first project, which I've already downloaded the pattern for. I order yarn from Little Knits online and it has already arrived! I'm using King Tut cotton in a beautiful burgandy colorway. The accent color is a sleek silver. I'm very excited. Since I live in San Diego now after years in Vermont, no sheep knitting makes great sense. Feel free to stop by my blog and say "hello". This will be my first color stand/fair isle project, so I'm sure I'll have a ton of questions.

A few things I've learned

One thing about the Cables and Os pattern is that it's very forgiving. I'm having a lot of fun with the yarns and even though I'm not particularly thrilled to be knitting in stripes and I may have to do something about the linen ribbing, cotton yarn with the size 4 needles is a lovely combination. I'm getting good stitch definition and it's not a hard pattern to internalize, if you will. When I say forgiving, the only problem I seem to have consistently is remembering the yarn overs for the "O" part of the pattern - the mini lace column. I've learned that even if I miss one of them, it is ever so easy to simply correct on the wrong side without even having to tink back and fix it. I simply pick up a stitch as if to do a make 1, but I don't twist the stitch, thereby leaving the lovely little gap that makes the "O." Even the stripes are working out to a change every pattern repeat - though I may change the order of the colors as I get toward the midsection. And finally this I should have mentioned in my initial postings: when dividing for right front, back and left front, I decided to divide along the pattern repeats with the idea that the two additional stitches I've left on each side of the front (total of four) need to be accounted for in the armhole shaping and when it comes time to divide front and back. It's just a lot easier to do it that way while completing the bulk of the bottom, more straightforward knitting. Does this make sense to you? I sometimes have trouble putting the pictures in my head into words (I hear there's medication for that, must look into it.....)
For my fellow countrymen and women, Happy 4th!
Joan a/k/a FSK

Red Alert! Error in Morrigan!

It's probably not a major red alert seeing as I'm probably one of about 10 knitters worldwide who are knitting Morrigan. (I found 3 others started on the web, I'm not the only crazy one.) BUT it is a major error.

I emailed Jenna and her entire response is below. The error is in the number of times that rows 69–76 of the Side Chart are worked.

Crap! you're right! That should have been 4 times. I checked back
through all my drafts, and I had written it as 6, (6, 8, 8, 8, 8)
throughout, but obviously the math doesn't work that way!

Because I used AppleWorks (since uninstalled and I don't know what we
did with the install disks), I can't check the spreadsheet notes to
figure out where the mistake originated... all my text notes show
that I miscounted, and evidently thought that rows 77-84 of the side
chart were only 6 rows, not 8. The tech editor must have done the
same thing, too!

So, the Side chart should indicate that the repeats of rows 69-76 are
4 (4, 5, 5, 6, 6). Here's the logic:

Total rows before bind-offs according to Chart A count: 140 (140,
156, 156, 164, 164)

Side:
4 rows of foundation pattern (chart rows 1-2)
8 rows of patt (chart rows 3-10 x 1)
32 (32, 40, 40, 40, 40) rows of rep (chart rows 11-18)
50 rows of patt (chart rows 19-68 x 1)
--at this point, we've worked 94 (94, 102, 102, 102, 102) rows; 46
(46, 54, 54, 62, 62) to go before bind-off--
32 (32, 40, 40, 48, 48) rows of rep (chart rows 69-76 x 4 (4, 5, 5,
6, 6))
8 rows of patt (chart rows 77-84 x 1)
--this adds 40 (40, 48, 48, 56, 56) rows; another 6 rows to work
following rows 85-92 as necessary--

Thinking about it, I'm positive I kept counting rows 77 to 84 as 6
rows, because I recall I thought that it would end neatly with row 84
for the smallest size, and then I must have incorporated that set of
rows into the repeat count by accident. You could, if you wished,
treat this as a 5x repeat, which means that instead of working rows
77-84 before the bind-off, you'd only work rows 77-82; on the bind-
off row, you'd integrate three double decreases. This would make the
cable pattern fill the underarm all the way up to the bind-off,
rather than leaving a 6-row gap of reverse stockinette across those 9
rows. [edit: she means "those 9 stitches"]

Well. Considering the complexity of the pattern, I'm grateful that
you found only this and that symbol in row 1 in Chart B...

Thanks for forging on ahead!
Jenna

(I'm cross-posting this here and on my blog so that I can reach as many of the crazy people as possible. Hi other crazy people!)