Knitty Gritty Thoughts

Diamond Fantasy Scarf

Diamond Fantasy Scarf
Actual Knit Time: A bit less than a month
Needles: US6 Options Needles (great for lace!)
Yarn: MamaLlama Knits Hand-dyed yarn in "Rivers" Colorway. (I'm a test knitter for MamaLlama knits so it was a treat to get to use this yarn, the colors are very vibrant and the green is especially meaningful to me as I'm Irish.  It reminds me of Ireland.)
Interested in more info?  All posts about the scarf here
Final Note: This pattern is incredibly well written, there is a knitalong here if you're interested.  I think the design is incredibly smart, especially the way the edging is constructed, 5 stars(*****)! 

This knit also counts for Lacevember, so I earned a star by my name, yea! 
And just because I couldn't resist, here's one last artsy shot.  I just found the B/W option on my camera.  I love B/W pics.

Handknit Holidays: Cabled Socks

Handknit Holidays Cabled Socks
Actual Knit Time: 2 weeks
Needles: US 6 Needles (Started with 5's, too small) Magic Loop Options Needles
Yarn: Rowan Cork from Free Rowan Subscriber Gift (2.5 balls) for size 10 feet
Final Note: The pattern seems to be a favorite in the handknit holidays book, I've seen them all over the blogosphere, they are v-ery cozy!

P.S. Free yarn part - Anyone interested in the extra yarn from this project?? I have 1 full and 1/2 ball of Rowan Cork, in Oatmeal free to you if you'd like to try it.  Simply leave a comment by Friday the 1st.

Hope everyone's holiday weekend was great, if you celebrated.  Our Thanksgiving was nice, it was my first year cooking a real full sized turkey and it turned out great, yea!  I was really worried about defrosting it, then about cooking it completely but it all turned out in the end.  Work has me a bit stressed so I'm not feeling too chatty right now but I will say I've been really collecting the color cards lately.  I love seeing a smidge of color of what the yarn looks like in person rather than a monitor and is also important to someone like me who lives a bit far away from any local yarn stores.  I ordered some JaggerSpun color cards from Sarah's Yarns and she sent me e-v-e-r-y single color card of yarn that they sell, how neat is that?  It was a veritable mountain of yarn samples!

I also got really lucky and I was chosen on Fybrespates blog to win a skein of sock yarn for giving her feedback on her new online shop.  The yarn just came today, isn't it yummy?  It reminds me of fall- lovely leaf peeper colors.

Organized Knitting

I finished the first of the Handknit Holidays Cabled Socks this weekend.  The pattern is really fast to knit and gives you a lot of bang for the knitting buck (meaning it looks a lot harder than it is =))

The majority of the weekend I spent in the kitchen working, however when I did find free time I was still working.  In this case I organized my knitting patterns.  How do you organize your patterns?  I've tried a few ways over the years and finally separated them into categories and put them into page protectors.  The plain blue binder on the right is miscellany with tabs for smaller categories.  It feels good to be oh so organized! (No I'm not anal, why do you ask??)

Have you seen the new bloglines feature?  They created something called a "playlist" so you can view subsets of recent updates from feeds.  However I've been using it for something else altogether by creating a playlist of all my feeds I am able to see when the last time people have updated their blog was.  It makes cleaning out the old feeds (helll-ooo last updated 2004!) very easy.  I managed to get rid of 35 feeds that people just didn't blog at anymore, neat-0!  You should give it a try.

P.S.  I'm wearing Lorna's Laces in vera socks today with my crocs, just in case you were curious =)  Happy Holiday Week, and Gobble Gobble!

Comfy is My Name-O

The "mitts of doom" as Julie so aptly calls them underwent a conditioner bath this week, which was a really neat idea by Nancy.  Basically I just did a full wet soak and added conditioner to the water and mixed it together with my hands and let the mitts soak for 30 minutes.  It did work, they are softer and the fibers appear to be smoother.  Unfortunately my hands are still not happy in the darn things so I think I'm going to put them in the gift pile and send them to someone who can wear them. 

It has just started to turn cold here in the south, finally!  It was 84 highs all last week and I was feeling overheated.  Working from home you can find me in jeans and a tee most days with either flip flops or running shoes depending on my mood.  I definitely choose comfort over style always, and I mean who's going to see me anyway? =)  Last night I ran across some crocs shoes and tried them on.  I have always thought they weren't the most stylish things but my oh my goodness, they are COMFY!  I've found the perfect combo wearing them with handknit socks, it's so cushy and my feet are happy, so I'm happy.  Oh you wanna see the socks I'm wearing today?  They're knit from Alison's anklet pattern in koigu, I managed to get the pair out of 1 skein, even for my ski boat feet.

(Please ignore my pasty, so white they're blinding, legs =) )

No new knitting progress to show this week, I did rip out my cabled sock from handknit holidays because it was too small to fit over my instep.  I started over with a US 6 needle and it appears to be going good.  I've tried it on a few times and I think we have a winner.  I've been keeping busy tearing up the kitchen.  We tore out the floors/wallpaper this week so it's been a little crazy, we're living off takeout and frozen dinners.  I can't wait until it's put back together so I can have a decent meal.  The sodium levels have me drinking water like a camel- I'm thirsty all the time.

I know you came here for the knitting though, I  have a few things I'm loving this week, have you seen Tracey's Print O' the Wave Stole?  It's gorgeous.  Also, Cara had a great link to braiding roving which I think is neat.   I love the way roving looks in little braids. 

Have a great weekend!

Put a Fork in it.

Thank you all for your funny comments and great suggestions.  I was just about at the end of my rope when I saw the mitts were two different sizes.  Yesterday I finally ripped the smaller one back, which I knit first coincidentally, to make it 1 repeat longer so they would be the same size.  It worked- the mitts are the same size, freshly washed and blocked and looking quite pretty.

Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, I don't know if it's the slightly damp alpaca or what, but - the mitts are ITCHY.  My whole hand got rather itchy and irritated when I put them on.  I just can't win with these, honestly.  I actually had an extra skein I was going to make a hat out of, but now I'm not so sure.  I've used other alpaca before and never had a problem.

Oh well, you came here for the pics right?  Here you go-

Lace Artist's Gloves
Actual Knit Time: 2 days, if I didn't mess up the pattern =)
Needles: US5 Magic Loop Options Needles
Yarn: The pattern called for cashmere, I substituted with Blue Sky Alpacas 100% Alpaca in color 009
Interested in more info?  All posts about the mitts here
Final Note: I spend so much time on the computer, fingerless gloves are a must-have during the winter.  Each year I knit a new set.  I love the color and the way they turned out.  As long as they stop itching me, they'll be a new favorite.

Oh yes and I almost forgot, these count for the warm hands knitalong as well, yea!

Not My Time.

I believe everything happens for a reason, that there is a right time and the right place for anything. If something isn't working out, I wait a bit, trying to be patient, for that time to come.

I had been having trouble with the second of these fingerless mitts- too many stitches, too few stitches, twisted cast on... even knitting around and around the wrong way, like a knitting blip stuck on the record player.  I waited.  I let them bide their time.  Then, I tried again. 

I waited until tonight.  All of a sudden the knitting was going so smoothly, they were practically flying off my needles.  And you know, I thought to myself "Finally, it's the right time." 

I kept knitting ferociously afraid to put them down, afraid to lose my place in the pattern and misplace my flow of stitches.  I kept at it all night and finally, just 5 minutes ago I cut the thread and pronounced them done!

Then I looked closer.

And you know what - I was wrong.  Argh!!!

I love Diamonds

I told you this week was all about the knitalongs.  Like Nancy I love it when I'm already planning on doing something and then a knitalong comes along.  *Bam* I'm there! =)

Do you recognize the pattern?  It's the diamond fanstasy scarf by Sivia Harding.  The yarn is very special, it's from Mama Llama Knits, the creation of Catherine.  You should go check out her shop, she has lots of neat lace and sock clubs starting up right now!

I feel very lucky to have gotten a chance to try out her yarn and knit something so luscious with it.  The colors are so gorgeous in person, you wouldn't believe the depth of greens.  A normal DF scarf is 6 repeats, but the yardage is so generous I think I'm going to go atleast 7, or perhaps more.  I'm almost finished with 4reps in this picture.  It's knit on a US 6 knitpicks circular.

And in other news, Kim Hargreaves has discounts on all her accessory kits here, go check it out.

Stockings

I joined another knitalong, surprise surprise!  I have always wanted to make handknitted christmas stockings.  I have these visions of knitting one for each member of the family and hanging them from my (now inexistant =)) mantle, filling them with candy, fruit and little treats.  I'd like them to last forever and have them bring special meaning to the holidays, each and every year.  Last year I purchased some stocking patterns from here, holly for me and moose for the hubby.  They've languished all year in my stash just waiting for me to gain the color knitting skills to give it a shot.  I'm happy to say that time has finally come, after many practice items I was ready to give it a try and cast-on.  It was very exciting after waiting for so long! 

The yarn is plymouth galway in very christmassy colors, #16, #17, #8.  I had debated using other yarn, the pattern calls for Bartletts.  However after looking around at all the choices, I'm happy with it.  It was like russian roulette, ordering off the internet in color cards, so I was desperately hoping the yarn looked as good in person as it did on the screen. 

So far I'm happy the way they're turning out, I hope a few wonky spots will block out a bit nicer when I'm done.  The scary part I'm dreading is the heel, they give you two options, short-row or afterthought.  My short-rows are always holey and I've never given afterthought a try but I think for this I'll have to pick the lesser of two evils and go with short-row.  They do have great instructions written up, so maybe it's time to give it another go.  *Sigh* I can do it!!

Socks n' Stuff

Having issues with internet precluded my from posting this on Friday, so I apologize for the wait for the winner.  For some reason bloglines didn't pick up my feed anywhere from 12-36 hours later so I also apologize if you missed out.  I do give out random knitting things from time to time so hopefully next time it will work out, and stay tuned.

Anyhow, Sarah won the needles via random number generation, congrats Sarah, they're in the mail to you!

You should also check out Christine's Stash Sale, she's selling off all her yarn because of some life changing events and giving spinning a try.  All the yarn is super yummy and priced to move.

 

I'll post a pic of a sock I posted before but I'll put it up here again because I am just amazed at how well the stitch definition comes off on these new sock blockers that arrived this weekend (no affil).  They looked a little big sitting there but apparently I just have huge ski boat feet because they fit my sock perfectly =)  Now I'm motivated to finish the other one that's been languishing for months, yea!

Badcaul Socks by Anna in Koigu knit on Magic Loop

Anyhow, we spent the weekend putting a little "Sweat Equity" into our home.   I may have mentioned this before, we purchased our first home last year, a little 3bed, 2bath with a garage and the smallest kitchen known to man.  Honestly, it's so tiny, you could blink and you'd miss it.  Well we've spent a good portion of the past 6 months improving the house, pulling out carpet and putting in the pergo floors, painting, new light fixtures etc.  We just finished our biggest project to date, renovating the guest bathroom.  We pulled everything out except the shower and started over, tiling up part of the wall, new tile floors, molding and a beautiful new vanity I got on sale cheap!  I like sales and I really renovate under a strict budget.  I should say I have very particular looks I like and I managed to pull off something that looks more expensive than it is through careful shopping and I'm very happy. 

The 3 things that need to be done are the master bath, laundry room and kitchen and we were debating what to start next, I think the kitchen it is.  It's a very fine line for us as this is a temporary home, no longer than 2 more years here so we want to make it look nice but also for it to sell so everything we do I keep that in mind.  We're debating tearing out the whole thing but I have to question if it's worth it, in a perfect world we'd probably have to rip out some walls but for now we're going to try and keep it simple, tile, new appliances and new countertops, preferably corian.  Did you know the avg kitchen reno costs 40k??? EEK.  I always watch those design shows and they turn out nice, but it's not worth it for this area.  I'll post a pic so you can give me your opinion, NEW Cabinets or NOT???  And no laughing at the small space, I already warned you =)

Giveaway

I bought these stretcy circs a few months ago to give it a try on socks.  I just cast-on for the first time yesterday and realized that these needles are not for me.  We all have our preferences, DPN's, Magic Loop, Socks on 2 circs, etc.  I always am willing to give something new a try but sometimes you find you're happy with what you're already doing. I don't like holding onto things that I won't use and would like to pass them on to someone who will.  They are brand-new, barely out of the package.  SO, this is the Giveaway part - They don't work for me but maybe they will work for you, or you have been wanting to give them a try?  I will send them to you free of charge, simply leave a comment by Friday 9am EST.  If your name gets picked I will put them in the mail to you on Friday.  I hope they will find a happy home =)