Knitty Gritty Thoughts

Project Bag Shop Update + Finished!

I've just finished posting a few new small project and sock bags in my etsy shop, and it feels good to finally get them done and off my work table!  Thanks so much to everyone who has given me such great feedback on them, Miss Nuttnbunny mentioned how much she liked hers, and Angelika too, oh and don't forget Miss Qutecowgirl, and Kim too!  I also got a lovely email from Margaret saying how much she liked hers, and Hilary is very tempted by the packaging and wants to peek inside even though it's a gift for her knitting grandmother, hehe!  Thanks for the love ladies, I greatly appreciate it - it's fun to make something that other people enjoy too! =)

So as I mentioned there are a few new ones up, this may not be the last update before Christmas but it most likely will be the last one where the package will arrive before that date.  Also - I cleared out the last of this fabric, so if you had your eye on a particular pattern just want to warn you this will be the last one of it's kind. 

I spent the weekend working on finishing my largest project this year, I'll give you a little hint -
check out all those ends!

Any guesses???

Pics coming this week, as soon as I manage to fit it all in the camera! =)

Blogger Commenting - 2 thumbs down.

Anyone else as annoyed as I am about the new blogger commenting change that they dropped on us like a bomb? 

Basically sometime last week they removed the ability for commenters to leave a blog url making people either leave a blogger id or anonymous signature.  Now I don't know about you but that annoys me because putting my signature and URL on blogger comments was a great way to leave comments from those of us who are other platforms and be able to link back to our blog.

I searched around blogger to find out why and found out they're in the process of implementing a openId Key format.  I went over there to put in my 2-cents on why this is a bad move and I encourage you to do the same.

After all - making a huge change on comment functionality without letting it's customers...the users... know?  That's bad MOJO!

Hodgepodge

Thanks so much for supporting my stash sale, there's still a few things left if you had your eye on something (make me an offer! =))  and I'll put up more stuff as I have time.  I didn't realize how much effort those things take - phew!  I'm exhausted!

In the meantime I've finished up some knitting and spinning, so here's a quick update.  I've been fighting with gauge issues lately on all my stranded knitting.  The first and most obvious is my poor little selbu mitten.  It turned out beautifully but it's still a smidgen too small, I tried to block it vigorously but to no avail, I don't know if this poor little thing will ever get a finished thumb or if I should just toss it in a bin never to be seen again?

In other gauge issue news, I started my christmas stocking for myself.  You may remember last year I knit my husbands?? Well this year I started mine, or at least with past tense being the key word.  You'd think I could use the same needles as I used before, it's the same number of stitches, etc but no luck, it's about 1 inch smaller all around.  How is that possible?  I guess I never realized that our gauge can change over time.  I seem to be knitting tighter all of a sudden and I don't like it!

In the meantime I finished a baby surprise sweater (ravelry link) in hello yarn fat sock.  It's so squishy and soft, I just adore this yarn.  I gave it a quick blocking but I still need to seam it.  Word of advice, don't seam this yarn until you soak it, mine relaxed exponentially and the shoulder seams would have definitely puckered if I tried to seam it before hand.  It took 2 skeins and I have just enough left to squeeze our a pair of booties, saartje anyone??

I've been knitting hats too - I finished the first koolhaas hat and had enough yarn left for a second (ravelry link).  I used brooks farm 4-play, what a great deal - 2 hats from 1 skein with only yards to spare!  Aren't they cute?  Both are the same size but the left one was blocked and the right one fresh off the needles.  I honestly wish I hadn't blocked this yarn, the silk in the wool blend causes it to go flat and lose some of it's 3-d'ness.  Is there a way to fix it??

And finally here's the latest handspun I finished, the roving is superwash from mama-e and this little skein of yarn has already found a new home.  I've done more spinning but I'll save it for next time, have a great week! =)