Knitty Gritty Thoughts

Rona...released.

Hey all, just wanted to stop by quickly and let you know that my grandfather passed away very suddenly the day I returned from my trip.  He had not been sick at all, and one second he was fine, the next he collapsed and he died on the way to the hospital.

I wasn't particularly close to him, by no lack of effort on my part however I am trying to be there for my mom, to support her when she needs me.

I haven't forgotten about the contest, or telling you all about my trip but I have to put that on hold right now to be there for my mom.

Here's a little ray of light to hold you over in the meantime - I'll be back in a few days.

Rona...off the needles and blocking!  I never thought I would see the day!

Spin spin spin.

Last week I officially sold my old home in GA and packed my last few possesions, the dogs and myself in the car for the drive to North Carolina.  It was a bittersweet goodbye, leaving a place and knowing you'll never return.  It was also exciting, knowing that I was moving on to the next stage in my life.

Since then I've been in limbo.  I am in contract on a new house, not my dream house, but a good investment property that is also a nice house.  It had many of the things I was looking for like wood floors, an office, and a nice open floor plan.  Oh!  and internet, can't forget the internet!  We were supposed to close today but paperwork is running behind so now I hope to close by the end of the week.  I am sooo looking forward to being out of limbo!

Oh yes, and I guess I haven't mentioned I've finally decided to move to Raleigh/Wake Forest, NC.  It was up in the air for a long time, first it was seattle, than raleigh, than VA and now back to Raleigh again.  When my grandma got sick it made me realize how important family was and I knew I wanted to be close to family while hubby is gone.  So, funny of all things is that we are now buying a house on the very same street as one of my SIL's, just about 10 houses down.  Funny how things turn out, isn't it???

Anyhow, so I've been keeping a secret from you!  Guess what it is? (Erica (my spinning guru!), Rachel, Angelika, Tiennie, no guessing, you already know!) =)

Ta Da!  A spinning wheel!  I lucked out, I've been wanting a wheel for a long time and I saw Chris was getting ready to sell her lendrum.  It was perfect timing!  It came with bobbins, lazy kate, plying head, and a bag lady bag (you all know how I like my bags!).  Chris is such an enabler, she threw in bags of lovely fiber for me to practice with as well as her very own hand-crafted orifice hook.  (Go check out her store, she has more, they are very lovely!)

I've been attempting to spin and I wouldn't call it "yarn" yet but I'll keep practicing.  If you have any links to tutorials, tips or fiber enablers please let me know so I can check it out!  I really could use more info on preparing roving to spin, I don't think I'm prepping it enough.

And just so you don't think this is a spinning blog now, I wanted to show you my progress on Rona.  I knit her onto two circs last night to take a pic but it's really hard to see because it's so big already, it's still smushed.

Here's a pic from the knitpicks website, I've highlighted my progress in yellow so you can see it a little better.  I've committed to two rows a day which doesn't sound like very much, but when you have 300 or so stitches a round it's actually quite a lot.  At the very most if I really want to push it I will knit 5, but that's like hitting the wall.  Hands cramp up and I can't stand to look at the pattern anymore! =)

I'm on round 118 of 150 so hopefully I will finish with it in a few weeks or so.  I am so ready for it to be done!

New! Addi Lace Turbo Review

I was really excited when the mail arrived today, and look what came?!  Why it's the brand-new addi lace turbo needles.  I pre-ordered from here and was really happy with the service.  Of course I couldn't wait to break them in and see what I thought.

Below is a pic of Rona in progress, taken halfway as I switched needles over.  Still loving the color, although I needed a bit of motivation to finish, which is why I bought the new set of needles in the first place.

Overall review - These are v-e-r-y pointy, nice, lightweight knitting needles.  They worked well for lace and I performed K2tog, SSK, SKP and various other lace maneuvers without breaking a sweat (or fighting with it!)

In the above picture, you can compare the points of my favorite lace needles.  On the far left is an (L) Inox, middle is a (M) Knitpicks and far right is the new (R)Addi.  The addi is by far the pointiest of the group.  The brass plating of the addi needle makes for a lightweight knit, it doesn't feel to heavy in your hands.  Although the brass sticks a bit, which can be nice for lace if you're worried about losing stitches. (But for me- I like to zoom, it slowed me down!)

Value-wise the addi is the highest price of the 3.  Although I enjoyed knitting with it, I can't say that it will become my default lace knitting needle, the knitpicks is too reasonably priced for that.  I can say however that when I'm knitting on a big lace project that will take a long time, it's well worth it to spend that time with a needle you really enjoy knitting with, so I'll purchase another here and there to try.

My only knit-pick (besides the stickyness) with the new addi's is that the taper length to the tip is noticeably longer than the others (just squint at the picture and you'll see!)  Therefore, it messes up my "throw" just a bit and I have a tendency to knock into it.  Something I'll need to adjust to I'm sure, with time.

So - Have you tried them?  What do you think?

 

Woven Cables

I got back into town this week and I'm slowly settling back in to my schedule of work and home-life...amongst that I finally finished the scarf pattern that many of you were asking about (and thank you for the interest by the way, I'm flattered!=)) I did end up making it to Purl in NYC and purchased some koigu for Anemoi mittens in my fav colors of the moment, chocolate brown and turquoise.  (Have you seen Tiennie's and Erica's?  Very lovely!)

However...without further ado...here are some pics and the pattern is in PDF format.  I've put it in the right-hand side bar under patterns in a PDF format (or you can download here).  I love this pattern for how simple and classic it is, it's the sort of thing which goes with everything and always looks great!

I've also completed my first FO of the year a pair of socks for hubby...you know those gold toe socks?  Well these are blue toe socks simply because I ran out of yarn.  They're knit with a full ball of brown kroy for each leg/foot and then switched to blue when I ran out.  The pattern is a simple, easy "plain vanilla" sock pattern, my favorite kind.  I actually wrote it up for a friend who was making socks for the first time so I'll post it here shortly too just in case it would help anyone.

Made a little progress on Rona, I've learned that stitch markers can be your best friend with this pattern.  Marking out each repeat is a handy way to keep track of a small set of stitches.  I believe I'm on about round 50 so far (and fading fast, I don't know how much longer it will last before I put it away for a bit!)

Have a great weekend!

Snowflakes and Such

Belated Christmas and Holiday wishes to you all!

On Christmas day I started something new, doesn't it look like a snowflake?  This is the Rona Lace Shawl from Knitpicks knit in Horizon Alpaca Cloud.  The yarn is so soft to work with - although the pattern is written out - no charts!  So I'm reserving judgement on that part until I finish =)  The only one I could find online that had been knitted up is over here and I did find some errata on it over here if you're interested.

One of my new year's resolutions knit-wise is to try new things.  I've never made a shawl in the round before so I guess that counts ;) !

We're headed out of town for a bit so I'm going to take a blog-break for a week or so while we're gone.  We're flying up to NJ for a family christmas celebration and I hope to take a train in to NYC to see some yarn shops - yum!

Best wishes and see you all soon!