May 26, 2006 Shruggin' It in Mexico

I Do Shrug off to Mexico...we leave for a week in Mexico in 2 days. We're going to a small town outside Puerto Vallarta called Sayulita to stay in a beautiful looking house called Casa Bougainvilla. My plan is to finish this I Do Shrug once and for all- so I can finally move on to something else. Luckily its an easy knit to transport- pretty small and light for knitting on the plan or on the beach. Hopefully in about a week I'll be posting a finished photo- I feel like I haven't finished a project in ages! I might need some instant gratification when I return- I'll have to think about what that might be...hmmm...perhaps a small tote bag for myself, or socks for the 3 (excuse me, almost 4!) year old.

May 19, 2006 Shrug- mistake free version

After almost completing one sleeve of the I Do Shrug, I realized that my attempt to add stitches within the lace pattern did not go well. Rather than trying to figure out how to make it look as thought the pattern was continuing, I either just knitted or just purled- resulting in a big block of checkerboard pattern within the lace- hmmm...it didn't quite blend in. I decided to start the other sleeve to see if I could get it to go a little bit more smoothly- I think it has. Now my progress is as follows:

sleeve 1: completed, and now taken about 1/3 of the way out
sleeve 2: almost completed

The good sleeve is on top, bad one is on the bottom. Hmmm...guess my photo editing skills could use some refiding. Once I've finished the new, mistake free side, I'll rip out the rest of side 1 and do it over. Fun!

May 15, 2006 Love my new socks

I received my sockapaloooza socks today and I love them! Courtesy of Susan, they are knit in lovely Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in a great purply colorway called Black Purl. She used Alison's Tech Guy Socks from MagKnits. I'm wearing them now- perfect for keeping the tootsies warm on a cool spring night in Minnesota.
Thanks Susan!

May 3, 2006 Sockapalooza socks away!

I sent off my socks for sockapalooza yesterday. Wrapped up in one of the special labels prepared by Alison, I think they looked pretty cute. I hope my pal enjoys.

April 30, 2006 Shrug sleeve

After some confusion, I was able to pick up the I Do Shrug again and get working. Maybe it was a mistake to put down a lace project for so long, as I had a hard time remembering where I was and what I was doing. After some fits and starts I got on a roll and am now 10 rows away from being done with sleeve #1. I'm a little nervous about switching to the flat knitting, but so far so good. Don't, however, look closely as I'm sure there are loads of errors. One worry is that sleeve #2 will look so much better due to practice and I'll have to rip out sleeve #1 and start it over.

April 27, 2006 Finished the back

I finally finished the back of hubby's sweater- a huge relief, it looks like it will fit. I'm taking a little break to resume work on my "I Do Shrug". I picked it up last night and could barely remember what I was doing. That's one of the dangers of doing lace I guess, keeping track of where you are when you take a break. Hopefully it will turn out ok. I'm almost up to the elbow- about 1/6th of the way through I guess. Its also nice to pick up a lighter project as the weather gets better. Its hard to have a big blanket of a sweater over your lap when its warm and sunny.

April 19, 2006 Bogged down

As you can see my posts have been less frequent over the past week. I think its partially because I've just been bogged down on hubby's sweater. Its that giant swath of stockinette that's getting to me. However, progress has been made- and, as you can see I even worked on it on the Great Wall! Last night I made it to the point where I started decreasing for the raglan sleeve insets- yea, something different. I'm looking forward to the front where I can work in intarsia- something a little more interesting. I might need to take a short break to work a bit more on the I Do Shrug- I miss that little, delicate piece of lace. I am going to Mexico in about 6 weeks- I'll definitely want to take something lighter like the shrug for knitting on the trip.

April 6, 2006 China Post #2: Knitting, knitting everywhere

It's amazing how you see knitting everywhere, once you start becoming obsessed yourself. As our tour bus was driving through Beijing I spotted this young woman knitting something big and orange while sitting on the curb. Another instance of "knitting-spotting" happened as we were pulling up to the Sacred Way of the Ming Tombs. Of course vendors are everwhere, but there were some women waiting for tourists to come by and were wiling away the time by knitting. I wanted to get a photo, but they quickly squirreled away their knitting when they saw us coming.

April 1, 2006 China post # 1: The Great Wall

Just back from a 10 day trip to Beijing and Shanghai, and am going to try and catch up on my blogging. I actually have a few posts to write about things in China. I wanted to blog while I was there but we were busy doing things practically every moment- from 7:30 AM until late in the evening- there was so much to see and do. This first post is about a quick little stocking cap I made on the way over to Tokyo on the plane. Based on a headhuggers pattern, I whipped up this black cabled number to wear during the windy days in China. As you can see it came in handy while traipsing along the Great Wall! China is an incredibly service oriented culture- a testament to this is that I lost this hat for 2 days and it had been turned into the lobby desk at my hotel. They brought it to me carefully wrapped, like a special little present. I did bring hubby's sweater along on the plane, and did get some work done on it, although that hat definitely distracted from that. Not as much knitting time as I would have thought. Go figure, when I was on the bus or train, I wanted to be looking out at the sights constantly.

March 20, 2006 Travel Knitting Part 2

Today I leave for a 10 day trip escorting 15 Walker Art Center volunteer tour guides on a trip to Beijing and Shanghai. We'll be viewing both traditional sights and art, as well as experiencing the incredible explosion of contemporary visual art in China. When preparing for a trip like this, the whole knitting thing can bring up some quandries. The main one being, looking towards a 16 hour plane trip to get there, another 4 hour one in the middle, a 2 hour train ride, and a 16 hour plane ride home. That is alot of time for knitting. However...that's also a lot of yarn taking up alot of valuable suitcase real estate. I have two projects to work on, one is the men's sweater with the Andre motif- I'm hoping during the trip to get the back finished, and both sleeves done, that way when I get back I'll just have the front to do.

I also want to make a hat on the way over to wear while traipsing along the great wall. I thought a hat would be a good side project to take a break from the sweater, plus something I can probably complete within the span of a few hours. But oh, where to put the yarn.

Have you seen the commercials for Space Bags? They're these bags that you use your vaccuum on to suck out all the extra air, completely flatting what's inside. Behold, the low-tech space bags, the ziplock baggy. Throw a couple of balls of yarn or a knitting project inside one, press out the air, and voila a flat and handy little packet.

March 18, 2006 Happy St. Paddy's Day

Just the thing for St. Patrick's Day, Guiness, knitting, and watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Party!

March 16, 2006 Finished socks!

Yes! I finished my sockapaloooza socks. Although there are a few flaws, I'm pretty happy with them. I hope my sockapaloooza pal enjoys the sunny springtime colors. They kind of remind me of sun and crystal blue waters- something either springy or at the very least- vacationy. I really liked making socks and will definitely do it again, in fact the 3 year old (sorry, 3 1/2!) is already clamoring for a pair. Hopefully ones that small will go even more quickly. After this pattern, I'd definitely like to try the toe up Sherman heel version. I really struggled with that pattern originally, but now that I've made it through one pair pretty much unscathed I think I'm ready to tackle it.

March 15, 2006 Sparkle #2- just in time

Just in time for a huge March snowstorm I finished Sparkle Hat #2- this one for me! I love peoples' responses to this hat- anything from "radio wave brain protector" (that one courtesy my parents) to disco ball hat (courtesy a co-worker). My sister also just finished this adorable hat from Stitch N Bitch Nation- the cabled newsboy hat. I love it.

March 13, 2006 Massive amounts of yarn

I took hubby to the lys this weekend so that he could pick out the yarn for his sweater. He decided on two nice colors of the Cascade 220- a burgundy (#2401) and a heathery tan (#2440). The burgundy will be for the main body of the sweater, with the Andre design in the tan. Should be nice. A good surprise was finding out that the shop has a swift and ball winder available for use- we spent about 20 minutes winding all 7 balls, this will be a huge timesaver! The ladies at the shop enjoyed seeing him using the ball winder. Here's a photo of the sweater pattern I plan to use- from Cleckheaton No.929. My only changes will be the design change, make the collar without ties (just a split v-neck) and to put in raglan sleeves instead of the drop shoulders. I leave for China on Monday and hope to get a bunch done on the trip.

March 9, 2006 Love the sparkle hat!

I finished the sparklt hat and absolutely love it. It was such a fun quick knit as well. I've gotten another skein of the Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky and I'm going to whip one up for myself before I leave for my China trip in a week and a half. I asked hubby what I should bring on the trip to knit and he looked at me incredulously- what about my sweater!!??? Ok, ok, I was just a little bit worried about the space it might occupy in my very likely to be super full luggage. I think I'll try anyway and just bring a couple of balls of yarn. Its not like I'll finish the whole thing on the trip anyway. He did throw down the gauntlet though, we may be going on vacation at the end of May to Mexico with some friends: "Hey, that sweater would be a great thing to bring for the cool evenings!" Time's a ticking.

In case you're just arriving, I'm going to work the intarsia pattern from Knitty's Andre into the front a sweater. I don't know about you, but I had some difficulty finding a good, basic, men's sweater pattern. My LYS finally directed me to where I found a great stockinette stitch sweater with a nice collar. Should work well. Next, yarn- what to use? The pattern calls for Cleckworth Angora, but I wanted something (cheaper) and really sturdy, since I see this as a casual knockaround type garment. Cascade 220 it is! Lots of yardage to the skein, not expensive, plenty of colors to choose from, and nice to knit with and wear. I'll have either drag hubby to the yarn store or have him look online and choose his colors. Update on that aspect soon!

March 3, 2006 Sparkle hat

Between my two socks for sockapaloooza I needed a little instant gratification project. A friend has a birthday coming up and I want to make her a knitted gift. She's into funky hats so I decided to make the Sparkle Hat from Stitch N Bitch. I had a little trouble finding paillettes with large enough holes for the yarn so I bought some with smaller holes and had my trusty assistant punch holes for me. He's so useful! I'm using the yarn recommended with the pattern- Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky- which I love. I'm using 1/2 the recommended amount of spangles- 45 instead of 90. I think with my leftover spangles I might make a hat for myself.

March 2, 2006 Sock one finished

I did it. I finished my first sock. Its not perfect, its not flawless, but its done and its a sock. On to number two. I am taking a little break between socks for another (quicky) project- a birthday gift for a friend. More on that tomorrow.

March 1, 2006 Public Knitting Interventions

Have you heard about knitta? According to the website:

Knitta began in August 2005, when AKrylik and PolyCotN were discussing their frustration over unfinished knitting projects: half-knitted sweaters and balls of yarn gathering dust. That afternoon, they knitted their first doorknob cozy. Then it dawned on them… A tag crew of knitters, bombing the inner city with vibrant, stitched works of art, wrapped around everything from beer bottles on easy nights to public monuments and utility poles on more ambitious outings. With a mix of clandestine moves and gangsta rap — Knitta was born! Today, Knitta is a group of more than 10 ladies of all ages, races, nationalities, religions, sexual orientation… and gender.

I love this idea of public "knitting interventions". Have you ever thought about knitting as incorporating gangsta rap??

February 25, 2006 Skating Break

Perhaps I was inspired by the Olympics (regular, not knitting version) to take a break from knitting for a little ice dancing with the 3 year old. This was his first time on skates and after a few tears (I think the skates just felt really wierd on his feet) he seemed to enjoy it. How one transfers from holding the child up the entire time to having him skate on his own seems a little beyond me at this point. I hadn't been on skates in quite a while myself, but I managed a few wobbly figure 8s. No triple toe loops, however.

February 22, 2006 Travel Knitting

Although I'm in the midst of two projects (socks and shrug), I'm going to China on March 20 and am already contemplating the perfect travel knitting project for such a long plane ride (and probably some bus rides as well). I will probably be bringing either my sockapaloooza socks or another pair, but it seems like a good opportunity to get a bunch of work done on a larger project. Spouse has been angling for a sweater and I'm thinking about doing one with the Andre intarsia pattern from knitty (it was originally done for a scarf, but I think it would work well on a sweater). I just need to find a pattern for a nice, plain stockinette sweater- possibly one with a 1/2 zip neck. I'd like to do this in a sturdy cotton yarn if possible, although I haven't found one I like yet.

February 20, 2006 President's Day

Today's Presidents Day so hubby and I both have the day off. We took child to daycare so we could get some things done. For me that includes a great day of just relaxing and knitting. I'm taking a little break from my socks to work on the I Do Shrug from Knitty. I got about 20 rows in at this point but decided I liked the idea of having sleeves with not such a wide opening. I saw on A Mingled Yarn, Elizabeth suggested using fewer repeats of the pattern in order to make the sleeve openings smaller. I'm going to take out what I've done and start over using this advice. For the project I'm using Tahki Cotton Classic in Old Rose.

February 18, 2006 That darn sherman heel!

Creatures added for scale...I finished the leg and of sock 1 for Sockapaloooza and started on the heel. As I was following Hipknitism's online ribbed sock class I was going to do the sherman heel suggested, but I just couldn't get it! I tried several times and ribbed the thing out a few more and the concept of the slipping stitches and wrapping continued to elude me. I've switched to using Ann Budd's sock pattern from the Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. I've begun the heel flap and all is well...for now.

February 16, 2006 New Interweave Knits!

My Spring, 2006 issue of Interweave Knits arrived a couple of days ago. Always a good day! I love reading through the patterns, looking at the lovely pictures and thinking about what I'll make next. There were a couple of things in the magazine I'm really interested in doing. I've posted a couple of photos, but specifically the Wobbly Circles Tote by Leigh Radford and the Pullover Flair by Ann Budd. The Pullover Flair calls for Artful Yarns Olympic, which I haven't been able to find online, although I've sent an email to JCA, the distributor to see if they can share who carries it. I also think if I did that sweater I might consider changing the turtle neck to a deep split v-neck- more springy.

I really like the felted tote, but as hubby pointed out, I didn't have much luck with my helmet (I mean felted hat), which was my last felted project.

February 15, 2006 To Block or Not to Block

That is the question. And I'm still not sure about the answer. I hate to admit it but I've never blocked anything before now. I thought I'd try it out with good old Childhood. Here are my before and after pictures. I'm still not sure if there's a difference. I may go back and try it again with the ballet wrap cardigan from Interweave Knits and see what happens.

February 14, 2006 Socky started

Yes, I finally managed to cast on the appropriate number of stitches and have made some significant progress on my first sock. I finally gave up on the German Twisted Cast-On (maybe I can learn that at some other point) and just went with my regular long-tail method. Seems to have worked fine. I feel like I'm quite accustomed to the teeny tiny needles now and things have been going pretty smoothly. I'll actually have a good update for the next sockapaloooza update.

February 11, 2006 Frustration's a part of it...

Ok, ok, although I would hope that knitting would be just fun, and smooth, and no problems- if it were that way everyone would do it! I ran into a major problem with the Childhood sweater, a problem of my own making I should say. Because I had purchased the yarn for another probject, I ran out of the lighter colored yarn before I finished the hood. I (mistakenly) thought, I'll just make the hood smaller! It does say in the pattern after all that the hood as written is "roomy". Well, no baby, even the smallest-headed baby, could squeeze their noggin into this hood! I frogged the hood and switched over to the neckband style. I actually like it better and now that I'm finished have a positive feeling about the pattern (in other words I can see doing this one again).

I've gotten the yarn for my sockapaloooza pal and am getting ready to begin. I bought the Lana Grossa Meilenweit "Fun Cotton" in a green/blue/white mix. I did try to cast on using the Twisted German (aka Old Norwegian) method, since its recommended in the basic ribbed online sock class but had some trouble. The problem wasn't with the casting on itself, I just struggled to distinguish one stitch from another, which made it really hard to try and move some of the stitches over to another dpn. I'm going to try again with trusty old long-tail method and see how it goes.

January 8, 2006 Next project please...

I've started on the hood of the childhood sweater, which means I've reached that point in any knitting project where you start to daydream about your next "thing". Hmmm...what will it be? A factor that I need to take into consideration this time, which I don't usually, is that I'm going to China in March and will need some travel-friendly knitting projects to take along. Right now I'm thinking about a scarf, a sweater (such as the To Dye For from Stitch N Bitch above, although I think I'd skip the kool-aid dyeing and just use a nice angora-y yarn, such as suri dream from Knit Picks), and some sock projects. The plane ride is so long I'm actually thinking I could start and finish some projects during the trip. Maybe make myself a sweater on the way over to wear while I'm there. This kind of planning makes me think about the different kinds of knitting projects. Some are quick and instant gratification, others take more time, space, and effort but are "big rewards" projects, while others can be easy and relaxing, perhaps only one type of yarn and a basic pattern/stitch.

February 5, 2006 Childhood Progress

I've finished the back, fronts and one sleeve of the childhood baby sweater. I do like this pattern, however I think it would be better in a bright cotton, like in this one. I think I might actually make this one again using brighter yarns.

January 31, 2006 Giving Up

Ok, I've had to do something that I really didn't want to do- give up on a pattern! With all good intentions I started out on the Chunky Cabled Sweater from Zoe Mellor's Adorable Knits for Tots and the pattern was driving me crazy! I like to do cables, but for some reason I just couldn't get this pattern to stick in my head and so I spent the entire time knitting staring with great and unpleasant intensity at the pattern. Things were compounded when the pattern said Tw2L and Tw2R. The way the book described it was (for Tw2L) to "knit into back of 2nd stitch on left needle, then into front of first stitch on left needle and slip both stitches off of needle." Well, I was never actually sure if I was doing this correctly. If I had only done a little research I would have seen this instruction: "Slip 1 st to cable needle and hold in front of work. K1, then knit the st from cable needle." This I could have handled! Plus, this is a baby gift for an already born baby and I need something that can be done quickly. Anyway, I ripped the whole thing out and decided to do Childhood from Knitty instead (although still using the RCY Cashsoft yarns rather than the Mission Falls 1824 Cotton). I'm done with the back and 1/2 way through the left front.

I'm anxiously waiting my "assignment" from Sockapaloooza! I can't wait. I need to update my foot size- I had my measuring assistant help (see photo). I'm going to China in March and think that knitting a few pairs of socks will make a great project for the plane. I've also requested Knitting on the Road: Sock Patterns for the Travelling Knitter by Nancy Bush from the library, which I'm hoping will inspire me with a terrific pattern. I also found a great "sock knitting lesson" online, which I think could be a great help with my first foray into socks.

January 27, 2006 Pirate Done!

I've finished the pirate sweater- I think Emerson looks pretty cute in it. I'm on to my next project. I've started the Chunky Cabled Sweater, also from Zoe Mellor's Adorable Knits for Tots. My good friend Erin, and her husband Eric who live in Paris, had a baby in December- Ethan Gregoire. I'm hoping they'll enjoy this sweater for him. The pattern calls for Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, but my lys, Needlework Unlimited didn't carry it so their very able staff suggested Rowan Classic Yarns, Cashsoft DK. I did like the khaki/red combo suggested in the book, but couldn't find similar colors I liked in the Cashsoft. I went with a sage/tape combo, which I think will work nicely.

January 24, 2006 (part 2) Weaving in Ends

I was a little worried when I saw the back of the pirate motif (see "before" photo). However, after some concentrated weaving in, I managed to get it to look like the "after" picture after about an hour. One more 1/2 sleeve and I'm done! Next its on to socks for sockapaloooza and perhaps the I Do Shrug from knitty.