The Crafty Frog

My knitting mojo is on vacation

2010-06-14T10:52:00.002-04:00

First of all thank you commenters for the boy sweater suggestions. Perhaps if my knitting mojo would return from where ever it is hiding I'd cast on one of those cute sweaters,

I'm not sure why my mojo has left the building but here are my top 3 hunches.

3. I'm cold sheeping.
Back in March I joined the Stash and Burn cold sheep thread since my stash had been making me feel a bit overwealmed for awhile. Overall this was a good decision. It caused me pull the trigger on some yarn/pattern combinations that had been sitting in my brain for awhile. It also made me realize that if I don't knit new purchases in a timely manner that the yarn sinks to the bottom of the stash bog for all eternity. And sale yarn, just don't buy it Heather cause you never never never knit it. (You just look at it in disgust later.)
However...... I will admit that sometimes going and buying a sexy new yarn is just the thing to snap you out of a knitting slump. Has my stash turned boring or is the problem that...

2. I've been knitting nothing but socks.
The biggest part of my stash is sock yarn so in May I went on a crazy sock knitting spree.
First I paired a Hazel knits sock club color "Aloha" with Knitspot's Chicklets pattern and knocked them out in only a week.

Great TV knitting by the way.

Next was a combination that had been in the brain for years, Claudia Handpaint's "Sea Dreams" made up into Knitty's Azure socks.

Then I cast on Cat Bordhi's Jeweled Steps and Knitspot's David sock and made it through one of each pattern before fizzling out. Is second sock syndrome to blame or is it that....

1. I'm a giant pregnant woman who can't get cool.

Sir snacks is getting pretty big, I'm already carrying around 40 extra pounds and window AC units do not cool the house the way central air does. Blahhhh it's going to be a long summer.

I'm a boy, I'm a boy, but my mom won't admit it

2010-05-27T07:54:00.004-04:00

Haa haa, for some reason I've had that Who song stuck in my head for days. In actuality my husband and I were pretty sure that we were having a boy, due to my extreme hunger. (Extreme as in I do not sleep through the night but have to get up several times to eat) When he gets to be teenager he's going to eat us out of house and home.

Feeeed Meeee!

One thing that is hard admitting is that boy baby sweaters don't seem to be nearly as fun as girl baby sweaters. I'm having a hard time finding patterns I'd actually feel like knitting. If any of you have some suggestions for boy or unisex sweaters please let me know.

In the meantime there are a few baby things that have come off the needles.
One finished Brownie hat in Cascade 220 Heathers...

I'm still surprised that ear flaps are "in."

And one Otto in Sublime cashmere/merino/silk...

grrrrr, argh

Both patterns were good stash busters for some odd balls that had been hanging around.

I'd hoped to have FO photos of the Vogue Heart Yoke by now but the ideal button has been elusive. Some custom made buttons have been ordered so maybe by the beginning of next month there will be a nice final post for that.

A little something for now

2010-05-05T16:08:00.004-04:00

Hey look some pretty color-work...

Hee hee hee Hearts.... black hearts.

It's good to do some experimenting with your color work, but knitting in only red and white taught me two things:
1. You really do need the number of colors the pattern specifics. If you ignore this then enjoy your super bland color-work.
2. Red, white and heathered gray = sock monkey colors. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not what I was going for.

The odd ball stash saved me by yielding up balls of Filatura Di Crosa Zara in dark gray and black. Then the Red Current Sublime merino was switched out with the Plume color and all was good.

They'll be a proper FO post later when I'll kvetch about all the errors in the pattern. Till then I'll be weaving in a million ends.

Ewwww, shouldn't there be some sort of elf for this?

Getting Salty Again

2010-04-30T12:39:00.004-04:00

Yes, the package with the extra balls of Salty colored merino arrived and now we're gonna "Get all Salty." By getting salty I mean take some pictures of Frog with the yarn and then start knitting the Vogue Heart Yoke cardigan again.

Frog is a yarn sniffing connoisseur.

The short rows were all finished up and then we hit our Duh moment. All this time I'd been looking at the Vogue photo and thought the yoke only consisted of 3 colors.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful and wearing hand knits.

When starting to knit the chart I was wondering why it had so many different symbols. Duh, maybe because there is a bunch of gray in it! (Seemly you didn't bother to read all the yardage requirements either, silly knitter) I might just ignore this and go with my original color plan of only red and white. Maybe throw in the MC in for a little variety, we'll see.

In the few days when the Heart Yoke sweater was stalled I purchased Wooly Wormhead's Twisted Wooly Toppers book. There is a bunch of worsted and DK yarn in the stash that is either left over from other projects or only 2 balls were purchased. Knitting up a few of these lovely hats should take care of that problem and maybe produce a few gifts.

First hat cast on was Brownie knit up in some Cascade 220. As long as you aren't being an idiot and trying to knit the cabled brim in the round then it's a very easy pattern. All that is left are some ear flaps and this will be going in future baby's clothing stash.

That's right DH, the baby is going to wear funny hats. You can't stop me!

Riddle me this, Frogman

2010-04-27T10:57:00.003-04:00

The project in question - Heart Yoke Cardigan from Vogue Holiday 2009.
The mystery - Where the heck did all my yardage go?

With the help of my frog assistant we will try to crack this case. To begin with we give you exhibit one.
The directions state that we need 1100 yards of the main color for size 36.

My Rav stash page says we have 1270 yards of Sublime Extra Fine Merino which seems like more than enough.

Pattern states that gauge is 22sts by 28 rows in 4." Yes we did knit a gauge swatch before starting (However lets not go into how small that swatch was) but let's check the gauge of the sweater.
Here is the body which is knit flat.

Stitch gauge breaks down to 5.5 which is spot on (just hard to see, I assure you it's a half stitch on the edge) Row gauge breaks down to 7, my row gauge is a tad tighter at 8.

Now let's check the sleeves since they are knit in the round.

Ahh, gauge on the sleeves appears to be the same as the body.

I sent frog off to do some calculations to see if the tighter row gauge would suck up an extra 170 yards. However he sort of zoned off and might have been making certain "words" out of numbers.

I went with the non scientific route and knit until all the yarn was gone. Sadly the short row directions included a line I'd missed when gambling that there was enough of the main color to get to the Fair Isle section. (Repeat short rows 3 and 4, 6 more times.)

Yes, my project is currently stalled until more yarn reaches me via snail mail.

The verdict - The extra rows must have done me in. Or maybe Vogue directions suck.

Pretties

2010-04-23T13:12:00.003-04:00

Did your mother have a button box? My mother's button box was (and still is) a very nicely made wooden box with proper hinges and maybe even a hint of cedar inside. If your mother was also a sewer (like mine) that box tended to house some rather exiting little gems. There were several metal shank buttons with coats of arms imprinted on the top. Those where favorites, however I also had a fondness for a good honest wooden toggle always floating on the top due to it's large size. Oh, and the big navy plastic ones with anchors on them, yeah they're common but I love that anchor.

It seems that I've never gotten over the giddiness of pawing through my mother's button box. Right now the "button box" that I paw through would be VintageNecessities.etsy.com. There are times when I must set up a self imposed ban on this site so that the grocery money doesn't get spent on old stock glass buttons from Europe. However this being my birthday month I figured a little retail therapy was in order.

First purchase Victorian metal buttons with snowflakes on them. Some future hand knit cardigan + snowflake buttons is going to = awesomeness.

Vintage black plastic buttons. They're classy and they're black, enough said.

Victorian black glass buttons with silver luster. The Precious!!! Back off, I saw you staring at them. They're MINE!!!!! OK, I'm better now..... maybe. Now I just have to get myself a proper box.

Midnight Manu

2010-04-19T13:11:00.002-04:00

Way back in November 2009 I started stalking Kate Davie's blog when she posted a beautiful new sweater and added that a pattern was being created. I might have started checking daily even though I know designers need time to grade, work out the kinks and get things test knit. It didn't matter, that sweater Must Be Mine!!

The pattern came out on Feb 28th, I tossed the stash, decided to use some navy felted tweed and knit like a women possessed. (If you a person who never highlights their size numbers...ahem me... then do it for this pattern. It makes you life soooo much easier)

As usual with felted tweed my lose knitting means to get gauge the needle size needs to be scaled down to size 3. My stitch gauge was still .25 off but I figured that the extra width would be a blessing with my currently expanding body. The sweater's main body and sleeves where all knit with size 3's. The neck and front bands knit with size 2's. However I learned the hard way that no matter how lose your gauge is an icord cast on is pretty tight. After casting on a few sleeves that would have only fit over a baby's hand I used the recommended size 7 needle and got the right size wrist circumference for me. If knitting your own you may want to check the sleeve length. Felted tweed always blocks out with extra length for me so I was not concerned when the sleeves were bracelet length pre-block. Post block my sleeve sat comfortably at my wrists, though I did to stretch them while wet. If you are working with yarn that will not grow much you may want to add a few extra inches to the sleeve length.

This was my first sweater with pockets and they did cause me some annoyance. Knitting the pockets is easy, you just pick up and knit from the bottom following the increase and decrease instructions. Seaming the sides onto the sweater was a pain in the ass. It took hours to get the sides even and then get both pockets to look the same. However the pockets are really the only fiddly bit and the only part that needs seaming. You don't even have to calculate button hole placement and the i-cord button holes where the easiest I've ever knit. (There does seem to be a pattern error under "Work I-cord edging." It says, "from rs.... starting at a point between the right front and back, begin to work i-cord bind off.... across the edge of the cardigan back and left front." If you need to work across the back to the left front you can't do this from the right side you, you need to be facing your wrong side. That's what I did and then made sure to do the i-cord cast off on my pockets from the wrong side.)

The instructions have you fold the pleats in the same direction across the neck. I noticed that other ravelry members switched the pleat direction at center back. Maybe it was a bad brain day but I tried and failed to do this on the size 36. Still it's a nice customization to keep in mind if you're interested in knitting this design yourself.

The only thing that I'm not fully satisfied with is my button selection. My local stores seemed to only have coordinating navy buttons in sizes too large for my already completed buttonholes. These wooden ones are pretty but always seem to clash with the cool colors of the rest of my wardrobe. I'll probably switch them out with some silver buttons in the future.

Concluding thoughts on this pattern and sweater.
The pattern is very well written and Kate made sure to include an instructional sheet on how to do all the cast on/casts off needed in the project. The style is the perfect combination of simplicity with "a twist". People love love love the neckline, I've had both knitters and non knitters comment upon it. (Non knitters are sad that they can't run to the store and buy one) The pockets totally redeemed themselves to me when I discovered they are deep enough to stash a pair of sunglasses or a set of keys. Overall the fit is very comfortable and the 5 button closure is great for this time of year when you need a little bit of extra warmth. This was an enjoyable sweater to knit, I'd recommend it to anyone.

Also should add the the designer Kate Davie suffered a stroke early in the year from a heart defect that she was not aware of. She has been blogging about her road to recovery with much good humor. I wish her all the best, she is a very talented designer and I'm sure Manu is not the last lovely design she shares with all of us.

An Apology to my Blog and Some Cute Baby Pics

2010-04-17T20:30:00.009-04:00

Dear Blog,
I had the best of intentions back in February to visit you on a more regular basis. You probably know that I spend much of every day online but have left you all by your lonesome. Part of the problem is the on going sleep deprivation which turns my brains to mush. However it occurred to me lately that there are many blog conversations running around in my head. Conversations and a pretty pic or two that I'd like to share. So poor neglected blog, I'm sorry and maybe we can string a couple sentences together, you know when I'm not worshiping the porcelain god.

Anywho, my little baby in progress is being a bit high maintenance demanding feedings every two hours (even at night) and flooding my body with enough hormones that often I must revisit that last meal. It's been my practice to browse on over the shutterfly site housing all my nephew's cute pictures when I need reminding of what waits for me in the future.

Back when we found out my sis was expecting a boy I went to the FO stash and got out the Vintage Car Coat from The Little Sublime Hand Knit Book. This was knit way back in Jan 08 out of some Cashsoft my sister gifted me for Christmas.

Well Little D is big enough to be our baby model and show off his knitwear.

Hello there, aren't I adorable?

Yes, I have short arms but pay no attention to that cause I'm smiling for you.

D loves wearing his hand knits because they feel just like his blankets and are easier to stuff in his mouth.

Mmmmm tasty sweater.

Good thing I sewed those buttons on tight. ;)

Comfort for the month of March

2010-03-06T09:41:00.005-05:00

I'm not completely sure how March and I got off on the wrong foot. After all there are glimpses of Spring as the giant snow drifts slowly recede. Here and there daffodil greens peek through the earth and the birds have been singing brightly outside my window for days.
Perhaps the problem is that March will start out sunny and warm causing me to run about willy nilly without securely fastening woolens around my vulnerable neck. Then I will get a head cold, which will make me cranky, which in turn makes me hole up on my couch and think dark thoughts about March.
Dark thoughts don't last long though if you find yourself reading a particularly lovely book. Add to that some quality wool swathed around your neck and a mug of tea in your hand, it's almost bliss.

The book is "A Homemade Life" by Molly Wizenberg, Stories and recipes from my kitchen table.
Some of you are probably already in the know and have been reading her blog Orangette for years. Somehow she slipped under my radar, so this book was a delicious surprise for me. One that ended much too quickly. At least there is the added bonus of trying out some of the recipes. When I'm feeling better some of them will be gracing my table.

The Wool is technically for baby. However since baby is snug and warm inside me I don't think baby will begrudge my appropriation. Besides baby is arriving in August when a wool baby blanket might be considered a form of child abuse. (Can you hear me cackling mine all mine!)

The pattern Tweed Baby Blanket by Brookylntweed was chosen because even a pregnant automaton can knit garter and remember to increase or decrease once at the beginning of every row. I would add you can also remember to do this while dead tired and having a conversation with the electricians cutting holes in your walls. (They will also think you are pretty handy to be knitting for your baby)
The Wool, that deserves it's capital letter, is woolen spun worsted weight Cormo from Elsa Wool Company. Jenny and Nichole over at Stash and Burn mentioned this website on one of their podcasts and said the wool was very soft. I bought 3 skeins of light gray for the main color and 2 skeins of dark gray for the contrast.

Other details:
* Since the pattern is for DK weight I bumped up the needle size to 9's for the blanket and a 10 for the i-cord bind off.
* I was unsure of my yardage amounts but they turned out be be just right. The second skein of contrast color was only used for the i-cord bind off so there is plenty for left over for a hat or two.
* The finished blocked blanket is 36" by 40" the perfect size for covering your lap or maybe scrunching around your neck. (The fact that it can comfortably be scrunched around your neck tells you how wonderfully soft this wool is)

Mmmm delicious and comfortable, just what I need for March.

Slowly returning to the land of functional knitters

2010-02-26T08:13:00.003-05:00

I fell off the horse and laid on the ground and twitched a while. There might have been some drooling but let's keep that between you and me.

For about 2 1/2 months there was no knitting, no podcasts, no ravelry, no sewing, and no baking. There was only snow, sleep, and the glorious invention known as Netflix streaming. Outside the feet (FEET!) of snow piled up and I merely glanced at it and returned to my bed.

My world shrunk to a pin point because it turns out that growing a new human is a much more arduous task than one might imagine. Seemly the body knows what to do and at the same time is confused by having to suddenly provide for two instead of one. Still the days pile up just like the snow and perhaps your husband comments (with relief) that your knitting phase is over and all this "junk" can be gotten rid of.

You wouldn't say a corner has been turned but suddenly there is brightly colored yarn in your hands and the beginning of a sock flowing from your needles. After all your knitting is not a phase, it is what you are and always will be. Even if sometimes you fall off the horse.

Settling In

2009-12-06T13:58:00.002-05:00

We have most of our boxes unpacked. We have lead several contractors through the house to find out how much an electrical upgrade will cost. We've fought a few battles with the washer, an crotchety veteran of the 70's that doesn't seem to care for it's new owners much.

If only my house was this glittery!

More importantly the yarn was unpacked and tiny needles have been flying. Now there are 2 1/2 pairs of socks sitting in a basket just waiting for a good blocking.

More details and better pics after Christmas.

Despite loosing some steam, Nakniswemodo09 sweater number 12 should be done just under the wire. Joined the sleeves to the body just last night with some "Maryland" themed stitch markers from my sister.

The crab appears to have heard of my fondness for eating his brothers.

If you don't hear from me until January I'll be sitting in the lovely dining room staring at my tree. Maybe with a cup of tea and some knitting, thinking about how I should have frozen some peaches.

Droolllll glittery peach.

Golden Fall

2009-11-19T12:08:00.004-05:00

Golden leaves....

... homemade apple cider donuts

....and cashmere blend socks

From Woolgirl's first socks club shipment of the year, Majestic knit in Zen Yarn Garden Serenity Sock. They are delicious.

And we're back...Sort of

2009-10-26T12:55:00.005-04:00

It's Pop Quiz time and on a Monday too. Aren't you glad I didn't follow in the footsteps of my parents and become a teacher? Now settle down and get out your pencils.

1. The unexpected blog silence of a few months was caused by...

a. Sewing a maternity jacket for my sister's baby shower.
b. Knitting a requested sweater for my mother's Christmas present.
c. House hunting and house buying paper work.
d. All of the above.

2. I've spent my weekends this month...

a. Packing things in boxes.
b. In my sister's basement breaking down boxes.
c. Visiting people's houses to take their boxes.
d. All of the above.

3. I'm burnt out on...

a. Sewing.
b. Knitting sweaters.
c. Having my tiny apartment filled with boxes!!!
d. All of the above.

You are correct all answers are D. Gold stars and cookies all around.

Yes, my husband and I (and the frogs) will soon be home owners and the last two months seem to have been absorbed by the whole process. We are waiting rather impatiently for Thursday, our closing day, to arrive. Until then I'm trying to make the time pass as painlessly as possible.... with brownies and sock. Not sure which is more delicious.

The Feather Print Dress

2009-08-26T18:56:00.003-04:00

So about a year ago I was trolling the nets for fabric for some unknown reason. I wasn't sewing at the time, maybe it was a slow day at work, who knows. My search engine took me to a site I'd never seen before, emmaonesock.com. There among the cotton wovens lurked the most intriguing cotton print I'd ever seen.
Large black feather outlines overlapped each other like scales on a pure white background. It was modern yet had a hint old time Hollywood starlet. And it was 58" wide! Knowing I'd be a fool to let this fabric get away 2 yards were immediately ordered.

The fabric was then tucked away waiting for a day when I wouldn't inadvertently turn it into a wadder and have to commit hari kari on my Gingers.
Fast forward about a month ago when I'm compulsively filling in my missing Burda World of Fashion issues. There in May 2009 dress number 117 seemed to be just the thing for this fabric. But I cooled my heels until Audrey made this dress and looked fantastic in it. She also posted a ton of extra directions on how to sew kimono sleeves which was very helpful.

So I give you my version of dress 117 from May 2009 Burda World of Fashion.

Close up of cross over front

Close up of skirt side slits

Oh how I love you feather print dress, now lets fly away.

Sneak Peek

2009-08-21T14:54:00.003-04:00

Another precious fabric from the stash has made an appearance on my sewing table. It's waiting for some lining but who doesn't like a little sneak peek.

Feathers, feathers on Heathers

Fall Sewing Continued

2009-08-16T16:33:00.004-04:00

It's fall clothing catalog time which means several happy hours spent flipping through pages deciding what to get for the coming season. This year it's more like deciding what to knock off which is pretty fun too. One thing that caught my eye was this super cute blazer from Boden.

I like their happy models

Marinating in the stash was some dark green corduroy that had been purchased about this time last year from Fabrications in Kennett Square. (Now closed and oh how it is missed) I'd purchased the fabric planning on making a jacket out of it but had gotten no further than that.
Off I went to the Burda World of Fashion magazine stash looking for a jacket that was somewhat similar and struck gold.
From issue 3/2009 pattern #111

Notched collar - check, 3 button closure - check, patch pockets with button flaps- check! Just add sleeve vents and we're in like flint.

Oh green corduroy, you are so pretty

I modeled the sleeve vents after some of my RTW jackets. On the pattern an extra rectangle was added to the lower side seam of both the upper and lower sleeve. On the upper sleeve the rectangle is folded over to finish the edge. On the lower seam it makes up the extra allowance needed for the vent. Real button holes were put in the top vent but were not cut open. The buttons where then sewn on top of the button holes going through both piece of the sleeve so that the vent was sewn closed. The lining looks like a regular 2 piece sleeve and covers up all the raw edges of the vents.

Some outside photos so details can actually be seen. To bad a neighbor has a bunch of crap in the background. :P

All and all a successful knock off of the catalog version. Thanks Burda for making this one easy. If your interested in any more comments on this pattern my review is over here.

Nakniswemodo number 10, two more to go

2009-08-08T13:15:00.005-04:00

Number 10 is a little sweater called the Whole Wheat Cardigan.

I'd been looking for a little summer sweater in white that wasn't too girly but wasn't all stockinette stitch. This one fit the bill just right. It also called for yarn already in my stash Sublime Yarns Cashmere Merino Silk DK.

The stitch pattern is pretty fun to knit, it's easy to memorize and the cable twists on every 4th row.

One thing that I would change is the depth of the armholes. After blocking the armholes where almost 9 inches deep. This causes the fabric to wad a bit under the arms during wearing. Other than that I'm very pleased.

It's fall in my mind

2009-08-07T18:27:00.003-04:00

OK I'm just going to come out and say it, I am a summer hater. Swimming, sun bathing, the beach, summer group picnics where volley ball must be played....loath these activities and locations. And out of all the summer months August is the worst. When ever this month comes around I just grit my teeth and station myself in front of the air conditioning unit.

So to keep my mind off of the fact it is August, I'm embarking on sewing a bunch of fall clothing and picking out a new fall knitting pattern. Hopefully these diversions will whittle away the time until we can comfortably don our sweaters and drink a cup of hot apple cider. (Just typing sweater + hot apple cider fills me with joy)

While I definitely plan on making some apple cider drinking clothes (Corduroy jacket and plaid wool skirt) I won't be drinking cider with the first completed fall dress. It's more like a "sipping a cappuccino while sitting at an outdoor cafe" kind of dress.

A JoAnn's 3.95 sale on Vogue patterns made me go with Vogue 8413 to make up the lovely Charcoal Chinchilla from Tessuti fabrics. The results are highly pleasing.

A few detail shots

A little puff at the top of the shoulder

A close up of the skirt pleats

A glimpse of actually tidy insides! (This rarely happens)

And finally one last full view

If you are a sewer I've reviewed this pattern here on pattern review. I think it's a winner.

Cream for the Lactose Intolerant

2009-07-20T15:22:00.003-04:00

A couple of months ago I was at the LYS rummaging through the baby yarn section and my hands touched Kollage's Creamy Yarn. Once my fingers touched the creamy loveliness they would not let go. Then it became a situation where the yarn had to be purchased since I'd been manhandling it for a half hour. (These are odd rules that I made up in my head)

No worries though I'd had my eye on the Essential Tank in "Custom Knits" for some time. Using alpaca to make a tank wouldn't work for me, but creamy was a similar gauge and also come in a natural color. Since Creamy is pretty expensive only having to buy enough to make a tank was an added bonus.

Pattern details
-My loose ass knitting made Creamy match the pattern's gauge exactly. I cast on the size 36 and the finished product was near the measurement of the schematic.
- Other Ravelry users said the length was a bit short so an extra inch was added before starting the bust increases.
- Originally I knit the neckline as described in the pattern but found it was not a flattering shape for me. It also made the front look too narrow. I decided to get creative and use a little steeking like techniques to lower the neck line. The knit on finish for the neck was unraveled. Then using a tank I had a new neckline was traced in with pins. Then matching thread was put in the sewing machine and the new neckline stitched over. I cut semi close to the stitch line to make sure the yarn wasn't going to unravel. The machine stitching held up fine so then I picked up and knit on a new neck finish. Hooray for short cuts!

I might not be able to drink milk anymore but at least I can wear it. And it's delicious.

A Few Pics from New Castle Delaware

2009-07-19T12:37:00.003-04:00

My husband likes to visit towns especially if they have an historic area where you can meander around staring at buildings. He heard about New Castle Delaware from a co-worker and decided it was time for an outing.
The highlights for me were the garden at Read House.

This part of the garden is from a Victorian family that lived in the house after the Read's had to sell it. I love the arbors and hydrangea. We took the house tour as well which was interesting but no photos allowed in there.

Down on the river walk was a bridal party taking pictures and the bride had a bright salmon color dress. I couldn't get a good shot of her but here she is tiny.

This dress was so fun and cute on her that it made me smile.

Lastly the two of us had a delicious dinner at Jessop's Tavern. Everything we ate there was soooo good but I really can't get their peach cobbler out of my mind.

Drooollll.

Where does the time go?

2009-07-18T20:08:00.005-04:00

This week started off busy, tending to a sick husband and then traveling to Maryland for a stash reduction visit with my grandmother and mom. (It was stash reduction for my grandmother by redistributing it to mom and me, sigh) The rest of the week was lost watching the new Dr. Who series while sewing and ripping, sewing and ripping again.
Most of that ripping was on Vogue 1072

I got some beautiful jersey from emmaonesock.com a couple weeks ago and thought it would be perfect for this pattern.

When it took me over an hour to cut the 5 pattern pieces out I should have stopped right there. It should have been obvious that the old brain wasn't working on all cylinders but noooo must be productive with my free time.

As instructed I put seam tape in the shoulder seams and that turned into a lumpy mess. It took a few more times to get something that looked semi decent. If I thought that was bad, stitching the neck edge was even worse. The top stitching was ripped out a least 5 times and my twin needle broke in the process. After that there was more user error trying to get the belt and skirt basted to the top. After the pieces were assembled I tried it on and realized the side seams needed to be taken in a bunch and it needs clear elastic along the neck edge to prevent gaping. So the whole thing will be disassembled and tried again another day. At least the fabric is still in good shape.

The more successful project of the week was making summer pj's. I used the pajama pattern from the book "Weekend sewing" but used some cute ribbed knit prints instead of woven fabric. The leg length was shortened to mid calf and the tapered leg straightened a bit.

Flowers print from Fabric Hound, Elephants from Fabric Fairy.
With those changes I could get a pair of pants out of one yard of 60" wide fabric. This totally gives me the excuse to buy more kids prints for me!

Marfy Madness

2009-07-09T10:42:00.002-04:00

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! The annual Marfy 2009 mag I ordered showed up way quicker than expected. I just picked it up from the post office and am literally giddy with excitement. Having one in your hands also explains why shipping is so much. The book is 13 1/4 by 9 1/2 and weighs over 2 pounds. No wonder the fashion illustrations look so leggy on the website.

A quick explanation - Marfy is an Italian sewing magazine which has illustrations of garments with a few patterns insert in the back. The rest you have to buy separately. There are no sewing instructions, so to recreate the garment one must reference the illustrations. A few months ago I ordered this Marfy jacket pattern just to see if my sewing skills were up to the challenge.

The muslin went together beautifully and now is waiting for just the right fabric.

Today's knitting FO is Brooklyn Tweed's Porom. Mine is knit from two skeins of Simply Shetland Lambswool & Cashmere in Red Hot

The cashmere does not soften Jamieson's Shetland all that much, but who can beat their tweedy colors. As with all Jarad's patterns it was very simple to knit and created a lovely FO. Can't wait till August when his new pattern book comes out!

Clearing the Decks

2009-07-07T17:50:00.003-04:00

Last weekend I made an effort to finish a bunch of projects which had lingered in an almost done state for too long. I'd like to say that the long weekend inspired me, but the truth is that the pile on the side table was threatening to avalanche. Now that all those T-shirts are hemmed and sweaters are finished there is plenty of blog fodder for the next couple of days. Hooray!

Today we have the Leaf Yoke Top for this summer's Knit Scene.
When I saw the preview photo for this top it made me foaming at the mouth to start it right away. Seamless construction, no sleeves, and leafy lace, Oh Boy!!! Unfortunately what should have been a straight forward knit turned into a gauge nightmare. I will take part of the blame because my gauge swatch was a tad small and maybe it was about .25 stitches off. However the gauge swatch still was a big fat liar, even with a proper wash and block. The gauge swatch told me that that suggested size 6 needle was fine and to go with the medium size. So I motored along finishing the yoke in a weekend, only to find that the dimensions were bigger than the large size. NOOOOOO!!!

So the yoke was ripped out and the yarn sat in a time out for a couple of weeks. Since gauge swatches couldn't be trusted I decided to wing it using a number 5 needle and knit the size small. And what did we get? The perfect size medium.

There is one design mod, just a little bit of extra length added before starting the hem. An extra 4 rounds with an increase was added and then the hem was started according to the directions. Casting off a hem on a top down sweater is a major pain in the ass but it is a pretty finish.

I like it but I'm so happy it's done.

Progress

2009-06-30T07:58:00.005-04:00

It took all day and killed my neck but the Leafy Yoke's hem is done. Starting to think this whole summer knitting thing is not for me. After these two sweaters are done I'm running back to wool and wool blends.

On the sewing side, last week I finished fitting 3 new jacket muslins and decided to start with Burda style's Nadine. I'm using the plus variation which removed most of the gathering from the pattern. I went a little bit further, took out all the gathering and made the fit a bit more snug. The fabric is a wool/silk blend from emmaonesock.com. It looks so classy even my husband commented that I should just make a sleeveless vest and matching pants.

Looking forward to Thursday when JoAnn Fabrics starts a big sale and Vogue patterns are 3.99 each. Going to stock up on a few choice patterns and pick up some buttons for Nadine. Hopefully soon I'll be able to show you some pretty FO's of this jacket.

Knitting Update

2009-06-27T20:12:00.004-04:00

Having fun with the sewing machine has slowed down all the knitting, but not stopped it completely. It kind of feels like I've had a few projects almost done for awhile but they never get finished.

First off there is the Leafy Yoke Top.

Just the hem, neck and sleeve bindings to do..... for weeks now.

Wendy Bernard's Essential Tank

This actually was done the neckline wasn't all that flattering on me. I'm wondering if the front can be sneakily cut down and overlocked instead of doing a bunch of unraveling. Probably should knit a swatch and see if the Kollage creamy will just unravel into a thousand pieces.

Lastly is a Porom that was started on a weekend where I had a lot of husband related activities to attend.

It's probably half done but I keep picking up the leaf yoke top instead.

Can someone find my knitting mojo and return it to me please.

More Love, this time for Australia

2009-06-26T16:17:00.003-04:00

Can someone invent a Star Trekesque transporter already, I want to beam over to Sydney and shop at Tessuti Fabrics. (Not to mention knit and watch sci-fi TV shows with David Reidy)
Right now I'm totally addicted to the Tessuti fabric website, probably looking at it several times a day. Think their user interface is as great as the fabric!
My latest order arrived this week and after signing my name a million times at the post office it was time to coo over the new pretties.

On the left is Charcoal Chinchilla a thicker polyester knit and on the right Poiret a lightweight organic cotton/spandex jersey. The camera seems to have washed out the colors a bit. The cotton is a true winey magenta.
Right now I'm thinking the Charcoal Chinchilla needs to be a fall dress some what like Vogue 8413...

.....or the similar Simplicity 2550.

I haven't decided what to do with the lovely Poiret since there are several store bought magenta shirts already in the wardrobe. The fabric probably should become a summer top but I'm going to let it marinate a bit. It might make it into the fall sewing ideas after all.

Love Me Some Jackets

2009-06-25T15:48:00.004-04:00

I've got an FO for everyone today, only it's a sewing FO. Back a couple of months ago the gorgeous fabrics blog turned me on to a new website with free sewing patterns, manequim.com Their jackets were to die for, but since it's a foreign mag all the directions were in Portuguese. This struck me as an interesting challenge. After all in this day and age we have the internet with handy dandy translation sites. The jacket could be mine!
Long story short, the web translation was almost readable. But on the plus side the sewing symbols seemed to be standard. I'd made patterns in college so surely my brain was equal to the task of putting together this Portuguese jacket.

With a statement like that it should have all ended with disaster. Only it didn't. Maybe everybody gets one. :)

Here's a close of up the collar

Back View

And the full front

Now I've got the fever and the only prescription for it is..... more jackets!

Smitten Kitchen Envy

2009-06-19T17:33:00.002-04:00

I'm turning into a Smitten Kitchen addict. It starts with trying just a recipe or two but quickly turns into a slippery slope where you find yourself making a special trip to the grocery to buy unflavored gelatin.

Because you have to have unflavored gelatin to make marshmallows from scratch.

And if your making marshmallows from scratch then you might as well make graham crackers from scratch two.

Add a couple of Hersey bars and you've some delicious s'mores. But honestly the graham crackers are so damn good you could finish off a batch of them alone.

On the crafty side I'm sewing this free jacket pattern from Manequim.

It will be in the dark gray denim left over from this skirt.

The Only Sunshine I'm Getting.....

2009-06-17T16:34:00.004-04:00

.... would be the sunshine top. Weather wise it's been almost 3 solid months rain. Sure we get a day or two of sun occasionally but mostly it's like monsoon season. So when I'm not out "working on my rain tan" you'll find me behind the sewing machine whipping out one of these sunshine tops. Here's a little parade of the versions that have been created so far.

First off have "Tentacled Awareness."*

Printed cotton jersey purchased from ebay seller fabricjunkees

Next "Opaque Seduction."*

11 0z Rayon spandex jersey purchased from emmaonesock.com

And Last "Flock of Gulls." (Fat pigeon was lured into the shot)

Printed cotton jersey purchased from ebay seller Ruth Hale Fabrics.

All these photos where made possible by my new little toy, the Joby gorillapod. I was looking for an inexpensive tripod so that my dear husband didn't have to be badgered for photos all the time. Came across this on the patternreview.com site and it seemed to meet my needs. The little bendy legs on stand have come in handy with outdoor shoots. I can wrap it onto one of the fences and wander around below it. Inside sitting the gorillapod on top of the TV like a regular tripod works well for taking pictures of tops. Now if we could only get some sun...... sigh.

* First two photos named by my friend Sam Maffei, someone who is much more clever than I can claim to be.

Getting Back into the Saddle

2009-06-16T08:03:00.004-04:00

I've been hiding behind the sewing machine since my knitting mojo took a little vacation. Still the lack of blogging is entirely due laziness and it is time to get back on the wagon.

First thing to show off is NaKniSweMoDo sweater number 7, Twist by Bonne Marie Burns. This pattern had been sitting in the queue for ages being passed up by the latest hot thing on Ravelry. When Webs put Cascade 220 on sale it was just the kick in the butt I needed to get this on the needles.

The particular color of 220 is 2431 a chocolately brown with red highlights that don't come through in photos.

Knitting the twisty cables was particularly fun.

This was the first time I've put in a zipper into a knit. Overall it went OK though the sweater probably needed a zipper that was a bit smaller. Still it works fine and that's good enough for me.

So you wanted an Online Fabric Stash

2009-05-28T17:45:00.006-04:00

Sewers need to have their own Ravelry like site and believe me if this blogger had any coding knowledge I'd be working on that right now. There are sites like Burdastyle.com and Patternreview.com where sewers can post pictures and comments about finished projects. I'm glad those resources are out there but something was still missing for me... a web application to catalog my fabric stash.

A ball of yarn will readily tell me it's fiber content, care instructions and yardage through a label. But since cut lengths of fabric don't come with a premade label the details quickly fall out of my sieve like brain. Telling a silk from a wool is no problem, but remembering if it came with special laundry instructions? Good Luck with allllll that. I can't even remember how many yards of black twill were purchased at the beginning of this month (the ruler tells me 3).

Today through a serendipitous web search all my prayers were answered with a little site called dabbledb. The 8 min demo presents the product working like stereotypical database full of client information, but don't be fooled, you can customize all the columns and input what you like. In fact this product has compelled me share the magic with you through a little demo. If you're curious of how I turned this into a Fabric Stash DB read on. If not I'll be back soon with pictures of fabric and yarn and we can sniff them together.

So right up front, Do I have to pay to use this product? The answer is No, if you don't mind your DB being public. If you want your stuff kept private then it's 8 bucks a month per user. You'll get 30 days to try it before having to decide which plan you'll go with. I didn't see any harm in the public getting to see the fabric stash, so it's free for me.

I'll be showing the "Start from Scratch" method. If you are a far more organize person than me you can take a premade spread sheet and import all the information into the product. Are you ready? Cause awayyyy we go!

We've signed up to create a database and choosen the Start from scratch radio button. The application then will give us screen that looks like this:

This is why this application rocks, the field labels will be our column headers and they can be what ever we want. Some examples of what column headers are in my DB are, Yardage, Care Instructions, Fiber Content, Place of Purchase. This view only gives you 8 columns but we can add more later.
So here we are typing in our column headers:

The "Entry Cells" in our example are the fabrics in our stash. Each fabric will have it's own record which can be edited. We can type some of our fabrics in the entry cells now or add them later. Right now we're going to skip adding them here.

Now that we are done entering column headers/fabrics we click continue. The application takes us to new screen where the columns can be configured.

The configurations will change how the info is displayed in the fabric records. I'll be showing you some of the options in a little bit. All columns can be configured at any time so don't sweat it. I used the choices auto selected by the program and changed a few later.

After click "Finish" we'll have the regular database view. (But without pictures)

New fabrics can be added by clicking the new entry text on the left.

If we need more columns (Boy do we ever!) go to the right corner, click columns and select new field from the list.

All columns are searchable so once we've got a couple fabric recorded created we might want to make a few columns that will help us separate out our stash. If we have a pattern for a knit top we don't want to see any wovens, right? If we make a "Fabric Construction" column then each record will have a field where we can type in woven or knit. If we want to see all the knit fabrics in the stash, we'll go to the text entry area next to "Search" type in Knit and click the button. The DB will then show us only the knit fabrics in the stash.

Maybe this is a search we'll want to do often. If so it can be saved as a View. If we still have our knit results on the screen then above the column headers will be the words "Save, Revert, Save As."

These are our View edition options. To make a new view click Save As and type in a Name. We'll call it "All Knits." Then we'll return to viewing all the records by clicking on the category name on the right. If we want to see the "All Knits" view again, we'll go to the top left hand corner and click on the catagory name here to see a drop down menu.

If we click "All Knits" then the filtered view will return.

Let's talk about those column configurations now because with them we can change columns like "Fabric Construction" into Pop-up menus. Who needs to type the same thing over and over again when we can just select it from a list. Much easier, right? For this example we'll be making a column called "Fabric Type" that has a pop-up menu with different fiber choices.

Make a new column and name it "Fabric Type." In the main spreadsheet view click the column header and choose configure.

We'll get all these options.

Choose XYZ Choice. Then you'll see this.

Under enter new choices type in our pop up selections, Wool, Silk, and so on. Click "Add Choices" and they pop over to the right where they can be reordered or removed. Save all this to exit and return to the spreadsheet view. The pop-up won't show on the main spreadsheet page, but if we click on a record..... ehh ehhh, nice.

Now the real icing on the cake, a picture of the fabric in your db. I know we all have a flickr account cause we're on Ravelry, right? Let's say that we've uploaded some fabrics to our flicker account as well. Now we're going to hook flickr to the db too.
To start we'll make a new column and name it Fabric Pic. Then choose configure like we did earlier, but this time choose weblink from main configure field. When the Weblink options open here is what we'll pick.

Check "Links are to images," then choose "User specified text for each link" radio button. Save those settings and then click on one of our fabric records to open the edit view.
There will be a URL entry area like this.

We'll need to get the URL from Flicker and paste it in there.

Just in case we don't know where that is in Flicker:
1. Open up the Flickr photostream and click on the fabric picture.
2. Click on All Sizes above the pic.

3. Choose Thumbnail size and then select the path under "Grab the photo's URL".

Now we can copy and paste that URL into our DB entry area. Save and close the record.

Back to our main Db page and automagically, one picture in our stash record. It's like Buttua.

That's about it folks. There are other things we can do with dabbledb but this blog entry is already crazy long. But at least you got to see some cute frog fabric, right rightttt? Yeahh :)

FO's Knitted and Sewn

2009-05-19T08:30:00.003-04:00

My dear photographer has been very hard to press into service lately. Perhaps he's been burnt out by the Naknitsomodo challenge and the sweater model being a bit demanding about wanting close ups. It might be time to invest in a cheap tripod since finished sewn garments are starting to pile up.

Between the reluctant photographer and the camera battery suddenly running out I have only one decent picture of the "Climbing Vines Pullover" to show you.

(Hi, the rest of me is stockinette so use your imagination)

An easy knit except for a little confusion on where to start binding off stitches at the neck. The lace pattern changes stitch count and my row gauge was a bit off which meant I had to do that part twice. Second attempt worked perfectly and I was able to get the last leaf finished off with the neck decreases. Moral of the story there is math is easier in the morning than at 11pm.

Overall thoughts on this sweater.....
- Knitting a slightly smaller size is a good choice if you like a trimmer fit I went with the 34 which gave me an 1 of negative ease at the bust. It hugs my figure but does not bind in any way.

- This is a good design for a variegated yarn. Got to give other knitters on Ravelry the credit for showing me how great this sweater looks in Classy. I decided to go with with the "Don't be Blue" colorway (exclusive to The Loopy Ewe) since it color changes were very subtle. You can only see it in person but the yarn goes between a greenish hue and a purplish hue. Very nice and flattering.

- I'd classify this as boring to knit but easy to wear. One the plus side with the 3/4 sleeves and worsted weight you can bust out those all stockinette sleeves and back in a relatively small amount of time.

Now on to the sewing.....
With all my free time I started trolling the internet sites for sewing content and found a lot of great stuff out there.

First of all was the pattern company Hot Patterns. If you like their styles the head designer Trudy has made several Youtube videos showing some of the patterns sewn up and all kinds of variations. Most entertaining! Their stuff is not cheap but it comes on thick paper instead of tissue and you get the entire size range. I fell in love with the "Weekender Sunshine Top" and bought a copy. Then used my roll of trace to copy one size instead of cutting up the paper, thereby preserving all the sizes.

Here is the pattern in a size 10, sewn up in a bamboo/cotton blend from Hart's fabric. The color is a very pale mint and the fabric is fantastic. It's no exaggeration to say it is the best knit fabric I've ever felt. (Some of the other colors available are on their way to me now)

The pattern gives you three lengths for the shirt, this is the shortest tank length. Instead of attaching the suggested 6 inch deep band, I made mine 7 inches deep and about 3 inches shorter then the circumference of the hem. Then the band was folded in half length wise (wrong sides together) and serged together to form a loop. The band then is folded with the right sides together, so you have a 3.5 inch band and serged to the bottom of the shirt. This gives it a bit of a blouson effect and the width balances the yoke nicely.
The sleeves were finished similarly but with a 3 inch deep band (for 1.5 inch finished) and the length was only an inch smaller than the sleeve radius.

Here's more of a close up.

Planning to make some more but in different prints. Stay tuned!

Baby Knitting Hooray!

2009-05-14T08:28:00.003-04:00

The blog can finally announce that a nephew or niece will be joining my extended family sometime in November. Hooray! My inner knitter is cackling with glee over all the potential baby knits that could be produced, oh the mind swims with possibilities.

However the practical side of the the brain tells me to keep it simple and not swamp a poor non-knitter with a boat load of wool. To that end I give you the Baby Chalice Blanket.

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted Multi is your friend.

Many thanks to Lykkefanten for giving Ravelry this lovely free pattern. I was very taken with her sample knit in Huron colorway and decided to make mine the same. Since the pattern has the lace repeat written out line by line, I used the orangellous chart generator to create my own chart. If you do this I recommend creating the chart, printing out a copy and then use a highlighter to mark where the lace repeat is. After a few repeats you'll probably have the pattern memorized anyway.

You know you want to squish my garter borders.

To complete the recommended 9 lace repeats and the garter edge I needed an extra skein of yarn bringing the total up 3. This was probably due to a slightly smaller row gauge. The finished blanket measures 24 x 37 but probably could have been blocked a bit wider. The amount of floor space available for a blanket to sit drying for a few days turned out to be rather narrow.

If you're looking to knit a great unisex blanket in the immediate future I'd highly recommend this pattern. The lace is easy to knit, the garter boarders add the perfect touch, and Shepard's Worsted has to be one of the best feeling yarns I've very had my hands on.

Frog tested, Frog approved.

As you can see Frog can't keep his mitts off of it either.

Are these the last cookies of the season?

2009-05-09T16:58:00.004-04:00

Pretty soon it's going to be too warm to comfortable bake in our apartment. This realization always makes me a bit sad, but fewer cookies means you don't outgrow your pants.

The Surprise Cookie from Martha Steward's Cookies book, is a bit out of my normal comfort zone. Once a recipe starts talking about frosting cookies I usually turn the page and just make some chewy chocolate chip. But Martha's cross section of this cookie totally sold me. It looks like this.

What's that? Marshmallow?!

I tried to resist but come on, Marshmallow sandwiched between two chocolate substances... does that not sound delicious?
The cookie base is cakey but not too sweet, the marshmallow chewy and the frosting is sweet and fudgy enough to kick you in the teeth. Together they blend into a s-more like experience where you can't have just one. I'm hoping my husband finishes these off before too many of them join the other junk in my trunk.

Surprise Cookies
For cookies
1 3/4 cup - Flour
3/4 cup - Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1/2 teaspoon - Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon - Course Salt
1/2 cup - Unsalted Butter at room temperature
1 cup - Sugar
1 Large Egg
1/2 cup - Whole Milk
1 teaspoon - Vanilla Extract
About 15 Marshmallows Halved

For Frosting
3 cups - Confectioners Sugar
6 Tablespoons - Unsalted Butter at room temperature
1/4 cup plus 1 1/2 teaspoons - Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons - Whole Milk
3/4 teaspoon - Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven at 375 degrees. Make cookies by sifting together, flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Put butter and sugar into the mixer bowl and beat at med-high speed for 2 mins until light and fluffy. Reduce speed and mix in egg, milk, and vanilla. Once these ingredients are incorporated mix in flour mixture 1/2 cup at a time until combined.

Using ice cream scoop or smaller spoon, droop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Mounds should be about 1 3/4 inch. Bake cookies until firm 8-10 mins. Pull out baking sheet and press one half marshmallow into the center of each cookie. Return cookies to oven and bake 2 min more or until marshmallow melt a tad. Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool completely before frosting.

To make frosting put confectioners sugar in a med bowl. Melt butter with cocoa powder in a sauce pan over low heat, stirring occasionally. Add butter mixture to cnfectioner's sugar and mix. Whisk in milk and vanilla.

Spread about 1 Tablespoon (or enough to cover the marshmallow) over the top of each cookie. Let stand about 10 mins to allow frosting to set, then cookies can be packed in a container. I placed some parchment paper between the layers of cookies which kept the icing from sticking to every other cookie it came in contact with.

Enjoy responsibly as they are addicting.

Remember These Socks?

2009-05-08T21:06:00.003-04:00

It was somewhat embarrassing to realize these poor Retro Rib socks where started all the way back in January. Second sock syndrome hit hard with these.

Knitting thin weight fingering and number 1 needles is not by favorite thing. But I didn't know this until I bought a lot of thin fingering weight yarn. Curses!

The cuff on the second sock was knit incorrectly, I didn't read the instructions right and repeated the wrong lines. Not like it's all that noticeable in this colorway... Black Rose by Sunshine Yarns. Even though the knitting was not all that enjoyable I'm very pleased with the finished socks. The fuzziness of the soft sock yarn base feels nice on my feet and a ribbed pattern always fits nicely.

Down to one single sock hanging around in my bag. Whoopie!

Score

2009-05-05T11:51:00.004-04:00

It's raining today and it rained yesterday and it will rain tomorrow. It's like suddenly we're living in Seattle.
Overall this isn't too bad. Unemployment allows one to do all the fun rain day activities, napping, watching movies, knitting and baking.... all without having to get your shoes wet. The downside is that without sun there are no good FO pictures. Right now I'm holding out hoping some sunshine will appear when my camera operator is around.

I'm all finished, can you tell? No, no you can't.

Don't know about you, but I've been waiting with bated breath for today so that a copy of the new Knit 1 could finally be mine. Angela Hahn's drool worth Leaf yoke top is zooming to the top of the "To knit next" mental list. Connie Chang Chinchio's Tie back shell is also a big favorite. As I page through there are several other little projects that are very appealing. Sock patterns from, Yarnissima, Cat Bordhi, Cookie A, and Grumperina, good show ladies, good show. Got to hand it to Knit 1's editors, they've made the only spring/summer magazine with patterns that make me want to knit now!
The other mag purchase of the day was one I've never noticed before, the British mag Knitting. The little cardi on the cover.... the only thing I wanted to knit from the new Rowan mag. Now I've got the pattern for substantially less money, Score!

Mandatory Rest Period

2009-04-26T09:25:00.003-04:00

On Earth Day the two of us stayed up late watching a post apocalyptic movie because quote "That's how we roll". LOL The accompanying movie knitting was the next sweater project, Chic Knit's Twist done up in some chocolate brown Cascade 220. I'm late to the party discovering the merits of 220, but now I see why knitters through out the net are always raving about it. It just knits up so nice that you never want to stop knitting. Which is exactly what happened.... so it should be no surprise that the next day there was a major neck cramp in my neck.

All knitting is banned until my neck muscles settle down, which is totally infuriating but necessary. Yesterday I did allow myself to seam up some of the pieces of the Climbing Vines pullover and pick up the stitches for the neckband. It's looking like I may be able to squeeze this sweater out of 3 skeins of Classy instead of 4. Bonus! Then there will be plenty of yarn left over to make one of the many beret patterns lurking in my queue.

Now all I need is a masseuse to fix my neck and some cooler weather to be able to wear climbing vines outside before summer comes for good. Cross your fingers for me. :)

Heavy Blog Avoidance

2009-04-20T09:11:00.003-04:00

The blog has been lonely and the blog has been sad. I must apologize to the blog... but April is a busy month. First the frogs and I got caught up in a little festive celebration.

Then there were surprise Easter socks that couldn't be outed until the recipient received her Easter box.

Embossed Leaves out of Hazel Knits Euphorbia. A few repeats were removed since part of the skein had been used to make mittens.

Other knitting also had to remain a secret until all blog readers were notified that a new baby is on the way.
Baby Chalice Blanket knit in Lorna's Laces Shepard Worsted

And lastly knitting the Climbing Vines Pullover became a painful slog that I didn't want write about. That's almost over now that all the pieces are blocking. There is just the painful finishing process to look forward too. On the plus side the blue is much prettier in person. The final product maybe worth the countless boring hours put into knitting it.

Whoops Forgot Cherry

2009-04-04T17:34:00.003-04:00

As I pulled on my Cherry cardigan this morning the thought passed through my mind, "Hey did I flash a finished pic of this on the blog?" Ummm noooo. So this blog post is for all my lovely relatives with out Ravelry access.

Yes my eyes were closed in every picture, argh!

Cherry cardigan knit in Sublime extra fine merino because I'm a little leery about knitting an adult sweater in cotton. The one cotton baby hat I've completed was enough to make my hands cranky.
Most of the sweater is a size 36 except for the bottom. As usual I cast on a the number of stitches for a size bigger and then decreased extra out while knitting to the waist. To do this I usually check my row gauge against the number of stitches that need to be decreased and try to come up with an even number.

Even though the waist detail was started at the right depth according to the pattern it still looks a bit low to me. However that is the only minor issue I have with this sweater. The rest of the fit very flattering and I'm very pleased with how the button bands and neck band knit up on number 2 needles.

Knitting on the Climbing Leaves Pullover didn't happen at all last week. Socks still have held sway when the sewing machine gets put away. I did manage to get a semi good modeled shot of the one finished Majestic sock.

Mmmmm golden cabled goodness.

More Cookies

2009-04-03T17:30:00.005-04:00

This week I've had no luck playing around with fabric and the sewing machine. The result is that my knitting is no further and the sewing is in the trash can. So let's talk about cookies instead.

Both of today's cookies come from the "Martha Steward's Baking Handbook." I have warm and fuzzy feelings about this cook book because it gave me the perfect fudgy brownie recipe. It also has a kick ass cinnamon bread recipe and delightful blueberry muffins. The one thing I have noticed is that Martha's baking times are usually way too long. So if you read the cooking time and think hmm that sounds weird then trust your gut and check earlier.

As I mentioned on the 15th the Baking Handbook has my favorite oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. It seems wrong to not share that delightful yummy goodness so here you go...

1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Salt
1 cup Sweetened, shredded coconut
2 sticks (1 cup) Unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed Light brown sugar
1/3 cup Pure maple syrup
1 Large Egg
2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
3 cups Rolled oats
1 cup Raisins

Oven is preheated to 325 - Martha suggest lining the cookie sheets with parchment paper but this isn't necessary.
In one bowl whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt. Then stir in coconut to this mixture. Set aside.

In the mixer bowl beat the butter and the brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the maple syrup and mix to combine. Add egg and vanilla and beat until well combined, about a minute.

With mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in two batches; mix until jut combined. Add oats and raisins and mix until combined. Martha recommends making 1 1/2 balls of batter on the cookie sheet. Bake 15-20 min or until golden brown.

Last weekend I decided to try a new recipe from this book "Double-Chocolate Brownie cookies." My husband liked these more than world peace cookies from the 15th. They were as brownie as a cookie can get, being kind of chewy with a good chocolate taste. I left the walnuts pretty chunky which seemed to work well with the cookies texture. My husband who usually likes nuts in his cookies ground up didn't complain either. These go in the too yummy not to make again list.

9 ounces Semi-Sweet Chocolate chopped into 1 inch chunks
3 ounces Unsweetened Chocolate coarsely chopped
6 Tablespoons Unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup Sugar
3 Large Eggs
1/2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
1 cup All Purpose Flour
1/4 teaspoon Salt
3/4 cup (about 3 ounces) chopped Walnuts

Oven is preheated to 375. To begin set 4 ounces of the chopped Semi Sweet chocolate aside.

Melt the remaining semi sweet, all the unsweetened chocolate and the butter together in a double boiler until smooth. Allow mixture to cool for 5 mins.
Once cooler pour chocolate/butter mixture into the mixer bowl and add the sugar. Beat with the paddle attachment for 3 mins. Add in eggs, mix until completely combined. Beat in Vanilla. Add flour and salt and beat until just incorporated. Stir in the 4 ounces of semi sweet that was set aside and the walnuts.

Make 1 1/2 balls of batter on the cookie sheet. Bake 9-11 min or until edges are set but middle is a bit soft. Then eat quickly before anyone else can get their greasy mitts on them.

This, That and the Other

2009-03-27T15:12:00.007-04:00

Spring does seem to be affecting my creative endeavors, as I am flitting between projects and crafts.
Tried the Smitten Kitchen's Light Wheat Bread recipe which was very tasty. Good toasted with peanut butter on top for a light breakfast.

Worked a little on nakniswemodo sweater number 6, the Climbing Vines pullover from Interweave Winter 08. I'm blaming the reading of other people's blogs for this project choice. Like everyone else I'm using Dream in Color Classy, my personal color choice... Loopy Ewe's exclusive "Don't be Blue." Two sleeves down and the rest of the body to go. This one might take a little while since socks are distracting me.

Then there was the completely addictive time suck of the Woolgirl sock club pattern Majestic. Knitting this with LOST season two in the back ground is pretty much all I did Monday through Wednesday.

After releasing myself for sock craziness I got out the sewing machine and tried to make one of those puzzle balls from "Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts." Yeah, that reminded me why sewing pisses me off. Stupid ball grrrrr.

To make myself feel better about sewing I had to cast on a new sock from left over Hazel Knits Euphorbia. Hopefully this will become something leafy fitting for spring. Grow happy sock grow!

Twisted-V Pullover... the sweater that was meant to be

2009-03-21T14:24:00.006-04:00

Take ten balls of yarn bought on a whim. Add a randomly free download from Interweave's Knitting Daily newsletter. What you get is the happy accident of my Twisted-V Pullover.

I was stalking...umm noo... checking out... yes.. book previews on Interweave site and took a liking to the Twisted-V Pullover in Simple Style. Then wonder of wonders Knitting Daily offered the pattern as a free download. But wait there's more... the yarn suggestion "Zara" was already in my stash. Score!

Construction was straight forward or should I say simple? :) Cast on in the round and knit that twisted rib until your eyes start to cross. Listening to a good audio book during this part will make all that knitting go much faster.

The length of the sweater can be easily modified here by adding or subtracting twisted ribbing before working the body chart. I tried on the partially completed body, measured the length and compared it to the flat length. It looked like I was losing about 1 1/2 inches due to negative ease, so I added an extra inch of twisted rib.

After finishing the chart you split for the armholes and start working the front and back separately. I also made a mod here, using short rows for the shoulder so a three needle bind-off could be used to join the pieces. Worked like a charm.

My last mod was to drastically increase the number of stitches that were picked up and purled around the V-neck. I picked up 60 for each side of the front on a size 34 because there seemed to have extra length there too. As long as you follow the guideline to pick up 3 stitches for every 4 rows then the finished edge looks great. (If you are using the free download the text says to check the back of the book for how to pick up and purl. Thankfully the internet will clear this technique up for you, hooray internet!)

If I was to do this sweater over again there would be only one change, to work a little more length into the body. Other than that it's perfect. I like the V-neck depth, the thin sleeves and the squooshiness of the yarn. It's flattering and people will never believe you knitted it. :)

This sweater can also be an awesome looking vest if you do a little finishing on the arm holes.

Sock Club Loot

2009-03-18T11:22:00.008-04:00

It's mid March and once again I am part of the legion of unemployed. The last economic downturn taught me that small companies will lay off most of their QA department and this time I was ready. Emergency money fund... check, Emergency yarn stash... check, Resume updated... check, .... On husband's health care plan... check. Ahhhh I'm about as stress free as an unemployed person can be.

There won't be many yarn purchases now, but there are the two (already paid for) sock clubs to fill my mail box with new goodies. In fact I'm still enjoying just staring at the yarn from the February shipments.

We are so pretty all together.

On the outsides Hazel Knits in Deep Peacock and Grape Harvest. Wendee also generously sent along some bamboo DPNs, a stitch marker, and nice laminated kitchener card. (Maybe some other stuff that I've already ingested. See what happens when you wait to long to blog)

In the middle from Woolgirl is Zen Yarn Garden Serenity sock with "the cashmere" in it baby! And booty lots of booty.

Barring any nasty weather there will be new sweater pics this weekend.

Cookie Cooking Weekend

2009-03-15T14:46:00.002-04:00

In one week we went from snow and icicles...

To bulbs popping their heads out to the sunshine.

Suddenly it seems like the baking season is quickly coming to an end with so many new recipes untried. I couldn't let it slip past without a big cookie baking blowout. All recipes are from the Smitten Kitchen blog.

First recipe on the list to try was the World Peace/Korova Cookies. I'm always looking for ways to use up my bag of coco powder but often find cookies made just with coco are not chocolaty enough. This recipe also adds chocolate chunks which seemed a promising way to amp up the chocolate factor. I also admit to getting all fancy pants and buying Scharffen Berger for the chunks, the body is weak when it comes to chocolate.

This was one of those recipes where you annoyingly have to refrigerate the dough before it can be baked and transferred into your mouth. Usually this puts me off an recipe but when trying 3 different recipes this down time is a plus.

Hot these cookies are good but not that impressive, I like a sharper chocolate taste in the state. However the next day at room temperature..... Divine! The cookie base seems almost short bread like which contrasts nicely with the texture of cold chocolate. Using a good quality bittersweet chocolate for the chunks gives you a satisfying chocolate taste without being too sweet. I would make these again.

Next up the Thick, Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookie.
As a kid oatmeal raisin cookies were my favorite, even over chocolate chip. This might have been because my sister didn't like them as much which left more for me. Or it could have been because the 70's Betty Crocker recipe had a butt load of trans-fat Crisco in it (Because butter is bad for you right!!). Oh all the things we didn't know where bad for us in the 80's.

What ever the reason I have a nostalgic love of oatmeal raisin cookies and always like to try a new recipe out. This particular recipe is really your standard oatmeal raisin ingredients but called for the dough to be refrigerated before baking to keep them thick. My dough was probably chilled for an hour which may have been too long. I had a had time getting them to cook to the point where they looked done but were not very dark along the edges. Taste wise they are a nice standard oatmeal cookie, but Martha Steward seems to have ruined me for any oatmeal cookies without coconut in them. (I know it sounds crazy but you don't taste the coconut it just tastes fruity and good!)
Because of my love for Martha's oatmeal cookies in the Baking Handbook and the fact they always bake picture perfectly I won't be making these again.

The last cookie to try was the Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie.
Did you say crispy, chewy and chocolate all at the same time!!!! Excuse me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard.
Again the recipe ingredients were pretty standard for a chocolate chip cookie, but it was the first time I've ever melted the butter before creaming it in with the sugars. The addition of one egg plus another yoke was also interesting. Toward the end of mixing the batter texture was looking to runny, but then suddenly the butter firmed up and it was perfect.

So how does it taste? It really does taste crispy and chewy! My husband even used those exact words even though he had never seen the recipe. I like these a lot, not only for the texture but because the appearance of the baked cookie is top notch. They taste great hot, they taste great cold and probably good with milk if you aren't allergic to it. You can probably tell that I'll be making these babies again.

So anyone want to come over and have some cookies? :)

Oatmeal raisin on the left, chocolate chip on the right and world peace cookies on the top.

On and Off the needles

2009-03-07T15:40:00.002-05:00

First up... what's off the needles is my 4th nakniswemodo sweater, Anna Bell's Cherry.
Slowly slowly, I am inching my way through all the finishing needed for a sweater knit in pieces. Boy does that process seem to take too long! Just to sew in two little sleeves took two Battle Star Galactica episodes and half of the commentary track. Ugh! Might be time to think about getting a yoke sweater on the needles.

Here's hoping that the end of next week this puppy has some buttons sewn on finally.

What's on the needles now.... a Twisted-V Pullover thanks to the good folks over at Knitting Daily who released this pattern gratis. This was super exciting since I'd seen this sweater photo in the Simple Style on-line preview and liked it. Then lo and below the pattern called for Zara and there was already a sweater's worth of this yarn in my stash. It was truly meant to be.

Mmmm twisted rib looks nice.

Orange is the new red

2009-03-04T15:12:00.009-05:00

Orange is stalking me, it wants to be part of my wardrobe and won't take No for an answer. I tell it very nicely that it will always be welcome in my home full of orange trash cans and decorative citrus kitchen items. But other than the accidental orange-red coat it really can't be in my wardrobe. Orange next to my face...not so flattering.

Orange persists, tells me that it looks good with gray and don't I like gray? Aren't I knitting a gray sweater? How about an orange skirt? Wouldn't that be nice since it's not close to your face? Wear some gray tights and the whole skin tone thing is moot.
The widest part of my body in a bright color? No Orange I don't think so.

Orange gets cranky, trows tantrum, says it is just trying to lift my late winter mood. Why must I be difficult? Don't I know that Orange will not give up so easily. It stalks off in a huff.

I sigh and look around my bedroom, suddenly noticing that some weeks ago I moved all orangish sock yarn to my dresser top. Maybe I should just knit some socks from one of these skeins and hope orange is satisfied. If not I'll teased mercilessly at work when I walk in wearing orange skirt.

1. IMG_0158, 2. mosaic5071440, 3. IMG_0076

Knitting like everyone else.

2009-02-27T12:55:00.005-05:00

Can knitting a Central Park Hoodie be considered a right of passage? That seems so much more glamorous then admitting you knit what everyone else does.

So here's the skinny.

Most of this sweater is a size 36 but after looking at the schematic the hip width looked a little small. So I cast on for the next size up and did decreases up to the waist until the finished stitch count matched size 36. Good choice. The finished sweater is a little roomy but not so much that it makes me look "chunky." (A word that should only be used on candy bars and ice cream packaging.)

I can not recommend Green Mountain Spinnery's mountain mohair enough. Yes, it's not a next to the skin yarn and you'll have to pick out plenty of straw, but those are only petty arguments. The colors are deep and beautiful, it feels like a well wearing yarn and I can personally attest to it making a super warm sweater. Mmmm cozy sweater.

That's 3 completed sweaters for NaKniSewMoDo and I'm motoring away on a fourth. It's almost enough to make a knitter cockily think knitting 12 sweaters is totally doable. That is until the sock yarn gets even by smothering me. Back sock yarn, BACK!

Fat Tuesday - pass those donuts

2009-02-24T18:20:00.004-05:00

Hey the month is almost done!

On one hand I'm glad the month is almost gone because the budgeted yarn money has been spent and a new Twist collective will go up soon. But on the other hand I like February for being a short month. It always makes me try to change some bad habits because "it's only 28 days". March is also number 2 on my list of months that suck. No reason other than its a long month of gray cold weather, usually with plenty of mud.

As far as bad habits it was time to adhere to a budgeted amount of money for yarn, what with jobs being shaky. After careful consideration the budgeted yarn purchase was some cashcotton (on sale!) for an Apres Surf Hoodie.

It feels good not to have the guilt of spending some of the "house" money on extra yarn.

The second goal to eat less sugar has had mixed results. I was able to lose that extra after Christmas weight making my clothing uncomfortable. Yeah! But I've had a bit of a falling off the wagon this last weekend making snicker doodles and then binging on the delicious Fat Tuesday donuts brought into work. Would you believe the frog made me do it? Cookies are his favorite.

A Little Trip into the City

2009-02-22T10:44:00.001-05:00

Even though we live a 30 min train ride from Center City Philadelphia I never really go into the city. (Rather I never get off the train, my work commute takes me through every day) I'm high population adverse and saw all the historical areas/museums as a kid. But my husband has no such aversions and does like to plan a trip downtown every once and a while. He won two free tickets to see the Dark Knight at IMAX so this Saturday turned into one of those trips.

First Stop - Di Bruno Brothers. This is the cheese section in the back.

Here's my husband investigating the fancy smacey mustard area.

Mmmm yes he's going to go with a Russian sweet and spicy one. (Seriously like that Chefs chops in the background.)

Because my husband is a sweet heart the second stop was Rosie's Yarn Cellar.
I'd never been to any of the down town yarn stores so it was fun to go squeeze some yarn in a new location. That dongal tweed was very tempting.

A wall of pretty Alpaca

Knowing that we had to hull our purchases around for a few more hours I was a model of restraint and only bought a skein of Manos and the newish hand painted socks pattern book.

Then it was time for food, on to Devils Ally.
My husband says they just slapped a roof on the Ally and turned it into a Resturant. Being a profession planner he was just tickled pink of this creative use of open space.
He also recommends the Lion Winter Warmer beer. Says it was the best tasting beer he's ever had.

Not being a beer drinker I preferred the Quesadillas.

Last stop the Franklin Institute to see our movie on the big Big screen.
I've been here many times but you got to say hi to Frank.

We got nice seats and pulled out our Di Bruno bothers chocolate bars and had a good old time. For me IMAX is almost too big of a screen to watch a movie on but the men like it. All in all it was a fine day and I was back at home by bedtime. Not bad for a day on the town.

Oh Oh Ophicleide

2009-02-18T14:53:00.003-05:00

Out of all the types of sweater construction a yoked cardigan is my favorite. Now that my own Ophicleide is done I'm still in awe of the beautiful yoke Kamicha designed. Some people are super talented.

The long and short of it is that this pattern is not hard to follow, but it does require a little concentration at the beginning. Starting it during a weekend when visiting bunch of family, one of them an energetic young'in, isn't the best idea. Pair that with a day where counting stitches seems beyond your IQ and your family gets to watch a lot of frogging.

If I had been home Ophicleide would have been set aside until a good brain day. As it was I packed only 2 projects and had already finished the first. So I chose the only sane thing to do, knit while playing confusing German children's board games. (The way knitters are obsessed with yarn is how my brother and sister-in-law are about board games. We all have our crazy hobby.)

Knit in Sublime Extra Fine Merino with the 3/4 sleeve option in the pattern. Closed with 5 hook and eyes on the yoke. A sweater that is delightfully comfortable and pretty at the same time. Hmmm almost sounds like a J Peterman ad.

Seen on the Street

2009-02-16T14:23:00.004-05:00

Starry Eyed Optical in downtown Media

One of the windows in the newish designer eyeglasses store. Is the owner a knitter? Was it just nice and cheap to buy a couple skeins of acrylic in bright colors to do up the big store windows? Who made the big ass knitting needles? Don't know but I applaud their creativity. (PS. Company's iPhone is super useful. To bad they are so darn expensive.)

Knits and Cake

2009-02-15T15:32:00.003-05:00

Hope you aren't in a sugar coma already from digging into your box of gamble chocolates because this is going to be a mighty sweet post. I passed on the gamble chocolate this year but did cave to a chocolate craving and baked a cake. It's a great recipe simple, tasty, and can be dressed up or eaten as is. The recipe will be at the end of the post so after you get your fill of eye candy, you can treat your sweet tooth too. (If your pants stop fitting I'm going to blame your box of gamble chocolate)

With nakniswemodo on the mind and having a goal of knitting up some stash I decided to knit a Favorite Cardigan from Custom Knits. Both the yarn (Berroco Worsted Merino) and the book had been purchased for a few months and it felt so so thrifty to put the two together. And as I mentioned on the 3rd there are these red pumps that wanted a matching sweater. Basically it just flew off the needles and here I am with a finished sweater in two weeks. If only they could all be that easy.

The shoes are pleased. So is the black skirt, the only sewing project completed in the last few years.

Here's a close up. The only mod was to put only 3 buttons on the front. With the wide neckline it seemed like a better look for my taste. Oh and I reversed the cables on right side.

And a little look at the sleeve cable. My sister will be surprised to see my vampiric eyes open in the bright light. (The light it burnsssss) This is technically sweater number 3 for nakniswemodo. The other two will be posted some time in the near future.

Now how about some cake!
From Chocolate Epiphany - Charlie's Afternoon Chocolate Cake.
10 T (or 5 ounces) Unsalted butter
8 ounces of 60% chocolate, chopped
2 Large Eggs
2/3 cup of Sugar
3/4 cups Flour

Preheat oven to 350 F, grease and flour one 9" round cake pan. (A good tip is to use coco powder instead of flour to "flour" the pan when making chocolate cake)

In a med saucepan melt the butter over med-high heat and bring to a boil, stirring so it doesn't burn. Remove from heat and stir in chopped chocolate until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth.
In another bowl whisk together the eggs and sugar until well combined. Whisk in flour until that is also combined. Add chocolate and butter mixture and stir until mixture is just combined. Pour batter into prepared cake pan.
Bake for 15 mins at 350 then lower temp to 300 and bake for an additional 8 mins. Remove cake from oven (and here's the catch) you must let it cool completely before removing it from the pan. It's kind of delicate which is why you have to wait.

Then you can eat as is or garnish to your own delight. Pictured is a slice topped with home made whipped cream and raspberries. Mmmmmm cake.

LYS

2009-02-10T18:40:00.004-05:00

The urge to go to the local LYS and fondle some yarn got big enough that it seemed a good idea to indulge it. Yarn money and list of possible new sweater projects in hand, I went up there on Saturday with the strict rules to only buy yarn that wanted to be knit right away. What's the good of knitting up some stash if you're going to immediately fill up that empty space. (Ok that wouldn't have bothered me that much but I'm running out of storage space.)

My local LYS owner and other employees are always friendly and helpful and I enjoy getting the what's new tour when it's been a couple weeks since my last visit. But there is always this awkward bit where someone pulls out some pattern books or a store sample and says, "Oh, don't you just loveeeee this." Nine times out of 10 this item put before me is completely the opposite of my taste so that it falls into the "no way in hell would I ever knit that."

But of course I was raised to be polite so my reply is usually, "Oh that is interesting, or How Funnn". Once over some pattern books the owner caught me out and said, "Now what is wrong with this." And all I could come up with was, "Ummm it's not really my style." To which she said something like, "Oh come on, you'd love it!" This week they showed me a felted purse that had an unsettling resemblance to a cow udder. No teats mind you but it had these bulges which reminded me of teats. Not sure if my replies that it was nice fooled anyone.

After that it was an enjoyable time of paging through the new Rowan magazine and fondling some yarn. Some of those spring cardigans with color work flowers are catching my fancy. But do I want to knit cotton that much? Hmmm must mull that over further.

In the end I was good and left with the Amber pattern book and some buttons for the red cardigan. Mmmmm red.

Limping to the Finish

2009-02-08T19:07:00.002-05:00

It took some effort but I was able to wrestle myself away from the siren red cardigan and make an effort to finish up the nearly done sweaters.

CPH is finally stitched together, even though mattress stitching always seems like it's coming out wrong. An non knitter will probably think it looks fine. As you can see it's sitting around drying from it's second block. The button bands and hood seemed to be pulling in more than the body pieces that where blocked already.

When it's dry (3 days from now) these buttons will be sewn on, then it will finally be done.

Here's me doing an I-cord bind off for Ophicleide completely wrong. Thanks to the internet I figured out my error. Not before finishing the entire bind off once, of course. That's OK, at least the bind off wasn't finished so it was easy to pull the string and start over again.

And there was freshly baked cinnamon bread to take the edge off. Yum Martha Steward, your recipes have 100 steps the the result sure is tasty.

Secret Swap Knitting Reveled

2009-02-07T16:49:00.003-05:00

A nice post about the knitting that was done for the 3 round of the loopy ewe swap refuses to be written. (You'd laugh if you knew how many hours I've spent trying to write about these socks) So how about some pretty pictures.

Oooooo Hazel knits colors.... Laguna to be exact.

Boy do those twisted stitches pop

Hmmm Mr. Crab appears to be compelled to pose next to colors that sound like bodies of water.

Some things about this pattern need to be said:
1. Leg diameter - Using a heavy fingering with my normal loose tension resulted in a comfortable sock that fit over my non skinny leg. Using a thin fingering resulted in too narrow of a sock leg. If you're a tight knitter a forth pattern repeat would probably be a good idea.

2. Wraps - A few of the wraps overlap the start of the round, so you'll need to start knitting the wrap 3 stitches for you start round 2. It's easy to miss this on the chart until you get to the end of the round.

3. Heel Turn - The one in the pattern seemed very shallow. I replaced it with a normal one from another sock pattern and the socks turned out fine.

4. Don't Worry - Despite the items above I didn't find the sock to be all that hard. Once the wraps were figured out the chart knitting when surprisingly fast. The foot is only following the twisted stitches already set up, so turn on a DVD and go on auto pilot.

My swap partner Tracey made a beautiful mosaic over here in the loopy ewe thread. So glad she liked it!

I love the winter weather....

2009-02-03T18:12:00.004-05:00

.....because the two of us can get together. There's nothing sweeter, finer when it's nice and cold, I can hold you closer to me, collecting all the kisses due me. I love the winter weather because I've got my love to keep me warm.

A light snow has been falling all day and that little tune has been dancing through my brain.

Maybe because Punxsutawney Phil made his appearance early this week, Philadelphians suddenly seem to be grumbling that this winter has been too long.
I would argue that compared to many part of the country we've had it easy. And unlike last year, which was a long stretch of gray, there have been some light snows to pretty things up. Sure we had that nasty ice storm last week, but after going outside and finding it was an ice rink I called in a personal day. The day was past very nicely in front of DVD's with knitting in my hand and no guilt was felt at all.

Though winter does seem to have had some effect, I can't put down this new red sweater. It doesn't seem to matter that my CPH is just waiting to have sleeves sewn on. Or that the last ball of yarn to finish Ophicleide showed up. Instead I reach for the 3 inches of red sweater which seems to scream "Me first!!" My eyes must want to stare at something bright for now.... or my subconscious wants a sweater to match these shoes. Red suede equals happiness.

Kindred Spirits

2009-01-26T18:14:00.003-05:00

It's so great when you happen upon someone just as wacky as you are. Stacey Rebecca of finger puppet fame over on etsy so needs to be an honorary sister. I know my real sister will back me up on this.
A new puppet arrived in the mail today and there was a little message on the back of the envelope.

Ohh secret message! Hee hee hee fun..

Oh my god can't stop laughing!

It's the Devil and it's Fun!!

Thanks Stacey, you too are super awesome.....so would you be interested in pictures of stuffed frogs?

We have no sweaters today

2009-01-25T15:53:00.003-05:00

Poor sweaters, they haven't even been touched in days. They are a bit to big for train knitting unless I'm feeling really serious. But there is a new sock...

Retro Rib Socks in some long stashed yarn Sunshine yarn's soft sock. Nice color, nice hand, but soooo thin that it takes ages for someone like me to knit up. I'll probably like wearing them though.

And we have brownies, yum....

And a pretty new purse via my favorite site Etsy..

It totally fits my loopy ewe zipper pouch, love it!

January so Far

2009-01-16T09:31:00.003-05:00

(Calendar from Modern Printed Matter)

The first Sunday is for Sewing didn’t go all that well. Do you ever have that sense that all your precious free time is running through your fingers like sand and there is nothing to show for it? That’s how last Sunday felt. First the large roll of trace paper went AWOL and after trashing most of the apartment it turned out to be in the location I first checked. Argh! Next, thinking to save time I browsed through all my Burda Style magazines looking for a pre-made pencil skirt pattern. Only after tracing off all the pieces to the pattern did I notice the instructions said “for stretch fabric only.” Oh lack of reading, why do you repeatedly bite me in the ass? Hmmmm don’t answer that. So knowing trying to make a stretch pattern in woven fabric wasn’t going to end well, I put it away and retreated back to my knitting.

It turns out that retreating to knitting that day was the right decision. On Tuesday a little trip to the book store produced this month’s Burda Style. Inside were not one but two pencil skirt patterns, both worked in a woven fabric and shaped with princess seams. Basically the stars aligned and gave me exactly what I was looking for. I’d show you the modeled shot but the girl’s jacket completely obscures any skirt details.

Thank god for technical drawings which show you the cute little button detail on the waistband. Next step sewing up a muslin to check for fit because Burda Style’s 42 inch hip size doesn’t always cover a 42 inch hip.

Over on the less stressful knitting side, pieces of the CPH are getting finished at a semi-decent rate. I was a bit worried that the fronts were looking too narrow so they were blocked early this week. Fortunately the blocked dimensions did end up matching the pattern with a little light stretching. This totally reinforces my impression that wool is the best fiber to knit or sew with. It forgives me when I use flexible math.

A couple of delightful things found me this week. Things that are not new, just new to me.
First was the Creative Mom podcast – Check out her latest podcast episode titled Awakening. It’s extremely moving and inspirational in some way that I can not put my finger on.
Second is the Iloveobento shop gallery. Scroll down to see some fantastic and funny bento box food. My personal favorite is sliced tomato that looks like a lobster. If you like that you might enjoy a site that is an old favorite Vegan lunchbox. Little Smoo often gets school lunches that make me giggle and then want to eat.

Plans for 2009

2009-01-10T18:23:00.005-05:00

1. Knit more sweaters
Knitting sweaters is the most rewarding type of project for me. So much so I'd like to devote most of my knitting time in 2009 to fill up my sweater drawer. Joining the NaKniSewMoDo over on Ravelry seemed like a great way to have a pseudo goal of knitting 12 sweaters and doing it with a bit of company. Part of the plan is to use some of the really nice stashed yarn to knit some of those sweaters. To "put my money where my mouth is" I cast on a CPH with the Mountain Mohair purchased at last years Maryland sheep and wool. It's going well.

2. Take a card from spinners and set a day aside for sewing
I'm going to make Sundays for Sewing for a bit to see if some of the stashed material can be converted into clothing. The thought that it would be super cool to have half of my wardrobe made by hand has been rattling around in my brain for awhile. It seems though that knitting always trumps sewing because no tables need to cleared or machine carried around and set up. Maybe scheduling some time will help me get my ass in gear. Here is some wool from the grandmother stash that might make a nice pencil skirt..... if there's enough yardage.

3. Knit some more socks for my husband
Now that Christmas is over my husband is in possession of his hand knit socks and deemed them excellent. Then he said, "I might want some more." Woolgirl then had an end of the year sale so I picked up some Hazel knits in Weekend Warrior and two manly sock patterns from Knitspot Pave Sock and Spectator Sock. Pave is the one catching my eye right now, so the spectators might get saved for another yarn.

Gifts from Friends….and a few from myself

2008-12-31T08:59:00.002-05:00

A few days before Christmas my former loopy ewe swap partner Christine emailed me to say she was sending a package my way. What a fun unexpected surprise! The email made me feel like a little kid straining my brain to try and figure out what might be in the box. What could Christine be sending me out of the goodness of her heart? My imagination totally failed me so there was much festive excitement when the package arrived. Frog helped me tear into it and the contents made both of us very happy. Christine sent us a cute decorative box which had knitting goodies nestled inside. A beautiful skein of Socks that Rock lightweight in the color Jade and a froggy tape measure. Heehee frog! Thank You Christine, your package was the highlight of my holiday.

My family got me several knitting books on my wish list, Cables Untangled, Color Style, and The Knitters book of yarn. Thank you for supplying me with many great patterns for this coming year. My sweet husband got me my own digital camera, jokingly saying that it was a gift for both of us since it will keep me from using his camera. Smart of him since it’s only a matter of time until I drop a camera due to my poor balance and butter fingers.

So it was a book heavy, yarn light Christmas which is the excuse I’m using for the following purchases. (Is making up excuses a sign of addiction?) I’ve been very impressed with how my Maelstrom socks, made from Spirit Trail Fiberworks Helen, are wearing. The yarn is a little courser feeling during knitting than Hazel Knits or Smooshy but softness nicely with wear. The yarn is a very thick fingering making knitting go fast and the colors are wonderful. Sheri at the Loopy Ewe put up more Helen in the last sneak up and I had to snag a skein.

And the final yarn purchase of the year was 2 skeins of JoJo Land Cashmere from my Local LYS the Slip Knot. It was on sale so how could anyone say no. 400 yards should be enough to make a nice black beret to go with both of my coats.

Merry Christmas to You

2008-12-24T15:58:00.005-05:00

Hooray work is over and it's holiday time for certain! Here's wishing a merry Christmas to everyone. May you be surrounded by loving family and find a bit of yarn in your stocking.

(Photo courtesy of my sister and her frog. It was too cute not to post.)

Sock club Hazel knits, Hazel Knits sock club

2008-12-22T17:35:00.007-05:00

Warning, froggiegirl is about to wax poetical about Hazel Knits sock yarn yet again. If you find her devotion to this sock yarn creepily cult like please come back another day. Thank you.

OK now that all that is out of the way would you like to see the precious? An exclusive Woolgirl sock club colorway of the perfect sock yarn? Yes, Yes come closer. It's subtle but you'll like it.

Oooooo see, it's called Whispering Pine which brings to mind pine trees covered in a crisp coat of snow. Ahhhhh so very romantic to this knitter who romanticizes winter.

This yarn would be the most satisfying end to the 2nd round of Woolgirl sock club. A Hazel Knits addict such as myself would have been happy with just the yarn... but there was plenty more. See for yourself.

The accompanying sock pattern was designed by none other than Anne Hanson and is called Pine Cone (No ravelry link yet) Next we have knit gift tags which came in very handy this weekend when wrapping presents. Then a beautiful stitch marker from Spindle cat studio, plus a 2009 Desk Calendar where sheep appear to be behaving badly. Finally a sweet finish of tasty caramel Hersey kisses which are quickly becoming my favorite kiss favor.
Boy and am I glad now to have gone for the extra December shipment, unexpected Hazel Knits totally made my day. Thank you Jen for your continued great sock club packages!

Sooooo if you can't get enough of Hazel Knit's showing up in sock club boxes what do you do? You sign up for the Hazel knits sock club that's what! Oh yes, forget about all the "knitting down the sock yarn stash." That's so last year. This year's motto is convert half of the stash to Hazel knits and do the dance of joy. If you'd also like to add gratuitous amounts of this sock yarn to your stash, head over to Wendee's blog and check out the details. Then we can do the dance of joy together. Cha cha cha!

It's not Christmas without that last minute project

2008-12-21T10:09:00.007-05:00

Christmas knitting planning goes something like this. Mid-year the knitter decides what and whom are getting Christmas knits. One or two of these are knit during the warm months in a fit of responsibility. Time passes and the knitter pares this list down thinking that certain people didn't really seem enthused about their knitted gift last year. Maybe a gift card would actually be better. November comes and the knitter is not in the mood to start another Christmas project and decides that Christmas knitting is done for the year. All is well until mid December when a twinge of guilt appears as all the presents are laid out for wrapping. The knitter looks at the calendar and says, "Oh no! 10 days till Christmas!!! What can I knit that fast!!!!!"

I really thought that this year there would be no last minute gift knit. Then last weekend while boxing up my mother's gift, the guilty twinge did show up. My original plan had been to knit two pairs of socks, one black and one gray, butttttt those colors are really boring to knit. So I'd decided a few months ago that one black pair was enough knitted goodness.

Then late October my mother's appendix burst inside of her. It took about two days for the doctors to even figure this out because quote "She looked too healthy to have a burst appendix." My mother even said when she was admitted, "My side really hurts. Do you think my appendix must have burst?" and they told her, "No." At least the doctors figured she had some sort of infection and put her on antibiotics right away. Long story short is that my mother had to have a surgery at the beginning of this month to "clean everything up," but will be fine once she heals from that. She plans to be back to work in the new year.

So when this twinge of guilt appeared I decided to take one of those special skeins. You know the ones you don't want to knit because you like to stare at them in the stash, in my case it was Platinum in discontinued Funky Carolina Merino/Tencel. This yarn probably should have been knit in a complicated stitch but there was no time. I cast on a speedy sock pattern, another pair of Slippery socks. Now when my mother opens her Christmas present she will have two pairs of socks, one black, one gray and a big fat does of knitterly love.

Electronic patterns - you can't buy just one

2008-12-08T15:34:00.005-05:00

Right now buying patterns off the net is kind of like sitting down with a pint of Haagen-Dazs. You tell yourself you're only going to have a little..... but one thing leads to another and soon your spoon is making that thud sound as it hits the cardboard bottom. Or in the case of patterns the sound might be cha ching as money flies out of your checking account.

Anyone else having this problem right now? I'd use the excuse that this pattern buying is to take the edge off of Christmas knitting, except that I'm not doing any. Will the excuse that my current project is in the vast amount of stockinette stage work?
I can hear some of you generous knitters saying, "It's OK, you're just lining up some future projects." Thank you generous knitters and you'd be right to if something new and shiny didn't always come along.

It seems that once a pattern has been bought there is a invisible timer ticking down. If I don't get the project on the needles before that time has expired the pattern will never get knit. Fair Enough and Coraline were both cast on within two weeks of purchase and finished. The two patterns Kingscot and Vivian bought from the twist collective in November, quickly approaching their knitting expiration date. The chic knits pattern Twist bought last year..... that has a snowballs chance in hell of ever getting knitted.

What causes this? I still think these patterns are beautiful and would love to wear the completed sweaters. I just don't want to knit them anymore. Is it a lack of moral fiber, maybe Knitters ADD? Should I create a personal rule that patterns purchased need to be knitted before willy nilly spending more money on Brooklyn Tweed's latest lace project. Well maybe that's a special case..... who can resist his photographic charms. But you know what I mean!

So anyway how about a picture of something that did get on the needles in time. Here's the yoke of Ophicleide designed by Kamicha over on ravelry. Her project page is always drool worthy, go look go look now! Enough of us must have drooled over this sweater that she wrote up a pattern. Thank god because I've been trying to guess the stitch patterns and would have been totally off.

The start of this project was a little shaky because of poor instruction reading by me. When you start knitting the patterned yoke the first stitch on either side is an edge stitch and does not show in the chart. If you miss reading this in the instructions (Oh it's there alright) your stitch count gets pretty funky. Once that mistake was figured out I started slipping the stitches with the yarn on the wrong side. Generally just stupid stuff that will be blamed on trying to talk to people and read directions at the same time. Kindergardeners banging on pianos also tend to be distracting, but these are the hazards of knitting during Thanksgiving.

Now if you please excuse me I must try to resist buying the new Shetland Trader beret Breiwick. Or maybe Selbu Modern instead. All heck let's just get both.

FO Number 3 - Celtic Beanie

2008-12-06T19:36:00.004-05:00

Sometime during the middle of the year my husband took the Son of Stitch and Bitch book off the bookshelf. It came back to me with post-it notes on a few pages and a comment that he especially liked the Celtic Beanie because it was double knit. My response was probably, "Yeah Yeah I'll knit that for you sometime," because I remember not ordering the Mission Falls yarn for awhile. (It's the 1824 superwash in 020 and 004 if you're interested) Then the yarn sat in the box it came in for long enough that feelings of guilt started to set in.

The week of Thanksgiving I broke the box open and studied up on how double knitting works. My first impressions were that double knitting is pretty tedious. You have to move the yarn all over the place to get the reversible fabric which makes for slow progress and sore shoulders. While knitting the ribbing I was pretty pissed off at this project and wondering how it was going to get finished. Fortunately knitting the celtic knot pattern proved to be interesting and my mood greatly improved.

The finished hat was the envy of all the men at Thanksgiving. They love the squishiness of two layers of worsted superwash wool and the reversible colors. Hope it keeps my hubby's head nice and warm this winter, it's been colder than normal. We've got snow falling from the sky right now, Yippie!

It's all about me

2008-12-05T18:14:00.009-05:00

My former loopy swap buddy Christine tagged me with a Meme to tell six random things about myself.

1. Don't challenge me to any game involving recalling 70's song lyrics because I will kick your ass!

2. If you leave me alone in a room with a pan of brownies I will eat them alllll.

3. I wish I were talented enough to sing and dance in broadway musicals.

4. I've laughed loudly and often enough at work to have been reprimanded for it.

5. If there is a ball/frisbee flying through the air toward me there is a 85% chance it will hit me in the head. Don't know why, but it happens.

6. To me the trifecta is taking a shower, putting on freshly laundered flannel jammies and getting into bed where the sheets are also freshly laundered. Ahhhh bliss.

I'm not tagging anyone because honestly no one springs to mind. And I'm antisocial, see you got a freebe! :)

Knitting is a great hobby because you can be as social or antisocial as you want. Even though I'm generally a lone knitter it's a lot of fun to talk about it and get comments from you guys out there. So Thanks!

At the end of Thanksgiving vacation we went with the extended family to visit Pennypacker Mills. The house was renovated in 1901 by Gov Samuel W Pennypacker as a summer retreat for his family. Right now it's all decorated up for christmas and you can walk up and join a tour. The photo here is the upstairs area for the family to get together and engage in womanly pursuits. Isn't it great! I would have loved to sit down in that window seat and pull out some knitting. There was some half started knitting on a chair for affect along with some embroidery.

My husband and I left to go home from there which meant a brand new route home that took us through the town of Skippack. I'd never been there and commented, "You should pull over and let me go shopping." Boy was I surprised when my husband did just that! We wandered around the stores on the main drag popping into the ones that interested us. I was busy staring in the direction of jewelry stores when my husband said, "Hey there's a yarn store over there. Don't you want to go in?" God bless him he's a good man. Yarnings was a very nice store with an upstairs and downstairs to browse around in. I almost bought some more sublime cashmere/merino/silk blend and their new baby pattern book but stopped myself. Can't remember why now, maybe it's harder to go nuts in a yarn shop if your husband is there. :)

There was one thing that had to come home with me. Frog head buttons...Ohhhhh Yeah.

FO Number 2 - Little Birds on a Yoke

2008-12-01T18:14:00.007-05:00

This sweater is a bit difficult to write about because all the pieces for it fell together so neatly it's almost like it knit itself. There was no swatching, sketching or working out the math beforehand, I just cast on with the thought that it would all work out.

The germ of the idea started something like this..... I'd been thinking about knitting another tangled yoke and had purchased the gray felted tweed from my local LYS. At the same time obsessively checking the finished Little Bird cardigans made by other ravelry users. A beautiful design that would not work with my bust/waist configuration, but the birds were perfect. Then the idea just popped into my head, why not knit a tangled yoke and just substitute the cable for some colorwork birds. Why not knit the whole thing in the round to make stranding really simple and then learn how to steek. Why not cast on Right Now!!!

All the garter stitch rib in the tangled yoke pattern was replaced with the beaded ribbing specified in the Little birds pattern. This changed the number of cast on stitches for all the pieces to be divisible by 3. The body size is basically the size 34 in Eunny Jang's pattern with about an extra inch of ease and the 8 steek stitches added. There are 26 birds on the yoke, 13 facing in each direction with a little geometric shape on the center back. (An egg would have been better but needed too many stitches)

Rowan Felted Tweed turned out to be a good choice for a first steek. I followed Eunny Jang's hand sewn steek instructions and then zig zigged with my sewing machine alongside the hand stitched line. The extra zig zig probably wasn't needed because the felted tweed didn't unravel past the hand stitched line. The cardigan was then finished off with a double thickness button band and some blue wooden buttons that almost match the birds.

Other than the button band concerns that I blogged about on the 25th this cardigan feels almost perfect. The tubular cast on for the ribbing looks excellent, the fit is great, and the little birds make me smile every time I wear it.

FO Number 1 - Fair Enough Cardigan

2008-11-30T14:35:00.007-05:00

I'll be blogging about a couple of new FO's during this week since knitting sweaters isn't that interesting until they are completed. Let's start with the Fair Enough Cardigan which was finished for weeks but languished around waiting for buttons. Fair Enough was knit in Karabella Aurora 8 in the pattern's suggested colors on a number 7 needle. I needed two additional balls of the main color due to my gauge being smaller and my changes to the bottom width of the sweater.

This cardigan didn't get much blog time during construction. That might be because it was a straight forward knit with very little deviation from the pattern. The only change was increasing the stitch count for the bottom of the sweater, since my hip measurement is not the same as my bust. I took my gauge and did some simple math to figure out how many stitches would make a 41 inch width. Then calculated how many decreases would need to be made to get the pattern's waist stitch count in the suggested length.

The rest of the sweater was knit according to the pattern which is clear and well written. I'd recommend this design for anyone wanting to dip their toe into stranded knitting. The yoke colorwork is very simple even when having to strand from the wrong side.

Things that I would change if knitting this design again.....

1. The Aurora 8 grew in length a lot more than expected. I'd knit the sleeves and body at least an inch shorter than suggested in the pattern.

2. I'd knit the neck band double the length and use a three needle bind off on the inside to keep the band from stretching out of shape.

3. The button band is not to my liking which was talked about in the last post. I'm still not sure how I'd change that but there is plenty of yarn to knit a new one.

All three of these are minor gripes and this sweater has been getting plenty of wear in the last couple of days. It's gotten the husband seal of approval because it is super soft and a flattering color.

Button Band Blues

2008-11-25T15:39:00.005-05:00

Sewing buttons on two new sweaters has brought to my attention that my button band skills are sorely in need of improvement. Some of my problem is an inability to evenly space buttons or buttonholes along a sweater front. Maybe because the mental connection that there should be the same number of stitches between buttonholes was just made today. Duhhhhhh. But beyond the problems caused by flexible math, it seems like there should be some knitting tricks out there for better button bands. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction or recommend a resource.

Here's the skinny on badly behaving button bands and some poorly lit photos.

On the Fair Enough cardigan I picked up along the edge, knit a one by one rib and used yarn over buttonholes. Then the band was finished off with an invisible one by one cast off for a nicer finish. The result is that the button band seems to floppy and the yarn over buttonholes stretch and gape in an unsatisfactory way when buttoned.

On my little birds cardigan I tried something a bit different to try to counteract some of the problems in Fair Enough. The band was picked up along the edge and was knit in the beaded ribbing pattern used in the rest of the sweater. Once the band width was reached a purl turning row was knit and then 8 rows of stockinette finished with a 3 needle bind off on the inside. For the buttonholes 3 stitch one row holes (from interweave appendix) were made on both the right side and facing side. The problem is the extra buttonhole stitches make the the band edge bulge out, which only gets worse when actually buttoned.

Does anyone have some advice they could pass along? Oh and I promise nice modeled FO shots of these sweaters later in the week if you promise not to stare at my buttonholes. :)

Perfect moments

2008-11-21T14:58:00.004-05:00

Biting into a warm cookie and tasting the sharp edge of fresh ginger and the sweet ooze of chocolate.

Walking in the early hours of the morning through a gentle shower of snow and seeing the flakes glinting off your sleeves.

Sliding wool socks still warm from drying on the radiator over cold feet.

Picking up your sticks and string with Brenda Dane's voice in your ear.

Realizing your skeins of wool have ceased to be just raw materials and have been transformed into a garment.

Tomorrow we cut it open.

We missed you Web

2008-11-17T18:20:00.004-05:00

My household is finally connected back up to the internet. Whoopee!!!

Though the upside of having no internet is way more knitting time with very few new projects to distract you.

I've been power knitting through a improvised tangled yoke cardigan where the cable is being replaced with some color work. It seemed like the way to have a sweater with Ysolda's little birds sweater motif that would work for my body. So far the progress seems to be going well. If all goes to plan the felted tweed with lengthen a bit after blocking and my first attempt at steeking won't be a disaster.

Sorry for low quality pics, it's been raining almost nonstop here.

Sharing my Sleeve Love

2008-11-11T13:01:00.004-05:00

Loveeeeee you sleeves.

More details later since I'm buring internet time at work. Cross your fingers that Version will show up at my house on the right day and give me internet access again.

Ghosts in the Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-31T12:34:00.007-04:00

There's been colds, train delays and major computer issues over in my neck of the woods. All keeping me away from my little blog despite having plenty to blog about. But good news... Philadelphia is finally a winner Phillies are World Series Champs!!! Everyone freak out! At least that's what its been like, especially down town. I was lucky to even get home from work on a train since septa suspended service for awhile trying to get enough trains to bring people down town for the parade. And let me tell you teenage boys stink after a day celebrating.

But enough about that, on to knitting were plenty of progress has been going on behind the scenes. It seems appropriate in so many ways to wrap up the month and Socktober with this final FO. I give you my version of the much knitted Little Pumpkin socks. Knit in Yarn Pirate's Merino Tencel blend, color Butternut Squash which practically screams November to me. I got this color through the yarn pirate sock club. The only mod here was knitting fewer pumpkin pattern repeats due to my larger gauge. Since it is Halloween today my little Ghost pin decided to hang around the pumpkin patch where he is hoping to meet up with the great pumpkin. He's from a favorite Etsy store smeeta who has too many cute felt pins.

Progress......maybe

2008-10-20T19:44:00.001-04:00

Gauge has been problematic lately. Almost like the knitting Goddess got a little tired of me knitting one inch gauge swatches and decided to teach me a lesson. Maybe she gave me a free pass as a newbie and that’s why the first several sweaters worked out fine. Now she wants me to play by the rules.
Long story short, after all the waist decreases on my Fair Enough cardigan were finished the width was more like 40” and not the 33” it was supposed to be. Doh! I was able to salvage all the ribbing and one set of decreases because extra ease in my hip area is a good thing. The rest was ripped back and re-knit with a 7, one size smaller than I was using. Changing the needle size worked great through the waist shaping but might cause a problem in the bust area since the stitch gauge is half an inch smaller. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping the width and stitch counts work out. No pics yet because it's still a boring rectangle.

No Rhinebeck again for me this year since we had a long car ride last week, I didn’t want to drive myself and didn’t think my husband could be talked into doing it. (Can’t blame him….besides he’s only interested in the airplanes up there) I consoled myself by going to the newest LYS, The Slip Knot, and buying some felted tweed for no particular project. Probably another yoke sweater since they are just so darn easy to knit and end up looking professional. The owners had gotten Berroco’s merino in since my last visit and that was also veryyyy tempting. I was able to resist only because the color that spoke to me was the perfect red and there are already 10 skeins of DK weight red yarn in the stash. Really, one must draw the line somewhere.

The Odd Couple

2008-10-18T21:19:00.005-04:00

The truth is we are both odd, but one of us is a more conservative dresser. (You should hear the disparaging things he says about dark wash jeans.)

Socks for him – Classic socks from “The Knitting Man(ual)”, knit in ShibuiKnits sock Rust.

The dude” as he likes to be called, picked this pattern out himself while we were visiting Yarn love in Hummelsville PA. He gets points for picking out an easy pattern, calmly entertaining himself in the yarn store and not eating all the free chocolate that was out. (We share this weakness)

Even though the row gauge was something like 11 rows to the inch, these socks knit up decently fast. I’d knit it again in some bright color for me…. Maybe turquoise. The dude as well as abiding, approves of the finished socks but does not want to see them again until Christmas. We’ll wash and block them all pretty for him.

Socks for her – Slippery socks by Madelinetosh Knit in Hazelknits Chuckanut Drive.

Totally copied Jen of Woolgirl who put this exact pattern and yarn combination on the woolgirl blog. Love IT!!

Things I'm tired of

2008-10-16T18:27:00.004-04:00

1. The temperature being almost 80 in mid October.
Listen Nature, I've put the big comforter on the bed, washed all the plastic smell out of the stored sweaters and bought a new wool coat. You've got to work with me here. One can't wear jaunty berets in 80 degree heat either.

2. Campaigning
Can't we be like Canadians and do our elections quickly? At my office it's descended into supporters for each candidate arguing with each other over why they're right. I know from experience this kind of arguing never changes anyone's opinion about anything. Let's just get the picking over with so everyone can deal.

3. Plain White Rice
My husband isn't on board with my cooking of brown rice, so when he cooks I have to eat a lot of plain white. But when I'm cooking and subjecting him to some other hated food (leafy greens) I'll make this Mexican white rice to compromise. It's pretty tasty too.
From Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless

Gulf Coast Style White Rice Pilaf
1 1/2 T- vegetable or olive oli
1 1/2 cups -white rice (I use medium grain Goya brand)
1 small onion chopped
2 garlic cloves peeled and chopped finely
1 3/4 -cups chicken broth
1 tea -salt

Preheat oven at 350 degrees. Set an ovenproof saucepan over medium heat and add oil, rice, and onion. Stir frequently until grains of rice turn milky white, about 5 mins. Add garic and stir a few seconds, until fragrant. Then add chicken broth and 1 tea of salt. Stir and allow liquids to come to a full boil. (At this point you can get creative adding dried herbs, fire roasted peppers etc) Set lid on the pan and transfer it into the oven and bake for 25 mins. Remove from oven and let stand for 5 mins, then fluff with a fork and garinsh with fresh herbs if desired.

4. Knitting Socks
Well just a bit tired of knitting socks. It seems like a big project is in order since variety is the spice of life. Last week I popped by the Knit and Tonic blog to catch up and lo and behold Wendy had just released this fetching little cardigan. She's lucky her little cardigan is safely across the country, away from my greasy mitts. It would go with half of my wardrobe and I wantsssss it! But like a normal socially adjusted knitter I'll put away my urges for petty theft and knit my own.

Meanwhile at the Renaissance Fair.....

2008-10-14T19:20:00.012-04:00

We saw some cool Scottish bands....
pictured The Rouges and not pictured but kick ass Albannach.

We did a little window shopping...

Frog was excited by all the hats.

We took a few pictures...

(My hubby was smiling before I snapped this.)

I started a new sock....
Little pumpkins in Yarn Pirate Butternut.

It just slipped off the needles

2008-10-07T18:20:00.006-04:00

Apparently during all that DVD watching last Sunday my fingers were moving along at a decent speed. Even though this pattern is all knitting with a lot of slipped stitches I'm a bit surprised to have a finished sock already. Something about the texture of the slipped stitches brings to the mind the bumpy back of frogs. (Frog bias may be influencing me) Taking a time out from Christmas knitting with my favorite yarn and an easy pattern was the right choice. Instead of being grumpy about socks I'm enjoying them again.

One of the things I was watching during that DVD marathon was a TV series that a work friend convinced me to check out. He said he knew I'd like Pushing Daises and he was right, l love it. Between, knitting references, spontaneous outburst of song and spoofs of things like the dream sequence from Vertigo I've been laughing loudly and often. Since Ravelry is awesome there is a Pushing Daises knitting group already. I've joined but need to get caught up before posting to avoid any spoilers.

Meanwhile the second sock moves along while frog and I enjoy a sunny fall day. We are so coordinated.

A Hypothetical Do Over

2008-10-06T13:34:00.004-04:00

Is the sweater finished?
Yes
Is it wearable?
Yes
Is it "perfect"?
No
Will you rip out what could be changed to make in perfect?
No way in hell!

So that's where we are with my somewhat cowl, it's done and it's going to stay that way. The finished product is a bit to big but I wore it to work and no one made jokes about hand knitting or even asked if I made it.
But hypothetically how would I reknit this?
1. Knowing now that alpaca grows I'd knit the size 34 instead of 36.
2. Looking at other people's Somewhat Cowls on Ravelry I like the way this sweater looks in darker colors a lot more than in the pale lavender yarn. I'd probably go for a gray or brown.
3. The raglan line has already been shortened but I'd reduce the length further. Or maybe raglans just don't work for my shoulder/bust configuration. Not sure on this point.
4. I'd cut out even the tinniest place where the silk in the yarn did not spin as finely as it should have. When knitting in the round cutting out these areas seemed like a pain and I only did it for larger slubs. But now there are smaller slubs in the bottom front of the sweater that continue to annoy me.

Considering that this sweater was cast on in mid 2007, I'm just glad it's done!

I'm slipping this one in

2008-10-05T15:26:00.005-04:00

Turns out 47 yards of reinforcement thread is not enough to finish heels and toes of two man sized socks. DOH! So much for finishing up one of my husbands Christmas presents. While another spool is on order I found myself free to pursue other socks.
Hazel Knits - Chuckanut Drive
Pattern - Slippery Socks
Maybe I can trick myself into participating in Socktoberfest if I never sign up. :)

It's that time of year again...

2008-10-03T21:48:00.007-04:00

when the temperature dips down to the 60's and I get routinely mocked for dressing in wool jackets, scarves and hats. I know their just jealous of my hand knits.

My current favorite is this new gretel beret knit in Ultra Alpaca Oceanic Mix. It has been worn every day on my walk to the train station and sometimes in the office where the air conditioning continues to run.

This is the smallest fitted style with one mod, the ribbing is knit on a size smaller needle. The size 6 needle made the fit nice and snug even after blocking.

Initially this hat was almost ripped since the unblocked version had almost no slouch making my head looked my some sort of mutant blueberry. (Blueberry brains, the favorite of every zombie!) But then the nugget of information that alpaca grows when it hits the water was remembered just in time. The finished hat is perfect in my opinion with just enough slouch to be a bit sassy.

Did I mention there are FO's?

2008-09-30T18:34:00.011-04:00

Somewhat cowl turned into a not really cowl and new shoes to complete the outfit. Modeled shots to come when weather permits.

Christmas sock production or how to turn your hobby into a second job. But you can't really blame family for taking a liking to knitted socks, you know. Status -black pair complete, brown pair down to heel flap of 2nd sock, green pair only has pattern picked out. (Lacey Pillars in Smooshy black parade, Classic socks, in Shibui in rust, Euphorbia to make elfine socks)

A new dessert, Chocolate Meringue Tart from cook book Chocolate Epiphany. Oh yes it is that good because there is an indecent amount of butter and heavy cream in there.

I swear I was knitting the whole time

2008-09-28T09:52:00.005-04:00

I'd like to blame my husband addiction to the Phillies fan message board for not posting recently (the Phillies didn't clinch the division title until yesterday and there is only one computer in the house) but the truth is that I've been cranky. So cranky I was didn't even feel like communicating even in an electronic way.

Fortunately the hormones are at a much more even keel today and Christine of Too Much Yarn give me a nice little push by awarding my blog an Arte y Pico. Thanks Christine my fellow sock yarn addict, you've made my day!
Here are the rules:
1. Link to the site that give you the Arte y Pico.
2. Pick 5 blogs that you feel have interesting material, creativity, content and link to them.
3. Leave comments on these blogs so that they know they have been awarded.
4. Link to the Arte y Pico blog.
5. Show these rules.
Time to pay it forward as they say and post my own award winning blog pics.
Ysolda is not only a talented young designer, but often inspires me with her photographs of items around her house or places she's visited. I want to be her when I grow up.

Emily of the Family Trunk Project is designing garments inspired by members of her family. Not only are the designs lovely, reading about the history that goes along with each one is just as enjoyable. For another excellent read check about the "interview" she did with Ysolda here.

A new to me blog is Ashley of doggedknits who's forays into quilting might just inspire me to use up some of the huge box of cotton from my grandmother's stash. She also has that talent of taking beautiful picture of everything that I'm in awe of.

Glenna of Knitting to stay sane has mad skillz in the colorwork that make me say "I'm not worthy". Her Garnet Venezia still makes me drool a bit when looking at her project page. Not to mention she has some lovely designs that will be knit someday!

Not a knitting blog but one that I find very enjoyable is Farmgirlfare. Full of recipes, cute pictures of farm animals and gardening stories/advice, Susan is living my personal dream of living on her own farm. Don't know where she finds the time but she also has a gardening blog and a bread baking blog. Yummmm

Come on Baby and Kiss that Frog

2008-09-10T19:37:00.005-04:00

It’s obvious that I have a thing for frogs. It’s not clear when the “obsession” started but it does predispose me to liking certain things. Liking things like these; Kiss that Frog mittens! I have to thank one of my Ravelry friends, shamroxann for queuing them. They showed up on my friend activity and they immediately became something that must be knitted NOW! (Isn’t the friend activity view the best thing ever)

No modifications other than having to sub a fingering yarn for worsted since I’m “loose knitter” from having kissed the blog frog too much. Both yarns are Hazel knit’s Artisan sock, main color Baroness and contrast color Euphorbia.
Shamroxann queued these this week Bunny and Frog mittens. hee heee

The most ironic yarn I own

2008-09-04T18:38:00.005-04:00

OK here's a little story for you because it's funny, not haa haa funny more like ewwww funny.
1.Knitter finds somewhat cowl pattern and falls in love with it. Orders alpaca silk kit and some extra yarn from kpixie.
2. Knitter knits body of sweater, decides neckline should be higher, frogs and reknits, repeat.
3. Knitter throws half completed sweater in corner to hide it from site.
4. Knitter decides week before Xmas that everyone must have knitted gift! No time to order so some of the alpaca silk is used for grandma's scarf. Thinks this will probably bite her in the a** at some point but there are no other options.
5. Early summer knitter decides to frog or complete every half finished project hidden in corners of rooms. After trying on the somewhat cowl she decided the raglan line needs to be shorter and rips back again.
6. Things go smoothly but knitter runs out of yarn before sweater is done. Decides to go order from yarn garden because they also have tempting sublime yarns. Places order for sublime extra fine merino and some alpaca silk. It is mid July.
7. Yarn store emails saying, "Sorry the sublime is out of stock but we think it will be in next week." Knitter decides this is acceptable and does not cancel the order.
8. Time passes and fickle knitter moves on to other projects not thinking about somewhat cowl which is hidden under a pile of magazines.
9. A month later a box from yarn garden appears on stoop and knitter remembers order. Thinks "Cool I can finish that sweater now" but when the box is open there is only sublime yarn.
10. Knitter looks on receipt and sees that she has not been charged for alpaca silk. She figures the sublime took longer than expected to arrive at the yarn store and they just forgot. She chuckles to herself that she was greedy to get the sublime yarn and this is what happens.
11. Labor day the knitter decides to order that alpaca silk from webs since she is buying lots of other yarn.
12. Today knitter comes home to find an inexplicable package of alpaca silk from yarn garden on the porch. Isn't it ironic, don't you think? :)

The all American socks are all done, now if it would just get cool!

So what did you knit during your vacation?

2008-09-01T13:28:00.012-04:00

It's the last day of vacation (sniff sniff) and it has been very enjoyable. Not only is my shower sparking white, but knitting output has been fabulous. Really that's all I want in a vacation a chance to knit while watching movies and one big massive cleaning day to make me feel all virtuous. Throw in being able to make cookies in the middle of the day and you've got gold. Mmmm........ chocolate chip.

Between baking cookies and riding roller coasters here is what's come off my needles recently.
The all American sock is well on it's way to becoming a pair. Yarn is Pigeon Roof Studio's fingering in color Bohemian. Since Pigeon Roof Studio sells her skeins in smaller sizes I knit these toe up. It turned out that there was plenty of yarn for a plain knit in round sock like this.

Next is the mitten pattern that made me take the color work plunge, Kiss that frog mittens. The designer has much tighter tension then I do, so instead of worsted these are knit in Hazel Knit's Artisan sock. In person you'd be able to see that my floats aren't always long enough and other tension problems. My inner 5 old is happy and wants me to start on the left one right away.

Top

Bottom hee hee frog (Color better in this shot, background is Baroness, Frog Euphorbia.)

Finally something that is not part of a pair; a hat for myself. Some preblock shots of the Bousta beret knit in Sublime Angora Merino color 0044. Love love love this beret so much that it's inspired me to knit some of Ysolda's beret patterns that have been on the back burner for awhile. Right now Gretel might be the first one in the queue. To bad I was "good" and didn't buy that teal Ultra Alpaca at Yarn Love up in the Hershey area. A great store, but if you want to visit mapquest it since it's a bit tricky to find.

Hershey Gardens FO Edition

2008-08-30T09:27:00.014-04:00

Even though it was gray and a bit rainy DH and I had a very enjoyable time exploring Hershey Gardens. I'm really impressed with their children's section which had lots of whimsical things for kids mixed with very beautiful and elegant plantings. The overall impression was that it was a fun area that wasn't the least bit dumbed down. Who ever designed it gets a big gold star.
Knowing that we would be visiting the gardens I'd gotten off my butt and finished sewing buttons on the tangled yoke and blocking Liesl earlier in the week. Both sweaters were then ready for their long awaited FO shots. My DH was kind enough to be my photographer again and caught some of the best sweater shots when I was unawares. Tangled yoke photos were taken in the children's garden, mostly in the butterfly house.

It might have been gray but my vamperic eyes still thought it was too bright.

Evidently classifying butterflies is hard enough that you have to mutter to yourself.

And a nice back shot. The tangled yoke was knit in Rowan felted tweed, color gilt. Size 34 shown on model with 36" bust. The sweater actually blocked out to almost 35." You probably don't remember that I was grousing about the sleeve width way back here. My modification was to cast on 47 stitches and then increase half haphazardly until the sleeve was the prescribed 73 stitches right before it was joined to the sweater body. The rest of the sweater is modification free.

Liesl and I had a lot of problems during knitting (all the knitters fault) but the finished product was worth it. The specifics of the sweater; yarn Sundara aran silky merino in Charcoal over blue lagoon, size 38 on 36" bust.

You can see that using this yarn makes a smaller sized sweater which was fine for my tastes but might not be for you.

Instead of buttons Liesl is closed with a rhinestone pin from my collection. (Think the pin was a ebay purchase years ago)

Vacation knitting

2008-08-29T17:33:00.011-04:00

Knitting and vacations go together like peas and carrots.... for example your DH says he wants to go to see the Reading Phillies play a minor league baseball game. No problem, you bring a plain knit in the round sock and suddenly it doesn't matter that the pitchers pitch as many balls as strikes.
DH got some action knitting shots...

then provided little loopy with a good seat. We all thought it was funny that the starting pitcher's last name was Bastardo. (Many bad jokes were made)

After the R-Phils were victorious we enjoyed a very good fireworks display.

The next day we went to Hershey park and rode all the roller coasters until we couldn't stand up straight. The lines were pretty good but the sock came in handy on the newest coaster with an hour wait. As you can see it's much bigger now.

On the last day in the area we went to Hershey gardens, which were so interesting that the sock did not come out of the bag. The gardens did provide a lovely backdrop for some of my finished knits which will appear on the blog soon. Here's a little teaser.

The gauge swatch that lied.....

2008-08-19T18:44:00.005-04:00

..... and other tales of horror. Ok I'll admit that this isn't a real knitting horror story. It more like a story that should be followed by that horn sound wahh wahh wahh wohhhhhhhh.
My plan for the purple cardi was to start out all the fronts and back as one piece, with little fake purl side seams. Then it would be split when I got to the armhole so there would be set in sleeves. See we have it all done to that point right here.

With most of the stitches on waste yarn I start wrapping it around me in the train seat and think "this looks too wide". No panicking though because who makes a final decision when just staring down at yourself in a train seat. I get home and repeat the process in front of the mirror and it looks even wider than before, like 2-3 inches wider. So out comes the ruler to see if the stitch gauge is different than the 5.5 per inch on my gauge swatch. No it still comes out 5.5! (See photo proof, the .5 stitch is lurking in the shadow) I repeat the measuring several more times even measuring 4 inches and getting the correct number of 22. Then the number of stitches get counted and I find that there are 199 stitches which divided by 5.5 makes 36.18 inches not the almost 39 inches I'm measuring when the sweater is wrapped around me. What is going on!
It took a good half hour to think of checking the gauge while I had the retangle wrapped around me. It seems that once you have 199 stitches hanging vertically the gauge becomes much more like 5 st per inch, which the calculator tells me is close to 39". Grrrrrrrr. There is a silver lining though, I did some increases under the arms that can be taken out. This takes the stitch count down to 187 which will still be a bit bigger than I wanted but doesn't require everything to be ripped out. That isn't going to stop me from participating in some brownie therapy tonight.

What's inside the woolgirl box?

2008-08-18T18:25:00.007-04:00

It's time to open up the woolgirl sock club box! We are all excited because Jen always comes up with interesting themes and puts fun goodies in with our sock yarn. (Frogs gather around hoping for candy or toys) I'm ripping open the flap now and there seems to be something big in here. Oh yes it's a big blue beach bag with a woolgirl decal on it. The inside looks waterproof to keep your knitting nice and dry. There's something pinkish now, a water bottle with yarn inside of it. Can all my future water bottles come with yarn in it? Let's dig that yarn out of there to see the real color. The yarn dyer is Madelinetosh and the color is called Beach Towel which is pink, red, blue, orange and white in a fingering weight. Now where are my sock pattern and such, ah ha there are two of them and there seems to be another little goodie bag down here in the bottom. Inside of this is a tube of lip balm, stitch marker by spindle cat studios, tape measure (which seems to have already disappeared somewhere), little decorative flip flops and a mini beach ball the frogs quickly run away with. I must go retrieve it and throw it had my husband's head. Damn I missed.
That was great fun except that I have to increase the number of skeins in the sock yarn stash.

The Knitter's block has landed

2008-08-17T10:12:00.006-04:00

Saturday the mailman left two big packages for me on the porch. One of them was my long awaited knitters block which had been back ordered for a month or so. The other was my woolgirl sock club package which we'll talk about later.
I'd heard Julie talk about her cocoknits knitters block on Stash and Burn's podcast which sold me on trying one out. But I procrastinated until finishing the tangled yoke sweater which put us solidly in fiber festival season. The blocks were then back ordered till August, but I added my name to the list for when the next shipment came in. Now that the block has arrived and had a little test drive with the tangled yoke, how about a review?

This is the original size that comes with 9 twelve inch interlocking squares. The blocks have one side with a "fuzzy" finish, the other side is a rubbery finish. You can interlock the pieces in different configurations which is really nice. I could have used a few more blocks for a long sleeved sweater like the tangled yoke but Julie does sell a Large set with more blocks. T-pins slide in easily and hold to the blocks securely, just be careful if you move the block around because you can poke yourself with the pins poking through the back of the blocks. (Yes I did do this) One of the benefits of this block is that you can iron right on top of it. Using the cotton pressing cloth provided the button bands were steam pressed and it worked perfectly. The other thing I really like about the knitters block is that you're able to move it to several locations with a sweater pinned to it. When living in a tiny tiny apartment that's a big plus. Overall very pleased with this purchase, just should have bought the larger one!

A Taste of Fall

2008-08-15T21:59:00.006-04:00

It might have been the delightfully cool week we had at the beginning of August or the Fall clothing catalogs starting to trickle in, but I've got fall clothing on the brain. I'll even admit to geeking out and checking the fall color forecast so that my knitting could be matched to what would be hitting stores soon. It seems that purples and blues are going to be big along with the usual neutrals of black and brown. If any of you can wear mustard yellow that's also big. You can go to Anthropologie and get about 8 sweaters in this color. Mustard yellow being out of the question, purple was chosen as the color to add to my mostly neutral wardrobe of black and gray. Thinking about the things I like to wear, a little purple cardi to wear over shirts seemed like the perfect thing to knit right now.
Over on One planet yarn and fiber they were having a sale on some Jo Sharp Alpaca Kid Luster in cassis that looked like would work like a charm. Originally the thought was to add a bit of cable work on the cardi to spice up the design. But my swatches soon showed that the yarn cleverly hides most decorative stitches. Those ideas will have to be tabled for a different yarn and I'll just use some buttons to make the design a little different than what anyone could buy in the store.

Where did all the time go?

2008-08-11T19:15:00.006-04:00

Lately the free moments in my day have been passing by so quickly it seems unreal. Last weekend was supposed to be a big sewing weekend but I didn't even get out the machines. Knitting just seemed so much easier and it could be done while watching Due South DVD's. Paul Gross will you be my Mountie boyfriend? On Sunday it rained so hard and all day we found ourselves watching many DVD's. (Robocob not a bad 80's flick, Dead like me darkly funny, and more Paul Gross as dreamy Mountie) Because of this Liesl was finished up late Sunday but I have no pretty pictures to share yet.
Instead here are some pretty socks. The finished Maelstroms in Spirit Trail Fiberworks Loch Ness colorway. Love you socks, you must be mine always.

Strangely Addictive

2008-08-03T18:36:00.006-04:00

Watch out! It's the strangely addictive sock that "forced" me to knit it constantly for the past couple of days. And I want to cast on the second one right way! Must be the magic of Cookie A paired with some beautiful colored yarn.
Pattern- Maelstrom from the twist collective
Yarn - Spirit Trial Fiberworks sport weight Helen, in color Lock Ness

This yarn was a recent loopy ewe purchase and I was feeling a bit guilty about it last week. Not anymore looking at how great the colorway knit up in this pattern. Maelstrom starts you out with an easy to remember leg pattern and once you start getting a bit bored there's a leg chart to follow. Love it so much that I'm thinking about knitting it again in another sportweight yarn.

A good deal of this sock was completed because my husband talked me into going on a road trip to a "nearby" winery. It turned out to be over and hour away and I was reminded why knitting is a good hobby.... long road trips just mean more knitting gets done.

My husband also omitted one more thing.... that Twin Brooks mascot is a frog. Had I known a camera would have been in my pocket book to make the employees pose with my frogs and the sock. (There were frog toys all over the tasting room) Come to think of it maybe that's why he didn't say anything.

Celebration day

2008-08-01T17:49:00.005-04:00

Today was one of those wonderful days were you send your husband off to work and then do what ever you like. Most of the morning was spent playing on the Twist collective website, which rocked my world. So many cute things to knit and so little time. Then it was time to go out into the world to do a little shopping/design research at my favorite boutiques and Anthropologie. God I love fall clothing and shoesssss! Wrapped up the day trip with a stop down in Kennett Square to visit the yarn shop and the fabric store. The Friday farmers market was in full swing there in town and I got some wonderful croissants and peaches. It was such a great day that I found myself fighting off sleep to stay up late, casting on the Malestrom sock from Cookie A.

In other knitting news when I said before that there were finally the right number of stitches on the needles for Liesl..... it was a lie. Only a certain knitter didn't figure this out until two or three more days of knitting. Garr!!! The sweater does look cute on so we're friends again.

In non knitting news a new obsession of mine is checking out the Emma One Sock fabric website. She has a daily update that changes often with things like "New fabrics just in from Italy. Pictures up soon." Oooooooo!!! When this feather printed cotton showed up I had to have it. It might become a dress or skirt...... or just be a precious to pet while saying pretty pretty pretty. The customer service was excellent, Linda emailed me to say she was shipping my fabrics and free swatches on Thursday and holy cow the package was there when I came home from work. It turned out she's also in PA which accounts from some of the quickness but still A+.
The swatches below are a gray knit, red wool/cashmere double cloth coating (the other side is black), cotton/linen demin, peri blue rayon/lyrca and brown cotton/lyrca suiting. Most tempting. I can see the yarn budget is going to have to be the yarn/fabric budget from now on.

Gratuitous swatching

2008-07-28T13:46:00.005-04:00

Fall knitting has my brain all a twitter and is keeping me awake at night thinking about sweaters. (Nerd alert, nerd alert!!) Sweaters that the little girl inside of me wants to have in my wardrobe. Ones with owl cables or Scottie dogs, maybe even gold fish inserted on the yoke. I’ve been procrastinating on doing this bit of designing for myself, but then my sister said “those ideas are fun and I’d wear one too.” And it really wouldn’t be designing but plugging something into a yoke and just worrying you get the neck decreases right. That seems doable…maybe.

Which leads us to the owl swatches….
1. Red owl
Yarn: Jamieson’s Shetland and Cashmere blend in colorway Red hot.
- Pluses: A lovely heathering in the color (much better in person) and good stitch definition.
- Minuses: The yarn is very inelastic and it’s easy to split the plys making cable knitting not so much fun.
Conclusion – I don’t want knitting cables to be a nightmare so the Shetland/cashmere blend isn’t going to work for this idea. The yarn would be lovely in garder stitch or some knit and purl texture combo.
2. Green owl
Yarn: Jo Sharp silkroad DK tweed in colorway asparagus
- Pluses: Love this color and the yarn is so soft and squishy.
- Minuses: Because of the fluffiness of the yarn the stitch definition is not so crisp.
Conclusion – There was a lot of waffling going on with this one. I could go for less stitch definition in return for the tweedy color but in the end another idea popped into my mind for this yarn.
3. Gray owl
Yarn: Zara Merino in some numbered color that stand for dark gray
- Pluses: Stitch definition excellent and knitting the owl cable was the easiest on this yarn.
- Minuses: Its flat color is not exactly the mood I’m looking for.
Conclusion – Maybe this will work but I’ll hold out a bit longer and look for a couple other yarns to try.
So the owls are on hold while I troll about the web looking at yarn. Green mountain spinnary looks intriguing and I might order a skein or two of something that isn’t in the stash.

And then there is just the straight knock off of a sweet sweater from the sundance catalog. Rowan felted tweed looks like it will work, just need to pick a color.

Something finished finally

2008-07-27T17:35:00.004-04:00

Frog says, "Nice socks, about time you finished them." It was super silly to procrastinate knitting that second sport weight sock. Once the froggin sock was rotated into work commute knitting it only took 3 days to finish. So nice to have something off the needles! Which gives me an excuse to bring the frogs out for a little photo opp.

Just one more because I think my frogs are cute.
The specifics - Woolgirl sock club 2008 with the awesome theme of tree frogs, yarn is Dashing Dachs sport weight in Froggin with the pattern of the same name.

For some odd reason I'm not much into socks at the moment, maybe perversely since a certain knitter signed up for the summer of socks. That stubborn part of my personality said, "You can't tell me what to do, I'm knitting sweaters now!" (Nothing like alpaca in your lap when your apartment is 85 degrees but it doesn't stop me) Actually there were no knitting with alpaca this week since the extra skeins haven't arrived. I impulsed on some Sublime extra fine merino with the alpaca order and the merino happened to be back ordered. So the sweater on the needles this week was Liesl out of Sundara's Aran Silky Merino.

It took a couple days to get past row number 5, apparently a certain knitter can't yarn over and count at the same time. Memories of the February baby sweater travesty came flooding back when I couldn't knit that gull stitch if a gun was to my head. However being stubborn got me through the rough patch and now there are the correct number of stitches on the needles. Shewwww. Feather and Fan stitch can the two of us make peace and complete a sweater? Remember I can always send you back to the frog pond.

Little Miss runs out of yarn

2008-07-21T18:47:00.007-04:00

Little Miss runs out of yarn has run out of yarn in not one but two projects... the Somewhat Cowl and X and O sock.

These things wouldn't happen if Little Miss didn't cannibalize sweater yarn for last minute Christmas projects and knitted more toe up socks.
Oh well I'm ordering more yarn and hoping the alpaca silk dye lots are close enough. Sock dye lots don't matter cause sock toes go in your shoes and these babies are for me.
In the mean time finishing up the pair of Froggin socks seems like a good idea before too many tasty fall patterns show up. (Oh fall knitting I love you so!) Tomorrow I'll be running down to the bookstore near work to buy the new Knitscene. If they don't have it out I might start frothing at the mouth. The Riding to Avalon pullover must be mine but in what yarn? Maybe I'll let some of those talented knitters out there figure out what yarn subs to use.

My alpaca crop top

2008-07-16T19:37:00.005-04:00

Are you a hardcore knitter if you don a half finished alpaca sweater in 98 degree heat (plus humidity)? It was crazy but I'm pretty excited since it finally looks like this somewhat cowl will get finished. The sweater has been on the needles since May of last year and at one point disgusted me so much that it sat in a bag for months and months. Since socks are currently the dirty word about here, the cowl is getting plenty of attention. Several more inches to go on the body and then this will look snappy with some white linen pants. (I have to make those to)