A blog about my life, knitting, and other stuff.

October 29, 2009

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

This pattern really has me missing Beavis and Butthead.



"I am the great Cornholio!"

October 27, 2009

Hat Attack!

With the end of NaKniSweModo I wasn't sure what to do next. So I cast on for a bunch of charity hats.



There was a simple button-tab hat in Meriboo from Frog Tree. The yarn is lovely to work with.



There was a Stashbuster Spiral inspired hat made from tiny sample skeins of Crystal Palace yarns we had lying around the office at the shop. This is several colors of Bunny Hop, Merino 5 and a little Panda Silk DK.



We get loads of tiny, sample skeins of yarn. I can't bear to throw them out but it's challenging to find a use for them.



Then I knit Opus Spicatum. Except I thought my Cashmereno was aran-weight when it's really DK so I had to swap out Mission Falls Wool for Cascade 220 Superwash as the contrast color. There's still a size disparity between the yarns but it's not as noticeable.


Still blocking on a salad plate.

I have enough yarn left to knit another one.

October 24, 2009

Featherweight Cardigan



Pattern: Featherweight Cardigan by Hannah Fettig
Yarn: Kimmet Croft Fairy Hare (4 skeins)
Needles: US6 Addi Turbo Lace
Notes: I don't think I picked up a enough stitches for the edging and it's pulling in a bit. I will decide later if I want to rip it out and reknit it. The yarn is a dream. It's soft, lofty and so warm.

October 23, 2009

Going Out with a Whimper

My NaKniSweMoDo is over. I finished the Featherweight Cardigan last night. I knit the sleeves as long as I could. Then I ripped out the bind off on the edging and did it again. I looked at Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off then went to watch Project Runway and ended up doing something sort of made up. It's stretchy though. I'm blocking the sweater right now and must face up to two problems. One, it's short. There's not much I can do about that since I had a very limited amount of yarn to work with. I could rip out the edging, rip out a lot of the sleeves, add to the body and reknit the edging. But I don't think I will. The other issue is that I needed to pick up more stitches for the edging. I don't have the energy or enthusiasm to rip out the whole edging and reknit it. Plus it will end up narrower and I'm only just barely satisfied with the width. So this isn't how I wanted to end this challenge. It also reminds me that I wanted to redo the collar on Forestry from way back in January. I haven't worn it once. I have plenty of yarn for that one to get a deeper collar.

So now what do I do? NaKniSweMoDo has made me so sweater-centric that last night when I considered casting on for a hat I thought, "Only a hat? Eh." I need to take a hard look at my queue and do some evaluating.

October 22, 2009

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

It's a video Thursday! This catwalk presentation of handknit garments for men and women has one of the best examples of "Bobbles Gone Wild" I have ever seen. Look for it at the 1:15 mark.



If you're left scratching your head over this collection perhaps this lengthy interview of the designer by none other than Lady GaGa, wearing what appears to be a wing chair, in which she proceeds to do all the talking, will help.

October 20, 2009

I Need to Find My Camera Battery Charger



The phone camera is just not cutting it. It has been horribly gray and rainy for days and days in Seattle. Every time I try to catch some natural light for a photo the sky turns black and it starts to pour.

As you can barely make out in the photo, I'm on the home stretch with my Featherweight Cardigan. I'm pulling the same stunt on the sleeves that I did for my FLS--knitting the sleeves off of both ends of the same ball of yarn to squeeze out the most length possible. I need to reserve a few yards though. When I cast off for the edging I made it way too tight. It is completely unyielding and pulls in. I need to take out the cast off and do it again using a stretchier technique. At any rate, NaKniSweMoDo will be done for me in a few days.

Then what to knit?!

October 17, 2009

Where the Wild Things Are

All four of us went out into the cold and wet to see Where the Wild Things Are. The boys are now 9 and 11. Younger Son is still very immature for his age. He thinks everything is "too scary." He thinks Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Ware-Rabbit is too scary. He was concerned about seeing this movie. He was right.

The film adaptation is marvelous. It captures the truest essence of the book and the rawest emotions of childhood. At each small emotional pitfall Younger Son let out a little empathetic moan of concern. Eventually he came into my lap and watched the movie from there as I reassured him that, just like in the book, everything would be all right in the end. Sadly the mother of a sobbing four year old in front of us tried to keep her in the theater for the whole film, giving up far too late in the game. I saw at least two other families with very small children leave pretty early on in the movie. It is rated PG and it is strong stuff.

At some point during the movie, as Max ran through a forest in search of an angry Wild Thing, Younger Son said, to no one in particular, "That's what it's like when [best friend] hides from me." After the film I had a little time before bed to sit with each of my sons and talk about the movie and to talk about feelings in a way we haven't in a very long time.

This is not your standard kids' movie. This is a movie about the real, true feelings of childhood. It's about sadness, anger and loneliness and about love, family and friendship. I thought it was extraordinary. Not only did it do justice to the book, it expanded and enlightened it in a fresh, gorgeous and heartfelt way.

October 16, 2009

Hues

I couldn't help but start spinning the fiber I dyed.


Camera phone photo, sorry.

It's great, easy spinning and I love the blue/green color.

Earlier this week I went to a talk by Kathy Hattori of Earthhues at Theo Chocolates.


Another rotten photo from my phone.

She brought this wonderful worsted-weight wool in 18 colors dyed from 3 dyepots. She explained her process and gave lots on info on some of the main natural dyestuffs they source. It was very interesting and I wanted to gobble up all this yarn!

October 15, 2009

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

Today's photos were submitted by Kelly.



Hey there, model, why so sad? Oh, I see. You're sad because you you have to wear those stacking rings and pom poms on your head? What do you mean, "That's not the worst of it?"



Oh.

October 14, 2009

I Missed You

Ever since Saturday's spin in I've been really excited about my spinning again. I finished spinning the singles of this 4 oz. camel/merino and plied it on Monday. I intentionally put a lot of extra twist in the plying. I think I went a little too far and may run it back through my wheel to take some twist back out.



I started spinning this wool (with just a smidge of silk) on Saturday. It's a 6 oz. batt from Dawn's Custom Carding. I spun it up really quickly using a long draw. Then I plied it really tightly. I love the fluffy but tightly twisted yarn it produced and the tweediness the bits of white silk add.



Since I was on a roll with plying I pulled out two bobbins of down fibers I had spun as class samples for two different classes with Judith Mackenzie-McCuin. One was a year or two ago at the Whidbey Weaver's Guild spin in and the other was from Sock Summit. I plied them together. The thickness of the singles is all over the place but I think it's a fun yarn. I also plied this one a bit too much and will most likely remove a bit of that ply twist. I still have a big bag of sample fibers from these classes to spin up. There's cashmere, yak, bison, camel and a variety of blends using those fibers in there.



And while I was emptying bobbins I made up these mini-skeins of leftover bits from classes and whatever is left on the bobbin when you're done plying.



I have so many empty bobbins! I already started spinning a bit of the Corriedale I dyed last week. Oh, spinning, I missed you.

October 12, 2009

IK Holiday Knits Preview

It's up.

Mount Corriedale

I dyed my Corriedale on Friday. As always I worried I was using too much dye when I, in fact, I wasn't using quite enough.



It's not quite as light as it appears in this photo. The flash kind of washed it out. I did manage not to make a mess of the roving. It's still fluffy like a cloud. I can not wait to spin it.

Speaking of spinning, I went to an all day spin in on Saturday. I finally finished some camel/merino that I've been working on for months. I bought it years ago at Madrona and never spun it up because I thought I'd ruin it. I managed to keep the yarn pretty soft without being underspun but the diameter is all over the place. I chalk that up to spinning it over a period of months. It was such a pleasure to spend that time at my wheel. I really want to spend more time spinning.

October 9, 2009

Doubleknit #26

It's up.

October 8, 2009

Stitch N' Bitch the TV Series?

Ellen Page is going to write and produce an HBO series called "Stitch N' Bitch." Are they going to make fun of us knitters or show us some love?

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

Thank you for all the entries for Fugshion Emergency. It's been so much fun to see all the fug you found. I decided to use a random number generator to pick the winner. And the winner is...Jean! I will be rolling out some of the entries over the next few weeks. Today's is courtesy of Kim.

Meet the New Insane Clown Posse.



We've got the Plaid Pig.



Sally Crazy Face.



Foxy Mike.



Droopy Sue.



And Ol' Fluffy Bastard.*





*It's Wu-Tang Clan, I know.

October 7, 2009

Darn You, Twitter

Twitter has been stealing my blog fodder. I don't mean that anyone is taking stuff from my blog. I mean that when strange, funny, or oddly entertaining things happen in my life, and I can express them in 140 characters or less, I tweet about them instead of blogging. Which pretty much just leaves knitting content for the blog and I can only knit so fast.
Some things you've been missing.
  • Older son didn't come home from school on Friday. He forgot his phone and never showed up. I had no way of reaching him. I was freaking out when we sauntered in an hour later. There was a lot of yelling and crying.

  • Older son was home sick on Monday. In the middle of his cello practice he paused and yelled, "MOOOOOMMM, what's hydrocephalus?" I cannot explain why he asked or what he did with the information.

  • We have started hosting a Glee potluck every Sunday night. A group of friends come over for a potluck dinner then we watch Glee and then play a little Rock Band.

  • We have Beatles Rockband. And it's awesome.

  • Younger son doesn't think the Beatles are all that great and really wants a Weezer Rockband. This past Sunday he wrote a letter to MTV Games and EA, the makers of Rockband, to ask if they would make a Weezer Rockband.

  • We have continued on the cleaning and organizing streak. There is still much to do.

  • Wes and I have a lot of silly exchanges on Twitter.


Okay, I think you're kind of caught up. Except for missing lots of tweets saying that I'm tired, need coffee, have a headache, should be working, etc.

The Featherweight Cardigan is moving along. I separated the arms last night and knit an inch on the body. I'm watching the yarn carefully. I think this might end up being another short-sleeved sweater.

October 5, 2009

Dyeing a Bump

I have a two pound bump of Corriedale roving. I bought the fleece with Terri Shea at Black Sheep in '06. We sent it out to be processed. It's been sitting in my closet for a few years waiting to be dyed before spinning. My older son is home sick today so I thought I might finally dye it.



I started to pull a bit off to see what I dealing with. I had a notion that I would be able to just layer it in my big dyepot. It's very loosely held together. I started to imagine it all drifting apart when I hits water. So how do I deal with it?

After a lot of online searching and consulting I decided to wind it off on to my niddy noddy into "skeins" and then tie them loosely with cotton. It's now a massive fluffy pile of wool waiting to be soaked and dyed.

October 3, 2009

I'm Ready



We're heading out to see Toy Story 1 & 2 in 3-D. I need some movie knitting so I've completed the ribbing for two charity hats in some oddballs of Kid Classic. Now I can stockinette away during the show.



I also started a Featherweight Cardigan right before finishing my FLS. This is Fairy Hare from Kimmet Croft. It's 40% angora. It's delicious.

October 2, 2009

February Lady Sweater




Pattern: February Lady Sweater by Pamela Wynne
Yarn: Sundara Aran Silky Merino
Needles: US7 Addi Lace
Notes: I had only 1000 yards of this yarn. I knit the body most of the way, then knit one sleeve to the elbow. I calculated how much yarn I used on the sleeve and knit the rest of the body reserving the sleeve amount plus enough to knit the garter edging. The body is shorter than I wanted but I'm hoping it will stretch out. I think between the lace and the silk it should. The sleeves are also a bit shorter than I wanted but I didn't really have a choice. If I had a 32" chest I could have made the body and sleeves as long as I wanted, but I don't. I found some vintage shell buttons. This yarn color was really challenging and the shine of the silk made matte colored buttons look really dreary. I think the shimmer of the shell with the slightly darker tone really suits the yarn.

October 1, 2009

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

You have probably wondered, as I have, what would happen if you crossed Big Ass Knits with the knitted digestive tract?

Voila!





The swim caps are quite fetching too. I wonder if Slim Goodbody knows they stole his suit...