Thursday, September 27, 2007

Ooooo, new yarn!!

My Swap partner from Knitting Help Forums package finally arrived today! Oh it is so yummy inside!! She sent some yummy Debbie Bliss Cotton Cashmere in brilliant pink, some lovely bright orange Berroco Cotton Twist and a ton of "little things" to help with keeping track of things. She also sent a pair of skull socks to the girls (who are now fighting over them) as well as some memory wire bracelets and a bookmark for The Boy. Here are the pics! Thanks Debbie aka doodknitwit!!




Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Well, obviously I DO need stitch markers

So I was working on a pair of socks last night. The instructions read, "pattern is done twice on each needle or 6 times total" OK, simple enough. I don't need no stinkin' stitch markers to remind me that I need to do it twice. The first part of the pattern went off splendidly. Looked just like the picture. Weee! This is going SO well. So then I start the second part of the pattern. It just wasn't looking right. Hmmm? OK, don't fuss with it. Trust the pattern. It will probably take a few rows before the pattern immerges. No sweat. Keep on knitting. I finish the second part of the pattern. It does NOT look right. It doesn't look bad, just not right. Then the V-8 hand comes and slaps me upside the forehead! I forgot to repeat the pattern twice on each needle. I was incorporating it into one needle (which actualy worked and I may look into doing something like it in the future, but it wasn't THIS pattern.) And of course it is lace. And of course I left no life lines and really suck at inserting life lines despite watching the video at Knitting Help. So I frogged yet another thing. But now I have it all cast on, the first section restarted and there are stitch markers to remind me that I have to do the repeat twice.

So use stitch markers and life lines. One would think after knitting as long as I have that I would know better. Bwahahahahaha!

Monday, September 17, 2007

Pay it Forward Exchange

Becka at Knitting Help posted about the Pay it Forward Exchange for knitters. It's truly a cool concept. It feels a bit like a chain letter, but I'm hoping that people really do "pay it forward." This seems to be the verbiage that is being posted on the other knitting blogs:

It’s the Pay It Forward Exchange. It’s based of the concept of the movie “Pay it Forward” where acts or deeds of kindness are done without expecting something in return, just passing it on, with hope that the recipients of the acts of kindness are passed on. You all know I’m already a PIF type of person. So here’s how it works. I will make and send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I do not know what that gift will be yet, and it won’t be sent this month, probably not next month, but it will be sent (within 6 months) and that’s a promise! What YOU have to do in return, then, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

So post a reply if you want in and then go post a similar message on your blog! PAY IT FORWARD!

Frog Frog Frog Frog Frog

(No not reptilians. Any knitter who has knit more than 1 item should know that to frog something means to "rippit" out. I bought this very pretty Lion Brand wool a while back in the clearance bin at Michael's. Bought all they had as it is feltable and was $2 a ball. So I started knitting a bag to felt with it, but decided that it wasn't the right colors for a bag. FROG Out it came. Bleh! So then I found Silver's Palindrome Scarf which is very lovely and I've seen it done in both solid colors and in a wide variety of colorways. FROG Out that came too. TWICE! I didn't like the way the color was pooling, so pulled it out and added another set of cables to the width hoping it would A) make it a tad wider and B) get rid of the icky pooling. Nope. Didn't help. Actually made it worse.



I keep buying all this pretty yarn that I can't find the right patterns for. So it is going back in the stash for another day. I wish I could store my yarn like my friend Suna does, but because of this:

Uh, that would be Jack the demon possessed devil kitty, not Boo, the cute kid) My stash must be securely sequestered away in cat-proof plastic containers. I keep looking for extra opposable thumbs on this cat, but he is not a polydactyl cat despite his ability to even get yarn out of my knitting tote with the cinch closed top! Although that picture was taken over a year ago when Jack was still little and cute and adorable and forgivable because he was a kitten. He's no longer, well, he's no longer little, but he is still cute and adorable and I do forgive him.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Yarntard!

This is a link to a cartoon that one of the KHer's dh's did. It's priceless. This is his first knitting cartoon. I hope he does more. I like his wit!

Yarntard!

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Hmmm, I'm thinking about this

Cia from Knitting Help suggested this sock for the blue and green one:
It's from Knitty. It does look a lot like waves and the colors are very similar to what my yarn looks like. Although I'd still like something that is sort of "wavy" at the top rather than the typical ribbing.

In other knitting news, I was too anxious to get the blue/green yarn balled last night. I was going to go to my mother's house and use her spiffy ball winder, but it is still in her attic and it is still too hot to go into the attic to retrieve anything. I've been looking lately at Nostepinnes which look like:


I've been looking at increasing my medieval collection of "women's tools" and have (well had, it got sat on and broke) a drop spindle. And then found out about both niddy noddies and nostepinnes. However, despite seeing them online and knowing the theory I still didn't have one! BUT I did notice that the end of my plastic recorder had the same shape as the nostepinnes if I took the bell section off the bottom! So I thought I'd give it a try.

This is where having children comes in handy. Forced labor. I made Boo hold my yarn for me (lacking also a swift) and started wrapping the yarn. To use a nostepinnes you secure one end at the base and then wrap towards the middle (this will allow you to have a center pull ball, if that isn't important you can just start wrapping in the middle). You wrap in a diagonal direction towards you all the while turning the nostepinnes (or in this case the recorder) away from you. It took a bit of coordination to get it right, but I finally got the hang of it. It took around 40 minutes to wrap a 440 yard skein, but I think I could get faster as time goes on as there is a fair amount of coordination that needs to be learned as with any new task. After the yarn is wrapped you simply slide the ball off the end of the nostepinnes/recorder and use it. The center where the nostepinnes was sort of closes up a bit, but loose enough to be able to get your center pull going well.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

New Yarn

I just got in this LOVELY yarn from an etsy shop ( Handspun and Dyed Too). It is scrumptuously soft and squishy!! I'm having a hard time coming up with a pattern (socks) for each of them. I'm thinking something nautical or ocean-y for the blue/green and something lacy maybe for the pink/orange.

Doesn't it just scream cotton candy, sunset, fluffy clouds in front of the sun? It really needs something girly and sweet and lacy, right?

See why I'm thinking something oceany? My son thinks that it looks like seaweed in the ocean. It was the first thing he said when he saw it. I like that thought.

Leave a comment if you can think of a nice pattern. If I use one of your patterns I send you a set of row markers.