Making Knitters out of Friends

When I was in Philly I was fortunate enough to make a lot of knitting friends. I miss them. In NYC I haven't had the time to join any sort of knitting circle (although I'd like to) and I only have one close friend who is also a knitter. So I have to make my current friends in to knitters. And this Sunday I did just that.

A very good friend of mine from college knows how to knit, because she was taught by her grandmother, but doesn't knit often and doesn't know much beyond knit and purl. About a year-and-a-half ago she bought some yarn to make a hat with and she's been bugging me to help her with it for the last couple of months or so (although she kept forgetting to bring it with her when we met up). She did remember to bring it with her on Sunday, when we got together at my local B&N. And when I saw it, I must admit I laughed. It was gigantic. Really gigantic. My friend is not a small girl, but it was clearly not going to fit her. I asked her how many stitches she'd cast-on and she had no idea, I counted, she had 162. In worsted weight, on size 8 needles. I told her that there was no way we were going to be able to fix it with the amount of yarn she had left over (if there had been more we might have been able to felt it) and so she bit the bullet and starting ripping. We then adjourned to my apartment where I measured her gauge and her head and figured out how many stitches she should have cast on. About 100. She started in a 2X2 rib and had a couple of rows done when she had to go. Two days later I got this photo (as well as several with her wearing it - it fits!)



And now she says that for her next project she want to make...SOCKS!

I win.

Serendipity

I ran into another knitter on my way to dinner with one of my good friends (also a knitter). I sat down, about to cast on a sock, and realized that the woman two seats down from me was working on a ribbed scarf. I looked over at her and smiled, but she was deeply involved in her knitting, so she didn't notice. I sat back, a bit dissapointed but unwilling to break her concentration, and began to cast on.

A minute later she asked the man sitting between us (he was her companion) if something didn't look right with her scarf. He was stumped. So I leaned forward, gestured with my needles, and asked if she'd like a second opinion. She very happily accepted, and switched seats with her companion. She'd made a simple mistake, knitting a stitch she should have purled, and once I explained what had gone awry she thought that she'd have to take it off the needles and rip back to fix it. Since she was clearly not looking forward to doing that I asked how much further she had to go and (after explaining I meant how many more stops and not how much more scarf length) I dropped the offending stitch back the six or so rows and then laddered it back up. And poof, it was perfect. She was very, very happy and I felt like a genius. We compared notes on our favorite LYS (Knitty City) and said goodbye.

It left me with a lovely warm feeling.

Finally!

As beautiful as the Hemlock Ring Blanket is, mostly what I feel right now is relief at having it done.

Not the prettiest picture on earth, but I do want to at least show it off before I send it home with Ali.



Pattern: Hemlock Ring Blanket
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shephard Worsted
Mods: I did the extended version
Notes: I love this yarn, a lot. Also, next time I try to block a circular projects I will try to do a better job pinning it out evenly. Ah well.

Sundara Scarf

Thursday night I cast-off my first project in Sundara yarn. It's Japanese Leaves in Sundara Sock colorway Jungle Boogie.

I FINISHED MY SWEATER

This is a really terrible picture of it!


I just hit a wall and had to get this done. I really wanted to wear it at Thanksgiving and I did. I spent all day walking up to my relatives, gesturing to my sweater, and asking them if they knew that I had knit it. They did. They really did. That did not stop me from asking though.

I am on top of the world! I can do anything! I have gone from sweater fear to sweater triumph.

Now the only question is which of my many queued sweaters do I cast on next?

(I will be posting a better picture of this, just as soon as I can get someone to take one.)

So Close

I am so close to being done with my Something Green. I'd been scared of the buttonband ever since I started this sweater (over a year ago) but this week I picked up all those stitches, and tonight I made my first buttonhole ever! I have a bit less than an inch to knit to finish the band and then I just have to finish up the cuffs. If I hadn't had to work late all week and then work all weekend it would probably be done by now - but considering how hard this yarn is on my hands (100% cotton in worsted) and my tensioning finger (I think the groove is edging towards permanent) it was probably best that I didn't try to finish it off in one big push.

Hopefully I'll finish this up and have a photoshoot by next weekend. Of course, that does mean actually spending some time at home between now and then...

In related news, last night, as I was sitting in my office at 11pm (ON A SATURDAY) I had a little accident at yarn.com and bought two sweaters worth of yarn. One lot is a merino/alpaca mix and the other is 100% merino. And then I went to Chic Knits and bought two patterns for the yarn: Cassidy for the blue merino/alpaca and Beryl for the purple merino. I can't wait!

Sleeves!

I have achieved sleeves on my Something Green sweater! They even fit tolerably well (which is amazing, given that they were four inches bigger than they ought to be.



I need to finish this by the end of the year, just to fulfill my resolution from the beginning of the year.

Swallowtail

I finished my mom's shawl, in just over a month. It is sparkly and lovely.



Close-up:


We need a photo shoot at Thanksgiving. It's way to pretty for such crappy photos.

Rhinebeck

Rhinbeck was lovely but exhausting. My favorite part was seeing so many of my Philly friends.

But I managed to acquire some fun stuff too!

I bought two Bosworth spindles:

Enough yarn for the Gatsby Girl sweater:

And a whole wack of roving. Including three braids from Creatively Dyed:

Commence Swallowtail with beads

I haven't been knitting much lately, but I've finally cast-on my Mom's birthday present (well, it's currently her birthday present, depending on how much work I have in the coming months it may become her Hannukah present, or Mother's Day present, or perhaps I've just gotten a really early start for her next year's birthday present).

I'm using Jaggerspun Zephyr in white, with tons of shiny, shiny beads. I'll update again once I have a pic to show you.

Bar Yarn

Mmmm. Pretty yarn. My first handspun on my new Kromski Minstrel.

On the bobbin:


All skeined up (with my new Niddy Noddy):


Roving: 4oz of Sunnyside Ellen Roving in Dragonfly
Yarn: 320 yards of Sport Weight 2Ply

Fickle Doesn't Even Begin to Describe It

So in my last post I extolled my own fickleness and gave as an example the fact that I had to buy more bobbins just so I could work on whatever roving caught my fancy, unencumbered by whatever roving was on my wheel. And I did get those bobbins. But have I been spinning the roving I was so in love with? No. Have I been doing my bar homework for the exam that's coming up in two weeks - well, yes, but not as much as I could have been. Have I been working on the afghan I'm making for my friend's wedding which is two days after the bar? No.

I've been quilting. Yes. I have added another craft. I took a class in Beginning Quilting this summer (at Spool - love them) and I have just finished my quilt top and begun to actually hand quilt. I am having fun.

Here'a picture of the quilt top - it's a bit screwey as it's just basted together and I have one of the squares in a hoop.


Here's my favorite square (log cabin) and you can see my absolutely favorite aspect of the quilt - the border that shows off all the fabrics I used.


And here's the back of the square in the hoop - these are my actually lines of quilting. Not bad, huh?

Fickle

I'm afraid I'm rather fickle when it comes to my crafting. And so I just bought three additional bobbins to enable me in my fickle ways.

I hadn't really used my wheel much since I bought it and though I told everyone it was because I'm studying too much to spin this was simply a pretty lie. I really wasn't using my wheel much because I wasn't in love with the roving I was working with. It's a very pretty pink/purple but I'm not a huge fan of the fiber itself - it doesn't draft smoothly and it wasn't nearly as soft as the roving I wanted to work on. So I pulled the bobbin off my wheel, and started something new. And then I realized I was going to need some more bobbins, in order to prevent this in the future. So I have three winging their ways towards me in the next few days. I may actually have enough to ply by the time they get here. They better hurry.

And, due to my vow to at least try to include a photo in all my posts - here's a pic of the yarn I was working on and have now cruelly abandoned. It's 100% wool pencil roving that I've been experimenting on making a thin/thick yarn with. I'm not sure if I'm going to ply it or just leave it as singles. I'll have to think about that later.

Birthday Socks

I have spend a ton of time in bar class this summer. And what do I do in bar class? (Besides resist the impulse to bang my head against the desk) I knit socks. My last two pairs have been gift pairs, the first for a swap and the second for my roomate's birthday. They're a bit loud for me, but she loves them, and I do think they came out rather well. I was down to the wire on them (I finished them on her birthday during bar class) but I got them to her before her birthday dinner that night.

Look how perfectly the stripes came out!



This is even more impressive since I used a heel flap. I'm still not sure how I managed to maintain the stripe sequence - I think it was mostly luck.



And they match, from their blue cuffs to their yellow toes!



Yarn: KnitPicks Felici in Gelato
Needles: KnitPicks Fixed Circs 2.5mm

Me and My Minstrel

I went out to Mannings and bought myself a spinning wheel. And boy is it beautiful. It's a Kromski Minstrel and besides its physical beauty it's also compact (good for a Manhattan apartment) and has a lovely smooth pedling action. I am in love. Now if only I had time to spin on it!