Click it good!

Haven't had a chance to take good pictures this past week. There have been many cloudy and busy days. Not that I have things to take pictures of... o_O

My October "resolution", I've decided, is to make links in my posts. I always mention patterns and websites and blogs but I never turn the words into links. So, that's what I'll be doing from now on, and, today we'll start with a very link-y post.

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My current obsession is the Knitter's Tea Swap. I've watched so many bloggers join swaps, send great gifts, and receive great gifts but for some reason I've always been too self conscious to join. But, after seeing some random blogger post about this Knitter's Tea Swap I decided to bite the bullet and take part.

It's the 4th installment of this swap and my partner is none other than the KTS4 coordinator: Suzie. I've been having the greatest time shopping for her and putting together the package. I'm hoping to send it out tomorrow. ^_^

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I'm gonna give you a few of my favorite knitting blogs. Definitely check them out. Not only are they some of my favorites, but, according to my tracker, the following blogs give me the most traffic. =) I thought I'd try to return the favor.

• Yarn Ball Boogie - he has such cool designs, always uses great colors in his knitting, and takes awesome pictures. He's also been on Knitty Gritty!
  
• Númenna - Nan Annûn - he's a traveler who currently blogs from Germany. This guy also takes great pictures and has a great eye for color. He's been spinning a lot recently... and he's also part of the Knitters Uncensored podcast.
  
• Earth Chick Knits - she not only knits, but sews, cooks, and does a myriad of other things too. Her blog is not only a knitting blog, it's a personal blog with lots of great stories and pictures.
  
• Charles' Life Knitting - he teaches a dyeing class at a yarn store and regularly reviews books and new yarn.
  

The blogs I have listed on the right side on the page are also many that I enjoy reading.
I recently found out about Bloglines. I wish I knew about it sooner. Now, finally, all my favorite blogs are all organized and easy to scan through to check out new posts. For the past however-long I've just clicked on the links I have on my page, and then I'd leave a comment, press the back button a few times, and then click the next link down the line. I'm happy that I am now more technologically advanced.
I've been on a blog-adding binge lately. It's refreshing to find new knitters. Even more recently I signed up for Google's Reader which is essentially the same thing. I'm not too fond of the layout, but, I figure that since I already have a G-mail account I might as well switch over. I'm still trying to weigh my options. ^_^

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I don't think I've blogged about Ravelry yet. If you're not on it, or at least on the waiting list, then it is definitely time to queue yourself up. It is such a well organized and useful website. I no longer have to do crazy tedious searches on Google, or blog hop for hours to find useful pattern notes... now they're all gathered together into an easily navigated collection. I seriously check it out daily... sometimes just to see all my projects lined up so neatly. ^_^
Speaking of Ravelry and new knitters... my knitting student prodigy, Danielle, finally received her invite. You may remember her from previous posts featuring her handmade knitting monkeys:



She's been uploading her yarny projects onto the site these past few days. Check her out!

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That's all I have for now. I'm hoping for a nice sunny day tomorrow so I can snap a few pictures of my recent SEXual encounters and my one or two WIPs.

I'll be sweeping the clouds away.
Knit hard!

calorimetry and a sock

Clapotis has taken over my knitting life. The pattern is fairly simple and is made easier with the use of stitch markers, but, it's taking FOREVER. I think I'm almost halfway through. I'm on the 6th repeat of section 3. o_O I've already dropped a few stitches and it looks awesome. Knowing that I'll be dropping stitches in the near future is the only thing keeping me going. Sadly, though, I don't think my stitches are that even.
Did I mention what I'm using to make Clapotis? Well, it's Cascade 220 in this purple heather color. It's not too bad of a yarn and it's not expensive either. Although, WEBS is having a sale and their Cascade is going for $4.98/skein... I paid $7.50/skein. x_X Hopefully I'll have pictures soon.


In other news, I have a picture of the Calorimetry I knitted 2 weeks ago.


^{purple goodness}

This was knit with Malabrigo in the "faulty" Tortuga colorway.


^{hugging some starbucks}

I cast on 88 stitches instead of the recommended 120. People had been saying the finished object was huge and that the pattern stretches a lot... now, it's actually too small. Go figure. I have a feeling I'm a tight knitter because FO's always seem to end up smaller than what I expect. I'll probably make another one with the leftover yarn.

Hope you enjoyed this quick taste of my knitting. ^_^ More to come!

knit hard

dashing number 2

I really enjoyed my first pair of Dashing so I decided to make another pair. This time I used Lion Brand Cashmere Blend. It turned out much softer and cleaner-looking.



Pretty? I love the color. Sadly, it doesn't work very well with my skin tone. =( Here are a few more pictures of Dashing.


^{my friend lora modeling dashing at work}




I have a few more finished objects to show you and one or two WIPs. I'll save those for another day. =)

Knit hard!

yarny

Sorry about the lack of updates!

Knitting has been slowing down a little over here. I've decided to stop knitting scarves since the weather is getting warmer. Scarves were such a huge part of my knitting repertoire that now I have nothing to knit.

In my last post I had finished the ski hat with ear flaps. The fit was a little weird and the knitted fabric ended up being really thin so I decided to try again. This time I double stranded the yarn and added a few size changes.


^{new prototype!}

The flaps and the bottom inch and a half are ribbed. I double stranded Malabrigo (in Autumn Forest) and Rowan Yarns Silk Wool (leftover yarn from Odessa).
The middle section was Malabrigo and Wool Pak Yarnz (in Brownstone).
The top was just double stranded Malabrigo.
With all the changes the hat is now much thicker and much more fitted. I'm still not too happy with the ear flaps. No matter how much I adjust them to look more rounded instead of pointed the ribbing just pulls in and messes up the shape.

Because I had no idea what to knit I decided to try a pattern on-line for fingerless gloves. Knitty.com came out with their Spring 2007 issue and it had Dashing, a more male-friendly counterpart for their Fetching pattern.
I'm in love with Malabrigo and so I decided to use it for Dashing. The colorway I chose (Vaa) is a bit dark, and it's quite varigated so I paired it up with Catalina (a silk and wool blend). The Catalina was a solid lighter blue so I figured it would help balance the Malabrigo and help the cables visually pop out.


^dashing!

Dashing turned out pretty well. I had spent a whole night swatching Malabrigo + other yarns and when I finally got to the Catalina I got lazy and decided to just go for it with a size 8 needle. The fit turned out alright but it ended up being about 2~ inches longer than the pattern stated (I even left a few rows out!).
It knit up fairly quickly and it doesn't take much yarn (only about half a skein of Malabrigo!).


^{modeled by my friend kevin}

Isn't Kevin a great model? ^_^
He recently bought a Nintendo DS Lite. It's like the more current version of the Game Boy. He bought a case for it and was a bit disappointed because the case was very thin--not protective at all. So, he asked me to knit one for him.
I looked on-line for a pattern but the only nice one I found required some sort of Turkish Cast On using 2 24 inch circular needles in a size 8. I didn't have two... I didn't even have one... so I decided to create a pattern myself.


^DS!

It's a pretty basic pattern. I just knit two separate rectangles and left them on the needles. I used the 3 needle bind-off to connect the bottoms and then I just seamed up the edges. The yarn is Carron Simply Soft. It's a REALLY soft acrylic but acrylic and I don't really get along. It just seemed to want to stick to my wooden needles. o_O But, I finished and I'm happy with the results.

@nikki: My first Odessa I used Rowan Yarns Cashsoft (142 yards) and it took less than one ball. The second Odessa I increased the pattern a bit (to fit my big head) and used Rowan Yarns Silk Wool which only has 96 yards and I ended up needing about 7 more yards from a second ball to finish.

That's my update for now! Hopefully I'll find more things to knit soon.

oops, i did it again

i've been telling some friends to deny me if i ask to check out a yarn store. i've been buying too much and i don't knit fast enough to use it.
so, over the weekend i hung out with lora. i havn't told her yet that i need to stop, so, of course i asked her to visit a store with me. i ended up buying 4 skeins of malabrigo in autumn forest and solymar. oops.



^mmmmalabrigo


my odessa hat is turning out perfectly. well, it was.
i figured that since the silk wool had less yardage than the recommended cashsoft i would need an extra ball. i "calculated" that once i get to the decreases i should be out of yarn.
i got to the decreases and i still had a good amount left, so, i continued.
not the smartest idea. i noticed that i was quickly running out of yarn but, since i had already started i tried to finish. instead of doing a decrease row followed by a regular-pattern row, i ended up doing consecutive decreases. well, i now need 6 more rows and i've completely run out of yarn. it's $10 for 94~ yards and i seriously only need about 7 of those 94. AND i'm supposed to be saving money. o_O
i was about to cut off my tail end and use it, but, my tail is only about 5 inches long. so, today i gave in and stopped in at my LYS and grabbed the last ball of silk wool in the green color.
i'm gonna have to rip back a few rows... well, i think i'll just tink x_X, but, i guess i'm "safe" now ... i just really didn't want to spend an extra $10 for maybe 7 yards of yarn.

oh well, .. i'm just happy that i havn't made any huge mistakes in this odessa.
here's a picture of the first one, btw.





i had cast on too few stitches in the beginning and didn't realize it until i had finished the ribbing and started the pattern rows. i figured i was too far into the project to frog.
i messed up on the pattern multiple times, and, i didn't really catch the mistakes until a few rows later when i realized my count was off. once again i figured i was too far from the mistake to rip back.
i started my decreases an inch and a half too early because i misread the instructions. and, as usual, i didn't rip back becuase i had already done a few rows of decreases.

so, i'm happy my green odessa is "perfect" right now and hopefully will end up wearable. =)

knit hard!

stitch markers?

i recently purchased a few sets of hand crafted stitch markers from artists on-line. i'd been using this set of thick plastic stitch markers from boye. they worked fine for large needles and thick yarn, but when i used them for smaller needles they left gaps between my stitches. =( but, now i have replacements that fit better and also look much more beautiful.

the first two sets are from charles. he was selling his stitch markers to help with AIDS/Life-Cycle so i bought them to support. ^_^


^{glass beads!}

he shipped them really fast! and they look and feel really great.


^{i think the blues are my favorite!}

i've been somewhat addicted to etsy.com lately. through flickr i see artists who dye their own wool put up pictures in the "crazy for knitting" group. i followed a few links to their own etsy shops and it's fascinating to see all the different handmade arts and crafts people put up there.
i recently found someone selling stitch markers made of freshwater pearls. i thought they were beautiful and i liked the idea that they were made of something "natural" as opposed to my set of plastic markers. the following are from zer0 markers.


^{pearls in shades of green}

zer0 markers also shipped really fast. they even included two business cards each with a stitch marker attached. the markers weren't as large as i thought they would be, but i think i definitely got what i paid for. ^_^


^colors!

i recently finished my malabrigo scrunchable scarf. i made it for a friend and so i decided to wash it in order to remove the malabrigo-vinegar-smell.
well... the smell disappeared but now the scarf isn't as soft and fluffy. i think i may have washed it wrong? or maybe i smooshed it too much when i dried it in a towel? i dunno... it's a little upsetting, but, at least the colors are still bold and it retained some of its softness.
since i finished a project i decided to continue with my 2nd odessa hat. my first one was a HUGE disaster. i didn't cast on enough stitches, i didn't knit the hat long enough, and i kept making mistakes. o_O, but, with my current hat everything seems to be going smoothly.


^{odessa! and a stitch marker to indicate the rounds}

instead of the recommended cashsoft yarn i'm using rowan yarn: silk wool. it's the same weight but significantly less yardage. i'm almost done with the first ball and i havn't even started the decreases. x_X i'll probably buy another one tomorrow.


^{i think the inside of odessa looks as cool as the outside}

that's all for now! happy knitting.

moss rib stitch pattern for malabrigo!

People have been asking for the moss rib stitch pattern for the scarf I made in mmMalabrigo. The scarf was actually shown to me by the not-so-LYS salesperson after I had asked her for recommendations for a pattern in the very varigated charrua colorway. It was actually knit in a darker color of Malabrigo but it still looked very cool. A tag was attached to the scarf so she went to the back and made a copy of the pattern.





I don't really know who the pattern belongs to (although the tag has the name "Kathy" scribbled on the side), but, since it was shared with me for free I'll share it with you! =)

The original pattern called for 2 skeins, but, since I only purchased one I changed the CO number as follows:

moss rib stitch scarf in malabrigo worsted

#10 needles

CO 24 stitches

Row 1: sl1k, k2, *p1, k3* across row to last stich, p1
Row 2: sl1k, k1, *p1, k3* across row to last 2 stitches, p1, k1
Repeat rows 1 & 2 to desired length.

To Bind Off:
With right side facing (Row 1):
BO in pattern but in each "K3" section k2tog once to prevent ruffling of the edge.

So what I did was:
sl1k, k1, ppso (pass previous stitch over), k1, ppso, *p1, ppso, k2tog, ppso, k1, ppso* p1, ppso

If you decide to use 2 skeins the pattern says to CO 32 stitches.

Happy Knitting!

mmmMalabrigo

i am now officially obsessed with Malabrigo. it comes in such beautiful colors and it's so unbelievably soft. mmmm.

last week i went on a spontaneous trip out to evanston to check out their yarn stores. i brought kevin along with me. after a strange mix-up we got to closeknit and took a look around. i didn't really see anything that was really grabbing me. i wanted something REALLY thick in blues and browns. i had seen a scarf on grey's anatomy that i loved and wanted to make.

sadly, i couldn't find yarn that i wanted so i settled on this blue varigated wool. at this point kevin had become impatient and really wanted to leave. so, i had the hank wound into a nice ball and went to leave.
as i turned around to shut the door behind me i noticed a few skeins of yarn sitting on a table. my eyes moved to the tag and i read malabrigo. i made a grabbing motion towards it but at the next moment kevin pulled me out of the door.

the rest of our time in evanston was spent walking around, eating, and exploring. the whole time i couldn't get malabrigo out of my head. i've read SO much about it and i really wanted to get a feel. so, i finally asked kevin if i could go back. he agreed to wait in the car while i bought my yarn.

there wasn't a lot to choose from. only a few single skeins of random colors. i noticed glazed carrot, sunset, lettuce, and indigo. i went for the glazed carrot. when i got to the front i noticed they had a few more skeins at the counter. i asked if they were for sale and lady said yes and that they had just recieved a new shipment. she went to the back and brought out bags and bags of new malabrigo for me to look at. it was bliss. i ended up buying charrua and vaa.


<sup>charrua: browns and blues



vaa: blues</sup>

i LOVE them. the yarn store woman also gave me a copy of a pattern for a moss rib stitch scarf. i decided to give it a try. the pattern calls for 2 skeins of malabrigo but i only purchased one in each color. so, instead of CO 32 stitches i did 24. i ended up with a good 63 inches.


^{malabrigo charrua scarf in moss rib!}

i've been watchin the knitting help forums often and they had been recommending the scrunchable scarf pattern to use with malabrigo so i figured i should try it out. a few days later i returned to closeknits in evanston to buy 3 more skeins in tortuga, velvet grapes, and lettuce.

i decided to take another trip to some new yarn stores. i really like to drive out and find shops that carry a decent selection and have great customer service. i've been looking for some manos del uruguay yarn in any of their varigated patterns and i managed to find some. i also found a shop with MORE malabrigo at a cheaper price than i had originally bought it at. so i ended up getting 2 skeins of amber gold. beautiful!

for the scrunchable scarf i ended up using velvet grapes.


^{scrunchable scarf in velvet grapes}

i'm not too fond of the pattern. i definitly like the moss rib stitch more, but this is still pretty decent. i like how it causes the columns of stockinette to tilt a little on their side. but, what i like about the moss rib is that each column of stockinette has a decent amount of space in between, it's even on both sides, and it creates deep channels. here's a close-up.


^{reminds me of pebbles or cobblestone}

well, that's my deal with mmmMalabrigo. if you havn't knit with it yet you should definitely try it.


^{mmmmmmmalabrigo!}