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Just a few WIP's to share:
That's Branching Out. It's still waiting to be blocked. I had planned to do it tonight, but, I'm feeling a bit lethargic, so, I'll save it for tomorrow. The whole time I was knitting it I had been stretching it out to see that the leaves were fully forming and that I wasn't making mistakes. Without being blocked, it looks pretty decent. I can't wait to see the finished-finished piece though.
Another glimpse of my Coach knock-off. The colors have been growing on me. They remind me of this one ice cream I had. Like... 5 chocolate ice cream or something. It's surprisingly quite long and I'll only need a few more sections in order to complete it. I'm not looking forward to weaving in the ends though. There are a lot of them.
This is my Hemlock Ring Blanket. I'm on row 70 and it's pretty big. The pattern is easy to follow for the most part, but, the endless rounds of plain stockinette are killing me. I haven't switched to brooklyntweed's chart yet. I understand how it works, but, this line-by-line thing is more comfortable for me. And once you do one repeat in the feather/fan section it's pretty easy to memorize.
I feel like I'm just not knitting fast enough. I've hired two friends "r" & "b" to help me out.
r & b are two felt monkeys made by my friend (and knitting student prodigy) Danielle. She hand crafted them for my birthday. ^_^
As you can see, they are quite busy. I have many more rows and endless rounds of stockinette to complete.
I'll leave you with one last image:
That is the current prototype of my DS Lite case pattern. I'm not too fond of the flap so I may have to rethink it. And, originally I planned to use snaps with a non-functional button on top... but, I feel like the constant snapping may damage the DS. I ended up using EZ's after thought buttonhole. She actually asks you to snip a thread in your knitting and unravel it from the middle. It was a mess. Me + knitted items + scissors = disaster. o_O Hopefully I'll come up with a decent flap soon so I can share my pattern with everyone.
I'll need to hire more monkeys to help me with my Christmas knitting.
Knit hard!
Found a yarn store near my house. My actual LYS is The Gifted Purl. It's right on the west bank of the Fox River (as in Prison Break's penitentiary). If you cross the bridge over the river and walk about 3 blocks north there's another yarn store. It never showed up on Google searches so it was totally under my yarn store radar. I finally heard about it in the Chicago Knitter's group on Ravelry, so, I checked it out.
It's called Fishbed Knitting Emporium. It's a surprisingly large space with much yarn, including my coveted Malabrigo. I went in just to browse, but, I always feel the need to make at least one purchase. While I was wandering I ran into Cascade's Ecological Wool. I thought to myself, "this looks familiar..." The price and yardage were a good deal but I couldn't figure out what I'd do with it. And then I realized where I had seen it... If you don't know about the umm... 'significance' of Ecological Wool, it's time to read more blogs. ^_^ Even though I originally had no desire to ride the wave, I decided I'd hop on the bandwagon because it was so soft and so cheap, and I brought a hank up to the register along with this beauty:
It's Mirasol Sulka. A Merino, Alpaca, Silk blend. So delicious. I have no idea what it's going to be, but, I love the color, like dark denim.
Back to my Ecological story. I set it on the counter and the owner asked what the yarn was for. I was like, "A.. umm... small ..... blanket."
And then she said something along the lines of, "There's a guy who blogs and he designed a lap blanket off of a doily using this yarn."
Shocked, I stammered, "That's what I bought this for!"
I love that the store is Internet savvy. I asked her if she knew about the yardage, she wasn't sure so we decided to look it up. Good stuff. I ended up buying 2 skeins, in a nice, natural oatmeal-ish color.
I'm slowly falling out of love with Alpaca. (The horror!) I've been knitting with the Misti Alpaca Chunky and it's so soft and lofty, a dream to work with... but it's REALLY shedding. There are hairs floating in the air and tiny hairballs stuck to my clothes and rolling around my room. The worst part is noticing something in my mouth, reaching in and finding Alpaca fiber. It's CRAZY. I've felt this weird lump in my stomach for the past few days, like gas that won't pass o_O and all I keep thinking is: an Alpaca-hair bezoar.
I finished knitting the Branching Out scarf last night, it's currently awaiting blocking. It was such a relief. The scarf has been a WIP for a while now, and, I finally sat down and made myself finish it. Like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. And, despite have a few more UFO's I decided to start the Exchequered scarf.
I watched the knittinghelp.com Double Knitting video a few times and decided I was ready. It started with a cable cast on... that sucked until I realized that I had to knit REALLY loose. I figured I'd first try one color in my left, Continental style, and the second color in my right hand, English style. This was working out with only slight awkwardness. I'm not much of a Continental knitter, and, I actually have not yet purled Continental style, but, knitting was working out really well. After two rows I changed it up a bit and did two colors on my right hand since that's my style. =) It was definitely moving faster, but, for some reason I couldn't keep good tension on the yarn that wasn't around my index finger so I switched back to double handed. Watching my hands looks really complicated and cool.
After 2 more rows I noticed that my two colors weren't very... contrast-y. So, I'm gonna put it on hold and see if I can find either a lighter blue or a lighter brown. Preferably a lighter brown 'cause the blue I have is so vibrant and perfect.
I'm gonna take a break from my Coach knock off due to the mythical bezoar forming in my stomach. Leaving me with... starting the Hemlock Ring. Hahaha. I'm afraid my ball winder won't be able to handle the 400+ yards.
Wind it up!
and knit hard. ;)
I finally finished! I'm having the hardest time remembering when I started... I know I purchased the yarn on a Monday and started the same night... I just can't remember when that was. Maybe 3 weeks ago? Not too long I suppose. I probably could've made it in less time, but, I didn't really put huge amounts of effort into finishing it.
About finishing--I still need to weave in the ends and block it, so I guess technically I have about 10% left. ^_^
clapotis!
I've read that some people prefer the unblocked Clapotis. I was going to lean that way but my dropped stitch columns are all creased from originally being knitted. I'd rather have them completely straight. So, I will attempt my first blocking.
I bought a pack of glow in the dark straight pins yesterday. The Joann near my house is having a huge closing sale and these glow in the dark pins were the only pins they had left (aside from the safety variety). Their knitting section is pretty cleaned out. They're just left with really odd sized needles. They have many US 13 and 15 29inch circulars. o_O And a few US 35 and 50. All of the remaining yarn is fun fur and other novelty yarns.
Hmm, back to the pins. I decided to use them for the pictures and I found it surprisingly easy to pin the Clapotis to the carpet. I was always afraid that I'd have to buy one of those expensive blocking boards, but, the carpet works perfectly.
I'm considering knitting one for my mom for mother's day. I'm a little scared that I won't finish in time and I'm also afraid of Clapotis itself. Those straight rows really drive you insane. I originally loved dropping the stitches and unraveling them all the way down. But, it soon became very tedious. They didn't just drop, I had to separate them on each row. I guess I have a tendency to catch a few strands of a ply and knit into them. o_O There was a lot of breaking to be done to simply drop a stitch.
On the subject of Joann's closing. My cousins and I have been working on this scrapbook for our grandma. It's going to be her 80th birthday in 2 weeks. It's more of a family tree in scrapbook form. It's looking pretty good. We meet at Archiver's on Sundays to work on it and whenever I'm there I have a look around and I get so inspired to make a scrapbook of my own.
I bought a ton of supplies from Joann's. I've been there twice and I've easily spent $80 on close out sale items. Good deals. I spent another $25 on papers and things. So, I laid them all out yesterday (I had made a deal with myself: once I finish Clapotis then I can start scrap booking) and I realized that I have no pictures. I don't print any of the pictures I take. So, I ordered $50 worth through flickr.com and, now I'm waiting for them to arrive so I can finally start. ^_^
That's all for now. I'll hopefully find someone to model my completely blocked and finished Clapotis so that it doesn't look so throw-blanket-ish.
Knit hard!
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
