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It's been a while since my last yarny pictures. ... right? I have some now though. =)
This evening we will start out with my Coach knock-off scarf.
Recap...
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Chunky in 3 lovely colors, 1 skein each
Pattern: Misty Chunky Ribs & Ruffles, sans ruffles.
Needles: Size 13 Clovers
CO: 27... I think
Finished Length: ~91 inches
I ended up wearing it today. ^_^ While it shed profusely as I knit it, wearing it was a different story. The scarf seemed like it would just explode into millions of separate fibers at the slightest gust of wind, but, it stayed in tact and I have zero alpaca hairs on my sweater. Strange how that works. The scarf itself though is getting a bit fuzzy, but, it still looks good. My biggest worry now is that the ribbing won't hold (alpaca is definitely not the most elastic yarn) and I'll end up with a fairly flat scarf. I guess it would still be pretty cool though.
Overall, this isn't exactly the Coach scarf I saw... although my memories have since clouded over and I swear my exact Coach knock-off was hanging on the rack "on sale" for $200+ at the Coach outlet... Hmm. Yeah, next time the medium brown will be more camel and I'll use cashmere. ^_^ For now, I'm quite satisfied.
My second bit of yarny goodness is my Beau sweater in Malabrigo Olive.
I'm still working on the first piece... the back. The ribbing is actually making it pinch in a lot, which shouldn't be a problem once I block and seam it to the front. I feel like it's taking forever though. I'm almost through 2 balls of Malabrigo and I only purchased 7. Let's hope it's enough.
It becomes more and more difficult for me to work on the sweater. I usually knit at night, in front of my laptop while catching up on my shows... I'll definitely have to blog about my shows 'cause there are A LOT. So, I'll knit a few rows on my sweater as the show starts, and then I'll just put it down and finish the rest of 40 minutes without knitting. I think part of the problem with the sweater is that, me, being the stubborn straight-needle-only knitter that I am decided to pick up the longest needles I could find... and, now they just get in the way. This makes knitting quite the chore. I may have to switch to circulars for the front and see if that makes me knit harder. I'm also still quite worried that my gauge is all off, but, we shall see.
On Ravelry I started a "Malabrigo Junkies" group... I think I mentioned this already. Well, to build community and camaraderie I held a little contest with Malabrigo as prizes. Basically you just had to tell the story of how you met Malabrigo and that entered you into the random drawing. Originally I planned to award the winners with Mmmm from my stash, but, things changed, and I hadn't bought yarn in like over a week so I drove over to Fishbed and purchased some.
This is for the 1st prize winner. One of her favorite colors was hot pink--she mentioned that in in her profile--another great use for Ravelry. I figured Shocking Pink would be a great choice.
For 2nd prize we have a skein of Verde Adriana. It's strange that I ended up choosing colors I've already knit with. ^_^ During my browsing the awesome owner of the Fishbed Knitting mentioned that she had a few more bags of Malabrigo that she had not yet put out (she just moved into a new store). I went through them and came upon this beauty:
Mmm. Whale's Road. A fairly variegated blue. I love it. This was originally going to be the color going to the 1st prize winner... but, I couldn't resist it. Of course, I have no patterns in mind, but, I love it just the same.
I don't own too many knitting books. And, surprisingly, most of my books are the non-pattern type books. I guess I really enjoy the knitting stories. One of my more recent purchases was the Rowan Knitting for Him book. I was just browsing Barnes & Noble the other day and saw the book, realized I had never seen it before, so, I went all impulsive and bought it.
So many beautiful sweater and cardigan patterns. There are at least 3 I'd like to attempt... except... they're all made with Cashsoft and other relatively expensive DK weight yarn. Anyone know of a good workhorse-ish substitute? I'm thinking a DK Malabrigo or Cascade 220. Something of decent quality with good yardage per dollar.
I suppose I could attempt the sweaters with Malabrigo and smaller needles, but, I don't want the fabric to be too dense. Maybe I'll swatch it up.
Stopped by Joann's with Danielle and Kevin the other week. I ran into some of Vanna's yarn. The colors just called out to me, and the yarn was surprisingly soft, so I bought a few skeins. I have no idea what I'll be doing with them... but, the colors go well together and they were on sale.
Another yarn I purchased recently is the Dream in Color yarn. I had been hearing a lot about it and it's totally distributed from here in Illinois, so, I figured I'd try it. I ended up getting 2 hanks, one for me in the Strange Harvest colorway and one for my swap partner Suzie in a green colorway.
It's REALLY soft. I'm excited to try it out, but, have to find a good pattern first.
I'm coming VERY close to finishing my Coach knock-off scarf. Danielle and Kevin came to "Jilberr" on Thursday and I spent some time weaving in ends. It was tiring and tedious, but not as tiring and tedious as I imagined it would be. I'm glad it's over though. I plan to do one more block of each color before I finish. There's still a good amount of yarn left over so I was considering making the scarf longer, but, it's tortured me enough. ^_^
People have been leaving me some great comments. A big thank you for those! Some people have been asking questions about projects and such... I don't actually have the skills needed to reply to these questions. There are a lot of blogs that I comment on and receive a response through e-mail. I don't really know how to go about doing that, so, from this post on, I'll be answering questions from the previous post in the new post. I feel bad for leaving people hanging. =)
Knit hard!
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!
The sweater is ALMOST finished. Today I finished basting the neck hem and weaving in all the ends. I gave it a soak with Soak and blocked it. Blocking is magic, it really evened out all my weird stitches and made the fabric lie really flat. Certain aspects of my sweater are a bit scary though.
- The sleeves are too long. Which, isn't too bad, I suppose.
- The bottom edge is flaring out. Even though I put in decreases in the hem it's still flaring out a bit, I think I'll have to run some elastic through the bottom to keep it in check.
- I'm not fond of the shoulders. They're a bit big and oddly shaped. Maybe now that everything is blocked it'll fit me better.
So, now I'm just waiting for it to be dry. I definitely plan to give the hems a good pressing with a hot iron. They're a bit thick and could use some flattening out. I can't wait to start my next one.
Speaking of next one... I hit up Loopy on Thursday with prodigy student Danielle and my cousin Ryan (who I recently taught the basics of knitting). My birthday was September 3rd and my friend Kevin generously gave me a $50 gift certificate to Loopy. It was time to spend it. My first grab was a pair of Lantern Moon needles. I love them. And after more searching there were no yarns that were calling out to me. I decided I'd just grab a hank of Malabrigo (my usual go-to purchase) ... and then I thought to myself, "I have $50 to spend solely on yarn..."
I ended up ditching the needles and buying 7 beautiful skeins of Malabrigo in the Olive colorway. Sweater number two, coming up! =) Pictures of my mountain of Mmm soon. I'm still deliberating on a pattern.
I've been craving the Malabrigo lace. Danielle got a free mini-hank of it from the Malabrigo booth at Stitches Midwest and I've been coveting ever since. I never bought it though because I really have no desire to knit lace... but, I ran into this awesome fan bookmark pattern for crochet a while ago... I decided this would be the perfect project for some lacey Malabrigo. I drove 20 minutes to Wool & Co. Got myself some lace and a tiny crochet hook and I was on my way.
It's in the Polar Morn color way. So soft and delicious. The fan pattern is pretty easy too. I'm totally cranking them out now. Pictures of these will be up soon as well.
Had my first yarn dyeing experience the other day. After the trip to Loopy, Danielle and I spent a few hours knitting. I was working on a bookmark and my Coach knock-off scarf (see below) and she decided to knit a cupcake. She chose yellow for the cake part and white for the frosting. The pattern included a cherry on top but she had no red yarn, so, we decided to dye a bit of the white yarn with food coloring.
Overall it worked. We based it on some of the theory I picked up through reading about knitting. Our process was putting water in a pot and boiling it. Adding plenty of red food coloring and a drop of blue... and then cooking the yarn. After a quick check on-line we realized vinegar was an essential ingredient so we added a splash during cool down. After a good rinse we hung it to dry for like... 10 minutes... Danielle couldn't wait so we ended up taking a blowdryer to it. In another 10 minutes it was completely dry.
Good times.
Here's my Coach knock-off scarf, btw.
The Alpaca is SO soft and great to work with. Sadly, though, the colors just aren't doing it for me. I really wanted the middle brown to be more of a tan or camel color. I guess it works though, and, who can really argue with Misti Alpaca Chunky. SO SOFT!
I'll have to stop myself from starting my 2nd sweater and get to work on Christmas gifts. I've already been getting requests. x_X
I'll have pictures next time of my completed Seamless Hybrid Sweater and the really cool fan bookmarks.
Blocking is magic.
Knit hard!
check it out.
Stitches Midwest turned out to be... interesting. SO many stores and SO MUCH YARN. Quite overwhelming. Luckily, with the help of ravelry.com I was able to create a list of projects I wanted to knit in the future. My list included the pattern-suggested yarn as well as alternative yarns that other knitters used. Oh ravelry, so helpful.
I brought my friend Danielle along. Out of the 3 people I've taught to knit she's the only one who stuck with it. She already conquered cables and knitting in the round... it took me over 6 months to get that far... I guess she's a really good student... or I'm just an awesome teacher. LoL.
Tangent. ... So... here's what I managed to find:
Mmm, silky wool. I brought my Branching Out scarf as my WIP to Stitches... I was really enjoying knitting it at the time (right now it's been waiting for me to finish my circular shrug--see below). I had already decided it would make an awesome gift so I decided to grab another ball so I could make another. I think the second one will be for my mom.
This yarn is a long story. =)
At the end of last winter I was at Coach with my best friend Lora. They had these beautiful cashmere blend scarves for sale. Sale to them was still over $200. x_X I decided, that I would find similar colors and a similar cashmere yarn and knit them for myself.
Finding both the same colors and yarn proved to be difficult... it wasn't until Stitches that I saw 3 of the almost perfect color ways. They weren't cashmere though... they happened to be 100% alpaca. We passed up the table and I kept them in the back of my mind. Finally, on our semi-second round of the market I decided to buy them. 100% alpaca is cRaZy soft... of course, not as orgasmic as cashmere, but, would definitely make a great scarf. So, here's to my Coach knock-off.
Mmm, sock yarn. ... I hate knitting socks. =( After my 3 separate attempts I still don't have a pair of socks that fit or match. Luckily, this skein of Lorna's Lace is for Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts. I've been eye-ing them ever since I fell into the world of knitting blogs. It'll be my first color work project, and, I'm quite excited. I, strangely, ended up with a very similar color choice to her original pair...
I just love the blue-brown combo.
Well, those were my purchases from this year's Stitches Midwest. I'm already looking forward to next year. Sadly, we didn't win any prizes, but, Danielle got a free mini-hank of Malabrigo lace weight. mmmm. I ended up getting my picture taken for The Panopticon's 1000 Knitter's Project--and I'm knitter 100!
We also felt some buttery soft cashmere... sadly the small skein was $46. Definitely out of my budget. It was so soft we went back after our initial round through the market to get a second touch. ^_^
I'll leave you with one last picture.
Danielle and I decided to do our own mini knit-along. We chose the Circular Shrug pattern, and, we've been working hardcore on it since we started. So hardcore, in fact, that we both claim the project is sucking the life out of us. Hopefully it'll be done soon so she can wear it and I can take pictures and gift it.
Knit hard!
