Slow progress

I might be afraid of her pointy boobs, but I got some really pretty yarn for my Silk Camisole. No more ebay crap! Hah! I think I paid like $5 more for all of this. Figures.



Why are scarf photos so damn boring? I'm not even a 3rd done I think. I like the pattern and its relaxing. I'm not feeling like I have to rush through it to see a finished project. So I'm doing it slowly, one cable repeat at a time ;)



SIL sock. That jog in the heel is just because the ends aren't woven in. The main big whoops is the traditional hole in the heel/ankle part. Ya, its on the other side. I'll sew it up. So, fixation shrinks huh? How much longer should I make this sucker, a shoe size?

Oh, and the pattern? A hybrid. I'm semi following a pattern, minus the top, colour changes and stuff like that. It took me forever to figure out the decreases for the gusset because they told you to follow another pattern on the same page that has a texture pattern in it. Hello, I just wanted an ankle sock you jerks. Another $3.50 down the drain for craptastic pattern writing.

I didn't get any

So K brought some great plums to the meet on Tuesday. I put them on the coffee table. Bella (the kitty) decided they were toys on Tuesday night, and last night too.

Yep, too lazy to move them OFF of the coffee table. So this morning I notice that there are the last 2 plums on the ground under the coffee table and go brush my teeth. Then I come out of the bathroom to find this on the other side of the room!



Raven says thank you ;) I would have loved to see her carry it across the room!

Knitting? Nothing new, please move along.

A plan? I always have a plan!

So socks hurt my hands. At least on DPNs and well, I bought a bunch of those. So whenever I'm making socks, I'm allowed to break my cardinal rule and have more than one project going at a time.

Project line up:

Irish Hiking Scarf
SIL Socks
Silk Cami (Last Minute Knitted Gifts) again
BIL Socks
Tivoli or Soleil? (need yarn for either anyway)
FIL Socks
Soleil or Tivoli
MIL Socks

Socks have to be completed before another large project is tackled on the list. So my SIL socks have to be finished before I start my Silk Cami...and so on.

Of course rules are meant to be broken. But honestly, I really need to start on these things!

Books

I got a $20 gift certificate from my Secret Pal for amazon.com. I really need yarn, but they only have what is offerred via joann.com. Nothing is really popping out at me for tank tops. I wish I had waited on all those needles!

Anyway, I have these books below (from memory, so its pretty muddy). How should I round out my collection? Keep in mind I don't want to go too over my budget since I'll have to pay s/h and that stuff unless I make it over $25, which is still $5 over anyway.

Stitch 'N Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook
Stitch 'n Bitch Nation
Last-Minute Knitted Gifts
Weekend Knitting
Knit Wit
365 Knitting Stitches a Year Perpetual Calendar
The Knitter's Companion (The Companion Series)
The Knitting Goddess
The Knitting Sutra
The Yarn Girls' Guide to Simple Knits
The Principles of Knitting
Knit Socks!
Knit Baby Head & Toes!
Reader's Digest Knitting

Books I'm thinking about:

Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles
Knitting Over The Edge
Knitting on the Edge
Charted Knitting Designs: A Third Treasury of Knitting Patterns (Damn $30)
The Knitters Bible
1000 Great Knitting Motifs
Knitting Without Tears
Knitting in Plain English

TKGA market and a new project.

Yesterday I braved the East Bay heat and travelled to the TKGA conference to visit the market. As my knitting buddy said when we got there, we both have a phobia of people who are "guild" people. Guild...stuffy....meetings about meetings... ya. People who come up to you to inform you that you knit wrong. That's pretty mean and a big generalization, but this is my blog and dammit, I've had it happen.

But we went. And paid $7 to visit the market. Ya, what a waste of $7, even if they do send me a free magazine. $5 would have been okay.

Emily (my buddy) went looking for some Debbie Bliss, Rowan (which I was interested in as well), and a few other things. Am I spoiled by going to Stitches and paying the same amount for at least 4X the vendors? I have NOTHING against mom and pop shops (in fact, I usually shop/eat at them first as a preference) but that is all this was. We found 2 places with some Noro, no DB, no Rowan, 1 place with some Cascade (no black!!), and the rest was all hand dyed/spun/whatever.

A lot of roving too. That's cool I guess, if it wasn't a deathwish to go near it. And no bargains. So I paid to go to a market, could have gotten everything cheaper WITH shipping online, and couldn't find what I needed for my projects.

Did I mention the prices? Phew! I splurged, because I had money burning a hole in my pocket. But now I have to go out and buy MORE for the tanktops I want to make because there was nothing suitable there. Pro: Alpaca seems to be the new wool. There was TONS of it. Not like it was cheap, but hey, there was quite a bit. I almost bought more Mohair, but I was still having To Dye For flashbacks.

I have 3 requirements when I'm buying yarn. Gauge, yardage and price. Now, obviously this is asking for too much. The place with no yardage (they had hanks and hanks, but who the hell knows how much they had in them) was across from the place with no prices. At least at Tess' they had a price sheet. Of course, after finding what I wanted, it was $60 a hank and I needed 2 for a tank. So uh, no. Habu was ridiculous. Small small yardage for the privledge of knitting with twigs (um, persimmon essence or some crap, it was twigs). These little little skeins that were about as big as a bite sized brownie. What do you make with that? There were 2-3 places (including Habu) with Bamboo, which I wanted, but well, I can support HoJo and pay less money. I still want hemp and Habu was the one place that had it, but I don't want to dye my own. Oh, and I don't want to pay a zillion dollars. That too.

Okay, I'm a CHEAP yarn snob. But I did buy stuff. So not so frugal.



What I bought! A pound of black alpaca for way too much money. But its SO soft that I paid $45 for it. No gauge, but yardage. I thought I could make the Hourglass sweater out of it, but it turns out I did it again. I picked up the Laura pattern at White Lies Designs and it looks like I can make that with it too! But Ben hates it, hah. Maybe I'll still make the Hourglass. I have 1330 yds. Gauge? Who the hell knows. It looks kinda worsted *shrug*

Then just because I was there I spent way too much money on Cascade. As I said, they had no black. There was one woman there who picked up 3 balls of purple and I picked up 1. I looked at her and asked if she needed the 3rd since I needed 2 for my project, and she glared at me. Ooohhhkay. Sorry, sheesh. I offerred her the one ball I had but she sneered at me. It was $5.35 for solids, so I didn't save much at all considering I had to pay tax. I picked up a sock pattern pamphlet since I was buying Fixation and there were 3 patterns for it for $3.50.

Okay, I will bitch again. I read through the anklet pattern. CO x stitches....blah blah blah....then undo the provisional cast on...

Wait. You didn't SAY provisional cast on ANYWHERE before this. Is it so hard to write that at the beginning? Maybe I need to run a pattern writing class at the next Stitches. If you are going to charge for a pattern, use English (if that is your audience), grammar, and don't assume anything. Use a legend if you have different stitch patterns, don't assume everyone casts on the same as you do, and draw schematics of your project. Have 10 people triple check for mistakes.

Sorry.

Anyway, I have no yarn for any tank tops, and I'm not really in the mood to sweat all over some Alpaca sweater in July. Its actually warm here for a change. I'm not inspired to work on a sock yet, so I started the Irish Hiking Scarf from Hello Yarn. Its really fun! I'm using some leftover acrylic, but hey, its fun! Yay for cables!

Last Minute Knitted Bunny

Meet Pants. He's named pants because it looked like I was knitting a little pair of pants for most of his creation. Pants! Hehe!

Made from Joann's Angel Hair in the "Sensations" line and Bernat Soft Boucle for the ears and nose. Mmm...fuzzy! Cute little eyes to boot!

What I learned? How to use 2 circs to make one round thing. I don't think this is the magic loop technique, but I could be wrong. Pretty darn cool. Of course, this technique forces you to buy double the amount of needles (or use my 2 interchangeable sets).

You know its bad when

Not only are you forced for 2.5 hours to watch Fox News in the morning, but then you run out of yarn.

Waiting in a car dealership service area sucks. And I couldn't get home to get more yarn!

My poor bunny. He has a half finished head!

Seeing a trend here? Bunny, bunny....bunny. Yep, I'm waiting on more yarn obviously for other things.

I like big butts and I cannot lie...

Poor HeartStrings FiberArts Bunny. You've got a big old butt. Amy, you were right last night. I went home after knitting, and finished it off and wow, it has a big old butt.

Good thing its cute. Barely put a dent in my leftover homespun. Boo!

Aw yeah, its all starting to come in.

Excuse the crappy photo from my Sidekick.

I got my bamboo dpn's from joann.com today. Sizes 1-5, on sale with free shipping. Now all I need to do is go sock yarn shopping and figure out which pattern I'm starting first.

Oh, I guess I should do some "work" at work too huh?

Nah....

Aww, bunny!

Look who I finished on Friday?


Meet Linguini. He can't hold his head up, poor guy. He's limp like a noodle! Also, his ears are the same length, he just chose for them to be portrayed differently in this photoshoot.


Meet Linguini's butt. Its fuzzy and cute :)

He's made from Bernat Soft Boucle. I still have a lot of that damn stuff still!

Oopsie, I went shopping ;)

I won an auction for some Sidar Snowflake (in black). As you can tell, I can't learn a lesson. I'm making this out of it.

But in black.

I promise I won't complain when I look like a whale in a chunky sweater. Okay, I won't complain a LOT.

And since over $7 in shipping for a pattern is just unreasonable, I got some yarn too. I ordered some Schachenmayr Micro for my Silk Cami that had that horrid ebay yarn. I ordered those 8 balls, the damn site should update soon.

In black of course.

And I really want to do that corset tank. I think *if* I go to TKGA in Oakland I'll check out Interlacements to see what fun stuff they have. I'll also be shopping for non-wool sock yarn.

I wasn't planning on doing it in black, but its always an option!

Oh, the bunny now has ears and a body. I attached the body backwards, because it looks much cuter with a big ole' butt (and I didn't figure out in time that it was wrong). Can't feel my finger, but hey, I don't use it that much anyway. Ben thinks its Satan, as its been staring at him and making him uneasy. Wait until it gets arms and legs and can go to the kitchen to get implements of doom!

Raven's blanket is done

Its missing a row at the top since I ran out of yarn. But she loves it! Made with 2.5 skeins of Lionbrand Terryspun, and took about 5 days. This thing was quick!

Action shots!





She's already pulled a few snags in it and gotten caught in it. In other words, she loves it.

I started a new project. A stuffed bunny from here. Yes, my pinky finger is still numb from this much:



No, its not a tribble, its a bunny head without ears. Great, now Ben wants me to knit him tribbles. *sigh*

But but....*hangs head*

I KNOW I said NO MORE RIBBING for awhile, but theSilk Ribbed Corset is just screaming at me.

Screaming. I tell you.

I'd buy it right now but uh, I just bought 5 pairs of DPNs online.

Ohh, Interlacements is going to be at the Oakland TKGA....oooohhh......

I might as well take my Shapely Tank off of the sidebar, the poor thing is never going to get made at this rate!

Sox, and xmas.

Well, I emailed my mom inlaw, asking what they wanted for xmas. I figured, if I'm going to make something again for them, they better damn well use whatever I make.

I gave her a list...sweaters, socks, slippers and such. She chose socks for the family. (I only need to impress her really, so her opinion matters)

So it looks like I'm giving socks for xmas. That's 4 pairs for the inlaws. I have the book Knit Socks! and ambition.

I feel bad that I can't make them nice wool socks, but they will live. There's always fixation and sock it to me. My list is looking like this:

MIL: socks. In a felted bag?
FIL: socks. With comfy slippers?
SIL: socks. With maybe a newsboy cap? Or another felted bag? She's not very stylish.
BIL: socks. With um, something from his amazon list?

Then there is my family. I'm not so certain on socks for them, but I can if I feel like it. I do owe my brother a hat.

Brother: Hat, socks?
SIL: Felted bag
Niece: Felted bag, or something really funky for a 16 yr old

So I need to go through my book, and pick out a few patterns to look at. Then see if I can knit socks proficiently. Hah.

To Dye For, I hate it.

I hate it. Sorry. I do. Okay, I extremely dislike it. This is only after seeing myself in it in photos, vs the mirror.

I gave up trying to get a non fuzzy photo of it. Its just not worth it right now.



To Dye For, Stitch and Bitch (Debbie Stoller)
Weird ebay yarn, 100% nylon
Size Large
Modifications: I started the neckline decreases an inch early, I hate things close to my neck.

I actually gauge swatched, and I got the exact gauge. EXACT, even row! Its too big. My chest is 40, I made the 40 and I'm swimming in it. The sleeves were 4 inches too long. 4!! I folded them up and tacked them down. It doesn't look horrible.

But its too big. And there is NO shaping. I ban myself from making pullover sweaters without shaping. PLEASE remind me.

2 weeks. Which is why I'm only going to say I extremely dislike it. Hey, it was casual knitting on 15s. Too bad it makes me look 40lbs heavier. I can picture myself throwing this on in the winter. The nylon I'm sure won't shrink up, which kinda sucks, but I'll wash it eventally anyway.

Holy cr@p. The Principles of Knitting.

When I first started knitting again, I did a usual used book store crawl. Man, I love used book stores. Anyway, I thumbed through a bunch of books, and picked up a few.

There was one I wavered on quite a bit. $15? Okay, its big, but $15? Sheesh. I got it.

Of course it was The Principles of Knitting By June Hermmons Hiatt.

And you know what is funny? Its pretty damn boring and I never crack it open. I never use this holy grail of knitting, however I can't bring myself to sell it.

I need to go on a bookstore crawl again soon. Maybe my luck really has improved ;)

That sucks.

So I finished To Dye For, and didn't even die during the crochet neckline. However...

The sleeves are long. Like, I'm of the wrong species long. Holy fsk. I'd say 85% of the people who finished this baby had the same problem and of course I thought I would be in the 15% that would be okay.

Hahahah! Ya right.

So the sleeves are sewn flat. Which makes not only picking out a mohair-like yarn more of a bitch because I'd have to pick out the seam as well as unravel and all that crap.

So not happening. This sweater took me 2 weeks. Wow. And I was "gone" all of last weekend playing video games. The sleeves will be tacked up probably tomorrow night and I'll wear it Tuesday. Sure, it will add to the bulk but um, I'm NOT going through the pain of fixing it properly.

Nothing like wearing a big fuzzy sweater in the middle of July!

50% done a blanket (or a bathmat) for one of our animals! That damn Terryspun is a quick knit!

Oh dear.

To Dye for is all stitched up.

Now for crochet.

You better all be praying for me. I'm a gimp when it comes to damn crochet hooks. I won't even try this sweater on until I do it, just incase it doesn't fit.

I have to tackle this *sigh*

So many little movements for one little stitch. A very silly thing this crochet is. Thank you stitchguide.com.

No pics, but progress

Wow. I finished the front of To Dye For last night, and I'm about 6 rows away from being done the first sleeve. One more sleeve, slap it together then....

CR*CHET.

Yep, I picked a project without reading the finishing techniques. A single chain cr*chet around the neck and sleeves (maybe the bottom, I can't remember).

I need to breathe, watch more videos and tackle this. It can't be THAT hard right? I would totally avoid it if the neckline looked okay, but it looks sloppy because of the large gauge.

CR*CHET! EEEEEEE!!!

I'm sure that will take up my weekend!

Holy BAT!

Okay, I knew about the bats in Charted Knitting Designs: A Third Treasury of Knitting Patterns, By Barbara Walker , but I didn't know about the spider stitch.



Mmm...lace bats



Holy cow! Er...spider!!

I think I'll die without this book. Or at least staple my hand to my forehead in dramatic goth form.

*le sigh*

I'm such a dork. If there are bunnies in this damn book I'm doomed. DOOMED!

[edit] Images stolen (but hosted by me) from some other lovely blogger. If I had the book to take images, I'd already have made something! Hah!

Not much to report!

I have about 5-6 inches on the front of my To Dye For done. Okay, I haven't knitted since Thursday since I got a new video game on Friday.

However, I just got the Mag Knits newsletter and this Baccarat Player tank looks really really pretty! Heck, maybe I'll even use the Artfibers yarn for it!

Who am I kidding? I substitute EVERYTHING.

It would be so pretty in black ;)

Back..with a vengance ;)

The back of To Dye For. Pretty colour pooling at the top!

Happy Canada Day!