Archive for January, 2006
Okay. There. I did it. I got that purged out of my system. It sidetracked me for almost two weeks, but I did it. I knitted two friggen socks at the same time on two circulars. woohoo.
(please forgive my snarky attitude. I slept on my side the wrong way and woke up not able to move my neck. I’m just a bit cranky this morning.)
So, what did I think about this method? I didn’t like it. One sock on two circs was fine. Two at the same time, not so much. It was clunky as all get out. It was annoying and hard to keep track of what was on what needle. And heel turning? a complete and total disaster. I had to totally take one sock off of the needles to turn the heel of the other. It was at that point that I almost threw in the towel. But I decided to stick with it because, I guess, I like to torture myself. It really wasn’t any faster than knitting one at a time, and, in fact, might have been more slow-going because of the clunkiness factor.
I’m glad I at least tried it, though.
Have you heard of Lolly’s latest project, Project Spectrum?
You should go check it out! I am going to use this opportunity to explore the art of dying/painting yarn. I’ve been thinking about doing it for ages, and recently decided that I wanted to go for it. So this comes at a wonderful time! I’m excited!
Hope your Monday is going fantastic!
Cheers!
January 30th, 2006
Have you ever been so obsessed with a knitting project that it has actually kept you up at night? That happens to me every once in awhile, for whatever reason. And it happened this past week when I decided I HAD to teach myself how to knit two socks at the same time. I don’t know if it was the socks or just a bit of stress at work, but I was seriously obsessed with this to the point of losing sleep a couple of nights. I found some really good websites on how to get started, but decided to just go ahead and follow this (straight laced is the name of it) pattern at Knitty. I had a few false starts but have managed to make it down to the turning of one heel. The biggest problem I have found is not knitting onto the wrong needle. I decided to follow the advice of a website that I found and paint nailpolish on the tips of one of the needles, to make it easy to differentiate between the two. It’s easy to tangle the two balls of yarn you are working with, too, so it is important to move around your balls of yarn as you knit around and around. Other than that, it’s not horrible. I little akward, but not bad. I do like that they are both done at the same time.
As I said, I have turned one of the heels (you do the two heels separately). And I have kind of run into a bit of a snag. I don’t know if the directions are messed up or if I read them wrong. I will post agian when I am done and will let you know how it goes. I think I should be done with them soon. And I do like that 
.
Yes, that is that awful Knitpicks sock yarn that keeps creeping up on my blog. It is truly wretched, this colorway. Oh well.
January 23rd, 2006
I whipped up this little ditty yesterday! The pattern can be found online at the Interweave Knits website. It’s one of the “Staff Project” hats in Winter 2005 issue. It’s the Ridged Helmet Hat (that’s a pdf file) designed by Anne Budd. Knitted with Knit Picks Andean Treasure in Lilac. Took about a ball and a half, and a few hours to spare. I like how it turned out! And it will keep the old ears warm when it gets cold outside. Now I need to start on one for my husband, since he was the one who specifically requested one of these in the first place. He actually looked through my Interweave knits and decided he wanted one of these hats. So I better get my ass started on his, or mine might just mysteriously dissappear.
Look! I made my first sock on two circs! Speaking of sock knitting, I must have been called by the knitblogger collective to knit socks this week…(See lolly’s post for details). It was actually a combination of being totally inspired by the excitement of Esther’s first circular-needle socks (I so need to learn how to knit two socks AT THE SAME TIME on two circs), and the fact that the instruction book on how to do this was due back at the library. So what do I think of this technique? well, I don’t think I was any faster knitting the sock this way, but it was much more portable. I can’t take socks with me when they are knit on dpns. It get’s too ugly. But this was nice. No lost stitches to speak of.
Here is my progress on Bay (this is for you, Winnie 
. I had a chance to work on it in bits and pieces last week. I’m on the back and starting the arm shaping.
Slytherin scarf has grown, too. But It pretty much looks the same as the last pic, only longer.
I ran into some snags with the blog merging project. I’m going to think on it for a bit. Will let you know what I come up with.
Have a fantastic week!
January 17th, 2006
Presenting the Starburst Shawl.
Pattern: Starburst Shawl. From the book Modular Knits by Iris Schreier.
Yarn: Artyarn Supermerino in colorway 127.
Needles: Addi-turbos size 8.
Started: October 31st 2005.
Finished: Jan. 4th, 2006.
I pushed through on this through the holidays and I finished it! I’m so proud of myself for just getting it done. And, after blocking, I really like how it has turned out. I could also use it as a scarf, if I wanted to.
The modular pattern looks very interesting. kind of like cross-hatching. I think it’s perfect for any variegated yarn. Actually knitting up the pattern was a bitch, though. I had to constantly count my stitches because I had to make sure I had the right number of stitches on my needles at all time or else the pattern would get messed up. So I could really only do this when I was by myself, with no television, iPod, or chitchatting. That didn’t leave me with very many opportunities to work on it.
This was my first experience with Artyarns and I liked it alright. The yarn does wash up beautifully. No problems after washing it in the delecate cycle with little agitation. It came out of the wash nice and soft. The colorway is okay. I was really into pink and green for awhile but kind of got over it. The color combo is different but very complimentary.
Just a little heads up on some blog maintenance. I am going to be moving my knitting content over to my blog, Blatherskite in the near future. It has just become too difficult to maintain two separate blogs. And maybe you all will find me more interesting if I am posting non-knitting content along with the knitting content . I have quite a bit of work to do before the move, but will let you know when it happens and will post a link to everything here.
Happy Monday!
January 9th, 2006