Black Sheep

How I came to knit Blackberry

Last week I was at JCPenney and I saw this adorable wrappy sweater thing. It was kind of like an oversize shrug and it looked nice and cozy. They only problem was that it was all shiny and acrylic-y. I thought I would be able to find a pattern for something similar out there somewhere. And guess what? I did. It was in the current issue of Knitty and the pattern is called Blackberry.

So yesterday I went home sick from work (yes, I have caught ANOTHER bad cold ) and decided that I would take the opportunity stop at the yarn store, A Grand Yarn, on my way home. I never get to go there since they are always closed when I’m off and open when I’m working. But I thought that a nice stop in the yarn store would bring about healing powers, so I stopped in. I was so stoked to see an generous supply of Rowan yarns! And they had the yarn that I needed for Blackberry, Rowan Chunky Print. Yay!

I really did intend to wait to cast on until after I finished at least my sock. But I was going to my Mom’s house to eat dinner and watch movies and I wanted a portable project to take over there so I cast on for Blackberry. To my delight, I knitted the entire back portion in a few hours while I was there! Yep. I loves me a quick knit.

I’ve been Memed!By my fellow skate betty Heather (of Pixiestikz)!

What is your all time favorite yarn to knit with?

Oh gawd! I’m sure I haven’t even found my all time favorite yarn yet, but I’m trying . So far, have really enjoyed knitting with Noro’s Silk Garden. I like the way the yarn stripes in gorgeous colors.

I also really, really, really love Koigu. It’s nice and soft and, again, the colors are beautiful. And they don’t pool so much. which is a good thing.

Your favorite needles?
Hands down, Addi Turbos. I bought my first pair a few months ago and I TOTALLY get why people love them now. I am now in the process of collecting all the sizes.

The worst thing you’ve ever knit?
Oh boy. I think there have been a lot of really bad things. Pre-blog, I knit a E.Z. style seamless sweater in Lion’s wool-ease. it ended up being hideous. It has since been frogged.

Post-blog, I would have to say that my least favorite knit is my orange poncho.
It doesn’t fit right and there are tons of obvious mistakes in the knitting.

Your most favorite knit pattern (maybe you don’t like wearing it, but it was the most fun to knit)?
I really enjoyed knitting my Apricot Jacket. It doesn’t look the best on me but it was a really fun sweater to knit.

I also really enjoy knitting socks. There is something magical about turning a heel, I think. As slow going as it is, I really like the socks I’m currently working on.

Most valuable knitting technique?
I’ve been sitting here staring at the screen with this one…I really enjoy all of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s little tricks. I like doing her little half-hitch M1 since it doesn’t leave any holes. I believe I read about that in Knitting w/o tears.

Best knit book or magazine?
What can I say? Knitting Without Tears holds a special place in my heart. Actually the first knitting book I got was Zimmerman’s Knitting Workshop. It was loaned to me and I never returned it. I feel bad about not ever returning it, and I have paid the karmic price for that. But I do love that book, as well and refer to it often. I learned how to knit with Knitting Workshop.

As far as magazines go, Interweave Knits is my favorite.

Your favorite knit-a-long?
Both of the ones that were hosted by Lolly. Lucky Clover and Socktoberfest. I have met some really cool knit bloggers via those two knitalongs.

Your favorite knitblogs?
Hmm..i have lots of favorites. It’s hard to choose even a few. I love all of my knitbuddy’s blogs.

Your favorite knitwear designer?
I am drawn to many Kim Hargreaves designs. I also love Teva Durham. I also really like Marnie Maclean’s designs, also. Oh, and Stepanie Japel, too.

The knit item you wear the most?

I’ve been getting lots of mileage out of Lucky Clover. When the weather gets colder I will wear some of my warmer sweaters like Sundby and Klaralund.

Katherine from knitpowers memed me too, a couple of weeks ago and I apologize for not posting my answers. I’m still thinking about what to write.

Take care guys and have a wonderful weekend! i’m going to go take some Theraflu and pass out.

5 comments November 5th, 2005

Seaming and reading

Exciting news! Apricot Jacket is being seamed! YaY! Hopefully she will be done and I will have a picture up this weekend. The weekend being, for me, Sunday and Monday.

In the meantime, I wanted to show you this adorable book that I came across at work. Have you seen this, you with little ones at home? It’s called “Farmer Brown Shears His Sheep: a yarn about wool.” I takes it’s little readers through the process of yarn making, from the shearing of the sheep, to the spinning and coloring of the wool, to the knitting up of little sweaters (by MR. Farmer Brown!) for the chilly little sheep. It’s a really cute story, and the illustrations are great, too! I’m going to develop a storytime around this book. I decided that I’m going to bring in some unspun wool, and a hand spindle to show the children what unspun wool looks like, and maybe try to give them a little demonstration on how to spin wool. I’m thinking i will wear one of my knitted sweaters and tell them that I knitted it myself. I may even bring in some knitting needles and yarn…I’m still brewing over this…I found some other cute storybooks that incorporate knitting that I will read, too. Still kind of hunting around for more, though. I might have to read some books about sheep, to fill in a bit.

Anyway, just wanted to share my little discovery with you .

5 comments September 28th, 2005

Could this be the One?

I bought a new bag. Yes, another new bag. This time it’s a custom-made Timbuk2 bag, classic messenger size small. What made me decide to get this bag? Well, I’ve been wanting one for about 8 years, since right before I started going to school at UCSC. They were just starting to get popular, especially with students. I kept deterring myself because of the cost. They are kind of expensive. But are worth it, if you believe the reviews they have gotten. Apparantly they last through all kinds of crazy things. I decided that I needed a bag to carry ALL of my crap to work. Everything. I’m sick of carrying three bags with me. And I wanted something big enough to carry my knitting project, my lunch for work, my little purse, and anything else I might need for the day. It was really hard to choose between the medium and the small. But I finally went with the small because then I could take it hiking with me and just take the essentials. So am I giving up my knitters purse and my Asian inspired diaper bag? For the moment, yes. I had issues with both. The knitters purse was not big enough to carry all of my stuff, and the diaper bag is not very good quality. It feels like it could fall apart at a moment’s notice.

I was also attracted to the “build your own bag” feature. I HAD to have a bag that I customized myself. So I picked out the colors that I wanted on the outside, navy and light blue (and y’all know how much I love those colors), and then I went with orange on the inside. Which i love. It suits my personality, you know? I’m navy and light blue on the outside, but on the inside I’m orange. If you know what I mean. I also got to pick the color of the little timbuk2 embrodered label on the outside. The default is yellow, but I chose orange to match the inside. Some other features I decided to add were a handle and a center divder, and I’m glad I did. click here to see what I have stuffed in there. here is a mirror-in-the-bathroom shot of it on me, so you can get a visual of how big a small is. Just in case you stumble on this page and are in the market for one of these bags. I know it would have helped me when deciding.

Here is Leonora. This is a terrible progress shot. Here is an example of how not to take a progress picture. I’m almost done with this, tho. I’m hoping to be finished with it today. It’s an easy knit. It’s just purled in the round with a bit of shaping at the ends.

I felt the need to start on something a little more challenging. So I decided to finally start the Flower Basket Shawl. I couldn’t wait anymore after seeing Cara’s. So I totally frogged the Widow’s Shawl (remember that project?), since I’m going to use that yarn for FBS. Casted on and knitted through to 1 repeat of the lower flower basket chart. So far, so good. No mistakes. It looks like a glob of nothing at the moment, but I will have faith that when it’s finished and it’s blocked it will be beautiful.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

6 comments July 9th, 2005

wretched

So I knit on Clapotis III all week, almost obsessively. I knit it at home. I knit it at work. I didn’t even touch anything else. I was really focused on getting this done. I don’t know why I needed to get this done so quickly, but I had it in my head to finish it quick. However, on friday evening, at around 5:00, just as I was packing up my things to come home from work, I looked at it and thought to myself, “This is hideous.” And it is. It truly is. My DH confirmed this when I explained my epiphany to him and he had this look of great relief on his face. I think he was reluctant to tell me since I was so obsessively knitting away. On my way home from work I thought the situation over. Then it hit me! I had about half a skien left of the Stitches Koigu that I used for my socks. I would swatch up that in the clappy pattern and see how I like it. I was alteady thinking that I would love it since I really liked the way the socks knit up. Sure enough, I think it’s going to be perfect:

I love these colors so very much! And the variegation is much more subtle. Not as much pooling going on, and if there is, it is much more subtle. So I just went ahead and ordered up 4 more skiens of this. I hope it’s enough. God, I don’t even want to go there.

As for the knitpicks yarn. There are some things about it that are very nice. I love the sproingy factor that we have going on here. I also like how lightweight the fabric was when knitted up. That was exactly what I was looking for in a new clappy. But the pattern of the colors is just so awful when knitted up! Ugh! Maybe the sock garden should be used only for socks.

Check out my new knitting bag! It’s really a diaper bag. My SIL got one for a giftie at her shower and i was totally eyeing it thinking, “hmmm…that would make a fantastic knitting bag.” So the next day in Chinatown I looked for something similar and found it, only it cost 148 dollars! I just about died when I saw the price of that. I guess they are designer diaper bags for all of those fancy pants mommies. So did some sleuthing around on ebay and found something similar for quite a bit less, and more suited to non-mommy usage. AND I will be able to use it later for when I do need a diaper bag. So anyway, I’m loving it. I still love my knitters purse, but a girl can’t have too many bags, right?

I’m seaming up my Chai Pullover today, so stay tuned for some FO pics of that soon!

6 comments June 5th, 2005

At Katherine’s Request

Here are pictures of my husband’s socks post-hiking trip:

In the second pic you can really see how they shunk to fit his foot. I don’t know if you can see the felting, so much. But the fact that they are standing on thier own tells you something. Amazing, no? The fact that this was done with sweat is hilarious, I think.

Also, yes that sweater that he is wearing in the post below is one from Knitting Without Tears. It’s one of her seamless sweaters. The drop-shoulder one, I believe. It’s a really easy, nice knit. Like I said, it was the first sweater that I ever knitted and I managed it just fine.

Okay, now for some non knitting stuff. I wanted to direct your attention to another reason to download Firefox. I downloaded the most recent version today and discovered that there is a built-in RSS feed reader. I noticed that there has been some chatter about Bloglines on some of my favorite knitting blogs (here and here, too.). Bloglines is awesome and I have used thier service for quite some time. However, I no longer need to. Firefox’s rss reader is more convienient. It is going to take my blog surfing to a whole new level. When you use firefox you will see a little orange “rss” button on the bottom right of the screen. If you click on it will give you the option to subscribe to the feed on the page. When you choose a feed it will bookmark it. In your bookmark menu it will show up as a folder. When you choose it you will see the last ten or so posts and can then go directly to the post you want to read! It is sooooooooooo awesome! I’m in love with it. You can download Firefox for free here.

And finally, I’ve finally got buttons. Here they are. I’ll also put them on the right side.

     

One last thing. I ordered some of that Den-m-nit from elann. I got it in the darkest indigo color available. I am pretty sure that I will use it to make the cute little denim bag in the Rowan 35 catalog. And since there is a truckload of yarn I might make this:

or this:

I don’t think I’ll have enough yarn to knit all three….We’ll see. I really want a little backpack-type purse and I really like the one pictured above. I also like the one I posted on earlier, from Rowan 35. And I found this one at Fuzzy Galore. I also really really like it, but it seems like lots of work. I read through the instructions and can’t seem to understand them in my head. I might have to save that one for when I’m a bit better.

3 comments September 20th, 2004