Posts filed under 'Butterfly'
Next time you knit up a sweater, especially one in which you spent a hundred dollars on the yarn, knit up a friggen gauge swatch! Ugh. I suppose this is the sweater in which I learn the important lesson on gauge. Clearly, the thing is too big. It is the size of a football player. So I will fold her up and place her in the closet until fall comes when I will frog and re-knit. Since I had such good luck with my Chai Pullover being knit as a seamless sweater, I am thinking that I will rework this one as a seamless sweater. For one thing, the stripes will match with the back and sides, so that’s good. I just need to figure out how to do it. The sweater that I am knitting with the yarn that I got from Artfibers is a seamless cardi. So I think I will knit that one first, and then maybe try something with some of that Cotton Ease that I have in my stash. But I’m officially done with wool (unless it’s for socks, lace, or felting) until fall.
Speaking of felted, I knitted up a felted bowl! I used the pattern from the book “One Skein.” Originally I was going to knit it up for my stepmother but I finished and the moment I took it out of the washer I decided to give it to a friend of mine at work because her birthday is today. As you can see, I put a couple of candles in there and some travel size bottles of lotions from Bath and Body Works. I hope she likes it! I enjoyed making it.
Here is a clearer picture of it. I used the rest of that beautiful blue yarn that I used form my MIL’s clutch and some of the pink Knitpicks Sierra yarn to make it stripey. I really love how it turned out and have already knitted another one. I just haven’t felted it yet because my washer died yesterday.
I worked a little bit on the Slytherin Scarf last week. But, as you can probably tell, I got bored with it and wandered on to other things. I will try to get back to it this week. I really want to get that thing done!
May 9th, 2006
First of all, before I talk about anything else, I want so say THANK YOU for all of your wonderful words of support regarding my house hunting adventures. It has helped me so much. It’s such an emotional and stressful endeavor and your good thoughts have made it so much easier.
So I have some good news! We are going to get a house after all! To make a long story short, our realtor sent us a new listing on Friday, and we went to see it after I got off work. We made an offer on it that evening. After much drama, our offer was accepted. You can read about the whole sordid experience here and here, if you want to.
So I’ve been knitting away on the sleeves of Butterfly this week. I finished one and am about halfway done with the other. blah blah blah. I realized on Sunday that Mother’s day is in, like, two weeks! and I have to mail one of my gifts, so I have a very limited time to get stuff done.
I decided to make my MIL the “clutch you’ll never give up” from the book One Skein. At first, I ordered some chunky yarn from Knitpicks, and then realized that I would never get it in time. So then I went to a yarn store and got a skein of some beautiful chunky yarn. I will post the name of it when I post my official finished photos. Here is a shot of the clutch before felting.
I also decided to knit the second Broadstreet Mitten for my mom for mother’s day. She mentioned that she would like it if I knitted mittens for her. So there you go. They will come in handy after all.
April 25th, 2006
I finished knitting the Artfibers Chai pullover on Sunday. Here is a mirror-in-the-bathroom shot of me wearing it pre-blocking. I was really nervous about washing and blocking this sweater a second time because of my horrible fiasco the last time I knitted this sweater. Somehow, in the washing of the sweater, the silk got stretech out waay too much. I was so depressed about it. It had turned out so beautifully and I messed it up somehow. The last time I hand washed it and I think it just got too water-logged. This time I used my washing machine (thank god for them! I didn’t have one last time…). I filled it up (on the “small wash” setting) and poured about a teaspoon of Eucalan wash in. Then I put my sweater in a lingerie bag, put it in the wash, and let it soak for thirty minutes. Then I just used the spin cycle to spin the water out. I am happy to say that there was absolutely NO stretching! See:
As for my opinion of the Eucalan wash, I don’t know that it is any better than using what I would normally use. I did like that you don’t have to go throught the process of rinsing. The sweater does come out smelling really nice and clean. It’s hard to say if it feels any softer because silk is already soft to begin with. I am going to try it on Butterfly when I am done because the Kureyon that I’m using for it is, like, the opposite of soft.
Speaking of Butterfly, I finally picked it up again and I finished the left front panel. NOt much to say about that. Except that I am really enjoying the pattern.
I mentioned in my last post that I would post some thoughts on a new yarn store I visited in Los Gatos last week when I was there. It’s called Yarn Dogs. It opened last year about the same time that Commuknity did. In fact, this woman that I worked with at SCU is close friends with the owner of the store and that’s how I learned of it’s existance. I have been wanting to visit for a long time and was happy to have found the opportunity to do so.
The store is dog friendly, so when I walked in I was greeted by the store’s mascot, an adorable little doggie. He came up and said hello, wagging it’s tail. It was so adorable! I looked up at the counter and said something like, “It’s wonderful to walk into a yarn store and be greeted by a cute dog!” And I meant it. The store itself was super small. REally, it felt a little bit cramped to me. But that’s okay. I’ve been in lots of small yarn stores and it doesn’t take away from the store. They had the front section devoted to yarn, and then there was a back room that had a huge collection of books. I think this was the best selection of books I have ever seen in a yarn store. They had everything.
As for yarn selection, I wasn’t really familiar with most of the brands, and the ones that I was familiar with I could pretty much get anywhere. So I was having a tough time deciding what to buy. I found a beautiful scarf and thought I would buy the yarn to make it but I couldn’t get anyone to help me so that I could find out the yarn and the pattern. I finally figured out what yarn was used, but when I asked nobody seemed able to tell me what the general pattern was. The other problem was that the yarn was hella expensive! I think it would have ended up costing me about $80. I just couldn’t justify paying that much for it so decided against buying it.
So this brings me to the customer service, which I found lacking. First of all, while it was really cute that the doggie greeted me at the door, it soon became a slight irritation to have this dog running around in such a cramped space. Since the place is dog friendly, there soon were several dogs in there (all small) and it began to slightly wear on my nerves. The space was just too small. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like if a larger dog came into the store. I think that would have driven me away. Not that I don’t like dogs. I love them. And I’m all for being a dog-friendly establishment. But dogs can be very playful. And the combination of a playful dog and a cramped store is not neccessarily the best. Also, I found that the people who worked there (except the owner) were more concerned with playing catch with the dog than with asking me for help. I was pretty much ignored most of the time I was there. I had to actually ask for help, when it was quite obvious that I needed help. And when I asked a question, the person helping me didn’t have the answer, gave me the impression that she was going off to get the answer, but didn’t. I sat and waited for her answer for quite awhile. I never really did get the answer I wanted. So, all in all, the customer service aspect of the store was not good. But otherwise, a lovely store with a friendly dog.
March 28th, 2006
So I’ve got the back and some of the front knitted of Butterfly. The colorway is growing on me. I like this colorway a little bit better when it is not knitted up in a zig-zag stitch (the name of this pattern is escaping me right now…). One thing’s for sure, it will go with just about everything that I own! I think just about every neutral color is in there. So that’s good.
Okay. Now on to Project Spectrum! Yay!
I’ve been sooo excited about starting my Project Spectrum projects. The main thing that I wanted to do with P.S. was learn how to dye yarn. So I ordered a bunch of fingering weight “dye-your-own” yarn from Knitpicks for this purpose. At first I looked through some books about yarn dying and was kind of put off by the chemicals involved. It seems dangerous! and I just don’t have the kind of equiment needed for “traditional” yarn dying. So I decided to go with Kool-aid. I’m so glad that I did. It is so easy and very safe. And, as a bonus, your yarn ends up smelling delicous! So, I bought packets of cherry, pink lemonade, and black cherry Kool-aid and went for it. My plan was to make a verigated yarn with shades of red and pink. This is how it came out:
You can see some other views of it here and here. So, basically, I have a salmon pink hank of sock yarn. Not bad, but not what I originally wanted. Oh well. It was my first attempt. So sue me. Better luck next time, right?
I also decided to start on a red project in honor of March’s theme of Pink and Red. Remember this disaster? I decided to frog it and start over. Only this time I am translating the instructions so that I can knit it in the round. This means NO SEAMING! WOOT! I am very stoked about that. It seems to be going fairly fast. I started it yesterday and I’m well into the body. Yes it’s the return of the Chai Pullover.
I’m so stoked. I’m finally able to take a vacation and I am going to the Bay Area on the 13th. I am going to try to make it up to Artfibers. I can’t wait! I miss the Bay Area. I miss it so much it makes my heart hurt. I know that sounds corny, but what can I say.
For Project Spectrum I also plan to do a punchneedle embroidery for each month, highlighting the color of the month. So stay tuned!
Have a fantastic week!
March 6th, 2006
So I cast on for Butterfly this week and have knitted most of the back. I’ve been sick all weekend and, thus, have had plenty of knitting time inbetween my spurts of sleeping. I’m really enjoying the pattern! It’s very fun, very easy. And I love knitting with Noro. Love it. I love seeing what colors are going to be knitted up next. HOwever, I’m not so sure what I think about this colorway. I don’t have much of a choice, I bought all of this yarn for this project and, hell or high water, I will knit this sweater with this yarn. But the colorway is a bit different. Hopefully I will feel better about it as I continue knitting it.
I also felted Boo yesterday. Here is a pic of the pieces before felting. This was my first felting experience, and I had fun doing it! The felted pieces are about half the size of the original pieces and the are very fuzzy. I kind of wish I would have sewn them all together before felting because now I have to figure out how to sew these things together. Do I use my sewing machine? Do I hand sew? I was kind of planning on machine sewing but now I’m thinking they are too thick.
If I feel up to it later I am going to go to the fabric store to see if I can find some bamboo handles for it. But the I think, for the moment, I am going to go pass out.
I got some yarn this week, but I think I will save it for another post. Have a good Monday 
February 27th, 2006
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