Posts filed under 'knit-o-rama'
I finally finished the Japanese Feather socks. I’m not sure why I stalled out on these just beyond the heel on the first one (heh. I typed that as “just beyond the hell”), but I did, and they languished for ages and ages and ages, sitting all melancholy-like on the nightstand. On a whim I picked it back up a couple of weeks ago and spent some quality time trying to figure out where in the hell I was on the pattern. Once I had that, I whipped out the rest of that first sock in about an hour, and immediately cast on for the second, which just seemed to fly off the needles too. Go figure. I absolutely LOVE the way these turned out, even if I was totally incapable of taking a decent picture of my own foot. Wouldn’t figure it would be that difficult, but I swear my ankles aren’t that wide and my feet aren’t *that* short.
And, of course, not one to leave well enough alone… I give you more random pictures from my morning commute! I know you were waiting breathlessly for them.
The view from my bus stop on the way to work:
One of the meadowy places at the new Olympic Sculpture Garden has, in the last couple of weeks, completely BLOOMED. From above the whole thing is PINK! with these flowers. I’m not sure what they are, but I love them.
And the metal tree in the sculpture garden, which I totally didn’t realize was metal until the morning I took this picture and the sun was making it sooper shiny. Who knew?
There are a few more BSG pics on my phone yet to be downloaded, and I think a couple more Lusty Lady marquees, so those will be coming in the days to come, as it were.
Ooh! And the seagull (possibly even the same one as in the masthead) is back on the nest on the piling, so within the next 20 days I should have baby seagull pix. Newly hatched seagulls are REALLY cute. Almost as cute as the baby bunnies I got to play with yesterday. They were cute enough that CritterBoy, who is horribly allergic to bunnies, couldn’t resist petting them. It was like some sort of freaky magnetic field that just sucked him right in.
July 4th, 2007
Hey, y’all. Remember me? I’m not sure I do, really, but that’s ok. It’s been a crazy few months. There are stories, but I won’t be telling most of them.
There’s been work. And a (not very) Random Stranger From The Internets (ok, so maybe not really a *stranger* - we’ve “known” him for about 3 years, but this was the first time we’d actually met him all in person like). And a wedding (not mine). And some more work. And Very Little Knitting. But hey! I have pictures, so it’s all good, right?
There was a gigantic shawl knit for Melissa of Peace Weavers (which I swear I have a picture of, but I can’t find it to save my own life. Ang? Help?) edit! Found it! (It’s the Lady Of The Forest shawl from Ilga Leja)
And then there was the RSFTI, who we adored before we met, and are utterly smitten with now. (Along with most of the bride’s female relatives…)
This one being my favorite pic of him from the weekend - he’s the one on the left, the guy on the right being another one of Critter Boy’s imaginary friends, who flew in from Hawaii for the meetup (on his way to somewhere else I think).
Lastly, the “what I did with my summer weekend” series… The label on the roving claimed it to be biffle from Dicentra in the Eomund colorway. I believe the biffle and Dicentra bits, but from the pics I’ve seen online, I’m not buying that it’s the Eomund colorway. No clue which one it is, but probably not what it was labeled as. Whatever, though. It’s purty.
Pre-drafted goodness:
Followed by the mandatory ‘in progress’ shot:
And, finally, the rare Biffle Boa, in it’s unnatural environment:
June 5th, 2007
Psst! Photos!
Not just one, but three pairs of socks! Three!
In absolutely no particular order:
Manly brown socks in my favorite sock yarn of all time, Socks That Rock medium weight, in Obsidian
Another pair of the Leaf Lace socks from some back issue of Interweave Knits, done in Regia Silk:
And a pair of slightly too tall Opal socks, in one of those make-it-up-as-you-go-along patterns that’s pretty much my standard, except that I got a bit carried away with the tops. They’d be perfect if I’d started them out a bit larger and decreased for the calf, but, alas, I wasn’t paying that kind of mind to the whole thing, and I didn’t, so they’re the same width all the way up, so they tend to squinch themselves down below the getting-fatter part of my calf, and often fall down. Whatever. I love them anyway.
AND! Because I’ve actually be REALLY productive, here’s the back of the O sweater (B&B Pullover from IK), done in the omfg yummy soft Beaverslide fisherman’s yarn. It seemed like it was going to be a might on the heavy side, but O reminded me of just how damn cold it gets on the island, and insisted that it was going to be the perfect weight, so I have soldiered on with it. The picture looks much greyer than the sweater actually is. The body is woodviolet and the trim is shooting star. See?
Then, just for good measure…
FINALLY, the picture of the lovely skein of handspun from my Spin To Knit Pal. I did a crap job of coming anywhere near capturing the actual color (and you know if I can tell that with a red skein of yarn, I really really did a crap job of it). But it’s really nicely spun, and soft. It’s 280 yards, somewhere between sport and dk weight. Project ideas? Bring ‘em on!
(enclicken to see it close up)
There you go. Proof that I haven’t been a total slacker.
February 12th, 2007
Aww, you guys are the best!
Thank you all for your comments about the Highland Chunky and the suggestions. I’m torn between doing it as written, using the Beaverslide yarn, or doing it in something lighter and doing a buttload of math (in which case I’d probably also end up adding another narrow cable on either side of the main cable, and changing the neckline a wee bit, and well… then we get into ‘entirely different sweater’ territory, which wouldn’t be a bad thing, I don’t think). Maybe I’ll just have to do both. Yes, an arctic weight sweater may not be the most practical thing, but the Booger? She lives in a cold, wet place, and she loves her some arctic weight stuff (and she’s a wee bitty little thing with absolutely no body fat). I’ve been jonesing to order some Beaverslide yarns anyway, so I’m definitely going to do that. And I’ve got some lighter stuff on hand that I might just have enough of, so I’ll swatch for that too, and see where that takes me.
I will, of course, keep all y’all posted.
In other, completely unrelated news, I just got home from the doctor. It was one of those lovely bad news/good news things. My back? It’s horked. I knew that. I just didn’t know exactly *how* horked it was. Now I know. My L5S1 disk is blown. I will be going to see a surgeon in the next couple of weeks to find out if I have to have surgery (I’m voting no on that front). I get to go to physical therapy (and maybe accupuncture if my insurance will cover it). I think the worst bit about this whole thing is that the initial injury to my back happened, what, a year ago? Year and a half? It’s been a long damn while. I’ve seen three doctors about it. The first two decided that even xrays were unwarranted and that I was fine. The first one treated me like I was just another middle-class painkiller junkie seeking more drugs (and completely ignored both my statements to the contrary and the endless list of drugs I’m violently allergic to in my charts), and basically blew me off with nothing more than a cursory battery of “can you feel your feet” type things. The second did the same battery of poking at my feet and making me push up and down with my toes and concluded that it couldn’t be a disk issue because I didn’t have any nerve damage. Alas. I have no nerve damage (yet), but I do have one fewer intact disk than I should. So yeah, I’m a bit pissy about it all. But The Doctor’s Clinic folks? They get the bonus points for a)listening, b)thinking outside the box, and c)always being really freakin’ decent to deal with. I hate doctors (hoo-ee! the understatement of the year, right there, just for you!), and will avoid them at great lengths, but I have willingly gone back to this place a few times now, and always had a good experience. Surprising, really, for a walk-in clinic in Bummertown.
Oh yeah, and while laying flat on my back all last weekend I knit a pair of socks. Pictures forthcoming.
January 20th, 2007
It’s that time of year again (apparently time for me to actually post something…), time for the Booger’s annual birthday sweater. This year she picked the Bed & Breakfast pullover from the winter 2003 issue of IK. Great. I can do that, no problem. Right?
HA! Seems that yarn in that gauge is a might tricky to find (well, yarn that doesn’t SUCK at any rate), unless you’re willing to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for enough to make a sweater out of. GRRR.
After much searching, I ended up ordering some Peruvian Highland Chunky from Elann. Great color selection, crazy good price, and fast fast fast shipping. All well and good. The yarn showed up yesterday, and I busted out a skein to swatch.
Soft! Nice! Hmmm… Maybe not so wonderful.
For starters, it untwists as I knit, so I have to keep remembering to check and adjust the twist, which is a pain in the arse. Fine. Swatch done. Soft, nice. Into the basin to soak, onto the blocking foamy thing to block. I got up this morning and checked on it, and it was all dry, so I unpinned it and walked from the living room to the computer room, which is all of… 30 feet? And that includes a detour into the kitchen to pick up my coffee cup. While I walked that short short distance, I had folded the swatch in half and was rubbing it against itself to see how the abrasion resistance was.
30 feet, 90 seconds, GIANT SWATCH EATING PILLS. Almost as bad as the DB Cashmerino (and by this point, y’all *know* how I feel about Debbie Bliss yarns). See?
I have said many bad words, which I will not include here.
Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?
GRRRRRRR. I really really really was hoping to not have to spend $120 on yarn for this project. Really I was.
January 8th, 2007
Especially when you put absolutely NO effort into it? Ooooh yeah.
So, back in… February? At Madrona, I saw this hank of Dicentra targhee that for whatever reason I couldn’t resist. It made no sense at the time. NONE. It was ORANGE! and MAGENTA!, two colors which, honestly, I CAN’T STAND. But I couldn’t walk away from it. It exerted some sort of freaky fiber-power over me, and I had to buy it. The look on Angela’s face spoke volumes, since she knows the colors I like and these? Not on that list. Anywhere.
It took me a while to spin it up, but the Reeves 19″ saxony did a lovely job with it, and I ended up plying it from a center pull ball, and it came out soooo beautifully. And it has languished on top of the basket o’ fiber ever since.
I saw it sitting up there the other night and thought ooh! that would make a lovely panta! So I pulled it down, and got out some needles, and waffled for a bit between making a panta or seeing if I could get a pair of fingerless mitts out of it. I opted, finally, for the panta.
Not only is the panta SOO perfect - it starts orange, and fades gently to MAGENTA at the center, and then, amazingly, PERFECTLY back to orange! Like I planned it that way. And on top of that little bit of joy? I found another skein of it, having totally forgotten that I ended up with two skeins, so I still have plenty for a pair of fingerless mitts! Hooray!
Musta been meant to be…
(batteries are dead, pics to follow)
EDIT: For those that don’t know, a panta is a headband. The pattern that I used was the translation from Crafster, but I think this one might be a better version of it.
September 17th, 2006
I wondered that last week. Just exactly how long does it take me to knit one sock on my usual needles in sock weight yarn. Enquiring minds wanted to know!
I set Sunday aside to find out. And now I know. I now know that it takes me 9.5 hours to crank out a basic sock. I now know that I am even more easily distracted than I thought I was. And I now know that if I sit in one place and knit with 2.25mm needles for 9.5 hours straight that I will a)lose the feeling in my arse and b)not be able to move my fingers the next day.
Today is Wednesday. My hands still hurt. Me am dumb.
But hey! Now I know. And if you want to see a basic sock progress in half hour increments from start to finish, click here. (bump up the pic size and set it for a 1-3 second delay between pictures. - I’m working on getting it animated so it will just run with a timeline at the bottom, but I haven’t gotten that done yet). (and yeah, some of those pics are mighty blurry. sorry.)
The finished sock, with 25% more Hugo!
September 14th, 2006
I just love the magic of turning a heel on a sock. That and lace blocking I think are two of the freakin’ coolest things we knitters get to do.
In my ongoing quest to have every skein of sock yarn I have on the needles (ha!), here are three of my most current socky projects (These are the travelling socks. There are several others that live at the house in various rooms, so that I always have a project at hand):
The third incarnation of the Lisa Souza Sock! in Pacific. First it was an ill-fated slip stitch rib, then it made a valliant attempt to be potamawhateverthehelltheywerecalled, and now Diamond Patch socks from… Heartland Knits? I think that’s it. They’re in the car or I’d go check.
I tried and tried and tried and tried to get the damn camera to pick up the actual colors in this yarn. It’s SOOOO much prettier than what you’re seeing here. Lots of purple in it that doesn’t show up at all. Stupid camera.
Moving on. Here we have the Japanese Feather sock designed for me by my KSKS pal, Jess. I’m digging this pattern and the yarn. This was where I was at with them yesterday morning on the ferry (note the bitchin’ car-interior-photo-studio action I’ve got going), at this point the heel has been turned and I’m almost to the end of the gusset. Woot! Go me.
And, lastly in the sock category, we have the stripey super-plain sock that I work on when there isn’t enough light to do anything else. The lovely wooden sock-in-progress-holder came from John and Dee. I have the rest of their info on a different computer, so if you need one of these (and you KNOW you do), leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll hook you up. They’re VERY sweet people, and the sock holders are soooooo wonderful. I won’t tell you how many of them I have now…
Yes, it’s a sleeve. This is another piece for Melissa - this time the Must Have Cardi in Shaba Green Peace Fleece. I’ll definitely be knitting one of these for myself. It’s about the most mindless pattern, and I really like it. Both knitting it and the way it looks.
And, finally, I’m going to totally break my own rule and talk about something work related. Just because this one had to be shared.
We ordered some new laptops from Dell a few weeks ago, and they showed up yesterday. I had to go out to my car and get my camera just to show you how totally over the top and ridiculous the packaging on these were. Four lappys, four boxes. Gigantic warehouse guy included for scale (he’s standing several feet behind the boxes).
I think that one gives overkill new meaning. At least they weren’t full of styrofoam…
September 8th, 2006
Finally. I know, I know.
First, and most importantly, the goodies from my Secret Pal:
The finished Booger Socks (pattern to be posted soonish)
The blue stripey socks (yarn from Lara’s bottomless pit of self-striping sock yarn)(and yeah, my legs really are that color - gonna make something of it?):
And, lastly, more Trekking XXL (it’s color 109 for those of you who need to track down the elusive purple Trekking), being turned into a pair of Jaywalkers for my friend Barb:
So there you go.
May 27th, 2006
There was a WONDERFUL (as in OMG wonderful) package waiting for me when I got home last night! Hooray! My Secret Pal? The. Best. Seriously. She so totally rocked my world with this one.
And no, no pictures yet, but I should be home tonight at a reasonable hour, and will take a picture of (what’s left of) it. There was chocolate (Lindor truffles, which I am powerless to resist, and Hershey’s kisses mmmm), COFFEE (the elixer of life), and, get this, four skeins of Rowan Kidsilk Spray. Four skeins, y’all. Four! And coffee! And chocolate!
On top of that I managed to finish TWO pairs of socks in the last two days. The Booger’s socks are done, I just have to block the second one, and the blue-stripey cotton/wool socks are also done (and comfy! Thanks Lara!).
I’ll take pics of the stuff tonight and get that posted when I get home. Yes indeedy!
May 24th, 2006
Why yes! I am still alive! I do, mind you, seem to be broken.
At some point in the past two weeks I managed to separate my sacro-iliac joint. You would think I would have noticed that happening, but I can’t pinpoint the moment I did it, so my guess would be either a)early onset dementia or b)I was asleep. I’m not sure which of those two options is the better one, really. But yeah. The joint came apart, and when it went back together, it went back…. wrong. Really wrong. So for the past week and a half + I’ve been gimping around, waffling somewhere between “I should be wearing a plaid shirt, pants that come up to my armpits, and suspenders with my belt” and “Don’t even think about moving my due date AGAIN and trying to convince me that I’m not two weeks overdue already!*”. It’s pathetic, really, since I’m neither that old nor pregnant.
This, of course, would be my lame-ass excuse as to why I haven’t posted. Or taken pictures. I have been knitting, though. Finished two patterned bags from Handknit Holidays
for Melissa for her shop (Links to which I aint got. Deal.), and a pair of socks from my first skein of self-striping yarn. Those were damn fun and knit up mighty quick, all things considered. All things like my total lack of attention span.
I didn’t manage to take pictures of the bags before I sent them back to Melissa, but the socks (along with the other two pairs I’ve finished recently) are still here, and maybe tomorrow night I’ll get around to taking pictures of them. MAYBE.
Now you know.
*they did that to me not just once but TWICE when I was preggers with Booger. Bastards.
April 3rd, 2006
The race is officially on. The race, that is, to finish the Booger’s new Rogue in time for her birthday next week. She’ll be down here for her birthday over the upcoming weekend, so I only have until Sunday morning to get it finished. Ipe! I’ve been working obsessively on it while obsessively watching Buffy, and have made significant progress, but it’s at this point in the sweater that I *always* think I’ve made significant progress, only to discover that there’s still all that damn cabling on the hood and the endless sleeves and the making up and the blocking yet to go. The fact that this is Rogue #3 should make the cables less wonky and the hood grafting less manky. Hopefully. So… yeah. The race is on. And yeah, once again I’ll try to get around to posting some pictures. Soon. I promise.
January 18th, 2006
Bwah! Sorry. Had to go there.
I finally got around to the starting to play with the new loom thing last night (and yes, Angela, this means you’re officially On Notice…), and managed to do all my warp calcs, and measure it all out (omfg my arms hurt after that), and got started sleying the reed. I got the reed about 80% done, and just have to finish warping all the rest of it, at least some of which I hope to get done tonight.
And… other than that, there hasn’t been much to report. Critterboy got me the Giant Box O’ Buffy for my birthday, and I’ve been rather engrossed in that (having never previously seen much more than bits and pieces of a few episodes).
OOh! And in the You’ve GOT To Be Kidding arena, may I present the online license tab renewal service of the Washington State Department of Licensing. Other than being REALLY peeved that I had to get new plates for my car (the DOL said so), I was really surprised at the whole thing. It couldn’t have been easier to do - the whole process took, oh, five minutes? And having renewed the tags and plates online on Thursday, I ’bout fell the hell out when the new plates, all tabbed up for me arrived in the mail on Saturday. As Squagel said “damn that prison labor works quick!”… So! Rock on with your bad selves at the state DOL and at the Port Orchard licensing place that actually did the mailing of the plates. Who knew I’d ever have anything nice to say about a licensing office?
And, oh, on the knitting front. There has really been no progress on anything. At all. Well, there was progress on the first sleeve of Durrow (for which I got 15 glorious skeins of Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran Tweed for my birthday), but then I realized that I’m a dumbass and a)hadn’t washed my swatch before I cast on, so I don’t have a damn clue if it’s going to grow or not, and b)I, at least last time I checked, am not an orangutan. So all that lovely cabling and ribbing is going to get ripped out and reknit. Lame. Lame lame lame. There has been a teensy bit of progress on The Blue Scarf, and on The Second Sock, and none at all on the Sock! sock, and again with the none at all on the baby cabled sock, and even more none at all on the green shawl or the red shawl or the silk shawl or the kitty hat or… omg! Angel! naked! oh, wait, was I talking about knitting? Right. That.
January 10th, 2006
Ok! I promised pictures, and pictures you shall have!
First up - The Scarf. The one that critterboy says I should keep ‘cos he thinks it’s UNENDINGLY funny that I can’t see most of the stripes on it. What say you? Keep it and make another for the xmas pile? Make another for myself later on down the road? Share the love? (funny note here - in the picture I can actually see a hell of a lot more of the stripeyness than I can in person. wacky, that)
Then! OMG! The picturey goodness does not stop there! Oh no! Look! There’s more!
As usual, enclicken to embiggen, or in this case, to detailize.
And last but not least. George. Who really shall not be named George, but who doesn’t really have a name yet. Critterboy suggested Trogdor, buuuttt…. Not sure that quite fits. As usual, I’m open to suggestions.
and here he’s givin’ all y’all the Crazy Eye. Just for good measure.
There! Pictures promised AND delivered. Better than sliced bread.
December 8th, 2005
Ok, so it didn’t bite the dust (but you’re singing it now, arentcha?), but one more xmas knitting project is DONE! Done, I tell you! Done! Blocked and everything! #1? Done! #2? DONE! #3? Gonna be workin’ on that one for a while…
This one, #2, is one of these done in the leftovers from this. Woo! How’s that for picture-be-takin’ avoidance? That’s right, baby, I got your slack right here.
Critterboy swears I should keep #1 and make another one for the xmas pile. Maybe I’ll post pics at some point this week and let all y’all decide on that one. #3 is still cooking (and from the feeling of those long repeats, it’s gonna be for a while now, and judging by the math? Holy CRAP it’s gonna be a while…) Then it’s just on to #’s 4-9, and all is good. (no, not all of them are knit, so some will be finished a LOT sooner than the others). Whew!
AND! In other exciting news, we finally got around to ordering our tickets for xmas, so Colorado - here we come! Yay! I was beginning to worry about it, dontchaknow.
And (oh yes, there’s more)… I’m going to love him and pet him and call him George. And… See above. Since I got your slack right here (meaning you can’t use it, so get to work), I don’t have a picture of George yet. I’ll see if I can’t do something about that tonight. ‘Cos OMFG he’s cute.
December 7th, 2005
Previous Posts
