Category Archives: knitting

The Craft Pit is All Grown Up

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Welcome to the new studio space!
Check it out - bonus accidental self-portrait!

There’s still a bit of work yet to do, but it’s done enough to start moving into at this point. We have to figure out how to shingle and trim around the new door, and need to get our wonderful window guy back out to do the window trim, put in baseboards, move the ends of the light fixtures to better distribute the light, and get two more drawer units to put in the corner near the ironing board. That seems like a lot of work, now that I’ve written it all out…

We’ve been working on this, off and on, for almost a year now. No, I didn’t take any before pictures. The before on this was too awful to contemplate, let alone photograph.
The building had had an electrical fire at some point, after which the owners had mostly gutted it, and then used it to store several decades worth of random crap, all of which the previous owners just left out there. After several trips to the dump to get rid of all the crap, and a lot of screaming and flailing every time one of the enormous shed spiders was encountered, we finally got it cleaned out enough to use it for storing our own random crap.

A new roof here, some electrical work there, and a considerable amount of standing around wondering WTF (seriously – WHY remove whatever passed for plumbing out there by cutting the pipes off, at an angle, just above the foundation wall? WHY????), and we finally got to start the fun of hanging drywall. The drywall took forever, during which time we discovered that there were no studs out there that were the same distance apart. A few were 16″ apart, but the rest were anywhere between 11″ and 33″. And none of the walls are square or straight. Good times!

I’ve got about half of the stuff moved out there and set up so far. Still have lots and lots of bins to unpack and make sense of, but it finally feels more like studio instead of shed. Hopefully it’ll be done enough to get some drafting and sewing done next weekend. Hopefully.

Looking from the corner nook into the room towards the drafting table and the sewing table (the serger is there, but the sewing machine hasn’t been moved out yet):
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Looking from the far corner behind the sewing table towards the nook. All of those bins are still yet to be unpacked or repacked and put on the tall chrome shelving that’s still in the basement:
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Standing in the doorway looking in towards the sewing table end of the room. The books are about the only things that are likely to stay right where they are. The class sweaters will probably go back in the house, and the fabric will get moved around, the swatch bins will move, etc, etc:
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In other news… Nope. No other news. Nothing at all to report other than this. It’s been fairly all-consuming, really.

Another one down

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Totally outside of my color comfort zone
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Details are typical me, though
_DSC8086

Very much my style
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Nihon Vogue classes are coming to an end. Finally. I started this adventure five years ago, and it’s consumed the majority of my knitting time for those five years.

Part of me is really (REALLY) glad it’s almost over. Mostly it just feels weird that next weekend is my last class.

I still have gobs of homework that I have to finish up and get turned in, but at least I’ll have one more piece to get signed off on next weekend (hopefully it’ll get signed off on – I’m never sure until Jean actually signs the draft).

The next sweater is coming along, but needs to have the top half and the sleeves redrafted, I think. I’m not 100% happy with the design now that I’ve got half the back knit, so I’m going to do some redrafting and see if I can’t tweak it just a little bit and bring it around. We’ll see. And yes, that one is firmly back into my standard color range of blue-to-green.

This one was fun to draft and to knit, although I’m still not 100% happy with the center front at the hem. There are a LOT of short rows in this one, but I think it could have used a slightly different approach to even out the bottom of the leaf pattern at the center front hem. I didn’t use any pattern compensating short rows on the sleeves, because I wanted the scalloped hem the bottom of the pattern would give, but mostly balanced it out on the front and back of the body with a few small short rows, and then a couple of larger ones to bring the whole center area down a hair. Add in bust darts to keep the front level, and all of the short rows in the collar, and I’ll be happy to not knit another short row for a good long while.

This not just finished

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This one has been done for several months, I just didn’t have pictures of it until yesterday, when its new owner brought it in for me to photograph.

This one is the Nihon Vogue year 2 Aran, which I drafted and started, and then got really, really, really sick and lost a whole bunch of weight, so by the time the knitting was done, the sweater was WAAAAAY too big for me. It’s a bit too big on the person modeling it, too, but she really wanted to try it on, and happened to stand still long enough for me to take a couple of pictures.

_DSC7362 _DSC7360

The yarn is Briggs & Little, in a color I don’t think they make anymore, and the buttons are vintage shell that I picked up at Button Button in Vancouver (I think).

There. One more done. 7 to go? 6? Something.

Cleanup on aisle 6

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A lot of cruft has been removed, and everything not craft-related has been scrubbed. Now that this isn’t a place I’d rather avoid, I’m going to try to revive the blog and start posting again, since there’s been a godawful lot of crafting going on around here. Also? Only two more Nihon Vogue class weekends. So close to being done, and yet so very VERY far away still. Eek.

Skwerl. Was gift.

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skwerl sweater

Yes, I need to get a better picture of it.  I didn’t have time, though between finishing it and sending it off with the folks who were moving across the country.  Vintage 60′s (50′s?) Patons pattern, Cascade 220 superwash, vintage buttons.

Cats in socks

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There was an awesome trip to Canada, written up over on crankychild.com.

On top of the excellent trip to the beach, there was some actual finished knitting. No, really. Duck from Knitty, done up in some Socks That Rock in an orange colorway the label for which I lost ages ago. Not Sun Drops, though, that much i know for sure.

duck booties

duck booties

We tried to get the cat to sit still and have his picture taken with them on. This is about as still as Looshkin gets when being held, though:

Looshkin has no appreciation for knitting

Looshkin has no appreciation for knitting

Gir, though, was much more cooperative, though he had to be held, since the booties are slippery and his feet wouldn’t stay under him.

Gir, as duck

Gir rockin' the duck socks

Another one finished. Finally.

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The narrow yoke cardigan is finally done.  Once again, this was totally one of those “it seemed like a good idea at the time” projects.  Those super dark grey stitches?  They are TINY.  It needs buttons still (the ones that I originally got for it are too big), but other than that I am quite happy with how it turned out.

nv_narrowyoke_yoke

When I started this project, I asked O to pick out the colors she wanted in it, and about stroked out when she added that BRIGHT red into the mix.  She insisted that it would be great, and since I (mostly) trust her color judgment, so I went with it.  She was right.  The one line of red in the yoke really does work.  Since I had a full skein of it left, I decided to do the inside of the cuffs and hem in red, and I couldn’t be happier at how that came out (well, ok, I could – it could be flatter, but it’s a turned hem, so it’s never going to be and that’s just fine).

nv_narrowyoke_hem

In other exciting knitting news, the evil top down raglan is also done.  And blocked.  And I don’t hate it any less.

Nihon Vogue progress update #2! ZOMG.

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Moving right along to year 2. Chop chop!

On the agenda for this year:
puffy sleeves (ick)
dolman sleeve (ick)
matched pattern raglan (ick)
Aran
Gansey
crochet collar (seriously?!, yes, apparently so)
Fair Isle yoke
decreasing cable skirt/cape (no, really)

Puffy sleeve evilness is 95% done. I have 1.25 button bands left to go. Yes, I hate it. Kind of a lot. I was not meant to wear the poofy sleeve, no.

Dolman. A word that strikes terror in the heart of anyone with sense or boobs. This was probably the one project of them all for this year that I dreaded the very most. There have been previous posts on how I thought what I’d come up with to make it less awful was a good idea. It was, really, aside from the ELEVEN HOURS OF GRAFTING. But see? Worth it. (and my that needs blocking again)
dolman_front

dolman_back_detail

 

The matched pattern raglan was another one I figured I’d never wear, but that turned out to fit reasonably well, and is (holy crap) warm and soft and has buttons that I absolutely ADORE.
matched_raglan_front

 

The seams? They are all very matchy. So very matchy.
matched_raglan_front_detail

The Aran and the Gansey are languishing at the moment. The Gansey is swatched and drafted and ready to go, the Aran… let’s not talk about the Aran.

The crocheted collar is… DONE. I kid you not. Me. I crocheted. (and yes, I still refer to it as “crotch-etted”. It amuses me. Get over it)
crochet_collar_front

crochet_collar_back

The Fair Isle yoke sweater we had the option of doing two ways – one as a narrow yoke with set-in sleeves, or a more Lopi style with a wider yoke and raglan style sleeves. I opted for the narrow yoke with set in sleeves, and am sooooo close to being done with solid-colored body bit. I should be able to start picking up the many hundreds of yoke stitches tonight or tomorrow. Excitement! But no pictures yet.
The last in the list there, which still pains me to read, is the decreasing cable skirt or cape. I have decided (and Jean is going to let me get away with, primarily because a)Lara did it and b)it means WAY more work for me) to do this as the wide-yoke sweater instead of a cape or skirt, neither of which I would EVER use (ICKAY!). I have a cunning plan, but no picture or swatch or yarn for yet.

So. There you have it. Progress. With proof. Go me.

Nihon Vogue progress. Sort of. With LOTS of pictures

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Good grief! Finished knitting! In roughly the order they appear in class (which is not necessarily the order they were actually finished), I present the finished pieces that I still have*:

Year 1, project 1 (2?), the Incredibly Evil Top Down Raglan Which Will Never Be Worn (and which is also not quite finished, but so close! So close and yet… I hate it so much I can’t bring myself to actually finish the sleeves, which is all that is left. Really. Look at the sleeves. The are SO damn close to done. Yet there is the hate. So much loathing. Blech. Hate). The yarn is, um, that stuff? from the front of the store? you know the stuff. Lara? help me out here. Ooh! Briggs & Little. The scratchy stuff that will soften up some day, I’ve been assured. Smells like sheep. Scratchy sheep.
top_down_raglan_front

top_down_raglan_sleeve1

 

Next up was the Vest, which went to The Best Physical Therapist EVER. No decent picture exists. I’ll work on that.

Year 1, project 3 was the Round Neck Pullover. Which will also never be worn. Which needs to be (gasp!) ripped out and reknit. At a different gauge. I am reasonably fond of the yarn (Ultra Alpaca from Berrocco), although it does tend to get big globs of fuzz on it, but this was knit at too loose a gauge for it, and it grows like a mofo across the neck and shoulders when worn. Alas. Original pattern was out of one of the Japanese knitting books. Let’s Knit #10, probably.
round_neck_pullover_front

 

Followed by the Year 1, project 4, the V-Neck Pullover. Yarn is Blue Moon Fiber Arts WooBoo, a divine wool/bamboo blend. This one is one that I actually wear rather a lot during the colder months. It’s just about perfect.
v-neck_pullover_front

 

The super shallow v-neck which turned out exactly as I had hoped it would:
v-neck_pullover_detail

 

Year 1, project 5 was the Round Neck Cardigan, which was done for O, and which has been worn almost to tatters. She will undoubtedly have outgrown it by winter, which is ok, since there’s another one for her on the needles at the moment. Again? No picture.

 

Y1, P6 was the V-Neck Cardigan. This was the project that I had knit the entire body of, and got to rip out in class. Jean made me. I was, mind you, SO over ripping out at that point that it didn’t even phase me. Yep, ok, rip rip rip riiiiiipppppp. Start over from scratch. I was pretty sure that this one was going to be another one for the “never gonna wear it” pile, even after it was finished, but I ended up grabbing it to try on one last time a few weeks ago, and discovered that I really actually kind of like it. Sort of.
v-neck_cardi_front

 

And I do absolutely love the buttons:
v-neck_cardi_buttons

There are two more year 1 projects that Ihaven’t even started yet. The crocheted tank and the final project. There has been no progress on either yet, so don’t ask.

Up next: Year 2. Momentarily.

Excel is my friend

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Sometimes.

The more drafting I do for class, the more charts I end up doing, whether for working out how a stitch pattern will work out in a given shape, or weird neckline decrease issues, or whatever. The current class project (well, one of three that have to be done by next class on January 11) is a dolman sleeve sweater. Go ahead. Go throw up. I know. I’ll wait.

There are many things that I don’t want in a sweater, and giant dolman armflaps and seams down the top of the sleeve are two of the big ones. Which made this particular class project that much more of a challenge.

So. I started by making the dolman curve as shallow and angular as Jean would let me get away with (ok, maybe slightly more than she really wanted to let me get away with, but so far so good. She might make me rip it all out in class again, but hopefully not). Then I asked (begged) to do a wide patterned panel up the top of the sleeve, which would not only eliminate the seam that would normally be there, but would add a bit of visual interest, drawing attention away from the under-arm area. Bonus. Jean ok’d it, with that little smile. I knew that meant I was probably biting off more than I could chew, but this is all about the learning, right?

I picked one of my favorite patterns out of the Japanese 250 pattern book (if you don’t have one, you should. Kinokuniya in Seattle stocks it, along with a ton of other great Japanese pattern books) and swatched and swatched and swatched. Then traced the neckline onto tracing paper, and gridded it, and realized I was SCREWED. Bigtime. I ripped back several inches of sweater back, and then redid the graph for everything from shoulder point to neck.

And that’s where Excel comes in. Recreate the grid in Excel, and add the pattern with the (great) knitting font from Aire River Design. So. Easy. Extrapolate down to figure out where in the pattern to cast on once the neck is figured out, and this is what I end up with (enclicken to embiggen, as usual):

That turns into these:

The rest is super boring stockinette stitch and still needs the hems knit and grafted on (yes, Lara, still doing it all the hard way…), so there won’t be pictures of that bit until it’s all done, but hey. At least there’s been *some* progress, no?

More ferry bench cell phone photography!

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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.

 

De-lurking on my own blog

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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 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)

 

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:

 

Proof of productivity

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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
Manly Brown Socks

Another pair of the Leaf Lace socks from some back issue of Interweave Knits, done in Regia Silk:
Leaf Lace Socks

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.
Opal Socks

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?
B&B Pullover back, blocking

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!
Handspun Pal Full Skein
(enclicken to see it close up)

There you go. Proof that I haven’t been a total slacker.

Thanks!

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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.

Well, crap.

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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.