Still Knitting...

These are not flowers from my grave...

I've been knitting, spending time, lots of time, on Ravelry, and most recently, starting up my new business - A Touch of Fiber - as a yarn sales rep. It's all been very engrossing, and I'm enjoying the process!!!

This is the longest project I've knit in awhile - a pair of 17th Century Stockings with clocks (pattern from Plimouth Plantation) - that I knit for the Sock Summit 2009 Sock Museum! They are huge, long, and itchy, but they are definitely warm! I used Harrisville yarn, and loved working with it. It has a 'crunchy' feel and there is still lanolin in the yarn, so I felt like I was knitting with 'real' yarn that hadn't lost its identity through over-processing.

Then there is my washcloth collection. It's a way for me to knit mindlessly and prepare simple gifts. I pair the washcloths with really nice soap from Frost Fish Cove Soaps.

To finish up, if you're an indie dyer who wants a larger market, contact me.

I haz need hatz

Sometimes life creates needs. I need hats.


It all started when I decided on a whim to get my hair trimmed (this already should give you some idea where this is going). I turned into the hairdressing school I was walking past. I told the student that I wanted my hair really short, but polished and professional, because I had hopes on going on job interviews. Things were going pretty well until the clippers came out. With three electric zooms most of the hair on my head was practically gone. I left with NOT ONE HAIR ON MY HEAD LONGER THAN 1/4-INCH.


Now, my head is cold all the time. I look like I've just finished a round of chemo. My head looks very small in relation to my body.


I've been knitting hats:

This is the one I wear the most - at home, even when I'm sleeping.














This one is knit with warm, bulky wool, so I wear it outdoors.












This moebius cowl has been warm when I want a little neck and shoulder coverage.

















This one is cute, but doesn't provide enough coverage. I've got another version with heavier wool on the needles.







We all have lapses in judgement.

The Letter C

I've jumped on the 10-things-you-like-that-start-with-the-letter-"*". You get assigned the letter. I got "C" from CRMA, so here goes:

1. Cats. I love cats. I'd better after all, I have 4. They are endlessly amusing, comforting, and annoying.
2. Cheese. Especially melted, or on crackers. Yum (and I'm lactose intolerant!).
3. Cashmere. Soft, warm, light weight, expensive. I have a fantasy about someday being able to afford to knit a cashmere sweater. The closest I've come, to date, is 2 oz. of cashmere top to spin that I bought at Rhinebeck.
4. Chocolate. I have had a lifetime love-hate relationship with chocolate, mainly love.
5. Coffee. I don't drink a lot of coffee, but one good cup of coffee in the morning sets me up for the day. Coffee ice cream is also good anytime and gives you a lot of options for toppings.
6. Christmas. The sense of anticipation, family gatherings, Christmas lights, the planning and consulting that goes on. It's all fun!
7. Cookies. You do get a sense of pattern here? If it's sweet and starts with a 'C', I like it.
8. Clean. On the rare occasion that I get a room, or my whole apartment clean, I revel in the sensation of accomplishment.
9. Cowls. I have been collecting knitting patterns for cowls. They keep you warm, they are comfortable, and they don't take forever to complete.
10. Cameras. Especially digital cameras that let you take lots of pictures and then download them, print them, e-mail them, and edit them. A whole new world of remembering has opened up.

My "C"s.

I've been having fun

I've wrenched myself away from Ravelry temporarily and have been reading blogs again. I 've come to the realization that while Ravelry is a great way to immerse yourself in knitting or crocheting, blogs let you share more of what's going on.


So, what's been happening? Well, I continue to be unemployed, which has allowed me to spend a lot of time looking at knitting on Ravelry, do a fair amount of knitting of my own, and fall into a more natural sleep cycle for me. Unfortunately, since I'm a nightowl, I tend to wake up late in the day and go to bed around dawn. This can sometimes limit my activities, since the rest of the world is on a more 'do stuff during the day' schedule. Banks and the Post Office, especially.


So, if Blogger will allow me to post some pictures, here are a few...


This is a sock that I test knit. The yarn, from Fearless Fibers, was the first skein that I ever bought online. I only had to knit one sock for the test knit, and haven't yet knit the 2nd sock, but I will. I enjoy wearing handknit socks too much to have only one sock to wear.




Now this pair of socks was knit from a KnitPicks sock blank dyed by FiberJewels as part of a Ravelry swap. I knit them up as an entry in the "Sock Put" category in the Ravelympics. The nice thing about knitting both socks at the same time from a sock blank is that the color changes will match.



This is 'Ziggy' from Knitty.com. The pattern was also one of the five that I knit up for the Sock Pentathlon on Ravelry. I told you that I spend a lot of time on Ravelry. I love joining groups, especially for knitting challenges and for swaps. It's a weakness. For this pattern, I didn't use the Noro sock yarn recommended, since I didn't have any, but drew from my rather large stash of Lamb's Pride Sport. I changed colors for the ankle because I thought the turquoise and pink was getting a little too day-glo on its own.




Here is my version of the Noro Striped Scarf. It was a great deal of fun to knit, and, as you can see, I love bright colors. I call this my gypsy scarf.

Shawl-itis

Unfinished projects tend to wait on the edge of my consciousness, poking at my awareness. I enthusiastically jump into starting something and then just as enthusiastically move onto something else. It's annoying, and guilt-inducing.

Today I'm feeling guilty about the shawls that I have started. To list a few:

The faroese shawl for my friend's birthday for June, 2007 - about half-done.

Mystic Lights - about half done.

Spiral Shawl - I love spirals, have 'redesigned' this shawl to make it bigger and rectangle, and am only on the second spiral.

Icelandic Shawl - this was very popular, and Knitting Daily actually reprinted the pattern for the KAL group. I like the shawl, but it is 2/3's done.










Large Rectangular Shawl from "Victorian Lace Today" - another favorite, not a difficult knit, but I've only done a couple on inches.










To justify myself, somewhat, knitting for others, especially for gifts and for display items for Fabric Place, jumped to the front of my queue and displaced these projects. But I am also ADD when it comes to knitting. I start thinking about a project or a technique and I MUST start it.

That means there are similar posts to come on other UFOs.

In Quest of "Finished!"

I am a serial knitter. I bounce from one project to the next. They all need to be finished, but they're not...yet.

There's the baby blanket for a niece, who's due in August - knit on the diagonal in five colors using Berroco Touche - a soft cotton/modal mix;

the kimono jacket from "Knit Kimonos" that I'm knitting in Sugar 'n Cream white cotton because I could get 1400 yds for $10;

the second sock of a pattern I test knit (Deaton Sock - check it out on Ravelry);

the second mitten of a mitten pattern I also test knit (Bubbles, also on Ravelry);

the pinwheel sweater in Lara cotton for my niece in New Mexico;

and the purse that I started as a Christmas present for her mother...

just to name a few.

Knitting Again (sung to the tune of "Drinking again...)

Well, you can't keep an addict away from her drug of choice, so I've started knitting again, but trying for a little less intensity...

So what was my first finished project? The third sock in the Sock Knitters Pentathlon 2008 on Ravelry - Rattlesnake Creek Socks:

There's nothing like a few cables to make you pay attention to what you're doing. Unfortunately, while I was paying attention to the knitting, I didn't read the instructions thoroughly, until I started the second sock. It was then that I discovered that there were supposed to be 1-1/2 pattern repeats on the cuff, not one - like I had done. I only thought about frogging the first sock for a nano-second, then I knew I had to come up with something else: Cut off the ribbing, pick back the stitches and knit the required repeat and ribbing.

So after the second sock was done, that's just what I did, and it worked beautifully, only took about 2 hours, and then I was done. I'd read about using this technique for adding length or making changes, but this was the first time I'd actually used it. It was a bit fiddly picking out the stitches back to the start of the cabling, and picking up the stitches was also a trial (partly because my eyesight isn't what it used to be, these were very small stitches, and I was tired.

Nothing like success to jump start your enthusiasm.