Gift knitting

There will probably be very little here until after the holidays. I can't post about my gift knitting where the recipients can see it.

I can, however, gush like a schoolgirl about baby alpaca. Not only are they cuter than sin, but knitting with their fur is like petting kitten bellies. mmmmmmmm

See? so cute.


also, evidently, an iphone wallpaper. I'm only somewhat lacking in ethics. I'll use the pic, but at least I link to the site and don't hotlink the picture.

a pattern... sort of.

A few weeks ago I (and another coworker) taught one of my coworkers to knit. What follows is basicly word for word what I wrote on Ravelry, just FYI.

I wanted to give her a project to work on right away. From my early knitting experiments I knew that if I wanted her to be excited about knitting and not hate it, the pattern needed to be something super basic, fast and wearable. Scarves take too long for a beginner in my opinion. I didn't want her to give up before she was able to finish a project. A simple garter stitch neckwarmer, with buttons is the perfect project to learn casting on, knitting, binding off. Best of all it is cute and wearable.

Without further ado, the only pattern I have ever written, if you can even call it that. All I really did was wing it and then count.



Start by casting on 25 Stitches on size US10- US10.5 needles. Knit in Garter stitch until the piece is the desired length to wrap comfortably around her neck end to far-side (see picture).

The button holes are made by binding off the stitches for the button holes on one row and then casting them back on on the following row. I used the knitting on method to cast them back on. Backwards loop would also work but I find it harder to knit from and not as neat looking.

first button-hole row: K4, (BO3, K4) 3 times.
second button-hole row: K4, (CO3, K4) 3 times.
Knit 5 more rows and bind off.

If you are going to wash and/or block, do it here, before you buy buttons. Your buttons holes my stretch in the process of washing/blocking and you want to make sure they are a good fit. I recommend taking the scarf with you to buy the buttons. The buttons should go through the button holes snugly but easily.



Fold the neckwarmer as shown in the above photo so you can see where the button holes hit the opposite side of the neckwarmer. Use locking stitch markers or safety pins to mark where the buttons should go and unfold the neckwarmer so you can sew the buttons on. Sandwich the neckwarmer between the button and a small piece of stabilizer or sturdy fabric.
Using embroidery thread, sew the button on through both the knitting of the neckwarmer and the stabilizing fabric. This will give you a more stable fabric to sew the button to and help prevent the thread from cutting through the yarn with wear. Remove whatever you used to mark the spot for the buttons as you go. They aren't part of the finished piece ;)



Wear with pride!

Edit 12-29-12: you can now download the pdf version!

My grandmother used to make amazing pickled watermelon.

A few days ago I was kind of bored with the things I had on needles and found a cute little watermelon hat to make. I started out stash-busting, but then realized my red yarn was tweedy. No one likes a tweed infested watermelon. While I was buying red yarn I realized that if I really wanted to make a watermelon hat I really should have the proper color for the rind as well. If I was going to get the perfect color for the rind then the plain old off while was just not going to cut it for the pale part between the rind and the red. I was undecided on just what color that should be so I had to buy both and thus 4 more skeins of yarn were completely necessary for my little stash-busting endeavor.... Have you ever had stone soup? I hear it is delicious and all you need is a stone!




I'd also like to introduce ZZ Pickle. He likes to hang out with the other veggies.

Boob Tube

I don't watch a whole lot of TV during the summer. There is so much else to do and I spend a lot of time out in the long days. The fall TV season, however, come right as it starts quickly getting darker and I have less and less desire to do lots of stuff outside the house. This fall seems particularly good for new shows.

Glee is amazing and I love it with every campy gay musical bone in my body. James and I go over to our friends Rachel and Aaron's to watch this every week. This puts a bit of a wrench n watching the other shows that come on on the same night. Thank goodness for the DVR.

So You Think You Can Dance has been my one summertime TV vice. AND NOW IT"S ON IN THE FALL. I love dance and these kids are amazing. Some of my favorites from the city auditions have already gone home from Vegas :(, but I have faith that the top twenty will be truly phenomenal, as always. I'm so excited for the contemporary routines, especially Mia Micheals. Her coreography always takes my breath away.

Flash Forward has me riveted. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON!!!

Despite the awesomeness of these three shows there are some flops. I tried watching the Good Wife and just didn't really care about it ether way. The Cleveland Show is omg truly horrible. Offensive and not even funny. It's just really really stupid.

Fringe has continued to hold my interest from last season. It seems to continue to take its rules from X-files and having been one of the totally obsessed X-Files fans in my high school days, I am completely ok with that. I love Walter. X-files did not have a Walter. It should have.

Then there are the old standbys Project Runway and Top Model. I, of course, watch them, but am less and less interested as the season's tick by. I am very glad they separated Models of the Runway from PR. I always thought that part of the show was stupid and now I don't have to watch it.

I'm lazing on the couch with a fat kitty in my lap watching Project Runway and typing on my new tiny net book (named Willard). Life is pretty damn good.

I can't believe that just a couple of months ago I posted about not having anything to knit. I finished my owl hand warmers and now have no less than SIX projects on the needles right now! I want to knit everything in sight.

These are the owl handwarmers. For some reason I don't have a picture of both of them, so you get one and the other half finished. Use your imagination, or don't; there are more pics on flickr. :)

I love grey for showing off cables and this yarn was particularly good for it, not too fuzzy, but also soft. It's Webs' house yarn though the name escapes me at the moment. I reversed the tree branch portion of the cable pattern on the left glove so that it was a mirror image of the right. I think they look better that way.

I have so much more to say, but I just spent half an hour trying to get that last link to work without taking the last half of the post with it. I'm recovering from camping over the weekend and Monday coming all too soon. James has made beef stew that I am dying to eat and then it is bed time, or at least reading young adult books about vampires in bed time. More on all the projects in progress another time.

The weekend

My yarn stash is emnbiggened, my stitch markers pickle-ier, and my quads crazy sore from biking around Portland. Sock Summit weekend was pretty damn awesome.

I didn't have the jam-packed days that so many others did as I didn't score a place in any of the classes. I did, however, spent lots of time at the marketplace which, alone, would have been well worth traveling much farther than the two hours I drove.

I think my favorite discovery of the weekend (and you'll have to forgive me for going all fan-boy here) was A Verb for Keeping Warm. Firstly, the name fits oh so neatly into Do-Re-Mi (non-knitter friend from previous post decided it should replace La as that one is stupid anyway). The yarn though, oh my god. The colors are bright and saturated in a way that I didn't know was possible with natural dyes. Best of all, the dyes used are organic and sustainably harvested some even home(shop?)-grown. Check out the Dye for Glory post on Kristine's blog. Abalone especially is amazing. They also have fantastic shirts. I as-of-now-not-so-secretly think it would be a kick-ass tattoo.

The Ravelry party Saturday night was incredible. I think at one point I heard an estimate of 600 Ravelers in attendance. Meeting people who I've been talking to online for so long was great and I met so many other wonderful people (including Adrienne and Kristine from Verb who are as amazing as the yarn). ALSO, for the first time in my life, I won something! There was a drawing for some really great things from sponsors. I got great mesh snap-top project bags from Namaste. They are big enough to actually hold a decent sized project and yarn, plus the mesh means I can see what's inside without it getting all nasty and gross inside.

Oh man, there are so many things I want to have and do now. I want to spin, dye, knit everything under the sun, buy a spinning wheel... Actually, I would love to start with one of the Turkish drop spindles from Jenkins woodworking. I tried one at their booth and really liked it.

I almost forgot the picture of the best stitch markers ever! Made by Crafting for the Peanut Gallery and bought at Sock Summit.
Pickles and ninjas! Also monster/zombie and cow needle holders.

Back to work tomorrow. If only I could spend all my time knitting, hanging out with knitters, and learning to dye and spin.

Sock summit

So much amazing yarn, knitters, and nerdiness! I'm not with it enough to have scored entrance to any of the classes, but the marketplace is huge and awesome. I brought a non knitting friend with me and his description included the words "terrifying" "geeky" and "yarny". I thnk it may have scared him for life. He is holding two knitting needles now. I'm not sure if I should be geting my hopes up for him to bcome a knitter or defend myself against the impending attack.

Sock summit has refueled my desire for the perfect circs. I love bamboo/wood needles specificaly addi naturas. Sadly, addi does not make interchangable naturas. My denise set is awesome but not good for magic loop which (see previous post) beats DPNs hands down. I need a good set of interchangable wood needles with thin flexible cables. The knitpicks harmony needle set intrigues me. I need to find a way to try them as I'm loathe to purchase anything without trying it.

Fortunately, non knitting friend has stopped threatening imminent knitting needle attack. I will update more on sock summit and the ravelry meet-up party when I am on a computer and not my phone.

what to knit?

It's been too long since I've knit anything. James and I got (big gay) married July 4th so life has been full of non-knitterly things.

My friend Kate gave me a lovely skein of Dream in Color Classy for my birthday: 250 yards of berry colored superfine merino and it's superwash! It's gorgeous yarn but I have no idea what to knit to best suit it. I've been perusing Ravelry in hopes of some inspiration.

I haven't finished the glittens I started months ago, but I keep coming back to these 'Under The Tree' fingerless gloves. I had a sweater vest when I was really young that my grandmother made me with the same owl cables. I'd forgotten about it until I saw something on Ravelry recently with the same cable. It wasn't something I'd wear, but these totally are.

I think I just convinced myself.

glittens, glomitts, muvs...

ok, maybe I made up muvs, but either way, I'm making some.

I'd been lacking much knitting motivation the past few weeks. The weather here in the rainy Northwest as been teasing us with occasional glimpses of the sun. The promise of spring and summer to follow makes it hard to concentrate on indoor, sit-down pursuits. Spring often brings a lull in the knitting until I remember how capable I am at multitasking.

My break from knitting would have continued if not for my sister's wedding on the East coast and the requisite 5 hour plane trip. I searched last minute for a pattern I could take on the plane that I already had yarn to make. I was having trouble finding inspiration and then I saw my mittens.

I made these mittens a couple of years ago out of super bulky yarn I got when I first started knitting. They are warm and great for walking in the snow, but awfully impractical when it comes time to do anything other than just walk. To begin with they are mitten, so I'm working with a crab claw, but then the bulkiness makes things even more difficult, but like I said, they keep my fingers toasty warm. I do love them; it's just time for options.

Enter the Glitten.
Not a mythical beast as one might guess, but a genius combination of fingerless gloves and mittens. The flip back mitten top (not to be confused with muffin top), makes these perfect for walks in the snow as well as fishing keys out of my pocket. They are also made in worsted so not as bulky.

I'm using Subway Knitter's Urban Necessity glove pattern. Of course I am using the magic loop method. After such success on the socks (which, as you can see below, I've finished!) how could I not. I will be sure to post pictures of the glittens when I have finished them. I'm alternating between them and am just beginning the thumb gussets, so it will be a while. Besides, with my knitting, blogging and life ADD, who knows how long it will take for pictures to actually be taken and make their way up here.


SOCKS!
and my new wisteria which is blooming. I do love spring.

Not knitting- Tesla

I know this is a knitting blog, but I have to break from the knitting for this. I feel it relates at least in terms of creation without limiting oneself.

I have a deep fascination and love for Nikola Tesla. He had an amazing mind and his research and experiments, even 100 years later, seem like the stuff of science fiction. He is the black sheep of the technology world. No one seems ready to admit how much of a genius he was and schools overlook him completely in favor of Thomas Edison, who may have been a more stable mind, but certainly not a greater one. The world readily forgot that it was Tesla's alternating current that won out over Edison's wasteful and impractical direct current.

Out of many projects around the world, only Tesla's lab and wireless transmission tower in Long island, known as Wardenclyffe, currently remain as evidence of his most massive endeavor, part of a plan to carry news, voice and (kept from the investors) free electricity to the world. Tesla was against-the-grain thinking was hard to swallow (not to mention non-profitable) and he ran out of money before his tower could ever be completed for anything other than experiments.

The Agfa corporation currently owns the land on which the dilapidated lab and tower stand. The recently announced plans to sell it, completely razed, to the highest bidder. This would effectively erase all material evidence of Tesla's Experiments aside from obscure and far less impressive to the lay person notes and writings.

The Tesla Wardenclyffe Project seeks to preserve the lab, tower and land as well as restore it to act as a museum. From the website, their goals are:

* placement of the 16 acre site on the National Register of Historic Places
* restoration of the building and stabilization of the tower foundation
* conversion of the site into a science museum complex to be known as the
Tesla Museum and Science Center at Wardenclyffe.

The fact that even the first goal has never been done is appalling. The group needs donations to achieve these goals. I mst admit that I have some selfish motivation as well. I've never seen this place. It's one of the things I have always wanted to do. It can't be destroyed before I see it! If nothing else, go take a look at the site. Tesla was one fucking awesome freaky dude.

Socks mark 2

A couple of weeks ago I decided to try my hand at knitting socks again. I thought this was something that would never happen. When I started knitting, I had no desire at all to knit socks. None. I didn't understand why anyone would put so much time and effort into something that no one ever, or hardly ever, sees.

That feeling lasted until I ended up with some sock yarn.
Really, sock yarn is amazing. So many knitters have gone absolutely crazy for socks that sock yarn is some of the most awesomely patterned and best thought out yarn. Of course this is entirely my opinion, but few would argue that the stuff doesn't appeal to a knitter's desire for awesome looking and feeling yarn. See the picture at the left? It just DOES that! Plain old knitting and no fancy techniques. The yarn patterns that way. It's just cool. How can a knitter not just want to collect the stuff?

So, stuck with sock yarn and kind of wondering what all the bru-ha-ha was about, I set out to try knitting a sock The picture above is of that attempt: toe-up on size one needles. I used this pattern/tutorial/formula from Knitty.com which is truly amazingly written. It is clear and easy to follow while appealing to the geek in me (knitting with math formulas anyone?). Despite this, by the time I got to the heel I hated myself and everything to do with socks, not to mention size one double pointed needles!

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I was at my friend Rachel's house for a knitting group. I was looking through her knitting books. I found 2-at-a-Time Socks. Now, I don't live under a rock, I'd heard of using magic loop to knit small diameter on circulars instead of DPNs, but I had never really had a desire to try it. I found the pattern in the back of the book for Ragg Hikers in worsted weight yarn. No DPNs, size 3 instead of size 1, worsted weight instead of fingering weight yarn, cuff up instead of toe-up construction... I kind of wanted to try it again.

I'm not knitting them on the same circular as the book teaches. I couldn't find 40" bamboo circs and I hate knitting with metal. I'm knitting each sock on it's own circular needle and just switching back and forth between them. I'm almost done with the gussets and I'm actually really enjoying it! I don't know if I will ever get into making the thin little fingering weight socks, but I'm not hated worsted weight ones. It's pretty sweet.

See?
and there are two of them! They aren't done (duh), but I'm actually enjoying knitting them. Also, they match a hat I just made. That's more weird than anything, actually.

TKGA and Christmas Project Photo Dump

I am completely obsessed with knitting. I'm not sure how it happened. I went very quickly from "hmm maybe I'll give this a go" to all out crazed yarn whore. It doesn't make a lot of sense. My personality is that of a dabbler, jack of all trades, master of none, dilettante, etc. I pick things up, learn a bit about them and never get particularly good at anything. Except knitting. I don't know why but it stuck.
To further my obsession, I got the TKGA master knitting program level 1 course from my dad for Christmas. I'm pretty damn excited about this. I'm hoping to learn a lot fro it ad move even further out of the realm of "dabbler". I think it will cause me to look at me knitting in terms of actually improving and learning rather than being a solely project oriented hobby. Plus, I miss the critical thinking of being in school and this also involves writing a paper. :)

I am worried about knitting and my hands. I recently started a new job that involves much more computer use than I'm used to (despite being on the internet constantly). I was working on the Fake Isle hat around the same time. The stress on my hands was not so good and I started to get some very slight carpal tunnel symptoms: mild tingling in my thumb and burning up my forearm. It went away as soon as I finished the hat and I haven't had any of the nerve issues since. I do still get some serious hand and finger fatigue. It's gotten a good bit better with a new mouse and just getting used to what I'm doing. It terrifies me though and has made me realize just how much I love knitting. I don't know what I would do if I ever had to stop. It would kill me.

The hand and wrist issues came at a very bad time as I was trying to get Christmas gifts finished. I couldn't get them all done by Christmas and I still have my dad's neck-warmer to finish up.

I'm about half way through knitting it, but then I need to line it with some fleece fabric so it isn't itchy. He is sensitive to the scratchiness of wool. The yarn I'm using is a wool-silk blend, but I didn't want to take chances on something that will be against his neck. That's a pretty sensitive area. It is much farther along than the picture, but you can see the cable pattern.



Branching Out

I'm pretty sure I've posted this before, but this is the scarf I made for my mom It's just under 6 feet.




Scrunchable scarf

I made this for my sister out of the leftover malabringo from her hat (below)




Foliage

My sister's hat. I made one in a chunky brown tweed for her fiance, but I didn't get pictures of that one. I also don't have any good pictures of the scarf I made him. I'll try to track some down. I think my sister posted some pictures with him wearing it.



Erik's scarf

edited to add it. Not the best pic, but it's all I have.







Fruedian Hat

This is the fake isle hat pattern, but I modified it, taking out the second stripe and changes the colorwork pattern very slightly. As a result I managed to accidentally knit woman symbols into my hat as well as male symbols and giant phalluses depending on how you look at it. Fun times. I love this hat.




Lace scarf

least inventive name for a pattern ever.

Made this for Cake Kate. Hopefully she'll get it before seeing this. It got sent out just a few days ago.







Knitting

yup.

My first forray into dying (the not so emo variety)

I tried yarn dying for the first time the other day. I wanted a particular color and yarn weight for a project and couldn't find it in my price range. There had recently been a post in a livejounral community about dying hair with kolaid (something that people do with yarn a lot), so I decided that perhaps dying my own yarn would be the best course of action. It would save me a ton of money and just be fun.
Lish, having been pretty damn excited about the fact that the water turns clear during the process, wanted in on the action, so I toted yarn and koolaid up to Seattle and dyed away while watching movies and Sunday night TV.
That round turned out pretty mediocre, so there was a second round last night.

	How it began I started out with two skeins of Knit Picks Bare- Merino Wool/Silk Fingering Weight (on the right. duh.). Much hilarity over "bare" and "fingering" ensued. I have very mature friends.
	an attempt at dying This was the first round of dying. I used 7 packets of unsweetened koolaid- 1 packet per ounce of yarn. This turned out to be no where near enough and the yarn ended up a coral color. Very pretty, but totally not what I was going for.
	second round of dying. 14 packets of koolaid this time. I wish I had gotten a picture of the coral color of the yarn the first time. oh well.
	Oooo purdy Now this is what black cherry should look like.
	The cool part Now this is the really cool part. If one were to actually make koolaid to drink, this amount of water would have about two packets. I'm sure you can envision the color of black cherry koolaid. This has FOURTEEN PACKETS of the drink mix we all know and love.
	It's Clear! And yet! The water is clear! The yarn soaks up ALL the dye in the koolaid. Pretty freaking rad.
	so clear Totally clear water. pretty red yarn.
	and pretty red pot :)
	cupcakes! what yarn dying project would be complete without cupcakes? These are what was in the oven while the dying was taking place.
	amazing cupcakes They also look like nipples.
	And the finished product: Black cherry koolaid yarn. It, and my whole apartment, smell like black cherry.

Yarn challah A little oranger than the color really is.

It still isn't as dark as I was expecting. I think the silk didn't take the dye as well as the wool. It is still pretty and perfectly acceptable. There is always the option of overdying the finished product once I knit it. It is hard to know how this is going to look once it's knit up.

Noro, hulahoops, "and whatnot"

...and whatnot" is one of the most incredibly irritating phrases IN THE WORLD. It seems to be everywhere these days and it drives me up the wall every time I hear or read it. I don't know why. There is really nothing about it that should irritate me, it just does.

I've decided that I need a giant hula hoop. 1. I would have amazing abs (they are sorely lacking now). and 2. I could get really good at it then light it on fire. Perhaps I should get out my staff every now and then before accumulating more things to light on fire.

I can't stop knitting Noro scarves and washcloths. I swore I would never knit a wash cloth. That was 7 of them ago. I guess everyone is getting washcloths for Christmas. I already know several are getting Noro scarves, but those take significantly longer and cost ahelluva lot more in yarn purchasing. It's actually kind of exciting that I have a bunch of Christmas presents already knitted and ready to give. Considering that I'm not going to have the money to purchase worthy presents, it's really nice to still be able to give my family things that are nice.

I have a Noro scarf and a Foliage hat for Eric (my sister's fiance). I made the hat out of Brown Donegal chunky Tweed so it's still somewhat masculine despite being lace. My sister is also getting a foliage hat, but it is in sky blue malabrigo- like knitting a cloud! I want to make her a scarf to match as well. The first things I ever knit were a super chunky scarf and hat set for my sister. They are well loved, but, damn, I knit so much better than that now!

My dad's BF is going to get a Noro scarf as well. My mom is getting Branching out (finally). All I can say is thank God for knitting. Not only do I have presents for people, but I have something to do between sending out resumes and going to worksource workshops.

Now if I could just find James' camera cable, I could post pics

Pardon me, I didn't knit that for you and Cotton-ease

This is probably only truly funny to the knit geeks, I think, but certainly at least amusing for anyone else.




In personal knitting news:
I'm finally making a half way decent looking baby sweater. The first one, while definitely a sweater, was barely fit for the sock monkey. This one should be a much more proper sweater. It is the Baby Sachiko Kimono Sweater and I'm making it light blue cotton-ease.

I am very impressed with the yarn. It's a 50/50 acrylic/cotton and really is easy to work with. It has far more give than most cotton and shapes up nicely without being limp. It's a little splitty, but that was only really an issue when I had to rip out one of the front panels and re-knit it (two right fronts! go me.). I'm hoping that the acrylic content is enough to be able to "kill" the yarn. The garter band decreases at the top of the front pull in a bit and I'd like to be able to block it out permanently. It is a baby sweater after all and will get a lot of washing (other awesome thing about the yarn: totally machine wash and dry-able).

I don't have pictures yet, but soon I hope. I'm on the first sleeve. I just need to make the other sleeve and stitch up the sides. Exciting!

Habitat

I'm making Brooklyn Tweed's Habitat Hat which is a study in cabling insanity. I love it. It is an amazing and intricate pattern. Now I've done cables before (they are super easy) but never from a chart. The chart for this is CRAZINESS, mostly because the finished product is craziness, but I figured it couldn't be any crazier than a lace chart which I have done before.

yeah… so it helps a lot if you follow the chart the correct direction. For some reason I read “read the chart from R to L” and thought “huh, so the opposite of a lace chart” despite the fact that R to L is definitely exactly the same direction as a lace chart. 7 rows of backwards cabling later, I was reading messages from Satan in yarn and had nothing even remotely resembling cables. It was like seed stitch's crack baby.

So yesterday, after hours of meticulously following the chart BACKWARDS. I realized how wrong it was and ripped back to the increase row. I started the cables all over again. It actually looks like cables this time… and isn’t telling me to sell my soul to the devil and shoot up my knitting group. So that's good.

Cosing in on the end of the Ravelympics

The other night I had an anxiety dream. You know the ones: you show up at school totally unprepared for a test, or you are sitting at your desk at work and realize you have no pants on, One of those.

I dreamed I was wearing pleat front pants.

That's right my appalling and mortifying dream was about PLEAT FRONT PANTS. I am so gay.


The ravelympics (go team girly-knitters! for I am going to fail you)end tomorrow (edit: ok I am lame they totally don't). Oh boy, I didn't even come CLOSE to finishing the projects I wanted to finish. I entered only WIIP Wrestling with the idea that I would all of my currently unfinished projects. This is so not going to happen.
Branching Out will be finished. I only need a few more repeats on that one. I am resisting the urge to bind off now. I made my last lace project too short resulting in my mom using it as a headband in stead of a scarf. It's getting used and loved so I'm ok with it, but it just sort of highlighted how I need to make this one significantly longer. It won't be blocked by the end of the day tomorrow (I need blocking wires), but the knitting will be done.

Hemlock Ring is no where even close to being done. Not only did I grossly underestimate the amount of kniltting still left to do on the beast, but I ran out of yarn. I have to order more yarn (first praying that there is some of the same colorway available) and then knit on that for another month or so. As big as it is, it isn't a project I can take places with me.

There is some slight hope for the baby sweater. It was all knit and partially seemed, but the sleeves ended up not being the right size so I have to reknit them. Lame. I guess I should get to work.

Noro scarf #2 and Turn A Square

I just finished my second Noro scarf. I love this pattern; it's so easy to carry along with me since it is pretty mindless knitting and I can put it down at any point with out having to worry about finishing a row or marking my place in a pattern. I may or may not have bought a bag of 10 skeins of Noro Silk Garden in an awesome online sale. MORE SCARVES! They are just so fun and easy to knit and soo pretty. Added benefit: I have a Christmas present already done and it isn't even August yet.

I've several projects that I haven't touched in a while that will be my Ravelympis WIP Wrestling projects: Hemlock ring, Branching out and Baby Yeti (ok that one is newer, but is still a WIP). After those I think I may knit Turn a Square to go with the gift scarf. That looks like a another good take along pattern and, oh, it's gorgeous.

I'm making a sweater!

an infant sized sweater but it is still a sweater and I am not crying over nor cursing it. Go me.

It is a really easy pattern: Baby Yeti. It's a cute little v-neck hoodie. I'd recommend it for even the earliest of beginners. The instructions are very clear and it's a really fast knit. I'm more than half way through even though I started only a week ago and haven't had a lot of time to knit recently.

I'm using very different yarn than the pattern calls for, a lighter (bulky v. super bulky) wool-cotton blend, in order for mine to be more versatile than the super warm sweater it would be otherwise. Mine is certainly not going to be yeti-like, but the yarn is super soft and cute pale yellow.

Blurry cell phone picture of the back which I realize looks like a dish cloth, not a sweater.




also: I totally gave up on the socks. I never want to see them again.

I started another noro scarf actually out of noro this time. The first one is Plymouth Boku, which I love but is only 5% silk and the Noro Silk Garden is a glorious 45%. I got about 8 inches or so into the scarf and suddenly realized I was knitting with two different sized needles! This would be only slightly amusing if I hadn't taken the first scarf off the needles in order to start making the second. I knit about four feet of scarf without ever realizing I was using one size 7 and one size 8. wtf?

I can't even find another straight 7 OR 8 so I stuck a rubber band on the end of a US8 dpn. So far it doesn't seem to be making all that much of a difference. The scarf has gotten about half an inch wider but not too bad. I briefly entertained the idea of trying to find size 7.5s or some mm equivalent, but dude, that takes, like, effort.

The first one in Plymouth Boku



edit: I'm not sure why I didn't just keep using one 7 and one 8. I ripped back to continue how I started. The difference in the fabric with 2 size 7s or 2 size 8s bothered me.