Today was one of those days where time gets away from me and there aren’t enough hours to get everything done. Who am I kidding, every day is like that. I gave in to not getting much done and took the kids to the Tech museum since our plans to go tomorrow changed.
The kids love catching butterflies.
Meanwhile, in knitting news: I finished the cuff!
Yay! Second sleeve, ho!
I’ve been trying to think of something clever to post about all day. I’ve pretty much failed. My son survived science camp. I survived not having him here as did his little brother (and dad, obviously).
Someone did point out that the picture of my sweater doesn’t really look like a sleeve so I thought I should give you a link to the finished sweater. If you’re on Ravelry, you can visit the pattern page and look at all the various finished sweaters. If you’re not the sweater I’m making (Conic) is the last one on Cookie’s page about the ebook, the green one. I actually love that green color but it’s one of those colors I love but can’t wear. Also, I had this yarn already, and it’s not green.
I’m down to the cuff, but I didn’t take a picture. There will be a new picture tomorrow, I promise.
I have not a lot to say today except: look!
My first sleeve is almost done! I have a few more rounds, one more decrease and then I knit the cuff. Let’s not talk about how I will have to cast on 140 and pick up 140 more other stitches after that. (And knit rounds that are 280 stitches.) That is a discussion for another day.
I have made some progress with my Conic sweater! First I swatched and washed the swatches. (Are you impressed? You should be.)
I thought it would be pretty important with this yarn because it’s fairly rustic and crunchy I was hoping (really really hoping) that the yarn would relax and soften a bit with a wash and I was right. It’s very drapey now.
I couldn’t get the gauge the yarn in the pattern has so I decided to knit one size smaller and hope for the best. Well, after knitting a few rows I took it to knit night and Veronica reminded me that I was knitting the back panel top-down and I compared mine to hers and realized that mine was much too big. I pulled it off and cast on again for the smallest size (two sizes smaller than the size I’d like it to be). I think it’s working out.
I am glad that we’ll be blocking the back before picking up stitches because I didn’t really pay attention if the swatch grew lengthwise when I washed it. Oops.
In spite of this being a sheep-free knitting blog, I can be a bit of a sheep. Three of the six people at knitting last night were making Conic, so I’m joining Cookie’s knit along. I’m going to try to make it with some Henry’s Attic soie naturelle that I dyed with oxblood Procion dyes several years ago. Here’s a terrible picture I took when it was drying.
I’m going to try to get a better picture when I wind it up but I have a feeling that it is one of those colors that is really hard to photograph well. I am not sure if the yarn will work for the project or not. The weight required (light fingering) is one where the acceptable non-wool substitutions that I’ve found have been prohibitively expensive. For example, Neighborhood Fiber Co has a light fingering silk that looks gorgeous but would cost me more than $120 for the amount needed. Oops. I might try a single skein of that yarn another time for something smaller. It’s so pretty!
Enough of the yarn lusting. I’m going to go wind up the yarn that I dyed all by myself! I’m sure it will be lovely. Right? (Say right.)
This morning, Cookie and I did this:
I think she said she had 240 books signed and padded and I put them in envelopes, she and I taped them and I labeled a few before I had to go off to pick up the kids. I think she said she could use my help for one more day of this kind of packing up and her preorders would be done. I have to say that I see the value in having someone else to do all of that for you! Although I think her having complete creative control over her book was a good thing. Have I mentioned that the book is gorgeous? I know I have.
As promised, I took progress photos. First of wedge.
I’m pretty close to the heel, I think. This yarn is turning out to go farther than I expected. Thanks to Jen C, I can whip out my cool tiny scale and weigh the ball at intervals to check how far into I am. I assume I’ll need slightly more than half of the ball for the foot. I guess I’ll find out the hard way if that is wrong assumption.
Next up is my younger nieces cardigan.
I cast on that sleeve this afternoon and knit most of it while watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with my older son. I had to stop knitting to comfort him at one point. Even though he read the book he was still sad! He’s such a sweetie.
Today my younger son asked me to knit him a baby doll friend for his other doll. We have a gorgeous Waldorf doll that I bought for my older son when his brother was born but no one loves that one. Poor ignored doll. Anyway, I’m thinking of making this baby doll for him. i don’t know what yarn to use, though. I love the Lion organic cotton for the hair though. So cute! I’m thinking this should be a birthday gift because I don’t want him to think that I can just whip up a babydoll at a moments notice. That gives me until mid-January. We’ll see how that goes!
My sock is all fixed now.
I also wanted to take a new picture because Jen mentioned at knitting that the yarn looked like a totally different color in person than it did in the previous picture I posted. I took this one under my Ott Lite lamp, so it should be closer to true color.
As I suspected, I have no problems with the wraps in the decrease section of the sock if I do the pattern correctly instead of assuming too many things and messing up completely. So there you go: if you read the pattern right, your sock will turn out much better. Who knew.
I really lied a couple of days ago, because here’s what I did this morning.
I helped Cookie pack her pre-ordered books for shipping. I happened to have a day off from working in S’s preschool, so I was able to give her a hand. She has a lot of signing, packaging and shipping ahead of her!
I’ve finished two of the wedges of my wedge sock. I like the way it’s turning out. The only challenge is how the stitches get stretched out when they’re wrapped for shortrows in the cotton yarn. It only seems to happen on one side, so maybe the problem is how I’m doing it. I had to fiddle with the first set to hide them and I’ll have to keep trying as I go to make them even with the other knitting.
I think I’m making good progress. This means, of course, that my other knitting is being ignored. Oops.
I guess I lied in my previous post. I’m still talking about Cookie because I was gripped with the urge to knit her Wedge socks from the new book. I decided to knit them out of my Blue Moon FIber Arts mill-dyed Sock Candy. I was very excited to see that they were making mill-dyed Sock Candy since I had some bad fading experiences with the hand-dyed version. I love the yarn and am hoping that the mill-dyed one holds the color better. So far, though, I’m irritated by the yarn because of how it is put up. Look at the diameter of this hank!
That’s my swift opened as wide as will go, and it wasn’t wide enough because at the end of the hank the yarn slipped down and something somewhat tragic happened.
It was worse than it looks there. The yarn had wrapped around the bottom of the swift because it slipped down only partially and the swift kept spinning, wrapping the yarn around the post of the swift. Luckily, I was able to untangle it and was more careful with the second hank. Ugh. I feel like I am cursed when it comes to Sock Candy. We’ll see if these at least hold up better! They still warn about dark colors fading on the label. Well, still is the wrong word because there was no warning on the previous labels but they certainly did fade!
In any case, the yarn is all wound and is becoming the Wedge sock.
So far, so good!
It has only taken me three days to realize I didn’t post a link to where you can buy Cookie’s new book. She self-published so if you order it online it’s better to order from her (also she sends them to Amazon but she hasn’t done that yet so if you’re ordering now you’ll get it faster from her). She has said that she’d rather you support your local yarn store than buy it from Amazon even though the same amount of money gets back to her either way. She’s also having a Book Launch event at Bobbin’s Nest Studio on December 4.
In going to her site to get those links I found out why she signed my book in Finnish. That’s what I get for not reading her new blog regularly.
Okay, I’m done advertising for Cookie, I just didn’t want anyone left out in the cold if they felt they had to have that lovely book I posted of which I posted a photo but about which I didn’t say much else. I blame the tequila again. Such a convenient scapegoat.
the sheep free knitter 