Niels was finally well enough to be willing to model his new sweater today. Not well enough to go to school, but well enough for modeling.
He loves his new sweater, even without the tie.
niels’ sweater
skate
yarn swapping and sweater finishing
Purlescence had a yarn swap today and I made out like a bandit.
I also brought home one skein of yarn that I had to pay for: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Luscious silk in the sapphire colorway. I've been lusting after this yarn for a while and I have plan for it, so home it came. This photo doesn't do it justice, believe me.
I had all the yarn out on the floor in the office (an advantage of cleaning up the office is that I can use the floor, even if it's just for poorly lit photo shoots). Stefan decided that all the yarn spread out looked like a garden and started arranging it and stuffing some of the balls into shoes. The ones he was stuffing into shoes are actually sock yarn. Smart kid, eh?
The last thing I brought home was two grocery bags full of sparkly, fluffy, shiny yarns for the kids in the Textiles class to use for weaving. Kids love sparkly, fluffy, shiny yarn for weaving. We found last time that the ribbon yarn works particularly well because it lays flat and makes the project faster and the stuff we had was variegated which gives the piece more interest for the kids. I think they'll love the stuff I got.
While I was waiting for the end of the swap (to collect the stuff for school) I finished sewing the hem of Niels' sweater. It's all finished except for the i-cord tie. I am not going to make the i-cord tie, though. I am going to go to JoAnn and buy some sort of cord for the tie. I don't see a point in knitting four feet of i-cord so that one foot of it shows. Also, it seems likely, as Anabel pointed out, that Niels will decide he needs a rope for something and pull it out. At least if I have store bought cord, I can go buy another. PIctures of the sweater will come later, after it has blocked and the recipient has recovered from his current flu-y illness and is in a sweater modelling mood.
I don't know how many yards of yarn I took over because some of it was old yarn from my grandmother and I didn't know how many yards it was. Not counting that yarn, and including a fluffy yarn I'm donating to the weaving projects, 2274 yards of yarn left my house today. Unfortunately, 3417 yards came in. That's a net gain of 1147 yards. I did put a few more balls of yarn into Niels' sweater but I thought my stash total would go up. I figured out why it dropped so much between my last two calculations: Ravelry changed the way they count your yarn so that if you put something in a project it subtracts it from the total in your stash. Even so, my total has dropped again and I'm not sure how. I now have 43867.3 yards or 24.93 of yarn that's down another 6 miles and over my goal for the year. That seems wrong somehow. I must be missing something. I'll figure it out eventually, I suppose. I'm still going to aim for using up 5 more miles of yarn this year, because I think I can! I already used up almost a mile in Niels' sweater.
hats and mitts and WIPs, oh my
I need to set one day as my blog posting day and just talk about whatever it is I'm doing, otherwise I think I just posted and then it's been more than two weeks since my last real post! Oops.
Anyway, after my last post I knit one more Oh, Honey hat (Ravelry details), this time out of Calmer. I got some Rowan Cashcotton to make one for Christy by request, and then I appear to be done with the hats. I seem to get addicted to patterns and just have to knit them a certain number of times to get them out of my system, more on that later.
After the hat I had some secret knitting going on. I decided to knit Cookie something for her birthday. I started with a hat (Ravelry details) but that was done too fast so I picked out a gauntlet pattern that kind of went with the hat (Ravelry details) but then I was totally powerless to stop myself from knitting a pair for me (Ravelry details).
I'm modelling Cookie's pair in the first picture of the gauntlets there, I only knit myself one pair. I find it baffling though, I tend to fall for these patterns. Granted, usually it's small, instant gratification patterns like, oh, say, bunnies, or dish cloths, hats or gauntlets. I just knit and knit and knit until I feel done. I wonder what that says about me, and if it's something good or that I'm a crazy person. I think I don't want to know.
In WIP news, I'm still working on Niels striped cabled sweater. I'm on the second sleeve, so I have to knit that, the hood and then the sewing up begins. Oh, and the ends. I'm not sure it will be done by Christmas. I'm fairly sure it will not, which is probably for the best because then I'd feel bad that I didn't make something for Stefan.
I started Rogue for my mom. It was secret there for a little while, but then I had her try it on, which was good! It was too small. Darnit. I had measured her and decided on a size but then talked myself into knitting one size down. I think I wanted to get it done faster. Ah well. I ripped it out last Thursday and cast on again. I haven't gotten very far. I have until the end of January if I want to have it done for her birthday.
Before that, I have a baby shower to attend and I want to knit an Avery sweater. Two actually, because she's having twins. Maybe I should stick with the bunnies and give her the sweaters after the babies are born since I plan to make them the right size for the fall or so, and these two are due in March. We'll see.
I have a lot on my plate! Wish me luck!
lots of wips, no fos
I have been a bad blogger. Part of the reason for that is that I now have an abundance of projects on the needles and I am not being monogamous with any one project, therefore nothing is getting finished. So, we are going to have a parade of WIPs. First up is the project I started first, my Woven Ridge socks. I started them (and completed the first one) while we were in the Netherlands in the summer. I cast on right away for the second one but it's been languishing ever since.
I like these socks and I want to wear them, so I need to finish them! I have made some progress in the past couple of weeks, so that's good. Also, Cookie gave me some Sock Candy for catsitting for her cat and I am itching to cast on with that… or my Panda Soy. So much yarn, so little time. Anyway, I also got some Bamboo yarn from Jeni's going away, she was destashing. I had to tackle Lisa for it, but she was nice enough to give it up.
You can't see very well in the picture, but that is four hanks of Sock Candy. So either I'm going to make two pairs of socks or I need another project. I was thinking about a scarf. I hope that two would be enough, because I do really want to make socks with some of it. The bamboo is from Yarn Place. Freecia (I think?) mentioned that they make socks from it but it's 100% bamboo with absolutely no give, so I'm not sure that is going to be my plan. We'll see.
Next up in the WIP parade is Niels' sweater. I finished the front and back and started the first sleeve but then I got distracted because I need to recalculate the decreases. His arms are much longer than the pattern size and I don't want to have all the decreases before the elbow and then the whole top straight or something. It's getting close, though! Other than all the ends to weave in, of course. Maybe I should focus on finishing it for Christmas. Maybe.
Last, but very muc not least is my Tapestry Cowl in calmer. I love this pattern, am entranced with the technique and I am loving how it's turning out. It needs a lot of focus though, to follow the totally non-repeating chart.
Also, the farther I get into the more the thought of having to kitchener stitch the front to the back looms over my head. That's 110 stitches of each color! I don't generally mind kitchener stitch, I have to say. I think that comes from having started my knitting career on diaper soakers. Theresa and Pam helped me to cut my teeth on knitting in a small, managable format. Theresa, by having very clear instructions in her patterns and Pam by being my friend and encouraging me as well as including me in all of her classes on her forums. I wouldn't be the knitter I am today if it weren't for them. Anyway, when you knit a soaker you have to kitchener the crotch closed. Luckily, though, you use large yarn and it's generally not very many stitches. I'm not sure I'd be so comfortable with the technique if I had started on sock toes with their tiny tiny yarn. This yarn is fairly tiny but it's the sheer volume of stitches to be sewn together that really makes me nervous. I should stop worrying and just knit, right? I'm only on row 20 and I have to do 64 rows of chart and then a few plain rows before the finishing starts.
So, since I got new yarn and have finished at least one project I thought I'd check my stash totals. I am currently up to 60889.6 yards of yarn or 34.6 miles. Um. Oops. That's up a mile since last time I calculated. I haven't purchased any yarn, it's just been finding me. Does that make it better? I didn't think so either. In the interest of decreasing the stash, I put my Regal Silk into my Sell or Trade Stash on Ravelry. I have five hanks of it that I was going to use to make a silk corset for myself. I've basically decided that if I do end up making the silk corset, It's not going to be out of variegated yarn. It's really pretty yarn, though, but I don't know else to do with it. I'm asking for $75 for the whole lot, plus shipping. You know you want to give this gorgeous yarn a home, right? If not, you must have a friend who does, of course. (Please buy my yarn.)
it’s all seasons cotton all the time around here
You saw that I got All Seasons Cotton for my birthday and I have been knitting Manon in All Seasons Cotton. Since I finished the knitting portion of Manon I cast on for another sweater for Niels in All Seasons Cotton. It's a cream and green striped cabled sweater with a hood and a kangaroo pocket. That's a lot of knitting. Good thing he's relatively small, and I love him lots. The back is coming along nicely. I think I need three more stripes before I'm ready to shape the underarms.
I've been sort of completely ignoring Manon. I sewed in the first sleeve and it stinks. I need to take it out and redo it. I think I need to practice more on my sewing in of set-in sleeves. Rogue worked nicely but so far I haven't found it that easy or fun to do. Bah.
I also tried to crochet a hat for my friend's daughter this week and it was enormous! I'm having an off week, other than Niels' sweater, which continues to be lovely, I think.
the sheep free knitter 