Projects a'flying, but stash is mostly packed!

Well, this past weekend was a packing frenzy at the ol' homestead. We got tons done; and thankfully, I put my stash in a separate room in plastic tubs so I can dive into it. Which is a good thing, considering I am knitting along with my knitting cohort Melissa - we are making the Many Buttoned vest from Folk Vests; I'm not sure what yarn I'm going to use yet but I'm hoping for something in the stash. It'd be very nice if the yarn I got for the now deceased "Lili's Vest" from Knitpicks worked for this one...ugh.

I'm also knitting along the Knitted Simple Bodice with the folks over at the Sexy Knitters Club (which I'm now a member of) - it's drop dead sexy and designed by Stephanie Japel, one of my favorite knitting designers. The pattern is here - http://www.stitchdiva.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=SDS-026 - and any ideas for inexpensive substitution yarns would be welcomed :)

Lastly, this weekend I finished my first sock for my Daddy - here are three photos of it:
http://xilet.dnsalias.org:8000/~xilet/sarah/bill_sock1.jpg
http://xilet.dnsalias.org:8000/~xilet/sarah/bill_sock2.jpg
http://xilet.dnsalias.org:8000/~xilet/sarah/bill_sock3.jpg
They're taken on my feet, which are a bit smaller than his, so ignore the bagginess. I'm pretty amusingly pleased with these!

We're moving! A larger house...a room just for crafty things...and - gasp! - more stash storage!

Thankfully I keep most of my stash in bins that will make the moving easy; I just have to box up my patterns, books, & needles. Then again I have four bookcases full of books that have to be moved, and too much stuff in general. I think it's time to Freecycle & Goodwill some of it.

Knitting progress:

I'm still 2/3 finished with the second of four squares; gah.
I have to tink & re-knit four rows of toe stitches on the fixation socks, then they're done.
I'm knitting the heel flap for the DK weight merino socks for Daddy - I LOVE this heel pattern (k1, slip 1, repeat). It's nice and dense and quite pretty, too.
I have two rows of the Lili's vest complete; I just don't think I did that first one correctly so I'm holding off until I do a little more research.
I'm getting ready to cast on to do the shawl for Cherry's wedding present - I'm making it in a lovely DK weight pure white wool yarn from elann.com, and am going to try working it up on size 9 needles to see how it goes.

So...we'll see how the knitting progresses during the move...oy!

Crafting weekend was a great success! At one point or another, we had knitting, spinning, quilting, chain maille making, papermaking, and electronics work going on!

My personal accomplishments list includes:

Finishing off a cabled afghan square
Getting 1/2 finished on another afghan square
Starting a sock in DK weight superwash merino, and getting within 20 rows of completing the leg
Weaving in the ends on the sweater
Finishing knitting and felting a bowl in black Paton's wool (I didn't like the shape, so I'll be looking for other patterns to help with that part)
Gauge swatching for a pair of fingerless gloves for Jim

I'm still almost done with the leg on the second sock for John, as well, and I hope to be starting the heel on that by the weekend!

My fingers hurt now. But it's a good, busy, successful hurt! I'll work on getting pics up soon.

First of all...YAY! I won some Fleece Artist Wensleydale Top in Sherbet - 100g worth - because I donated money to the Dyana Afghan Women's Fund as part of my participation in the Tour de Fleece! I'd encourage you to take a look at the DAWF and consider donating some money their way - they are working to encourage women's literacy and eventually to give them opportunities to be more self-supporting through their handcrafts and other opportunities - their website is http://www.dawf.ca/ .

I've got two braids of Fleece Artist roving at home that are in my "oh dear lord I want to get to these SOON" pile; I can't wait to see just what color "Sherbet" turns out to be! The dye work that they do is just delicious. Yet another good reason to move to Canada :)

I'm doing some "wanking" knitting. Nothing big going on the needles, until I can get my stash sorted out & see what I have enough yarn to make. I did get some superwash merino from Tom - he brought me five skeins of a vanity lable yarn, I believe the actual manufacturer is in Canada but he got it from a shop in Cape Cod, MA. So far, I've tossed some of it on some size 2 needles to start up a pair of socks for daddy; the leg is going in a 4 X 4 rib pattern. I'll get an inch or so in, and decide if I want to keep going with it.

I'm a little over half of the leg complete for the second of the colonial blue socks for Scherz. Getting a ride to and from the office a few times a week gives me some good working time on these!

I also started working on the first felted bowl last night, with some worsted weight Paton's yarn on size 11 DPN's. It's clumsy feeling to have such heavy needles (they are the white thick ones) with such a light yarn. But we'll see how it plays out. It looks like it'll be a quick knit - five inches, then decrease & finish the bottom, then felt. It'll probably hit the machine this weekend. Then...well, then we'll see what it comes out like!

That's about it. It's just too damn hot to knit much of anything larger than a handful of yarn's worth. Fortunately tomorrow it'll be back down in the 90's.

Good grief, did I just say that?

Rambing and planning

I'm at this interesting point in my knitting, where I'm working on things that are all almost complete. I have four squares to knit - one is half completed. I am 28 rows from finishing my sweater (approximately 1 week if I stay on track). I'm on the second sock of the Fixation pair - and two inches down on the cuff now (I'd estimate two to three weeks to complete). So still in the "to be done" list:

-Pair of half-fingered gloves & matching scarf for friend Jim who got me the yarn to knit them with
-The sweater vest from Knitpicks - I'd like to get this one done by the time fall rolls around
-Pair of socks for Daddy - no pattern or yarn picked out yet but I'm working on it - he wants thick wool socks, so I'm going to go through the stash & see what I can find. If nothing is in the stash, I might save up and pick up a skein or two of Trekking & make his socks out of that.
-Pair of socks for Joel. No clue yet what he'll want but I'm sure I've got something appropriate in the stash!

Toss in the assorted xmas presents, to include a sweater for the wanna-nephew (he's walking now!), various & sundry felted bowls, some handspun rug yarn for Tom's mother, and some scarves / hats for whomever. I think I'm booked through the end of the year now!

Project Photos - mostly mine, but one of Joel's too

Here is the first sock for Scherz...made out of Cascade Fixation. I only ripped the heel out to redo it three times:
http://xilet.dnsalias.org:8000/~fortryll/knitting/sock1.jpg

And my Dream Swatch scarf, knit out of a lovely dark teal 100% silk yarn:
http://xilet.dnsalias.org:8000/~fortryll/knitting/scarf.jpg

Joel's first mitten - the second one is still MIA:
http://xilet.dnsalias.org:8000/~fortryll/knitting/glove1.jpg

My three-ply alpaca - the other (much larger) batch is on the niddy noddy. This is my Tour de Fleece project which was successfully completed, even if it's not quite as good as I'd hoped it would be:
http://xilet.dnsalias.org:8000/~fortryll/knitting/yarn1.jpg

A previous yarn project that I just got photos of - two ply mohair in burgundy & green:
http://xilet.dnsalias.org:8000/~fortryll/knitting/yarn2.jpg

And, finally, my sweater - still about thirty rows from completion, but at least it's not all stockinette now!
http://xilet.dnsalias.org:8000/~fortryll/knitting/sweater.jpg

TdF

I have successfully completed the Tour de Fleece, despite drive bands breaking, illness in the family, trips out of town, and spinning the wrong direction for an entire bobbin.

Pics later!

First off, it's been a crazy few weeks, but I'm happily getting some knitting done.

Sweater - we're progressing! I'm about 6 inches (out of 18) into the second sleeve. The first sleeve is happily waiting it's mate, and already attached to the body of the sweater. I hope to have the sleeve finished by this coming weekend.

Socks - have turned the heel (after having to yank it out *again*) and am working on the instep decreases. Remind me never to work with Cascade Fixation again. I *hate* this.

Scarf - Almost finished with my Dream Swatch scarf - I'm using some dark teal-ish silk yarn and size 5 needles. It looks yummy.

I got some info on other knitting resources this past weekend, and will be looking into those.

On a totally different subject, I don't like the new Knitty. It's all hats & socks & fingerless gloves. And cutesies (flowers, and wings, fergoshsake). Bah!

So, I've actually been productive lately!

I finished a small drop stitch pattern head band out of Crystal Palace Mikado ribbon yarn, and am about 2/3 finished with the Dream Swatch head wrap / scarf (knitting it in a lovely dark teal 100% silk yarn).

I also finished off the first sleeve of the sweater; I'll cast on for the second sleeve this weekend. Then the yoke! Yay!

I'm off to New Jersey this weekend, so I'm taking the socks (I started the heel, and am making the heel in cream rather than the colonial blue that the rest of the socks is in), the rest of this little head wrap, *possibly* the sweater...and what else? It's about time for another project to go on the needles. Actually I'll probably do the squares for my square swap for this month - they tend to be fast projects and are fun to play with. I am thinking that I'll do one in intarsia, and possibly one in a slip stitch pattern.

A milestone ...

I have FINALLY finished the body of my sweater - tomorrow perhaps I'll get a pic of the work in progress. I'm using the bottom up, knit in the round pattern in Ann Budd's book, and using the "stripes" from the cardigan to dress up the yoke. I pondered doing a color, but since I'm making this out of pencil roving and this is the only color I have, the texture pattern will work much better.

I also finally got done tinking the stitches from the heel of the sock I've been working on.

I'm going to camp next week and I'm trying to plan out some small projects I can take with me. So far I'm thinking about knitting up a headband or two (my hair is getting longer and curlier, and I need the fast solution to a bad hair day!). Beyond that, I have no idea. I'm just brainstorming :)

Gee, it's been a while since I updated...

And sadly, not much has changed. At least as far as my WIP's.

I ended up frogging the heel on the first sock; I suck at short rows, and will really need to watch someone doing it before I can grasp the whole wrap concept. I'm going to just do my standard heel flap for these. I did call Uniquities about the sock class that they're teaching in July, but sadly they teach only the heel flap. I wish they'd offer a class in different sock part styles - from cast on's to heels and insteps to toes. Maybe I'll drop the owner an email about it.

Speaking of Uniquities, Joel and I will be taking the two-color knitting class starting a week from Monday. Two Monday nights in a row, we'll be learning techniques in striping, stranded knitting, and intarsia. I'm *really* looking forward to it...I've been wanting to learn color knitting for a while, and this will be fun and helpful (not trying to learn by reading, but by watching & doing).

The sweater is coming along. I'm 13" in to the body; 15 - 16" total is where I'll bind off for the sleeves and start the yoke. At least THEN I'll be doing something other than 168 stitches per round in only knit stitching. Gah! Thankfully I have a little burst of inspiration to work on it now that there's a changeover point so close.

I am also working on a whipped together baby blanket - 5 strands of fingering / baby weight yarns (all acrylic - four of Jamie Baby from Lion Brand, and one nameless yellow four ply) knit up on size 15 needles using a diagonal baby blanket pattern from one of the knitting books around the house. The baby most likely arrived last Friday, so we (my co-workers and I) will send it to her house. I hope that she likes it. I don't like working with all these strands at the same time. Especially ackrillick.

I'm ignoring the afghan, because it deserves it. ~snort~

I got a pattern for Lili's Vest from Knitpicks; I think this is going to go on the needles after my sweater comes off of 'em. Maybe earlier. It's gorgeous, and I like the cable and two color detailing.

Lastly, I'm planning on participating in the Tour de Fleece (think Knitting Olympics, but for spinners). Theoretically I'll be making my first three ply yarn. I'm going to go through the roving later today and see which one I'll be working with. Yay!

This past weekend was a wildly fun one, as far as the knitting stuff goes.

I added another inch or so to my Un-Spun sweater - we're at about six inches so far. I really like working with this yarn!

I turned the heel on the socks I've been working on (http://www.knitlist.com/01gift/matts-fixation-socks.htm - Matt's Fixation Socks) and I've been having challenges with them. It's a different heel configuration than what I had done before, and I have already had to rip the heels back out & am looking for more info before re-trying it.

I also went to Richmond yesterday for lunch with my mother, her boyfriend, and my leather daddy. Daddy picked up two partially complete projects at the flea market - one still on the needles - that I can frog and re-use. The best one was of a cotton/linen blend yarn - I'm thinking 14 skeins were in there! He also gave me what looks like about a dozen or so balls of really bright turquoise mercerized cotton. He said when he talked with the woman who was selling it, she was trying to give him all this information, and he said "all I know is she doesn't want acrylic - if it's not acrylic, I'll buy it". He did great :)

I also found a new-to-me magazine called Wild Fibers. It has some incredible articles on all sorts of fiber animals and techniques. I'm deeply in love with it and will be getting a subscription - and sharing it with some friends.

Ok, so I'm starting a knitting only blog so that folks who don't much care about my personal life, yet want to peek at my knitting & spinning work, can do that. I hope I remember to update it on a regular basis.

Currently on the needles:

1. First sock of the pair of Matt's Fixation Socks (http://www.knitlist.com/01gift/matts-fixation-socks.htm), using Elann's knockoff of Cascade Fixation in a colonial blue color. I'm about three inches into the sock leg; so far I'm doing a few new stitches and I'm doing this sock on 2 circs, as opposed to 5 dpn's (my usual).

2. Green sweater from Ann Budd's Knitters Book of Sweater Patterns (I'm knitting from the bottom up on #8 circular addi turbo needles); I'm using "Unspun" from Fingerlakes (it's a pencil roving which they recommend using two strands at a time). It's giving me a very soft, springy, lightweight fabric; there are a few color "hiccups" but other than that the green is very lovely. I'm leaving the hiccups as is, so that there will be some "handmade" look to it. Currently I'm about 5 inches up on it, so there's still quite a way to go.

3. The Awful Awfghan, knitted up in Lite 'n Lofty (a mistake purchase from my early days of knitting). I'm knitting 3 ft. by 1 ft. panels, which I'll seam together & make into a lap / sofa throw. It's an exercise in patience but all in all I think it will be rather pretty (and most importantly will get this crap OUT of my stash). I'm on the third of six panels.

Maybe some photos in my next post!