Thursday, September 28, 2006

Yes, there has been knitting this summer.

Three pairs of socks, a purse, a sweater and some cell phone cozies.


This pair is the basic sock pattern in Cat Bordhi's "Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles." In retrospect, I didn't really need this book and I find it annoying that she doesn't give more detailed instruction on some things. I think she fibbed on one of her socks too; I swear the winged foot socks look like they have a short-row heel in the picture, but the instructions are for a heel-flap. Anyway, I really liked the pattern. This is actually the second pair I made from this pattern. Imagine these in stripes of pink, blue, and green instead of red, yellow, and blue. I gave that pair to my mom before taking a picture. What was I thinking? I hadn't originally intended them for her, but they turned out a little small for me.



These are from a Leisure Arts publication, "Learn to Knit Socks," available at your local Joann's probably. The pattern is This Little Pinky. There's a bit of a lacy thing going on in the leg. This is the pair the first of which was pictured in an entry back in June. I constructed them totally differently. The first was a traditional, cuff down, heel flap pattern. On the second one I started at the toe and did "Cat's turned toe" from SSOTCK, worked the foot normally to the heel, taught myself to do a short-row heel with the help of an online tutorial, then worked up the leg and used kind of an invisible, almost kitchener stitch-like bind off. I don't know what the official name for the bind off is, but I found it on knittinghelp.com.


This is Lucy Bag #5. I still haven't located #1. This is the one from Paton's Classic that I intended to replace #1 since I can't find it.



These are cell phone cozies. I adapted a pattern from a kids knitting book. Then I adapted it further to start from an invisible cast on and knit it in the round rather than flat with seamed sides. Don't like seaming. The yarn is Knitpicks Memories in Red Hat. I specifically picked this colorway because I intend these to be sold at the extension homemakers' holiday festival this year, and lots of the extension homemakers are Red Hat ladies. Other members of the extension chorus are making more of these in other colors and also in crochet instead of knit.




And the sweater. I liked this pattern. It was in a little Paton's ad booklet in Vogue last fall or winter. The pattern called for Paton's Divine, but I used Joann's Sensations Angel Hair. It turned out ok. It's very warm so it will be more of a jacket type sweater for wearing outside this fall rather than a cozy wearing around the house sweater. I learned that I really don't like seaming. I will either stick to in the round sweaters or adapt them for minimal seaming. I just need a little more experience. I could not have made up the adapting as I went along because this yarn did not frog well. Trust me.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Gettin' busy with the ball winder or Raiders of the Lost Acrylic

So I was making grocery bag "yarn" yesterday and had the ballwinder out. My acrylic stash--or part of it...if I'm being honest there are probably 6-10 skeins of acrylic in the downstairs closet with the "good" yarn--started calling to me to be organized and rescued from moldering away in a bin in the master closet. Most of this stash of yarn I've had for 10 years or so--let's call them "the crochet years"-- back when I was still doing almost all crochet and no knitting:



This is the stash after much time with the ballwinder:



Some lovely UFOs I came across along the way:

My dear friend Rebecca, when she found out she was pregnant with her son (I think he's about 9 now), was into all the latest research about stimulating babies' eyes with black and white and polka dots. I was asked to make a baby blanket with black and white. *twitch* I made two attempts. I tried, Beck, I really tried! See, here's the proof!

I'm thinking about sending these to her so she can make something out of them. Maybe a doll blanket for her daughter. I think either one would make a nice stole; they're just long enough. Anyway, I'm going to send her the guilt and get it out of my house! That poor baby never did get an afghan from me. :(

I was going to make this scrap yarn afghan for a friend and use up all the scraps in my stash. The pattern was going to require I make 803 little squares. Yeah, I got bored. In the "after" shot above there's a Payless Shoe Source bag stuffed with the squares and the yarn for joining. Pictured here are a completed strip of squares and a strip in the process of being joined together.



These are some strips I started when I got tired of the little granny squares:



The only things I completed the first time I tried to learn to knit were dishcloths. This square is the only thing I completed the second time I tried to learn to knit. It was supposed to be just one square of an entire afghan of squares. Yeah, it's still the only square.



I found this square that was supposed to be part of an afghan. I think I'll make the leaves, add a border and sew it to the back of the above knitted square. Instant seasonal pillow cover!



Things I've learned from this endeavor:
1. I have an embarrassing amount of white and off white yarn.
2. I bought THREE balls of acrylic sport weight yarn to make that garter stitch scarf back when I first tried to learn to knit. WTF am I going to do with THREE balls of acrylic sport weight yarn? IN BLACK?? I have sworn off black altogether so this creates a bit of a quandry. If anyone wants some sport weight acrylic black yarn, give me a holler.
3. I actually used to do some pretty good work. I should crochet some more. But not with acrylic.