Hemlock Ring Blanket progress

After going through 3 (4?) balls of Nashua Creative Focus Worsted, I was ready to bind off. Unfortunately I didn't have enough yarn left at the end of the last repeat...I only got to bind off 1/8 of the way around. The blanket was then put on hold as I needed to obtain another ball of the yarn. I finally had the chance to go to Unwind in Burbank and I bought the yarn (along with the Cherry Tree Hill Sockittome and the latest Interweave Knits).

I spit-spliced the yarn ends together (wow that stuff works). However, part of the way through the round, my count was off. The feather and fan pattern that is the outside of the doily pattern is basically a single round of YOs, K2togs, and SSKs followed by 4 rounds of straight knitting. I match the increases and decreases with the previous round of increases/decreases. That is, the point at which the left-leaning & right-leaning decreases meet should line up for every round of increases/decreases for the pattern to come out radially symmetrical. So, looking more closely, I noticed I made a mistake several rounds down in the last round of increases/decreases.

I haven't hashed out what needs to be done to fix the mistake, so I have yet again put the blanket on hold while I have easier, quicker, more portable projects to finish (socks). However, I may actually pick it up again this weekend. On the Zephy socks I made a mistake that I did not find until several rounds after the fact. It involved a YO, and I was able to drop the stitches and knit it back up (not even with a crochet hook) and I fixed it no problem. Given that the Zephyr socks contain many rounds of moving YOs and decreases, the blanket should be cake, right? :D

Socks!

I've been on a sock knitting binge ever since that first pair of Hedera socks. I can totally understand the craze over sock knitting now.

• You can't stop at just one pair of socks, you've got to have several pairs of socks (with the ultimately goal of course of replacing all your mass-produced socks)
• Sock yarns come in SO many different beautiful colors and patterns. You've got plain solids, semi-solids, gradiented (slow color changes), variegated (jumbled colors), self-striping, self-patterning, brights, darks, contrasting colors, harmonizing colors.
• They're small and portable from start to finish. Even with 2 socks at once, it's a perfect project to carry everywhere. I even worked on them while walking.
• So many variations in techniques. You can do them on double-pointed needles, 2 circular needles, or 1 long circular (Magic Loop). You can do them one at a time, 2 at a time side-by-side, or 2 at a time one-inside-the -other. You can knit them from the cuff down or from the toe up. There's various techniques for shaping the toes, the heel, the gusset.
• They can also incorporate various other knitting techniques like lace, cables, entrelac, & colorwork.
• You can shape them to fit your feet, and once you've done enough you should be familiar with how to size them for your feet. They knit up much faster than a sweater too, so there's not so much to lose by experimenting.

These are the Hedera socks made with Cherry Tree Hill Supersock. They may be a tad tight on my feet because they were knit on size 0 circulars. These socks were knit from the cuff down, and ended up being a good size for my feet. I was afraid of not having enough yarn so I made the leg short than the pattern called for. I ended up having a bunch of yarn left over.

These next socks are 'Vog On socks. These were made with Cherry Tree Hill Supersock DK on size 2 needles. The pattern came with instructions for both cuff down and toe up versions, so I went ahead and did the toe up version. I also did these 2 at a time on one circular. Unfortunately, these ended up being too big for my feet! Since I worked on these at work and while walking, by the time I realized they were too big, I was already done with the heel and did not want to bother frogging back. There's probably a good inch in the length of the foot that could be taken off for it to properly fit my foot. They fit Lawrence's size 11 feet perfectly. Too bad wool irritates his skin.

This next photo is of the Zephyr Socks that I'm working on. This is using Cherry Tree Hill Sockittome on size 2 circulars. I'm doing it only 1 sock at a time and it's cuff down, as you can tell by the picture. Sockittome has nylon in it, unlike the Supersock which is 100% merino wool. I can already tell that I should have used a stretchier cast-on. Instead of 4 pattern repeats for the leg portion, I only made 3 repeats so the top of the sock doesn't have to ride too far up my thick calves.


I think most people block their socks, but I haven't bothered for any of mine. I don't want to spend to much on sock blockers so I'll probably look up a way to make my own. I remember seeing instructions on how to bend wire hangers into the right shape. These socks feel rather loose, but maybe having nylon fiber will help keep them more durable. We shall see. Other things on my to-get list include wool wash so I can properly wash these socks and sandals so I can wear these socks at home without worrying about wearing holes in them.

Hat Attack starts!

Aaaand, the pattern is out, let the madness begin! :D

Hat Attack starts tomorrow!

Between 9am-10am EST Saturday morning, the pattern for Hat Attack will be released! It's a game based on Sock Wars, which itself was based on the popular Assassin game.

Once the pattern is revealed, hundreds of knitters will start knitting a hat to mail to their assigned targets. You finish the hat and mail it to your target as quickly as you can. Once you kill them, they send you the hat they were working on so you can assassinate their target. On and on it goes until either you get killed by a hat someone knit for you, or you are the last one standing. >:]

They've released the yarn & gauge used for the designed hat. I still need to swatch the yarn I want to use to try to get gauge. Someone had the good idea of casting on at least 60 stitches to avoid that painful first step. Hm, but what if it's knit from the center out? I don't know if hats are usually knit one way or the other as I've never knitted any before. The pattern will have cables, and there's a multi-colored option. I have a nice pink yarn to match the Patons SWS in Natural Crimson, in case I'm feeling adventurous. Then again, cables...are not exactly my forte in terms of speed. Some people can do them without a cable needle, but I feel like my stitches are never stretchy enough for that. Even with a cable needle, it gets pretty tight. I'm pretty sure that if I tried to just leave the stitches loose while cabling, I'll have a mess of dropped stitches.

project hearts

There was a thread on Ravelry about feeling sad when one of the little hearts next to the projects (signifying someone marked your project as a "favorite") disappeared. I was really happy when I got my first heart, and I just checked today to see that I had several more on several different projects! That gives me the warm fuzzies inside, especially seeing that they're all from different people, heeheeeee. :D

Starting over: Socks; Starting anew: Purses

In my first knitting phase, about 2 years ago, I started knitting socks on DPNs. I don't have the label for the ball of yarn I was using but I think it might be Regia. It was a busy pattern, with criss-crossing cables on all sides. I only finished about 4" of the leg and it was left in a bag, unfinished. After making those big bulky socks for my grandpa, and actually knitting a heel & gusset, I felt more confident in tackling the techniques on "real" socks in fingering/sock weight yarn.

Skip now to last weekend, when I went over to my aunt's house. I brought her the cat sweater I finished and she absolutely adored it. We took the cat and attempted to put the sweater on. I actually thought it wasn't going to happen, but the cat didn't really seem to mind too much. The only thing was when she tried to walk, her legs pulled up inside the sleeves and she tripped and rolled over on the ground, hahaha. It was really funny to watch but we took the sweater off of her after seeing that. In being afraid of making the sweater too tight, I ended up making it way too loose in the body, and also too long and loose in the sleeves.

So my aunt had been toying with the idea of learning to knit since the first time we went to visit her LYS. That night, I suggested it again and she said she would totally want to make a purse. She doesn't wear scarves and she finds yarns too scratchy for her skin, but would so totally use a cute purse! I took her on Ravelry and started showing her project photos. She ended up really liking the purses from Noni Design's Spring 2007 collection. Unfortunately the yarn store didn't carry any of the patterns, and we didn't want to wait for the pattern. Instead, we found another purse, the Hawaiian Motif Crochet Handbag found on Nexstitch.com. The next step is now finding the yarn. Each bag needs 5 skeins of Karabella Aurora Bulky, which costs $7.50-$8.50/skein. Plus, it needs a ball each of 3 other colors of Karabella Aurora 8. That adds up to a lot for 2 purses. I asked on Ravelry for a bunch of suggestions, but some of the alternatives cost just as much. Either I go with the original suggested yarn or substitute something from KnitPicks, which will cost half as much.

At the LYS, although we didn't find the pattern we wanted, I ended up buying some sock yarn from Cherry Tree Hill! I've seen that brand on the forums and figured I'd give it a try. I got a skein of fingering weight and a skein of DK weight. I also bought a set of Addi Turbo size 1 circular needles and decided very suddenly to make Cookie A.'s Hedera, found on Knitty.

I've got a cameraaa!

Lawrence got me a Canon PowerShot digital camera for Christmas! :D Yay! I can now take pictures of my projects without having to go to him for his Nikon! I still have a problem...the default memory card that comes with the camera is way too small. It only fits like...8 pictures.

I've ignored my blog for the past month because of the holiday season. It's nice to not be in so much of a rush anymore, and even though so many people say that they learned to not craft Christmas gifts....I guess it takes living through the hell to really learn the lesson. I stayed up (almost) all night and worked all day to finish gifts. Even then, I have some that I haven't completely finished:

• 1 baby duck and a mommy duck (lily's sugar'n cream)
  
• crochet striped scarf (vanna's choice)
  
• bunny slippers (bernat cashmere/moda dea dream)
  
• argyle golf cozy (red heart)
• scarf for philip

I admit I've been putting off some of these. The ducks because I don't like sewing pieces together. The crochet striped scarf because I've actually already finished it (I had to give it away for the Christmas gift exchange and I now need to make a replacement). The bunny slippers because I need more Moda Dea Dream yarn. The golf cozy because I used too many loose pieces of yarn and I'm going to have a hell of a time weaving the ends in. Philip's scarf because it's a scarf and scarves are evil and long and can get really boring.

I also have a bunch of projects that are not gifts, but are still works in progress:

• hemlock ring blanket
• clapotis
• amigurumi elephant
• womb
• lace party scarf
• butterfly wrap

The hemlock ring blanket is getting closer to completion. I am on round 93 (out of 121) and there are 440 stitches per round (600 by the 121st round). The clapotis I'm still not sure how long to make it. I'm not sure if I have enough of the yarn either. I'll get around to it again I'm sure. The amigurumi elephant I've been avoiding because the head & body are already sewn together and I will need to take them apart to get the safety eyes in the head. Or, I could just hot glue them while sticking them in. Even then, I probably have to take apart the legs because I put them in the wrong position. The womb just needs the pipe cleaners and stuffing. The lace party scarf is getting near the ideal length...maybe another 6-12 inches. The butterfly wrap still needs to be blocked and needs the ribbons to be properly tied. I also need to find some occasion to actually wear it.

Lawrence said he wouldn't mind giving me $200 for me to buy yarn. I don't remember the context that caused him to say it and I hope he means he would give me $200 to buy $200-worth of yarn if I wanted to. Actually I'm thinking I should buy a swift & ball winder.