Thursday, April 30, 2009

Long Weekend

I'm taking a few days break from the blog because we have a nice, long 4 day weekend starting at the end of the day and I'll be heading over to see DF and do some sightseeing. Mr. Greenjeans is still progressing, but the pictures still look like a big blob with everything scrunched up on the needles. I'm almost to the point of dividing stitches to work on the main body, so hopefully it'll photograph better once I get to that point.

In the meantime, I'm taking some Lorna's Laces in the Roadside Gerry colorway and I'm going to cling to that and the needles for dear life so that I don't lose anymore good yarn and good needles while knitting on busses and what not. Hope everyone has a great weekend and I'll see you all back on the blog on Tuesday with hopefully some knitting pictures and maybe a few travel ones.

Knit on...

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Scarves and Cardigans

Before I get any further here, let me show off the finished Clapotis as modeled by my neighbor:And a closer up:I also am working on the Mr. Greenjeans cardigan. So far, I have been enjoying the pattern and it really is super easy. Here's the latest picture:I can tell already that this is going to be hard to photograph well as long as it's on these needles since it's all bunched up. Hopefully I'll get some more progress made on this tonight as well.

That's it for today. Hopefully more progress tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who has been leaving a comment! Made my day yesterday!

Knit on...

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Finally, Some Knitting

I'm still trying to get a decent picture of the Clapotis and so far, this is the best I've got:So, I'm just going to have to get someone to take a picture of me wearing it. If I can't get my neighbor to do it, I'll see if DF wouldn't mind, especially now that he knows how to knit ramen :oP

I also finished another skein of yarn on my Golding spindle:Sport weight. Still have another braid of roving to go from the stuff Jessi gave me. I'm liking the look of the finished yarn a lot.

And I did start a new project last night. This is Mr. Greenjeans, the cardigan from Knitty, and the yarn is Mmmmmmmmmalabrigo. Love the Malabrigo, need I say more?Can't wait to get home from work today and work some more on this. I've never felt a wool this soft before!

Knit on...

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Because I have nothing else to blog about...

I'll give you a random youtube video of knitting with ramen noodles. I did actually do some knitting on a new sock, but I managed to leave the knitting in a taxi, so goodbye good skein of Lorna's Laces, needles, and needle holder...

It's a tragedy, but there's nothing I can do about it either, so I'm just going to shrug it off. Tonight I'm going to photograph the Clapotis and start on Mr. Greenjeans in my yummy Malabrigo!



Knit on...and don't forget your knitting!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

It Is Finished

But I have no pictures yet. I'll try to get some good ones this weekend sometime and post pictures on Monday. I do love the finished Clapotis though. It looks as awesome as I imagined it in the handspun, so woot for something actually working out how I planned it!

Knit on...

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

I'll Meet You in the Middle

I'm getting very close to being finished with the Clapotis. I had grand visions of finishing it last night, not taking into account that decreasing from 100 stitches down to 13, one row at a time, takes longer than I apparently think I have in a day. So, I should finish the project tonight and will hopefully block it and be able to model it on for you all soon. But in the meantime, here's the scarf/shawl:Not the best picture, but I am loving this thing so much. It's so easy, but those drop stitches keep me entertained since I'm fascinated with dropping stitches intentionally. Anyways, hopefully it'll be finished tomorrow and I can move on to my next project: Mr. Greenjeans from Knitty.com

Knit on...

Monday, April 20, 2009

There Was No Knitting

I think I might have burned out the joy of knitting the Clapotis with the three days of being sick and only working on that one thing. So last night, there was no knitting. There wasn't even spinning. The only thing that was going on was watching TV, talking to DF, and hanging out with my neighbor.

Tomorrow there should be knitting I think. If not, I'll at least have some pictures!

Knit on...

Sunday, April 19, 2009

I'm Back

Sorry for the lack of blog post on Friday. I caught a nasty bug and ended up staying home. Turns out this was good for knitting time and I managed to get 3/4 of the way done with my handspun Clapotis:This will definitely need to be blocked when all is said and done. I also finished spinning my first skein on the Golding:Approzimately 100 yards of fingering weight yarn. I still have a good chunk of roving left too, so more will be coming.

And on Thursday at lunch I finished another square:That's it for today. It's raining, which actually is nice to see. I always like rain, especially since I don't have to walk far to the bus anymore.

Knit on...

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Crochet Beet Pattern


Crochet Beet
Originally uploaded by magicknits
Ok, here's the pattern, copied directly from my post on Ravelry. The corrections still stand, so if you find something wrong with the pattern, please comment and I'll change the pattern to fix it. Enjoy!

Ok, here’s a crochet version of the beet. First, let me preface this in that I just free form crocheted this and then tried to convert it into a pattern, so if it doesn’t work out quite the same for you, I would suggest playing around with it some. If it’s a pattern error, then please reply to this post and I’ll put any corrections on there. The second thing: I used handspun yarn for this, so my gauge changed a little throughout the pattern. Your beet should look better than mine does if you use a commercial yarn since mine is a fuzzy llama, romney, angora blend that I never dreamed would become a beet for Dwight :oP

ETA: Geez I’m tired. Uses a US size G hook :oP

Beet body:
Chain 12 (if you want a longer leaf stalk, then chain more. This will become the first leaf branch shooting off of the beet)
In the second chain from hook, make 6 sc. Slip stitch to join to work in the round.
Rd 1: Sc in each stitch
Rd 2: 2 sc in each stitch
Rd 3-4: sc in each stitch
Rd 5: sc, 2sc, repeat from to end of round, just sc any leftover stitches that don’t work into the repeat.
Rd 6: sc to end
Rd 7: sc four stitches, 2sc in next stitch, repeat from to end of round, same as before
Rd 8-12: sc to end of round (note for a stumpier beet, use less. Use your own judgment as beets vary quite a bit anyways)
Rd 13: Sc2tog, sc the next 3 stitches, repeat from to end of round, sc any extra stitches not able to fit in pattern.
Rd 14: sc to end of round
Rd 15: Sc2tog, sc in the next 2 stitches, repeat from to end of round as before.
Rd 16: sc to end of round
Rd 17 to end: Sc2tog until you have one stitch left (don’t worry about rounds here as this is trying to make a pointed end to your beet). Bind off and leave the tail as long as you want the main beet root thing to be.

Leaves:
on cast on chain, pick up in contrast color in third stitch from slip knot (away from beet). Sc, moving to the slipknot for 3 stitches. 2sc in slip knot hole, do not turn, and sc three stitches down the other side of the chain. You’ll be working in a half circle design with massive increases to create a ruffle-y leaf.
Row 2: 2sc in each stitch until end of row, ch 1 turn.
Row 3: 2sc in each stitch until 2 stitches from end. Sc2tog, ch 1 turn
Row 4-5: 2sc in stitch, sc next stitch, repeat from to last 2 stitches, Sc2tog, ch1 turn.
Row 6-7: Sc two rows even, ch1 and turning at end of round.
Row 8: Sc2tog, Sc2tog, sc to end of row. Ch 1 turn
Row 9: Sc2tog, Sc2tog, sc to end of row. Ch 1 turn.

Repeat Rows 8-9 until your leaf is as long as you want it to be. Bind off and weave in ends.

To make a second or third leaf, pick up and chain until chain is desired size and then follow leaf pattern in the same way.

Clapotis Grows, and Some School Knitting

The clapotis increases are done now and I'm moving into the straight section now. I can't wait to start dropping stitches now to see how this works. Here's the current curly progress picture:I love the feel of this yarn too. It's my handspun and the original roving was a mix of alpaca, romney, angora, and just a tad of flash sparkle. Every now and then I hit a little sparkle in there and it just makes me smile giddily!

I'm not allowed to knit at school, except at lunch, so for that lunch break, I decided to to knit garter stitch mitered squares out of the sock yarn leftovers. So, here's the first finished one:Not too exciting, but there it is :oP

More pictures tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have a dropped stitch to show!

Knit on...

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

A Silken Snake

Yep, I have been trying to figure out what to do with a tiny bit of silk handspun for a while now. So I searched on Ravelry and saw some cute snake patterns and realized that the green in the handspun would work well for that and the purple would create an image of some pattern in the snake, so out came my crochet hook and when I was done, I had this little guy:I think he will look much better after I find some eyes to put on his little face, but he's kinda cute with just a sliver of a yarn tongue. Anyways, this is what happens when you're bored and want to create something in an hour. This is just my own fiddling with a crochet tube, so no real pattern for it, although there are some very cute snake patterns on Ravelry if you are interested. I'm calling him Nagini just because.

That's all for today. I should be through the increases on Clapotis tonight and then the real fun begins for this pattern. Pictures of that tomorrow.

Knit on...

Monday, April 13, 2009

Insert Witty Title Here

My brain isn't functioning too well at the moment, so insert a witty title for this post at your leisure. I had a nice weekend, and was able to get in some knitting as always. For the record, I think I am the last knitter to do so, but I am finally working on my first Clapotis:This is out of my handspun in the Midnight Tulip colorway. I'm quite pleased with how it looks so far. Three more increase sections until the straight knitting.

I also have still been spinning, slowly but surely. Here's the spinning progress:The Golding is still spinning wonderfully, even with the cop being fairly large now. My other spindle would start wobbling as of this point.

Hopefully more pictures tomorrow and more witty dialogue, but if not, at least some more pictures!

Knit on...

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

And the Beet Goes On

Yes, the beet, as in the vegetable. This is what I was working on. It's a commission from a Ravelry group that is knitting and crocheting beets to send to a certain Office star. If you know anything about the Office, you'll know who. So without further ado, here is a finished beet:I think that other crocheters' beets will look better than mine since I had to use my thick and thin handspun which was not designed to be made into a beet. Anyways, it turned out rather beet-ish, so that's all I can really ask for.

If you want the pattern, I'll post it as soon as someone else has crocheted a beet and can tell me if my pattern makes any sense at all.

I also finished the Voodoo wrist warmers. I really hope I don't need to use this pattern again for a while. I'm really burned out on ribbing:They're pretty nice and simple ribbing does show off the yarn quite well.

That's it for today. Tomorrow, a new project or two :o)

Knit on...

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

I've Got Nothing To Show

At least not for today. I did finish the wrist warmers last night, but that's about all I did that I could show you. I'm currently working on a really random pattern that I can't show until it's finished and the pattern reaches its commissioner group, but after that I'll be happy to show and will put it up as a free pattern. Again, it's really random and it's crochet, so about all I can tell you.

I didn't get any spinning in last night either, so I'm sad I neglected the Golding. I did get in my guitar practice, but that was about it. I'm happy to report that I'm now losing some feeling in my left fingertips, so they're just about all conditioned now and I can start practicing some more chords other than D, A, E, C, and G. Hopefully by next week I'll be working on some minor chords and the dreaded F :oP

I'll have pictures tomorrow and possibly a finished pattern and random object up here as well.

Knit on...

Monday, April 06, 2009

Golding

I told you yesterday that I would have a new spindle to show you and here it is, without my further blathering:The picture doesn't even do this spindle justice. It's that gorgeous. I had a custom painting done on it for me based on my favorite dragon in the Dragonlance series. It' stunning.

So I came home and I started spinning some of the hand-dyed roving that Jessi sent over to me as a thank you for some spinning I had done for her before I moved to Korea. Here's the roving and the spindle:The roving is actually a bit brighter than that in the yellows, but it's fairly true to color. I spun some of it up on the golding and fell even more in love with the spindle. Shameless close-up:Look, Ma! I can spin evenly again! The Snipes spindle I have here is all right, but I can't seem to spin very evenly on it because the spin of the spindle seems to change constantly. The Golding is so consistent that I think anyone could spin a nice, even yarn on one.

Oh, and I finished a wrist warmer. I should have the second one done tonight and then I'm not knitting anymore of the Voodoo pattern until I need a quick gift for someone again :oPYes, there is one more small peak of the spindle in that picture too :oP

Knit on...

Sunday, April 05, 2009

The Scarf is Finished

Well, I did finally finish the scarf, so now I'll be able to start something different this next week. Here's the finished product:Nevermind that I'm in my pajamas. Never got out of them yesterday and quite enjoyed that. Here's a close-up of the scarf. I can't even begin to catch all the colors in there:I'm quite pleased with it, but doubt I'll be making another one like it. 1x1 ribbing looks great, but it drives me insane to do it for more than a few inches, much less 6-8 feet.

I also started some more fleece spinning. Carded up some of the fleece into some gray rolags and got to spinning after filing some grooves into the old spindle. It really needed the grooves, so hopefully it'll work better now. Even if it doesn't, I should have a new spindle to show you all for tomorrow, but in the meantime, here's the spinning progress:I also cast on one more pair of wrist warmers, this time for myself. They are for the LK2Tog knit-a-long on Ravelry for this month. It's out of the leftover Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in the Devon colorway.That's it for today. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Knit on...

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Still Not Finished

I'm still not finished with the Noro scarf, but I should and will be finished with it by the end of the weekend. I didn't get any beading done either yesterday since I had four classes, three of which were back-to-back. Today I have four classes too, but three are done before lunch, so I should get something done hopefully during the break between the third and fourth. We'll see.

Anyways, hope you all have a great weekend. Knit something. I certainly have been slacking there!

Knit on...

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

If I Can't Knit At School...

Then I'll just bead. Yeah. It makes that much sense to me too that one is allowed and not the other, but I'll just keep cranking out rosaries and prayer beads. If you are in need of a rosary, let me know. I seem to be able to crank out one a day now. And to think I don't really like beading all that much :oPAnd I've also got a new hobby which is making my fingers hurt quite a bit these days:Yep, finally learning to play guitar. Don't worry though, it's not cutting too much into my knitting time :oP

Knit on...