Just In Time

I finished the Hedera socks yesterday just in time for vacation to start after school today! DF and I are flying to Jeju on Sunday to spend 8 days on the island. Hopefully it'll be a nice trip. Anyways, blogging will be few and far between while I'm on vacation, but I've packed up yarn and will have more to talk about when I get back :oP Here's the socks:Hey, look, they actually fit right this time :oP

I also finished the fourth baby hat:That's it for today. I'll try to pop in for a blog post while on vacation, but no promises there. See you all when I get back!

Knit on...

Just Knit

Yesterday I witnessed something really gruesome and quite frankly traumatic. What was even worse was that the whole bus of 45 students I was with witnessed it and I'm sure the kids will be having nightmares about that for a little while anyways. I did find one comfort once I got out of crisis mode in the evening while in apartment: knitting. Well, knitting and talking :oP I talked to my friend Barbie and knit. I talked to my mom and knit. I talked to my dad and knit. I talked to DF (not knitting then since I was getting ready for bed) and then fell into a very peaceful sleep. I am so thankful for that!

Anyways, here is what I knit on last night:Sorry the picture is blown out. Still need to play around with the settings on this new point and shoot camera.

That's it for today. I feel very rested now, and I'm off to ride my bike in to work and see how the kids are doing today. Knowing them, they'll be fine and will probably be back to talking about Starcraft again.

Knit on...

The Baby Hat Parade

Welcome to the baby hat parade. I'm addicted to them now. They're so quick and easy and instant gratification compared to some of the bigger projects. I finished two today and hopefully I can finish another one tomorrow. Here's the two that were finished today. Both are the Doodie pattern from Wooly Wormhead's pattern book.I made one with the bobble top and one without. These hats are great for using up the leftover sock yarn I have. The one on the right is made with Tempted Glam Grrl and Silk Garden Sock yarn. The one on the left is made out of brown wool that was a random ball I had left over from an Irish Hiking scarf I had made.

Anyways, they're addicting and I'm sure there will be more to come! I'd like to send DF's niece a nice big package of hats for this winter, since it will be cool and the baby needs some knitwear! :oP

Knit on...

Happy Anniversary!

Happy anniversary to the man I love! Hard to believe that it's been 6 years since our first date out in the arboretum, watching Robin Hood at the Shakespeare in the Park festival. For the anniversary, I made DF a pair of socks:The yarn is the Austerman Step yarn I picked up in Seoul last weekend. He said he really liked the feel of the yarn and the striping, so I'm happy that he likes them!

And he got me:It's sideways, I know. I forgot to rotate it. But he got me a sheep teddy bear from Starbucks. He hit my love of wool and my love of coffee all in one gift!

And it's soft :o)

Happy, anniversary, DF! Here's to many years to come!

And I will get your Galaga sweater knit sometime assuming I can ever finish charting it :oP (and for those who have just gasped in horror that I'm making a sweater before we're married...I have made him 2 already. Why he didn't end the relationship after the first one, I'll never know :oP )

Knit on...

Cubba

Sorry there was no post yesterday. I wasn't feeling too well in the morning and blogging was not even on my mind. I do however have a new FO to show you all. I knit Cubba from WoolyWormhead's baby hat booklet. It's knit out of an alpaca/silk blend that Linda gave me in the Creativity swap. It was so super soft to work with and really was a great yarn. Anyways, here's the finished hat:Baby hats may be a new vice of mine. They're small, quick, and they don't use much yarn, so those leftover sock yarn balls that aren't Lorna's Laces (those go into the never-ending blanket) may end up becoming baby hats along the way, especially since all my friends seem to be getting knocked up here recently :oP

Knit on...

2 Feet

That's how much yarn was left when I finished the vest! Considering I had 100 yards of yarn more than the pattern called for, I'm still saying that it lied, but hey, I don't care as much since I did actually have enough yarn. Here's the finished vest which really needs to be blocked:Ok, yeah, it's sideways. Forgot to turn the picture around and unfortunately, I don't have time to go do that. More stuff tomorrow!

Knit on...

Progress

I'm nearly done with the vest and I'm really hoping to be completely finished with it tonight if all goes well. I think that I am going to have JUST enough yarn to finish the thing. I may be one row short on the ribbed edging, but I can fudge that to work easy enough.
This is about where I stand on it right now. I'm a little farther along than this picture shows, but I'm lazy and don't want to get the camera out again for a new shot.

Knit on...

The Yarn Crawl

I had a good time this weekend. DF and I went to Seoul on Friday night and on Saturday morning, I got up before him and headed out on an all-day yarn crawl. The first place we hit was Dongdaemun and I could have probably spent all blasted day there. It was huge and was just stall after stall of yarn dealers. Sure, most of them sold basically the same thing, but there were gems tucked in there as well. I came out with all this after the first stop:Wine-colored merino. Enough for a sweater.Australian wool (unknown breeds) in denim colors. Enough for a sweater.A pound of dishcloth cotton. I need to make some since I haven't found dishcloth cotton here before.And lastly I picked up some seed beads for future shawl making.

After the crawl in Dongdaemun, we headed to Myeongdong to Banul Knits. Banul was nice, but it was much pricier than Dongdaemun for sure. Since I had pretty much already blown my budget for the day, I just picked up one ball of Austerman Step sock yarn:After Banul, our last stop of the day was Insadong and My Knits Studio. I ended up going a little crazy in this store because of their huge selection of knitting books in English. I only picked up one, but I also found the KnitPro needles in the bigger sizes I needed to complete my collection of the Harmony wood needles. So here's the haul from My Knits:Dumbledore Sock yarn. I agonized over which of the three characters to pick up, but since that evening I was going to see HBP, I chose Dumbledore. These socks will be known as the Dumbledore is dead socks.The KnitPro needles. Last, but not least, I grabbed this book as soon as I saw it:Been wanting this book ever since I heard that Cookie A was coming out with it. Wonderful layout. Can't wait to read it in detail and pick out the first pattern to make out of it.

I picked up a few other accessory things, but since as of this point I may have caused your computer to freak out, I think I'll call it quits for today. Updates on knitting projects tomorrow!

Knit on...

We Interrupt This Blog...

For a yarn crawl.

A group of knitters...

A bunch of yarn stores...

All congregating in Seoul for the event...

Knit on...

A Sock and a Vest

I don't have any good pictures of spinning to show you from yesterday since I only plied a few yards of purple. I'll finish the plying tonight and will have pictures tomorrow. I do have some knitting progress to show though. First, it's the Hedera sock. This is my school project that I work on in between classes, so it's fairly slow going since I only work on it for maybe 10 minutes at a time. But I finished the first one and I'll cast on for the second today:I am happy to say that this pair will actually be long enough for my foot judging on how the sock fits on the sock blocker. I also worked a little more on Mom's vest last night:It looks wonky in the picture, but I assure you that it's not in real life. Blocking will make those diamond motif's really pop out too.

That's it for today. Hopefully more progress of knitting and spinning tomorrow!

Knit on...

The Vest

The vest was very nice to work on last night, except for one thing. I finished the first ball of yarn and measured. It was 6.5 inches long. At 12 inches long, it's right around half way done. Now I only have four balls of this yarn, so this means I am either going to have just enough yarn, or I'm going to be short. The pattern calls for less than 800 yards. I bought 800 yards....this could be interesting. But I'm going to keep on knitting for now. I guess worse-case is that I run out of yarn and have to frog and start it in a different yarn. A friend of mine is hitting the yarn store where I used to live to see if she can find one more ball of this color, but I am very skeptical that she'll find any.

But without further complaining, here is the lovely motif progress:It's now over 8 inches long. Cross your fingers and hope the knitting muses are on my side for once! :oP

The pattern for those who want to know is the Greenwood Cabled Vest and the pattern can be bought here if you clicky.

Knit on...

Whoops

Well, I completely forgot that Monday the 13th was the rest day for Tour de Fleece. I realized this when I got home from work and was getting ready to ply a ball of singles and saw the notice. Well, on my lunch break, I had plied up the green singles:So, since it was supposed to be a rest day yesterday, I decided this morning that today would be my rest day from the tour. I know I didn't do that much yesterday, but you're supposed to do no spinning at all, so today is my official "rest" day.

Since I didn't ply anymore last night, I worked on mom's cabled diamond vest. Here's the current state of the diamond motifs:I'm really pleased with how this is turning out. Hopefully I'll make some good progress on it this evening when I get home and can't spin for the Tour!

Knit on...

Seeing Green

I did continue to spin just a little bit this weekend. I finished the first cop of the green fleece, but that was all. I think I may have burned myself out on the spinning after finishing all the purple as fast as I did. But, I'll continue my tour goal of spinning a little each day.

I also cast on for a garter stitch scarf. I don't know why I was craving simplicity like that, but I certainly was. Anyways, no pictures today. Hopefully I'll have something to show tomorrow!

Knit on...

Tour Day 6

So on day 6, I finally hit my wall. I was exhausted, but not from spinning. I don't know if it was the weather or the being woken up the past two nights by the neighbors, but last night I was so tired that I went to bed at 8:30. I laid down at 8:30 and I think I was completely out until 4 when someone drunk was yelling in the lobby and woke me and just about everyone else in the apartment building up because we all yelled at him to shut up.

Anyways, so to sum up, I didn't get the 6th cop completely spun up yesterday. I did get this much spun before going to bed:I rather enjoyed the green too. It's just so different from the purple in color that I almost forget that I'm spinning part of the same fleece. Anyways, that's it for today. It's actually sunny right now, so I get to ride my bike to work for the first day this week!

Knit on...

The Good, the Bad, and the Fuzzy

Yesterday I finished all the singles of the purple fleece. I made the mistake of trying to go through and pick out the decent stuff and try to re-comb the fiber. Well, it just didn't work well. I still spun it, but I rather wish that I had started on the green fleece instead of trying to salvage the rest. It turned out very neppy and fuzzy because of the second cuts that didn't get knocked out during combing this time, but hey, it's spun. So here's the ugly (ok, not terribly ugly in the picture, but still nothing I'll do anything with except felting maybe):And then there was the good part! I plied the first ball of singles that I spun and it turned out to be rather lovely. Here's the good:It's even nicer in person. I'm very pleased. Hopefully I'll have some green singles spun today and can ply one more ball of the purple tonight.

Day 5 and counting!

Tour Day 4

The fourth day of the Tour de Fleece is finished and I finished my fourth ball of singles, just barely:That's the end of the first batch of combed fiber too. I'm now going through the leftovers and finding anything that still looks decent enough to comb again, and I have found a pretty good amount, so I'm working on that now. I was just going to card it all, but that prep method was not giving me the same consistency as the combed fiber, so I decided that I would just comb what I could and save the rest for another project some other time.

There was no knitting last night. Maybe there will be some today, but I'm not sure considering I'm spinning like a mad woman. I can't believe I'm almost finished with the purple fleece already. I think I will continue on with the green and blue fleece once I finish this. It'd be really nice to be able to finish all the singles for this project by the end of the tour!

Knit and spin on...

Tour Day 3

Tour de Fleece day 3 spinning! I'm still averaging a cop a day, so that's good. I'm hoping to finish the combing of the purple fleece and spinning of the combed top today. Then I'll card the good stuff that was left after combing and try to spin that up this week too. I'm hoping for 6 plying balls of each color from the fleece, which I think is very possible. Here's the spinning progress:I also haven't completely done without knitting too. I'm this far on the cabled vest:It's raining like mad right now, so hopefully I'll just spend the evening spinning and knitting away!

Knit on...

Tour Day 2

I forgot to do a blog post for the first day of the tour, but after two days, here is the current progress:Two full cops, wound into a ball, and about 1/4 of another cop done. I'm almost half way through my goal too by the end of the first weekend, so if I continue this rate, I'll get started on the blue or green fiber next.

Knit or spin on...

Stuffy Doll pattern

Stuffy Doll:

Body (Make 2)

CO 10 stitches
Row 1: KFB, k to last stitch, KFB
Row 2 and all even rows: Purl
Rows 5, 7, and 9: Repeat row 1
Rows 10-26: Work in plain stockinette stitch
Row 27: KFB, KFB, k to last 2 stitches, KFB, KFB
Row 29 and row 31: repeat row 27
Continue in stockinette until body measures 6 inches, or desired length

Divide for legs:
Next row: KFB, K13, Bind off 4, K13, KFB. Place first 15 stitches on a holder and only work 1 leg at a time.
Work each leg in stockinette until it measures 2.5 inches.
Next row: K1, K2Tog, k to last 3 stitches, K2Tog, K1
Repeat this decrease on all right side rows until 9 stitches remain. Bind Off and join yarn to 15 stitches on holder and repeat for leg 2.

Arms (Make 4: Note that the decreases at the end of the work will be the tops of the arms when sewing body together)

CO 7 stitches
Row 1: KFB, k to last stitch, KFB
Row 2 and all even: Purl
Row 3: Repeat row 1
Row 4-28: work in stockinette
Row 29: K1, K2tog, k to last 3 stitches, K2tog, K1
Continue decreasing this way until 5 stitches remain. Bind off.

Sewing: I stitches everything closed on the right side of the knitting to get the seam effect that is seen on the card. You’ll also want to stuff the pieces before finishing the sewing, so use your favorite fiber fill for this. I’m going to beat mine up some in the wash before I decorate it and may even use a crochet hook to pull bits of the fleecy inside to make it look more authentic. I’ll post my doll for reference, or you can use the card. Decorate to your liking after this!. use your technique of choice for this.

Real Quick

Forgot to mention Stuffy Doll in the last post. I finished him yesterday and I still need to write up the pattern, which I'll do this afternoon if I have time!

Le Tour De Fleece

It's that time of year. Spinners everywhere are donning their gear, getting their equipment cleaned off, and training for the big event. Of course I mean the Tour De Fleece, and for those bike riders out there, the Tour De France.

I decided to participate in the Tour De Fleece this year since I have accumulated quite a lot of fleece and roving to spin on my drop spindles over here. The most recent aquisition was the custom-dyed fleece I ordered from FatCatKnits' Etsy shop. It's lovely shades of purples, blues, and greens, and the eventual hope is that it will become an awesome, warm, handspun winter coat.

My Tour goal is to spin all the purple into singles. I'm spinning it all into singles first and then I'll be playing with different plying methods to get the effect that I want out of the color transitions. Anyways, here is what I'll be working on for the next month:Now this is fleece, not roving or top, so that means I have to prep it. To do this, I made makeshift wool combs out of four dollar store metal hair combs I found:Surprisingly, they work great. Here's a couple of finished bird's nests of top that I combed:And finally, I'll be riding my super fast Golding for the race:On your mark, get set....

Go!

New Pattern Coming Soon

There will be a new pattern available, more than likely by tomorrow. Not that droves of knitters will be on their way here so they can make it, but for the three or four of you out there that read this blog because you also play Magic: the Gathering, this may interest you. There are some knitters going to GenCon this year on the TCG board and they asked if I could make a pattern for this:Because I seem to be cornering the market on geek toys, I said sure :oP

I have half of the rag doll knit and the other half should be done today if I have time to knit during the day any at school. So, pattern should be here tomorrow!

Knit on...