Let the Christmas Knitting Begin

It's that time of year again when while sitting down and crocheting some dishcloths, I have one of those horrifying moments.

What the hell am I going to make for Christmas presents this year?!?

I think that just about everyone in my family has come to expect something hand knitted or crocheted, so I have a decent sized list to work on. This year I just don't have the yarn resources to make anything really big, so I was going through the stash and found the bag of leftover sock yarns. The Lorna's Laces is currently being knit into mitered squares for a baby blanket, but the rest of the sock yarn is just sitting there, so I thought maybe Christmas ornaments might be a good thing. Here's the first one I made:Yep, tiny, tiny top-down raglan sweater. I may be addicted now. I'm on number 2 out of this yarn and may get a 3rd one out of the colorway before switching to another one. I think everyone will get a set of 3 Christmas ornaments. They'll get a sweater, a pair of mittens, and a pair of socks to hang on the tree. It'll use up my leftovers and the projects are so fast and easy that I should be able to knock out at least one ornament a day.

I also made dishcloths this weekend and spun some more, see?That's it for now. Be prepared for the tiny knitted things parade for the next month or so!

Knit on...

All Done

The mittens are all done now and will go to my coteacher tomorrow. Hopefully that'll cheer him up some after the crappy day we all had at school today. I won't go into it much here, but I will say it involved some visit from some high up in the school world and the principal was on a rampage and made classes stop so that everyone could clean our already very clean school. Anyways, here's a blurry picture of the finished mittens:Hm, now what to knit? I know I need to get working on the Donegal sweater some more, but I'm really just not feeling the sweater anymore. In fact, the idea of working more fair isle stuff right now is actually causing me to cringe. I'm much more of a cable person than I am an intricate colorwork person. Unfortunately, I love the way those intricate colorways look and so I'm tempted by them. I'm seriously considering scratching the Donegal sweater and giving it another shot in just two colors instead of 11. I think I would even be much more happy with the sweater if the spiral pattern was much more visible. Plus, I also have a new conundrum. I started Donegal almost 2 years ago now. It's now way too big. So I've got a lack of thrill about the gazillion colors and the knowledge that if I continue working on it, the sweater is going to be a really big bag on me by the time it's done.

Do you all have a project like that? I'm going to call it a guilt project. I feel like I should finish it. I'm over half way done with the dumb thing. But I also kinda hate it and want to rip it out and give the yarn away.

Matter of fact, I think that's just what I'm going to do. I think that would be a good Christmas present for the new knitter next door. She probably wouldn't know what to do with that much yarn :oP Gotta enable stash whenever possible.

Knit on...

Mittens

I'm really getting tired of the broad street mittens. Thankfully this is the last pair for a while I think, and without further blabbering, here's the finished one:There's a flap behind the hand, I assure you. And here's the progress on the second one:Almost to the fingers, thumb, and shell part. Hopefully I'll be finished with these by tonight or tomorrow. I'd like to get to working on the Donegal sweater again.

That's it for today. Maybe a finished pair tomorrow, or some other random musings :oP

Knit on...

Sock Yarn Review: The Wear and Tear Test

Ok, so no pictures even though I can tell you the mittens are nearly done. I think Donegal is coming out of hiding again now that it's getting cooler in the apartment and I can stand to have the heavy thing on me again. But this post is not about that. This post is a review of every sock yarn I have used so far for socks for me and how it has held up over the last 4 years of sock knitting. Note: I have used other sock yarns, but they have been given away as presents, so I cannot judge them since I don't know how they were cared for by the gift receiver.

Sock yarns being reviewed:
Schoeller and Stahl Fortissima Socka 75% superwash wool, 25% polyamide
Opal Rainforest (and other opal stuff) 75% superwash wool, 25% polyamide
Knit Picks Essential (Stroll) 75% superwash merino, 25% nylon
Knit Picks Simple Stripes 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon
Lana Grossa Colortweed 80% Pure New Wool, 20% polyamide
Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock 80% superwash merino, 20% nylon
Tempted Glam Grrl 63% Superwash Merino, 20% silk, 15% nylon, 2% silver


All socks have been handled the same way. I never hand wash socks, so they all have been thrown and beat up in the same washing machine and have all had equal wear.

Ok, on to Fortissima Socka:

This yarn has worn beautifully. Aside from the fact that I know these were my first pair of socks, anyone else would never know. The instep has had one hole, but I have a feeling that came into being more because it was my first sock and I may not have knit it as securely as I should have. No fuzzies. This is not a super soft yarn, but it can take a beating.

Opal:

Again, not the softest yarn out there, but they have worn beautifully. No fuzzies at all. Good workhorse yarn if you're not wanting to pamper and go the merino route. My Opal socks have never had holes pop up.

Knit Picks Essential or Stroll:

They changed the name this year but have not changed the make up. This is the newest yarn for me to try and while they feel wonderful on the feet, this yarn has led to fuzz central. I've never had a merino sock yarn pill that much. Not sure if this will stop after I shave them, but will make an update if that does end the problem. The yarn did felt a little bit. I sweat a ton on my feet.

Knit Picks Simple Stripes:

Very similar to opal as far as wear. Did get some holes on the bottom of the foot. Darned fine though and still useable

Lana Grossa Colortweed:

Another workhorse yarn. Has worn well. Wish I had made my socks smaller because this yarn stretched out on me for some reason. Socks are too loose for these to make it into normal rotation much, but they do get used as house socks. Not sure if the growing was because of me or because of the yarn itself.

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock:

I love this yarn as most of you already know. However, this yarn has not been wearing well for me. It's a weird phenomenon too. If the yarn has purple in it, it has felted and the socks have shrunk on my foot significantly. However, all the other colors have weathered well and have not shown signs of felting. I did lose 2 pairs of monkey socks to the felting phenomenon though after wearing them for about a year. The socks will fuzz some, but nothing like the Knit Picks. I think it's more just a merino thing.

Tempted Glam Grrl:

Who doesn't want sparkles in your socks? Only bad thing is that I'm rough on socks. These socks lasted less than a year for me before the soles were down to just nylon thread. Love the yarn, love the look, don't care for the short lifespan.

Hope this has been informational to someone out there :oP These are just my opinions and observations, so yours may be different. Leave me a comment about your favorite sock yarn and how well it wears. If I get a trip back to the States anytime in the near future, I may check it out!

Knit on...

Catch-up

Hey, everyone. Sorry I was gone a little longer than normal. It was Chuseok here, which is kind of like Korean Thanksgiving, so I had a nice four day weekend that DF and I used to go to Seoul and see some parts of the city that we hadn't seen before. Before I get into that, here's the current knitting:Yep, it's another pair of Broad Street Mittens. I think I only have one more pair of these to go, and the last one is for me, so I'm about done with the mitten parade. At least it's a fast, easy pattern.

So, back to Seoul. We visited Olympic Park on Friday:Home of the 1988 Olympics. On Saturday we went to Lotte World:Yeah, basically a Disney knock off, but it was still pretty fun to go to. Sunday we walked around the Hangang river park area and went up Namsan tower. Those pictures are on the other camera though, so for now, you don't get to see them :oP

Hopefully more knitting progress tomorrow!

Finito!

February Lady is done! Finished! Finito! Fin! You get the idea. Anyways, here's a picture taken with my self timer on the camera. I'll try to see if Brian can get some better pictures of this:I really like it. It's big and floppy and very warm from what I could tell in the 2 minutes I had it on. The colors are really nice and the sleeves almost matched even though I had given up tryng to actually make them match. I'm happy to have another finished sweater done now. Now on to Christmas knitting...

Speaking of, what are you all making this year? I haven't decided what I'm making for presents. I need to work on DF's Galaga sweater to see if I can get that done in time, but that's the only thing currently queued up. So what all are you doing?

Knit on...

It Was Almost Glorious

I almost finished the last sleeve on the February Lady. I'm 5 repeats away from being done with the thing, but I hit a wall at about 9:30 last night and had to put it down and go to bed. I've been getting up at 5:30 to go running on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday before I go to work. The only problem with this is that I am a little more sleepy in the evenings than I normally am. At least I'm getting in a workout though.

Anyways, here's the sweater:Have I mentioned before how much I really love the colors? One thing I realized though is that this sweater is going to be big on me. Gotta love losing weight!

Also, I did some spinning this weekend. When my hand tired of knitting, I picked up the spindle and spun for a bit before heading back to the knitting. Here's the green fluff:That's it for today. Hopefully there will be finished sweater shots on here tomorrow!

So Close...

I'm about half a sleeve away from being done with the February Lady sweater. I'm so close that all I want to do right now is go back home and sit down and finish it. Unfortunately, I also need to work in order to support my yarn habit, so I have to wait until I get home this afternoon to work on it. I'm really hoping to be done with it tonight, but it may be tomorrow since I suppose I also need to eat dinner sometime after this afternoon and that will require cooking.

Anyways, pictures up in the post tomorrow, one way or another!

Knit on...

Announcement

The body is done on February Lady and I have started the first sleeves. After much planning and sorting yarn, I realized that the sleeves will not be able to match in the gradation pattern. I have decided I am ok with this and it will not ruin the sweater for me.

Have a great weekend!

That is all...

Knit on...

Picture!

Hey, I actually have a picture for you today :oP

I am almost done with the body of the February Lady sweater. I'm now on the garter stitch bottom edging, so hopefully that will be done early next week and I can get to cracking on the sleeves and have this sweater finished soon!

Anyways, here's the picture of the blue blob:Knit on...

Yeah...

Still no pictures. I'll get some soon, I promise. I did finish a charity scarf, worked some on the mittens, and got 2 repeats done on February Lady last night. Since I have nothing else to show you, I'll leave you with a video instead :oP

I'm Still Here

I really am. Sorry for the lack of posts. I was sick all last week and didn't knit a single stitch when at home. I did manage to finish a pair of mittens, forgot to take a picture, and started a new pair of mittens and subsequently forgot to take a picture of those too, so I have a very glaring lack of photography to show you all. Perhaps tomorrow I'll have a finished scarf to show you so that all three of you who read my blog will come back :oP

Knit on...

Still Progressing

Slowly, but surely, the sweater is growing. It's now over 15 inches long and I can't wait to be done with it and wear it. Still not quite cool enough here, but it's starting to get a little cool in the mornings. Anyways, here's the picture progress:That's it for today. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll have another finished object to show you. Not the sweater, because I'm not that fast of a knitter :oP

Knit on...

Half Way There

I'm now about half way done with the body of the February Lady sweater. I was able to get 2 pattern repeats done last night and I'm hoping for a lot more tonight. I spent a good majority of the evening cleaning my apartment floors which had become a little yucky since I last mopped about a month ago. Anyways, here's the Lady progress:I also started a new work project now that the Dumbledore socks are completed. I am making a pair of Broad Street Mittens for a coworker who fell in love with mine. She asked nicely when I asked her if she wanted a pair of socks if she could get s pair of those mittens instead. So she picked out the yarn from my stash and I started them on Friday. I hope to be done with the first mitten sometime either today or tomorrow.

Knit on...

Consistent

I'm definitely more consistent in my posts now that my hand is not giving me hell to knit! I did my required 4 rows on the sweater last night:It's growing nicely I think. The only reason I didn't get more done on that last night is because I brought home my work project to finish off the Dumbledore socks:I really, really like these socks! They fit perfectly (yeah, it's easier knitting socks for me since I can judge the size!) and I really like the colors in the socks.

And needless to say, I'm wearing them today! Hope everyone has a great weekend. I intend to start working on my next work project today and we'll see how far I can get on it this weekend.

Knit on...

Progress

There was actually a little bit of progress yesterday. Unfortunately, the biggest progress I made is at work right now, so I can't show it to you. I finished one sock and am almost half way done with the other. I'm hoping to finish the second sock today if I'm not too busy.

I did another repeat on February Lady. I have decided that if nothing else, I will knit 4 rows a day on this sweater until it's done. Here it is:I also worked some on the charity garter stitch scarf, so it has now grown too. I'm actually almost finished with it, so that's making me quite happy:About half a ball of yarn left until this is finished, so not too bad really.

That's it for today. Hopefully I'll have a finished pair of socks for tomorrow.

Knit on...

Growing and Shrinking

First up, the February Lady sweater is growing. I'm having a good night with my hand right now, so hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to show you even more progress. I also worked on a sock some today, but I left that at work as my work project, so you won't get to see that until one of them is finished. Anyways, here is the February Lady sweater:That is the growing part obviously. The shrinking part actually concerns my weight loss. I haven't really been talking about this much on the blog, but I am currently changing my eating habits and gaining an exercise habit and since January, I have lost 30 pounds. Here's just a random shot of me at this moment taken with the self timer:I still have about 45 pounds left until goal weight, but my next mini goal is in 10 pounds. When I hit 200 pounds, I'm going to turn myself into a runner.

The best part? I now am using less yarn for patterns :oP

Knit on...

Stew

Ok, so I'm interrupting this knitting blog to bring you vegetable stew since that was the main thing I did last night and I only got 2 rows knit on the sweater due to the constant stirring. I made a ton. Here's what it looks like:Looks much better in person, I assure you. When I say I made a ton, I really did make a lot. Like 9 supper's worth and a lunch box for today:Forgot to rotate it before posting, sorry. Anyways, it's a lot of stew and all that is now in the freezer. I make this stuff ahead of time so that when I'm lazy on my long days of teaching, I can just grab one of these and pop it in the microwave. Has all kinds of fiber and protein in it.

That's it for today. Knitting tomorrow hopefully!

Knit on...

Progress

Progress has been made on the cardigan, albeit very slowly yesterday. I was able to knit for an hour and I got a whole 5 rows knit on the cardigan. Things should go a little faster since about 130 stitches were taken off and put on options cables for the sleeves, so that's a big chunk of knitting that I get to pass and just work on the body now! Anyways, here's the cardigan so far:Hopefully there will be some visible progress on the cardigan tonight. We'll see how much my hands cooperate. They are doing much better now, but they still twinge if I try to knit for long periods of time.

Knit on...

Woot!

Ok, so last night I was able to knit for 45 minutes before my hand started to go numb on me! That's a huge improvement from the 10-15 minutes I was getting last week. This is a really short post today, but wanted to just let you know that I am alive, I am knitting again, and there should be some good progress made on the February Lady sweater to show you tomorrow!

Knit on...

Argh

Yep, so my knitting has come to an almost complete standstill this week. My right hand is not cooperating with me at all. It really hasn't cooperated with me since I climbed Mt. Halla while on vacation and I know the reason why.

When I was climbing, I had one of those hiking stick things that they sell everywhere here. It was a real lifesaver, especially when it came to helping me down the mountain, but I had a death-grip on the thing. Apparently having a death-grip on something for 11 hours may lead to both hand cramps and random numb fingers while knitting. Since I have dealt with this before, I at least know the exercises I need to do to make my hand get back to normal. The bad part? Last time this happened, it took a while for my hand to get back to normal. So, I may end up pulling out the cross stitch tonight if I have no luck with the knitting.

Argh.

Also, I wanted to put a formal goodbye to my Uncle Chuck on here today. He passed away Yesterday and was 91. It sounds like he went in his sleep and his children were all there, so that sounds rather peaceful for him. He and my Aunt Marty were two very adventurous people who pioneered some things that we take for granted today. Uncle Chuck was one of the biggest pushers for mandantory seatbelts in cars when the issue first began and I know that has led to many lives being saved. So, farewell Uncle Chuck! You and Marty both will be missed, but you'll live on in all our lives!

Knit on...

Late

Yep, I'm late on the first post this week, so sorry about that, everyone! Here's the current progress on the projects. First up is a charity garter-stitch scarf:It's about 3 feet long now. Next up is the Dumbledore sock:And last, but not least is the February Lady sweater's progress:That's it for today. More intellectual content tomorrow :oP

Knit on...

Fun With Yarn

Yesterday, I finished plying all the purple yarn that I spun up for Tour de Fleece. Here is the last finished skein:So I gave all the purple skeins their bath in soapy water and they are all drying now:
I also got a package in the mail yesterday from my grandparents and they sent me some yarn that Renee gave to them to pass on to me. My jaw about dropped when I saw the blue skein of Tempted yarn. It's pretty:And last, but not least, the February Lady sweater did grow some:That's it for this week! More posting on Monday. We'll see what sock knitting I can get done while I visit DF this weekend.

Knit on...

I'm Back!

Hey, everyone! I'm back from vacation now. Here's the extent of the vacation knitting:Uh, yeah, not so much...

I would have knit more, but my hand was numb after an 11 hour hike up a mountain and it stayed numb for almost 3 days. The rest of the time was spent running around and I just didn't have the time to knit. Yesterday I managed to cast on a February Lady sweater out of the denim yarn I picked up in Seoul:I'm only 10 rows in, so it's not much either. I also plied 2 more skeins of yarn from the Tour de Fleece spinning. One more ball of singles left to ply and then I can work on the green some more:That's it for now. I'll have some pictures of the vacation posted sometime in the near future. In the meantime, I feel like I need to catch up on my knitting!

Knit on...

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...