Stitch, Brinn, Stitch!

Uniquities Fiber Market

July 24, 2012 in spinning, stash | Tags: fiber, fiber festival, life, roving, spinning. batts, stash, wool events | 4 comments

When I click on the Yarns tab on Ravelry now, it tells me there are a whopping 13 yarn stores near me, which is many more than the 2 I was getting in Virginia Beach (even though there were about 4). There are tons of yarn stores in Northern Virginia, as far away as Bethesda, MD and as close as Vienna, which is the city I’m living in now. The store in Vienna, Uniquities, held a fiber market on Saturday at the Vienna Community Center and I couldn’t not go.

The focus was definitely on spinning, though there was a lot of yarn too. The list of vendors that were there is listed here. I bought… many things. Because, apparently, to hell with my budget/unemployment. Anyway.

From Dancing Leaf Farm, I purchased this GORG Fairy Batt:

It’s 2 oz, wool/glitz/mohair/tencel/bamboo and I love it. I’ve never spun from a batt before and this was super affordable ($12). Also pretty!

From Solitude Wool I bought this art batt:

It’s about 1.5 oz ish and it was $4. FOUR DOLLARS. Yeah.

From Mt. Airy Farm, I bought an oz. of dyed mohair locks. PRETTY.

It’s sort of a darker purple than what appears on my monitor. But love. Will have to spin up some art yarn.

From Avalon Springs Farm 4oz of Targee/Mohair/Glitz:

Not my usual colors at all, but it’s so happy! Also, it’s sparkly! I love it. I already started spinning it as you can see.

Finally, I purchased a Tibetan supported spindle from Spanish Peacock:

That is a terrible photo because it’s been rainy and gloomy, but yeah. I’m practicing on some left over BFL. I think I sort of have the hang of it, though I end up spinning straight up off the tip rather than 45 degrees. Also it falls over a lot, but I did just start like, three days ago. So yeah.

I have lots of things OTN and The Event Formerly Known as the Ravelympics (TEFKA Ravalympics) starts in just a few days. There will be more on that when it actually gets started.

FO: TARDIS Socks

July 22, 2012 in knitting | Tags: doctor who, finished object, FO, knitting, life, real life, socks, TARDIS | Leave a comment

Greetings, blog folk! I am mostly settled in, though things are still kind of a mess. Anyway, I’ve finished up some socks. Some delightful Who-inspired socks. Whoo!

Pattern: TARDIS Socks
Yarn: Lion Brand Sock-Ease in Snowcone, overdyed by a WWFYer, recycled wool/nylon (white) and Sanguine Gryphon Bugga (black)
Needles: US 1/2.25 mm
Mods: I continued to reduce gusset stitches until I was at a 64st foot instead of 72.

You guys. These socks. SO MUCH FUN. There was colorwork, which I don’t usually do so that was good practice. There was a flap and gusset heel, which I love. There was leg patterning. And there was easy cruising down the foot. Also, the fit is PERFECT. I went down to 64 sts for the foot and it fits just right. The 72 st leg is wide enough to get over my heel despite some snug stranding but tight enough to stay up.

TARDIS socks = love, is what I’m saying.

I wasn’t too crazy about the yarn, mostly because Sock-Ease is on the thin side. The color was perfect though. The white is not superwash but considering there’s not that much of it, I think it’ll be okay to go through the washing machine.

I have since cast on for about four more projects, one of which is super fast and I am halfway through. Also yesterday (Saturday) I went to a fiber event. But more on that next time.

FO: Bathmat

July 14, 2012 in crochet, life | Tags: bathmat, crochet, finished object, FO, life, moving, real life, rug, t-shirt yarn, tarn | Leave a comment

Hello from my apartment in Northern Virginia where I am all moved in. I want to show you pictures of the place but it’s kind of a disaster area at the moment. Lots of organizing to do. Anyway, in between that, I made a bathmat:

Pattern: By Your Bed/Bathmat/Doormat
Yarn: Navy (it’s darker than the picture shows) t-shirt yarn/tarn I got in a swap on Craftster a while ago. I used 7/8 balls. (The last might become a dishcloth if I ever find it.)
Hook: GIGANTIC plastic 15mm hook
Mods: I added an extra row of shells/3dc in ch1 sp.

Woo! Pretty simple project; went by super quickly. And now we have a pretty bathmat.

This next week will likely be spent cleaning and organizing and a little bit of job hunting. I’m applying to the Fairfax school system, which I likely won’t get but would be awesome if I did. Cheers!

FO: Roundabout Also: Moving Woes

July 8, 2012 in knitting, life | Tags: finished object, FO, knitting, life, moving, real life, sweater, tank top, top | 2 comments

You guys, packing is stressful. I have to cull everything I own until I can fit it all in a minivan, and I have a lot of stuff. A LOT of stuff. Mostly yarn and clothes. I have four plastic bins and a cardboard box full of yarn, plus I have yarn or unravels-in-progress stuffed in every tiny nook and cranny of the rest of the bags and boxes and bins. Probably 80% of my stuff is either craft supplies or clothes, both of which are things I enjoy frequently and can get for very cheap. The other 20% is books. Maybe there’s 1% “other stuff”. Mostly clothes and books and craft supplies and books. I like books.

ANYWAY, I made a sweater. It looks like this:

(Do ignore my blurry arm meat there.)

Pattern: My own. Thinking about writing it up.
Yarn: Recycled mercerized cotton from a Ralph Lauren pullover (I have lots left)
Needles: US 3/2.75mm straights and a US 5/3.25 circular for the ruffles

Please appreciate that it is approximately five hundred degrees outside, into which I ventured to get pictures of this sweater. (The actual temperature is like 97 but at a certain point it all just feels HOT.) I jumped into the pool right after (I changed first) but still. HOT.

I really like knitting summer sweaters and tanks. They’re fast and I can wear them pretty much year round (though with a shirt under for the winter), unlike a sweater, which is really only good when it’s cold enough.

So I love this thing. I knit it in a strip like the Carousel socks from Knitty that I made a couple weeks ago. I do love the strip construction. It keeps my attention for the whole project so I never get bored like I do with things that are just long rows of stockinette.

In further life news, if I have no said exactly so yet, I will be moving to Fairfax on Tuesday. You might not hear from me for a little while after that while I settle in/job hunt. I’ll almost certainly be on Twitter frequently though, so feel free to drop me a line. I almost always respond on Twitter. I love Twitter.

On the Needles

July 4, 2012 in knitting, life | Tags: independence day, knitting, life, moving, socks, sweater, top, wip, work in progress | 1 comment

Happy Independence Day, Americans! I’m safely back in Virginia Beach for the week and am knitting again. I only have two things on the needles and they happen to be red, white, and blue!

There’s the Roundabout sweater:

I’m just over the bust at this point so I’ll need to figure out how I want to do sleeves/straps.

Then there’s my TARDIS socks, which are half done:

I haven’t yet cast on for the second sock, so I guess these aren’t really OTN per se, but I’ll get the other one on there soon.

In life news: Much of this week will be spent packing. I’m hoping to have an actual moving date of Monday for when I’m going up to Northern Virginia to move in with my boyfriend. I’ll keep you posted on the job status but for right now, my only income is my Ravelry pattern store. I’ll start looking in depth when I get up there.

But today’s for drinking and knitting and fireworks and whatall. And watching Independence Day, natch.

Niagara Falls

June 30, 2012 in life | Tags: canada, life, niagara falls, real life, travel, vacation | Leave a comment

I haven’t been doing much crafting on this trip, but I have been doing some cool things. On Wednesday I went to Niagara Falls with my brother, mother, and grandmother. It was super fun and we got really close to the falls. We parked on Goat Island, where we saw the Tesla Memorial and Horseshoe Falls:

Then we went of the “Cave of the Winds Tour”. It’s a bunch of stairs and platforms next to the American Falls. Here’s what it looks like from above:

Not too bad, right? A little mist. So we get to climbing (they give you ponchos; my brother and I elected not to wear ours) and there’s like, a lovely little stream coming down some rocks:

So we climb some more stairs and reach something called the Hurricane Deck:

It was aptly named. We got thoroughly drenched with Niagara river water. Completely saturated.

We went to the Three Sisters Islands, three tiny islands that used to be underwater. You can get right up close to the river:

So close, in fact, that I could put my toe in the water (it was cold):

We also stared longingly across the river to Canada, where you now need a passport to get to:

We watched the traffic on the Rainbow Bridge to ~~Asgard~~ Canada (that is its actual name):

I hear today is Canada, so three cheers. I’ll drink to that.

Hiking and Whatall

June 27, 2012 in life | Tags: hiking, life, New York, real life, travel, trips | 3 comments

Soo I am in New York this week (near Buffalo) visiting my grandparents, who are there for the summer. It’s partially a visit and partially a mission to help my grandparents go through the stuff in their closes/attic so the house can be sold at some point. I haven’t been doing a whole lot of knitting, but I have been doing some hiking.

On the drive up, we stopped at an overlook in Pennsylvania on the Susquehanna river. There was some very soft mud/quicksand:

Earlier today (having arrived in New York on Monday), we went on a hike here:

There was hiking:

And a “waterfall”:

There hasn’t been a tremendous amount of rain lately. (And that’s my younger brother, btw.)

I’ll have to snap some pictures when we go into Newfane (the town we’re in). It’s super cute and tiny and all slice-of-Americana. I love it.

One final note: I’m going to continue to call it the Ravelympics. The USOC should see someone about that stick they’ve got up their ass.

FO: Lacy Vines (And also a Topical Note)

June 21, 2012 in knitting, life | Tags: cold weather things, finished object, FO, knitting, life, olympics, ravelympics, real life, scarf, shawl, USOC | 1 comment

I made a thing:

Pattern: Lacy Vines, a test knit. I’ll edit with a link when the pattern is up.
Yarn: Recycled wool, hand-dyed by me with Kool Aid
Needles: US 8/5mm
Mods: None, though I did use a provisional cast on.

It was supposed to be a scarf but mine came out rather wide and shortish so it’s more of a shawl. I really do like it. I like it (and you all) so much that I suffered 90 degree (F) temperatures to snap an action shot:

The pattern was super fun to knit and when it goes up, you should all go knit it. It works up super fast in heavy yarn and there are lots of dropped stitches, which is super fun. My yarn was really sticky so I had to tug the dropped stitches all the way down, but it’s lovely nonetheless.

This is a pattern that really benefits from a wet block. When I had finished one half (it’s knitted in two parts and seamed in the middle unless you cast on provisionally, which I did) I steam blocked it to see how it came out, and it’s definitely more open and airy after a good strong wet block than it was with a steam.

I am currently down to two projects on the needles (we won’t talk about the scarf in hibernation): a sweater, which is a design I’ve been showing you, and some TARDIS socks, about which I am totally thrilled.

And one final note about the Ravelympics kerfuffle. If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’ll know my opinions on the matter (and also that I’ve started watching STTNG). I’m knitting a sweater for the Ravelympics. Because that’s what it is and that’s what I’m calling it and the USOC can suck it. It’s a challenge for me and just because I didn’t sweat, I did train and it is an accomplishment.

The Ravelympics are in the spirit of international cooperation, something the USOC should know and care about it. When you piss off knitters, we band together, stronger, and speak out for ourselves. The Ravelympics is happening (though I’ll not be watching the Olympics after this PR disaster) and I, for one, will not be silenced.

Also, Twitter Knitters are fabulous. I love the community of knitters on the internet.

FO: Stripey Socks

June 19, 2012 in knitting | Tags: finished object, FO, knitting, socks | Leave a comment

I finished my stripey socks today!

Pattern: Toe-up sock, wedge toe with a Crystal heel (which is basically a modified afterthought heel).
Yarn: Red Heart Heart and Sole (blue) and Knit Picks Stroll Multi, colorway Paisley (the pink/purple)
Needles: US 1/2.25 mm KP circular

I knit these socks over 56 stitches, which is what I usually use, but I think I ought to switch to 60. They fit but they’re a little difficult to get on over the heel.

These are socks and they are lovely but I don’t have a tremendous amount to say about them. The heel is very similar to an afterthought heel but I really like a flap-and-gusset heel the best. So for my next socks, which will be TARDIS socks, I’ll use a flap and gusset. As is my wont.

I’ve actually knitted up another scarf-like thing that was for a test knit. It was super fast so I’ll have pictures of that soon.

PS: New socks.

WIP Thursday and Adventures in Dyeing

June 14, 2012 in dyeing, knitting, life | Tags: dyeing, knitting, socks, sweater, wip, work in progress | Leave a comment

I currently have two things on the needles, both of which have made some progress since I last showed you them.

The vanilla socks:

I’m two stripes away from the heel on the second sock. I keep these in my purse at all times so they get worked on fairly regularly.

And the design I’m working on, tentatively called Roundabout:

I took this picture this afternoon and had since picked up stitches around the bottom to work a ruffle. Mostly to stop it from rolling up, which bugs me. So yeah.

I’ve also recently done some dyeing:

The skeins came from different sweaters but have similar compositions, wool/nylon blends, perfect for socks (that I’ll have to handwash). There’s a little bit of difference in the weight but I kind of want to do striped knee socks or some sort of two-color shawl.

I dyed the green in my crock pot and the purpley/rust colored one in a pot on the stovetop. I used a combination of Jacquard Acid Dyes and Kool Aid.

I did another two skeins too but I had to dip them a second time and they’re currently drying. I’ll have pictures of that later.

On a personal note, my younger brother is graduating from high school tomorrow. Allegedly. So, y’know, whoo or whatever. : )