Stitch, Brinn, Stitch!

FO: Socks with Holes

April 11, 2010 in knitting | Tags: finished object, FO, knitting, socks, yarn | Leave a comment

(Incidentally, these shoes are great for showing off socks–I got them for like $6 at a JC Penny outlet store.)

Pattern: Footies
Yarn: Premiere Serenity Sock (in Aquamarine)
Needles: US 1
Mods: I basically just threw the stitch pattern into my own toe-up sock.

So these are definitely my favorite hand-knit socks to date. The yarn is really soft and was great to knit (also CHEAP), the pattern is cute, and I lengthened the leg a lot more than usual for ankle socks as well as ribbed the back, resulting in a sock that actually FITS instead of slides down my heel when I walk. These STAY PUT and I am THRILLED about it. I also used a garter stitch heel this time, which I’m hoping will help with wear (though I’ve heard good things about the wear of the yarn on Ravelry).

Speaking of Ravelry and this yarn–there are a lot of mixed opinions. Some think it’s super splitty, some don’t. Some think it’s too thin, some are absolutely repulsed by the colors, and some think it’s great. I personally am a big fan of the yarn–really soft, not too splitty. I got it from Jo Ann’s while I was in Florida in December/January for something like $2.50 a ball. I bought three, but the next time I get to a Jo Ann’s (whenever that will be–there isn’t one in Virginia Beach and I don’t have a car at school), I’ll be picking up some more. The bamboo content does mean the socks stretch out a little with wear, though I suspect a run through the washer and dryer will tighten them right back up.

I’m definitely on a sock knitting kick, and I don’t have nearly enough sock yarn. I think I have enough for about five pairs (six if I knit two pairs of ankle socks out of my skein of Tofutsies instead of one regular size pair). I am planning at some point to order some sock yarn from Knit Picks (their new Stroll tonal looks soooo pretty), so that’ll help. Plus, I mean, I’ve got five pairs of socks to knit in the mean time. And I believe Michaels has at least one more color of Heart and Sole I haven’t tried yet.

In case you couldn’t tell, I am now officially a Sock Knitter.

In Which Brinn Sews… Successfully!

April 9, 2010 in sewing | Tags: fabric, finished object, FO, organizer, sewing | Leave a comment

Wednesday afternoon, I claimed ThatsWhatSheSaid in the Ongoing Wish Swap for a dpn/crochet hook case. Wednesday evening I sewed most of said case, and Friday morning (today) I sewed on buttons and packaged up that sucker for sending. Yes, I’m FAST. Anyway, here’s what I came up with:

It’s a variation on the dpn roll I’ve made several times. I used thicker fabric (it’s almost like a canvas) and a layer of quilt batting so it would fold into a book-style (which is how she wanted it) instead of rolling up.

I LOVE how this came out, and I’m considering making another for myself. I would make it a little taller next time to compensate for the thicker fabric (I seem to have underestimated my seam allowance just a little). I also absolutely love the fabric. It’s part of the bunch I got at the thrift store a couple of weeks ago (it’s like a half a yard of cotton canvas-ish fabric for under a dollar–75 cents, I think).

I also sent ThatsWhatSheSaid some buttons from my stash too, but I didn’t take a picture of those.

I’m still working on the socks too. I finished one sock and am about a centimeter away from the heel turn on the second. I’m expecting a total of three packages sometime in the next couple of weeks: Two OWS packages and the Yarnie vs. Sewer swap.

Soo…

April 7, 2010 in knitting | Tags: knitting, socks, wip, work in progress, yarn | Leave a comment

Sooooo….. Remember how I said that besides swap stuff, I was just going to work on Featherweight because I wanted to just get the damn thing done? Well…

I’ve had a serious sock craving for the past several days, and I decided I would just give in. The yarn is Premiere’s Serenity Sock Weight in Aquamarine and the pattern is Footies (though I basically just threw the stitch pattern into my own toe-up sock). They’re coming along nicely, and I think they will be nice summer socks. Though I’ll probably wear them in the winter too, or at least in the fall.

I will finish Featherweight eventually, by the way. I’ve just decided it will be a long term project. Whenever I finish something and have no swaps on the schedule, I get a little anxious deciding what to knit next. Featherweight will be a nice go-to project so I’ll have something to knit while I decide what to cast on for next. Also, I’m making a resolve to knit a couple of rows on it at least once a week (preferably more). If I space it out with more interesting knits, I’ll feel less bored with it.

OWS stuff

April 5, 2010 in crochet, knitting, swap | Tags: amigurumi, crochet, finished object, FO, knitting, ows, swap, wool, yarn | 2 comments

In my most recent OWS claim, I claimed leighi123 for fingerless mitts and little stuffies for her two-year-old. Here’s what I made:

Just a ribbed tube with a thumb hole. Very simple, no shaping. I used US 2 dpns and Trekking XXL (the same yarn I used in my last baby knitting adventure).

Gator! I love him. If I didn’t use up all the Lion Brand Cotton-Ease that I had (the yarn I made him out of), I would make another for myself cause he’s SO CUTE. LOVE.

Armadillo! I used Lion Fisherman’s Wool. I love him too! It took me a couple of tries to get the right head shape (I had the same trouble with the gator shape too), but once I got it, it worked out really well. He’s stuffed fairly lightly, so he’s super squishy and wonderful. Although, I will say that when I was sewing on his legs, I misjudged the placement of one and it turned out… unfortunately:

It’s all fixed now though, and it no longer has an unfortunate appendage.

Cute little turtle! I love this picture. Glamor shots. Hella cute. I used Lamb’s Pride Worsted.

A little bird made of various label-less stash wools. He’s a little sad looking. I love him though.

A little mouse out of Knit Picks Palette and a tiny bit of Brown Sheep Nature Spun from my gigantic cone.

Most of them came out a bit bigger than I intended, but I still think they are super cute. I can’t wait to Leigh-Ann to get them because I know her son will love them. : )

FO: Seafoam Cardigan

April 2, 2010 in knitting | Tags: cardigan, cotton, finished object, FO, knitting, sweater, yarn | Leave a comment

So, I finished my Summer Cardi reknit, which I have named Seafoam, for the lace at the bottom:

Pattern: My own, which I have written and am getting test knitted. Will be available… sometime in April, maybe. Maybe not til May. Some time.
Yarn: Cascade Sierra, EXACTLY three skeins (like… less than a yard left over)
Needles: US 6/4 mm Knit Picks Options Circ and Susan Bates dpns.

So I like this sweater a lot. It’s very comfy and perfect for throwing on over a tank or cami if it’s not quiiiite warm enough. I also love my ribbon closure. I originally planned for an open front, but I didn’t really like how that looked, so I added the ribbon (which is actually bias tape, but it works). Also, I’ve raved about the yarn before, but I’ll tell you again: I love Cascade Sierra. I have a serious passion for the yarn, I’m not going to lie. Soft, comfy, sparkly in the right light… LOVE.

Here’s a close up of the lace bit of the sweater:

As I said, I’ve written up the pattern for this, and it’s currently with test knitters (the pictures will be better for the final pattern though, I promise). I mathed out seven different sizes (and I messed it up completely once but then I worked it out and it was HARD but now it WORKS), and I’m so pleased with myself.

I’m also working on various swap things, including an OWS claim and the Yarnie/Sewer swap. I’ve also started working on Featherweight again, so apart from the swap stuff, the next FO might be a while out (you know, unless I get seduced by a new project). I kind of just want to get through Featherweight though. I know it’ll be really useful in the coming months and it’s sooo wonderful and light and soft (wool/silk lace weight… YUM) but it’s sooooo boring and tedious to knit. I want the cardi though, and I’m not currently in the mood to knit anything I can’t use in the spring/summer, so we’ll say. Maybe I’ll actually just get through it.

Navajo Plying

March 31, 2010 in spinning | Tags: fiber, plying, spinning, wool, yarn | 1 comment

So remember when I posted the Shetland from Spunky Eclectic I’d spun and I told you how much I liked navajo plying. Well… I like it a lot. So much so that I’ve since navajo plied all the extra singles I have from other plying projects and the singles I spun when I was learning and never plied because I had yet to figure out how long it took to spin anything on a spindle and I wanted to stretch the yardage because I only had so much fiber.

Anyway, I plied what I had lying around (don’t worry; I haven’t been spinning long, so it isn’t much):

Originally a messy lace/fingering weight single, now a messy light sport to bulky (mostly around dk/worsted) weight chain ply. Roughly 68 yards. Domestic wool top that I dyed with kool aid back in the summer (In the Clay Pits).

Originally Kool Blue, also Kool Aid dyed. 20 squishy yards of rough rough bulky wool. It was one of my first spinning attempts, so the single is all rough and gross, resulting in a yarn that is rough and gross. Probably I won’t knit anything with it but instead look at the pretty pretty skein.

Left over singles from A Splash of Citrus, navajo plied into 9 yards of rough, squishy goodness. Also an early spinning attempt, so quite rough. But squishy. Something else I will probably only ever look at. But it is kinda pretty. Yellow and springy.

So now I’m resisting the urge to navajo ply everything I spin. The spinning I’m currently working on, some CMF superwash merino, is going to be cable plied into what will hopefully be around worsted weight so I can use it in a sweater yoke. Although once I finish that, I might look into navajo plying some corriedale I have… Hmm….

LYS Score

March 29, 2010 in stash | Tags: sale, stash, wool, yarn | Leave a comment

So the LYS in Fredericksburg, Knitter’s Cottage, is going out of business. I’m only very vaguely disappointed because it was kind of a high-end, over-priced, snooty kind of place and I mostly buy yarns and things online anyway. They’ve had things 20% off for a week or so, and I stopped in on Friday to check things out and see what I could find that would fit in my cheap-ass college student lack-of-budget. And score I did.

That’s a half-pound cone of Brown Sheep Cotton Fine in “obscure teal” (I know; it’s bizarre) with which I plan to knit some sort of tank combined with two skeins I have in “Emperor’s Robe” (a blue-purpleish color that may or may not match but at least has a less bizarre name and even if it doesn’t match, I’ll have enough of the teal for a tank). That’s also a POUND of Nature-Spun fingering weight wool. I mean, yes, it’s that lurid hot (burning hot-hot-owie-hot) pink, but seeing as I’m fairly competent around a dye pot (read: I can pour kool aid or Dylon dye into a bucket of hot water) I’ll be able to turn it into a more pleasing magenta or possibly mauve. I intend to make Thermal with about half of it, and then I will have half a cone of fingering weight wool in my stash. Which will be AWESOME.

I also scored this magazine for $3:

I don’t crochet nearly as much as I knit, but I did learn it first and I’m pretty decent at it. I know all the stitches and can follow a pattern, at least (though I can’t really read a chart/diagram properly). There are several cute cardigan pictures in it, but I mostly bought the mag on my DEEP DEEP desire to knit this:

Cute, right? Probably I’d do it in a solid color (probably still in some kind of sock yarn though–probably Knit Picks cause it’s HELLA CHEAP) but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the tall buttoned waistband and the flowy skirt bit. LOVE. So that’s happening for summer.

Also, I’m living in a university-owned apartment next year with my friends Sarah and Michelle. I’m considering convincing them to let me hang these in the kitchen or possibly balcony window:

What shocked me most about this, by the way (as if there’s more than one thing) is that the suggested yarn is a Red Heart acrylic (I mean, not SuperSaver; they’re not crazy, but still). I didn’t think Interweave liked to suggest anything but $45/skein fairy fart yarn. WHO’DATHUNK.

(Also: my teal cardigan is done and blocking but I need the weather to warm up before pictures happen, so on Wednesday you get more spinning efforts.)

Some Origami

March 27, 2010 in paper craft | Tags: origami, paper craft, star wars, x-wing | Leave a comment

So I was wandering about the internet, when I came upon this through the sadly now-defunct Folding Trees. Click the link. Really. It’s super cool, and you’ll be glad I told you to do it. I’ll wait.

Back? IT’S AN ORIGAMI X-WING. I KNOW, RIGHT? Seeing as my boyfriend is completely Star Wars obsessed and I like making things for him (I’m given surprisingly few opportunities as my primary craft is knitting and he’s PRACTICALLY IMPERVIOUS TO COLD), I had to whip one up:

This is my first attempt. It’s a little sad. Clearly I wasn’t paying very close attention to it, and the folds kind of… suck.

My next attempt was much less sucky:

(It’s really much better than it looks here. Really.)

If you or someone you know likes Star Wars, you should totally make them an origami X-Wing. Some of the directions are a little bit vague and confusing, but if you’re good at origami, it should be a piece of cake. And if you’re not (*raises hand*) it’s still pretty easy. It says at the top, and I’ll tell you again here, be sure to make your folds precise, especially when folding over corners. They get pretty tiny at the end.

If you’ve not left already to rush off and make X-Wings, I’ll mention that I’m still working on my summer cardi reknit. I have about five or six more inches (yes, already. I knit in class and it’s worsted weight on 4.5 mm needles) and then I have to pick up for ribbing and whatnot. So that’s happening. FO soon, I wager.

Swap and FIBER!

March 25, 2010 in stash, swap | Tags: fiber, ongoing wish swap, ows, romney, stash, swap, wool, yarnoratale | Leave a comment

So I’ve gotten a couple of packages in the past couple of days. Yesterday, I received an OWS package from StephanieGravatt:

First: Ravenclaw wall art:

I didn’t want to just tape it in the frame, so I think I’m just going to save the frame for something else, but I do have the cross stitched bits up on the wall (next to Bender).

Next, my favorite thing ever:

Team Tyler’s Van shirt! (I’ll add in an apostrophe with contact paper or something.) For those that don’t know, in the first Twilight movie, Bella (the whiny main character) almost gets run over by Tyler’s van after school, and Edward runs to her rescue and pushes the van away. I hate Twilight and can’t stand Bella, Edward or Jacob (except in a mocking this-is-so-bad-it’s-good sort of way); ergo, I am on Team Tyler’s Van. In addition to LOVING being able to show my support for Tyler’s Van, the tee fits perfectly and is even long enough for my abnormally long torso (it’s true… I’m really short; I just have really short legs).

I also got a package in the mail from YarnOrATale on Etsy. I ordered 6 oz. of Romney roving (which I haven’t tried yet) in her Melon Balls colorway.

There’s a bit of a story to this order, since I was trying to not buy any more fiber (I can only spin so much between all of my knitting projects). I’d been following this thread on Ravelry, looking at all the pretty fibers and yarns and wishing I were better at spinning (it took me most of a month, but I got through all of the nearly 600 pages), and Leah (YarnOrATale) is a member of that group on Ravelry. Her ravatar is a picture of that roving (Romney in Melon Balls) and I COMPLETELY fell in love with it. Every time I saw her ravatar, I wanted it a little more. : ) So I tracked down her shop, messaged her about it, and custom ordered the colorway (she was out of it at the time).

She was totally fantastic about the whole thing, so if you happen to be as in love with the roving as I am, you should totally check out her shop and order some (or something else… she has lots of other lovely colorways, but I’m on a fiber diet). ALSO, she was recently running a promotion for St. Patrick’s Day where if you ordered something with green in it, she’s throw in a bar of handmade soap also:

So, yes, wonderful. Not sure when I’ll get to spinning this up or what I’ll make with it, but whatever I do, it’ll be bright and springy and wonderful. : )

Summer Cardi Reknit

March 23, 2010 in knitting | Tags: knitting, wip, work in progress, yarn | 1 comment

Hey, hey, remember this cardigan I made?

Well, now it looks like this:

Or more accurately, some of it looks like this:

I decided I needed a light spring/summer cardi that actually fits (since Hey Teach came out way too big for me, comfy though it was). I’m thinking short raglan sleeves, scoop-ish neck, hip-length. I will almost certainly have enough yarn, and I’m considering doing the button bands and ribbing in a darker blue that I had left over from knitting Lelah in July.

Anyway, it’ll be cute and lightweight and perfect for summer.