Falling down

Tags

2017, black squirrel, JoJi, knitting, Lisa Souza, Madelinetosh, mystery, shopping, stash, wollemeise, yarn

Well I’ve done it again, yarn fell into the stash. I didn’t mean for it to happen, sort of. I bought something because I had the ability to get some reward points used for it so it made sense. And those points will expire at some point, so I figured less temptation later. Or at least that was the rationale behind one of the purchases. I originally intended on getting another ball of Apple Tree sock yarn in a really nice Rainbow color.  But the ball of that I wanted sold, which is ok I want the shop to do well.  But then I thought maybe I shouldn’t use the discount and just let it sit there.  Well that wouldn’t do at all, so I looked around more and more.  Then I saw some yarn that I never considered before, which another knitter at the table bought to weave with.  I then got the brilliant idea that I should weave with that yarn too, but with two skeins.  I’m really not sure what I will weave with it, but I think it’ll be quite nice.  The yarn I picked up was Hanalei Strings Bamboo Cotton in the Pele Fire color way.  It’s quite a nice combination of colors and I think it will weave up to be a quite nice whatever it’s going to be.  But the adventure doesn’t stop there.  I was driving up to Berkeley for my normal drive up to see my significant other and I decided that I would go up a little early and check out a new yarn shop.  This is a shop that I wanted to see after someone mentioned it around the table.

This is where I fell.  The shop in question is none other then The Black Squirrel which is a nice little shop.  But don’t be fooled by it’s size, it packs quite a punch.  This is a shop I would say similar to A Verb for Keeping warm in it’s caliber and what they offer.  Not only do they offer some nice fabrics, I’m not a sewer so I can’t be the judge of that.  But they offer quite an impressive selection of hand dyed yarns from indie dyers across the country.  I mean how could you say no to this sight?

Everything is group based on color which is nice to see, very visual appealing.  Then the yarn is played out in each cube to have the smaller weight yarns at the top and gradually getting larger as you go clockwise.  I had to stand there and stare at the wall for a bit, with my knitting in hand.  So I wouldn’t go too crazy, but ended up happening any way.  The staff was very friendly and she said she just started knitting in December.  We had a nice conversation about knitting and crafting.  Then I started to really pull out yarn and touch it.  I came away with seven skeins of yarn.  I didn’t even realize how much I had bought until I was putting it into my bag.  Ok this is going to be a long progression of yarn, please stay with me.

First off, we have a skein of Spun Right Round in Super Wash Sock 80/20 in the color ways Rumble in Brighton and Graffiti Overlay.

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Next there is a skein of Material Culture Fiber Arts Modern Era Sock in Snowbird and a skein of Twisted Owl Fiber Studio 2-Ply Sock in Penny Slot.

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And we finally have Nox Yarn Diana Sock in Reverie and Machete Shoppe Dirty DK in Purrmaid.

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

What can I say I’m a sucker for some nice hand dyed yarns. But after this I am officially done with buying yarn for a while.  Yarn embargo in full effect, but this yarn will be good to have in the stash.  The Dirty DK is going to be a woven scarf most likely, but I’ll need to get a different heddle for my loom to make it.  More on that later, but I have a pretty good plan.  For now I leave you with the finished clue 4 of the Joji Mystery Knit Along.  Time to start the second piece.

Unbelievable

Tags

2017, JoJi, knitting, loom, miss babs, mystery, stash, weaving, yarn

You may remember before about a week or two ago when I was picking yarn for the Mystery Knit along that I went through my entire stash and I couldn’t find the yarn that I was looking for?  Well on Sunday I was cleaning up again and going through projects that I have on the needles.  I was opening project bags and other bits and bobs seeing what was in there and trying to consolidate things down.  Well I found a pair of socks that I was knitting for a test knit that had one of the skeins in question, it’s not a test knit anymore.  They’re the Whiskey and Rye socks which I was knitting out of Miss Babs Yummy 2-ply in Zombie Prom color way.  Quite a nice pair of socks and I remember stopping working on the second sock because I might run out of yarn.  But I think I have enough to get through the rest of the sock, even with my big feet.  I remembered I was working on another pattern with the yarn in question, Conflagration out of Miss Bobs Yummy 2-ply in Bat S**t Crazy.  Theres skein number two of three, but I couldn’t find the remaining one that I was missing.  I dutifully put away yarn, reorganized bins, and touched a lot of my yarn.  I was still perplexed to what happened to that yarn.  Maybe I used it in something and just didn’t remember working with it.  Maybe i gave it away to someone or sold it.  Or perhaps it was eaten by the stash as some kind of tribute to keep itself alive.  I don’t put it past the stash anymore, I sometimes hear it say “feed me Seymore,” which if you know the reference then you know what I’m talking about.  The stash has said and done weirder things, I think.  I kept working along, cleaning through everything, happily touching yarn and realizing more and more how much I have.

 

Then I looked at my loom, which I haven’t worked on in a while and I stared at what was warped on it.  I realized the third skein was starting at me straight in the face.  The skein I was looking for was warped on my loom in plain sight.  I couldn’t believe I didn’t realize that the yarn I was desperately trying to find was right there.  I had started a patterned scarf on the loom and work on it every so often to work through the stash a little.  But the last remaining skein that I was looking for and racking my brain was right there.  I think I couldn’t hear it trying to tell me it was there over the roaring sound of the stash.  Oh and the wool fumes didn’t help either.  The colorway of that yarn is Zombie Reunion also in Miss Babs Yummy 2-ply.  Well I felt quite ridiculous on Sunday I had to step away from the yarn and cleaning and have a sit.  I couldn’t believe I had been so blind to not see the very yarn that I was searching for.  I then realized that I needed to get all of these other projects done as well so I don’t have this happen again.  So I put all of the projects in progress in one area, even though they were pretty close before.  I looked in all of the bags and saw how much or little work each of them needed, making a mental list as I went.  S now I’m going to be working as fast as I can on getting all of these done as well.  That is as I work on my other two main projects or when one of them is done.  I don’t just want to abandon one of the projects I’m currently working on because the cycle would just start again.

For now I’m going to knit feverishly and try to make myself feel better.  Here’s some knitting pictures to distract you.  On the bright side I’m making some good progress on the mystery knitting.  I know I’m supposed to make two identical pieces, but I figured I might as well try to get one piece caught up and get the other one caught up in the next week or so.  In about 5 days I’m halfway-ish through clue 3, not too bad of timing.  Clue 4 will release soon and I’m looking forward to that, but I’ll need to get the second piece ready to go after clue 3 is done.  Or maybe clue 4, depends on what that clue entails.

Pulled in

Tags

2017, knitting, Lisa Souza, Madelinetosh, Pigeonroof Studios, sanguine gryphon, stash, wollemeise, yarn

Remember I was talking about the mystery knit a long? Well I went through all of the stash and I couldn’t find the yarn I really wanted to use. And I picked out yarn that wasn’t good together. So I had to go through the stash again to find the right yarns. Thankfully I had looked through the stash and I knew of a few yarns that would work. I pulled the original yarn during the night so I didn’t have any natural light to look at the colors together. But that didn’t stop me when I picked them to say that these would be fine together. So armed with a white light and stash knowledge I went again through the stash. The yarn I wanted for this I couldn’t find for some reason but I still kept going. I remembered a yarn I bought at a LYS north of me and so I had to see if it worked. It looked good but I needed more solid yarns too to pull this off. So I kept diving and found some more solids and very subtle variegated yarns. As I dug through the stash again I kept finding yarn that I forgot I had. I kept finding yarn that wasn’t in my stash page on Ravelry. This made me a little concerned that I have more yarn then I thought.  I think I’m going to have to go through all of the stash again and make sure I put all of it in.  Maybe I’ll do that today.

 

Regardless I found two combinations that would work.  The four that are the same are Tosh Merino Light in Silverfox, Tosh Twist Light in (Looked at ravelry stash and it’s not there.. case in point) Spectrum, Lisa Souza Hardtwist Petite in Portsmouth, and Wollmesise Twin in Dornröschen.  The two that would change are either Sanguine Gryphon Eidos in Siddhartha or some handspun Pigeonroof Studios in a colorway I have no idea I lost the tags.  I think both would be a good match, but I’m still unsure.  I’m going to have to take a look through the stash and see what else I can find.

Option 1 with the Sanguine Gryphon yarn.

Option 2 with Handspun.

I’m still thinking of what I want to do for the mystery.  I want to see if I can find the yarn that I originally wanted and maybe make a better combination.  Unless these are what I go for.  I guess we will have to wait and see.  For now I need to go through the stash and add everything that I have into Ravelry.  Yikes.  I might need to put things up for destash.

Packing

Tags

2017, knitting, packing, socks, travel, yarn

Well it’s that time again, making lists and checking them three times. That’s just how I am when I travel. I always make a packing list, make sure I added everything and even when I start packing I adjust it as needed. Pack as little as possible with room to bring stuff back. But I always want to be prepared for what may happen weather wise. But on top of that I have to make sure I’m occupied while flying, I’m not a happy flyer.  Knitting keeps me from freaking out that I’m in a metal contraption 1000s of feet in the air. But I have to pack first to get there. 

Making a packing list is the first part, I also have to charge everything, triple check everything, and make sure I have enough knitting. That is no easy task, you have to have enough projects and yarn to keep you occupied. But not so much you have no room for anything else and too many that you can’t finish. That’s the balancing game I’m facing but I think I have the right stuff planned. First will be a easy Romi Hill Lace shawl, the London tube socks, and a pair of slide socks with some extra yarn. But now that I’m looking at available space and time I have to rethink the knitting. So instead of the shawl I’m going to make a sharktooth for me this time. The socks will stay and that should be enough knitting. Especially because on the way home I most likely won’t be knitting because the needles aren’t allowed. 
Patterns printed, yarn wound, electronics charged, bags packed for the most part. Time for a quick break, then dinner, and right to bed. I have a 8am flight tomorrow that I don’t want to miss. Today I woke up at 3:30 and had to think for a second and said its not tuesday so I slept in until 5:30am. Tomorrow I get to be up at 4am… 12 hours of flying, 3 hour layover, being up for 36 hours when I finally get to bed, it’s going to be a long day tomorrow/Wednesday. I’m already tired. 

Oops

Tags

2017, blocking, cardigan, mistakes, quarry, tamarack, wool, yarn

I’m actually a pretty good knitter, I’ve been knitting for 13 years. I would say I’m decently skilled. Even though that may be the case some recent events got me rethinking that. We all know by now I have some issues when it comes to patterns. Not that I can not read a pattern, but there are sometimes I have lapse in comprehension. Sometimes I think I know exactly what the pattern says. Just like the girasole when I thought I only needed to do one repeat of one of the charts instead of two. But this is one where I added a bit of instructions in my head and I decided to “trust the designer.”  Normally a good idea, most designers are good with their patterns. But not when the knitter has just woken up and is starting the final bit of a pattern. I mean I can knit lace first thing in the morning, fair isle, cables, you name it. But following a collar instructions and make sense of it, apparently not.

 

If you don’t know by now my normal wake up routine is pretty simple, get up (cursing at the morning), get coffee (no speaking to me until one cup has been consumed), sit down with some youtube and knit.  Well on Monday I was working on the short row shawl collar of my Tamarak cardigan and I read the instructions and they didn’t seem to make sense to me.  I wondered why I would start the short rows here and not up there, but I decided that I should trust the designer.  I kept going knitting away until I was about half way through the first section of short rows.  I looked at it and things didn’t seem right.  So I then looked back at the instructions and realized that I made a mistake.  This was of course after I had my two cups of coffee and was awake enough to actually follow instructions.  I then realized I added a single word to the set up row for the short rows that threw the whole collar off.  Just one “more” changed the whole collar and I proceeded to rip out everything that I had worked on.  I then flew through the rest of the collar that day and another project came off of the needles.  This was not the only mistake that I made that day.

 

I then blocked the sweater that night, into the sink it went with water and wool wash and let it soak.  I prepared the blocking mats as normal and proceeded to get rid of as much water as I could by hand.  Laying out my blocking towel I went ahead and squished out more water.  I thought during this process that I might need another towel since this is chunky yarn and it might need a little more water taken out.  But then I thought I wouldn’t need it, mistake number two.  I put the cardigan on the blocking mats, put it into shape, and let it sit there for a little bit before I went to bed.  Thankfully I didn’t go to bed right away.  The blocking mats were at a slight angle and about an hour later I noticed a small puddle on the floor.  The sweater was dripping onto the floor!  I proceeded to curse myself and quickly mopped up the excess water and grabbed another dry blocking towel and got rid of the excess water.  Since it hasn’t been too warm or dry here the last week it took about 4 days to dry in total.  But that was fine I had a new cardigan that I was excited about.  Even though it is chunky weight it is still light enough for me (in weight) and doesn’t overly burn me up.  Another big plus of the yarn that I chose.

Now it came time to get buttons, I wasn’t sure until it was dry what size I would actually need.  Yesterday I went through the buttons at my LYS and I found a perfect set of 5 buttons that just screamed, “we are the ones.”  Now I need to just add those buttons with their backing buttons and I will have a completed sweater.  Except I really don’t like putting buttons on, but hey it’s a small step to have a complete sweater.  I better get cracking and *knock on wood* that I don’t have a third mistake looming over my head.

 

So close

Tags

2017, 36 daisies, knit-against, knitting, photos, tamarack, yarn

As of two weeks ago the three of us that are knitting on the 36 Daisies shawl were at almost the same point in the knitting.  That’s quite fantastic, since I was behind and one of the others was far ahead of the rest of us.  I’m still very happy with how mine is coming out, the yarn that I used is quite nice to use and it’s not a very difficult pattern to work on.  It’s just following 4 pages of charts and making sure you don’t make any mistakes.  Like all of us thought on the second section of charts that the middle of the charts would be the same as how we had been working.  We all make the exact same error and had to correct it to make sure the pattern was right.  I ended up knitting the next row and fixing as I went.  That did take me a while and I kept working after that keeping mind to the pattern.  I kept pressing on two weeks ago, hell bound on pulling ahead and winning this knit against.  I’ve been putting off blogging because I felt like I was just talking about the shawl and something else happened too.

Last Friday however something snapped in me.  I don’t know what exactly happened, but I just couldn’t get myself to pick up the knitting on this.  The pattern is not hard at all, as I’ve stated before, you just need to pay attention.  It’s not that I don’t like the yarn, I do like this Merino wool that I chose.  I even didn’t mind knitting with that much cream colored yarn, I knew this going into it.  For whatever reason I just snapped, I couldn’t knit on it any more.  I sat there at knit night and I just stared at it, talked with people around the table, but I didn’t knit on it.  I didn’t bring anything else with me to knit on because I planned on knitting on just that.  I had to get up from the table and look at all of the yarn that was around the shop.  I needed to see something that wasn’t cream lace weight.  I fantasized about the yarn that is in my stash, in beautiful hand dyes and begging to be knit.  I fantasized about quickly knitting some hats, getting projects fast off the needles.  I broke down and bought 3 skeins of yarn, two for a two color hat, and one for a very fast knit hat.

 

I still haven’t knit a stitch on the daises since then.  I’ve actually been making some progress on my Tamarack Cardigan.  The sleeves are attached, after I blocked them to make sure my blocked gauge was still correct and that the amount I knit would be sufficient.  I’m on the shaping for the neck and decreasing the sleeves down to get up to the finished bit.  It is out of chunky weight so it’s not very time consuming, but it does take me a little longer then normal because it’s using size U.S. 10s.  Not my normal knitting size but for this it’s perfect.  I really want this to be done soon too so I can wear it while the weather is still a little crisp.  For now I need to keep working on that, wound up two more skeins of yarn today along with the other two skeins of hat yarn.

And guess what, none of it is in (insert profanity here) cream lace weight and that makes me so happy.

Deep stash diving

Tags

2016, knitting, Madelinetosh, silk, stash, yarn

Today would have normally been a day I would be in school until late, but thankfully I have today off because of a National Holiday.  I honestly thought I would have gotten up earlier but I guess I need a long recharge from this past week.  Not that it was especially trying or hard, but just because of some stressful situations with school, which are now resolved.  And the fact that I am not a morning person and I’ve had to get up early a lot because of school.  But I have been knitting, quite miraculously I have been, not a lot but enough to keep my sane.  I have my school project which is Love of Spiders, a good one that I can just auto pilot while in class, going unnoticed.  It’s in Mora Silk, which is nice to work with, makes a very nice fabric.  

The blue is more of a turquoise blue, but it is still very nice.  Lots of ends to deal with since I didn’t want to carry up the contrast color and make the edge too tight.  Just a little more to go and then I can start the next section of the pattern.  Maybe I’ll get a section done tomorrow during my lecture.

 

Even though I am trying to be a monogamous knitter, I can’t be when I have a design going.  And the Sports were the non thinking knitting, but those are done.  I just need to finish a little more seaming, wash, and block them and then I can call them 100% done.  But the spiders should have been it’s replacement, but I’m delegating that to be school only knitting, so I needed something else for non design knitting.  So I started My Cryptonite, yes I spelled that right, it’s a Melanie Berg pattern.  I debated getting 3 skeins from my LYS for my Birthday, but resisted and instead went into stash and pulled out 3 skeins of Madelinetosh Sock, one deep stash, one medium, and one kinda medium.  The colors I chose were, Composition Book Grey, Fog, and Grasshopper.  I’m really happy with how they are mixing together and this pattern is so great.  Maybe I’ll have to dig again later and make another.

Composition book is not that pinky purple in real life.  I just wanted some quick photos, so no edits.  But these will do for now.  Back to enjoying the day, going to knit for a while.

The returning yarn

Tags

2016, design, knit, knitting, Madelinetosh, travel, yarn

Let’s start this off that this hasn’t happened before. We had some Madelinetosh get delivered to my local yarn shop, usually I can resist and I did. But there was a new color that came in that I liked, but it and another color was being looked at by my friend. She decided that she only needed 3 of each and left the other 2 skeins. I had them in front of me and another friend and I were looking at them. I told her if she wanted them she should get them. So she did and so the end of that skein, or so I thought. But then last week that yarn came back, she returned it. A friend that works there had it but she decided she didn’t want it and passed it along to another friend.  Then she decided she didn’t want it last Friday, so then it was in front of me. I knew it was destiny that it came back to me, but I needed to know what it was going to be if I bought it.
So I did, it’s very pretty, one of the better new colors from Tosh. I think it’s going to be a Sharktooth because the other 2 I knit were gifted to my mother and she loves them. But I miss having one of them and it was a fun knitting so I think the skein would be perfect for it. That yarn is Madelinetosh Sock in the colorway Marfa. I think it’s going to be a perfect Sharktooth.

I did visit another yarn shop yesterday, on my way up to Walnut Creek I stopped in Danville to a shop I had tried to visit 2 times prior but because of traffic I wasn’t able to get there in time. I finally got there and couldn’t have been more thrilled. This shop has yarns I can’t get in my local shop or the other few remaining. But the staff is also super friendly and the owner is such a sweet heart. The shop I’m talking about is A Yarn Less Raveled, not a large shop at all but is still full of wonderful treasures.

I walked around to see what all they had, even though I saw their impressive yarn selection online. I also had to cool down since it was 97F yesterday. Browsing around I was thinking about the designs I was working on and wanted to get something from there. I picked up a few things while I was there.  Here’s just a teaser picture of what I picked up, I’ll talk about them more… eventually…

 

Confetti Cake

Tags

2016, design, fiberseed, knitting, Madelinetosh, on the spice market, rainbow, seedling, silk, yarn

That is what has been going through my mind as I have been working on my second on the spice market.  I’ve been calling it The pride market, but it also kind of looks like confetti cake.  Don’t get me wrong I like confetti cake, but it’s not my absolute favorite.  So it’s a little weird that I’m seeing both names in my head while knitting on it.  And speaking of knitting on it, it’s been a rather slow knit on it, due to the weather here.  It’s been hitting the low 90s, which yes for some of you is pretty tame, but for me it’s way too hot.  It is even worse that now it is long enough that it can sit on my lap, making me warmer.  You know I must be a little sadistic, knitting with wool during the summer, and not only that.  But I’m knitting with wool and making things that would fall into my lap as it grows.  I think once this is finished I’m going to need to have a more summer related knitting project to work on while focusing on designs.  Speaking of those, I haven’t really been working on my current design.  I just haven’t gotten out of the garter funk I’ve been in, until today.  Where I feel like I can work on designing fantastic patterns again.  That and I have a design for 3 colors of silk I kind of want to have for the summer.

Pretty isn’t it?  Of course it’s out of Madelinetosh Tosh Sock and Twist Light, and Fiber Seed Seedlings.  I’m very happy with how it’s turning out and how squishy the Fiber Seed yarn is.  I think I might need to get more of their yarn in bigger skeins, but once I get the stash more manageable.

 

I do have one pattern out to some test knitters right now (can’t remember if I mentioned that).  I’m waiting for them to finish to see what else needs to be changed in the pattern.  Not only that but I’m coordinating with the model and I want to make sure it’s a day that isn’t too warm, because modeling wool in the summer evening can be really uncomfortable.  But we will have to see what happens, it’s just going to take me some time to get all of this together.  Thorough I think it will be a great summer accessory if done in a silk.  I think I’m in a silk mood right now, even though I love wool, just hot weather and wool don’t mix.  I’m not looking forward to some of the photoshoots I have to model for that are going to be in wool.  I think I will do that, once I finish this knitting I’m going to pick something silk to work on.  Probably not the silk design just yet, maybe something out of Tosh Silk Lace.  I guess we will have to wait and see.

Feeling a bit warped and cranky

Tags

2016, design, knitting, Madelinetosh, shawl, silk, stash, yarn

I have to admit that I have not been using the sock machine that much. I did pull it out about a week ago to dust it off, give it a little oil, and see how well it’s working. Working well still, with all of the idiosyncrasies that I remember. But that’s not what Ive been working on, I’ve been weaving. I have not forgotten my loom, but it’s been a while since I picked it up. So I folded it open yesterday, got aquatinted with the pattern again, and started cruising. It’s not a hard pattern to follow, it’s a pick up stick pattern. So every 6 throws I have to change the pick up stick. Which can be the most time consuming part, but I’ve gotten into the rhythm of it (for the life of me I couldn’t spell rhythm, I spell better in French, go figure).  Side note yes English is my first language, but it’s not my best sometimes.

 
Let’s not get too sidetracked, back to the loom. It’s going pretty well, I was able to do about 12 inches yesterday, in between breaks and trying to stay cool. It’s been pretty warm this week, in the 90s but then it drops to the 60s the next day. This weather is strange and makes fiber crafting harder for me. But I persevere and keep going, but weaving isn’t the only thing I’ve been working on. I’ve been knitting on my On the Spice Market. I’m in the second section where you have little blips of the contrast colors. The contrast rows are a little slow in comparison to the main color rows, but it’s going along. I started the third contrast color two nights ago and am about 3/4 the way through with this color.  Then I get to keep going with the next 3 colors in the same section and the final section with all seven colors.  Yes this project is going to have a lot of ends to weave in, I think I better get a head start on that.

 

And just a quick design update, the new pattern is to my test knitters right now.  I am excited to see what they come up with.  I know one of them is knitting it in silk, which I think will be perfect.  So that is going along quite smoothly, I’m hoping to have it ready for mid summer launch, but we will have to wait and see how things go.  And the brand new design I’m still working on, has a lot of math.  Let me just say this is making my mind melt a little bit.  I don’t know if most people know how much work designers put into making sure they think of every last detail of a pattern.  Ensuring this line up, you have the right numbers, and everything is as perfect as they can humanly get it.  Or maybe that just how I like to make my patterns.  In any case, this is going to take me some time to get all of the math out of the way, but I will say that it’s going to be awesome.  I might have said that already, but I’ll say it again, it’s going to be awesome!