Knitosaurus Rex

Hmm. Much Ado About Everything.

2005-06-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, eh? To tell the truth, I considered not blogging anymore, but I just couldn't resist. Here is an old picture of what the Scoop du Jour twins look like.

Since this picture, I have done some more on those backs. Will I ever finish these sweaters? I hope so.

BUT! I won't ever finish them if I get distracted... Too late.

I knit at Starbucks all the time, and this girl who works there just loves to check out my knitting progress, and the other day she asked me to knit two blankets for her two nieces who are both having baby girls this year. I was all over that because I just discovered that Pinwheel Baby Blanket, and what an innovative pattern it is!

Here's the first one that I am making for one of her nieces:

Click the picture for a slightly closer look.

Bitten by the PBB bug, I started another one with the Sugar and Cream cotton that I have 5 balls of. It's my absolute favorite colorway of any variegated yarn that I have, so I've been trying to find something to knit with it, but I always end up frogging. I don't know how practical it is to have a baby blanket made from Sugar and Cream cotton, but how often is knitting practical?

And here are some random weekend pictures for ya.

This is an awesome shirt that my mom bought for me from one of those trendy stores. American and Fitchostale or something. It's the brightest shirt that I own at the moment, but I like it.

And this is my gorgeous sister:

Isn't she just the most adorable little person you've ever seen? She's 4'11" and athletic as all get out. I love you, Becca!

Last but not least, here is a picture of the guy that I'm dating. We went to the beach. Doesn't he look great in this photo? Awwww, I wish you could see his freckles in the pic - they are adorable!

Well, salutations and Happy Knitting!

Anybody else... ready to start their new job in Cali but going to miss the guy their dating??? Me too.

Arizona is the BOMB!

2005-06-07T14:42:00.000-07:00

I've been working here in Scottsdale, Arizona since Sunday, and I'm LOVING this weather! It always feels so incredible to travel out West and experience pure heat sans humidity. The sun is so much more inviting that way!

As a result, I am nice and golden brown because we've actually had some time to tan by the hotel's pool. Go figure that I never have time to tan when I'm at home, but the minute that I take a business trip on which I am going to have to bust my ass to help open a new store, I get to lay out. Curious, eh? Well, I've been enjoying myself, for sure.

The girl that I was tanning with is from California, and she was talking about how it's too hot, and she had to jump in the pool. I just said to her, "Girl, in Texas it's hot all the time, and the humidity pretty much ensures you a sweat. I'm loving this dry heat!" She didn't get me.

On the knitting front, I'm past the armholes on the back Blueberry Scoop and I think that once I finish it, I'll move on to the rest of Vanilla's back, and finish that on the plane ride back to Texas on Sunday.

Oh, and my Secret Pal has recently contacted me and asked me where I'm moving to in California! On August 1st, I'll be moving to Santa Ana to help open a Chick-fil-A which will be next to South Coast Plaza (!). Then in December, I'll be moving to a different city in California to help open up another store for 4 months, and so on. I'll be joining a team of about 7 other awesome folks who head up the Grand Openings of these new stores. Talk about publicity! The home office adores these people, and it's the best way to get your foot in for a store of your own, which is my goal.

Anyhoo, y'all take care - I forgot my digital camera at home (boo hoo!) so I can't take pictures of the Scoop twins, but I'll post some on Monday, I think.

Toodles!

Anybody else... totally excited about Secret Pal 5? Me too!!

Hm.

2005-06-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

Well, the reason that I haven't been posting lately is because I haven't had time even to KNIT, let alone post.

Why? Let's put it this way: I have a 70 hour work-week. And this isn't just chill out work, either. I'm on my feet all day, and constantly running around solving a million problems and answering two-million questions, so when I'm not at work, I just want to lay there and not move or speak.

However tonight, I've discovered that I'm about to start the ol' "time of the month" because instead of laying around and relaxing, I have eaten left-overs (all of them)/pop tarts/cereal/a corn dog (where did that come from?)/boiled shrimp/and a few mixed nuts.

And to top it off, I washed everything down with fruit punch... I feel like everything is my stomach is like in there getting to know each other - "Frosted Mini Wheats, meet shrimp. Corn dog, meet pop tarts." Awesome.

Yeah, so tomorrow at 4:45am when I get out of bed to be at work by 5:30am, I'm sure my tummy will feel superb.

And in the knitting world: I have been making snail-paced progress on the Scoop du Jour twins. I have a feeling that these two sweaters will be my only FOs before I move to California. I mean that is, if I finish them.

Anybody else... wish that the knitting fairies would finish their sweater backs? Me too.

Back-Tack!

2005-05-27T13:33:00.000-07:00

Yay for getting mail!

Here is a pic of the too-cute olive fabric that I received to make a notions holder/needle roll with for backtack:

I got the olive fabric with a complementary brown, two types of ribbon and a zipper, and some black buttons, all topped off with a nice card!

Thanks, back-tack fabric sender!!

Now the only question is: what to make? Good thing that there's a lot of inspiration out there.

And last up is my Scoop du Jour twins progress. I am past the ribbing on both Vanilla and Blueberry's backs.

Proof?

Anybody else... super-duper tired today for some reason? Me too.

Hold On; Let Me Finish This Row.

2005-05-26T09:33:00.000-07:00

So, the night before last, I went to bed and all was well. Little did I know that I would wake up yesterday morning with two hunks of fat-marbled, raw steak in the back of my throat. Awesome.

I went to the doctor today and it turns out that (surprise) I have Strep. Again, awesome. Of course, I brought my knitting to the clinic, which entranced the little girl next to me in the waiting room. Don't you love that? She was the shy type, which you always know because they're staring at your knitting, but when you look over, they quickly focus on their fingernails or something.

They called my name after about 10 minutes, and I was in the middle of a row. Now, when this happens, I always want to say "Hold on and let me finish this one row," but I know that would just be ridiculous, so I cautiously fold my straights in half and push the knitting further down the needles, always sticking them points-up in my knitting bag.

In the little room where the doctor sees you, I got the usual treatment from a couple of the doc's assistants, and then they took a culture of my tonsils, which one assistant said looked "nice and lumpy." I was then ushered back to the waiting room to (you guessed) wait. For how long? "Well, fifteen to twenty minutes, but it depends on how busy they are in the lab." Of course.

About forty minutes later, I was up to a point in my knitting where without the pattern, I couldn't go any further. Y'all know how that is; you don't bring the pattern because you think you'll never get far enough to need it...

It was taking so long that I thought to myself that the doctor and the lab personnel must have had a chat which went something like this:

LP: Listen, as much as we'd love to run tests on this possible Strep culture, we have to run these other tests for this other patient which could take about an hour.

D: Well, I told her it would be 15-20 minutes, so can't it wait that long?

LP: Not really, no. Did she have something to keep her busy?

D: Oh yeah, she was knitting... Nevermind, that should be fine.

Yeah. Finally, they came back and told me it was Strep, and I got some antibiotics and am now going to take the remainder of the week off, to return on Monday. I have made knitting progress but have no pictures to show for it. Perhaps later on today. Until then, happy knitting!

Anybody else... not really mind being sick because it can mean lots more knitting time? Me either.

Distracted?

2005-05-23T21:47:00.000-07:00

Ya think?

I messed up on the sewing of the first CCK sleeve to the CCK body tube thing, so - I'm sure y'all can relate - I angrily threw it on my dresser, and don't plan on working on it again until later this week.

So, instead of making CCK progress, I cast on for Vanilla Scoop's back. But notice how I didn't even make it through Row 1? Yeah, I was distracted...

Proof that I at least *tried* to work on the Scoop du Jour twins:

And proof that I was almost immediately distracted by the awesome jacket in the VK mag. (See this entry.)

In this pattern, the body is knit back and forth from jacket front to jacket front all in one piece until the armpits, and then it's separated into the 3 pieces up to the neck. That fact combined with a 28st/4" gauge means that I had to cast on 287 or so stitches... Not Fun.

I suspect that I got the distraction out of my system and will continue to work on the Scoop twins tomorrow. At least now when I'm ready to work on the jacket, it's already cast on.

Aight, well it's bedtime. Happy late-night knitting y'all!

Anybody else... wish there were 30 hours in a day? Me too.

Secret Pal Survey.

2005-05-20T13:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is long, but here we go...

1. Are you a yarn snob (do you prefer higher quality and/or natural fibers)? Do you avoid Red Heart and Lion Brand? Or is it all the same to you?

Well, to be honest, I've never knit with "nice" yarn, since I learned to knit in my college days. (Hee hee, my college days only ended on the 12th of this month!) I love Lion Brand Cotton-Ease (my fave yarn), and I really don't like Red Heart, but I think that I'd like to try some "nice" yarn, just to see what it's like. Maybe some Koigu?

2. Do you spin? Crochet?

In a word: no.

3. Do you have any allergies? (smoke, pets, fibers, perfume, etc.)

Nope.

4. How long have you been knitting?

I started knitting in February of 2004, and I haven't stopped since!

5. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?

No, but I guess I should throw that together. Now that I think about it, I probably won't do it, though.

6. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products etc.)

My favorite scent is pretty much the coconut/lime from Bath and Body Works. Mmm Mm!

7. Do you have a sweet tooth?

I like chocolate for sure, and I like certain candy bars (no Snickers or Milky Way - yuck, yes Payday and Butterfinger and anything Reese's - yum!), but I'm the type who would rather have seconds than dessert.

8. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do?

I used to sew my own clothes by hand - because I could never really get the hang of a sewing machine - but I really don't do that anymore. And even though I joined Back Tack, I pretty much just knit.

9. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)

I like 80's music (the pop, like Depeche Mode, Talking Heads, and Def Leppard - not the metal like Judas Priest and Metallica), and I really enjoy Latin music, my favorite Latin performer being Shakira.

10. What's your favorite color? Or--do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can't stand?

Oh my gosh, my favorite color is red, hands down. I have been trying to wear more green lately, and my boyfriend thinks I look best in blue, but basically, my rule of thumb is: If it it an object that can be bought in red, then I buy it in red.

11. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?

I just graduated from college, and I'm waiting (6 weeks) to move to California for this job that I got (!), so I live with my mom and my sister. We are SO not a pet family.

12. What are your life dreams? (really stretching it here, I know)

Well, career-wise, I plan to operate my very own Chick-fil-A. Family-wise, I plan to have as many children as I feel I can (very) comfortably afford. Personal-wise, I plan to become fully fluent in Spanish, and I plan to attempt to touch the lives of young people, somehow.

13. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with?

Lion Brand Cotton Ease is my favorite, right now. But I have knitted a swatch with Paton's Cotton DK, and I really like that, too. Like I said before, I don't know what it's like to knit with "good" yarn. I have dreams about Cashmere.

14. What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?

Well, I live in Texas, so I stay away from wool/wool blends. Cotton just feels so much better on the skin.

15. What is/are your current knitting obsession/s?

I'm completely stuck in a cardigan phase, however I am also prone to be lulled into a tank-top phase now and again.

16. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?

Shirts, with the exception of the occasional bag.

17. What are you knitting right now?

I'm knitting Scoop du Jour (2 at the same time!) and a Jerry-rigging of the Klaralund pattern, which I call "Copy Cat Klara." When I finish my CCK, I'm going to cast on for Pattern #12 in the Winter 2004/2005 Vogue Knitting. (It's a badass jacket.)

18. What do you think about ponchos?

No, no, no. Did I mention no? Well, no.

19. Do you prefer straight or circular needles?

I prefer circular because I always catch the end of straight needles on something as I knit, and because circs are a lot more manageable, but I knit with straights sometines if I have no available circs in the particular size that I need.

20. Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?

I like the slick metal that Susan Bates needles are made with, and I dig me some Bamboo, too.

21. Are you a sock knitter?

Ah, yes. Sock knitting... I've tried to knit a pait of socks so many times, and I just can't keep focused on them. I'll make all kinds of progress in the first sitting, then I get distracted and never look back. So, no, I guess I'm not.

22. How did you learn to knit?

I typed in "learn how to knit" in Google, and taught myself that way. I also learned by using a couple of knitting books.

23. How old is your oldest UFO?

About six months. It's a blanket that I am about 4/10 of the way through.

24. What is your favorite animated character or a favorite animal/bird?

I am thoroughly addicted, and infinitely entertained by South Park. I love all of the characters on the show.

25. What is your favorite holiday?

I like Valentine's Day a lot, and Mother's Day (gotta show the love!), but my favorite celebratory event would have to be birthdays. I really love birthdays - my own and everyone else's.

26. Is there anything that you collect?

Um, does yarn count? :P Let's see... I just started collecting John Travolta movies (look on my 101 Things About Me list to see which ones I have), and I collect Shakira video and audio, and All Things Jimmy Fallon. (I love you, Jimmy!!)

27. What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?

Well, I don't have any, but I still seem to buy every VK and IK that comes out... Yeah. Also, I would give up my first born for a Rowan Magazine subscription.

28. Any books out there you are dying to get your hands on?

Rowan Mag #35. Other than that, I'm not much of a reader, but I do enjoy pretty much all types of non-fiction.

There we are - all done!

Anybody else... excited about SP5? Me too!

Heeeeere Froggy, Froggy!!

2005-05-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

Something froggy this way comes.

I have frogged my CCK sweater sleeve. Why? Well, I know that the Klaralund pattern has extended Garter st on the shoulder part, which did like when I made a sweater like this before, BUT it looked bad in the worsted weight yarn and bigger needles. It looked too... chunky. So its fate was the frogging.

Proof of froggy endeavor:

This picture reminds me of the X-Men logo.

I started knitting the sleeve again, and I've gotten past the armhole, but I just can't knit anymore tonight. I have to wake up at 7am, and I haven't been getting much sleep lately.

I really want to fill out the Secret Pal 5 survey, but the website suggests that we wait until the end of May to post it so that our Secret Pal doesn't have to look through a bunch of posts to find it. I think I'll just fill it out and link to it in my sidebar...

Anybody else... incredibly tired? Me too.

Vanilla and Blueberry: A Tale of Four Fronts.

2005-05-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

I finished all of the fronts of the Scoop du Jour twins, and I thought about casting on for the backs right away, but I'm tired. Also, I want to make a little CCK progress before I zoom ahead on the Scoops.

Here is some proof of said four fronts:

I guess I should state that I shorted the body of Vanilla Scoop because I want her to have more of a cropped look so that when I wear her, the shirt that I have on will stick out from the bottom and the top.

Blueberry is 14.5" from bottom to armpit, I think.

Also, today I went to buy my backtack fabric and stuff!

I think I'm going to show a picture. I don't see why I wouldn't be able to, right?

Click the picture to see a darker close-up. The colors are truer in the lighter photo. I love this fabric set, and even though I don't know much about quilting, I'd say this would make a nice one. Great greens!

On the top of the fabric is a coordinating zipper (maybe for a pocket on the outside of the needle roll), and on the bottom is some light green/grey translucent ribbon. Who knows what for? Not I.

Well, I'm tired and I have to wake up early, so Happy Knitting everyone!

Anybody else... waiting patiently for retirement? Me too.

I Guess I'll Do it Too.

2005-05-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

So, everyone has this 101 Things About Me list on their blog, and it's always so alluring that I have to go read it. I can make one of those, I suppose...

Here we go!

1) I learned to knit via the beloved Google in February of 2004, and the longest amount of time that I went without knitting was 3 days, and that only happened once, a couple of weeks ago.

2) Knitting is the first hobby that I've ever stuck with.

3) I can't remember what I used to do with my free time before I learned to knit.

4) I have a sister who is 8 years younger than I, my Mom just turned 39 and my Dad is 43, and I am 22. (This was written in May of 2005.)

5) I am finally a college graduate. (WHOOP!)

6) Instead of mayonnaise, I like to put grape (or strawberry) jelly on my turkey sandwiches.

7) I used to be a Coca-Cola fanatic, until I met my current boyfriend. Now I like Dr. Pepper way more. (He also turned me on to Pepsi, and THAT is my Absolute Favorite.)

8) My favorite yarn is Cotton Ease, since I'm a po' twenty-something. Too bad it got discontinued...

9) I have a James Avery charm bracelet with 29 charms on it. It has 7 more spaces left, and I'm not sure what I'll do when it's full.

10) If I ever went back to school, I would Master in Linguistics. (Social Linguistics, that is.)

11) My favorite kind of music is 80's and New Wave. By 80's, I mean stuff like Prince, Madonna, Loverboy, Def Leppard, and George Michael - to name very few - but not Judas Priest or Metallica. Music from the late 70's to the early 90's flies with me.

12) My 80's mp3 collection consists of about 400 songs.

13) I also like pop music, and shamelessly, I went and saw Justin and Christina on the Stripped Tour.

14) Despite #'s 11-13, my all time favorite musician is Shakira. I speak Spanish very well, and really appreciate Latin music, and Shakira is a very amazing lyricist and she has a strong head on her shoulders about how she views the world. I adore her and her music (and her dancing).

15) John Travolta is pretty much my favorite actor, and I started collecting all of his movies on DVD. So far I have Urban Cowboy, Saturday Night Fever, Domestic Disturbance, The General's Daughter, and Face/Off. I'm looking for Grease...

That's all for now!

The Twins Grow.

2005-05-15T21:20:00.000-07:00

I always feel like I'm going to blog about my boobs when I write "Twins" in the title. I'll leave that for another day...

Knitting time is scarce at the moment because I have this great organization thing going in preparation for the job that I got. I'll have to move every 4 months (the company will scout out an apartment for me ahead of time), so I have to keep all of my stuff very compact and I really have to just put a lot in storage.

The job lasts just 2 years, so it's not like I want to get rid of everything.

But I did work a bit on the little Scoops while enjoying a cup of coffee and watching Desperate Housewives with my Mom. I had never seen this show before (I rarely watch television) but it was cute, and I liked it I guess. After it was over I said, "Mom, it seems like everyone on there is cheating on their spouse, or ruining someone's life." And she replied, laughing, "Yes, it seems you 'get' the show..." Nice.

Anyway, here's proof of the Scoop du Jour twins' progress:

Posing with the Scoop twins is my dear stuffed doggy, Agent Spoon. That little guy is so cuddly and soft, and great to sleep with when I'm at home (AKA: Sans Man.).

While I organized my stuff, I got a lot of the knitting needles that I had kind of floating around put back in my needle case, and I realized something. A lot of people have huge needle holders that separate needles by size, but when I bought my small, modest case, which only has 1 compartment, I thought, "Man, I'll never have enough needles to warrant a big holder like that." Hm.

Oh yeah, and that Spring Scarf that's lurking in the sidebar's WIP list? I hate it now. It curls like a weight lifter, and is really not for me. SO... I'm frogging it, and that awesome-colored Cotton Tots is going to become a little lacy tank top, like I had originally intended it to be. I'm actually thinking something with a lacy edge and triangle top, much like Honeymoon Cami, only with wider straps.

Should look good... just have to make negative ease since I don't have much of that yarn. Hellooo, short-row boob room!

Anybody else... wish they had more time to knit? Me too!

Show Your Tattoo Day!

2005-05-13T06:03:00.000-07:00

And Friday the 13th! How exciting. Anyhoo, here is my tattoo.

Click the image to zoom out!

This is the Alpha and Omega. A lot of people ask me what this means (I get a lot of "Oh is that your Sorority?" - Me. Sorority. Hah.) so I'll give a little mini-definition.

The Alpha and Omega - the first and last letters of the Greek Alphabet, respectively - signify the enternity of the Lord, and the fact that He was with us in the beginning and will be with us until the end. In the Bible, God calls himself "the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." Some people say that this means that the beginning and the end exist in God simultaneously, so there is a lot of imagery of the two letters linked together.

Here are a couple of sites that have a little bit more info. I tried to pick non-biased sites. Some people are crazy and think they are priviledged enough to know everything about everything.

Bartleby.com and Answers.com.

This is probably the only time you'll hear me mention religion here, because I'm fairly private about it. I spent my life as an Agnostic (I used the term as a way to pretty up Atheist, because Christians tell you to go to Hell a lot less if you say you're Agnostic - Oh yes, ye who judges me and tells me to go to Hell, can I be part of your group? Riiight. Puh-lease. Jerks.), but about 6 months ago someone finally convinced me without making me feel like a total douche-bag.

So now I'll all Christian and stuff. It feels weird, I'm not gonna lie, since I made fun of, and could never understand all of those Christians all these years.

I'm glad that I grew up not believing, because it gives me an awesome perspective on religion. Yeah, I have to learn everything that everyone else learned as a kid (Who is Noah, really? I mean I know he made that giant boat with all the animals in it, but why?"), but I don't care, because since I didn't grow up with religion, I accept everyone, no matter what their feelings toward religion are.

And which denomination did I choose? Bah. Organized religion...I'm not a fan. Of course, I see the need for organized religion, and I'm the live and let live type, so people can do whatever they want to, but I'm just a plain Jane Christian.

Okay, enough of that. So um... that's my tattoo. Heh.

Oh yeah, I drew it, too. I drew it for about 4 months until I got my favorite style. My version was all red, but the artist suggested that I do the Omega black, so they would contrast. I like it.

When I move to California for my kick-ass job, I'm going to have a bad-ass tattoo artist touch it up and maybe put a triangle around it to signify The Trinity.

And about that knitting shtuff:

I've cast on for the other fronts of the Scoop twins. I am SOOOO lured by that jacket in Vogue (see previous entry), so it's hard to resist casting on for it, but I HAVE to.

Anybody else... have knitting ADD? Me too.

CCK Progress? I'm in a Rush.

2005-05-12T20:39:00.000-07:00

Why the rush? Because I know exactly what I'm going to use my gifted Patons Cotton DK! It's pattern 12 from the VK Winter 2004/2005 Issue. I couldn't find a picture anywhere on the web, so I took a picture of the one in the magazine. Click here for a big pop-up pic of it. Sorry about the shine on the photo!

I swatched in the Cotton DK and I got gauge for both pattern stitches!! YAAY!! This means that I can knit the exact pattern without any math or alterations, because I really love the look of the pattern as is.

I can't start this awesome jacket yet because I have a 3-sweater-on-the-needles limit, so I have to finish my CCK first. Hence the rush...

Here are a couple of pics so far:

Click to see the awesome wannabe slideshow that I made with the pictures of the sleeve that I took. It's a tribute to Fluffa, but I couldn't figure out how to make it scroll like she does.

I've finished the front and back and crocheted them together, and I did a sleeve to the armpit - I just started on the St st portion.

In the pics, the sleeve is folded over in half, across 2 needles, so that you could see what it looks like next to the body. Almost done! (Not really, but I HAVE to knit that Vogue jacket!)

Tomorrow is Show Your Tattoo Day!

I already took my tattoo pictures, but no peeking until tomorrow's post. I'm excited to see everyones tattoos (and a belly button ring!)!

Anybody else... wish they could knit faster? Me too.

Picture Post!!

2005-05-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

I took a bunch of pictures today because I have so much fun stuff to show!

First of all, I was gifted some fantabulous yarn from a friend of mine who tried to take up knitting and never really stuck with it. It's Paton's Cotton DK in a really nice navy blue. I think I'll knit something lacy with it because I can't see myself knitting with this tiny-gauged yarn on little-ass needles.

Proof of this gifting?

Next up is a picture of CCK progress. I am 1 repeat away from finishing the front/back, and then I'm going to crochet me some seams. (Fun!)

I can't wait until I get to the sleeves of this thing... Tonight perhaps?

Moving on to the twins, Vanilla and Blueberry. Scoop du Jour is a knit that just flies off the needles.

Here is a pic of the two fronts of my little darlings:

And here is the best picture that I've ever gotten of Vanilla's stitch:

And lastly, I got two new size US8 circular needles to knit my dear twins with because I had them on bunk ass needles, but Hobby Lobby was doing some kind of rearranging, and I could only find two, one a Boye (what I always get) and one a Susan Bates. Both were the same price, so I got them.

I pulled the Boye out and put my Blueberry on it. Same old same old. Then, I pulled the Susan Bates out. Never had one of these bad boys before...

Man. This thing is awesome. Okay, the cord on a Boye is unyielding and rigid, while the SB is fluid while still being substantially stout. And the needle part...wow. The Boye is sticky, sticky, sticky, and the SB is as slick as a suppository. But less gross.

Here's a comparison picture:

Notice how I have to hold the Boye needle down because it wants to fly about like a snake trying to attack me.

I slipped the SB needle into the stitches of Vanilla and man, it was love at first twisted stitch. No wonder Twisted St st felt awkward and unnatural - it was the needles the whole time!

Anyhow, happy knitting everyone, and long live Susan Bates' needles!

Schooool's Out ForEVAH!!

2005-05-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

I am officially finished with school for the rest of my life, unless I get a wild hair up my heinie later to Master in Linguistics.

No more school! Real life? Bring it on.

I got a sweet job in California that's a stepping stone for a bigger and better job in good ol' white bread conservative-ass Texas - gotta stay close to my mom. (Mom, will you and Becca (the little sis) move to Cali?)

It feels great to know what you're doing when all of your friends are like "Arrrrghhhh, I'm freeeeeaking oooout!"

Anyhow, the job starts August 1st, and it will cause me to have a new address about every 4 months... That's no good for knitting membership fun-times, but I probably won't have a whole lot of time for that. Only time for pure knitting - no frills.

The twins, Vanilla and Blueberry, are progressing nicely, with the right (or is it left - I can't remember) front on each almost done.

Happy knitting y'all, and congrats to the college grads! WHOOP!

Awwww, Twiiins!

2005-05-08T21:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I am proud to announce that my twins have arrived:

Meet Vanilla and Blueberry Scoop:

I've heard of knitting two sleeves, two socks, even two cardi fronts at the same time. But two sweaters? Well, here at Knitosaurus Rex, we've got twin scoops!

They are indeed fraternal twins - Blueberry a bouncy, energetic baby boy, and Vanilla a lovely, angelic baby girl - born just moments apart, of the same pattern, and growing together happily ever since.

Here's a close-up comparing the two different stitches (twisted St st vs. plain St st):

Anybody else... wish they could be lucky enough to have (real) twins? Me too.

Oh, yeah and Happy Mother's Day, Mom!!

Scoop du Jour KAL Weblog!

2005-05-08T15:08:00.000-07:00

I created an account for the Scoop du Jour Knit-along (started by Heidi) that will allow anyone who emails me to sign up access to be able to post progress shots, questions, etc.

Go over to the page and check it out!

When I showed Heidi the page, she kind of made me in charge of KAL sign-up so that we would have all of the information together.

Email me (53stitches AT gmail DOT com) with the following information if you want to sign up for the KAL.

1) Your name
2) Your knitblog URL (if you have one)

Also, email me if you have questions, comments, concerns, compliments ;), etc.

Happy Scooping!

Anybody else... excited about the knit-along? Me too!

Plain Vanilla? I Think Not.

2005-05-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

I was piddling around, checking out the knitblog scene, when I spotted this on the Subway Knitter's blog. I've never heard of this "Twisted St st" before, but it's uber-pretty and very simple.

Apparently you just knit your sts tbl and then purl normally on the backside. Who'd have thunk it?

So I says to myself, I says "Rachele, you have to make your Vanilla scoop in that stitch. You just have to." And I usually listen to myself, so I cast on for the right front of Vanilla and worked 4x4 ribbing similar to this (I don't want to give the pattern away):

Row 1 (WS): [p4, k4]* Until end.
Row 2: [k4 tbl, p4]* Until end.

Ta-da! Twisted St st ribbing! Proof?

Here's a kind of blurry (but kind of atrsy, no?) close-up of the stitch. Click on the pic to see a somewhat clearer version.

And I did up to 1 repeat on the CCK back/front.

I've cast on for the Blueberry Scoop du Jour, and I think this one will be best in a 2x2 rib instead of 4x4. 2x2 is more playful.

I feel much better with 3 sweaters on needles instead of just one... Kinda.

Anybody else... think knitting tbl is harder than knitting regular? Me too.

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

2005-05-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

Before I show you the badass completed Lacy Pulli, I have to say that I found this site on Carrieoke's blog, and learned a bunch of things. That pop-up window thing is the coolest thing since sliced you-know-what so, it's going on the links page under "Cool Tools."

Now, for the awesome tank thing:

Click here to see the neckline close-up.

I really, really like this one. Talk about worth the wait! Of course, the ends are not weaved in, but Ah dunna care.

Now let's talk about my next project... I only have one sweater on the needles right now, and that just won't do. So what's next?

Two Scoops, please!

I was having trouble deciding between two styles of the Scoop sweater: The exact one in the pattern - White Cotton Ease, exactly as pattern is written (scout's honor), or a Blue Cotton Ease one that looks more like this black sweater. I LOVE that sweater and was about to ask Carrie what pattern it was knit from, when I saw in the comments that it's from Target... Oops.

But yeah, I'm going to start the neck shaping later, and make a fold-over collar, like the one in the Ribby Cardi, and then shorten the bottom ribbing and add those cute pockets. Big, blue buttons, and we're done!

Anyway, I couldn't decide between those two, when my roommate (very jokingly) suggested that I knit both at once. "What a great idea!" I (very crazily) exclaimed.

So, ahem, it's a two-fer! Two Scoops: one vanilla and one, um, blueberry? Sounds good to me!

Oh, and I made use of that EchoEcho website again:

Click here to see today's snack (read: lunch) of choice.

Anybody else... hungry for ice cream now? Me too.

I'm Done!

2005-05-05T14:26:00.000-07:00

Just kidding. But I am almost done. Yay.

I have to knit that other side up and then do the neck-band (I'm thinking I'll lift the instructions from the tennis sweater thats in this same issue) and then sew the shoulder. Then it's finito for this little bastard. Although if I try it on and I don't like the absence of sleeves, I might just do a little facing or a ribbed edging or something to make it more "finished."

Here's a close-up of the V-neck split:

That's it for now. I'm going to put this thing to rest until tomorrow, so any casual knitting that I do tonight will be on the CCK, because large needles and an endless sea of Stockinette sound absolutely delightful at the moment.

Anybody else... claim cheese and chips with soda is their favorite snack? Me too.

Proof?

Surprise!

2005-05-04T23:37:00.000-07:00

I decided on a whim to have a surprise deep V-neck for Ms. Lacy Pullover. I really bossed that biatch around!

And this surprise was totally not due to the fact that I am utterly sick of knitting this thing. Totally not. Okay maybe it is.

But yeah, it still has that gross rolled-bottom thing going on because the needles that I used to knit the ribbing, which are a size bigger, are not around me at the moment.

I have no more knitting pictures, but here are a couple of borderline artsy, but more like goofy, pictures that my man took of us. Originally the photos were upside-down, but I figured I'd spare y'all the sore necks and rotate them 180.

Don't you agree that his green eyes are gorgeous? Mine are muddy water brown and blue.

That one's just me. Uber-close. But candid smiles are always the cutest so I'm not complaining.

Anybody else... hum along with the vaccuum? Me too.

Lordy.

2005-05-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

So it's been a few days, huh?

Let's just say that I didn't knit for almost 3 full days in a row, which hasn't ever happened in my knitting lifetime (1 year, 2 Months)

Project Goals Reevaluation Time

1) Finish Lacy Pulli by May 12
2) Finish CCK by May 12
3) RIP Hooded Pullover

Why RIP the Hoody? I just don't feel right about it. I like the style and everything, but it's just not working for me.

OH! Remember when I was going to make a copycat Phildar sweater? Well, that one never worked out, either and I actually think I might know why.

I looked at the sweater again:

And I realized that I still want to knit that thing up. So what's the fix? Twisted 1x1 rib! (I think.) Because the thing is that the sweater looks all tight and flattering on the model, especially the forearm ribbing. Mine was a 2x2 regular rib, so it was looser. Don't get me wrong; I'm in love with a good 2x2 rib, but I guess it just doesn't work with this design.

So, that's a future option. Because I'm so low on knitting options...

And now for Lacy Pullover progress:

Okay, last night I was all happy because I was going to have knitting time. This happiness melted away when it turned out that Ms. Lacy Pulli was a total bitch.I messed up so many times that it took me about 4 hours to get through 1 farking repeat. 28 blasted rows.

The first time that I messed up, I worked row 15 on the right-hand repeat, but worked row 17 on the left-hand side. "Oh, that's an easy mistake to make, and equally easy to fix," you say? Sure, unless you knitted 6 more rows after that! And this ain't no memorizeable lace repeat, at least not for me, anyway.

I decided to perform knitting surgery (AKA: I dropped a 22 st x 8-row section of sts):

And after that was totally FUBARed because I screwed up like a thousand times. (It turns out that not only did I work row 17, I had an extra stitch in there, too, so all of the rows after that extra stitch had like this big loop of extra yarn when I finished with them. NOT COOL!)

I cussed a LOT, and ripped out all of the offending rows:

Then I spent some time lovingly caressing the Lacy Pulli. "Lacy, don't be this way. If you loved me, you'd knit up. And I love you."

So now I'm this far:

That's the 1 repeat that I mentioned. *HUGE sigh* Oh, well.

Here's a gratuitous close-up:

Anybody else... sick of looking at pics of this thing? Me too.

Tip #2.

2005-04-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

Here's a tip for Selvedge stitch-lovers which involves screwing up a row in a lace pattern.

Okay, background info: I love the selvedge stitch. It makes everything look so pretty while you're knitting, makes seams so easy to crochet, and makes scarves look tidier.

My favorite selvedge? The (Sl 1st st PW, k last st) every row.

That being said, when I am looking over a pattern, planning out my project (since I like never follow the pattern as is), I check to see if the pattern author has accounted for selvedge stitches or not.

For example, sometimes the lace pattern is a "multiple of 10 sts plus 2" or something, and if the author accounts for a the selvedge, then it will say "C/O 84 sts." Which breaks down into this:

Selvedge st, (10 x 8) + 2, selvedge st = 84.

BUT sometimes the author thinks that if you want a selvedge st, you'll add it yourself, in which case, they'll tell you to cast on 82. I think this one is the most common in patterns.

HOWEVER sometimes I'm feeling saucy, and if the first and last stitches of the lace pattern are knitted in plain St st, I will incorporate my own selvedge stitch right into the pattern.

This means that I cast on 82, but since the first and last sts are always in St st, I have those sts as the selvedge.

Don't ask me why I do this. I don't know if it's because I think I'll be done faster w/o those extra 2 sts every row, or what, but I'll do this kind of crap on a whim. And it gets me into trouble, which brings me to my tip.

If you are a dimwit like me and love to make your knitting life more complicated, so you do the same thing that I described above, for Heaven's sake, don't selvedge without thinking about it because that's what you usually do! Here's a description of the mistake:

Okay, you're knitting along, concentrating on every lace row because you realize that a stitch in time saves nine or whatever, and you come to the next RS row, and it says "K1, YO, K4..." So you K1, YO, K4, and so on until the last few stitches are upon you, and you realize that there's only 4 sts left when you're supposed to K5. Aw, sheeit.

So. You silently pray that the mistake wasn't too far back, so you can just tink 10 sts or something, and then get on with it. You start from the beginning of the knitting, like you always do when this happens, to chant this row's repeat as you check to make sure you did it right, when ACK!!

Your %#@$!* mistake was at the mother %#@$!* beginning!! You selvedged and then started the repeat, without thinking, like you usually do, but in this case that was BAD because you should have just selvedged and then YO'd, but instead you offset everything in the damn row by1 stitch by K1-ing first! DAMN IT!

So, you have to tink back all the way to the beginning of the row, all because you're an idiot like me.

Now, what's the lesson here? Is it that we should pay attention more carefully, or is it that we should just add the %#@$!* 2 selvedge sts at the start so we won't have to %#@$!* worry about it?

That's for you to decide. :)

Lacy Pullover Revival.

2005-04-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

I finally buckled down and took the Lacy Pulli with me to class (which means that I HAVE to work on it between classes, because I don't have anything else to work on), and I fixed that messed up row. Then, on the next row, I did the unthinkable. The unSPEAKable.

But I'll tell you, because I think everyone could benefit. I'm too nice, I know. I'm going to make it Tip#2, I just decided, so wait for that in a sec.

As for now, I have proof that I worked on the front of the LC:

This picture is cool because it shows the two bottoms (ribbed and rolled) for a comparison shot. See how the ribbing shows off the pattern better?

And you can also tell, I think, from the picture that I inverted the two lace patterns like it does in the original pattern. I made this one into a pullover, when it was a wrap sweater before, if you can recall, and here's how I did it:

I just cast on the same amount of sts as for the back, and then it was just a matter of doing the math to get the lace pattern inversion to work.

Then, I broke the st count into 3 parts, as diagramed below in crappy .gif format, and matched up the stitch count as well as possible. I was very fortunate because the middle ended up with 22 sts, and that ribbed lace pattern is a 10 + 2 repeat! Perfect!

And there's a little more to it, but I don't want to get too much into the pattern. If you've bought the Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 2005 issue, and you want the naughty details, then email me at my new badass Gmail account: 53stitches aat gmail doooottt cooooooommmmm.

And lastly, here's the reason why knitting has been at an all time low:

Yes, if you look closely, you can see that I have romance novels, a book of erotic stories, and a couple of total smut comic books. Then to the right of that, I have a pile of library books about sexual consent itself and about sexual consent as it relates to literature.

My paper covers sexual consent in 3 levels of sexual literature. (From sweet to seductive to scandalous!) I'm glad that I chose this topic, even if it did grow to kind of large proportions - it started out as being only about sexual consent in romance novels - because the data collection process for this paper was the most interesting that I've experienced yet!

This was me: *Skim skim skim.* Sex scene! Okay what's happening here? *Reads sex scene.* Okay, she says no, but she actually wants to have sex. And, okay, he says yes and he means it. *Scribbles check marks in appropriate boxes.*

Repeat 14 times, 5 times over each genre, and there you have it! Research!

Also totally awesome is the fact that the data that I've collected really is interesting, and shows very salient patterns. Always a good thing when you're trying to prove something.

Anyway, on that note... paper writing must commence! Peace!

Friday. Kind of.

2005-04-28T23:18:00.000-07:00

It's just reeeaaally early on Friday... Yeah, that's it. But seriously, I consider this still Thursday night.

Anyway.

I did a bunch in the way of paper writing today. I'm doing a paper on sexual consent for a linguistics class (Language and Gender) that I'm taking, in which I analyze the sex scenes in 3 romance novels for the dialogue and/or described body language surrounding sexual consent.

I had never read a romance novel before but I was really not surprised when I encountered a sex scene about every 30 pages or so. Methinks I might have to limit my discussion to 3 scenes per book.

So why am I blogging about that? Because there was a severe lack of knitting around here because of it.

I managed to finish CCK's back (or front) and knitted about 2" of the front (or back), and I am a little over halfway done with the right front of the Hooded Pulli.

Here's the debut picture of the CCK pieces along with the balls of yarn that are helping to create it. What a pretty and colorful picture these make!

At first, I was skeptical about this stripe sequence, but the more I knitted, the more I loved it! My roommate says that the single purple stripe in the sequence is the coolest part (can you see it in the pic? It's between the navy blue and the white. On my moniter, it looks like something is there, but I wouldn't have known it was a light purple stripe. Well, now you know.)

And here's one of the Hooded Pullover progress:

The front piece is so thin because that's only 1/3 of the total front width, since I'm going to be adding that ribbed center.

Also, I have somewhat of a dilemma: I don't know the first thing about drop sleeves, since I've never done them, but I made my sweater front slop a little on the center side so that the white ribbed part won't just go straight up, or be too floppy, but now I'm regretting doing that, because I think that the drop sleeves will pull the shoulder out enough as it is, so the ribbing rill pull out to the side TOO much. I have no clue.

Maybe I should rip back and knit this without any shaping like it does in the pattern. Oh, and in the pattern picture it doesn't seem like the lace part sticks straight up or behaves too frumpily.

Perhaps I am in good shape.

Incidentally, I am NOT in good shape, because as further evidence will point out, I had a weak moment tonight...

SNACK ATTACK!! Total evidence of severe snackage.

And on the Lacy Pulli front (ha!), I still only have like an inch of knitting done on the front because I royally FUBARed the last row that I worked on, and it was one of those moments where I redid it 3 times, and still screwed it up, so I didn't want to even look at it for the rest of the day.

So it's just chillin' with the messed up row still intact. I wanted to take a picture, but my roommate is asleep and probably wishing that I would be follow her lead instead of taking pictures of my knitting at 2am.

On that note, I'm going to sleep. An uber-long day awaits me, full of class-attending and paper-writing.

Awesome.

Peace.

If You Can Call it a Gallery...

2005-04-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

Well, my HTML skills are seriously lacking, because the only way I've learned is from online tutorials, but I created a gallery for my Completed Items.

I used to have a Diary with Diaryland, and I thought, in remembering the format, that it would be an okay setup for a gallery. So I scooted on over there, set up another diary, got a Gold Membership for $24 a year (nice discount), and set it up.

It took forever. Seriously. Hours.

I made it so that each entry showcases one item, and then the archives page just has a list of my completed objects.

Take a look!

I like it. Well, it's a little...bland...but I wanted it to match my blogger as much as I could make it for now. It's not even close to done, but at least I have all of my entries in there, and now over time I can make it look good.

A Diaryland Gallery is a good idea if you:

1) Don't have Typepad or some other fancy blogging device
2) Despise flickr. DESPISE!

I recommend it! Peace.

Hump Day!

2005-04-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

Man, I have a bunch of paper writing to do today. Le sigh.

But in happier news, I finished the back of my Lacy Pullover this morning, and I LOVE it!

Proof:

Isn't it a great feeling when iffy changes (picking up sts and knitting an inch of ribbing down on a lacy sweater) work out? I'm one happy chica.

Proof:

AND you want proof that I'm an idiot?

Yeah, those two eyelets are off...and I don't care. I left them as the ever proverbial "Glaring Rachele Mistake." The philosophy of leaving one huge mistake in my knitting as a "signature" got me through my beginning knitter stages.

I have about an inch of knitting done on the front of this sweater.

More on this sweater, and more on the "blue and white thing that is so hard to photograph because the white keeps looking don't-go-into-the-light bright" tomorrow!

Peace!

Tip #1 - Blocking - The Wiggle Method.

2005-04-26T17:03:00.000-07:00

First of all, I hate blocking. It never stays for me, and it takes too long, so I hardly ever do it.

What I do instead is use The Wiggle Method. It's a mid-knitting blocking method that I'll illustrate with the following pictures.

Slightly stretch the knitting, holding the live stitches and the needle that they are on in your hand so that you don't stretch those live stitches out too much. Then rather rapidly do what the pictures suggest.

This works great when you want to make your stitches look all...um...I believe "purdy" is the technical term.

And for regular St st, it Beats the Hell Outta blocking! (WHOOP!)

The Hooded Pullover Has Taken Over.

2005-04-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

I have been knitting on my version of the Hooded Pullover in the Spring/Summer 2005 VK, and it isn't even on my On The Needles list yet.

I am done with the sleeve and done with the ribbing for one of the fronts. It's so skinny because a sideways ribbing is going to go between the two fronts, if that makes sense.

But this progress only occurred after I had knitted about 5 inches on the blue and realized that the sleeve was wonky. Turns out that the original pattern instructs you to decrease several stitches after the ribbing so that it doesn't pull in whatsoever. The pulli is super-loose, and the ribbing really does look funny if you don't decrease those stitches, because instead of creating the "my sleeves are sytlishly loose" effect, it creates the "my sleeves are way too baggy" effect.

So RIP I went. My man helped me through it. Here's the tell-tale evidence of a ripping: ball of yarn with numerous yarn wraps around it, pile of crimpy yarn, knitted piece with litle evidence of yarn ball color.

And I'm not ignoring the Lacy Pulli; I'm past the armpits on it - one more pattern repeat and I'm done with the back. Woo hoo!

Is it sad that I'm already considering dramatically decreasing the amount of knitting on this project by altering the sleeves?

Here's my thoughts: I want to add 2x2 ribbing on the bottom so that it doesn't roll (plus if I didn't it would be too short - only 12"), then I want to add ribbing to the V-neck to tie it together, maybe using the tennis sweater from the same issue as a guide.

So I was thinking maybe I could, instead of making the lacy sleeves in the pattern, make uber-short lacy sleeves w/o the bottom border, and then just add like 2" of 2x2 ribbing at the bottom. I think I'll knit the front of the pulli and go from there.

Knitting Goals
Deadline - May 15th

Finish 3 sweaters:
1) Lacy Pulli
2) CCK
3) Hooded Pulli

Whew! Dass a lodda knittin'. I think I can do it though. No more WIPs until I finished those.

Oh, and I also have an ends-weaving party (of 2) to attend. The attendants? Yours Truly and the Psychedelic Squares Afghan... Awesome.

Lacy Pulli Progress.

2005-04-24T21:48:00.000-07:00

Here's some progress pictures of the Lacy Pullover.

I decided to try and pick up some stitches from the bottom edge to see what I can do about that roll.

I have since taken those picked up stitches off, because I didn't like the 4x4 rib that I put on it. Perhaps I'll pick up stitches again when I'm done and see what I can do.

While I was knitting on this project, I got bored with the lace pattern and began knitting on #2 of my "Thinking About It" section in the sidebar. I decided to knit this in purple with white edges in order to use up the purple that I can never seem to yield good results with.

I have a tiny bit of progress to show:

And for shits and grins, here's me!

I'm all, "Peace!"

Currently.

2005-04-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, now for a WIP.

I am working on the Wrapped Lace Cardigan in the Spring 2005 Vogue Knitting. Of course, I am modifying it... I'm making it into a V-neck pullover, knit in lt. turquoise Cotton-Ease.

So far I am about five inches into the back. I don't like the rolled edges, so when I'm all done, I think something will need to occur to rectify them. (Maybe some picked up sts and a tiny smidge of deep ribbing... I dont know. Maybe some crocheted edge, not that I know how to do that.)

The bottom boder pattern is cool looking:

The middle panel is cool too, but it will look MUCH cooler after 1 repeat. Which reminds me, I'm also lengthening this sucka by adding a repeat of that middle pattern Cropped + Big Booty = No-No.

I'm seriously lured by a Bonne Marie pattern that I didn't even know existed. It's the Scoop du Jour, which you can download right here.

But I'm already pining after another modified pullover from the VK. In fact, I started on this sweater, and got through an inch of knitting when I realized that because I had just finished Stevie Ray Shell (which is entirely St st) I was incredibly sick of the endless sea of it. So I hunted down another pattern that I thought may be cool and started it instead. (The new lace pulli.)

Anyway, I've spent way too much time on the computer, and without needles in my hands. My goal for today is to get through 2 repeats on the middle lace pattern. (Lace goes slow, man.)

Peace out.

A Myriad of Recent FOs.

2005-04-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'll make this short and sweet.

This is Da Clappah, knitted for my Mom for Mother's Day in a royal purple (deeper than the pictures show - this was tough to capture) LB MicroSpun:

And here's a close-up of the stitch:

This here is the Tres ChicKami (It has the bottom fair-isle border from "Butterfly" in Rowan #33.):

And here are a few close-ups:

Top:

Bottom:

Inside of fair-isle:

Okay, last but not least - This is my version of the LoTech Sweat from Bonne Marie. (Buy it here!)

Close-ups:

Collar:

The cool raglan ridge that crocheting seams + making raglan decreases right after/before selvedge stitch. (That is, instead of doing Selvedge st, k2, k2tog, I just did Selvedge st, k2tog.)

A dark close-up of the buttons used. That yellowy glow is part of the button - they were perfect!

Finally, the button band:

If you want to see another LoTech Sweat made with this yarn, check out Rachael's FO page. Coincidentally, she chose this exact yarn and color!

I hope this page loads okay!

Next up - A real new post. Peace.

Oh Em Gee.

2005-04-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

My man's parents got me a Digital Camera as a graduation present!

Wowee!

I took a bunch of pictures of my knitting projects, past and present, (about 40 pictures in all), and now I'm like, So Now What?

I think I want to go back through my entries and add the necessary pictures... Is that lame? Actually what I really want is a Finished Objects Gallery. Hm.

Maybe this calls for a Diaryland diary. I think that the format is conducive to a gallery, or at least I could fake it. Anyhow, I'll figure that out a bit later.

As for now, here's a picture of the Stevie Ray Shell:

And here's a close-up of the collar:

And a close-up of the short row shaping for teh boobies:

Beautiful pictures, right?

I LOVE my new camera. I'm about to create a couple more new posts to show the Tres ChicKami, the Modified Lo-Tech Sweat, and Da Clappah. Then I think I might even have a real, live new post having to do with a current WIP! Wow...

Lost: Sanity.

2005-04-19T05:53:00.000-07:00

It looks calm, cool, and a bit like having only 3 WIPs.

Have you seen it?

Me either.

I finished my Tres ChicKami last night and I worked a little on Stevie Ray. About 1/4 up the back on that little guy.

Then, in a complete moment of weakness, I started a small fling of a project. It's an adaptation of the Lace Leaf Scarf (patt. #35) in the Spring/Summer 2005 VK. The pattern calls for the scarf to be 3 repeats of the leaf stitch wide, and I went for a much skinnier scarf that's only 1 repeat wide. Yay for 17-stitches-wide scarves!

I'm doing this in an off-white, creamy Bernat Cotton Tots that I hadn't ever seen before. (So of course I had to pick up 2 balls of it!) So far it's so cute and so fast to knit. I'm going to knit it until I like the length.

THEN, this morning, I became drawn to the idea of adapting the hooded pullover in that same issue. It's pattern #11. I don't really like the flower lace thingy, and I totally am not digging on that mobius strip thing they've got going...

But I like the loose sleeves, and I like that I can put horizontal ribbing in place of the lace crap.

I don't have enough lt. turquoise Cotton-Ease to do the whole thing, I think, so I'm going to knit ti all sans ribbing first, and assess how much is left over. If it's enough to do the ribbing, then yay, a solid colored sweater! If not, then it's either going to be blue ribbing for a whimsical sweater, or white ribbing for a more, I don't know, dainty sweater.

Cute, cute, cute.

BUT, I'm not starting on this until Stevie Ray is an FO. And, until I finish my Spring Fling of a scarf, too.

Happy Tuesday. Peace.

Stevie Ray

2005-04-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

The initial plan was not to name this shell "Stevie Ray" but "Stockinette Rolls" because the shell was really made as an embracing of the behavior of pure St st.

Then I decided that "Stockinette Rolls" is a horrible name. Instead I went with an immortalizing of the initials with the name "Stevie Ray." Clevah.

I made a crude drawing of the shell in MSPaint (Viva la Paint!) because I have yet to receive a digital camera from the camera fairies.

Note that the thin lines aroung the armholes and neck slit are purl stitches (like mini-ribbing). Also note that while it seems like it's a tiny V-neck, it isn't. That slit is just straight up, but the way that the pattern behaves makes it seem Vee'd.

Anyway, here's the pattern. It's my first fully written pattern evah, so I'm sure it's pretty botched. Plus, its only written in my size! Awesome.

Stevie Ray Shell:

To fit approximate measurements: Bust-38", Waist-31", Length to underarm-15"

Gauge: 19 st/4" on Size US8 needles

Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton-Ease

General notes: Finished measurements are 34" around at bottom, 33" at waist, and back to 34" at rib cage, with short rows added for bust room. Top is designed to be very fitted with a little ease at the waist. Decreases and Increases can be executed in whatever manner is preferred. I did my decreases as k2tog/ssk pairs, and my increases as m1's.

Pattern:

FRONT:
Cast on 80 sts and work in St st for about 3" (Edges are designed to roll up a bit. The seams will stop the bottom from rolling too much, so resist the urge to knit this up in the round.)

Decrease 1 st at both ends on the next RS row
Work 7 rows in St st
Decrease 1 st at both ends on the next (RS) row (76 sts on needle)

Work about 6" even in St st

Increase 1 st at both ends on the next RS row
Work 9 rows in St st
Increase 1 st at both ends on the next (RS) row (80 sts on needle)

Work even until work measures 13" from bottom edge when bottom is held flat (not rolled up)
Work short rows until 6 stitches are wrapped on both sides (12 rows total)
Work in St st until side seams measure 15" from Cast On edge

Bind off 5 sts at beg of next 2 rows for armholes (RS then WS)

Note: At the sides (where the armholes are) the edges might roll in a bit, which may look unattractive to some (including me). I added k1,p1,k1,p1,k1 to both sides of the pattern all the way up to the shoulder. That way some pulling in from the ribbing creates shaping, and the armhole edges don't roll.

Work even for about 1 inch, then divide work in half to make neck split.

Working both sides at the same time, and working k1,p1,k1 at neck split edge, knit until piece measures 7.5" from armhole bind off. Then bind off all sts knit-wise on a RS row on both halves of piece.

BACK:
Work exactly the same as the FRONT but omit the short rows (So when you finish increasing the second time, work even until work measures 15", then continue in pattern). Also omit the neck split.

FINISHING:
Crochet (or sew, you traditionalist, you) the side seams

Then, crochet the top edge about 2" in on each side - This leaves the middle of the top edge open, giving the shirt a boat-neck and allowing the neck to roll a little so that it matches the bottom edge.

All done!

This was a nice, fun, and easy shell that is plain, but has good detailing and incorporates a few important ways that knitted fabric behaves.

Email me with questions at racheletib AT yahoo doooot cooooooooom. (Die spammers, die. Peace, I swear.)

Here's the (Revised) Plan, Stan.

2005-04-17T08:36:00.000-07:00

The Ribby Pulli is also a no-go. Well, that's not entirely true.

Cotton-Ease, in my experience, is horridly inconsistent between dyelots. No two dyelots are alike in color, which is fine (although at times two different dyelots can look like two different colors), but sometimes the dyelots are slightly different thicknesses too.

I swatched the white that I am using for the Ribby Pulli with a different dyelot than the one that I am using to knit it up, and it seems like the swatch was good for size 6 needles, but the fabric that it is knitting up to be seems too thick.

So, RIP, Ribby Pulli, for now. I have to get some Size 8 needles to knit this with. Also, I may do this in two separate pieces instead of in the round, like I have been.

Maybe.

And what of the Ribby Pulli purple sleeve that I have started? I don't particularly care for that either... Oof.

Revamping commences.

Speaking of revamping, I ripped out the Copy Cat sweater, and I am already using the blue to make a shell that I sort of designed on the fly.

Pattern on next post!

Hopefully everything makes sense in the pattern. I mainly wrote it because I was bored, but maybe when I'm totally popular (hardy har) I'll have some pictures, some more sizes, and who knows what else.

Alrighty - Peace out, y'all.

Here's the Plan, Stan.

2005-04-15T07:24:00.000-07:00

Scratch the Copy Cat sweater for now. I'm really not feeling it.

With the afore-mentioned 6 balls of gorgeous blue Cotton Ease, I am going to make a 3/4-sleeved Copy Cat Klaralund. I've already made one Copy Cat Klara a while back with TINY-gauged LB Wool Ease Sport-Weight, so I have an idea of what the pattern is like.

I think that I'm going to add eyelets to the extended garter at the shoulders. Or not. I'll have to experiment.

As for now, the Tres ChicKami is almost finished, and I am already swatching for the blue Copy Cat Klara (CCK).

What will ever become of the Wool Ease "baby" blanket (WIP #1)? I'm not sure. Time will tell.

Peace outta heah.

Wow. (Alternatively titled: "A Knitting Success Story.")

2005-04-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

I am through 8 raglan decreases on the front of the Tres ChicKami and I just tried it on for the first time.

I almost always take my knitting off of the needles and try it on waaaay before I get to this point, but for some reason I had a lot of confidence in the small changes that I made in the waist decreasing (making it a more subtle slope by decreasing every 6th row instead of 4th).

Needless to say, it fits like a freaking condom. I love this thing, and can't wait to walk around in it. I had been toying with what I am going to do with the top part...

The bottom has that pink band around it, and as my BF suggested, I was considering simply reflecting that band at the top edge and making the straps pink. But, now I am thinking that would make the top look too immature, in a way. So I am now considering making a tiny fairisle design - very simple, like just 2 rows of zigzag pink dots or something - and then making the straps white.

And I think that that's the winning design. Definitely it needs the white straps, I decided when I tried it on.

Anyhow, so it's a huge success. I was afraid of the waist shaping for a while and would incorporate side ribbing instead all the time, because one time I had a horrible experience with a tanktop that had Sweater Standing Away from Body (SSAB) syndrome.

But it looks like the more gradual, subtle shaping is what I need. Plus, it helps that I lengthened the top by about an inch.

I'll probably finish this sucker tonight and begin surgery on the Copy Cat sweater. You know, I just bought 6 balls of a gorgeous blue Cotton Ease, and I might rip out the entire sweater thus far, and start it over in that new blue.

I could make another ChicKami with the blue that I rip out...

Hmmmmm.

(I hate when I get like this.)

(Peace out.)

The Tres ChicKami.

2005-04-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

I had originally opted to incorporate side-ribbing and a pink stripes across the chest of my white-background ChicKami, but then I received my Rowan #33 in the mail (finally!) and discovered the bottom fairisle border from the pattern "Butterfly" by Kim Hargreaves.

So I cast on with the pink and worked the border pattern after the bottom ribbing on the ChicKami pattern. I am trying to pay close attention to Fit, so wanting to make my Kami longer, I did my decreases every 6 rows instead of every 4, and I'll make the measurement up to the armpits 15.5-16" instead of the 14.5" recommended.

I can't wait to wear this with a nice khaki linen skirt.

So far I have 9", and I just started the increases, and I was thinking that there is a whole lot of bright-ass white in this Kami... I was wondering if maybe there should have been more pink.

I discussed this with the ol' boyfriend, and he actually came up with a possible fix! He suggested that I mirror the pink border at the top of the Kami and then make the straps pink as well. Brilliant

So when I get up further - like to a few raglan decreases - I'll decide if it's too bright-assed white.

Knit on, Knitters!! Peace out.

False Start.

2005-04-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I think I had a complete false start with the baby clothes. I don't really like how the star turned out (warped, squatty, should have intarsia-ed the inside and duplicate stitched the outline, etc.) and I think I should wait until I know the gender of the baby before I knit it clothes.

Overall, I just think I got crazy when I found out about a future little human that I can knit tiny things for.

What does that mean for me?? It means that I can start my Ribby Pulli!

Bonne Marie mentioned that she is making a cotton Ribby Cardi with the ribbing in the center and plain panels on the outside, and I think that sounds like an awesome idea.

But, it sounds a lot like my Copy Cat sweater.

Speaking of Mr. Copy Cat, I really don't like him right now. I think that little pup of a sweater (20% done...) needs some in-progress overhauling. Perhaps I'll tackle that this week after I get a start on the Ribby Pulli.

It feels so nice to be done with Da Clappah!

Oh, and one last thing... Guess who got her tax return! And guess who also just got 15 balls of Cotton-Ease in lovely Spring colors!! Whoop!

For now, I'm off to look at my patterns and knit the day away. Peace.

I Cured My Clap.

2005-04-08T06:03:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo! Da Clappah is DUNN!

Well, except for a few ends, but this only took like 4 balls of Micro Spun so not too many ends, and this project isn't "due" till Mothers' Day, so I think I'll wait to weave.

Hm, but maybe I'd better just fork it over this weekend. So perhaps a little weavage will commence tonight.

So, you guys know why I finished Clappy, don't you? Of course, it was to justify starting another project...

The boyfriend's brother is having another baby (AWESOME!), so even though that thing isn't popping out until 6 more months, and even though they don't even know whether it's a Tony or a Tonya, I've already started what I think to be a very gender neutral sweater.

I plan to make a set of raglan sweater, roll-brim hat, blankie, and booties, all with a star motif on them.

Of course I haven't really fallen in love with any layette sets or anything, so I decided to do what I do best and find some patterns that I can bastardize in order to make them flow together.

Here's what I found:

The Raglan Sweater

A pattern from this book:

But knit up in white Cotton Ease, and with the star motif (I think from the pattern "Max") from this book:

on the belly, but in light teal with a lime green outline, both Bernat Cotton Tots.

(Whew! If I had a digital camera I wouldn't have to describe! Can we say Tax Return??)

The Roll-Brim Hat

A pattern from Vintage Knits. I don't know how I'm going to incorporate stars yet for the hat.

The Blankie

I might make this up on the fly. Maybe a teal seed stitch border (zealous on the intarsia capabilities, I know. The star on the sweater came out okay though...) with a little stripe of green duplicate stitched around it 1" in from the border and then just plain knitting in the white, and in the center maybe a blown-up version of that star motif.

Then later when they pick a name I can dupicate stitch in white an initial in the center of the star. Cute!

The Booties

I have no clue on this one, but I have several to choose from, so it shouldn't be too bad.

And that's it!

I think in order for me to keep my sanity, I'll track one little project at a time in the sidebar.

But as for now I have a test in 2 hours! Flash card central...

PSA Finito Part II: Pictures.

2005-04-03T20:50:00.000-07:00

Along with the weenie warmer that I knitted him, Lee also took pictures of my finished Psychedelic Squares Afghan right when I had finished crocheting it together. It still has a thousand-hundred ends hanging out. I'm embarrased that I haven't woven them in yet, but oh, well.

Well, here she is:

And another view with me peeking over the top of it:

Cool, huh? And someone even left a cool comment on there about it. I feel special.

Alrighty, enough updating - I've got The Clap, and I have to tend to it!

Peace out.

P.S. In the pictures, that's my cutie-cute boyfriend in the background. :)

Sweet, sweet plug by Leebs.

2005-04-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my friend, Lee, came to College Station to hang out, and about three hours before he was supposed to show up, I had the brilliant idea to knit him a weenie warmer.

I happened to have some blue Cotton-Ease in a dark shade and a light shade that I could use, but what I didn't have was a set of dpn's to knit it with. I had an extra US size 8 circ, so I just decided to knit it flat and sew it up. It was a little complicated to figure out on the fly how to transfer the pattern to flat knitting, especially the gusset.

Actually, I had never knitted a gusset before. Who'd have thunk I'd learn something by knitting a weenie warmer?

It took me the whole three hours to knit and put together. I didn't think it would really get used, so I just tied the ends off and cut them instead of weaving. (Yay!)

Lee loved it, and he took a picture and put it on his weblog.

Here's that picture:

Anyway, I would love to knit the world a weenie warmer, so if you happen to wander here, and would like a weenie warmer, I'll knit you one for a nominal amount. I'll even let you pick the colors if you want! Wow! Now that's cool!

As for now, I have 1 more stitch to drop before the decreasing on Clappah. Woo hoo!

Peace.

Kneet From-a dee Stash.

2005-03-28T21:40:00.000-08:00

Hi, my name is Rachele, and I'm a yarn ho.

Hi, Rachele.
_____________________

So I have a rather large stash. I have three of those mesh clothes hampers full, but they're attached at the tops to this structure so that they don't just slump down. Let me see if I can find a picture. I got that gem at Wally World.

Okay, I didn't find the exact thing on the website, but just picture this without the top part (looking at the larger picture will help you to see what I mean), so it just has the bottom three compartment thing with the canvas bags hanging down. And it was only 12 bucks, not 50 bucks like the one in the picture.

Anyway, I keep my stash separated into Wool, Cotton, and Acrylic. All of the bags are pretty much full to the top, which may seem like a small stash, but to a college student who shouldn't be spending her hard-earned cash on yarn, it's a lot. And more-so to that poor college student's mother.

"You have yarn. Why do you need to buy more yarn?"

In the timeless words of Will Smith, "Parents just don't understand."

In order to reduce the stash, I decided to adhere to the popular "3 from the stash, then 1 with new yarn" formula. I knitted the PSA blanket, the Lo-Tech, and Clapotis (a WIP), and then I bought yarn for the Copy-Cat Sweater (the CCS).

Now, for a while I have had a total craving to buy some KnitPicks yarn. I mean look at it:

Don't those colors look great together? But, alas, I already bought the new project yarn, so I have to wait until I do 3 from the stash.

So what 3 will they be??

1) The Ribby Pulli
2) Maybe the easy v-neck raglan from Glampyre.
3) Orangina, which I just noticed when I went to find No. 2. How pretty is that design? I have some black Sinfonia cotton that I think would be lovely, especially since it's fingering weight like the Rowan 4 Ply that the pattern calls for.

So that's that. It looks like about a month's worth of work.

Better get on my existing WIPs! Peace!

PSA Finito!

2005-03-28T08:34:00.000-08:00

The Psychedilec Squares Afghan is finished, all except for weaving in the ends... I tend to take projects off of the side bar at that point in the finishing, so BAM - only 3 projects on the WIP list.

What will ever become of item 1 on the list: an uber-cute baby blanket that I am making out of Wool-Ease. I haven't touched that thing in like 2 months. I'm afraid that if I don't finish it, I'll use the yarn for something else by accident and I'll never be able to get the same dyelot again.

Only lame-O's with knitting ADD have that problem.

Speaking of knitting ADD, I am already itching to make a cotton Ribby Cardi (or, Ribby Pulli!!) with my purple and white Cotton-Ease. A two-toned Ribby Pulli - simple knitting in the round! - would be so cute.

Ohmygosh - I could maybe make a cute slit at the sides or at the front center or maybe on the sleeve cuffs...

Man, I hate when I get "clever" knitting ideas - It just makes me cast on for ANOTHER project. Perhaps I'll get through more of the Copy-Cat Sweater before I start the Ribby Pulli. Let's say... the back and a sleeve up to the armpit - that will be over halfway done.

Alright, ready, set, GO!

Peace outta heah.

A Late Night Adventure.

2005-03-24T13:08:00.000-08:00

Okay, I SO wanted to blog about this last night as it happened, but I was already wasting time knitting when I should have been working on my paper, so I figured I'd better wait until today.

So, remember when I went and got three sweaters at Goodwill with the intention of leaving then in their sweater state so as not to create more of a stash than I've already got?

Me too. Well, for some reason in the middle of a moment of writer's block, I got a wild hair up my bum to rip out one of the sweaters - the one that I have my eye on to knit Rogue with some day. I looked up the awesome tutorial that I read before I went looking for the sweaters (which informed me about Bad Seams, so I'm glad I read it!) and I got started.

Now, the tutorial says that Virgin Unravellers will take forever cutting apart seams, and so they will have longer pieces of yarn, but it says to Be Free, and cut away if you want to be daring!

So (dot dot dot) I started out taking my time... And it took forever to rip like 5 inches of the seam, so I gave up and said "Be Free!" I cut like there was no tomorrow. And unfortunately for that sweater, there won't be. A tomorrow, that is.

Yeah, I cut majorly into the knitting portion of the sweater, only to find out that the yarn wasn't made up on two plies (one ply brown, one cream) as I thought, but it's made of about six plies. Yuck! So even if I didn't cut the "entire yarn," I still cut into one or more of the plies, and ruined the length of my pieces. It sucked.

Now, I'm going to consider ripping out the rest Very Carefully and maybe making a hat/scarf set with it or something. Lame.

But! There is a happy ending to this adventure!

I was so dissatisfied with my recycling experience that I went and got the second of the three sweaters - the fat-gauged red one - and put it on the cutting board. I was very careful this time, since I noticed that this, too was a yarn made up of several (like 8) plies (what's up with that? the plies on these sweater are TINY!) . But! As I was pulling the little thread holding the seam together, Something Magical happened!

The string went rrrriiiiiiipppp, and the sleeve seam totally came undone!

The marvelous person who knitted this sweater crocheted the seams!!! You couldn't have found a happier knitter last night. I wanted to finish unravelling the sweater, but I had to go to bed. I did a whole sleeve. (Doesn't look like that much yarn, actually.)

Anyway, I just had to write about that - Whew - that was a long post. I'm off to run errands and then (Can you guess?) go knit! I'm feeling... Clappy.

Peace out.

Links Go Here.

2005-03-23T19:57:00.000-08:00

Yay for links!

TIPS FROM OTHERS

5/12/05 - Here's another Beaded Stitch Marker tutorial. It's made with pictures!

5/7/05 - Marnie Talks has a great tutorial for No Sew Knitted Hems.

4/30/05 - If you want to make cute beaded stitch markers, here's a great tutorial by Sheep in the City.

4/19/05 - This is a really cool How-To article that has a TON of neat tips, and is really fun to poke around on.

3/24/05 - Here's an awesome tutorial on how to recycle yarn from a sweater. It shows you how to do everything from cutting, to unravelling, to skeining. (Bonus skeining tutorial!)

TIPS FROM ME!

4/27/05 - Tip #1 - Blocking: The Wiggle Method

4/30/05 - Tip #2 - The Selvedge Stitch: Oops, I Screwed up.

COOL TOOLS

5/6/05 - This badass tool is on the EchoEcho website. It's a pop-up window maker that just lets you fill in the info, and you can get the html to put pop-up pics on your post! Awesome!

3/23/05 - The first link is the ever-so-awesome knitpro, which lets you "upload" any image from your computer, and it charts that sucker right out for you! You know, just in case you want to embark on an intarsia endeavor. (Peace be with you if you do!)

FREE PATTERNS FROM OTHERS

4/30/05 - Some free patterns from Wise Needle. The Taco Coat looks especially awesome. I think what I would do is knit it in St st instead of Garter st, and then use the decreasing method that is found in the Psychedelic Squares Afghan.

4/28/05 - This is a Clapotis Hat to go with your Clapotis Wrap! It seems way fun to knit, and is a very clever idea.

4/5/05 - Here are some free patterns. Some of them are admitedly very cheesy, but some are pretty cute. Check them out!

FREE PATTERNS FROM ME!

4/27/05 - Stevie Ray Shell - One size only (to fit 38" bust and 31" waist). Email me if you have trouble with the pattern because it's the first one that I've written out. Also I might tweek it over time.

NOT KNITTING RELATED...

But badass nonetheless!

5/12/05 - LeeboZeebo is a blog by one of my friends, who just happens to be a really likeable, very down to earth guy who is the best writer that I know personally. If you like reading blogs, then add this one to your list.

5/12/05 - The Sneeze is run by a guy named Steve. This man is completely hilarious.

5/12/05 - PostSecret. Enough said.

4/28/05 - This is a hilarious website that will keep you entertained for at least a couple of hours. The most salient page is the romance novel covers spoof. Make sure to look at the other pages that are linked, such as the submitted covers, naughty covers, et cetera. I woke my roommate up a few times with my laughter, so I recommend it.

4/28/05 - Man, I don't know if you're mentally prepared for this. Imagine the most awesome and intriguing piece of artwork that you would ever be able to view in your lifetime. Now, imagine yourself inside that artwork, when suddenly you realize that the piece of art is infinite. Okay, I think you're ready. Here you go.

Bloglines Testy Westy.

2005-03-22T07:50:00.000-08:00

Linky Linkerton!!

Spring Brizzie.

2005-03-21T20:57:00.000-08:00

A.K.A.: The week that I didn't get to knit as much as I wanted to. This travesty was due to the mother who is an exercise whore who would rather be at 24 Hour Fitness than any other place on Earth. Including Disney World. I know.

Anyway, the long and the short of it (whatever that means) is that I did make some headway on all of my goals... but I didn't finish any of them. Awesome...

Spring Break Knitting Goals:

Mariah - Zipper installation - Nope. The alteration place that I went to wouldn't do it, and then I just kind of didn't get around to looking for another place.
Lo-Tech Sweat - Completion (sleeve, pocket, collar) - Nope. All I have left is a pocket. And some loose ends. Since I'm so close, I took it off of my side-bar listy thing.
PSA - Completion (11 more squares, crochet seams, weave 1,000,000 ends in) - Nope. 3 more squares, a little more to crochet together, and then some serious weavage of about a thousand-hundred ends.
Da Clappah - Six more stitches dropped - Nope. I got around to dropping 3 more stitches.

Yeah. In summation: I didn't get to knit all morning and afternoon from 8 until 4 like I thought I would. Oh, well. C'est la vie.

Of course, it would only make sense that in the midst of all of these unfinished objects, I would start something new, right? Right.

I started my copy-cat sweater, which is a direct eye-balling of this Phildar sweater. It's too bad that the only image creator that I have on my computer is my trusty MS Paint, because I'd love to blow up that tiny picture so that I could see some detail. As of now, I have to trust my eyes with what I see, and then use creative license with the rest. I'ts a really fast knit though, at 18 sts per 4" so I finished the front and some of the back and sleeve within the past 2 days.

Some week soon I should have a finishing party where for the entire week, I do nothing but go through my pile of "Finished Objects" and finish the many projects that are So Close to being complete. You guys do that? I mean come So Close to finishing something only to say, "Well, I'm almost done with this, I'm going to start my next project a little early..." Then you never look back, man, cause you get so wrapped up in the new one. Happens to me all the time.

Anyhoo. I'm gone. Peace.

P.S. Digital camera soon = Many awesome pictures, and many more updates, since I'm a knitting fool.

Weekend Update.

2005-03-12T07:27:00.000-08:00

Spring Break has begun, which means that I'm going home, and this workaholic is not lifting a finger over the next week! (Unless it's to lift a knitting needle.)

But seriously, the activities for this week are as follows: Exercise and eat healthy, do homework, knit, relax. That's all. Awesome.

I've finish several mitered squares while successfully failing to finish my Lo-Tech Sweat this week. Therefore, I have four unfinished projects to take home, which includes my Mariah, which is prety much complete. I think I'll take Mariah to some alterer in H-Town that can have her finished before I go back to school.

Spring Break Knitting Goals:

Mariah - Zipper installation
Lo-Tech Sweat - Completion (sleeve, pocket, collar)
PSA - Completion (11 more squares, crochet seams, weave 1,000,000 ends in)
Da Clappah - Six more stitches dropped.

I can do it, man. Knit, knit, knit!

Wow, What a Square!

2005-03-08T09:32:00.000-08:00

Well, I certainly attained my goal of finishing four squares this week... Yesterday!

That's right, folks. I finished 4 mitered squares yesterday when I could have spent that 5 hours or so studying for the 2 tests that I have tomorrow. Well, that makes it sound like I just spent 5 straight hours in mitered square bliss, but I didn't - it was more like an hour here and there. I'm not happy that I'll have to stay up uber-late now, but I am happy that I got 4 squares done. I've got the fever again; I'm telling you, once you start one, you can't stop making them. So now I need: 5 more skinny-striped squares, and 11 more thick-striped ones.

Good times. I hope I'll be smart and wait until approximately 1:30pm tomorrow when my second test is over to start another square. Perhaps I'll be lofty and set a goal for 8 squares tomorrow. Just to see if I can do it.

Man, that would be some shit. 8 squares. 1 day. Wow.

If I did 5 thin- and 3 thick- striped, then I'd fill in the gaps that I have right now in the blanket, as the squares are laid out, so I should also pay attention to the colors that I choose.

Sounds fun! Off to study. Peace.

Studying is a Knitting Slower Downer.

2005-03-06T19:49:00.000-08:00

I have 2 tests on Monday, so I didn't even start my Lo-Tech Sweat sleeve, which means that I still have the pocket, sleeve, and collar to knit. Le sigh.

I just finished dropping my fourth stitch on the Clappah, but now it's time to study again. Yay...

What ever happened to the Psychedelic Squares Afghan? Hm, good question... I'll make it a goal to knit four more squares this week. Then I'll have 20/36 squares. I've also got to figure out how I'l going to line the thing. I think I'll line each joining of four squares with one square of fleece or t-shirt material or something, and then fill it with batting. I really haven't done this before so I don't have a clue.

I'm just wishing I had access to a sewing machine.

But anyway, time to get back to studying. I think I'll study until midnight, and then knit until I get tired. They ain't gonna knit themselves!

Peace.

I did it!

2005-03-05T15:05:00.000-08:00

Okay, I have to post again because I just got a wild hair up my bum to re-knit the collar of my Mariah (it was toooooo loose).

I ripped back to where I started the collar before, and then I knitted one row where I k2tog on every 4th stitch. ("1, 2, 3, k2tog, 1, 2, 3, k2tog...etc.") Then I knit in a 2 x 1 rib instead of in the cabled rib that is at the cuff and hem, and when I bound off (knit-wise but on the WS so it looks like purl nubs on the front - also I bound off rather tightly), I knitted 2 together every fifth stitch.

It really worked out well., and I'm happy because (yay!) all I have left is the Zippah!

But, first! I must wash and dry this thing because egads, what if it shrinks after I put the zipper in... That would be Not Good.

Alrighty, back to the ol' clappay.

Peace in tha Middle East.

Stuuuuff.

2005-03-05T10:31:00.000-08:00

I was pondering a way to attach my mitered squares together to start constructing the Psychedelic Squares Afghan, when I remembered something that a friend at my local Stitch n' Bitch meeting told me: Why sew when you can crochet?

I told her that I couldn't crochet.

Then recently I got to thinking... Crocheting something together isn't really crocheting, is it? So I Googled it, and it took a while to find a tutorial, but I found one.

Oh my goodness, crochet hook, where have you been all my knitting life? Sewing is a thing of the past, my friend! I crocheted my squares together, and I examined my progress... I have 4 large squares finished, and this has taken me so long (yes, 2 weeks is a long time for me to devote attention to one project without abandoning it...) that I think I've decided to shrink my projected finished afghan.

Right now it's supposed to be 5 x 5 large squares, which means 100 mitered squares. Das a lodda squares. So I think I'll make it like 3 x 3 squares, and if I want to add the extra round later, I can. That will mean a total of 36 mitered squares, and I already have 16, so I'm like almost halfway there! Woo hoo!

Anyhow, back to the crochet for a moment: I even crocheted the finished pieces of my Lo-Tech Sweat together, and I love, love, love it. When I get a camera, I'll post a picture of the awesome effect that crocheting raglan seams together creates, because it looks super-unique.

On the Clapotis front, I've been getting accustomed to the straight rows of the pattern, but I keep wanting to slip the first stitch on the RS rows, when I'm supposed to purl it. A year of working selvedge stitches will do that to you.

And that's what I'm going to get back to right now!

Peace out.

P.S. In 5 rows, I get to drop what will be my very first intentional dropped stitch ever! Fun!

I Got the Clap from the Internet.

2005-03-04T22:20:00.000-08:00

Well, it all started when my mom asked me to knit her a wrap. We went yarn shopping (Fun!) and she bought 12 balls of Lion Brand Micro Spun in a deep purple. I showed her some shawls (like the Charlotte's Web, and the Flower Basket shawls) and she said that the triangle look is for old fogies, so I had to think of something more "modern."

I tried a few things, like the Cozy cover pattern for the Fall 2004 Knitty, but I kept messing up because it's one of those lacy patterns with all these yarn overs and knit two togethers. I got about six inches into it and abandoned it for this simple lace pattern that I gleaned from this free scarf pattern that I can never remember the name of. But the pattern went something like this:

Cast on a multiple of 3 + 2 stitches.

For example 14 sts = (3 x 4) + 2. You can make a skinny scarf or a wide wrap with this simple repeat, but in my experience the only think to be aware of is that when you work this pattern, you'll be better off using a needle size 3 or 4 times larger than the one recommended. I worked mine in size 10 when the recommended size was 7.

After you Cast On, the repeat is as follows:

Slip 1 purlwise, (Slip 1 purlwise, Yarn over, Knit 2 together) Work this 3-stitch repeat to last stitch, Knit last stitch.

Repeat this row until you reach the length that you desire. You aren't going to be Purling the Wrong Side Rows like you do in most lace patterns, so this pattern can go a little slow at first, until you get used to making the stitched a tiny bit looser so you can purl two together very easily.

That was a nice pattern, and my mom loved it. You would think that I would have just finished the wrap at that point, but one time as I was carrying the project around on the needles, it snagged a teensy bit on a chair arm or something, and it stretched one of the stitches out. I was like man, when she wears this, it isn't going to be practical. So, I ripped that out and it was back to the drawing board.

Meanwhile, I had been of course, reading weblogs left and right, being nosy about what people are knitting these days. I can see that many people are knitting Clapotis, and I ooh and ahh over their work, but it never occurs to me to knit that af my mom's wrap.

Well, tonight, that very idea dawned on me. I got some size 6 needles because that was all that was within my reach, and I cast on my two tiny little stitches for the beginning of the Clapper. A few hours later and I'm already to section 3 - the straight rows. Go me!

So, here's the knitting scoop in this neck of the woods:

Tomorrow, I'll work on my Lo-Tech Sweat sleeve - Only 1 sleeve, 1 pocket, and a collar or hood (can't decide) to go! - and the Clappah.

I'll finish the Lo-Tech Sweat this week, and then over Spring Break, I'll take home Mariah to reknit the collar, tha Clappah, and yarn to start something else in case I finish something. Y'all know how it is when you don't have any yarn and you want to start something new... You buy more yarn, and we don't want that when we're trying to reduce our stash, now do we?

On that note, peace out - I'm gonna get Clappin'.

Mitered Squares Stole My Sanity.

2005-02-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

I can't stop knitting those 90 degree angled, striped wonders that are the components of the Psychedelic Squares Afghan. When I finish one, I giggle in delight as I get to pick out the colors for the next one, and I can't help but cast on. Rachele, you have a take-home test due on Tuesday. I still have plenty of time, right?

My Lo-Tech Sweat is feeling blue, sitting in my knitting bag under all the little balls of bright-ass cotton, longing to be picked up. So, I think maybe tonight I will finish the piece that is incomplete in there and cast on for the other front half. And don't get me started about how the idea of knitting another Ribby Cardi is creeping into my head. After seeing Half-Baked's finished Ribby, I fell in love with the idea of the mock-turtle neck and the little opposite stripes. Le sigh...

Also, I think I have an idea for getting rid of a bunch of my stash: I have a bunch of cheap-ass, nasty acrylic that I'll never knit anything with, and I might as well just donate it to Good Will or something. I'll be helping myself and someone else! Woo hoo!

On that note... a peach and pink mitered square is bossing me around, so I'd better go tend to it.

Peace.

I Should Sock Myself.

2005-02-19T17:40:00.000-08:00

Okay, I started a sock using Wendy's Toe-Up pattern (just Google it) and Lion Brand Magic Stripes. Is it just me or does it seem like I only own Lion Brand yarn? Well, I have other types too, but for some reason I've been knitting with Lion Brand for like 90% of my projects right now.

The sock is kind of fun, I guess, because the short-row toe was really interesting, but now I am on the "knit for a year until you reach the heel" part, which is less than thrilling. It will be my second sock ever. (I never made a mate for the first sock I ever knit because it was tooooo big.) Hopefully this one will be successful, but I have a hunch that I will be consumed with mitered squares and then the Lo-Tech Sweat, so that the sock won't get finished until next month. Meanwhile my stash sits, barely dented even though I have finished 3 of the 10 finished projects that I planned on doing this semester. Something must be done...

I'm on the case. Peace out.

Playing Catsup.

2005-02-16T22:43:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of knitting, but not a lot of writing, so allow me to update the masses regarding what has been knitted around these parts:

1) Finished Mariah. (Almost.) She needs some closure... I am in a debate with myself (occasionally Mariah puts her two cents in) about what type of closure to put on her. When I figure that out, hey, it'll be too warm for a sweater anyway. Awesome.

2) Finished Stripey Sweater based on Tricot. (Almost.) I wore the SS with all of the ends un-weaved; I just tucked them all in and the wool is so sticky that it grips onto the ends to keep it from looking like Frankensweater. I like this pattern, but it's already getting too hot here to wear wool, even in the form of a light 3/4 sleeve sweater.

3) I started the Lo-Tech Sweat from ChicKnits using Lion Cotton in Maize. Then I poked around and stumbled upon Rachael's FO gallery and realized that she made that same sweater with the same exact yarn and color. Wow. It's a sign; I have to make it. So I'm half-way done with the Left Front.

4) Last but surely not least, I started and have become completely consumed with... the Psychedelic Squares Afghan. Just Google that thing and see the beautiful squares that people have made. I have a whole mess of what I call "Clearance Cotton" which is that cotton in discontinued dye lots. It's always like some Cotton-Ease, but in hot orange or turquoise. Of course with a discount sticker like that it ends up in my basket every time.

It takes me about an hour and twenty minutes to make one of those delicious little squares. I am constantly knitting these things now. I started last night and already I have eight squares made and guess what I'll be doing after I post this... You got it!

Mitered squares rock me!

On that note... I gotta go be a square. Er.. Make one.

Peace.

Why buy yarn?

2005-02-09T05:31:00.000-08:00

I have been so envious lately about people "harvesting yarn" from second-hand sweaters that I just had to join in the fun. So, I went to the local Goodwill and scoped out the sweaters there. After picking through a lot of sweaters that were knit at a small guage, and some that were fairisle, and some that were just a hideous color, I found three nice sweaters. I got a red-ish maroon one size XL knit at about 3.5-4 sts/in, a tan one size M knit at about 5 sts/in, and a nice one that is knit with brown and cream yarn held together size XL knit at about 5 sts/in.

I'd say it was a great buy, too! The tags all said $4.95 so I thought I'd pay about fifteen bucks, but it turned out that their winter stuff was 30% off! So I paid $10 for three sweaters' worth of yarn! Go me!

I just realized that every sentence in that paragraph had an exclamation point at the end... Can you tell I'm excited about it? I will definitely try to make this into a habit sinc it's a lot easier on the pocketbook than buying new yarn. Plus, it's like a charity to give money to Goodwill right? See, it's not stash enhancement; it's charity work.

Oh and also, I read this tutorial before I went on my journey, and I made sure that all my sweaters had "good seams" before I bought them.

Ta ta for now; I am working on my stripey sweater! Must... finish... soon. Happy knitting!

A Quickie.

2005-02-08T11:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick post before I go to class.

I thought after I put Mariah on (zipperless still!) that I didn't quite like how floppy and loose-ish the collar was. So... I washed her. She shrank a little which is good, but her collar was still too loose. It like folded out a little in the back and was generally fragile and weird. I picked out the bind off and bound off again, but this time every sixth stitch I bound off two stitches together. I chanted "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2 together, 1, 2, 3..." the whole time like only a knitter would. And guess what... it worked! It's nice when a fudging works out, isn't it?

Okay, I got a few rounds done on my stripey sweater last night and this morning, and I have about one more stripe repeat before I'm up to the armpits! Woo hoo!

Happy Tuesday!

Mariah is The Bomb!

2005-02-07T14:46:00.000-08:00

I finished Mariah. Okay, so all I have to do is kitchener the armpit stitches and throw her in the wash to see if she shrinks. (I want her to, just a bit.) Then I have to take her to the alteration place that my friend told me about so that some stranger can put a zipper in her because I have seen what damage I have done in the past regarding zipper installation. It ain't pretty, folks.

I gave my Mariah a crew neck collar with the cabled-rib border for the last two inches to make it match the sleeve cuffs, and I like it but next time I do a cardigan, I'll make a higher collar.

So now it's just time to plug away on the stripey sweater! My fingers are itching to make the Lo-Tech Sweat with the Lion Cotton that I have in the color Maize, but I'm going to resist scratching the itch. Not even a pocket will be knit until I finish the stripey sweater.

Happy knitting, all!

On the Needles

2005-02-02T14:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I still have not purchased a digital camera, but I guess I'll give a quick list of the projects that I have on needles and am most currently working on. Here goes:

1) Mariah which is designed by the ever-so-talented Jodi. I am almost up to the armpits on all three pieces - sleeves and body (more on that later). I pretty much bastardized the pattern, but not past the point of recognition. Here are the modifications that I made:

a) I cast on for all three body pieces at once, knitting back and forth across one long piece on a long circular needle so that I won't have side seams. I told Jodi and she said that she had knitted hers that way and that once she got to the armpits with body and sleeves, she had a hard time putting all of the three pieces on a long circ because doing so stretched the armpit stitches to no end and she had to sew up a big hole in the armpits later. So I thanked her kindly because I hadn't thought of that.
What I'm going to do now is put the 10 armpit stitches from sleeve and body on each side on spare yarn and then put the long circ around the other stitches, then later, I'll kitchener the armpit stitches together. I learned this trick from ze Glampyre, here.

b) I lengthened the body by an inch or so. I like 'em long.

c) I made all of the cables lean the same direction. They're all C4F's in other words. I prefer the C4F over the C4B because I don't like to reach behind the stitches to cable. (I do it w/o a needle.) Along those lines, I think the pattern says to maintain the cabling in the increased stitches of the sleeves (bringing in more columns of cables as you go), but instead I maintained the 2x1 ribbing. I wanted looser sleeves, and cables pull in more.

d) Jodi's Mariah uses three repeats of rows 13-52 of Chart C and then uses rows 13-34 and skips to 53-65, but I am almost one-third through repeat three of rows 13-52 and I am about two inches from the armpit. In the picture on Knitty, it looks like row 49 hits Jodi at the armpit. But row 49 is like five inches away for me. I don't know what to do, but I think I'll work only two repeats of 13-52, and then go from there. Then on whatever length I have left up to the shoulder, I'll just do the cabled rib. We'll see on that one...

e) I am omitting that sweet hood because I don't have enough yarn to make it. Maybe instead I'll do a little stand up neck in 2x1 rib and fold it over and sew it down. I've never done that kind of neck before - experimenting is always fun!

f) I am still debating: Zipper, or Button Band. I have been wanting to try Bonne Marie's non-flabby button band. Plus, I've never made a sweater with a button band for myslelf.

Whew! I think that's everything that I tweeked about the pattern. Except that I'm knitting it in Lion Brand Cotton-Ease. Shhh...don't tell anyone.

2) A design that I very loosely based on Tricot, designed by the fabulous Alison. I only used the measuments of Tricot, since I like the idea of "generous sleevecaps," since they produce loose-fitting sleeves. I am knitting it in Lion Brand Wool-Ease (can you tell I am in college?) with chocolate brown, light teal, olive green, and cream colored stripes. It's a really pretty stripe pattern and I swear I'll get a camera soon... I am knitting it as a bottom-up raglan just like Glampyre illustrated, and I'm giving it 3/4 length sleeves (a must-have for Texas weather!) and a loose neck. Or maybe a high neck. I can't decide, so we'll see.

3) The garter stitch baby blanket from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. This one's mostly for stash-reduction purposes. I found that I had seven different but coordinating colors of Wool-Ease (about three balls of each color!) and decided to whip out this blanket. It's not done in baby colors, but who says it has to be for a baby? I am on the third strip out of seven, and trying to plug along on it.

I have several other projects on needles, but I'm not currently working on them. This includes two sweaters which need a mere six inches or so before they are done... I am a new project whore. But, alas, I must finish some projects and reduce the giant yarn stash before the semester is over and I move back home! Mom will flip if she sees all that yarn! And on that note, I gotta knit some more on Mariah before I do some homework. I've got my priorities straight, right?

Peace.

A Temporary Post

2005-01-19T23:53:00.000-08:00

Hello, party people.