tsk, tsk, tsk!!

look at the date - friday, july 13 and i am finally getting to my june post!! my, oh my, i am tardy! please accept my apologies!


and, you might ask, why is this? well, in all honesty, it was the sock's fault!! they just didn't reach completion until july 11th after missing several self-imposed deadlines and a number of rounds of procrastination!  plus, i also snuck in a couple of other projects along with the black sheep gathering in eugene so i can't totally lay the blame on them. actually i think i am probably suffering from a tad bit of burnout with this pattern and type of sock as this is the fourth pair this year!! so, i'll be changing things up next month and making a pair for me rather than for the gift box.

once again, the pattern is wendy johnson's toe-up, gusset heel. this pair have ribbing all the way from the toe to the top. the yarn is another self striping number by on line yarn - 75% superwash wool and 25% polyamid, whatever that is!

fortunately for you, you can't see my studio because you would see that i am up to my eyeballs in yarn and patterns and fiber and fabric and lots of other crap but i guess that is what it is like for creative people, or so they say - sometimes i have visions of  'the hoarders' tv program invading my mind but i try to quickly banish that thought for my own sanity's sake! i had planned on knitting my june shawl with any number of patterns i already possess when this little number popped up in my email box from knitcircus.

the shawlette pattern is 'balm to the soul' by jaala spiro. it called for a dk or worsted weight yarn and required 250 yards so i thought i had it made in the shade with the skein of malabrigo rios (worsted weight) in the colorway 'piedras' i had in my stash. everything went swimmingly until i ran out of yarn in the middle of the final lace chart - argh! i was forced to make a trip to a lys (it was really tough!) to score another skein. the skein was the same color way but it had more blue and green than my original skein but what's a gal to do? i had to punt. since i now had plenty of yarn, i added another go round of the lace chart which the dk version called for and ended up with a larger shawl which was fine by me.

i am very pleased with the results considering my dilemma but the darker colors seem to be fine at the lower edge and it works. the sweetest part was how quickly this knit up - this truly was a weekend knit - start to finish.

here is the skirt that i mentioned i was knitting last month. it has a drawstring waist and an eight inch border of razor lace. the yarn is pima silk in the toffee colorway from frog tree yarns that has been hanging in my stash for a number of years - glad i could use it up!

i also completed this sweater - 'adrift' by carol feller, aka stolenstitches.com. it was exactly the perfect late spring, early summer wrap i was looking for - top down with fronts that drape oh, so nicely, knit in one piece in stockinette stitch. it is knit from yarn that i repurposed from a sweater i picked up at goodwill - light and airy, perfect for those not too hot days that frequent our weather patterns in the great northwest!


off the needles is another lightweight summer sweater that i haven't photographed yet but it was perfect for an evening at our family reunion in early july.


as mentioned earlier, i did attend the black sheep gathering in eugene in late june and took a class in mawatas. what is a mawata? i'll tell you all about it in my next post!! gotta go now as i have yarn to spin - the tour de fleece is in full swing right now and i've got to get my daily spin in!! ta,ta!

ooooops, i did it again!

YES!

and YES! i did it again!

it's a miracle - i am still on task!

and the sun rose in the east today!

(except in the pacific northwest where we awoke to cloud cover) 

another pair of toe-up socks a la wendy d. johnson's book, socks from the toe up. i am terribly smitten with this gusset heel - exceedingly simple but beautiful! i've knit it enough times that i've almost got it committed to memory - yippee! i knit the leg in a k2, p2 rib.  the yarn is ON line supersocke 100 and i used knit picks size 1.5 dpn's. a good pair of utility socks if i do say so myself!

i found the yarn for this shawl at powell's books, of all places! go figure! i was roaming through the craft area, checking out knitting books, when i encountered a display of malabrigo yarn at the end of the aisle. quite a lovely display, really - one that certainly caught my eye (really, when has any yarn not caught my eye). i was forced to pick up a skein of malabrigo lace in the colorway glazed carrots, a color i've lusted after for a long time and at only $9 a skein of 470 yards of baby merino wool, a wonderful bargain for such a luscious hand - a whole lotta bang for a buck! the pattern is emily shawl, designed by mandy moore from the winter/spring 2010 issue of knitscene magazine. it is composed of the fir cone lace pattern, is a quick knit and is unusual in the fact that it is knit from side to side instead of from top to bottom or bottom to top. the beautiful part of this yarn is that it yields a light and soft product that works well as a quick wrap around the neck under a jacket on cooler days or as a lightweight cover up during warmer weather. in our neck of the woods that makes the shawl wearable year round, except for perhaps one or two days when the temp moves above 85 degrees!

i've also got several other projects on the needles including a skirt and a sweater that i will thrill you with pictures of next month - oh, lucky you!

before i go, let me remind you of this monumental upcoming event:

Worldwide Knit in Public Day

June 9, 2012

check out the info at: www.wwkipday.com. 

keep your eyes peeled, you just might see some wild and crazy people 

with pointy sticks hanging out in public! 

you've been warned!

sing it, paul and art!

April come she will 

When streams are ripe and swelled with rain; 

May, she will stay, 

Resting in my arms again. 

June, she'll change her tune, 

In restless walks she'll prowl the night; 

July, she will fly 

And give no warning to her flight. 

August, die she must, 

The autumn winds blow chilly and cold; 

September I'll remember 

A love once new has now grown old. 

i don't know what it is, but every april finds me humming this delightful tune by simon and garfunkel. it was in the movie, "the graduate", which came out in 1969 and starred dustin hoffman, kathryn ross and the wonderful, anne bancroft.  this song was featured at the point in the movie where young, naive benjamin decides that he must have elaine even though he has been eliminated from elaine's life by her father, who wasn't the least bit happy with benny once he found out that he had been bopping mrs. robinson, who was the real bad girl in this whole situation! it turns out ok at the end, except for poor mrs. robinson! 

i digress...back to april and what was on my needles that isn't anymore! 

i did it again - i met my monthly, self-imposed goal! yippee!

here is the shawl...

it is called perennial and was designed by debbi stone. the yarn is the march allotment from the blue moon fiber arts 2012 sock club in the colorway: budding twig. it was a delightful knit that included a little bit of adventure - the edge was first by knitting 54 leaf motifs. stitches were then picked up along the edge and knit in short rows to complete the stockinette area. as is typical, my photos leave a lot to be desired, but the colors just scream spring and those first bud breaks in the perennial garden. the real surprise is that for the first time since i've belonged to the rsc i finished a project before the next yarn arrived!!

my monthly socks made the deadline with just moments to spare as the clock closed out april. i am continuing to destash using these self-striping yarns of which i have an overabundance way too many!! expect to see more of these in the months to come! argh!

once again, i'm knitting the wendy johnson toe-up socks with the gusset heel. i really like the way it turns out in the self-stripping yarn. these are really plain vanilla socks - just round and round and round in stockinette stitch which when knitting in the round is just knit, knit, knit!! i can't believe how many comments i get from non-knitters as to 'how complicated they must be to make'. jeepers, it couldn't get any easier! or boring, for that matter, but why waste beautiful stitch patterns on yarn that isn't going to show it off!

soooooo.... i can pretty much guarantee that you'll be seeing more of these plain vanilla jobs until i exhaust this stash!!

 
here is the sweater that i completed at the end of march. it is called selvedge cardigan and was designed by amy christoffers and was in the interweave knits magazine knit wear.
knit from the bottom up and joined at the arm pits it was basically knit in one piece with a kitchener stitch join at the back of the neck. i also used a tubular cast on in 1x1 rib which was a slick way to start! yarn is noro chunky silk garden.

after listening to brenda dayne from the 'cast on' podcast contemplating whether or not to knit this skirt i decided i needed to give it a try. it is the lanesplitter skirt pattern from knitty.com. after gleaning a ton of info from ravelry,  i did a provisional cast on, knit the parallelogram by multiplying my stitches per inch by the length i wanted and used a kitchener stitch bind-off so i didn't have a back seam. i picked up stitches around the waste with needles a couple of sizes smaller and knit 3 inches of k2,p2 for ribbing. i didn't need to worry about inserting elastic as it stays up swimmingly! i used 4 skeins of noro kureyon. i think i'm gonna need to revisit this pattern again!

also off the needles is the whisper cardigan from interweave knits, designed by hannah fettig of knitbot fame. this was another wonderful sweater that involved no seaming - can it possibly get any better than that? i knit the sleeves and back in one piece, picked up stitches around the edges for the collar and waist, bound off some stitches at the neck and knit the lower body with the remaining stitches! easy-peasy and a wonderfully versatile wardrobe addition - perfect for pacific northwest spring weather! again, i apologize for these pathetic pictures.

the yarn i used in this sweater is cashmere that i recycled from a men's sweater that i purchased at goodwill for $6.99! can't beat that with a stick! 

here's what i did: i unraveled the yarn by picking it apart at a seam and using my ball winder, i made it into single strand balls and slipped them off the ball winder and onto pieces of 1/2 inch plastic pipe. when i had balled up all the yarn on my plastic pipe pieces, i steamed the balls in a closed container over a boiling water bath for 30 minutes. i did this to remove the kinks from the previous knitting. when it had cooled, i re-balled it by combining three strands to make it the weight i wanted - somewhere between lace and fingering - which was the perfect weight for this sweater. i could also have dyed it by making it into skeins but the neutral color was perfect.

that's a wrap for april - tee, hee! let's see what may brings!

march has left the building...

... along with elvis!


march was a wet and rainy month, so rainy that the constant downpours set a record for the most rainfall recorded in the history of records for march - swell!! 


the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow for me was 'lots of rain, lots of knitting'! yippee! my garden called to me each and every day but it seems i have become a warm-weather gardener as the chilly, wet weather just didn't float my boat!


it is was my third month of keeping my new year's resolution i am most happy to report, and no one could possibly be more surprised by this feat than myself. gosh, i hope i don't break my arm by patting myself on the back!


so... here goes:

my socks of the month are another 'plain vanilla' unit, toe-up with a short row toe and heel, again from wendy johnson's book, socks from the toe up. miss daisy mae approves and is dying to start pulling them off!! she's giving me 'the look' that says 'off with the socks!'.

and i did not limit myself to just one scarf or shawl but three!! this is the blossoms by the brook pattern by ilga leja from knitty, spring-summer 2012. the yarn is mirasol 'hacho' in the color way 'peacock' and is a dk weight. the pattern called for a worsted weight yarn so the shawl is a tad narrower due to the lighter yarn but i had enough of this yarn in my stash to pull it off so... voila! i really like this yarn and am so sad that it has been discontinued - it has such a delightful hand. this was a fast knit.

in second place is this scarf (doubled as a cowl) cracklin rosie designed by shannon squire of twisted for the 2012 rose city yarn crawl. the yarn is the sumptuous blue moon fiber arts 'marine silk - fingering', a combo of silk, merino and sea cell. the color is the one and only 'pond scum', the world's most wonderful color!! it is so soft and yummy - did i mention that i love it? oh, yeah, pattern was free with yarn purchase!! really, there is no free lunch!

and shawl #3 (actually it was the first one i knit) is wingspan by maylin tri'coterie designs. i found it on ravelry and it was free - a very good price!! the yarn is noro sock yarn, famous for long color runs. this yarn was part of my stash and i must say that i'm glad i didn't knit socks out of this because it is rather rough and i think it would be way too scratchy for socks - sort of like wearing a hair shirt!! creepy! as a scarf, fine, bright and colorful - just what someone needs to brighten up the rainy spring days we've been experiencing.


oh, yeah, i also knit a sweater but i have no pictures yet so you have that to look forward to in my next post. it is the selvedge cardigan by amy christoffers from the magazine 'knit wear'. i put a big dent in my stash by using noro 'silk garden chunky' in color 3, lot b, which is a combo of green, blue and purple - delightful!


so, i guess the question for april is: shall i be praying for april showers so i can get my knit on or for a break in the weather so i can get my garden on? only time will tell...

february marches on

and becomes march - the month!!


before i can salute the new month, i must backtrack and recap february and my knitting adventures. 


i'm still on track with my new year's resolutions, believe it or not! i'm probably the most skeptical person regarding this issue as my ability to stay on track has regressed over the years - i'm blaming it on the drugs. no, not THOSE drugs but the prescription statin that i take for high cholesterol - new tests find that it may impair memory. oh, great! apparently you are damned if you do and damned if you don't - take the drug and lose your memory or don't take the drug and die of a heart attack - life's a crap shoot, i tell ya!!


i digress! back to the topic at hand. february yielded a scarf

evelyn clark's swallowtail lace shawl

knit on size 4 needles with knit picks 'shimmer' in the colorway: flower garden. the yarn is a lovely combination of 70% baby alpaca and 30% silk in a lace weight. the finished shawl is a robust 60 inches across by 28 inches long - much larger than i had anticipated. i knit this shawl in the past out of malabrigo lace which yielded a much smaller piece. that is what i thought i would get this time so i was very pleased when i blocked it and discovered the difference.

i gave the nupps the ol' college try but they just didn't cut it - too wimpy- so i used beads instead. much better option as it adds a delightful surprise to the mix! 


i am very happy with the way this shawl turned out and very happy to have it done and very happy to have made a minuscule dent in my lace stash!!


and the beat goes on: socks of the month!


remember brach's candies? i do! they were some of the first bin foods found in supermarkets way back when!! and i do mean way back when!! i always felt like i was soooooo special when my mom would let me get a small bag full of the white nougats - you remember those, don't you? they were white with flecks of colored fruit! yum!!

there were also the coconut numbers that were the exact colors of these socks. those weren't as high on my list but i did love that pink and brown color combo!

this yarn has been languishing in my stash for many moons - like years and years! it is trekking xxl, knit on size 1 double points. the pattern is from the book by wendy d. johnson 'socks from the toe up'. it is a plain vanilla toe-up sock with a gusset heel. my first go at this heel and i really enjoyed it! indeed, i will do it again!

i had intended to do some patterning in the leg but decided that it was futile since it was lost with this self-striping yarn so plain vanilla it is and was - topped it off with an inch of k2,p2 and a very loose bind-off. once again, amazing for me!

i also pounded out a sweater - 'yoked cardigan' by hannah fettig.

i reclaimed this yarn from a previously knit sweater and i can tell you, it is much better this go round! i have no idea who made this yarn or its fiber content but it is a lovely combination of warm and cool shades of gray with a fleck of gold metallic running throughout which is difficult to ascertain from these photos.

this is a top-down one-piece sweater with no seams to sew - my favorite type of knit! i'm also taken with the swing jacket sense it possesses. the pattern is well-written and comes in a wide range of sizes from newborn to adult. i would recommend this pattern to a novice knitter that wants to move beyond the obligatory scarves and hats.

so, that wraps up february. what does march hold? well, for two things - socks and a shawl. i also hope to knock out one last winter sweater of wool before heading into spring and more cotton yarns!!

it's a new dawn!

and a new year, and now, a new month - february!


as the new year was approaching i actually took some time and pondered where i wanted my ship to sail this year in regards to my knitting adventures. 


let me make this perfectly clear before i go one step further - i have never encountered a brick and mortar or internet yarn shop that i did not love - hence, over the course of time, i have amassed a rather large stash of a variety of different yarns. this stash has finally reached the point where i have hit the wall - i really need to get a grip on my stash building and begin to consume some of it before i make another purchase. i recently opened several storage places where i have yarn squirreled away and discovered yarn that i had no idea  when or where or why it was purchased!!! i found this to be somewhat frightening!


so... i resolved that 2012 would be the year of the big yarn bust!! i'm most happy to report that i have successfully survived the first month!! here was my mode of operandi: i found a hat pattern that i thought was pretty swell, dug around and found all of the type of yarn called for and went to work - my pattern was "vortex" by lee meredith, and my yarn was noro kureyon, of which i had approximately 4 different skeins. 

with this pattern, you combine two different skeins for one hat so, tada, i was able to complete eight adult hats and two hats for kids. the biggest gain from this knitting experience was that i really solidified my kitchener stitch skills, something that had been lacking from my skill set - win, win, win!


i love this hat which is a good thing since i now have 8 of them - they remind me of dr. seuss and just thinking about that has to make one happy!


as if stash busting wasn't enough of a challenge, i decided to throw caution to the wind and toss a couple of extra caveats into the resolution mix -why not knit a pair of socks and a shawl or scarf each month? well, why not?

here are the scarves: the pattern is "holding hands, feeding ducks", a freebie on ravelry. the yarn i used for the yellow/blue/green number was two skeins of magallanes by araucania yarns - 484 yards total.

the second and third scarves are blue moon fiber arts labrador - 100% australian wool - 200 yards. all were chunky yarns of the thick and thin variety and were knit on size 10.5 needles. the stitch pattern is called the star stitch and was very simple once you get the hang of it!!

as for socks, i knit up a pair of anklets of my own design using knit picks dancing - a cotton, wool, nylon and elastic mix - a perfect summer yarn, nice and light. these were knit on a size 1, 9 inch circular needle which was an interesting experience! was able to use my new gained kitchener stitch knowledge to complete the toe! woo, hoo!

so, it's a new dawn and a new month - i'll let you know what february brings!

socktober

alas, socktober has come and gone! the surprising news is that i actually knit socks for once! i always have the best of intentions but then life gets in the way (or a shawl, sweater, hat, etc.). 


this year, i made the commitment - socks were a priority (its not like i don't have just a tad bit of sock yarn). i didn't want to knit just any socks as i have a drawer full, i wanted special socks. special as in specialty socks - socks with a purpose!


as a yoga devotee with constantly cold feet, i found my mission - yoga socks! so without further ado, here they are:

yoga #1 and #2. easy peasy - no toes and no heels - and they fit the bill perfectly - my feet stay warm and i can still stick to my mat!the best part - the amount of yarn required was minimal so i was able to use leftovers from previous projects, like these:

win, win, win! that's what i'm talkin' about!!