Persistent Knitter

Seems like I’m stumbling all over the internet lately.

I found this link to a bunch of free knitting patterns:

http://www.garnstudio.com/design/index.html

Not quite as fun as Tron-guy, but maybe a bit more useful to the knitting reader here. Be careful, the patterns are not in English. There is hope, as there are some dictionaries supplied as well. With a small bit of work, you can have some great free patterns.

You know how you run across wierd (yet vaguely interesting) stuff when you’re surfing the web? Well, here’s one I found yesterday:

TRON guy

Fun!

I think a proper fitting thimble is so important to sewing in general, and especially quilting! I finally found the website of the person who made the one I bought (about oh…. 6 or 7 or more years ago).

Thimbles by TJ Lane

The one I have can be seen by clicking on Catalog, then select “View” next to Closed Top from the list on the right. The design is called Lucerne.

Her website is driving me batty (no direct links, windows overlapping, bleah!) but her thimbles are amazingly beautiful, and (mostly) usable! If I remember right she designs her own designs, makes a casting mold, and then can make her own thimbles from there. I saw her thimbles at a show, didn’t buy one, and then changed my mind later. She was kind enough to let me come to her house and take my pick from her extensive stock.

Anyone who really knows me, knows that I love containers. I’ve been working on the binding of two quilts lately (one done, one in progress) which is hand sewing. I’ve been taking them with me because I’ve got a deadline to meet. In order for me to take along my small sewing kit, I need a container for it. I only need the thread, my thimble, a needle case and some scissors. I found the perfect container to carry my sewing kit:

I thought the smaller one might be even more perfect, but it’s not big enough to carry both the thread and the needle case; so I’ll just have to suffer and eat the gum. Here’s a picture of the inside:

I lined the lid and bottom of the Altoids container with some flannel fabric so it would reduce the amount of clattering that goes on when the container is in my backpack and I’m walking around.

What else can you use an altoids container for??
How about build a radio and put it in there? http://users.frii.com/rwc/r-m/
My dad has actually built this radio and uses it!

I’m looking for a link to show you where I got my thimble (which is the best thimble I’ve ever used, and I loooooooove it tons), but I can’t find one now.

I finished Katie’s socks. They are very cute - and I haven’t told her they are done. I just put them in her drawer for her to discover one of these days. Plus it’s a bit too warm to wear wool socks just yet. Maybe this weekend when it cools down for a brief two days.

Here’s the finished product:

And some progress on Hardangervidda’s sleeve:

This is an old picture, cuz I have the 2nd portion of the pattern done. I’ve ordered some more needles to do the upper part of it. Addi Natura’s in 16" and 24" length. Yes, MORE needles. I just love needles.

And remember that car I got? Well my husband got his too. We are now a super zoom zoom family. Here the cars are all tucked in to sleep in our garage. Mine is the blue one, and Mike’s is the black one (his is the Rx8)

Ain’t they pretty?

I need more time. Not enough time in the day to do everything i want to. Jill asked for updates several days ago, and I faithfully took a picture of Hardangervidda’s sleeve that night. The picture is still in the camera though.

::Hanging my head in Shame::

I’ll get pictures up soon. I promise. Really!

But I’ve been Quilting!
I’ve been trying to get some quilts done for some very special girls that are the same age as my daughter & I have a deadline looming. I have 9 days left to get them quilted and bound (and pictures taken) before giving them as a gift! (Also hoping to make really nifty labels using the embroidery unit on my sewing machine. Back up plan: Fabric markers!)

My sewing machine was giving me a few fits last night. If you try to sew before it fully boots up, it has a little fit and does things like not move the feed dogs. I thought maybe my walking foot was broken - but it wasn’t. Once I got that all figured out I decided I didn’t want to use the walking foot, cuz it’s more fun to machine quilt using free motion quilting. I didn’t even do a test swatch, I just started right in! It’s coming out ok - but you can’t really see the quilting because the fabrics are so busy. Tonite I switch thread colors and will finish quilting Quilt #1.

Ooooh a sock!
I finished the first sock of my daughter’s pair and showed it to her. She immediately wanted to wear it, and since I wanted to make sure I got the sizing right, I put it on her.

Then she ran away from me.

It took me 10 minutes to chase her down and get the sock back so I could make sure the 2nd (mostly) matched the first. I’m to the heel on the 2nd sock and am zipping right along. Presuming they don’t shrink in the wash (!!) they will fit her perfectly. My next small sock project will be socks for little Mr. Zander-man in Cascade Fixation. I’ll have to dig through the stash to find what I’ve got and hope it’s manly enough for him.

Antiquated
I’m not even sure I spelled that right. I had a dentist appt yesterday (note to self: floss more!) and as usual I had my knitting with me. This time I had Hardangervidda’s sleeve (poor thing has been neglected in favor of the quilts) and when the new-to-me hygenist came to get me said, “Oh - knitting ! I didn’t think anybody knit or crocheted anymore.” Made me smile and I responded “Oh yeah, lots of people do”.

The front desk girls always ask me what I’m working on and I felt bad that the sleeve wasn’t really very impressive looking at this point. Last time I had a sock, and they seemed much more in awe. That’s my job you know - to make others feel awe of people who knit.

If I could just figure out how to knit while they were scraping 6 months worth of junk off my teeth, visiting the dentist would be much more pleasant!

No real updates today. I am going to take another picture of the 2nd Bjerk swatch soon as the colors were hideous in the one I already posted. I am making some good progress on Katie’s socks.

Oh, and I’m getting my new car this evening. I actually threatened to poke the sales guy with my DPNs (Size 0, Crystal Palace Bamboo 6″ long) if they didn’t give me a good value for my trade in. :) (Did it work? not really, but it made me feel better)

What if someone told you that you could lease your yarn, as long as you give it back in relatively good condition three years down the road?

Or what if you could buy it outright (paying over time) and then trade it in for some newer and flashier yarn three years down the road?

Ok, I’m not really talking about yarn, but it’s an interesting way to think of the “lease vs loan” problem. I found this really good article that does a decent job of explaining the difference between the two: Click Here to be educated.

It also covers buying a used car, which is a very different animal in my opinion. You get a lower price, but you also get another persons’ (or many persons’) dirt, smells, and taste in colors when it came to the interior and car color. It takes longer to find a decent used car, there are less choices. Can you tell I like newer cars? Plus, with some of the incentives you can buy a new car for almost the price of a late model used car!

“So why should we care?”, you ask.

Well, the car (really an SUV) I am driving now has a hideously huge payment with it. It replaced another car with a hideously huge payment almost 3.5 years ago. I’m tired of having a huge payment. I’m trading it in for something just as fun to drive, with just as many doo-dads on the inside to entertain me while I drive (I like knowing that it’s 90+ outside while my A/C keeps me in complete comfort), that costs a LOT less. Like half.

So stay tuned, I might share a picture of it when I get it. Hopefully if all goes well I’ll be driving it tomorrow afternoon.

What about knitting??
I anticipate having lots of time to knit while doing the finance stuff at the dealer, although I’m trying to get everything done ahead of time so we can just walk in and sign. I finished Katie’s first sock yesterday and have already cast on for the 2nd one. Hardangervidda’s sleeve is just a small cuff so far, but that will be making progress soon too!

Taking Judy’s idea (see comments on this post), I decided to swap the colors around in the Bjerk sweater to try and get more contrast for the pretty flower pattern. When I laid out the colors, the spot color was wrong wrong wrong, so I had to pick something else. Given that it was about 9pm, I had to make do with what I had. I found some green in the same yarn I’m already using, and thought it wouldn’t look too bad.

Here are the results:

Not bad, eh? I like the contrast between the light purple flower & the two colors surrounding it: the dark purple & dark blue. When doing the swatch I assumed I would still keep the dark purple on the bottom; but it could really go either way. Before I start I need to go back to the LYS and trade out the yarn and get more of the blue. I’m not totally sold on the dark green spot. It’s a heathered green, and one I originally bought to be the accent color in Hardangervidda. With that one, the green didn’t show up at all against the dark dark heathered blue (and here you thought Hardangervidda was black!) background and the grey heathered yarn. It lost any punch with the green, so I went back to the burgandy-ish accent with Hardangervidda.

The spot yarn is the least amount of color in the whole sweater, but I think it’s important to get it right. I’ll take a trip to my LYS this week, swatch in hand to get more dark blue yarn and see if I can find a good spot color. I probably won’t get to starting the sweater for a week or so either - so I’m going to solicit my knitting group’s opinion this next weekend - does the green work? A different color? I won’t make another swatch, I’ll just use duplicate stitch to try out a different spot color if I need to.

Gauge
I took some time to measure Gauge on Hardangervidda’s body, now that it’s done :) I did it the “Right” way by measuring 4 inches, I marked the beginning & end of the four inches and then counted between them. I did this in several places on the sweater in the stockinette portion while the sweater was laying flat and not stretching it.

I wasn’t quite to gauge with the pattern (gee, big suprise), but close! I got 5.75 st/inch; and the pattern called for 6. This explains why my husband can wear the medium size when the measurements for the medium wouldn’t fit him.

I’m going to use this number as my gauge for Bjerk, since it’s using the same yarn (Falk) and I can use the same needles.

Now, we’ll see if I can keep the gauge consistent between one project and the next. *snort*

Sock
I’m ready to start the toe on my daughter’s sock. She hadn’t tried it on yet, until just now. She saw me working on the swatch for Bjerk and asked where her sock was. (Sooo cute!) The next pair I make her I’ll cast on a few more stitches. I hope her feet don’t grow too fast so she can wear these all winter:

Jill asked in comments:
You have been busy! It is exciting to see your progress. Do you have your next 5 projects planned out?

Well, sort of! I have my “current projects” shown in the list on the right. I need to redo this list too, as it has changed some. I’m going to jettison the Critter Blanket (Anyone interested in taking this project over? You can continue the blanket (I’ll give you the scrap of paper I wrote the stitch pattern on too) OR you can just have the yarn and do whatever you want to with it.). I will eventually get my Summer Solstice socks done, but I’ve decided I really don’t like knitting with the yarn used in them. (They aren’t even listed in that list!) I will also eventually finish the Purple Cascade Fixation socks. Again, I’m not sure I really like this yarn much for a large sock project.I really did like it for baby socks which went very quickly.

Stuff that isn’t started yet (or even swatched) but in my head:
* Rick Rick yarn from Interlacements. I need to spend some quality swatching time with this yarn.I have gone so far as to wind one of my skeins into balls (and broke my yarn winder in the process. Oops!) I am thinking a sweater with lacy edging for this.

* Rogue in a possible variety of yarns: Mission Falls 1824 Wool, Rowan All Seasons Cotton in a yummy deep green or maybe some Rowan Wool/Cotton.

* Something else sweater-like for ME!

I swear my next sweater project will be for me. I really want to be able to wear one of my own knitted creations. Once the weather turns cooler I’m looking forward to wearing my Flashy Lace sweater too.