Persistent Knitter

I fell prey to the cuteness that is the Harry Potter bookscarf. Given how small it is, I figured it wouldn’t take long to make.  Plus, I use pearl cotton as stitch holders, and for provisional cast ons.  The shiny slipperyness is perfect for both tasks.   

The pearl cotton comes in skiens, which if you try and work from them directly, usually ends up a in a large pile of knotty yarn.  I decided to not torture myself, and wind each skein into a ball.

My regular ball winder is about the size of a toilet paper tube, about 1" or so in diameter. The ball of pearl cotton would collapse on itself the minute I took it off, defeating the whole purpose.   I first tried my real Notstepinne (fancy word for long smooth stick); but the inner diameter of the ball was still too large.   Inspriation hit:

The most important part of a proper Nostepinne, is that it be very slick and not-bumpy so you can slide the finished ball of yarn off easily.  Anything the yarn will catch on will ruin the center part of the ball. (I always hate it when my commerically made balls give up a wad of tangled yarn. I affectionately call that "Yarn Vomit").  A secondary consideration in a good nostepinne, for me, is a place to hold down the yarn tail that comes from the inside of the ball.  You don’t want it to catch as you’re making the ball, but you want it held firmly out of the way without having to think about it.

A ball point pen filled both of these requirements easily.  A quick winding of the first tail around the cap and away I went.  I did find it was easier and less trauma to the ball to unscrew the end cap holding the ink in before taking the ball off.  I now have three great balls of yarn ready to make into my Harry Potter bookscarf. (I’m on book 2. Just started tonite. The big question is – which will I finish first, the book or the bookscarf?)

I’m a firm believer in stash-aged-yarn. Sometimes use a yarn right after I get it, but I have quite a few yarns that are percolating in my stash until the inspiration strikes me for that particular yarn. I have ultimate faith in this process because as a quilter, I know that there is no better feeling than to feel the urge to make a quilt, get an idea, go to my fabric stash, pull out a bunch of great fabrics, and make the quilt without ever leaving the house (see my latest example here).

The reason I can do this is because when I saw a great fabric, and had the money, I bought it. (Staying out quilt shops was good for the budget) Most of my fabric stash is in 1 or 1/2 yard increments. I love scrappy quilts, and having small amounts of many different fabrics allows me to make great scrappy quilts.

So, back to yarn. Most of the time I do prefer to have a specific project in mind. At least to the level of “Socks” “Sweater”, “Scarf” or “Sample”. This dictates how much I buy of a particular yarn. A year ago at the Estes Wool Market, I fell in love with some Interlacements RickRack yarn. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with it (They showed it as a shawl. Hmm.. nice, but didn’t seem that’s what I wanted to make). I bought two skeins of it, which I think is a full pound. Ever since then I’ve been on the look out for a pattern that might tickle my fancy. I found a pattern a while ago, but had too many things going at that time to really consider starting it right then. (I did go so far as to wind one of the skeins into 2 balls).

This past weekend, another yarn caught my fancy, and I just had to have it. It’s Helen’s Lace from Lorna’s Laces. The colors are drop dead gorgeous and the yarn is super soft being a combination of wool and silk. It also has a great looking sheen to it. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but it came home with me. I thought I might like to try my needles at knitting a lace shawl. (It’s lace weight. made sense) I wanted to take it with me to look at patterns, so I pulled it out of my stash, and had a thought. Maybe I should get that rick-rack yarn out too.

Well, the colors are perfect together. Take a look:

The rick rack (which is the ball on the bottom) has more green in it, but the purple bits are an almost perfect match for the Helen’s lace. (That color is called “Blackberry, but it reminds me more of deep deep grapes)

I pulled out the original pattern idea for the rick rack – a tank top with lacy cardigan; and thought what a great pair. I could make the tank and wear it with the shawl! The shawl I’ve semi-decided on (from A Gathering of Lace) requires two hanks of the Helen’s lace, so it’ll take a little bit of time for that to come in. (theknitter.com is ordering it for me) The skein in the picture is on loan, because I had to have a picture of the two yarns together. Hopefully the two skeisn won’t be completely different from this one, and will still go. I have a few other projects to finish before starting the tank/shell in the rick-rack yarn; but it’s moved itself to the top of the pile for now.

it’s yarn again.  Here it was as a 1/3 finished blanket:

See it attached to the ball winder?  Here’s what happened 5 mins later:

Yikes.  I actually wasn’t very sad to wind it off. It took longer than I thought it would.  The pattern I used was really pretty – but the yarn I used wasn’t quite as soft as I’d like for a baby blanket.  I think my gauge was a bit too stiff as well.  So, bye bye blanket.  The yarn (of which I have 10 full balls) will become a baby sweater or two. There is at least one baby on it’s way that needs one.

So knitting hasn’t been going on too much in my house lately. I am working on my Rocks and Trails sock from theknitter.com (the second sock in the larger size). I’ve been doing a little teeny tiny bit of spinning (some dyed merino roving purchased from my LYS long long ago) but mostly been working on Knit Visualizer (soon, hopefully soon to be available from The Knit Foundry.)  I’ve got some beta testers testing it, but can’t tell you how far away from release we’ll be.   It’s coming a long though….

So what’s the cute thing I might knit someday?

How about a Harry Potter bookmark scarf?

Very cute, inventive, and just the right size for the busy knitter!

No, it’s just my test sock for the August SOTM club at theknitter.com.

When test knitting, I’m always given enough yarn to make myself a full pair of socks, but after I was 1" into the cuff pattern on this one, I realized it would be tighter than I like my socks.  I still needed to test the pattern, so I decided to keep going, but not make a full size sock (unless your feet are really huge and short).  The cuff is about 6" shorter than it should be. The heel flap is approx 1" instead of 2.25 or 2.5" long. I only did 1/2" of the "foot" after the gusset decreases, and the toe is just a tiny bit shorter than normal.  I tested all the directions in the pattern, just not the "continue for X inches pieces".  Next I’ll do the larger size, but this time make a full sock.

Oh – as far as the pattern goes, it’s a great looking sock, but isn’t very hard to make at all. It’s a sport weight yarn, so goes pretty fast too.

Thanks to everyone who left comments on knitfoundry.com.  More info will be availble there soon!

the creation of Knit Foundry.  It’s a project I’ve been working on, and am getting ready to push it forward.  The software I’m writing is tentatively called Knit Visualizer. You type in instructions like "k2 (p2,k2) 5 times" and get a chart out of it.  It’s really cool if I do say so myself. The website doesn’t have much info on it yet.  I’m just getting things started.  Stuff like what I’m gonna call it, "Knit Foundry", "The Knit Foundry" or "Knitting Foundry"? The last option is more grammatically correct – but who cares about grammar when you’re making a cool name? knitfoundry.com it is! :)  All feedback welcome. There’s a form at the website; or you can leave comments here.

Whee! I’m gonna go faint now.

My MIL is an amazing knitter. This is the body of a sweater she’s in the process of making:

She’s working on the sleeves and had brought it along on her latest trip so that I could help her sew & cut the steeks for the sleeves. I am proud to say I didn’t even sweat a bit when we did it! I forgot to take "after" pictures of the steeks, but they are pretty boring anyway.  Someday I might get a picture of the intended recipient in the sweater.

(It’s a Dale pattern, but I don’t remember which book, sorry)

What’s your computer doing when you’re not using it? Being BORED!  I found this cool site that has pretty screensavers and desktop themes.

http://www.appleblossomart.com/

Enjoy!

Remember that baby blanket I was working on … way back here? Well, I realized I wasn’t going to get done before the kid was in college. So I switched to making a quilt. Here is said baby with resulting quilt:

It’s a pattern from one of the more recent Quilter’s Newsletter Magazines. Their version had pinks and yellows – which was hardly appropriate for a little boy (his name is Evan btw). I pulled out fabrics from my stash – chickens, bugs, fish, cats, swirls, suns and of course, the border – OCTIPI! (is that plural for Octopus? I dunno). The quilt came out really well (and fast) and I’m fairly pleased, esp considering I didn’t buy any fabric specifically for this project.. The only thing I didn’t get to do was make the label for it on my super ultra mega sewing machine. the software I have for that only runs on an anceitn Win 98 laptop that has crappy memory and it takes forever for it to do anything.

Other stuff

So I entered my skein in the contest. I didn’t win. I did get some good information on how skein judging (at least this particular one) goes and what they look for. They really want to know what you’re going to make with your handspun yarn. I wasn’t really prepared for that question, so the answer I gave probably wasn’t quite right. Overall it was a great experience, and I hope to enter one or more skeins in next year’s contest. (There’s also the local county fair that’s coming up soon, but I doubt I’ll get it together fast enough for that)