Fiberlicious Friday: Madelinetosh Tosh DK

So, I started a new and fun project and it's actually for me!!!  Yeay :D  I picked up some gloriously squishy Madelinetosh Tosh DK when I was up in Maine back in July and really had no ideas of what to make with it until I came across the Elegant Alpaca Fingerless Gloves pattern on Ravelry (link to pattern below).  You can also download the pattern at the Cascade Yarns webpage if you don't have access to Ravelry.

I had a bit of time to myself last night, so I decided to cast these babies on.  For one night's work I actually got pretty far. I did make some changes to the pattern to ensure that the gloves fit me properly.  This patten makes gloves that go up to the upper arm and since I have a lovely pair of chunky upper arms (grrrr), I decided to increase the starting stitch count to 68 from the original 56.  I just had a feeling that casting on only 56 stitches would cause me much misery and frogging...  Because of this alteration I will most likely have to do more decreasing as I work down the arm since in comparison to my large upper arms, my wrists are decidedly tiny (again, grrr).  I'm going to have to just make alterations as I go to make sure of a good fit.  It should be a nice little challege withou being too difficult.  I think I can handle it :)

The "I Must Be Crazy" Lacy Simple Scarf Update

So, after working on this scarf for about two weeks now, I am happy to report that I have not yet gone crazy and I have actually made some very good progress!  Through the prodigious use of lifelines at the beginning of each panel of lace (and in some cases, many, many more) I am almost complete with the first half of the scarf and very happy with how it is turning out.  I just have the last lace section to go before binding off.  Then I get to do the whole thing over again. Sigh... did I mention how much I hate knitting the same thing twice?

I've mostly been knitting the scarf during lunch breaks or before work with the occasional long stretch at knit night or at home on a weekend.  I find I can listen to tv when I work on it, but not very closely, so Food Network or HGTV is my background noise of choice.  I'm making this scarf for charity, so I do have a bit of a deadline and some stress about doing a good job knitting it.  I think I can get it done in time though... as long as I don't get distracted by something else for too long.  I think you might know just how easily I can get distracted by other projects.

 

In a frenzy to take a nice picture of my progress when it's been raining pretty much for two days, I went to a local coffee shop after work today and plunked myself down in a chair to knit and enjoy an iced coffee.   Ok... I got some quiche too, but don't tell anyone ok?  It's a secret!  I'm supposed to be behaving myself :)   On that note, I think it might be time to make some dinner, so I guess I'll finally stop chattering and show you what the completed section of the scarf looks like.  Until next time!

Fiberlicious Friday

Just yesterday I started a new and probably quite crazy-stupid project (yeah, I'm guessing you aren't shocked by this).  When I was recently in Salem spending some time with friends, we went to a nice local yarn store and I found this absolutely super squishy, exquisitely soft yarn there.  I just couldn't pass it up!  This lovely yarn is made by Filatura di Crosa and is a 70% cashmere/30% silk blend lace weight yarn called Golden Line Superior. 

The pattern I chose to make with this insanely awesome yarn is the Lacy Simple Scarf which happened to come free with my purchase :-)  The pattern is basically a bunch of lace patterns put together into one project, usually called a sample.  The beauty of this is that I won't get sick of doing any one particular design.  Another neat aspect of the pattern is that instead of knitting the scarf in one big long piece, you actually knit two halves and then graft them together in the middle where they meet at the back of your neck.  By doing this the patterns are always rightside up and both side of your scarf match in the end.  Pretty cool huh?

Now, I don't think I have ever knit with a yarn this small before... but I'm knitting the scarf on 3's, so it can't be THAT bad, can it?  Well, after one night of knitting I must say it isn't horrible, but because this yarn has a halo, which basically means it's got fluffy bits around the main portion of the yarn, things might get tricky.  The halo makes the yarn like to stick to itself and if you mess up, it is difficult to undo your mistake :-( 

Still, I'm up for a challenge!  In one night I finished the first section of the first half without too many disasters.  I've found that I can unknit my mistakes, but it is very slow going.  At least it is possible and I'm not destined for sitting with a tub of dark chocolate evil to console myself after making some ridiculous mistake at 1 in the morning.  That has never happened to me... I don't know what you are talking about! :-P

Work in Progress Wednesday: Schooner Shawl

This is a shawl I started back in Septemeber of 2010, worked a little bit on and then had a massive yarn barf moment that caused me to put it down until last week.  I liked the yarn I was using but when I started, I had the brilliant idea that I could knit right off the skein if I just kept the circle of yarn around my neck.  Good idea in theory.... massive mistake in practice.  The yarn was way more tangled up than I though in the skein and I just made it worse by trying to unwrap it slowly around my neck as I knit.  Well, while the yarn barf was unfortunate, I'm kind of glad it happened.  Otherwise I never would have noticed that this beautiful yarn is a perfect match for the project: Malabrigo Rios in the Solis solorway.

Isn't it so gorgeous!!!  It reminds me so much of the ocean and sailing.  Which was my inspiration for this project in the first place as the pattern by Classic Elite is named Schooner.  Now, Malabrigo is one of my most favorite yarn companies out there.  Their product is wonderful and very high quality and Rios is no exception to this statement. 

The subtle color changes are enough to be interesting but not too much to detract from the pattern itself, which is surprisingly easy to knit despite a 16 row repeat.  I am on pattern repeat 5 out of 10 at the moment and have only been working on this for about a week now, so I am making good progress.  I'm sure things will slow down soon though because almost every row has some increasing in it, so they are getting longer and longer as I progress.    

Here are some more gratuitous project shots, you know, just because :-)



While I do have enough of this yarn on hand to make the shawl as written, I think I might add some more repeats to make it a little more, well, me sized.  Little tiny shawls just don't cut it on my body type, so I'll probably have to pick up an extra skein or two to make it the size I want.  There is also some very pretty edging that will be knitted onto the edges of the shawl.  When I get to that point, I'll share some pics of that too. 

Want to find out more or see other examples of the Schooner Shawl?  Create a free Ravelry account and click on the project link below.

Ha! Take that !!!! You Horribly Written Lace Pattern!!!

Ok, I'll admit to the use of far too many exclamation marks in the title of this post.  But you just don't understand how incredibly happy I am right now.  I am victorious!  I finished a lace swatch.  Not just any lace swatch.... it's one that has been plaguing me for over a year.  

Last September I found a pattern on ravelry that was just gorgeous.... gorgeous, amazing, almost impossible to acquire and perfect for knitting to wear as part of my costume for King Richard's Faire.  The pattern was the Madeira lace variation on the Medieval Hooded Scarf found in the book 220 Projects for Cascade 220.  I had to shell out $30+ bucks to get this pattern book from an obscure seller on Amazon because it went out of print years ago, but that didn't matter because I HAD to make it.  

The coveted book arrived, I got some beautiful dark purple cascade 220 and I was ready to go.  Did I fail to mention I had never knit lace before? No big deal right?  Ha....ha ha ha.... sob.  Needless to say things didn't go well and I ripped what I had done out at least three times.  Finally I started getting serious and start really paying attention.  I counted every repeat twice, made sure everything was lining up, but still things were off.  So, in September of 2009 I put the scarf down in disgust.  I finally started to think all the problems weren't because of me and there just might be some blame to share with the pattern itself.

Two weeks ago I got the itch to knit for King Richard's Faire again.... and I thought about the hooded scarf.   /facepalm 

So I dragged out the yarn and book and decided to swatch the lace pattern to attempt to diagnose the problem(s) instead of casting on the 534 stitches for the entire project and deciding to have a cathartic burning of supplies when I inevitably make that fated mistake.  The swatch was a good idea.  I re-knit it a couple times and the leaves still didn't look right. I was doing this at knit night and some kind soul (I believe it was Heather) suggested I chart out the pattern so I could visualize it better and see any mistakes.  EUREKA!!! That did it!  I noticed 7+ mistakes just with the number of stitches in each row.  So, last night at knit night I started another swatch (#4,354 most likely) and made allowances for the mistakes as I saw fit.  

It started working....

This evening I finished my swatch, notating all the changes I made, and it looks beautiful.  I just about cried when it was done and all pinned out.  I still can't believe it.... so, hopefully I will have this beautiful hooded scarf to wear at Kind Richard's Faire this year.  I am going to be so proud of it :-)

Tour de Fleece Update - Day 11

Tonight at knit night I finished up spinning my most recent bump of Colorways Wool Top.  Yeay!  I just have to decide whether to ply it or not, follow through on that decision and skin it up and that will be three skeins done!  Exciting :-) 

In other news, I started knitting my Cosette shawl by Alana Dakos of the Never Not Knitting podcast.  She does some great designs for children and adults alike.  You can check out her blog at www.nevernotknitting.com.  I should have a progress photo soon along with a finish photo for my Otono shawl once I get it blocked.  Or maybe I'll be lazy and not block it since it's too humid and the shawl will probably never dry unless there is a break in all the moisture in the air.

Oh well, I'm off for bed.  I stayed at knitting far too late and now I'm a tired monkey.

Dice Bags Aplenty

Meet my newest gaming accessories!  They are made using the Deep Sea Flower Dice Bag pattern I recently  found on Ravelry.  These little bags knit up really quick, which was their appeal since I have been doing a lot of long term knitting projects lately.  I just needed something quick and satisfying to keep me on the knitting bandwagon.  The pattern calls for Noro Kureyon, which I happily already had in my stash so all I had to buy were the neat little dangly bits for the ends of the strings.  They are ceramic pendants from the Enchanted Planet line of Blue Moon Beads.  The pattern didn't call for them, but the closure for the strings was a bit fiddly for my taste, so I decided on the pendents instead.

But, "Why make dice bags?" you ask.  Most people wouldn't think I have dice... let alone many dice that would necessitate a dice bag.  (Ten points if you get that reference, but if you need to cheat to figure it out, click here)  Well to answer your question.... long, long ago (the late 90's) in a dorm far, far away (45 minutes down a local highway) I used to play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends at Wheaton.  College was a wonderful place to get into this hobby as we had lots people available and lots of free time on the weekend to take over a common room for hours and then just trudge down to the dining hall for snacks.   It also didn't hurt that the boyfriend was into it :-)

So, I played D&D and various other rpgs off and on throughout the last two years of college and a few years after graduating until I found I just didn't have the amount of time I needed to give to the group to be a reliable player.  I decided to call it quits.  I should also mention that role playing isn't exactly one of those things that I do well.... and well... that's putting it nicely.  I'm very good at playing a character that is basically me, but that really isn't the point of tabletop and you get a mite bit predictable.  Basically I played to hang out with the guys and socialize.

So, recently one of my friends decided to start up an Eberron game, which is a setting of the newest version of D&D.  The game is slated to begin in July and one of my little traditions with tabletop gaming is that when I start a new character, I like to get some new dice.  So, when we were down at the Cape a couple weekends ago Brian and I went to the local game store, GameNight.net in search of miniatures to portray our characters and on the lookout for some new pretty dice for me.  I picked out the really pretty green and yellow ones in the picture above.  This color scheme is actually quite a change from my usual sparkly or swirly pinks and purples. 

The I think the last time I bought dice other than recently was back a couple years after college when I hadn't even thought of knitting as something I would be interested in.  I got my dice home a said, "Huh, I don't have a dice bag," and promptly logged on to Ravelry to find a pattern.  It's amazing how things change yet end up coming back to you isn't it?

Ladies and Gentlemen... I have a Squid! - Update to Mystery Bag KAL

Funny looking isn't it? 

This is what my Mystery bag looked like after finishing Clue #2 and doing the first section of Clue #3, which I finished on Wednesday.  Now for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how this was going to turn into a bag.  Thanks to the group's spoiler thread I now know how it all comes together, but I think I'll let you all sweat it out for a bit and and only fill you in when I've finished the bag (probably this weekend). 

I have one other piece of the braided cable which will be 40+ inches long; I have only done about 24 of it though, so I have a long way to go.  I have very recently reached my mental limit for cabling so instead I'm focusing on the main portion of the bag. 

I think I am about 75% of the way done with this KAL and it's been really cool seeing everyone's color choices for their bags and seeing people's progress through the weeks.  I'm kind of sad that it will all be over soon... Luckily Talithakuomi has assured us that Appalachian Yarns will be holding more KALs in the future with a mystery vest up next and perhaps a shawl this summer.  I can't wait!

Spring CAL - Daffodils and Tiny Whales

So, I'm doing my first ever crochet along (CAL) and I'm so very excited!  The two projects included in the Spring CAL are Tiny Whale and Daffodils by June Gilbank of PlanetJune.com.  She designs absolutely amazing amigurumi animals and sells those patterns along with the accessories to make them (such as eyes, noses and a stuffing tool for filling up tiny body parts).  I also read her blog and follow her on twitter and believe me, she does a lot!

The CAL started on April 19th and will run until the end of May.  So if you want to try one or both of these lovely crochet patterns out there is plenty of time left.  To join the CAL you need to have a Ravelry.com account (which is free) and then you can introduce yourself and post on the Spring CAL Message Board to chat and share photos with the rest of us. 

June was even nice enough to make us a CAL button for those of us with a bit of a blog addiction.  Isn't it cute?

I decided to start with the daffodils because... well, we don't have any and the concept of pretty spring flowers appealed to me.  I was very fortunate in that I had most of the colors for this project already.  Back in December I had picked up a couple skeins of yellow and cream Cascade 220 Wool and my mom had gotten me a heathery orange of the same yarn the previous summer.  All I had to do was head out and pick up some green for the stems.  Easy peasy! 

After winding up the cream and orange yarns, I didn't really get started on the crochet tonight until around 11pm and it took me a few tries to learn and recreate the magic circle method of starting the project.  After a few bumps in the road things started going a bit more smoothly. So, here is the first part of my first daffodil.  One petal.  It's not much, but I already know I'm going to loooooove making these.

Springy Crochet Slouchy Hat

Recently I have been trying my hand at crochet hats, since I have discovered that I like them, they are quick to make and I seem to look pretty good in them.  One of the members of my fiber group, LadySpendcer on Ravelry, recently made some chemo hats for a charity I like to support through knitting.  The hats she crocheted were so beautiful, I just had to try to make one for myself.  

I'm still pretty much a newbie at crochet, so there are lots of mistakes that occur when I'm working on my crochet projects.  While this is annoying, at least a round of crochet is easy to pull out without accidentally destroying your project in the process.  So, with that intro, I'm sure you are not surprised when I say that I actually made this hat twice.  The first time I used a larger crochet hook then the pattern called for since I thought I might be a tight crocheter.  So, apparently I am not because my hat was GINORMOUS!  So, version 1.0 of this baby was reclaimed and made into version 2.0, which is the final product. 

It took me much longer to do this project than I thought it would, at around a week.  This is mostly because I was on vacation and did a whole heck of a lot of sleeping and doing other things I don't generally the time for like playing WoW and organizing my crafty things.

One of those little things that make you go SQUEE!

Hi folks!  I just wanted to share something really nice that happened to me recently.  A handful of days ago I received a personal message on Ravelry, which is my online knitting and crochet community, from someone I hadn't met before.  She introduced herself as Mary from the America's Knitting website and said she had been looking around at projects on the site and saw my Bountiful Bohus Cardigan.  She then asked me if I would be willing to share it on her website's project page and gave me the site address to check her site out. 

Me?  Share a project?   
SQUEE!!!!!   
I have never had anyone ask me to do that before... 

So of course, I said yes! 

Mary said she would let me know when it was posted on the site and low and behold, today I got the message that it was all set.  I was sooo excited to see a picture of my baby up on a website other than my own.  Mary wrote up a nice little summary of the project and said very nice things about it.  You know, it makes you feel really good when a complete stranger compliments your work.... because they don't have to. It's an especially nice to hear when it is a project you really work hard on and struggled through, which I did. 

That leads me to a bit of advice I would like to share with anyone who is even remotely interested in trying out something creative and new like spinning, paper crafting, photography or crochet.  Be fearless.  Don't worry about failing, just try whatever it is you want to do.  Whether you succeed or fail, you most likely have learned a valuable lesson and you will only get better with practice.  Being fearless is what got me through making this cardigan and honestly I really learned a whole lot in the process.

You can see the nice writeup that Mary did by going to the AmericasKnitting.com project page by clicking here.  There are lots of other great projects on the site as well as a listing of all LYSs (local yarn stores) in the country and spotlights on designers, stores and yarn companies, so check the site out.  Thanks very much Mary for taking time out to notice my project; It really means a lot! 

Jo - 1, Hat - 0

Take that!!!!! Ridiculously difficult hat pattern!

 I WIN :D

Hat Fail!

Ladies and gentleman this is what happens when you don't read your pattern thoroughly before starting a project.  For the past two nights, I have spent my time fretting over if I had the correct needles to finish up my Tempo's Headcoat (which is basically the coolest newsboy cap ever).  You can get the headcoat pattern for free on Ravelry here.

I had started on Tuesday, happy to begin a new and fun project.  Instead of starting with the brim, like the pattern calls for (why would I ever follow the pattern?), I decided to start the tam section and work the brim later.  I knitted merrily along on my size 6 needles.  Now, I have a lovely interchangeable circular needle set from WEBS so I can basically make any length circular needle I want out of the tips included in the set.  This worked out very well as I had to increase from 3 stitches all the way up to over 250.

After all those increases was when I ran into my needle issue.  I hadn't noticed that once finishing all the increases I had to decrease quite dramatically with a #2 needle.  This doesn't sound like it's such a big deal, does it.  I have that handy interchangeable needle set; I just have to switch out the tips and I'll be golden!  Not so much....  You see the interchangeable set I have is great.  I am very happy with it, but the smallest needle tips are a size #4 :(

So I ran to my LYS (local yarn store) on the way home from work yesterday to get a #2 16" circular (plus another skein of yarn because I didn't pay attention to how much I needed).  I arrived home, finished knitting the tam, went to start the brim and realized that it called for a really long #2 circular.

Insert Trumpet Noise of Failure here.

Oh, I failed to mention that it was now 8:50pm and no craft stores stay open after 9pm and all of them are more than 10 minutes away.  Double failure!  I actually ended up making it work.  I used bigger needles than the pattern called for (yeay for #4 needles) and I think that worked out well.  But the evening was full of stress over my awesome project when it was so very close to being done.  That's why my project picture looks so funny.  I scavenged everywhere for any needles I could find that would work; Circulars, DPN's, I used anything I could lay my hands on. 

Oh well, it could be worse...  If I had run into these problems a year ago, I would have dissolved into tears and been inconsolable for hours.  It's amazing what a year and some challenges can do.  Anyway, I am cautiously optimistic that I can finish the headcoat this evening.  If so, pictures on the morrow!

I am one (1) cardigan richer!

Yeay!  She's all done and I finally got some good pics of her with all the sunlight we had this weekend.  I have to say that I really enjoyed making my first ever sweater.  It was challenging, but I had a lot of support from family and fellow knitsibs and there is no way I could have finished it without them.  Hopefully after I have recovered some by doing smaller projects for a bit, I will pick another more summery pattern to try out.  Until then, here are some more close ups of the precious:

I'm either really brave or really stupid...

These are pictures taken last Sunday when I decided (at midnight) that I wanted to try to cut this baby up the middle before I went to bed.  As my post title suggests, I was either really brave or stupid because I know that if my crocheted steek failed, there was absolutely no way I was EVER going to get to sleep that night.  Did I happen to mention, that I have NEVER crocheted a steek before and that I learned it watching demos on YouTube?  I'm leaning more towards stupid right now....  And here's a link to the demo video I used, in case you ever wanted to know how to crochet a steek.

 

So, this is a shot of the completed steek.  I was able to follow the demo pretty well and thought it looked pretty good.  It took we a good couple hours to finish it and I started at 10:00pm after finishing knitting the final portion of the collar on the neck.  So, anyway, here's a action shot of me cutting my cardigan. 

While I wasn't feeling too nervous at the time, I did ask Brian to come in and offer bother moral and photographic support.  It was so strange cutting between the stitches and watching them almost pop apart.  I'm telling you, this techniques is not for the faint of heart!

So, here she is!  All cut down the middle and no, my cardigan didn't unravel slowly before my eyes.  My goal was to get her done so I could wear her to work on Tuesday and knitting that night, but that goal was a complete failure.  I still had to close up the arm holes and pick up and knit stitches on both side of the steek for the button bands and those proved way too much to do in one evening.  I did manage to graft the arm holes together using the kitchener stitch, a great technique for knitting two pieces together virtually without a seam.  A good video for how to do the kitchener stitch is here.  And I also knit one button band and got a few rows into the other one before calling it quits are a ridiculous hour (probably 1am).

 However, at this point, she's been done for four days.  I just haven't been able to get any good pictures to share yet.  But, with this lovely change in the weather and me having a couple days off to enjoy the daylight hours, I should have some final product pics in the next few days.  More importantly, on Wednesday of this week, I was finally able to wear my beloved cardigan :D

The Sweater Knitter Lives!

Wow, that was a long time without a post.  In addition to not having a lot of time to blog lately, I haven't had a whole lot of time to knit either and thus no update on my beloved Bountiful Bohus Cardigan.  Now, however, I feel I have made enough progress that I can share.  I have just finished the last colorwork chart of the yoke of the cardigan and I am sooooo close to being done!  I just have the 18 short rows to shape the neck area, a couple sets of decreases, graft the underarms together, do the crochet steek up the middle, cut the steek up the middle, and knit the button band and attach the buttons. 

Wait..... CUT MY KNITTING?!?!  

Just kidding, I knew I would have to do that : )  Since I made this cardigan in the round, to actually make it a cardigan I have to cut it up the middle.  You do that by steeking or reinforcing the knitting by sewing (or in my case crocheting since I don't have a sewing machine) up and down the area, so when you cut, the knitted piece doesn't fall apart.  Just the concept is frightening to a knitter.  But heck, I know it will work.  Tons of people have done it, I'm not too worried. 

So, that's my update for now.  I'm hoping to finish up all the knitting of the cardigan this weekend and graft the underarms and steek it on Tuesday night at knitting group.  I love my group, they are so good to me and are amazing enablers.  More on my enablement later :D

Ravelympics Update: Days 14, 15, 16 & 17

So, seeing as it is the last day of the Olympics and I am still missing 1/4 of my cardigan, there is absolutely no way I'm going to finish.  But that is okay.  I have worked very hard on it and have accomplished a lot in a very short time period.  I'm thinking I can finish it up in a week or so at a more leisurely pace.  

At this point I've lost count of how many rows I've done other than knowing that I completed the one row that attached the two sleeves and the main body of the cardigan together.  While this is sooo exciting for me, it also has a bit of a downside: This cardigan is a beast!  It is very hard to keep the whole thing on my lap when I'm knitting, so I've made the decision to only work on it at home (and at knitting night - duh!).  I'm really afraid to drag it all over the place in the state it is in (barely attached and wanting to fall off the needles) for fear of an unintentional frogging disaster.

Anyway, I'll keep posting on my progress and hopefully quite soon you will see me wear this beauty in person!

Ravelympics Update: Days 12 and 13

Days 12 and 13

These last two days I have been a knitting fiend!!!  Yesterday those from my fiber group that desired to brave the snowfall in the Worcester area in order to knit en masse got together for great evening.  During our "meeting" I completed the rest of the repeats for the cuff on my first sleeve.  Then tonight I moved on to the plain stockinette section and did a whopping 27 rows and then did 5 sets of the 4 row increasing repeats for a total of 48 rounds of the sleeve knitted in one evening.  Despite all this progress, I wasn't able to finish the sleeve this evening.  Right now it is a little less than 12 inches long and it needs to be 17.  Oh well, I'll finish it up tomorrow and cast on the next one. 
(81 sleeve rows completed)

Ravelympics Update: Days 9, 10 and 11

Days 9, 10, and 11

Over the weekend and today I really accomplished a lot. On Saturday I finished the last two inches of stockinette on the body of the cardigan before starting the short rows for shaping the bust.

(88 rows completed).  

Then on Sunday I worked the short rows and then continued with stockinette until the side of the cardigan measured 16 inches.  I was able to get so much done on Sunday because Tara and I had a knitting play date and really focused of our projects.  

(103 rows completed, main body of cardigan completed for the moment)

Today I didn't have a whole lot of time, but I did get started on the first sleeve this evening and managed 3 repeat of the 4 row cable pattern.  The sleeves (obviously being smaller) should go much faster for me, so I'm hoping to really pick up the pace and hopefully finish by Sunday night.  I have my fiber group tomorrow and an early Ravelympics cast off party on Friday, so I know I'll have plenty of encouragement to keep working hard.

(12 sleeve rows completed)

Ravelympics Update: Days 7 & 8

Days 7 & 8

I have just been working on the stockinette section of the bottom of the cardigan.  Nothing much of interest going on, so I thought I would combine two days.  Also haven't done alot of knitting as I haven't been feeling well. I'm now at 12" with only two more to go until I start my short row shaping!

(80 rows completed)