Day: April 23, 2006

The knitting machine. 12pm-6:30pm Saturday April 22, 2006 6 charity blankets complete.

Once again Tracy & I had a knitting machine marathon trying to get rid of all that charity yarn.

Here is the end product. 6 blankets, all they need is a bit of edging, washing and blocking.

I love the one on the end right, Tracy did that one. Rainbow Brite for sure! On the yellow blanket Tracy thought she would try something new, just for the hell of it. Now, the EZ-Knit book says that you can do fair isle, cableing, intarsia, we just didn’t believe them. So we figured the fair isle was going to be the easiest to accomplish & she did! She did 2 rows of fair isle, which is actually 4 rows of knitting, don’t ask.  But overall we decided that it would be something that would be totally feasible on the machines. My wish was that I could do the Kaffe Fassett shawl but our max width is only 160 stitches. That is not nearly wide enough!

We had a bit of a multi-tasking day. Tracy needed 2 colors for her Babette Blanket that we couldn’t get through Knitpicks in Wool of the Andes so we dyed our own! Let me introduce Vicious Green and Sunshine Yellow!

I did a hank of the green for my shawl also. It’s an absolutely gorgeous color! For the Vicious Green we layered the yellow & green dyes and added vinegar at the end to make the green really take hold. Then we cooked it in the microwave to set. It worked perfectly!! The yellow was an entire bottle of lemon yellow dye on the hank just barely covered with water. No vinegar or cooking needed.

I started to chart out the colors for the Kaffe Fassett shawl and found myself with a problem. I will have to use multiple sheets of graph paper side by side to get the whole triangle of the shawl graphed. I think I will just do the color and pattern on one paper, it will be the center of the shawl starting from the bottom cast on point and going to the top of the shawl. I only need to see the colors and not worry about the pattern. After a couple of repeats the pattern will be memorized and I will only have to worry about the colors. I am probably putting way too much thought into this and I should probably just cast on & figure it out as I go. I hate putting a ton of work into planning, coloring charts and then abandoning them after just a few rows of knitting. My gut instinct is to do it free form coloring, just knit with the color that strikes my fancy! Two color knitting isn’t all that difficult to begin with!

I am tempted to cast on today but I really can’t. The Jefferson needs to be finished and Mother’s Day is right around the corner and my mom’s trellis scarf only has 4 rows done. I cast on one night, then put it away. I was happy to even cast on with how many things I had going. So, those are the priorities in knitting right now. Once I finish either of those projects I can cast on the shawl, that is the deal with the devil I have made.

 

Okay, so the crazed cast on phase continues! I received my yarn from knitpicks to start the norsk sweater. what I am so retarded and didn’t notice was the fact that the merino style yarn and the merino dye your own yarn have different gauges. So I had to totally finagle my way through the swatching last night to make the 2 yarns work together. It was a simple enough solution. By doubling the dye your own merino (the cream, main color) it came out to match gauge exactly! So today I will cast on for that beauty!

I am allowed to cast on because here is the finished back of the Brocade, unblocked, loose/tight floats and all.

I can’t say that I am overly pleased with how the intarsia turned out. I hurried through some sections, tried different float wraps on other sections. Finally about 1/3 of the way through I had the yarn & pattern all figured out so the rest went well. Not too much puckering that is irreparable. I have cast on the front & the ribbing as well as a few rows of the pattern are done. I will work on it slowly while working on other projects, namely the norsk sweater.

I can’t make it to the Java Station knitting group tonight. George has his manly get together night. They meet the last Thursday of every month so I will be missing that one night. Lame! But those weeks I am planning to go to the Mojo Coffee group on Tuesday nights. Melissa, Suzanne & I crashed their group this week & it was fun to meet other knitters/spinners/crocheters. There were only 6 of them meeting & I think we overwhelmed them just a bit with our loud talkiness. Random coincidence (which I don’t really believe in), the people that started the group, Molly and her husband Josh, live 3 houses down from me & we had no idea! Funny, odd and rather entertaining. We spent a good bit of time going over the neighborhood gossip. Just goes to show you how involved I am in the neighborhood, we have been here years, they have been here about a year and we had never met or just bumped into each other. We didn’t even recognize eachother! Kind of sad but hey that is just the way life is nowadays. At least here in California for the most part. It is nice to meet one more neighbor though, even if it’s at a completely unrelated event like a knitting group.

It’s now noon, I haven’t done my apad yet and I need to get some cleaning done. So I suppose this is goodbye for now. Hope you all have a great night at knitting & I will see you all next week!

Okay, so I finished a few things & now I just found this beauty!! It’s a Glampyre knits pattern of course but I had to hunt it down & it’s only through hipknits which means it is NOT free! Whatever! So if anyone would like to surprise me with a lovely pattern & maybe even yarn to go with, that would rock!!

I just posted a more detailed trip summary on the Andreasen site. Go over & check it out!

So there was this great big plan for here in Idaho. Lots of sledding, skiing, snowball fights, building snowmen. We assumed since they haven’t been able to see the roads since October due to inches of ice that there would be plenty of  snow & ice for playing. Oh no! No, not with our luck. We brought the Santa Barbara weather with us here to Idaho. It is not even below freezing here! At night maybe but during the day it’s so warm all the snow & ice is melting! Lame!!! Luckily higher up at the ski resorts there is still plenty of snow falling & it’s only an hour up into the tetons towards Jackson Hole. So the plan is to go up there for our winter explorations!
Today I went to Walmart. I know some of you aren’t the biggest fans of the W but I don’t ever get to shop there so it’s a treat for me! I found some fun yarns to play with to make hats for the kids. I also bought 2 cones of Peaches’n’Cream cotton to make some kitchen accessories for my sister that we just stayed with. In SB at our LYS  the 1 lb. cones are $12. Here they are under $7! Hell yeah I am going to buy them here!
I have been working on 2 clapotis’ on the trip. One with this yarn in pink & brown. Lovely! I am only one repeat away from starting the decrease section. I thought I would have it done by now but while visiting my sister Christi in American Fork, UT I ended up crocheting hats for my niece Kennedi, my nephew Parker and Christi.
Very cute & I will try to get some pictures loaded here soon. We did a little Christmas/ birthday gift opening on the 17th before leaving to go to my sisters house. I have all those pics. My wonderful, amazing husband (with the help of my wonderful, amazing best friend) gave me 3 books I have been dying to have!! A Gathering of Lace, Wrap Style and Vintage Socks! So happy!!!
I will have to knit/crochet full time next year to get all the projects done! It’s just too exciting to have all that yarn & all the patterns right at my fingertips! Could this addiction to the fiber be dangerous? Dangerous enough that I am going to come home from knitting one Thursday night to an intervention? That had better not happen!! Be warned!
Now I am off to try to get some pics downloaded!
Merry Christmas everyone!!