Itty Bitty Knitty Committy

I knit a sweater.

It’s a baby sweater, and I haven’t blocked it.  But its pink and its cute and I hate to send it to its  recipient.  Should be on its way Saturday, though, before the baby is too big for it.  I’m going to make another as soon as I find out the gender of my bff’s baby-to-be.  And I might make another to send to another prego friend.  Golly, there must be something in the water.  I’m steering clear!

Sock Yarn Guilt

A few years ago, I attended the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I had learned to knit socks the year prior, and I bought TONS of sock yarn while I was there (maybe not TONS, but enough). I’ve tried to knit my sock yarn in the order that I’ve bought it, but haven’t truly stuck to that plan. I have three skeins left from MDSW that I want to knit up before summer time. It’ll just make the stash not seem so… so… large.

The three skeins of sock yarn are:

1. Tess’ Designer Yarns Super Sock and Baby - this has always been destined to become a pair of Pomatomuses.  I have probably started the socks about a gazillion times, and every time, I get pulled away from them, and forget where in the heck I am in the pattern.  I also didn’t think the pattern would be as holey as it is, so I figured I was doing something wrong and frogged the previous versions of the socks.  I’m taking notes this time, and I’m going to stick with these socks.  So far, they look like this.

Lots more to go, but I will persevere.

2. Three Waters Farms Superwash Merino - When I purchased this, I was in a booth with Lolly and Jenna.  There was a lot of petting and oohing and aahing over the great colors of Three Waters had.  I wasn’t exactly sold on the skein (only 373 yards and honestly, the yarn felt a little thick for sock yarn), but they each bought one (I think) and I was apparently high on yarn fumes.    So this came home with me and languished in my stash for almost two years.

I had it earmarked as “willing to trade” on Ravelry until two weeks ago.  I needed something to knit for my weekly knitting group, and I was bored with everything in my stash.  I hadn’t seen this skein for a while, and decided that I’d give it a go.  Even if I did think the fabric produced was too thick, I could always knit baby socks.  I cast on my typical number of stitches for a plain ol’ stockinette sock and began knitting.  My opinion of this yarn changed instantly!  It was so very soft and fluffy and honestly, not thick at all.  As a matter of fact, it was almost too thin for my size 1.5 needles.  I began knitting these half-heartedly, and by Saturday, one sock was complete.  I finished the other on a plane the next Wednesday evening, and I totally dig my new pair of socks!  Seriously, one of the softest yarns I’ve knit with.  And the colors are still amazing!

3. Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino - I purchased this at the end of the show, right before I was leaving.  The colors are almost a bit dark for me, but I’d never tried Cherry Tree Hill’s sock yarn before, and had heard good things.  The colors have definitely grown on me, and the yarn has been cast on several times.  I just can’t find a pattern I like for it.  On Sunday, I decided that they should become some no-purl Monkeys.  And, honestly, everything was going fine.  The pattern looked (sort of) nice and the yarn was cooperating with the pattern.  But something was off.  The fabric wasn’t what I imagined the Monkeys to be.  Taking a peak at the pattern a second time, I noticed that I was ssk-ing where I should have been k2tog-ing and vice versa.  So RIP they went.  Poor, poor Cherry Tree Hill Supersock… you never get treated right, do you?  I promise I’ll get it right next time.

Socks… Plural

Last week I finished not ONE, but TWO pairs of socks. It feels fantastic having these off of my needles, like I can finally knit other things.

First, let me discuss the Noro Kureyon socks.  I’m not a big fan.  At least not of these socks, made up of these colors.  To be honest, when I bought the yarn, I really thought there would be more blue and grey in the socks, as that’s what really showed up on the outside of the ball.  However, lots o’ green and brown.  And, in my opinion, not the pretties browns in the world.  If there’s one color I do not like it is baby poo brown/yellow, and I think that’s the color that stands out the most - because it looks like it doesn’t belong.  The other colors are fine in the sock, and I’m thrilled with most of the color changes (some are a bit abrupt) but that baby poo brown/yellow near the ankles really turns me off.  I’ve gotten compliments on the socks, however, and will probably end up wearing them - after a good soak to hopefully soften them up!  I still have another skein of Kureyon sock yarn, but I’m in no rush to knit with it.

The second pair of finished socks will shortly be shipped out to my Hogwarts Sock Swap 3 Partner.  These socks were knit with Reynolds Wash Day Wool, a yarn made for children, but without the “kid” colors.  I think they made great socks, nice and soft but sturdy, too.  My partner in this is a Ravenclaw and wanted the movie colors (silver and blue) rather than the book colors (bronze and blue).  I think the blue is slightly dark, and the silver slightly blue, but honestly, they’re pretty cool lookin’ socks.  I’m proud of these!

I started a new project, too, though it isn’t what I said I was going to start this weekend.

I’m knitting mittens, just not the Fiddlehead Mittens.  I wanted to get another stranding project under my belt before taking on the new kit.  I think they look great in the picture, but they’re a bit wonky in real life.  I’m hoping that blocking them will help significantly.  The second mitten has been started and hopefully I’ll have a pair by the weekend, so I can continue with other projects.  Being semi-monogomous to my knitting projects is proving very difficult…

The Holy Grail

of Mitten Kits arrived at my door today.

About a month ago, while reading Knitterly Things, I fell in love with the Fiddlehead Mittens.  These mittens are seriously the MOST gorgeous mittens I’ve ever seen, and I began my longing for the pattern.  Well, I got the pattern in an exchange a few weeks ago, but the yarn wasn’t exactly what I’d envisioned knitting my (first) pair of Fiddlehead Mittens out of.  I had noticed that there were kits on Hello Yarn (the designer, Adrian Bizilia’s shop), but they were fairly hard to come by.  Well, much patience and use of the refresh button got me lucky enough to purchase a kit.  I would have bought two if I didn’t think it impractical.

I spent a while photographing the yarn that came in the kit, because it is just that gorgeous.  I’m not sure if the colors came out right, but I’m so in love with the yarn I don’t know that I care!

I have a few things on the needles that I’d like to finish before starting these mittens, but I’d say by the weekend, I’m going to have some mittens on the needles.  Just in time for spring.

Hogwarts Sock Swap 3

I finished the first sock for my Hogwarts Sock Swap partner, and I’m in love (with the sock, not my partner)! The swap followed the books and movies, and divided each participant into the four Hogwarts houses. My partner is a Ravenclaw, so the socks I knit had to be in blue and silver. I thought about buying yarn from Sunshine Yarns, but decided that I’d rather do the stripey House Socks (Ravelry link) from Charmed Knits. So, I purchased a few skeins of Reynolds Wash Day Wool in Indigo and Soft Blue (which is just grey enough to pass as silver) and started knitting.

My first attempt at these socks was horrid. I wanted to knit the smaller striped version, and was carrying my yarn across rows, but it just ended up all bulky! That wouldn’t make a good sock, would it? Nope. So I had to do the larger striped version. Take two was a success. I finished the first sock last night, and will cast on the second sock tomorrow.

The sock does look really cool, but ENDS!!! I have so many to weave in. I’ll get to that this weekend - not in the mood to do it now!

The first few color changes were done in order, but I noticed the jog happening. Taking a look at these instructions, I attempted a jogless color change. You be the judge as to weather it worked or not.

The bad…

And the good…

Crochet

Yes, crochet. I’ve been doing that a bit lately, but only because we were having an Amigurumi swap in my knitting group. The *actual* swap was a few weeks ago, however, my sick self (I had the flu a few weeks ago) wasn’t able to get the job done. I did start a few small items, but got too sick to finish them. Several of the other participants didn’t finish either, so we decided to have Amigurumi part 2. That means I had to got to finish up my project.

The small items weren’t really doing it for me, and someone told me about this book.

I bought it, because the ‘gurumis were so adorable and I wanted something “better” after seeing what everyone else did at the first part of the swap. So when I returned home from my knitting group after Round 1, I started hep cat (ravelry link).

He has been very slow to make, since I’m not the quickest crocheter and there is a lot of counting involved, and I keep messing up, and just putting his face together required a lot of sewing (hello run-on sentence), but I’m done with him now.  And I love him!  I’m so sad to see him go, but he did end up getting a good home.  Heather (who was absent last night.  I can’t wait til she lets me know her reaction!) received him as her swap pressie.  I do think she’ll appreciate the cuteness that is hep cat.

As my swap package, I received two cute little guys that Martha crocheted up.

The monkey is the cutest (though he isn’t very photogenic in this picture!)!!!  His little hat comes off and, well, I’m too much of a lady to show you, but he’s got the cutest butt!!  Well, not really cute, as its like a baboon butt, however, its definitely an awesome design feature!  And the little rabbit is adorable as well.  I love him little button eyes and nose and belly button!  An actual button for the belly button.  Very cute!  I love them both

I think everyone who received an amigurumi in the swap felt like they got the best item.  Luckily, everyone brought their Amigurumis to our meeting and we were able to photograph them all together (minus one Sheldon, the turtle, that Sam knitted, because Andi was sick last night).  I’ll leave you with pictures of cuteness.

Ravelry Scarf Exchange

I signed up for the Ravelry Scarf Exchange back in, like, September, and never got anything. I think the deadline was sometime in October or November. I was getting a little bit miffed about it all, but then, finally, a call for Angels went out. My angel, minniedent on Ravelry, stepped up and delivered a fantastic package!!!

In it was my scarf (of course). I absolutely love this scarf. It is a great color - very casual, yet it can be dressed up a bit if I wanted. It is super duper soft, as it was knit from Berrocco Pure Merino. And I love the pattern - a broken rib. I’ve been wanting to knit myself a broken rib scarf for a little while. All in all, a fantastic scarf. Its kind of funny, because she lives in Miami, and wasn’t sure if it would keep me warm and if it was appropriate for Ohio weather. Well, no worries, because it will and it is!

She also included some natural colored Cascade 220 in the box along with Kool-Aid for dyeing the yarn. I am stoked about this, because I was planning on buying a skein of Cascade 220 in a green color for a project I’d like to design. The problem with buying a full skein though is that I only need 20 yards or so. Now, I can just dye the color green I need and be done with it.

There was also some tea and sweets and a really cool Patons pattern book. I’m not typically into Fair Isle sweaters, but these are quite nice. I might have to knit one someday.

Thanks so much for everything included in this package, and also for turning around my swap experience!

Super Bowl vs. Puppy Bowl

So I’m not a huge sports fan. And that statement isn’t really pushing it. AT ALL. I can watch a baseball or football game, but the minute the game is over, I’ve forgotten the player’s names and what actually happened in the duration of the game. However, I do typically remember the crucial “who won?” tidbit of information, but aside from that, all memory of said game is pushed from my mind. I try to surround myself with people who, like me, aren’t exactly “into” sports. And so far, this has worked. Until I started dating a man who likes just about every sport. Baseball? Check. Basketball? Check. Football? Check. Hockey? Wrestling? Ultimate Fighting? Check, check, and check! So I find myself watching a lot of “sportsball”, as Andi so lovingly calls it. The very cool thing, though, is that my man doesn’t mind me knitting during the game/match/pay-per-view and his friends don’t seem to think its that strange, either. So during the Super Bowl on Sunday, I began fixing a pretty messed up sock.

While watching television last Thursday night, I got all excited as I measured my sip (sock-in-progress) against its mate and saw that it looked like I was ready for the cuff. So I started knitting the cuff. Chris and I were watching the Celebrity Apprentice, and there were some pretty heated debates. Also, I might have felt a little strongly about a few people, and I knit REALLY fast. Apparently, high blood pressure = faster knitting for me. So I’m done with my cuff by the end of the show and I realize I don’t know how to measure. The second sock is a good inch shorter than the original sock. I threw the sock on the coffee table and started work on something else. I didn’t know if I’d want to tink back those 15 rows of k2, p2 rib, of if I wanted to rip with the hopes of not dropping a stitch, or if I wanted to get a lifeline in there somehow. All of these options seemed like a lot of work. While watching the Super Bowl, I knew what I wanted to do. It would take a while, but… I had time. I decided to just drop the purls and pick them back up with a crochet hook. It took me all of two quarters (almost typed innings there) and now I’m ready to start my cuff. I watched the fourth quarter, and it turned out to be a pretty exciting game. I think…

After the Super Bowl, Chris and I flipped through the channels a bit. Well, Chris flipped and I, you know, watched him. We happened upon Animal Planet, who was airing the greatest thing that television has ever produced. PUPPY BOWL! Oh. My. God! This is hands down, no doubt in my mind, the cutest darn thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. The premise - many many puppies frolicking on a football field. Seriously, that’s all it is. They had some of the cutest darn pupsters I’ve seen. I ended up TiVoing the second showing of it, because if ever I need a pick me up, Puppy Bowl will do it!

About a Boy

Wasn’t it great how I just tucked the vital information about me dating someone into the last post? I really didn’t want to share my massive change in dating status on the blog until the relationship was established, and at this point it is. Chris, who is the most cutest boy ever, and I met on eHarmony. Now, I don’t want this to be a promotional for eHarmony, because honestly, its not a lot greater than any other online dating site I tried. There are still people on there who have a great interest, not in finding a relationship, but the perks of one, if you catch my drift. There are people on eHarmony who are simply looking for love by only looking at a picture. Even though eHarmony has set up a guided communication system, there are people who want to bypass that and just meet, without knowing a stitch about you. It isn’t a fool proof method of finding of someone. It does require time and patience, but I think those are requirements for anything worth having in life.

I met Chris after getting rather fed up with eHarmony - or at least with the people I’d met.  I had vowed that I would give it one more go, and lucky I did!   From our first emails and phone calls up to the moment we met, everything clicked.  And I do believe it is still clicking.  I’m so very excited about going home tomorrow to see his smiling face.  He keeps me rational about the irrationalities of life, and I love that about him.  Right now, after two weeks across the pond, I’m feeling rather let down about some things - things that have nothing to do with him, or really anything in general.  I know that just seeing him will put the world right for me again.

He is everything I’ve wanted in a man.  I couldn’t have dreamed up a better guy.  Wish me luck with this one, please!  Though I don’t really think I need it

P.S.  Please don’t let this post be a jinx

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

Andi wasn’t kidding when she told me it would be “damp” in Leeds. It truly is. If I had the stomach to do it, I’d take a picture of my soaked self, and share it with everyone. It is my fault really for bringing the least sturdy umbrella I had. But its the cutest and you know how we girls are about “cute” things.

I actually had the day (mostly) off of work, so I went to the only legitimate yarn store I could find on the Internet. On a side note, God bless the Internet. When I say legitimate, I mean that it looked like it had more than acrylic, not that there’s anything wrong with acrylic yarns. They have their time and place. But I’m in England, land of sheep. I want some wool! So after perusing knitmap, I found a shop in Bradford, a town about 12 miles away, that luckily has a direct train to it. So I hopped the train to Bradford. This is a nice town, but very hilly! The yarn store, Texere Yarns, was more of a warehouse of wool and other various types of fibre (I’m spelling it the UK way at the moment), much like YarnMarket down in Columbus. They did have one room with hand knitting yarns, but they mostly had weaving and machine knitting yarns. They did have a fantastic assortment of dye your own yarn, and if the exchange rate had been better, I might have walked out of there with pounds of the stuff (pardon the monetary pun). They also carried some cold water dyes, but I wasn’t sure of how they worked with wool, and didn’t really want to take the time to figure it out. I can get dyes and undyed yarn in the states, so I’m not too worried about it. What I really wanted was just some basic wool.

I decided at the beginning of the year that it would be a no-yarn year for me. However, mostly, that applied to sock yarn. I know, sock yarn doesn’t count, but when that is the bulk of your stash, it most certainly does count. I have a few baskets of sock yarn, and I really don’t need any more at the moment. DK weight wool or higher was my goal at Texere yarns, and I found plenty. Even with the exchange rate, I’d say I did fairly well as far as price goes. I got a LOT of yarn. More than I thought I’d buy, but each skein was selected specifically for a project I’ve been wanting to do. There was no willy nilly yarn buying.

Let me share the loot with you, and share exactly what I plan to do with each of skein.

This is definitely going to become a scarf, but who gets the scarf is yet to be seen.

After making my no-more-humdrum-mittens, I decided I like the fair isle knitting.  I really want to make a pair of mittens from the same pattern, but wasn’t sure about the color combo I wanted.  When I saw this blue, I fell in love, and had to be mine.  I was going to pair it with a charcoal gray, but black made the blue pop more.  The yarn is a DK weight merino, and apparently its from Yorkshire, so I did pretty good getting local yarn.

This yarn is Texere’s own milled yarn.  They had several colors and was really liking them al, but I decided that pinks and gray and black would be nice.  Years ago, Better Homes and Gardens put out a knitting magazine that had a wide striped scarf on it.  It was always my goal to knit it, but it seemed so hard to make such a long scarf.  Since my knitting skills have improved, I think I’ll enjoy it.  It’ll just be a ribbed scarf, with really wide stripes on it.

This is destined to be a hat for someone.  I picked up Son of Stitch N’ Bitch a few weeks back, and while leafing through the pages, my boy said he liked the Celtic Beanie (ravelry link).   So I’m going to possibly make that for him.  Depends on if he really likes it or was just saying that.  If not, I can figure something else to do with this yarn.  My knitting group is having an amigurumi exchange next month, so it might become some sort of cuteness!  Darth Vadar anyone?

(Oh, and I know I haven’t mentioned the fact that I even have a boy, but I do have to share the fact that he is the greatest guy in the world.  Want proof?  After only a month of dating, he bought me the Knit Picks Options set for Christmas.  Is that awesome or what?)