Category Archives: ravelry

It followed me home, can I keep it?

Posted on March 19, 2009 | 13 comments

I got a tweet on my phone from Twisted the other day. It said, “BLUE MOON IS HERE!! Mucho Socks that Rock is right now being put on the shelves!”

I was at work, and had errands to run after work. But somehow I made it. There were 20 colors of Socks that Rock Mediumweight, the skinniest yarn I’m willing to knit with. I wanted one colorway to join the second quarter STR KAL on Ravelry, but I had a hard time deciding.

This color is called Bleeding Hearts. It looks like the dicentra spectabilis that grows in my garden. The stems are just peeking up through the soil now, and they’re the color on the dark end of the skein. The flowers will be a glorious pink when it’s time. This colorway is well suited suited to the pattern, Shur’tagal. It seems to want to be somewhat monochrome.

But the Alley-Oop was so pretty, how could I leave it there? It has many of my favorite colors in it, as well as a green that adds just enough zing. Yes, I bought it.

Somehow I made it out the door without Tidepooling…

13 Comments

Posted in Knit, ravelry

Tagged Knit, knitalong, socks that rock, yarn

Second Sock Syndrome, conquered

Posted on January 31, 2009 | 20 comments

I finished my Leyburns a couple nights ago.

Yes, Leyburns, as in plural. Finally! I slogged through the second one. The first one was fun because I wanted to see if it would turn out the way I wanted, but the second one was just work trying to duplicate what I did on the first one. I’m glad I blogged it a few posts back, because I forgot how I did the toe and had to look it up!

It’s hard to get a good picture of a sock on your own foot. I like how you can really see the twisted cast on in this picture.

Details:

Leyburn Sock by Pepperknit for the Ravelry Knitalong

Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Eggplanted colorway
Size 2 needles
Mods: top down instead of toe up, twisted cast on edge, no wrap short row heel, 54 stitches throughout.

They’re a little bit loose, but they feel good. I think if I had gone down 6 more stitches, they would have been tight, so there’s a compromise there. But they’re cute! And done. I learned the short row heel on these. I like the fit of a standard round heel, better, so my next sock will go back to those.

Onward!

20 Comments

Posted in Knit, ravelry

Tagged Knit, leyburn kal

The yarniest day

Posted on January 26, 2009 | 13 comments

Saturday was the yarniest day of the year so far, at least for me.

The day started with a knitting party at Twisted, before the shop opened. It was a fundraiser event for the Grant High School Booster Club. Twisted provided the space and the teas, Lantern Moon provided the needles, Carole provided the treats, and Anna and I provided the knitting instruction. I also made party favors: the Checkerboard Scarflet pattern, and stitch markers in school colors. We had 15 people come to knit, some with previous experience, and some newbies. What a fun morning! Thank you to Shannon & Emily for hosting. I remembered to bring my camera, but I was moving so fast that I forgot to take pictures. Oops.

After the party I headed downtown to meet up with the Seattle to Portland Yarn Crawl. Knit Bloggers from Seattle came down on the train to meet up with Portland Knit Bloggers and check out yarn shops in the Pearl District and downtown. The shops on the list were Knit/Purl, Knit Knot Studio, and Dublin Bay. I joined the crawl late, so I went directly to Knit/Purl and met up with several Portland area bloggers that I’d met last September at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. We ended up at Starbucks for some knitting/chatting time. It’s funny, I know many of these women by their blogs and Ravelry names, but I’m still trying to connect the right faces with the right names!

I think my camera may have been in my knitting bag, but again, I forgot to take pictures. Bad blogger! Here’s a picture of a book I bought at Knit/Purl. It’s a calendar with a different stitch pattern every day. I’ve been looking for a stitch dictionary, but not one in several volumes. Just a little thing to inspire, to go along with the small section in my Vogue Knitting book.

What I didn’t realize, looking at that cute cellophane-wrapped package, is that the directions are written out row by row, without charts. I guess if I want to use any of them, I’ll have to chart them out myself. But the pictures are great, very clear.

By 3:30 I was pretty done, but I wanted to check out Dublin Bay since I’d never been there before. It’s a lovely shop down at the edge of the Pearl. Lots of natural fibers. But I was tired enough that I didn’t buy anything, despite the 20% discount they were offering to the Yarn Crawlers. I suppose it’s just as well, since I try not to stash. But the Sea Cell was really pretty…

13 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit, ravelry

Tagged Knit, yarn crawl

Taming of the short row

Posted on January 19, 2009 | 22 comments

I knit my first short row heel.

What I didn’t know ahead of time was how shallow a short row heel on 50% of the leg stitches would be. This made the leg of my sock a lot shorter than I intended, and the heel didn’t fit all that well, either.

What I did like was how tidy looking the heel was. I used this tutorial to do the short rows without wrapping and turning, and I really liked it. Here’s the knit side.

And here’s the purl side.

No gaps. The sock was too short, though, and I didn’t like the fit of the heel, so I ripped it out, and did the same style of heel on 60% of the stitches instead. That felt a lot better, except I short rowed too far, making the heel cup too long, and the heel ended up with a little balloon of fabric on the end. I tried to ignore this, thinking that it would be fine when the foot was done and pulling on it, but alas, it was untrue. I was all the way to the toe shaping when I finally faced this fact. Now I’m here, again.

But as is so often true with my knitting, I’m hoping that the third time’s a charm.

I did decide to put the beginning of the round at the back of the leg, where I wouldn’t have to see that I goofed the stitch pattern a bit. If you don’t see it, I’m not telling you where it is. If you do see it, it will be our little secret. Shhhhh!

In other news, Mookie has adopted the log cabin blanket. She really likes it.

And I figured out how to turn off the infra-red auto-focus assistant, which means she doesn’t have devil eyes in this picture. Yay, me!

For those of you who are local in PDX, and on Twitter, here’s a Twitter contest with some interesting prizes. The contest is on Friday, January 23. Some of the prizes are already listed on the blog, and the rest will be listed this week. Good luck!

22 Comments

Posted in Knit, ravelry

Tagged Knit, leyburn sock, short row heel

Leyburn KAL

Posted on January 16, 2009 | 17 comments

I’m in! I just joined the Socks That Rock Leyburn Knitalong on Ravelry. I’m doing it with Socks That Rock Mediumweight in Eggplanted, top-down, 56 stitches cast on for the ribbing, decreased to 54 for the Leyburn stitch pattern. Here’s what I have so far.

I really wanted to try this cuff treatment that I saw on the Twist Collective Blog. Theirs is in a contrast color to corrugated ribbing, but even so, it’s so cool looking! It gave me a little giggle to deliberately put a twist in, after years of admonishments to “be careful not to twist” for circular knitting. Be aware that you have to work this part on straight needles; ask me how I know…

I switched to knitting in the round as soon as the cuff detail was done, just before the ribbing.

And I think I may try a short row heel, since I’ve never done them before. It’s always fun to learn a new trick. We’ll see when I get there. For now, I’m just enjoying the stitch pattern.

Knit on!

17 Comments

Posted in Knit, ravelry

Tagged Knit, leyburn kal, leyburn sock, ravelry

Answering the question

Posted on January 15, 2009 | 11 comments

I’ve been wondering: If I knit Athena one block narrower, would I be able to do it with one ball of Taos? The answer is…

Almost. But No. I made it all the way through the triangle blocks, but didn’t have enough to bind off. So now I know. This Athena is quite cozy at 20 inches around, yet still roomy enough, but since I have to buy the second ball of Taos anyway, why not make it more squooshy? So my next one will be at the size specified in the pattern. Wait, did I say next? Yes. It turns out this Athena isn’t for me after all. The colors are perfect for my friend D. And she’s having an Important Birthday. So off it goes.

Please note the lovely daylight, outside, no rain. A respite!

But I can’t knit another Athena right now. I promised myself that when I finished, I’d cast on for the Leyburn KAL on Ravelry. And so I shall. Tonight.

11 Comments

Posted in Knit, ravelry

Tagged Athena, cowl, entrelac, Knit, neck warmer

Knitting around in circles

Posted on January 11, 2009 | 14 comments

Pippi 3 is off the needles.

It looks just like Pippi the first, right?

Almost! The Cashmerino Aran colors are really rich and and seem to glow. I wouldn’t call it Aran weight, though. It’s a very nice worsted. Note the slightly shorter earflaps. And now that I’m looking at the picture, I see that I used double crochet instead of half double crochet on the edging! Oops. I’m not a crocheter, really, and I mis-remembered how to do it. I like the way it looks, though. I love this pattern, but after three hats, I’m definitely ready to move on.

What next? I started my Athena for me.

Lest you think that I am in a rut (three of the same thing, and three of the same thing?), I have another thing in the queue after Athena:

My friend Susan gave me these Lantern Moon Sox Stix for Christmas. Size 2! I guess that means I need to knit some somewhat skinny yarn socks. I bought some Socks That Rock Mediumweight (still not ready for the really skinny stuff); this color is “Eggplanted.” There’s a KAL on Ravelry for the Leyburn Socks, so I’ll start with that idea and see if it flies.

14 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, ravelry

Tagged cowl, earflap hat, entrelac, Knit, leyburn kal, neckwarmer, socks

Pippi pattern published

Posted on January 7, 2009 | 14 comments

How’s that for alliteration?

I finished the second Pippi hat, and took notes this time! I played around with earflap length and placement, and added a larger size. I just finished editing the pattern; it is available as a Ravelry download. See pattern page for details.

Good night!

14 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, ravelry

Tagged earflap hat, Knit

Happy New Year!

Posted on December 31, 2008 | 14 comments

Here’s my last FO for 2008.

It’s the Head Hugger beanie from Ann Norling. I made it last night. I’m teaching a class at Twisted in February and again in April, Intro to Circular Knitting/Basic Hat. I needed a shop model/teaser for the class. This is a good basic hat pattern that a relative newbie can master, and then customize as they wish. Should be fun!

I was going to make a mosaic of all my 2008 FO’s, but organizing all the pictures was daunting. There are about 30, and I’m out of time. So instead, here are things that I’ve designed/written during 2008.

They are, from left to right, top to bottom: entrelac socks, felted slip stitch tote, log cabin baby blanket, zigzag lace pedi socks, stitch markers, checkerboard scarflet, Athena entrelac neck warmer, Pippi (pattern coming soon), and the square for the Afghans for Afghans afghan. Someday we’ll finish all those squares!

I started this blog in March, and it’s been way more fun than I anticipated. I started selling patterns on Ravelry and at Twisted this year, too, and that’s been a good experience. Thanks for coming along for the ride. Happy new year and happy knitting!

14 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit, pattern design, ravelry

Sing a song of entrelac

Posted on December 16, 2008 | 13 comments

It’s finished! Introducing Athena, an entrelac neck warmer.

This yarn really lends itself to entrelac. I did try four other patterns, but ended up having to come up with something on my own. I knew I didn’t want to knit a long scarf; time was of the essence. I thought about knitting an entrelac scarflet, but I’ve only knit entrelac in the round, and didn’t feel like learning a new trick in a hurry (it’s just learning about side triangles for flat entrelac, but a mood is a mood). My next thought was a hat, but I didn’t think the intended recipient would wear a hat. And it would be floppy. I went to bed thinking about it, and the next morning I woke up with this neck warmer idea springing from my head. And I love the name Athena for it.

I did have to start it three different times. The fun of designing is making all the mistakes for you, so you don’t have to! The pattern is available as a pdf download for $5 US through Ravelry. See the pattern page for more information.

Here’s Carole with her new neck warmer!