Tag Archives: Knit

Blue skies and sunshine

Posted on October 9, 2009 | 19 comments

This week has been gorgeous in PDX. The skies are blue, the temperatures moderate, and the leaves are starting to turn. Perfect autumn weather.

Birds are fattening up for the trek south (hazy because I shot through the window with my new 12x zoom Lumix). There are four birds in the first picture, but there were many more hanging around!

I hadn’t seen this one before; do you know what it is?

I was inspired by the autumn sky to buy this yarn.

It’s Malabrigo Sock Yarn; the color is Impressionist Sky. My original intent was to buy this yarn in a color called Indiecita because I fell in love with it at Sock Summit, but the color I saw in August (blue and brown) was very different from the one I saw yesterday (green). I was looking for blue to start a shawl, and this jumped up and said, “Pick me!”

I bought the yarn at a new store in town. It’s called Happy Knits and is at 1620 SE Hawthorne. They have a lot(!) of Malabrigo yarn, and also carry Karabella and some Cascade. The shop is sleek and spare, and has a huge common room in the back. Sarah threw in the Della Q bag as a thank you. Nice!

Portland is blessed to have a lot of yarn stores with an amazing variety of yarns. I’m lucky to be in such a fiber mecca!

With the change in weather, I have a hankering to start a sweater, too. Start-itis abounds. What are you dreaming of knitting?

19 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged Knit, LYS, malabrigo

San Francisco déjà vu, and Single Skein Club

Posted on October 7, 2009 | 10 comments

DH & I took the kids to San Francisco at the end of August. We had a great touristy weekend. This was going to be our planned summer vacation, until we decided to visit Vietnam and Tokyo. It’s been a big travel year.

We toured the Davies Symphony Hall and San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a friend who plays for the symphony. The Teen sat down at the piano in one of the recital halls.

He even remembered part of a sonatina he played about six years ago. He hasn’t played piano since 2005 or so. How does he do that?

When I told Mom we were going, she said, “I never get to go anywhere.” That got me thinking. Mom’s birthday was coming; why not take her to San Francisco? So my sisters and I took her for a girls’ weekend. My August trip was a great preview!

Of course we went to Chinatown; we’re Chinese! We had a very touristy fun weekend. We even rode a cable car. (Excuse the wind noise; it was windy.)

Before we left, I went to Twisted to pick up my Single Skein Club package for October. If you’re still waiting for yours, you should avert your eyes now. Otherwise I’ll ruin your surprise. Look away!

This month’s club offering is a very chic hat by Lee Meredith, aka Leethal. It’s called Ocean Breezes. Here’s a Rav link to some better pix.

The yarn is Alpaca With a Twist Highlander Tweed. It’s beautiful yarn, smooth and soft. I love the sheen it has from the alpaca. I even got to choose my own color, which made this little control freak very happy.

The package also includes these very cute fish buttons, some cedar moth balls, and some point protectors. And Halloween candy.

Even though I haven’t knit the past several kits, I really like being part of the club. The suspense and thrill of finding out what’s in the package pleases me. The patterns are always clever, and the yarn is always sumptuous. I’ve been introduced to some yarns that I never would have considered in my browsing. Cool!

10 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged cable car, Knit, san francisco, single skein club, twistedpdx

Knit your fingers to the bone, what do you get?

Posted on October 1, 2009 | 25 comments

Baby Hat Palooza!

We’re having a little baby boom at church. The music director’s baby received the pink baby bolero last month. We’re having a baby shower for three new moms this weekend, so I did a hat trick! (hockey, anyone?)

This is the tomato cap from Ann Norling’s Fruit Cap pattern (Rav link). It was my standard baby gift for a long time.

This is my own watermelon cap. Here’s a link to my free pattern.

And this is Elsa. The little knot in the pattern makes me think of Elsa Schiaparelli’s Bow Knot sweater, even though it’s nothing like it. It’s just a little decoration. I envision the knot worn above the ear, but anything can happen once it leaves my hands! Front and center? Down the back? Whatever!

I’m offering the Elsa pattern for free. It’s a simple pattern, quick and easy to knit with dk weight yarn. I used Sublime Yarns Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK, so mine is quite the little luxury knit. I hope you like it!

25 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged baby hat, free pattern, Knit

How many knitting days until Christmas?

Posted on September 25, 2009 | 11 comments

I don’t know. But this is what I was knitting in my “how to carry two colors in your right hand” video tutorial the other day.

It’s a shop sample for Twisted; I’m teaching a Christmas stocking class on Saturday, December 5, 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. The class is based on my pattern, which I finally wrote up this week! I made the first of these in 1996, but didn’t write it up until now. Here are all the variations at my house, made over several years.

The pattern is for the snowflake stocking; I wanted to keep things simple since it’s for a class. I dropped off the stocking and patterns this afternoon. Sivia Harding says that the stocking is perfect! That made my day. How could you not want to knit this pattern after such an endorsement? And yes, Sivia is now working at Twisted!

Patterns are available at Twisted and through Ravelry download; you can find more information on the pattern page.

11 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged christmas stocking, Knit

Sibling Socks, aka Coriolis

Posted on September 24, 2009 | 16 comments

I finished the second sock from my “”What I learned at Sock Summit” project.

Remember I said that I wanted to make the second sock different, so I wouldn’t have Second Sock Syndrome? The first sock was a spiraling Coriolis. On the second one, I decided to try Cat Bordhi’s Upstream sock architecture, and put the increases on the instep in the form of a diamond with lacy holes. Isn’t it funny how the pink/purple pooled in the diamond?

When I finished the diamond, I decided that I didn’t want lacy diamonds going all the way up the leg. I was curious what would happen if I took the spiraling line from the Coriolis sock and moved them in different directions. So I echoed the holey diamond with a snakey one.

I think I like the snakey diamond even better than the holey diamond! But I wasn’t going back to do it over again.

Voilà! Two socks that read pretty much the same at first glance, but are different enough to make knitting two socks remain interesting. I wonder why knitting two socks the same is a challenge to me, but I can make the same baby sweater or baby hat several times without a second thought? Go figure. Probably because I can multi-task and watch a movie or read at the same time I’m knitting that baby sweater or baby hat. Aha!

The details:
Variations on Coriolis pattern by Cat Bordhi, New Pathways for Sock Knitters (I took the information from Cat’s class and ran with it)
Socks that Rock Mediumweight, Alley-Oop colorway
Size 2 Sox Stix by Lantern Moon (love these needles)

I love Cat’s heel turn, but I need to fine tune the fit. The back of the heel is a bit too tall and loose for me; I’ll try fewer increases over the arch expansion next time. But I love Judy’s Magic Cast On and Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off; these two techniques have made toe up socks a lot more attractive to me. Especially since I still don’t like to close toes with kitchener stitch. I can do it, but I don’t enjoy it!

16 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged cat bordhi, Knit, sock

Knitting with two colors, right hand

Posted on September 21, 2009 | 23 comments

I’ve been saying for a while that I wanted to make a video of how to do this, and I finally did it. Sorry for the slight blurriness; my arms aren’t long enough to get further in front of the camera! I’ll experiment with other set-ups some time, but this is my first video, warts and all. It was kind of fun.

I’m a thrower; I carry my yarn in my right hand. I took a colorwork class with Anna Zilboorg at Stitches some time in the 90’s. In preparation, I taught myself to knit continental style (hold yarn in left hand, pick with right needle) so I could carry a color in each hand. When I got to class, Anna showed me how to carry both colors in my right hand, which was a lot easier for me. Here it is.

Enjoy!

23 Comments

Posted in Knit, tutorial

Tagged colorwork, Knit, tutorial

The magic of blocking

Posted on September 15, 2009 | 20 comments

My friend Claudia knit a beautiful shawl. It’s Ene’s Scarf by Nancy Bush (rav link). She blocked it, but it was a bit small and didn’t wrap the way she wanted it to. I offered to block it more aggressively, since I have blocking wires and I’m not afraid to use them!

Pre-blocking, the shawl was 55″ x 29″. I didn’t take a picture; it was late at night when I was finally ready to attack it. I gave it a good soak with some Soak (love this stuff), and then blocked it out to 63″ x 33″. Wet wool is amazingly stretchy. I could have tried to make it even bigger, but it looks nice where it is now. I’m hoping the extra 8 inches across the top makes it wide enough to wrap the way she wants.

Here’s the shawl, now that it’s dry. I love how much airier it feels.

The lace is really pretty.

And the edge is gorgeous!

Nice work, Claudia!

Are you an intrepid blocker? It makes a world of difference!

20 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged blocking, ene's scarf, Knit, shawl

Knitty’s up!

Posted on September 11, 2009 | 9 comments

I mentioned Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off in yesterday’s post, saying that I couldn’t tell you more yet. It’s up today! I also found out that I’ve been spelling her first and last names wrong. It’s Jeny Staiman. And she’s brilliant.

Here’s the rest of Knitty. It’s a little slow today; I imagine they’re getting a gazillion hits. I’ll go back and look at it later…

Knit on!

9 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged Knit

What happens next?

Posted on September 4, 2009 | 10 comments

I finished spinning my first bit of fiber. What do you call that thing, anyway? It was in a pretty braid. My spinning isn’t very consistent yet; sometimes there’s a clump of almost roving, but mostly it’s a nice single. I’m getting to the point where I can feel if it’s doing what I want. I love it when the twist jumps up between my fingers and the fiber is nicely drafted and takes up the twist with a little zing.

Here’s Day 1.

And here’s where I ended; I think it was 4 sessions in all.

This is the sum total of it, on a small Turkish Delight. It’s a center pull ball, if I can screw up the courage to take it apart. Will it explode? There’s a lot of twisty energy in that little ball of yarn! It’s all new to me.

I’ve read that you should ply your singles to balance the yarn. There’s not a lot of yarn here, so it won’t amount to much. I think I can take the end from the inside and the end from the outside, and ply them with the spindle in the opposite direction that I spun it. How do I hold the ball, on a knitting needle maybe? And I’m guessing that I somehow need to keep it under tension so the twistiness doesn’t curlicue everything up? Any and all hints welcome!

10 Comments

Posted in Knit, spinning

Tagged Knit, spin, yarn

Blast from the past

Posted on September 2, 2009 | 19 comments

Courtney’s post on Retro Knitting reminded me of a booklet/magazine that’s been on my knitting shelf for what seems like forever.

This one is a 1965 reprint of a magazine originally published in 1952. It used to belong to my Aunt Vivian, who gave it to me when I was in high school. I remember knitting these slippers!

And check out this dress:

Aunt Vivian used to make clothes for our Barbie dolls. Does this look familiar?

The sash is long gone. I found this dress, along with some other treasures. The other items are from more doll clothing booklets, and I have those, too. Check out what a fashionably dressed Barbie was wearing in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s. Styling sheath dresses:

Mohair winter coat, scarf, hat:

A sequined shell:

And this half of a skater outfit. I love the mohair edging on this. I wonder where the fabulous flared skirt went? I’ll have to check with my sister; she has the other half of the doll clothes!

Check out this elegant skirt.

Especially the waist shaping!

Aunt Vivian loved to knit and crochet. She made lots of clothes for our dolls, and vests for us. In her later years she knit many, many hats for the homeless. How lucky was I? Two knitting aunts, one on each side of the family.

Oh, by the way, I’ve been backwards sleuthing: Aunt Rose must have taught me to knit the summer I was 14, not 16. Beginning the summer I was 15 almost 16, I worked in a salmon cannery in Alaska during the summers, to earn money for college. Hey, I’ve just gained two years of knitting history!

19 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged Barbie, Knit