Tag Archives: yarn

While I’m waiting…

Posted on June 7, 2009 | 7 comments

While waiting for Ishbel’s yarn supplement to arrive from Texas, I started a new project. (I could have finished the second Kai-Mei sock, but I was looking for an excuse.) It was either the Ruffle Tank or the new Single Skein Club project.

I was really hankering for a semi-mindless knit, so I started the Ruffle Tank. No charts to follow, just 9×2 ribbing for the first 13 inches. I can manage that. I’ll start the Club knit when Ishbel is done. Only one chart project at a time!

This is my first experience with linen, and it’s really different. Where the Malabrigo Sock is buttery soft, the MerLin is like knitting with twine. But I like it! It’s crisp and “dry” and “hard” feeling. The fabric is a bit stiff, but I know that it will soften up when I run it through the washer and :gasp: dryer. Hey, the label says I’m supposed to! I’m not following the advice given in my Tips & Tricks class with Lily Chin; I should wash and dry and hang the swatch. But I just want to get started, and the tank isn’t terribly fitted. Fingers crossed; I just want to knit.

We had a stellar dinner when my in-laws were visiting. Vickie made an unbaked version of it a few weeks ago when we were camping. If you can make it on a Coleman stove, it must be manageable in a real kitchen! We had it with polenta then, but pasta is way easier for me to coordinate. Sorry I don’t have a picture; it disappeared quickly! And the in-laws would have thought I was weird, taking pictures of dinner. Well, weirder than they already think I am.

Baked Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta

Makes 4 servings (I increased shrimp to 1.5 lbs for 6 peeps, and it was plenty)

1 T olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced (2 tsp)
2 14.5 oz cans diced (roasted) tomatoes with their juice
3 T smoked paprika (pimenton)
pinch crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup cilantro leaves
1 1/4 lbs medium shrimp, peeled & deveined (1 lb is enough for 4 peeps)
2/3 C crumbled feta cheese (3 oz)
1 lb dry linguine or other pasta

Start your water for pasta now and timing will be great. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Heat oil, add onion and garlic and cook until onion is soft. Add tomatoes, pepper flakes, paprika; bring to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer to casserole dish. Add shrimp & cilantro. Sprinkle feta over top. (Start cooking your linguine now, takes 12 minutes) Bake until shrimp are cooked through and cheese melts, about 12 minutes. (Linguine is done!)

Serve over drained linguine.

Enjoy!

7 Comments

Posted in Knit, recipe

Tagged Knit, Ruffle Tank, yarn

Ishbel, interrupted

Posted on June 4, 2009 | 14 comments

I must be loose. A looser knitter than Emilee, anyway. She finished her gorgeous Ishbel with less than one skein of Malabrigo sock yarn. That seduced me into thinking I could do the same. As I neared the end, I realized that I wasn’t going to make it. I weighed the remaining yarn and found that it takes a little more than one gram per row. I had 10 grams of yarn left. And 10 rows to go. And a bind off row. Ouch. I really didn’t want to buy another $20 skein for about 3 grams of yarn.

I kept knitting. Now I have three rows left to knit, plus a bind off row. This tiny ball of yarn isn’t going to make it.

Luckily, there is a Ravelry group called Malabrigo Junkies, and they have a forum thread titled “ISO/FT/FS.” In English, that’s “in search of/for trade/for sale.” Since I only needed a little, I posted there. Within a couple hours, I had a reply. KellyInTexas is my hero!

I love a happy ending, don’t you?

14 Comments

Posted in Knit, ravelry

Tagged ishbel, Knit, malabrigo, ravelry, yarn

Single Skein Club is leading me down the path to Sock Summit

Posted on June 2, 2009 | 10 comments

It’s June, and that means it’s time for the next installment of Twisted’s Single Skein Club. This club has updates every other month. I still haven’t knitted April’s project, a cool toe-up sock by Chrissy Gardiner. But I will conquer my toe-up aversion soon. Sock Summit is coming!

Enough chit-chat. If you don’t want to see what’s in June’s package, avert your eyes.

Still here? Let’s see!

Look at this yarn! Malabrigo Lace yarn, one skein (of course). The color is “glazed carrot,” and that’s a great description. It’s not plain orange. There’s a depth to the color that looks like it has a brown sugar glaze.

The exclusive club pattern is the Seedling Sampler Scarf by Sarah Pope. It has three lace patterns in it, and best of all, it has beads! The beads are a bronzy color (I thought they were purple in the shop, go me) and look like seeds. The beads are strung onto the yarn before knitting. How? With this cool collapsible bead needle! I’m going to be using this needle for my other beading projects, too, so this is a great tool. And there’s a sweet SSC stitch marker to round out the package.

I think the gals at Twisted are leading me down the garden path to Sock Summit. First there’s that toe-up thing. Yup, need to know that for a couple of my classes. Now there are the beads. I’m taking a bead class at Sock Summit, too, but I think we’re adding beads as we go, instead of pre-stringing. But still…

Speaking of Sock Summit, DH is bemused by how excited I am about the prospect of a knitting conference. I’ve gone to other conferences before (Stitches and TKGA) but the buzz around those is nothing like the Sock Summit buzz. I keep telling him that it’s the power of personality (Stephanie and Tina), and it’s almost like a cult. DH has also been fascinated by the whole Sock Summit registration ruckus. He’s in marketing, and you can see his take on it here.

And because it’s the beginning of June, I have to show you where that pile of bark mulch ended up:

Two thirds of it is in the front and side yards. The last third has made it to the back yard, but it’s in a pile! Soon and very soon…

10 Comments

Posted in beading, Knit

Tagged Knit, malabrigo, single skein club, sock summit, twistedpdx, yarn

Looking ahead

Posted on May 31, 2009 | 11 comments

Ishbel’s knitting should be finished in the next few days, so I’m looking ahead to a new project (besides all the socks that will be happening for Sock Summit).

At our recent knit nite, Leigh Radford was wearing her Ruffle Tank (Rav link). This was featured in Interweave Knits Spring 2003, and also in The Best of Interweave Knits. I was smitten with the simplicity and elegance of her design.

Although the yarn specified is all linen (Louet Euroflax sport weight), I opted for Louet MerLin Sport, a blend of 60% wet-spun linen, and 40% merino wool. It was mostly a color decision; I liked this blue better than the Euroflax colors at Twisted. But I’m also hoping that the wool will make the linen a little easier to work with, too.

The MerLin has 20 yards less per skein than the Euroflax; I’ll see how close I am at the end and decide if I need all four ruffles, or only three. I have the advantage of being short, so I’ll use less yarn in the length, too, and that may save me right there.

I seem to have done a lot of dreaming about this tank already, but I’m not letting myself cast on, or even swatch, until I’m done knitting Ishbel. I know how diverting a new project can be, and I don’t want Ishbel to languish!

11 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged Knit, Ruffle Tank, yarn

School supplies

Posted on May 29, 2009 | 9 comments

Remember how thrilling it was to get your school supplies each fall? The smell of new pencils and crayons…

Now imagine buying supplies for Sock Summit classes. Even better, right? Especially with a friend! Anna is taking two classes with me, so we went bead and yarn shopping this morning.

Here’s what I have:

Both yarns are Louet Gems sport weight. Yes, sport is as thin as I’ve knitted for socks. And I figure I’ll get further, faster with a fatter yarn!

The lilac yarn is for Star Athena’s Sock Design Workshop. The supply list said sock yarn, not too busy and not too dark. Perfect. Even more perfect is that this is the same color I’m using for Kai-Mei, and if I run out before I’m finished with the toe, I’ll just borrow a little of this. It may not be the same dye-lot (I haven’t checked), but it’s better than nothing! And it was very fun shopping for supplies at Twisted, because Star was there and now she’s met Anna, too.

The white yarn is for Hooked on Beads with Sivia Harding. And the beads are for…yeah, you guessed it. I think that some plain white yarn is fine, because I want to see what’s going on with the beads! You may find it boring, but remember, it’s just practice! Perhaps a cute sock cuff, or fingerless mitts. By the way, Dava Bead in Portland is a place of great temptation. I buy a lot of my beading supplies there.

And for Cat Bordhi’s Dancing with Socks class? I’ll probably just play with some natural colored worsted that I use for teaching. Or go shopping again. I was much more restrained than Anna, so I may have to catch up…

9 Comments

Posted in beading, Knit

Tagged Knit, sock summit, yarn

Life is too short…

Posted on May 12, 2009 | 12 comments

to knit with yarn that you don’t like.

The last time I touched this Baby Bolero was when I took this photograph.

The thought of knitting more with this yarn just didn’t excite me. It was hard on my hands, and hard to control the gauge because the yarn doesn’t slip along itself. Look at the wonky stitches on the sleeve. So I bought new yarn.

I started this on the weekend, and it’s flying along. The yarn, Debbie Bliss Pure Cotton, is a joy to work with. It’s soft and “buttery.” I love it! I still have a slight issue with a column of loose stitches between dpns (hey, it’s cotton, and not resilient and forgiving like wool), but I’m dealing with that by moving the gaps every round. I just knit a couple stitches more or fewer on each needle. The stitch definition is great.

Here’s the same motif in the Mission Falls 1824 Cotton. You can see the structure of the yarn is different.

The 1824 is a cotton center with a thin thread wrapped around it. The Pure Cotton is two plies of equal size, twisted around each other. It’s a lot softer than the 1824. I think I’ll swatch for Angela Hahn’s Sorelle with the Pure Cotton; I’ve been wanting to knit that but haven’t found the right yarn for it. Do I need a blend? Angela used a cotton blend, and also recommended some wool/silk blends. What do you think?

In other news, I went to the other side of the mountains this weekend. Mount Hood looks backwards from over there!

I was at Kahneeta with a friend and her mom, hanging out for Mother’s Day. It’s warm and dry on the eastern side of the Cascades.

Lots of lizards hanging out there, too!

I arrived home at 3 on Sunday. The Teen made soba for Mother’s Day dinner, and it was delicious. I hope you had a great weekend, too.

12 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged dpns, Knit, yarn

Blue, blue, my yarn is blue

Posted on April 25, 2009 | 12 comments

I taught a fun class over at Twisted on Thursday night. “Tink, Drop, Frog: How Do I Fix This?!” It’s aimed at relatively new knitters, and has a lot of hands on practice. We put their swatches through their paces! All the students had taken a class on knitting in the round with me, so it was like a reunion party. I think we all had a good time, and they came away with some new skills. I’m teaching this class again in July, and already looking forward to it.

Before class started, I bought a little something.

One skein of Claudia Hand Painted Yarn, Silk Lace 20/2, 100% silk, 1100 yards/100 grams in Deep Blue. I had to wind it by hand; apparently silk tends to slip off the swift at the shop. Cathy helped me at knit nite, thank goodness; 1100 yards is a lot! I wound most of it, found myself in a tangle, wound another ball from the other end and got most of the rest. One section was beyond my patience that night, but I don’t think I’ll need *all* of the yarn for my project. What project? Ishbel, a lovely shawl by Isolda Teague. I saw this knit up on several other blogs, and it called my name.

The yarn is so much finer than the worsted weight mitered square I’ve been knitting. It will be a shock to the fingers! But the needles aren’t tiny (4 mm/US 6), so that will help!

Here’s my completed mitered square. I used leftovers from the stash: Plymouth Galway in navy, Crystal Palace Taos in a blue variegated.

Isn’t it interesting how subtle the Taos looks when it’s surrounded by navy? Much different than it looked in Athena, where the colors were concentrated in entrelac blocks instead of strung out along a long row.

Unfortunately, I was a little too confident of my gauge, and never re-measured after the first two color stripes. Gauge for worsted before was with KnitPicks Wool of the Andes and Lantern Moon Ebony needles; this square is slightly heavier Plymouth Galway and Clover Bamboo needles. Two variables that I didn’t take into consideration. The 10 inch square measures 11 inches. Since you can block knitting bigger, but not smaller, it’s back to, um, square one! This was a very soothing knit, and I think I just needed to do it for the quiet joy of it all. More joy to come.

12 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged afghan square, ishbel, Knit, yarn

And the winner is…

Posted on April 7, 2009 | 10 comments

Aunt Kathy! Who is not *my* aunt, but just Aunt Kathy. She wins the Lantern Moon Silk Needle Case. Congratulations, Kathy! I will send this off to you this week.

After organizing my needle stash, I found that I only needed two of the four needle cases that my family picked up at the Loop & Hoop event, so I’m giving away one more. Back to the random number generator, and the second winner is Sarah, of Attitude Hats. Go check out Sarah’s creations; they are amazing!

And another winner! DH won an elevator pitch contest, and he’s pretty pleased with himself. What’s an elevator pitch? According to Wikipedia, an elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, 30 seconds & 100-150 words). Congrats, Sweetie!

I think I need a knitting picture now…

I’m knitting the Baby Bolero from One Skein by Leigh Radford. It’s a short and sweet little jacket for a newborn. It will be a bit longer than this when the ribbing is added to the edges. I picked up the sleeves and am knitting them top down instead of knitting them flat and sewing them in.

I love the little motif on the back (I did change some of the k2togs to ssk to enhance the hole-iness):

What I’m not loving is the yarn.

It’s Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, a fluffy cotton core with a wrap which gives it a fun texture. But the fun texture is interfering with my ability to control my tension, I think. I have a horrible column of loose stitches between dpns on the sleeves (see them in the picture?), and I have to go back and adjust everything to even them out. Yuck. I’ve knit with lots of cottons before, and haven’t had this issue. Maybe I should have knit the sleeves flat? But then I’d never sew the sweater up! (I know myself.)

So I guess I’ll finish, since I’m so close to finishing, and give it a soak and see if things block out/even up. Otherwise, I’ll re-knit this with a smooth cotton. It’s a quick knit, except I’m having a hard time sitting down with it!

10 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged contest, Knit, lantern moon, yarn

What is a sock

Posted on April 3, 2009 | 16 comments

What is a sock start, but a gauge swatch?

Yesterday’s foray with the Bleeding Heart Shur’tugal left me cold. That big blobby pool of pink just didn’t make me happy. The spiral reversed direction between the ribbing and the dragon scale pattern, and the area where it reversed was like a big pink eyeball. I couldn’t take it, so I ripped it out.

The pattern calls for 64 or 72 stitches. I had already reduced it to 56 stitches on size 1 needles because I’m using STR Mediumweight instead of Lightweight. I knew if I increased to 64 stitches, I would have to knit on size 0 or 00 needles. No way. So I went the other direction, and cast on 48 stitches on size 2 needles. (ETA: I thought they were 2’s, but they’re still 1’s! I guess I can switch back to my new Lantern Moon blondwood Sox Stix, since they’re the same size as these Brittany Birch.)

(Please excuse the harsh lighting. The sun actually came out, hooray!)

What a well behaved spiral. Just what I wanted, and it looks a lot like the spiral on the designer’s revised pattern for Shur’tugal. (Ravelry link for the updated pattern, but I don’t think you can get it elsewhere. Join Ravelry; it’s free!)

So I’m much happier. The sock is a little snugger, but still big enough for my leg and my foot. And there’s no pink eyeball. Ahhhhh.

16 Comments

Posted in Knit, ravelry

Tagged kal, Knit, ravelry, shur'tugal, socks that rock, yarn

Loop & Hoop swag

Posted on March 27, 2009 | 10 comments

Last night’s Loop & Hoop event at the Blazer game was fun! We made it a family outing. I knew CollegeGuy would be happy to go to a game on spring break, even if surrounded by knitters. Our seats were pretty high up, but it was a good crowd.

Here’s the swag from the goodie bag:

Let’s see, a re-usable bag with the Blazer logo. A Lantern Moon silk needle case (beyond awesome) and catalog of temptation. Yarn and a pattern from Yarn Garden. Tea from Knit/Purl. A sample of Soak from Knitted Wit (and I got to sit next to Lorajean and her DH). And a Channing Frye bobble head doll!

The best part of this deal is that my whole family was there, so we got this, times four.

CollegeGuy claimed most of the Blazer bags, and my bobble head doll. I figured DH & I could share. But I claimed all the knitterly goods, which means I have FOUR Lantern Moon needle cases (and I probably own enough needles to fill them), four balls of yarn, four samples of Soak. And tea.

We also got coupons for free chalupas from Taco Bell thanks to this sequence from Rudy Fernandez to end the third quarter: