Yarn on Thursday - Circular WHAT?

So, my friend Deb just got a Circular Crochet Hook. Two crochet hooks, held together with a cord, just like circular knitting needles. I'd never seen such a thing before!


Looks like it's a quick way to do multi-color work & Tunisian crochet - there's a really good tutorial here at crochetme.com. If you like video tutorials instead, here's one (fast forward about 30 seconds in to the start):


Also, here's a tutorial on using one of these double-ended critters: Basic Cro-Hook Tutorial. There's also something called Portugese Knitting... which is actually done with two tiny crochet hooks!!


How cool is that??

Anita (tygger428) has a double-ended afghan she's working on, which gives a good look at the hook actually running from one end of its project to the other here [Ravelry link, sorry]. Also on Ravelry, the Crochet Liberation Front Headquarters is running a discussion on the mysterious Circular Crochet Hook, and what can be done with same.

Best thing I've found made using one? Becky's absolutely amazing Hogwart's House Shields Afghan:


I mean WOW. Almost makes me want to make one! And there are lots of patterns that can use this little double-ended circular wonder. Yahoo! Answers has the best links for patterns, here, but I haven't even gone out on Ravelry to look yet, and I bet there are some there. (Runs off to check... I may have to investigate getting one of these Circular Crochet Hooks for myself!

Deconstruction and Not

Okay, tomorrow is the end of April. I have two projects that I could "finish" before the end of April, which would bring my average Finished Object per Month ratio up by a whole bunch. One of them is my Fan & Feather Easter Scarf, which (1) I didn't finish by Easter and (2) could be half again as wide and still be a decent length, and thus much prettier. If you think I frogged it, you're correct!


Before


During


After
The second is a little Partridge in a Pear Tree canvas/ornament I found in the $5 bin at Needlewoman East just after Christmas. (PS, check out their site! It's New!! The Shore Bird Studio trunk show is coming through in May - I'm going to have to check that out!) Tuesday night, realizing The End Was In Sight (ie, I've only got the never-ending Continental stitch of the background to finish up), I pulled the little baby out, Determined To Finish It. Here it is early Tuesday evening:


... and here it Wednesday after lunch, since I finally gave up and realized that if I was going to finish it, I'd have to carry it around all day and stitch at my desk a lot:


What's that? You noticed that it's finished? Yep, it is. And no, I don't seem to sleep any more, it's all about the Finishing Spree!

Fairy Tale Socks... and Matching Mitts!

I *did* get my Fairy Tale Sock Club #2 Third Sock Kit in the mail on Thursday night. (I now have a Peacock of my Own. That's all I'm sayin'.) Rather than dive right into it, though, I decided that I'd finish my Second Sock Kit first. Since I was home sick most of Friday, by Friday evening, I was up to here:


and by Saturday afternoon, they were done!

I'm warning you RIGHT NOW that this is lots of photos of these things, because I love them so...!


Top

Top

Side

to Side

... and Back!
Now, I love, love, LOVE this pattern. And, since I have freakishly small feet *and* knit loosely, I had a lot of yarn left over. So, my sleep pattern being completely mucked up, I stayed up until 2:30 Sunday morning knitting this:


Sunday, I got roughly halfway on the second one, but by the end of Monday (well, by the end of Leno), they were done.


backs

palms
The So, socks *and* mitts for the price of one little kit - pretty darned cool!!




Okay, now I'm just showing off.
This is far and away my favorite of the Fairy Tale Sock Club patterns thus far, but you could probably tell that...!

Basics, Basics, Basics Lesson #2 shipped out...

Got my blocked swatches for Basics, Basics, Basics Lesson #2 unpinned and finished up and tagged last Wednesday night, and got them in their sleeves so I could fill out my answers to the related questions Thursday at work. I also needed to check the knittinghelp.com videos for M1-R and M1-L increases, and redo a small swatch of that (swatch 4 for Lesson #1) just to make sure I "got it". Here they are, in case anyone is thinking that it's Really Hard Stuff in this course... bits are tricky, if it's not what you're used to (I'm doing the "correct" cast-on now, for example, but I still don't like it as much as the cast-on I evidently made up on my own), but really - it's not bad at all.

 

 

 

 
Looking forward to getting these back from Andra, and hopefully I got it all right this time...!

Finished Socks - FTSC-II #2, "The Fisherman and His Wife"

Yesterday morning, I finished my Fairy Tale Sock Club I #2 socks - "The Fisherman and His Wife". This involved finishing the socks, then knitting a small fish:

six rows in, and I wasn't sure I was gonna get a fish-looking thing out of this

Stuffing the fish with yarn left over from the Sort-of Star Tam

The resulting fish - looking like a fish!!
Then I needed to crochet a net to catch my little fishy in:

Fishnet Jumble

Blocking...

And a mere 8 hours later, a dry net!
I let the fish swim around for a while...


... and then it was time to net her up. I really like these (and note that I finally caved and got a pair of sock blockers, even if I did forget to adjust them before taking this photo))!!


When I left the house this morning, my FTSC-II-#3 package had not yet arrived, so, as I finished these, I'm allowed to start the new socks when they get here. I have now finished All Three of the FTSC-I socks, and I love them all! Yaaaay!

To make up for all the short posts this week...

Standard with YoT posts, the images come from the designers in question; click the associated links for more designs and information.

So, last week, I found this amazing knit halter in the Ralph Lauren window nearby.

Love at first sight!
 

And I've found fashion-forward knitwear before:

Sonia Rykiel's Fall/Winter collection had this little gem, whic I adore...


This Rodarte cardigan went for a mere $2,760, but I liked the look of it. Fuzzy and shiny!
 

And Jeremy Scott came to my attention during the last cycle of America's Next Top Model, when he previewed some of his Opulence collection:
 

But what else is out there? There's so much that we can do with yarn - and there's a lot we probably never imagined (with the exeption of haute-couture designers reading this, of which I believe there are exactly zero). For example, Charlotte Pigg, sometimes associated with Julia Sissons (see below), won a visionary knitwear award for her work:


Isabel Berglund is an icon, really. Find all the photos of her stuff that you can, and just enjoy looking at it all!

Juliana Sissons has a fun vibe to her pieces. Check the link to view more examples. This is my favorite:


Louise Goldin designs "luxury knitwear" (the hooded capelet on the left is my favorite):

Denise's "The Swelle Life" blog (which is fun even without the knitting references) has some really cool stuff on it. For example, click through on these two links: Cynthia F. - Metamorphasis Knits and Cynthia F. - The White Project

Sandra Backlund is billed as an Emerging Artist in the article behind the link. I just love this piece of hers!



Jemma Sykes is designed this for Butcher Coture. This is "the Elizabeth", a wedding dress:

Shannon Galati colaborated with textile designer Ya-Ling Hou on this collection:


But... I couldn't really see myself wearing a lot (if not most) of the stuff above. I'd like to, but I don't know if it would actually look good (I mean, the Sonia Rykiel dress up there? I WISH!!). I think I could probably get away with this little gem by Simone Shailes:


And then, there's the stuff I'd *actually* wear... like the Rabbit Sweater.
So, go ye forth and find your own favorite fashion-forward knitwear designers. I really like most of 'em - but I think for this year, Sonia & Ralph win for me!

Quikpost

Finished both my feet, and got all my ends tucked in:


Tonight, I knit and stuff my little fishie and crochet up his net. Then, Socks are Done!!

Something to do when you're not knitting...

Having discovered that there's not a snowball's chance in Alice Springs that I'm ever going to make it to any of the four local Bollywood dance classes I've discovered, I must rely, once again, on my DVD player for help. The wondrous Hemalayaa has three new DVDs (new to me, anyway), which I found out about while reading the latest issue of "US" magazine this morning over breakfast. (Yes, I read gossip magazines. I like "US" and "Life & Style" best, since they're about trends and fashion as much as gossip, and have the best ads.) The blurb goes: "Known for her playful spirit, fitness star and yogini Hemalayaa leads sexy, sassy, fun workouts that get results and will make you smile." Well, if her previous offering is anything to go on, that's an accurate summary.


Now, I got her Bollywood Dance Workout at Ross for $5 - and it was money well spent. (Seriously, I wouldn't have minded paying full price for this DVD, which I can't say is true for many of my "finds" at Ross/Marshalls/TJMaxx.) It's the one at the back of the above photo; here it is so you can see it better:


She's also got a DVD, Dance of the Kama Sutra, which you probably wouldn't want to play with your parents in the room (but they'd just be embarassed, not horrified). "If the Kama Sutra conjures images of rubber-limbed Indian gods and goddesses in improbable poses, think again. An exciting new way for women to get into shape and cultivate their sensuality hits the shelves on 24th September with the fantastic Dance Of The Kama Sutra With Hemalayaa, a brand new DVD which uses meditation and playful movements taken from traditional Indian dance," says one reviewer. Hm. May be worth picking up a copy of this, too!

Actual Colors may Vary

Well, nothing happened over the weekend on my TKGA homework, as I forgot to bring my questions and label printouts home. Not much (maybe six rows?) happened on the Autumn Serenity Stroller Snuggie, since I was afeared The Eventual Recipient might see it at one of the various events I attended. Instead, heaping gobs happened on my Fairy Tale Sock Club #1 Second Socks, "The Fisherman and his Wife". I'm to the toe on the right sock, and about a pattern repeat and a half away from the toe on the left sock. (This has become my key to Finishing Two Socks and Thus Avoiding Second Sock Syndrome: do, say, the ribbing on sock A, then on sock B. Then do the leg on sock B, then the leg on sock A. Yes, I own a frightening number of size 1 and size 0 steel DPNs.)


I also discovered that setting the camera in my tiny-phone to "night shot" actually results in Actual Colors coming through under florescent lights. The pretty blue of the yarn looks Just Right on my monitor (can't vouch for yours, though). I also also discovered that the little zipper bags my bags-for-delicate-laundry come in work wonderfully as sock project bags. See?


Anyway, I hope to get to at least one toe tonight. Yay!

Again, posting briefly

Well, I got home horribly, horribly late last night, but I've managed to avoid having anyone get sent anywhere out of town (expensive for the client, and no fun for the person going, really) - mainly me - and I was too darned tired to block out my finished Lesson #2 swatches like a good little bunny. So, I woke up and did it this morning. Doing it by this morning at the latest was key, because then they'll have about 24h to dry before going in the mail. Soggy swatches don't ship well. And, as you can see, these are pretty darned soggy, thanks to my lovely water-spray bottle.


There they are, all done, and I have learned several things from this lesson.

1. The way I had been doing double-decreases, sk2psso, isn't the prettiest. The takes-me-longer s2k1psso(2) - or however it's actually written, I'll remember eventually - is much prettier. My k2tog and ssk's still rock, though.
2. Doing a long-tail cast on correctly results in much curlier stockinette, which is much harder to get to lie flat and behave for blocking.
3. Blocking requires a lot more pins with curly knitting.
4. I am perilously close to running out of light pink yarn, and there is no nearby Stich DC from which to get more.

In other news, this

is in the Ralph Lauren window up the street. Just shy of $200. (Over, with DC tax.) It's very pretty. I really like it. Here's the thing: I can't justify $200 on just buying the top... but I could totally justify $200 for yarn to make something similar. What's up with that??

No Yarn on Thursday, sorry!

Very busy at work this week, so haven't had the hour to put together Yarn on Thursday for this week. Instead, you get a shot of my Sort of Midnight Sun Tam out in the wild.


I'll be back with more Yarn on Thursday next week!

Swatching away...

Cast on for my Basics, Basics, Basics Lesson #2 yesterday morning, and as of the end of the train ride *this* morning, this is what I have:


Swatches 1-5
It's going well, I think. My swatches look about as wonky at this stage as the others I've seen on line, and I'm able to tell them apart by the stitches I did. I had to learn a new cast-on - the thing I was using as a long-tailed cast-on looked lovely (the same on both sides, which I thought was the point), but was looser than an actual long-tailed cast on, and didn't have the bumpy side/smooth side distinction required. So, after a lot of trial and error and practice, I now have an actual long-tailed cast-on. (PS, I still like mine better, but I'll use this one when I'm told to do so.)

I have three more swatches left, then the blocking, tagging and writing-up-of-answers to the Swatch Questions. This time, I'm trying to answer the questions as I go, and once my eight little swatches are done, I'm blocking THAT NIGHT, whenever that night is. Those are the two things that gave me an almost three-month turnaround time with Lesson #1, and I'd really like to avoid that this time. Especially since there ARE time limits on the Master Levels, so I've got to learn to work quickly, neatly, and with focus!

Bunnies, bunnies, it must be BUNNIES!

Okay, so I'm being good and I'm up to swatches 5 & 6 on my TKGA Basics, Basics, Basics Lesson #2, but I'm also working on my Fairy Tale Sock Club Socks. I'm doing Linen Stitch on the heels of the socks in question... and I ask you, doesn't two-color linen stitch make little stitches that look just like BUNNIES??


I'm totally silly-pleased about the Bunny Stitch.

Star Tam is finished!

Today: Finished Object!! Finished Object!! I finished the Star Tam (my take on the still-elusive Midnight Sun Tam pattern, which I WILL track down, dagnabit!!)!


Topside


Bottomside
I wish the bottom picture worked better. I tried a lot of stuff (short of breaking out the big camera, which I may have to do) to show the medallions - yeah, there are actually crosses surrounded by circles there, but they're tough to see. Bottom left corner of this photo is probably the medallion that's most visible for what it is. Sigh. I've still got to weave my ends (works better for me in colorwork if everything is the size it should be already), but, despite there being about thirty ends, they're all in roughly the same place, so it should go quickly. It's blocking indoors in front of the gentle-vent, and should be dry by the time I get home tonight. I already tested the fit pre-blocking, and it's super! I have another pretty hat!!

What Could Have Been Yesterday's Entry:

Okay, it's finished! It's finished!! Here's the view from the top, as flat as I can get it:


. . . and here's the view of the side.


It's still kinda squished looking, so hopefully blocking will take care of that. I'm still tickled at how well the periwinkle un-stranded stuff works for the wavy-at-the-edge motif. It was a four-stranded worsted; I un-stranded/untwisted to two strands, and that about matched the size of the rest of the yarn, sort of. The Sea Sock is a bit thinner than the Baby ULL, but by playing with gauge a bit, I think I got everything to work. We'll see when I block it all.

What Should Have Been Friday's Entry:

Okay, I've gotten the Star Tam to the Outer Limit, and I'm now on the "underside" of the hat-part, working my way back in to fewer stitches. Here's where it was Wednesday evening:


The part I really really wish I had the pattern for is the placement of the increases and decreases, but I kinda figured out something that worked. I'm going to do as much as I can on this hat tonight, hopefully (maybe?) getting up to the end of the giant crosses, because Saturday and Sunday, the only knitting I'm allowed is for my TKGA class. (This didn't actually happen, since I finished the Tam on Sunday - but my classwork has begun, and thus far, I've almost mastered not getting my fingers confused for the German method of the real long-tail cast-on.)

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Yarn on Thursday - Lacey Lamb!

First, the subject of today's discussion: Jade Sapphire's Lacey Lamb. It comes in cute little boxes:


It's quite thin:


As close to Actual Size as I can get the photo!
And it comes in a TON of colors:


There are actually MORE colors!!
Back in 2007, Amy Herzog used LESS THAN ONE BALL to make her amazing Curved Shawl. (She's also got other amazingly beautiful projects on her blog, StashKnitRepeat.com; check her out!)


Amy's closeup of her amazing shawl
Gina (she of the Sleepy Eyes Knits podcast) has also played with Lacey Lamb - see here for her project, and a GREAT list of Places for Lace on the Internet!!

Now as you can see from Amy's photo of her shawl, Lacey Lamb is THIN. Gossamer, cobwebby, really, really, really, thin. The stuff from which wedding ring shawls are made. What's a wedding ring shawl, you ask? Basically, a shawl that, when finished, is so delicate and fine that you can pull the entire thing throug a (lady's) wedding ring. And yet this yarn is NOT splitty, and (in my experience), doesn't tend towards breakage at all. This is key, because if you're knitting something that may be around in 100 years, it's nice if it's solid. Back to the Wedding Ring Shawl: see here for an example - the quote there is "This project for the ultra-skilled knitter requires time, concentration and patience but in the end, all efforts will be rewarded by the finished shawl - a delicate webby patterning of geometric lace motifs, large and small." Yeah - patience is KEY. Making a shawl from this stuff is A Project, and, depending on how quickly you knit, could take a long, long time. (I'm doing a shawl in a similar weight mohair - yes, I'm insane - and I have to work on it about eight hours at this point to get any noticable progress. But someday, I'm going to have a lovely, soft, fuzzy kickass hot-pink lace shawl.)

The key to it all seems to be "heirloom". As near as I've been able to figure, patterns are one of five categories: beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert, and heirloom.

Heirloom = weddings for a lot of folks, and this little yarn makes for some fabulous wedding finery:


monotran's exquisite Bridal Shawl for Steph
If you're thinking of perhaps trying something heirloom yourself, I had a chance to fip through this book over the weekend, and it's got some really Lovely-with-a-capital-L projects. (Plus, I like Nancy Bush's patterns; they work for my brain.)


Nancy's Bush's "Knitted Lace of Estonia"
It's not all shawls, of course. I'm sure there are lots of lovely things than can be made with this soft, extra-fine yarn. Checking Ravelry, it's shawls, stoles, scarves, capelets, a pair of socks, some fingerless gloves - and my favorite, a wedding garter.

This entry brought to you by the fact that, this past weekend, I scored a ball each of royal blue and blaze orange Lacey Lamb. Because nothing says "girly" like making a delicate lacy shawl to wear from your favorite football team's colors!!

The Knitter - a pretty new mag!

I recently stumbled across The Knitter, a new UK knitting magazine, and I have to say: I really like it! It's big, it's glossy, it shines in the sun. I love the fact that it's England's First Collectible Knitting Magazine - it's certainly more durable than most of my poor little magazines! I also like the fact that the patterns are printed across as many pages as it takes, in a font size that won't kill your eyes. (There should be more of that in the US magazines, IMHO.) It just started recently - sadly, I missed the first issue, which I would've LOVED to have - I mean, look at the cover sweater!!


I have issues 2 and 3, and want to make almost everything out of each of them. Whatever the editor's knitwear aesthetic is, I seem to share it thus far.


Issue four is out soon overseas, so it should be here early June.


Looking forward to it!!

I like books wherein the characters knit.

Fun Find of the Weekend: Elizabeth Lenhard's Chicks with Sticks books, a trilogy of Young Adult books about high school, growing up, and, of course, knitting. They're fun (I'm halfway through the second; I read the first yesterday)! Ms. Lenhard manages to capture teenage angst well (a bit of a trick with older authors sometimes), which gives me hope for my own books (set in that nowhere-time of The Summer After College Graduation). Side note - I think books should be read. I read books - young adult, old adult, whatever. I'm still amazed at the librarian that told me I "couldn't read" young adult books, because I was an adult. I'm wondering how the heck she became a librarian with an attitude like that!! Anyway, I found a set at my local library: you should see if yours has them, too!


Also, there's progress on the Star Tam. It's just not quite as fast now that I'm hitting 200 stitches per round!


Tomorrow: a fun new magazine!!

Winging It Madly to Fair Isle

On the left, attempt 1. Had *not* figured out the placement of the increases here, so instead of a pretty soaring diamond shape, I got something that didn't quite... soar. At all. On the right, not only did I figure out a crossed-over cast on that no hole in the center whatsoever - it actually looks like there's a column of knit stitch across the center. I'll never be able to recreate this, so I'm glad it worked this time! The center of the tam (gold, light blue, red) is yarn left over from Sanguine Gryphon's Fairy Tale Sock Club #1 No. 3 socks; the lighter cream and yellow, and navy and forest (and purple, when it appears), are all Dale of Norway 'Baby Ull'. Baby Ull, in my opinion, is the best stuff ever for small-gauge Fair Isle. I've done colorwork before, and it's never gone quite this well!


I'm trying to keep close(ish) to the actual colors of the tam, without actually knowing what they are, and having somewhat blurry photos to go on. (Perfectly nice photos, really, but tough to see each individual stitch, and figuring out the increases would have driven me mad, but for my boss loaning me a book on Tam Construction.)

That light green outer ring? It looks a lot more electric in real life, so it got frogged out this morning and replaced with dark green. I also had the laceweight Gaia (also Sanguine Gryphon) in the perfect shade of fern green - but I would've had to double it, and that made for Too Much Work Just Now. So, dark green it is, and the colors won't be dead-on - not that they would be, since I don't have a good indigo. (I still like my version; it's colorful, but, for me, quite calm.)


At this point, I've knit to this point on this hat TWICE, and frogged this second version many rows back at least once, but I'm on a roll. Not only that, but it's working up really, really fast. (If I'd gotten it right the first time and not had that horrid "lighter green" idea, I'd be past the turning point and almost to the ribbing of the brim.) Plus, I like the way the pattern is working out. I'm totally going to do this in a "you can't possibly miss this" combination - green, orange, hot pink, yellow, turquoise and black (as the background, just to punch up the colors.)

Just in case you were wondering, it's supposed to look like this:


Midnight Sum Tam by Sandy Blue, for Simply Shetland
Oh, and I'm doing other knitting, too, and found a cute knitting book series, and got some great magazines... but that's for the rest of the week!

It's really closed.

Upon hearing that Stitch DC Georgetown closed its doors this past Sunday, I clomped up the hill to take a look.


Yep, the Closed sign was in the window, there was a notice in the door...


Once, these shelves were full of yarn. *Sniff.*
... and the inside of the store was empty. I ended up hitting Michael's on the way home, just to visit some yarn, but the pickings were beyond slim, and this teaser sign just added insult to injury.


I will be finding yarn to play with SOMEWHERE on Saturday!

Yarn on Thursday: all Lit Up!

I'm worried someone may have missed this bit of wonderfulness, so I'm reposting it today for Yarn on Thursday. It's lit-up yarn on the lam(b)!

It's that time again.

NOT an April Fool's: The Sock Summit Website is up and running! I wish I could go this year!!

It's April Fool's Day - here is the only nonharmful prank I could find that involve yarn:

The Mustard Squirt: Materials: Empty, clean and dry mustard squeeze bottle, with the small plug cut out; yellow yarn about 2 feet long.
Directions: Thread the yarn through the hole in the cap and tie a knot in both ends of the yarn, as close to the ends as you can get. Place the rest of the string into the bottle and put the cap on the bottle. When you squeeze the bottle the string will come out and it will look like you are squirting mustard!

A follow-up to a cute one from some New Mexico paleontologists: here

Wondering if something is a joke or not? So did one Microsoft employee...

Something to try on officemates that *won't* kill you outright - and be sure to make CAREFUL NOTES of exactly what you do, so you can fix it!

I plan to continue my tradition of inverting one of our Big Dog's monitor displays. Especially fun, since our IT guy (his son) will be in today to deal with it. Yay!

And, just for fun, some of what Google's up to today, compiled by Loren Baker of the Search Engine Journal: