Tuesday Night SnB

I went to my first first Tuesday Night Stitch 'n' Bitch yesterday, and I had a lovely time. Jane, Leah, and Kay were lovely and very welcoming. (I'm sure the bribe--I mean, the bottle of wine--I brought had nothing to do with that.) Jane spent the whole time spinning on a drop spindle, making the teeniest little thread of yarn--it was so cool! She made yards and yards and yards of the stuff! Leah was knitting about a thousand stitches a minute on a huge, floor-length coat she had been commissioned to make, and Kay worked on a sock that was much cooler than either of my socks.

And I... I worked on the Practice Sock, which has now become Finished Sock #2. Ta-da!



Ooh, it's all stripey!

And here is my first pair of socks.

They do so match. Shut up.

Also, there is no yarn on my coffee table.

Illusion Progress

I think I out-clevered myself on the whole "illusion knitting coasters for Grandma" idea. The problem comes in the intersection of "illusion knitting" and "coaster."


I'm starting to get the hang of the basic process, as you can see. There's the very beginning of the bottom of a spade there in the middle. Ooh, black spot!








Here you can see how long it is already. If I were going to knit a coaster, I would consider this roughly a third to halfway done. I am nowhere near 1/3 done with the spade pattern.



I'm going to keep going, though. For all I know, it'll miraculously squish down and look perfect once I get to Row 70 (of 76). If nothing else, I'll have practiced illusion knitting.

Grandma might end up with a scarf, after all.



Brain Wave

I just had a thought about the general concept of card suit+coaster. It's becoming pretty clear that the illusion knitting thing isn't going to pan out, and I started thinking that I wished there was a way to take out half of the rows. Then it hit me: Intarsia. Just because I'd have to adapt an illusion pattern to a technique I've *cough* never tried before is no reason not to consider it! I could totally learn how to do it.

I think my sock success has gone to my head. I'm getting all kinds of crazy ideas!

Illusion Knitting--Wha?

A few weeks ago I was randomly searching knitting patterns online, and I came across this: a pattern for a scarf, illusion knitting of the card suits. If you look at the scarf from one angle, you see stripes; look at it from another angle, and pictures of the card suits appear. I printed it, thinking that it would make a great gift for my bridge-playing grandmother. Now that she's sent me the Ancestral Needle Case, I wanted to adapt the pattern to something more summer-y, so it can be a thank-you gift. I decided at first to try placemats and coasters, but I ran the idea by Mom first, and I'm glad I did--apparently, Grandma doesn't use placemats. Coasters are the way to go. As an added bonus, this way I only have to knit the actual charts--there's none of that complicated "adding blank space to make it a placemat" business.

I had also mentioned the plan to Robyn, my sock knitting teacher, who proclaimed that illusion knitting is super easy and I would have no problems with it.

Ha!

Here's my problem, as far as I can tell: I've never worked from a chart before. Give me a nice, long string of "With MC1, K7, P7, K32131, P347856," etc. and I'm good to go. Show me a chart with boxes in 3 different colors--none of which corresponds to a yarn color--and you're likely to get a blank stare, followed by a lot of cursing as I knit, tink, knit, and tink some more.

This is especially odd in light of the fact that I'm usually a visual learner.

So, this morning before work I cast on 21 and got started. Knit all odd rows, cast on row is Row 1--got it. On even rows, knit the colored squares and purl the blank squares. 'Kay; knit light grey Row 2. Row 3: knit! I get to the end of Row 3 and realize that I was supposed to have changed colors at the beginning of it. Crap. Tink it. Change colors, reknit the row. Row 4, knit! No, wait--Row 4 is all blank squares. Purl Row 4. Tink. Purl. Forget to change colors again and knit Row 5. Tink. Oh my god this is going to take forever. Especially if I keep doing everything 3 times!

I just hope I get the hang of this soon! I'll post a picture of the work in progress as soon as I have enough yarn hanging off my needle to photograph!


Anyone who doesn't already know about it should stop by my mother's blog to congratulate her on her good news! Hell, go over and squee with her even if you do already know!

Sock Pictures!

I give you... my very first knitted sock! Ta da!


Here is a (slightly blurry) toe detail.


It fits! I know that the top photo makes it look like I have strange, pointy elf feet, but it's just the angle.

I made a sock!

Unicorn, Sock

Okay, so I've had a request for a picture of my unicorn dishcloth, and a girl just can't say no to someone who wants to admire her knitting, even when she knit a dorky, off-center unicorn! In my defense, this cloth is the result of a blind knit along: I didn't know what it was going to be when I started. Also, I hear that red yarn doesn't photograph well, and this cloth is no exception; it's hard to suss out where the unicorn is. Here's a hint: it's facing left.

Actually, blown up to the size it is on my screen, it isn't that hard to find. I still have no idea why the pattern author didn't center the unicorn, though.

In other knitting news, I finished my first sock today! It's keeping my left foot warm right now. It is very socklike, which is the true mark of a good sock, and it fits my foot--bonus! I've even taken pictures of it--but sadly, I am unable to post them right now, because I'm using my friend Samara's computer, and it doesn't want to talk to my camera. Now I get to knit a matching sock, and I'll have a pair! This is easily the coolest thing I've done today--possibly all week.

I'll try to remember to post a sock picture or two this evening, after I go back to my place.

Thursday is Yarn Day *Edit

I am not a spontaneous person, sadly. I keep trying to be spontaneous but usually I really prefer to have a plan. I am far too young to be so crotchety, but there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it.

Thursdays are always Ann Days. This means that I make no plans with friends for Thursday evenings. Thursdays are for me to either do errands and sit at home doing whatever I want, or just sit at home and do whatever I want (without errands). Lately, this has meant that I spend Thursday evenings under a big pile of yarn, trying to knit or crochet my way out.

Yesterday was no different. I had one big goal: knit my sock homework. I needed to get the foot done to 1 3/4" from the end, so I can learn to make toes tomorrow in my final sock class. It took me a few hours (measured in TV shows I listened to but didn't watch), but I did it! Hooray! I had planned to work on my Practice Sock last night too, but by that time Grey's Anatomy was on. I'm at the point in the Practice Sock where I need silence to wrap my head around picking up stitches and knitting the gussets (which I screwed up on my Real Sock--don't look too close!) and I wasn't about to miss the shiny rerun of Grey's!

I am such a dork.

(In other Dork News, I foolishly cast on my Practice Sock in a different yarn than I'm using for my Real Sock, because I wanted to see how the self-striping yarn looked. If I had been smart, I would have used the same yarn, and ended up with a pair right away. Not always very clever.)

Anyway, because I wasn't willing to turn off the idiot box, I grabbed my crochet hook and some of the Caron Perfect Match I got in the worsted grab bag I ordered from Herrschners. (I can't resist grab bags!) I made a couple of these:
Except that mine are medium blue. And I'm doing an extra round of double crochet at the end in black, because I'm a big copycat. I discovered that you can get 13 hexagons from one 7-oz. skein, if you're careful about your tension and the length of your ends. For the first 12, I was not, so of course I ran out of blue yarn two-thirds of the way through the final round. Luckily the final round is single crochet, so I was able to fudge my tension in the black round enough to more or less disguise the discrepancy. I'll have to remember to post some hexagon pictures that I didn't steal from the Lion Brand website. Here's another mark of my dorkitude: I bought a digital camera almost entirely so I could take pictures of my yarncraft, but gosh, it's just so much trouble to photograph things and transfer the pictures to my computer! Once I have hexagonned and edged all 35 ounces of grab bag goodness, I will connect them all up and have another afghan. Because a girl can never have too many afghans.


Edit: Photobucket to the rescue!
I just remembered that I have taken pictures of my blue hexagons. Here's one now!

See? Just like the other picture, only blue. Now imagine that it has black edging.

Moss and Ivy, Ann's Zeeby

At the end of May I joined a monthly dishcloth knit along: twice a month, for 5-7 days, they post a portion of a pattern for everyone to knit (theoretically) at the same time. The beginning of the month pattern for June was a unicorn--reverse stockinette on a bed of stockinette. I wasn't crazy about mine, so I didn't take a picture. But the middle of the month pattern was a lace pattern that the designer called Moss and Ivy, and I finished it last night. It was my first lace project, and I'm glad I started small! It's only a little lacy. I like how it turned out, although I think the pattern would have shown up better if I had used a solid color rather than the lovely variegated I chose. I used it this morning in the shower--as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter if the pattern calls it a dishcloth, it can be a washcloth if I want it to--and it didn't seem to do a very good job of lathering. But I seem to remember it taking a few days for my garter stitch cloth to loosen up and really make suds, so I'm not going to give up!


This is my take on Zeeby's Bag, from Stitch 'N Bitch. Not bad for my first biggish project, if I do say so myself! Of course, it turned out significantly larger than I meant it to--I need to practice counting stitches. (When I had my first sock class we started out by making a gauge swatch. I counted my stitches and got 17--my teacher counted on my swatch and got 12. I counted again--still 17. She counted again [and I watched her]--still 12. This explains how the bag could have grown, despite my use of a gauge swatch and doing of math prior to casting on.) I made the gusset bigger than the pattern said to on purpose, and knit it double-stranded for stiffness. Now I just need to make a nice, pocket-filled lining for it, and I'll be done! I plan to use this bag to carry my knitting around in (ooh, appropriate!), and it's big enough that I can toss my purse and my lunchbox into it on workdays, so I'll only have one bag to carry rather than three. Hooray!

Now I need to go order a book from Amazon. When I found the link for Stitch 'N Bitch, I happened to see that the sequel is only $3.19--how can I pass that up? I can even add it to an unshipped order I have at Amazon that was 3.04 less than the $25 needed for free shipping, and not have to pay any shipping! By ordering this book, I'm actually saving money. Can't beat that!

Like Christmas

I think that, from now on, I will always ask people and companies to send packages to my work address. It just brightens my day so much to get a package in the middle of a workday, even if I had to pay for the contents.

For instance, I was grumpy over the state of the copier (broken again), and then the mail came. There was a big box with my name on it, and inside the box, I found

treasure! Gold, jewels, riches beyond my wildest dreams!

All right, I'm lying. If there were any precious metals or gems, I didn't see them. Seriously, though, I'm absolutely thrilled by my box.

It was full of yarn, patterns, and washcloths from Mom, and knitting needles from Grandma! I knew that all of it was coming, but it was still a wonderful surprise, somehow. (Of course, I'm so unobservant that I've had people buy gifts for me while I was standing next to them, and I didn't notice.) Mom and I have discussed our respective yarn addictions, and we decided that this yarn doesn't count against either of us in terms of stash acquisition: she bought it, but it was for someone else, so it doesn't count against her; I ended up with it, but since I didn't pay for it, it doesn't count against me. Makes perfect sense! New yarn! Hooray!

And the knitting needles! Oodles of them, in all sorts of sizes, in a needle case made from the leftover fabric "from the twins' curtains." My twin uncles--now 50 (I think). I'm going to have to send my grandmother a gift certificate for a nice dinner somewhere, or an IOU for me to take her out the next time I'm there.

I can't say it enough--I love packages! I just want to go home and roll around on the floor among my new yarn and knitting needles of various sizes. All right, not really, but you know what I mean!

Hello!

Welcome to my yarncraft blog!

I was inspired to start this blog by my charming and talented mother, whose crochet blog currently features an exciting mystery project in progress. (I already know what it is--haha!) I see this as a place to feature my works in progress and finished objects, to chronicle my trials and tribulations, and generally geek out about how cool it is that I can take a long piece of string and turn it into something useful--plus, maybe now that Mom and I are both blogging, the phone bills will be a bit smaller! (Maybe.)

A little about me: I'm 25 years old and I live in Lexington, KY. I have a dim memory of my mother teaching me to crochet when I was a small person; I'm pretty sure I made a lot of very long chains and an extremely lumpy potholder or two before abandoning crochet in favor of other pursuits. My senior year of college, when I was very poor and had a lot of time on my hands, I bought a new crochet hook and a bunch of yarn and made scarves for... well, just about everyone I knew, for Christmas. (I found out recently that I was doing it wrong the whole time. Oops!)

In December 2006 I was back home for two weeks and caught the crochet bug again. It was a very crafty vacation: I made hats with Mom, tried a shawl, sewed an apron with my grandmother, and even got Grandma to give me a lightning-speed intro to knitting--she was on her way to a bridge game! I came back to Lexington with a suitcase stuffed full of yarn and a burning desire to make stuff.

Then I decided to quit smoking, and I remembered how difficult it is to smoke and crochet at the same time. I didn't want to make any more hats or scarves, and I spent a few days going through the free patterns on Lion Brand's website before I finally settled on a project. Two months later, I was smoke-free, and I had this:

A full-sized afghan! That I made!

After that, I picked up my knitting needles and some cotton yarn, and made my first dishcloths. I started buying knitting books. I'm beginning to get over my frustration with how slow knitting is compared to crocheting; as of today, I've knitted half a dozen dish/washcloths, a very large bag (bigger than I intended!), and two halves of socks. (These are two separate socks, not one entire sock. I don't learn how to make the toes until Saturday.)

I just bought a used sewing machine on the cheap so I can make linings for bags and things like that, and I'm working on a second afghan.

I used to be addicted to cigarettes; now I'm addicted to yarn! Oh, well. As I told my coworker Pat (who is the Craft Queen around here), at least carpal tunnel syndrome is almost never fatal!