Tag: <span>yarn</span>

February wrap-up

Still working on the  knitting resolutions!
1.  Clear the WIP queue from last year by the end of the month.
February is gone and I haven’t really made any headway there.  I managed to start way too many new projects at once and not make any real progress on any of the big ones.  I did knit three hats though this month, so that counts for something!  This means that I’m officially dedicating March to clearing the WIP queue completely.  Once that’s done, I’m going to start a sweater.

3. Knit one pair of socks per month
So close on this one!  But, I think I’m still on track for 12 pairs for the year, so this shouldn’t be a big deal that I’m 4 days over budget.  February is short anyway, right?  Just finished up the socks tonight, so I’ll have photos of them hopefully tomorrow.

4.  Spin four ounces of roving per month.
Boy did I ever make this one!  There were the four ounces of superwash BFL for Thorpe  and then a whopping eight ounces of superwash Merino from Crown Mountain Farms for my Sunshine Surf Scarf.   I’ll post something more on that project later.

5.  Dye more yarn and roving.
Got this one already too, though I hope to do this again throughout the year.  I attended a class at a local art center with the wonderful Pam Pawl who took us through the process she uses for dyeing.  It really made a lot of sense and I loved her method and great organization of the process.  I got to dye two skeins of yarn that the class provided (not great quality and really scratchy, but they’ll be wonderful for a felted project!).  With the leftover dye, I was able to dye some merino roving I had brought along.  Photographic evidence:
IMG_1466 IMG_1464 IMG_1465

Naughty Deer

A friend of mine wanted a knit hat.  Jokingly, I suggested using this specific chart to make him a hilarious hat and then offered a few other options for hats that were more tame.  He decided on the original joke idea and I went ahead and knit it for him.  Here’s the finished result!

Pattern: Basic hat, no real pattern, used Fornicating Deer Chart
Designer: Anne Rutten
Needles: US #7 (4.5mm)
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish Worsted, Jade and Gold
Ravelry Project Link

This was super easy to knit and it was a ton of fun to watch the chart shape up and turn into a pair of naughty deer. I did modify the chart to make the deer on the bottom antler-less.  Cast on 96 sts for three repeats.  The recipient loves it and said that he got a bunch of compliments on it while he was out over the weekend.  I find it completely hilarious and have already gotten a request to make another one for another friend!

EDIT 02March2009:
Recipient of the hat made a video about the joy his hat has brought him.. I nearly fell off my chair laughing.
Myspace Video

EDIT 19April2009:
I had gotten a bunch of hits from a UK knitting forum.. linking back to the post for posterity   🙂     *waves  to visitors from the Knitting Forum*

EDIT 02November2009:
This post was linked again and I noticed a HUGE jump in visitors to the site today from an Icelandic website.  While I don’t speak or read Icelandic, Hello there to you all!

Shiny and New

I finally got around to upgrading my phone and decided to go with the G1 (aka the ‘google phone’ from T-Mobile) since I really love having access to email and everything from my phone.   The last phone was a T-Mobile Dash (long story there) that I was really not a fan of since it’s Windows Mobile and let me tell you now that Internet Explorer on the mobile version crashes about as often as the non-mobile version used to.

So, the other day I was browsing through the applications in the marketplace that one can download and install on the G1 and happened to come across ShopSavvy.   Now the average person would think that this is a neat app – you go into a  store for something, pick it up,  and let ShopSavvy scan it quickly before deciding to buy it there or somewhere else that’s cheaper.   ShopSavvy, using the camera, scans the barcode on the item and delivers you the lowest prices on the web and locally based on your GPS location.

Me?   I nearly tripped over my own feet racing towards the yarn stash.   Most of the yarn I’ve got is from indie dyers and there’s no barcode, but I managed to find a few!

IMG_3741

Thorped

There’s this great thread on Ravelry that shows a project from roving to spun yarn and the finished object.   It’s without question my favorite thread on Ravelry and is really inspiring for a spinner to see what people spin with what fiber and what patterns they’ve adapted to their handspun.   REALLY creative people   there.  

Sometimes, you get a batch of fiber and you just know what it’s going to be – like Michelangelo said about his sculpture, “I saw the angel in the marble, and I carved until I set him free.”   This may sound a bit strange (if it does, then Michelangelo was strange and that’s a club I don’t mind being a part of), but you knitters know what I’m talking about.. The  times  when the yarn speaks to you and tells you precisely what it  wants to be.   It’s just like that with roving and spinning fibers.   The finished article is in there somewhere, waiting to be let out.   Sometimes it just wants to be yarn.   Sometimes it wants to be a finished object and you just KNOW it the second you lay eyes on the colorway and the texture of the fiber.

So, here’s my most recent Spun-to-Finished entry  and the first one for the blog.

Fiber:
IMG_3705
Superwash Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) from dkKnits – January installment of the fiber club.
Colorway: Burnt Blueberry Baa’Hill (baa’hill.. baaagggellll.. get it? :-P)

Yarn:
IMG_1379
8wpi, Heavy Worsted, 167 yards, navajo plied, spun on my Spinolution Mach 1 wheel.

Finished Object:
IMG_3733
Pattern: Thorpe
Needles: US #8 (5mm)
Trimmed with a bit of leftover Cascade 220 Superwash.   I have NO idea of how to  crochet, so I used a helpful video on YouTube.

In other news, a family friend sold her sheep farm and moved recently, bringing with her A LOT of fleece.   I graciously offered to take some off her hands and came home with just about five pounds of raw wool from Border Leicester mix sheep.   There was about 1.5 lbs of black fleece and  about  3.5  lbs was white.   I decided to mix them together to save on processing and shipped it off to Zeilinger’s for cleaning and to be drawn into roving.   I hadn’t heard anything back in a few weeks, but sure enough, today, a box showed up on the doorstep containing my roving.   Dog for scale, but there’s a ton of it.   I believe this roving is begging to be a sweater.   It hasn’t decided on a color yet though, but I’m sure it will let me know once it’s ready. (The dogs are North American Standard Mutts by the way, weighing in at about 50 lbs each)
IMG_3736

Project updates

January end-of-month update:
The knitting resolutions  haven’t all been met (already, I know!).
1.  Clear the WIP queue from last year by the end of the month.
Didn’t happen!  I did clear out a bunch of things, but there are still two open WIPs from last year.  Not bad though..

3. Knit one pair of socks per month
Got that one!  One pair of socks per month is definitely manageable and I still have time to knit other things.
Pattern:  Little Child’s Sock
Designer:  Nancy Bush
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5 mm)
Yarn:  Knit Picks Imagination
 in colorway “Wicked Witch”
Ravelry Project Link–  
 

IMG_1259
IMG_1265 IMG_1269
Nancy Bush can write a pattern like nobody’s business.  It was so well written out, line by line, you just can’t but help be in awe of the time that must’ve been spent writing it out.  The book, Knitting Vintage Socks,  is becoming a fast favorite.  The yarn is super soft and fun to knit with although the variegation obscures the pattern mostly.  And see all that color pooling?  I know it’s something knitters strive to fight against, but I just love it.  It almost looks like tye dye on the stockinette part of the leg.

4.  Spin four ounces of roving per month.
Didn’t quite make this one either.  I got about an ounce of this superwash merion from Crown Mountain Farms (colorway “Sunshine of your Love”) done for the spin and knit along at Ply by Night on Ravelry.  I’ve really gotta spend more time with the wheel in the evenings and maybe alternate nights between knitting and spinning.  Plus, there’s a fun project coming up for next month with roving from dkKnits that I’m pretty antsy to get started on!

IMG_1254