Introducing Jesse the Wonder Knitter and her Amazing Expanding Stash!

I have been hopping all over the country lately, and doing a lot of knitting. I've also been listening to a lot of podcasts, and knitting while doing that. The Blankie of Wonder and Magic had become my official zoning-out-watching-tv-or-listening-to-limenviolet project, and it shows!
I had to stand on a deck chair to get the whole width in the frame. It's quite wide. I was a little worried back when I first joined up the base row of squares and saw how much it stretched, but I've gotten over that. I want this to be about as large as a twin bed blanket.

I took the Forest Path Stole on both of my big trips, and got a lot of work done on it.
Last time you saw it all I had was the bottom triangles! I must confess that I didn't make all of this progress on my trips, but still the majority of it. I'm going to the beach next week and that would be a wonderful opportunity for some more progress, but I already have my projects planned out. One of those projects is this,
the Seascape Stole from the spring Knitty. The pattern calls for laceweight yarn, but you know how I like to buck the system. I'm using sport weight, Louet Gems in colorway Carribean Blue to be exact. It's perfect for my mom. She loves all things beachy.

I didn't buy any yarn on my Vermont trip, but I did buy this roving. It's 4 oz. of Louet Gems merino/silk, and the color is even more gorgeous in person. I'm going to be spinning this up and selling it on Etsy, because as much as I would love to have this yarn, I want a spinning wheel more.

It is kinda hard being spindle-dependent, but I can make some pretty neat things:

Roving from http://shunklies.etsy.com, colorway Monsters Inc., with some hot pink from another batch of her roving, Raspberry Soda.

The absolute most awesome thing I did in Vermont was to have a private spinning lesson from a friend of a friend who sells her handspun at a local market. I already knew most of the process in theory, so it was just a matter of getting my hands and feet to work together to make it happen. The spinning wheel I used is the exact kind I'm saving for, an Ashford Traveller. It was everything I'd hoped for, though I've decided to get a double-treadle instead of single, which was rather hard to get going and keep going.

Behold, aroundabout 25 yards of 2-ply, shetland/mohair goodness! I'm so happy with this yarn.

I'm really sensetive to fibers on my neck. Even a baby alpaca which feel soft to the hand will prickle and itch a bit on my neck. The only fiber I've found that never does that is angora, which happens to be quite expensive. Mohair sometimes works, but it's really a crapshoot. This yarn? A cloud. Not a single itch. Not one. Sooo happy.

What we have here is a skein of handpainted sock yarn that Tita brought me from Alaska, where she and Mom went while me and the Small Ones went to Washington with our dad.

It's really soft and though I'm not much of a pastel girl, I really like this yarn.

Compared to most knitters, I have a tiny stash. And not by choice, it's just that I have very little money to work with. I make pretty good money at my job, but 90% of that is going into my life savings. The other 10% is going into my spinning wheel fund. That leaves only my $10 per week allowance for all my personal stuff that my mom won't buy. In truth almost all of what I buy is yarn, but still.

I am pleased to say that I am finally starting to acquire a nice little stash, which is divided into 5 main categories:

1: Handspun. Very fulfilling but a rather slow means of stash enhancement.

2: Sock yarn. Doesn't take as long to get but I use this up much faster.

3: Sock yarn leftovers. These are all going to the Blankie of Wonder and Magic.

4: Crap. Stuff that I bought before I developed some taste, that I know I'm never going to use but just never get around to throwing away.

5: Other stuff. Non-sock leftovers, a few balls with a project already attatched, and 6 skeins of undyed wool.

I don't think I'll run out of yarn any time soon, but still, it's nice to have a backup plan.

In Which I Stick my Knitting in the Bushes

As it is a fine (if blistering hot) day outside, I succumbed to the find knitterly tradition of posing my work among the flora. Here we have two fine specimens, one of which is not completely knitting-related.

This was the last week of school for me, and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were half days. We got out at 11:45 on those days, and Mom took me out to lunch on Wednesday.

After we ate, we took a look around the Goodwill Emporium near the restaurant. In the back, amongst the boxes and baskets, I spied a hatbox. I was immediately enthralled, owing to a slight obsession with hatboxes since childhood. I picked it up and thought, 'My, what a heavy hatbox. I wonder if there's a hat in it!' There wasn't. Instead, there was another box, slightly smaller but of the same design. I took out the second box and opened it up, to find yet another box. I was positively giddy as I separated the succession of boxes (yes, marvel at my large vocabulary). It was like a set of Russian nesting dolls, which I have also always liked.

In the end, I got a set of four boxes for -get this- Fifteen dollars and one cent. Yes, the price tag actually said $15.01. I have no idea why. But what a score! I will, of course, be using them for yarn storage.
The yarn in there now is KnitPicks Shine Sport in Hollyberry, 14 balls of it. This I have purchased for a cardigan called Rusty. It's pretty obscure, but you can find it on Ravelry.
Another thing I have succumbed to: Monkey socks! I wish I had broken down long ago, this pattern is enchanting, and so is the finished object.

The changes I made were to add a picot hem at the top, knit one less repeat of the lace pattern for the legs, and do a slip stitch heel to make them last longer.
Yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, colorway "Huron."

Here we have a skein of merino that I dyed in the wool with food coloring, then spun up into a sport-ish 2ply. It's pretty well balanced, though it is rather loosely plied (this yarn was a pain in the ass to ply, and I think it's not my best work because I was so frustrated with it pretty much from the get-go).
Blankie pix! I've been working on it a lot lately, and it shows. Seen here lounging on the grass in our backyard:
(I feel morally obligated to tell you that not all of our grass is this pretty.)

What is this? A strange growth in the bush?

No, it's just my spindle, and some lovely roving from Shunklies, an Etsy store. Colorway is called "Monsters Inc." except for the pink which is from another batch of her roving.
I've really got a lot more single, but I've taken to winding it off onto the swift when the spindle starts getting too heavy with it.

Yet more succumbing: Magic loop and KnitPicks Harmony needles! What I've got here is a 40'' fixed circular in US size 0 that I got specifically to try out magic loop. The yarn is Trekking XXL in color 145, which I have been stalking since Christmas. I finally found it in a very nice shop called Charlotte Yarn, naturally located in Charlotte, NC.

My Forest Path Stole is coming along nicely after a brief hiatus, but you can't see it now since it's packed away for me to take on my trip. Me, the small ones, and my dad are leaving on Tuesday for a train trip along the northern border of the US. We'll be withing spitting distance of Canada most of the time, and the cool weather will be a nice relief from the depths of Hades (aka South Carolina).

We're taking the train from Chicago to Seattle, then renting a car and driving northwest a couple hours until we get to the very corner of the country, where my dad's parents live. We'll spend a few days visiting with them, sightseeing, and maybe pop into Canada for a day.

I really hope we'll get to Canada, so I can get some All Dressed chips. If you haven't had these, try them! There a type of potato chips from the Ruffles brand, and they have all the chip flavors (barbecue, salt and vinegar, etc) on one chip. It sounds disgusting, but it's actually really good, and you can only get them in Canada. Well you could have them shipped, but it would cost you and arm and a leg.

So now I have something kind of gross to show you. Last weekend (keep that date in mind) I was at my dad's house, where me and Thing 1 have bunk beds. I, being to oldest, get the top bunk. It's pretty nice, except when you fall out of it and hit the hard floor like I did on Friday night. I'm sure it hurt, but I didn't notice because I somehow managed to bang my elbow very hard on something on the way down. It left a mark. Look away now if your are the queasy type!

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This is what it looks like a week after the fact. And yes, it still hurts like hell.

So I'm going on a 10-day trip starting Tuesday, and when I get back I'll have a whopping day and a half to recover before hauling myself off to camp for a week.

Catchup, part 1: A Good Yarn

Yes, I know I've been gone a while. I promise I haven't forgotten about you guys, the thing is that we updated our camera software, but then for a while the camera wouldn't let us upload pictures onto the computer. My mom fixed it, though, and I'm back.

I've kind of been neglecting my knitting lately, because I've become so enchanted by spinning. I have a nice fat new skein of yarn to prove it, and a lot of pictures.

The fiber I'm using is an undyed merino top from Hello Yarn. My method of spinning thus far has been to just spin and spin and spin a pretty thin single until no more will fit comfortably on my spindle. I was going to try plying it using a method similar to Andean plying, but I realised quickly that I had way too much yarn to fit on my hand. Instead I wound it into a center-pull ball on my ball winder andjust plied from both ends.

When the plying was done, I let it soak in the bathroom sink with a little shampoo for about 45 minutes, then hung the skein out in the sunshine to dry.
The yarn fluffed up quite a bit, making the finished product a nice lofty DK-ish weight.
The yarn posing alongside Tita's gorgeous pink roses...
...and one bloom that was just too pretty and perfect not to have a closeup.

I'm really pleased with this yarn. I'm getting better about keeping an even twist and thickness, though I definitely need lots of practice.
I was right pleased with myself when I took my beautiful yarn inside, but I figured I should wind it into a wider skein. Since I have only one swift, I called the eager Thing 1 in to help. My instructions could not have been more simple: "Hold this," I said. And she did. For about 5 seconds.

After those five seconds of perfect skein-holding, she proceeded to drop the skein. This would not normally be a problem, as I clearly saw that the skein fell on the floor still in a perfect loop. I do not know how, as I dove to pick it up, that it was transformed into the horrific mess that took me a whole friggin hour to untangle.
But as they say, all's well that ends well.
And I think it ended pretty well.

Auntie Em, Auntie Em!

Well we have survived the crazy weather we've had down here in SC and GA this weekend. Saturday night there was a huge storm and a bunch of tornados touched down and did a lot of damage. Our house had zero damage, while many not far from us had trees through their roofs. It's amazing how powerful and how precise wind can be. Gail had a small tornado touch down right next to her house and tore down part of the fence, but didn't even loosen the vinyl siding on the outside walls.

But that's over and done with, moving on to wooly things!

All but one of my awaited packages have arrived, and I've already gotten started on them.
Behold, the wonder that is pure undyed merino top from Hello Yarn. A whole pound of it (with my average-sized spindle thrown in for reference). I actually spread it out on the floor and layed down on it. Well, I was mostly letting it air out, but I really wanted to lay on it.

I started spinning some up for Urchin, a hat from Knitty.com, but I've stalled on that since it turns out that spinning a lumpy yarn on purpose (at least for me) is harder than you'd think. Also, most of my practice yarns have been on the thin side, and I'm not used to letting a lot of fiber in at once. Oh well. Need more practice.

I also got 5 skeins from KnitPicks! The 2 on the right are undyed sock yarn, and the 2 on the left are undyed laceweight.

There's another skein of laceweight that I've already wound up and cast on for the Forest Path Stole. 10 rows of seed stitch take kind of a long time in laceweight.
Last week, Tita and I went to our LYS to cash in our store credit, and I used mine on 7 balls of Elsebeth Lavold Cotton Patine` for Blissful, a halter top from Stitch n Bitch Crochet.

While I was waiting for my packages, I didn't have a whole lot of knitting to do, but one thing I did do was a lot of swatching and experimenting. I decided to knit up the little bit of yarn I spun from the surprise Christmas fiber. I'm really digging the brown/grey/yellow portion, it reminds me of birds. I think I would name a colorway like that "Falcon."

Gail's computer was dead when I went over there today, so I didnt' get my fix of blogs and podcasts. Off to remedy that now!

Spring in My Step

Finished the socks with my hand-dyed self-striping yarn!
I luvs them to death. I just can't get over the stripes, it's like a magic trick. I decided that for this pair, I really did care if they matched. Only had to give up a couple yards of yarn, and the stripes are perfectly aligned.

One thing that was rather aggravating, though, was the heels. I didn't want to interrupt the striping sequence, so I originally planned to do Elizabeth Zimmermann's Afterthought Heel. Started at the toe of the first socks, knit my way merrily up the foot until the place I'd usually start the short-row heel, but instead knitted in a bit of waste yarn that I could take out later and have live stitches for the heel.

Halfway up the leg, however, I decided that I really didn't like the look of an afterthought heel and that I would just do a short row heel, accepting the fact that it would take a bit of grafting. So after I finished the leg(sewn bindoff, a la EZ once again), I picked out the waste yarn and put the live stitches back on the needles. Working from the other end of the ball of yarn, I started short-rowing on the lower half of those live stitches, then Kitchenered the other side of the heel to the upper half of the original live stitches. (Sorry if this doesn't make a lick of sense to some of you, I once again prove myself a moron by forgetting to take pictures of this process.)

So now that I knew I didn't want an afterthought heel, and was even more firmly resolved to have a matching pair of socks, I took a different route on the second sock. Heel and foot as usual, but when I got to the heel, I just knit it as usual, but from the other end of the ball of yarn. Once the heel was done, I just cut the yarn and picked up where I left off with the foot.

(I swear they really are the same size) I can't really tell the difference. The only way I found to distinguish was to turn them inside out and very closely examine the stitches. I think the one on the right is the first one, with all the grafting, but I'm certainly not willing to bet.

Aside from knitting for just a moment, I must introduce my newest obsession:

Yes, it's yogurt. Thick & Creamy Key Lime Pie yogurt! Empty, unfortunately. However, my saint mother went to the grocery store today and we have a lot more in the fridge. I am very likely to have another tonight and will definitely have another in the morning.

Well the first hints of spring are finally in the air down in South Carolina, and lemme tell ya, it couldn't come soon enough for me. (In general) I like cold weather more than hot weather, but I am so sick of winter right now. After Christmas, and down here where we don't have snow or anything, winter is just not fun anymore.

I am responding to the spring "make things" vibe by buying stuff, namely yarn. Yesterday I ordered 2 skeins of undyed sock yarn and 3 skeins of undyed laceweight from KnitPicks, and a pattern to go with the laceweight(the Forest Path Stole, since you asked) from The Alpaca Yarn Company. It's an Interweave pattern, but the issue is sold out and I'm not going to pay $16 for The Best of Interweave Knits when the shawl is one of only 2 or 3 pattern in it that I like.

Also, right after I finish typing this, I'm going to order some undyed merino top from Hello Yarn. After I dye it up, it'll help satisfy my urge to spin something other than my plain brown romney.

I'll have a lot of mail to look forward to for the next few weeks, including the package from Shelly(the Heathen Housewife, see sidebar since I can't get the links right on this blog). You may have heard of Shelly and her sock yarn blanket. If not, go see it right now, it's amazing. She just finished last week(or maybe the week before) and still has leftovers. She said on her blog that she'd love to give them away to anyone else knitting a sock yarn blankie, and I am one of the 6 or so people who responded. I sent her my address a few days ago and I can't wait to see what she sends me!

An end, and a few beginnings

I'm not completely sure, but I think that Friday was the first day in over a year and a half that I have not knitted. chirp chirp. Yes, really. It kind of jolted me when I realised. But considering the circumstances, one can hardly blame me.



My Dearest Love and I had planned to go to a concert on Friday afternoon/evening, and he was going to pick me up from school. At least, that's what I thought. I waited for him for almost an hour before Tita came and got me. On the way back to the house, DL called and said that there had been a mix-up, he thought that he was supposed to come get me at my house, not school. I had been kinda freaking out before, but I calmed down and he came and got me in about 15 minutes.



The concert was over an hour away from us, and it lasted until 10:00 at night. We were smart and hopped out during the last song, so as to beat the traffic and avoid being out until 1:00 in the morning or later. As it was, we got back to my house shortly after 11:00 and bid our goodbyes (yes, I am using fancy words to peak your interest and keep you awake). I was exhausted, and went right to bed, not realising until the next morning that I had not knitted a single stitch the previous day. For the absolute most ironic part, read a little further.



Another end, this time a completely welcome one:

An end to this dresser's occupancy of my room.



I've known this house since before the lot was cleared. We were living just 2 doors down at the time, and my mom's parents had this house built so they could be closer to us. My room used to be a guest room, and it has always had this same stinking dresser. But not anymore.



No more, because me and Mom went to IKEA on Saturday and got a bunch of stuff, among which was,

My fabulous new dresser/bookshelf. Clothes are along the bottom, and the rest is mostly books and space for future stash storage. Go to my flickr page (KnitWize there too) for full details.

Another beginning,

My first entrelac! I made this using a tutorial I found via Ravelry. I don't remember exactly where, but just go to Patterns and search for "entrelac tutorial" and you'll find it. The steps are accompanied by pictures, and it's all in very simple terms. If you're a little nervous about trying entrelac, this is the way to go. It's really very easy, even if there are kind of a lot of steps.

Socks for Thing 1, toe-up in TOFUtsies.

More socks for Thing 1, this time for her birthday. She had full knowledge of the other pair, but this is secret. She's seen these, loves them to death actually, but I told her they were for me. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep doing that, but for now it's a wonderful system.

I knit these socks top-down, in KnitPicks Bare Essentials that I dyed with food coloring. I knit them top-down because I did a picot hem, and didn't want to have to sew it down. Still did a short-row heel, though.

These socks actually are for me, once again it KnitPicks Bare essentials. I am so tickled by the stripes!

Yet another beginning, and an end too, I guess.

All the spinning I've done so far had been using the drop spindle and light brown Romney top wool I got for Christmas. Well apparently my spindle came with a little packet of colorful fiber and a cool pin, but my mom misplaced them and didn't discover them until a few days ago. I spun up the fiber immediately, of course, and I'm thrilled. It's only a tiny amount, and I'm itching for more. The end being the end of my being content with my plain brown Romney.

Being no longer interestd in my plain brown wool, and

Just Call Me 'Jenny'

First off, update on the Blankie of Wonder and Magic:
Yes, it is progressing quite nicely. I want this blankie to be at least big enough to cover a twin bed, and it's already wide enough for that. This is the first time I've measured the width of all the squares together and it's just a hair over 4 ft. I think I'll just add four or five more squares to this row, then start joining them with the next row(they're not attatched in this pic, just laid out in a line).

I got 2 skeins of KnitPicks Bare Essentials for a good bargain from a nice lady on Ravelry, and I dyed one of them with red food coloring last week.

It's a good thing I was aiming for pink, because that's all the red dye we had. I'm knitting it up into socks for Thing 1's birthday. They're top down, since I did a picot hem at the top and didn't want to have to sew it down.
It's very neat, and deceptively simple. I learned the technique from watching Knitty Gritty, and you can find it on their website (diynetwork.com/knittygritty).

The other skein is sitting on my worktable, waiting until I can get some blue food coloring. I'm going to do this one in blue and green stripes, with narrow undyed stripes between them.

So here comes Jenny(extra IQ points to whoever guesses the refference first): The week before last, I decided to try my hand at plying. I haven't done this before because I am dependent on my spindle, and only my spindle. Nothing else. No Lazy Kate, no nothing. So, I had to improvise...

Yes, I know, that's the most ghetto Lazy Kate I've ever seen, too. A cardboard box, 2 knitting needles, a drinking straw and the cardboard spool that a ball of crochet cotton come wound on. But it worked... barely.

Now, I know all you spinners are going to hate me for this, "beginner's luck," you'll say.
This is all I had left on one cough bobbin when I was done. Beginner's luck, that's it.
I am quite proud of my little skein, for all it's faults. It's much more even than any single I've spun yet.
I also tried 3-plying, by the Navajo method. I didn't need the Ghetto Lazy Kate for that, but I did have to wind the single onto my umbrella swift to hold it while winding the plied yarn back onto the spindle.
Not as even, but far more even than the single was.

Immortality-- sort of

An interesting thougt occured to me last night at around 12:20 am (having stayed up until midnight reading blogs) that concerned the sock blankie: Socks are not a permanent thing in any way. If you use them right, they wear out. But in a blankie, the memory of socks can be immortalized through their leftover yarn. Blankies don't usually wear out if you be nice do them. Cool, huh?

Episode 6: Return of the Knitter

I'm back from my fabulous Wyoming adventure! We did a lot of snowy stuff, ate a lot of good food, but I know what you're here for is the knitting, so I'll cut to the chase.
These are my first toe-up socks, and also my official Wyoming socks, since I bought the yarn in Wyoming, bought the needles in Wyoming, and knit almost all of them in Wyoming. The needles are DPNs in US sizes 1 and 0, and the yarn is Trekking XXL, color 100. I am in love, completely and utterly.

Since they were toe-up, I could make them as tall as I wanted without fear of running out of yarn. They're about 7 1/2" tall from the top of the heel, and I had a suprising amount left over(no pic here, go check out my Ravelry)

This is part of my Christmas present to myself, bought at the same adoreable yarn shop as the other color...
...and this is the rest of my present. From left to right: Clover Takumi bamboo needles, sizes 9, 11, and 13; Clover Takumi bamboo DPNs, size 1, set of 5; Lantern Moon Rosewood Sox Stix, size 0, set of 5.

I've never trusted tiny wood and bamboo needles, not believing that they would stand up to much pressure. But knew I was going to have to start a pair of socks in my luscuious new yarn, and I didn't have any of the right sizes with me(in Wyoming, I mean. They were at home). The store didn't carry any of the right sizes in metal, so I sucked it up and got some. Turns out that they're fine, and I'm in love.
This was part of my present from Mom, a very wise move on her part. I think my favorite is Mason-Dixon, but I love them all.
This is a to-be-felted bag that I took with me to knit on the trip. It's 95% done, and will stay that way for a bit because I need another ball of yarn.
This is a pair of socks I started last week, with the sacred bamboo needles and that grey yarn above.
They're inspired by the Yarn Harlot's rotating rib socks, but I've personalized them and now they're the Cyclone Socks.
Another thing my mom got me was a spindle kit from Hello Yarn, and I've been practicing. It's a simple top-whorl spindle and 8 oz. of Romney top wool. I couldn't get a pic of my first yarn up(check my Ravelry, it's there) but this is my second yarn. My first was expectedly uneven, but my main problem was that the twist was buliding up in the thin bits and leaving the thick bits all fluffy and unspun. I found in my second yarn that if I kept a smaller amount of fiber in my hand, I didn't get the big lumps so much.
I'm still majorly overtwisting, but I'm working on that as we speak.
Like my cotton pyramid? Not exactly a masterpiece, and Sugar n Cream doesn't hold up as well as stone, but... oh well. Pretty soon I'm going to start a set of handtowels for my family, in these colors. The photo's pretty accurate, and it goes with our bathrooms perfectly. I'll keep you posted.
One lonely ball of black cotton, intended for some wristbands. The design I had in mind didn't work out so well, but I'll think of something else.
Finished Blueregard socks, finally. They're been done for a while, but you know me and my fickle ways...