I'm all about finishing stuff up

Posted on January 17, 2010 by Tigs

This weekend I finished the latest pair of S.M.I.L.E. socks, with a revision to my usual pattern.

Madelinetosh Hippity Hop S.M.I.L.E. socks

I finished up my brilliant Noro Silk Garden scarf which I love love love.  Seen here worn by me as I finally got a picture taken with my own personal knitting rock star in the latest of many fan girl moments.  I’ve been trying to take this  picture for quite some time now but camera issues kept thwarting my efforts.

The brilliant M'Lou Baber (right) & Me (left)

As soon as I finish writing this I’m off to finish up my Shipwreck Shawl.  It’s been languishing next to my chair and taunting me since the end of last year.  I tried a few bind off techniques that I wasn’t sure about and those first twenty stitches may or may not need to be fixed.  The scary part is I’m not sure if I can do it as it sits or if I need to unknit that last row of 1000+ stitches to fix it.

Back to the socks.  The first pair of socks I made for this fellow (who is not my fellow) he wore to death.  In under 2 weeks.  Clearly some heel reinforcing is in order.  I must admit a little part of me died when I heard that he had word through them but then I stopped to realize that he literally loved those socks to their untimely death.  It’s unknown at this point if I’ll be able to repair them.  If I can I’ll post about it.  For the first time I used a reinforcing thread on the heel and then after it was all knitted up I went back and reinforced the heel more by running yarn through the slipped stitches on the inside as recommended by this knitty.com article.

Inside the heel

Outside sock heel detail

My Great American Afghan has been mocking me.  I might have to pick it up and work on it.  More important than that is the Doctor Who scarf for my sister, aka The Scarf of Doom.  I’m 41% finished with it, having worked on it today while watching my beloved Dallas Cowboys lose to the Vikings.  I’m not sure how I’m going to make it until the next season starts.  Having the Cowboys to watch almost every week has certainly been a highlight.  I can see how guys get sucked into watching other sports.  I will clearly state that this will not happen to me.  I’ll use the off season time to watch oodles of movies as I knit and I’ll just work the scarf of doom into that time instead of football watching time.  Naturally I’ll be watching the Super Bowl but football in general just doesn’t hold the same appeal to me without the Cowboys on the field.  GO COWBOYS!!

I took Mr. Ben to knitting yesterday and closed the crotch seam after  removing some of the stuffing so he isn’t so unbending.  I also got the muzzle sewn on.  This poor project lost it’s luster for me when I realized that it was a totally impractical gift for my boys AND it had gotten to the point where I just needed to seam it.  I’ll hopefully finish him up next weekend.  He is much more adorable with his bowtie on I admit.  And I need to find some eyes.

A quick check of Ravelry says I have only 6 projects on the needles (I’m counting all the blocks for the afghan as one).  I would really love to get those knitted up so I can move on to new projects.  It’s doable but I need to buckle down.  First though, a run to WalMart for something for this cough.  I think I’ve come down with bronchitis so its water water and more water with me & I’m finally going to break down and spend the $10 on Mucinex.  Then home to tackle the Shipwreck Shawl.  I’ll decide if I work on socks, a cardigan that I haven’t really talked about yet or those afghan blocks.  Something tells me the blocks are going to lose.  I have tomorrow off from school but I have the urinary system to tackle tomorrow instead of spending a lovely evening knitting.

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It's a scarf

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Tigs

I’ve been a long time fan of this Noro striped scarf.  I saw it first on Jared Flood’s blog and I knew one day I’d knit it.

That day finally came on New Year’s Eve this past year.  I had taken another scarf that I’ve been wanting to knit but about 4 rows in I realized that this is not a knit and chat scarf.  Luckily for me I had a store credit so I splurged on some lovely Silk Garden and started the scarf.

The next day I knew that the 39 stitches I had cast on was too many.  I didn’t want a scarf that wide and it was clearly going to be too short.  So I cut back, to 21 stitches.  And I knit, and knit, and knit.

Today I got to the end of the skein and realized that the skinny scarf I thought I could live with was far too long.  So I ripped it out and I’ve started again.  This time with 29 stitches.

Luckily this scarf is fun to knit and the color changes back and forth every 2 rows make it not nearly as tedious as you would expect a k1p1 scarf to be.

Noro Scarf...take 3

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Starting yet another sock

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Tigs

This one is a commission sock.  I’m rather happy about this one because I haven’t had a S.M.I.L.E. sock to carry around for a while.  Hubby’s socks were S.M.I.L.E. socks and so I always had a bit of knitting on me.  I seriously cannot even count the number of times I decided not to take myself to a movie in the past several months because I didn’t have a sock in the right place to knit or the sock that I did have was patterned on the top.

I’ll be doing these two at a time because that’s how I roll.  I’ve found that for me, starting one toe and then starting the other toe on a separate needle and then moving it to the first needle take less brain power.  I can do it the other way but it’s quicker for me to do them separate and then combine.

Madelinetosh Sock in Hippity Hop

Madelinetosh Sock in Hippity Hop

I’m going to be working hard and heavy on these over the weekend as the recipient is in dire need  of this pair, having only a single pair of hand knit socks to get him through just isn’t doing the trick.  I’m starting to think that it may be cruel and unusual punishment to give a person just one pair of hand knit socks at first.  Of course, I always like to tweak the fit after that first pair.  There’s nothing like getting it just right.

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The cure for the common cold, knit a pair of socks

Posted on January 6, 2010 by Tigs

Of course in my world, knitting a pair of socks is the cure for almost anything.  I’ve got several pairs of socks that need to be knitted.  Okay, that’s an understatement.  Let me try that another way.

I have several pairs of socks that I need to get knitted soon.  A simple S.M.I.L.E. commission pair, another pair for me and a few for my generous friend Deb who gave me the most amazing piece of cross stitch for my bedroom.   I could try to shoot a picture of that but I’m waiting until it’s framed.  Hm…a before and after might be interesting though.  I’ll ponder that.

I knitted a whole 2 rows on my current pair of socks today.  Turns out I managed to grow a bone spur at the site of my last tooth extraction so I had that removed today.  The combination of that and this cold that has hit from no where have sapped my energy.

The pair I’m working on for me right now is out of Colinette Jitterbug in October Afternoon.  I’m currently knitting them up in Dragon Breath but they seem a bit large.  I’ve checked my gauge several times and it’s spot on.  I tried them on earlier but I didn’t have enough knitted to tell so I’ll knit on and try them on again.  Just one of the benefits of knitting a sock toe up.

First half of the first repeat

First half of the first repeat

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Not much knitting

Posted on January 6, 2010 by Tigs

I’ve been fighting with aplus.net trying to get my gallery up and running. After a week and a half of customer no service, I gave up and installed it myself.

Between that and school, not much knitting has happened. But now that’s fixed and the test I was studying for is also behind me so there will be knitting. And pictures. I swear!

For now, I leave you with a picture of Shalia the Wonder Puppy. Newly taken this week and now located at my very empty (for now) gallery. She needs a hair cut but it’s winter here in Idaho so that’s not happening for a while.

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Pictures…no…not actually

Posted on December 30, 2009 by Tigs

Never got around to those pictures. My bad. I did manage to get the last of my dental work done today if that counts for anything.

I’m also not going to bed tonight until I finish casting off my Wool Crepe Shawl. It’s almost done and it only took me 2 years. Insane. I really need to stop doing that sort of thing. The shawl would be done right now but I was determined to use every last bit of that yarn and as such I knitted one row too many. I was literally 40 stitches short of having enough yarn to cast off. I’m not even going to count how many stitches it was as I think that might make me cry. I do know that one row of plain old knit stitches took just shy of 10 yards of yarn. I had guessed that 20 yards would be enough to cast off. I was wrong. Not by much but by enough.

The idea struck me today that instead of switching to a larger needle to cast off for this shawl I should use the amazing and brilliant JSSBO. I was right. It is a lovely cast off and gave a wonderfully stretchy (no, really?) edge to the shawl that I really liked. It was so much better than the bind off I did on my alpaca shawl. It’s a good thing I’m reknitting that one day, now I know what to do when it’s done….again.

I’m not looking forward to blocking this shawl. Mostly because I haven’t done much serious blocking. And I need to buy more pins. Luckily tomorrow I’m hitting Hancock’s to get some fabric to sew myself a couple of pairs of scrub pants so I can pick up some pins there.

Tomorrow night is the knitting party at Ewephoria. Knitting in the new year with my knitting peeps. What more could a girl ask for. Well, I could ask for many things but I’ll be happy with this.

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Today…socks

Posted on December 30, 2009 by Tigs

Ok, I admit it, I have a sock knitting problem. The problem being that the universe seems to want me to do things other than knit and wear socks.

Tonight I’m working on finishing up a pair I knit before. The yarn? Tofutsies. I hate it. I don’t like the yarn at all. Had I not been in a sock club I wouldn’t have bought the second and third balls. However, a comittment is a comittment. The yarn has serious lack of memory issues. Within a couple of hours it is stretched out of shape that will only be fixed by washing them. They are not at all warm and the yarn is just thin for my taste. Sorry SWTC. I guess they can’t all be a win.

On the other hand, Diane knit a tshirt out of two strands held together that is fabulous. Maybe it’s just crappy sock yarn.

But I digress. As usual. I had knit up my socks 2 years or so ago and the second time I wore them the toe mysteriously blew apart. I couldn’t figure out what the heck happened. In a fit of rage and stupidity I threw the sock out and planned to knit another. The smart thing would have been to pick up stitches and reknit the toe but I don’t always do the smart thing.

So that single sock sat in my laundry cupboard and I kept saying “Someday.”

I decided that over Christmas break would be that someday and I’ll be danged if I haven’t almost managed it. I’m trying to get my energy bill lower and wearing wool socks is step one. Once I have these finished I’ll have 9 pairs of socks. Of course one of those I don’t really care for because the wool is scratchy and three of them are knit from this not warm yarn so I really only have 6 pairs. Still. There’s nothing like the love you feel when you put on a pair of hand knit wool socks.

Pictures tomorrow once they are done and there’s sunlight.

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I just don't blog enough, this gets long

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Tigs

Life keeps getting in the way of my blogging.  Ok, no really, it’s still the picture thing.  However, I keep trying.

It’s been a big year of changes in my life.  Hubby and I are living in separate states and leading separate lives.  This is okay and a mostly good thing.  It’s never easy to end a relationship but I think we’ve done pretty good.  We aren’t as good of friends as I would have liked but we certainly aren’t enemies.  He’s a very good guy and I want only the best for him, we just weren’t completely right for each other and in the end, that’s okay.

I’m going to school now which is severly cutting into my knitting time.  I’ve made up for that over the Christmas break though.  I knitted Jared Flood’s amazing and beautiful Hemlock Ring blanket.  I used Cascade Eco+ in a lovely shade of red named Valentine which does not remind me of a Valentine at all.  I’m having a few  issues blocking that sucker though.  You really do need two or more people to block it.

Then I knitted myself a pair of socks.  The wool was  dyed by the amazing local dyer Pamela Beitia and purchased from my favorite LYS, Ewephoria.  I knit it up using the Express Lane pattern that you can download for free here.

Express Lane Detail

Express Lane

After that I started on yet another pair of socks for Soozy.  Deb found a hidden gem for me at Ewephoria that had somehow escaped my notice.  Oddly enough, it was a book I had just found out was published a couple of days before.  I’m way out of the loop since it’s been on the market for a while now.  I’ve been a fan of Wendy Johnson for a while now so I was really excited to hear she had a sock book out and I was very happy with the look of the book and the patterns found in Socks from the Toe Up.  Evidently I’m not too far behind, it came out in April of 2009.  In looking for the link though I see she has another book coming out in March 2010 Toe Up Socks for Everybody.  I’ll have to keep my eye out for that one.

Now I’ve always been a top down girl.  I’ve done a few toe up socks but I’ve always preferred top down.  Recently though, I needed to use up every last bit of yarn for a pair and as any sock knitter worth their salt knows, the way to do that is toe up.  I discovered quite by accident that I could do a gauge swatch while I was knitting the toe (a tip I read a couple weeks after discovering it for myself) and that won my heart over a little more.

However, it was after listening to Episode 88 of Cast On when the amazing Ms. Brenda Dayne shared a new cast on that was featured in knitty.com that toe up socks won me over.  It’s so simple and so amazing and so…just wow.  I found this video by Cat Bordhi explaining it.

I was already a fan of Judy’s Magic Cast On from Cat’s previous book but once again, Ms Bordhi helped cement the cast on in my mind with a video.  Be prepared for a few giggles on this one.

The only thing left…the heel.  My first heel was Priscilla Gibson-Robert’s short row heel.  I wanted to love that heel.  I really did.  The wraps were forever making me pull out my hair.  Problem solved.  Enter the Lifestyle Toe Up sock short row heel.  No wraps.  I’m still working out exactly how to do the M1 in a way that I like but so far, I’m happy.

Anyway, back to that sock for Soozy.  It was knit out of Madelinetosh Sock in Black Currant.  This sock yarn is such a dark purple that it’s nearly black.  As such, my color is completely off.  What’s new?

Hearts & Flowers

Hearts & Flowers side detail

Hearts & Flowers Motif Detail

Ok.  That’s enough for today.

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Thursday is sock day

Posted on November 12, 2009 by Tigs

It’s Thursday and in my house these days means that it’s time to make sure I have a sock for knitting tonight at Knit Nite.

Currently the only socks on the needles are some S.M.I.L.E. socks that were for the boy but now that he’s gone are for me. Heh. Those are my carry around in my purse socks though so it’s time to start a new pair.

After the last pair I knitted I decided that it was time to knit a pair for me as I only have 6 pairs of socks. Now I could work on the Tofutsie’s sock that got shredded and I need to knit another one but … eh. The yarn is small and I just got done with some small small yarn. Instead I decided that I’d work on the sock yarn dyed by my local Fiber Floozy. It’s light rust, dark apple green, lavender, peach and pink. Trust me, it looks just like me.

I did have a pattern picked out but when I went to check out the base yarn to see what gauge it was knitting up Monkey socks were popping out at me everywhere. I knitted this pattern once and loved it. As a result just about everyone in my local group who knits socks has knit this pattern. But the socks I knit weren’t for me and it’s high time I had some Monkey’s of my own.

Here’s how they turned out last time…

monkey1

How could I not want a pair of my own?? I’m off to swatch!

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Some breathing room

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Tigs

Project Finish These UFOs is coming along nicely.  Partially because I’ve admitted defeat.  I was knitting Mr Ben for my nephews for Christmas.  Well, actually 2 Mr Bens.  Not long after I started the project there was a little voice inside my head that said “Tigs, this isn’t right.”  Naturally I ignored that voice.

I ignored it when it pointed out that these toys were not washable.  I ignored it when it pointed out that the wool was very very fine and I ignored it when I saw how big the monkey would turn out.

Finally, when I was stuffing Mr Ben #1 last week I could ignore it no more.  One snag and Mr Ben would be Mr Shred.  This was simply not a toy for a little guy.  Last night, I finally admitted it to myself and in doing so I also admitted that I had committed the error that so many other knitters I know are guilty of.  Not every gift must be knitted.  So the boys will get something not knitted from me this year.  Maybe, when they are older and have requests I will knit for them but this year’s gift just wasn’t meant to be.

I’ll still finish Mr Ben and he’ll find a good home some day.  The yarn for Mr Ben #2 will find another purpose and yet another project will be cleared off my list.

This takes me down to the Shipwreck Shawl, the faroese shawl, the art deco tam and my KAL sweater.  Now I can attack that pile of sock yarn for Soozy, who, in a very strange coincidence, sent me a message this morning asking for more socks.

Posted in adult sized sweaters, knitting for me, project planning, shawl, socks | Leave a comment