Saturday, October 01, 2005

It's a good day to knit

I love my LYS. I love getting out and being with people and not thinking once about fertility and pregnancy and miscarriage. Well, maybe once. My LYS had an all day knit. It was great. Knitters are nice people. I reconnected with a woman who a year ago helped me at the local Knitter's Guild when I was hopelessly trying to figure out my first knitting project of a shawl in cotton yarn. She showed me how to tink. It's been a valuable skill. She's currently working on a "plain brown sweater" for her husband out of yarn she spun and took the time to take me on a "tour" of her sweater. When I grow up I want to be able to knit sweaters like that. I want to know what I'm doing well enough to tweak here and tweak there and here's how to shape this shoulder, etc., etc. A smart thinking knitter vs. a pattern dependent knitter.

I also got to watch someone do seaming. Someone who knows HOW to do seaming. That was really helpful and I'm tempted to redo my Mariah sweater seams. Very tempted, especially since they look like crapola.

I found some lace yarn to go with my Handpainted lace yarn for the flower basket shawl. I'm working on reading colors better. Colors that work with each other. It's a bit of a challenge for me. But I have to say I'm pleased with what I picked - the 2 colors balance each other well. One gives a spark of color and the other grounds it nicely. Now I've just got to work on getting the right guage. It will be my first lace attempt.

I made my first pair of felted baby booties for my nephew Tyler. I've been a negligent auntie. Oh well. They look pretty cute and I'll post pics soon. The soles didn't felt up as much as I wanted them to in spite of god only knows how many cycles of agitation in the washer, boiling water, cold rinse, etc. But they're good enough. Except my seaming yarn shows and it's totally visible being dark yarn on a lighter color. Oh well again.

Other projects in the works - finishing my sweater sampler from the book Sweater Workshop, felting my guage swatch for the Fiber Arts felted slippers for my MIL (xmas), casting on for my socks on circular needles now that I've got a good guage, and finishing Ribby Cardi even though the pumpkin color is starting to really grate on my nerves and I'm questioning whether or not I'll be the least bit inclined to actually wear it (part of my color challenge).

I also need to decide what to do with Rosedale (have about 6 inches of a sleeve done) - not sure how much I like the asymetry of the intarsia pattern for the body, maybe I'll do it on both sides instead of just one to balance it out. Also one of the colors in the colorway is this super bright green that is like nails on a chalkboard but I adore all the other colors so I'm debating about going through all my skeins and cutting out the bright green. Just not sure if that will cause a yarn shortage or not. One of those yardage measuring things would sure come in handy. Of course there's always the old fashioned way!

Holiday projects include socks for my youngest sister, a felted hat for my other sister, and a felted bag for my mom. The LYS had a feather and fan pattern felted bag that looked really cool. One of the employees is just finishing up writing the pattern. I think I'll do that for mom but add a closure flap vs. the drawstring. Feather and fan will be little more interesting than a booga bag. Waiting on foot measurements from K (she's freaking big foot, and narrow as all get out). Then it's just a matter of picking out yarn and getting started. I'm hoping to avoid the holiday project last minute scramble.

I also want to knit a sweater for Dan. Which might be a tad bit ambitious given the sweaters I really want to knit for ME - I'm lusting after Eris in a big way. I think it would look luscious in Knit Picks Andean Silk in Cranberry. Yum! Plus there's still Rogue. Peacefleece is calling me for that one. I love that color. I'd like to give Ribby cardi another whirl with different colors. Maybe a nice classic navy. Can't go wrong with that for sure.

But back to the sweater for Dan :-). I'm thinking cables and seed stitch and taking the plunge to make it up on my own. My mentor at the LYS told me that when it comes to what men like, keep it simple. Make something fancy for myself, but nice and basic for the hubby. I think she's right. I picked up a skein of Peace Fleece at the LYS in this color to play with. The picture doesn't do it justice, but in real life it does lovely things to Dan's eyes! As soon as I finish my sweater sampler I'm going to start clarifying the creation.

So much to knit, so little yarn. Oh and here's a laugh. I was discussing knitting with a client who knits and is new to town. I asked her if she knew any of the local yarn stores. She didn't but said there's no way she needs anymore yarn "I already have an entire plastic storage bin filled with yarn!" I cracked up. Only one?! Pansy :-).

2 Comments:

Blogger Korin said...

I love love love Eris. :) Love it!!!

Monday, October 03, 2005  
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Saturday, October 22, 2005  

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