Mandi Knits   » Knitting, spinning, crafts, and being a geek.

One: Twist Collective is up and running today.  Go look. Now.  Seriously.  Spectacular sock patterns and sweaters - WOW.  I’m loving the Lily sweater and I can’t decide whether to start the Oolong socks or the Empoisonnée socks first.

Two: The 2nd anniversary kits are up for sale at The Loopy Ewe.  I placed my order this morning.  A TLE coffee mug?!  TOO CUTE!

Three: Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to my Secret Pal partner.  I’ll be e-mailing you later to thank you personally, and I’m sorry I haven’t written you sooner (life has been crazy).  Just look at this…

Go see the Flickr page for the image to see labels on exactly what each item is.  So many lovely scents… my favorite, lavender, along with some berry and mango scented items thrown in for variety.  Yum!  AND a fantastic Envirosax bag (::squee::) and as always, a wonderful personal note.  Seriously, ya’ll… I have the best secret pal ever.

I know, I know.  I’m supposed to be finishing projects, not starting new ones.  But here’s just a little peek at something I’m experimenting with…

As promised, here’s an updated picture of my progress on the St. Louis socks.  I’m so loving the Socks that Rock Lightweight yarn!

Pattern: St. Louis Socks by Wendy Johnson
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight in “Pondscum”

In case you’re wondering, my “On the Needles” list (in the sidebar) grew today because I decided to force myself to gather up all my unfinished projects to start working through them.  I like having several projects going at once, but right now I have so many that it’s just ridiculous.  It’s overloading my mental-RAM.  Hopefully I can finish a few of the UFOs and then I can start my Christmas-knitting.

Last night I finished up my drop-stitch scarf, which was my oldest UFO (cast on back in January).  I just need to weave in the ends and wash/block it and it will be totally done.  (I’ll post pics soon.)  Tonight I think I’m going to tackle my Bombshell sweater and/or my Lunchtime @ Work socks, which are all but finished.  If I get those two things done, I’ll feel much better.  (*Ahem* Well, those and Nick’s socks, which he’s been buggin’ me about for quite some time…)

OH!  Check out my new Fiberspheres!  Nifty, eh?  These have become kind of a running joke at my LYS — “pink balls”! — but seriously, they’re a great tool.

I’m not sure if they show this on the website, but if you get two of them, you can either use them individually or hook them together, which is great for knitting socks two-at-a-time or for knitting projects where you’re holding two yarns together.

Finally, I’ll leave you today with an updated picture of my yarn and fiber/roving stash, which I recently reorganized.  If you’re especially curious, I labeled what everything is on the photo’s Flickr page.

I finished my lovely hemp capelet.  I washed and blocked it, wove in the ends, and sewed on the buttons.  I put it on.  It fell off my shoulders.

I was so bummed.

My first thought was to move the buttons inward away from the edge to sort of “suck up” the extra inch or two that needed adjusted.  But I was too frustrated to deal with it immediately.

So I took it to the knit shop when I went in to teach a couple classes on Saturday.  Sharon suggested a crochet edge for the neckline, and was even kind enough to do it for me.  Ya know what?  It did the trick!  Now it fits perfectly!  It looks great and feels great.

Right now it’s on display at the shop, so if you want to check it out in person, that’s where you’ll find it.  Feel free to try it on, and be sure to grab a copy of the pattern and some of the beautiful allHempLUX6 to knit one up for yourself!

Tonight I’ll be at the knit shop again (it’s my home away from home, seriously) to start on the Firefly Mobius.

The pattern was designed by Sharon Shoji and was in the Fall ‘07 issue of Knitscene.  (You can purchase the back-issue here or the individual pattern here.)  We’re doing this as a knitalong rather than a structured class.  (Thanks to Becky who stumbled upon this pattern and got us all interested in knitting it!!)

Also on my needles: St. Louis socks in Socks that Rock Lightweight, in the “Pond Scum” colorway.  I now know why people love STR so much.  Mmmm.  Can’t wait to place another order from Blue Moon.  (*ahem* Not that I don’t have enough sock yarn or anything…)  I started turning the heel on the first sock at lunchtime today.  I’ll try to get a picture to post in my next entry!

Before I left to work yesterday morning, I was looking for a project to bring with me to work on during lunchtime.  I nearly always work on socks, but today I was in the mood for something different.

So I dug all the way to the bottom of my knitting bag, and crammed in there was my Gust Scarf.  The poor thing has been hibernating in the bottom of my knitting back since back in April when I cast it on at a class that Julie taught.

I was relieved to find that the yarn wasn’t broken off or tangled up.  I expected it would have been, because it’s a delicate cashmere and silk blend: Filatura Di Crosa Superior.  Working with it, it almost feels like it is going to break apart in your fingers.  (In reality, though, it’s much stronger than it seems.)

I’d put this scarf aside because at the time, it felt too difficult.  I could only work on it in absolute silence, else risk getting my YOs and K2Togs all messed up.  But working on it this afternoon, I discovered how far I’ve come along as a knitter.  Suddenly it wasn’t difficult anymore.  I made it through almost one entire chart repeat in a little over a half hour.  While that’s still slow by some standards, it was pretty fast for me.

I think that knitting lace on socks has helped me progress quite a lot.  Being a bit thicker and less fuzzy, lace with sock yarns just wasn’t as intimidating as this scarf initially was.  Now that I’ve worked my way through some lace with fingering weight yarns, I feel much more able to tackle this.  Now I can’t wait to finish it!  I wish you all could feel it… it’s so yummy.

I also had the opportunity to pick up some really fun new yarn at the knit shop this weekend.  They’d recently gotten an order from Hemp for Knitting.  The allhemp6LUX caught my eye, as did all the lovely patterns.  I wound up with 4 skeins of the allhemp6LUX in the veridian colorway along with this pattern.

I started knitting it on Saturday afternoon and I cast off late Monday night.  It was a super quick knit!  I washed it Tuesday night and it’s was still a bit damp last night, so I left it to dry.  It should be dry enough tonight so I can weave in my ends and sew on the buttons, and it will be ready!

I’ll let you know how it turns out.  I’m really anxious to see how the hemp feels after washing, and I can’t wait to see how it looks on!

This sock has been testing my intelligence.  Guess what?  The sock won.

In fact, the sock in the photo is no longer a sock at all.  It’s a mass of yarn waiting to be re-wound into a center-pull ball.

It started yesterday morning when I decided that I needed a new sock project to start at work during lunchtime.  I was already sort of running late, so I ran into my craft room and grabbed two skeins of Claudia Handpainted Yarn in “Peppermint Mocha”, which had already been wound, and I quickly flipped through my WendyKnits patterns, deciding on Loopy Laces.  I pulled the pattern out of the protective cover and photocopied the first page (front and back) with our all-in-one printer, then slipped the original pattern back in the sleeve and replaced it in my pattern binder.  I don’t like carrying the original patterns with me because (1) they get torn and crumpled in my bag, and (2) I like to scribble all over them as I’m knitting.  I only copied the first page because I figured I wouldn’t get much past knitting the toe during lunchtime, and I was already running late, so I could photo copy the rest later as I needed it.

So yesterday I happily knit the toe and started into the chart.  At the bottom of the last page I’d copied, it said “Begin knitting chart pattern.”  Okey dokey.  I did that.  Well I got three repeats into the chart and decided I better go look at the rest of the pattern to see how soon I should start doing the heel.  I went and got the pattern out and read the next page.

The directions at the top of the next page say to work row 1 of the chart 4 times across needle 1, and then do needle 2, etc.  Well for some reason (I blame it on the fact that it was late and I was tired), I took that to mean that I should have repeated each row of the chart four times before going to the next row.  In other words, in rounds 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the whole sock, I would be doing row 1 of the chart.  Then I’d move on to chart row 2 for rounds 4, 5, 6, and 7.

WHY I thought that… I don’t know.  It doesn’t even remotely make sense.  Clearly what Wendy meant was that as I worked across the needle, I’d need to repeat the 8-stitch pattern 4 times.  Not four rounds.  Duh!  Unfortunately that didn’t dawn on me last night, so I decided to just rip back the entire sock.  I tore it all out, hand-wound it, and set it aside to rewind later.  I grabbed the second skein and started over.

Today during my lunch hour at work, I got to where I was ready to begin the chart again, and decided to re-read those directions one more time, just to be sure.

Man, do I feel stupid.  I ripped back three and a half pattern repeats and the entire toe for no reason.

–

Here are the questions for week five of Secret Pal 12:

1) Where is your favorite place to go for vacation/holiday?
Out of all the places I’ve visited, Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia is by far my favorite.  I’ve been there twice and would love to go back again.  Secondarily, I’d have to say Ontario, Canada — I’ve been to Toronto twice, and the Niagara Falls area more times than I can count, and I loved both.

2) Where is one place you’d like to go?
I’m not much of a traveler.  I’m quite a homebody, actually.  I would like to go to Germany someday, if I can get over my discomfort of flying over the Atlantic Ocean.

After a very slow start, I’m finally making progress for the Summer of Socks ‘08 KAL.

I finished my Nanner Socks yesterday.

Summer of Socks ‘08 - Sock # 1
Pattern: Nanner Socks by Wendy Johnson (of Wendy Knits)
Yarn: ShibuiKnits Sock in “Jonquil”
Needles: two US size 1 circulars

I’ve discovered (*gasp*) that I’m really enjoying knitting toe-up socks.  I’ve always preferred cuff-down, till this pair.  What made the difference?  Judy’s Magic Cast-On.

In the past when I’ve done toe-up socks, I’ve always done the figure-8 cast on, and my stitches were so tight that I could barely knit them, and usually they’d start falling off the needles while I was attempting to knit that first row.  Judy’s Magic Cast-On made all the difference.  It’s just so darn clever!  And easy!  (Two of my favorite things.)

I decided to stick with toe-up for a while and do another of Wendy’s patterns.  I actually have a rather large stash of her patterns because I tend to impulse-buy them from The Loopy Ewe.  (Hehe.)

So this morning as I was getting ready for work, I flipped through my 3-ring binder of sock patterns, and I picked the Loopy Laces pattern to knit.  I cast on for it during my lunch hour, using two size 1 circulars and Claudia Handpaints yarn in “Peppermint Mocha”…

Happy Independence Day!  I hope you all had a lovely, relaxing holiday.

I had a very quiet day.  My husband worked today, so it was just me and the fuzz-butts hanging out around the houe.  Spent the morning and early afternoon knitting and watching trashy TV.

I finished my first Nanner Sock!  I love it.  I cast on the second one tonight.

I’m really, really itching to cast on a baby sweater though.  I bought this yarn a week or two back at my LYS and it just does not want to live in my stash — it wants to be on the needles now.  It comes with two baby sweater patterns, a pullover and a cardigan, and duckie buttons.  Seriously.  Duckie buttons.  Now you see why I want to knit with it RIGHT NOW.  I’m trying to force myself to finish the second Nanner sock before I start on this though.

Also, I wanted to point out Zero’s Etsy shop.  It was mentioned on the latest episode of Lime & Violet, and when I heard them mention freshwater pearls, I went there to browse.  OH MY GOSH, ya’ll.  If you love freshwater pearls like I do, you need to go check these out.  They’re beautiful.  I ordered two sets.  I also love her shop because she will switch out the size of the ring on the marker for you at no additional cost.  You can get them to fit up to US size 2, 6, 9, or 13 needles.

Anyway, hope you all have a relaxing holiday weekend with lots of picnics and free time to knit!