Post Nine Preparing for travel

After reading throught the next few steps on Eris I decided that this would not be a good pattern to travel with. Leaving on Monday for a week in Baltimore with Anna to get her settled at Johns Hopkins for her sophomore year I'll need a couple of projects, but not one that requires a 3 ring binder to hold the pattern.
So the projects will include- Mountain Colors Bearfoot socks for Jim will be finished by then so I'll start another pair of socks, always an easy traveller. Color choices are blue Regia stripes or Steinbach Wolle aktiv effect in burgundy, blude and green. The "accent color" is needed because Jim likes tall long socks and 2 balls of Regia won't make a pair.

Anna's lacy Interweave Knit-inspired one-button cardigan is nearing completion. The front band/shawl collar needs another 3 inches, then sew in the sleeves and sew on the button and it's done. I'll take that, finished or not.

And for me - I started the second Hoxbro shadow knit kimono last night, love the yarn, the colors, and the pattern. That should do it for travel.

Post Eight, the finished hat, new plans

Birthday weekend being over, it's back to work. Lots of projects to work on. Started Morgan's back raglan ziipper/placket sweater (Gems Topaz merino from Carolina Homespun). The biggest issue to going to be keeping white Frosty off my lap while knitting. Also need to plan Jim's orange and black Giant's pullover; using Jo Sharp worsted weight from Stitches West 2005. And I have to start the second kimono shadow knit so Morgaine of Carolina Homespun can use that as a sample alternating with the purple one. Anna is packing and she and Jim leave tomorrow for their road trip to Baltimore. I"ll have lots of time to knit while they are gone; maybe even get past the collar on Eris. Her hat is finished:

Birthday weekend being over, it's back to work. Lots of projects to work on. Started Morgan's back raglan ziipper/placket sweater (Gems Topaz merino from Carolina Homespun). The biggest issue to going to be keeping white Frosty off my lap while knitting. Also need to plan Jim's orange and black Giant's pullover; using Jo Sharp worsted weight from Stitches West 2005. And I have to start the second kimono shadow knit so Morgaine of Carolina Homespun can use that as a sample alternating with the purple one. Anna is packing and she and Jim leave tomorrow for their road trip to Baltimore. I"ll have lots of time to knit while they are gone; maybe even get past the collar on Eris. Her hat is finished:

Post Seven - Anna's zig zag sweater - picking up for the ribbing

This sweater is based on a pattern in Interweave Knits, spring 2005. I cast on with one strand of waste yarn and one strand of sweater yarn with the waste yarn on the left of my long tail cast on. This left a row of waste yarn bumps. I knit the body of the sweater and then picked up the bumps of the sweater yarn onto a circular needle a couple of sizes smaller than the rib needle. The waste yarn didn't unzip as in a traditional provisional cast on, but I ended up with the correct number of picked up stitches. Then I unraveled (tinked) the waste yarn and proceeded with the lacey rib. I plan to do a yarn over, K 2 tog at the beginning of each edge (as suggested by Joan Schrouder) to have a row of holes between the bottom rib and the front edge.

Scratch that YO K2 tog at the edges of the ribbing; the pick up ratio for the front bands isn't 1/2 but more like 5/7. So back to the k2 on the beginning of each row.



The picture to the left shows the cast on with waste yarn; the one below shows pulling out the waste yarn (using a conveniently handy cable needle) after the bottom row of the sweater is picked up.

Post Six - My Eris Sweater

Here is myEris sweater by The Girl From Auntie. The pattern, 40 pages, incudes both a cardigan and a pullover. I haven't decided which this will be - the pullover has very nice side shaping and a side vent but may be too warm. I'll have to decide when the collar is almost done. The pattern is very well written and very complicated with short row shaping, meandering cables, all at a tight gauge for the yarn, which is Jo Sharp silkroad tweed from elann.com. I started this the evening of August 16, finsihed chart A, and realized that it requires total concentration - no purring cat on the lap, no radio, no tv, no interruptions. So today, with the house to myself for a while, I got chart B done. More to come!

Post Five -Anna's hat, Morgan's socks, Eleanor's bed

This is Anna's knitted lace hat, from Meg Swansen's A Gathering of Lace. I used crochet cotton thread, size 10. Knitting it, while not a breeze, was nothing in comparison to getting it to be stiff enough to be a hat and not a veil. First I used laundry starch, as suggested. Then spray starch. Then laundry starch as undiluted as I could get it. Finally, after some advice from a friend at the Knitting Bridge, I ordered some gelatin from Judith's Millinery supplies, where I also got the hat form to block it. The gelatin made it plenty stiff but when it dried it came out, well, lumpy. So out came the iron and now it looks better. Some ribbons and maybe a bow and she's set for the rest of the summer.

These are Morgan's bicycle socks, knit from a kit by Lucy Neatby
( http://www.tradewindknits.com/). The multicolored background yarn is Koigu and the white bicycle, rider, mountains, and bicycle chain are Celestial
merino. As soon as they were finished Morgan switched from a bicycle to a motorcycle so they are now called motorcycle socks. They are longer than the pattern called for to fit to the top of his boots. The heel and foot are solid Koigu, for less bulk inside the boot.

And here is sweet Eleanor, sound asleep in her kitty bed. My first handspun yarn, thick around as my thumb, knit into a moebius cat bed using a pattern from Cat Bordhi's 2nd Treasury of Magical Knitting. Eleanor loves her bed, probably because it matches her color while Frosty won't go near it.

Post Four

This is a cashmere and silk fingering weight shawl/scarf knit in a simple feather and fan
pattern for my daughter Anna. I got the yarn on E-bay. It is really a bright red and not the magenta color it seems in the picture. I worked on it while on a trip to England and Scotland with my friend Sheila and the knit ware designer Jean Moss in October 2004.

This lacy piece (bellow) is the sample from a class with Joan Schrouder on Orenburg Shawls. The center lace patterns are just bits. The yarn is celestial merino from Lucy Neatby left over from knitting her bicycle socks.


The purple sampe on the upper right is from Interweave Knits, summer 2005, the one button sweater that I am knitting and reshaping and resizing using Sweater Wizard. The yarn is Cool Wool from Kaldescope Yarns in Vermont, from our trip last spring.

Post Three

On the right is my first knitted garment made from handspun yarn. It is Bluefaced Leiscester spun on my Lendrum wheel. The yarn came out slubby and bulky weight but I decided to use it anyway. There is a simple cable up each front, and was designed using Sweater Wizard. Soon I'll figure out how to delete photos that I don't want appear.
The sweater on the left is knit from Schaefer and is designed from the Wild Forks design from a magazine pattern, Interweave Knits I think. The tank that goes with it is still on the needles . My first recent attempt to knit something to fit me. The yarn pills like crazy, a function of it's soft hand and gentle nature, I guess.

Post Two

This is my Shadow knit Kimono jacket, knit from a kit by Vivian Hoxbro. Started in March and finished in July 2005. I knit it on size 3 needles, and had yarn left over from the kit. Still have to find a pin to hold it together properly. Also need to figure out how to align photos properly.

Post One

Just set this up; wondering if it will work as a blog for my knitting and musings. These are mittens I knit for Anna, during the winter of 2004-05 from yarn purchased at A Good Yarn in Baltimore.