knitting in the dark

Today I had the morning to myself to spin.

I set up in my favorite corner of my boyfriend’s house and enjoyed the sunlight through the windows in this chilly part of the country and spun up half my braid of Into the Whirled’s Pluck.

My spinning wheel lives at BQ’s house because his house is much larger than my 235 square feet and it means I always have something to do while I’m there if he needs to do some work or cleaning or whatnot. I’m not quite sure yet how spinning factors into my “knit 2010 yards per month” goal… or if it does at all!

My last yarn purchase was on the 8th of November; I was in Los Angeles for work (I light the Grinch musical every year) and stopped into Unwind in Burbank for some Addi Turbos to work on my Henry Scarf for BQ. Two balls of Jade Sapphire Lacey Lamb jumped into my arms and would not let me leave the store without them!

But I resolved (well before this new year started) to not buy any more yarn until I’ve made a significant dent in my stash as I am planning on moving cross country to the Seattle area this summer and it would be great if I could move less unknit yarn!

One of the benefits of blogging daily this month is that I’ve been adding a lot of information to my stash and project pages on Ravelry. Soon I should be all caught up with stash entries and can then set a firm goal about exactly how much I’m hoping to get knit up in 2010!

My first thought was that I would join some other members of the Stash Knit Down group and try to knit 2010 yards each month of this year. Then I saw Eat.Sleep.Knit is having a “Yarn Marathon” and I thought that would be a great measure (their marathon is to purchase 26.2 miles, though, and mine would be to use up 26.2 miles!). There’s no way I can knit that much yarn in a year and there actually isn’t even that much yarn in my stash - so I thought perhaps I would do a half marathon or 13.1 miles of yarn - which, it turns out, is only 1064 yards short of the total of 2010 yards per month so that decided it for me! My goal is to knit 2010 yards per month in 2010 and not buy any new yarn or fiber until Rhinebeck in the middle of October!

(Also, I just told BQ that there is approximately 18.5 miles of unknit yarn stash - not to mention unspun fiber! - in my apartment and he blinked a few times and stared at me blankly before agreeing that there should me a moratorium on my purchasing yarn until I use a bunch up!)

Only nine months and one week left until Rhinebeck! And I have a lot of knitting and spinning to do before then…

My family is made up of knitters. My mother knits. Here she is working on something brown in her car:

And this is my mother’s mother knitting a sweater for my grandfather this past summer:

And my mother’s sister knits too, but I live on the opposite side of the country from all of them, so I don’t have a picture of her working on anything… though I know both she and my mother are each working on a Koigu Linen Stitch Scarf (ravelry link) as they received yarn for them for Christmas. So it should come as no surprise that I receive awesome fiber gifts anytime gift-giving occasions roll around, especially since I am a list-maker and hint profusely. For Christmas my aunt subscribed me to Interweave Knits Magazine for the year! And I received a Knit Kit from my grandmother, which I had to return because I like my system for carrying notions and can’t stand the idea of another piece of plastic in my tiny apartment. Actually, I exchanged it and ended up with a lovely navy blue skein of Cascade Heritage Sock yarn (and a ball of Cascade 220 Superwash for my mother to knit caps for the troops):

My grandmother also handed me two balls of cotton she intended to make dishcloths with and then decided against (the other is some Lion Brand Nature’s Choice Organic Cotton):

I’ve never knit with dishcloth cotton before, but I am excited to give it a try!

My mother gave me two bundles of fluff (that’s my boyfriend’s term for fiber since I can’t help but correct him when he calls it all “wool” no matter the content) that I picked out for myself at Rhinebeck this year - one braid from Into the Whirled called “inferno”:

and an 8oz. bag of Ashland Bay 70/30 Merino/Silk blend in “red”:

She also purchased me the lovely Twist Collective pattern for Kirigami and four balls each of grey and black Tahki Yarns Dove required to make it in my size:

And BQ purchased me a beautiful braid of BFL/Silk from The Thylacine’s etsy shop (she does some stunning work on non-white wools):

(To be fair, he also bankrolled all my fluff purchasing at Rhinebeck this year as an early Christmas gift, so maybe I will post those tomorrow!)

All of these gifts were especially exciting as I am not purchasing yarn or fiber this year (and already have not for two months) until Rhinebeck rolls around in October - it seems that I am well stocked though!

Many of the young women in my Sunday afternoon knitting group here in Brooklyn have worked for one or another of the New York City zoos at some point in their careers. In September, one of them brought in yarn spun from the wool of the Queens Zoo sheep - one of the directors there decided that, instead of throwing away what they sheared off their sheep, they should have it processed and knit up for charity projects. I volunteered to take two skeins home with me and knit it into child-sized socks for them to donate. And here’s what I ended up with:

I’m guessing it was about the same weight and yardage as Cascade 220 and I used all but a few yards of both skeins. I don’t know if this project is something they will continue in 2010 or future years, but if they do I hope I get to help again!

I woke up early and had a long travel day, but I wore my current favorite pair of socks and they make me smile every time!

yarn: Noro Kureyon Sock color S150
pattern: my standard top-down heel-flap (Ravelry project link)
needles: 2mm dpns
started: 4 September 2009
completed: 14 September 2009

This was my first time knitting with a Noro yarn and I was very prepared to hate it. But I don’t care what anyone else says - I LOVE the Kureyon Sock texture. I didn’t feel too strongly about it either way while knitting, but now that these have been worn and washed a few times I never want to take them off! They feel like good solid old-fashioned wool and I heart them. Yes, I had to pick some vegetable matter out while knitting. And yes, the yarn was thick or thin in places, but that is precisely what is charming about spun wool. (And I probably feel more strongly about the charm of that particular feature since learning to spin this year - but that’s a separate post for another time. or four.) And the colors are delicious - especially when striping from alternate ends of the skein… I always wanted to know what the next stripe was going to look like and because of that I finished these socks in just ten days!

I adore my fraternal socks. So much so that I’m knitting a pair for a friend out of the Noro Silk Garden Sock!

Okay, I have to make this quick because I’m supposed to be packing to return home to Brooklyn tomorrow…

I have recently been inspired to write posts after dinner, which is good but not so great because if the post idea requires a photograph of a new project or something I hadn’t thought to take a picture of before - I’m out of luck for that idea for the evening. I should really try to work a day ahead from now on.

Tonight I wanted to post about the scarf I made when I was studying in London in 2002 because that was my first project as a knitting adult and not just a child playing with my mother’s projects for a few hours before losing interest. The scarf is too short and too wide and far too itchy for me to actually wear, but I can’t bear to get rid of it so it lives here at my parents’ house in the Seattle area. Maybe after I get proper photographic documentation I could donate it…

Yesterday I wanted to post about the new yarn I received this holiday from my family.

The day before I wanted to post about my Demi sweater that I finally finished up Christmas weekend but haven’t remembered to have someone take pictures of me in it.

And then I don’t write the ideas down and forget to take pictures the next day while it’s light out. And tomorrow won’t be any better because I will be on an airplane all day. But I will dig through my photo backlog tomorrow to find something pretty to show you.

Thanks for listening!

Just over a year ago I submitted a pair of socks to a sock design competition. I didn’t win, but I think the socks are pretty nice and definitely more attractive than the sponsor’s photo of them! Yuck! Who would vote for those? So I am thinking about writing up the pattern myself since I took careful notes for the contest - what do you think?

pattern: potentially forthcoming “Portrait Socks”
yarn: Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Moondance
needles: 2mm dpns
completed: 23 December 2008

I’ve given them a temporary name: “Portrait Socks” since they show off the yarn really well with the slipped stitches to help avoid any potential pooling and the sections of ribbing, stockinette, and reverse stockinette show off the yarn in different ways. And a rough draft of the pattern has been written out. Now all I have to do is find some test knitters!

Bonus: Mountain Colors sent me a tote bag and another skein of Bearfoot yarn for participating in the contest! Yay!

I know I said in my last post that I shouldn’t be knitting for BQ since he hasn’t worn the socks I made him ten months ago, but he special requested either a scarf in green or charcoal or argyle socks with his initials. Adding initials inside the diamonds of the argyle pattern would require big diamonds which would require intarsia, which I don’t particularly like.

So I made him a Henry Scarf for his birthday. This is the second scarf I’ve knit from this pattern - and I will not be doing another any time soon if I can help it! I timed myself doing this one and each row takes me between 14.5 and 16 minutes to complete; multiply that by 126 rows in this instance and you get 1827-2016 minutes or 30.45-33.6 hours just to knit the darn thing! And that doesn’t include weaving in the ends or blocking.

This was his present for his birthday the first week of December. I’ve been visiting my parents in the Seattle area since then so I haven’t seen him wear it, but he said he wore it yesterday when it was 17 degrees in New York and that it was nice and warm.

pattern: Henry Scarf from Fall 2007 Knitty (ravelry project link)
yarn: 6x Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Baby in “340039″ Forest Green
needle: 3.25mm
started: 23 November 2009
completed: 14 December 2009
mods: I did five 24-row pattern repeats across 488 stitches, which is more than recommended, but I wanted to make sure the scarf was going to be long enough since the last Henry I knit was a couple inches short of the desired length and BQ is taller than six feet.
dimensions: 70″ x 7.5″ before washing; I expect some shortening after a wash as my swatch suggests it will shrink up by about 8″

Every year I knit my father socks for Christmas: 2006, 2007, 2008’s pairs. This year they were even completed before the big day and he was able to open a pair instead of a project still on the needles!

(modeled by my lovely mother)

pattern: my standard top-down sock with textured stitch pattern
yarn: leftovers from other sock projects, nothing fancy
needles: 2mm steel dpns

My mother and I think they might be a bit short for him (by maybe 1/4-1/2″), but he claims they fit well so I’m going to leave them alone unless he complains at a later date.

Come to think of it: I made a pair just like this in a different color for my boyfriend for Valentine’s Day 2009 and never blogged about them. Let’s see if I can find a picture… yup, sure enough, here they are:

(they’re a little big on me!)

yarn: Cascade Heritage, which I LOVE

My boyfriend (BQ)’s father wore red socks every Saturday when BQ was little. Apparently he wore dress socks with his office clothes all week and wanted to let loose on the weekend! And BQ’s mother used to knit his father socks! I thought it would be a sweet Valentine’s gift for him, perhaps compounded by the fact that both of his parents have been dead for years. But I haven’t seen him wear these yet (ten months later!) so I guess I shouldn’t be knitting anything else for him…

It is happening… I have hit that time in life where my friends are having their first babies. Fortunately, I am only close enough to one of the couples to warrant knitting something for their little bundle of joy (otherwise I’d be buried in baby knitting!). My mother made someone a Dale of Norway Riller cardigan a little less than a year ago - and I figured I would just use the same pattern for my friends Ryan and Megan instead of finding another baby sweater pattern. And of course I wanted to use yarn out of my stash so I modified the sweater to use aran-weight Rowan All-Seasons Cotton instead of the suggested fingering-weight Dale Baby Ull.

I wouldn’t usually choose such a traditional pastel color scheme - I love strong colors on little ones - but I already owned the yarn and they didn’t know if it would a boy or a girl. I figured I’d choose buttons after the baby was born to personalize it.

They had their little boy last Thursday and I went shopping for buttons yesterday and nothing really popped out at me so I bought supplies at Fiber Notion in Park Slope to make my own fabric-covered buttons and embroidered the baby’s initials and a little sailboat on them. My embroidery skills could use some (okay, a LOT) of practice, but I’m pretty happy with the way they came out; the kit made it really easy, but I don’t know how well they will hold up. Hopefully long enough for him to outgrow the sweater!

One of the most exciting aspects (for me, anyway) is that my total cost for this project was only $3, excluding shipping it to them.

pattern: Riller (ravelry project page)
mods: less stitches to use thicker yarn and knit seamlessly in the round bottom-up and then down the sleeves

In other knitting news, my friend Rachel who has been living in Australia for the past ten months sent me some tweedy wool yarn from New Zealand for my birthday earlier this month!

I think it might just be enough for a wooly vest… the tweedy grey is so great. Every gift she’s sent me from down under has been lovely - I received a super cute pencil case from kikki.K for Christmas that I’ve been using to hold needles and swatches and knitting tools…

And since it is Sunday afternoon, I am off to my newly formed knitting group. Have a great day!