I found my camera! It was in a box with my PS2.

This took me only two days! Well, technically 2½, but that’s still the fastest yet. Yay mittens!

Pink Mittens, started January 15th, 2007, finished January 17th, 2007
Pattern: generic mitten pattern
Yarn: Patons Decor in Pale Country Pink
Needles: 4.5mm dpns

Pattern Notes: These mittens are for the beau’s sister, as a thank you for all the delicious yarn his mom gave me. She couldn’t find any mittens anywhere to match her scarf, so I offered to knit her some and she had some yarn lying around that she gave me for that purpose. I didn’t like the yarn very much; it’s quite rough, and looked a bit shabby at first. They turned out totally cute, though! And they’ll still be comfortable, because I plan to line them with this adorable pink fleece I have. I cast on 32 stitches and knit 2 or 3 inches of ribbing, then kept going with stockinette until the thumb, knit 5 stitches with scrap yarn and then kept going. I did k2tog, ssk decreases on each side every other row for 4 rows, then decreased every row until I had 6 stitches left, then pulled the yarn through and snipped. The thumbs were done similarly, except I did the decreases with a slip 1, k2tog, psso. I was experimenting! I don’t think I like it that way, so if I have to lengthen the thumbs (or even if I don’t have to) I think I’m going to rip back and change to the normal k2tog every other stitch and then pull through.

Would I knit it again? Heck yes. I love knitting mittens. I think my dpns are going to get lots of exercise in the next few weeks! Only one small change from now on: I should get some 4mm or 3.75mm dpns for the ribbing, because it’s coming out a bit too wide. I accomodated by knitting the ribbing on the second mitten quite tightly, but it would be easier to just grab some thinner needles.

Read the rest »

My Dearies!

1. I have so much to show you, but
2. I have somehow misplaced my camera.
3. I finished a pair of mittens yesterday!
4. I started a pair of mittens yesterday!
5. I also finished a hat a few days ago but I didn’t have my camera then, either
6. I bought a sweater’s worth of Alpaca that I wish you could see all balled up into cute li’l balls
7. I was given a sweater’s worth of old wool that was sitting in an old Rubbermaid container in the beau’s parents’ basement
   • it’s from Simpson’s
   • the store, not the show
   • although it looks similar to Marge’s hair
   • more teal-y, maybe
8. I bought oranges and coffee filters, and I’m going to have the best breakfast ever!

The Knitting Machine is just one of artist Dave Cole‘s large scale projects that consist of ambitiously knitting unconventional materials. In this particular piece Cole uses two excavation tractors equipped with 20-foot knitting needles to assemble a giant American flag in time for the 4th of July (2005). This work was part of larger exhibition and artist residence held at Mass Moca, North Adams, Mass. Cole describes the work as “combining the feminized domestic American tradition of knitting with the grandiose gesture of construction”.

Yeah yeah, more gender-commentary stuff I know, but dudes, they’re 20-foot knitting needles! Powered by giant crane things! If men knitted more, I’m fairly sure they would make electric knitting needles, and they would be highly dangerous and cause all sorts of accidents but men would buy them anyway because it’s faster. There would be a special section for knitting power tools in Canadian Tire. (Or wherever you buy power tools in the states. Walmart? I assume Americans buy all their things at Walmart.)

BTW, the knitting needles weren’t the only things up there when it was actually knit. A quick look at this picture indicates they did it English style, with a man in a cherry picker throwing the yarn. Sorta.

Via Neatorama.

There’s a beautiful vintage pattern for a Norwegian Cap over at the Kitchener Bitch. I don’t know what use I’d find for it, but I’m so jealous of Liz’s new hat and I want to do some colour work. My cabled hat is almost done; I figured out how to work the cables so they didn’t tighten the hat too much, and after some more ripping and experimentation I’m on my way to the crown. Yay!

There’s also a delightfully cute pattern for Shark Mittens and Puppy Paws over at Morehouse Yarns.

I’m a big fan of Shimale; lots of my shirts are from there and I even wore a Shimale to prom. I thought it would be neat to make a Shimale scarf, so I turned their logo into a chart and I’m going to knit it into one of the ends. Here’s the chart:

PS: I wouldn’t recommend doing an image search. Just FYI.

…Think again.

Here’s a Flickr photoset of patterns from the seats of public transport vehicles.

I have to admit that I love staring at the patterns on bus seats. But even if you don’t, maybe a sock or two will come out of this inspiration!

There’s a great Tension Tutorial over at the purl bee. Lots of great pictures and hints as to why you might have certain problems with the fabric you’re knitting.

I’ve been having tension problems of late; I almost finished a hat for myself yesterday but discovered that, as I’d predicted, the cables tightened the body too much and I’d have to start over with a redesign. So I redesigned it and reknit it, and now it looks completely dorky so I’m going to have to rip again. I think the dorkiness is partly because of my tension; I was knitting it on 4mm needles but they really should have been 5mm. Same problem with the scarf for my dad. Ripping is all I’ve been doing these days!

(Found via CRAFT: magazine.)

I found most of these here and here.

Read the rest »

I’ve started knitting this hat (last mentioned here). It looks fantastic so far, even though it’s just ribbing and a little bit of the base of the K8P8. Photos to come; I’m knitting a little more and then heading out to a C-O-U-N-T-R-Y* bar.

*I spelled it out so the kids wouldn’t hear me swear. I do the same with P-E-N-I-S and A-C-R-Y-L-I-C.

This scarf is for my dad, who is a huge nerd so the pattern is cellular automata (y’know, computer stuff). I used the most popular and most intriguing rule set (Rule 30) which has the familiar triangles in it. Every stitch is based on the three stitches under, to the left, and to the right of it on the previous row. Rule 30 (where 0 is a white stitch and 1 is colour) is as follows:

Read the rest »