Here’s the neckwarmer, waiting for a button. I managed to sew the button on just as I was leaving my parents’ place and didn’t get to take a picture, so as soon as the batteries on my own camera are charged, you’ll get your FO photos. Because it was a WIP when I took the pictures, I can still technically post them this week!
I really love the pooling effect that occurred in this yarn. It looks like a blue tiger. I really really really love this yarn and I can’t wait to have an excuse to buy some more. I’d get some in Bulky, and make a beautiful hat and mitten combo. I don’t care if they would match this neckwarmer, I only care that they would be the most squishy, deliciously warm and soft mittens in the solar system.
Let the record show that Eve is in a panic. She has 1.5 repeats finished on the SWATCH for the Myrtle shawl, and she has to finish the actual shawl itself in two (2) weeks if she wants to wear it to the garden party. This is so not happening. A shawl with lace in every row is never a good idea for a deadline, and she has decided to scrap it in favour of a faster project. To this end, she has prepared a poll and is requesting your opinion as to the best project to knit: Shetland Triangle, Japanese Feather Stole, Lace Dream Stole, a lace parasol based on Victoria, or Orangina. Results will be tabulated at the end of the weekend.
Garter Stitch Scarf, started May 4th, 2007, finished May 7th, 2007 Pattern: Garter stitch! Yarn: 2 balls of Moda Dea Cache in colourway #2368, “Rendezvous.” The yarn is a bit splitty and slightly rough, but the colours are beautiful and it sparkles! Another bonus is that I got each ball for $2. I’m saving my favourite colourway (#2347, “Wink”) for a garter stitch scarf for myself, and I think I’ll go up a needle size to around 5 to 5.5 mm. Needles: 4.5 mm circulars Dimensions: 6in by 5ft Pattern Notes: It’s garter stitch! Would I knit it again? Indeed, I would. I didn’t realize that something like garter stitch could be so relaxing at a time when I just wanted to knit and ignore the complications of lace or cables or whatever. I felt like garter stitch was cheating! But it’s not. It’s productive and fun and relaxing! And I love it.
I have an essay due in a few days but I’m pretty much done, so I’m looking at The Craft of Lace Knitting by Barbara Walker and the colour versions at The Walker Treasury Project. I’ve decided that despite my complete lack of shawl knowledge because of my vast shawl knowledge, I am completely capable of designing my own shawl. I’ll be using Eunny’s guide and a few example patterns to figure it out, and I’ll post what I’ve learned as I go.
I have a theme in mind for my design, which you probably won’t guess from the stitch patterns I’m considering:
I finished my scarf! Just in time for spring. And I am so not blocking it. Right now I just like it all bouncy and bumpy, but maybe I’ll block it in the fall.
Backyard Leaves Scarf, started February 15th, 2007, finished April 8th, 2007 Pattern:Backyard Leaves Scarf from Scarf Style Yarn: a delicious heathery cranberry 100% merino from a large men’s sweater (roughly DK weight) Needles: 4mm-ish Pattern Notes: I really don’t like the seaming requirement. I tried to use a provisional cast-on and then pick up stitches, but it didn’t really work because I wasn’t thinking at the time. I’d try it again, but scarves are so tiring. I need to design something for myself! My creative juices are flowing, and the levies can’t hold them much longer. Fortunately, I hear FEMA is good at dealing with that sort of thing. I’ll keep that as my backup plan. Would I knit it again? Hellz no. The pattern is real nice and all, but scarves are no longer my thing. To the knitters who have never tried it: I’d definitely recommend it! Although at times I’m not the hugest fan of Annie Modesitt’s instructions (she sometimes doesn’t mention her reasons for doing certain things or just assumes bits of knowledge that the average knitter doesn’t have until I realize that I’ve just knit 2 full inches on the wrong side of something), but her designs are ingenious. I’m definitely going to make use of this scarf’s edging technique in many future projects. Love it!
My favourite part (other than the magnificent edging technique) is the way you cast off. Just keep knitting the leaf until all you have is a single stitch. It’s a BIT more complicated than that, obviously, but that’s the general concept. It’s that sort of thing that makes up for the occasional lack of clarity.
I realized I left a mopey blog post up for the past few days without replacing it with something cheery, so here’s an update (sadly with no pictures, as I still can’t find my camera charger). This upcoming week is going to be a busy one, so there’s not much time for knit-blogging. Lots of time for knitting, though, as most of my time is spent waiting for study participants to fill out questionnaires. I’m running participants through one study for one of my profs, and then there’s my honours thesis. Fortunately, they both use equipment from the same lab which means I don’t have to go outside ever again! I got a chance to look at the eye-tracker that I’ll be using for my own experiment. It’s quite neat; everything is contained within one monitor, so you don’t even have to put on a headset or anything.
Knitting news: the lab requires you to take your outdoor shoes off when you get in, so I’m knitting myself a pair of felted slippers to keep there for the rest of the semester. I’m using the yarn that the beau’s mother gave me, which will be great to pull out tonight when his family and I watch The Super Bowl. I hear the Super Bowl is a big football thing, so maybe I’ll wear the Germany jersey I bought during the World Cup. Boy, do I love football.
I restarted my dad’s Rule 30 scarf in a double-stranded fingering weight alpaca, and it’s about a foot and a half long. It feels like I’ll never finish it, and it’s driving me crazy. It was a relief to start something different, which is why I started working with the above slippers. The pattern is nice and brainless, though, and the colours are great. I’m using a light grey for the 0s and blue, green and red stripes for the 1s.
As well as the sweater I mentioned previously, I’ve decided to start knitting an Orangina. I’m going to use Classic Elite Provence in a beautiful emerald green. It’s going to be incredible. I’m a bit afraid of cotton, but it should be nice and breathe-y for the summer. I can’t wait!
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.
UPDATE, Jan 15th, 9:20am: My apologies if this shows up again in your feeds! I changed the name of the post because I think it was being screened by overexcited feed readers.
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!
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:
Knitting news: the lab requires you to take your outdoor shoes off when you get in, so I’m knitting myself a pair of 
