Mon - May 1, 2006

Sun - April 30, 2006

Whiplash entry - Poke me in the eye 

I recently discovered Whip up and decided to enter in this weekend's competition. the idea is to make something crafty inspired by the theme "no fear."


I recently had an inflamed pinguicula on my eyeball and since then i have been super-aware of my eyeball. I haven't been wearing my contacts very often, and i keep looking at my eyes to make sure they don't look too red. i really need my eyeballs, and i don't want them to wear out.

To alleve my hesitations about touching my eyeballs i made "Poke me in the eye."
I started with my cheap-o plastic tape measure, and covered it in felt to look like an eyeball. to retract the tape, i have to poke the eyeball. this eyeball is pinguicula free.







I just threw this together and i am not totally happy with my stitching job around the outer edge... I'll just have to make another one! 

Posted at 01:50 PM     Link this post     |

Sat - April 29, 2006

No knitting content - just carnivorous plants 

I went to the UC Botanical Garden's Spring sale today. I brought home the coolest little garden of carnivorous plants. If you click on the picture, you can see the annotated photo in my flickr gallery.


 

Posted at 03:43 PM     Link this post     |

Tue - April 4, 2006

So much stuff 

My Deep-V is speeding along... i have completed the waist decreases, so i can't really try it on easily anymore.


It looks pretty curvy... i hope it fits!

I had some sock yarn dyeing success.... Inspired by the california poppy (i accidentally typed poopy first -hah!)

(photo from flickr )

I made a skein that I am calling Poppysocks!

because i really need more sock yarn. 

Posted at 03:51 PM     Link this post     |

Fri - March 31, 2006

The Deep-V report 

 

The deep-V is going great! I love it. My row gauge is a little off, but I think I have compensated for it...



Ugh. look how i stuck my hip out in this photo - I have been watching too much 'America's next top model.' 

Posted at 05:24 PM     Link this post     |

Wed - March 29, 2006

Here come the sweaters.... 

I used some handpaintedyarn,com Ejido 160 to start an Incredible Custom Raglan . Unfortunately i followed the directions a little too closely, and made a snug measurement around my neck. Of course, this resulted in the neck hole being the exact size of my neck.... And smaller than my head. So I couldn't get it on. I liked how it was progressing, though. to prevent weird color pooling, I was using two balls of yarn, and alternating them every two rows. It was looking good.



so i ripped it out and started over.

I also got my Knitpicks order that I have been waiting on for a long time.... Some merino style for Eunny's Deep-V Argyle vest. I joined the Knit-along too.


in this project I will attempt two-handed fair-isle knitting, and finish it off with some steeks. i can't wait.

And because I like looking at it, I present my altoid-tin tv-dinner.

Drumsticks, Mashed potatoes, Cherry compote, and succotash. 

Posted at 07:04 PM     Link this post     |

Thu - March 23, 2006

I thought I made a new pattern... 

But it turns out I just recreated one that already exists ....

I used some of my handspun leftovers to knit a cadbury egg cozy. Mine looks a little ashamed.... like he just found out he's not an original after all.



 

Posted at 05:59 PM     Link this post     |

Tue - March 21, 2006

Crockpot dyeing 

This weekend I spent a little bit of time with my dyepot. My dyepot is a crock pot that i got a garage sale and I couldn't be happier with it. Every time I dye fibers am a little nervous that everything on the bottom will come out gray or brown of something, but the colors magically remain separate.



You can't tell from the picture really, but I was trying to show you that the water really did turn clear. That yarn is from some fiber i bought from lanas de libelula (super-nice. go buy stuff from her). i navajo plied it into an awesome 3 ply bulky yarn. Not too shabby. there isn't enough of it for me to want to keep it.... So i stuck it in my etsy shop . If it doesn't go away i might make a hat out of it.




I also spun some yellow dyed merino roving into a yarn that I am a little bit in love with......Must make more.....

And at the top in this photo is some blue superwash merino sock yarn that will be finding its way into my shop soon. It will be a great deal. i tell ya.

And in case you were wondering, the roving that i photographed drying the tub has been turned into this:

 

Posted at 11:59 AM     Link this post     |

Mon - March 20, 2006

Mon - March 13, 2006

I'm cheating 

I'm cheating on all of my other knitting projects with this:


It's a little bit of handpainted Colonia that I bought just to see if i liked the color. I love it.... Look how it is making a double helix in the color pattern. Man, variegated yarns hypnotize me. It is like they are all self-patterning, you just don't know what the pattern will be. Usually even when i have solids, I wish they were the kettle-dyed imperfectly colored type. May, you've got to love that - c'mon!

By the way, the pattern is My So Called Scarf. I only cast on 26 stitches, and I altered the directions for the knit rows to be k1 *sl1, k1, yo, psso two stitches on right needle* k1. It was just easier for me to figure out what was going on when I did it like that. That general slipped-stitch pattern is also what gives the socks I am knitting a fake-cable look. okay, they don't really look anything like cables. we'll just call them textured ribs.


 

Posted at 07:56 PM     Link this post     |

Mon - March 6, 2006

A newly discovered benefit of having no roomates 

Check this out! 

 

I can fill my bathtub with yarn, and not have to worry about preventing anyone but myself from taking a shower! This weekend I did a tiny bit of experimenting with the soy silk that i bought almost a year ago.



The first is a two-ply yarn. One ply is wool, and the other is soy silk. The second is a single ply that has the soy silk "blended" in with the wool. I tried to card the wool and the silk together and it kinda worked, but the silk is so fine that it never wanted to leave the card. It came out kinda marbled, and I like it. I dyed the yarns together in my crockpot with red and orange, and I am really happy with the way they turned out. the soy silk took a little bit of the color, but not much. I don't think there is enough of either of these for me to want to keep them, so i stuck them in my etsy shop where you can buy them, or check more (and bigger) photos if you wish. 

Posted at 02:14 PM     Link this post     |

Tue - February 28, 2006

I went for the gold. 

And failed. My current olympic status (two days after the closing ceremonies) can be illustrated with this photo:


That's right. i didn't pick up my knitting since friday. I couldn't help it - I was busy with more important things, and i decided that I wouldn't be upset if it took me a few extra days to finish the mittens.

So, keep in mind that i did for a very brief time have two mittens finished. and they were both wearable - even though i had to force my hand into one of them. I could have left it at that. But I went for it. I ripped them out with dreams of finished mittens.... I just didn't finish. What do you think... Do i deserve at least a bronze?

I plan to keep the voting open for a few days. 

Posted at 09:25 AM     Link this post     |

Sat - February 25, 2006

Olympic update 

I finished the second mitten (and it fits perfectly), and ripped out most of the first.... I think I can finish everything tonight...

 

Posted at 01:22 PM     Link this post     |

Fri - February 24, 2006

Tue - February 21, 2006

More Stitches West 2006 Details 

Our adventure started early in the morning. A little earlier than some would have liked, but I am a freak about getting to the airport/train station early.

here we are waiting to catch the knitting train at the emeryville station (well not me because someone had to hold the camera...)

note that b and abby are sporting handmade hats, and sarah is wearing a scarf that she knit. As a new knitter, Carmen has only ever made two pot-holder-like squares, so I am kinda glad she wasn't wearing anything that she knit....

Soon after this we headed out to the tracks and a zealous knitter announced that the knitting car was already full. I knew it was too much to hope that lisa had saved ~6 seats for the last 2 hours. As the train pulled in, we saw lisa waving to us from the top of the knitting car. indeed it was full. and they were out of goody bags. We walked a ways into the car to find lisa, and man were there some grumps on that car. Lady working on the blue scarf, i am sorry that i bumped into you. That is why I said 'Oh! Excuse me! I'm sorry.' You don't need to make a snit face and roll your eyes. It was clearly a very full area. But on the whole the knitters were a very chatty, friendly group.

but we did manage to get one free ball of yarn and some raffle tickets, even though they were out of goody bags. Then we headed farther back in the train and made ourselves at home.


Ingrid inspecting patterns and carmen eating her needles (note the absence of goody bags on the table)


Sarah chatting away and Wendy working on her scarf

Somehow those are the only two pictures I took. I guess I was anxious to start knitting. The ride was awesome. We went past the salt flats in the South Bay and got to see snow on top of the "mountains" (weird b/c they are only about 2000 ft and it never snows here). I loved it!
The captain (pilot? engineer?) of the train frequently came on the speaker to say that the knitting car was full and in doing so often mentioned "The Knitting Group." this had the interesting effect of making everyone on the train think that I knew everyone else who was knitting. I just lied and acted like I did.

Shopping was a bit of challenge since my messenger bag made me a little too oversized for many of the booths. I had to constantly make sure that I wasn't going to spin around and knock over a display of glass needles or soemthing. I detailed most of the shopping in the previous post but I did want to also mention that although i didn't buy anything from them, but Village Spinning and Weaving had some amazing hanks of alpaca and cotton that everyone really seemed to like. I am going to keep them in mind for an alpaca sports-bra sweater...

Most of us wrapped up the day at the bar. we felt much more comfortable around each other surrounded by yarn AND drinks.



sorry for the terrible pictures of everyone, but if someone else would take better pics, i would use them :)

So, did you see us there? 

Posted at 05:58 PM     Link this post     |