A Little Yarn On The Side

Meet Finished Project 33: and because 60-degree ruler projects tend to need enough triangles for a second project, project 34 could be done this weekend.  50 projects is still within striking distance!  Especially with a three-day weekend coming up...... The Fall Stashdash has been really motivating--or at least for some of us, so I've probably done more knitting in the last month than I have in the last year.  I've gone back to keeping knitting in the car.  For Boise, I have a long commute involving a lot of stoplights, and it's surprising how much knitting one can do at a stoplight.  Bonus points for totally freaking out other drivers--I think they think I knit while driving.  I have seen people doing all kinds of crazy stuff while driving (reading a book on the freeway, texting, applying makeup), but so far no handicrafts, though I honestly wouldn't say it doesn't happen.  But I've been in outside sales for a long time and have learned to...

Let's take a minute and refresh everyone's memories, shall we? Remember the ill-fated pajama top incident?  (For a refresher, see here , here , and here )  Remember how I had finally purchased some solid brown coordinating flannel to make a new top, and how I drew that bag for the Project of the Month for September? My trust sidekick and I decided we had better get cracking, so I cut out the back and the facing, then opened the material up to cut out the remaining pieces, only to discover...... I don't have enough material!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Can you believe it????  I think I got this material from Joanns (having not saved the info because I got as much material as the pattern said, so I assumed there was no reason and brown flannel is brown flannel), so I'm hoping to be able to match it and have a swatch stuffed in my purse for when I've calmed down enough to be reasonable and not come home with 14 bolts of the silly stuff.  Obviously, I w...

Between a barrage of rodent gifts yesterday--and by the way, I am the leading mouser here at Chateau Sutton-Goar--and making a roasted tomato-chipotle salsa today, I have only had little snatches of time for knitting here & there, which doesn't work for "fussy" projects such as redesigning a sweater. So, since it is now "fall" here--or at least in the mornings--I dug out the Kauni cardigan to work on. I love this sweater & it only got moved to the Project Timeout Bin because wool is just too warm to knit with during the summer, so we're still on good terms. I got a few rounds done and was closing in on the divide for the neck and ran into an issue with a splice. Normally, I get really irritated with splices in the middle of balls of yarn, but these balls are MASSIVE and I have almost completed the entire body with the original 2 balls of yarn. I was at a spot in the pattern where I could start the new color on a stripe, so I cut out a bit, backe...

Here in the "Global Menopause" climate, we're swinging between 50 degrees overnight and 80 degrees in the afternoon, so I have figured it out: Knit in the morning! The Kauni cardigan got some attention today and the yoke cardigan has a finished back! In general, I would say this is an incredibly stupid design for a sweater. The sweater has a yoke, which in 99 cases out of 100, would be knit in the round so as to eliminate seams. Not this one. Originally I had planned to just knit it in the round anyway, but the pattern calls for a zipper within the yoke. Checking Ravelry, some people felt it was fine without the zipper and some added it. I thought it would be easier to do a few useless seams than to cut a hole for a zipper. I haven't actually put a zipper in a sweater yet, but the only thing I can think of that might make a zipper in a knitted garment worse is to combine it with a steek. I shudder at the very thought... This is a wool yarn, but it might get som...

Well, like I've ever had troubles finding new projects to start--but it is April and time for the April Project of the Month! Drum roll.......... A jacket made with home decorating fabric. I'm a bit nervous about the project as the fabric isn't washable to it's going to take some creative marking, and to be honest I was really hoping for socks. I know I put at least one sock project into the pile. Still, I've been wanting to make this for a while, and so far I've been really good about finishing my "Project of the Month" projects, so I'll hopefully have a cute new jacket. Just in time to not need it. There has been knitting--the moss stitch scarf is about half done and the Kauni cardigan is to the armholes, and more importantly.....I'M ALMOST DONE WITH THE ORANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I admit, I love how this looks in the picture, and I will love the finished cardigan, but I was raised in the 1970s when ugly colors were required in all things, and h...

There's nothing like a little winter vacation to give your knitting meaning. Surrounded by this: knitting seems almost mandatory. The Kauni cardigan is almost ready for armholes a secret project is 95% done, the stamped cross stitch baby blanket sucked up several hours and looks pretty much like it did in the last picture (am I missing some important information about a stitchery space/time continuum or what?), and because the best thing to do when one has 5 quilts in process already is to start another one..... And I am happy to report that it only took one block with tree-alignment issues to figure out that all the blocks would need to have all the trees GOING THE SAME DIRECTION. I have given up on the possibility of figuring things out ahead of time , and am now just aiming for "Before it becomes necessary to bury it in the back yard." Progress is progress. Someone likes the new quilt, but isn't speaking to me just yet. Apparently he wouldn't even play tape ...

Only for a week, but the sweater and I are heading to McCall for a few days. No computers, no internet, just wool and snow and fabric (the sewing machine is coming along too). The gift bags aren't, as one is finished: and the others are just waiting for handles: Overall I'm pleased with them, but while these are actually more useful than these, I still like these better. Are wine bags that would have trouble holding bottles of wine really so bad????? I haven't told my sidekick I'm leaving him for a few days. It will be interesting to see if he gives Andy the 4:00 AM wakeup treatment while I'm gone, or if that privilege is reserved only for the Most Favored Human. Frankly, I'm willing to share that status--especially as Theo caught the time change more easily than I did.....

Two days ago, I was bored with knitting. Not knitting itself--just everything I was knitting. The lace scarf was disappointing, the Warm Up America blocks were boring AND not using up stash, the January Aran was scaring me with its threat of steeks, and I had restarted the Kauni cardigan for the fourth time using the alternating colors on every-other row and while it wasn't rolling I just wasn't crazy about the way it was looking I was SOOOOO close to ripping it back...but then I discovered that what I had initially read as 3 inches of ribbing was only 3 centimenters, and after ripping back about 6 rows I decided to plunge ahead. There are a lot of steps between bored & obsessed, and other knitters might be able to visit them. I, on the other hand.... Did you notice the lack of content on yesterday's post? That's because I can't type while knitting. I am OBSESSED with this sweater. I LOVE IT!!! If the wool weren't so darn scratchy I would sleep wit...

The Kauni cardigan and me....well, and Theo.......we're trying it AGAIN. My last attempt looked okay color-wise, but the ribbing was rolling, so this time I'm striping only on every-other row of the ribbing. No idea yet if that will still look striped or if it will stop the ribbing, but I did learn a couple things yesterday: 1. Unless you rip back both yarns simultaneously, the alternate stripes function as double knitting and it can be really hard to figure out what row either one of the colors is on. 2. This might increase frustration, and when one is frogging and realizes that one will have to rip everything out and start over, one might get annoyed enough to pull a little too hard, thus breaking the yarn. Thank heavens I have other, better behaved knitting projects. The scarf is zipping along And the first sleeve for the January Aran is almost done! Theo was obviously enjoying playing "Vanna" this morning. You can see the fur on his leg still hasn't compl...

I love this yarn. I love how the finished sweaters on Ravelry look. I love how my colors are working this time but now, inventive little project that it is, we have a new problem. It turns out that a K1, P1 ribbing is only nonrolling when it's in a solid color. Using one color for the knit stitches and one for the purls has given me a dense fabric that rolls almost as badly as plain old stockinette. I thought longingly of just pretending it wasn't happening and relying on blocking to force it into ribbingness, but years ago I tried to block stockinette into flatness, and without the aid of starch or glue, I don't think it's possible. So......I will be starting over AGAIN. But just not right now.....I'm off to visit my sock yarn bin.......

So, it has taken some discussion and perhaps a little begging, but my right hand and I have come to an understanding and it has agreed to participate in knitting. So, I was able to get here: before admitting that I think maroon & lime green aren't my favorite color combination. I think it looks like high school mascot colors that were picked with little to no thought. So....the hardest knitting I've done in a long time was sent to the frog pond. Browsing through the 200+ Kauni cardigans on Ravelry, I noticed that I liked some sweaters better than others, and the only real difference in most of the sweaters is how the different colors line up. I spent at least an hour deciding which ones I liked best, and decided to go with the more gradual changes, so I'm lining the changes up (if the knitting gods are willing) just offset by one color, and am hoping for the best. So far, it's looking very "When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple," which is a bit d...

So last night I decided there's self restraint and then there's torture, so I dug out the new yarn and gleefully cast on the new Kauni yarn for the Kauni cardigan. 24 hours later, I have One and a half rows. I wouldn't even have that if I hadn't altered the pattern. To get a nice "framing" effect, I decided to do one round of the ribbing in a solid color before adding the second color for every-other stitch for the striped ribbing. Thank heavens--I can't even imagine trying to keep the cast on stitches from twisting while I'm trying to change yarn with every stitch. I have done colorwork in the past, but as none of it has ever surfaced on the blog, it obviously isn't my favorite. I'm a bit of a lazy knitter, and the best way I know of to not have 3 trillion ends to weave in on a sweater is to stay away from colorwork. But every now and then the sheer beauty of it wins out. So, here I am. Halfway through the second row. I thought it wou...