9 posts tagged “knitting”
Hey you all -
I'm trying to figure out some quantitative way to classify yarn stores. Like, what elements should it have? What yarns should it carry? What needles, what sizes, what other sorts of things? When you think of yarn stores, what makes a good one? Prices? Friendliness? Knitting or crochet help? Patterns? Magazines? Gadgets? Books? Yarns? Needles? Why do you love the stores you love?
If you could please share with me what makes a good yarn store for you, that would really really help me.
Also: what makes for a good online store?
Thanks much in advance, vj
I just finished the meathead hat. Talk about instant gratification. Knitting with two strands of Lamb's Pride Bulky goes super fast.
I fear I am becoming one of those urban people who has to have things just so. This morning, on the bus, as I was knitting, my neck and head were itchy like crazy. I was wearing my favorite knit hat, made with mostly of mohair with a little wool, and my favorite knit scarf made from 50% merino wool, 25% alpaca, and 25% acrylic (from the wonderfully soft Takhi Bunny). Am I becoming allergic to wool? After congratulating myself that I could knit with wool, and all I'll ever knit with is wool, blah blah blah?
Luckily, cashmere doesn't make me itch. But if this is the case, how am I going to knit all my bicycling accessories in wool? I can't afford cashmere unless I find it at a thrift store.
Anyways, meathead. Larissa has written the pattern so it can be knit flat or in the round. I really prefer the latter, but since I'm test knitting, I decided to actually follow the pattern (not my strong suit).
The problem, however with such big stitches (it's knit on 10mm needles! Yikes!), is that any imperfections are very obvious. And I am all about the imperfection. Somewhere early on, I knit one of the strands and dropped the other, so while I don't have a ladder there, I do have this big ole loop hanging out. My question is, how can I make this a design feature, and not a knitting bug?
Early reports were that larger versions needed a smidge more than one skein of Lamb's Pride Bulky, so I added the tomato red stripe. It's close to a bit much, but now that I'm feeling better, it's probably just the thing I'll want to wear.
I still need to make the embellishment, and I'm not entirely sure what that will be.
While other parts of my life aren't seeming to function so well right now, I'm full speed ahead knitting. I've been working on the cowl/gaiter as my mindless knitting, and it's seven inches long now. Considering that it's 25 inches in diameter and knit on 2.25mm needles, that's pretty good. Nowhere near done, but still, pretty good.
The project that I'm excited about, however, are my transition fingerless gloves.
The pattern is from Shibui, called Kawarime and it's a fairly simple fair-isle knit. I didn't intend to follow their color scheme, however Knit/Purl was very low on their Shibui sock yarn that day. The pattern, and the store versions, are knit with a skein each of gold and chinese red; I ended up using gold and mandarin, the latter being a space-dyed red-orange-pink yarn, as the chinese red was sold out.
The yarn has a wonderful hand, and is very similar in twist to Koigu. The pattern has enough repeats that you don't have to pay close attention. I'm already planning that quite a few festivus gifts might be made with this pattern if I can find colors that I'm happy with.
On the phone with my mom the other day, she reminded me about Christmas. I've thought to myself about knitting socks for a couple of the men in my life, a poncho for my mother-in-law, maybe these gloves for my best friend, but i have no idea if or what I should make my mom. I'm still a bit sore that I knit her socks, one of my first pair, and I've never seen her wear them, nor have I noticed any wear on them. She loves the felted clogs that require a solid weekend of knitting and studying the pattern, and honestly I just don't know.
There are all these new yarns (okay, two new yarns) that promise skin softening, both as you knit and as you wear the object. I'm really tempted to get some of this for gifts this year. Austermann Step seems like a good idea, but I'm not so crazy about the colors. I have two men in my life that will only wear black, grey or brown socks. So even while I'm amused that a color is called Schlamm (which can be translated as mud), I'm afraid these wouldn't get worn.
Handmaiden's SeaSilk would also be wonderful as a gift. A gift that might break the bank, but still...
made with a little under 6 balls of King Cole Sprinkles, 100% polyester, machine washable, and dryer cool. 65 yards/60 meters in 50gram ball.
I knit this on 4mm and 4.5mm needles (the dog ate my 4mm circulars, honest!) with the Heaven Mini Baby Blanket pattern.
I love the way this yarn knits up.... and I hate knitting with it! I think from here on out, I'll use it for duplicate stitch or intarsia.
The finished result is 30 inches square.
I'm back from Vegas.
One thing is clear. Before I go back, I need
to train.
Walking around with women in their 70s wore
me out. We did manage to see a lot of the
Imperial Palace, Caesar's Palace, the
Mirage, the Venetian, the Wynn, the
Flamingo, and the Bellagio. In one day.
I was fascinated, and still am, with the
civil engineering involved in Las Vegas.
Indoor canals, outdoor lakes, unending
waterfalls, S-curving escalators: how do
they do that, really? The whole imposition of fantasy upon the desert. The idea that if
you wish it, you can make it so.
I'm glad to be back. But I've been in a funk ever since. My dreams are all
Vegas, baby.
...
Yesterday was my darling's birthday, so I was going to save a long walk for today.
Great idea, except today is seriously blustery and rainy. We need the rain,
heavens knows we need the rain, but I need the walk too.
So I'm stuck with indoor activities. Cleaning, trying to get the evil smokey
smell out of all my clothes (there appears to be no smoking laws in Vegas.
People smoke everywhere. Even clothes that stayed in my luggage and never
saw the casino smell like smoke.), knitting, doing homework. Yes, I know the
homework should come first. I know. I'm just not there yet.
I'm still working on a gift for
Velogirl and her peanut, and
I started making a cowl/gaiter
out of the gorgeous Cherry Tree
Hill yarn I got in Coos Bay
at My Yarn Store.
The cowl is going slowly, as
you might expect with #2
needles and a 25 inch diameter,
but I love how it's knitting up.
Right now I'm obsessed with
creating a felted satchel.
On the MAX train coming back from the airport, I met some
folks that I instantly wanted to adopt. They had come to Portland on an elderhostel, to do a
cruise up the Columbia-Snake rivers, from Astoria (OR) to Lewiston
(ID). They were adorable. They could have taken the elderhostel shuttle
to the hotel, but instead, they chose to take the MAX because they
thought it would be fun. They had been boning up on Lewis & Clark
Expedition history in preparation for the trip. They were just so excited.
When I pulled out the in-progress cowl, the man mentioned that his
wife was quite a knitter, beaming. And she was beaming too. She
had made her carry-on bag, which was the apple-green color that
is so in now, felted with some slubby-shiny-viscose-y yarn knitted
in, and she had trimmed the bag with upolstery trim. It was adorable,
and she was adorable.
So I think I could recycle the yarn from the Olympic shrug which was
gorgeous but so itchy, and make a satchel of it. That's the plan
now..., subject to change like everything else.
(this is cross-posted at braveathena.com where it looks
much nicer. Grrr.)
If you are going to dress up for Halloween, what will you be? Why?
Submitted by Auweea.
A pirate. So I can knit an eyepatch! {smirk}
What's the last thing you crafted, constructed or created yourself?
Hmmm. A few weeks, my sweetie got a hankering for mac and cheese, so I made him a big potful, along with jalapeno cornbread.
I made a baby blanket for a cow-orker -- finished it in July. I'm making another baby blanket with that same yarn for a friend who is due in November. This one is lavender, with a varigated blue-lavender trim. The yarn knits up like the detailing on chenille bedspreads -- wonderful and thick and nubby. Mother #1 reports that it has stood up very well under daily machine washings and dryings.
And, I did my first blog/website with Word Press this weekend. I both love and hate Word Press... and I especially hate how it rewrites your HTML. Grrrrrrrrr! I'm sure that there's a way to disable that, but...
Well, today was my last weekday of vacation.
I went to bed this evening and I was totally, suddenly, awake. No frigging fair! So I'm up to do some reading and hopefully quiet the manic voice in my head.
Just to commit this to the ether: I saw a knitty gritty episode the other day with Portland transplant Shetha doing illusion knitting. I haven't been that impressed with the idea of illusion knitting previously, but today, it seemed like a fun idea. My thought was to do a scarf with colors in the same range: subtle, but hopefully not too subtle. And I had a great idea for the design. Which I now can't remember.
But I am inspired to say: octopus. Or bee. But really, octopus. Because, why not?
....
Today I woke up with energy. Finally. The last couple days have just dragged. It's no fair to have these sorts of days during vacation, but so be it.
I restarted organizing the yarn collection, and I got a couple of bags worth to take to charity. I had stuff I didn't know I had, and stuff I had thought I had given away. Yow. I really should get rid of more, but at least I'm making a dent.
I also went out to work on killing weeds and cleaning up the front porch. Killing things was much more interesting than sweeping, so that totally lost out. Die, wisteria, die!!
I bought these at the insane My Yarn Shop in Coos Bay, Oregon.
The other two are Supersock sock yarns from Cherry Tree Hill. I'll use them most likely for socks or gloves.
There are two things that get me. I mean, I like knitting, but it's not like I think that my knitting is better than storebought (except socks: storebought socks suck). And knitting myself is certainly more expensive, even if you don't consider time.
But I love squeezing yarn, feeling the textures: that's very satisfying.
And I am crazy about color. I love color.
