Nostepindes and Resourcefulness

I'm getting ready for an exciting project (more details later). The person I'm knitting it for wants yarn that's already in my stash, I'm just not sure if I'll have enough. While I wait for her to let me know length, width, etc., I needed to find out how many yards I actually do have on hand.

My desk drawers are mostly opened with knobs, two of which are spaced exactly two feet apart, so I used those to measure out the yarn on the slightly used skeins. Since the knob is at the end of a skinny post, I wrapped a spare shoelace around each until the post was about the same width as the knob so I could wrap the yarn around them and be able to pull it right off when done.

I wrapped the yarn around the knobs 50 times, tied it off into a hank (without actually cutting the yarn, of course), and repeated until done. Then it was just a matter of some simple math to figure out the total yardage: # wraps * 4 ft per wrap / 3 ft in a yd. [I used this same method to figure out how much yarn I need by measuring, then ripping out a swatch and counting the yards used. It ended up being 1 yd per sq. in. of knit fabric--how convenient is that?]

From there, I took the hanks and wound them into balls ...with an empty roll of toliet paper nostepinde! I followed the instructions at http://www.hatchtown.com/nostdir.html. I'm quite pleased with the results; even the first one looks much better than any other ball I've wound:

Intarsia Wins Seed Stitch Match

Lesson learned: the 'purl bump' is actually created from the st in the previous row, not the st currently being purled. It's the top of the loop of that st.

This makes it physically impossible to introduce a new color with a purl bump of that color. When knitting in a new color, on the other hand, the top of the loop of the old color st lands on the WS of the fabric, giving the appearance that the new color really does start there.

So my red seed st heart on black St st background is impossible to knit in the way I planned it. I don't think altering the placement of the 'seeds' will be a good work around for this--already on both sides of the heart are many places where the first/last red st are knit... which would make them purls if I altered the seeding and then I'd be in the same predicament.

I think it may be plausible to introduce the red in the row below and then purl with it to get a red bump, but I'm not 100% sure that will work out the way I picture it.

Either way, I've decided to knit the entire chart in St st. This wasn't supposed to be a very challenging project, just a way of getting familiar with the very basics of intarsia.

Lauren v. Intarsia: Round 1 - Seed St

I want to make a pair of arm warmers for a friend. She'd like cables on a contrasting background, i.e., via intarsia.

I've never done any sort of stranded knitting before, merely horizontal stripes. The latter nearly drove me crazy by the end of a 7" x 9" illusion-knit block so I couldn't imagine that dealing with multiple colors (and tangling strands) would be much easier. Of course, I was the one who suggested one-colored cables on a different-colored background, knowing full-well I'd need intarsia (moreover, at that time I'd planned on doing them up in the round; I've since given up on that idea and am most grateful that the pattern is already written for back-and-forth knitting).

I like pushing my limits, but I'm not one to begin on the hardest difficulty setting without first testing out the skills required--especially when someone else is the intended recipient so I'm striving for perfection more than normal. After the initial sighting, I've seen a few "monthly necessities" bags and decided to make one of those with a simple heart pattern on the front in a CC.

Shortly after beginning it entirely in stockinette, I frogged it and made 3 rows if seed st as the base to keep it from curling as much. From there, I thought, "it'd also seem prudent to knit the closing flap in seed st to stabalize that as well," which took me down a slippery slope to, "so long as I have that much seed st on the back, why not include some in the front, too? I'll do the heart in seed st!"

So now I'm faced with making my first-ever intarsia st as a purl on a knit background. My usual resources fails me ...well, they don't fail me completely (new mantra: "old over new") but they don't hold my hand through non-stockinette intarsia. As much as I hate to admit it, that's kind of what I need right now.

The best I've found from Google so far is this post on garter intarsia. It doesn't have anything about purls, of course, but it was encouraging to see the process someone else used to get creative with this method. She (He?) had to deal with strands being on opposite sides, which is kind of close to my predicament.

I've already tried a few times and either get the MC mixed with the CC or no purl bump, but I'm still determined to do this. Once I get that purl bump cleanly on the RS (and get it to stay there unlike that time it mysteriously disappeared after switching back to MC) I'm not going to be too picky about whether the strands were properly linked. It's one st and immediately going back to MC after that so any hole really wouldn't be that noticeable. In fact, it may even be remedied while weaving in the ends.

For now, I've frogged and ranted enough for one night. Tomorrow's another day.

Elbac is officially frogged

I took a photo before ripping it out last night:

It just wasn't fun for me. I was cabling too tightly making it difficult to knit, and I kept losing my place.

Don't get me wrong--I think reversible cables are awesome and I want to use them whenever the wrong side might show, but after learning the magic behind the trick this scarf wasn't as interesting.

I'll come back to reversible cables another day with a new project and nicer yarn.

Digital + Film

Wouldn't it be really neat (if really expensive) to combine film and digital into one camera? You'd have the best of both worlds immediately available at your fingertips. My favorite application for this: practicing in digital, then flipping a switch capture the moment with the already-confirmed-the-looks-good settings on film. I love film and I love developing it myself, but it's frustrating to spend so much on it + developing and then discovering that it's just a bit off from what you were going for.

Happy Halloween!

It's been years since I carved a pumpkin but this year I was so excited for this that I carved two.

Both patterns are from www.pumpkinglow.com. I highly recommend this site--excellent patterns (and they're free!). The only downside is that they're specifically not themed for Halloween.

Now on with the goods!

My panther pumpkin:

A dragon pumpkin I bought and carved on a whim for Eric:
Technically this pumpkin is supposed to be a lot brighter, but once he saw it like this he wouldn't let me punch out the rest of the pieces. I'll admit the whole outline this is pretty cool (and it saved me the trouble of poking out the more complicated pieces around the face).

And photos of them not lit:

Both carvings include scraping the skin (my choice, the patterns weren't actually designed that way). It was my first year scraping and I scraped too much. Everything on Eric's pumpkin that isn't an outline is actually scraped, it's just so thin that it looks about as bright as if I'd just cut through. Doesn't make much of a difference for his anyway since the parts that were supposed to be brighter stayed in the pumpkin for an outline effect anyway.

My panther pumpkin shows off the shading a bit better, but this pumpkin was older and drier after sitting out on the porch for a couple weeks. It was much harder to scrape than the other pumpkin so I ended up poking holes in it while trying to scrape.

Live 'n' learn.

I still love my pumpkins anyway.

...so much so, I was even allowed my picture to be taken while carving one:

Have a safe & happy Halloween!

Fire photos

...are available on dA:

• Blues and Curls
• Blue flames
• Vivid Colors

Someday I'll put more thought into the titles.

Status Check

Another post without photos... =/

Cherie Amour: still on the waist, but I'm pretty sure this is the last frog I'm going to do. The 2x2 rib with cables on every other rib looked very wide/bulky, the 1x1 rib looked very dense compared to the lace work, so I'm trying a 1x1 rib with eyelets every 4th row. I swatched a couple such eyelets, but none came out straight. k2tog was almost straight, but still with a bit of a wave; ssk made it look like more of a twist almost. I'm going with the latter because I can call it a design element instead of something that almost worked. It will create horizontal bands, but I think it'll be ok.

So I ripped out the waist and spent the week dekinking the yarn. The last batch is almost dry and it's now that I realize I should have wound them in smaller hanks so they dry faster. Another live & learn moment I guess.

Since I keep frogging and dekinking, I also decided that I'll soak the rest of the yarn before use. I don't notice a difference between fresh-from-the-hank and post-soak, but for all I know there's a big one. Just to be on the safe side, I also wet-blocked what I made so far and it does look nicer and more even already.

Old art: While the soaking and drying was going on, I went on a cleaning spree and found a lot of old art stuff. Most I don't mind getting rid of, but I'm really proud of one of the drawings I found (and in charcoal at that!), and two of the finds are needlepoint--including what I think is my very first one! More details on those after I photograph and post them.

Dom's arm warmers: Dom wants arm warmers--and I'm making them for her! Much more about this later, but for now it will suffice to say that this makes me ridiculously... excited, happy, manic, bouncy, and just overall hyper.

Misc. ideas:

• Elbac: I think I'm just going to rip out what I did and not look back. It's fine, it looks like the photos, but I'm not enjoying it. I still love the idea of reversible cables, but now that I (mostly) understand the technique, I'm not as excited about this project as I once was. Maybe with nicer yarn and a recipient in mind it'll be more enticing.
• A "monthly necessities" bag: the idea for one never crossed my mind until I saw "My Dear Aunt Flo's Felted Pouch" on Ravelry by Christy Tchaparian (non-Ravelrers can find her blog here and her pattern available on Etsy here) and then I promptly decided I must make one. I usually use a purse's inner pocket for such items but the one in my current purse is too small so I end up digging through them to get my wallet, chapstick, flash drive, etc. Plus my coworkers are mostly male and don't need to be exposed to such foreign items, lol. I'm thinking it'll be knit, black stockinette st background with a red seed st heart (first intarsia project?) inspired by another idea I had for...
• A larger bag--black background, red foreground illusion heart bag ...because I'm still fascinated by illusion knitting. Will be lined.
• To use up stash, a black 1x1 rib scarf with 3 pink stripes on either side
• Tetris scarf (or something Tetris)
• Something SMB3. I wanted to do a set of hats with a different character on each (including Mario in Kuribo's shoe!) but I'm having second thoughts about that.
• Chokers
• Plus more WUA sections and such

Oh! I forgot I took some fire photos recently (my bf's fam has a fire pit in their backyard). Maybe I'll go through those and see if there's any I particulary like to post here...

In the meantime, back to productiveness!

Cascade photo on Ravelry

A fellow Ravelrer asked to feature my photo of my Cascade 109 LE yarn on the yarn's page! It's not on the 'front page' of that yarn anymore, though, so you have to click on 'more photos' to see it. Regardless, it's still exciting. And it reminds me that I should get back into photography...

On hold

Between a stomach bug and bad sunburn crafting has come to a temporary halt as I lie in bed and frequently 'water' myself to prevent my very red skin from drying out. My stomach should be better within the next day or so, so I'm not too worried about that. The sunburn however...

On a good day, my skin is pale enough to rival a fresh box of printer paper. Then yesterday I unexpectedly found myself outside for 4 or 5 hours (read: completely unprepared and sunscreen-free). While I'm (thankfully) not blistering, I'm still pretty red, and while it doesn't hurt as much as it could (I'm either used to it or fried all my nerve endings long ago) my skin's still pretty sensitive. I can play with yarn a little bit, but can't, for instance, try on sleeves or anything like that. Moreover, the inside of my elbows are burned too and that actually hurts, limiting mobility for other crafts.

I'm debating calling in sick tomorrow, but I'm not the kind of sick where I could stay in bed all day. If I can't sleep but can't do anything else either, I'd be bored out of my mind. Let's see what tomorrow brings...

Chocolate Peanut Butter Love

A few weeks ago I discovered a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Chips at my boyfriend's house. They look just like chocolate chips except they're made with peanut butter. It was love at first bite; they're amazing! As much as I love regular peanut butter from a jar, you can only have so much before your mouth is glued shut. These babies have all the flavor of peanut butter without that inconvenience.

I was eating them by the handful when I saw a picture and recipe on the bag for chocolate peanut butter chip cookies. That's right: chocolate and peanut butter together in a portable cookie. I finally convinced my BF to make them with me this weekend and we were pretty satisfied with the results:


The only downside is that they're a bit too sweet to indulge more than a couple at a time (or maybe that's a good thing?).

It would be more than worth making them again, though, just for the batter:


Ok so it doesn't look like much in the photo, but trust me it tastes fabulous.

If you want to make the batter yourself (or, you know, the finished product too), the recipe is online: REESE'S Chewy Chocolate Cookies

Sprite Love

No, not the drink...

http://www.spritestitch.com/ - a site for video game inspired crafts! *love*
It has everything from crocheted afghans, to needlepoint controller cases, to even pixel cookies!


Makes me want to get started on a couple ideas I've been tossing around, like a tetris scarf or SMB3-themed hats (though now I have to make pixel cookies, too... those are just too awesome to pass up)...

Cherie Amour: First major frogging

True to my intentions, I did work up a lot of Cherie Amour while at the beach (even finished the first ball of yarn!), but I'm caught up in the Harry Potter's again I'm having some doubts so once I got back, I left it in the bag, and didn't break it out again until finishing the 4th, 5th, and 6th books until a week later for an assessment and photos.

Current progress:


[Those purple squiggles are lifelines]
I'm not sure why the photo's so pixelated (it doesn't look that way elsewhere on my computer... maybe because of Blogger's automatic resizing?). A close up of the waist section:


After giving it a week's rest, I'm still not satisfied. I want the lace part longer so the ribbing doesn't end up the same length. As for the ribbing itself... well... as much as I love the cables, each rib is really wide and bulky and unflattering (and that's on size 8 needles). I'm going to try a 1x1 rib instead.

Next up: frog, de-kink the yarn, add a couple more pattern repeats to the lace, then 1x1 rib for the waist section. Then I still need to look into the rest of the sweater, too. I know I don't like the shape of the sleeves as written--I want at least straight sleeves, if not belled--and I'm concerned that 6" of positive ease around the bust is going to be huge. We shall see, we shall see.

Meet ...swatch?

Ok, so that one doesn't really work. But you can still meet my Cherie Amour swatch:


Ain't it purty?

Photo was taken before blocking. After blocking, it was still about the same size AND I was able to get rid of most of the wavyness at the bottom (it might be a cool design feature for some, but combined with the lace it would be a bit too girly for my tastes).

In the interest of full disclosure, this was knit back and forth, not in the round. I was going to make another, bigger swatch knitting in the round and this was going to be my lets-see-just-how-much-damage-I-can-inflict-without-felting swatch. Then I was so excited that I met gauge and figured it really can't be that much different and am I really going to get more needles? No. No I'm not. Let's be honest--I want to knit the sweater, not tons of swatches until I find the right needles and everything. If anything, my knit gauge is tighter than purl, so it'll come out a bit smaller. I don't see that as a bad thing--I just barely fit the XS as it is.

So I cast on.

So far it looks awesome, fits fine (yes, I tried it on when it was 2" long), and is going by so fast I balled another skein already because I'm almost done with the first one.

Coming up: 3 days of work, followed by a few days at the beach. I might get some knitting done in the mornings before work, but those beach days... I'm not a sand & surf kinda gal: the only thing I like less than seaweed and jellyfish wrapping around my legs is sticky, wet sand covering every part of my body. So while half of my boyfriend's family is on the sand and playing in the ocean for a week, I'll stay near the house with the other landlubbers. There will be much knitting those days while I sit my pale butt down in the shade of an umbrella and over-sized tee in a backyard that overlooks the ocean. Minimal ickyness exposure; maximum needle time.


EDIT 7.27.08 11.24pm
Completely forgot: I told you that I blocked the swatch already, what I didn't tell you was that it was a wet block and it stunk! I had no idea wet sheep smelled so bad. I was worried there was something in the water (no special wool stuff for now, I just wet it in plain ol' water so it would block). Now that it's thoroughly dry it's fine, but I really wasn't expecting it to be that potent. (Actually, I don't know what I was expecting, nor what inspired me to stick my nose in it in the first place...)

Meet Hank

And Hank, and Hank, and...

(I'm sorry. I'm hopelessly attracted to bad puns.)

This past weekend, I bought 7 hanks of Cascade LE for Cherie Amour. I couldn't stop touching it (Hank is pretty irresistible like that), so I balled one hank shortly after walking out of the store:




A swatch of it is already knit up and drying.

Goals: Fail

As good of an idea as it sounded, I'm giving up on the "goals" concept. It's just not practical for me I guess to keep up with deciding on what this month's goals should be and sticking to them instead of getting distracted by another project.

In other news, I had a wonderfully productive morning--and there's still an hour to go before I have to leave for work! Besides a bunch of cleaning (which never seems finished), I knit a bit of a scarf and photographed my newly acquired yarn. This whole late-shift thing is looking even better than I anticipated!

Yarn: check!

My yarn came in! And due to work I had to wait until the weekend to get it. [Side note: Starting tomorrow, my hours change so that I'll be working the late shift instead of mid shift--ideally to work less overtime. There's a small chance, if I get up early enough, that I can go yarn shopping before work during the week now. Assuming, of course, I can find my way there by myself, make my decisions quickly, and find my way to work from there (and it's not on the way at all). ...but I do have the motivation, lol.]

Work aside, I have my first "real" yarn! Cascade LE 109 (I think it's a super bulky) in a golden brown that should go well with my plethora of jewel-tone t-shirts (and blacks, and whites, and even the couple pastels I have).

It came out to a lot more than I was expecting--like, $40 more. When I checked out the Cascade price tag last time I was there, it was for the worsted 220, not the weight I bought which is more expensive. Plus the needles were a lot more than expected as well ...but they're Addi Turbos which, according to the Ravelry boards, seem to be pretty high quality so I guess they're worth it. I was a bit confused when she first told me the price, but I'm not going to guilt myself over this. Especially now that I'm working the late shift because I get a differential for that. The total amount spent at the LYS came in just under the extra bucks I'll get in my first paycheck for this shift, so it's not like I lost money yet, per se (last work reference in the post, promise).

It's way too hot and sticky to break out the camera, set up one of my make-shift backdrops, take photos, edit them, etc. I can't even stay on the comp long because that generates additional heat. So I'll post pix another time. I do finally grasp the concept of how yarn is seasonal: besides balling one hank, I haven't had much of an urge to fondle the yarn. It's just too gross out to play with heavy wool.

Actually, now that I think of it, turning off the comp sounds like an excellent idea. I'm off to grab a big glass of ice-cold water before going to sleep on top of the covers. G'night.

Real wool!

I have real wool! ...or at least I will in a few days.

I went to a LYS for my second time ever and was very satisfied with this shop. Lots of yarn and quite friendly & educated staff. Apparently brown isn't a very popular color, but she pulled out pretty much every skein of brown they had. But that wasn't enough so she pulled out books and such containing samples of yarn that could be ordered. Just like that. Crazy!

Since there wasn't enough yarn of any type for a sweater (6 skeins), I did end up ordering. Cascade... something or other (bulky? 109 or 128?) in a lighter brown than most of the others that she showed me. It was by the yellows on the card instead of the rest of the neutrals, but didn't look too much like a gross brown color. I had a goldish brown in mind anyway for Cherie Amour.

I'm still worried about getting the right sized needles since I'd like it to fit, making gauge important. When I said I needed needles too, she found the recommended ones and stashed them away for when I come back for the yarn. I have no idea if I'll need the recommended sizes, but I thought that was really sweet of her so I didn't want to say anything. I've gotten a lot better since high school, but I'm still quite shy.

Since I went in with the pattern in mind and showed it to her, she quickly jumped on Ravelry to find what others used for it. Still shy, I didn't ask what her username is, but I was able to find the group for her store! lol. I'll keep an eye on the boards and hope that anything special that goes on in the store takes place on a weekend since work is taking up more and more time during the week.

But back on topic, probably by this time next week, I'll have 6 skeins of wool ready and waiting for me to begin my first sweater! I'm still getting over the fact that it'll cost twice as much as my synthetic ones ($42 just for yarn), but the warmth factor should make it worth the splurge. Just think--an article of clothing that will actually keep me warm (if I completely ignore the fact that it's lacy, lol). That kind of logic, plus the beautiful examples I've seen on Ravelry are inducing an urge to knit socks. But that will be a contemplation for another day.

Stockinette v. Illusion

It looks like my star illusion WUA section is not going to meet the WUA dimension requirements: 9.5" across, 4" @ 2/3 of the way through (it's supposed to be 9" x 7"). I doubt they'll mind an extra half inch and I can make up the shortness by adding a crochet border on those two sides, but it's still a bit of a disappointment that I didn't get it right the first time.

Lesson learned: all-stockinette gauge swatches should not be used as a measurement for illusion knits.

Illusion Star Chart - Completed!

I'm so excited about this illusion square that I scrambled to finish the chart before leaving for work yesterday morning. It's the first chart I've ever made and the first anything I'm doing with illusion knitting, but for some reason I'm really confident it's going to work.

After studying a couple patterns (the alien scarf in Stitch 'n Bitch and another one on dA), it just clicked--colors alternate every two rows, the second row of each color contains the RS purls, and the actually number of RS purl rows is 1/4 the number of total rows so the image has to be on a 1/4 vertical scale. That's it!

Which makes me wonder if I could write up a tutorial for it... hmm...


The only thing I am scared of is that the total number of sts and rows will be off. The results of the stockinette 7" x 9" gauge "swatch" I made to prep for this really surprised me. It was the first time since beginning to knit continental that I had entire rows of just knit or purl, not mixed. All my purl sts were loose enough that they're at risk of slipping off the metal needles; my knit sts were so tight that they took a bit of effort to slide around the metal needles. Weird. It makes sense, I guess, since purling continental is easier than the knit for me (...which itself it also a bit strange).

Whatever happens, it'll be a good experience.

June 2008 Goals

A bit of a delayed start, but this month I want to...

• At least get the yarn & needles I'll need for Cherie Amour. I'd love to actually cast on, but that's a bit difficult without all the materials.
  
• Knit up another WUA square. This time I really want to try illusion knitting, just a simple star pattern.
• And if I get the chance, get some more work done on that snowflake/starching tutorial tutorial. Maybe I'll finish it before this year's Christmas =P

I already...
Knit two more WUA squares. One that's the same pattern as another I made (quick, easy, mindless knit). The other was essentially a 7" x 9" gauge swatch for the illusion square to come.

Goal Check: May 2008

The hold up has been the photos ...so I'll just skip those for now and add them later (eventually).

I only made two of the three WUA squares intended, but got so much more done:

• 2 WUA squares
• finished (wove in ends) a pair of wrist warmers I knit over a year ago (finally!)
  
• took photos of 3 different projects that have been waiting to be documented for quite some time (the wrist warmers + 2 entrelac scarves)
  
• took the photos needed for a starching tutorial (another "finally!")
  
• started planning more projects

So overall, I did more work than just 3 WUA squares =)

Fourth Try's a Charm

The first square for this month's project--a green square completed in seed st--I knew I wanted to make for a while. It just fit.

For the second square, I'm trying to use up some pink yarn and it's not going far. I've tried three different st patts so far. I'm choosing them out of a book (The Knitting Directory, Alison Jenkins) and they're coming out a lot more ...vertically squished than the photos in there. A purl st chevron, moss st triangles (purl triangles + knit triangles)... I think I'm just going to settle on the caterpillar st and keep going once I frog it and cast on enough sts (oops).

Blah.. knitter's block I suppose. At least all this frogging is giving me practice at the double cast on. I still don't like how you can't tell how long the tail is going to be beforehand, but it's so much more fun to cast on that way than knitting them on. ...a nice change, we'll say, to use fingers instead of needles.

Knitting continentally isn't getting any easier (thank you, learning curve). The seed st was awesome and easy; surprisingly knitting and especially purling are more difficult when not alternating st. Weird.

But my commercial break from The Incredibles is over. Back to the needles for me.

May 2008 Project

So I can better develop this newly learned skill, I decided that my project for this month will be to knit 3 sections for WUA using using the continental method. Stash busting, charity, and practice all in one shot.

Knit-Picking

I learned continental knitting! And I love it <3 style="font-style: italic;">Stitch 'n Bitch. I'd heard about continental knitting before that, but always figured I'd learn some other time. SnB likened it to crocheting and had all these pictures. The more I looked at them, the more I realized that it's all the same thing. The yarn is doing the exact same thing in the English method as continental. It's just oriented a bit different, coming from a different direction.

After this revelation, I tried it and promptly fell in love. Alright, now I'm not so quick at it, but it's amazingly smoother and I'm getting better at it really quickly.

The only downsides are that I think I'm knitting tighter than ever (small price to pay) and I'm a bit concerned about dpn's. My experience with them is limited, but I'm worried that by moving the needles more for continental, the sts are going to slip off one of the needles. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

For now, so excited!


(And yes, the title was borrowed from Stitch 'n Bitch)

New blog!

As if I don't have enough sites to neglect already, I'm starting this new blog dedicated solely to crafts. Mostly, I knit and crochet, do some cross-stitch, and eventually I'll add sewing to that list.

New site = renewed motivation. Keeping reality in mind, let's start with the following expectations...

Goals:
- one project per month
- one blog post per week

Wish me luck!
--lgleo