Age of Brass and Steam

Posted on August 28, 2011 by rycrafty

I finished my handspun shawl!

It looked like this for a bit. The pattern only has you do 3 bands of stockingette. I got to that point and still had a big-ish ball of yarn left. You end the shawl by doing another garter/yarn-over section (3 rows) then 3 rows of plain garter stitch, then bind off. To get the most out of my yarn, I weighed the ball before I did the last garter/YO row the pattern called for (the ridge closest to the needle in the photo above). It weight 40g. Then I knit the 3-row garter/YO section. 35g. So if I need to do about twice that to finish the shawl, noting that I also need to do a bind off (essentially a 7th row) and the fact that the shawl gets 6 stitches bigger every 2 rows, I decided to knit in stockingette again until the yarn ball was between 12-15g.

I did that, weighing at the end of every right-side row. After some knitting, the ball weighed 16g at the end of a right-side row. I decided I didn’t want to stress too much about running out of yarn on the bind off, so I started the beginning of the end there.

Here is what I ended up with:

I love the striping the yarn did! The steel grey stripe near the second garter ridge from the left made me very happy. I could see it peeking through the ball while I was knitting the stockingette part before it, and I really wanted to knit that section up. Here’s the post where I talk about spinning the yarn.

It turned out to quite a handy size. Just right for tucking in the front of a coat on a chill morning, and it has enough fabric to pull up to cover the bottom part of my face when it gets colder.

Show yourself!

Posted on August 18, 2011 by rycrafty

Spotted this on the walk home from work today:

There is obviously another fibre enthusiast in the neighbourhood.

Rhinebeck Wishing Sweater and a Giveaway!

Posted on August 15, 2011 by rycrafty

So this year, I have the third weekend of October off. This may not mean a lot to non knitters, but knitters know that the third weekend in October means the New York Sheep and Wool Festival, more commonly known just by the name of the town it is held in: Rhinebeck. I once described Sock Summit as “knitters’ Woodstock”. Really that title is much more appropriate for Rhinebeck, as Rhinebeck is about 30 minutes from actual Woodstock.

I’m not certain I can go yet, and won’t have a better idea until we can assess the state of our bank account in September, but I’m hopeful. (To help me get there, I’ve put some of my stash on sale too!)

A lot of knitters that go to Rhinebeck make Rhinebeck sweaters. Awesome knitted sweaters to wear around the fair are a great conversation starter, and a sign that you’re a knitter. Now as I’m not certain I can go, for a little while I wasn’t sure if I should start a sweater. Would it be some form of sweater curse to start knitting it before I knew I could go? Would it bring luck to me to help me go? I’ve decided to start one, because work is about to get in the way of my knitting time, and I can’t guarantee that I could knit a sweater in the time between deciding to really really go and getting there. And if I don’t end up going, I’ve got a nice new cardigan.

I think I’ve decided on the Paulie pattern:

It’s a free pattern, which is a plus considering the immediate lockdown I put on my wallet once I decided I needed to save for this trip.

I’ve got a main colour yarn already, Wollmeise Kurbis. I’m just not sure what colour I want to do the stripes with, so I thought I’d see what everyone else thought.

The main colour is the two skeins on the outside of the picture. They’re a little variegated, so I may actually do the ’2 rows from one skein, 2 rows from another thing’. Here they’re pictured with a deep pink Wollmeise in Himbeere. This would make a bright sweater, staying in the same general colour family.

Or I could stripe with purple. I have two purple Wollmeise skeins, Lila Ludmilla and Amethyst Dark. The photo above shows the differences in the purples. Out of these two I think I’m leaning towards the paler one, but I could be persuaded otherwise.

Or I have some teal yarn that’s a little brighter than I could photograph. This is another good contrasty combination. I have more than what’s in the picture for the teal, but it might be a close thing doing that last teal i-cord bind=off. This teal is Koigu colour 1500.

Or a paler, dusty pink from Zen Yarn Garden. This was an afterthought as I was pulling all my yarn out to see what would go. I think it could be interesting.

Now here is the fun part! I have a third skein of the orange-y Wollmeise. I shouldn’t need it for this sweater (I’m making the small size), but I want to hang onto it for insurance, because it would suck to run out during the bind off or something. If I do use any of it, it definitely won’t be much, and Wollmeise is generous with their yardage. So, if you leave a comment telling me which colour you think is best for the stripes (and/or why one combination is so heinous it should never be seen again) you will be put into a drawing for that last skein! You can also enter by tweeting about the giveaway (see below for details). I will mail the skein when I have completely finished the sweater, or if I give up on the sweater/don’t finish in time, I’ll mail it out to you on October 14th, the start of Rhinebeck. You can enter this competition up until I post a picture of the first stripe knitted into the sweater in my chosen combo on the blog. I imagine that will be near the end of the month.

And there’s a new kid in town trying to make entering contests easier for bloggers! The name of the service is Rafflecopter. I applied for an invite and it came through a little while ago, and I’m going to test it out with this competition. Once you’ve left your comment and clicked the “I did this!” button (don’t forget to do that, that’s what enters you in the draw!) you can also use the Rafflecopter widget to tweet about the giveaway once per day for another chance to win. If you want to comment but don’t want to be in the draw, comment away and ignore the Rafflecopter widget. This is my first go with Rafflecopter, and if it works well, I could probably be persuaded into doing some more giveaways.

(If you’re reading this in Google Reader or the like, you’ll need to hop over here to see the widget!)

Continue reading →

Socks Away!

Posted on August 14, 2011 by rycrafty

Sock Summit really got my knitting mojo going again. The mojo had been repressed by wedding planning, and even though I was knitting, not much was getting done.

Before I left for Sock Summit, I cast on a simple pair of socks in yarn I’d bought at the last Summit (so much for that goal of knitting it all up before SS11….). I finished the cuff while in Portland, and have just finished up sock #1!

I knit on the sock on my lunch break from work this week. When it’s not thunderstorming, I like to eat my lunch in Olympic Plaza to get some much-needed vitamin D.

And here’s the finished sock at home.

The pattern is Charade, and the yarn is Lotus Yarns Chakra in the colour ‘Bettie’. I lurve this yarn – it’s the first sock yarn I ever bought that has cashmere in the blend, and it is the silkiest softest thing I’ve ever touched.

I also cast on for a second pair of socks once I got home. I’m a really big fan of the videocast Round the Twist, and Carin is doing a nice slow-paced knitalong through Cookie A’s first book. I decided to cast on for the Rick socks, just like Carin, and join in the fun. I used more SS09 yarn, Liberty’s Yarn in Jabbersocky, in the awesome Lemongrass colourway.

Now, the day I started these socks, I had all my circular needles out for organizing. I knew I wanted to knit them on 2.5mm needles, so when I’d finished organizing I grabbed the needles I wanted and got going. After an inch or two the sock was looking very tiny, so I tried it on and it wouldn’t fit. I checked the needles, because I’d been having some problems with tightness when I was doing my decreases and lo and behold, I’d picked up my 2.25mm needles instead of the ones I really wanted. I ripped back to the ribbing, which fit fine, and started with new needles.

I tried the sock on when it had an inch or two of patterning done, and it fit over my heel just fine. I tried it on when there was 4″-5″ of patterning, and Rick and I reached a stalemate:

He was not going any farther than that. The bias stitches make the sock squeeze down small like a Chinese finger trap. So I ripped again, the whole thing this time.

I’m trying to decide how to proceed next:

Option 1 is to start again on 3mm needles, even though I quite liked the fabric the 2.5mms were giving me.

Option 2 is to add another repeat of the pattern to the leg while knitting with the 2.5mms. This keeps the fabric I like, but could make the heel of the sock problematic. Although I did take a class from Cookie A at Sock Summit (and have the signed book to prove it) so maybe I should venture into the semi-design-your-own arena.

Or I suppose there’s Option 3: forget the Rick socks for now, and cast on for a sweater. There’s a chance I might make it to Rhinebeck this year, and if it pans out, I don’t want to be sweaterless!

Beekeeper’s Quilt

Posted on August 9, 2011 by rycrafty

I love to knit socks. And I’m blessed to have small-ish feet. Size 8 – not tiny, but not in the double digits. It means that I tend to have leftover sock yarn when I’m finished a pair. I’ve been collecting all the wee little sock yarn balls in a nice blue jar on the bookcase.

It looks like I’m going to need another jar pretty soon!

I’ve always had the idea that I’d turn these extra bits into a sock yarn blanket, most likely something knit in small pieces, so I wouldn’t be carting around a giant blanket when I near the end of the project. I’d just never felt the motivation to start doing it, or found a good pattern. For a while I thought I was going to weave all the bits on the little Weavette loom I have. I have about 4 rectangles done, and I’ve had the Weavette for…. 5 years.

Then, last night, I was browsing Ravelry and I found the Beekeeper’s Quilt pattern.

(picture from the Ravelry pattern page linked above)

Yes, that is knitting doing a very credible impression of one of those paper-pieced hexagon quilts.

(photo from BoundlessMerriment on Etsy)

I was hooked! Then I looked at the rest of Tiny Owl Knits’ patterns, and I was more hooked. But finally, I know what my sock yarn ends are going to become. The pattern is neat because you stuff the little hexagon pockets with fibrefill or whatever you want to use, so they’re puffy and cosy. I think the blanket would probably be just as cosy without the stuffing, and may end up with better drape, so I’m going to do some experimenting to see if I want to stuff them or not. I also think it looks like a very cosy rug. And I just love the random embroidery/duplicate stitch on a few choice puffs, I’m thinking of our initials, maybe a couple cute animals, flowers, space invaders… I don’t want to go too overboard with the embellishments though, and keep them as the odd treasure. I really like the idea of making it out of all the odds and sods of sock yarn rather than new skeins – it’ll be like a knitted memoir of all the fingering weight projects I’ve ever made.

Now we take bets on when I finish it! I’m going to say some time within the next 5 years.

Sock Summit ’11 Report

Posted on August 7, 2011 by rycrafty

Sock Summit was amazing, once again. I was so happy to have a day and a half to just hang out with all my new knitterly BFFs, and some BFFs from last year’s summit too. The trip was off to an auspicious start when I met another knitter at the gate at the Calgary airport, and we found this sock-themed game:

YYC obviously replaced all their previous games just for this weekend.

I bought way less yarn than last time, because my SS09 stash was weighing heavily on my mind. I’ve had so much fun squishing and petting my purchases though, that I decided to try a videoblog report on SS11. That way I can wave the yarn around like I want to, rather than typing about it.

It was pretty fun to do, and I think it works well for showing off knitting, so I may do it again some time. I think videos would work really well for finished object posts too.

Sock Summit 2011 Report from Rycrafty on Vimeo.

I find the still Vimeo chose for this video hilarious. I look like I’m trying to be amusingly pompous while I’m adjusting my glasses. Turns out, that is just the face I make when I adjust my glasses.

A question I didn’t ask in the video: if you’ve been to both Sock Summit and Rhinebeck, how do they match up? I probably wouldn’t get any classes at Rhinebeck at this point, so how is the marketplace? The hang-out areas? Do you want a roommate?

Here’s a still photo of the sock I’m working on right now.

And here is a close-up of my nails! The Deborah Lippmann polish I’m holding is just the pink glitter (I think it looks like rose gold). I did a couple layers of SpaRitual’s Jetsetter pink polish first.

Oh, and gratuitous Sockgate photo:

Standby Knitting… Knitting GO

Posted on March 17, 2011 by rycrafty

So last week, I wrote about not knowing whether I should attempt some wedding knitting. I felt like it would be a shame not to knit anything for the wedding, as it is my favourite hobby, but didn’t want to stress myself out. Well everyone wrote back with such wonderful compliments, and messages of support, so I dove in!

Monday I wandered over to a yarn store not 4 blocks from here, hoping to find some perfect teal yarn. I wasn’t too hopeful – it’s always hard going shopping for something so specific. Well, I walked in and found this:

Three little skeins of teal sock yarn! I brought it home and pulled out some black sock yarn I already had: I’d actually bought it a couple years ago to make some socks for Cinnamon Buns, but never got around to it. I started the socks that night, and they’ve become my work knitting. Before you think I’m a bad employee – theatre can be a very ‘hurry up and wait’ type of environment (depending on the show, of course), so it is good to have things like knitting to keep your hands and brain busy. A lot of my current cast does crosswords – I knit. Naturally, I only knit in those dead spaces, and if there’s an emergency (busted button or snap, broken prop) or I have a cue (handing off props, guns, blood bags, helping people change outfits in 10.5 seconds, supervising the safe “hanging” of an actor… I have a weird job) the knitting is the furthest thing from my mind. That said, here is what one night at home and a week at work (on a show with a slow Act 1) looks like in knitted form:

I’m getting close to the heel: you can see the start of the second skull pirate on the bottom right, a few rows after finishing him, it is time for the heel. I’ve made Cinnamon Buns try on the sock so far, and it fits, which is awesome. If you’re a knitter, the teal is Koigu KPM, and the black is Blue Moon Fiber Arts mediumweight.

I’ve decided that I will work on Cinnamon Buns’ socks first, and start my wedding shawl when they are finished. If I were to pick just one project, I’d knit his socks, so I won’t be too fussed if I don’t finish the shawl. Oh, shawl patterns! You know all those ones I showed you last week? I picked one! I picked one that wasn’t in that original post – in my defense, it is a much more recent pattern than those ones, and I hadn’t done a new search in a while. I will (maybe) be knitting Potager, by Anne Hanson for my wedding shawl:

potager738_72dpi

(photo from Anne Hanson’s website)

This shawl is just what I was looking for. I wanted something that evoked leaves or flowers, to go with the flowers on my dress. There are a lot of lovely geometric shawls out there, but I wanted something more organic-looking. There will be some beads on the two ends, and I’ve ordered some 100% silk yarn from the Unique Sheep to knit it with. As one commenter mentioned, it’s my wedding, this is the time to invest in silk! Wool is a little more forgiving, but I want that sheen that only silk has.

Now the race against time begins!

Yes, I still knit!

Posted on October 3, 2010 by rycrafty

We interrupt your regularly scheduled wedding-planning with breaking news: I still knit! And, I finished something!

Yes, that is one pair of finished Aquaphobia Socks, in yarn I bought at Sock Summit from Purl Up and Dye.

I didn’t make any (intentional) changes to the pattern. These socks were getting picked up and put down a lot, so there are a few places (especially on the second one) where the cable twists the wrong way. It didn’t bother me enough to change it once I noticed though, and once there was one wrong cable twist, why bother fixing the others?

The yarn is colourful enough that it is a little hard to notice. I love how there was no colour pooling with this stitch pattern. It’s a slip stitch pattern (like the heels on a lot of socks!) so these socks are extra-thick and warm. They’ll be great walking to work in the winter socks. I make sure all my winter shoes will fit hand-knitted socks. It means I only have to wear the big, ugly, clumpy boots when there are actual snowdrifts on the sidewalk.

This yarn was Sock Summit 2009 stash – I’m slowly working away at it. I hope to work up a lot more of it before Sock Summit 2011!

Life with Evenstar

Posted on June 11, 2010 by rycrafty

I’ve been spending a lot of my free time lately knitting. Knitting away on the edging of my Evenstar shawl. This is the ginormous shawl that has a deadline that’s coming up in a couple weeks. I’ve been exclusively knitting this shawl since I started it, not wanting any distractions, or anything to detract from my knitting time. The edging is 56 repeats of a point, and I had been pushing myself to do up to 4 in a day.

‘Had’ is the operative word in that last sentence. On Tuesday, I looked at the little tally on my pattern print out (I make a mark each time I complete row 20) and I thought ‘ that can’t be right!’. But it could: I only have 7 repeats left to go! That is this much:

I can now actually see the beginning (and end) as I’m knitting.

So with only 7 repeats to go, and more than 2 weeks until the deadline, what is a knitter to do? Cast on something else, of course.

That is the Eunice pattern from Cookie A’s book Sock Innovation. I recently started watching Round the Twist, a video podcast by Carin, and she has decided to knit every sock out of said book. I caught up on all 40+ episodes over a few weeks, so I’m joining in after she has already completed a different set of socks. I also need to do this to start using up some of that Sock Summit stash. The yarn I’m using is Wool Candy BFL in the colour ‘Robin’s Egg’.

I’ve been having a bit too much fun with this sock – I need to put it down and finish up that last little bit of Evenstar, and then block it. That’s why tonight I’m going to watch The Two Towers and knit, and tomorrow will be Return of the King. Those two movies should be just the right amount of time to finish 7 beaded points.

Evenstar Start

Posted on April 26, 2010 by rycrafty

I started the beautiful Evenstar shawl last week. This is a ‘mystery shawl’ project, meaning: I signed up on the designer’s blog, and she is sending out clues every two weeks. Each clue is the next section of the shawl, so you knit that clue, and eagerly await more emails. You don’t know what your finished project is going to look like! The clues started in February when I was busy with work, and trying to get rid of a few other projects that have been hanging around. Clue #6 was just released. I 5 days, I’ve managed to get this far (this is clues #1 & 2):

Not too bad! The first part went very quickly, and I got very excited, but the thing to remember about this shawl is that the stitch count will double every so often, so it makes a flat, circular object when finished. I have to keep explaining to people that I am not knitting a hat, or a bag, but a flat thing. It’s just got too many stitches on a short circular, so it is scrunched up. Currently, my rows have 280 stitches in them. Tomorrow I am expecting to finish clue #3 – that’s when it doubles again.

When it changed from 144 to 280, it took some time to adjust to the new longer rows, but I eventually felt like I was knitting at a respectable speed again. I’m scared for 560.

You might ask, why would one go through all this knitting without knowing what the finished project will look like? Some designers just know how to play on the strengths of people’s obsessions:

Yes, that would be the Evenstar Shawl and all the yarn (Yarn Chef Creme Brulee, colour ‘Dusk in Provence’) on my Tolkien shelf. The little grey edition of The Hobbit is the one that dad read to me at age 4, which I then read by myself at age 5, and is the book that started it all. The pages are brown, one falls completely out (the one with the ‘attercop attercop’ song), and there’s obvious tea stains, but I love it. I love all those books up there. The yarn is sitting in front of LotR, The Silmarillion, and Unfinished Tales. There’s also a whole bunch of other related stuff behind all those books.

Obsession? Moi?

A Year in the Making

Posted on April 19, 2010 by rycrafty

My linen shopping bag is done, a year and two weeks after I started it! (Ravelry Link)

I originally started this project with the idea of finishing it and taking it to Sock Summit to hold my purchases. I got partway through, and abandoned it for some socks that I also didn’t finish for Sock Summit. I think it turned out for the best, because I don’t think the haul I got at Sock Summit would have fit in the bag, stretchy as it is.

The yarn makes me happy – I traded with someone on Ravelry for it, so it was essentially free, which is always good. This is also the project that I told myself I had to finish before I started on my Evenstar Shawl, and I’m ecstatic about being able to start that tonight. I’m about to get out the ballwinder and swift – I couldn’t even wind the yarn before finishing this, it would have been too tempting.

I did make a modification to the pattern, based on some comments other people had made about the project on Ravelry: when making the handle, I only cast on 70 stitches, instead of the 145 recommended, which I think made the handle just the right length. I am pretty short, after all.

Some Knitting Funnies

Posted on February 26, 2010 by rycrafty

I’ve been working away on both pairs of mittens, although I’ve had a bit of a crisis of faith with the thrummed ones. I wanted them to be a surprise for Patrick, but I keep wondering if they’ll fit! The thrums are huge, and I keep worrying they’re too big, so I spend the entire night staring at them, trying them on, imagining my hands were bigger… I’m back on the Fiddlehead mittens now, working the last lining.

I bought a new computer, and have just gotten to the point where I think I have everything I need transferred over. I now have a beautiful 21.7″ iMac sitting on my desk, instead of my 6-year old, 14″ iBook laptop. I have so much more crafting space now!

I found a few references to knitting in a couple different places recently, and took screenshots so I could share.

This is an Etsy error message. I love how the skein of yarn has an unhappy face too!

Now, you can expect knitting-related things on Etsy. But can you expect them in silly little games?

This is a screen shot from one of my favourite games, Peggle. The various characters help you through the levels, and they have these random words of wisdom sometimes that have nothing to do with the game. I thought this one very apt.

Knitting New Year

Posted on February 22, 2010 by rycrafty

I’ve been thinking more about my Knitting New Year idea, and I think I may forge on with it. The guidelines I’d set for myself would be to have finished all my current Works in Progress by my birthday, April 2nd. I don’t think this is an unreasonable goal, considering I have most of March off from work, and the work I’m doing from now until then is fairly knit-friendly.

If I meet my current knitting goals, the thrummed mittens will be done by February 28th, and the Fiddleheads by March 7th (although I think I’ll be done before then).

Ideally, I’d finish both by February 28th.

That leaves me with the following projects to finish (or frog) by April 2:

These socks just need a lot of ends weaving in – I could do that in a day.

This modular linen shopping bag. I don’t want to frog this! For some reason I stopped working on it, then lost it. I found it again recently, tucked away in the storage room. I’ve stolen the needle from it for the thrummed mittens, but that doesn’t matter because mittens must be done first!

These socks will the challenge. They’re knee socks, and I’ve got one knit down to the ankle. Problem is, they’re a titch tight. I think I will soak and block what I’ve got so far, to see if that will loosen up the knitting. If it does, I continue to knit and have a wearable pair of socks. If it doesn’t, then I have to make the hard decision. I may also submit these to the Stampede knitting showase, if I do, do I need (or want) them to fit me?

And those are actually all the projects I have on the needles right now. The issue is that while I want the projects done and out of my knitting bags, there are other things I want to knit! My first Unique Sheep Lord of the Strings sock club kit arrived last week, and I joined the Evenstar Shawl knitalong. It is very hard not to jump in to those projects right now.

Maybe if I’m disciplined, I can finish the above projects (Fiddleheads, P’s mitts, Toe Socks, bag, green socks) I’ll have time before my birthday to cast on a new project. That will be completely allowed in the rules, because this challenge is to make me finish those things that have been hanging around.

Slow-growing Socks

Posted on January 1, 2010 by rycrafty

The Green & Blue toe socks stalled a bit when I got to the heel, because I didn’t want to have to bring the book anywhere, so they languished until I had a few hours of quiet at home to do the heel.

Now I’ve got about half the length of leg that I need! I’ve been bringing them to work, and doing a few rows at lunch each day. I also finally duplicate-stitched the top of the heart on the finished one:

I’ve been busy at work, and I’ve been preparing a wholesale stitch marker order in the evenings at home. I haven’t stopped making cards either, I’ve got a whole pile of those to post and blog about, and I’ve even got a few for challenges! January will be one of the busiest, craziest months of the year, but things will get easier after that, and I even have some time off in March. I’m planning on spending that time crafting and baking.

I had a great Christmas, and I did something I’ve been wanting to do for ages: I put all my Christmas money towards a big purchase (rather than say, rent or groceries). A KitchenAid Artisan mixer is on its way to me! I’m very, very excited for that to arrive.

Toe Socks

Posted on December 1, 2009 by rycrafty

Since I finished my shawl, and the baby sweater, it was time to find a new project to take to work. Can’t be without knitting at work, after all.

I decided to be a good little knitter and pick up something that has been languishing. I had a few choices (oops…) but I ended up picking my toe socks back up!

This is the one that is done. I finished it back in July. I even knit the big toe for sock #2 before Sock Summit. I brought these socks to the freakin’ SOCK. SUMMIT. and didn’t work on them. I knit the first few rows of the 4-toes section in the airport, and at some point at the Summit I needed the needles, so I put the proto-toe on to waste yarn, and stuck it back in the project bag. That was the state I found them in at work a few nights ago.

Now, sock #2 is just at the point where I’m going to switch from blue to the variegated for the bulk of the foot. Then it will be perfect work knitting: work knitting needs to be able to be done in the dark.

I still need to weave the ends in on this sock, and duplicate stitch the dimple into the top of the heart. I had so many yarn ends doing that intarsia at the top, I decided that coming back later would be much easier for those 4 stitches.

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that short-row heels are not my favourite for socks. I end up with wrinkles opposite the heel, where my foot meets my leg, and that doesn’t happen so much with other heels.

My photography will be getting better (well, at least when I’m home in daylight, which is rare) because my new light reflector has arrived. And by ‘reflector’ I mean the coating of shiny white snow on my balcony. The balcony doors provide most of the light for my photos.

Knitters Rejoice!

Posted on October 26, 2009 by rycrafty

This is my Ulmus shawl so far (pattern here). As you can see, I’m about halfway through the border section. A few rows after this picture was taken, and I’m on row 22 of 34. Problem is, it takes a good 20 minutes or more for me to finish a row now, as the shawl has grown 4 stitches for every row I’ve knit. I’ve knit a lot of rows, as I have enough yarn for the large size.

This also means that binding off will take about an hour!

I am loving this tweed yarn, and I think goes quite well (in an autumnal way) with the deep maroon (Dionysus) from Gaia’s Colours. The tweed was labeled Colorfest Fiber Arts, but I haven’t been able to find any more info on it.

After this I need to cast on a baby jacket for a friend of mine who just had a baby. First of the high school crowd to have a baby. Scary! Luckily, I knew the baby was coming, and managed to snag a Tulips baby sweater kit at Sock Summit.

Knitting and new hobbies

Posted on October 19, 2009 by rycrafty

I’ve been knitting (if not blogging) quite a bit recently. My last show was great, because two of the actors were also knitters, so we’d sit in the green room and knit while waiting for the show to start. I got more knitting done than them, because they had to get into wigs and corsets and petticoats and other things. I just had to remember to make toast and coffee every night.

I had been working on my Ikebana sock; I even turned the heel and started my way down the foot. I decided to try it on, and found that it was quite tight, well, all over, but especially in the ‘can barely pull it on over my heel’ way. Its in time out right now while I decide what steps to take. I’ll have to wrestle it on over my heel again, to figure how far up the leg I want to rip back.

My other option is to just keep going – I wanted to enter these socks into a knitting competition, and the competition won’t care if they fit me. But I think they’ll be just too much work to waste on socks that I won’t even be able to wear in the end.

Because of the show I mentioned, I needed a new project, so I decided to put some of my Sock Summit purchases to good use, and start an Ulmus.

I’m on the leafy border now, so I’ve progressed much farther than this photo. Not sure if I’ll be ready to tackle the socks when this is done. I do have a baby sweater to knit for a friend’s new baby, so I think that’ll be the next thing on my needles.

As for stuff that’s been taking away from knitting time, I’ve been making an effort to go to yoga more often, and I may have a new obsession. Rubber stamps.

Well, stamping may actually be a recurrence of a long-dormant condition – I did a lot of playing with rubber stamps as a kid. I wanted to make my Christmas cards this year, and I bought stamps for that…. and then I bought lots more. And more. I have been using them though, playing with them, playing with techniques. Papercrafting was my very first crafty love.

I figure I’m enjoying myself, and I’m not hurting anyone, so how bad can a stamp (I love the clear stamps! so cool!) and inkpad and embossing powder collection be?

In the Wild

Posted on August 19, 2009 by rycrafty

I had many great experiences at the Sock Summit. One of the odd ones was how I seemed to naturally gravitate towards other Canadians. I ended up sitting beside Canadians in most of my classes, and all entirely by accident!

One of my favourite things happened in Janel Laidman’s Sideways Socks class (I think, who was in which class is all a bit of a blur). I ended up sitting beside a lovely knitter who is OhSusannah on Ravelry. We chat, find out we’re both Canadians, and then she says ‘I think I have some of your stitch markers!’

And there we have it! Genuine Rycrafty stitch markers in their natural habitat. Those are the first set I ever made, and the 5th to sell from my etsy shop. They’ve been doing their duty since June 2008!

This is us later, at the Ravelry meetup.

She also really made me regret not joining The Unique Sheep‘s Lord of the Rings sock club. I may buy at least one of the kits, when they’re available, and I’ve already signed up for the next session of the same club. Sadly, it doesn’t start till the new year.

At the Ravelry meetup, I was recognized as a customer by BlackTrillium! I’d pre-ordered her Dye for Glory colourway ‘Coraline’ and was expecting it to be shipped to my house here. After Melanie recognized my name, and told me who she was, we made plans to meet up in the marketplace on Sunday, so I could pick up my yarn in person! She very nicely refunded me the shipping charge, so I got a deal and I didn’t have to wait for this yarn:

Sock Summit Pile-O-Goodies

Posted on August 18, 2009 by rycrafty

I took unfair advantage of the fact that Oregon has no sales tax (yet another reason to love it there) and of the fact that if I bought yarn at the Summit, I wouldn’t have to pay for shipping! We’ll ignore the cost of plane ticket and hotel stay.

I meant to focus on semi-solids, because I’ve been seeing lots of cable-y, bobble-y, texture-y patterns that I want to make. These are the semi-solids I bought:

I love the red tweedy one! Well, really, I love them all. Clicking on that photo will take you to my flickr, where I’ve got all my Sock Summit photos. I’ll be doling them out bit by bit.

I did start a project while I was out there, with a skein I bought at the marketplace. I needed something simple to knit, and I’d accidentally bought a small skein of sportweight, thinking it was sock yarn. I think that was the only time I got overwhelmed by yarn fumes and made a bad purchase. I was overwhelmed most of the time, but managed to buy great SOCK yarn.

It’s a simple cowl, with a few decorative rows thrown in. The basic recipe for it is here.

I decided not to bother counting the 10 stockinette rows between each band either – I decided it would be a timekeeping piece, so the first stockinette band (I started at the maroon/purple end) was the Ravelry party. The big one that’s next was the Luminary panel. Next was the drive to Edmonton (for the gun class, which I passed), then the drive back from Edmonton, then I just kept going with 10 rows. It’s funny, but 10 rows seems to be where I got to every time before putting it away because I was bored or my fingers were tired.

More new projects and more new yarn later!

Bag for Swag

Posted on May 15, 2009 by rycrafty

This is the bag I’m knitting to take to the Sock Summit to fill with all sorts of wonderful sock yarn. It is actually starting to look like a bag now, not just a square.

And I’ve started on the second colour! My Revolutionary Stitch Markers are really coming in handy: as you go up the sides, you leave one stitch of each square live, to pick up when you start the next tier. The markers are perfect mini stitch holders. I’ve also threaded one through the fabric so I know which square was first of this tier:

It’s so great to see it take shape, and I can just imagine all the great stuff I’m going to buy and put in it! I was just coming off a yarn diet when the Summit was announced, so I just kept on not buying yarn in order to save it all up until I can fondle everything in person.

I really like doing mitred squares. Have such little units of work still gives me a huge feeling of accomplishment when I finish one. And I’m getting really good at picking up stitches!

Rycrafty

I knit, I stamp, I colour, I craft. I bake. I make.

Category Archives: Knitting