Two of Sticks

Back From Stitches West '09

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:23:00 +0000

And what a show. As I tweeted many, many times, northern California doesn't mess around with the nice weather. It was like late April, early May every day. A teense hard to come back to all the snow and ice and wind chill out here in Mass, and I love the winter. I'm on a new laptop and I haven't tried to upload pictures to it yet. So no new photos of my latest crazy projects, but a little note to try to get back into the whole "updating mah blog" thing.

Chicago... I can't believe I'm still in Chicago...

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:04:00 +0000

Blogging here from ground zero of Stitches Midwest.

I haven't posted in awhile? Pssht. Suck it up, yeh pansies. You know where to find me if you desperately need to know my opinion about something. Some poor woman on ravelry just got a piece of my mind when she asked me about CAD software for us regular-type, boots on the ground designers, or the lack thereof. I told her 1) knit visualizer for the charts, 2) good luck. All my designs are done the old fashioned way; getting a table of standard measurements, adding a set amount of ease, and asking various women around my workplace what they like in a sweater. Easy? No. Foolproof? Hell no. But it's the only game in town, so I'll play it.

Anyway, it's been a balls-to-the-wall show. The midwest really came out in full, norwegian-accented force this weekend, and I dare say that I'm proud to be from around these parts. They rocked us like a hurricane, poured some sugar on us, and gave us all sorts of hair metal type ballads. My feet are little, stumpy "ow" machines and all I want to do is curl up in my own bed with my pet Kyle to fetch me tea and prattle on about nerdy things until I fall asleep. But I'm seven times seven impressed with the venue. Imagine Austin Powers were Swedish and had a penchant for sticking a TV on every flat, vertical surface. If that man designed a hotel, it would look like this, though he wouldn't care enough about the environment to put a "natural, native wetland" in the front of it. It just looks like weeds and a wet ditch at this point, but they'll get the hang of it. I used to manage a 2 or 3 acre patch of prairie when I was a little one, so I know how it goes. If they don't have the balls to burn it all in spring, they'll get all sorts of European invader types and tree saplings. But they won't have the guts, so they'll probably use herbicides and migrant workers. For shame. Rambling? Again, I exhort you to suck it up, you were so desperate for my candid opinions, so now you're going to get them, stream-of-consciousness, notes-from-underground style.

Speaking of which, I had no idea that KT was a Russian major. That girl is chock goddamn full of surprises. She's lived, like, 3 or 4 lives in one, so I'm pretty envious. But I guess I still have enough life left to figure out who the crap I am, at least according to Andra, who insists that you don't nail things down until you're 30, and then when you're 40, it's all gravy. I imagine she says these things because she has no kids, which strengthens my resolve to pass on my genetic heritage in the form of memes rather than hateful spawn who will resent their nerdy names, go off to a mid-list, but expensive college and never talk to me again (just like me with my parents!).

So now I've done my responsible blogger diary-entry thing. Reviews are coming up soon, so if Kathy or Linda, or to some extent Steve take exception to this post, it'll be deleted. I love truth and all, but not to the point that I'm willing to take a dive in pay, thankyoukindly. So enjoy it while it lasts!

As a wiser man than me once said...

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Mon, 12 May 2008 03:44:00 +0000

Don't believe the hype.

I've gotten the most of my ranting out, and I promised myself not to write a crazy screed here. Lets just say that Sock Wars was... very disappointing. Now I pride myself on being buoyant and optimistic. It takes a lot to burst my bubble. This ranks somewhere between paying full theater ticket price for a three hour movie that turns out to suck and getting stood up for the prom. Many, many thanks to Joe from SWTC for staying up all night Friday trying desperately to field questions, contact the (only) person in charge, who, despite being compensated with over $2,500, apparently couldn't be bothered for the first 36 hours of her own event involving over 1200 people and a pattern she wrote and didn't edit, and to keep us from burning our prom dresses and storming the party with a GnR tape and some fifths of Popov's. Right... no screed...

Anyway! The socks are done. There are lots of things I would have changed about them were it allowed, but they're socks and generally sock-shaped. I should take pictures and post them, but I'm still a bit too sore to show them off. Maybe I'll snap a pic before I send them tomorrow.

The silver lining is that I've made some combat buddies who were in the same, stood up boat as I. And I think I have a really fun, exciting idea for my own knitting war. A stash-busting scarf in garter stitch knit length-wise with any combination of yarns from your stash, the more variety the better. But I'll wait for sweet sock death to take me and see how I feel about it. Now, to do some yoga and try to get to sleep.

On this, St. Crispin's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:52:00 +0000

Today's the day! Sock Wars iii kicks off and I'm letting myself totally dork out about it. The games begin when I get my emailed dossier including the pattern and my target. It's supposed to be in... just a few minutes! But the organizer has alluded that we're all psychotically eager and that it'll be sent AROUND 12 noon international time. One of my goals, as gonzo crazy as it is, is to try to finish my first pair before the weekend's out, to be shipped on Monday. I'm thinking about having Kyle blog his observations of my progress, sock-wise and psychologically throughout the day. And oh! I have new email!!! Ahhh!!!
edit: false alarm. darn netflix. =P
Here's a picture of my weapon, pre-assembled:

Dr. Livingston, I presume?

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:17:00 +0000

Gather round, my peers and fellows, and listen to the tale of my great journey. Feel, indeed palpate the danger of sailing down the mighty Zambezi in naught but an earthen canoe. Experience the wonder of ancient Tum-buk-tu with its mystical flying swamis. The terrible sandstorms of the Sahara, the abominable ice storms of Lapland, the deadly seas 'round the Cape of Good Hope and the poisonous jungles of Java. Cower at the... oh, never mind. I've been mostly sitting around... knitting, spinning, starting projects, then realizing they're stupid, surviving a winter so long that even I was getting sick of it.

But now, thank dog, spring has finally broken winter's siege. I've cleaned the house from top to bottom and decided to revivify my blog (along with my plants, whose leaves haven't been drooping, but I can't remember the last time I watered them, either). Unfortunately, I haven't finished too many big projects to show you, though I have managed to weave a few scarves out of 2/14 hand dyed. So much knitting's getting done at work that I get home with tired hands, happy to just spin or stare at stitch libraries and dream of future sweaters.

It's been an amazing process at work since I've started designing full time. I feel myself growing in bounds with every sweater, like I can practically feel the wrinkles in my brain forming. “Ooohhh, so THAT'S how you shape a sleeve cap” and so on and so forth. I owe so much to Linda for sitting by and answering all my nagging questions. I kind of regard her as my technical advisor, though I'm sure that's not part of her official job description. Kathy's been wonderful at keeping me inspired, giving me neat things she finds in magazines, since I'm way too butch (and poor) to consider getting a subscription to Vogue, though I do admit that I secretly like to peruse them when I get the chance, I just have to make sure no one's watching =). And Mary, dear Mary, is the marketing coordinator and the all-important no-ma'am. Essential for keeping my head somewhere beneath cloud-level . “Hey , Mary! I was thinking about making a big, ol' batwing-sleeve sweater out of tencel with intarsia hieroglyphs going all around it. Think I should go for it?” “Mmm... no.” “...nuts.” At first, it got me a littl e nervous and down on myself, but now I can't imagine designing without her input somewhere along the line. And my test knitters! O! I would be a woman dead from exhaustion and bloody stumps for fingers were it not for the noble efforts of Barbara, Marion, and the many others who've given up their spare time to help me crank out the ever-increasing number of designs. I can't do it without them. I've tried, and it ain't pretty.

So I'm getting the hang of things and I think the next catalog is going to be really, really stellar. It took the combined weight of Kathy, Linda, Mary, and even the store manager Karen, but they've finally gotten me to design sweaters that are bottom-up and in pieces, at least for this catalog. The reasoning that finally cowed me is that they need equal representation for all different kinds of construction methods, and we already have a ton of top-down, so it's time to even the scales. It still smarted a bit, and there was a lot I had to learn and re-learn, but I think the results are very nice and I'm actually pretty proud of the designs. Stay tuned for the Valley Yarns catalog!
On the home front, I've been doing a lot of spinning. Gail's dyed up some gorgeous merino roving that makes a self-striping sport-fingering weight yarn that looks like it's out of a dream.

I just don't feel right keeping it under a bushel. I'm going to try to sell it on etsy when I get a little more inventory, but it's slow going. It can take all weekend to do a single 340-ish yd skein, and I'm already getting a little fatigued. Not a good sign. But I'll keep at it! And if it doesn't sell, maybe I'll try knitting shawls out of it and selling those. Up up and away! And here's hoping I can remember to put more in this blog.

Sometimes inspiration like cave man...

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 12:04:00 +0000

It club me on the head with blunt wooden instrument and drag me back to cave:

I was knitting this all evening, up to and including conking out at about 11:30. It's all I can do to resist knitting it RIGHT NOW.

I've known about two-ended knitting for awhile, you know, that old tale about husband and wife sitting opposite eachother, knitting a sweater in the round and their work kind of swirls around each other's. It's in some book about Scandinavian knitting, I swear, not just a kooky dream. I even tried to rope my guy into it, but not even the '76 lineup of the Philadelphia Fliers could threaten him to knit. But anyway, I think it was the last Interweave Knits that had a section about 2-ended knitting in the round for socks. And it just occurred to me how neat it would be for a sweater! A circular-yoke, scrap-busting sweater! I just cast on 100 sts (which, at 4 sts to the inch, is a very convenient number for raglans and any other boat-neck-ish sweater I make), do a bit of ribbing, then knit 4 equal sections in 4 different yarns. Since a raglan increases 8 times every other round, that's the same as 4 times every round, and since I have 4 distinct sections of the knitting, I just increase at a random place in each yarn section. Easy peasy!

And here are the other yarns that will get incorporated:

So exciting! Aah!

Two point five skeins, suckah!

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:59:00 +0000

And at only about 100 yds per skein! I can't believe that's all it took to make this sweater. Alright, so it's more like a sweater in just the academic sense, but that's my favorite kind of sense! I'm so wearing it to work tomorrow with a black tank top and jeans, I think, and I'll get there a little early to pick out a properly large and funky button for it.

Now what to do with the 4 and a half "left over" skeins. Heh. Well, I could make the sleeves longer here. That shouldn't be a problem. I can probably make them reasonably 3/4 length with the remaining half a skein. But otherwise, um. Well, I think this looks "different" enough without being some kind of floor-length cardigan thing, which it could easily achieve with the remaining yardage. Yeah, that might be a bit too... video game heroine. And I really just don't dig the matching twinset look for some reason. Oh well, I'll think of something some day.

-Trumpet Fanfare-

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 03:05:00 +0000

Aaaaaaall done! Blocking on my living room floor. Finished it this morning, now it's just the waiting game for it to dry. Yes, it's a *cough* couple days later than my intended goal. Funny story, though. About as soon as I published my last post, Kyle came home from work. I told him my brilliant plan of staying up all night to finish the blanket even though I didn't need it done until later. Yeah, no, I don't think so. By around 1-1:30, I didn't need much convincing to go to bed. But don't worry! I was still a sleepy wreck the next day, as Cirilia can attest to. Ah well, such is life.

But now that I've gotten this sucker finally done, I'm on to my next hare-brained scheme! Start and finish this sweater:

Before my long weekend's over. It's out of Artful Yarns Celebrity, bought at a ridiculously low blow-out price at Webs, of course. Got the last 7 balls of this color, which I've always secretly enjoyed. So not too much yardage to work with. Solution: elongated stitches and alternating the sections I work on to get an even distribution of what little yarn I have. This is all one ball! I can hardly believe it myself. Yeah, the raglan looks heinously skimpy in this picture, but I'm working an elongated garter st every right side row, so those rows really stretch out lengthwise or even widthwise, depending. Technically the gauge is 3 per inch, but with this much stretch, all bets are off. And yes, that sleeve is worked in rows and will have to be sewn. I feel like such a top down Judas. But it was just too nutty to make the narrow little sleeves in the round with this strange yarn flopping everywhere. And with such large rows, it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. One of the things I'm really liking about this stitch (wrapping the yarn twice for every stitch on the rs rows, knitting straight across the ws rows, dropping off the extra loops) is how the increases work. Just don't drop off that extra loop! Knit into the back of the second loop, or purl it, or whatever, to keep it "valid" in the appropriate places et voila! A raglan sleeve.

Plans are to make it half or 3/4 sleeve, pretty cropped, single-button cardigan with a big, black, interesting button to make it all work. And I intend to wear it to work Tuesday when I come back. =) Let's see.

No more twist!

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 03:01:00 +0000

11:00 pm, and just done with square 6 of strip 13. I had planned on staying up in to the wee hours working on it, though a moment of futility struck me. I only have enough yarn to maybe get me through this strip, anyway! Is it worth ruining my stomach and making me waste a whole day afterwards recovering? Maybe so... I would only have to work until I ran out of yarn, right? And I'd kind of like to prove to myself that I'm still young, I can still do wild and stupid things like stay up until sunrise and function the next day.

And all the while, I can't get The Tailor of Gloucester out of my head. That little Beatrice Potter story. It was one of my favorite stories as a little bat-tyke. You may remember it. If you're up for a fun bit of story time, you can read it here. Clever little mice help out a poor, old tailor, sewing his soon-due commissioned piece which he despaired of finishing due to the lack of one buttonhole's worth of cherry-colored silk. What knitter can't love and appreciate that?

What I find even cuter is the true story of the Tailor of Gloucester. Seems his young apprentices partied a bit too hard at the nearby pubs after work one night and had to crash on the sewing room floor. To either recompense their employer for the intrusion, or maybe just to give an excuse for why they were there that night, they stitched up the jacket he was commissioned to do. But they ran out of thread for the buttonholes before sewing the last one. In tiny, probably quite hung-over script, they wrote "no more twist" and pinned it to the last buttonhole. When the tailor came in and saw the miraculously completed jacket and the tiny little note. Why, who else could have done it but elves or little mice? I can just see the apprentices' nervous glances to one another. Apparently the tailor made a mint from boasting his magically mouse-made garments. Everyone needs a niche, eh?

But that little diversion leads me to another interpretation of "no more twist." The twist in my wrists! It's nearly dead at this point. My finger tips can still flutter, but without the wrist-twist, my knitting motion's going into my elbows and shoulders, and boy are they complaining. This little typing interlude has helped re-awaken things. Let's see if I can't run out of yarn before the sun shows up.

Knit, knit, knit... I have a blog? Really?... knit, knit.

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 23:39:00 +0000

Well, nothing to do but get back in the saddle again and start posting! Not a lot of pictures with this update, sadly, as many of my projects have been knit and dropped off for professional-type photography already. But I'll try to snag some images of them in the next few days.

That wee brown crescent blossomed into a full sweater with patterned sleeves! An olive hoodie was knit from the top down, hood and sleeves knit by the talented Barbara Dunphy, and I then hastily knit down the rest of the body and the pockets with a little sorta-cabled pattern. An absolutely gorgeous, in my opinion, gray scarf was knitted out of a luscious new yarn called Sheffield so quickly that I barely even got a good look at it. And now I'm in for the home stretch of an afghan out of Rainbow that was rather unexpectedly put into my court.

I go on vacation for a few days on the 9th, so the goal is to try to finish it before then so I can spend my time off on some selfish knitting.

Here is the task before me:
A lap blanket, made in mitred squares knit in long strips. You can see me half-way through a square at the beginning of a strip in the upper right corner there. Each square takes 7-10 minutes depending on how limber my fingers are feeling and how distracted my brain's feeling. There are 20 squares per strip. I have about 4 strips to go. 800 minutes of pure, continuous knitting. 13 hours, 20 minutes. And since I'm doing customer service for the next two days at work, that has to be 13 hours, 20 minutes outside of 9:30-5:30. Not a complaint, mind you! Just... a challenge! Kathy's graciously extended the deadline for me to be after I get back from vacation next Monday, so I do have the vacation time to fall back on. But let's see what these fingers can do before 2 days are out!

It's times like this that I thank the internet gods for old TV shows and MST3Ks on Youtube and for Project Gutenburg. Right now I'm currently plowing through The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling as I knit (it's given away for free all over the internet, by his design) and watching episodes of Connections with James Burke - remember that old show? It's still awesome. And I've also got the first 3 seasons of Homicide:Life on the Street to keep me company. So enough with the typing! Back to the knitting! Hi-ho, rosewood needles!

Rollin', rollin', rollin...

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 02:05:00 +0000

Though the streams are swollen...

Keep them doggies movin'...

Rawhide!

Yes, as soon as the first one is finished, so the next one begins =) The home stretch on the Sugarloaf sweater (prematurely referred to as the "Child's Park Sweater") was agony, especially in the humidity. And the loaginess from the red meat and red wine on the 4th at the boyfriend's mother's house didn't help either. Such is life! But last night was the final push. Did a few inches, tried it on, still needed another inch or two, did another inch or two, tried it on, still needed another inch or two. Could probably still use a little more length. But I'm now gun shy (and finger weary) of longer sweaters, as I tried in sweaters past to make it "long enough, and then a few inches longer" just to break me of my laziness. The Cottage Street Pullover, for example. And it didn't look so good on me. Just didn't hit the hips right. So this, I feel, right now, is just right. Will probably look like a belly shirt on the long, lovely model we use for the catalogs, and then I can feel guilty all over again, but for now I'm happy. Oh, and the sleeves still have a skoonsh more bulk at the shoulders than I'd like, even though I added an inch to the length of each, but as I said previously, that's the way of things for ribbed and cabled sweaters. Still, a lovely, soft, cuddly, and as you can see, figure-molding and saucy little number. Not too casual, not too formal. Just right for just about everything. Took 10 skeins for the small! So it weighs a bit, but it would be so nice on a cold fall day, out to get a bit of coffee.

But now, on to the long awaited Stockbridge sweater, pictured above as just a wee little crescent. Idea is a raglan crew neck, almost all brown, with a rich, slip-stitch pattern in a few different colors on the forearms. Very autumn New England. Very nifty. I'll try to post a picture of the pattern stitch soon. Sadly, the bulk of it will be not-done-fast-enough stockinette at 5 sts to the inch. But at least I've made a few sweaters with this shape before, so not too many tough decisions to make.

What I've got is 30 sts for back neck, 10 sts for either sleeve, 4 for seam sts, 2 for the front = 56 sts. A very Barbara Walker ratio, there, and it leaves a lot of room for larger sizes. Good auspices. Soon, the neck front shall be cast on, the whole thing joined in a round, and the sleeves divided off when the chest is around 34". I think it'll actually come out to about 33 2/3", but a little close is a little cute, and those skinny girls need sweaters too, having no natural body fat to keep them warm in the winter =)

The tough thing will be deciding how much to decrease on the sleeves before the patterning starts. It's a good 8.5" long at least with no convenient places for decreases, and that's without ribbing. So that only leaves me around 10" before the patterning to do any decreases I gotta do. So do I steeply decrease to get me roughly the wrist circumference and pray the wearer doesn't have shapely forearms? Or do I decrease more leisurely, like a normal sleeve, and have a somewhat floppy and loose forearm? Time will tell, I suppose, though I don't have much of it!

Onwards and downwards on the next sweater!

A Day of Reckoning

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 14:32:00 +0000

10:30 AM, morning of the 4th of July, 2007. All of the following criteria have been met:
-Day off from work due to holiday
-Sleeping in a little later than normal
-Daily oblutions completed, the super deluxe holiday version which includes a minty face mask and lemony hand treatment
-House cleaned to standards such that I won't see anything in need of cleaning to distract me during my task to come
-A cup of strong, Yunnan tea has been made, perhaps with some Wuyi oolong to follow
-Photos of my works in progress taken.
-Screwed around on the internet for an hour to get that out of my system.
-Blog updated.

The task set before me is to finish this sweater:
Yes, this is the sweater I set out to finish, oh, the weekend before last, was it? And how far have I gotten? Finished the second sleeve and worked a bit on the body. Yeah, gold star work there, kiddo. Anyway! Water under bridges now. I have about 2 more full pattern repeats to go for it to be a good length. I think I can make it. Also, I think I need to lengthen the sleeves by one more decrease increment. They're just beyond my wrists, but I have stumpy arms, and the decrease they left off with wasn't flush with the ribbing. Plus, I feel a little bad about the bulk at the sleeve caps. It's going to happen with any ribbed sweater, I think, since the armhole's only going to be so large and is not going to stretch, whereas the sleeve you're fitting into it is all stretchy in girth. So unless you stretch it to its utmost when you fit it into the armhole, making it look wonky when it's not being worn, you're just going to have a roomier upperarm. Anyway, I think that making the sleeves a little longer will help compensate for the thickness.

Not only does this have to be done by the 20th, I have 1 and a half more sweaters and a pair of socks to knit by that time. So this sucker needs to get finished freaking today.

Speaking of which, I've gotten to the lace part on the socks! Hoorah!

The lace is definitely moving around the sock, but I can't really say how. It's not a typical spiral formation where the lines of decreases and increases just keeping marching along their paths. Only two pattern rounds, the increases and decreases returning to what looks like their original positions with each repeat. And it's not like the sock itself is moving around my needles, either. the little tails are staying at what looks like the same place. Intwiging! It's become my new bus project, and since the bus takes 30 minutes each direction each day, I'm getting some good work done on it.

But enough blather! It's almost 11! I'm burning day light! And I've polished off my cup of tea. Time to brew some more and get moving.

An eccentric solution

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:47:00 +0000

While I'm not yet prepared to photograph my whole stash - so much mess, so much shame! I have found an odd, but not unpleasant solution to most if not all of my single, messy skeins that may eventually get thrown together. Garlands! Get yourself a cone of 3/2 or 5/2 cotton, the one pound has lasted me for years so far, and string em up! Tie em in a loop and hang them around the house on hooks you can stick on the wall. I have to use the ones that can hold up to 3 lbs. Smaller ones just aren't up for the task. Looks a little crazy, but hey, I got a lot of yarn. If I didn't decorate with it, it would just be clutter, anyway.
There are others in reds, pinks, neutrals, black, gray, greens, oranges and yellows. But these are probably the best pics to represent them. I'm thinking one large garland or a few small ones could make a cool ripple afghan. But not now! No! Have other fish to fry! I've got to keep telling myself that, at least.

So the Sugarloaf sweater is plugging along slower than I'd like. What can I say? It's been hot. But the second sleeve is done and I've been working down the main body. I was going to show a picture of it on me, since I though it was, oh, probably around my bottom rib or so. Nuh uh. Try just enough to cover the bra. Not a little depressing. And too risque to show here. So much for getting it done this weekend! But if it gets to a decent length, I'll post it.

One of the things that have been distracting me from it are the socks I'm test knitting for Melissa for her new book, which also have to be done by the 20th. I'm doing the "Sailor's Delight" which are lacy, cool looking socks. Erin, the editor, told me she needed someone to do the smallest size to check the math. And luckily for me I have little stumpy feet. It's been enrapturing, but, GUH! Melissa! TWO INCHES of ribbing? Kill me! It's like an extended sock purgatory! I want to get to the lace already! Heh, no, it'll look great. I'm just a bit of a spaz.

Almost there!

I think I do them a little differently when I do two at a time. I work side 1 of sock A, side 1 of sock B, side 2 of sock B, side 2 of sock A, and that's a round. She has you doing it side 1 of sock A, side 2 of sock A, side 1 of sock B, side 2 of sock B, though you disregard which side is which when you come down to the heel flap and just work them on the same hemisphere of the knitting. So it took a little mental re-calibration for me, not to mention my heart rebelling a little from the top-down socks since I love toe-up so much. Mainly, I think I've been designing for myself long enough that I'm sort of like a horse released into the wild. I've had so much fun romping around on my own that I'm bucking a bit at the weight of a saddle when I have to knit from a pattern again. Even still, it's been great so far and I'm really excited to see the lace come about.

Speaking of lace...

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 19:22:00 +0000

I just got an order in from The Loopy Ewe which is a great little place if you're looking for a reliable source of sock yarns and lace weight. And I am insanely pleased with my order. Now, I'm not a sock maniac, though I know some people are. But for me, I can never have too much lace weight stuff, even if there's no way I can knit all of it before I die (maybe they can fit my head-jar for some prosthetic knitting arms). Usually, there's not much I can't get from where I work, but there are some small brands that we don't have yet. These are three such yarns. And I love them. Love them with all my black little heart:
Did you hear that? Did you hear me squeal like a school girl with her first copy of Tiger Beat? I wouldn't be surprised if you did. From top to bottom there's All Things Heather hand dyed alpaca lace in Faded Denim, Chewy Spaghetti color Mischevious, and J. Knits Lace-a-licious color New Mexico. Ten thousand thanks to Mary over at 43 skeins for recommending them to me.

Also, I found some pictures of the shawl I made for Gail out of her hand-dyed 2/14 alpaca silk. I needed some photographic evidence for my blocking technique which I learned from lace designer Hazel Carter. People just laughed when I said it was like hanging a pelt. But, well!

It was, I think, about 12" x 96" after blocking. I just use 1x2s cut in the right lengths and sew the piece to them. The books are there to keep them in place since I didn't have the right kind of nails to stick them together more permanently. All for the best, really, since it's easier to store the frame in pieces. But this method is great. I don't have carpeting in my house, so there's no option of pinning it to the floor, pinning it in sections on a blocking board would be a snore, and sewing it to a frame also raises it off the ground a little, so it dries super quick. If I nailed the frame together, I could even prop it against a wall or outside in the sunshine so no one would have to walk around it. Plus I kind of perversely like the look of it. If it were sewn in more carefully, I could just hang it on a wall like that.

The Sunday Morning Round-Up

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 13:16:00 +0000

Tahm to circkul the wagons, pilgrum...
Let's take a look at things I have on the needles (at least the ones I can FIND at the moment. oh dear.)
Ah, yes, the Araucania Nature Wool sweater. I got 5 skeins each of something like 8 colors when it came in. This is probably my favorite of the colors I got. Lovely, lovely light worsted weight stuff. A real deserted-island sort of yarn (like, if I were stuck on a deserted island with only one kind of yarn, yadda yadda). Very handpainted, so each skein really varies. This lil guy was actually a much more completed, boat-neck (my favorite of all necks) cardigan, both sleeves worked and partially down the body, with the button band worked along with the rest of the sweater. But, lesson learned, the boat neck looked entirely stupid as a cardigan, the sleeves were wonky, and the simultaneous button band drove me crazy. After I realized these things, I just had to take a deep breath, rip it all out and start fresh. Took me a whole night to rip the damn thing. But now it's starting over as a much more sensible crew neck and I'll pick the button band up after. It feels a lot better, and this yarn deserves to be made into a sweater I'll actually wear.

Speaking of facing the not-thrilled-with-it facts:

The Noro Silk Garden sweater. I coveted, like biblically coveted, this color for the longest time. It was disc'd, though, and I had given up hope of ever getting my hands on it. But lo and behold, when some Noro closeouts came rolling in, a couple of bags of it had stowed along and into my greedy clutches. So I have one precious bag of it, and since it's so treasured I'm really angsting about what to do with it. This is a top down set in sleeve with simultaneous sleeves, going to be a cardi. I've done it before, but Barbara Walker is pretty sketchy on the details in terms of where to take the starting measurements ("full back width" huh?). So I've been going around measuring my pre-fab sweaters to see what they do. And I started monkeying around with the proportions BW gives. Not a smart idea. I think the sleeve caps are going to be a little too poofy, and I'm just not in love with the neckline. I think this guy's going to get ripped out soon and restarted as a more conventional v-neck with sleeves worked after the body. I'd normally prefer to do simultaneous stuff, but the picked-up sleeves are actually a lot of fun. And I'm not even sure I'd do a cardi, because then I'd have to find shirts to wear under it. Oh I just don't know.

And here are a few that don't have so much backstory, though I'm sure I can find a way to elaborate on them if anyone's interested:
A Noro Blossom cardigan-to-be. Poor little guy's just a back right now, little more than a swatch. He might get re-worked, though, because I fear he's a little too wide.

A Malabrigo lace scarf that's been hanging around for awhile, but it really is pretty! I should get back to it.

My current bus project. Franklin socks! I learned the whole two-at-once thing on one circular needle from Melissa Morgan-Oakes. Well, learned kind of like a monkey learning to crack nuts. I saw her doing it one day and the lightbulb came on and now I'm obsessed with it. See. Imitate. Repeat! She has a book about it coming later this year, but I've seen an advance copy. It's double-plus awesome and I think it deserves a spot on every sock knitter's shelf.

And ooooooh.... lookit the pretty colors.... Gail (the Kangaroo Dyer) is a straight-up genius with colors. I dare not venture a guess at how she got her superhuman dying powers. She also dyed the spinning fiber which I worked up into this:

Excuse my blurry picture. Totally. Awesome. I've spun it up into a lace weight single ply to get the most yardage out of it (there was only about 4 oz of it that I could see). I'm just knitting with it straight off the bobbin and then will block it afterwards to set the twist and whatnot:

I know I should have skeined it and washed it beforehand, but there are a lot of fragile places and I'm just too afraid of all the activity of skeining, washing, and winding breaking it. And now I'm committed to finishing this to clear the bobbin! Yeah, heh, we'll see how that works out.

And now for the mother-of-all, the thing I want to TRY to finish this weekend, the thing I'm actually getting paid for. The sugarloaf sweater:

I don't know how the colors turned out in the picture. It's actually a lovely grey mauve. Top down set in sleeve. Ribby. Cushy. The pattern is more visible when stretched. We'll see how it goes this weekend. Now to get back to work.

I now declare this blog... OPEN!

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 17:25:00 +0000

Because we all know that what the world needs most is another knitting blog. It's true!

I guess I should start by saying that, though this blog will probably feature many crazy opinions shot out by yours truly, it's really meant as a journal for my designs. I must not let it become a diary for what I drank last night or who shot who or what skin disease I think I have today. Nuh uh. My employers might read this, yo! So while I'd love to have all my thoughts and emotions preserved for future generations, I'll have to bank on them being able to stick my head in a jar before I die. Then Kirsten's Head can post personal blogs well into the 22nd century! Hooray!

Edit: eh, who'm I kidding with this "only design journal" stuff? I already have non-knitting clap trap all over this freaking blog. Still, I'll try to keep it from getting too personal and awkward. People still have to be able to look me in the eye at work, right?