Yarn Fast

I know that there are knitters out there with WAAAAAAY more yarn than me. But I think I am getting out of control. And being the control freak that I am, when I think about my lack of control on the yarn front it kinda makes me well. . . frazzled.

So, I am making a pact with myself to not buy any yarn for six months! That's right until 09/08/2013, I will not buy any new yarn. I have planned out several projects over the last few months and bought the necessary yarn for all of them already. But I haven't started many of them; therefore, no changing my mind and no falling in love with "some fuzzy this" or "some lace weight that". I am sticking to the four months if it kills me.

Not only do I have several projects (the Flirt Skirt for one) planned out and ready to last me over my three month yarn buying abstinence, I have all of that wool I bought and dyed and am in the process of spinning and plying and knitting. I also have not finished my Chelsea Skirt. That alone should keep me plenty busy through my June expiration date of my yarn buying fast.

So again, I promise no new yarn for at least a month.

By the way, I just heard about a new yarn shop only about an hour from my house -- any one up for a road trip on Saturday?

Happy drowning in my stash!

Dyed, Spun, Plied and now Knitting.

It has been awhile since I posted on my hand-dyed, home spun yarn. I had shared some of my dyed roving with my friend who introduced me to spinning and she showed me what she had spun and plied and I was inspired! I immediately came home and started plying up what I had spun.

I should have taken pictures of the plying process, but I was so excited to begin, that I completely forgot! My knitting sister got here in time to remind me to take a picture before I pulled the blocked and weighted yarn off of the clothes line where it had spent the night drying.

I ended up with about 80 yards of plied yarn which was two small wound balls of "artisan" yarn which varies in weight from fingering to worsted.

I knew that I wanted to make a narrower, lace scarf that I could wear at work with a blouse. I toyed with the idea of a lace hat, but it would never be warm enough for me to wear in the winter and I wouldn't wear it in the spring. Besides, if you go to all the trouble of dying, spinning, plying and knitting up your own wool, then you should be wearing it all day! So, a scarf was the perfect wearable item.

I selected a free pattern from KnitPicks called Victorian Spring Scarf which seemed to be just the ticket. The pattern calls for a slightly thinner yarn with a larger needle, so I will need more than 80 yards, but I have plenty more wool roving to spin. I have gotten about two repeats of the lace done and am pleased with how it looks. Yum!

Happy knitting!

The 3 R's: Re-Purpose, Re-Use, Re-Cycle

In this economy, one has to think about saving money. I have been doing a lot of trying to do more with less and utilizing the 3 R's: Re-Use, Re-Purpose, and Re-Cycle. If I don't knit or sew something for myself, most of my clothes shopping is done at re-sale shops and Goodwill. It is now the cold months of the year and I have been thinking about some of the ways I could use second hand sweaters as opposed to just wearing them. I found a great blog post at Kayla K's Thrifty Ways.

Kayla K's article on re-purposing sweaters was written about 2 years ago, but is still very relevant with gas sky high and unemployment still an issue. Enjoy! and Happy Knitting!

Avocado Carnaby -- Finishing touches

It's done! It's done! I love the drape of blocked wool. It just hangs straight off of your hand all relaxed and happy. There is no fighting with it to lie still or tussling over sides that don't quite match up. Those were my thoughts as I pulled the blocking wires out of the skirt this morning.

 I grabbed the buttons and got to work.  Now, I know most of you have sewn a million buttons on things; so have I in my lifetime. But there is a difference to sewing buttons on to a knitted item as opposed to most woven fabric.

With these buttons, using regular thread would have taken forever, so I split the 4 ply worsted weight yarn I used into two sets of two ply and threaded a small yarn needle.

I then doubled the yarn over and tied a knot at the end. This is really important for an upcoming step.

If you line up the two sides with the button hole on top, you can mark the placement of the button by sticking your needle straight into button hole.

Holding the needle, pull back the buttonhole side and look at the placement of the needle. This is where you want your button to be centered.

One difficulty with sewing into knitted fabric is that there are so many holes! So one of the tricks that I learned many years ago is: When you go up and then down through the button's holes for the first time slip the needle through the loop formed by the two legs of the yarn. This will anchor the end of the yarn with the button itself so that it won't come loose.

It only takes a few passes with the yarn to fill up the big holes in the button. Try sewing on 7 of these with plain thread!

Make sure that the direction of the threads through the button holes all go the same way. It would look really funny if some were horizontal and some were vertical. I don't think it matters which way they go as long as they are consistent.

Happy Knitting!

Productive Knitting Week: Part 3 - South Bound Chullo

This was a really fun project! The pattern is a Chullo called the Southern Lights Hat which I have knit using Noro Hitsuji which is a bulky, 100 percent wool from Noro. The colors are really great -- the pictures just don't do them justice. I have three different views above so that you can see all the colors. The free Knitty pattern directs the knitter to knit the ear flaps one right after the other with the first one reserved to be attached to the hat as you start casting on the bridge across the forehead after the second ear flap is knit. This results in two totally different colored i-cords and ear flaps.

I went out and bought a Styrofoam head form just so that I could block this hat. I thought about using a balloon, but I saw that other people had used the Styrofoam forms to display their knitted hats, why would that not work for blocking them. I am sure that they use it to block their hats as well, but I just never thought about it. They are cheap and readily available -- I bought mine at my local Hobby Lobby.

There is still some work to be done on the hat. There is a pompom on the top of the hat and one on the end of each of the i cords. I have two more skeins of this yarn in this same color that will become matching mittens. I'll be styling this winter!

Happy Knitting!

P.S. for directions on how to knit i-cord -- click here. Again, Purl Bee to the rescue!

Elizabeth Zimmermann's work is genius

I have several baby gifts needed in the next few months. Way more for whom I can possibly get quilts done. So I decided that I would try to make little sweaters. I saw a couple of Baby Surprise Jackets on line at Knitting Paradise and was intrigued. Every single one looked different but each one was beautiful -- a work of art. So I looked up the pattern and purchased it.

Elizabeth Zimmermann designed the pattern and first printed it in a newsletter in 1968. It is a work of art. Knitted "flat", it is one piece folded almost origami style to form a jacket. The pattern as originally written was loosely explained in conversation style; however it has been re-written and is easy to follow.

I started the above BSJ last evening and have gotten almost half of the knitting done already. I call this my Coat of Many Colors. It is made using left-over Lion Brand Microspun yarn in several colors. I am so very excited to see it completed -- however, not so excited about weaving in all the ends. I think that I may try some long self striping yarn for BSJ #2.

Knitters in a twist

Instead of the international symbol for "NO" shown above, please imagine a crest with an American Flag and 5 colored interlocking rings. I can't show that, because I wouldn't want to be accused of infringing upon a trademark.

I have been reading about the interesting news of a controversy between the U.S. Olympic Committee and a community of knitters and crocheters in an on-line social website called Ravelry. (I must make a disclaimer here that I, too, am a member of Ravelry and it is one of my favorite sites.) The 'yarn' begins when Ravelry established its 3rd Bi-Annual Ravelympics set to coincide with the 2012 Olympic Games in London

The U.S. Olympic Committee has written Ravelry a cease and desist letter (you will need a membership to view the link) which has twisted the stitches of many knitters and crocheters. The letter says, "We believe using the name “Ravelympics” for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games.  In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work." Hard work? The writer of this letter obviously has never knit a pair of toe up, two at a time, cabled socks on a single circular knitting needle.

I understand that the U.S Olympic Committee feels the need, as does any corporation, to protect their "brand" and the trademarks that they have established. However, to insult a group that is at least two million strong is probably trouble. At the time of the writing of this letter, the U.S. Olympic Committee's Facebook site has been inundated with comments from knitters and their supporters, the Ravelry post on this letter has 92 pages of comments from members and there are already over 5,600 results to the Google search "US Olympic knitting". Online articles have been written by the likes of Businessweek, USA Today, and TNT Magazine.

Patrick Sandusky, USOC Chief Communications and Public Affairs Officer, issued a statement apologizing for their unintended denigration of fiber artists everywhere, then had to issue an apology for the apology as it sounded as if they were asking knitters to make them handmade items. If there is any lesson in this, it is don't mess with women holding sharp pointy things.