Another pair of practice socks

I changed my mind about the second pair of socks for my granddaughter and knit them in 2x2 ribbing instead of reverse stockinette. Despite my efforts to knit looser, they are still too small for her. Lever knitting has changed the gauge I usually knit at, so I must make adjustments, either cast on more stitches or use larger needles.

Pattern: Sock Recipe by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, with a short row heel and rounded toe
Yarn: S.R. Kertzer On Your Toes 4-ply with aloe vera, in colorway 3824
Needles: US1 DPNs (round)

Granddaughter still likes them.

Frustrated but resolute

I started a second pair of socks for my granddaughter, with the intent of knitting them in reverse stockinette so I could get some practice with lever knitting (a.k.a Irish cottage knitting) while purling. The first pair of practice socks, while perfectly OK, did not lead to any kind of proficiency, so I thought maybe I should take another look at the videos.

One of my problems is I am still "picking" stitches with the right needle instead of holding it stationary. So I decided to change to a worsted weight project on US7 straights, to learn to hold that right needle still. A "mistake rib" scarf seemed like just the ticket.

I spent most of yesterday knitting a few rows, then watching the video, identifying something *else* I was doing wrong, knitting a few more rows, then laying it all aside. Making mistakes in the mistake rib stitch did not help, nor does the difficulty I have keeping the right needle from sliding through my armpit, but by the end of the day, I had a few inches satisfactorily completed.

Despite all the frustration, I persevere because:

1. lever knitting is easier on my hands, as I don't have a death grip on the needles;
2. lever knitting is easier on my shoulders because I am not making micro movements with them as I knit; and
3. the result is so much better than my usual knitting.

Ever since I returned to knitting and, in the process, switched from throwing to picking, I have been less than satisfied with the outcome of all that knitting. Even though I hit gauge, there is something wrong, like each stitch has too much space embedded in it. Purl stitches are particularly bothersome. With lever knitting, just looking at the sample above, I can see vast improvement. The stitches are more even, more nestled together without being tight, more in touch with the concepts of horizontal and vertical. So, while I'll never be as fast as the Yarn Harlot, I'll keep at it.

Unsatisfied

Instead of "My Unexpected Life in Knitting," the subtitle of yarn reviewer Clara Parkes' book The Yarn Whisperer should be "101 Knitting Metaphors". I think I read somewhere that Clara does not write reviews of yarns she doesn't like - the if-you-can't-say-something-nice-don't-say-anything-at-all philosophy. She takes a similar approach in this "memoir".

The writing is excellent, and, initially, the metaphors are charming, but I kept hoping for more. Each time I thought she was going to finally, finally delve deeper into a personal topic, she would veer into yet another knitting or yarn metaphor. Halfway through, I almost gave up, but the chapter on her time in France renewed my interest enough to keep me going. It is a short book, after all, 160 pages printed on thick stock.

I hope while Clara wrote this, she kept notes on the rest of her story. Maybe in her dotage, she will be brave enough to write it down. Now that is something I would like to read.

Practice socks

These are my Irish cottage knitting practice socks in stockinette. They turned out a bit small - I knit 9.5 stitches per inch instead of my usual 7-8 on US1 DPNs, and I blame the new knitting method. I was also using the square needles, which may have also contributed to the tight stitches.

Yarn: S.R. Kertzer On Your Toes 4-ply with aloe vera, in colorway 3824
Needles: US1 DPNs (square)
Pattern: Sock Recipe by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, with a short row heel and rounded toe

I tried to get a photo of the socks in situ, but most of the pictures were "art shots", i.e. blurry. That kid just does not sit still! As you an see, she is also wearing her leg warmers.

Next trick is to knit a pair in reverse stockinette, so I can practice lever knitting purl stitches.

Tinker's damn

I've been dutifully practicing my lever (Irish cottage) knitting. It's like learning to knit all over again. If the resulting fabric weren't so much better than my regular knitting, I would probably give up. The knit stitch is going rather well, but purling feels awkward. Current practice project is a pair of socks for my granddaughter, in stockinette. The next pair will be in reverse stockinette, to give me plenty of opportunity to learn to purl.

Preschool-size feet do not need the bulk of a heel flap, so I am doing a short row heel on these socks. I have done short row heels before, but for some reason, these gave me fits. Each one took two days to complete. Since I find it next to impossible to unknit (or tink) a picked-up double-wrapped stitch, each time I stumbled, I had to start the heel all over again.

After slaving through heel number one, I thought the second one would go more smoothly. NOT. Each time, just as I reached the home stretch, something would go wrong and one stitch would completely disappear. I don't know if I was accidentally knitting two stitches together when picking up the double wraps or what. I finally decided NOT to pick up the wraps at all, partly because Stephanie P-M said it was not necessary and I wanted to see for myself, but also so if I made an error again, I could back out of it gracefully.

Incredibly, I DID make another error, which turned out to be a dropped stitch, but then was able to finish. And you know what? Picking up the wraps IS optional. In fact, it looks smoother than the heel with the picked up wraps. I think EZ eschews picking up wraps as well. So there you have it - two knitting experts' opinion on wraps.

Warm legs

I use yarn as decor. When my granddaughter pulled a skein of sparkly yarn from a shelf and expressed a desire for something made from it, I could not resist. It is sock yarn, so that limited the possibilities, but every little girl could use a pair of legwarmers.

Yarn: Wisdom Yarns Marathon Socks North Pole 'Balsam Fir'
Needles: US2 and US1
Pattern: None. I simply cast on 44 stitches, knit 2x2 ribbing on US2's for 4 inches, then switched to US1 needles for 4 inches. Finished by binding off in ribbing.

I was going to add stirrups, but that seemed like it would be too bulky for little feet.

Stretchy

Alpaca is soft and warm, but the yarn tends to stretch. I made myself a scarf in alpaca a while back, and it just keeps getting longer and longer. My SO needed a new scarf (the first one I knit him has disappeared; I figure it is in the back of a closet, invisible to the naked eye, because it is black), and despite my experience, I went with alpaca.

I purchased some brown and some tweed (brown and cream) yarn, thinking I could alternated them every two rows, but the brown overwhelmed the cream, so I used just the tweed. I thought maybe if I knit the scarf lengthwise, it might not stretch as much. That was a misstep as well, one that I could not determine until the whole thing was complete. Still, I like the result.

Yarn: Sanctuary Yarn, in 'Tweed'
Needles: US6
Pattern: None. I cast on 300 stitches and knit in garter stitch until I ran out of yarn.

The yarn came from the Big Red Barn, where the owner raises alpacas. The colors are the natural colors of the animals; I believe the brown is from Louie and the cream from Babe.

Handmade for the holidays... but not by me

Last Saturday (the 7th), my SO and I went to the Handmade Holidays Sale at Teasel Hill. Teasel Hill Angoras has a spin-in on fifth Saturdays (hope to get to one sometime) and host this event every December. I know I have seen some of the same vendors at the Northeast Indiana Fiber Festival and elsewhere. In fact, now I spend as much time chatting with familiar faces at fiber fests as I do shopping. Maybe I have found my "tribe"?

The Big Red Barn was there, with (among other things) their latest product, roving roses. Each "rose" is 4 ounces of dyed roving, ready for spinning. Or, in my case, blending. For someone who is color challenged like me, having the color combinations pre-selected is great.

And these are dryer balls (can't recall the vendor). They are made of wool and are supposed to help clothes dry faster and without softener (which I don't use anyway). I decided to give them a whirl (heh) and I think they help keep my sheets from ending up in one big bedroll in the dryer.

My SO cheerfully accompanies me to fiber fests, acting as my personal sherpa. This time he wound up in conversation with Mr. Teasel Hill as they discussed the venue - a pole building that someone turned into a house which the current occupants continue to modify to suit their needs. I felt like a mom whose son made a new friend.

Then we ate at the Magic Wand Restaurant in Churubusco. If you are ever in "Turtle Town", check it out.

Back to the future

After a year or so of combining knitting, gardening, and me into one blog, I've decided to go back to separate blogs for each. I am also toying with the idea of copying the knitting-related posts to this blog so they will all be in one place. That sounds like a really tedious time-consuming task, so we'll see how far that idea goes. Anyway, welcome back to Bitten by Knittin'.

Well, that was a dumb idea

I have a habit of over complicating my life. As if maintaining three blogs were not enough, I tried to start up a Twitter account for each. Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad. So I am going to pare that down to one Twitter, and while I am at it, combine my three blogs into a single brand new one: Between Rome and Paradise. I hope you will give the new blog a whirl. Regardless, thanks for your readership!

An experiment

For my upcoming milestone birthday, I bought myself a smart phone, which is rapidly becoming my new BFF. While playing with it, I downloaded the Twitter app and discovered that, unlike on a PC, I can have multiple Twitter identities on the phone. Like one for each of my blogs. So I am going to experiment with that. I doubt I will suddenly become entertaining or provocative or fun in any way, but I thought I would give it a try. See side bar to read and/or follow me.

Which brings up the question: Do you Tweet?

Too sick to knit

I will spare you the details, but I've been ill over the past several weeks. Not feeling well was bad enough, but the meds actually made me feel worse - foggy-headed to the point where simple tasks like doing laundry or making jello were nearly impossible, let alone driving or knitting. So I watched three seasons of "Breaking Bad" instead. OMG - that show is like a train wreck in slow motion. You know it is going to go from bad to worse ("Breaking Worse"?) but you can't look away.

If only

If only I could find my tapestry needles, this sweater would be done...

and these socks would be blocking.

Last night I broke down and purchased some new needles at Joann's, and yep, you guessed it - today I found the missing ones.

And if I had remembered to take my knitting to work the other day, a day that included two hours of mind-numbing, soul-sucking meetings, I would be two hours closer to having another pair of socks done.

Dishcloth orgy

I have seen more volleyball, beach and otherwise, in the past ten days than I have seen in my entire life. And I used to play volleyball. Enough already!

Not volleyball AGAIN?!?

While watching all the digging and spiking, I cranked out these four dishcloths:

Pattern: Three Easy Wash Cloths - box stitch
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton
Needles: US7
Modifications: Attempted to balance the design by repeating rows 1-3 and binding off on the wrong side.

Pattern: Three Easy Wash Cloths - garter ridges
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton
Needles: US7
Modifications: none that I can recall

Pattern: Three Dish Cloths - waffle pattern
Yarn: Lily Sugar 'n Cream
Needles: US6
Modifications: Did not cast off in pattern

Pattern: Three Dish Cloths - ridge and rib pattern
Yarn: Lily Sugar 'n Cream
Needles: US6
Modifications: Did not cast off in pattern

The aqua ones were snatched up by my SO. I decided to keep the green ones because 1) they are kind of small, 2) I need a couple more dish cloths, and 3) they are REALLY green.

Unable to resist, I have already cast on the first sweater of winter, for the dumpling at the top of this page. I might as well work on it while watching (more) volleyball. *sigh*

Oh. Hello there.

I am not knitting up a storm here, that is for sure. For one thing, I have been distracted by yardening. For another, our prolonged heat wave makes wool seem positively repugnant at times. To counteract the latter, I turned to cotton.

Nothing special, just a dishcloth in box stitch. This color is a bright alternative to my other projects.

Still plodding along on this cowl - over halfway done, but it still seems to be taking forEVER. I blame the Kidsilk Haze - I can stand to knit only 2 rows at a time.

I turned the heels on the current sock project without looking at the instructions. Whoohoo! Now for the march to the toes.

I anticipate the Olympics will glue my butt to the couch in the coming weeks, so hopefully more progress will be forthcoming. I'd like to get these projects done, as I feel the itch of winter sweaters coming on (pun intended).

Summertime

The temperature reached 105 degrees yesterday. Today it was cooler (mid-nineties) and a storm blew through with 92 mph winds and about 0.25" of rain, then the temperature dropped 30 degrees. Aahhh! Back to the 90's tomorrow, though.

I have been knitting, albeit not much. Even though my house is air conditioned, it is difficult to work with wool in the summer. I would knit cotton, but it is too inelastic, makes my shoulders and wrists hurt with the effort.

The Gap-tastic cowl is my mindless knit project. Knit, purl, knit, purl, round and round we go.

It is difficult to tell in that photo, but the color is chocolate.

The portable project is socks, of course. Plain ol' ordinary striped ribbed socks.

I don't know why, but I don't want to knit anything more intricate right now. Lazy days of summer, I guess.

Take flight

I will skip the apologies for not blogging more often, as I have been spending most of my time outside, hose in hand, trying to make up for the lack of rain in these parts. Watering really cuts into my knitting time. Still, I managed to finish something.



Pattern: Wingspan, by maylin Tri'Coterie Designs
Yarn: Kangaroo Dyer Superwash Sock yarn
Needles: US4
Modifications: I chose to wrap and knit the turns; also, I sl1k on the edges.



I tried both sl1k and sl1p wyib at the turns and decided I liked the sl1k better. I also ran out of yarn and had to knit the last four rows and bind off with some yarn leftover from the purple February Baby sweater from 2010. Fortunately, the colors were close enough.



While I gave this piece a soak upon finishing, I did not try to block the points, as I have never had much success getting wool/nylon blends to hold a blocking.

Plain ol' (striped) socks

As I have said before, socks are my go-to project for portability, so I almost always have a pair on the needles. Sometimes they do not get much attention (can you say "Honey Cowl"?) but they are patiently waiting for when I need to grab and go.

Pattern: Sock Recipe, from Knitting Rules
Yarn: Austermann Stepp, in colorway 0028
Needles: US1
Modifications: Eye of partridge heel flap

Since I knit socks so often, always from detailed patterns, I wanted to get used to the idea of just knitting a pair of socks with little help from instructions. My goal is to be able to just pick up some yarn and needles and GO, a la the Yarn Harlot.

This was the practice pair. I am going to try to do the next pair without peeking at the book.

Still alive and knitting

The Honey Cowl is done, has been done for a while, I'm just slow to blog these days.

Pattern: Honey Cowl by Madelinetosh
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden, colorway 282
Needles: US9
Modifications: None

I used four skeins of yarn, and yet the width is not up to pattern specifications. That's okay. When I loop the cowl around my neck once, it drapes over my shoulders a bit. Or I can loop it around my head as well, babushka style. I see getting a lot of use out of this item this winter.

I have other knitting projects going on, like a pair of socks and a GAP-tastic cowl, but it is summertime and the gardening is not-so-easy.

Road trip

Last week my SO and I hit six states in seven days - whew! What knitting projects to take was an issue. At first, I packed the current sock project plus yarn for a second pair. But wait, sometimes US1 needles are hard to manage in a moving vehicle. I opted to also take Honey Cowl, in Noro Silk Garden, not heeding the warning that this pattern is addicting.

Addicting it is, so much so that it is all I worked on the whole trip.

We also hit a few yarn stores along the way. Sadly, this one in Galesburg, IL, was closed.

But Fiber Wild! in Galena, IL, was not. I was overcome with yarn fumes and came away with enough of this yarn from O'Day Farms (Waukesha County, WI) to knit up a sweater or jacket.

Blue Heron Knittery, in Decorah, IA, was also open for business. I made the mistake of petting this Eco Duo yarn (baby alpaca and merino) from Cascade, and it followed me home.

We made it to Minneapolis, too, but I was yarned out by then. We were so impressed with that city, we will return.