Across the Knitterverse

I finished these a few weeks ago, but at the time I was kind of frustrated with them, so I didn’t do a FO post right away.

Pattern – 9 to 5 Socks
Yarn – Fleece Artist Nova Sock Yarn in an unknown colorway, purchased at French Creek Fiber Arts
Needles – Knitpicks 40” US size 2 circular
Started – April 14, 2008
Finished – July 18, 2008

Back in the spring, I really wanted to knit with this yarn, and I went on a search for a suitable pattern. After a false start or two, I went with the 9 to 5 Socks pattern, which had been in my queue for a while. It is the kind of pattern that needs to be knit in a solid or semi-solid yarn and I really like the way the cable twists continue down along each side of the heel flap.

Now that I have knit with this yarn, I’ve decided that I have a bit of a love-hate thing going on with this yarn. I LOVE the saturation of the color combined with the bit of shine in the yarn. The label claimed that it is 100% merino, but I’ve never seen 100% wool with so much shine to it. While very pretty to look at, the yarn turned out to be very splitty to knit with, which made the project a bit less enjoyable.

I knit these from the cuff down, one at a time, using the magic loop method. I’ve never had a problem with running out of yarn while knitting socks, so I didn’t bother to split the skein in two before starting. When I got past the heel on the second sock, I realized that I might run out of yarn before reaching the toe. I started to knit faster, which seems to be a common response to the fear of running out of yarn. And it turns out that I did run out, right at the start of the second toe. I thought about frogging a bit of the cuff of each sock to scrounge enough for the second toe, but I decided that I was mad at the project and didn’t want to put in that much additional work. Instead I went through my stash of leftover bits of sock yarn and found something (Duet Middy yarn I had left over from the Peacock Plume Socks) that pretty closely matches the weight and the twist of the original yarn, since none of the yarn in my stash came close to matching the color. I figure that most people don’t see my toes anyway, and I was just ready to be done.

In general, I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, if I can ignore the toe issue, which was not the fault of the yarn or the designer, but rather my lack of planning. The fit is absolutely perfect, which makes me look forward to wearing them, once the weather cools back down.

Knitters are everywhere, and I think that is so cool.

On Friday morning before work, Brian and I waited out in front of our local AT&T store in order to get our hands on the new iphones. We were prepared with Starbucks, chairs-in-a-bag, a book (for Brian), and knitting (for me) to keep us comfortable and entertained. And guess what…I wasn’t the only knitter there. I got to meet Lexthegeek (Ravelry user) who was in line right in front of us, working on some socks. In the nearly 2 hours we waited, I got a few more repeats done on the Marigold socks. I’m starting the gussets and am on my way to turning the heel.

The Summer of Socks knit-along has already been in progress for a few weeks, and I’ve only just started my first pair of SOS socks. I was actually holding off, trying to finish my 9 to 5 socks before starting a pair for SOS, but with a good portion of SOS already over, I started to get concerned that I would run out of time for SOS knitting. Plus, I had new and unique yarn calling to me, so I was very much ready for a new sock project.

I was lucky enough to snag some sock yarn from the most recent update on the Twisted Fiber Art website…the Playful yarn base in the Netherfield colorway, along with a ¼ skein of coordinating heel/toe yarn.

Netherfield is a really interesting colorway…it’s a variegated yarn…it’s a self-striping yarn…it is both at the same time. The colors of the variegation shift as you knit along, creating a gradual striping effect. And not only is the effect really cool, but the color combinations used to create Netherfield are totally gorgeous. I’m a big fan of pink and green together (this colorway ranges from peachy-pink to deep rose and from light yellow-green to olive, with a bit of brown), so this is a great combination for me. It reminds me of a rose garden part in sunlight and part in shade.

Since I knew I wanted to use this yarn, I went looking through my queue for a pattern that wouldn’t get lost in the striping, and hopefully a pattern that might even enhance the striping. I think I have just the thing – the Marigold Socks pattern by Pamela Wynne. I started knitting two socks at once, toe-up on one circular needle (magic loop) and I’m past the toe and three repeats into the pattern on the foot.

The pattern is just a little bit lacy, and includes a ridge of purl stitches every 7^th row. The way the yarn-overs and decreases stack up on themselves cause the purl ridge to have a bit of a wave to it, making it almost look like a little ruffle. The combination of the lacey/ruffle-y pattern and the colors in the yarn seem to be making for some very girly socks. I’m not normally into things that are super girly, but I think I’m smitten with these socks. I’m excited to keep working on them to see how they turn out.

A longer-term project finally came off the needles this past week. I had pretty much stopped working on anything else in June in an effort to make one last big push to the finish. I’m so glad to be done.

Pattern: Icarus Shawl from the Summer 2006 Interweave Knits
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace in the Velvet Grapes colorway (2 skeins), purchased at Birds of a Feather in Avon, Ohio
Needles: US 4 Addi Turbo Lace circular needle
Started: March 2, 2008
Completed: July 2, 2008

Before this project, I had knit lace patterns before, but I had never before completed a project that was what I think of as “real lace”… a lace pattern knit in a lace-weight yarn. I have a lot of lace shawl patterns in my Ravelry queue and one of my goals for this year was to knit more lace. I’ve had this issue of Interweave Knits since it was first released, but I don’t think I was all that interested in this particular pattern until Interweave released the book The Best of Interweave Knits, with this pattern pictured on the cover.

I chose this lace shawl pattern over others because it looked very simple and fast to knit.  Well, I guess for me “simple” easily becomes “tedious”.  The knitting really dragged through Chart 1 (the stockinette section with columns of yarn-overs) but seemed to pick up a lot for the latter charts, even though that was the point where the rows started to get really long.  I think the thing that really kept me going in the beginning was the yarn — I really love this colorway.  It really does seem to have a “velvet” quality to it (the color in the photo above is more accurate than the one below, and even in the one above, the colors contrast a bit more than in real life).

This was my first attempt at steam blocking a project, but the results just don’t do it for me. I don’t know if I didn’t do something right or if I was just generally not thorough enough, but the edges still seem a bit on the curly side and the lace pattern doesn’t pop as much as I expected it to. I’m afraid to wet-block this yarn because any time I’ve wet-blocked Malabrigo worsted, it has become fuzzy and lost its stitch definition.  So while I’m generally happy with the results of this project, I know it could look better than it does…but I’m afraid to mess with it too much and make it look worse.  Any advice on blocking Malabrigo Lace is welcome.

Its been a long time with no posts here at Across the Knitterverse. I’m hoping to make up for that with a few FO and general update posts, and then after that I will try harder to post at least once a week.

First up we have a new finished object — one that was never really discussed on the blog because it was a secret. Now that it has been given to the recipient, the details can be revealed.

Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann from the Opinionated Knitter
Yarn: Zitron Trekking XXL in colorway 104
Needles: Knitpicks 40″ US 4 circular (first time using Knitpicks needles and I am amazed by how nice they are for the low price…nice smooth needles and very flexible cords)
Started: May 22, 2008
Completed: June 15, 2008 (it only took me a few days to knit, but a few more weeks to find and attach buttons)

This was a gift for my cousin who has her first baby due later in the summer. They aren’t finding out the sex so the sweater isn’t “blue for a boy” its more like “blue because I know the mother would like the color”. The yarn was originally purchased as sock yarn, but once I decided on this project, I decided that this yarn was much better suited to become a BSJ…and I think I was right. I love the way the color changes emphasize the shaping of the garment. Here’s another photo (pre-buttons) with more accurate colors…

I had a lot of fun knitting this project. The pattern is about as entertaining as garter-stitch can be — the combination of the unique construction and the self-striping yarn keep it interesting, and the project knits up quickly.  I see more of these in my future, again in self-striping yarn. There aren’t any more babies on the horizon, but I’m already prepared with my next BSJ yarn… a self-striping yarn in the Giles colorway from Twisted Fiber Art…

I try to blog when I have pictures to go with my blog post.  I haven’t had the time to get pictures of my knitting lately, so I’ve been short on blog material.  Sarah did this meme in her blog, so I thought I would do it here.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
I had just finished my 3rd year of college.  I was living in Atlanta with my aunt and uncle for the summer while doing an internship.  I didn’t know a lot of people there, so I did a TON of reading that summer — thinking back, if I had known how to knit back then, I could have finished lots of projects that summer.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
empty the dishwasher
place an order with Bluestone Perennials (very small plants but dirt cheap!) for some things to help fill in our landscaping
load some more knitting podcasts on my iPod (I’m looking forward to trying out the Manic Purl podcast)
work on my Icarus shawl
watch the LOST season finale

3) Snacks I enjoy:
Tortilla chips with salsa, carrots with hummus, grape tomatoes with FF ranch dip

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Travel a lot.  Knit a lot.  Read a lot.  Live in a bigger house.  Not work at all.

5) Places I have lived:
Elyria, Ohio
Muncie, Indiana
Duluth, Georgia
Columbus, Ohio
Baltimore, Maryland

6) Jobs I have had:
(going really far back with a lot of these)
newspaper carrier
hostess/cashier
cleaning carpets/doing maintenance stuff at some schools (2 different jobs/summers)
part-time landscape architecture intern/part-time Taco Bell employee (that summer was the worst)
full-time landscape architecture intern (2 different jobs/summers)
part-time computer lab assistant (best/easiest job ever!)
Landscape Architect/Land Planner at a landscape architecture firm
Landscape Architect/Land Planner at an engineering firm
Landscape Architect/Land Planner consultant
Landscape Architect/Planner at an architecture firm

7) People I wanna know more about:
If you want to do this meme, consider yourself tagged.  Let me know in the comments if you do it and I’ll come read your responses.

Time for a Maryland Sheep and Wool recap…better late than never. A little peek into the bag I brought home…

A few weeks ago I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival with Kelly and Aileen. I had gone once before, Aileen had gone a few times, and Kelly had never gone before. We opted to go on Saturday (more selection but larger crowds) rather than Sunday. Despite a gray start to the day, the weather was pretty good…not exactly sunny, but no rain and not scorching hot.

We started out by heading straight to the back, where the big barn is. That didn’t work out to be the greatest strategy because it was still pretty crowded. I made the majority of my purchases in the big barn…

Domy Heather Yarn in Blush and Walnut from the Old Mill Yarn booth

Looking back, I could have sworn that the display at the booth called this DK weight yarn, but in Raverly it is listed as fingering weight. If it is fingering weight, it won’t work with the project for which it was intended. Oh well…I like pink and brown together and could easily enough come up with other projects for it.

Next up was the Shelridge Farm booth. I remember being in love with their colors last year, but being too overwhelmed to make a purchase. I think next year, I will come planning to make a big purchase there. This year, all I came away with was sock yarn…

Shelridge Farm Soft Touch Ultra in Pumpkin (I was definitely on an autumny-color kick that day).

Part of my vow for MDS&W was not to shop at any local yarn store booths. When I saw the Cloverhill Yarn booth, I decided that I could shop there without breaking the rule…they were stocked up with lots of indie-dyer yarns that they typically don’t carry. The point of the rule was to avoid buying things I could easily get my hands on in the Baltimore area, and most of the yarns they had were things I’d never seen before. I was totally struck with the Neighborhood Fiber Co. sock yarns and came away with a set of fraternal twins…

Neighborhood Fiber Co. Studio Sock - Cooper Circle colorway

The lower skein has lots of deep red in it and the upper skein is more thoroughly mixed with reds and oranges. I couldn’t decide between the two (and I love me some autumny colors), so I bought them both. The red-orange skein will become the Gloria Cowl and the red skein will become a pair of socks.

While checking out from the Cloverhill booth, I recognized and said hi to knit-blogger Sarah (who’s Central Park Hoodie I recognized from her blog), who introduced me to Jody, who happens to be one of my “friends” on Ravelry.

We finished up in the main barn and made our way through the other barns. I was tempted to check out The Fold’s booth for Socks that Rock (STR), but the line looked kind of crazy. I still have some STR in my stash from Stitches East, and I’m hoping that Blue Moon Fiber Arts will be coming again this year…my Stitches East STR shopping experience was virtually line-free.

For lunch, Aileen introduced Kelly and I to ribbon chips — thin curls of potato, fried up and smothered in cheese, bacon bits, chives, and whatever additional potato toppings you can handle. I say that you can’t go wrong with the combination of potato and cheese, and the ribbon chips made a pretty good “there’s-nothing-healthy-to-eat-at-a-fairgrounds-anyway-so-why-not” lunch.

After lunch, we made our way over to the Ravelry meet-up. I recognized several faces from Ravatars and blogs, but didn’t necessarily know names to go with the faces. They were out of buttons, but I did pick up my Ravatar sticker.

We checked out all of the free-standing tent vendors after lunch, and our shopping definitely slowed in pace, with once exception…the Brooks Farm booth. I remembered them from the year before, which was another case of being so overwhelmed by the beauty of their yarns that I didn’t buy anything. I think this was the only booth where Kelly, Aileen and I all made purchases.  If they hadn’t been the last booth on our trip, I think we probably would have bought more. I came away with…

A skein of Brooks Farm Solana (very thick and squishy!) in a mix of oranges, reds, brown, and plum

It will become The Prismatic Scarf. (Even though I won’t have any use for a scarf for a while, I’m very anxious to cast on for this!)

I think we were all happy with the experience, the company, and our purchases.  I hope we do it again next year!

Its done! Unfortunately I don’t have any new pictures, so this post will be full of repeats.

I’ve had quite a few questions about the chuppah in the comments lately, and I hope to answer them all here, rather than replying to everyone individually.

Pattern: Lace Chuppah by Cat Coyle from the Summer 2007 Issue of Interweave Knits
Yarn: Indiecita (Plymouth) Baby Alpaca Brush Solid , colorway 1000 (white), 26 skeins
Needles: US 13 - Bamboo DPNs to start out then Denise Circulars for the rest (adding more cord sections along the way)
Crochet Hook: can’t remember the size without looking it up
Started: late June 2007
Finished: May 7, 2008
The Big Day: June 21, 2008 (I will post some photos of the chuppah in use when we get back from the wedding.)

Modifications:

The pattern called for a strand of silver thread or cord to be carried along with the alpaca yarn. Since this was knit for an outdoor ceremony in a breezy location, I left it off…I was worried that there would be too much sparkle and flash and that it would be distracting to the guests. Plus, since my sister didn’t want any “bling” on her dress, I didn’t think she would want any on the chuppah either.

The pattern was written to result in an approximately 6′ by 6′ chuppah (not including the fringe). When my sister originally talked to the florist, he said that the chuppah frames they had were 6′ by 8′ (so rectangular, rather than square like this pattern) and 8′ by 8′. So I estimated how much additional yarn I would need in order to get to 8′ by 8′ and to accomplish it, I added a few additional repeats of the leaf motif. I didn’t really swatch for this project, but rather started knitting the pattern until I had about 18 inches square, bound off, blocked it and checked my gauge. My gauge was a bit big, but since I was planning to knit a larger version, I didn’t worry about it and used my gauge count to figure out how many rounds I would need to add in order to get to 8′.

My other modification was the fringe - I made it shorter by about 2 inches.

Techniques:

I had knit lace before, so the actual knitting wasn’t really new to me, aside from the fact that this was knit from the center out. So as you knit, the project grows and grows…I went from easily being able to finish a single motif in a sitting (16 or so rounds) to knitting half a motif, to being happy with finishing two rounds in a sitting. Stitch markers are your friend with a project this big…not only for marking your place (after a while its pretty easy to keep track) but just to feel like you are making progress.

I took several month-or-more-long breaks so that I didn’t burn out on this project. If I had knit straight through it would have probably taken me somewhere around two months to knit. I don’t recommend this as a summer project — you will get way too hot — but it makes an excellent winter project — the knitting can substitute for a blanket.

Related to techniques, this pattern does not use a regular knit bind-off, but something called a crochet-loop bind-off. Before this, the only crochet I had done is making crochet chains for provisional cast-ons. I found the pattern instructions for the bind-off to be a bit confusing, but someone on Ravelry helped me out and it was pretty easy from there. I enjoyed it enough to want to try more crochet edgings in the future (maybe on a baby blanket or a hem or something).

After binding-off, the chuppah needed to be blocked before adding the fringe. You can read about my slightly unusual blocking techniques in this previous post.

This was also my first time adding fringe to a project. We happened to have some pieces of cardboard from a package that were just about the right dimensions for the fringe, so that was a happy accident. The piece I used was 28 inches high, and folded in half. I cut a slit in one edge to hold the end of the yarn, held the cardboard folded in half, and then wrapped and wrapped and wrapped the yarn. I would do about half of a ball at once and for the 8′ chuppah, one ball was almost exactly enough to do one side. After wrapping, I would cut all the way along the open edge of the cardboard, giving me pretty consistent (but not perfect) 28″ long strands.

Since the chuppah had already been blocked, I didn’t want to be unfolding it and handling it a lot. As I added the fringe, I would just unfold it a bit and refold sections as I finished them. I used a cutting mat with a 1/2 inch grid marked on it as a guide to keep things square and even as I tied the knots in the fringe. It worked out really well.

Here’s a little thumbnail collection of the progress of this project (click to view larger):

FAQs:

Could you share the pattern?

I did not design the pattern, so it isn’t mine to give out to others. You can find it in the Summer 2007 issue of Interweave Knits magazine.

Why are you making the chuppah larger than as designed in the pattern?  Do you think it needs to be bigger?

As I said above, when she originally talked to the florist, he said that the frames he could provide were either 6′ x 8′ or 8′ x 8′ in size, so I adjusted the pattern for use with an 8′ by 8′ frame.  As it turns out, when we went back to the florist with the finished chuppah to discuss the specifics of the wedding he said that we should have let him know and he could have made a frame any size we needed.  I’m trying to forget that he said that!  I think 6′ x 6′ would be fine and 8′ x 8′ will be very spacious, but not too big.  But I don’t know for sure until I see it all set up on the day of the wedding.

How much yarn did you use compared to what was called for in the pattern?

The pattern called for 18 balls of the Plymouth Baby Alpaca Brush.  I started out with 25 balls, and ended up using about 21.5 for the knit portion.  I needed one additional ball for the fringe, but didn’t need the half ball that was left over.  However, I reduced the length of the fringe…If I had done longer fringe I probably would have needed just about all of the half-ball too.

How hard was this to make?

I’d call myself an intermediate knitter and the actual knitting wasn’t too hard at all.  If you have ever knit lace and know how to follow a chart, you have the skills to do the knitting for this project.  The crochet edging requires some crochet technique, but nothing too complicated…you could probably find a book or online tutorial to learn the techniques.  The hardest part was the perseverance to keep going on it and get it done.

This morning when I went to put on the Monkey Socks I finished knitting last spring, I noticed a huge hole in the heel. This is my first pair of hand-knit socks to bite the dust.

I guess that means its a good thing that I finished my second pair of Monkey Socks the weekend before last.

Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A from the Winter 2006 Knitty/The Crazy Monkeys by Jennifer O’Sullivan
Yarn: Claudia Handpainted Yarn (fingering weight) in the Just Plum colorway, purchased at the Cloverhill Yarn Shop in Catonsville, MD
Needles: 2 - 16″ US 2 circulars
Started: March 23, 2008
Completed: April 27, 2008

Modifications: I did a bit of a hybrid of the Monkey and Crazy Monkey patterns.  I knit these toe-up and for the first repeat omitted the purl stitches, as was done with the Crazy Monkey.  The rest of the way up, I used the regular Monkey pattern repeat.  I used my own toe-up heel-flap variation in combination with the eye-of-partridge stitch pattern used for the Crazy Monkey.  This was my first time using the eye-of-partridge (in the past I’ve usually done a regular slip stitch heel-flap) and I really like the way it breaks up the colors in the yarn.

I really enjoy knitting this pattern.  The pattern repeat is easy to memorize and the knitting always seems to go pretty fast.  My first pair of Monkeys was also knit with Claudia Handpainted (Spring Break colorway) and with those I was very disappointed in the obvious striping of the colors.  With the Just Plum, I was very pleased with how well the colors were mixed…not much pooling or striping that I can really identify.

I’d say I’ll definitely knit this variation of the Monkey pattern (toe-up with eye-of-partridge heel) again within the next year.

Speaking of sock knitting, I just signed up for Summer of Socks 2008. Now that I’ve had one pair of hand-knit socks wear out, I want to spend some of the summer knitting socks so that I’m sure to have plenty of new socks to wear for the coming fall and winter.  Plus,  I have a backlog of sock yarn in my stash as well as sock patterns in my queue.  Last year I finished 3 pair of socks during the along and this year I’ll try to knit 4 pair.  (Definitely not in contention for the “most socks” contest!)  I would be more ambitious, but Summer of Socks is about 3 weeks shorter this year than last year and I will be employed this summer (unlike last summer) with less time for knitting.

Right now I have one pair of socks in progress (the 9 to 5 socks) and once I finish those, I will wait until the start of Summer of Socks (June 21) to start my next pair.

For my next post - a report on last weekend’s visit to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.

Today is my birthday.

And this weekend is the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.

I originally wasn’t planning to go, but last weekend Kelly and Aileen asked if I would want to come along with them, so we plan to go tomorrow. I’ve been pretty bad about sticking to any kind of a yarn-diet lately (curse you WEBS Anniversary Sale…and you too, Little Knits sale on Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece) so I feel a little bit guilty about going, but a birthday is a pretty good excuse to justify just about anything. Once I finish this post, I need to look through my Ravelry queue and come up with a shopping list. My goal for this year is to only buy yarns that I wouldn’t be able to find in the LYSs in my area (sorry LYS vendors). Last year I only bought items that are readily available in Baltimore area LYSs, which (I realize now that I look back) kind of misses one of the main points of going to MDS&W.

In other knitting news, I finished my Monkey Socks on Sunday. I meant to do a FO post earlier this week, but I need to find the camera battery charger first, so I can get a picture. I also finished the fringe on 2 sides of the chuppah last Friday. The end is in sight…I need to finish it this week so it can be wrapped and presented at my sister’s bridal shower next weekend.

Soon my list of active WIPs will be down to two, so I have plans to start a new project. I’m going to knit Something Red using some of the Cotton Fleece I ordered (it was — and still is — on sale!) last week.

Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in New Age Teal

I have the pattern and I’m halfway through knitting up a swatch, but I’m not going to allow myself to cast-on until the last of the fringe on the chuppah is finished.  The Knit and Tonic group on Ravelry just started a general Knit and Tonic knit-along, which makes it pretty much perfect timing to start on this.

If you happen to be at MDS&W tomorrow and see me (I have curly reddish-brown hair and will probably be wearing CeCe — see my 2007 projects page for photos of both CeCe and me), stop and say hey…I’m kind of shy but I like to meet new people — especially knitters.  For those who won’t be going, I promise to fondle some yarn for you.