Flashing!

I hope I won't disappoint those of you looking for serious "yarn p0rn." My stash is just not that big. I won't be wearing one of these T-shirts. When I first started knitting I was too poor to keep a stash. But now that have more discretionary cash, I still don't buy yarn without a project in mind. So most of my stash are leftovers. I always have leftovers because I'm always paranoid and buy an extra ball of yarn for my projects.

First up, the group shot:

Next, various closeups:

Yarn for Moni that arrived too late to be included in the group shot:

Some Other Rowan Yarn:

I have lots of "leftover" kidsilk haze because I ordered an entire bag (10 balls) of the stuff thinking that I needed 8 balls for my Reversible Rib Shawl. But I ended up needing only 5.5 balls for the shawl. I think I'm going to make Maggie with the rest of it, but I'm not sure yet.

Acrylic "Naturally" Follows All That Fancy Yarn:

The white and lavender yarn was used for my niece's baby blanket. The yellow is destined to be a baby blanket for my coworker's baby. I cast on for that blanket this week.

Ba Ba Brown Sheep:

Notice the "vintage" Brown Sheep labels at the top? Those are the leftovers from the first sweater that I made for Peter. Someone horribly miscalculated the amount of yarn I needed for that sweater. When I purchased the yarn, I didn't know much about gauge, yardage, or buying yarn in general. I relied on my mother and the yarn store owner to figure out how much yarn I needed. Obviously, math skills were lacking on the day of my purchase. I still have 2.5 skeins of brown, 1 full skein of red, and 1 full skein of blue leftover--and I've been using this yarn to play around with for a few years!

Most embarrassing Stash:

This is an unfinished sweater. It must be at least 10 years old. I started the sweater, lost interest, tossed it in the closet, and forgot about it. By the time I found it again, the sweater was no longer my style. Sorry, I just don't wear gigantic, jewel-toned sweaters any more. I'm thinking I'm going to frog the sweater and use the cotton yarn (the yarn in skeins) for making stuffed animals. I have no idea what to do with the space-dyed lace-weight yarn on the cones.

I hope my little stash wasn't too boring. Click here for links to other Stash Flashers.

Edit for Helen, a close up of the lace-weight yarn:

You can kinda see on the left that the yarn has little loopies coming off it. I'll be out of town tomorrow through Saturday so if anyone else has questions, please be patient! I will answer them.

I [heart] my blocking board

How in the world did I ever live without a blocking board before? The lines, the numbers--I'm in heaven!!!

My lovely blocking board is just big enough to block the front and back of Peter's sweater:



But not quite big enough to block both sleeves at the same time (stupid saddle straps!)



Once sleeve #1 is dry, I'll block sleeve #2 and start seaming the sweater. This sweater needs a lot of seaming--again Stupid Saddle Straps!

In other news...
I ordered yarn for Moni from a wonderful online retailer called Richesse. But I won't start that sweater until after I have finished the Baby Blanket. The yarn arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, I did my stash photo shoot for Flash Your Stash last week so this yarn won't be in the group shot. I will take an extra close-up photo of it and post it next week along with the rest of the "yarn p0rn."

Chapter 2 of my trip down memory lane

With this entry, I'm continuing to trace my pre-blog knitting experiences. What happened to Chapter 1? Well, chapter 1 was not labeled as such but it does exist!

After knitting a BF sweater (and before BF dumped me), I embarked on a sweater just for me. I picked an "intermediate" sweater from one of my mother's knitting books. Mom assured me that I would be able to handle the pattern and taught me the techniques that I needed to make the sweater. I started the sweater in December but I don't remember when I finished it. Here it is in all it's glory (with Scout):



And a detail shot of the lace and color work:



Not bad for the second thing that I ever knitted, huh?

This sweater has a rather strange story associated with it. Now remember, I was knitting this sweater in the days before online shopping existed. And at the time, I was attending college in the Middle of Nowhere, MA. So, most of the students attending my school purchased clothes through catalogs.

One afternoon, I opened a copy of the then-popular, now-defunct Tweeds catalog and found (much to my horror) that the catalog was selling the very sweater that I was currently knitting. I even looked at the photo with a magnifying lens to confirm that the sweater for sale was made from the exact same pattern that I was using. The only difference between the two sweaters was that I was making mine with wool and the one for sale was made in cotton. I thought that I would soon be seeing people wearing "my sweater" before I even finished my version of it. And when I did finish it, would people think that I just purchased the sweater that I had labored over?

Luckily, the sweater in the catalog was also hand-knit and therefore priced a little beyond what college students could reasonably afford. But still, it was very weird to see "my sweater" in a catalog.

Side note: my 3rd FO was a random-striped, garter stitch scarf made with the left over yarn from this sweater.

Kittyville Noch Einmal

Over the weekend I made a second Kittyville hat. I'm giving it to my SIL Tracy for her birthday. Tracy used to own two black cats, but now she and my brother live in a rented house and their landlord won't let them have pets. I was going to make her a black hat, but I hate working with black yarn, so I chose a dark heathered charcoal instead. I think I did a better job placing the ears on this hat:



Yarn used: MC Plymouth Galway Highland color 704, CC Plymouth Galway color 114
Needles: Two circular US size 9

This hat was the first object that I have made with Plymouth Galway. Very nice yarn! Soft, good yardage, lots of colors, and wound in a center pull ball. Galway may become my standard worsted weight yarn.

Meanwhile...
Progress on Peter's sweater is continuing. I'm working both sleeves at the same time. I need to work fast. Peter's birthday is April 17th and I decided that I wanted to give it to him as a present. I love giving myself deadlines.



Guilty of Conspicuous Consumerism
I finally gave into temptation and ordered a fancy blocking board. The towel-covered bed is no longer good enough for me.

My First FO--A Retrospective

In a previous post, I described how I learned to knit while knitting a sweater for my then boyfriend. The bottom of the sweater was a plain stockinette stitch (with ribbing, of course), but the top half had a simple, two-color fair-isle pattern. Very attractive, if I do say so myself! I started the sweater in the summer and finished it just before Christmas. During that time, I didn't have to worry about keeping the sweater secret from my boyfriend because we were in a long-distance relationship.

I looked through the journal that I kept during that time to see if I made any comments about the sweater. The only thing written was, "Eliza says that I shouldn't give the sweater that I'm making to Steve because he and I will eventually break up and I will want the sweater back." Eliza was one of my few friends who could knit. She was appalled that I was giving my first sweater away.

Anyway, I gave the sweater to Steve in December. We broke up in March. I never saw Steve or the sweater again. (Remember--it was a long-distance relationship.) But, despite Eliza's predictions, I didn't want the sweater back and I'm still glad that I don't have it. If I had the sweater, I would never wear it and I would never be able to get rid of it either. It would just be a piece of emotional baggage that I would be doomed to carry around (literally and figuratively) for the rest of my life.

However, I wish I had a photo of the sweater. It's difficult to show the picture in my head to others and say, "Hey look, I made this!"

Finally, the Front...

I finished the front of Peter's sweater last night. The neckline looks a little funny now because it will have a short button placket at the top. This sweater is going to have the most complicated finishing of any sweater that I have ever made. The sleeves have saddle straps--another new thing for me. But I can't become a better knitter unless I try new things, right?

So here's the photo of the front of the sweater. It is not as nice of a photo as the photo of the back was. The weather is rainy and cloudy today so there is no nice sunlight for a good photo shoot.



Last night at the Clear Lake SnB, Monkee asked me what I was going to knit next. I only gave her a partial answer because I have so many things I want to knit that I couldn't remember them all. First, I need to make another Kittyville hat for my SIL. Her birthday is coming up. I also am planning to make another sweater for my niece Eva. It's called Candace and it's made with sock yarn. The yarn has been ordered and is on it's way. The sweater is shown below.



After Peter's sweater is finished, I need to start yet another baby gift. This time, the gift is a baby blanket for my coworker's 4th baby. I'm making the blanket shown below because it's almost completely reversible. The design on the wrong side is not identical to the design on the right side, but the wrong side still looks nice. I have this thing about making sure that objects which can normally be viewed from both sides are reversible. That's why I was so excited when I made my reversible rib shawl.



Once that blanket is finished, I will start making something for me. Probably Debbie Bliss's Grace. Or maybe Moni from Rowan 31. Or maybe even Maggie from Rowan 31. But if I did Maggie, I would have to alter the pattern. It MUST be longer. No one needs to see my belly button.

Shawl Is Finished!

I finally finished my mohair masterpiece. I present to you Lily Chin's Reversible Rib Shawl!



Dimensions: 20.5 x 65 inches
Yarn Used: Rowan's Kidsilk Haze in color 586--Bebe (discontinued color), approximately 5.5 balls
Needles: Plastic Susan Bates in US sizes 8 and 10

Additional photos can be seen in my Finished Object Gallery.

Add a Little Spice to Your Blog

I'm not one of those knitters who can have 5 works in progress. The fact that I have two major WIP right now is pretty unusual for me. To paraphrase Charles Emerson Winchester, I work on one thing, I do it very well, and then I move on.

However, two big projects yields a less than exciting blog. Honestly--how many times can I post photos of a unfinished blue aran and a fuzzy pink shawl? To solve is problem, I thought I could interject some entries/photos of some FO from my pre-blog days.

But before I start bragging about what I have knit, I'd like to show off two sweaters that my dear mother made for me. I've had these sweaters for 10-plus years so they are showing signs of wear, but they are still beautiful. First is the Tyrolean jacket:

This jacket is huge, thick, and very cozy. Most of it was knit with worsted weight yarn doubled! I love it.

Next, is my flower sweater:

I think (but I'm not sure) that this is a Kaffe Fassett design. It is knit with a very light-weight yarn--it must be fingering/sock weight. Can you say intarsia? And can you believe that my mother made TWO of these sweaters? My aunt (her sister) was the recipient of the other sweater. My aunt's sweater has more muted colors, but is still spectacular. Here's a close up of the flower pattern:

Baby Got Back

I finished the back of Peter's sweater over the weekend. I wasn't sure I was going to post photos, but the sun finally came out this morning, which provided some lovely low-angled light in which to properly photograph the cable pattern. I touched up the photos using my new photo-editing software. The software is called Picasa and it is currently available free from Google. It works pretty well. As far as I can tell, it can't do fancy stuff, such as making people skinnier, but it's good for adjusting color, adjusting contrast, and all the other basic stuff.

In the next two photos, I used Picasa to adjust the color (the sunlight and my cheap-o camera washed out the color) and strengthen the contrast (to really show off the cables). So, here's the back:

And here's a close up of the cable pattern:


Shawl Update:
I finished the 4th ball of yarn. The shawl is now 45 inches long!

Back by popular demand

Last night I went to the Clear Lake SnB and learned that the members were NOT disturbing or mentally unbalanced (hee hee). And I had the great fortune of finally meeting Monkee in person. A few of the other knitters seemed to find it strange that Monkee and I met over the Internet. I think they feel that meeting the people over the Internet is dangerous. But hopefully, those knitters didn't find me to be terribly disturbing or mentally unbalanced.

At the SnB, I learned that I was wrong about the straight vs. circular needle usage rates. Most of the knitters there were using straight needles. I guess all the discussions about Denise and Addi Turbo needles on the knittyboard just skewed my perception of needle usage.

Anyway--the batteries for my camera are recharged so I can now litter this blog with more photos of my two WIP. First up: Peter's sweater!
[Edit to say: sorry photo accidentally deleted. But you can see the finished back in the Feb 28 blog entry.]
This is the back. I'm about to start the arm hole shaping. See that lovely wound center-pull ball of yarn in the upper left corner? It was wound with the wonderful help of Monkee and her wool winder. She and I wound 8 skeins of Cascade 220 last night. That's a lot of yarn!

Next: the ever popular reversible rib shawl

Ok, I'll admit that it isn't the greatest photo of the shawl. But cutie-pie Scout posed so nicely with the shawl that I have to post this photo instead of the other photo I took. I was attempting to photograph the reversibility of the shawl. If you wish to see better photos, look at this blog entry. The shawl is long now--I'm guessing about 40 inches. I'm in the middle of the 4th ball of yarn.

Dead Camera

I was planning to post new photos of my WIPs (shawl and Peter's sweater), but discovered that the batteries in my camera need to be recharged. Oh well. I guess they wouldn't be the most exciting photos anyway.

Tonight I'm going to my very first SnB. I have no idea what to expect. Hopefully, the members will be welcoming to someone new. I heard about this group from Monkee, so I hope I'll have a chance to meet her there! Interestingly, just last week I saw a feature on the local news about the popularity of what they called "stitching groups." The segment featured the central Houston SnB (the one that meets on West Gray). I laughed when they showed the cover of Stitch 'N Bitch and placed a big STAR over the "B" in Bitch. While watching the segment, I was surprised to see that most of the people were using straight needles. I thought that most people used circulars these days. Maybe my perception is skewed because I have never used straight needles.

No Time!

This past week has just been awful! I've made very little knitting progress and I keep thinking of more things that I need to knit.

Part of my lack of knitting progress can be attributed to my trip to Austin this past weekend. Peter (my DH) ran the Freescale Half Marathon. As usual, he ran fast and did very well--he finished 6th in his age group and 29th overall. That's out of 3798 runners. Sometimes I'm so jealous that he is such a great runner. But most of the time I'm just proud of him.

While in Austin, I visited Hill Country Weavers and was very impressed and a little claustrophobic. It's a little house crammed with yarn from the floorboards to the rafters. And there were so many kinds of luxury yarns! I just stood there petting the yarn and dreaming. Good thing I'm not a stasher. I might have bought a few skeins just to have them!

However, I did by some sock yarn to make a baby sweater. The sweater I'm planning to make is very similar to Devan from Knitty, but it's a crew neck cardi rather than a v-neck. I'm going to make the sweater for my little niece, Eva. Prior to her birth, Eva was the inspiration that caused me to start knitting again after several nonknitting years. When my brother and SIL announced that they were going to have a baby, I decided to knit a baby blanket. I haven't stopped knitting since. Here's a photo of little Eva wearing a sweater that I made for her.

Happy New Year!

Today is what I call Chinese New Year but what the press generally calls Lunar New Year. I guess the press is trying to be politically correct by not excluding the Vietnamese or other cultures that use a lunar-based calendar. This year is the year of the Rooster. My brother was born in the year of the Rooster, so I sometimes call it the year of the Chicken just to bug him. But then, I was born in the year of the Dog and it's difficult to put a good spin on that! What's all this Rooster/Dog/other animal business? The animals are the signs of the Chinese zodiac. Similar to the western zodiac, there are 12 signs in the Chinese zodiac. But the signs in the Chinese zodiac cycle yearly rather than monthly. So, Happy New Year everyone! Eat noodles for long life and wear red for good luck!

Knitting news...I finally received the yarn for DH's sweater. I have finished several inches of the back. The cable pattern is much easier than it appeared to be in the chart. I can do most of the pattern without looking at the chart now. I just need to glance at the pattern to know how to start the seed-stitch in the center of the diamonds. Here's a photo of the work in progress:

Cats and Kidsilk Haze

I have three fairly well-behaved cats. For example, the cats know that they aren't supposed to jump on the kitchen counter or on the dining room table. So, they only go up to those places when no humans are in the room and jump off when they hear a human coming.

When I knit, I usually have a cat or two sitting next to me or sitting on my lap. Normally, the cats leave my yarn alone and don't try to play with it. But things are different with my shawl yarn. My lovely shawl is being knitted out of Rowan's Kidsilk Haze. All three cats are entranced by the floaty, fluffy yarn. And they can't wait to get their paws (or their mouths) on the fuzzy balls. Once, Scout tried to run off with an entire ball of the yarn. I scolded her and she dropped the ball and looked very sad and apologetic. Then, she grabbed the ball again! Do the cats think that the yarn is some sort of animal?

Shawl update: I finished the third ball of yarn. The shawl is now
32 inches long.

(Edited to add hard return before "32." The editor inside me can't stand it when a line breaks between a number and its units.)

What a deal!

Last weekend, I was browsing around in a Barnes and Noble store and found a 2005 Knitting Pattern-a-Day calendar in the 75% off bin. Including tax, it cost less than $4. Normally, I don't like buying pattern books without seeing the patterns first, but I figured that I was bound to like a few of the patterns among the hundreds of patterns in the pack. (And before some smarty-pants tells me that there are 365 patterns in the pack, let me say that Saturdays and Sundays are combined as one "day" and some patterns are spread across two days. So there!)

Well, I was correct--there are several patterns that I like. But, of course, there are several patterns that I know I will never make. For example, all the sock patterns. I don't knit socks. The only exception was the pair of Fuzzy Feet that I made as an experiment.

So...if anyone out there wants the sock patterns, I would be happy to mail them to you. Just let me know your snail mail address and the patterns are yours!

Where's my yarn?!

I'm itching to start DH's sweater. I have most of the yarn, but the contrasting color has yet to arrive--and the sweater starts with the CC. I hope the yarn arrives today. If it doesn't, I will email the vendor.

I'm all prepared to start the sweater. I've wound yarn, swatched, washed the swatch, made a swatch of the cable pattern, and made an enlarged copy of the cable chart. And because I'm such a visual person and a bit of a nerd, I carefully color coded the cable chart.

Why is there a weird glare on that chart? Because, in even more nerd-fashion, I put the chart in one of those plastic page protectors. And if you filp the chart over, you will see the entire pattern for the sweater. So where's my yarn!!!???

Someone reads my blog!

I guess Monkee is reading my blog. At least she has link to it on her blog. That makes me so happy! (Hi Monkee!)

Now the music thing...
1. Total amount of music files on your computer? About 700 Mb. Is that a lot? It's all stuff off of my own CD collection that I put on the MP3 player that I use when I run. I need distraction when I'm running.

2. The CD you last bought is: Clay Aiken's Christmas CD. Don't laugh. I really wanted a new Christmas CD and I liked the songs on the CD and I like his voice. No, I'm not a Claymate.

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message? "Anything Goes" I have KUHF (Houston Public Radio) on and they just played that. I just use that station for background noise.

4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.
Now I'm going to show my total geekiness and nerdiness here. I listen mostly to classical music and "modern" show tunes. Really. Laugh all you want.
* Elgar's Cello Concerto because it's the greatest cello concerto ever and I used to play the cello
* "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" because it's the prettiest song from my favorite musical, Evita
* "Puff the Magic Dragon" by Peter, Paul, and Mary because it reminds me of my childhood
* Carmina Burana by Carl Orff because it's amazing and powerful and good mad music
* Anything from Into the Woods because it's all so funny

5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 persons) and why?
* Jaimi because she was inducted into Knittyheads the same day I was inducted
* PumpkinKnits because she lives in Massachusetts and I love pumpkins
* Gaile because she likes my shawl

I'll play, too

I saw this on habsgirl's blog.
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the "coolest" book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

"The acceleration that occurs in circular motion is known as centripetal acceleration (sen TRIP uht uhl ak SEL uhr AY shuhn)." from Holt Science and Technlogy: Physical Science (c) 2005. What's so cool about that sentence? I wrote it. No kidding. I really did. Ok, I didn't write the phonetic respelling--a copyeditor did that for me. The only books in this office are textbooks, textbooks, and even more textbooks.

Shawl update

I finished the second ball of yarn on my shawl. With the first ball, I finished only two repeats of the pattern. With the second ball, I finished two and two-thirds of a repeat (2.66 repeats). I'm pretty surprised at the difference. I made three little swatches with the first ball, and the first seven rows of the shawl are done on smaller needles, but I didn't think that either of those conditions would result in such a large difference. See the shawl here:

The entire shawl is now about 2o inches long. I want it to be between 5 and 6 feet long (60-72 inches long). I'll just keep going for now. I'm in love the shawl already. It's so soft and fuzzy and pretty. I can't wait for it to be finished so I can start wearing it around. See a close up of the rib/cable pattern here:

How I learned to knit: A story

I learned to knit in the summer before my senior year at Williams College in Williamstown, MA. This was back when the Internet was still in its infancy and the only people who had email accounts were scientists and geeky college students (such as myself).

For some reason, I decided that it would be incredibly romantic to knit my BF a sweater. One of my friends who could knit told me that the little yarn store on Spring Street would teach me how to knit if I bought yarn there. So, I went to the store, knowing next to nothing about what I was getting into.

I walked into the store and told a nice woman that I wanted to learn to knit and wanted to knit a sweater. Looking back, I'm surprised that the woman didn't laugh or try to convince me to start with a smaller project. Instead, she handed me a stack of patterns and told me to pick one out. I'm not sure if she was confident in her abilities as a knitting teacher or confident in the idea that anyone can knit. Or perhaps she was used to college girls coming and wanting to knit sweaters for their BFs.

Once I had my pattern chosen, the woman helped me pick out the yarn I needed. Ok--she didn't "help"--she showed me the yarn I should use and asked me what colors I wanted. Then, she picked up two plastic circular needles and rang up the entire purchase. I can't remember if I flinched at the price.

Then, in one afternoon, the kind woman taught me to cast on, knit, purl, and do ribbing. Over the summer months she taught me how to make increases, do stockinette stitching, do garter stitching, change colors, knit with two colors, and bind off.

Now that I think back on that summer, I'm sad that I don't remember the woman's name or the store name. I'm also unhappy that I never thanked my knitting teacher or had a chance to show her the finished sweater. (I finished knitting the sweater over winter break and my mother helped me join the pieces. I gave it to my BF for Christmas, so the sweater never made a return trip to Williamstown.)