Abbie – Page 9 – Rush Hour Knitting

Thursday, 17 September, 2009Wednesday, 25 November, 2009

Autumnal

Autumnâ€™s my favorite time of year, and as the summer ends my anticipation grows, breaking out my orange and maroon clothes to get into the mood and checking the sugar maple trees by my house multiple times a day to catch the first leaves turning.

So none of you will be surprised to learn that autumnâ€™s started to infect my knitting. I am very pleased to present my first design, the October Leaves Fingerless Mitts.

Pattern: October Leaves Fingerless Mitts, available for sale on Ravelry
Yarn: Knit Picks Gloss Fingeringweight in Pumpkin (which color they are naturally discontinuing), approx. 200 yards (1 skein)
Needles: US1/2.25mm

I love projects with leaf motifs, and over the summer the idea of a leafy thumb gusset leapt into my head and would not go away. I tried to ignore it, I tried to knit lace and socks instead, but in the end I had to sit down and start drawing charts. It took some trial and error (as well as some excellent advice on cable placement from my sister) before I replicated what Iâ€™d initially envisioned, but by George I think Iâ€™ve got it!

Huge thank-yous to Melissa and Kel for test-knitting, and Glenna for looking everything over. Iâ€™m still new to this designing game so I want to make sure I get it right. Melissa also let me take advantage of her spectacular photography skills (all the pictures in this entry are hers), which Iâ€™m very excited about â€” itâ€™s hard to take pictures of your own hands. Try it sometime. Thanks to her I have shots far more spectacular than anything I could get on my own. (She had me model her finished socks in return. Itâ€™s surprisingly tricky to stand that still!)

You can find the pattern for the October Leaves Mitts for sale on Ravelry, where I will also eagerly be checking to see who else knits it and what yarns they pick. And if youâ€™d like to see my Mitts in person, find me at Rhinebeck, where I will most certainly have them on in honor of the season!

Thursday, 10 September, 2009Thursday, 10 September, 2009

Vintage

My parents have a fondness for antiquing. They like to go poke around shops and shows for treasures. My mother hunts for dishes and silver (she has two collections she is working on finishing, piece by piece) and my father just looks for whatever catches his eye.

Well. I must have trained him well. They came home today from two days spent enjoying the Brimfield Antique Show with this:

That’s three cones of various amounts of wool, eight skeins of wool, two of tussah silk (labeled for weaving, actually), three of “irish lace”, and two and change of a cotton/linen blend.

All that for two dollars.

I know. My dad’s awesome, isn’t he? I have already determined that he shall receive a Christmas present constructed from some of this haul.

Let’s get some close ups:

And tucked in with all of this was this label, ripped of what appeared to be butcher paper — maybe wrapping from a package?

It’s a little clue about this stash — perhaps this Mrs. Olmstead was the owner? Or maybe the owner bought something from her. There’s really no way to tell, but it’s so intriguing to wonder.

Everything smells musty, like the cardboard box it came in, and there’s a faint whiff of mothballs to it, so my first order of business is going to be reskeining everything in order to give it a proper soak. After it’s all clean and ready to move in with the rest of my stash (which is starting to outgrow its home) then we can truly get down to business.

When I told my dad that I was going to blog his find and it would make him the most popular father-of-a-knitter ever, he laughed. I don’t think he quite believed me.

Thursday, 3 September, 2009Thursday, 3 September, 2009

August Wrap Up

August was a slow month. I had lots of things on the needles, and then a ridiculous heat wave hit and all I wanted to do was move to the Yukon. (Summer is colder in the Yukon; you can still knit.) Since I am writing this post instead, you may safely assume I am still here.

SWALLOWTAIL SHAWL

Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clark
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace in Pagoda, 1 skein
Needles: US4/3.5 mm
The Swallowtail is written up here.

FLOWER POWER SOCKS

Pattern: Thuja socks by Bobby Ziegler
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock in Flower Power, a destash from a friend
Needles: US1/2.25mm
Story of the socks is here.

And now we’re into September. I have a sweater on the needles, and some socks that are so beautiful I can hardly stand it, and there’s yarn coming my way that will be turned into Christmas presents. And, I am making a valiant effort at keeping my excitement over the upcoming fiber festival season down to manageable levels. It might not be an entirely successful effort, but it’s an attempt. I think that should absolutely count, right?

Tuesday, 1 September, 2009

Largesse

My friends have been incredibly generous lately. There was that birthday goodness, including the surprise Wollmeise, and plans are afoot to attend Rhinebeck and 90% set to check out Vermont’s sheep & wool festival too! But I had another delightful surprise yesterday when I went to my knit night:

Rebecca planned wisely and went to Sock Summit at the beginning of August. (I won’t tell you how much yarn she brought home, but let’s just say it’s enough to make even my jaw drop in envy.) She offered to play personal shopper for those of us who weren’t attending. Rebecca has impeccable taste, so when I asked her if she would bring me back something, I told her to let her imagination run wild.

I couldn’t be more tickled. My entire knit group has picked up on my affection for greens (not surprisingly, the socks I cast on last night? Green) and Rebecca came back with some lovely yellow-green yarn from Holiday Yarns that I think really wants to be something with a leaf motif. (It’s actually called Gecko, but I don’t care. It’s a leafy color.) And that bag is full of FIBER.

It’s a spinning sampler! from A Verb For Keeping Warm, which is possibly the most charmingly named business ever to engage in knitterly commerce. The bag is labeled simply “exotics.” I have no idea (some guesses, though) of what any of these are, but every one is soft and inviting in a different way. I’m getting better and better with my little drop spindles, enough so that I think it rates a post one of these days, so this is a very welcome addition indeed to my fledgling fiber stash.

I’m still sad that I wasn’t able to go to Sock Summit, but between the news that there’s going to be another one (shh still sekrit apparently) and this delightful Summit Stash, I think I will bear up under the disappointment quite well, thank you. And thanks, Rebecca, for hauling these beauties cross-country for me!

And — it’s September now and the air in the last few days has become crisp and cool and all the yarn that’s languished in the heat of August suddenly looks inviting again. Autumn is my favorite time of year and it’s finally on its way!

Tuesday, 25 August, 2009

Flower Power

So it turns out I’ve done a pair of socks a month so far this year. You could use me as a calendar.

Pattern: Thuja socks by Bobby Ziegler
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock in Flower Power, a destash from a friend
Needles: US1/2.25mm
Notes: So these socks go back over a year when one of the ladies from my Knit Night came in and sat down and started handing out yarn she was destashing. One of them was this skein of Socks that Rock in a Rockin’ Sock Club colorway. I was still fairly new to STR and jumped at the chance to try the yarn, and I didn’t stop to think that the colors didn’t appeal very much to me. And so the yarn sat in my stash for a year, and I would look at it every so often and put it back. I finally wound it last month and suddenly the colors looked entirely different — where they had been in color blocks in the skein, and didn’t appear to flow, now the interplay of purple and blue and the highlighting tans came out.

Lesson learned. Always wind the skein — or at least re-skein it — before you write off the colorway.

Thuja and STR go really well together. It makes a nice thick warm sock — and while thick warm socks aren’t much use in August, they’re very useful in January, and when I wear these I can think of summer and how I’m eagerly awaiting colder temperatures and laugh because by January I’m usually over the cold already.

I had to show off my lovely Kitchnering job there. I used to cheat and turn my socks inside out and finish them with a three-needle bind-off. But Sandi Wiseheart posted this terrific tutorial on grafting on the needles a few years back and I have been using this trick ever since. It’s a lot easier than having to drag out a tapestry needle and it’s definitely a lot easier than turning the sock inside out to bind off. I keep encountering people who haven’t heard of this technique so I thought I would give it a little shout-out. If regular kitchnering isn’t your speed, give this a try.

My thoughts are turning to Rhinebeck. Who’s going, and what are you knitting for it? The High Holiday of Knitting is nearly upon us! I can’t wait.

Monday, 24 August, 2009Monday, 24 August, 2009

Geburtstag

So I had a birthday this weekend, which involved visiting with some friends, singing some karaoke, and, of course, some yarn:

Amy’s Vintage Office sock yarn from Lorna’s Laces, a gift from J., and some Wollmeise superwash from Melissa, who also made the beautiful bag the yarn is in. She even lined it with a toile pattern, because she knows me that well. (I adore toile. Adore it.)

I had more surprises when I got home:

This is the start of a collection for me, building off a coffee pot I inherited from a relative. My parents found some more pieces to match the pattern, and I was so touched and surprised when I opened the box I almost started crying. It’s not a fancy pattern; the value in it to me is where it started from. And I don’t think I’ll ever look at this bowl without remembering my surprise upon opening the box.

But the best part of a birthday is the cake. Or in this case, the cake and the bouquet of chocolate-covered strawberries sent by my sister:

That would be homemade red velvet with cream cheese frosting that my awesome mom made, and it tasted delicious. It’s an excellent way to start another year. Bring it, world. I’m fortified with chocolate and yarn.

Saturday, 15 August, 2009Saturday, 15 August, 2009

Day at the Beach

Literally!

I was at a picnic today, where I dined on lots of shellfish:

drank lots of delicious delicious pomegranate Mike’s, and waded in the water. This is the beach where I learned to swim back in the day, and I love every last rock and gigantic chunk of seaweed.

There’s a little sand in my sock now.

But I don’t mind a bit.

Tuesday, 11 August, 2009

Plummy

Yesterday, before my knitting group met up, I had a walk through the Union Square Greenmarket, and my eyes fell on some plums. You should buy those and make plum cake, I thought. Dad really loves plums. It doesn’t hurt that lots of people have been blogging about making plum cake lately.

So I bought the plums, a lovely mix of purple and golden, and brought them home, and neglected to take pictures of them before I sliced them up this afternoon and got to work.

I used this recipe, and threw in a few dashes of nutmeg and ground clove with the cinnamon in the batter. It was delicious. And as it turns out, my Dad (and the rest of us) had one of those days where one bad thing after another just sort of piled up, so having something delicious around to end the day with helped, just a little. And it turned out so pretty with the fruit and the cinnamon that I figured I’d share.

I was hoping for leftovers for breakfast. But now that the hordes are descending, I think I better make other plans:

I guess it tasted good!

Sunday, 9 August, 2009Saturday, 8 August, 2009

Koigu Shawl

This is an older knit that I finished last December. It was my stress knitting while I was crunching out the last of my Master’s thesis, a nice soothing garter stitch project that I could work on while I read and reread source material. Since it was finished up between the bustle of coursework and the holidays, it never got a proper photoshoot. High time to fix that!

KOIGU SHAWL

Pattern: Spanish Dancer by Sandi Luck
Yarn: Koigu Painter’s Palette Premium Merino mill ends in every colorway I could get my hands on
Needles: US6/4.0 mm
Notes:
The Koigu mill ends are an event at MDSW, in a little booth that is packed as bad as a Lex Ave subway train during rush hour. I got the yarn for this shawl at the ’08 festival with an eye for a shawl, and then I just… kept it. For the rest of the year. I took what I think is my favorite stash photograph ever with it:

And I finally came upon the Spanish Shawl pattern, which is really just garter stitch with a ruffle, perfect for showing off all the colors of my collection. So I dove right in and came out with something that looks like watercolors.

It’s a simple pattern, but sometimes simple is just what you need.

Saturday, 8 August, 2009

Swallowtail

Right now, all the way across the country in Portland, there are countless sock knitters breaking world knitting records and taking classes with Very Famous Knitters and attacking the vendor floor, including my own dear buddies Glenna and Rebecca. (They are blogging their way through it, if you’d like to live vicariously like me.)

Anyway. I’m not there, clearly, since they are all the way across the country from me. But in true Aesopian fashion, I’m fine with that and those grapes were probably sour anyway. And to prove it, I am having nothing to do with socks. I went and knit a shawl instead.

SWALLOWTAIL SHAWL

Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clark
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace in Pagoda, 1 skein
Needles: US4/3.5 mm
Notes: I am in absolute love with this shawl. This has been on my Must Knit list since I first saw the pattern in Interweave three years ago.

However. There are a few things any prospective Swallowtail-knitter should know. Firstly, the chart repeats do not match up, so if you want to make a bigger Swallowtail, which I did, you have to use math. Horrible, I know. This is why Clark suggests just using bigger yarn and needles. That was not in the cards here, because I had this skein of Malabrigo Lace just begging to be used. Secondly, Mintyfresh went ahead and did the math for you here. That post is full of spectacular information and you should read all of it, but what it boils down to is this: If you want to have a larger shawl, you should knit 19 repeats of the Budding Lace instead of 14. This will set you up just right for the Lily of the Valley charts, and a few increases will set you up for the last chart. I followed Minty’s advice and knit the 19 repeats, and sailed right into the Lily of the Valley charts, nupp nupp. This is the first time I have nupped, and it’s strangely addicting. I know they’re supposed to be treacherous, but I had no issues with them. I’ve always liked purling, which I’m sure helps.

Of course, something has to go wrong, and I somehow got all befuddled in the last chart and ended up ripping back three times. (Lifelines are a very good idea. I am very relieved I used them.) My yarn was looking considerably worse for the wear by that point so I just gave up, dove in, and somehow beat everything into shape.

It worked, and I bound off with a slightly larger needle so everything would have room to block, soaked, tried out my blocking wires for the first time (do not ask for how long I have had them) and the final results utterly take my breath away. It’s feather-light and drapey and beautiful, and I will take any excuse to wear it. Can you blame me?

Who needs socks when you can have lace like that?