See that stitching? That's why I don't sew. Oh, and also because I hate it. I envy people who love to sew and can create beautiful garments in an afternoon (you should see the gems my friend Marianne makes) but I can't stand it.
What's that? Yes, it's another finished holiday knit! This is the Child's Rainbow Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. This scarf is for my step-mom.
There's no natural light at 3am.
Pattern: Child's Rainbow Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Yarn: Noro Kureyon
Colors: 2 balls of 102, 1 ball each of 194 & 148
Needles: US9, bamboo
Time to complete: About a week or so
Modifications: I cast on 47 stitches instead of 23 and used 4 ball of yarn instead of 2. I don't know how long it is, I just knit until I ran out of yarn.
This is why I love my landlord. Another reason is that when he came to change the batteries in all the smoke detectors (!), he brought his son, Diego, so I could see the sweater I'd made on a real live by. The first picture isn't the best of the boys but the sweater looks great...
And last but not least I had to show you the stitch markers I purchased for my Yarn Aboard pal. Mostly because I want to keep them but if I show them to you then I'll have to send them. They're from a Girl Gone Mod over at Ewe Hoo!
I lied about the last comment before. It's finally snowing! Not dusting, light sprinkle, doesn't want to stick around snow but honest to goodness winter time in Vermont snow. I'm excited now but it'll wear off as soon as I have to go dig my car out. Scout knows what I'm talkin' about.
30 December 2006
Hand Sewn, or why I knit
27 December 2006
Yarn Aboard!
Leif Erikson is here! The Yarn Aboard package made it's way to my house and it was filled with goodies from Manda.
Leif started in Louisiana and has travelled as far as Iceland.
Can you imagine how excited I was when I opened the box to find this?
Here we have super yummy peppermint bark (already gone), homemade stitch markers, needle holders, a black sheep tape measure, two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepard Sock in Somerset, a whopping skein of Trekking XXL in color 134 and last, but not least, a reindeer with peppermint candies for my daughter.
You need a close up of these beautiful handmade stitch markers from Manda.
I am so amazed by this thoughtful package. Elah was so excited that there was something in one of my secret pal packages for her; she's been sleeping with the reindeer and refusing to eat the candy because she wants to save it. Manda also sent me the lovely red card you see in the previous post and a picture of a building in Dallas. Thank you.
I have almost everything I want to put into the box for the next recipient. Next stop - Brooklyn!
24 December 2006
SP Thank You
As I mentioned in my previous post, I received a package from my SP and the Yarn Aboard package on the same day. These are the two cards I found in the packages; the blue one is from my SP.
I've always been lucky with the SPs I've been paired with and this round is no exception. I don't know much about her, except that she's in Florida (hey, I'll be there in Feb/March!), and that she is extremely generous and thoughtful.
Here you see two yarns, Butterfly mercerized cotton and Katia Sevilla, two tree ornaments (my daughter was thrilled), a snowman notepad, snowman playing cards, letter E post-it notes, and a mystery pink bag.
Look, Knitting Nature! I am super excited about this book and think I'll make the mittens first. She also sent some cute note cards, a patter for those two yarns in the previous picture, and, mystery revealed, the pink bag is for storing needles.
I love everything in this package! I'm excited about the yarn and pattern she sent me as it's something I would not choose for myself; in my experience those are some of the best projects. A special thank you to my SP for yet another thoughtful, beautiful package and a thank you too to her ten year old boy who packaged it up for me.
Happy to Christmas to those who are celebrating. I'm piking Elah up from her dad's at one and we're driving to upstate NY to visit my dad, brother and sister. We'll have our holiday celebration with my mom, step-mom, sister (again) and cousin on January 6th. The nice thing about doing it late is that I have time to finish my knitting.
21 December 2006
Awesome!
Today is awesome! I just went to my post office because I haven't checked mt mail in a couple of days. Imagine my excitement when I found that there were three packages awaiting me. I received a package from my Secret Pal, one from Yarn Aboard and one from my father and stepmother in Idaho. I'll be taking some pictures later and posting all about it. Needles to say I spent most of my morning at work opening presents.
15 December 2006
Colorwork
So, as you may know I joined my first KAL. I started with the Norwegian mitten pattern from EZ's Knitter's Almanac, using Knit Picks Telemark. The first mitten is OK but there were some things I learned along the way and some changes I wanted to make. I rewrote the pattern a little so that the thumb come from the side of the mitten rather than the palm and changed my color scheme. Don't get me wrong, I liked the old colors but my cousin is a HUGE LSU fan and I think he'd rather have a completely different color scheme rather than one that was kinda like LSU's.
The old mitten (the color is most accurate in the cuff picture):
The new mitten:
Holiday knitting would go much faster if I'd stop miking myself socks... I just cast on for Monkey.
10 December 2006
Rainbow Brite
Remember when I started these? Well, a desire to ignore my holiday knitting and watching Reba burn though a pair of awesome socks made me want to pick them up again.
Pattern: Standard toe up, short row sock.
Yarn: Regia Nation, 2 skeins (I still have one left for Elah's socks)
Color: Fun
Source: Somewhere on the interwebs
Needles: USo Addi Turbo, US1 Inox Grey, US3 Addi Turbo
Time to complete: 3 months
A note about the needle sizes used: I knit two socks at once on a long US1 circ then did the ribbing, one sock at a time, on two US0 circs. I used the US3 for my cast off.
A note about toe up: I used the Turkish toe up found at misocrafty. She also has some other great sock knitting resources.
I love these socks and I am totally wearing them to work tomorrow. Soon I'll have some info about the colorwork KAL I joined and my lack of holiday knitting progress.
