Only the kind with fingers

I'm seven days from a trip to Germany/France and I'm pretty excited. I was supposed to be using this week to work on my shop, but so far, I've been working on other things. Here are just a couple of quick pictures of things I have done recently.


This hat was from a pattern on Ravelry. I'll put it in when I find it. Used the usual Patons Classic Wool in Water Chestnut and Dark Grey Mix. Sold. I've done a bunch of hats with this basic shape as a template, and I don't like having the increases all the way around, although the taper seems about right. In any case, I'm going to reformat for my shop hats.

My mom's birthday is also coming up so I started to make some mittens for her:



No pattern. I am using a chart out of Katharina Buss' Big Book of Knitting, though.



This pattern circles the wrist. I need some clever, relevant way to divide this from the hand section. I may try to two-colored braid if I can find a book with those in it. Otherwise, I'll just make stripes.

I'm using Knit Picks Palette in Mist and Lipstick (I think).

I asked my mom last night if she likes mittens. Her reply?

"Yes, but only the kind with fingers."

Good thing I asked.

Hello, thee, blog

Hi, there folks.

I realize it's been a while since I've posted. Ok it's been months and months. Lots has been happening, but the important stuff is....





... just a sneak peak of a few of the first items that will appear in my etsy shop, all witty knitty. Suuuuper excited. Pics of the knits to come soon. Stay tuned!

I think I am crazy

Guess what I'm doing???

Yup you got it. The Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics! Hurray! It'll be my first participation in any Olympic knitting and I'm pretty psyched. My challenge? I'd like to finish writing the pattern for the socks I've designed, as well as test-knitting three different sizes. That's three pairs of socks and a pattern NOT including the pair I'm finishing now. That's just the design pair. By the by, I have pics of the first completed sock of the pair:

Heh... I know they don't look exciting. That's some fabulous Paint work to hide the stitch pattern. Ok, I know I'm being overzealous, here, but I'm keeping it on the safe side. I LOVE the color. It's Knit Picks Palette in I forget what color but it's lovely.

I will tell you that the stitch pattern reflects my personality pretty well. It's not really frilly, but it's just lacy enough to be a little feminine. It's got a little directional interest without being swirly and it's a pretty easy stitch pattern without being ridiculously boring or annoyingly fiddly.

May I diverge a moment to have us all take a look at that FANTASTIC short row heel? That's the best one I've done. It's beautiful and the first one I've done to actually fit my heel properly.

Back to the sock. I'll tell you something, Palette starts to pill if you rip too much, but if you're nice and rip gently, it holds up pretty well.

As an(other) aside, yes, that's my foot on the steering wheel of my car. No, I'm not driving that way.

I've got to find a way to slow my brain down or else get a lot better at sketching my mindstuff because I can't keep up with all of the ideas I have. Or maybe I should just get better about choosing what mindstuff should be real...hm...

Snow Day 1 - 2010

The fall and winter came so quickly last year that I was sure we'd have a long, hard winter. There has been a very little bit of frozen precipitation - it snowed some huge, fluffy flakes in mid December and there have been a couple of days of freezing rain. The weather has been a little more extreme than usual. We've always gotten warm spurts in winter (often in the 60s and 70s), but this time, each lasts about 10 days and it's either warm or it's freezing. All of that is to say that today it snowed, so I figured it was a good time to take pictures.





































Well, to be totally truthful, it snowed a little last night, and since then, there has been a consistent frozen rain. Really. It hasn't stopped at all and won't until tomorrow. So what we have is about six inches of tiny tiny frozen droplets that are packing together. It's the kind that you walk on top of instead of fall into.


























That picture brings me to my next point. Mittens. I used Adrian Bizilia's Generic Norwegian Mittens template. I read that the sizing is meant for a standard sport weight yarn. Instead of swatching (you know where this is going) I decided I would just check yarn labels. I picked out Classic Elite Fresco from my stash, a luscious 60% wool/30% baby alpaca/10% angora blend. The pattern called for 3.25mm (US 3) needles and the yarn called for 3.75mm (US 5) needles, so I figured it would work out. I drew out my pattern on the template and jumped in. What I ended up with was one, beautiful, delicate, soft, squishy mitten...


























... that would fit a 5 yr old.

I re-knit it in worsted weight, which of course was too big, but with the colorwork, it worked out reasonably well.



















To take it back a couple of months, just before the Harlot caught site of them, I saw the French Press Felted Slippers (do you even NEED that link? I'm sure you know where to find them) and was immediately enamored. I'll put myself in knits from head to toe. These are the only slippers I've seen that are cute (!!!) and that you can wear outdoors, as everyday shoes. I thought I would make dozens of pairs. I've got plenty of Patons wool around and I wanted them in every color. I worked for a few hours the first night I got the pattern and started to hand felt (because I had JUST done laundry) and this is how far I got:


























I got through to the felting on one, did almost all the knitting for the other (can't find the other pieces in my UFO box), and haven't looked at them again since. As you can see, I didn't even finish the felting. This isn't complicated or time consuming, but it's easy to get distracted since there's not much that's actually fun about making them. The knitting is boring, the seaming is boring, and the (hand) felting is boring. I will finish these though, because I so want the finished product. If I can delay gratification long enough to work through something tedious (this is an overall affliction of mine), I can get something quite good at the end.

Next up is my Valentine's Day doll. A simple doll made out of Lion Brand Thick and Quick with a small heart out of Patons, layered buttons for eyes and both stuffed with polyfil. I was thinking of making a couple of these to put in some care packages for loved-ones overseas. It's a nice squishy for a baby and is a super quick knit. You can even add your favorite scent and send it to your love who's far away. When they squeeze it, their body heat will release the smell of you. It's very comforting. Oh and he's about 12-14" tall.



















I'm working on some things to sell. Progress is slow.


























A seed stitch hat and mitten set. Not quite finished and still working out some kinks. I'll let you know how it goes.

Finally, the big one. I heard about Knit Picks' Independent Designer Partnership Program and I thought it would be a great idea to really sit down and write up a good design. I've always just knit things, so technically I've designed, but I never write down a pattern or anything.













I was inspired by a gorgeous snake called the Northern Red-Bellied Snake. LOVE those colors. I decided to do a yoke sweater but the only KP yarn that had the right colors was Palette, a fingering weight. So I bought enough to make a whole sweater --I figured if I didn't have a pattern at the end, I'd at least have a sweater -- and I swatched...













and swatched...













and charted...



















and swatched some more...




















































and I couldn't figure out what the problem was with the colors. I don't like them knit together as much as I like them side-by-side. After weeks of markers and Microsoft Paint and crayons and colored pencils and graph paper I realized something:

The orange and yellow should be on a dark blue background. Duh. Again, I'll let you know.

The New Year

It's been a little while now, so I suppose I'll update.

I graduated in December and for my graduation present, I asked my mom to take me to St Lucia to visit our family. It had been ten years since we'd been and my great grandfather isn't gonna wait another ten years for us to visit. It was fantastic:
































It was warm, it was beautiful, it was relaxing, (it was one week),

































and of course, I got a good amount of knitting done.














(Gratuitous sheep pic. They're just hanging out, tied up everywhere)




















































These are sweaters for my two little cousins. Honestly, my mom made a fuss about how much stuff they get and don't appreciate, so they may get frogged anyway. I asked them each to design their own sweaters. CJ asked for the Transformers logo on green and Ariel wanted Hello Kitty. Problem: I forgot to look up the logos before I left, so I got to the color work parts of the sweaters and didn't have a reference OR anything else to knit, so I just kept going and I finished them both by the time we got back. I think I'll give these sweaters to other cousins (yea I realize there's a name on one. I got it) and go for matching mittens and hats with the Transformers and Hello Kitty.

New topic - my stash. It's out of control.













There's a huge tub that was full of tangled yarn. ALL of what's' in here, was tangled... Ugh...




















...there's a laundry basket full of stuff that just needs finishing (ends, buttons, etc)...



















and then there are the shoe boxes. All of the ones you see there are FULL (I mean packed and there are about 25 of them) with yarn. Now I have an office chair over there that's also got yarn piled up on it. It's a serious problem. I'm imagining that if I ball everything instead of leaving it in it's original ball/skein, it might take up less space. That may be a bit of an illusion. My realistic brain says i MIGHT save 30% of the space I'm using now. But I have to believe...

Next item on the agenda: All Witty Knitty

So I'm committing to being full time with my business (as well as having a full time job outside of home) so that I can make some progress. I opened up my etsy shop and ordered my business cards. Once I get some decent pictures, I'll have some up in the shop! Excitement!

Well, that's my loooooong-assed update. Hope I see you again soon...