Oops, more yarn

Did I mention that along with the Green Line DK that I ordered for my sweater, a couple balls of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock fell into my cart too?

http://www.JimmyBeansWool.com/knitting/yarn/LornasLaces/ShepherdSock.asp?showLarge=true&specPCVID=22531

In colors Funky Stripe that will hopefully look good with this pattern:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/not-a-drop

Sweater saga: Begin!

So I've been wanting to make a knitted sweater for... Well, a long time. And mostly I'm lazy and know that it will take me forever but I'm also partly scared of the difficulty level and the cost of the yarn. I don't really think the knitting will be hard, I pretty much have the hang of most knitting techniques except for colorwork, but I do know the construction will be difficult. I'm not a sewer, so the seaming and general putting together directions will be challenging for me. I find picking up stitches to be hard, trying to figure out how many stitches will cover without puckering, but also make them neat and even. But no excuses. I just have to try because I'll never get good at it if I only listen to podcasters talk about their sweater making but never so it myself.

So what got me going finally was a sale! The www.jimmybeanswool.com email showed that the Lorna's Laces Green Line DK http://www.JimmyBeansWool.com/knitting/yarn/LornasLaces/GreenLineDK.asp?showLarge=true&specPCVID=23576 was on sale for $7.50 and though there aren't many colors left, there were plenty in a great smokey violet color, Blackberry. I have a jacket in a similar color that I am wearing out. So that would make a sweaters worth around $83 and that sounded affordable. I know I could get Cascade 220 for less but I don't love the feel of 220 and reviews of Green Line said it was soft and nice to work with. They also said it bleeds badly so I may wash it before winding it, we'll see.

So knowing what yarn I was going to get I searched Ravelry for DK sweaters, I wanted something fairly popular so there were notes and reviews and people I could tap if I had trouble with mine and the one I liked the most was the Kingscot cardigan http://www.twistcollective.com/collection/index.php/component/content/article/60-winter-2008-patterns/135-kingscot-by-norah-gaughan- by Nora Gaughan on Twist Collective. It's worked in pieces and seamed, which will be good experience for me. I do want to do a top down raglan with minimal seaming but maybe for the next sweater I do. After picking out Kingscot, I realized the Green Line worsted was also on sale and would actually be a but cheaper but I couldn't find a worsted sweater pattern that I really loved. The Kingscot will be perfect because there is some cabling and patterning on the back for interest so it's not just miles of stockinette that might be a bit boring.

So the yarn is ordered and is on it's way, I'm crossing my fingers that the bleeding isn't too bad though some said it was literally rubbing off on their fingers while they worked with it.

Maybe I should finish my two shawls I'm working on before starting this sweater.

Yarrrrrrrrr!! N!!!!!

So I made a recent trip to the Cleve to visit my good friend and guess what I found! Yep! Yar!N!

We stumbled across a street festival in an area of town called Tremont and while there, and while eating ice cream, we found yarn graffiti! How exciting! My first encounter!

Sock yarnage.

So the socks I made for Elle turned out pretty cute, as evidenced by these very good shots that Steve got with his much better than mine camera, but I didn't finish them fast enough. I mailed them to my sister and she informed me that she loved them... but they were already too small for Elle!  Boo.

So I started something else for Elle - some little leg warmers. I know she won't need them till the winter, hopefully they will still fit her once cold weather comes around. They are turning out cute. Great mindless knit, mostly just knit knit knit in the round. Using some more Premier sock yarn in Paprika and this baby leggings pattern. I will get on another pair of socks after I finish these leg warmers.

Tiny toes

These tiny socks are so fast to make! I would be almost done with them except I wanted to be sure they wouldn't be way too big (or small) for Elle so I asked my sister to measure her foot and am waiting on her to email me back with measurements. I had some trouble at first with the increases and keeping the sides seams tight and had large holes at the side joins so I frogged after about 20 rounds and started over.

Perfectionism is painful.

Uh oh. More yarn. More projects.

So after I bought all that great sock yarn at Stitches South and told my sister how I was so excited about making socks, she requested that I make some socks for my niece, Elle. I like to be able to make things people actually ask for, though I don't always come through, as evidence by my half done hat that Suzy asked me to make since Sydney had outgrown her other gay baby devil hat.

So anyhow, I didn't want to use my super expensive super awesome new sock yarn for baby sock since, well, it's for meeeeeeee! Well also it's just not economical, they will take so little yarn and then the rest of the ball will be useless for other projects! So obviously, I need more yarn. To Hobby Lobby I went! Premier Yarns Serenity Sock Weight. Superwash merino, bamboo and nylon. Feels pretty nice and decent colorways. Totally don't need another project started but have cast on Preemie Socks.

Also bought a bunch of scrapbooking stuff to make a book for my mom for mother's day. As if I need another hobby/project.

Yay Stitches South!

See the awesomely beautiful yarn I got at Stitches?? I was so excited to learn about Stitches South in Atlanta, since my recent knitting podcast obsession had made me super jealous of people going to festivals full of fiber such as Stitches West, Oregon Flock and Fiber, etc. When I discovered one in the south and not too far from me, super pumped!

And I was able to combine the trip with a visit and shopping since it was in Atlanta and my niece (oh and my sister too I guess) lives there and ATL has my fav store, H&M. I didn't take any classes since they are a bit pricey and I was unable to convince my only crafty friend to go with me but really the thing I was most excited about anyway was the yarn market because I never have a chance to look at and fondle real awesome yarns such as my fav podcasters talk about constantly. I work therefore never manage to get to the couple of small LYSs that are in my area. I don't want to order things from the Internet that I have never felt or seen so I was really hoping to see some of the fab yarn I hear others use, such as Malabrigo Sock, Cascade 220, Socks That Rock, and Dream In Color Smooshy - as well as seeing other cool random yarns from small independent companies. I really didn't see as much familiar stuff as I had hoped but the independent stuff did not disappoint!

I ended up with a lot of Malabrigo Sock, well with a lot of sock, period. In fact I only got one laceweight skein and the rest was sock yarn. You see where my focus is. I fell in love with the Malabrigo sock, as expected - I already love the worsted. And the colorway are just to dye for! I really wanted so much more... I got natural, Rayon Vert and Archangel. So yummy.

Also got some Lorna's Laces Shepard Sock Stripe in Flamingo Stripe

and Socks That Rock medium in Deck the Halls, all from the Webs booth.

With those all in my arms, a lady commented it was obvious what colors I liked, and that my choices even matched my clothes!

I proceeded to not break the color palatte and bought some Ivy Brambles Romantica Merino Lace in Petunias, 1000 yards, so gorgeous!

And then found the Sanguine Gryphon booth with the medeival dressed staff and delicious colorways. I got Bugga! in Nightcrawler

and Little Traveller in Costa Rica.

I wanted so much more and everyone took credit cards so even though that was the end of my cash.... I totally would have carried on digging a huge yarny hole for myself except it was 12 o'clock, time for me to leave because I was going to babysit my niece while my sister got her hair cut. Oh well. It's for the best.

Now up, time to knit socks and shawls!!

Cool join technique

I heard about this joining technique on a podcast, I think it was DoubleKnit and think it's very cool but I'm not sure how functional it will be for some patterns. It's a technique to stop the uneven stripe problem when you are working in the round. The way it turns out, you have to move the join one stitch to the left every time you go around and so it will affect the spots where you would otherwise be decreasing or other things. I wanted to use it for a little knit baby jumper but don't think I'll be able to. Maybe for something else.
 
It's called Meg Swansen's jogless join or jogless jog.
http://jlyarnworks.blogspot.com/2009/02/tutorial-jogless-join_22.html

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