NLeigh's Sticks & String

More fingerless gloves...

2011-06-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

So here's my most recent finished pair of fingerless gloves.

My apologies for the "language," lol. These were a commissioned pair of gloves & that's what my buyer wanted. It's not like the overall message is all that offensive. I mean I wouldn't embroider "F*** off" or "F*** you." I do have some standards. haha

Anyway... I knit these in Classic Elite Cotton Rich DK. It's a cotton-nylon blend. First time I've knit these in a non-wool blend, but I think they turned out really nicely. I'd never want to knit these in 100% cotton, as they wouldn't likely hold their shape, but cotton with nylon gave it enough bounce to make it nice and flexible.

I still have 2 commissioned knits left in the "queue." I have the lap blanket and the scarf mentioned in an earlier blog entry. Since they're both just big rectangles I'm not bothering with progress photos because let's face it, those aren't all that exciting.

Anyway I've made a decision. Once those 2 projects are done, I'm going to stop the commissioned knitting for a while. I've loved making things for other people, but I'd like to get back to knitting what I want to knit.

For one thing, I want to knit a lot more socks. I haven't knit socks in a long time, and I miss it dreadfully. For a second, Elena has been begging for a sock monkey (yes, a sock monkey... haha) for ages, and I would love to knit her one. I think that would be fun. I wouldn't mind making a lot more things for my girls.

I don't know when I'll get back to commissioned knitting. Maybe when fall begins again (although that's about when I'll need to start worrying about Christmas gifts), maybe earlier. I will get back to it. That I do promise. I absolutely love making special custom-knit projects for people. (And getting paid to do something I love doesn't hurt, either. ;) )

And the Beat Goes On...

2011-05-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

So it's been a little over a week since the raffle. I've had to struggle for a reason to live... no, I'm just teasing. I've been knitting, surprisingly enough. ;)

Firstly, I remembered that my dad's birthday is rapidly approaching, so I decided to do something a little different and make him some summertime slippers.

Yarn used was Knitpicks' Comfy in DK (I think... or maybe it was Worsted... it was one of those, lol). Gray and black, obviously. Pattern used was Mother's Day Cotton Slippers.

Now I'm going to keep things real, here. While I love the result & think the slippers look and feel fantastic, I absolutely hated making these. It's not the pattern - pattern was perfectly well written. It's that it was written to be knitted flat and seamed in pieces. And I really, really, really hate seaming. A Ravelry user did write instructions for knitting these in the round, but they didn't really make sense to me until after I had already finished one slipper. And by then I didn't want to knit the second slipper that way because I wanted them to match.

So while I probably won't be using this pattern again, I am very happy with the result. Oh, and the yarn? Heavenly. I love this stuff. It's so soft you wouldn't believe there was so much cotton in it. It's mostly cotton with a wee bit of acrylic in it, and that acrylic must make one heck of a difference because it feels so good. "Comfy" really is the perfect name for it.

Next we come to the project that I started on a complete whim. The lovely @celticfish sent me a link for a knitalong from the blog of Wendy Knits, for a Summer Mystery Shawl. It looked like fun, so I decided to give it a whirl.

I'm a little late, but I started Clue #3 today. I've completed 2 rows of the chart. I have a LONG way to go.

I have to admit that seeing it laid flat like this, it doesn't look as bad as I had feared. Ha!

I say this only because, well, to be honest, knitting this has been a struggle. I think I might not have the attention span for knitting lace, or something, because I've made tons of mistakes. Which of course I tend not to catch until I'm knitting a row and realize I don't have enough stitches to do what I'm supposed to do (knit two together or SSK). So I cheat, I wind up knitting or knitting through the back loop where I'm supposed to be decreasing, and I carry on. It's been fun, but I keep wondering just how weird this is going to look when it's done. I'm sure other knitters' shawls are going to look far more professional than mine, but oh well. This will be my first serious lace project and my first shawl, so I should probably be happy just to finish. And I should also try a little harder to keep my expectations and standards for myself in check.

So now we come to the main reason I'm writing this post. Today I went to the Great Lakes Fiber Show in Wooster, Ohio, and it was so much fun. One of my favorite things to do is visit the beautiful fiber-bearing animals at these shows.

The lambs...

The angora rabbits (or bunnies, as we all took to calling them, because let's face it, "bunnies" is a cuter word, lol):

And, of course, the alpacas.

After leaving the alpacas, we were talking about selling everything and starting an alpaca farm. (We get like this every now and then, lol, but it's easier to do after visiting alpacas. They're so cute!)

But those bunnies... I have to say, those little guys are tempting. They don't require the space of alpacas, they're great as house pets, and they bear wool for yarn. Seriously, why do I not own an angora rabbit??

It may be something to think about. ;)

I did make a couple of purchases. My friend Steph couldn't come, which was a bummer. Gas prices are prohibitive these days, of course, and she just couldn't make the trip this year. So I decided to buy her a little something to make up for her having to miss the show.

This yummy stuff is a blend of alpaca and llama yarn. Something about it made me think of Steph. It is absolutely luxurious - sooooo soft and squishy. There's 200 yards, which is a pretty decent amount to say the least. I hope she makes herself something gorgeous with it. She deserves that. :)

I also bought myself a few little somethings.

These are both blends of alpaca and bamboo. They are ridiculously soft. The yarn to the left doesn't show very well in this photo, but there are actually brilliant bits of acid green amongst that gray and brown. And the yarn to the right has just the tiniest bit of sparkle to it. I'm planning to use these for baby hats. Maybe even booties if there is enough of each left over.

I really, REALLY want to start a hat tonight. But sadly, I really shouldn't. My hands and wrists are killing me. I'll just save it till tomorrow. It's all good - Sunday has traditionally been my charity knitting day anyway, and I haven't done that for a while (since so many non-Sundays were spent on my afghan). Tomorrow seems like a good day to relaunch Charity Knitting Sunday. :)

Handcrafted Raffle for Japan - The Winners!

2011-05-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

The response to this raffle was overwhelming, to say the least. We sold $425 in tickets in just 2 weeks! You guys were absolutely amazing in your support of this raffle, and I cannot thank you enough.

Because we raised so much money, I was able to send nice fat donations to both the Red Cross and Save the Children for Japan relief. That makes me so happy I can hardly speak.

Now then: the raffle has been held, and I'm happy to announce the winners!

The winner of @courts576's dishcloth & scrubby set: @Hildy07

(photo below since this was a last-minute donation :) )

The winner of @machka's lacy scarves: Shelly, aka @shellberry77

The winner of @courts576's trinket boxes: Kathleen, aka @songkat

The winner of @matilija_poppy's scarf and hat set: Barb, aka @justforme2

The winner of @celticfish's custom-knit: June (aka my mom ;) )

And the winner of the afghan made by yours truly: Karen, aka @KarenLE67

This was so much fun and so exciting that I think I might have to do it again next year. : ) Hopefully my fellow crafters will be willing to kick in additional prizes as well. That was the most exciting part of this - having so many wonderful crafters step up and say "hey, I can offer a prize too!" That made this raffle even more enjoyable for me, and hopefully for all of you as well.

I made the donations today; screencaps of the donation receipts are below.

I'll be sending out the afghan either today or tomorrow, and I'm getting together with my other crafters and working out who will be sending their prizes directly to the winners and who will be sending them to me first. So those of you who won one of the other prizes, you'll either be hearing from me regarding the prize, or you'll be hearing from the crafter who made or will make the prize.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This whole experience was amazing and heartening to me. To me it's awesome to think of what we can do when we pull together for a great cause.

Love you all!

Handcrafted Raffle for Japan - The Details!

2011-05-06T06:52:00.000-07:00

Here we go, folks! The Handcrafted Raffle for Japan is officially opened!

First of all, allow me to introduce you to wonderful prizes you could win in this raffle. You may have already seen my completed afghan; if not, here's another peek:

But thanks to my incredibly generous fellow crafters, that's not all you could win in this raffle. : ) Firstly, my friend @celticfish has offered to custom-knit either socks or a shawlette for the winner (your choice!), using this yarn:

http://www.bluemoonfiberarts.com/newmoon/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=19_234&zenid=fsd5n1tf5n6kvi4g203kd19q66

Here's the pattern that would be used for the shawlette:

http://helloknitty.net/2009/08/13/multnomah/

Then my friend @matilijia_poppy also stepped up and offered to donate this crocheted hat and scarf as a prize. The ribbon and rose on the brim of the hat can be removed; also, fringe will be added to the scarf. Adorable!

The charming @courts576 then jumped in and offered to donate her hand-designed trinket boxes. Aren't these cool?

Finally, the awesome @machka offered to contribute her knitted lacy scarves, knit with her very own handspun yarn. These are so beautiful!

http://spinning-addict.livejournal.com/28629.html

http://spinning-addict.livejournal.com/28784.html

So there you have it! By entering this raffle you have the chance to win one of five different, beautiful handcrafted prizes!

And, of course, more importantly, by entering this raffle you have the chance to help relief efforts in Japan. I will be donating all the proceeds of this raffle to either the Red Cross and/or Save the Children (depending on how much we raise -- I'd love to raise enough to send each organization a donation, of course!).

So here's how this will work.

The raffle sale will start today, right this minute. If you follow me on Twitter and you would like to purchase a raffle ticket, @ reply me. I'll send you a DM with my e-mail address. You can then do one of 2 things.

1) You may send me a aypay alpay payment of $1 per raffle ticket. (If you can't figure out what's meant by that... well, you can e-mail me and ask. Haha)

2) You may make an arrangement to send me a check or money order.

If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can send me a message and we'll do the same thing.

I will keep this raffle sale open for 2 weeks, so it will remain open until May 20, 2011, at 10 a.m. EST. I'm keeping it open this long to allow everyone who knows me online the chance to buy a ticket if they want to. I know people are on and offline for a variety of reasons, and I don't want to miss anyone who wants to participate.

I've kept a list of everyone who told me earlier that they wanted to buy a raffle ticket, so if you are one of these folks and you do not purchase ticket as the deadline approaches, I will ask you if you still want a ticket. Don't worry, I won't pester you if you've changed your mind for whatever reason. ;) I just want to make sure no one misses out!

The raffle will be held at noon, EST, on May 20. I'll do my best to keep track of names and numbers as I sell raffle tickets (and let you know what yours is/are), so that when the raffle is held, you should already know your number(s). I will use this: http://www.random.org/ to generate the five random folks who will win the raffle. (Much quicker and easier than using actual raffle tickets. ;) )

If you win the afghan, I will of course make arrangements to send the afghan to you. If you win one of my wonderful contributors' prizes, you will either make arrangements directly with them to have the prize sent to you, or else they will send the prize to me, and I will arrange to send the prize to you. That will be up to them, and we'll work that out when the time comes.

I think that's it! If you have any questions, you may make a comment to this post, send me a tweet, or post a comment on my Facebook wall. Thank you all for your interest, and good luck!

Guess what?

2011-05-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

(readers ask: "What??")

The afghan is done.

Pardon me. I must insert a bunch of silly emoticons.

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

I know, I know... but I can't help it. This is my first completed afghan, and I'm proud of it. It's also the first project I've completed for a charity mission, of sorts, of this magnitude, so I'm doubly proud of it.

So anyway... oh, I'm sorry, did you want to see it?

Why certainly.

Here she is! In all her big, beautiful, FINISHED glory. Wow, I had no idea it would feel so good to have finished an honest-to-goodness afghan. I wonder if this is what it feels like to finish a pullover sweater? Hmmm...

Sorry, I'm digressing here. You're probably wondering about more important matters, like: "Does this mean it's time to start the raffle?" The answer: almost. Today is a bad day - my daughter is having her first-ever band concert tonight (yay!) and I have a deadline to meet for a newsletter. So I plan to open the raffle tomorrow instead.

So watch this space. I'm going to post all sorts of great things. Information on how to purchase raffle tickets, photos of what else will be available for raffle aside from this afghan (and believe me, they are sweet!), how long the tickets will be on sale, et cetera.

But for now, just know this: Nicole started an afghan. Nicole finished an afghan. Nicole is pleased.

Nicole doesn't like talking about herself in third person.

I feel dirty.

There. That's better.

Another baby hat

2011-04-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday evening my husband Eric came home from work and asked, "How long does it take you to make a baby hat?"

The sad fact is that I really have no idea how long it takes me to knit much of anything. I never sit down and knit anything straight through; my knitting is always broken up in fits and starts, and so I never have a specific idea of how long any particular article of clothing will really take me. The best I can do is relativity. I know that hats, mittens, fingerless gloves, and washcloths take me less time to knit than anything else. Socks, sweaters (not that I've ever knit a pullover, but I've made a couple of cardigans), scarves, and afghans (I have now learned ;) ) take me significantly more time. I judge in days, weeks, and months. Not so much hours.

Nonetheless, I gave it my best shot when I told Eric, "About 4 or 5 hours."

He seemed a little crestfallen when he responded, "Oh, that long?" At my prodding, he explained that one of his coworkers was having a baby shower at work after his lunch hour on Friday.

I don't think he was trying to challenge me, but I immediately saw it as a challenge. My husband needed help! A coworker was having a baby, and he needed a baby gift. Had it been me, I would have immediately gone to my yarn and needles to whip up a baby hat. I felt like deep down, even if he wasn't admitting it, he was expecting the same out of me. I couldn't let him down.

I hunkered down straight away to my netbook and checked out Ravelry. I didn't really know what I had in mind. The watermelon hat I made in my previous blog post had been fun, but I didn't want to make the same hat for two consecutive recipients. I had made several Presto baby hats (I'll show those off in a future blog post, I don't feel like looking up the link now -- I'm a bit under the weather and so I'm more than a bit lazy, lol) and didn't feel like making another one. I felt like making something different. Something that would be quick, so I would have it finished in time for the baby shower, but something that would still be sweet, fun, and appreciated by Eric's coworker.

I found the Bananahead's Baby Beanie, which seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

Found some gray and white variegated yarn in my stash -- nothing real exciting, just a fuzzy, slightly sparkly acrylic/nylon blend made by Caron. It was soft and pretty, though, and it seemed ideal for a baby hat. Specifically a unisex baby hat, since at the time Eric didn't know if the baby was a boy or a girl.

I cast on and away I went. Got about half the beanie's ribbing done the first night. The next day, though I really should have been finishing one knitting newsletter and writing another, I spent a lot of time knitting because my under-the-weather-ness made it difficult to think. I did spend about one hour finishing up the newsletter, another hour napping, and then, later that night as inspiration struck, I spent about 2 hours researching and another 2 1/2 hours finally writing the second newsletter. All told I probably spent about 6 hours knitting on and off that day. (The key word being on and off. I wouldn't say I gave the hat my full, undivided attention. Constantly, in the back of my mind, I thought, "you really should be writing, not knitting!" Not the most conducive mindset for knitting. I don't knit productively when I'm feeling guilty about it, for some reason.)

This morning, with the writing done and out of the way, I was able to knit without guilt. Plus, I had a deadline. This hat simply had to be finished by the time Eric left home after his lunch break to go back to work. Otherwise all this would have been for naught.

Happily, I finished the hat a few minutes before Eric even came home for his lunch break. Success!

Doesn't Tigger make a great hat model? He has the perfect head size for baby hats, for some reason. ;)

The only change I made to this pattern is that, instead of the bow called for in the pattern, I tied the I-cords at the top of the hat into a cute little top-knot. I did this for two reasons: one, Eric found out yesterday that the baby would be a boy, and I thought that a top-knot was a little more masculine than a bow; two, a top-knot was quicker and required shorter I-cords than a bow would. Time had been of the essence, after all.

All in all, I was pretty pleased with the hat. The yarn really looked gorgeous. Variegated yarn can be an iffy proposition, but this yarn was almost self-striping in the way it was variegated. I don't know if that was a result of my using it for in-the-round knitting or if it would work the same way for something knit flat, but I can't argue with the results. I can't wait to hear how Eric's coworker likes the hat.

And now... for something completely different

2011-04-14T10:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was just an awful, stressful day for me. Don't you hate days like those? It didn't seem like an afghan-knitting day to me. It seemed like a day to knit something sweet, fun, frivolous, instant-gratification-like.

It seemed like a day to knit a baby hat.

So I did.

You know... for all the flipping stuffed animals and dolls we have in this house, you wouldn't think it would be so hard to find one in which to properly show off the cuteness of a baby hat, would you? Sigh. But I digress.

Yarn used was assorted donated acrylics with a nice springy texture. Though I think the teeny scrap of white may have been Caron Simply Soft. Pattern used was the impossibly adorable Watermelon Hat from the Spud & Chloe blog. (I didn't bother with the "watermelon seeds" - too lazy, lol. I think it looks adorable without it.)

I plan to give this hat to a woman at church who I believe will be having her very first baby, a girl, today. I don't know if it will fit her perfectly right now (it might, it might not - gosh it's been a long time since I've had a newborn baby!), but at the very least I'll bet it will fit her in a week or so. If there's one thing I do remember about babies, it's that they grow fast.

Don't worry... I haven't given up on the afghan. In fact I intended to blog about the afghan a few days ago, but I never got around to it. Here's a photo I took of the afghan this past Sunday.

Not too shabby, eh? I think it may even be over half finished, now. I, ahem, still haven't measured it. *ducks* I know, I know. The afghan and my tape measure have yet to be in the same vicinity as one another. (in other words, I've been too lazy to track down my tape measure while I've been working on the afghan. haha)

I made an executive decision though. I have about 2 1/2 balls of yarn left, if I remember correctly. I think once I've knit that up, I'm going to be done with this afghan. It seems pointless to keep buying more yarn for an afghan I'm going to raffle off for charity. I mean, for the money I spend on additional yarn, I could, you know, donate to charity or something. And anyway I think the afghan will be plenty big enough once I've knit up the yarn I have remaining.

It shouldn't be long now though. I predict that it may take me 2, maybe 3 weeks, to finish this afghan. And then I think I'll open the raffle and post photos of everything else that will be raffled off too. Wait'll you all see all the goods. I think you'll be really excited. I know I am!

More progress on my Afghan for Japan

2011-04-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

So here's what my afghan looks like, as of now.

I've made a fair amount of progress on it. It's gotten to the point where it's not, perhaps, the best project for travel knitting (yet I drag it everywhere anyway, lol); it's a huge mass of yarn on my lap when I work on it. It's a good thing it's still pretty chilly out. I'm not sure I would love working on this if the weather were warm!

The question remains just how far along I am, here. I've now knit a total of 86 rows, plus the 6 bottom border rows, for a total of 92 rows. My older daughter Kiersten swears I'm halfway done. I'm not convinced, yet. The afghan is knit in a pattern that consists of a 40-row repeat. I've now done 2 40-row repeats and am on the third. I think when I'm finished with this repeat, I'll have a better idea of how many repeats I'll have left - whether I can knit just one more, or whether I should knit 2 more.

What is definitely clear is that I'll need more yarn. I have one ball left. I do have 2 already-paid-for balls waiting for me at Joann's (they ordered it for me when I bought out their stock, lol), but I think I'll probably need at least another 2 balls. Which is fine. I have coupons. ;)

Progress on Afghan for Japan

2011-03-24T10:31:00.000-07:00

My new Knitpicks Options needles arrived today! I knit exactly one row, today, before taking the photo below.

I've now knit 34 rows, plus the 6-row bottom border, for a total of 40 rows.

As you may be able to tell, the stitches are still the tiniest bit bunched on the needles. Still, if you compare this photo to the photo I posted last time -

... big difference. Big improvement. I'll take it.

If the bunching annoys me too much I can order that 46-inch cable. But for now it'll be fine.

Full speed ahead now! I'm incredibly excited now that I have proper needles. I think it'll speed up the process tremendously, and I actually thought I was making good time before. It's amazing what big needles and thick yarn can do.

Commissioned Fingerless Gloves & an Afghan for Japan

2011-03-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

Wow. I really need to do a better job of keeping this lovely blog updated.

Anyway! This first part of this year was marked with a lot of commissioned fingerless gloves, which was a lot of fun. All of these were made with the Knucks pattern.

(the last pair, in case you can't quite read, say "Hold Fast" and were made for a drummer!)

I have a few more fingerless gloves to knit - in fact, today I need to start a pair for my best friend Coolie's mom. Those should be pretty easy - they won't require embroidery.

I've also been interspersing a few longer-term commissions (by "longer-term" I mean "requiring more time to knit" lol). One is this Gryffindor scarf, knit using the House Scarf Year 1-2 pattern from Charmed Knits - still one of my very favorite pattern books.

The second is a lap blanket, knit using the One Row Blanket De La Harlot pattern.

But right now, my major labor of love is an afghan. Very early one morning the idea popped into my head: what if I knit an afghan and held a raffle among my Twitter friends for it, then donated the proceeds to an organization helping with the relief efforts in Japan?

I ran the idea by my Twitter followers, and the response was tremendous. So yesterday I decided to go for it. I found a pattern, bought the yarn and needles, and cast on. I'm using the Reversible Square-Within-A-Square pattern.

I've knit 18 rows since yesterday.

You may notice that the stitches look - ahem - a little bunched-up. Yeah... my bad. I stupidly bought a pair of circs that were only 29 inches long. For an afghan. I don't know what I was thinking. It's not going too badly so far, but this will get old very fast. So I ordered a set of 40-inch KnitPicks nickel-plated circulars today.

Hopefully that will be long enough. If not... well, the good thing is that these KnitPicks circs are interchangeable, so I can always order a longer cable if I need one!

Fingerless gloves & mittens

2010-11-02T16:14:00.000-07:00

Once again, it's been way too long since I've updated ye ole knitting blog. Today I was followed on Twitter by a Fingerless Gloves account. Now most of the time, when I get followed by random accounts, I get annoyed; however, I love fingerless gloves, so I thought this was kind of cool.

Today I thought I'd update with a batch of the fingerless gloves & mittens I've made this year. I went through a stretch for about a month or three when I was knitting nothing but fingerless gloves. It began when a friend of mine from my Bible study asked if I could make her and her mother fingerless gloves, the latter for her birthday. I went through potential patterns with her, and she picked these for her mother, and these for herself. Both pairs really turned out lovely:

Then I decided to knit a new pair of fingerless gloves for myself.

What happened was, my old fingerless gloves had begun to show their age. They were made based on the popular Fetching pattern. I made these with some Classic Elite Bazic Wool in Wintergreen. (This yarn has since been discontinued.) I loved my Fetchings but after a while, they began to fray and even unravel. Not good. I had quite a bit of Bazic Wool left over, and I loved the color, so I decided to knit myself a new pair.

I planned to knit another pair of Fetching, but when I was looking the pattern up on Ravelry, I happened to notice a "similar" pattern recommended called Owlings. I was instantly taken by the adorable little "owls" made from the cleverly-designed cables on the fingerless gloves. I decided right then and there that instead of making a new set of Fetching, I'd make a set of Owlings instead.

I loved how they turned out.

So cute!

I posted this on Twitter, and I immediately had several people ask me to make them their own pairs! So I was a very busy bee for the next month or so, making more of the little cuties. I made a total of 4 additional pairs. Unfortunately, I apparently took only one photo.

My next fingerless glove adventure came when I decided to knit a pair for my favorite musician for his birthday. After looking through many, many patterns, I discovered Knucks. One look, and I realized these would be perfect for him. They knit up far more quickly than I'd imagined:

The hardest part was the embroidery, the likes of which I'd never done before. But it was fun!

Recently I gave the gloves to him, and he even wore one while he performed.

Most recently, I decided my daughters needed mittens. Their previous mittens were either lost or ineffective. I guess I've become pretty fast as far as knitting goes, as both pairs took a grand total of 3 days to complete. I used a pattern called Playground Mittens. Unfortunately I have failed to take photos as of yet, but both girls loved their completed mittens. I used a hot pink Lion Wool for my younger daughter, and a soft blue Lion Wool-Ease for my older daughter.

Now, I'm knitting a pair of fingerless gloves for my husband, for his birthday. I'm using the Knucks pattern again, since he has demonstrated interest in the fingered-but-free-fingertips types of gloves. I already have one glove knitted, and I'm on the fingers of the second pair. Writing this post as made my fingers a little twitchy to knit some more... so off I go! ;)

Getting Loopy

2010-07-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today I took a trip to the only yarn shop within about a half hour of here. I was on a mission: to find circular needles in which to try using for sock knitting.

I've always been a strictly DPN sort of gal when it came to sock knitting. I wasn't prejudiced against 2 circs or magic looping; it's just that that was how I first learned to knit socks in the round, and that's what I was comfortable and familiar with. I had even heard of knitting socks on circular needles and thought, "hey, that sounds interesting - I should try it sometime."

But I never had, simply because I never had the right kind of needles on hand. I understood that for the Magic Loop method you needed one lonnnnng sock-sized needle, while for two circs you needed two longish sock-sized needles. Unfortunately I usually get my knitting supplies from either Joann Fabrics or Hobby Lobby, the two craft stores closest to me (they're maybe a 15-minute drive, 20 minutes at the most). And those two stores didn't usually carry circular needles sizes 1 to 3 - and they rarely carried sizes larger than 29 inches. That meant that both 2 circs and Magic Loop were out.

Recently, however, I felt the itch for something new. I am currently about half-way finished with the second sock of a pair I have been knitting for my husband for our approaching 13th anniversary. (13 years *does* call for cotton, right? Or yarn? Oh, like I care... lol) I'm about at the point with these socks where I am desperate to get them over with. I just want to finish, block them, and move on to the next project (which will likely be knitted soft turtles for both my daughters, as they have expressed an interest in such for their upcoming birthdays in September).

I wasn't honestly expecting to use circulars on this project. I figured I would squirrel them away for future projects, and in fact, I originally planned to buy only sizes 1 and 2. (The socks I'm knitting now, I'm using size 3 needles.)

At the Calla Lily Yarn & Gifts shop, I found a big, beautiful assortment of Addi Turbo circulars. I've become very enamored with Addi Turbo from the first set I purchased, which was for a sweater project a couple years ago. I love how smooth and quick they are, as well as how smooth the cable joins are and how flexible the cables are. I've purchased several sets of circular needles over the past 3 1/2 years, and I've never really disliked any of them, but my Addi Turbos are the ones I positively love.

Not only did this shop have Addi Turbos, but they also had Addi Turbo Lace. At first I wasn't sure of the difference (since they did carry sock-needle sizes -- 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, etc.), but then I held up two packages and compared, and I could see the nice pointy tips of the Addi Turbo Lace. I thought of yarn-overs and knitting through back loops and knitting two together and picking up wrapped stitches... and I thought, yeah. I'm going to want pointy tips.

I felt a momentary hesitation at all the needle-buying I was prepared to plunge myself into when I saw the price tag. Yeah... I knew they weren't going to be cheap. Yarn shop prices, PLUS Addi Turbo prices. I reminded myself that this was a new adventure and that I had already warned my husband Eric that they would be more expensive, and I carried on.

I found a set of size 2, 40" circulars and two sets of size 1 circulars, one 16" and one 24". I was satisfied, or so I thought. But something tugged at me. Gazing at these beautiful Addi Turbos, I knew I was going to want to play with my new toys ASAP. I thought about the sock sitting in the car at that moment, resting on size 3 DPNs.

I took the plunge and grabbed a set of size 3, 40" circulars too.

I knew I was taking a risk. I mean, if I used this set of circs, I would be plunging into Magic Loop knitting with a sock that was already nearly half-finished. Possibly this was a dumb thing to do. I did it anyway. Hey, it's only money, right?

In the car, after picking up Eric from a nearby music store, I decided to take the plunge and try switching my sock-in-progress from DPNs to the circular. I had brought two library books on sock knitting with me, mostly so I would remember the lengths of circular needles I needed. I am so glad I did, because I needed the reference point for attempting to change my knitting course mid-sock. After a bit of confusion as to where I needed to place the tips of the circulars, I found my way, and I began knitting.

The verdict? I loved it. I'm not sure what I loved more - the challenge of learning a new way to knit socks, or using those lovely Addi Turbos. I also loved the way it felt to pull that cable through my newly-worked stitches until the space between my new stitches and the previous batch of stitches disappeared.

Using the Magic Loop has definitely revitalized my interest in this sock, and I think I'll really enjoy knitting it up to its completion. I'm very much looking forward to using Magic Loop with my next pair of socks. I think I'll even enjoy using two circular needles. I think it will be fun to try that, too.

Swatches

2010-07-20T09:55:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is a photo of my swatches.

Top left: South West Trading Company, Pure, in Tempest:
6 stitches per inch on US 4 DPNs

Top right: Brown Sheep, Wildfoote Luxury Sock Yarn, in Blue Flannel:
8 stitches per inch on US 2 DPNs

Bottom: Lorna's Laces, Shepherd Sock, in Mixed Berries:
8 stitches per inch on US 1 DPNs

(double-click the photo to see full-size for more detail)

Whooosh!

2010-07-18T16:25:00.000-07:00

... that would be the sound of me blowing the cobwebs off this knitting blog. Yeah, it's dusty & decaying, but I've decided I'm going to try to bring it back to life. With a most scintillating topic.

Swatching.

Now if you're a non-knitter who has stumbled upon my blog for whatever reason, you're scratching your head now and saying, "Huh?" If you're a knitter, you've likely just fallen asleep.

I'm not going to pretend this is a fascinating topic, but if you'll hang with me for a little bit, maybe you'll see why I am finding this subject interesting at the moment.

First off: if you aren't a knitter, I'll explain what "swatching" is. (If you're a new knitter you may not even have heard the term before, so this is all good.) Swatching is the term used to describe the process of creating a swatch. A "swatch" is a small piece of fabric made from a yarn that you are trying out, contemplating using for a particular pattern, etc.

Why would someone want to knit a swatch? The main reason for swatching is to check "gauge." Gauge is nothing more than the number of stitches per inch of a piece of knitted fabric. (I believe in Great Britain it is known as "tension.") If you take a look at any knitting pattern, you will find, close to the beginning, a description of what the proper gauge is for this pattern. The idea is that one is supposed to find the right-sized needle that will give one the proper gauge. So even if a pattern calls for, say, size 6 needles, if you discover that size 6 needles do not give you the proper gauge (for instance, if the pattern's gauge is 6 stitches per inch and you're getting a gauge of 7 inches per inch), you are supposed to switch to another size needles to get the proper gauge.

Would it surprise you to know that I almost never knit swatches to check my gauge? Probably not, although many experienced knitters might gasp to discover this. Swatches are supposed to be a given before you knit anything. The idea is that without knitting a swatch, you may well wind up knitting a sweater that would only fit an elephant, socks that would slide down a person's ankles (or worse still, not even fit over their feet), etc., etc.

Here's the thing - I've knit many things for many people, and I have yet to have anyone complain about the fit. I've made slippers for my dad, socks for my sister, socks and a cardigan for my mother, socks for my husband, fingerless gloves for many people. All huge hits, all were praised as "perfect." I wouldn't say I felt cocky about my lack of need for swatching... it's just that I never thought of it as a really important step in my knitting process.

Having said all this... guess what I've been doing for almost a full day? Knitting swatches. Now why would I do this, when I have felt no need to do so?

Mostly I have been doing this to get a feel for yarn. I have three different kinds of yarn that I would like to knit into three pairs of socks, two as Christmas gifts and one as a future birthday gift. The Christmas gifts are for my mom and sister, the birthday gift is for a special young man who means a lot to me. For all of them I have chosen the kinds of yarn that I want to use for their socks. I am using South West Trading Company's Pure for my sister, Lorna's Laces for my mother, and Brown Sheep for the young man.

Pure, you must understand, is not a typical sock yarn. In fact, it is worsted weight soy silk. Socks are not generally knit from worsted weight yarn (although they can be, they'll just be thicker socks). And it is my understanding that soy silk is not typical sock yarn fiber. It is lovely, soft, possibly even luxurious. I have discovered something very important about this yarn through my swatching: it is not terribly stretchy. Not much give at all. Which also means it's not very clingy, either. This will mean that in order to make socks that don't fall down, I'll probably need to do lots of ribbing. That's a good thing to know, in my opinion, and something I wouldn't have discovered had I not swatched in advance. So for this yarn in particular, I chose to swatch to hedge my bets.

There's a story behind the Brown Sheep yarn too. It is fingering weight (meaning it's typical sock yarn), and it's a beautiful brilliant blue color. It is also not the first time I'm using it. In fact, the last time I used it, I knit well over half a sock... before I got tired of the pattern, the yarn, and the sock. I left it on the needles for months, wondering if I would ever finish one sock, let alone two.

Yesterday, when I found a full skein of the same yarn in my stash, I remembered that this young man loves the color blue, and I thought, "why not?" Then I rediscovered the partially-completed sock. And I thought, "oh dear." All my complaints about the yarn came rushing back to my memory. It was rough. It was scratchy. It was unpleasant to knit with. It hurt my hands. Every time I had picked up the sock to work on it, I had to grit my teeth.

I thought, "Okay... I'd better swatch." I didn't want to wind up with another half-completed sock. Or, perhaps worse, a pair of socks filled with all sorts of "I hate you" vibes because I hated knitting them so much.

I frogged the half-completed sock, rewound the yarn, picked my needles carefully. I selected a set of size-2 bamboo needles that I love knitting with. I put lots of lotion on my hands, thinking that maybe the lotion would rub off onto the yarn and make it more enjoyable to knit with.

I cast on.

I found that the yarn was still pretty uncomfortable to knit with. The lotion on my hands really didn't seem to help much. I worried. I thought, "well maybe this yarn is a complete loss." The mere idea was devastating to me. What would I do with horrible sock yarn? I'd never be able to bring myself to throw it away... but I knew I also wouldn't be able to bring myself to give it away.

I persevered. I thought, "maybe the right pattern..." Maybe a short pair of socks, so I wouldn't have to deal with it for as long.

I set the swatch down, and a few hours later, I picked it back up. I didn't do anything special, I just picked it up and went back to knitting.

Lo and behold! The yarn wasn't quite as horrible to work with! It felt more comfortable in my hands. I began to enjoy the color more. I rejoiced. The yarn could be used after all! What was the difference? I think it might have been the time taken between the last time I'd washed and lotioned my hands and the time I picked the swatch back up. I think the natural oils in my hands rose to the surface once more and made the yarn more comfortable in my hands. So that's something for me to file away in my mental cabinet: this was a yarn to be worked after I spent a few hours doing something else. That's actually really valuable to me.

Another thing I did with the swatch was I tried some different stitch patterns with it. This too was valuable. I don't want to knit socks for a man that are overly fussy. But I think this will be his first pair of handknit socks, and I wanted them to be a little more special than just plain stockinette socks with ribbing at the cuff. So I played with a few stitch patterns I found in a book. I found one that was a series of cables all around the leg. They looked sharp. I tried it out for a few rows... but they didn't seem to show up very well in this brilliant blue. It's an intense blue, yet it's dark. The cables didn't stand out well.

So I did a few rows of stockinette, then tried a different pattern. This one had a series of small cables in the cuff, with the leg composed of basic ribs around the leg and a single cable down the center of each side of the leg. The small cuff cables, again, didn't stand out much but still managed to look too fussy for a man. The single cable, however, looked really sharp. I then thought - "skip the tiny cables in the cuff, go for straight ribbing, and then place the single cable down each side of the leg."

Guess what? I figured all this out in one tiny swatch. Never in a million years would I have dreamed that swatching would be so useful. I figured out the best way to use my yarn, my gauge, and the perfect sock pattern, all by swatching. Honestly, if I had known, I'd probably have done a lot more swatching in my 3-years + knitting career.

I'm currently working on my third swatch with the Lorna's Laces yarn. Honestly? I'm mostly doing it to play with it. It's beautiful yarn, the perfect sock yarn, and I really don't have the concerns I did with the SWTC Pure or the Brown Sheep. I'm just having fun swatching it.

I still have yet to wash or block any of my swatches - that'll be my next step, once I'm done with Lorna's Laces. I'll post photos once I'm finished.

My New Knitting Blog

2009-09-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

So after letting my old knitting blog at LJ gather dust for over a year, I've decided it's time for me to start blogging about knitting again.

First, allow me to post a link to my old k-blog, both for my purposes and yours: http://nicknits.livejournal.com/

Second, allow me to start chatting about the two projects in my life at the moment.

1: Pinwheel sweater. I knit 2 Pinwheel sweaters last year, one for each of my daughters. I'm now knitting one for my mother. Somehow it's going much more cheerfully this time. I remember that by the time I reached the latter stages of each of my daughter's sweaters, I was ready to pay someone to finish them for me. But I've found the process of knitting my mother's sweater more Zen-like. It's actually rather comforting and relaxing. I think it's because I've become a different kind of knitter.

I used to be all about the new and exciting. I wanted to learn new techniques, try new things, knit only new patterns. I still love the new and different, but I've found value in the old, the comforting, the mindless as well. I've grown to love the simple act of pulling yarn strands through yarn loops with sticks. I've grown to appreciate the joy of seeing row upon row of neat stitches topped by a row of tidy loops on needles.I guess you could even say I'm becoming more of a process knitter... though I still think I'm a bit of both (process & product, that is).

Unfortunately recently one of my 3 cats has taken to using our house as a litter box, and he decided not long ago to go wee-wee on this sweater in progress. I sprayed it with tons of Febreze, but that wasn't enough to remove the stench, so I decided to bite the bullet and pull the sweater off the needles, thread a lifeline through the live stitches, tie off the line and throw the whole shebang into the washing machine. I pulled it out a few hours ago, and it smells much better now, thank God. Once it's dry I'll return it to the needles and continue working on it.

Here's the sweater in progress:

2. Socks. I started out knitting socks from a pattern from a sock knitting book that my dear friend Steph gave to me. I used some Brown Sheep sock yarn in navy blue.

Here's the problem... I have grown to hate this yarn. It feels scratchy and it's boring me. The pattern I chose to knit with it is a poor match with it. I should have chosen a nice, rugged-type of pattern instead of the frou-frou lacy pattern I'm using. I don't have a problem with frou-frou in sock patterns - far from it. I love me some fun, complex sock patterns. The trouble was that I wasn't having fun with this pattern anymore. The yarn annoyed me every time I picked up the sock to work on it. The thought of working on the sock made me want to throw it across the room.

Then I thought, "You know what? Life is too short to knit socks that make me mad. Why don't I just find a yarn I love and knit a totally new sock pattern with it?"

So that's what I did.

This sock could not have been more impulsively thrown together. I literally grabbed a ball of sock yarn and grabbed a sock pattern printed on a card on my way out the door yesterday morning. It's an incredibly simple sock aside from being my first toe-up pattern (FAR easier than I'd feared, I have no idea why I've been afraid of toe-up patterns for so long!). 3 x 1 ribbing from foot to leg. The difference? I LOVE this yarn. I love the soft, subtle variegation. I love the softness, the springiness. I have no idea what kind of yarn it is - that same wonderful friend Steph, aka My Knitting Angel, sent me this yarn, and I've since completely forgotten what it is. But it makes me happy. And as you can see, in just 2 days I have already finished most of the foot. I've already reached the gusset.

So there you have it... today's deep thoughts about my knitting. Hope you enjoy reading this blog, even if you're not a knitter. (And if you aren't... maybe it'll inspire you to learn. ;) )