Flashy

Front side shot can be seen, along with way more information about this sweater over here on the finished objects blog.

In a nutshell: knit from the bottom up, seamless - unless you count a wee bit of grafting at the underarms and on the back. I think I really like this fine gauge knitting business :)

Smile...

you're on Ravelry...

Thanks to several friends who have much sharper eyeballs than I do, I realized I can be seen amongst the "famous" knitters in photos that currently grace the front page of Ravelry! My head is down, not because I'm ignoring them all, but because I was busily flipping through a sock book :)

Now Blocking...

little tiny snippets of my koigu sweater...which, I am happy to say, enjoyed a nice bath in some Aquae SOAK before being spun dry and laid out flat to block. Clockwise from the top: the v-neck with applied i-cord trim, notch on the back of one of the cuffs (I have 1/2 length sleeves on this sweater and the notch accomodates my elbow quite nicely) and finally, a closeup of the applied i-cord over the epaulet.

Now I need to pick back up my Venezia and hope I haven't changed gauge drastically or I might be facing some serious issues with the knitting!

Happy Summer Solstice!

Summer is officially here, and with temperatures soaring here in the desert (so far something like 8 days in 2008 over 110 F!), I think it is fair to say summer has been here for a while.

But I still play with wool anyway. 3rd time is the charm right? I sure hope so - I reknit the hem, and sewed it up on my koigu sweater, only to discover that it still wanted to flip upwards. I don't know if it's because I didn't knit it long enough (that's what I suspect) - but I picked it out last night and I'm switching to 1x1 rib. Now I just need to figure out what to do to edge the sleeves....

I find it slightly humorous that on a day when temperatures are 111 F and still climbing, I am doing a drawing to give away a knitted hat book...ah well, the projects are small, and perfect for knitting during the summer months to prepare for the cooler seasons!

I fired up the Random Number Generator



And it picked Angela/Oiyi as the 15th person to comment. Angela has a beautiful daughter to knit for - she's got a great blog for those of you who haven't discovered it yet. In her most recent post she shows off her sewing and baking skills with some awesome animal cookie cutters. Thank you all so much for stopping by and playing :)

Patience is a Virtue

Seriously. Because it might save you from having to do what I did...

...which would be picking out the hem of a sweater by snipping one stitch and unraveling it, stitch by stitch in order to get access to live stitches (as in a provisional cast on) to add length to the body. Above in the photo you can see that I have just finished liberating the hem :)

I measured and measured, and still it seems it wasn't quite long enough (I really should have kept on knitting instead of splitting for the v-neck and going after the yoke) - I don't know if it was because when I measured it, I was stretching the fabric a little bit or perhaps I failed to accomodate my not so bountiful bustline - all I know is where it was, it was hitting me at about belly-button level.

I'm glad to say the picking out of stitches and adding length has gone quite well - I'm half way through binding off all the hem stitches so I can whip stitch it up in place (I opted to do this instead of binding off to the purl bumps in an attempt to prevent the hem from kinda flipping outwards). Once I have the hem in place, I'll have one skein of koigu left to finish the edging on the neckline (I'll be opting for applied i-cord) and the finishing of the sleeves. It's looking like this will be a short sleeved sweater :) Unless I order in another skein or so of this colorway and dyelot.

Don't forget, there are a few more days left before I fire up yon Random Number Generator to pick a winner in the contest!

Shear Coincidence

Quick! Rewind back to TNNA...I was ensconced in my hotel room, channel surfing and winding down, trying to get myself ready for my first day of TNNA...flipping, flipping, flipping (drat! No Food Network!) and finally settled on the Science Channel (because I'm nerdy that way).

Imagine my surprise when the show I was watching (How It's Made) decided to demystify the process of how wool yarns are commercially spun! Sadly, I have hunted high and low to see if I can find a link to the clip to share with you all, but alas, it appears it may have been a previous season's episode.

Anyhow, I was surprised to learn that blending of wool in a commercial mill is done by air - imagine all these happy little locks/staples of wool and other fiber blown into a gigantic room and floating about like popcorn in gigantic air popper (speaking of popcorn, have you tried the Trader Joe's Kettle Corn? Delicious. and Addictive). The fluffy fiber is then carded by some gigantic huge machine into a web (not a batt!) - the web is actually rather thin - as the fiber is removed from the carding machine, it's divided into thin strips and rolled into rovings - but not rovings as I think of them (which, apparently are technically slivers) - but pencil rovings. The rovings are then spun into yarn and coned! If you want a whole whack more detail, I recommend reading this from the Fingerlakes Woolen Mill. I daresay, I envy them their skeiner!

One of these days I really need to get myself into a working yarn mill - just to actually see the process in person.

Knitting on the Koigu Saddle Shoulder Sweater is nearing the home stretches...stay tuned for photos and a progress report!

Knits for Kids

Well, I wasn't sure if I would post a review on this book, but this is uh...my 6-hundred-and-66th post. So I thought, in my own sick and twisted manner: my goodness. How fitting, to blog about knitted critters :)

Now then, if you've ever wanted to deck out your child (or someone else's child - or perhaps even someone who is *not* a child (by age anyway)) but didn't know how to go about it, this is a nice book for inspiration and basic instruction.

As clearly stated on the cover, there are 40 animal-themed accessories in the book for you to shake your sticks and yarn at. The patterns are broken into three categories: Beginner, Easy and Intermediate, and as you can imagine, the book is loaded full of smiling children sporting these pieces of work. Each section begins with the photos, and are followed with the patterns. My personal favorite is Rory, the Lion (found in the easy section).

As I mention above, the book is good for inspiration and basic instruction - I highly recommend checking size, gauge and adapting as required - most of the hats definitely appeared to be too small and/or not deep enough to stay on a child's head (or they simply didn't pull the hats all the way down in the photos - as many are just grazing the tops of the kids' ears). In my (admittedly) very limited experience, the deeper the better when it comes to kids hats - otherwise they seem to sproing right off!

Anyhow, seeing as I don't happen to have any children to be knitting for, I'd be happy to send my review copy onto someone else who might find better use for it. If you'd like to be included, please leave me a comment (and be sure to let me know how to contact you should you win!) and I'll use the trusty random number generator to fire it off. I'll leave this open for oh a week or so (closing June 20th) to accumulate names. Don't forget to tell your friends :D

Trippy.

Well, I'm back from TNNA, and what an experience it was - 2.5 days of networking and yarn - my brain was about ready to explode on Sunday when I left, and the market still had another full day to go!

First, lets have a look at the traveling sock, shall we? I opted to cast on for Pure Cricosaura, a lovely pattern by my blogless friend Erika (originally designed for a Yarntini Sock Club).

Here you can catch the detailed shot of the stitches - it's working up very nicely. Of course, it's one of my own yarns (Sidhe, limited edition colorway, if you are wondering) on US1s. At this point, I have this much sock done, and I'm about ready to head into the gussets :) Not bad for a few days of knitting.

Anyhow, back to the trip report, right? Things started out fairly normally on Friday, which was pretty much a networking and planning day - I met Kris and Jessica and several other retailers at the retailers luncheon where we got to listen to a wonderful talk by Stephanie. During my "down" time, I also had a chance to eyeball new yarns and other new products that were planned to debut at the show. After wandering around a bit, and meeting up with my roomie for the weekend, Anne, things quickly spiraled into a surreal experience.


While awaiting the evening's festivities, it seems I manged to stumble into the knitterati, and they appeared to tolerate me as a token Plebian in their midst ;). There was the Ravelry 3: Jess, Casey, and Mary-Heather, the Knitty 2: Amy and Jillian, Annie Modesitt, the already mentioned Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Amanda from Lorna's Laces, Franklin, Janel Laidman (she has a new sock book out!), Abby Franquemont (spinner extraordinaire), and I even met Norah Gaughan! As the evening progressed more and more knitters took over the lounge space of the Hyatt - I had a chance to talk knitting late into the night with knitting folks from all over the country. It's a wonder my brain didn't explode just with all that stimulation!

Saturday was the first day of the Market, and I am pleased to say I managed to walk the entire floor, and still have enough brain power to properly socialize throughout the day and well into the night - of course, I didn't have a camera, but there were a lot of photos being taken - If you happen to spot any that have a woman in a Spritely Goods shirt on in them, that would be me. Honestly, between the yarn and the "famous" knitters all around, my brain was having a hard time processing by the next day! Luckily, all I had to do was place an order or two, while saving the rest for figuring out once I'm home.

While I can certainly say there is some nice yarn due to come in, I'm still making decisions on yet more yarn and the possibility of bringing in some needles and/or other accessories. I even picked up some needles so I could do some proper evaluation before ordering for the shop - see?

Having been to various tradeshows before, I had a feeling I'd be a bit overwhelmed with product - but its fair to say I completely underestimated the people and networking aspect of this particular tradeshow. Maybe I was just lucky, but everyone was very welcoming and friendly. It was great to put faces to names/blogs/ravatars/companies. It was fantastic to be able to talk knitting and yarn and not have people looking at the group funnily (well, there were a few, but they were in the minority, since the knitters had taken over the place for the weekend!) It was exciting. It was amazing. It was tremendously energizing. I relished every moment and hope to do it again next year...Now then, if I could just do something about this day job ;)

Photoless & Melting.

Greetings from Columbus, Ohio - and TNNA! I of course managed to forget my camera - at first I figured it was no big deal because cameras aren't allowed on the show floor - but there are knitters all over the place, and I even spotted Jess and Casey and Mary-Heather! Not only that, but I know I will be spying a famous Stephanie...and I'm sharing my room with none other than Anne Hanson of Knitspot designs!!

Not too much to report for today, other than I'm melting from the heat and humidity combination. I didn't finish the Koigu sweater, it's still at home awaiting the yoke and sleeves....and a possible lengthening. I made a walk over to North Market to find something for dinner...and now I'm making lists of things to try not to buy ;) Stay tuned...LOL!

Fresh Yarn and Fiber :)

Well, May flew right on by with barely a shop update. I've made up for it this month. Over 20 pounds of fresh yarn and fibers have hit the shop. Most of the new yarn is limited edition colorways. I hope to develop some new colorways as I decide which of the "regulars" to tag for discontinuing.

The latter portion of this week, I will be at TNNA :) Not to show, but to hunt down some new lines and products to add. I'm still undecided as to whether the computer will be making the trip with me, and also trying to figure out what knitting project to bring.

This weekend I made good progress on the Koigu sweater - so much so, that I might have it to wear to TNNA. We'll see. It is, after all, fine gauge knitting, and it can be deceiving how much is left to go - photos soon :D