Friday, July 29, 2011

Finished: Pogona


Because I am on a serious Stephen West streak, I decided to knit up Pogona a few days ago. I had always admired how the fabric draped and had some really lovely Malabrigo sock just for it.

I have a massive amount of notes on my project page on Rav so I will keep this short (visit me there if you need more information). I really do love the finished product but unfortunately my knitting ADD got to me. I finished a few inches before the pattern said to (oh well, I am short..?!) and because eventually each row was taking me somewhere around 15 minutes, I forced myself to sit down, watch endless episodes of Mad Men, and just finish. The result is really lovely, the drape is divine, the color perfect, but overall this was a serious snooze fest.



Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Finished: Dolinar










I recently decided to get over my "hatred" of cables... I know it sounds harsh, but for some reason I always found them really uncomfortable in pattern. I love the idea and the look of them but hardly ever wanted to muck up my knitting with a third needle and a fussy pattern. Anyway, earlier this week I decided to get over my avoidance and work on Dolinar, a pattern by Stephen West. I used 1.3 skeins of Malabrigo Worsted in Polar Morn colorway. I should warn that the yarn had a lot of pink tones, which sort of shocked me, but since it's for me, I am thrilled.
Within 24 hours I was finished and had a comfy, cabled cowl for the anticipated fall and winter. Somehow I was able to work with 100% wool in this terrible heat, so I have a good feeling about this one.


Next up is the Stripe Study Shawl, in Rowan Felted Tweed and Pogona in Malabrigo Sock.. Yum!

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Summer knitting.. or not.

It has been a tremendous amount of time since my last post so here goes the update: I took a majority of early summer off from my knitting and am beginning to pick up speed again, right where I left off. Because of my new job I have plenty of time to scour the internet and fall in love with new things I am dying to try--Quince & Co yarn for one!... (But I won't mention how said job means my knitting budget has been cut some because who needs the first note to be a sour one?) so it seems like a daily task to keep myself from hitting "order" buttons all over the web.

I haven't accumulated much yarn in the last few months other than a few skeins of Malabrigo which I picked up before our summer excursion last month. Unfortunately, I can't say this summer's road trip/knitting has gone any better than last year: At a lovely shop called Edla's Yarns I picked up some Classic Elite yarn that I don't remember much about. On our long car ride home (something like 10 hours) I decided to begin a lace hat, which at the time was pretty intricate for my skills (Ahem, I have come a long way...). Anyway, I fussed and screamed and had a few mental breakdowns before the pattern became clear. My poor yarn was rustled after being frogged a thousand times and by the time I actually got the pattern, I realized I didn't have enough yarn to actually finish. The dead remains of the hat sat in my bag for a really long time before I decided to throw the entire thing in the trash (blasphemy, I know!) without even bothering to frog or salvage it.

On this trip, I couldn't even get past the first few rows. I would cast on, only to determine I couldn't count, or twisted my stitches. At the time I was furious, thinking I had lost my "mojo" but somewhere along the way I had forgotten that I was losing to the k1, d2 (knit 1, drink 2) curse. I guess I decided somewhere between our two cabins to just let it be. Let the yarn gather dust and just d2 instead --which ended up being quite fun minus the yarn infused mental breakdown... I recommend it highly.

As for my knitting endeavors now that I am home and back on my turf: I have recently decided to work on some patterns to sell on Ravelry. I imagine it will take a few weeks to get some test knits done and work on building the patterns in Photoshop but I should be up and running soon. I am also getting ready to order some Jacquard dyes to custom dye yarn, if only I can cut the picture in my head of my white kitchen being splattered with permanent dyes thanks to my devilish cats. And as always, I am building a serious knitting queue of favorites which should be somewhere in progress in the next few months.

My recent to die-die-die for list:

Spectra- ugh. Steven West kills me.
Cecily's Shawl- I have a serious crush on this woman. Her patterns are so whimsical; it is hard not to love her.