Felted slippers

Looky what I finished! I have more yarn so there is another one on the needles, so much for working on the henley...
















Here's what they looked like before the felting:















And during the felting:

Tipless Trip

At first the thought of a long driving weekend with the 'rents seems boring and tiring... but not if you have a new project to knit while someone else does the driving (ok, it would have been fun even without the knitting). I finished one of my fingerless gloves and have just the tipless fingers to complete on the second one.

Yarn is Debbie Bliss Merino Aran. Pattern is Knitty's Fetching, modified to include half-fingers to keep them warmer. I only had to redo the index finger and thumb once! Just in time for fall so I can knit outside.

Old project

Since I'm not even close to finishing anything here's an old project.
The pattern is "Cat" from the Rowan Big Wool book. I modified the stripe and change it to knit the entire body in one piece rather than three. The yarn is Tahki Baby.

I'm not usually a big fan of chunky sweaters and this one pills, but somehow I love it anyway. It's incredibly soft and warm, just the thing for a chilly fall day.

Nearby yarn store

How could this happen? There is a yarn store less than 4 miles from me and I didn't know about it! I must visit! And it's close to the current boy's house. That must MEAN SOMETHING, right? (about the yarn store... not the boy... really!)

shrug is done!

Yay, isn't it cute? Oh, and I got my hair cut. Not that you can really tell, it's not that much shorter.


Now I suppose I should try to get around to writing down the pattern.

Gold Rush

Sigh. It's finally over. Here's my hat, which looks pretty good now that it's complete. It's a little too stretchy but maybe that doesn't matter... I think it's better looking than the original. Who cares at this point? =)


Details: yarn is Patons Brilliant (color: Gold Glow) Acrylic/Nylon/Poly; pattern is 2x2 rib adapted from Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. How y'all like those decreases in rib - not bad eh?

Labor day weekend projects

I was working on the lovely fair isle tam this weekend and noticed something odd. My increases didn't seem to make the hat as wide as I expected. I checked my gauge. The swatch was 5.75 sts/inch. The ribbing on the hat is 6.5 sts/inch and the rest of the hat varies from 6-7 sts/inch. Argh. Abandon ship!


Now that the size problem has been solved on the oriel lace blouse, it's time to work on the sleeves. Yes, that's it. I'm not abandoning the hat, I'm going back to what I should have been working on all along. The knitting goddess was punishing me for not working on this beautiful project. The pattern has you use 4 different needle sizes in the first 8 inches of the sleeve, going from large to small to create a flare at the wrist. I was skeptical of how well this would actually work, but it seems to have been quite effective.


My new project desk arrived Saturday. Here I show the most important feature of the desk - the stash storage. I had yarn stashed in various drawers and bins. Somehow now that it's all in one place it doesn't seem like all that much yarn. See that in the upper right? That's a notions bin. That could easily be moved to make room for MORE YARN.

Slippin Out

More felted slippers... this time for Cathy's friend Renie (who will hopefully cut my hair into more layers whenever the mood strikes me - or her). Yes, they are quite similar to those that I made for Jennifer. Gurls like pink ya know.

I nearly had them finished 2 months ago and then not-so-surpringly ran out of the dark pink. The local yarn shop still had ONE (1) skein left. Of the same dyelot. Man am I lucky, I know. No lectures, please.

Chris Bylsma designs

Oh man, check this cuuuuute sweater out:
I wanna make it! Maybe in rust and grey... hmmm!

Chris Bylsma Designs
Same designer as for Jennifer's bag.


And I was reading Yarn Harlot and ran across the March 1, 2004 entry, her children are arguing over who should receive the new scarf that their mother just finished knitting, and the Über insult of "wool pig" was thrown about. Hee hee!

The Magic of Proper Blocking

I worked hard on the Oriel lace. The first blocking, I stretched and pinned the pieces down, then thoroughly sprayed them with water. They were too small and I was sad, so sad. After a bit of research I thought I'd try a full, wet block. I dunked the piece in water and soaked it for a couple minutes before pinning it down. Here is the newly blocked (still wet) front with the back on top (blocked using the previous method).
I don't think this will be too small anymore.