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This past Wednesday I took a sock class at our local knitting store, Sierra Knitting Co. The class started at 4p, but with work and all, I wasn't able to get there until 5p. (I had warned everyone ahead of time! I think the only time I can make a weekday 4p appointment is if a) I have horses to do or b) I have a massage scheduled.)
So, the Sock Class. It was taught by an outsider, not Debi or Donna. I think this gal teaches quite a few classes there though.
We did a mini-sock pattern so we could get the idear of casting on (with the german long-tail something-er-other cast on), dividing sts for the heel flap, picking up sts, doing the kitchener st at the toe. When I left the class I still had the whole toe section to do, but another girl had gotten down to that part so we were all able to see how it was done. Easier to go back to the written instructions after you've seen it.
I used US3's on this little sock. The class callout was for US2's, but a) I already had 3's, not 2's, and b) I'm a tight knitter and knew I'd be able to get away with it.
So without further ado, I present to you a Finished Object. (Thank God.)
Just so you know the size of the sock... the top picture was taken with Sock sitting on the nose of my bicycle seat. It's 2" from toe to heel, and 2" from heel to the top of the cuff. See? Little.
I do want to knit REAL socks at some point, but I think I would like to wait and get some Addi dpn's. They make lil ones with the Addi "turbo" coating. (I actually went to the skacel website and checked....).
For now, I'm on a self-imposed knitting-stuff-buying ban until I finish a scarf from lace weight yarn (from hpy), and the pink scarf out of baby alpaca. Once those two projects are FINISHED, then I will look into buying the Addi Turbo dpn's in size "really small".
I need sharper (think KnitPicks) needles before I knit up my lace yarn.
I found that out on row three of swatch.
Good thing I have my light pink baby alpaca yarn as a backup to knit, eh? How's that for thinkin'!!
(No pictures though. I'm too lazy right now.)
Did I mention I was going to try something new (to me)?
I'm trying something new.
I decided that I wanted to do something with a cable in it. A simple basic cable. And I wanted each half of the cable to be a different colour. I can see it in my head ... I can see it completed in my head, and it looks pretty snazzy! Now I have to figure out how do do it, exactly. I have a good idea, and it will get done, but it may take awhile.
Mainly because this isn't something where my mind can wander. I have eight strands of yarn hanging down ... 4 are live, 4 are ends.
Please understand: I am a baby knitter. I don't know how this looks to you, but for me?
I need a drink.
For those of you who don't know, I suffer from yarnaholism. (See, this is my way of saying, "I have new yarn.") If I have a bad day? I need yarn fumes. If I had quite the time with CtE at work? I need to fondle yarn. If I had a frustrating day, get off work early, AND have a COOpun to use? I buy yarn.
[If you wonder, "COOpun" comes from comedian Ron White. In normal english, COOpun is coupon.]
I didn't need any yarn. I never need yarn. But... but, you see, there's this yarn that always sucks me in. I always have to touch it. Not because it's soft or anything (because that would be baby alpaca, which this isn't), but because the colours draw me to them.
This, my friends, is how I celebrated Independence Day.
Picture is smaller than I expected to make it. Must be the lateness of the night...
The grouping of five balls? Those are from Cascade Yarns. "Rio" is the yarn within Cascade.
The blue at either bottom corner? Those are both Berroco ... and I totally forget what type from them. Mmmm.... yeah. My brain is off the thinking mode. Softouch? Something like that.
I had a few people ask what I was going to do with this yarn. First? I'm going to admire it. I am going to be happy that I have it home. I am going to add it to my stash (my yarnstuff is becoming a stash!). I'm going to save it until I see a project that needs a little hint of colour, and then! Then, I will use one of these yarns, because that's what it will be perfect for.
I love yarn.
"What has she been doing?" perhaps you wonder. Well, no, it's not knitting I've been doing. You see, some of you read about the mudslide we had a few months ago. We decided to rip up all the carpet, which meant moving everything either outside or upstairs depending on what it was, and move the damn dreaded pool table. (Anyone want a pool table? Bar sized, 1 piece of slate, heavy mo'fo. You want it, you have to move the bloody thing. Currently it resides in a garage in Folsom.) We are now having tile installed (Tile Guy is very nice, though I'm not sure why you need to know that.). Friday entailed sanding the cement that was under the carpet and painting this noxious stuff on it. Saturday the tiles started going down. Today at 7am, the tiling resumed. MAYBE by the end of the week, the tile will be complete, which would mean we could start moving stuff in, which means my Knitting Chair would come back in. In the meantime, I do have several projects planning themselves in my brain - one of which is a pair of socks!
So, here's some of what I have been doing.
This is my horse. Blondie. The Blonde One. Thursday morning the front shoes went on, Friday morning the hind shoes went on, Saturday I clipped his legs up, and now he's ready to work.
He's pawing the air in these photos. He knows he'll get yelled at if he paws the cement.
This week is a busy week with family birthdays, then Father's Day on the weekend, so ... maybe knitting will resume Sunday evening? I DO need to swatch up my KnitPicks Parade yarn with those little US3 dpns I got awhile back....
So what if it's a bit more than a week still until my birthday! Tracy sent me a birthday package, which arrived on Thursday. A happy addition to a beautiful sunshine-filled day! I opened the box, and inside I found several wrapped items. This is the box with everything in it, no longer wrapped... ;)
There on the upper left side is a ball of Knit Picks Parade yarn, currently being swatched on the included #5 Addi Turbos. There are five balls of that yarn for me to play with! I love how it's going to stripe itself - FUN!! And those Addi Turbos ... Oh. My. Gosh. I LOVE them! So fabulous! (So you know, on the package for the Addi's, there is a warning which states "if used by untrained persons this tool may cause bodily harm." I'm not THAT much of a klutz!
On the lower left part of the box is the brown leather (or leather-like) zip case, which contains ...
Tadaaaa! The Boye Circular set! (The proper name is something like "Boye NeedleMaster Interchangeable Needle Set" or ... something.) All sizes I'll ever need to try stuff out, apparently! How utterly rad is that?!
Now, this yarn. This yarn I absolutely love. LOVE! The colours are so wonderful! Tracy included two, er, hanks? (knitterology totally escapes me right now) of this yarn. What am I going to do with it, you ask? I am going to admire it.
See? It'll be very easy to just admire this yarn for awhile. It doesn't need to be made into anything yet. It only needs to exist.
Tracy also included a hank of Malabrigo Worsted Merino Wool. The card says Emerald, but it looks more Seafoam in colour. I think it will need a pink/purple/blue type of colour with it.
That baby blue yarn you see underneath everything? That wasn't part of my birthday present; it was just yarn that nobody down Tracy's way wanted. From how T talked about this yarn with such disdain, I think I am either going to hate it, or be stubborn enough to make it work for SOMETHING. It is a very furry yarn that appears to tangle quite easily. "USE LARGE NEEDLES" is what I was told. We'll see what happens!
Also included in the box is a cute stationary (or is it stationery? I really don't remember... to the horror of all those years of schooling I've had.) set which includes a small spiral-bound notebook, a pencil, the cutest holepunch I've ever seen, a lil' stapler, and little clips to clip papers or anything else you may want to clip! Also with this is a cute pencil holder which MAY be used to hold things other than pencils...
Now for my Wednesday and Friday evening shopping experiences at Sierra Knitting Co., located in Cameron Park. (I have to keep plugging these guys - they're wonderful!)
On Wednesday I went in looking for a soft something to make a new hat out of. I felt up a lot of yarn... and found Misti Alpaca's 100% wonderful Baby Alpaca! It's so amazingly soft ... I'm just in heaven! It's a medium-dark green with tiny slivers of orangish throughout. And so soft. SO soft!
THEN, on Friday, I had to go back to the store again (oh darn!) to pick up the dpns I'll need for the size circs I bought on Wednesday (to go with the yarn...). And then bought more dpns to round out the sizes I will likely need in the not-too-distant future.
(See the bag? Sierra Knitting Co. Have I told you I like them? And? And?! They may be expanding their store, which may include an area to just come in and KNIT!!!)
Oh, I also bought new stitch markers, because I am housesitting and left that kind of stuff at home. I bought them for their colours ... bright green and purple. How could I resist!? But now I'm home posting pics for y'all, and will grab my stitch markers (I think they may be more flat than the ones I just picked up, which will be perfect for the Knit Picks project; I'll use my new ones for the baby alpaca project.), my measuring tape, and anything else I may need for my 9 remaining days of housesitting. Whew!
(And so you know, this is a record for me. Two projects kind of going at once. WOW! I feel the need to do aran-style cables on the knit picks yarn/hat. I am looking SO forward to seeing how that yarn stripes up in a hat, and am also looking forward to using the Addi's!)
Another quick note: Sierra Knitting Co. is hopefully going to start carrying those Addi Turbos pretty soon. Yay! As if I don't spend enough money on my horse and for gas for the truck...!
:) I'm so happy with these new additions to my Knitting Stuff. Don't I have one of the best cousins ever?! Tracy, thank you SO MUCH!!! And see, I may take a long break from knitting, but I come back! ;)
My hat is done! I had the last part of my class yesterday (transfering to dpn's and finishing the hat). I felt like I had grown an extra five fingers that kept getting in the way, but at least I didn't have to worry about the dpn's falling out of the stitches since I knit tightly. I had fun doing this hat ... my first time using circulars (which I accidentally left at the knitting shop ... they called and told me that, so I guess I have another excuse to go in there sooner than I was planning), my first time using dpn's, and my first time tying in a new ball of yarn the way Tracy recommended (which worked really well, btw).
So, here it is. Many thanks to my model, a Kirkland roll of paper towels.
And while at my friend's house last night, I started working on a practise run of the Aran Cable. It doesn't show up as well here as it does in person, but it still doesn't show up greatly in person either. I started it a few rows up, and instead of using just the 12 st width in the pattern, I should've made it wider just so there was more run out along the sides. I think that would've made the cables stand out better. But there you go, live and learn!
So, we've been getting rain. Our total up here is now about 55" (35" is about normal for us). That's a lot of freaking rain. I've been staying at my brother & sister-in-law's since Monday (only two nights, not bad). Came home late tonight, happily knowing I'd be in my own bed.
Some facts you need to know: I live on the second floor. The windows in my hall face the mountainside. There is only air between the windows and the dirt/rock of the hill. Meaning, there are no trees back there.
Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but those look like leaves. "But ... [pause] ... I don't have a tree back there."
Well, dude, there's a bloody tree there now!
Super.
Just bloody super.
Here's the downstairs: Wet carpet (mud must be about 4-5' deep behind the house in order for water to get in back there), and mud crashed through the back door (that leads to the back of the house, where septic is) into our garage / laundry room.
Again, not much more to say than Super. Just bloody super. See, we've always had to worry about the water coming up from the front (the river flooding), not the mud, rocks, and trees coming down from behind. Okay, not entirely true. We've had to worry about falling trees (200' Ponderosa Pines). They make a very distinctive sound when they crack that you never forget. And the pause before the thud when it hits ground, and the shake of the ground. Very interesting and unwelcome. Anyway, don't know how much damage that will have to be replaced because of the mud. The carpet may have to be replaced. It'll at least have to be pulled up to dry, while a torpedo heater does its magic. We don't know the damage of the sheetrock. It's cinder block wall on the other side of the sheetrock for 4-5' high along the whole backside of the house.
Needless to say, I haven't gotten any further on my knitting... Still ready to tie in the second ball to start the decreasing on my hat. Hopefully tomorrow evening I'll do that. I should be home relatively early.
Yes indeedy, I learned how to do circulars today! Today was the first of two lessons in my hat knitting class. I was the only one in my class. :) I knew that before showing up today; the original class had filled up, and I was the only one to sign up for the extra class, so they cancelled it but didn't want me to lose out - so they said "come in when you can on Saturday, and we'll get you started!" Okay! I'm s'posed to knit this baby up 10" before I start my decreasing. Seems excessive to me, but that's okay. I can roll or fold up the bottom part and be happy. If it's cold, I can pull it down way over my ears. I told them from the start that I'm a very tight knitter (just in case it mattered .... but it only matters to my right index finger, apparently, where the blister is forming). A few inches into my knitting, one of the owners came over and said, "Oh, you ARE a tight knitter! But it looks so good, and you have very nice even tension in your knitting." Thank you, I guess?
I really like the colour of the yarn I picked out. Pink with very light purple and very light orangish colour. It's striping nicely. The owners of this knitting shop are really, really kind, and have the kind of personality I get along with fabulously. :) (Sierra Knitting Co. in Cameron Park, CA - go visit them!!) While I was knit knit knitting, Lorna of Lorna's Laces came in - she's very kind, too. I love nice people. They make the world such a wonderful place!
After that, I went over to a new friend's house and taught her and her friend how to do cables and knit in the round. It's after midnight, and I just got home! We had a fabulous time, and after my lesson next Saturday I will teach them how to finish their hats. Whew! What a knitting day! It is SO past my bedtime! (Though if I wait 40 minutes, it'll be midnight again...)
[Edited @ 10:30a to tell you I'm retarded. I always get the Fall Back / Spring Ahead things mixed up. So, it wouldn't be midnight again, it would be 2a instead! Earth to Kalah... Earth to Kalah!]
Yes yes, you read that correctly. I bought some cable needles yesterday. They're these odd plastic things, two sizes came in the pack, I think they're from Clover. They're the U kind. Anywho, the wonderfully nice woman at my new local yarn store said these were what she used, so I said hey, good enough for me. Besides. I figure she's going to be the one to help me if I get in trouble, so might as well use what she uses. It's easier to teach people when they use your methods, and I'm so easy to teach, so that's the route I went.
One Cable, for your viewing pleasure. Just so you know? I really liked doing it. It's so much funner than just knitting something. There's more stuff to pay attention to, but not so much that you say, "I think it's time for a drink."
I just followed the instructions from the Stitch 'n Bitch book. :)
Oh yes we do! I have completed The Scarf. Done. Well, with the knitting part. It is shy of 7 feet by about 4 inches or so. I still need to block it (or steam it or something) to take the curl out of the edge, but that's a project for tomorrow or Monday.
Here it is. All sprawled out. This is a bar sized pool table, so for those of you who know the difference between all tables out there, you have an idear of how long it is.
This? Aaah, for the love of HPY.com ...
I'm not sure what happened to the nice diamond pattern it was doing for me. But that went away for nearly a foot 'n a half.
Here's how I ended it. Wanted to try to end the scarf much in the same way it began, which, if you look at it, appears to be a few rows of "Hmmm, *that's* interesting...", so this part was intentional and actually looks a lot cleaner. I just swapped the pattern so it's on the other side for a few rows, then did the bind off in strictly knit stitch.
Because that's what I knew how to do, and I didn't want to read 'structions.
... I am knitting again.
After setting this scarf-in-progress down for awhile (it had "issues") (okay, maybe I'm the one with the "issues", but still.), I decided to fix the "dropped stitch" problem (thanks to Tracy emailing me instructions ... after I emailed her "WTF?!" pictures), and continue on with this scarf. I would, afterall, like to wear it sometime before, you know, summer.
After various problems that I would prefer not to admit to here, especially since it would force me to admit to y'all that I am a completely retarded knitter, here's where we are now. We're just shy of 4' long now.
I started the second skein the other day. Tracy taught me the magical spit-splice / "suck on the ends and KarateKid it together" method of connected the end of skein one to the beginning of skein two. Perfect! In the photos, where the loose needle is pointing is the row of the skein change. Works for me! :)
Back to the "24" marathon on tv. Hopelessly addicted to the show starting this season, so I have 4 season to catch up on. Jack Bauer is ... wonderful. :)
I worked on my room today. [Knitting? What about knitting?! Right. Well. I'll get to that.] But here's the entrance to my room. Walk straight back down the hall, and you will run into something. Chances are it's my door or my bookcase.
First I'm going to show you what I did today. This picture here? Do you see that nice dresser/entertainment unit on the right? That was just moved down from upstairs. Heavy SOB, that. And the dresser in the closet there? That was where the entertainment unit now sits. I had my tv, vcr, dvd player, satellite receiver, and alarm clock all perched vewy vewy cawefully atop the dresser. Perch no longer! They have their own home now ... tv and alarm clock are hidden behind the doors, and the satellite receiver, dvd and vcr are under the doors in that space before the drawers. (Three more drawers for clothes, yay!)
This is my bed. With, count them, five pillows. I love pillows. The main one is a king sized white down feather pillow. LOVE IT! There's another feather pillow in the pile somewhere, and other pillows... One me, lots of pillows. Happy me. :) I also changed the sheets and the comforter cover, since they were covered with black Lab hair. The black Lab sleeps with me when I'm babysitting him. He sheds. A lot. (The ball doesn't live on my bed. it was just in the way when I was walking around in there, so that was the best place to toss it.)
This is my desk, my computer desk [the corner unit there with the flat monitor on it], and is my next project to tackle. You can't see it, but last weekend I tossed all sorts of crap from the drawers. You should've seen all the files that went Hasta La Byebye! Next weekend I hope to make this corner of the room organized and clean. That's the plan anyway. That mess drives me mad!
This is the way out, in case you got lost in that last mess. Another bookcase, yes. One warning for those of you who don't really think ahead on some things, like me: Measure the distance between things to make sure there's room to "move stuff". Between the tall bookcase on the left and the 4 footer on the right, I only had about 1/4 - 1/2" to spare when pulling the entertainment unit in. Things were interesting there for a moment...
*** KNITTING UPDATE!! *** KNITTING UPDATE!! ***
Okay. So. Regardless of whether I want to knit now or not, I can't, because I still have about two weeks to go with a finger brace on my right index finger. That's an important knitting finger, to me. BUT. I have plans to sign up for a knitting class! Yes, ME!! It's a beginner II class ... for those of us who have done the scarves, this one is teaching us to knit in the round, doing increases/decreases, etc. Very nice! This is at a new knitting shop that opened locally earlier this month. The class starts in April, is on Saturdays for 3-4 weeks in a row, and a client of mine wants to take it with me. It'll be loads of fun!!! I already have the days crossed off in my appt book...
Yeah. I was about ready to fix The Stitch. So I could finish the scarf. I had a half day of work on friday, and was off through monday. As of saturday, I am no longer at home. As of the wee hours on saturday, we were actually flooded in - water was too high to be able to drive any cars out of our driveway. Saturday afternoon, we shut the propane off to the house (i.e., no cooking anything, no boiling water to make it drinkable, etc.), packed a few changes of clothes into backpacks, grabbed the dogs, and hiked up to our neighbours (we're built into the side of a mountain, so think "poison oak, blackberry bushes, running water, mud, hands & knees going uphill, feet and butt going downhill" (thankfully, I don't get poison oak, and I don't mind getting muddy!)... Now? The water level is back down, but we had a mudslide, so we need to get the tractor home to move mud so I can get my truck out. I borrowed my brothers truck this afternoon so I could go take care of a few houses that I'm supposed to be taking care of, but it looks as though I'm staying at my brother's until further notice.
The Stitch will wait. I'm sure of it. I don't think it will decide to fix itself, nor do I think anyone else will pick it up and mess with it.
And maybe by 2009 or so, I'll be wearing that scarf! ;)
Just a quick post to fling a picture up here showing what my Sister-in-law made me for Christmas. This is just a close-up(ish) view of the blanket she made...
Oh, good practise my ass.
I noticed that something wasn't quite right. So I looked a little closer. Indeed, I made an incorrect stitch, and proceeded to not pay attention until the end of the following row. I've already backtracked on the one row, and now I need to undo the row the mistake is in. See what happens when I watch tv while I knit? DO YOU SEE??!!!! (Point of needle is directing you to the Offending Stitch.)
And for the record, this is how much yarn I had left ... this is what I was going to try to finish up with tonight since I won't have time to knit this week. THIS, before I found the Offending Stitch. All I wanted was to be able to start with the 2nd skein when I picked the project up again! For Pog's Sake!!
(But no. I'm going to bed now. I will unravel the row when I have time. )
[Oh, and I did get a cramp in my right arm, which made my index finger curl oddly. That's another thing that happens when I'm flying along, staring at my yarn, wondering how many rows I have left before I hit the end of the yarn, and gah!]
And for the record, it is three hours past my bedtime.
Even though it's been a few weeks (months).
Do you remember this scarf? My first and only yarn purchase ever from HPY? Well, we got reacquainted tonight. And I doubled its length! I didn't even mark the row I started from since I am finally confident enough to correct mistakes. Whew!
And no, I still don't have the desire to wind the yarn into a ball. We get along well enough to work with it as is. =)
And there are actually TWO pictures to share. For those of you who don't know, my hair is very thick, and curly. Each strand is thick, and there's a lot of them. My hair can go from ringlets (if I help it along a bit by scrunching) to straight ... so I can do my hair in five minutes or over two hours.
The following picture shows the tools I had to use to get the next picture. From left to right: Matrix Vavoom "Smooth Me" smoothing gel; Redken Extreme "Anti-Snap" leave-in conditioner; Redken Smooth Down "Heat Glide" heat protector; Redken "Align" smoothing creme ("for stick straight results!"); Biosilk "Silk Therapy" because it's silky and I love it; Red Christmas Cup containing my brushes soaking in vinegar to get the gunk of styling off. In the foreground is my flat iron.
This picture is the result of a lot of work. Day One was about two hours of blow drying and ironing, and I ran out of time before I had to leave for work. Day Two was this morning, and I had more time to finish (I did NOT wash my head this morning - I wasn't starting over!) - so this was using a bit more of the Heat Glide and Align with the Flat Iron. Trying to take pictures was ... entertaining. This is actually of the right side of my head; I was looking in the mirror to see what the display on my camera was showing so I could take a picture. Fun.
