Feeling a Little Wicked: WIP Wednesday

I joined the clog band wagon. Oddly, as one who took her first steps in wooden shoes, I find it amusing that I have returned to the clog look. When I was at the store I commented on the delft tiles they had on the counter, and the salesperson said it was a Dutch thing. I then put two and two together. I was just sick and tired of wearing uncomfortable dress shoes. Who decided that women's shoes should all kill my arches? These guys are fantastic, and show off my socks. Double win!

Land of Enchantment

Several very wonderful things occurred.

1.) The road trip across part of the country was a success. The poor Probe was not overloaded, we could see out of the back.

Nothing broke on the road. The car will probably keep rolling.Somewhere in Texas is an abandoned plastic baggie of beads with my notched piece of copper wire.


2.) We made it to the Land of Enchantment, and green chile.

3.) Unpacking was a snap, because the poor Probe is a 2 door car.



4.) Coffee and Internet were restored. The coffee was easy, getting my computer to accept the gift of internet was much more challenging. It is 8 years old, and well, it turns out I haven't tried to use the network cable in at least 4. In a surprise move it broke sometime between now and then with no loss of performance.

I am also liking my little knitting nook. I normally keep the shades open and just watch people walk by.

Watch this space tomorrow. I have some FO's to share, and I didn't make it for WIP Wednesday.

That's all for now, take care guys

Molly : )

A Chill Week: WIP Wednesday

Life is getting pretty exciting here in the land of the deepbluerenegade. However, after the flurry of activity last week, this one was very very chill in comparison.

I have been preparing to move across the country in a week. I am leaving for 7 months to go work in my dream job!

Because of these big exciting things, blogging might be a little interrupted. I probably will be missing internet at my apartment.

It is looking pretty sketchy on fitting all of my crap into the car. I can ship 150 pounds of stuff, though I might need to rearrange some boxes so I am carrying only the fragile things.

But hey, this is a creative endeavors blog. I have been busy knitting when I can, and now that I am no longer under the interesting constraints of blog week, I can talk about them like normal.

I have my stash in exile packed, and we will see how good I am at anticipating how much I can knit in 7 months. I have 2 sweater quantities, stuff for the 3 shawls I talked about, and a random smattering of sock yarn. I am going to bring half of my blocking mats, the blocking wires, niddy-noddy and hopefully the swift and ballwinder. If I had been thinking I would have balled up the obvious stuff. I grabbed a few books, which the titles escape me now. Well, I know poems of color is in the box, even though I decided not to bring the bohus yarn. I know think outside the socks got thrown in, which makes sense since I want to knit hexagons again for the DSLO.

On the finished object front:


I started and finished a cowl made of my first handspun. I have knit this cowl three times. The first time with some purple bulky held doubled. That did not work. The colors were too close in value. Then I knit it with charcoal super bulky, but I cast on too many stitches and it was the awkward, too big to fit and too small to be huge.


It is on the border between crazy and cool. I actually like how the singles look more than the plied yarn. Mostly I am glad I found a way to use the yarn. I will have to put my thinking cap on for the other skein of handspun.

I like this photo because it shows the contrast between my first handspun and my third handspun. I have learned so much in the past few months.

The next thing is a set of baby hats for one of my friends. I finished the newborn size with no problems. I actually knit the first one because I was frustrated with the socks. I modified the pattern so I could use 2 yarns, and then I am doing the linen stitch pattern. Well, so this is on the border between FO and WIP.

Kai-Mei is in knitting limbo for a spell. Something went pear shaped when I went to gather the dropped stitches and knit them all together. This is after I ripped out the entire foot when I realized I placed the instep pattern in the wrong location. This is not the first time I have ripped back to the picked up stitches on the gusset.

I really want the finished product to be awesome. And it is my own fault for ignoring the directions.

There are several fun facts. 1.) The lace pattern is scalable. You can make it larger by adding initial stitches. So you add two stitches for every row you add. I keep the numbers even I added 4 stitches to the width.

I am happy with sock number 1, but the knitting of Kai-Mei was not as fun as I thought it would be, if that makes any sense.


I am also trucking away on Evenstar. I have it by my computer, ready for whenever I have a little spare time to pick away at it. We had some friends from undergrad visit this weekend, so I finally made it past the halfway point on the border.

It was very happy to be able to move the progress bar that extra five percent. For some unknown reason my markers for the middle were nowhere near the middle of the border. This makes me feel a little better. I am not even sure of the count. I was at 27 left the last I checked and it is very happy because it has become a count down not a count.

I also had an interesting time deconstructing how the purl stitch works. Did you know that when I knit or purl I always wrap the yarn counterclockwise? My friend was having trouble because he was trying to approach the purl like the knit. So in a knit you stick your needle in the front inside of the stitch going to the back outside. In purls you stick your needle in the back outside and go toward the front inside. Hopefully it works : ) It was really interesting to see what assumptions I make when I knit, and to break it all down and see what it is I actually do. I have been on autopilot in knitting for a long time.

I think that is all for now, please go visit the other WIP Wednesday folks here.

Take care guys

Molly : )

Joy and Smiles Episode 21: Our Freak Flag Geometries

You'll have to tune in to figure out the title, haha!

That's all for now, take care guys!

Molly : )

Knit and Crochet Blog Week Day 7: Looking Forward

I am very excited to be taking part in the KCBW-IV this year. It has been a lot of fun playing along with the WIP Wednesdays and FO Fridays, and I feel that this mass blogging has an interesting structure and topic.

This will be a series of several posts, everyday with a slightly different prompt.
Monday: The House Cup
Tuesday: A Mascot Project
Wednesday: Infographic
Thursday: Color Review
Friday: Something a Bit Different
Saturday: A Tool to Covet
Sunday: Looking Forward
 
Where do I expect to be in a year?

That is a tough question, if only because I have a hard time predicting what I will be doing next, and I try not to have many goals when it comes to knitting.

When I started blogging and the first new year rolled around I made a lot of grand plans, and well, they didn't match well with reality. This year I made no goals what so ever. Could you argue that makes this year pretty aimless? Probably

But that said I do have a few aims.

 I have two sweater quantities which I intend to become very specific sweaters. I talked about Elphaba on day two, and also have yarn to make a brown main color bohus sweater.
 

I wanted to try to design sock pattern. I have a skein in mind. Really I just need to do it.

I don't even have this skein in my stash on ravelry. It is the darker teal skein in the center. Fritzi Frizzante.

There are three shawls I want to knit. Summer Blooms as a gift, Daybreak as something awesome and exciting, and Walk on the Moon.
 

If I have time I might knit a lace weight cardigan. I was thinking Simplicity has all of the elements I am looking for.
















On the spinning front, I just want to learn how to spin a weight I normally use. I have gone from super bulky to bulky to worsted. Maybe my next project will be fingering or sport.

So, I have no clue if this is possible to achieve, but this is what I intend to do in the near term.

It has been really interesting to take part in Knit and Crochet Blog Week. I think my favorite part was when I got poems in my comments after I wrote the Haiku post. I thought that was really sweet and cool. I know that I cannot keep up with a blog post a day, that is pretty relentless. Once I ran out of prepared posts it was pretty tough to keep up. And, this week I have a lot of worries on my mind, like my final exam, and making samples to test before I go on internship for several months. Well, I hope you guys had an interesting time seeing me blog in a different way. It was fun!

That's all for now, take care guys.

Molly : )

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week Day 6: A Tool to Covet

I am very excited to be taking part in the KCBW-IV this year. It has been a lot of fun playing along with the WIP Wednesdays and FO Fridays, and I feel that this mass blogging has an interesting structure and topic.

This will be a series of several posts, everyday with a slightly different prompt.
Monday: The House Cup
Tuesday: A Mascot Project
Wednesday: Infographic
Thursday: Color Review
Friday: Something a Bit Different
Saturday: A Tool to Covet
Sunday: Looking Forward

So today I finally get to blog about my latest and greatest tool. It is the ChiaoGoo Twist interchangeable needle set.

I want to start out with a word of warning. Buyer beware, if there is a set out there for less than the going rate, then it is less than a full set. So my set arrived with less cords than it was supposed to. My set had a 2 pair of 8 inch cords in small and large. I was missing all of the longer ones frustratingly enough. The good news is that when I use the cable connectors this makes a 24 inch needle, which is what I like to use anyways.

I am planning on ordering the missing cords, from a trusted source, Grandma's Knitting and Crochet on Etsy. I would have bought my set from her initially but she was out of stock and I had no clue when she would restock. She is my Chiaogoo source, and low and behold she has them in stock now  *evil grin*.

 It comes in a small compact case. It would be easy to throw in a bag, and not worry about the pieces going everywhere. I also like the attractive fabric.

The tips are sorted based on size. The small cable size on one side and the large cable on the other. The tips are the long pointy smooth lace tips. I realized when ChiaoGoo released the interchangable set that this was going to be the best fit for me. When I do a project that calls for a size I have in ChiaoGoo I go to them first. So when I found out I could buy all of the sizes at once with any cable length. I was sold.

The cables are female and the tips are male. There are also handy pockets for storing the cables and half sizes that do not come with the kit.

The large needle sizes have an impressive taper to them.

The set comes with many accessories, like cable connector, cable stops, keys, stitch markers and a needle gauge.

It all neatly fits in the front pouch.. I might end up moving the stitch markers out, since I normally keep those in my knitting bag.

I have used the needles on 2 projects so far. To put them through the paces I used the smallest size, 2, while I was knitting the long edge on the indecisive stripes cowl. I did notice that the stitches would catch on the cable connectors. So, for the finer gauge projects it is better to use the right length cable. I also used the largest size, the 15s. The needle tips felt fairly short, but otherwise the needles were very invisible.

 So here is the project I was working on. The cable is the perfect length for this. It is plastic coated braided wire. So it is strong, flexible, but firm. Probably not to the taste of magic loopers, but certainly perfect for knitting in the round.

As I mentioned earlier, the taper on the needle is pretty extreme. I think it makes the needles feel shorter than they actually are. The good news is that I had no trouble knitting in the round. This taper allows the stitches to smoothly transition from the cable to the needle.They do not catch.

Here is the join. With super bulky yarn I couldn't even tell it was there. With light fingering I could tell. The cable has a through hole that you can stick the key into to tighten. Hand tight will result in the pieces unscrewing themselves. The key is easy to use, and you need to use 2 if you are joining the cables to the cable connector. On the needle end you use the key in the cable and your hand on the needle.
 

I apologize for the blurry photo. Every needle has the size clearly printed on it.

That's all for now, take care guys

Molly : )

Knit and Crochet Blog Week Day 5: Something Different

I am very excited to be taking part in the KCBW-IV this year. It has been a lot of fun playing along with the WIP Wednesdays and FO Fridays, and I feel that this mass blogging has an interesting structure and topic.

This will be a series of several posts, everyday with a slightly different prompt.
Monday: The House Cup
Tuesday: A Mascot Project
Wednesday: Infographic
Thursday: Color Review
Friday: Something a Bit Different
Saturday: A Tool to Covet
Sunday: Looking Forward
 
This post is brought to you by my mad Haiku skills : )

 

Scrappy socks are done

I ran out of yarn again

Good thing I have more.

The scrap sock kick ends

it has been good fun to try

to use up small bits

Kai-mei has begun

the knitting is flying by

cookie A hell yeah!

Miss Babs makes pretty

Bluefaced Leicester sock yarn

green blue nom nom nom.

Evenstar sitting

in a corner most unloved

no free time this week

Work's filling my time

and knitting is not allowed

inside the cleanroom

A FO Friday

short sweet simple and quite brief

see others right here

That's all for now, take care guys

Molly : )

Knit and Crochet Blog Week Day 4: A Color Review

I am very excited to be taking part in the KCBW-IV this year. It has been a lot of fun playing along with the WIP Wednesdays and FO Fridays, and I feel that this mass blogging has an interesting structure and topic.

This will be a series of several posts, everyday with a slightly different prompt.
Monday: The House Cup
Tuesday: A Mascot Project
Wednesday: Infographic
Thursday: Color Review
Friday: Something a Bit Different
Saturday: A Tool to Covet
Sunday: Looking Forward

I had to spell color like an American, haha, sorry everyone else. Today's topic has to do with what I think is my favorite color, and how that compares to reality.

I must admit, my favorite color, hands down, is blue. I am just attracted to it. I know just from making a color wheel of stash, that a good third of it is blue, and half is encompassed in blue/green and blue/purple.

However, I know when I open my drawer most of my t-shirts are not blue. When I look into my closet, most of my dress clothes are blue or black. When I look around my house, there is a ton of red. So I understand that my favorite color does not always translate to my most used color.

So if I was to encompass all of my stash and projects in a word, it would be bold. I love bright, rich, loud, riotous. vivid color. I keep away from neutrals, naturals, pastels, and dark colors.

So now, for the actual results. And for simplicity, I will tally up every time a color comes up.

In my projects:
blue 46 red 16 pink 18 purple 25 green 25 grey 4 white 18 orange 11 yellow 18 teal 8 black 15 brown 6

In my stash:
grey 6 blue 43 purple 31 green 29 brown 9 red 19 black 7 teal 9 pink 15 white 9  yellow 9 orange 3

 Of course if I was going off the general impression of a project or skein than if the color was present this would be a different spread of numbers.

I did not hold out hope for blue being the most common color, but it was. I am surprised at how much more purple and green I have/used. And most surprising of all is how little red is represented. I feel as if I have had way more red in the stash and in projects. I can only think that since red is so different than blue, purple or green it just stood out more in my mind.

I would have estimated having nearly no brown, grey, white and black. However since I did instance of color, these do pop up in my variegated yarns, and I have had a few projects with them in it. As I do more colorwork I expect that black and white will be more common, just because they work so well to give contrast to any color.

So, tying this back into House Monkey, the jewel tones, with pops of other colors like yellow, orange, black and white are bold, fun color choices. I am not afraid to use color, and while I do have favorites, I do use them all, even if it doesn't feel like that sometimes. And, colorwork seems to be a common theme among House Monkey. We like it, the harder and more insane the better!

That's all for now, take care guys

Molly : )

Knit and Crochet Blog Week Day 3: An Infographic

I am very excited to be taking part in the KCBW-IV this year. It has been a lot of fun playing along with the WIP Wednesdays and FO Fridays, and I feel that this mass blogging has an interesting structure and topic.

This will be a series of several posts, everyday with a slightly different prompt.
Monday: The House Cup
Tuesday: A Mascot Project
Wednesday: Infographic
Thursday: Color Review
Friday: Something a Bit Different
Saturday: A Tool to Covet
Sunday: Looking Forward

This one is short and sweet. I am a smidge early for May, but way late for April, so I present my favorite infographic, the stash graph!

 I find it helpful to know where I stand between future projects and current projects. I will tend to choose a lace or fingering project because I just have so much of both.. The yardage really adds up for the finer stuff. There was an uptick with everything this month.

I blame this mostly.

One skein of this is very nearly a mile.

Also, I haven't had as much knitting time it seems, with that whole spinning thing.

That's all for now, take care guys!

Molly : )