Episode 209: Perfection

Episode 96 Join In!

I attempt summarizing SSK. See, the floor of the dorm room.

ok, I'm kidding. Here are some of the awesome people I hung out with this week.

Knitting:
Shortrow Shuffle Socks in WM Twin Blue Suzanne
Fragile Hearts in Madelinetosh TML in Cousteau
Hitchhiker in WM Pure in Samii

Finished Object:
Gaptastic Cowl and Headband


Spinning:
Hello Yarn Falkland in Pigment
My Samples from the Soft Core Class
My Samples from the Worsted Spinning Class

Stashqusistions:
All sorts of wonderful things :D
really, this was keeping me from releasing it is much faster this way ; )


Random and All Over the Place:
Recording again July 25th

That's all for now, take care guys

Molly : )

Episode 95 No Really, it's July

I am not sure what went wrong with the date this week. *shakes head*

Knitting:
Fragile Hearts
Short Row Shuffle
Gap-tastic Cowl

Spinning:
Chocolate Shetland fleece skeins 10 and 11
Prepping all of the fleece

Random and All Over the Place:
SSK is Wednesday!
Packing, stitch markers, fleece, simple projects, tagging, sweater repairs
Recording again July 19th, probably :D

That's all for now, take care guys

Molly : )

Episode 82: Michigan Summer

It is a very sexy skein of yarn.


Knitting:
A Grey Cardigan
Union Jack Argyle
Yoga Mat Bag

Spinning:
Hello Yarn Rambouillet in Lengthy Fibers Drew, 4oz 715 yards 2 ply lace weight
Chocolate Shetland Fleece
Your Daily Fiber 50/50 Camel Silk

Stashquisitions:
Into the Whirled Prance in 50/25/25 merino bamboo silk
Into the Whirled Death in superwash merino

Random and All Over the Place:
Poundathon
Spin the Bin
MegaSAL
Sock Knitters Scraps or Queue or Stash KAL
Something Special KAL ends Tuesday March 31st. Post your FO by Wednesday April 1 by midnight

That's all for now, take care guys

Molly : )

Episode 81: DFW Fiber Fest

It was a great weekend, I can't wait until next year.

Finished Objects:
Honey Hat
Chocolate Shetland Fleece #7

Knitting:
A Grey Cardigan
Union Jack Socks

Spinning:
Chocolate Shetland Fleece
Jacey Boggs Chain Plying Class
Your Daily Fiber 50/50 Camel Silk
Hello Yarn in Lengthy Fibers Drew

Random and All Over the Place:
Something Special KAL ends March 31st
DFW Fiber Fest
Hello Yarn is lovely, but not crazy making amazing
Recording again March 28, 2015

That's all for now, take care guys

Molly : )

Episode 79: All Month Long

It is a thing you know, March babies have their birthday for an entire month.

Finished Objects:
Two Faced Rainbow Moebius Honey Cowl
Viajante

Knitting:
Honey Hat
A Gray Cardigan

Spinning:
Your Daily Fiber 50/50 Camel Silk
Chocolate Shetland Fleece

Random and All Over the Place:
The Something Special KAL now has a Prize!
#MegaSAL I have spun Nest and Fat Cat Knits, I have not yet tried Into the Whirled, Southern Cross Fibre, Hello Yarn and Spunky Eclectic.
CTA Poundathon
Recording again March 8th

That's all for now, take care guys

Molly : )

Episode 78: Twenty Minutes of Spinning

I pick up my spindle and away I go.


Knitting:
Viajante

Spinning:
Nestlet gradient 8oz of random wool 566 yards.

Your Daily Fiber 50/50 Camel Silk
Chocolate Shetland Fleece

Random and All Over the Place:
Peach Trees
Winter is Coming
Prize as yarn, or prize as cowl? Any strong opinions
Something Special KAL
CTA Poundathon Challenge
Recording again March 1st

That's all for now, take care guys

Molly : )

Episode 26: Somewhat Somber

I am more somber than usual. I explain why at the beginning.


Finished Object:
Pretty Thing Cowl

Knitting:
Halele'a
Walk on the Moon

Spinning:
Fat Cat Knits variegated BFL in Let's Go Crazy, second skein
Chocolate Shetland Fleece is now all clean, as in washed. The ubiquitous hay still seems to remain.

Random and All Over the Place:
I was in Dallas when there was a shooting in the building and floor I work on as a teaching assistant
Sweater spinners support threads in the Whatcha Swatching Podcast group and Completely Twisted and Arbitrary group
I will be getting new coffee soon, and the strange ways my coffee maker fails
Color theory
Recording again on Tuesday January 28th.

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 : )

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 : )

Joy and Smiles Episode 20: Our FOs

This week is full of FOs and Joyatee carefully examining my stashquisitions.

Enjoy!



Molly : )

FO Friday: Handspun Hat and Indefinite Stripes Cowl

I finished 2 things this week, yay!

The cowl is done! It is very vesitile. It can be a hood, a scarf, a cowl or a one sided object.

I finally just buckled down and finished the stupid thing. I was using it as an excuse to knit and read, and finish off all of the natural ball of yarn. But, there comes a time when it just needed to be off the needles.

The handspun hat is also complete. I have been wearing it like it is going out of style (or rather spring has sprung, and there aren't many hat days left this year.)

I have made it to have 2 configurations, slouchy and beanie, it just depends on how the brim is rolled up.
It looks really short now that I have been wearing it. Trust me, it looks good on my head.

 




















Or it looks less goofy on my head than on the dining room table.

I really like how the slouchy way really shows off the gradient. It was hard to show in the skein how gently it transitions from the colors.

I am pondering what to do with the leftovers. There isn't a lot leftover. I haven't weighed it yet.


The suggestion was gauntlets. I also need to figure out if the remainder is fingering, sport or worsted weight, since I will definitely need some other yarn to supplement it.

My fingerless gloves are starting to get worn out, and while I can try to fix them, it might be fine to replace them as well. They are my most worn, and most complimented piece of knitting, even in their careworn state.

We shall see, you and me haha!

I believe that my scrappy socks will soon be done, and I will be on to more socks, as in Kai-Mei, by the awesome and incredible Cookie A. Good thing I linked this guy, there was an errata on the pattern.

Let me distract you with a photo of me with Cookie A. in October. Yay Cookie!

I guess I am rolling in my stash tonight, we'll see what I choose for the socks.

Please check out the other cool FO Friday bloggers this week, here!

That's all for now, take care guys!

Molly : )

Joy and Smiles Episode 19: Our Slow Progress

In this episode, it seems like our projects taking forever to get finished.



Take care guys!

Molly : )

Progress on all Fronts

Hi everyone!

I am excited about a couple of things coming up in the next few weeks.

1.) I am starting an internship in Albuquerque. I might even learn how to spell that name.

2.) I am making samples to take with me, hopefully before I leave.

3.) I am participating in the 4th Annual Knit and Crochet Blog Week

4.) I have a nearly finished tutorial on how to ease a sleeve in a sweater.

So between now and mid-May there is a ton that needs to happen. I am not sure how this will affect my blogging habits. It might mean I write posts in advance.

Evenstar is slowly moving forward. I am at 21 border repeats, so more than 1/3 of the way there.

My pictures today do the shawl a great injustice.It is opening up beautifully from it's formerly 24 in circumference to whatever size it is going to be when it is done.

I am still trucking on the Indefinite Stripes Cowl. I forgot to take a picture after I sewed the ends together. I am knitting a simple k1p1 border to use up the remaining natural/earthy colored yarn.

To fight the boredom, I am reading a book at the same time. Since there are so many stitches it is making it look stripey since the color repeats are about as long as the circle.

I hope the border will really highlight the fact that this is a single sided object.

I had 37 grams left over, and I am going to knit until it is all gone. I have been checking how much I use per row, so when I am down to 6 grams I will bind off and call this puppy over. This is supposed to be for the Knit Girllls long cowl KAL. I think it ended already. Whatever, this will be perfect for next winter.

I started a new project while I was waiting for some needles to borrow for the cowl.

The leg quite possibly flew off my needles Monday. The pattern is Cranberry Biscotti, and it is a 3 color slipped stitch stripe. I am using Squoosh for the main color, and Lorna's Laces for the contrast colors. It all just glomped into this fetching combination of blues, purples, yellows and greens.

 




















I am really enjoying my scrap sock quest. I had pulled these colors out last month because I thought they might go together. It has been interesting to see how the combination is so much different than the sum.

Department of Stashquistions:

This week I bought some fiber to continue my quest to grok spinning. I had been looking at Gnomespun for some time, so I finally just bit the bullet and bought fiber. I got 8oz of combed Shetland top in the sapphire surprise colorway. It arrived in a bulging soft mailer. I can't believe he managed to cram that much fiber into that small of a space. I probably won't start spinning for a few days, since it is slowing down my evenstar progress. I just want to practice spinning thinner and get enough yardage for a proper project.

I think that is all for now. Take care guys!

Molly : )