http://earthfaire.com/
Oh bloody hell, I'm in trouble. They have a page for each bead color with a large photo! I want them all.
Metallic Gold Iris 6/0
Purple Lined Amethyst AB 6/0 peacock prism fingerless gloves
Berry Lined Lt Topaz AB 6/0 beautiful!
Metallic Olive 8/0 SPECTACULAR!!!
Garnet Lined Ruby 8/0 gorgeous
Transparent Topaz AB 8/0 not remotely topaz at all
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
beaded gauntlets
The pattern is Glacial Gauntlets of the Wolf. I modified it to a 5x1 rib from a 5x2, both for fit and because I just prefer x1 ribs. The beads are from http://millhillbeads.com -- size 6/0 jet. I love these gloves! I'm about to start a second pair (white with hematite beads for Akitu, and possibly a third (the peacock yarn might like to be this).
Monday, February 23, 2009
i got my beads!
I got my order from Mill Hill beads! I can start Glacial Gauntlets of the Wolf! And make new stitch markers when I'm in the mood! Which isn't now! But I have my beads! The first 3 are the ones I've been looking for!
Hematite: 16081 & 18081
Bronze: 16221 & 18221
Opal Smoky Topaz: 16609
Black rainbow: 16374
Hematite: 16081 & 18081
Bronze: 16221 & 18221
Opal Smoky Topaz: 16609
Black rainbow: 16374
buttercup & berries
Finished my second yarn of the year -- Buttercup & Berries. Only 131 yards, but it is so soft and beautiful!
Roving from http://juliespins.etsy.com
The singles
Plying
Finished!
Roving from http://juliespins.etsy.com
The singles
Plying
Finished!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
puttering around
I've been having one of those weeks in which I knit a lot, but produce very little. I keep trying different cable patterns for gloves, but I can't find a yarn/cable combo that I like. (Except for my current pair of gift gloves. I finished the left glove on Tuesday and am quite happy with it.) I can't even knit socks decisively this week -- I want some ornamentation on the socks I'm knitting out of the birthday yarn from Lyl, but nothing I try is making me happy. Yesterday I finally got a project moving -- my Sloochie hat -- but I had to spend over half an hour ripping back to fix stupid mistakes.
I've been taking some refuge in spinning. I wound off some singles to free up a couple of spindles and played around with various roving/spindle combinations. I wound the singles for Buttercup & Berries onto the plying spindle and started plying. I started Zaria2, which is going to be a 3-ply light fingering weight, and Fan the Flames, which is going to be a 3-ply worsted.
I've been taking some refuge in spinning. I wound off some singles to free up a couple of spindles and played around with various roving/spindle combinations. I wound the singles for Buttercup & Berries onto the plying spindle and started plying. I started Zaria2, which is going to be a 3-ply light fingering weight, and Fan the Flames, which is going to be a 3-ply worsted.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
cables - the basic rules
I'm knitting my third pair of Stulpen gloves, and I've figured out a few things about cables and working with cable charts.
For all the cables I've worked thus far, you always
1. Knit the knit stitches and purl the purl stitches.
2. Pass knit stitches over purl stitches.
Huh. So if I highlight all of the symbols that indicate a front cross, I can glance at the chart to see if I'm crossing in front or behind, and the cable tells me everything else. A doorway of comprehension has opened in my brain!
For all the cables I've worked thus far, you always
1. Knit the knit stitches and purl the purl stitches.
2. Pass knit stitches over purl stitches.
Huh. So if I highlight all of the symbols that indicate a front cross, I can glance at the chart to see if I'm crossing in front or behind, and the cable tells me everything else. A doorway of comprehension has opened in my brain!
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
my first handspun hat!
I made a hat out of my handspun! I'm so excited! It's another Aveline hat, using my first handspun of 2009.
I started with superwash merino roving (colorway 'hot') from http://juliespins.etsy.com.
It became a 3-ply.
The unblocked hat.
On the blocking balloon.
Finished! It's soft and smooshy and gorgeous!
I started with superwash merino roving (colorway 'hot') from http://juliespins.etsy.com.
It became a 3-ply.
The unblocked hat.
On the blocking balloon.
Finished! It's soft and smooshy and gorgeous!
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
defeated by fingers -- why?
When I knit my first pair of fingerless gloves/biker gloves, I was so proud and excited. I envisioned knitting gloves for my friends and people actually told me they would welcome such a thing.
Little did I know that would be the first and only time I managed to do fingers well. I tried for months in 2007 to make another pair, and I just couldn't get the goddamned fingers to flow from the body of the glove. I tried winging it, I tried following patterns, I tried different yarn and needle sizes, and I just couldn't do it. I can't be having with fingers that stick out randomly, or bunch the fabric, or don't lie flat when the glove is lying on a table. Standards, I have them. And they make me crazy. (Sometimes I think I have standards solely to punish myself for failing to meet them.)
Making fingers just grow out of the body of a glove is one of those things that seem like it should be easy.
And yet, as simple as it seems, in practice, not so much. I got so fed up in 2007 that I didn't even TRY in 2008. In December, I cast on a pair of knucks, because they are knit from the fingers down. I've worked a pair before to test it, and it worked beautifully. I figure that if I can master top-down construction, it will help me reverse-engineer the process so I can figure out how to knit fingers from the body of the glove. I haven't touched them, though, because I remember how bloody defeated the last attempt at fingers made me feel.
Sigh. I need to work on them, though. I need to conquer this ridiculous problem, because I want a drawerful of gorgeous gloves for me and I want to knit some for friends. Fingerless mittens have been a nice stopgap measure, and I think I'd be more apt to give those as gifts because the fit is easier to manage, but damn it, I want biker gloves, and I want a lot of them!
Little did I know that would be the first and only time I managed to do fingers well. I tried for months in 2007 to make another pair, and I just couldn't get the goddamned fingers to flow from the body of the glove. I tried winging it, I tried following patterns, I tried different yarn and needle sizes, and I just couldn't do it. I can't be having with fingers that stick out randomly, or bunch the fabric, or don't lie flat when the glove is lying on a table. Standards, I have them. And they make me crazy. (Sometimes I think I have standards solely to punish myself for failing to meet them.)
Making fingers just grow out of the body of a glove is one of those things that seem like it should be easy.
- Divide the sts on the back of the hand by 4, jigger the numbers so the index and middle fingers have more sts, eyeball it. Once satisfied, place stitch markers and divide the palm sts using the same numbers.
- Move pinkie sts to dpns. Knit to pinkie. Using new yarn, knit the pinkie in the round, casting on a few sts between it and the ring finger to make a tube. Knit, bind off, weave in ends.
- Using your main ball of yarn, pick up stitches between the ring finger and pinkie and resume knitting in the round. Knit a couple of rows to stabilize the cast-on stitches.
- Using new yarn, knit the ring finger, picking up sts between the ring and middle fingers. Knit and bind off.
- Using new yarn, knit the middle finger, picking up sts between the ring and middle fingers and between the middle and index fingers. Knit and bind off.
- Using main yarn, knit index finger, picking up sts between the middle and index fingers. Knit and bind off.
And yet, as simple as it seems, in practice, not so much. I got so fed up in 2007 that I didn't even TRY in 2008. In December, I cast on a pair of knucks, because they are knit from the fingers down. I've worked a pair before to test it, and it worked beautifully. I figure that if I can master top-down construction, it will help me reverse-engineer the process so I can figure out how to knit fingers from the body of the glove. I haven't touched them, though, because I remember how bloody defeated the last attempt at fingers made me feel.
Sigh. I need to work on them, though. I need to conquer this ridiculous problem, because I want a drawerful of gorgeous gloves for me and I want to knit some for friends. Fingerless mittens have been a nice stopgap measure, and I think I'd be more apt to give those as gifts because the fit is easier to manage, but damn it, I want biker gloves, and I want a lot of them!
king of the idiot savants
Sometimes, such as when a friend hands me knitting to fix, I feel like a knitting rockstar. I sure as hell don't know how to do everything, but I'm confident that I can learn anything I want to. (Except, it seems, how to deal with fucking laceweight without having a brain hemorrhage.)
Sometimes, however, I feel like a goddamned IDIOT who should just sell off all her supplies and twiddle her thumbs for a hobby. I was working on another Aveline hat, this one made out of my own handspun. Somewhere around the third row of the crown decreases, I realized something had gone wrong a few rows back. The nice
Here's what it's supposed to look like. From left to right: a k3, k2tog, yo, k2 sequence that alternates rows with plain knitting.
See? Perfectly goddamned simple, right? I had gorked something up between the k2tog and the yo a few rows back, so all I should have to do would be to drop the k2tog and the yo back the the original screwup, and knit the two stitches back up. IT TOOK AT LEAST HALF AN HOUR. I don't know what kind of idiot possessed my brain last night, but I couldn't get it right. I couldn't find the problem. Instead of a nice ladder of yarn waiting to be picked up and reknit, I had a crossed ladder, and I couldn't seem to see where the problem originated from. I glared at it and swore, and ripped back further, and finally realized there was a problem one stitch to the left and ripped THAT down and finally I had a neat uncrossed ladder of yarn and 3 stitches waiting to be picked up. Of course, I forgot the first crown increase, and had to rip back and fix that, but FINALLY it was fixed and looked indistinguishable from any other repeat.
I would just like to know WHY something perfectly simple took so long to fix -- a yo followed by a k2tog? Why was that hard? Why did I have to work so hard to fix it?
Sometimes, however, I feel like a goddamned IDIOT who should just sell off all her supplies and twiddle her thumbs for a hobby. I was working on another Aveline hat, this one made out of my own handspun. Somewhere around the third row of the crown decreases, I realized something had gone wrong a few rows back. The nice
Here's what it's supposed to look like. From left to right: a k3, k2tog, yo, k2 sequence that alternates rows with plain knitting.
See? Perfectly goddamned simple, right? I had gorked something up between the k2tog and the yo a few rows back, so all I should have to do would be to drop the k2tog and the yo back the the original screwup, and knit the two stitches back up. IT TOOK AT LEAST HALF AN HOUR. I don't know what kind of idiot possessed my brain last night, but I couldn't get it right. I couldn't find the problem. Instead of a nice ladder of yarn waiting to be picked up and reknit, I had a crossed ladder, and I couldn't seem to see where the problem originated from. I glared at it and swore, and ripped back further, and finally realized there was a problem one stitch to the left and ripped THAT down and finally I had a neat uncrossed ladder of yarn and 3 stitches waiting to be picked up. Of course, I forgot the first crown increase, and had to rip back and fix that, but FINALLY it was fixed and looked indistinguishable from any other repeat.
I would just like to know WHY something perfectly simple took so long to fix -- a yo followed by a k2tog? Why was that hard? Why did I have to work so hard to fix it?
Sunday, February 8, 2009
plying, blooming
I think one of these days soon I'm going to spin some singles, Navajo ply them, and play around with how much twist I add. (I chain in one step and then add twist.) I want to ply one length the way I usually do -- eyeball it and guess. Then I want to overply one length and underply another.
I want to run this little science experiment because I don't know how much my yarn will bloom when I wash/whack it, and I'm getting to a point where I'm not content to be surprised. Take my last yarn, Hot. I started knitting a hat with it tonight, and while I'm not unhappy with it, I wonder if it would have bloomed more if I had added a bit less twist. (Or it could have been limp and lifeless.) On the other hand, if I had added more twist, I think I might have ended up with a still-soft but firm and sturdy yarn. (Or it could have been wire.)
I'm going to run this experiment using SW merino, since that is what I work with most often. I'd really like to be able to produce a 3 or 4 ply worsted that is round and soft and smooshy, and the bloom is what makes it smooshy.
For Ravelry members, the first post in this thread on blooming is what prompted my interest. Look at the before/after pictures!
I want to run this little science experiment because I don't know how much my yarn will bloom when I wash/whack it, and I'm getting to a point where I'm not content to be surprised. Take my last yarn, Hot. I started knitting a hat with it tonight, and while I'm not unhappy with it, I wonder if it would have bloomed more if I had added a bit less twist. (Or it could have been limp and lifeless.) On the other hand, if I had added more twist, I think I might have ended up with a still-soft but firm and sturdy yarn. (Or it could have been wire.)
I'm going to run this experiment using SW merino, since that is what I work with most often. I'd really like to be able to produce a 3 or 4 ply worsted that is round and soft and smooshy, and the bloom is what makes it smooshy.
For Ravelry members, the first post in this thread on blooming is what prompted my interest. Look at the before/after pictures!
Saturday, February 7, 2009
lyl's 5-rib mitts
I knit these fingerless mitts for Lyl's birthday.
I used Barbara Walker’s Loose 5 Rib Braid from A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns. I knit them to fit Lyl's hands, and they do! HOORAY!!!
I used Barbara Walker’s Loose 5 Rib Braid from A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns. I knit them to fit Lyl's hands, and they do! HOORAY!!!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
cables
Last night I finished my 3rd pair of cabled mitts, and I've been going through Barbara Walker's First & Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns, trying to decide on my next cable pattern. Evidently, cables are addictive. I now have to buy Cables Untangled, because this Ravelry project uses a stitch from it.
For someone who really doesn't like cables, I'm getting awfully interested in them.
For someone who really doesn't like cables, I'm getting awfully interested in them.
Monday, February 2, 2009
the magic of blocking
I was thrilled with my merino/silk Aveline hat before it was blocked.
In fact, I contemplated leaving it alone, because I was slightly afraid I'd fuck it up in the blocking process. I've never actually blocked anything before -- I mainly knit socks. But I figured, people block for a reason, so let's do it. I carefully soaked the hat in Eucalan, squeezed out the excess water, and pulled it over a roll of paper towels that I had wrapped a towel around.
And it is breathtaking!
I get it now! Look at the way the eyelets opened up, and look at the soft drape the fabric has now! I cannot WAIT to finish my Strangling Vine scarf and Leaf Lace shawl so I can block them!
In fact, I contemplated leaving it alone, because I was slightly afraid I'd fuck it up in the blocking process. I've never actually blocked anything before -- I mainly knit socks. But I figured, people block for a reason, so let's do it. I carefully soaked the hat in Eucalan, squeezed out the excess water, and pulled it over a roll of paper towels that I had wrapped a towel around.
And it is breathtaking!
I get it now! Look at the way the eyelets opened up, and look at the soft drape the fabric has now! I cannot WAIT to finish my Strangling Vine scarf and Leaf Lace shawl so I can block them!
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