that 70s craft

the ocular proof

i have not been knitting very much in 2012.  i completed 12 adult sized sweaters in 2011 plus several other complex projects, so i was a bit burned out on the yarn and needles.

perfect time to find different yarn and needles, right?  right.

my cousin had been needlepointing--a craft i had never tried--and for christmas i wanted to buy for her some new needlepoint kits.  that is how i found the lovely 70s pillow kit you see to the left.

on one hand, i love it.  it is very easy and i can just kick back and work on something while i am listening to the radio or watching a movie.  much of this pillow has been stitched while watching the second season of Downton Abbey.  on the other hand, this, like all needlework type crafting seems slow to me.  i am spoiled by knitting and crochet (and especially sewing) when it comes to amount of gratification for amount of time sent.


i am on to the border areas now, which means more strawberries.  i will post another picture when i have more progress, but i have also picked up a sweater i put aside last year.

intarsia

instarsia is also known as "picture knitting". it is most often seen in the wild in the following 4 forms:

1. teacher sweaters.

2. reindeer sweaters.

3. big 1980s flower sweaters.

4. kiddo sweaters.

it is a very challenging means to creating an incredibly tacky end product. unless it is a cute kiddo sweater. i like to think this strawberry, my first foray into this form, falls under heading #4.

yeeeesssss

this photo represents my current state of mind.

i am full steam ahead on a single minded mission to knit the edginging on to Collin's christening shawl. i am now 75% finished with said edging (i week ago i was 20% finished), and i feel this haze setting into my line of vision. everything that is not cream lace edging receds in importance.

who knew knitting come be so important and consuming. i have high hopes for this project. time will tell.

and shortly, i hope!

in other news, rW brought me orange roses. this is one of my favourite colors for roses. beautiful.



did anyone else notice how my blog's coolness just went down 17% as soon as i introduced lace and roses into it tonight? yeah.

the first

for the first time ever, i have run out of yarn on a project. moreover, i have run out of yarn on a project on which i should have had enough because...

1. i have the amount the pattern calls for.
2. i am getting gauge.
3. um. this never happens to me.

this almost happened with the sweater i made my father. according to the book, i needed 7 skeins, i bought 9. i used all but 4 yards of the last skein. nice.

but at least i had what i needed that time, and more importantly i could get more because i bought the yarn where i work. is that the case this time? no way. this is bright red vintage angora i bought in ohio at the yarn shop my mum and i only go to because well... it is there. and there may be something interesting.

like angora.
the kind i only need 4 more yards of to finish a project. gah.

good news: my mum found it, and when i go visit for turkey day, i will be able to finish my project.

the fun part of the full week. sorta.

rW and i have made some good progress on our puzzle despite only working on it intermittently. we did most of it last saturday and another hour of puzzling on one week night. we mostly have water and rocks left... some trees.

i did all of the sky at once.
go me.

i may have already bought a new puzzle. maybe. ahem.

i can tell you i bought new sneakers yesterday. all of my shoes are dying, and i needed something to replace the 4 pairs of canvas/rubber combos i pitched over the last few months. i also threw out a pair of real sneakers yesterday, but i may have to ask santa for some of those.

last night we went out to the beer store and discovered they had 7oz shorty high life!

high life is my favourite cheap beer. i got the 8-pack of shorties for $3.49. these may be the most perfect thing ever because i don't always want a whole beer.

meet Owloysius. he is a fan of the champagne of beers too.

i have done a lot of knitting on the shawl this week because my car had to go to the doctor and i had a lot of time on the metro. also, i sat (knit) through a first rehearsal of one show and the design run for another. i finished up the body of the shawl, knit the eyelet border, increased to a multiple of 8, and started the knit-on edging.

the edging experience has been a doozy. many false starts and corrections, but i think i have it now. 3 repeats down 51 to go!

holey wow.

this is piece of unblocked lace. um. that's why it looks so goofy and relatively bad compared to other projects i have shown here. don't worry, it will be pretty before the end of next month!

this is the christening shawl for my future nephew. mama knows i am making it for the bambino, but i hope my FBL doesn't tell her i posted a progress photo. ahem. this project is really giving me a run for my money.

i am a new lace knitter, and this has been a learning experience.

i have decided that non-repeating patterns are difficult for me. i can't memorize the knot motif so i am glued to the chart row by row. i would be in agony of i were knitting this to a full stole size with repeats of the knot chart.

but i am not!
and it will be beautiful and worth all the careful chart reading when i have knit the last stitch, blocked it so it looks like something and a new wee person is wrapped up in it.

in other news...
i finished rW's tie. it is beautiful. i don't have modeled photos yet because we have both been very busy this week. i had 2 first rehearsals, 2 production meetings, 1 nineteen hour work day, 3 shifts at the shop, costume fittings, and a partridge in a pear tree. i'm glad it was only a 4 day week!

after the crazy week, rW went out for dinner last night. it was fantastic. we went to Franklin's in Hyattsville (why do they not have a website? or why is it so hard to find?) and i was pleased this go around. i used to go there all the time in grad school, and it was great, but over the last year, it was really sucking. i was pleased to see that this time we had good food, fast service, and a wonderful server.

this last point is especially important to me. i have had the lamest servers there every time i have been in the last year and a half.

we had a relatively simple dinner. beer (yay brew pub!), fresh made rolls, and salads. my salad was mix greens topped with grilled peaches, rd onion, blue cheese, pecans, and a sherry vinaigrette. rW had a salad of mixed heirloom tomatoes, red onion, and slices of feta cheese finished with a lemon dressing.

i cannot even describe how delicious the lemon dressing was on his salad. it is even difficult to describe the dressing itself, it was so unusual.

we went to the attached general store after dinner, and it inspired us to buy a puzzle. a jigsaw puzzle. yes, we are preparing for our geriatric years now.

750 pieces of pretty coastline. i think it is an italian sea town. i will keep you posted as the puzzle develops and my grey hair comes to visit.

la mer

last week during previews for my latest show i was forced (really, my arm was twisted) to start a new project i could knit in the total darkness of a theatre. voila! new tie for rW in the works. it is knit in 100% italian silk making it a treat for both of us.

i think this color will be very nice with his eyes.

socka socka socka

conditions under which you can knit a sweater for a man...

1. he is your father, brother, grandfather, or a really awesome and appreciative cousin or in-law.

2. you are married to the recipient or have been together long enough to be considered common law.

3. you have signed a pre-knit-ual agreement.

4. you want to end your relationship.

even though rW is a sweater wearing, knit-desiring, pretty-awesome guy, he does not fit into any of these descriptors. however, i am a total sucker.

very few knitters have men in their lives that want to have things knit for them... let alone a tie. yes, a tie. people are pretty evenly divided on knit ties. either they hate them or they love them, and most people who i know who love them have no one to knit one for.

this is my first knit tie, and it has been fun to make so far. it goes faster than you would expect for fingering weight yarn on size US 3 needles. i find that i can get in a rhythm with the linen stitch after a few rows and it moves.

rW calls it a sock tie, which i think is a funny name, but i guess it is accurate because it is knit from sock yarn. the truly silly thing is that despite calling it a sock tie, last night we were looking at knit ties on ravelry and he didn't like one we saw because it looked "too much" like a sock.

silly!

grumblelacegrumblegrumble

small lace update.

i made it 2.5" into the center chart on the christening shawl this weekend. yay!

today, however, i decided to knit this morning because i got up a little early. i gave myself a certain amount of time to allot to my lace, and i used it all. but made only one row of progress.

when i looked at the project this morning, i thought about sticking in a new lifeline (prompted by rW wondering last night when i would put in another) but then i got cocky and decided not to for a few more rows. bad move.

i messed up the side frame charts. i knit the same row twice and didn't notice until i had already purled back the next row and started a new knit row. without a life line, i could not simply rip. i had to tink* back two whole lace rows of 150+ stitches. i had just enough time left in my allotment to reknit one row.

gah.


*tink = knit spelled backwards. or "unknitting". there. a knitting term f the day for the civilians.

growing pains

my other half is supportive of my knitting habit. i may even say he gets excited about my projects. the other day he even gave me a hand massage. my right wrist is starting to cramp, and while he says it may be from too much knitting, i am still in denial.

let's blame stress.

i was on the phone with my cousin last night, and i got a little knot in my stomach (nothing, i am sure, compared to hers) when she told me she is right around the halfway mark with her pregnancy. i have a lot of knitting to do!

i have the bottom frame section done on the christening shawl. i now need to start the center chart, and because i am a big wuss, i have not begun. granted, i was finishing up a sweater, a 2nd mitten, and a few other mindless projects. now i need to buckle down and alternate between finishing the sweater for my boss and this shawl.

i must finish the lace if i want to be able to move on to the other gifts! wrist, do not fail me now!

here is a detail shot of the bottom frame section. it is stretched and pinned down on a pillow for the photo, but i have not blocked this project yet at all.

too much. too much. much too much.

this past weekend my mother came for a visit. it was a long and crazy weekend. we went to two knits shops (where she got yarn for 2 sweaters and 2 pairs of socks), drank martinis, visited with my aunt's family, drank mojitos, visited with one of my college roommates, drank coffee, saw two plays in one day, delighted in avocados, spent 1h, 45m at the MVA, had the worst waiter ever, and she met my boyfriend.

it was pretty awesome.

in addition she finished a baby blanket and i finished my sweater, although the sweater and i have not fully made peace. it is currently too big, and after it finishes drying from the good blocking i gave it today, it will probably undergo surgery.

if it cannot be saved, i may give it away to a knitting girlfriend it looks better on or give it to my little cousin. she has more athletic build than me, and it would probably look fantastic on her.

i suppose my third option is eating cream puffs until i fill it out or saving it in case i ever have a baby. ha.

cheers

happy memorial day, all you US folks. i spent the holiday in a fashion highly atypical for me--mostly relaxed. and doing some personal shopping.

i decided it was time to replace some glassware after i broke a piece last week (my first of the 15+ i am now missing). i have very bad luck with my glasses and other people. in the last 7 years i have lost many, many pieces by the hands of my various roommates. see that one lone black stemmed wine glass? that is the last of a set of 6. i also used to have four martini glasses and four margarita glasses, but my landlord (or maybe the property manager) stole them from my last apartment when i was moving*.

i made do with what i had for a couple years, but when i could no longer serve wine to myself and a guest, something had to change. i did splurge a bit getting the martini glasses, but the four of them and the six wine glasses all together cost less than $20. go World Market! yay Ikea!

i also started a new project despite May being the month of finishing. i started a scarf from my stash because i wanted something purely mindless to knit while relaxing on memorial day. it is hard to pay attention to sweater armhole decreases and a guest at the same time.

it is the "Men's" Rustic Scarf from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. either joelle hoverson is obsessed with naming things especially for men, or the publisher was afraid people without brains would not notice the man-oriented items in the book. odd.

i am knitting it from stash yarn, and i have no definite plans for the finished project yet. maybe i am starting my holiday knitting without knowing it!


* i left my glasses over night and planned to pick them up the next day because the car was full and i didn't want to break them. i came back the next day to people stripping my hardwood floors and my glasses missing. i had 2 weeks left on the lease, and i was fully paid up. (!!!!!)

going green

i love the color green, and it is showing up in my knitting a lot. for a long time i knit almost exclusively in back and grey for myself, but green is my favourite "real" color for knitting now. today i have a finished greenie and a work in progress that is coming along nicely.

"Men's" Cashmere Scarf
designed by Joelle Hoverson
published in Last-Minute Knitted Gifts

knit in Karabella Cashmere Elite (4+ balls #13340 Olive, 100% cashmere) received as a gift, on size US 6 birch needles.

started: january 2008.
finished: may 20, 2008.

my boss at the knit shop gave me 5 balls of this cashmere for christmas. i love the color. she did a great job picking out what would be "me" as well as surprising me with something i would not buy for myself (cashmere is a little rich for an artist's budget, even with my discount). i used every little bit between a pair of super-cute baby bootees and the rest going into this scarf.

i used a slightly modified version of Hoverson's pattern to knit my scarf. i cast on 45 stitches to accommodate the DK weight yarn (the pattern calls for a chunky yarn and only 21 stitches), and i guess i made one last modification.... um... i am not a man, and this scarf is for me. so, let's just ignore that title.

i have declared May the month of finishing, and i have made remarkable progress on my Gathered Pullover. after pulling out the first 6+ inches of the body back in February, i was slow to regain ground, but a few trips on the metro and i made it up to the cables this weekend. i manged to work through the entire cable chart and the first side front section. i am getting very close to a finished sweater! i am exceedingly pleased with myself for knitting the sleeves first.

unfortunately, i think this is going to fit my shape poorly. hm. but i am going to finish it and figure out how to fix it if it comes to such drastic measures. keep your fingers crossed for me.

not for a lack of material

i have several finished objects that i completed while i was not knit blogging. i squeezed in time to knit, but getting the pictures taken and projects detailed was a little above and beyond.

starting with the oldest...

Classic Cashmere Bootees
designed by Erika Knight
published in Simple Knits for Cherished Babies

knit in Karabella "Cashmere Elite" (#13340 Olive, 100% cashmere) purchased at K+S=B on size US 4 bamboo DPNs.

started/finished: 02.27.08

i was given 5 balls of this cashmere, and i am not a fan of very long scarves, so i used 2/3rds of a ball to knit these. super cute! i knit them before i knew of any babies on the way. now they may have little feet to adorn very soon!

Orangini
designed by Jil Eaton
from Minnowknits

knit in Schulana "Merino Cotton 90" (2 skeins lime, 1 skein electric blue, 53% cotton, 47% wool) on size US 8 needles.

started: March 18, 2008
finished: April 16, 2008

i finished this as a store model. someone else started it in March of 2007 and let it sit after knitting 80% of the back piece. i picked it up out of the back room and finished it up in a few afternoons at work.

love knitting with this yarn!

Luscious Collar
designed by Annette Petavy
published in Interweave Crochet, fall 2006

knit and crocheted in Debbie Bliss "Alpaca Silk" (3 skeins gold, 80% Baby Alpaca 20% Silk) on size US 7 needles and size US I crochet hook.

started: april 22, 2008
finished: april 30, 2008

i whipped up this little number for my mum's birthday. i was in tech at the time for a show with a near 3 hour run time, and i needed something i could knit in the dark. it turned out very well, and she loved it because it is knit in one of her favourite types of yarn--alpaca! good color for my mum too.

finally...

Elegant and Easy Cable Mittens
designed by Marci Richardson
published in 101 Designer One Skein Wonders

knit in Dream in Color "Classy" (1/2 skein "Spring Tickle" 100% superwash merino) on size US 4 & 5 DPNs.

started: february 29, 2008
finished: may 18, 2008

this is my second pair of mittens from this pattern. this time i used seed stitch instead of stockinette for the non-cabled portions of the mitten. i love love love knitting with this yarn. colors are fab!

my shame.

this is all knitting blah blah blah. (fyi for my non-kitting readers.)


i currently have an obscene number of UFOs. un. finished. objects. most of them are playing for the 50% team. boo on that.

i have decided that i need to take a few down before i 1. do any more lizard ridge squares. 2. start the other parts of my cousins' baby gifts or 3. start carving out serious shawl time. i like knitting the shawl, and it has a (distant) deadline, but some of these old friends need to come off the books.

i worked on the Gathered Pullover in front of a movie the other night. each round is 152 boring stitches right now and i have not quiet caught up to where i had to tear it all out and start over. reknitting stocking stitch in the round is not as fun as i wish it was. this will get better once i pass the "tear out" mark and even better once i can work the cable motif.

when i got too bored with the sweater, i finished the movie up by knitting on my cashmere scarf. it is also boring, but i wanted something simple to show off the cashmere. so, yeah. dull. dull. dull. BUT! inspired by how quickly it was coming together, i managed to knit through the 3rd of 4 balls of yarn tonight. it was helped by the fact that i switched from metal to birch needles... the metal was almost too slick for my cashmere, and the birch sped me up a bit.

i joined in some cashmere left over from a 5th ball i knit into a tiny project instead of breaking into the 4th intact ball. in is probably only about 30 yards. if i had waited to use my partial at the end, i could see myself deciding to bind off after ball 4 and never use the partial. discipline! let no cashmere go unknit.

this scarf is on my hit list. as well as the 2nd cabled mitten. (i LOVE the mittens. they are fun to knit and the yarn rocks--Dream in Color "Classy") i will feel much less shame about the pullover or sock once these other two re done. i will also stop feeling like the only color i knit with is green.

(it sort of is.)

lizard ridge #6

just a quick little update. i finished the the 6th panel on the lizard ridge. i laid the 5 that were not drying from being blocked across my floor last night and decided that i may need the blanket to be 6 panels wide instead of 5.

that means i need to decide if i want to make it 5 tall by 6 wide... or go ahead and knit 36 instead of 30 panels. (i have already mentally upsized from the 24 panels called for in the pattern). i could also d a larger crochet border since, well... i like crocheting. =)

speaking of... i am now off to being the process of crocheting together a 180 panel afghan for a customer at the store. yes, i am being paid.

lizard ridge #5

yesterday i decided to minimize my productivity. i have been working so hard for so long that i really needed a day off. yes, i know it was a monday. what's it to you, huh?

i did dig out my bedroom so i would no longer be swallowed by my "tech piles". and i knit. a lot. i finished the 5th block of my Lizard Ridge, and i am very close to completing the 6th block.

when i finish the 6th, i will go back to my unfinished projects, which as you may note from the side bar, are piling up on me. (piles! imagine that.) the christening shawl is the only one that has a deadline, but i have had a good reason to not work on it in the last 2 weeks... i'm not crazy enough to knit lace dog tired.

this block was knit in Noro Kureyon colorway number 182.

lizard ridge #4

i have had very little time to knit or crochet with my hectic work schedule, but i recently spent several hours sitting at the MVA getting my title and plates changed on my car. i needed a project that i could easily keep track of in a noisy (potentially uncomfortable) room so i wouldn't go stir crazy.

ta-da.
my afghan squares!
this one was completed almost exclusively under unusual circumstances. sitting and standing in line at the MVA was one half. i did about 1/4 of it in complete darkness, and most of the last bit was done in the car, stuck in traffic (i moved 5 miles in nearly 3 hours, perfectly safe knitting "speeds"). i bound it off at home.

this is Noro Kureyon in colorway number 95. i loved it in the skein. i wish it had knit up with a little more variety. because i am doing 6 pattern repeats instead of five on my blocks, when i came to the end of my yarn all i had left was one color... so i cut it and finished off the last stripe with the remains of a prior ball.

i made a little mistake in the pattern on this block, and i did not notice until after i blocked the piece. boo. maybe i will be the only one who notices...?

i doubt it!

when i was awake and not working

another tech week has come and gone. this one was particularly tricky and energy draining for several reasons.

1. cast of 19 actors ranging in age from 14-40ish.
2. Chicago = musical. musical = always more work.
3. 118 mile round trip drive daily. (that is approx 60-75 minutes one way)
4. rain. lots of it.
5. i was trying to get 2 other shows under control at the same time.

but when i was awake and not working, some interesting things happened.

for instance, i learned that you can buy drain opener in a convenient 80 oz family size bottle. this is very good when you live in an old apartment and this elixir of life allow you to shower and wash dishes. i always just bought two bottles at a time in the past. score!

while picking up some props for the director of my next show i bought a second 6-drawer organizer. it is now filled with all of the notions, trim, crafty bits, and other flotsam and jetsam of being a costume designer. i used to keep this stuff in bags piled in my anne frank closet (yes, that is the name--and it is a story) with little rhyme or reason because i hadn't taken the step to get organized. now my sequins are all together! now i won't buy a 15th package of 3/8" wide non-roll black elastic!


this organizational bender (which was undoubtedly fueled by sleep deprivation) reveled that i own 9 tape measures. yes, 9. that i am aware of. new ones crop up all the time. but i can never find one when i want it. if you looks closely in my new and improved bag of tape measures (in a drawer!) you will see that one of those tape measures is still in the package. nice.


i finished knitting a mitten. production meetings are always so long, and you spend so much time talking about light cues that traveling with knitting is a must. i am lucky that my director for this show is a friend and he is married to one of my knitting BFFs. he gets it.

isn't the mitten beautiful?
i love it. i can't wait until i have two finished mittens! i am also excited about taking a picture outside in real light. the colors are amazing in real light. this is my own take on an existing pattern. don't look too closely at the top decreases they are hard to work in seed stitch and maintain the pattern.

i shiver with anticipation!

by the end of the week my hands should be warm again. i have not had proper hand coverings since i put my own gloves into a show the first week of january. (always the shoe maker's children....)

fun stuff, huh?