So I've heard on other blogger's sites about how they occasionally lose their various knitting instruments and I always thought that it was an oddity how things can disappear and how it hadn't happened to me... until yesterday! I went to knit on my latest dishcloth I am working on and I pulled out the cloth, then pulled out the pattern and pulled out my... WHERE IS MY KACHA-KACHA? I am still befuddled where it went. I looked in the sofas, in my bed (last known location of my kacha-kacha), under the sofas, under the bed... and found nothing. Sigh. I was getting all excited too because I was finally knitting something that would make me click over 99 rows! But no, it was not meant to be. So for now I sit and ponder what venue to purchase my replacement kacha-kacha from.
Anyways, on to what Santa brought! (this will need to be followed up with a photo post because some things are too funny to not be photographed) So I got a couple of presents at my client before Christmas, including some Godiva chocolates and a $25 AMC movie theater gift card and some Bath & Body Works travel size lotions and the neat 2007 Knitting Pattern-a-Day calendar. Hubby bought a very nice Nikon digital camera from a friend which will nicely replace my ancient Olympus camera that I have had since, oh, 2000. Very cool stuff. I'll have to read the manual now so I can get how to operate it! He also got me some lovely handmade jewelry made by his co-worker's mother-in-law. The entertaining gift I got from him was an i-Cat!! I have been wanting an i-Dog since I saw how cute they are but when they put out the cat version, I wanted one even more. (Although, they released a tiger i-Dog. WTF. Since when are dogs tigers?) When we were unpacking the gift boxes from my in-laws, I thought one of them felt like it was a very familiar weight and shape... so on Christmas morning I found out it was! I got another copy of the knitting pattern-a-day calendar previously mentioned. So amusing. It got re-gifted to my friend's wife that came over for Christmas dinner (who prefers to purl rather than knit... I kid you not!). Also re-gifted to the same family's son was the dragon pop up book that my mother-in-law bought my hubby. I mean, she's given odd gifts before but man, she gets a prize this year because she gave us BOTH weird presents. In the box that was labeled "Open First!!!" was a pretty Snow White snow globe, with Snow White in the arms of Prince Charming and the dwarves looking at the two of them both inside and outside the globe. The weirdness is that the song the snow globe plays is... Someday my prince will come in. My thought was "considering I married her son, wouldn't you think my prince had already come in??). I'm not quite sure where she came from with that gift but I guess it got extrapolated somehow from my love of Mickey Mouse. Anyways, she meant well and it was sweet of her but man it is weird!! My mom was very thoughtful, she got me the awesome Vogue Knitting Stitchionary Volume 1: Knit & Purl: The Ultimate Stitch Dictionary as well as Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's book Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot's Bag of Knitting Tricks. Being a Yarn Harlot addict however, I of course not only own this book but I also have my copy autographed! Thankfully she did give me the receipt so I am sure I can go to the bookstore and find another knitting book that I don't already own! (I did recently purchase the Reader's Digest book The Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches and the Vogue stitches have quite a few different stitches so both books are great to have and very inspirational!) (Though, I must say that while both books have color photos of the stitches, the RD book has them in varying colors, not just the same green color... that's a lot of green yarn imo!)
Well, enough going on and on about my goofy mother-in-law. Hopefully the holidays were happy for everyone out there however you celebrated them!
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Obsession is totally worth it
I know I've already said it, but wow, these socks are gorgeous. I finished them Saturday morning and I am so loving them. First up, a shot of the detail on the foot. This is a good shot because you can see both the "whisker" detail as well as the lace detail that is for the paw prints.
Next up: the picot cuff detail. While the top down version makes this part a real cinch where you don't have to sew, but I didn't mind it at all since I am so pleased with the result:
Finally, here is the full view of the socks in all their loveliness. Pattern again is the Whiskers and Paw Prints sock by the Keyboard Biologist. Yarn is Cherry Tree Hill in the Northern Lights colorway.
Simply exquisite. I am so pleased with my first non-stockinette sock pattern. I will likely knit this pattern again because I am such a cat lover and I just really really like the pattern details. The CTH yarn is very nice stuff. It's superwash so it shouldn't felt, though I will probably still hand wash it. I worked wayyy too hard on these socks to take a risk that anything will happen to them!
One more addition to the sock yarn stash before I go. I bought some Yarn Pirate sock yarn from The Loopy Ewe this week. The gal who runs this online site is really neat. She shipped out amazingly fast (I think I bought this stuff on Wednesday and I got it in the mail on Saturday!) and she also handwrote a note that she included in my box. Plus, the yarn is gorgeous!! Please, admire:
Nice stuff. The colorway on the left is Paris and the one on the right is Wildflower. Both are really beautiful and I am looking so forward to knitting with them. The sock on the left is likely to become a pair of socks for my mother in law (we're supposed to be going to Paris in early 2007). Not sure what the yarn on the right will become, likely a lovely pair of socks! Yarr!
In case I don't post again before the holiday, Merry Christmas, my dear internets. :)
Next up: the picot cuff detail. While the top down version makes this part a real cinch where you don't have to sew, but I didn't mind it at all since I am so pleased with the result:
Finally, here is the full view of the socks in all their loveliness. Pattern again is the Whiskers and Paw Prints sock by the Keyboard Biologist. Yarn is Cherry Tree Hill in the Northern Lights colorway.
Simply exquisite. I am so pleased with my first non-stockinette sock pattern. I will likely knit this pattern again because I am such a cat lover and I just really really like the pattern details. The CTH yarn is very nice stuff. It's superwash so it shouldn't felt, though I will probably still hand wash it. I worked wayyy too hard on these socks to take a risk that anything will happen to them!One more addition to the sock yarn stash before I go. I bought some Yarn Pirate sock yarn from The Loopy Ewe this week. The gal who runs this online site is really neat. She shipped out amazingly fast (I think I bought this stuff on Wednesday and I got it in the mail on Saturday!) and she also handwrote a note that she included in my box. Plus, the yarn is gorgeous!! Please, admire:
Nice stuff. The colorway on the left is Paris and the one on the right is Wildflower. Both are really beautiful and I am looking so forward to knitting with them. The sock on the left is likely to become a pair of socks for my mother in law (we're supposed to be going to Paris in early 2007). Not sure what the yarn on the right will become, likely a lovely pair of socks! Yarr!
In case I don't post again before the holiday, Merry Christmas, my dear internets. :)
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
I am SO OBSESSED
So this post is going to be entirely text since I am blogging from work. (Oh yes, I am being a naughty consultant but I need a break from the Statement of Cash Flows that I have been working on this week. Ugh.)
I am SO in love with these Whiskers and Paw Prints socks. I am over halfway done with turning the heel, so shortly I will be on my way up the leg and on to my second picot cuff. (Very pretty result, the picot cuff. Very foreign as well to knitting a stockinette cuff, I feel so odd not ribbing something!) The Cherry Tree Hill yarn is very yummy to touch. It's nice to knit with except that the Northern Lights colorway is VERY hard to work with at times. It has several different colors in it, from a very bright fuscia, a cherryish color (looks like the fuscia blended with the darkest shade in the yarn), a darkish violet, a bright green, a not as bright green (also blended with the darkest shade) and the difficult color black. I've had to knit at times with a reasonably bright light around because it can be hard to see the stitches with such dark yarn. A bit of pooling too going on but I think with the pattern going on it's enough to balance the pooling. I am fairly certain that I will knit these socks again, though next time I will be sure and use a brighter varigated yarn if not a solid color yarn. I knew going into this that the color might be a bit dark for the pattern, but the darkness still doesn't take away from the beauty of the sock.
Anyways, I ought to have these socks finished by the weekend. I have ignored all other knitting projects (including a goofy felted pillow thing I was going to knit for a friend, I even bought the yarn!) but that may change since I still need to knit this guitar dishcloth for the squirrel cloth recipient's brother. But dishcloths are cake and only take a couple of hours so I'll have no problem finishing by Monday! I'm thinking the yarn that I bought for the pillow will end up being felted as something else at this point. I'm not sure I want to knit that whole pillow thing anyways. I started knitting a swatch so that I could see if it would felt into a 4"x4" square but that hasn't been finished knitting yet so I think I'm going to abandon it. I think I will just frog it and figure out what kind of felted bag I will make with the yarn instead.
That's all for now since it is time to get back to work~!
Edit: Oh yeah, I was going to mention that the smocked cloth is en route to my mom in Florida as of yesterday. I tossed it in her Christmas package as I was stuffing in the packing peanuts. I think she will like it, it was a very pretty cloth. Perhaps one of these days I will take the time to actually knit myself a dishcloth I won't send packing off to someone else!!
I am SO in love with these Whiskers and Paw Prints socks. I am over halfway done with turning the heel, so shortly I will be on my way up the leg and on to my second picot cuff. (Very pretty result, the picot cuff. Very foreign as well to knitting a stockinette cuff, I feel so odd not ribbing something!) The Cherry Tree Hill yarn is very yummy to touch. It's nice to knit with except that the Northern Lights colorway is VERY hard to work with at times. It has several different colors in it, from a very bright fuscia, a cherryish color (looks like the fuscia blended with the darkest shade in the yarn), a darkish violet, a bright green, a not as bright green (also blended with the darkest shade) and the difficult color black. I've had to knit at times with a reasonably bright light around because it can be hard to see the stitches with such dark yarn. A bit of pooling too going on but I think with the pattern going on it's enough to balance the pooling. I am fairly certain that I will knit these socks again, though next time I will be sure and use a brighter varigated yarn if not a solid color yarn. I knew going into this that the color might be a bit dark for the pattern, but the darkness still doesn't take away from the beauty of the sock.
Anyways, I ought to have these socks finished by the weekend. I have ignored all other knitting projects (including a goofy felted pillow thing I was going to knit for a friend, I even bought the yarn!) but that may change since I still need to knit this guitar dishcloth for the squirrel cloth recipient's brother. But dishcloths are cake and only take a couple of hours so I'll have no problem finishing by Monday! I'm thinking the yarn that I bought for the pillow will end up being felted as something else at this point. I'm not sure I want to knit that whole pillow thing anyways. I started knitting a swatch so that I could see if it would felt into a 4"x4" square but that hasn't been finished knitting yet so I think I'm going to abandon it. I think I will just frog it and figure out what kind of felted bag I will make with the yarn instead.
That's all for now since it is time to get back to work~!
Edit: Oh yeah, I was going to mention that the smocked cloth is en route to my mom in Florida as of yesterday. I tossed it in her Christmas package as I was stuffing in the packing peanuts. I think she will like it, it was a very pretty cloth. Perhaps one of these days I will take the time to actually knit myself a dishcloth I won't send packing off to someone else!!
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Sunday SuNDay SUNDAY
Wow, I really need to not slack so much on taking pictures of things. Oh well, better late than never. Here is my contribution to the yarn pr0n photos on the net~!
Last week, Da Fawnz and I headed over to Commuknity in San Jose and hit up their 20% off sale. Mmm I so love yarn sales!! Especially when I can get more BEAUTIFUL sock yarns!! *dreamy sigh* So my booty at the sale was:
Lana Grossa Meilenweit ColorTweed sock yarn, color 1001. So pretty, I can hardly wait to see these socks! I saw a picture on the Lana Grossa website and wow, does it look pretty.
Next up we have:
Schaefer Yarn company's Anne line, colorway unnamed. This one is in beautiful fall colors. The yarn feels really nice too, should make some delicious socks!
And last but not least:
Regia Silk, color 0188 Maroko. This stuff is super yummy Regia. 55% Merino Wool, 25% Polyamide and 20% Silk. Sooo buttery soft. I think these will make socks I will not want to ever remove from my feet. I can't wait to knit this yarn!! Of course, my sock yarn stash is not large enough yet so when I got the word that Purlescence Yarns got in another shipment of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock yarn, I decided that this time I couldn't pass up the opportunity again!! I headed over at lunchtime on Friday with my friends and bought two skeins:
This is STR lightweight sock yarn in Chapman Springs (left) and Fire on the Mountain (right). The colors are similar but I just couldn't decide between them, so I bought them both. It was tempting to get the Harlotty colorway, but I used some self restraint and only bought the two skeins.
So amid all of this yarn purchasing frenzy, I do have some FO's to show off as well.
First up is the squirrel dishcloth that I knit for a friend's daughter:
This one is a bit hard to see, but I think if you click on the image to look at the bigger photo you'll see the squirrel image a little better. The color is Sugar 'n Creme Orange and the pattern was from the Knit Dishcloth Pattern Corner. The thing I found funny about this project, is the dishcloth on the pattern page was done in orange and orange happens to be the recipient's favorite color. Destiny I tell you.This was my first time to knit something on the bias, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Now I just need to finish up the cloth I'm making for her brother!
Next up we have a smocked cloth:
This one is in Sugar 'n Creme Early American Ombre. I made this one to practice the smocked stitch because I wanted to make sure I could do the technique before I started on my Whiskers and Paw Prints sock. I am definitely pleased with how this turned out. It's blocking now so it's a little bit more square and flatter than it was when I finished. The one thing that I am noticing so far is that the blue dye seems to be bleeding on my towel that it is resting on. That's the first time I've seen this yarn to bleed in the projects I've made, but it is also the darkest color I've used. The pattern was from my Dishcloth Group's Mid-March 2006 KAL.
And last but not least, I have a soap sack that matches the leaf pattern lace dishcloth that I made:
This was very easy to knit up and I am very pleased with how it turned out. It went to the same recipient as the cloth I posted last time. It was very nice how this utilized the ball of yarn. I started a new ball of Sugar 'n Creme Buttercream Ombre for the dishcloth, used the remaining yarn for this soap sack and ended up with maybe 2 feet of yarn left, if that much. Pretty efficient if you ask me!
I have finished the first sock of the Whiskers and Paw Prints socks but I have yet to take a photo of them. I didn't want to have to monkey around with getting my photographer to take a picture of it on my foot and I think that it will be awfully hard to see the pattern if I lie it down flat on the table to try to take a picture of the detail (the yarn is pretty darn hard to see when I'm knitting with it, let alone try to take a picture of it). I can say that the sock(s) are very beautiful and the Cherry Tree Hill yarn is so magnificent.
Time now to go sleep and dream of beautiful sock yarn!!
Last week, Da Fawnz and I headed over to Commuknity in San Jose and hit up their 20% off sale. Mmm I so love yarn sales!! Especially when I can get more BEAUTIFUL sock yarns!! *dreamy sigh* So my booty at the sale was:
Lana Grossa Meilenweit ColorTweed sock yarn, color 1001. So pretty, I can hardly wait to see these socks! I saw a picture on the Lana Grossa website and wow, does it look pretty.
Next up we have:
Schaefer Yarn company's Anne line, colorway unnamed. This one is in beautiful fall colors. The yarn feels really nice too, should make some delicious socks!And last but not least:
Regia Silk, color 0188 Maroko. This stuff is super yummy Regia. 55% Merino Wool, 25% Polyamide and 20% Silk. Sooo buttery soft. I think these will make socks I will not want to ever remove from my feet. I can't wait to knit this yarn!! Of course, my sock yarn stash is not large enough yet so when I got the word that Purlescence Yarns got in another shipment of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock yarn, I decided that this time I couldn't pass up the opportunity again!! I headed over at lunchtime on Friday with my friends and bought two skeins:
This is STR lightweight sock yarn in Chapman Springs (left) and Fire on the Mountain (right). The colors are similar but I just couldn't decide between them, so I bought them both. It was tempting to get the Harlotty colorway, but I used some self restraint and only bought the two skeins.So amid all of this yarn purchasing frenzy, I do have some FO's to show off as well.
First up is the squirrel dishcloth that I knit for a friend's daughter:
This one is a bit hard to see, but I think if you click on the image to look at the bigger photo you'll see the squirrel image a little better. The color is Sugar 'n Creme Orange and the pattern was from the Knit Dishcloth Pattern Corner. The thing I found funny about this project, is the dishcloth on the pattern page was done in orange and orange happens to be the recipient's favorite color. Destiny I tell you.This was my first time to knit something on the bias, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Now I just need to finish up the cloth I'm making for her brother!
Next up we have a smocked cloth:
This one is in Sugar 'n Creme Early American Ombre. I made this one to practice the smocked stitch because I wanted to make sure I could do the technique before I started on my Whiskers and Paw Prints sock. I am definitely pleased with how this turned out. It's blocking now so it's a little bit more square and flatter than it was when I finished. The one thing that I am noticing so far is that the blue dye seems to be bleeding on my towel that it is resting on. That's the first time I've seen this yarn to bleed in the projects I've made, but it is also the darkest color I've used. The pattern was from my Dishcloth Group's Mid-March 2006 KAL.
And last but not least, I have a soap sack that matches the leaf pattern lace dishcloth that I made:
This was very easy to knit up and I am very pleased with how it turned out. It went to the same recipient as the cloth I posted last time. It was very nice how this utilized the ball of yarn. I started a new ball of Sugar 'n Creme Buttercream Ombre for the dishcloth, used the remaining yarn for this soap sack and ended up with maybe 2 feet of yarn left, if that much. Pretty efficient if you ask me!I have finished the first sock of the Whiskers and Paw Prints socks but I have yet to take a photo of them. I didn't want to have to monkey around with getting my photographer to take a picture of it on my foot and I think that it will be awfully hard to see the pattern if I lie it down flat on the table to try to take a picture of the detail (the yarn is pretty darn hard to see when I'm knitting with it, let alone try to take a picture of it). I can say that the sock(s) are very beautiful and the Cherry Tree Hill yarn is so magnificent.
Time now to go sleep and dream of beautiful sock yarn!!
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
What's that sound you say? Nay, it is not the sound of knitting needles, it is the sound of madness in my beloved World of Warcraft game. Man, tonight there was some stupid bug in game that made a clicking noise every time someone entered/exited/moved groups in our raid (I am too tired to type out what a raid is, check out Wikipedia if you need a definition lol). I am sleep deprived tonight, so the click click click didn't help me out any with my mental state. However, my fabulous sock I'm knitting right now is very much helping my mental state! I have managed to officially not knit another stockinette sock! Yay! I am knitting the delicious Whiskers and Paw Prints Socks and I am so in love. An even deeper love than my Longhorn socks! I am knitting them up in my Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn in the Northern Lights colorway and they're gorgeous. A bit of pooling in stripy bands but I think I will forgive them because they are very pretty. I will take pictures when I have had some sleep. I am knitting this toe-up though it is a top down sock pattern. I didn't have quite the recommended weight yarn for the pattern, so I wasn't keen on navigating the math on it from the top down since I am unfamiliar with how to do the top down sock. But when I looked at the gauge of the yarn I did have that was enough yards for the pattern and how many stitches I would need for the sock to fit, I realized that it was just 4 more stitches than my regular sock pattern (64 for this vs 60 normally) in order to get 4 pattern repeats in around the leg/2 repeats on the foot that I decided to rebel and do it toe-up. I love the sock so far, I knit it up super fast up to the ankle and I finished the heel this afternoon.
Oh, so why am I sleepy. Well, that is easy. I have knit another dishcloth (that I procrastinated in casting on until late Monday night for my party on Wednesday. Yeah. Smooth move. (I finished! ....at 1:30am last night/this morning. Good grief. I blocked it even, yay me! It turned out gorgeous, here is the proof:
I still love the pattern. Same one as I used for the dishcloth I sent to my mom a few weeks ago. The yarn is Sugar 'n Creme in I made it for my Secret Santa recipient at my client. Their Finance group had their holiday party today at Bay Meadows race track since one of the long time accountants with the company who is leaving the company is in town briefly after moving to New Mexico over Thanksgiving. It was a very nice non-work afternoon. Fun to go to the track and beautiful weather. (Our day was even further shortened by a 9:50am power outage, woo)
I think that is all I meant to jabber about right now. It is all my brain cells can manage at any rate. Ah well, off to bed now so that I can get up tomorrow and do it all again!
Oh, so why am I sleepy. Well, that is easy. I have knit another dishcloth (that I procrastinated in casting on until late Monday night for my party on Wednesday. Yeah. Smooth move. (I finished! ....at 1:30am last night/this morning. Good grief. I blocked it even, yay me! It turned out gorgeous, here is the proof:
I still love the pattern. Same one as I used for the dishcloth I sent to my mom a few weeks ago. The yarn is Sugar 'n Creme in I made it for my Secret Santa recipient at my client. Their Finance group had their holiday party today at Bay Meadows race track since one of the long time accountants with the company who is leaving the company is in town briefly after moving to New Mexico over Thanksgiving. It was a very nice non-work afternoon. Fun to go to the track and beautiful weather. (Our day was even further shortened by a 9:50am power outage, woo)
I think that is all I meant to jabber about right now. It is all my brain cells can manage at any rate. Ah well, off to bed now so that I can get up tomorrow and do it all again!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
