Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Surprisingly, I'm not the middle finger!

So Rachel posted this one, and I'm surprised I didn't get the same result as her!


You Are a Ring Finger



You are romantic, expressive, and hopeful. You see the best in everything.

You are very artistic, and you see the world as your canvas. You are also drawn to the written word.

Inventive and unique, you are often away in your own inner world.



You get along well with: The Pinky



Stay away from: The Index Finger

Friday, May 25, 2007

Hello, my name is Teenuh and I am a lemming

Ok so I am totally not wanting to work today so I am going to jump off the cliff and do the knitting meme thingy that most of my knitting blogger buddies have done.

Bold for stuff I've done, Italics for stuff I plan on doing, normal for stuff I'm not planning on doing:

American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Bobbles
Button holes
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Continental knitting
Domino knitting (modular knitting)
Drop stitch patterns

Entrelac (though I need to do more of it besides what I learned in the free class I took)
Fair Isle knitting
Freeform knitting
(Nona makes this look so awesome in her swatches)
Fulling/felting
Garter stitch
I-cord
Intarsia
Kitchener BO
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with DPNs

Knitting and purling backwards
Knitting smocking (I agree with the OCK that I have done this one, on the dishcloth and socks even!)
Knitting small tubular items on two circulars
Knitting a circular item using the Magic Loop
Lace patterns
Long Tail CO

Moebius band knitting
Norwegian knitting

Provisional CO
Short rows
Slip stitch patterns

Steeks

Stockinette stitch
Swatching

Textured knitting
Swiss Darning
Thrummed knitting (This looks neat to do but honestly, when am I going to use it? I suppose I could do it for my Minnesota relatives but wow, so much effort!)
Tubular CO
Twisted stitch patterns
Two end knitting


Knitting with alpaca
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Knitting with banana fiber yarn
Knitting with beads

Knitting with camel yarn
Knitting with cashmere
Knitting with cotton

Knitting with dog/cat hair (with 2 cats I can't not knit with cat hair!)
Knitting with linen
Knitting with metal wire
Knitting with soy yarn

Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Knitting with someone else’s handspun yarn
Knitting with self-patterning/self-striping/variegating yarn
Knitting with silk

Knitting with synthetic yarn
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Knitting with wool

Afghan/Blanket
Baby items
Cuffs/fingerless mitts/arm warmers
Gloves
Hat

Hair accessories

Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cozies…)
Jewelry
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down

Pillows
Purses/bags
Rug

Shawl
Scarf
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Slippers
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Stuffed toys
Sweater
Toy/doll clothing

Charity knitting
Graffiti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street)
Knitting art
Knitting for pets
Knitting for preemies
Knitting items for a wedding
Knitting a gift
Holiday related knitting
Designing knitted garments

Dyeing yarn with plant colors
Dyeing yarn with acid dyes

Participating in a KAL
Publishing a knitting book


Knitting to make money
Knitting for a living (god I wish)
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Knitting on a loom
Machine knitting
Olympic knitting
Resizing patterns
Spinning on a drop spindle
Spinning with a spinning wheel (I have no doubt that by continuing hanging out with the OCK that this will happen someday)
Teaching a male how to knit (I swear I will get my hubby to knit something!!)
Teaching knitting classes (Well, for friends at least. My boss wants me to teach her to knit!)
Writing a pattern
Knitting in public (I do this with Boba twice a week!)

I clearly have a long way to go still, but I'll get there. It hasn't been a year yet that I have been knitting again!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Knit Knit Knit

I just realized that I so totally did not blog my finished Regia socks. Here they are in all their scratchy glory (pre-washing):

I really love this stitch pattern, the double weave. It was totally easy to grind out and I like how it looks:

This will also probably get reused at some point in the future. Maybe once I forget how much I hated my Regia yarn that I knit these socks with..

Two Knitting Posts IN A ROW

So this is a first in quite some time. I have two whole posts in a row that are knitting only with no yarn buying involved! (I didn't even have any stealth cotton dishcloth yarn purchasing going on in the background. I so don't blog my Sugar 'n Cream or Peaches 'n Creme purchases. Y'all would so seriously think I am nuts.)

Anyhoo, I have finished the first sock out of the OnLine Yarn I purchased at Muse in St Helena on the Calistoga Boba retreat weekend. I had such fun knitting this and it totally flew off the needles. I cast on the sock before work on Thursday morning (yeah, so I'm not exactly the crack of dawn employee type..) and then Thursday afternoon we had a department outing to play bocce ball in Los Gatos at Campo di Bocce so while I was waiting for it to be my turn, I knit! I was just knitting in the round with no stitch pattern whatsoever so I flew through the sock. I was just a couple of rows away from turning the heel by the end of the day (I also knit through cocktails before dinner!). I started the heel during my brief appearance at BobaKnit that night and then I finished turning the heel before bed after I had dessert with friends at Flames. I started the feather and fan late on Friday and by the end of a couple of hours of knitting on Saturday, I finished the sock! Here's the result of my endeavors:


I used my basic sock recipe for the foot and heel and then for the leg I used Wendy's write up of the Feather and Fan pattern to get the chart and increases into my sock. I am so thrilled with the pattern as well as the yarn colors.

Since I had so much fun with sock #1, I cast on #2 at Boba on Sunday afternoon (I finished my sewn bind off first there). I tried my best to cast on in the same spot as I did with sock #1. And I'll be damned if I didn't do just that:

It's not exact but it's pretty damn close. I've finished turning the heel and I've done a couple repeats of the feather and fan pattern. I really love this pattern, I'm sure it's one I'll be doing again in the future.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Q2 2007 Dishcloth Exchange

So this quarter again I participated in my Monthly Dishcloth KAL's dishcloth exchange. I really enjoyed doing this last quarter so I was happy to participate again.

I made my exchange recipient the watermelon slice dishcloth from Blossom Knit Wear:


I went a little bonkers with the goodies in the bag, but it was a fun opportunity to do some stamping as well:

We were given the deadline of mailing our packages by the 20th, and being the procrastinator extraordinaire that I am I sent mine out on the 19th! And, through some miraculous feat my recipient got her package on MONDAY. I nearly fell out of my chair. I sent it standard mail too.

This is in contrast to my poor package. It was mailed out on the 14th or so of this month... but I didn't get it until TODAY. My poor dishcloth sender was pretty stressed out about the package not getting here after sending it out so many days ago. But thankfully it arrived safe and sound today.

This was our monthly dishcloth for the beginning of October 2006, but I never sat down and knit it so now I have one! Hooray.

These exchanges have been lots of fun, I'm looking forward to participating in the next one!

The killer tortoise

So hilarious! (at 1:15 is the best part.. "GOMP GOMP")


(And seriously, could this have taken longer for YouTube to post on my blog? I requested this video to be posted sometime early Saturday morning! And it posted Tuesday afternoon!)

Monday, May 21, 2007

I hate the Regia a little less

Alright, so while I did hate the process of knitting with yarn that felt like complete ass (and a nasty hairy one at that), I am happy to report that after a full wash cycle with regular laundry detergent and fabric softener, the Regia socks now feel quite nice.

All I can say in the end is at least I didn't waste my time making socks I will never wear!

Friday, May 18, 2007

Serious Yarn Pr0n Friday Action

Baw chicka baw baw~! Oh yeah baby, we got yarn.

First up, the Nine Rubies yarn! Again, this is Panda Cotton in Strawberry-Lime:


The Purlescence haul included Claudia Hand Painted Yarn in the Sharks colorway:


And Chasing Rainbows Dye Works fiber (50% merino/50% bombex) in the colorway Heather (I think that's the color name!) and a Louet drop spindle:

And finally there is the Full Thread Ahead haul:

From top to bottom, Hand Maiden Seas Silk in the colorway Melons, Fleece Artist Sea Wool in the colorway Fruit punch and Cascade Fixation in colorway 9989 Hyacinth.

I totally haven't blogged my trip to Calistoga with the BobaKnit ladies but there was some yarn acquired there too. (Dude, I'm not into wine. I had to feed my consumeristic nature some way!)

So the first yarn "shop" we went to was Calistoga Yarns. I'm using the quotes because, well, the "shop" was where the laundry room is off the garage in normal houses. A well seasoned woman runs the place and it was interesting to say the least. She was sweet as anything, but a lot of her yarn was either really old (some was older than the 3 of us that went there) or it was really icky yarn. Although there were some new yarns, several kinds of Colinette Yarn and stuff like Trekking. I picked up this nice, soft Cascade Fiesta Boomerang yarn in the colorway Caribbean:


On the way back to the Bay Area, we stopped at Muse in St. Helena. This was a very lovely store that was next to a coffee shop so it smelled yummy. I got some more Colinette Jitterbug yarn in the colorway Mardi Gras as well as some Lang Jawoll Jaquard in colorway 82.0158.

I got some On Line Supersocke 100 in color 788 Raspberry at Muse as well:

A very nice stop to make on the way home after a great weekend.

I also received an order today that I placed on Wednesday with Simply Socks. This is Opal Petticoat in colorway 1298, Lana Grossa Megaboots Stretch in colorway 704 and Cascade Fixation in colorway 9342 (I had seen this color at both Nine Rubies in San Mateo and at Muse in St Helena, both stores had exactly ONE ball of this color. I was determined to have it!!)

And finally there was my May shipment from my Posh Yarn sock club. This is out of their Emily yarn (80% lambswool, 10% cashmere, 10% angora) because they were having trouble with getting their supplier to send the yarn to them! The colorway is called May Day:


And that concludes my tour of my ever increasing stash of sock yarn. If you will excuse me, I need to go roll around nakey in some sock yarn. I'm telling you, it really is a wonderful world of Teenuh!!

Thursday, May 17, 2007

I am a bad blogger

So I have no idea where the past few weeks have gone to and why time is slipping away so quickly. I guess I have just been enjoying myself so much that I forget to get around to actually blogging what I have been up to!

On Saturday the 5th, I got the delightful opportunity to spend the day with my bestest friend the OCK. It was fun to go pick up the spinning wheel she was buying from a woman off of Craig's List. I could totally picture myself being this crazy woman that bought this totally beautiful and expensive wheel and then spent tons of money on fiber that I would spin a few yards of before putting it all away again (although, I would most certainly buy better fiber than this lady did. I thought I hated the Regia wool but I think this fiber passed that stuff up, though I think it is a close contest..)

At any rate, after we got the wheel we decided to go check out Nine Rubies in San Mateo. I had heard of it before but I rarely head up the Peninsula past Redwood City so we took the opportunity to check it out. Sadly we were able to get only a 20 minute parking space so we were playing beat the clock in the shop before our meter expired, but it was a lovely 20 minutes. I found some Cascade Fixation that I really liked the color of (I've coveted getting some of this since I saw it at Stitches) but there was only one in the basket! The owner did a search in their database and confirmed it, so I was left with buying some Panda Cotton yarn in the Strawberry-Lime colorway. I had just gotten the Baby Blues color from the Loopy Ewe but I loved the Strawberry-Lime color so much I gave up and bought the second color. (Because I am running so low on sock yarn...) The total reward for this pit stop for yarn was the bag. (dude, I could so totally order a package of them!!) Oh man, I am so in love with it. I feel like Gollum with it. (Precious.. my precious..)

We fled out the door of the store and headed on down the Peninsula and made it into
Purlescence Yarns. There was a sale on fiber so we couldn't pass it up. I got a nice thing of a merino/silk blend (it's got some other word but I'm a fiber noob so I don't remember what it is off the top of my head) and a drop spindle. Yes, I do realize a paragraph ago I was saying what a crazy fiber lady I could become but I'm a sucker for sales and drop spindles amuse me watching others use them, hopefully I will find amusement in spinning one myself (and I totally blame Kristi for getting the spindle. She totally dissed the CD spindle so I spring for the Louet one and what does she do? Goes to Calistoga and uses her CD drop spindle. I feel so bamboozled!) Oh and some Claudia Hand Painted Yarn in the Sharks colorway.

Anyways, from there we hit up
The Yarn Place because they were having a sale too. I didn't get too much, mainly some worsted weight wool for a scarf I was trying to knit out of fingering weight (worsted weight is sooo much better for this pattern!). I eventually remembered why it felt wrong that we went from San Mateo to Sunnyvale, I had forgotten I wanted to spin by The Knitters Studio for a trunk show that was going on. I escaped with no yarn, only to be defeated again at Full Thread Ahead. I got some more HandMaiden Sea Silk and some of the Fleece Artist Sea Wool.

I so totally need to upload pics of all this stuff but it is late and I am tired so it will have to wait!

Monday, May 07, 2007

Felting Fun and More

I finally have finished a felted project! I am so terribly excited about it too. It was the OCK's birthday and I had some of the Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky Hand Dye in the Impatiens colorway that I had purchased to make their Hot Out of the Oven pattern and I figured why not make it for my favorite knitter! So here is the set pre-felting:

And here they are all felted up. First the front side:

And now the reverse of both pieces.

I am really pleased with how they turned out. I love how the colors striped in the mitt and the swirl in the square potholder is really pretty. They had a little bit of fuzz on them after they were washed but I just did a little shaving with my sweater shaver and they are perfect! This was a great project for me, I got to do two new things. I had never done I-cord before and both the loops on these are done with I-cord and then the top of the mitt is closed by doing the Kitchner stitch.

I also finished the first sock out of my Regia yarn that I bought a while back. I had taken this ball out to swatch it because I wanted to knit some socks on size 2 needles but in the end I went back to my standard 3's. (This is the yarn my hubby stayed up super late to untangle for me.) It was terrible to knit. Bleh. I have since washed a swatch and it has softened some. I haven't put it through a washer load with fabric softener so there may be some additional softness to be obtained. I did the double weave stitch with my basic sock pattern. I do like how this sock looks but it may take me a bit before I knit up the second sock only because I really dislike how this yarn feels.

I was fortunate enough last Thursday to get my second installment in my Socks That Rock Sock Club. This is a beautiful yarn, it is their new Silkie Socks That Rock yarn and I love it. It is 81% merino wool and 19% silk. I have started knitting up the pattern since it was toe-up and I was looking for a better feeling fabric after the junky Regia sock. I sure got what I wanted. The fabric is lovely and soft. I am doing the pattern as it is written. I started out originally knitting this with my basic toe start but I decided to give their toe a try since I have only done the toe that the OCK wrote for me in my basic pattern. It turned out really well. Although they alternated the increase row with a plain stockinette row so I think the sock is turning out pretty pointy. I did slip it on this afternoon and it looks alright once it's on my foot, it just is a bit odd looking when it is off my foot. This colorway is Walk on the Wild Tide and the yarn will be coming out in a few more months I think.

So I had been trying to not buy any more sock yarn since goodness knows I have enough already, but I am terribly weak and I caved in to the magic of the internet buying process and bought some more delicious yarn from the Loopy Ewe. This is Panda Cotton in the Baby Blues colorway. This is nice, stretchy yarn.

And I also bought some of the Louet Gems yarn in the Teal colorway so that I can make Cookie's Twisted Flower Sock that I bought the pattern for at Stitches. I already had some yarn from the Yarn Place that I was going to use, but I figured I would get some of the Louet yarn that Cookie used in the sample sock since I didn't already have some. (There's always a reason...) I believe I am going to knit this top down as written because I really dig the heel on this and while I am doing a heel flap toe up with the STR sock this month, I don't know if I am clever enough to reverse the chart on the heel so I will instead just knit the pattern as written! (I think this is next on my list if I still want to avoid the Regia..)


Also from the Loopy Ewe, I got some lovely Apple Laine yarn in the Bubblegum colorway. I really love the shine on this yarn. It is slightly fuzzy from the mohair in the yarn but Wendy didn't mention this to be particularly bad when she made her Apple Laine socks so I am not going to even worry about it!

I was out shopping with my friend Cynthia last weekend and we paid a visit to Purlescence Yarns. Since I had recently purchased my Panda Cotton, I was pleasantly surprised to discover Panda Wool so I decided to give it a try as well. This is the Misty Greens colorway:

Cynthia and I had taken a free class at Knitting Arts in Saratoga that morning and on our way out, I was tempted by this lovely shawl kit. (Another attendee to the class had used her kit to do a scarf that was made using Tunisian Crochet so I might have been swayed by that). At any rate, here is the list of yarns: The fuzzy yarns on the left are Classic Elite La Gran Mohair in the colorways 61520 Blue Topaz and 6592 Lupine. The yarn at the top next to the mohair is Classic Elite's Princess yarn in colorway 3409 Proud Peacock. The ribbon yarns are Tahki Stacy Charles Tahki Select Lucky in colorway 6196.

There were more yarn purchases this weekend (it was quite the tour of yarn shops on the Peninsula!), but I think this is entirely enough of a show of my consumerism for now!