Tag Archive | crafting

This is a big deal

I’m going to make a sweater! Whoa, right? No, I know, I’ve done this before. I’ve actually crocheted one sweater and knitted three. My first knitted sweater was a Harvest cardigan that came out HUGE but is super cozy to bum around in at home. My next two knitted sweaters were pullovers that actually fit the way I wanted. That cardigan I made with cotton; it was soft but still not a high-quality yarn. The pullovers were both made with acrylic yarn. I love them, but I decided that I’m ready for the big leagues now: I want to make a sweater out of GOOD yarn.

I’ve never bought a sweater quantity of good (i.e. non-acrylic) yarn before, instead choosing fun single skeins. So for my birthday earlier this month, I told the husband that I wanted a sweater quantity of yarn. He’s a smart man, so he gave me the money for it rather than trying to pick it out himself.

But what yarn? What pattern? What color? Well, the yarn itself wasn’t too hard: Malabrigo has been one of my very favorite yarns for years. For pattern, I wanted something interesting and pretty, a little more intricate than the basic pullovers I’ve made. It took a lot of browsing but I settled on Penny by tincanknits. And color? Well, at first I thought about a neutral. But then I thought, NAHHH! Let’s have fun!

This is six skeins of Malabrigo Arroyo in the glorious Fucsia, which might possibly be the most difficult color of yarn to photograph. Subtle, it is not! But it will make a gorgeous sweater and I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing some swatching this weekend!

Color Me Happy

Sep25

I have a new WIP! The reason why is a bit convoluted so bear with me. See, I agreed to test out some new circular needles, and I have one size. That’s actually how I ended up casting on the Spring Rain shawl, but then I realized that 24″ circs aren’t long enough for a shawl. I needed to put the shawl on a longer cord, but I needed to go to the LYS for that. Then when that was done, I needed a pattern for 24″ size 2.5 circs, and I thought a cowl would be perfect. I plugged all the necessary info in Ravelry and ended up choosing the Color Me Happy cowl.

Oh, what colors? No, not the pink and purple in the original, though I totally tried to find something similar in my stash. Instead, my stash threw out these three skeins and said they’d really like to work together.

6444a1bb-dd52-4c08-9fc0-a1375cfdc1e2 Won’t that be lovely? I purchased the pattern and got all ready to cast on with my little 2.5 circs…only to see that that size was needed for one section if you were doing a straight bottom edge instead of the kerchief style! For everything else, it recommended a size 4.

Well, to heck with that, I say, and I’m just going to use these darn needles and it’s going to be just fine!

Honestly, now that I’m this far into it, I think the size 4 would be too big and I wouldn’t like the loose drape anyway. Now I’m just eager to get to the point where I can join in the round and start zooming along!

I need some lace, stat!

Sep19

I sat down to knit last night and realized that there was a big gaping hole in my WIPs. I currently have two in-the-round stockinette projects, and two simple socks. That’s it. Now, those are very nice projects and I like them, but what happens when I want something more interesting, more engaging? I got nothin’.

Fortunately, that’s easily remedied. After a little bit of time on Ravelry, and a little bit of time digging through my stash, I’ve got a new project ready to cast on.

I was kind of saving the green (MadTosh in Seaglass) for a fade project, but it looks so good with this mystery gray/green that I’m willing to make the sacrifice. Plus, heck, I can always get another skein of Seaglass green someday if I need it. This one is going into a pretty two-color shawl called Spring Rain!

Fixing Stitches

Sep10

Sometimes we knitters make mistakes in our projects. When that happens, we have to decide if we can live with it, or if we want to fix it. Many fixes seem rather scary at first, so newer knitters can be shy about diving right in to tinking or picking up dropped stitches. I have a knitter friend who is like that, and I get to feel smart and clever by helping her! Today she had a blanket where she’d purled two stitches that were supposed to be knit. Oops.

They were several rows back, so she was asking what her options were to fix it. I told her the easiest way would be to knit to the stitches and drop down to the errors, then pick the stitches back up with a crochet hook. That seemed scary to her, so I offered to do it. I made sure to text her a scary progress picture.

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Not only were the stitches wrong, but somehow an extra stitch had been added at that same point, so I pulled those unnecessary stitches out, and then pulled out the next row down to the other purl stitch.

Then I used my little hook to pull that stitch up to the top and bam, it was done! There was some extra play in the yarn because of those stitches I pulled out, but that should all even out with the first wash.

This was one of the easiest fixes, honestly. Bulky yarn that is just sticky enough that the stitches don’t come out too easily, and plain stockinette stitches. Next time I’ll make her do it herself, or else how will she learn??

FO: Changing Staircases Shawl

Aug24

I have another finished shawl to share! I’ve been on such a finishing kick since I got home from vacation, and it feels good. This was one I started as a KAL with a friend at work almost four months ago, but it got put on a back burner for a while. This is the Changing Staircases shawl by Dragon Hoard Designs.

fullsizeoutput_22ed It’s a great pattern for beginner/intermediate lace knitters, and it’s easy to memorize the repeats…as long as you remember to cast off those stitches to make the staircase edge! I confess, I forgot once and did not go back. And I’ll never notice it!

The pattern is inspired by Harry Potter, which only makes me love it even more. It does say it’s a one-skein wonder, but I used all 438 yards of my skein and wish I’d had more. It came out about 5′ long across the top edge, and I’d like it longer. But the mannequin wears it nicely, so hopefully I can too.

Dragon Hoard also makes yarn — I got some on my vacation! — and you can see their cool stuff on their website here. And if you decide to make this shawl, think about having an extra skein handy!

Manos del Uruguay Alma

Aug20

I have a new shawl to show you, but the point of it is the yarn. A couple of months ago, Fairmount Fibers offered me a skein of the new Manos del Uruguay yarn, Alma, to review. I’m pretty sure you all know how much I love Manos yarns, so you also know I was eager to take this one for a test drive and see if it lived up to my expectations!

Alma is a single ply fingering weight yarn in 100% merino. It’s labeled superwash but they still recommend you hand wash and dry flat. The colors are all named after inspirational attitudes, like Humility, Generosity, Passion, and Sincerity. I chose Resilience to remind myself that I am resilient! Well, that and I liked the colors in the photo. They also designed the colors to pair well together, with complementary solids and multi-colors. Patience would have gone wonderfully with Resilience!

I noticed right away that Alma has the same soft fluffy feel as all the other Manos yarns I’ve used. It’s lightweight and airy, feeling almost puffy like cotton candy. It’s kind of plush, if a light fingering can feel plush. Maybe that’s partly because it’s a single ply? Whatever the reason, I love it. It felt warm and comforting in my fingers, gliding smoothly but not too hot or heavy in my lap as I knit. I chose to knit the Imagine When shawl by Joji Locatelli.

fullsizeoutput_22d7 I chose this pattern because of the best part about Alma: the yardage! It’s a generous 546 yards per 100 grams, which means you have plenty of yarn to make a good-sized single-skein shawl. I knit the pattern with no modifications and ended up with six grams left. Honestly, I love everything about this yarn. It did have one knot in it, but that’s within normal standards, and it washed and blocked beautifully.

fullsizeoutput_22db I’m not completely convinced I chose the right pattern to show off the yarn; I’m wondering if something more stockinette-based would have been better. But this was a fun pattern to knit — I guess I really am learning to appreciate short rows — and I loved having the yardage in one skein for a nice big shawl. The yarn retails for around $30 per skein, which I typically pay anyway for my good yarns, so I’d buy this one in a heartbeat. Especially since I can feel good about buying Manos yarns, which are hand-dyed by artisans and help support families in Uruguay! It’s available in yarn stores now, and you can find the closest one to you here, or find it online now.

Thanks so much to Stitchcraft Marketing and Fairmount Fibers, the North American distributor of Manos del Urugay, who sent me one skein of Alma (retail value: $30) for free. I received no other compensation for this review. All opinions and photos are my own.

Sun Glitter Shawl

Aug18

Way back in June, I cast on a shawl for a knit-along that Under the Olive Tree Knits was hosting. It was a summer-long KAL and she’s offering the pattern free through the end of August, and there are prizes if you follow the rules found on her blog (among other places). I’d been wanting to knit this shawl anyway, and I had the prettiest skein of yarn for it, and I thought I’d have no problem finishing a one-skein shawl in two months. Well. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I’ve had an eventful summer, and my knitting mojo hasn’t always been present, plus other things have taken precedence to this project. But I’m happy to report that after returning from vacation, I committed to this shawl and finished it yesterday!

This was a fun, meditative knit. I love how she designed those lace triangle sections, and once I got the hang of the pattern, it was easy to take it with me anywhere. And the yarn is gorgeous! I love the hints of purple and yellow.

I do wish I’d checked my yardage more carefully before picking my yarn. The skein I chose was 100 grams but only 400 yards, and I ran out of yarn on the last right-side row of the lace pattern. Instead of doing several rows of garter before binding off, I just did two rows of garter and the bind-off in a complementary yarn, and I don’t even notice the slight color difference. Still, if I make it again, I’ll make sure to find a more generously sized skein.

Now I’ve got a case of finish-itis — I’m ready to pull out another shawl WIP before I cast on something new!

Pattern: Sun Glitter Shawl by Under the Olive Tree Knits

Yarn: Concorde by Less Traveled Yarn in color Lagoon

Colorado Yarn Stores

Aug15

I really only meant to go to one yarn store during our Colorado vacation. Looking back, I’m not sure why I thought that was reasonable, or even feasible for me. But that was my plan, and since I’d gotten in trouble at the Loopy Ewe the past two years, I was going to avoid them. Instead, I chose LambShoppe in Denver. It was in a cute but busy part of town, and the boys weren’t interested in joining us, so they dropped me and the girl off at the curb. The store was small but had lots of fun yarns, both big names and small. The saleswoman immediately asked how she could help me, and I cheerfully said, “Just let me look at the yarn!” I try to focus on local dyers when I’m buying vacation yarn, and I found quite a few choices. Unfortunately, the saleswoman was one of those who thinks she needs to engage every shopper frequently, and that bugs the crap out of me. Still, I found some good stuff.

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But then! As I was pondering my choices on the table there, that same woman walked by and said, “Oh, you need to get out of your box and try something new!” She’d already annoyed me enough that I replied, “How about I do what I want?” I mean, seriously. Let a knitter pick her own damn yarn, am I right? Anyway, beautiful yarns, if not all local. The woman’s one saving grace was that she found me a second skein of the Manos Locura Fluo (the crazy neon one in the middle). I’m collecting skeins for a sweater!

I thought I was good and happy but then we went to Colorado Springs, and we had some extra time, and darned if we didn’t end up at another yarn store. Ewe and Me was a little hard to find, and the font is hard to read on the sign outside, but I’m so glad I found it! It was a BIG store, with a huge table down the middle with comfy chairs for the boys to sit in. The women chatted with me at first but then let me browse at my own pace. And the yarn! So much local yarn, so much gorgeous yarn!

I saw small dyers I’d only followed on Instagram, like The Lemonade Shop and Artistic Yarns by Abi, plus ones I’d never heard of. I bought six skeins, I think, plus that fabulous mug. And another size 5 circular needle for shawls. And maybe an enamel pin.

That was plenty, right? It really was! I would have been happy to leave it at that. Except on Sunday the boy and I were on our own, and we went to Longmont to check out a guitar store. And there happened to be a yarn store a few doors down. Sigh. Three more skeins went in my bag. But one of them was Dragon Hoard Yarn, who I’d just started following on Instagram! She was doing a trunk show there so of course I had to grab a skein.

That’s how I ended up with this beautiful, extravagant assortment of yarns to feed my stash!

Now, let’s see if I can restrain from buying more new yarn for a while!

The Sunny Side of the Street

Aug6

It may be Monday but things are looking up, guys! We found an apartment for the girl to share with two other girls, with cheaper rent even, and they’ve got furniture so she just needs stuff for her bedroom. And we were able to rent an SUV for the week through the insurance claim on the damaged car, so we’ll have room to move everything without having to drive a U-haul. I’m breathing so much easier now, and I think we might be able to relax and enjoy our vacation, as soon as we get her moved in anyway.

I finished my stress project, my Comfort Me Cowl, and I love it! The pattern was so simple and fun, and the yarn is gorgeous. Now I just need some cooler weather to wear it. But honestly, I’m not in a hurry for that.

I AM in a hurry for vacation though — Mountains here I come! We’ve got someone coming to stay with the dogs, so they’ll be happy-ish. I know they’ll miss us but I hate having to board them. At least this way they get to stay in their happy home.

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Guess I better start planning my vacation knitting!

Stress = a new project

Aug2

Yesterday was Not a Good Day. Not as bad as Car Accident Day on Sunday, but not great. It was more stress piled on to to all the other things we’ve dealt with this summer, and my nerves are just about at their breaking point. I needed some serious comfort knitting, so I pulled out some colorful worsted and cast on for a new cowl.

The pattern is simple and easily memorized, so I can just sit and knit without having to think too hard. The needles are bigger, so I’m not gripping them as tightly as I’ve been doing with my fingering weight WIPs. And the yarn, oh, it’s so pretty! It’s mystery yarn from a destash, so I have no idea of the brand. But it makes me happy to knit with it, and it’ll make me happy to wear it!

Happy Friday, friends. Hope your week’s been better than mine!