Another Happy Customer (my feet)

Finished my Karira socks, baby!!



I'm providing both top and side views.




They look pretty sweet. It just occurred to me that I should probably block them, not that I have one of those nifty sock-blocker things. Hm. Anyway... I was in a rush to finish them today finally, because I got some really cool news! I'm going to be designing the next sock in the Ravelry KAL! We just got the yarn today and it is AMAZING! But before I talk about that, I'll finish up with the sock talk.

After I got that "assignment" today, I became really focused on finishing Karira so I could move on to designing the next one. So I just sat and knit. And I was REALLY in the zone. I finished the heel, the gusset, and two whole pattern reps at work. I had the chart COMPLETELY memorized, finally-- just as I'm finishing! But it was definitely useful because having an intuitive understanding of the stitch pattern totally helped avoid mistakes. When I was checking the chart compulsively, I kept losing or gaining extra stitches, finding strange holes where there shouldn't have been, discovering other various mistakes and needing to rip out or backtrack. But since I really GOT the pattern, and barely need to look at the chart at ALL, I didn't make one mistake! For three and a half repeats! (That was the number required to knit the foot.) So that's what I would recommend, haha. Memorize the pattern. Understand the pattern. BE the pattern.

So I finished the foot, but I had some issues with the right toe. Basically the stitches were unevenly distributed across the toe and that resulted in the decrease panels being way too close in the back instead of placed exactly on the sides of the foot where they should be. I was nearly done when I just became too suspicious that something was wrong (I had thought there might have been but figured that I had followed the pattern to the letter so there couldn't be) so I had to rip out all the way down to the chart pattern, rearrange the stitches and begin the decreases all over again. But I'm glad I did. Didn't take that long. Closed the toe, weaved in ends and I am DONE! I'm so proud of myself.

Now-- the sock design that I'm doing!! Today in the studio we got the skein of yarn that Kitchen Sink Dyeworks custom dyed for our next sock in the three-part KAL corresponding to the Steig Larsson books. The first sock matched up with "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", and the second goes with "The Girl Who Played With Fire." So, the colorway is....


...Fire themed!!

I immediately fell in love with it, so Shannon suggested that I design the sock, and Sarah Jo do the third one. I'm going to do flame motifs. I have some ideas. I'm thinking either a purled flame on a knit background or the other way around in side panels, and small zigzags on the front and back of the sock. So excited!!! It definitely won't be half as complex as Karira. In fact, it will probably be the easiest/simplest of the three. But I figure it'll be a relief for people after the challenge of Karira. It was fun but not easy! I can't believe I'm done-- the socks are really really beautiful.

The only problem with knit socks is that . . . no one SEES them. And your beautiful, intricate knitwork gets sweaty and hidden. I don't know what the solution for this is. Go around without shoes, I guess.

Laptop Bag moving right along

Juuust finished the body of my laptop bag. Here it is:

I did kind of random striping, as you can see. There isn't really a striping pattern. I'm curious to see how it'll look after it's felted. I have never felted anything before. But I really hope it shrinks a lot because here it how it measures up to its future inhabitant, Sheli:


It is rather a lot bigger, so I hope it'll tighten up significantly...

I LOVE the three needle bind-off, by the way; it is so neat and tidy looking.


The whole thing came out pretty tidy, so it's kind of a shame that it will be felted and the evenness of the knitting will be lost :( I'm not the most regular knitter in the world so it's cool that this is so neat. But the felting will make it TOTALLY durable and solid-- no stretching!!

Anyway-- now, I have to do two pockets, four handle tabs, and two loooong straps. The straps I'll leave for last, I think, cause they'll be most annoying (90 rounds of icord).

It's supercute!

My KAL buddy Chaya is working feverishly on hers as well; she wants to finish it by Thursday. I think that is pretty ambitious but it's a quick knit, so it's possible. Her color scheme is also green but it's green and white. Very pretty.

Can't wait to see how it all turns out!

Right Glove

Finished the first glove in the pair! It was a very quick knit, and very easy, too. I probably could have even done it in the round, if I had size 1 dpns free. But those are still involved with my second Karira. Anyway, it fits perfectly and it is sooo soft and pretty. I have to say that I like the way stockinette shows off the colors and shimmer of the yarn much better than reverse stockinette, which is what the glove is knit it, so that's kind of annoying, but it's still very pretty. And I'm not the "reknitting" type. So now I just have to sew in ends and knit the other. Here's pics:
Not the greatest picture but I chose this one cause you can see the cables and rev st. st. pretty well, and the colorway. It's really soft and comfy. I'm excited for it to get cold enough for me to wear it!

Here's one of the pictures I took in progress. Every time I finished a finger I'd try it on. It's a really fun knit. I think it would be easy to convert the pattern to be worked in the round, which would be nice because there wouldn't be any seaming. Maybe my next pair. I just cast on for the second glove.

Haven't yet started my laptop bag, have to borrow some needles. Right now I'm working on the scarf for Shannon's collection. Which is fun, it has a scalloped edge that I like. Feather and lace. The yarn is really beautiful and fun to knit with and the colors are great, though unconventional. And I've put my socks away for the weekend.

More Busy

Yay-- tons of projects again! For about five minutes there all I had going was the Karira socks! But nope. Now I'm back up to three active and one pending.

First-- the socks, of course. I realized something today, er. I made the heel of the left foot half as long as it should have been. Very very stupid of me. I'm annoyed. It explains why the sock lays a little weird. But it is what it is-- and it still fits, miraculously, so I'll just have to repeat the mistake on the right foot. I reached the heel today, so I'm like a third done with the second sock-- since the foot takes a while. All in all though, I've definitely done these socks a LOT faster than I thought.

Second: the gloves. So pretty. I finished the thumb:
First I made the thumb to the pattern's specifications, 2", and cut the yarn, and seamed it and everything, but it was too short. I tried to play around with it a little but it just wasn't going to work so I undid the seam and knit a few more rows, and reseamed it. But now it's a little too long. However, that's better than too short-- it barely makes a difference, so I'm okay with it. I started the first finger today. Seriously, these gloves are easy. And they are so soft. The yarn is like BUTTAH! I really can't overemphasize how soft and beautiful the silk is.

Third: I'm knitting a scarf for Shannon's fall collection, a lace pattern with bobbles. Never done bobbles before cause I'm not such a huge fan, I think they're kind of old-ladyish, but I guess they could be cool. The yarn is knit sideways, which means instead of hundreds of short rows going up, it's a few dozen very very long rows going sideways. I cast on 306 stitches. I only did five rows today so I'm not quite sure how it's going to look.

And I even have a fourth project lined up: laptop bag! I finally bought the yarn today. I had been deliberating over indigo blue/ivory, and various shades of pink, but then I realized I ALWAYS go for the same colors and I decided to branch out into an entirely new color family that I almost never use: earthy foresty tones. Here's the yarn- 7 skeins of Cascade 220:


Forest green, lime green, and brown. The brown looks kinda purpley in the picture but it's a nice deep brown. I'm excited! I really never use these colors. Plus, I got the yarn for $1.13!!! That's right! Sweet deal, huh? Each skein is something like $6.85 so the total value is almost $50... mwah ha ha! I used the gift card from the customer, and the owner gave me a discount-- so the total that I paid was a buck!! SWEEEET!

PLUS-- an amazing opportunity! The owner, Liz, asked if I would be interested in coming to help them out when they come to New York for a VogueKnitting show in January. I was like YES PLEASE! I'd get paid to go to an incredible three day knitting event. I really hope it works out because it sounds like SO much fun!! It's pretty far into the future admittedly, but hopefully Liz will contact me as the time comes. Hooray!

So, it was a good day.

And ALSO, yesterday Shannon gave Sarah Jo and I sock blanks. What is a sock blank, you ask? Well, I did not know either until yesterday! It's a piece of flat knitting, kind of like a scarf, which comes to you undyed, and then you dye it however you want, and then you knit your project from the yarn, unraveling the blank as you go! It results in really cool colorways! Shannon had a few dyed blanks so we each got one, and I'm going to use it for the Twists and Turns socks.

I (heart) knitting.

new project gooey goodness

Since I finished the cozy and slippers, I needed a new project already. I've got my second Karira sock started, but just one knitting project at a time?! When there's so much to be done?!? Please. If I had bought yarn for the laptop bag I would have started that, but as I did not, I couldn't, so I moved on to the silk gloves, which I've been thinking about for a while. Looks like they are going to be a really quick, pleasant knit!!

I started them and about an hour later, had this:


That's the right glove, the ribbed cuff and the first repeat of the cable pattern that travels up the fingers. The right half of the work is the back of the hand, and the reverse stockinette half is the palm. The thumb gusset is between them. The pattern is REALLY not half as complicated as I thought and I think it'll be a really quick knit! I'm holding the yarn double for extra thickness and warmth. It'll be annoying to have a beautiful pair of gloves and have to wait till it gets cold to wear them!!

Need to start the laptop bag already! Must buy yarn! A very sweet woman at the yarn store where we "volunteer" one day a week, Fine Points, was so grateful to Sarah Jo and I for our knitting help that she gave us gift cards to the store. So, so nice!! So now I've got some extra money to spend on yarn! Hooray!

OMG... THREE POSTS!!

Just had to let you all know that I have finished my Feet Eaters, a little behind schedule but whatevs. Here they are:Awwww.

The second slipper (right foot) came out kinda funky because I wasn't really paying attention to the sewing. I was trying to seam and read at the same time, which isn't a great idea. Knitting and reading is fairly doable, if the pattern is simple enough, but intricate tasks like seaming many small parts together = not something you can doubletask. I sewed the head closed like three times before it looked half-way decent. The first time I sewed it folded the wrong way so the increase and decrease side seam was right in the center of the face. Smart. The second time, one side of the face was round and the other was pinched and flat. Then the teeth had their own saga, first too far, now too close, blah blah... But whatever, it's all done now, seams sewn, ends woven in (what I love about this project is you don't have to weave in the ends; you can just pull them with the tapestry needle into the big puffy part and lose the ends in the polyfill! Awesome!), eyes stitched on. (The eyes also look a little weird.) So they aren't perfect. But they are eye-catching and adorable. They would make GREAT gifts, if I actually had the patience to sit down and make a whole pile of them. All those small parts, and then all that seaming, bleh. But still, I love the idea of making them as Hanukkah presents. So easy, and sweet.

Anyway, I have finished like a whole chunk of knitting in the last few days! One of the Karira socks, the cozy, and the slippers. Phew! I would put a picture of the cozy but I don't think I should because it's going to be published, so it wouldn't be right to put a photo out there before the magazine comes out. I mean, what is a hot water bottle cozy anyway, right?? Who uses hot water bottles anymore? The British, that's who.

Two posts in a day?!

I finally finished the cozy. ::Phewwww:: I don't have much to say about it other than it's DONE. And I hope they like it over at the magazine.. It will be cool to see something I knit in a MAGAZINE.