Happy Dance Time

Guys, I got ANOTHER job today!! Barush Hashem!!! Formans Rejoice!!!

I was just cruising the mall with my mom and I stopped in at the Lindt Chocolate to say hi to my old friend, Ron. We worked together at Lindt for many years, in Woodbury, and after that store closed he moved to Roosevelt Field. So I wandered in to say HI. And whaddayaknow!!! They needed people! All their people were leaving!! The overseeing manager happened to be in the store!! Application, interview, wham bam! I'm back at Lindt, baby!!

The fact that I now have TWO jobs and will soon have steady income makes me feel a little less guilty about spending many moneys on Knit Picks products today. I put in my order for sixteen skeins of yarn and I am SO EXCITED!! It shipped today so I should have it soon. I won't put down an exact number, but I spent enough to qualify for free shipping, so. I ordered seven different kinds of yarn, totaling 16 skeins, and a pair of size 2 32" circulars. I ordered six skeins of a fingering weight yarn called Palette, to make this really sweet short-sleeved sweater with this awesome ribbed collar with a button placket. I just discovered it on Ravelry yesterday. I also ordered three skeins of lace for a laceweight sweater I want to make. And some other random stuff just to test out the Knit Picks quality. It's a notoriously cheap source of (reputedly) fairly quality yarn, so I decided I needed to see for myself.

Anyway, problems.

I started the Noro coat the other day. But then I went on Ravelry (I LOVE THAT SITE! How did I live without it?) to look up Noro Iro projects and it turns out someone else had this idea before. A few people actually, made some pretty cute coats. And that's when I realized that I definitely don't have enough yarn. Actually, I realized it when I started knitting and I was halfway through the skein before I had 3" done. And it's a super-bulky yarn. So now I have to rethink things.


This is my Noro Iro. All very beautiful, but what do I do with it?? Seven skeins isn't enough to make a coat. Maybe a blazer? I dunno. I've kind of lost my enthusiasm for it. Maybe it'll just stay in my stash for now... I do want to make some kind of outerwear with it, but I don't feel like buying more of it right now.

Mailed out the sample scarf and Play With Fire socks today. Am working diligently on Aunt Hayley's skirt. I don't even know when I'll see her next, so I don't have a deadline per se, but I'm plodding through. Also working on a pair of Knit Picks socks. I used a German Twisted cast on as recommended, because it said it makes a "stretchy" hem, but-- I must have messed up, because it's really tight and uncomfortable. In fact, I may actually try to undo the cast-on and just bind off the cuff because the sock comes up really high on the knee and it's freaking annoying to tug it over the calf.

In other news, the Law and Order: SVU Season Premiere was tonight and .... WOWZA!! Top notch!! SVU always delivers!! I need to learn how to simultaneously WATCH tv and knit, though. I realized that I never take my eyes off my knitting. Which will probably result in some eyesight issues later on. Problematic, as my eyesight already sucks.

huzzah!

...I got a job. All of us here in the Forman household are very relieved. I start on Thursday at Bath & Body works, so I'm going to smell really good from now on! I also have an interview at Joann Fabrics, so maybe I'll get another job too. It'll be reeeaaalllly nice to have some income again. Like, REALLY nice.

Right now I'm working on my aunt's Bell Curve skirt, same yarn as my mom's, in navy blue. And also some Knit Picks sock blank socks, which are coming out REALLY cool. (The rainbow ones.) And also a sample scarf that I'm doing. I tried to continue with my gloves last week, and got happily all the way up to the thumb when I realized that I had knit a second right hand. So I had to unravel the glove back down to the ribbing. THAT was frustrating.

There are just sooo many things I want to make.

-My Noro coat. I have seven skeins of Noro Iro wound into balls and waiting to be knit, but I haven't gotten around to it yet and I fear that my enthusiasm about it is waning. But I really want to knit a coat. I have always wanted to knit a coat!! Wahh! I just haven't really had the time to write out the pattern. I've started it, but nothing is really worked out concretely and I don't want to start till it is.

-I recently decided (like two days ago) that I want to knit the Featherweight Cardigan, which is this laceweight little cardigan which is VERY cute, and the pattern suggests Malabrigo Lace which, by the way, I have! I only have one skein though, and I need at least two or three because I think I want to make the sleeves long instead of three-quarter. So I emailed Fine Points asking if they still have some Sapphire Malabrigo Lace. Maybe they can send it to me. It would be the same dye lot, so that would be ideal. But the thing is, I've never made a sweater in a lighter weight and I think I would get a lot more use out of it than the worsted wool sweaters I have made. They all end up kinda bulky! So it would be really fun to knit a laceweight sweater.

-My winter hat. I need a new one, and I have a few funky cabled hats queued up on Ravelry, but since it's not that cold yet, no rush. I wanted to make it with my red Malabrigo worsted, but now I have another skein of a more neutral, dark color so that might be more appropriate. I'll consider it. I do love bright standy-out colors, after all.

-Diamond knee socks. I looked through my old Knit-a-Day Calendars. I do this every once in a while because my knitting tastes change, so different patterns appeal to me at different times. I picked out a bunch of sock patterns, and these cool knee socks, although I think I would knit them to thigh-length. I would have to alter the pattern to fit over my knee. This isn't high-priority.

-Baby sweater for my friend Heather's baby, due at the end of December. No rush on that either clearly but I want to make it-- the sweater is so cute, with a neat shoulder placket, and I like knitting baby things. And the yarn is so soft! It's going to be fun to work with.

-I found a bunch of other cute baby projects in the calendar as well, a few infant socks, which I want to make (I think they're better than booties!!) and an ADORABLE hoodie sweater for a baby-- so, so, so cute! I need someone else near me to have a baby already!

I should REALLY knit more stuff for my Etsy page. I have completely neglected that since I created it last year. But now when I knit stuff I like it so much that I want to keep it! Plus, you can't sell things knit from other people's patterns... so I'd have to like make some upppp and that's hard. I need to practice my pattern writing skills. For realZ. It always takes so long for me. But I do find it very fun and interesting. I love solving the knitting problems. But I don't think I know enough about it. I need to learn. I want to take a class or something.

Ahh.... sorry.

I'm sorry. I haven't written in two weeks, basically since I got home from Ohio. The main reason why I stopped updating was because I'm pretty sure the only people who read this blog are my parents, and since I am now living in the same house as them, I figured an online update wouldn't be necessary to keep them posted on all my knitting projects. But I started feeling guilty. Maybe there's one or two readers out there who aren't my parents, so this is for you.

SO MUCH KNITTING STUFF HAS BEEN GOING ON, OH MY GOSH!!! My entire life is knitting now. Literally.

Since I've gotten home, I have...

1. finished my sister's scarf
2. knit 2 sample hats
3. knit a bell curve skirt for my mom
4. finished the KAL play with fire socks (sample and pattern)
5. finished that damn laptop bag
6. begun a pair of socks
7. begun a second skirt, for my aunt
8. begun a sample scarf
9. agreed to knit at least two sample shawls

Pictures.

Beck's scarf. I finished it the day before she got home from school.


Dumb laptop bag. Ok, it's actually pretty awesome and I am happy with it but it took forever to finish and I will never felt again. AND the zipper is too small, so I have to take it out. NEVER DONE. Seriously, it took forever to do everything... felt the bag and the pockets... then felt the little peices by hand, but it didn't really work, so after letting the project sit for a week I went back and knit two more pieces and felted it all in the machine instead. Much better. Then sewed everything together. Put in magnetic snaps in the pockets, sewed buttons over them to conceal ugly backings. Sewed the zipper, too small. Laptop barely fits. Must remove zipper. All together-- it was really an annoying project because of all the felting. But when I look at it, I feel pretty proud. It's really nice. It looks professional and once I take out the zipper it'll be great because it fits Sheli perfectly.

Mom's skirt. She saw mine, loved it, requested one. I made it in a different yarn though, a less expensive one, since the denim yarn would add a lot to the cost. So I used Loops & Threads Impeccable Worsted, an acrylic yarn, because it has a very sturdy, solid texture (and is machine washable). It knitted up nicely, but I had to iron it ("kill" it) because the bottom curled. Once I blocked/ironed/killed it, it became much softer. Before that, I found the fabric kind of stiff. Afterward ironing, the drape improved. Now I am knitting another one for my aunt, who also loved it, in navy blue. Mom wanted hers shorter, so I altered the pattern a bit. My aunt also wants it a little shorter than mine.
The yarn is thick and it's a very warm skirt. Unlike mine she won't have to wear a slip under it-- no gaps whatsoever. I hope she gets a lot of use out of it. She says she will wear it to work. It looks very cute on her.

And I am also doing a lot of sample knitting, which I really enjoy! I get FREE, PRETTY YARN in exchange for knitting things! Stash pics!


For the two hats, I got a huge Babs Yowzer Whatta Skein-- 560 yards of soft, pretty worsted!

For the scarf I'm knitting, I got a skein of madelinetosh tosh merino (worsted, turquoise)...
A skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport, 200 yards of sport weight wool in a pretty blue/gray colorway...

And a skein of Malabrigo Kettle Dyed Worsted. Yum!

I also got two skeins of an orangey silk/tweed blend.

And, I agreed to knit two sample shawlettes for an indie yarn company and they are sending me two skeins of their hand-dyed yarn per one skein project that I do!!

I love yarn. I feel rich when I have pretty yarn. My mom grumbles about how I should be getting paid in money, but I am happy to get the beautiful yarn. It just makes me FEEL so good... how do I explain it to a non-knitter? She'll never understand.

Also knitting one of the Knit Picks sock blank socks... such an effing ordeal to knit with that thing... first I tried doing two socks and two circulars simultaneously. I thought it'd be good for me since I like quick knitting. But I hated it. Not only that, but the rainbow was dyed from the wrong end... the yarn wasn't feeding smoothly out of the blank. So I had to unravel the whole thing and roll it into a ball. Then I started the socks again but couldn't stand doing both socks at once. So I started doing just one. But then I had to wind the OTHER strand of yarn while knitting with the active yarn... blehh... it's been really annoying. I mean, are you meant to unravel the blank into a ball before you knit? And if so, are you supposed to wind them into two separate balls because there are two separate threads? That is really irritating.

Anyway, maybe I'll find a better way to deal with it. The socks aren't high priority though. The sample are, and my aunt's skirt. Then eventually I have to start baby stuff and presents. SO MUCH KNITTING! Love it. And in my spare time I'm looking for a job. It's a tough market out there.

Abort

That was a waste of two hours. I wanted to start one of my sock blank socks-- the rainbow sock blank, with the Twists and Turns pattern from Shannon's Book "How to Knit in the Woods." I was determined to figure out knitting two socks at a time on two circulars. And that was painful. Seriously, I spent about an hour just moving cast-on stitches from one needle to another. Trying to figure out how it was supposed to work. Failing. It was very frustrating. Finally, eventually, I got everything in semi-order and knitted a whole three rows... until I realized I was working from the wrong end of the blank. I wanted to start at red and work my way down through the rainbow. Instead I started at the end. ARRG! So I ripped out the entire thing and am now sitting here annoyed. Yet I am still motivated to make the socks! So I'll try again.

Other news. Finished all the moving pieces for my laptop bag. Now all that's left is felting. I don't have a zippered pillowcase, so I have to wait till I get home to see if my mom or Nana has one I can use. And then I'll get my felting on. I'm excited! Over Shabbat a friend showed me two great bags that she had knit and felted and I was inspired to finish mine. But I don't want to keep running up and down two flights of stairs to the washer in the basement here, so I'm going to wait and maybe do it later this week. Here are all the parts:

So there's the bag, two pockets, two long shoulder straps and two attaching tabs to go on the D-rings.

And, I finished the first of the pair of socks that I am designing for the Ravelry KAL.

SNEAK PEEK!
There's a long entwining cable down the front, and two side squiggly cables, and a diamond flame motif on the back, and zig-zags between the front and back panels that travel from the leg to the toe. It's simple, but cool-looking, I think. I haven't started the second one yet.

Now I am like, all out of projects! So I need to start something. Thus the Rainbow Sock debacle. I'm not ready to start the coat or hat, and I don't feel like finishing the gloves. I could work on the scarf, but... I'll procrastinating. Need NEW!! Yay! I have SsosoOOOOoo much cool yarn to do stuff with this year. It's so exciting!!!

OK. Am going to start the rainbow sock AGAIN.

My Dyeing Day

For the last day of our internship, we headed over to Shannon's and dyed up yarn, sock blanks, and felt scarves and it was UBER fun!! Anything involving mixing bright colors and pretty yarn equals awesome in my book.

Here is the stuff I made!!

The first three are Louet Gems Fingering Weight (sock weight).

This I made with pinks and reds and oranges and I love love love.

Shannon dyed this one with greens and jades to show us how it's done, and she gave it to me. And I love it.


I intended for this one to be more purpley but it turned out pale purple/blue. However, when you look at all the different shades it is actually really pretty.

And then we dyed a whole bunch of sock blanks. I think I talked about what sock blanks are but refresher course: Peice of undyed knitting which can then be dyed to your liking and unwound as it is knit into a very cool sock!

We dyed ten sock blanks. Shannon is writing a book for Knit Picks (maker of sock blanks) on how sock blanks work, and we are going to knit up the socks for her to photograph. So we get to keep the socks afterward. We each are making five pairs. The only thing is we have to make all the socks unmatched. One of the socks is supposed to be in plain stockinette and the other with some kind of pattern. So the colors will match but not the actual patterns. Which is a little funky.







This one is my faaavorite.

We also dyed some felt scarves:


I love the tye-dyed effect. I may give them as gifts.

Dyeing was SO fun. I love making my own colorways. I would LOOOVE to work with a dyeing company at some point!!!

I Block Sock

I block sock.

Block, sock, block!



Sock is blocked.


Yes friends and family (OK, family), I am actually getting into blocking things. I made sockblockers. I.e., I cut foot shapes into cereal boxes, soaked the socks in hot water and wool wash, put em on the sock blockers, hung them on a hanger to get full air circulation, and left em there for a few days. They actually dripped some dye, which I guess makes sense because the color is so deeply saturated, but I wasn't expecting it. Afterward they were REALLY soft, though a little pilled.

Also am making progress on Sheli's bag:


Finished one pocket, am close to done with the other. I made a mistakey on the first. Didn't purl a row at the flap, which makes it easier to fold over. But I'm not undoing it, so whatever. We will deal. On the second pocket, I got really annoyed with carrying the colors along for the million stripies so I decided to just do a few solid blocks. It'll look cool when it's done. So after the pocket, I have to do the loong icord handles, and then felt. I'm a little worried about the felting! Since I've never done it before. I kinda wanted to do it before I left Cleveland but I don't know if it'll work. We'll see. I'm excited though... excited for it to shrink! Because it is sorta huge.


My main project lately has been my Play With Fire sock for the Ravelry KAL. It's been giving me issues. It's a fun, challenging project, but ripping out and re-knitting for swatches makes the yarn messy. So I'm going to rewind the ball before I start so the fuzzy part is at the end, so it should end up being part of the foot, and less visible than the leg. I made a cool cable chart that is supposed to suggest flames, with a thickening entwined cable (from one to three stitches and back to one) and two smaller "flames" at either side (one to two to one stitches). But now I don't know if I should make it a side panel-- which is what I originally wanted to do-- or put it on the front so that the main cable can continue smoothly down the foot. Overall that seems to be the better idea but I am sad to let go of my side-panel idea. However, the side panel would require another inside panel and I was having trouble figuring out what it should be without making it look kind of random. It'll probably be easier and look neater to do a front cable and then figure out something for the back. It will be a pretty simple sock. The only challenging part is that the cable chart is 53 rows long. It's not a hard cable at all, it's just a long repeat.

OK, so I've got to nail it down and start the sample, and it should be cool. I am SO excited to see other people knitting something I designed!!!

In other news, tomorrow is my last day of the internship. We are doing a "dyeing day" at Shannon's-- hand-dyeing our own yarn! I am totally psyched for this.

so busy yet so unproductive

Hey all. Today (every day) I have a ton of knitting to do. But today, unlike other days, I have not worked one stitch. I did some stuff. I made up a chart for one of the cables on the Play With Fire sock I'm doing. But I still haven't done up the chart for the central cable. I need to do that, test it, and then figure out what the heck I'm doing with the whole rest of the thing.

On top of that I still need to finish the bobble feather and fan scarf for Shannon's collection that I started last week. Two weeks ago? Yikes. I haven't touched it in days.

Thursday was my last day at Fine Points. I bought QUITE a lot of yarn to get the most out of my 30% discount.


I got....

1. Noro Silk Garden in this great jade/yellow/blue colorway (bottom middle, under the purple skein and blue ball)
2. Misti Alpaca Pima Cotton and Silk Handpaint in this gorgeous multi (it's the pinkish one touching the little blue one)
3. Muench Family in cream and blue (the cream and blue ones) for baby stuff!!
4. Artful Yarns Dance in pink/purple (it is tucked under the red Malabrigo in the middle), also for baby stuff
5. Malabrigo Sock Yarn (the brown multi- YUM)
5. Malabrigo Lace (the little poison green one poking out on the right)
6. Seven skeins of Noro Iro (all of the big, bulky, multi skeins)

The other stuff is stuff I already have in my stash. The whole thing is my BEAUTIFUL GOURMET STASH!! I also have another, crappier, mostly acrylic stash that I am too humiliated to post on Ravelry, ha. But I probably will one day when I get bored enough.

A closeup of the Noro Iro:

That's going to become a coat. I don't know if it is going to be enough, but if it isn't, it shouldn't be hard to find more because I don't need any specific colorway. As you can see I kind of grabbed seven completely random ones. It is going to be psychedelic.

I'm so sleepy today that I haven't gotten any knitting done even though I really need to.