Stitching for Sanity

2009 In Review

December 30, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I’ll try to keep this short.

First up, my grandma got out of the hospital last week and she’s doing fine, still very tired and weak and she has some problems with her left arm and leg, from the stroke, but she’s better and glad to be home.

I’m still furiously knitting on my KnitPicks project and nothing else, but it is just about finished so I’ll get back to regular posting soonish.

That said, here’s my 2009 in crafting.

1. Tank & Swatches, 2. Whisper Cardigan, 3. Wonder Cardigan, 4. Sweater In Progress, 5. Herringbone Sweater, 6. My Coat, 7. Blocking

Looking back at the year I honestly haven’t made as much as I thought. Here are the sweaters I’ve made, the first was a KnitPicks project and there is another project for them that isn’t included (I can’t remember if it’s been in a catalog yet so I don’t want to post it). I think my favorite thing I’ve made, as far as the process of making it was the Herringbone Sweater, the color work was fun to do and I love the finished item. My favorite to wear is the Wonder Cardigan, which surprises me since I’m not a huge fan of the yarn. The cardigan is warm and soft comfortable, it was perfect this fall over jeans and a t shirt. I still haven’t finished sewing the Alpaka Tunic but I’m counting it since I finished all the knitting this year.

1. My mom’s scarf, 2. Scarf from Victorian Lace Today, 3. Alpine Knit Scarf, 4. Vilai Socks, 5. Cold Mountain, 6. Beret, 7. Garter Stitch Blanket, 8. Mitten

I really thought I had made more scarves, shawls, and socks this year. My list is feeling sparse. I really love everything I’ve made here, all of it. My favorite is probably my mom’s scarf since I put so much work into it, from spinning the three-ply yarn to the knitting and finishing, I’m very proud of how good it looks. The scarves are great but I don’t use them much, I’m not really a lace person, I just like to make it. I did wear the Alpine Knit Scarf to my aunt’s funeral last month and got a ton of compliments on it. And my mittens are just adorable, love them.

1. Scarf, 2. Woven Bag, 3. Weaving, 4. Handwoven Bag, 5. Card Weaving, 6. Another bookmark, 7. Band, 8. Finished Scarf, 9. Sock Yarn Scarf, 10. Another Woven Scarf

I know I didn’t do as much weaving this year as I wanted, there just hasn’t been time, I’m pretty happy with what I did make, though. I know I’ve left off a few little card woven bands, but I can’t find pictures of them and can’t find the bands themselves so they won’t count. I have to say that my favorite, most used thing I’ve ever woven is my shibori scarf. It was worth all the time and effort I spend making it.

1. Hand Spun Yarn, 2. Handspun Ingeo, 3. Today’s Yarn, 4. This weeks spinning, 5. This weeks spinning, 6. This weeks spinning, 7. Laceweight Yarn, 8. Handspun, 9. Tour de Fleece Day 4, 10. Weekend Spinning, 11. Handspun

I haven’t done any spinning since July or August and I miss it so much, there just hasn’t been time. The yarn I’m happiest with is the very first I spun this year, in the top row. This is the Rambouillet/Llama blend that I used to knit my mom’s scarf. It is probably the most consistent yarn I’ve ever spun and it was my first real three-ply. Looking at these pictures I realize that I’ve left a couple out, I probably didn’t get pictures of them when I did the spinning and I’m just not going to mess with it now.

So in 2010 I want to spin more, use up of my stash fiber, weave more, and finally knit that fair isle that I’ve been saying I’m going to make for about five years (I actually have the yarn for it!). I have some money saved up for a loom and I know what I’m looking for (a 24-26 inch table loom with at least four harnesses) and I have my price range set (up to $300 but I’m willing to pay a little over that for shipping) and I know I want a used one and if it needs a little work, that’s okay. I’ve been scouring Craislist and Ebay and I’ve missed out on a few but I figure I’ll know when I find the right one.

And that has been my year. Here’s hoping that next year is even better!

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Tagged: 2009, Knitting, Spinning, Weaving

Not the Best Week

December 21, 2009 · 1 Comment

I’m having kind of a bad week and I’ve only had a few hours here and there to get online. I haven’t done any knitting to speak of, just on my KnitPicks project, and I haven’t even had a chance to do the seaming on my Alpaka Tunic. A week ago last Thursday morning (Dec 10), my grandpa went to wake up my grandma and she wasn’t responding, he said she was awake but couldn’t sit up and her hands and feet were turning blue. He called 911 and they went to the emergency room where she was immediately put in ICU. They found out she has pneumonia and she had a heart attack and a mild stroke both of which were probably caused by lack of oxygen. The cardiologist can’t do any tests on her heart until the pneumonia is gone so they don’t know how bad her heart is damaged but she has some arrhythmia and her blood pressure and pulse have been very high, they were able to lower them with medication but that’s just a temporary fix. The stroke was on the left side of her brain in the area that controls speech but they don’t think there will be any lasting damage there, it was very mild. She is doing a lot better, last Sunday they moved her out of ICU and are now saying she could be home before Christmas. It has been a very long, very stressful couple of weeks and I’m just ready for it all to be better.

Anyway, I’m not going to bother trying to come up with something to blog about for the next week or so, I don’t need anything else that I have to think about. I might try to post a quick update later this week but as far as crafty blogging (or crafty anything) I’m going to put all that on hold until I’m a little less stressed out. I do have some hand woven scarves in my Etsy shop if anyone is interested. I had planned on whipping up a few more but that’s not going to happy anytime soon. Also, I haven’t really been checking my email so if you leave a comment and don’t get a reply, please don’t be offended, I’ve only been spending about thirty minutes a day at the computer. I’m off to get some sleep now.

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Snowbird Mittens

December 11, 2009 · Leave a Comment

My mittens are done, I’m pretty sure I finished them Monday, I can’t remember exactly but I know I was still knitting them Sunday while I rode to visit my cousin who lives outside of Branson, MO. The knitting on these could be so much better, there are some very long floats on the front of both mittens and my tension got kinda wonky for a while but I really don’t care, they’re cute enough to make up for it. I did have a couple problems besides the tension issues, the cuff on the second mitten (that says “snow”) is shorter than the other even though I measured it twice before I started the hand, and the thumbs are just a tiny bit short but not enough to matter. All that matters is that they fit good, they’re warm, they match my coat, and I love them. I think I even have enough yarn left to make a hat, too.

The details:

Yarn: Valley Yarns Franklin that I dyed
Needles: five US1/2.25mm DPNs
Pattern: Snowbird Mittens from the Fall 2008 Vogue Knitting. You can buy the pattern on their website.
Modifications: none
More details on my Ravelry.

Now all I have on the needles is my KnitPicks project. I was a little worried about it at first, the pattern and the yarn didn’t seem like they would work well together, but it’s going fine and I’m pretty happy with my progress so far, I wish I was a little further along but there is a lot of personal stuff going on right now and my knitting time has been limited. I’m actually going to get back to it as soon as I’m done here. This is one of those projects that I might go on to knit for myself, I really like it, even the yarn and the colors. As soon as this project is done I’ll be starting on Rosemarkie, the yarn is just calling to me, taunting me since it knows how much I want to start the vest but I can’t. Ah, the yarn is a cruel mistress.

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Tagged: Knitting, Snowbird Mittens

Color!

December 4, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Last year when I sat out my knitting goals for the year, the thing I wanted to do most was colorwork. I finally got around to it now at the end of the year. I finished the first of my Snowbird mittens today. There are some very, very long floats and I’ve had a bit of trouble keeping good tension but I steamed it and it looks much better. I think these mittens are so adorable and I can’t wait to wear them. My goal is to finish the second mitten before the yarn for my next KnitPicks project gets here, it is so cold and I really need a new pair of mittens, if I don’t finish them before the yarn gets here, I’ll have to wait until that project is done. I forgot to take a picture of the back but it looks much better than the front, it is done in a chevron pattern and has mostly two stitch floats so keeping tension wasn’t an issue. After making this I now want to make many, many more mittens in every color. I could end up with a huge mitten collection, I don’t really mind that.

Speaking of KnitPicks, my yarn for my Alice Starmore project came in today. I’m iffy on the colors, I’m not sure there is enough contrast between the medium and dark orange and the light and medium blue colors. I took the picture into Photoshop and looked at it in gray scale and it looks ok, the colors look a little different in person, too, but I won’t know for sure until I swatch. The ball on the bottom is the background color. I’m making the Rosmarkie Waistcoat from The Celtic Collection, which is a button front vest in a Celtic diamond pattern. I read on one of the Ravelry forums that this is a fairly easy pattern and a lot of people recommended it as a first project.

I also got my new needles (nickel plated Options) and I have a wicked case of startitis. I want to start my second mitten, I want to start the vest, I want to knit some lace, either the Spider’s Web Shawl from Victorian Lace Today or a Faroese shawl, I want to knit a hat, it just doesn’t stop. Every time I see something that I like I immediately want to cast on and it kills me because I can’t since I have to wait until my KnitPicks project is done. Except the mitten, I’ll work on it this weekend, and I might go ahead and swatch for the vest because I’m curious how the yarn looks. I won’t cast on anything else, though.

Sally says “Yeah, sure, you won’t cast on a new project.” *eyeroll*

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Tagged: Knitting, Rosmarkie Waistcoat, Snowbird Mittens

Inside Day

December 2, 2009 · Leave a Comment

It is so cold outside today that I’m not even going outside. Our utility company has been replacing our gas lines so we’ve gone two or three hours a day without hot water or heat, luckily, they aren’t working today. It’s a whopping 36F outside right now and it was snowing, it has switched back to rain sine the temperature has gone back up. I’m baking cookies (oatmeal cookies, using a recipe for plain old oatmeal raisin cookies, minus the raisins and adding a little pumpkin pie spice for flavor, they’re really good) and getting ready to make a big pot of soup for dinner. I am so glad I dropped off my library books and went to the grocery store last night. I wore my coat and even if it is short, it’s really warm.

I’m feeling pretty unmotivated today, despite all the cooking, which I’m forcing myself to do so I don’t do something like veg out in front of the computer or sleep on the couch all day. I had planned on some weaving but I don’t have the right yarn for what I’m wanting to make. So, here’s my mittens. These are the Snowbird mittens from the Fall 2008 Vogue Knitting. You can see where my tension changed in the ribbing, I’ve never done corrugated ribbing before and I started out too tight. I like it so far, it’s cute and the yarn looks really good (it’s that green yarn I dyed a couple weeks ago). They’re fun to work on but I really have to watch the pattern so they’re not something I can knit while I read but I can watch TV and knit them.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel like warping up the loom, today I’m just way too blah feeling to do anything except cook.

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Tagged: Food, Knitting, Snowbird Mittens