Category Archives: Kumihimo

Some FOs

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I have a bunch of FOs that I’ve been meaning to post, so I thought I’d just do them all right now and get them out of the way.  Here goes.

Guinevere

  • Pattern:  Guinevere from Wrap Style
  • Yarn:  KnitPicks Shimmer in Galaxy
  • Needles:  US 6 / 4.0 mm, US 9 / 5.5 mm, US 10 / 6.0 mm
  • I knit this as a sample for the latest KnitPicks catalog.  The pattern was very easy to follow and the yarn is just beautiful.  It’s an alpaca/silk blend that is super soft and shiny.  I made this back in March.

Handwoven Bag

  • Pattern:  Can’t remember the exact name of the pattern but it’s from Weaving Made Easy
  • Yarn:  Sugar and Cream 2 balls each of ecru and dark brown
  • Woven at 7.5dpi then cut up and sewn by hand.
  • I love how this bag came out but it really needs lined, I’ll get around to it eventually.

Cold Mountain

  • Pattern:  Cold Mountian by Kieran Foley from the Summer ‘09 Knitty.
  • Yarn:  Lorna’s Laces Helen’s Lace, less than 1 skein
  • Needles:  US3/3.25mm
  • Finished size:  about 25”x76”, I blocked mine out a little longer.
  • I love this yarn, it’s soft, shiny, and blocks beautifully.  The stitch definition in the lace is so crisp.  The pattern itself is great, it’s all charted out so it’s easy to follow and easy to memorize and I love the way one section flows into the next.  There’s more pictures on my Ravelry page.

Beret

  • Pattern:  Spring Beret by Natalie Larson
  • Yarn:  Simply Cotton Worsted in Malted Milk from KnitPicks, a few yards less than one skein
  • Needles:  US 8/5mm
  • This is a cute hat, it looks better on but I couldn’t get a decent picture of it on my head.  The pattern works up quick and I memorized it after the first round so I barely had to use the actual pattern.  This yarn is much softer than most of the cottons that I’ve used and it has a nice drape and didn’t hurt my hands as I knit.  I would love a little cardigan made out of this to wear in the summer, it comes in sport weight, too.

That’s it.  I have an almost finished blanket on the needles but I forgot to photograph it so more on that later and I finished spinning my singles today but I’ll save that for tomorrow.

Lazy

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Scarf

I’ve been feeling so incredibly lazy lately.  I haven’t been sleeping good and I spend most of my day trying to bribe myself to get up and do something so I don’t sit at the computer and doze all day.  I have been knitting, I’ve been staying up late reading (I figure that if I’m not sleeping anyway, I may as well be doing something), perfect knitting time.  And since I’ve been getting up pretty early (going to bed at about 3-4am and getting up between 8-9am, usually) I’ve had a lot of knitting time during the day since I’ve been too tired to do anything useful.  The pattern for the Alpine knit scarf says to do 37 repeats of the center pattern and I’m up to 28 so I’m pretty close to being done.  I just got my last work project sent in and I should have another one soon and I’d like to finish this before I start the next project, I think I’ll be fine.

And that’s really all I have.  It rained all last week and it’s supposed to rain more this week so I haven’t been able to wash any more fleece.  I really haven’t been in the mood to spin, so all my fiber is sitting around in bags, untouched.  I did get an e-mail from Amazon that my copy of Sock Innovation is finally on the way and should be delivered by next Monday.  The yarn I ordered a couple weeks ago is on backorder so I’m waiting on it.  There just isn’t much going on.

Thrifting and Knitting

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Thrift store finds

I spent a lot of my weekend browsing local antique stores and flea markets, something I haven’t done in a long time.  I love antiques.  One of the things I’ve always wanted to do is have my own quirky little antique store, but I really don’t see that happening.  I have been thinking about selling some stuff on Etsy, though.  I’m lucky enough to live in a town that is chock full of little antique stores and huge flea markets so I can do a lot of looking.  This weekend I went to a brand new shop that specializes in mid-century modern furniture, which is where I picked up my new purse.  It’s called Funtiques Market and I can’t recommend it enough.  If I had the money and the space, I would buy everything in the store, the prices were really good, too.  I picked the camera up at an antique mall (if you’re a local, it’s on East Trafficway, just west of  Freemont) that I spent hours browsing in.  This store had everything, art, clothes, tons of furniture, electronics.  The staff was very nice, too.  And they had free coffee and cookies, which always helps.

The camera is a Kodak DuaflexII which takes 620 film that is no longer in production.  I’ve read a few places that you can use 120 in it, but I stuck a roll of 35mm, braced it with some cardboard (following the instructions here) and shot that Sunday night.  I dropped the film off last night and it won’t be back until Friday, but I can’t wait to see how it turns out.  I got the camera dirt cheap (they can go for over $40 on Ebay) and cleaned it up a little, tightened a few screws, and it seems to work really great.  You can see pictures taken with the camera on Flickr.

624 Stitches

Since this is, primarily, a knitting blog, I suppose I could talk about that.  I (mostly) finished my work project over the weekend, it needs blocked and a little finishing, so I thought I would cast on something for me.  I’ve been wanting to try one of the shawls from Victorian Lace Today and I decided on the “Three-cornered shawl in clover pattern” so I popped in a movie (Frozen River, good movie) and settled in with a skein of Helen’s Lace and a size US5 needle and cast on 624 stitches.  It took almost two hours but I finally finished the cast on and since yesterday I’ve only managed to knit six rows, and this is after knitting for two hours straight last night (while I watched Waking the Dead, another good movie, on Hulu.  But I want a long range project, something that’s a bit of a challenge, and I think this will be a good one.

Now for some cat talk.  I had to take Peanut back to the vet yesterday.  No fights with strays this time, but she quit eating over the weekend and went for about two days with no food.  The vet gave her some fluids and some pills (an antibiotic and an appetite stimulant) and she’s doing a lot better today.  She ate some canned and dry food last night and some dry food today and she’s been a little more active.  Looks like she’s on the mend.

Now I need some coffee and I need to check on the cat, so I guess that’s it for today.  Maybe I’ll have some progress on the shawl tomorrow.

Busy, Busy

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Dyeing

I’ve been up since 7:30am and I’ve barely sat down today.  It actually feels really good to be so busy today.  The first thing I did was dye a big bunch of roving.  This is about a half pound or more of that mixed wool/llama/mohair/whatever that I got at the fiber fair last year, it’s all gone now.  There colors here are way off, I’ll get better pictures when the roving is dry.  I’m kind of afraid that I felted this batch like I did the last one, this stuff just seems to felt if you say “water” in the same room as the roving.  If it’s felted it’s not too bad, the roving will still be spinable but it will need carded first to fluff it back up.  I had planned on selling at leas some of this but if I did felt it I’ll probably spin it and sell the yarn or felt it and sell the felt.  I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to assess the damage.

I spent a little over an hour roasting tomatoes and eggplant so I could have some sandwiches like these from Vegan Yum Yum.  I’ve made them before but they turned out much better this time.  I used roma tomatoes and cut them in four slices and only roasted them for about 45 minutes.  And I used real cheese.  I was vegan for about two years but I always missed cheese and there weren’t any good fakes cheeses back then, so I gave up.  I have a weak spot for cheese, can’t live without the stuff.

While the food was cooking I finished plying and then soaked my ingeo yarn but my camera batteries died before I got to take a picture of it.  The yarn turned out about the way I figured it would, it’s stiff and scratchy, not something that I would want to wear.  But I think it would be good for something like a bag or, well, anything you wouldn’t have to wear.

Crochet Coaster

Yesterday I decided I need a coaster for my desk so I made this little crocheted one with some size 10 crochet cotton and a 1.65mm hook.  The pattern is from Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts!: Lacy Crochet it’s the round coaster.  It’s about four and a half inches across, smaller than I thought it would be, but the perfect size for a coffee cup.  And this was super easy, it only took about an hour to make.  Confession time:  way back before I learned how to knit, I used to manically crochet things like doilies and table runners, jewelry and hats, with thread and tiny hooks.  I was working doing telephone customer service and I would crochet like a mad lady all day at work.  I loved doing huge pieces in filet crochet with these ridiculously small hooks and thread that made this look huge.  I was also very stereotypically Goth, pale skin, black clothes, weird hair and makeup, piercings.  I got a lot of weird looks at work.

Tablet Woven Case

I took that card woven strap I made last week and sewed it up into a double pointed needle case.  This is about seven inches long and two inches wide.  The edges are a little wonky and there are parts were my weaving is just crap but it will work.  Last night I spent a few hours threading the cards for another little project but I haven’t started it yet, maybe later.

I’m off to finish cleaning up and I really need to make some coffee.

Catching Up

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Scarf in Progress

I’m saving my spinning to blog about tomorrow, so here’s some other stuff.  I’m running out of yarn for my scarf so last night I started the second border.  I think I can block this out to be the right length, so I’m not worried about it being too short.  This yarn is so hard to get a picture of, it’s a dark blue, almost black, and I just can’t get any detail to show up.  I’m going to order a set of blocking wires soon (I keep saying this but I never order them, can anyone recommend a set?) and then I’ll get to block Irtfa’a, finally.  Anyway, little digression, this scarf is zooming right along and I’ve really liked knitting it.  The body of the scarf was easy to follow, the repeats were short and went really fast, but now I’m on the second border (you can see my cast on on the right side of the picture) so things will be slowing down a bit again.  The border has open work on both sides, the repeats are sixteen rows, and there are two different patterns to work at the same time so I have to really pay attention to what I’m doing. 

I really need something easy to work on at the computer but I don’t have anything I can start.  I thought about making a vest but I can’t decide on a pattern, I thought about starting some socks but I’m not really in the mood, it’s that funk I talked about yesterday, I just can’t make up my mind on anything.

Braiding

One thing that has been holding my attention is braiding.  I can whip up one of these little braids in five or ten minutes so they’re the perfect project when I want something quick and easy.  The top braid is a basic five strand braid, the bottom is a four strand flat braid, they’re both made out of nylon cord.  I really like braiding with the nylon, it’s smooth and regular and if I don’t like what I make, it’s easy to unbraid and redo.  I wasn’t happy with the green and yellow braid and I’ve already unpicked it an I’ll try something else later.  I have no idea what I’ll ever do with all these little braids I keep making but I really like doing them.

That’s all I have today, tomorrow: handspun!