Chocolate has healing powers… kind of November 8, 2008

Wow, just when I thought I was almost done with Clapotis, I realize I’ve screwed things up horribly!

So the section of Clapotis that is worked straight is written so that you repeat rows 1-12 until you’ve done it 13 times total. Every 8th row, you have to drop a stitch from the beginning of the row so that you’ll be able to drop the stitch down the whole length of the scarf at the end.

I was on my 12th of 13th repeats (I don’t really know how to phrase that any less confusing) and then noticed I had done something very, very bad. 5 repeats back, I had forgotten to drop the stitch and had instead included it into the edge, where it had been purled together with another stitch. Meaning that an entire drop-stitch stripe would be missing from the scarf. I felt sooo dumb!

So that brings me to this photo, where I had to add in a make-shift life-line below the screwy row, in question:

After which, I frogged all the way back to it:

I frogged about 2 skeins worth of progress (220 yards).

Then I sat in front of the TV mopey and consoled myself with chocolate while I corrected the row I messed up and continued with the pattern.

:’(

SO close to finishing, but in the meantime… May 12, 2008

So I finally finished all the knitting for the mead scarf. The only thing I have left to do is weave in the ends and block it, but I’ve been putting it off since I don’t have anything set up to do the blocking on.

Anyway, I thought I’d share an almost finished picture of my scarf, so here it is.

I absolutely love this color! I definitely would’ve had enough to have made the Thermal sweater out of this blue yarn (I still have 22 unopened skeins left over!). But oh well.

And as this was my first lace project, it did not go perfectly. Haha, there were some interesting eyelet formations and some accidental ribbed knitting in the parts that should’ve been seed stitch.

But, I think once it’s all blocked and finished, all my little mishaps will be camouflaged by the pattern. So yay. Hopefully I’ll have that done within the next week or so. I haven’t been in a terrible rush to finish it since we’ve had 100 degree weather already, leaving me without a need for a wool scarf.

And, in the meantime, I started in on the Thermal sweater with the yarn I had ordered from knitpicks a while ago. It came in about a week ago, but I was desperately trying to finish my scarf before casting on a new project. If I try to work multiple things at once, I pretty much just focus on the newest thing and ignore all the old things I’ve started, which explains a box full of UFOs. And I didn’t want the lace scarf to be banished to that box.

Yikes. Rambling. So here is the start of my sweater.

I was so panicked because my gauge ended up being smaller than the pattern called for. So I’m working the 34″ pattern, but it’s actually coming out to the size of the 32″ pattern. OOPS! I thought I was going to have to frog it and start over, but I decided to try it on first and get peoples’ opinion of the fit. And to my delight, it stretched enough to fit, but without stretching so much that it ruins the look of the pattern.

So for now it looks like it’s all going ok. I just really hope I don’t have problems when I come to the shaping along the neck and for the sleeves.

I am a woman obsessed. April 29, 2008

Well, I started on a new project. I have some really pretty blue fingering weight yarn but I’ve never known what to do with it until the other day when I was browsing lace scarves on Ravelry. And then I found the Mead Scarf. And then I soon became addicted to this whole lace knitting thing. It’s like a book you can’t put down, but only in a more negative, deranged, obsessed way than the expression connotes. If I don’t have it in my hands to work on, all I think about it is how much work I could be getting done on it if it WERE in my hands.

Friday night I was at a concert and I had my scarf in my backpack just in case I had to wait in line for forever (which I didn’t). And I really hated the 2^nd band that started playing and I couldn’t even stand to look at the guys. I was standing right in front of the stage (front row, woot woot). All I could think about was how BADLY I wanted to pull out my knitting and focus on that, instead. I kept trying to think of a way I could discreetly knit in the front row of a dimly lit concert. So for the 30-45 minutes of their set, my fingers were twitching and I was haunted with ~*~seed st 5 sts, *k3, k2tog, m1* seed st 5 sts~*~

So yes, hopefully once I get this baby finished I’ll be able to move on with life. We’ll see…

So here is the LOVELY blue yarn that I have. I got it at a thrift store ages ago for $.50/skein and I think I bought 25 skeins (I have some of it involved with a UFO that will never be finished)

The bad thing about it (other than that it smells like it was sitting in a little old lady’s house for 50 years) is that I can’t find the yardage ANYWHERE on the skein! Which is why I was hesitant to start any project with this yarn. I had actually thought about using it for the Thermal sweater pattern, but I would be devastated if I got halfway finished with a sweater and then found out I had no more yarn to finish it with. So if anyone has any ideas on figuring out yardage, please see if you can figure it out from my label. The picture should enlarge when you click it.

So all in all, at least my obsession is paying off. The first day I started this I thought it would take me years to finish. But after this weekend I think I’m about a third of the way done! I’ve also done about another 4 inches since I took these pictures.

I <3 Joey at KXLU! *listen to his show!* April 23, 2008

SOOO….

Today was amazing because a couple of shout outs on the L.A. radio station KXLU (88.9 FM)

And because I’m a huge giant dork, I recorded the 2 that I was awake for! I guess Joey mentioned me a few times, starting a t 7-ish, but I was still SOUND asleep that early, lol.

CHECK IT OUT!!!!

***********************************************************************************************

The First:

***********************************************************************************************

The Second:

***********************************************************************************************

So that ABSOLUTELY made my day!!!

Anyway, he had left a comment on my post of the scrunchable scarf that I had made for myself asking if I sell these. Long story short, we e-mailed back and forth a bunch, he picked out some awesome yarns at knitpicks.com and I spent the last couple of weeks making them for him. And, of course, I was totally paranoid that he wasn’t going to like them and think they looked amateur or something (which is what I always fear when I make stuff for my friends. I guess it’s just because I always know the little flaws that bug me about a project as I’m working on it, but they’re not things that anyone else notice or even care about). But he LOVES them! So yay!!!

Anyway, I’ll post links to my Project Info page when I get a pic of him and his scarves.

Until then, YAY!!!

And listen to Joey on Tuesday mornings 6-10am Pacific Time (88.9FM for L.A. or stream online at http://www.kxlu.com) because he’s super awesome and they play some AWESOME indie music.

And one last thing. If anyone happens to know where I can buy some sweet rainbow yarn online, can you leave me a comment about it? I’ve only seen tacky acrylic Red Heart rainbow color changing yarn, but nothing nice. So yeah, I was hoping for worsted weight, but if the yarn is super awesome I can probably make it work. Here’s a picture of the stuff Joey likes, but I couldn’t find anything comparable to it online

Scrunchable Scarf Finished February 11, 2008

Well, I finished my scarf a few days ago and love how it turned out. It knit up REALLY fast, too. And in even better news, I’ve finally used up all of the green yarn I bought on sale, yay!

I know I’m not as cute as Benny, but I thought I’d post a picture anyway.

So now I’ve come to a decision-making point. Here’s the situation:

I bought blue and red sport weight yarn for a project for my Dad. He just bought a motor scooter and bought a helmet to use that was blue with a red dragon. So as soon as he ordered that on Ebay, I ordered the yarn and decided I would make him a fingerless pair of gloves that he could use while he’s driving. I wanted to stitch “Yo ho Yo ho A biker’s life for me” on them (just as a joke since we’ve been telling him how hard-core he is on his 50cc moped). But anyway, he’s gonna end up selling the helmet already. I’ve already opened the yarn to knit a swatch.

So now I have to decide if I want to put the time and effort into knitting a pair of gloves that my Dad probably won’t wear that match a helmet that he’s selling. Hmm.. He’s always complaining that I don’t make him anything, but he’s so picky that he’ll never wear the stuff I want to knit, anyway. So yeah, now I’ve got a bunch of extra yarn that I don’ think I’ll end up using : ( Lame. After I just spent $15 on yarn he goes and sells the dumb helmet. *men!*

LINKS (added 03-26-08)

• Link to Project Detail page for Scrunchable scarf
  
• Link to Ravelry project page for Scrunchable scarf 

Scrunchable Scarf February 7, 2008

So I know I kind of swore off scarves last month, since those tend to be the only thing that I knit. But after the shrug was finished, I still had 3 unopened balls of green yarn! lol, I was thinking about making a shrug for my tiny friend Chanel, but then I found out it would probably take 4 balls of yarn. And then I also found out that she hates bright green. So, yeah, that idea was out of the window.

Anyway, I ran across the pattern for the scrunchable scarf and I really love it. It has knit up SO fast. Plus I like that it gives your basic ribbing a more sophisticated look. Plus, it’s such an easy project to work on that I’ve been doing it almost constantly because I can do it while I watch TV or surf YouTube : )

So I had left the scarf on my couch while I was gone, and apparently my cat Benny had decided to attack it. But apparently it was such a “scrunchable” cushy scarf that he ended up taking a nap with it.

How cute!!! Haha, I took about 35 pictures of him. But I didn’t think I should force you to look at all of them. Only the cutest!