Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Happy Day!!!!

Well I thought I was going to get some knitting done today while watching the Inauguration, but I admit I got a bit sidetracked. I never think of myself as a news junkie, but I was unable to tear myself away from the telly today. I also had the laptop set up in the living room, so I could watch online, as well as tv! Sad.....

I've had some fun chatting with some friends, checking facebook and other networking sites, and I think I might have even gotten caught up on my email! (that's major!)

Obligatory sock content-I finished one of the navy tweed socks last night, and will finish the other one tonight.

Yay!!

I've decided that one of my "resolutions" is to finish something before I start something else. Meaning, I will only have about 10 pairs OTN, and no more than that. LOL

And now I think I'll turn off the news channels.....

Friday, January 02, 2009

Noro Silk Garden scarf

I know....how original.....but they are just so pretty, I couldn't resist making myself one!

Here's the original post/pattern idea: http://brooklyntweed.blogspot.com/2007/04/noro-scarf.html

I did pretty much what Jared suggests: size 7 straight needles, CO 39 stitches. But I used only two colorways of Noro Silk Garden, #264 and #241. I just knit until I ran out of yarn, and it's about 5.5" wide and about 7' long. I haven't blocked it yet, but I don't think it really needs it. I didn't have any trouble with the edges, and they don't seem to be rolling or puckering at all.




I hadn't really used any Noro before, and while it was nice to work with, I was very disappointed in the particular skeins I had. There were quite a few knots, and they weren't careful about joining same colors together! (I've since read online that they have addressed this to some extent.) But with something like this, it wasn't a big deal. There were only a few places where there wasn't much contrast between the skeins, but I think it makes the rest of it pop more. The pictures seem quite a bit lighter than the real thing, but you get the gist.... I enjoyed making it-it was something I could do while watching movies w/o getting too distracted or having to "unknit" anything.

I have some more of this yarn to do another one, and I also bought some Poems (Wisdom Yarns) to do something similar. I bought colors #517 and #557. The yarn itself was fairly reasonable-only about $5 a skein, so this will be far cheaper than the Noro scarf. I think it's discontinued, so perhaps that's why it was so cheap! http://shade.novayarn.com/t/shade-2/1153/

More 2008 projects....



I finished these for my mom the day before she got here for Christmas! She really likes red, so I chose this yarn for her. It's Lana Grosse Multiringel in colorway 5030 reds. She chose yarn for her socks when she was here in the summer and I thought this was what she wanted. HOWEVER.....I just found a skein of some blue/aqua/teal/red that was stashed away in my knitting basket. I think I had that saved back for her and forgot all about it! LOL Oh well, not a biggie, she's called me twice to tell me how much she loves them. And this way, I can do these for her birthday in May.



I made these for my brother for Christmas. When he opened them, I could kind of tell that he wasn't as thrilled as I'd hoped....so.....last pair HE gets! LOL



My DSIL is a big shot at UT (Go Vols!), so I made these to keep her feet warm at football games. Since she's a big shot (Vice Chancellor), she is expected to at least show up for kickoff. They are simply 2x2 rib on the leg and top of foot. When I chose yarn, my brother pointed out that there are several oranges, and if I'd chosen the wrong one, they'd be completely unwearable.....LOL UT orange, Texas Orange, Clemson Orange, Florida Orange....etc, etc. I haven't heard any negative comments on these, so I'm going to assume they are okay. Come to think of it, I haven't heard any positive comments, either, so I'm not sure what to think about that.....



These are mine-from Colinette Jitterbug. I used a basket weave type pattern for the cuff. Again, nothing fancy, but just something from one of those stitch pattern books. There isn't nearly as much yardage in Jitterbug as other yarns, but since I like short socks, it wasn't a problem. I have maybe 10 yards left!

I'm starting out 2009 with several things still OTN: the DH's navy tweed socks, a couple of the flatfeet socks (one is pink, the other is a fall colorway), some offwhite Regia cotton lace socks, some short lace socks out of Regia bamboo/cotton/wool, and a scarf from Oatmeal Cascade 220, an offwhite sport weight lace scarf, and probably others that I can't remember.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I'm having trouble believing that it's 2009 already.

I am a bit surprised that I haven't updated this for quite some time. I guess I've gotten sidetracked between knitting, uploading photos, etc. I finished quite a few projects in 2008, so I thought I'd share some of them from the second half of the year.



Twin Girs for the boy..... pattern here: http://www.johnnysstew.com/pattern/gir.html

I used some kind of Bernat worsted weight for the body and some aqua and hot pink scraps (again, some sort of acrylic worsted weight, probably RedHeart) for the accents. I used a much smaller needle than what was called for because I didn't want any of the stuffing to poke through the holes. It just seemed too loose when I started. I also made a few itty bitty changes in the pattern, but mainly I knit the eyes separately and then attached them. Since I was knitting it so tightly, it was very difficult to pick up stitches to do the eyes.

The blue one is the regular, non mad Gir and the hot pink one is the mad Gir. I tried to match the colors to a toy...er, I mean "action figure" found in the boy's room. I made these for his birthday and he seemed pleased! I'm seriously considering doing them again out of sock yard. Crazy? Yeah, probably. :P



Socks for the DH. Regia cotton blend. I have started a pair for myself, as this seems like it's very nice, wearable yarn.



Finally finished these "Online" that I started quite a few months ago. They didn't thrill me while I was working on them, but I actually like them quite a lot.



More Regia Cotton for me this time!



Lacy pattern from one of those "1001 Stitches" type books. The yarn is Sock-Ease and it was very nice to work with.

More in the next post!