Tools of the Trade

I was thinking this morning about how many tools we have. Usually, they are small so we don't think much about them. Men have more power tools, expensive tools in large boxes, but we might have more tools. I realized that I use many different needles in my knitting projects. Here's what is in action right now.

Old needles
This cotton jacket is being knit on old aluminum tip circulars. (The close up photo is a little out of focus.) I now have one front piece finished and 4 1/2" of the second front. I forget how fast things knit up with large yarn and needles. This is a long term project, being worked from a sewing pattern. I'd like to wear it this Spring. We'll see.

Glass needles
Being 10" needles, I use them for small projects, usually knitting at home with them. They are Pyrex and have been dropped a couple of times, but they are warm to the hands and I don't want to tempt fate and break them. The project is a scarf from 2 balls of Noro Murano, obtained at a gift exchange.

Wooden Needles
I'm using part of a Knit Picks set of sock needles. They call these Harmony needles. They are made of different colors of wood bonded together and come in sets of 6. The sock needle set has 6 sizes of 6 needles, including all mm sizes from 2.0mm to 3.25 mm. The yarn is a sport weight sock yarn. the project is the last Christmas gift for 2009, gloves for youngest daughter with large hands. You may also see stitch markers marking thumb stitches. They are part of a set I made to mark repeats on a shawl.

Square needles
The sock project also has 7" aluminum dp needles for the cuff. The square needles are only 5". My favorite length is 6", but Kollage doesn't make square needles in that length. My Motley Jester sock legs are knit in strips and beaded at the joins. This is the second pair of leftovers socks I've knit recently and I like them. They might have become monster socks, warm but ugly. I might not wear them with Birks, since I ran out of grey on the toe, but there are lots of time when I don't wear sandals.

Crochet hooks
No pictures here, but the beads are being applied with one of two hooks. The larger hole beads fit a #10 hook, which picks up the yarn nicely. The smaller hole beads are applied with a #12 hook, which tends to split the yarn. No hurry on these socks, but I signed them up for the SKA January challenge on Ravelry, which means I should finish them by Feb. 28. That doesn't appear to be a problem.

I will do more tools posts in the future and probably do some with sewing tools. I must remember to take the camera to work for that.

Knitter's Fantasy & designing

Knitter's Fantasy
This was held on Saturday April 4, 2009 in Youngstown, Ohio. The work of organizing is rotated among 3 guilds. Our guild puts it on next year. It makes lots of money for us. We spend it on things like bringing Lily Chin in to teach for a weekend in May this year.

I taught 2 classes; Chart reading and Great Beginnings and Endings. Chart reading starts with reading various simple charts, knitting swatches from them and finally charting from a written pattern. Great Beginnings and Endings takes a number of cast ons and teaches bind offs that mirrors them. I kind of muddles that class. My notes and the handouts have been improved. All classes that I teach are kept in notebooks, one per class. I keep swatches, pictures and other miscellaneous stuff in each notebook. I also have a bag of big yarn, needles, crochet hooks, etc. that I use for teaching. It makes it easy to repeat a class.

What did I buy at the vendor market? Not much yarn. I don't have time to knit up what I have. However, a set of Kollage square sock needles followed me home. I like them! I wish they were 6" instead of 5", but I'm adapting my grip so I don't get poked. The points are nice. They're light weight metal, but not slippery. Mine are copper colored.

Family Easter
It was a fairly quiet day. No wild egg hunts and other little kid festivities. We went to Erie, PA for dinner with quilting daughter, a 2 hr drive each way. Nice day for a drive! I finished knitting the baby sweater. On the way home, I was crocheting a dishcloth and dropped the hook. Could not find it! I had not escaped the car, but was hiding. I finally found it Thursday after thinking of more places it might have fallen. It was trying to hide under the floor mat. I have more hooks and discovered that I was working the pattern wrong anyway. My girls like dishcloths, so I'm trying to make a few for Christmas gifts.

Socks for Plymouth Yarn
I did up a few swatches and they like two of them. I'm waiting to hear more.

Red socks
I finished one and have toe #2. Lace knitting will proceed today.

I started swatching a lace shawl for Oasis yarn. He asked for a trapezoid shape. The base pattern looks great. It's from one of my Japanese books. I need to get more than 4" knit, so I can play with edgings. The swatch is purple, a color I have lots of. The shawl will be black Aussi sock. I should get it started by the weekend. Deadline is mid June for the TNNA show.

D is for.. sweater again and more

My ABC Along entry for D is dishcloths. Cotton dishcloths are much more sanitary than sponges. They're fun to make and easy. They make great gifts. My hairdresser is still raving about hers!

The body of the sweater is ready for steeking. I just need to finish a sleeve to know how long to make the sleeve steek. The sleeve is about 10" now, but each row gets longer for a while. The finished sleeve will be about 20 1/2" long. A long way to go, and lice pattern is not as interesting as the other patterns. The upside is that 3/4 of the rows are just knit in one color. This is working well for the sleeve increases. I'm increasing every 4 rows and the lice pattern is an 8 row pattern. I am putting the increases in the row before the lice. It's a lot easier than increasing in the pattern at the wrist. When the sleeve reaches the target width, I'll work straight up to the shoulder seam.

What is all that stuff on the top of the sleeve? The sleeve is too big around for the dp needles, so I added a circular. There are 3 dps and one circular on the sleeve right now. I really need a 2nd circular, which is on order from KnitPicks. The side marker is where I started on Sunday morning. It helps to know how much progress I've made. It is on a circular earring finding. The other marker is at the start of the increases and makes it easy for me to count how many I've done.

DH and I celebrated a wedding anniversary. We've survived another year together! Sometimes this surprises us how long we've been together. We went out for a nice dinner in a place we haven't eaten in for quite a while, an Irish place called Jimmy O'Neill's. We both had corned beef and cabbage.

My portable knitting project is socks for DS. The yarn is Regia 4 fadig Short Color in greys. The leg pattern is a k2, p2 variation adapted from Charlene Schurch's Simply Sensational Socks book. I'm working the heel flap on the first sock. I like to keep a sock on the needles. I'll be doing men's socks this year. I knit for all the women for Christmas gifts. This pair may be a birthday gift.

More sock progress, Great customer service

The January mystery socks are almost finished. They just need the toes. This is a wine bottle pose, front and back. I don't expect the clue for the toes until 1/21/08. The original pattern has two different heels (see previous post). I expect the second heel to show up as clue#3 on Monday.
My DSis Carol sent me a set of the KnitPicks harmony dp needles. as a Christmas gift. I love having 6 sets of mm size needles and 6 needles/set. This is a good thing as there were 2 defective needles. One had a rough spot in the center that didn't snag yarn, but the other had a split point. I called them, so I could combine the replacement needles with the gifts I didn't get for Christmas. I wanted a book, which they don't have yet, although it was in their fall catalog. I also wanted the nickel plated set of sock needles. They offered me free shipping on the needles, since I tried to order enough to qualify for the free shipping anyway. When my new needles arrived, the replacement needles had multiplied in their packaging. They sent me a new set of 6 for each size. What great customer service! You may be able to see the new needles in the sock front to the left. I'm using another size on the gold mystery socks from September.