Knit, knit, knit

I've about caught up on the computer re-build. Just waiting on a replacement disk for one program. There is evidence that I had the disk. I have the installation manual, but the computer is one of many things that got moved during the" great house remodel." The disk should have been in the drawer with all the other program disks, but it isn't there.

I've never done anything like this before, and I feel so empowered. I have, of course, installed programs. All of the important programs have been restored. If something is missing now, I can download it for free. The expensive software is working.

I'm still getting used to a Microsoft Office update, long needed. The disks were in the house, but not on my machine before its stroke. There are things I like about the newer version (2007), and others I'm not sure about. I had to put together a handout for a class I'm teaching Saturday on reversible cables. I had done the research and knit the samples. I hope the patterns I wrote for the swatches make sense.

A lot of other knitting has happened. I knit up the vest "kit" I bought in Tallahassee. I knew that project would be done quickly so that I could wear it. DD Joyce and I split a bag of yarn, thinking we both would make the same pattern. She changed her mind! I have this comfy vest made form Austermann Murano, a bulky yarn. It's hard for me to say if it is flattering on me, but I love it anyway. I just don't like that I look like an old lady. Self timer on the camera may not be the best way to go here.

Last summer I started a baby blanket. A group at my church was doing them for charity. The group stopped meeting for knitting and the blanket sat. It is now done and will go to some baby at some time. It is too small for the charities my knitting guild supports, but would be fine for a stroller or car seat. I used some cone yarn that was in my stash.

In the "Oh No" department, I decided to knit a hat for great granddaughter Rayven. She turned four. Got some stash yarn and cast on. I realized that the hat would fit me, but I finished it up anyway. There was enough yarn for a proper size hat.The larger hat went to my DDIL Peg, who had her head shaved for charity. I took a picture with my phone iof her wearing the hat, but It is upside down when viewed on the pc. So frustrating.

DD Joyce had a birthday this week, and is a big Dr. Who fan. I had to knit the scarf from Knitty.com called Bigger on the Inside.

It's hard to see, but there are fifteen iterations of the TARDIS on the lower border. I called them "Tardi" although there is no plural for something that is unique. I even used the yarn suggested in the pattern, Lorna's Laces Solemate. I have enough left over for a pair of socks, a bonus I hadn't counted on. The first 100 gm knit all the lace and all the Tardi. It's back in the stash until it tells me what it wants to be.

Since DDIL Peg got a fuzzy hat to keep her bald head warm, her daughter needed one too. She also got bald for St. Baldrick's to support children's cancer. Her favorite color is black for clothes.There was some WoolEase and fun fur in my stash. the result is very soft, but I had to buy more fun fur to finish the hat.

I also knit a bulky sweater. You won't see a picture or it, as it went in the trash. There were some problems with the free pattern, and problems with the yarn. The final straw was when the yarn relaxed considerably when washed. It went from a size medium to a XL tall. It just wasn't worth trying to fix. At least I have the yarn out of stash. All of it was inherited from my mom, so I didn't pay for it. It's getting a little easier to get rid of things that aren't working, but I grew up saving everything, because you might need it some day. I'm trying to leave less for my kids to dispose of when I'm gone, but it's a struggle! It doesn't help that there's so much that I'm actually using.

April showers

Blue Socks
These socks were knit from my oldest sock yarn stash. The yarn and pattern were bought on a visit to my sister in 2003. Yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Jeans color. The pattern is Fiber Trends Walking Away Socks. The pattern has 3 designs, all with patterning only on the back. This version is called Reflections.

Secret socks
I'm working on socks for Plymouth Yarns. The yarn is Sockotta Limited, a cotton wool blend.

Skew socks
I seem to be a lemming, following a large group of other knitters and not really knowing where I am going. I saw this interesting pattern in Knitty.com. The SKA challenge for this month on Ravelry is to knit from an online magazine. Now was the time! I heard that the sock was a little tight and hard to pullover the heel, so I chose Kroy yarn, which is a little heavier than some sock yarns, and went up a needle size from 2.25mm to 2.5mm. It has worked well. The first sock goes on easily and fits. The pattern takes more concentration and counting than I gave it. There are a lot of stitch count adjustments in that one. It is finished now, and still looks strange off the foot. Sock #2 is on track through the toe. I'm working with the idea that my problems were user error.

Judy Garland Dress
Hong Kong finished seams were mentioned in the last post. A 1" wide bias strip of lining was used, stitched to the edge of the seam, turned under and stitched again.

To the left is the sleeve edge finish. Chiffon was used for this, bias cut 1 5/8" wide, folded in half and machine stitched to the outside, and turned inside. Hand stitching was used to finish the edge.

A 9" side zipper was called in the instructions. That turned out to be a little short, so I replaced it with a 12" zipper and hand picked it. The sleeve's bottom edge is gathered by hand and stabilized inside with seam tape. The lower sleeves has an outside tuck which is gathered. The sleeve head is organza, which supports the puffiness even better when a real arm is inside. These details were in the pattern instructions.

The belt buckle is a vintage one that I had in the shop. I gave the customer a choice of two buckles, or no belt at all. Working to a tight deadline and having no belt backing, grosgrain ribbon looked like it might work for a backing. This was a good thing as the belt is gathered a little in the buckle. There seems to be enough resistance to make it stay put. This buckle was not meant to have a prong.

The skirt was sewn with the lining separate from the chiffon, so that each could be hemmed by itself. Each layer has a tiny machine stitched hem. The skirt had hung for a couple of days before marking, and is basically cut on the straight grain, so it should not sag. A rolled hem was called for in the pattern.

On to the next "big" thing
This week, I'm putting new linings in winter coats. These have been shoved aside for a while. Two are finished and one still to go. I feel like I'm catching up on my backlog.

Teaching
Saturday was spent at Knitter's Fantasy in Youngstown, OH. I taught basic cables and chart reading. The responsibility for the event rotates around 3 guilds. This year it was my guild's turn to run it. As far as I know everything went smoothly.It's a great one day event! Knitters get 2 classes, lunch and vendors for under $50.00 for the day. Total attendance including walk-ins was almost 600 people.

I never saw a purple cow..

But I did see a rainbow sheep.

I was at Woolfest at Lake Farmpark, teaching knitting. I had a lunch break to visit the vendor area. There were cute llamas. There was roving and other spinning supplies. I don't spin! There was hand dyed yarn, but I have so much yarn.

The sheep was picture worthy. Two sheep were dyed with Kool Aid, and one was sheered. If this were a sheep to shawl competition (it's just a demonstration), the dye would need to dry before carding and spinning. There isn't time in competition conditions to dye it the same day and have it dry. I saw a carder, two spinners, and a weaver, all Farmpark employees. The weaving looked like this.

The teaching went well, only 3 students per class, so they got person attention. I taught beginning cables and using two hands to knit two colors. Came home to update the class description and make some minor changes to the handouts.

While the students worked, I knit on the next birthday sock. I messed up the heel decreases and started again after lunch. There was less talking in the afternoon and more concentration.

Today I got to knit in reverse again. The foot was too wide, so I decreased some more. The yarn is Kroy 4-ply and is thicker than a lot of sock yarn. I'm calling the pattern Bamboo.

The socks are finished!!

After finally getting the heel flap correctly centered, and on the correct number of stitches, I had to turn the heel. It took 3 tries!!! Part of the problem was splitty yarn. It took more concentration than usual, but after that, it was clear sailing until I reached the toe, and the end of the yarn!

I raveled the toe of sock #1, removing about 1/4". Finished sock #2, and went back to sock #1. I almost made it. Yes both socks are a little shorter than planned. Socks stretch. I finished the sock with some charcoal yarn of the same brand.

I never thought that with a 459 yard ball of yarn I'd run short. Those 84 stitch legs eat up the yarn.

Next up is a July 5 birthday. I've started those and they will be simple. One of the sock Knitters Anonymous challenges for June is to design your own. I'm recycling a pattern I used for DH. I knit his in a sport yarn and never published the pattern. This time its navy sock yarn.

I also have a July 18 birthday and 2 more later in the month. I'm not sure they all will get socks, even belatedly.

I'm teaching 2 classes Sunday at Lake FarmPark wool fest. Cables and two-hands two colors. Should be fun. I'll try to take photos at the event.

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.

Grunt work time

News about the wedding in last post. All dresses were delivered on time. The three missing bridesmaids came in Tuesday for final fittings and hem pinnings. The necessary bust adjustments were done and hems sewn. All were picked up today. The wedding is tomorrow.

I finally have patterns for sale on Ravelry. I sold one pattern, but we seem to have a delivery problem. I have written to Casey, the head code geek for help. I offer a free sock pattern which has been downloaded about 30 times in the last week. I have a few more patterns to put up. For some of my patterns, I sold the rights with the pattern.

Scarf finished! I used an old Tried and True pattern for the last of the yarn from the brown sweater, Sally Melville's Shape It! scarf from her Knit Book. Easy knitting until I ran out of yarn. That was the plan, no left overs. The yarn is Lion Brand Incredible in two colors with 2 dye lots of one color. It worked better on the sweater!

Teacher grunt work.
I'm teaching 4 classes next week. I still have a lot of review work to do. The first class is Monday night at guild meeting. The subject is chart reading. Usually, I have the students knit swatches by following the chart, but we don't have time for that, so I knit up large versions of each chart. The second part of the class has students make their own charts from written instructions. I now have swatches for all charts and have charted the written parts. This way I'll be less likely to make mistakes while talking and writing on the chart paper on the easel. One chart was drawn twice in my notes and there still are mistakes. I wasn't talking, but sometimes I can't read or count. What's in my class notebook is good enough to work from. Btw, I have a notebook for each class I teach, where I keep the handout, swatches, and anything else I may need. Notes and other things may appear there for next teaching session.

The real grunt work, printing out 50 handouts for guild. I have to make sure we had enough paper. I went to Office Max and bought a box of paper. Due to an error, the bar code for the box was not in the register. When the cashier typed in the numbers, I got the whole box for the price of a ream of paper. No, I'm not going back to try to pay the difference! I didn't discover it until I got home. We have extra toner for the laser printer, but didn't run out yet. All 50 copies have been stapled. We still have lots of staples. Life is good! Tomorrow I'll look at another class. I still have to work most of the day, but tonight I get to knit for fun.

Other knitting
The trellis socks are progressing. I did a lot at the yarn store knit-in last night.
I'm working on redesigning a jacket for a yarn company. It was originally knit from a copyright pattern, and the yc owner wanted an original pattern. I have reverse engineered the body of the jacket and am changing the edges. Yarn and gauge are different. It's a mum project until I deliver the pattern and jacket to the yarn company. That's mum as in "Mum's the word".
I'm also knitting a camisole from bulky cotton tape, a design in a kit acquired last month at the guild yarn swap. It will also make a decent vest for colder weather.

Spring has Sprung

I have been knitting. I'll show you later.

Last week end I was teaching crochet for knitters at Knitter's Fantasy in Youngstown, Ohio. This is a new location for this event, but it seemed to work well. The even had outgrown the previous location and this one has more room. I taught the same class twice. I need to work on it some more to expand it to 3 hours. I have until TKGA in September.

I had 3 designs on display in the market. All of them are for Oasis Yarns. The green scarf is crocheted from their Seduction Silk. I called it Spring Garden. The red shawl is also from Seduction. It is knit.That stuff is wonderful! I called it Queen's Lace. I just found out that you can click on the pictures to make them bigger.


Here's the Snakes and Snails sweater in the wild. It's shown with Aussi Sock. That's the yarn it's knit from.










Trees in my neighborhood looked like this oak tree - lacy, but bare.












Today, there are trees with green lace.







Forsythia is in bloom, grass has turned green. DH calls it "that ugly shade of green" that means mowing is required.


I've been knitting on the girl sweater from Aussi sock. Both sweaters have a TNNA deadline of June 6. I'm on the last sleeve of Sugar and Spice. But still have the neckband to do. I'm not sure how I will attach it. The ruffle will also go around the neck. I'll put a life line on it, so if I don't like the attachment I can retreat. These are the same yarns as Snakes and Snails.

How to Make a Silk Purse...

...out of a sow's ear. One of the challenges of a dressmaker is to finish work a customer has started and had problems with. I did a fairly good job with a sweater this week. My elderly lady might have planned to hem the bottom, but with bulky yarn, I'm glad she let it roll. She asked me to sew grosgrain ribbon to the front edges of the sweater, which had no front bands on it. I suggested bands, since she also wanted buttons and buttonholes.

The top of the sweater is a real mess. She used worsted weight yarn for this and pulled her strands too tight. She loves it and I kept my mouth shut. The colors do work well together, and the sage green worsted yarn is a very close match for the bulky. It does affect how the bands lie in places. I used the 2x2 ribbing from the neck and sleeve cuffs and the roll from the bottom for a quite nice band. The buttonholes are yo, p2tog because of which side they were worked on. The buttons are large enough to hold securely.

She bound off all the ribbing from the wrong side, using knit stitches. This now matches the purl side of the rolled edges. We won't discuss holes where she accidently made a yo and picked up a stitch in it next row, leaving a hole, or the knots on the back and the ends too short to weave in. She didn't ask me to fix those. She didn't want to pay me.

My Norwegian sweater is about at the armholes. It's 13" from the hem, but will grow tonight at the LYS knit in tonight. I'm working to 14" before starting the yoke patterns. There is no armhole shaping on this one. Just an armhole steek. I checked my Olympic sweater which is made the same way, and the top of the sleeve is 10" wide, so that's the measurement I'm aiming for. I have plotted my sleeve measurements, stitch counts and decreases. I charted my yoke pattern and figured the small peerie pattern I'll use above and below it. I'm going to try to steek the neck opening. I've figured what I need and where for the neck opening.

I'm off to Pittsburgh tomorrow (Friday) night. I'm teaching at the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival Saturday morning and Sunday morning. Cables on Saturday and Fair Isle on Sunday. At the market, I'll be looking for circular needles in 2.5 mm. The ones I'm using for the Norwegian cardigan are 100 cm long. I'd like some shorter ones. I'm also looking for fingering weight wool to coordinate with the dark green of that sweater. I'll have quite a bit left over and may make a pullover.

I'll have dinner with DH before I go. We're having warmed up roast beef au jus, with potato etc. Saturday night he has hockey tickets and will go with our son. Dinner at the game. The Dallas cheerleaders are performing at both intermissions. Sunday night I'll be home again.