Saturday, September 30, 2006

Just a Reminder

Hey, all, just a friendly reminder here that I've moved over to Woolly Interlude! Wanna visit?

Friday, September 22, 2006

Virtual Move

Hey, everybody! Sorry I haven't updated earlier this week, but I've been in the process of picking up and moving from good ole Megan Crochets over to Woolly Interlude.

So, if you'd like to change your links and follow me, I'd love to have you. I imported all of my posts from here to there, but I'll still leave this site up for a little while.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Go Hawks!

Sorry, had to get that out of my system. My favorite football team, the Iowa Hawkeyes, just beat Iowa State, our rival, which always makes me happy. And, of course, I'm also happy that we have cable now, because otherwise I'd have to find a much more difficult way of getting the play-by-play. And after watching every game for four years as a member of the marching band, well, it's important to see the play-by-play. And the best thing is that the networks are getting better about playing footage of the marching bands and having a microphone on them, which (I think) really improves the broadcast.

And that's enough football, isn't it? Apologies for any tangents I take from now until, oh, early January. I'll try to keep them minimal :)

In other news, um, I didn't knit anything yesterday. But I did read some more of those library books, and some of them were great. I checked out Barbara Walker's fourth Treasury, which is interesting, but a little too much about mosaic knitting for me. There were a lot of great lace patterns, although one was a bit too much like a swastika for my tastes. All in all, I'll be making some notes, and I'd check it out again, maybe photocopy a couple of great patterns, but I wouldn't buy this book unless I found it for $5, which is unlikely.

I also checked out Knitted Shawls, Stoles, & Scarves by Nancie Wiseman, and it's okay. The only thing I would knit out of it is the Lavender Linen Lace Shawl, but if I ever want to do entrelac, her instructions seemed pretty good.

I got another Wiseman book, though, that was interesting: The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques. It covers various cast-ons and bind offs, as well as increases and decreases, seams, picking up stitches, etc. Some of the information was really basic, and in many ways I prefer the articles Knitty has had on cast-ons and bind offs, but I hadn't seen the chained cast-on before. It's a provisional cast-on worked by crocheting a chain over the needle, which eliminates the need to pick up stitches from a crocheted chain. I think I'll definitely use this one. This book is useful, and it's spiral bound, which is a huge plus, but I think a lot of the techniques are adequately covered on the internet. It would be good to have around if you didn't want to have to look things up online, though.

I'll save the other two books for a little later, but they're the two I liked best. Besides, I've got another football game to watch....

Friday, September 15, 2006

Clearly a Knitter

So, my Lace Swap partner over at Crafty Bean got her package from me the other day, which is exciting. Obviously, people like to tuck fun extras into their packages, and mine was a big knitting needle magnet I found at my favorite LYS, Sophie's Fine Yarn Shoppe. It's a great way to show everyone that you're clearly a knitter, as you can see below.

Clearly a Knitter

I also, you know, like that it's pink.

In other news, here's a picture of what I got from my swap partner, Lindy. I love the color of the Karabella Lace Mohair, and there's some gorgeous brown alpaca in there, too.

Lace Swap

Of course, there were also goodies like tea, chocolate, knitting and cooking magazines, a magnet, pens, and I could go on. And a couple of great Karabella patterns that should be lots of fun to knit!

And because I have no exciting knitting progress to show you (note that I don't say there wasn't any, just that it wasn't exciting), I'll distract you all with pumpkins! Tracy knit and felted some awesome pumpkins earlier this week, and posted a pattern for the mini ones. I think they'd be an awesome centerpiece for Thanksgiving dinner, and Tracy also suggested using them as pincushions, and filling the stem with sand to keep your pins sharp. What a great idea! Any of you who knit for the Preemie Project will no doubt already know exactly how creative Tracy is, but if you haven't stumbled across her blog yet, check it out. There's always something totally inspirational there!

Happy knitting, and I'll be back soon. I checked out some awesome and some so-so books from the library, and of course I've got to tell you all about them. Also, the Knitter's Review newsletter reminded me that I've got to start working on Christmas presents, so I've got an overly ambitious to do list in the works. And I can't wait to see what everyone else is cooking up, too!

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

You know what I love about lace?

I love that moment when you realize what you're making will bear little resemblance to the thing hanging off of your needles. Here's what I'm working on right now.

Scrunched Lace

Here's my progress on Print O' the Wave; it doesn't look like much. But in the next photo, it's all pinned out on the back of my rocking chair.

Stretched Lace

I love it. I had to alter the pattern a little bit, mostly because I'm worried that I'll run out of yarn. I bought a 2 oz. ball of Zephyr a couple of weeks ago, so I've only got a bit more than 600 yards. Eunny says that the stole, knit in laceweight, will take around 800 to 900 yards. Obviously, I don't have enough, so I took out one of the 16-stitch pattern repeats and will knit 6 fewer 12-row repeats, which leaves approximately 80% of the original pattern. I'm also using a US 5 instead of the recommended US 4, because for some reason, the only size needle I don't have between US 000 and US 15 is US 4. Plus, I just got a Knit Picks options needle in a 5, and I wanted to try those sharp points on some lace (and they rock). The upside of that is that the lace will block out closer to the original dimensions, but I'm not entirely sure what the effect will be on yarn consumption. Any more experienced lace knitters out there who could offer up some insight? My guess is that I'll run out; I'd be prepared to cut out a couple more repeats, because I don't think the chances of finding more yarn are good, unless I want a different dye lot on the border.

Eh, even if it gives me a heart attack in the end, it's pretty.

In other knitting news, I've almost finished that cardigan. I've got to add sleeves and buttons, and that's it. I'd show you a picture, but no matter how you drape a single color stockinette cardigan over a chair, it's kinda boring. It's a gift for my roommate, Heather, but I can't get her to model it right now (2am) because she's diagramming some Greek and memorizing some Hebrew vocabulary. Definitely not the moment to interrupt with wool.

And last but not least, I'm sorry to anyone whose comment I haven't gotten back to. That's on my list for tomorrow, especially because my blogless lace swap pal, Lindy, deserves more than the little thank you I've given her for her package. I think she's psychic, because her gift included, in addition to all manner of lace knitting stuff, a huge pile of cooking magazines, boxes of tea, and a bag with a picture of the Little Prince. I love this book so much that I actually have two copies: one in English, of course, and one in Italian, because I always saw it at the bookshop I frequented in Rome. Of course, I don't have it in the original French, because I don't speak or read French. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it, if just for the illustration of a snake eating an elephant.

Friday, September 08, 2006

What I've Been Up To

So, I've been able to get a lot of knitting done in the last month, since I still don't have a job :) I tell ya, it's good for something....

I promised photos of Birch, so I made Heather pose for one....

Birch, Done

I love this shawl; I love the modern, geometric lines of the pattern, and the yarn (Zephyr) was awesome, although, of course, the color bled when I washed it.

And here's a photo with more detail of Birch, as well as two of my current WIPs.

Current Works

I'm working on Eunny Jang's Print O' the Wave Stole in blue Zephyr (I told you the yarn is great). I had to alter the pattern a little bit, though, because I don't want to run out of yarn, as I don't have a giant cone of this one.... The other blue thing in there is a raglan cardigan I'm knitting as a present, from the free pattern at cosmicpluto knits!

And last, but not least, a pair of little socklets I made for Heather's cold, cold feet.

Socklets

I used Artyarns Supermerino for these, so they're super thick and cozy for around-the-apartment wear. It was really nice yarn, and it was fun to figure out how I wanted to make the socklets.

So, the knitting's been fun. And, since I finally got the internet hooked up, I've been able to catch up on all of my blog reading :) What fun! But now, I'm off to do more knitting, and to watch cable, since we've got that now, too!