No pictures, but a knitting store review!

I am a messy person. I am in a constant fight to keep my room organized and things were they should be. I will be doing reorganizing and spring cleaning of my room tonight instead of knitting while watching TV. That way I can find my digital camera to show you progress on my projects instead of just telling you about it. Blah. I hate not being able to find things but I can't keep things in one place. It's inherited I think.

However, I will be telling you all about the progress I have made on my tanktop and hopefully will have pictures later. I am almost done with the increasing! Yes, I have been knitting steadily on it and am almost done with the increasing. I have figured out consistently how to increase without leaving a hole (though there are 3 on each side which do not bother me because I think they are fun and they are not in any scandalous spot, like the chest). I did this with help from knittinghelp.com. Those videos are awesome and so are the people on the forums. They help me out all the time! I cannot wait to really get to knit a lot on this to reach the inches mark for the armholes and back straps, etc. It's going to be a challenge because there are a number of things this pattern calls for that I have never done before. I'm a little nervous but very excited.

I also went to a new yarn store yesterday. It is called Ewe'll Love It in Nashua, NH. Now, I am moving to Nashua, NH this summer because I will be working there for the New Hampshire Public Defender's. It's a great assignment because it is close to Boston(making trips to NYC to see the BF once or twice a month very easy), is close to Concord, MA (making trips to see the family very easy), has inexpensive really nice apartments and has a very nice yarn store! The wesbite is www.ewellloveit.com and has very good pictures of the store. The selection was overwhelming to me and very nice and not overpriced at all. Another plus side is that there is no sales tax. They have Manos and Malabrigo which I will purchase some of when I am there next. They have a huge selection of a variety of yarns and fibers and an excellent range of needles and stich markers/holders as well. They also have buttons! I purchased a skein of Nashua wool yarn to make myself a calorimetry and got the button for it there too! Pictures of that will have to come later as well. I also had an excellent experience with the staff. The woman helped me find a sub for a discontinued yarn for a sweater and gave me a range of options in a range of prices. She was so excited when she found out that a new knitter was moving to Nashua! The store also has some very comfy couches for knitting time and has classes and knitting groups on Thursdays with a teacher there to help you. They also had chocolate out. I loved this store and can't wait for it to be my LYS.

That's all for now until I can organize tonight and find my camera to show you the progress on the tanktop!

Tank Top Knitting Galore

I have been knitting a little bit on my tanktop. The pattern is here (http://magknits.com/July06/ballet.htm) and I am done with the deacreasing section and about to start on the increasing sections. I am so excited to start on the increasing sections. It is half the length it is supposed to be before I start the binding off for the armholes. Yay! I had some serious issues with row gauge however. My stitch gauge was right on but my row guage was very off. I had to do a lot of math to figure out how to work the decreases. I took the author's row guage for 4 inches and divided 4 by the number of rows (29) then multiplied it by the number of rows for this section (50) and determined that this section had to be 6.9 inches total. My number of rows for that length for the decrease section had to be 62 rows (12 more than the pattern calls for). How did that happen? I figured it out with some good help from some very nice people on the knittinghelp.com general forum. They are my go to resource for things that challenge a newbie knitter like me. Thanks!

This is the front of the tank top. As you can see, the stitches are pretty teeny. Maybe not sock knitting teeny, but teeny nonetheless. I ordered more yarn because I am using more yarn for more rows for this thing, so hopefully I need it!


This is the back..




HAPPY KNITTING!

In preparation for Home Opening Day?

So, I'm a huge Red Sox fan. I am luckily going to the home opener this year. Yay! I've never been. I unfrotunately have a mock trial starting that day at 4:30 PM downtown. The game starts at 2:30 PM. I will be there for all the fun stuff at the beginning, but will have to wear my boring old suit to the game and leave directly from there (early!!! the horror) to get to the courthouse my professor (a retired Judge) announced for us. Since I will not able to show my pride with my wonderful Red Sox jersey unless I wear it over my suit or wear my hat for various curly hair crushing reasons (once I put on a baseball hat I am not without it in public until the hair has been washed) I think I will make a Red Sox scarf to wear. I used knitpro to come up with options for the image I will knit into the ends of the scarf. Which one of the images do you like best?

Image 1



Image 2



Image 3



I am leaning towards trying to do a red Scarf with Image 1 on one end and Image 3 on the other end. What do you think about that option? I am going to make the scarf with Lambs Pride Worsted most likely. At some point, if this turns out well, there will be a blanket made for the BF with Image 3 as the center image in the LP Bulky.

I can't post the pdfs on here from knitpro but they all turned out well.

Lotsa Knitting Content!!!

I know that I have been remiss in the knitting content because I simply did not have time to take pictures and I had not been doing a lot of knitting. I have changed all that and done a good bit on my brother's scarf and started a tank top for myself. I somehow did not take a picture of the calorimetry I did but it turned out perfectly and I can't wait to make one for myself.

These are pictures of my sister and her husband in the scarves I made them as my first projects. Garter stitch, all the way. His is over 9 feet long! They were done with Lambs Pride Worsted using three skeins and hers is using just over 2 skeins. Hers has longer fringe than his as well. I took this picture in their house in Denver over spring break and I had a lot of fun with them and their cats who I teased and played with using my yarn from the calorimetry.



My sister posing with her scarf. She looks all cute.



The blue scarf (hers) on the grey scarf (on the grey table).



A close up of my surprisingly even knit stitch work from my second ever project!

Yay!



This is a stinky guage swatch that I am now not sure what to do with. My guage is off for fuzzy feet from knitty ( http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter02/PATTfuzzyfeet.html) and trying to adjust the pattern from 12 stitches per inch to 16 per inch made my head hurt and put me straight into grumpyville.



This is the scarf for my brother. I think it's really cool and he really liked the pattern, all my family sufficiently admired it during my third spring break stop in the mountains outside of Salt Lake City, Utah at Snowbird. It's this pattern (http://magknits.com/Mar07/patterns/askew.htm) made in Knitpicks Andean Silk in Barn Red. I noticed they just changed the layout of their website and I like the listing of yarn on the left by fiber. This is the second ball of yarn. I got through about 10 repeats of the 12 row pattern with one ball.



This is a close up of the result of the pattern, the lines it makes that are on the diaganol. sp?


This is the beginning of my tanktop! Yay! Here is the pattern link: http://magknits.com/July06/ballet.htm





In other news, I purchased a Wii on Ebay today. It's coming in three days with the new Zelda game. I cannot wait!!!!

Pictures of my Knitting will have to wait...so here are some pictures of things I would love to know how to make!

I don't have my camera with me and I have some downtime at school before my group's presentation. I did get through the entire first skein of yarn on my brother's scarf last night, so there will be pictures of that later tonight or tomorrow. I am using my brand new KnitPicks Options size 5 and I love how sharp the points are and I don't think they are too slippery, but they keep coming undone and getting a stitch stuck in the join. It isn't a huge deal, as I just undo it a bit and pull the stitch out and retighten the needle onto the cable, but it is a little annoying. I think I am just not strong enough to tighten them enough.

Here are some pictures of incredibly sophisticated knits from an Australian store called Witchery found here: http://www.witchery.com.au/www/136/1001127/displayproductcategory/1001321.html. They have some amazing knits I would love to figure out how to make. I think the one long turtleneck tunic in red is so beautiful.

Sorry about the delay!

I am sorry about the delay for a new post. I have been sick (stupid cold that won't go away) and off on spring break. I left for Portland last Thursday after my last class of the week, (Corporations was hard to sit through when I had fun stuff to look forward to) and got to the airport fine after swinging by to pick up my bags at home. The Silver Line is a great way to get to the Boston airport, even for those of us on the Green Line, which means a transfer to the red line at Park Street and then a transfer to the Silver Line bus.

I got through security with my bmaboo straight and circular knitting needles fine and was soon knitting away on my cross country flight. I knit and purled all the way across the country and on both of my flights my seat mates were very curious about the basketweave scarf I was making and were very complimentary. I only got through the one ball I had with me but by the time I got to Portland I was ready to cast on with the other skein after it was wound into a ball. I didn't get a chance to do so very soon however, because I was too busy showing my BF around Portland. I did get enough knitting time in between family time and tourist time to finish my stepfather's scarf but not anything else, so my brother's scarf and his girlfriend's calorimetry are very much still OTN. This break has just been too busy and filled with sick recovery time to do veyr much of anything. I did play Zelda:Twilight Princess on my brother's Wii however, which has only made me want one more. Blah to Nintendo severely limiting the amount they produced making it impossible for me to get one at the already hefty retail price of $250. The trip to Portland was a big success and everyone who has not met the BF liked him a lot. He was a big hit.

Here is a picture of the completed basketweave scarf in Cascase 128 Tweed using two skeins on size 8 straights.


The pattern was very simple.
Row 1-K4,P4,K4,P4,K4
Row2-P4,K4,P4,K4,P4
Row3-See Row 1
Row 4-See Row 2
Row 5-See Row 1,3

Repeat!

It can get a little boring, so if I used this pattern for a blanket with a larger number of stitches in every little section, such as knit 15, Purl 15 I would have to do it in spurts over a long period of time with more challenging knitting in between.

Too many projects OTN!!!

This is probably going to be a running theme for me! I tend to have too many things going at once, non-knitting as well as knitting. Oh well, I don't think my cluttering habits or over-doing things habits would change just because I have a new hobby.... I did not have a lot of knitting time this weekend as you can see because it was the boyfriend's birthday and it was Legal Follies weekend. Legal Follies is a legal comedy sketch/dancing/singing show put on every year at BUSL. My boyfriend has been in it all three years of law school for us and this year he took on a lot of extra creative responsibility, handling the videos and choreography, writing, and a lot of acting. I went to see it twice, once with his mother and sister and once with friends. The show was a lot of fun and very funny. It also happened to be his birthday closing night of the show, so I also had a birthday lunch for him Saturday during the day, so we were very busy and tired, especially after the cast party was at his house and went until 4 AM. I was very tired today after trying to do corporations reading on Sunday after the 4 AM bedtime and going to see BB King last night as well. Needless to say, not a lot of knitting!

Here are the updates.

This is the surprise project! It might not surprise some more experienced knitters, but the fact that a wristwarmer was knit flat was really interesting and surprising to me! I might try knitting this in the round next time, just for kicks. I still have to seam the other one, but all in all it has turned out well so far.



This is a version of calorimetry from Knitty. It's the smaller 112 stitches version people have told is better for more petite people, so I think it will work well for JoJo. It is the same yarn as the wristwarmers. Hopefully she likes the color! This is my first foray into shortrows, so I hope I don't mess it up! I'll be heading to Windsor Button on wednesday to get a button for it. They have an amazing selection and I normally get my yarn there, so I am excited to dig into the buttons! I am only through the 5th row, about to start the 15 or so repeats of that row instruction. Calorimetry: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter06/PATTcalorimetry.html



This is the start of a scarf for my brother. It is also in Andean Silk by KnitPicks, just the barn red color, JoJo's wristwarmer and calorimtrey are in Leaf. This is the link for the free scarf pattern from KnitPicks. I am excited about this and if I have enough of this yarn I will make a matching hat in the round for him probably using 2X2 ribbing, which I can't get enough of. It's so delightfully stretchy. Scarf Pattern from MagKnits: http://magknits.com/Mar07/patterns/askew.htm




This is a pretty fuzzy close up of the one pattern repeat I have done. Like I said, too many things OTN and not enough knitting time.



This is my rather limited progress (two-three pattern repeats) on my stepfather's scarf. I need to get a close up of this yarn because it has little flecks of different colors in it and I love it for him.



I also got my first comment! I didn't even know anyone was reading!

My last spring break ever starts on Thursday, so there will be updates on knitting before then and definately during break. My boyfriend is coming with me to visit my family back where I went to high school, in Portland, OR. I am excited to check out the knitting cafes there after he heads back to visit his mother. They look awesome. Boston needs some of these!

I did go to SnB for the first time and it was so nice to sit there and knit with some amazing pastry and see what other people were doing and get some help from more experienced knitters. I will be back, just not for these two weeks because of break.