New Dianna and Things My Friends Make

I told you I was going to start another Dianna, and indeed I did. I like this extra perky colorway a lot more, and I have three skeins of the Noro Kureyon sock yarn now, thanks to another visit to Hill Country Weavers this weekend. That means I can make another row of squares, and I hope even do a bit of a border on this shawl. I think it would look good with one. The designer of the shawl made a border of the leaf motif, which I saw on the Ravelry group for stuff (MaweLucky Love, if you are interested). I think I'd do something less complex.
I'm so happy with these colors and really thrilled with the cool beads (which show up fairly well in the photo below). They are amber/gold with sky blue lining, which ends up looking sort of electric green. They are quite quirky, just like the yarn colorway. This thing is so darned perky that whatever I work on next will probably bore me to death! I guess I'll worry about that when I get to it--really need to finish those works in progress, don't you think?



Below is yet another colorway in this yarn. I am amused at how I keep buying this stuff, even though it is scratchy and has knots in it. I just like the colors. The one below is one of the new ones, S255. I got two so that I could make some kind of shawl out of it. I think, hope, believe, that I will not make yet another Dianna! Thinking a modular vest might be good...

So, the reason I went to the far-away yarn shop on Saturday was that Cookie A was doing workshops there, and I had signed up for one. I will post about that event tomorrow, I hope--I am waiting for one of my classmates to send me the photo she took of me and Cookie.

It was hard to drag myself away from Bluebonnet on Saturday, though, because there were all sorts of fun people there and I was really enjoying myself. There's just no substitute for all the friends I have at Ye Olde Yarn Shoppe! And they did have new sock yarn (which made listening to the devotees of that yarn scrap and bargain with each other quite an amusing spectator sport--both of them are reading this now and thinking, "I wasn't that bad, was I?"). I, of course, did something embarrassing--I picked out my yarn and forgot to pay for it. So I won't photograph it or put it up on Ravelry until I do so next time I'm there!

I gave John-Francis, the Dude of Chicks with Sticks, some fabric and a pail of cat litter. Why? Because he is making really handy knitting totes out of them! It's as fascinating as his Yarn Caddy 300, I assure you. I like how sturdy they are--your pointy objects won't poke through like they do on fabric or plastic totes. Plus I get my wonderful pansy fabric, and he gets a lot of free cat litter (I think his garage is rapidly filling with litter removed from pails that he has turned into totes.) Yeah, I'll have to keep him around, even though I did meet another dude knitter at a dinner with Lee's coworkers Friday night. I doubt this other dude is also trained in tailoring. That would be just too much!

Oh, and speaking of knitting containers, do check out the international knitting bag project that Shells and Umme (my blog friends!) are doing together. I do want to get one of the zippered bags for sock projects. I am awaiting my next big ole paycheck (I am now working more consistently--yay). Also, wow, that homespun on the Etsy site is yummy. I have only knit one thing on handspun yarn, my wedding shawl. I want to try some of that colorful stuff.

Well, see, I had plenty to talk about without going on about that Cookie A class, so it can wait until I get the photo!

Making Progress

Slightly Interesting School Colors Socks
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Yes, these are the same socks as yesterday, just a better photo. You can see both the side and front view on this one. Since they are in the process of being worn and I hope worn a lot, I thought I should memorialize them now!!

I made good progress yesterday in knitting, and managed to finish the acres and acres of stockinette that constitutes the back of the cardigan, plus two pocket liners. It's off to knit the fronts now!

It probably was not brilliant of me to go to the LYS while they are having their inventory reduction sale...hard to resist getting yarn! But I didn't get too much. I just got two skeins of Noro Iroha in black to use with all my leftover Kureyon or Silk Garden (can't decide) for one of those extra-popular Brooklyn Tweed Noro scarves. Why? I need a plain ole workaday scarf and only have fancy ones and that big one with the pattern in the sidebar (which did keep cold wind off me yesterday!). I also got three balls of Mili Colori, which is a single ply random-striping yarn I just love to look at, to make a second Shag scarf as a gift for someone. I just enjoy doing it! All that was less than $30, so not too bad.

I needed to see other humans anyway, so it was nice to hang out with the friendly yarn shop patrons and chat a while. Mostly I bragged about my son's Christmas gift, which was a really touching plaque thanking me for being a good mom to him...this from the easiest child to parent on the face of the earth--but I sure appreciated it.

Not much knitting in the evening, because we went to see Juno, an excellent movie that was perfect for a family with teens. The vocabulary was dead on accurate--and the subject matter really good.

That's it for today. I hope to have some cardigan photos tomorrow.

Not That AGAIN!

Pentagonal Project Ready to Felt
Originally uploaded by sunasak

One more exciting photo of the pentagonal item before felting. I give you a peek into the inside, where you will note a very bright stripe. That is a crocheted band all around the border of the small squares and the top striped edge. It is bamboo. Why? Bamboo doesn't felt. Let's see what happens when it comes out of the wash!

No other knitting progress due to having lunch with a friend, which means the Campanula for the Cure sock languished. I hope to finish it by tomorrow and get rolling on #2. I am supposed to take it many places and discuss it, according to the Knitalong lady, so I guess I'll blab about it at the LYS and band enrollment day at the high school.

At least I didn't buy any yarn yesterday, nor will I today.

PS: I hate it when I write a long opinion thing and no one says "you rock" or "you suck." I always know that to guarantee no comments on a post, all I have to do is put my opinion about something in it. All my political posts on my personal blog are like that, too. But, if I post a quiz or something, people are all over it. (Link to personal blog is available on request.)

Pentagonal Progress Report

Pentagonal Progress
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Here's progress report #2 on the Pentagonal Project. It's going a bit slowly because I am also working on the Campanula sock. It's nice to go back and forth.

You can see it's easy and fun knitting. I made a mitered square off each end of the pentagonal base, and now I am making a row of half-sized squares on top of that. Not all the big squares are so similar--just those two in the photo. I have not yet decided what to do after this row of squares. There will be one more Kureyon element, however, and then it will get felted. You will have to wait and see what happens next!

Campanula Progress

Like I said, I am also moving along on the Campanula for the Cure sock, and will post more about it on their blog (listed in the blogroll at left). I am enjoying watching the flowers grow, and am almost to the point where the gusset starts. I'd be way past there if I hadn't been so tired from some hard web design work, paying bills, and doing tarot readings last night. I just couldn't knit and went to bed early.

Also I knew I'd be woken up before 5 am for some annoying-yet-humorous high school band tradition involving seniors waking up juniors, dressing them in funny clothing and making them eat breakfast. The photo of my son showed he was NOT amused. I am certain he's laughing by now, though.

Completed Neptune Socks

Neptune Socks
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Here, with a lovely pink blanket background are the Neptune socks in all their completed glory. I finished them in the new pickup truck, AKA the Limo, on the way to scenic rural Yorktown, Texas.

I sure do like them. They are going to look really sharp with shoes and jeans, and perhaps even dress pants. Lately I've been hiding socks I knit under my dress pants because it is COLD at work. (Today I am wearing Coupling socks and my Juliet sweater, PLUS a hand-knit necklace by my LYS colleague Amy (photo to come). I all hand knitting, all the time.)

I didn't bind off quite as loosely on sock #2 and it looks better than sock #1 off the foot, but they look the same on. The heel came out more interesting on sock #1, though. I truly enjoyed knitting with this Sea Wool yarn using the interesting textured pattern, and know these will be favorites for years to come. They fit SO well, too.

Other Progress and Cheer

I did start my Campanula for the Cure socks in the car on the way home yesterday. I am well into the third pattern repeat. I did the toes differently than the pattern asked, since I still don't really like to do short row toes (I will do the heel suggested, having seen others have issues when trying a different heel on those socks). I did the nice Turkish cast on toe, starting with 14 stitches. It came out fine. The Pale Fire yarn looks great with the Campanula lace--it's slight color variations don't detract at all from the flowers.

Whew, the lace pattern is not for the faint of heart. No chart, just words, and different numbers of stitches on different rows. Even a teeny bit of pattern on the "resting" rows! And my favorite stitch, knit 3 together through back loop. At least the KnitPicks needles let me manage it successfully. The resulting flowers are really lovely, though, and Ramona did a great job mirroring their directions. I will post a photo tomorrow or the next day!

I also want to post a photo of the mystery pentagonal project. It moved along a bit this weekend, too. It's becoming quite festive, but needed more Noro Kureyon on Saturday.

Here's the sweet story of how I got more Noro: at the LYS on Saturday, a lady came in with a store-bought sweater she had hoped to get fixed. Pat was looking at it and thinking it coulld not be fixed, but a bunch of customers came in so I said I'd take a look. It turned out to be an intarsia ribbon-knit sweater and one of the knots between colors had come undone, causing one stitch to unravel. I told the lady I could fix it, and she said she'd leave it and come back. I said, no, it would just take about ten minutes. She was incredulous at that. So, I got a little crochet hook and fixed the dropped stitch, then tied it all back together. Even I was impressed--you couldn't tell I'd been working on it!

The lady wanted to pay me, because she adored the sweater and was thrilled to have it back, but really, I just did it to be nice. Heck, it was fun to fix it! When she insisted I suggested she buy me a ball of yarn. I pointed to the two skeins of Kureyon I was going to pick up, and she insisted on buying me both of them. So, the mystery project will not be too expensive after all, and I won't rue wasted money if it doesn't felt up the way I want it to.

So, good knitting karma all around! Stay tuned for more tomorrow!

I Joined a KAL, Oh My

I have never done a Knitalong before. Shocking, but true. I guess I just never wanted to be making the same thing everyone else is (hey, you tell me, you've been making a lot of popular socks lately!). But still, never done a "KAL." But, when I read about the Campanula for the Cure one, I decided to join. There are a number of reasons:

1. I was looking for a nice sock pattern to be the next in line.
2. I had just bought this pink yarn, Pale Fire, in Smooshy by Dream in Color (I bought it BEFORE everyone and her Aunt bought it, honest).
3. It's raising money for a nice charity in Canada.
4. My mentor, Roberta Bishop Johnson, died of breast cancer, and I still miss her. (The link is to a tribute to her that I wrote back when I worked for a nonprofit organization she helped shape.)
5. I have one UU church friend undergoing chemo right now, and at least two other church friends who are doing well after dealing with breast cancer.
6. My own mother died of cancer (lung, a lifelong smoker) in 1984, and never got to see my children or see me happy with my wonderful man Lee.
7. Ramona, who started the KAL seems like a really sweet and caring woman.

So, for all these reasons this is the KAL for me.

Like I said, I already have pink yarn (I don't need to post a picture, since someone posted a nice photo of it all in a yarn cake to the KAL blog already). I just need to finish the Neptune socks and off I go! Neptune will get done tomorrow, probably, since I have another long trip to south Texas to see Lee's dad (recovering from haveing a large skin cancer on his head removed, coincidentally). I will post photos.

You are encouraged to join the KAL (linked above). They are giving out lovely prizes to participants. And, most important, the socks are really pretty!

PS: Mystery Pentagon Project is rolling along. I will need to get more Noro tomorrow at the LYS.

Noro Pentagon

Noro Pentagon
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Here's an enticing glimpse of the project I started at Chicks with Sticks yesterday. While listening to an online meeting at work I had a flash of insight about something I wanted to make, so I marched on over after work and got some Noro Kureyon and another coordinating yarn to get moving on it. That pentagon is the beginning of the project. I think you can see it has five sides from the photo. Tomorrow I will share more of what I am doing with it. Hint: it will be felted, but not all of the item will be felted! And another yarn will be involved.

I was reading about knitting pentagons on one of the blogs I read and it gave me the idea for this thingie. It's a fun shape and will make a great basis for my project!

You'll note that it doesn't have my usual pretty increases, just KFB. And the start is not attractive either--my circular crochet cast-on would not tighten so I just did a Turkish one then turned that into a circle. Next time I think I'd crochet cast on 5 then increase on the first row to ten, knit a row, increase in every stitch again, then commence to increasing every third row, which is what the instructions I read said to do to make it come out nice and flat.

Since I am going to felt this, I am not too concerned about how the center and increases look. They will get all smooshed up in felting (yeah yeah, I know it's really fulling). At least I hope so. I just realized I now have a front-loading washer. I hope it felts.

Still working on my Neptune socks at work on lunch break and whenever we go anywhere and I am not driving, so they will get done. I am almost to the heel. Everyone at the yarn shop admired their extreme loveliness.

Hope for New Photos!

conchoback
Originally uploaded by sunasak

I wanted to let you all know that very soon now I'll have new photos again, including one that looks reasonable of the Shiny Green sweater. I orderd my own camera, so it won't move away, get given away or otherwise disappear. I've actually never owned my own digital camera! I ordered a Canon PowerShot A550 7.1 megapixel model with 4x zoom from overstock.com, and got a pretty darned good price (original goals were a gift for Lee and sheets for Beccano's bed, but no sheets--scored on the gift, though). No, not the fanciest, but it will take good pictures of knitting--it's derived from the camera that took the photo on today's entry. Only cheaper and more megapixels.

So, today I share a picture of the vest that was in the background of the dog sweater picture. The inspiration was a pattern in the book Dazzling Knits: Building Blocks to Creative Knitting, by Patricia Werner. I used two colorways of Noro Silk Garden. I remember I knitted it while watching the last Winter Olympics. I simply could NOT stop working on it, because it was so much fun seeing what color combination was going to come up. There is a front view here, featuring my previous hair color scheme.

Modular knitting is so much fun. I can't believe I haven't done any more of it--all the motifs in the Dazzling Knits book are great. Well, I am trying to decide how to make the afghan that Jody is going to dye me DK weight yarn for to match my new media room (colros are a lovely dark red, rich tan and denim blue). I had thought of a log cabin deal, but maybe I'll go modular.

Suggestions? I'd appreciate ideas to mull over.

Aurora Scarf

Aurora Scarf
Originally uploaded by sunasak.

Here's a more distant photo of the Aurora scarf, contrasting mightily with the outdoor chair cover.

And though I thought I would not have much occasion to drag this item out in public, I even wore it to work one day last week, with a lilac dress shirt. Interesting colors, huh: many shades of gray, brown, black, purple and lilac. I'd never have put those colors together, but Noro-san did. That dude really has a way with colors--I can't find a colorway of Kureyon that I don't like!

I did not block this scarfvery intensely, so when I wear it, it curves a bit, but I didn't want to stretch out the ribs.

By the way, if you're wondering how I am doing the pictures, I am using Flickr to blog photos from their interface. It's pretty convenient! And when you click, you can see other things I knitted.

Aurora Scarf Close-Up

Aurora Scarf Close-Up
Originally uploaded by sunasak.

I'll start posting with this really nice scarf I finished last month but only just managed to block last week. The yarn is Noro Aurora, which I got at the yarn shop that used to be in Lakeway, the only time I ever managed to get there and find it open. Now my wonderful LYS has this yarn, too. What interesting yarn! I had 5 balls, and only two of them had the color green in them, so I didn't use that color--and the lilac you see in the photo only appeared once. The shiny parts are green lurex and it is just right. Adds a bit of shine but isn't distracting.

The pattern is a Eugen Beugler Fiber Trends one, Fuschia Lace. I love his patterns. The border is twisted garter stitch for better definition, with little cables to give the scalloped edge. And the pattern is hard enough to be interesting but easy enough to memorize. I really enjoyed doing this one!

By the way, this is the first post I wrote, though I am going to back-date some others.