Matching Hands and Feet

Autumn in New England is ever-changing; crisp days, cool nights, a freak snow storm (seriously that was not cool - I am not ready for snow). I thought before I had to bust out the serious hand knits that I would be able to use these new mitts at least a little. Actually I have been wearing them more indoors than out. I have one of those apartments with steam radiator heat and if it's not cold outside then the heat doesn't kick in and the apartment is just a bit nippy. These mitts do the trick, keep my hands warm but fingers free for typing, fast-forwarding thru commercials on the DVR etc....

The pattern is Elphaba knit in Knitpicks Felici. I am such a sucker for self-striping yarn. Super straight-forward pattern and the only mod I made was to add an additional 12 stitches since I have big hands. They fit great. I would show you in a picture but it is freakishly hard to take a photo of your own hands.

They took just about a skein to knit and then I was left with another skein just sitting there mocking me. So I decided to make a pair of anklets. While I was pretty precise in getting the mitts to match I didn't really care on the socks. I knit these toe-up because I wasn't sure how far my yarn would go and since the anklets were going to be pretty easy I figured I may as well try out an afterthought heel for the first time to up my degree of difficulty as it were. It was not hard to do at all really and it keeps the striping going unlike a big heel flap.

Check out my brand spanking new sock blockers I picked up on my recent trip to Webs.

I Was a Knitting Moron

I present  my Coralicious Socks knit in the Piedmont Wildsocks yarn I bought while in California. They really should not have taken as long as they did but I had a touch of the moron that slowed down their creation. I tried knitting them as Artichoke socks and after knitting over 4 inches there was no denying it they looked like crap. Maybe the yarn was meant to be toe-up socks so I tried Victory Socks - about 3 inches knit, again crap. Seriously what was going wrong?   Was I screwing up when doing a yarn over between a knit and purl stitch? So I hit the you tube videos and the truth was enlightening and embarrassing. Somehow I had forgotten how to do a simple yarn over. I had been doing them in the wrong direction. I have done yarn overs before, lots of them. No problems. Honestly!

So I started fresh with the frogged yarn rewound and a new pattern picked out. And lo and behold - not crap!

I know I've mentioned before how freaky my feet are but seriously check out how much wider my right foot is!

Yikes!.

They are organizing..., a photo by Sarahland on Flickr.

I am a bit overwhelmed by all the zucchini and squash I am getting in my CSA.

Toe-Up Stripey Goodness

Yay! A finished project. These are my Toe-Up Stripey Noro Socks and I love them. I even kept knitting them higher than I normally wear my socks because I loved seeing the colors change and contrast with the black.

They are far from perfect. there some serious color jag issues in spots and yet, still love them. I love them because they fit just right and because they are my first toe-up socks and because I figured out Judy's Magic Cast-On (which is freakin' brilliant, by the way) and because I knit them while I was visiting Ariel and because the second sock flew off my needles within days and because it was cool that flight attendants would stop by my seat and ask about them and compliment the socks (and therefore me) and because Noro is just so damn pretty. 

The details: Wendy's Fingering Weight Toe-Up Socks with Gusset Heel in Noro Kureyon Sock (left over from my sister's socks) and Valley Yarns Huntington.

Sights of San Francisco

I took a whole slew of photos of San Francisco and I thought I'd share a few. If you want to see them all head to my flickr stream here.

Knitting Out West

Greetings! I am back from my trip to West Coast to visit the fabulous Ariel. It was my first time to the San Francisco/Oakland area and it was great. A wonderful mix of sight-seeing, eating, imbibing and knitting. Since this is a knitting blog,I figured this first post will focus on the knitting bits.
My first day there we popped into Article Pract in Oakland.  A wonderful store with a large variety of yarn, really helpful staff and they were having a sale. A sale on ALL yarn. Really, it would have been simply rude to not buy anything. (I am all about the good manners.) As much as I love stripey and variegated sock yarns, I realized that for certain patterns I really need to have some nice solid tonal yarns in my stash.  This madelinetosh sock is so soft and the color just so heavenly.

A trip to the Mission had to include a stop at ImagiKnit. A big store with a huge variety of yarns, where I think I was so overwhelmed I walked away empty-handed. But being the good friend that I am, I did find perfect green yarn that she simply I knew Ariel would be unable to resist. I can spot Ariel green's and orange's from a good 15 feet away.

I really wanted "souvenir yarn" something either spun or dyed local so we hit up  Piedmont Yarn for some of their hand-dyed Piedmont Wildsocks. I am pretty certain I already have the pattern chosen for this yarn. Stay tuned...

Even better than the new yarn, it was so wonderful just to hang out with Ariel and knit. It reminded me how much I miss knitting with others.   Our weekly group kind of faded away a while back and while I have seen some of my knittah's socially we haven't sat and knit together for a long time. Ariel and I would pull out our socks and knit all over the place. We scoured projects on ravelry together when we discovered a shawl pattern we loved from someone we met at Article Pract. I may have even have been molested by some of her stash. (I am working hard to repress that memory).   We chatted with one sweet woman on BART whose husband was very well-trained to feign interest in the difference between DPN's and circulars.  Nearly any time we stopped to rest our weary feet out came the knitting. A fellow knitter understands that we are not leaving the cafe in North Beach until I have finished turning the heel.  I loved when one of her friends asked us how we knew each other and Ariel said simply "knitting". The look on his face was one of such confusion, it was priceless.  One evening after a lot of walking, Ariel said "How 'bout wine, knitting and Firefly?" and I could not imagine anything better. 

My sock in progress while enjoying an afternoon beer.

Fabric Napkins with Freezer Paper Stencils

I kept meaning to whip up some cloth napkins but it was one of those fleeting thoughts that never occurred to me when I was someplace that sold fabric. But I actually remembered when I visited Gather Here on their opening day. Gather Here is just adorable; fabric and sewing patterns that makes me wish I was a better sewer, pretty yarn, inviting space to sit and stitch, just a really lovely store. If you're in the Cambridge, Mass area - go there. I was so overwhelmed by all the pretty that it was hard to restrain myself to only buy some fabric that I had an immediate use for.  But I was good and only bought some Kona Cotton in a gorgeous shade that matches the blues in my kitchen just wonderfully.

I can manage to sew a straight line (sort of) so sewing up the napkins wasn't that hard. I think the ironing and pinning took longer than the actual sewing They needed a bit of something so I decided to try freezer paper stencils for the first time.  I made two of a silverware place setting and two of artichokes.  Oddly enough, the artichokes with far more cuts and chances for things to go wrong came out better than the relatively simple silverware. Who knew? 

 

Gifts for My Niece that Aren't Zoobles

Have you ever seen a Zooble? They are these little round plastic balls that pop out into animals and they were the hip toy for the 6 year-old set this winter. My niece pointed them out to me at a toy store when I asked what she wanted and I took one look at them and said "Yeah, someone else will get you those." And they did. At no point, was the small child deprived of  Zoobles. But to be honest, they creep me out. I am pretty sure if you look at them too long they will try to steal your soul, just sayin'.

So I got her something that I always liked, a kaleidoscope. Actually a  make your own nature kaleidoscope kit. It came with rocks and dried flowers and glass gems but you can change what's in it whenever you want. We put it together over the holidays and it made really pretty views. I wanted to see if I could get a few pics by sticking my camera to the eye hole and it worked.  Here are a few of my favorite shots just because I think they look neat.

I also wanted to make something for my niece so she said she wanted a new hat, as long as it had a pompom. I made the Norwegian Star Earflap Hat (a free ravelry download ). It's got a little bit of colorwork but it's a real quick knit that I naturally did not finish in time for the holidays and now I just need to get it to her. I mostly knit the pattern as-is and just made mods on the detail work. I added a single crochet edging, made the ties braids instead of i-cords and added a pompom of course.

Holy crap, it's been how long?

Whoops, guess who hasn't blogged for a long while? Truth is I didn't have a whole lot to say (insert sister's snickering here) and most of my knitting was for the holidays so I couldn't show anything. But I have re-emerged and hope to blog more often in the new year. I would like to take more photos and cook more in the new year so you may see some fancy pics of beet risotto or at least more veggies with googly eyes.

So now let's do some knitting project catch-up.  A few years back, I knit my brother a scarf. It was a really nice scarf, it had cables and it was the first thing I had ever knit for him. So last year I noticed on a cold day that he wasn't wearing it or any scarf. I mentioned it casually to my mom and she said, "He lost it and he's afraid to tell you". While striking fear into my brother's heart would have at one point given me a sick thrill I guess we both must have matured at some point by not wanting to inflict pain on each other. The scarf was lost on one of those odd Boston days when you walk out of the house and it's cold only to have the temperature swing by 25 degrees in a few hours and having a super long wool scarf wrapped around your neck while on the T (Boston's subway) is torture. So the scarf somehow disappeared and joined the ranks of other things gone missing on the T, I myself must have contributed half a dozen umbrellas to the T lost & found over the years. So my brother got a new scarf, the Shale Pleated Scarf knit in Ultra Alpaca.  It has a really nice texture when knit up and the only mods I made were to knit it on needles one size down to make it a bit denser to block out the winter winds. The color is a much darker navy than what appears in the photo.

For my brother-in-law, I knit a pair of the Pirate Mittens (it's a free download on ravelry) to go with last year's pirate hat. I followed the pattern to go up in yarn size and I went up in needles and they still won't fit him unless we cut off his fingers down a knuckle or two. So I officially owe him a project of his choosing. Maybe a nice scarf perhaps? They tend to fit well. Something silly and geek related?  So here are photos of the too-small mittens which I am sure someone will wear...someday. 

 

I decided my sister would appreciate the gift of hand-knit socks. There was a bit of a false start, it's amazing how a nice yarn and a good pattern can result in something that gives you motion sickness while knitting it. I knit about an itch into the pattern saying "she'll either love it or hate it but I sure as hell hate it" and had to stop. So putting that yarn aside for another day, I went back to one of those basic yarn facts, my sister loves her some Noro and she loves stripey socks. So off to Mind's Eye Yarn I went to pick up Noro Sock yarn. While there Lucy reminded me why LYS' are so awesome by helping me split my skein into halves. What was likely to have been stressful and frustrating at home (Noro sock yarn twists onto itself a lot)  was a much more pleasant experience in her cozy shop chatting with other knitters . (Note to self: a scale for yarn would be awful handy to have).  The socks don't match each other at all but luckily for me I know that my sister probably prefers totally mismatched stripes. 

Look Who Came Home!

It's my mojo, it seemed to find its way back home.  At first I thought it smelled the yummy butternut squash soup I was making or it wanted shelter before the Nor'easter hit town but then I remembered what really brought it scampering home.

I won a contest over Talk Crafty To Me ,  after several days of  recapping all sorts of craft books to inspire you there was a contest for a $25 Amazon gift card to spend on some crafty books and I won! I have had
The Big Ass Book of Crafts in my amazon wish list for a long time so I think I may finally get that. And we all know that I love me some knitted toys and I have admired Rebecca Danger's monsters for a while now so I am pretty excited for her book Big Book of Knitted Monsters that is coming out in January. Any other must have craft books that people out there just adore?

I also think my mojo came back because it knew Ariel was headed to town. Arriving 24 hours earlier than I expected (not that she arrived early just that I am a bit of an idiot), we have already spent some of those 24 hours eating awesome burgers, drinking cocktails with names like The Ditzy Blond and The Petite Flower and plotting a possible trip to Webs. A good day by all standards.  Only a true knitting friend understands the importance when you say you are contemplating a sweater (really it's been ages since I did a big project) and it involves steeking.

O' Where O' Where Did My Mojo Go?

Somewhere in the past month or so I lost my knitting mojo. Actually not just my knitting mojo but my mojo in general. Friends moving away, people you care for in pain, the days getting shorter....sigh.  I am not even sure I lost my mojo. I think that it ran away and is currently riding the rails with a red handkerchief tied to a stick over its shoulder. (Yes, my mojo is a 1930's hobo, what of it?)

There are some good tidings coming soon because my pal Ariel is heading to town and I sense there will be some knttin', eatin', drinkin' fun to be had.

But in the meantime I figured I'd think of some stuff that tickles my fancy and maybe entice my mojo to come home where I have homemade applesauce waiting for it.

Apparently pickling is contagious. My sister started it, then me and now my brother has joined the bandwagon and made a batch which were apparently awesome. Even my dad is considering pickling the green tomatoes that they had to take in when they had a frost up in Maine. For some reason this really makes me giggle since even though I know that my dad can cook, the image of him using measuring spoons is such a weird one.He is definitely a shaker top his spices directly onto a slab of meat kind of guy.

Getting tickets to the Amy Sedaris reading in November. Amy Sedaris is coming to town to do a reading for my local bookstore and tickets went quickly. When I called they had only 8 left and I was glad to snag 2. I think she is so funny and wacky and we share a love of the googly eyes so that must make us kindred spirits. I think if I pick up a copy of her new book Simple Times:Crafts for Poor People, my mojo will respond well to that.

Weekly Photo Assignments at Smarts & Crafts.com  I am not sure when I started reading the blog of this San Francisco store.  I am sure that it was mentioned on some other blog I read. The store  looks so cool and I will totally  visit when/if I get out that way. But what I really like is that each week they give out weekly photo assignments. Assignments are things like "something orange" or "something sweet" or "your morning coffee". I don't manage to do it every week but I try to keep the assignment in the back of my head and remember to throw my camera in my bag and it forces me to stop and take pictures of things I normally wouldn't (i.e. not yarn or yarn based items). And I like to look at the other people's photos to see how they interpreted it. Assignments are given out on Fridays when the previous week's photos are posted.

And of course, squash with google eyes.

In a bit of a Pickle

It seems all summer blogs I've been reading have had someone pickling stuff, craft blogs, knitting blogs everyone must have had their gardens run over with cucumbers.  So when my CSA share started to fill up with cukes that just looked like they were born to pickle I knew what I had to do...read more blogs. I have never pickled anything before so I have no idea what I was doing.

I read a gazillion recipes and although my sister had decided to go with the tried and true voice of Alton Brown I followed the recipe of the one of my food blogs I really enjoy but never actually make any of the recipes.  So using Coconut & Lime's recipe I made my first refrigerator pickles and pickled green beans. Actually made I made them last week but I wanted to wait until tasted them I boasted of my pickle prowess. And it turns out I rock,  the beans are really yummy and dilly and crisp. Now that I have a whole bunch of jars and spices I am eyeing everything and thinking "Can I pickle that?"

Ubiquitous Baby Knits

I've got some friends who are knocked up so it's time to work on some knits for the wee ones. My usual go-to is a toy but I figured I'd go for something different. Well, different for me, really these are some of the most knit patterns out there and you know why? Because they are so frakkin' cute.

This set is for my college roommate who is not due until October so it is really odd of me to be so ahead of the game.  Everything is knit with Tahki Cotton Classic with just a bit of Knit Picks Shine Sport of the green parts.

The Kid's Fruit Cap - I figure we can say it's a blueberry. The hat seems amazingly small to me but after putting out a call to my friends on facebook asking them to compare newborn heads to various fruits i.e. melons, grapefruits etc...it probably is not too small after all.

Saatje Booties (although I actually used the Fleegle Seamless Version - because avoiding seaming is always better) Yes, the buttons are little blue apples and as far as I know there are no blue apples but hey, they are cute and I was sticking with the fruit theme. And buying them  gave me an excuse to go Windsor Button and hang out at the counter fondling the Malabrigo lace weight.

Camp LiSaLa

It all started over a sushi dinner with my friends Lisa and Laurel. I mentioned how my niece was going to Girl Scout Camp and had come home with her sit-upon and my sister mentioned this on her facebook page and all sorts of people chimed in about summer crafts of their youth. This began a conversation that had to go for almost a half hour of all the things we made.  We decided we needed a camp craft day to relive our youth and really I just love any excuse to play with googly eyes and pompoms.

First Lisa and I took a trip to the craft store where we went a little crazy picking up some supplies.

We did some tried and true classics like corn husk dolls jersey loop potholders, god's eyes and gimp lanyards (somehow managed to not snap a picture of the lanyards or god's eyes - I blame the Moscow Mules Lisa mixed up instead of taking responsibility for my slacking off on photo-taking)

I was disappointed when I had gone to the supermarket in preparation for craft day and they didn't have a macaroni letters. So I had to decorate my picture frame with this new fangled sparkly letters instead. But on the plus side, I was able to sneak some googly eyes on them.

Then our new pompom pals took a stroll in the backyard to sun themselves on a leaf and make some new friends.

A simply great day with wonderful weather, tasty food and drink, amazing company and googly eyes. Really what else could a girl ask for? I am thinking a second session of camp may be in order since this one was so much fun and we still have 990 popsicle sticks to use up!

Odds and Ends

I swear this recent sock-knitting binge is going to end soon, I mean it has to, doesn't it?  I was looking through my stash and figured I could eek out a pair of anklets from the leftovers of my Endpaper Mitts project.  The pattern is the Pom Pom Peds knit up in Valley Yarn's Huntington. I was so concerned that I was going to run out of the grey that I started the toe on the first sock a bit early and the sock is a teensy bit short. And did I run out of yarn, noooo, of course there's still some leftover.

I then had to decide on what to cast on next.  I was on ravelry playing around with all the new pattern categories and found this super simple crochet necklace.  I dug down into the big old Rubbermaid tub of stash and found this bag of gold and silver metallic yarns that my grandma had given me. To put in perspective how long this stuff has been kicking around her place I am pretty certain some of the thicker gold yarn was used to make my Barbie a very fabulous skirt/sweater set with matching set of luggage. In the bag there was some thin silver almost thread weight yarn and with some beads from the bead stash, voila! a super simple necklace made up of three strands. I like it so much I can actually see myself wearing it out of the house (I have a bad tendency to make jewelry and then never wear it - stupid, stupid, stupid).  Anyway, I am pretty glad to have actually use some of grandma's yarn - she will be thrilled to know I got some use out of it.