The Celtic Knot is hosting an Sn'B every Wednesday this summer!

I will not make them all, but here's the schedule:
6/23 Loose Ends (bring UFO's for help sewing them up, weaving ends, etc.)
7/7 It's all about me. Bring something you're knitting for yourself
7/14 Christmas in July (they'll play appropriate music)
7/21 Beach Party (bring stuff to make margaritas)
7/28 Standard SnB
8/4 Carole's birthday (there will be cake)
8/11 Stash bingo - complicated, call her for info
8/18 Awareness night
8/24 Back to wool

We're welcome to bring snacks. There's a 10% discount for purchase during the SnB but there's no obligation. They're all from 7-9 at the old town Ellicott City shop.

My first felting attempt

I took the rest of the mitten yarn I had left (cascade 220) and knit a cylinder on 10.5 needles. I made a little flap from garter stitch and sewed up the bottom. I tucked the corners in. I then put it in my washer on heavy duty hot/hot. Every once in a while for the first little bit, I fished around with tongs. After a while, I got involved in the book I was reading and stopped checking on it. It's really, really felted. Kind of cool. I formed it into the shape I was looking for and let it dry. Now I have to figure out a closure (button or snap?).

The pictures of the finished sweater

I love it, but it is a little warmer than I had hoped. I wore it to work last Tuesday and was way hot. That and I really do have to block the bottom in so it doesn't flare. Besides that, it's great.

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > Online Shopper: Fellowship for the Fiber-Fixated

5/27/04 by Jean Rutter (free registration required)
Finally a nice article about modern knitters.
Pointed out by Jane on KR.

Woo-hoo and oh no, almost finished the v-neck sweater

It's not too big, it fits perfectly, the shaping is great. I just need to weave under the arms and tuck in all the threads (which is no small feat because the #$^* yarn had knots in every skein). Woo-hoo because I totally went from scratch. And boo-hoo or oh no because I'm now completely out of yarn. Aaack.

I'm going to take a little of the leftover cascade 220 from the mittens and try a little felting. Gee that ought to take me about two days.

Maybe it's back to acrylic for me. : (

Progress on the v-neck, 3/4 sleeve, seed stitch trim sweater

I finished the body up to wear the arms join, and one arm to the same place. I'm now working on the other arm. The body seems to be magically growing so what was once fitted now may be quite large. Sigh. I swatched a bunch and carefully calculated.

My Fortissima Colori Socks

I finished these in time to wear them last week to MD S&W. Here's a picture from the top:

Knit Knite

A bunch of Marylanders from KR got together last night at the Columbia Border's. It was great. We did a little chatting and a little knitting and my dh was able to read to his hearts content in the car repair section. Here are links to some of the attendees:

• http://RoseByAny.blogspot.com
  
• http://EiKnit.typepad.com
  
• http://PixieStikzKnitz.blog-city.com
  

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival

Wow! I can't believe how big this festival is. It was huge. I'm not sure I saw everything or felt every fiber but I sure tried. I got to pet some llamas, an alpaca, an angora bunny, and some sheep and goats. Baaaaa. Baaaa.
I want to learn to spin and buy one of each fiber. I want my own goat, too, and maybe a couple of fuzzy bunnies. You would think I was 5 years old.
My dh was funny-- at the sheep dog demonstration he said, "listen to how quiet the handlers are and think about all the people in our neighborhood running around and yelling at their dogs!" He's right. It was quite impressive.
BTW- it's raining big time now, I'm glad it started after I got home! I hope those poor sheep don't shrink!

Done the Socks

Now I have to photograph them. hmm. They fit pretty well, but I wish I had done them on my size 1s. I wanted to try 2s2c toe up with the Queen Kahuna cast on so that limited me to my size 2 Addis. The fabric isn't quite as tight as I would have hoped. I ended up frogging the bind off after it was way too tight on my rather voluptuous leg. I then tried Peggy's stretchy bind off and it worked like a charm.
I wore them all day today while I walked around the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival and they felt just fine.

Socks in Progress

I learned how to fish around in the center of the ball to find the end! I pulled for a while and the patterns of my two skeins just weren't matching so I went ahead and started. Now I guess I'll have fraternal twin socks. You can clearly see from the picture, though, why they didn't match. They're wound on the skeins in opposite directions! Someone on one of my lists complained about this. Why, why, why? They're the same dye lot. ARGH! Oh well I still think they're pretty cool. Plus, I did Queen Kahuna's cast on and it worked pretty well so that makes me happy. I'm making the instep and leg in a 4x2 rib so they fit well. It worked on the socka socks.

Front Cover of the new Lion Brand Catalog

What the hell did she do to her jeans? Bizarre. Especially around the fly. I won't copy the picture here, but it's worth looking at. I bet the poor dog is pissed off about the sweater its wearing.

Just because you have the yarn doesn't mean you have to use it!

Progress on the coral seed stitch sweater

I'm at the first set of decreases for the waist. I'm taking the measurements off of a Jones New York sweater I have that I love. It starts at 41" around and goes to 39" at about 7.5". The rh seam shows in this view, but it doesn't look too bad. The real thing I'm concerned about is weaving in all the yarn ends.

Lace Attempt

After reading all kinds of information on knitting lace on KR, I thought I would try some. (hristina from London posted a great site with links to tons of patterns. I picked a cool swirl leaf doily.
OK, so the knitting was cool, but I remembered that I didn't like knitting with pure cotton, especially on bamboo needles. I was adding a few rows at a time while at my computer, but I finally got so confused and lost that I just pulled the needles out. I decided to take a picture before I pull out the whole thing. Maybe I should have bound off? It is pretty cool, and I can't see the errors now.

Back to the sweater: how I'm doing the hem

I finally figured out where my DH stuck the pictures I made of the swatch where I worked out the hem.
Here's a view of the back. See how it's pretty tidy. No stitching required but it does take a little bit to unzip while you knit.

Here's a view of the front.

It looks a little more refined in the cotton fleece. I'll take more pictures this weekend.

I also kind of made this up but was inspired by Stoller's SnB

I saw something that looked like this in Stitch n' Bitch by Stoller, but I revised it so it's done from the top. This is easier for me. Someone asked me how so here is what I told her (btw, I think I changed it enough so that it's ok to print):
Cast on 9 stitches onto one DPN
Transfer stitches to 3 DPN
Knit first round, increasing every stitch by knitting into front and back of each stitch (bar increase) until you get to the last stitch
Knit last stitch together with first stitch on next needle to join round(16 stitches total).
Knit one round even
Next row, inc 1, k1, inc1, k1 all the way around
Knit one round even
inc 1 k2, inc 1 k2 all the way around
Knit one round even.
Keep going like this increasing around until the hat is the desired circumference to fit the baby in question.
Knit even until long enough to cover the ears + 1-2" for the roll and cast off. It's stockinette, it'll roll on its own.
Go back to hole at top where you started with 8 stitches.
Pick up and knit 4 stitches evenly around. Do an I-cord for about 4" or until it's long enough to knot. Break the yarn and draw through the stitches to fasten off.
Ta-da!

Kind-of self-designed hat for a little boy

So I sort of made this up. I knitted in the round big enough for his head. Several rows ribbing, then several stockinette, then one reverse stockinette, then the pattern, back to the reverse, then to the top where I actually kitchnered (sp?) the top. Added tassles and voila! I have a picture of it on said kid but not sure if Mom's ok with publishing on the net... hm. looks better on, actually.

The bear is just a purl instead of a knit in the following pattern. Someone told me they thought it looked like a frog, someone else said Christmas tree... but hey, my first try, ok?
kkkkpkp
kkkkppp
kkkppppp
kkkppppp
kkkkppp
kkppppppp
kppppppppp
kppppppppp
kkpppppp
kkpppppp
pppppppppp
pppppppppp
kpppppppp
kkppppp

Fixation Gloves

I had what I thought was a terrific idea -- homemade isotoners by using stretchy yarn. Well, it was a PITA to knit with and isn't that warm, and seems to be showing wear fairly quickly. Makes me wonder about socks from this yarn? Pattern is the basic one from Vogue Knitting on the Go Gloves. Amazingly easy but pretty tedious to weave in all the ends, especially with a cotton.

Cable Mittens

These were actually easier than they looked. I worked off the chart and it went pretty well. The pattern is from Vogue Knitting on the Go Gloves. I used cascade 220 instead of what it called for so as I posted earlier, they're a bit long but nice and warm.

Uploading like a champ

I made these pictures kinda small so that they would upload from home. I'll post each separately so if you want to ohh and ahh in the new comments feature, you can. ;)