For the German KAL

I picked up this Sockotta:

It's colorway 502. The people on KR all thought that all of the Sockotta colorways splotched, pooled, or "sparkled", but this one is supposed to stripe. I'm not into the striping, but we'll see what happens. I need to get busy on my other projects first, but I can't wait to swatch this.

I did another pair of socks from Sockotta and at first I wasn't very impressed with the yarn. But, it is much less expensive than others, and they wear great and feel good on. One skein makes two socks.

Almost there!

The flame socks are almost done. It's funny Carole commented on how she's going to miss them... after all I knit them every SnB I go to! Here they are modeled by the handsome end user (with the furry legs... don't worry, it's not me, it's my dh).

Instep	Bottom

They're actually a little farther than that now. The first one is completely done and I just need to weave some threads and do the duplicate stitch on the second one. They are going to be kind of like fred flinstone toes because they were within an inch of the final length when I got done the pattern. I did have to buy another skein of the Navy. Luckily, another knitter at the SnB was able to give up one that she had picked out (thanks Judy!) because the LYS ran out of that color.

baltimoresun.com - Stitching a knitting network

An article about our local SnB! There are pictures in the print version... and there I am, happily knitting away on the couch. I understand that free registration might be required.

Quick note: "add to my Yahoo" works now

If you moused over it in the past (over there on the sidebar) it wasn't a link. Turns out I left out an " . So it works now. If you like reading your knitting blogs in Yahoo instead of in Bloglines or by following a ring, click away!

The lovely *POWER* ball winder my DH made me

He actually made this a while ago, but we just got a chance to use it yesterday. I needed to wind off a bunch of wooly nylon onto a separate spool so that I could do 2 heels at once. The winder is meant to do center pull balls, but for the wooly nylon I just wound it around a toilet paper roll so it won't get tangled.

The motor that turns the spool is from an old power drill. Mark hooks that to a potentiometer and that to either a battery (this time from his cordless drill) or a power supply. He's thinking about adding a footpedal from a sewing machine to control the speed. This time he stood there and adjusted the pot while I'll guided the nylon. Pretty cool!

Still flames...

Going very, very slowly... but I'm committing to at least 2 complete rows per day so I'll get there sooner or later!
Here's how they look now.

Heel	Instep

As promised

Here's Caitie in her new poncho. Picture courtesy of my Dad.

Progress on the fluted bannister socks

No chance last weekend, and now there's no light when I get home from work. Here's a picture anyway.

I really like this pattern. It's easy to remember and knit and goes really quickly.

In other news, Caitie tried on her new poncho and it fits great. Just a few minutes before she had been complaining that everyone had a poncho but her! I also taught her to knit again. She's a real pro at the long-tailed cast on, but still shakey on the knitting. I left her with some acrylic worsted weight and some size 10s. Maybe she'll practice. I'll try to post a picture of her in it, but my camera's batteries went kaput and I had to rely on Dad's pictures.

Cool hit map trick

Pointed out by MonkeyMagic
It clusters and maps the IPs of visitors. Pretty cool. You'll see a huge cluster where I am, let's see who else?

Where are visitors to this page?
(Auto-update daily since 15-OCT-04)

If you'd like to get it yourself look here.

Found some wooly nylon

After many discussions on Socknitters about how to reinforce socks made from non-sock yarn, I decided I needed to get some wooly nylon for the socks I'm making from merino. I went to Joann's (I know, I know, but I wasn't buying yarn, I was buying wooly nylon). Anyway, they were really busy, what with two employees outside smoking, a brand new employee having a line of 5 people waiting to have fabric cut and the other employee with a line of 5 people at the register, so I just kept looking around. I found serger thread, but I wasn't sure. Then... at ankle level, in a bin, I found some... in HOT PINK! Argh. I dug around squatting there and finally pulled out a spool of hunter green. I wanted to get black so it would go with everything, but oh well. It's actually pretty cool but I'm not sure how easy to knit with it will be. As soon as the tension is off of it, it fluffs up like my hair in August! I also need to pull some off onto another spool so that I can continue to do 2 socks at a time. So how much? hmm.

Progress on the flames

Whoa. These are slow. I guess I'll work on these more tonight after I finish casting on the fluted bannister. If you can see the chart in the background, the first like 10 rows are pretty much just a couple of light colored stitches here and there so I'm going to do them in duplicate stitch. I'm still going to run out of navy yarn.

Don't the flames almost look like tuning forks?

Some good ideas

While my DH and I were running around the mall last night trying to find me shoes for my conference presentation today (and no, I didn't find any, all I wanted were some brown suede with a cute rounded toe and like a 2.5" heel, is that so hard?), I saw a poncho at Banana Republic that looks kind of like what I had in mind for my MIL's. When I went online to link to it, I found that they list ponchos as a top trend, and have a whole page on them (which is apparently what's making my browser crash so beware). I really like all of these designs. I guess I will put fringe on the one I'm making. I wasn't sure if it was appropriate for an adult poncho.

Swatching 6 Sox #3

ARGH! I did this post last night before I went to bed and apparently IE died and it didn't get posted.

Anyway, this is for the 3rd of the 6 Sox Knitalong. It's actually only my second and I'd like to do the to the clover when I get a chance. This pattern is called fluted bannister and I'm trying to make it for a man so I went digging through my stash. I ended up swatching this very soft 100% merino that's in a beautiful deep green with blue in it. I can't get a good picture at night so I'll try again on the weekend. This swatch is done flat on size 2 addis. The bottom is just plain knitting and the top is the pattern.

I'm going to add a wooly nylon (yet to be purchased) to the whole foot so they can be worn around the house.

In other news, I'm about a foot in on my MIL's poncho (cool) and am about 12 rows from starting the flames on the flame socks. The new pattern is posted for the Deutsch knit along and it's a beautiful slip stitch pattern. Now I'll have to find 2 more yarns in my stash!

My parents are awesome!

I just got back from a nice dinner out with my parents -- a belated celebration of my birthday. They gave me this snazzy little digital camera, extra storage, extra rechargeable batteries, and a nice dinner out.

Also, upon request and without any raised eyebrows, I got Dad to bring me this:

Now you may say, why on earth did she get her Dad to bring her a log? Well, it's actually cedar that's cured to perfection -- nice and stinky to keep the bugs out of my stash and off my new cashmere sweater (thanks FIL!). My DH will cut it into little chunks when he gets the chance. Much fresher and better than buying the little packaged blocks at the store.

I got my Dad's foot measurements, too, so maybe he'll get a little surprise for Christmas.

My DH gave me the cutest B-day card ever!

I think it's wishing me a clean birthday, LOL.
The envelope was great, too:

Swatch for my MIL's Poncho

This is the indiecita alpaca held two strands together. I tried first using one strand but it was only little tiny stitches and just didn't look like I had imagined. I then tried 2 strands on size 5 straight needles but that looked a little tight so this is using my nylon size 6 circ. I tried using my Denise but the point isn't too pointy so it was harder to to the sl1-k2tog-psso maneuver. Normally I like their shape and feel much better but for this project they were causing a little frustration.

Time now to consider the dimensions of the poncho. I'm doing the two rectangles version, but for someone a little more voluptuous topside than me. Holey Moley from Knitty seems to be a nice shape so I'll use those dimensions: 18"x34". In my calculations, the front will be 25" long, so that should be adequate.

Oh, yeah. You might be wondering about the pattern. I got Barbara G Walker's (first) Treasury of Knitting Patterns through ILL. This pattern is called Lace Cable or Germaine Stitch. It's from page 275.

Finished Caitie's Poncho

I think it turned out well and it is unique. The proportions of the rectangles weren't exactly right so the neck was a little too big. I could have picked up stitches and knit around, but I decided to knit a couple of 18"x2" strips and sew them in.

That actually worked really well. I was talking about this at the Stitch n' Bitch last night and the yarn rep who was there said, "of course, you never want to go smaller than 18"x25" rectangles." Well she didn't know I was knitting for a child, but I looked around for proportions when I was figuring this out and found 1:2 to 1:3. Hmmm. She's saying 1:1.4. I ended up with like 1:2.5. The fringes are 6 strands each wrapped the long way around a CD case. I didn't even weave in some of the ends - just made them more fringe.

Here it is on. Keep in mind that I'm a lot taller than the end user!

All these pictures were taken just about in the dark so that explains the wierd colors. It's actually this really pretty cranberry. It's really warm, too. I was happy to get it off my lap!

Had a great time at Knit Out DC 2004

It was a bit smaller than I expected, but luckily Kim found me pretty quickly so we hung out and chatted the rest of the day. The fashion shows were the best part. The ones from the yarn companies weren't as cool as the ones from the shops. Some of the shawls were amazing! I also got to see RosebyAny (and DH), Knittens (and BF?), and Lauren. Lauren took a group picture.

The weather was fab and I found out about a ton more LYS that I need to visit! Hmm, my birthday is coming up...

Knit-Out DC

I'm definitely going, either taking the metro from GR or NC. Looks like a lot of fun and some time knitting on the train. Say hi if you recognize me from the picture from the previous post. I really don't look that scary in person!

Me looking a bit demented in my new FO

I finished the striped little cardigan. It fits great. I'm not so sure about the buttons, but they are there to stay now. This was actually a pretty complicated project. A few lessons learned:

1. I really do hate weaving ends in on cotton, so a cotton striped sweater is not so hot an idea
2. I really do like sweaters done using Fee's ideas from the Sweater Workshop but maybe the applied button band is slightly more attractive
3. When you're doing the raglan decreases in ribbing, when in doubt have another knitted stitch on the front side, always use k2tog and SSK instead of going back and forth with the purl equivalents
4. I can make a sweater that fits (although now I want to lose weight)
5. Duh, do an even number of rows of each color, weave the colors in on the sides like in fair isle, but only with a knit stitch
6. Socks are still more fun

This picture was taken in very low light and I didn't ask the DH to fix it.