Hey, the Olympics are over and I did get something finished on my 2010 Knitting Wish List — well, one sock, anyway.
But it's a doozy of a sock. This picture may not look like much, but trust me on this. (Plus, there are better pictures further down.)
Continue reading "Possibly the Laziest Smartest. Short-Row Heel. Ever."
Yesterday at the LYS, I took part in a discussion about SABLE.
What, you never heard of SABLE? You might even be a member of SABLE!
SABLE stands for "Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy". A person becomes a member of this group when she owns more yarn than she can reasonably expect to knit in her years remaining on this mortal coil.*
Well, unless you’ve very recently come out of a coma, you’re aware that this past weekend heralded the Most Awesomely Amazing Knitting Event Ever in the History of the Universe, right here in PDX.
Jul 2
Here's some eye candy for ya: a few FO's!
Sari Silk bag: this was knit from some recycled-sari silk yarn, although at this point I'm not sure exactly which manufacturer. This major FO accomplishment started life as "Unbiased", a bag pattern from Knitty, Fall 2004.
May 26
Oh, hi. You got that basketweave sock done all the way to the heel then? Not quite? OK, good, we’ll "pick up" where we left off. (ha, ha, little knitting humor there. Very little.)
May 19
Well, life has been happening with a vengeance around our house the past few days. So you’ll have to forgive me for just throwing out a couple of updates here.
May 12
(This is the second in a series of posts discussing the process of designing DH’s basketweave socks.)
We left off Part 1 with a completed toe, and have discovered that in order to have a sock foot that is about 7" circumference, we have ended up with 64 sts total for the foot of the sock.
May 11
Oh, happy day! DH has another pair of handknit socks, and I have one less UFO. (Believe it or not, I’m down to just SIX UFO’s. My advice is to keep an eye out for plagues of locusts.)
Apr 7
Last week, I wrote about some great things I am fortunate to have in my life: DH, yarn, a specific cat.
This week, I have even more great things to write about: specifically, Ben and Jerry’s "Birthday Cake" ice cream some really fabulous, generous knitters and blog readers, not to mention family and friends! My heartfelt thanks to all of you — some of whom I have never even met! You all blew right through the $121 fundraising goal: now the Cat Adoption Team has almost $200 OVER $200! to help with the food bank, or finding homes for homeless felines.
Mar 31
Yes, both of you already know my ffffoooo… ffooorrrr… my birthday is this week. (Turns out it’s a bigger mental milestone than I thought it would be, actually.)
Thankfully, I already have a lot of great things in my life. My DH is first and foremost — then there’s a hutch full of yarn, and my beloved Morgan kitteh.
Mar 5
This week, I finished off four — count ‘em, four — UFO’s in the stack. Not only that, I have a good shot at finishing off a fifth.
I’m as shocked as you are. Probably more so.
Jan 29
The rest of the old Buddhist saying is, "…then the teacher will appear."
Well, usually I’m the knitting teacher — but in this case, I became the student.
Last Friday, I was grousing about the short black socks I had knitted for DH while on the trip in New Zealand. Although I had faithfully copied the original socks, DH confirmed (after a brief trial wearing) that the feet were really too short. You’re probably familiar with the phenomenon of short socks sliding down the back of your foot and off your heel — and that’s what happened.
Jan 27
One of the cold hard truths I learned when I quit the engineering job and started setting my own schedule was this:
You can’t get anything done on the days when DH is home.
Jan 20
I’m sure at least one of you is wondering — "Well, fine, lots of sheep, some yarn stores, but did she actually get any knitting done on the trip?"
Well, yes and no. OK, well, actually, there can only be one accurate answer there, which is YES, I did knit a couple of things on the trip. However, NO, I did not finish 4 pairs of socks for DH.
Dec 27
The "Z" here refers to NEW ZEALAND!! Yes, here I am on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Queenstown, New Zealand.
Ah, the magic of modern air travel. Here is how bad it was getting back home in PDX just before we left.
Dec 17
Here is what it looks like from my office window and my backyard these days:
And here is the yoke to my top-down raglan sweater so far.
With all this snow, and everything being cancelled, you might think I’d have gotten a bit more knitting done, wouldn’t you?
Nov 21
Oh, boy. It’s been, like, a week and a half. What happened to blogging?
Well, I’ll tell you what happened to blogging. Life happened, that’s what. That, and as I mentioned recently, knitters wanting knitting lessons have reappeared this fall with a vengeance. In the past month, my teaching hours each week have been up 50-70% from the previous month. Yeah, that cuts into the blogging time a tad bit — let alone the knitting time.
OK, I know both of you were kind of worried about it, but I believe I have figured out an elegant solution to a looming knitting problem:
What on earth do I take along to knit in New Zealand??
Sep 16
Saturday afternoon: DH and I are running some errands together, so he is driving and I am knitting. He turns into the Home Depot parking lot, finds a spot, switches off the engine. Usually he walks around the back of the vehicle, and meets me there — but this time he stayed in his seat, waiting for me to finish.
Sep 11
Out of the blue, my DH sent me an email this morning:
"Our friends at the Art Institute of Portland are having an Open House on Saturday (9.13) afternoon starting at 11am until 2pm. Their mission is to help you develop your artistic ideas into abilities and your passion into a creative career. Students can earn a Bachelor’s degree with a major in 1 of 16 creative programs AND…you can even minor in sustainability! To get you started on your way to being the next Art Institute of Portland student click here and tell us what design means to you for a chance to win a $1000 scholarship! Don’t forget to swing by the Open House on Saturday for a tour, chat with instructors and check out the life of an Art Institute of Portland student."
Hey, are you getting as sick of the UFOlympics as I am?
It was fun to begin with — it was great to get a couple of projects out of the way and all that — but I’m getting a definite feeling of stuck-in-a-rut now. Maybe this is why the real Olympics only last a couple of weeks, instead of seven… ya think?
Jun 10
If you think waaaaay back, you might remember a few issues I had while trying to make some felted slippers for myself.
Of course, these were not just your garden variety felted slippers. No, I had to make it harder than that. My goal was to replicate my dearly beloved, but quite elderly, pink furry bunny slippers: Hip and Hop.
May 27
Hey, we’re back from our trip to Sasquatch over the Memorial Day Weekend. And it was an interesting weekend.
(BTW, this post really does include something pretty interesting about sock heels too, although that bit’s way at the end. Just skip down there if you must.)
Apr 7
What a week it has been. I had a birthday, so I took a few days off — DH had the flu, so he did too. Is it just me, or is it darned near impossible to get anything done when your husband is home? So, not much posting going on.
Mar 24
Over the weekend, I had a touch of "the depression" *.
Specifically, I had the knitting depression.
I didn’t have a single decent current project, the UFOs were one big pile o’ crap, I hated everything in my hotlist **.
Mar 17
As part of "fun weekend", DH and I went and visited a place on the other side of the river, called "SCRAP".
SCRAP — The School and Community Reuse Action Project – is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our mission is to promote creative reuse and environmentally sustainable behavior by providing educational programs and affordable materials to the community.
Feb 26
On Saturday, DH and I went downtown to play a little bit in the nice-ish weather.
His idea of fun was to pick up some tickets for the upcoming Joe Jackson show, have lunch someplace new, and take some photos of the downtown bridges.
Feb 19
Admittedly, I haven’t written much in the past week (heck, I haven’t written anything). But, I have an excellent excuse reason. Actually, several reasons…
#1 reason is, I have a bad Continental knitting habit of using my right index finger to help out on each and every stitch. I don’t actually need to use it — I can knit and purl without moving it at all, if I think about it. As I say, it’s a bad habit, which means I do it more-or-less unconsciously. I even demonstrate it to new Continental knitters in my classes as a great example of what not to do.
Feb 12
The other night, I complained mentioned to my loving, caring DH how my feet had been freakin’ FREEZING ALL DAY.
DH was kicked back sideways on the chair-and-a-half, with his legs propped up over the arm of the chair and his feet aloft. He said smugly in a very meaningful manner,
Feb 7
Aaaaaand here they are, in all their glory:
These socks comprise many of my favorite sock-knitting techniques to date. I prefer techniques that work well and are easy to memorize, so for those of you who want to know the nuts & bolts, here’s a brief recap:
Jan 30
OK, it’s high time I wrote something new & exciting. Hmmm…!
First, let me tell you that the site has gotten just a teensy bit better, with the addition of two new pages: look up at the top, on the navigation bar, and you’ll see "Site Map" as well as "Knit Links".
Well, on Sunday evening (Sunday the 13th!) I finally cast on another pair of socks for DH.
The yarn is Lana Grossa "Meilenweit 6 fach" in a true solid dark green – his favorite color. I like doing toe-up socks, so I don’t have to bother too much with a gauge swatch or any math or anything. I figured I’d just increase until the toe was the right size, eh?
Anyone remember this?
Ahem. OK, I admit I’ve been stalling a bit. Last time, I said I was going to address the fitting issues, which leads me straight to a couple of my personal bugaboos.
Dec 21
Both my sister and a college friend recently sent me copies of this Wall Street Journal article about knitting.
More specifically, it’s about "Sock Wars", where the idea is that everyone playing the game is an "assassin" and has an assigned "target". You are supposed to "assassinate" that person by knitting them a pair of socks, and then you send them to your target before your assassin sends a pair of finished socks to you.
Nov 28
Last night, Don said he had a “dangerous” question for me.
“Did you knit me another pair of black socks?” he asked.
I knew right away what had happened. After all, there are only two pairs of hand-knit black socks in the house. Yes, it was quickly confirmed that the black heavyweight socks I had made for me (Mission Falls 1824 wool) had ended up in his laundry pile, from there to his sock drawer, and from there onto his feet.
Nov 27
Every so often, of course, the subject comes up. Why (the expletive) would anyone HAND-KNIT a pair of socks?
One year, at my family reunion, I presented one of my brothers with a pair of obviously hand-knit socks, in his all-time favorite color – dark purple.
Oct 15
Last Friday, I made another attempt at a pair of felted slippers for myself. (For those of you keeping score, DH has a pair already that he wears & loves – made in 2004.)
Sep 28
So, you may have noticed that in the previous post, I said that my sister was knitting a sweater for her fiance.
YIKES! but what about the famous, infamous Sweater Curse?
Sep 27
“A year from now, you may wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb
OK, so I’m starting today. Hiya. Welcome to my blog! I intend for this to be a blog about knitting, mainly, with some color commentary about life and whatnot thrown in.
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