Needles & Hooks

Full of Mystery

I had a lot of fun with the yarn party this weekend and I learned a lot of things about the dyeing process. Unfortunately, I left my camera at my friend’s house, so no pictures of my new yarn until I get it back.

In the meantime, I’ll show you my latest stash enhancement:

That’s a lot of pink and white. Why? Because I’m walking a Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk. It’s a 60 mile walk that benefits the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. In addition to the fundraising and physical training I need to do, I wanted to make a knitting contribution as well. And I picked up a lot of pink yarns to inspire me. So right now I’m working on a pattern. I’ve got a number of ideas and I’ve been swatching through them to see what works. So far, I’ve ripped it out a few times. Don’t worry, when I’ve got something workable, you’ll be the first to hear.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in following my training progress, you can visit my training blog. I have links to information about the Walk and the Foundations that benefit. There are also links to my secure on-line donation site so that you can make a fully tax deductible donation to sponsor my walk. Any amount is greatly appreciated.

And if you can’t afford to make a contribution at this time, at least make sure to keep track of your health by visiting the doctor regularly and doing self-exams. Breast cancer is very treatable if caught early.

Getting my Fingers Dirty

Over the weekend, the postman brought me this:

And I grabbed some of this:

Yup, that’s a lot of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes (worsted weight) and Color Your Own (fingering weight). Some friends are having a slumber party and we’re going to play with dye. Just the PAAS and some Kool-Aid this time.

But the postman also brought this:

Which contained an ad for this:

That’s Yarns to Dye For: Creating Self-Patterning Yarns for Knitting by Kathleen Taylor. Obviously, I ran out and bought it.

Forget simple Kool-Aid dyeing, I want to make self-patterning sock yarn!!! Now I just have to figure out where to wind a 40-foot skein….

Other weekend activities

In addition to finishing the socks for my sister, I made some firm progress on a couple of other projects.

On Friday night, I worked a few rows on Charlotte’s Web. I’m just about to do row 101. Still alternating colors 3 and 4.

I sewed up the side seams for Marcel’s Sweater. Now I just need to find the sleeves and sew them up and then set them in. It’s so close to being done, I kinda feel like I should press on through. It’s still cold enough to get a wearing out of it.

I also tackled the problems with Zig Zag. When last I left it, I had ripped out the completed collar because stitches from the front were pulling too loosely. After some examination, I decided the best solution was to rip out the front and redo it. So I did.

Here’s the front as I’m ripping out the yarn and carefully inserting the needle into the live stitches (Look Ma! No lifeline!):

I reworked the base row very tightly and took care with the short-row wrapping around the neck as well. Further, when I re-did the 3-needle bind off, I worked across the back of the neck instead of the front neckline, allowing more control over the front stitches when picking up for the neck. Unfortunately, I somehow got my working needle and my holding needle confused for working the neck and I did it on a size 5 instead of a size 6. It’s a little tight. I’m not sure if it will bug me enough to go back and fix it.

Here’s the whole thing after I re-did the front and finished the collar.

I tried it on and it fits well. It’s a little more clingy than other examples I’ve seen, and I attribute that to working it with only one strand of yarn, not having blocked it yet, and to gaining a little weight since I started it. There’s no pictures of this yet — I was wearing a black bra and this top really needs a camisole under it.

After I finished it, I got started on the sleeves. Here they are, about 5 inches in:

So, if you’re keeping track, I did a little work on all of my active projects over the weekend. Must be time to be starting something new.

Yesterday, Vicki asked me about the afterthought heels. I only had one small hole problem with these — when I picked up one of the stitches between the two sides, I only went one strand in from the edge instead of two. This wasn’t enough to support the pull of the heel, so there’s a little hole. But it didn’t bug me enough to redo. I thought they fit my heels pretty well, even though my foot is smaller than the sock. The only concern I would have is that there isn’t really a gusset to accomodate the increase in foot width in that area. In some stitch patterns, there’s enough give to the knit that it shouldn’t be an issue. I have my doubts with the stranded pattern I used. I’ll keep you posted if I have to redo them.