Needles & hooks

Catching up

Now that frantic holiday knitting is out of the way and all the visits are over, I’m trying to catch up on things. Despite the injury I discussed in my last post, I knit like a madwoman and worked on some beaded tree ornaments. The whole time, I was sitting in front of my computer, watching Project Runway Canada on YouTube. A user named MsRoyalT has posted the entire season and I watched it in a 2-day marathon. As they were slaving away long hours in the sewing room, I was doing the same. It was an odd kind of kinship.

When I got back from visiting home, I used my New Years holiday to finally mail off yarn prizes to everyone who donated to my 3-Day fundraising raffle. Everyone who donated during the raffle got a prize, and there are still some left over. I think they’ll become part of a stash sale next year. Or maybe an auction. Anyway, many, many thanks to every who supported me. I raised over $5000.00 with the raffle, the stash sale, bake sales at work, and other donations. It was all greatly appreciated. I also sat down and wrote up my experiences. Here is my recap and photos.

I have more catch up chores to do, and I want to post photos of my holiday pieces, but first, I need to find my camera. So, stay tuned.

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60 miles and yet another move later!

I survived the Breast Cancer 3-Day, walking all 60 miles and getting only 2 blisters. And in between the last time I posted, and going out there, I also moved again. Everything is packed in random places and I still can’t find much. Like my knitting. But I have real internet again! The raffle prizes will be drawn and announced soon (I do know where those are) and I’ll write up and post about my 3-Day experience. But for now, I just want to watch TV (which I also have again! seems it comes with internet, or vice versa) and knit. And I can’t find my knitting!

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Counting down to the 3-Day

I did another 18-mile walk this past weekend and I’m putting some of the final details on my plans for packing, etc. There’s not much time left.

And there are still a couple of days left to donate to my Walk and enter my yarn raffle. There’s a lot of prizes and an excellent chance of winning something if you enter. Do it now!

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Mini Tour

Tomorrow night I’m heading out to Webs to see The Yarn Harlot speak. I’ll be bringing the giant glove with me. Don’t worry, I plan to spend plenty of time shopping after her talk, so there will lots of time to shake hands with the glove.

If you see me, give me a wave!

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Hour 12.5

It’s official, I don’t knit while I sleep.

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Open letter to Eva S @ Xcelco

Eva — I tried to respond to your e-mail about the Mermaid pattern and it’s difficulty, but your e-mail bounced as recipient unknown! Please e-mail me again.

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It’s all in the details.

I’m in still in the middle of doing a lot of page proofing at work, but some friends invited me down to NYC for a day. I decided I could go as long as I took the train and worked on my proofs instead of driving. And since it is just the page proofing, I decided I needed a knitting project to bring with me. Since most of the ones I have in my WIP pile were rather large or required me to pay attention, it was time to start something new.

In the new Vogue Knitting, Meg Swansen presents a baby cardigan that she found in her mother’s journals. Called EZ’s Surplice Baby Jacket, it’s a similar idea to the Baby Surprise Jacket. I had some yarn from my recent safaris that I’d chosen for a baby cardigan, so I was all set. However, starting to follow the pattern, I was reminded why I don’t like Elizabeth Zimmerman patterns.

Now, she’s got some innovative construction techniques and creative ideas, but she’s a lousy pattern writer. I realized that the problem is that she wasn’t detail-oriented. I know her philosophy is that you can just sort of go with the flow in knitting, fudge here and there, and it will all work out. Problem is, that’s great if you have a command of your craft and understand how to fudge to get good results. You need to be confident in what you are doing. If you aren’t, if you’re a novice or someone who just isn’t able to read their knitting, it’s a recipe for tears and frustration. You need a lot of set points to tell you if you are doing it right.

Fortunately, I have a good command of knitting techniques and I do pay attention to details. So here I’ll give you a short list of things to know about this pattern. I’m sure it will grow longer and into it’s own small page by the time I’m finished.

• There yarn requirements don’t give you any measure of yardage. Can’t subsitute easily. I’m winging it, I’ll tell you how much it takes when I’m done.
• The pattern is all garter-stitch, so it talks about ridges instead of rows, where a ridge is 2 rows. But the first few times it gives you a ridge count, it puts a row count in parentheses. Couple this with the initial instructions for two sizes with the second stitch count also in parentheses, you’re left potentially making the mistake of knitting fewer rows for the smaller size, thinking the parenthetical row count was for the larger size. Know that you knit the same number of rows for both sizes (so far as I’ve gotten).

I’m also confused about the language used for two increase options. I’ll have to google “running-thread” increase. Because I’ve never heard of it before.

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Mermaid Finalized

As I showed you last night, Mermaid is all finished. Today, I polished up and finalized the spreadsheet. If you received the spreadsheet from me in the past and didn’t get an update today, please e-mail me. Some e-mail addresses came back undeliverable, etc. The current version of the spreadsheet is 2.0. If you don’t have that one, you need an update! If you’re just now learning there is a row-by-row spreadsheet for the Hanne Falkenberg Mermaid, click here to learn how to get a copy.

I have about a ball left of each of my yarns, and I saw Hanne’s Stella Hat today. I think I might have to order the kit so I can get the pattern to use with my leftovers. There has to be term for when you buy a kit and don’t want the yarn…

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New Definition of Torture

Last Thursday, I ordered a few books, a few needles, and a small amount of yarn from Knit Picks. Because express shipping wouldn’t get me the package by the weekend, I just chose the free shipping. It shipped on Friday and I’ve been watching the tracking. So I know that on Saturday afternoon, the package arrived at the sortation center at LAX. The place I’ve been working is right across the street from all the cargo centers at LAX. I could walk to my package. It’s right there! Why are they holding it hostage?!

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Labors of the Weekend

Here’s my UFO pile…staring at me from the floor of my craft room…

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