I Give UP!

I just can't seem to make the pattern for the tank top work. I am giving up. It was, after all, written by a physicist, which I am not. So now I must find something else to make out of 730 yards of green yarn. Maybe a shawl, although I suspect I am not really a shawl person. *sigh*

Wow! I Finished the Curtain!

At last, I've finished the curtain! Here are a few pictures of the finished curtain, the curtain being blocked, and Jesus sitting on the toilet next to the curtain. I hung it on a piece of bamboo from our yard. On to the next project!

I SWEAR!

I SWEAR I'm going to post soon! Really! I've been too busy to knit--it's horrible! I started the tank top, but have had trouble getting the lace pattern to work. I think I have found my problem, so I am going to swatch up and get going. Perhaps today when I have a long wait at the airport. Bear with me. Please!

The Cruelest Yarn in the World

Look at this yarn. It is so cruel. It was right on the checkout counter. I picked it up and gazed at it. I put it down. I picked it up again and put it down. Then I picked up other colors. But this one was the meanest one they had. I had to take it home so that I could show it how to become a beautiful shawl that people would admire and adore. I put it in my basket. And now, even though it is so mean and unabashedly cruel, I love it so much. SO MUCH! Look at its colors! Look at THE CONE it is on! Look at the label! Click on the picture and enlarge it! Enlarge it! AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHH! There was no way to resist!

Okay. Now here's a picture of what I REALLY went in for: yarn to make a tank top for the lacy skirt. I'm going to use this pattern
--scroll down to the 'spring intervweave' heading. I think this will make a nice top: it's Rowan Damask, viscose, linen, and something else that I'm too lazy to go check. More pictures of the curtain soon, I promise. I'm almost done.

Diving Gloves For the Ladies

Here's one of the handwarmers I'm doing for myself. I made the gusset a little too small--14 stitches instead of 18. I don't know what was wrong with me--I ripped out once because I didn't like the lace pattern and I just didn't want to rip out again after I'd discovered this. Oh well. It is comfortable. It has the low palm like the plain Diving Gloves, and I really like that--I'm typing with it on right now. I'm halfway through with the right one.


(note on the gusset--you can work the gusset in k2 p2 rib, just think about what you're doing when you increase the stitches--increase in pattern. You can do it!)
So, to continue the pattern I started below (this is not for the lacy one above), once you've reached the length you want for the wrist, begin the gusset by placing a marker at the beginning of the round

inc 1 stitch
K2
inc 1 stitch
Place marker

continue in K2P2 rib till the end of the round.

round 1:
K2 P2 rib all the way around

round 2:
slip marker
inc in pattern
knit to the next marker
inc in pattern
slip marker
continue in k2 p2 rib


Repeat rounds one and two until the gusset has 18 stitches

place gusset stitches on stitch holder

cast on two stitches and continue knitting in K2 P2 rib for four rounds.

for the low palm, cast off half the stitches loosely

continue on remaining stitches in K2 P2 rib until the handwarmer is at desired length

cast off

For the thumb:
place the stitches on two needles
pick up four stitches along the top of the thumb hole
continue in k2 p2 rib until you come back to your freshly cast on stitches
k2 tog
k2 tog
continue in K2 P2 rib until desired length is reached.
cast off LOOSELY!

Beginning the Diving Gloves, For Juice Hostess

Okay, Juice Hostess, since I don't want you to lanquish out there and lose momentum, get yourself some dk weight yarn and cast on 48 stitches onto one of your double pointed needles. I used #2 for this job, and you're a tight knitter, so you might want #3.

For the cast on edge--
anytime you make gloves, mittens, socks, you have to think about that cast on edge because it's going to see a lot of action when your delighted recipient spends all their time putting the gloves on and taking them off. SO, the cast on needs to be LOOSE. Now, I'm a loose knitter (no comment) and I'm lazy, so I use the same size needles for my cast on. Many people, however, use a size, or even two, larger for the cast on. So for you tight knitters, and especially Juice Hostess, I order you to use a larger size of needle.

I like to use the cast on where you make two stitches and then you cast on further stitches by putting your needle in between two stitches, wrapping the yarn around the needle and pulling in through to the front and then putting the loop onto the needle. This is a bad picture, but it's the best I can do. Try it.
I like this because you can control the tension, so theoretically even a tight knitter could do a loose cast on with this method. (however, I have never seen a tight knitter who was able to loosen up!) Anyway, you control the size of the cast on stitches by inserting the needle in between the two stitches and making as much 'room' as you want by pushing the needle down against the yarn. Just DON'T pull the stitch tight when you put it on the needle. Am I making sense? It's hard to tell you how to knit with words.
Okay, here are your 48 stitches cast on.


Now separating the stitches onto three needles. You do the math.



Lay your work down so that you can see that your cast on is not twisted. If it's twisted and you knit it, boo hoo, you have to start over. No twisting.

Three. Okay, now for the tricky first row. Your yarn ball end will be on the back needle. Knit in K2P2 ribbing for as long as you want the cuff to be--at least two inches. Now you have to wait until I get that far for further instructions.

The Diving Gloves, Complete

The following is lifted directly from my yoga blog,Yoga Squirrel Cage .

I made pretty quick progress and I brought them in for a 'fitting' this morning. Diver got a little high maintenance and, not knowing anything about knitting, decided he wanted them to have less coverage over the palm area and more over the knuckle. He also wanted the thumb to be just a few rows--okay, that one was easy. The other request was a little HM. Whatever. I know I'm pretty fucking HM every day when I bring my whiny, varting ass to practice so hey, I can put myself out a little.

So here's what I came up with, and I even threw in an extra special twist by making the pinky side of the glove angle down for 'greater freedom of movement' during those Chopin pieces. Now I'm going to make a pair for myself, but I am going to do something lacy on the back of the hand. The color isn't showing up well--they're a nice sort of swimming pool blue.

Diving Gloves

Ugh! These pictures do not show the color well. There's NO SUN right now, so this is an artificial light shot and they look like hell. The true color is a nice light blue, kind of like the light blue in the blog template.
I'm making these handwarmers for my yoga teacher, The Diver. I keep dropping mine as I leave class and one day he put one on while I was changing after practice and when I came out, he said he really liked them and wanted some for playing piano in his house when he didn't want to turn the heat up. So, I happened to have this alpaca and silk hanging around because my blind mother in law couldnt work with it--it's too small and slippery. I'm pretty greedy about good yarn, but I decided I could part with it, so here I go. I had wanted to make a lacy scarf out of it for my new coat, but oh well. I will probably have enough to do another set of handwarmers for myself. These will be nice because they will be thin and won't interfere with piano playing. I'm doing well on the curtain and will post more about it soon--I'm working too much and I have to work today too! I have a couple of tips about the curtain.

More Wrestling Than Knitting

I decided to knit a bathroom rug out of my son's old jeans. I'm using size 17 needles, and I've cut up his jeans into circular strips and sewed them together for my 'yarn'. I already need more yarn. I've also cut up the left over fabric from the bathroom curtain I made and am incorporating that. Somewhere along the way, I got the brilliant idea to 'log cabin' it, so I had to get giant circulars and I'm now log cabinning. I'll post pictures of that in a day or so. Anyway, the rug is going to be super cushy and comfy--yum--and it's looks will only improve with age. I got this idea from the mason-dixon book and am also saving old t shirts to knit up into something. Knitting the jean material is quite an exercise--it's really more wrestling than knitting, and you have to put your entire arms into it. And here's an update on the bathroom curtain.

Alicat's Socks

A special post for Ali (one of, I think two readers) about knitting socks on two circular needles! I made the above socks on circular needles, even though the pattern was for double pointed. I've done enough socks that it was an easy transfer for me. The only thing a little confusing about socks on circs is the cast on and first few rows--but this isn't really fun on double points either, so I guess we just have to suffer.

This gal has some really clear instructions and photos on circular needle sock knitting. I use circulars of two different lengths so that it's easy to see which needle you are working with. Here's another good page of hers about how to get started on the circs.

The sock pattern I like is pretty basic, and it's for double pointed needles. I can't really begin to think about telling you how I do it on circulars, but maybe after you've knit a few socks, you'll see how it should go. The pattern is for worsted weight or dk, using size 4 or 5 needles, depending on how tightly you knit. I'm a loose knitter, so I use size 4.

Cast on 52 stitches; make sure your cast-on is VERY loose--this is the part of the sock that faces a lot of traffic when you put the sock on and take it off; it'd be a shame for it to break.
Join, being careful not to twist.
Rib in K2, P2 for about 3 inches

Continue in stockinette stitch until the sock is within an inch of the length you'd like (or you can keep going in ribbing if you love ribs)

Dec. round: K1, K2tog, K to within 3 sts of end of round, ssk, K1 (50 sts)
K 6 rounds even.

Divide Work for Heel
You will work the heel on 23 sts

slip 1 st from needle 1 to needle 2 (needle one is the one that has your first stitch--your first cast on stitch--on it, and needle 2 is to the left of it; needle four is to the right on needle one)

This will place the center of the back of the sock at the junction of needles one and four. Your instep is on needles two and three.

Knit to the end of needle 1.
turn

Heel Back
Row 1 (wrong side) s first st as if to p, p across needles one and four
Row 2 (right side) s first sti as if to p, k across needles four and one
Repeat these two rows until you have complete 18 rows, ending with row two completed.
Tip: as soon as you are able, you can slip all the stitches from needles one and four onto one needle to make the work go quicker.

Turn the Heel
(wrong side) (all slipped stitches are slipped as if to purl)
s1, p13, p2tog, p1, turn
s1, k6, ssk (slip 1st as if to purl, 2nd as if to knit, then knit through the back of both stitches), k1, turn
s1, p7, p2tog, p1, turn
s1, k8, ssk, k1, turn
s1, p9, p2tog, p1, turn

Continue to work like this, having 1 st more before the decrease on each row until 15 stitches remain. You will notice you are decreasing across the gap. You will finish having completed a right side row.

Gusset and Foot
Divide the 15 heel sts onto two needles (7 on #1, 8 on #4)

With needle 1, pick up and k 10 sts on the side of the heel.
k across the stitches of the instep
with free needle, pick up and k 10 stitches on the other side of the heel. Continue to knit the remaing 8 heel sts to the same needle (#4)

Beginning at the center of sole:
17 st on needle 1
25 sts on 2 and 3
18 sts on needle 4

K 1 round

Decrease round:
needle 1: k to within 3 sts of end, k2tog, k1
needle 2 and 3: k across
needle 4: k1, ssk, k to end

repeats the last 2 rounds 5x, leaving 48 stitches (don't sweat it if you have a couple of extra stitches)

k until the sock measures about 2 inches less than the end of your foot ( i like to just try the sock on)

Toe
place 12 st on each needle

Decrease round:
needle 1: k to withhin 3 sts of the end, k2tog, k1
needle 2: k1, ssk, k to end
needle 3, k to within 3 sts of end, k2tog, k1
needle 4: k1, ssk, k to end

k 1 round
repeat the last 2 rounds five times, leaving 24 stitches total
repeat decrease round every round three times, leaving 12 stitches

k the 3 stitches of needle 1
slip and combine the sts of 1 and 4 onto one needle and the sts of 2 and 3 onto another needle

all sts are now on 2 needles, with the yarn at the edge of the work

holding 2 needles parallel in one hand and a threaded tapestry needle in the other, get ready to finish the toe using the kitchner stitch.

with the yarn from the end of the back needle, always carry the yarn under the knitting needle when passing from one needle to the other:

on front needle:
*insert the tip of the threaded tapestry needle through the 1st st as if to k and flick the st off onto the tapestry needle. don't pull yarn through stitch.
insert the tapestry needle through the 2nd st on the front needle as if to p, but leave the st on the the knitting needle, then pull yarn through both stitches.

next:
on back needle:
inster the tip of the tapestry needle through the 1st st as if to p and flick the st off onto the taptestry needle. Don't pull yarn through. Insert the tapestry needle through 2nd st on the back needle as if to k, leave st on knitting needle, and pull yarn through.*
Repeat between *s. Fasten off and weave in ends. Now make the other sock!

Beginning the Curtain

I started my bathroom curtain last night. I'm using euroflax--I bought a whole cone of french blue. I was a good girl and made my swatch and I have decided to start keeping my swatches, so I labeled this one with the type and color of yarn, needles used, and the date. I'll come up with a good filing system for these, but I think it's a good idea that will help me 'create' later on if I have some samples to look at. I'm pretty excited about making stuff for the house now. This morning I was looking at my little hairclips and hairbands spread out on the bathroom windowsill and I thought about making a little felted box to keep them in. I also want to knit a throw out of all this yarn that my dear departed knitting friend left at my house (she died, she didn't just leave the group...she has since given me at least one knitting tip in my sleep). It's all grey yarn, but I think I can augment it with something nice that I have hanging around the house. I just need to get in the spirit of it.

Lacy Skirt with Bows

I finally got to wear the skirt I made a while ago! I love it--it's very comfortable. I need something better to wear on top, but I'll figure that out.

When I was on vacation in Maui last week, I made this scarf, which is from Greetings From the Knit Cafe--I think that's where the lacy skirt above came from too. I won't keep the scarf--it isn't really me. I got my yarn to start my experimental curtains from Mason Dixon knitting and will get started soon!

Felted Nesting Boxes from Mason Dixon

These are the nesting boxes from the Mason Dixon book before felting. I used Lamb's Pride.

Here they are after two feltings in my front loader. My husband thought they needed one more go round.

And now, my cat models the medium size for me after the third felting. I made these for the auction at my son's school. Next, I'll make little pink felted boxes with lids, do some needle felting on them, and put them in the auction as girls' jewelry boxes.

Finally Finished

I finally finished the 'Lacy Skirt with Bows' from the 'Greetings From the Knit Cafe' book. I did not use the yarn they used in the book, since I read a post from Mind of Winter, in which she talks about serious dye lot problems. The skirt is all ready to go to Maui in three weeks!