Scarftastic

So I have been trying to knit my mom's scarf while at work, but I find it is really hard because there is a lot of fumes (formaldehide i think) lurking in from the woodshop next door. It leaves me absent minded, sick to my stomach, with a headache, sore throat and itchy eyes. I keep messing up the easiest stitches and somehow even lost a stitch in there somewhere.

Anyways, last Saturday I met up with a small group from Ravelry and we went on a yarncrawl all over Philadelphia (I had to leave early because of work) but I ended up buying this 40 dollar hank of Tilli Tomas's Salt and Pepper in Rittenhouse. I had been looking at it on Loop;s website laughing about how I would never spend that much on ONE skein! That was until I touched it. I think its a little overpriced but it feels wonderful, works up fairly well and I dont have to manually add any beads! My biggest complaint is that the silk seems to stretch some which makes the thread with the beads on it a shorter length.

I've also been working on my Facebook Swap Scarf for Maria every day before and after work. It's coming out great so far but it knitting up pretty slowly. I'm sure I will be fine if I keep working on it daily though, It doesnt have to be finished until January. I'm off work tomorrow so I may take a few more teaser photos for her.

And finally, I have begun ripping apart my favorite gap sweater which has a few holes in it. Its quite the fun process. I stained some of the small pieces with coffee. and love the color, but I know it's bound to change over time with washes and sunlight since it is a stain and not a dye. Oh well, it will add to the charater of whatever the FO will be, I'm thinking a journal cover, something that won't have to be cleaned often.

Read more>>

Clapotis Day 3 (WIP)

I don't really like how my dropped stitches are coming out. I don't know if the reason the look wonky is because I have been holding 2 strands of yarn together or if its because I'm doing something wrong or if it's simply because I have not blocked it yet as its not done.

You can probably see how wide the gap is at the bottom of the piece when I have dropped a stitch. The top looks great but the bottom just looks sloppy. Maybe I am dropping the wrong stitch? Maybe my stitches that I knit in the back aren't twisted right?  I don't really have the answers just yet.  I still have a lot to go, and I am not going to frog it unless I really mess up big time, so I will live with the gaps. 

I'm not too worried about it since I opted to make it a narrow scarf rather than the wider stole like scarf that the pattern is for.  It's now time to go to work, maybe I will knit some more tonight. It really is an addictive pattern to knit. I like it almost as much as enterlac.

Read more>>

Clapotis day 2 (wip)

DISASTER STRIKES:

Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad however just as I was really getting into the rhythm; not having to peek at the pattern at all; I run into quite the speedbump. A huge knot in my purple skein. If it wasn't bad enough that I had this big stupid knot, after I cut the yarn, worked it out and pulled a little more yarn 

out to get back to knitting another huge knot cam

e on out for me to work out.  If this happens with the gray skein too I will not be loving my Clapotis nearly as much as I would have thought.

Progress was Made:

I was not too discouraged to keep going though. I ended up doing 2 more rounds on Part 2. I don't like wide scarves (especially since we will be moving to florida this winter) so I

 may move on to Pt 3 next or after just one more set.

So far I like knitting this one, I think even after I finish this first one I could even manage to knit a second at work. Its not too hard, so I think the daily distractions could be worked through. Most importantly though, its not just a rectangle! I've been trying to push myself to get past just doing basic scarves and bags. I enjoy the triangle so far, and hope that the parallelogram section won't be too difficult.

More Progress!

After coming home for the night I decided to work on this a little more. I headed on to Part 3 and finished one round of that. The dropped stitches seem a little more unruly than in the exacmple. I ran into a few more knots and have decided to spend the rest of my night winding it around a needle I dont plan on using for a while. Maybe that will keep the knots from coming back.

On an unreleated note I wish I could adjust colors of photographs on my Mac. The yarn I am using is much nicer looking. I will break out the real color in daylight for photos of the FO.

Read more>>

Clapotis day one (WIP)

I started knitting Clapotis from Knitty tonight. I'm using Jagger Spun Zephyr in Plum and Pewter holding two strands together on size 6 Circular needles.

I got through part 1 and one time through part 2. It seems to be pretty easy and rhythmic so far! I have opted to purl as well as use stitch markers (safety pins) to mark the stitches that I will drop later.

Read more>>