Category Archives: Knitting Adventures

On a Knitting Roll

Do you think that a knitting frenzy will help bring the autumn to Arizona? It looks like I believe it will, there is no other logical explanation for what is going on here in the knitting arena lately.

Yesterday I joined the TTL Mystery Sock KAL – it is my first ever KAL and the first mystery pattern I follow:

TTL Mystery Socks KAL - Cuff3

I am using The Woolen Rabbit beautiful Iggy Pop sock yarn I won when I was so lucky to be Margene‘s 29,000 commenter, thank you Margene! I really love knitting this yarn.  I finished both cuffs last night and now I can’t wait until next Wednesday!

On Wednesday, I had a sudden and unexplained urge to rip off a weird object that I knitted last year and use the yarn to knit the Birthday Cowl I saw a few days before on Ravelry. I am very pleased with the result. I think it will do a much better job of warming me in cold weather  than my weird creation. Unfortunately, I am afraid I will have to be patient for a much longer time than will be needed for my KAL adventure before I will be able to test it. So I need your opinion:

Not My Birthday Cowl 2

And last but not least: last week I started a vest in Classic Alpaca of the Alpaca Yarn Co in the Borealis Blue colorway. It is a birthday present for Joe’s mother who is going to celebrate her 75th birthday soon:

Mary 75 Vest 2

I am knitting this one from my head and using yarn from my stash. I bought this yarn when we visited Gore Mountain Alpaca, NY in April 2007 on our way from Marlboro, VT to Toronto. It turned out they don’t take credit cards and I didn’t have checks with me, so the very nice owner just gave me the yarn and his business card and asked me to send a check when I will be back home! The check was in the mail box first thing in the morning after we got back home.

Clicking on the photos will take you to Flickr where you can see more photos of each of these projects.

Crazy Monkeys

I am knitting socks for my friend Nitzan, she is going to be 13 in a few weeks, I don’t believe it, time goes by so fast! It seems to me she was born just yesterday,,,

Crazy Monkeys side one

And the other side:

Side 2 of my Crazy Monkeys

I am knitting the Monkeys. After trying the picot edge so many people seem to like for this pattern and quite a few rounds of knitting and ripping (it was my first encounter with the picot edge), I decided I don’t really like the thickness it creates and settled on knitting the pattern as is. I really like the effect the twisted knit stitch gives to the rib band.

The yarn is Black Bunny Fibers and the color serves a purpose (oh how appropriate, I just found the yarn band and the colorway is: Fembot’s Revenge! Should I know what it means?!?). OK, back to my story:

Nitzan’s mother, my good friend Iris, is a very opinionated lady. After Nitzan was born she kept talking to her all the time and dressed her in very coordinated clothes. Whenever she chose clothes for the baby she kept explaining to Nitzan (like she was talking to an adult but with a special intonation in her voice, but this is another story,,,) why she is choosing the items she choose and how important it is that the colors will fit together.

I kept making fun of her and threatening her that Nitzan will develop a horrible taste just to rebel against this brain washing,,,

Every time she left me alone with the baby, I dressed her in some combination that didn’t meet Iris’s strict color code but seemed lovely to me.

It became a kind of a game between us.

I think these socks are a good commemoration of this game, don’t you agree?

Oh and a practical question: how do I block these socks without a sock blocker? Any trick or idea will be greatly appreciated.

Nothing Too Important

This morning we took off in a different direction than our regular morning routes and about mid way Joe said: Do you need something from the grocery store, we are close enough to include it in this walk. So we did it. The second BAT/KAT trip this week, aren’t we good?

Now he is talking about walking to Sprouts, poor me! The Fry’s/Safeway junction we went to this morning is about 1.5 miles from home, Sprouts is about 3.5 according to Google Maps but we can make it shorter walking, we guess about 3.0 miles or so,,, in nice weather it is not too hard but they promise 3 digit temps here pretty soon, we will see.

After swatching the colorful yarn I showed here the other day, I think it is too fat for a small baby when knitted in garter stitch. This made me visit my stash. I found nice things. I think I will try a Mountain Colors Bearfoot yarn I found there. I bought 2 skeins in preparation to knit my first sock ever and the lady in the lovely shop Windsor Button, told me that maybe I should take 2 skeins to be on the safe side. I finished the socks with a little leftover from the first skein. I am not sure I have enough yarn though, I will know better when I finish the first BSJ soon.

I saw in my stash some lovely sock yarns, I will need to knit those soon. I saw a sweater worth of cotton that I intended to knit last summer. I found some lovely cotton that want to be knitted into something summery – who said the only place we can have fun with yarn are yarn stores or the internet?

Oh and about this Boston wonder – I stumbled upon it by accident walking in Boston while we went with Sam to a college tour in the Northeast in March 2006, so I can’t really tell you what I saw there. The only thing I remember is wondering between shelves full of yarns and finding more and more wonderful corners full of fiberly delights, just what a good yarnoholic looks for in a yarn store in a new city.