Monday, February 23, 2009

New Knits

Here are some new projects in the works::

I'll save the details until they are finished:-)


Until I post again, check this out:

Spooky crafts by Green Kitchen, so much fun. I particularly like the beet root rat tails.

And then there's Julia Nunes and her ukulele. Check out some videos here, but don't blame me when you get sucked in for hours. great stuff

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Rainy Days

Hello from the San Francisco airport! Where the current security level is "Orange", and the skies are grey. Dudes, I just spent four of the rainiest days in sunny California. It rained, it poured, and it misted.

Luckily I had some great company on the couch, and we even ventured outside to watch one stage of the Tour of California! We went to one of the more remote locations south of San Francisco, and we were amazed at the thousand or so other fans that were there too. We were also amazed at a couple of things::
--the anticipation of the racers coming {any second!} is a lot of fun
--they didn't appear to be going that fast, yet...
--they passed by in a flash
--we couldn't identify a single racer
--we took a little video, watched it in slow motion and still couldn't identify anyone
--c could take them in a race ;-)



I'm hoping to leave the rain behind for sunnier Boston skies... really it's crazy that I'm counting on Boston to bring me sun, but it was shining the day I left!::

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

um, they're all outtakes...

I had some extra Noro Kochoran, so I knit it up into a hat to go with my mittens of the same yarn. Maybe I'm joining the party late, but I'm really loving garter stitch*, so knit up a Zeebee. I knit it, then, I tried to photograph it, here's the best of the bunch::

{with my Kochoran Mitered Mittens}

{with a t-shirt I love, in my favorite bathroom}

{almost, but not quite}

The Kochoran is a wool, silk, angora blend ~ so soft. But I started to notice a little problem with the angora. It's been pretty dry a bit chilly around here, so I'm always putting the hood of my down jacket up and down when I'm outside. The result? The angora is full of static! So there are times when I have the hat on and there's a huge halo of static-y angora sticking straight out of the hat in all directions. oops.

*Garter stitch and Kochoran are so great together that they've inspired my next LARGE project...

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

The Shortest Month

A quick Haiku to February and Elizabeth Zimmerman's February Sweaters::

It's cold, and it's short,
but there's possibility
in a new sweater.

February in Boston, 11:30 am

On to the sweaters ~ I've finished my forth and fifth February Sweaters, and I still love the pattern!

This baby version is for a new little boy, so I went with a stockinette body rather than the lace pattern:: {see the cute car button at the bottom? I love my jars of buttons*}

yarn ~ Lorna's Laces Worsted Weight {less than one ball!}
needles ~ size 5

I had to knit from both ends of the ball to keep it from pooling on the body, then all hell broke loose on the sleeves, so there's a bit of pooling there... but soon there will be drooling!...

And the February Lady Sweater is for me::yarn ~ Lion Brand Cone Wool. It's 100% wool, ?fingering weight?, and comes on a cone of 2000 yards. So with one cone I was able to knit the whole sweater holding the yarn double, and still have enough left over to knit a little lace scarf!
needles ~ US 7

It's too cold for model shots, maybe I'll take some in Cali next week?
The exciting tid-bit about this sweater is that it only cost a whopping $11 dollars! It's usually $22 at Joann's, but I had a 50% off coupon. yay

Now I'm off to burrow under the covers*

Friday, January 30, 2009

The Gifts that I'm loving

I shared {almost} all of the gifts I made and gave at Christmas, and now, finally, it's time to share some of the awesomeness I received.

{Mushroom Pillowcases}
artist ~ my sister Sarah
medium ~ freezer paper stencil, tie-dye, awesomeness

{Dyed Hoodie}
artist ~ my sister Kris
medium ~ sweat, shirt, tie-dye, awesomeness

{Delishiousnessss}
artist ~ my almost sister Nik
medium ~ Shrub {made from apple cider vinegar & fresh fruit}, Organic Vanilla Sugar, Vanilla Extract, Teas!, and awesomeness

{Coffee!}
artist ~ Flossie
medium ~ fresh roasted beans, and a cinnamon stick, oh, and awesomeness

What am I doing right now, on this Friday evening? Well, of course I'm grinding coffee beans for the morning, at which point my coffee will be sweetened with some vanilla sugar, sipping a shrub, while dawning my hoodie. oh, wait, now I'm resting my head on a bed of mushrooms.

ps ~ I'm a night owl and I have a picture to prove it. coming soon.

Happy Weekend*

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Forever Catching Up! or not...

Again, I feel behind in the blogging! But then... I sat down to blog and realized that I need to shake that feeling, I'm not catching up, I'm just filling you in, hopefully sooner rather than later ;-)

Word on the street is we're expecting more snow this week. I took advantage of the slight warm front to take a long walk Friday afternoon, walking from downtown Boston to Harvard Square. The whole trip was along the frozen Charles::

A while back I posted a picture of graffiti on a bridge over the Charles, it said "Do Work Boston". I can't find that picture right now, but it's in the archives somewhere...Anywho, on Friday I noticed that someone updated the message::huh? don't worry, I'll give you an update if any more details appear...

Once in Harvard Square, I stopped by one of my favorite little shops, Black Ink::
{sorry for the blurry picture, sometimes I feel a little funny taking random pictures}

And the rest of the weekend? It was either spent studying or preparing for the impending doom that is mid-winter. I finished a new pair of mitered mittens for myself::These are knit with Noro Kochoran, a lovely wool, silk, angora blend. I knit these tightly, and they've definitely passed the wind test, not letting any cool breezes between the stitches!

Next, I dug an old project out of my closet::
This scarf is a mohair *wrap* that I finished three years ago and n-e-v-e-r wore. Somehow I didn't appreciate it's cozy warmth until I was confronted by the single digits this year. It's just three skeins of kidsilk haze mohair knit in stockinette in the round. As I mentioned, this is supposed to be a wrap, and it still could be, but I think I'll get much more use out of it by wrapping it around my neck like a scarf. It's fun feature is that whether worn as a wrap or as a scarf, I can slide a colorful silk scarf up the middle to add some fun.

And now, some new bloggity-blog goodness!::
~After a few requests, I've finally posted the second Double Knitting Tutorial! You can easily find it by clicking on the link to the right {or you can just scroll down| it's the post right before this one}
~AND, there's another Schu blog out there, check out my sister's photography work on her blog schubox.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Double Knitting Tutorial - Part II {Finally!}

And it's finally here, the moment where we take double-knitting to the next level. This session is all about switching up the colors. I just add a stripe, but once you see how it's done, you'll have the ability to add any sort of color work design to your double knitting project.

I'm going to use the colors I'm already knitting with to add a vertical stripe to my project.

--Refresher--
When we left off, we were knitting a panel with one blue side and one wheat side.
With each pass of the needles, we are actually adding a row to both sides. When the blue side is facing us, we're knitting the blue stitches and purling the wheat ones. And, as you'd expect, when the wheat side is facing us, we're knitting the wheat stitches and purling the blue stitches. Before knitting a stitch, we have to remember to move both yarns to the back of our work, and before purling we move both yarns to the front of the work. And lastly, you want to remember to wrap the yarns at the end of each row/before starting the next row {take a look at the first tutorial if you have any trouble with this}.

--Set-up Row--
As you can see in the following picture, we have just knit three blue stitches and purled two wheat stitches. If we were knitting a typical row, our next step would be to purl the next wheat stitch. I decided to make a vertical stripe that is two inches wide on both sides, so in total I will purl two of the wheat stitches with the blue yarn and knit two of the blue stitches with the wheat yarn. After these stitches, I go back to my original pattern.


As you can see, when I'm purling the stitch with the blue yarn, the wheat yarn is just hanging out in the front.

If you look at the first picture in this post {before I started the stripe}, you'll notice that the stitches on the needle are: blue.wheat.blue.wheat.etc. At this point you can see the two blue stitches next to each other::


I then knit the next stitch with the wheat yarn {again, if this were a typical row, I would be knitting all stitches with the blue yarn}


Once you've completed the row, you can see the change in the blue.wheat.blue.wheat pattern:


Since this is a simple vertical stripe, we can now follow the color pattern ~ using blue whenever we come upon a blue stitch and using wheat whenever we come upon a wheat stitch ~ ALTHOUGH, you now have to remember to stay in the knit.purl.knit.purl rhythm ~ knitting the stitches that are facing you and purling the stitches on the other side.

Once you've completed the second row, you can start to see the stripe::


The next picture is a bit blurry, but you can see what the strip looks like after a few more rows::


And finally, if you want to go back to stop the stripe, all you have to do is to go back to the original pattern. I've knit one row back in the original pattern, and you can tell by looking at the live stitches on the needle {they are now blue.wheat.blue.wheat.etc}::


You can do a lot more than this simple vertical stripe. If you want to do a simple horizontal stripe, all you have to do is go back to the "set-up" row in this tutorial, and from the start knit all of the blue stitches with wheat and purl all of the wheat stitches with the blue yarn. This is just the beginning of adding some color-work to your double knitting, and I'm sure once you practice it, you'll have no trouble increasing the complexity of your patterns!

I'm truly sorry that it took me so long to finally post the second phase of the tutorial. As always, if you have any questions, just send me an email! Good luck!