Brady Socks - one down!

Been a little while, but I've been busy. (Excuses, excuse, I know. Honestly, though - spring break is busier than I'd have imagined.)

Brady Socks, being named after the wild, fun-loving friend of mine who snatched up this yarn...

So, I went to Wal*Mart (of all places) with a few friends to pick out Arts N Crafts to do some fun, creative stuff over break, and ran into a bunch of yarn. All acrylic, of course, but the nice thing about that sort of yarn is that it's machine washable, which is NOT a quality generally shared by my nicer sock yarn. (The Deck Socks I made have begun to felt from me wearing them!)

Thankfully, since this stuff came from Wal*Mart, it's cheap, and was unusually fun to knit with. (Though, I have to admit, it was kinda blah looking in a yarn ball; rather like yarn puke.)

The sock itself was knit toe up and was really easy to do. Just took a while because I haven't had much time. I used this cast off to make it super stretchy.

Wide angle shot to show off the pooling colors:

Heel shot:

Close-up of the toe!

The end!

In case anyone is interested though, this pattern is the most basic of basics. Starter of 28 stitches, 4 increase rounds, and then knit with 2x2 ribbing across the top until the cuff, where it becomes ribbing all around. The pattern I modified for this was an afterthought heel, but I'm not fond of those. Makes me feel like I'm forgetting something important.

Cardigan Continues! And the Big Project.

So, it's been a while. Not a great while, but enough time. I've been working steadily on two projects - my Lana Grossa Mood Cardigan and the Memory Scarf. I'm really excited over the Cardigan in particular because I've never knitted a big project for myself before. And I'm even more excited about the final dyeing (whee!) but let's not get ahead of ourselves...

Today I finished one of the sleeves for the Cardigan, and there's a photo of it laid out with the rest of the completed pieces. I have one last sleeve to do (which I started today, as well) and the front bands to go before I get to sew everything together, adjust for shoulder/arm differences that arise (since Europeans are so much smaller than I am). Then it'll be time to think about dyeing in more detail!

The Cardigan so far.

My secondary project is a bigger scope one, that should take me a looooong time to complete. I have this bin with yarn in it (some yarn, at least) and a few pairs of completed socks. But the thing is, I want to fill this bin up completely with finished knitted projects for next year's College Craft Fair.

So far, the tally stands at... Two completed pairs of socks. That's all I have to offer, folks! Both made in Florida over training trip, so I've got some serious work to put in. I've considered putting the Memory Scarf into this, but I'm not sure that would work out with what I had planned. And the bikini top isn't exactly high enough quality to warrant going into The Bin.

But...here is The Bin.

The Bin.

Don't be fooled. It only looks not intimidating. It really is huge, and angry, and will eat your soul. So fear The Bin, and wish me luck in satiating its hunger!

Morgan Memory Scarf

So, a little less than a year back (last April, as a matter of fact), I had a falling out with a fellow knitter. Bunches of slipped stitches, uncrossed cables--whatever analogy you wanna use.

After last semester, though, (wherein I knitted a sweater with the idea that by the time I was done, I would get to see the recipient face-to-face) I decided to knit a scarf in lace (a medium I suck at, big time) in the hopes that by the time I finish it, I'll be on speaking terms with this girl again.

I guess it's sorta working already, because last week I went to a joint birthday party for a friend of mine and her boyfriend, and she ended up talking to me about the Mood Cardigan.

What I've got so far.

One close up.

Second close up.

I need to get better about incorporating details in a good, organized way. Okay...I'm doing this project on US 8 needles (the same ones I used for the Anna bikini top!) and using KnitPicks Shadow Lace yarn.

The pattern is available for free if you Google it. It's called "Fishtail Lace Scarf" and there's a bunch of PDF versions of the pattern with pictures of finished projects that look SO much nicer than mine. :)

"Anna" bikini top

Again with the boredom over a day. I got back from my school's second-semester party, Philander's Phling. (Strange spelling and all.) It was bunches of fun, but at two in the morning, all I really wanted to do was start a knitting project. So instead of going to bed, early on a Saturday, I began this...

I didn't have enough sports yarn in one color to make this piece, so I decided to go through my stash drawer and pull out whatever I could that might look nice together. looking back, I kind of wish I'd chosen to make the reddish color the band, and then done the two purples as the triangles....but I guess it's okay as is.

The actual pattern (link at the bottom) says to use elastic and US size 6 needles. I did neither... My bamboo needles are US 8 and I made a binding in the back using excess yarn, by knitting the ends together. (Same for the top to make it a halter.)

Anyway... Pictures!

Results, early Saturday morning before bed.

Close up of stitching in progress.

Finished project (with a few ends to weave in.)

Me wearing it.

The Pattern: "Anna"

Lana Grossa Mood Cardigan WIP

I've been working on and off on this piece since I started it in late January (and now it's early February! How time doth fly.) but I really got a chance the other day to sit down and really do some serious knitting, thanks to a huge burst of snow fall and slippery slide-y ice. With school out for the day, I had plenty of time to sit, relax and of course, knit.

So this pattern I decided I was going to do as my semester project suddenly took off. I'm really intrigued by the texturing pattern that is used to make the rib-ish look. It doesn't quite lay flat, but I don't think that will matter much once it's all pieced together. I'm intending to dye this a deep grey-to-purple, if I can get the logistics of that transition figured out. For now, though, it's just Bare.

Wool of the Andes Bare, that is! (I'm like a shameless plug for KnitPicks...)

I found this pattern, and really liked it:

My progress so far...



For those who are interested, I'm knitting this on size 9 US needles.

Also, the pattern can be found for free here: Lana Grossa Model of the Month 2007.

Kool Aid Dye

I was wandering online a while back and came across an idea for dyeing yarn by using Kool Aid. I happened to be bored one night, and decided to try this out. I used Kroy Socks yarn.

Essentially what you do is break the yarn up into a skein (take it out of ball form into loosey-goosey form) and then decide what color you want to make it. For this particular experiment, I decided to try three colors for a fun, fruity yarn.

The purple is from Grape, the red from Strawberry, and the orange from Orange.

I wish I had pictures of the process, but sadly I only have the results. After about a half hour of microwave zapping of the yarn immersed in Kool-Aid powder/water mix, the last particles of the Kool-Aid disappeared from the water and into the yarn.

The strawberry came out the best, I think.

For anyone interested in doing self-dyeing, I'd really recommend trying this. It is SO cool!


Newly dyed yarn hanging on the drying rack.


Dyed yarn results.

New Stash!

In wonderful news...

For Christmas I got a few gift certs for KnitPicks that I used to get a whole bunch of stuff. I've got SO many ideas for knitting projects, thanks to Ravelry which might not be the best for my homework status, but it's keeping ME happy!

Included on the list of things I got is...

• Andes Bare Worsted Yarn (so I can dye it myself!)
• Chroma sock and worsted (which is GORGEOUS)
• Coal something-or-other worsted (for an opera gloves pattern I promised I'd make for a friend)
• Arabian Nights Imagination hand-painted sock yarn
• Gun metal and Royal purple dyes
• 4mm circs to replace my stolen-by-airline-executives DPNs

My stash laid out on my desk!

The Chroma Sunset yarn; it's so pretty!

More stash-i-ness!!!