Clapotis Fever

I spent a good chunk of this weekend working on my Clapotis. Let me tell ya, I can see why this is one of the most popular knitting patterns in blogland. With the dropped stitches, this pattern highlights handpainted yarns beautifully. The stitch pattern is very rhythmic and easy to memorize. Dropping the stitches adds a lot of fun to the mix, too. I find myself racing through the first 7 rows of a pattern repeat to get to the dropped stitch row. Enough talking, now for some pictures!

Over halfway through my Koigu Clapotis!


Close-up of the dropped stitches

Fiber Day!

Saturday, I packed up my backpack and headed to my first fiber festival, Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival. As per my usual, I got completely lost trying to find the Johnson County 4-H fairgrounds and wandered around Franklin aimlessly. Eventually, I made a big circle getting back to the exit I first had taken off the interstate. Eventually, I found it and set out.

The weather was gorgeous, clear sunny sky and not too terribly hot. Their were around 60 vendors selling all sorts of fiber related goods from notions to unprocessed fleeces to cute angora bunnies. I learned I could never own sheep as my eyes watered and nose stuffed up when I was within 20 feet of a sheep. :)

I did get some new yarn and such. I didn't want to buy anything that I could find easily in the stores around town. Here's my haul:

Austermann sock yarn - infused with aloe vera and jojoba. Smells and feels lovely :D


Fleece Artist sock yarn, beautiful blues and greens.


Fleece Artist up close and personal


1375 yards of Skacel lace weight merino


Hopefully, this gauge is big enough so I don't lose it. Also, some nice birch cable needles.

Easily Amused

Koigu amuses me to no end. I love the color changes and watching it knit up. It's been keeping me up way beyond my self-imposed bedtime this week. After every row, I stop knitting to admire the Koigu color changes. Hubs seemed to be less than thrilled when I tried to get him to admire the colors while he was mid video gaming session. :)

Koigu Clappy, ahhhhhhh :)

The Clapotis pattern is a really fun, easy knit so far. I have 5 of 7 increase repeats completed. I think this will be the first of many Clapotis that I'll knit.

Done Stamp

As of 2AM this morning, the Prairie Blanket is DONE! *insert thud of me hitting the floor unconscious here*

Completed Prairie Blanet

Final Stats
Finished Size: 39 inches by 39 inches
Needles: Addi Turbos sz US 8, 40 inches
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in off white
Duration: April 14th to May 29th with some play for Mother's Day knitting thrown in. Lots of Firefly, CSI, Lost, and Doctor Who episodes went into this project, too.

Overall, this pattern got a little tedious, particularly around the miles and miles of garter stitch in the middle at the blanket's largest point. Hence, any of the wrong leaning decreases along the edging are considered a design feature. I didn't have the heart nor stamina to tink (un-knit) hundreds of stitches to fix one. Hey, it's a baby blanket; gourd knows what kind of stuff will wind up on it in the end. :) I loved the short row corner turns at the halfway point, very clever and entertaining part to knit. Much rejoicing was heard in our house last night when the right amount of stitches were on the needles after all the decreases for the middle. However, the whole blasted thing was almost thrown out the window a few minutes later after some rather fuzzy ending instructions. Or maybe that was just my level of exhaustion. The last 14 stitches took me around 45 minutes to finish properly. My hands felt dead by the end of it all; they got a nice warm soak after all that work. :) Word from the now wise, if you want to knit this pattern, use at LEAST a 40 inch circular needle. Any smaller size and the middle portion would have been uncomfortably crammed on the needles.


Close up of my favorite part, the short row corners.

No rest for the wicked, or the knitter. I cast on today for a Clapotis for me. Yummy colored Koigu on Crystal Palace bamboo US 4 needles. The Koigu is no where near the size (nor expense!!) of the recommended Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb. It's intented to be a small lightweight wrap for me to toss over my shoulders this summer when the office air conditioning gets a bit too nippy for me.


Start of my Clapotis

Fit of Inspiration

I can only think that my love of fiber has rubbed off onto Bandit. Inspired by my work on the Prairie Blanket, Bandit picked up the only other unattended off white fiber in the house, one of our remaining two placemats (he's all ready eaten holes in two others).

Supporting my little guy, here's his first finished object...

Ummm..guess this should be titled "Canine Object d'Art #789324" while it's "blocking" in slobbers


The arteest and his first recorded major work

*SIGH*

What’s This?

Why, I do believe it’s visible evidence of progress on the Prairie Blanket!

Evidence of knitting besides butt-shaped dents on the couch

I have about 19 by 19 inch triangle of knitting left on the blanket - 180.5 square inches of knitting. Most of the day Sunday was spent with me knitting on the Prairie Blanket and watching about 10 hours of Da Vinci Code schlock on the History Channel. That’s probably more time than I’ve ever spent watching the History Channel total!

Friday, I did some yarn stash enhancing by going to Stitches n Scones after a trip to the spa. An hour long massage was just the ticket I needed to loosen my grip on my purse strings and buy some yarn. My intentions were to go in and buy two additional skeins of Koigu and a pair of size 4 circular needles for a Clapotis.


Koigu prepped, needles ready, just waiting to finish the Prairie Blanket to start Clapotis!


In addition to the Koigu and new Crystal Palace bamboo circs, I also got:


Cascade 220 in a bubblegum pink


Opal Sock Yarn in Tiger- grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!

I’m buying up Cascade 220 for Fuzzy Feet like it’s going out of style. Love the yarn, love the pattern, and see myself making several pairs. The Opal yarn was from a new shipment and after hearing that the Rain Forest line is special edition, I had to buy two skeins. I’m such a sucker when I hear the phrase “limited edition”; it calls to my inner collector. I really hope that the Owl yarn I ordered about a month ago is still in stock at the manufacturer’s.

Whoops!

Long time, no post. Sorry about that. Between personal life crapola going on (see my personal blog for details) and covert Mother's Day knitting, I haven't been able to share too much.

Eight days before Mother's Day, I finally got inspiration for gifts. Of all places, inspiration struck while I was driving on the interstate, blabbing to my grandmother on my cell phone. (I know, bad Christina, bad Christina for jawing on my phone while driving.) I decided to knit Mason-Dixon Washcloths for Mother's Day gifts. Within minutes of that decision, I had bought a pound of Peaches & Creme cotton yarn. The next morning, I cast on my first dishcloth. By Monday night, here was my
progress.

Pattern: Mason-Dixon Washcloths from Mason-Dixon Knitting
Yarn: Peaches & Cream cotton
Needles: US8 Bryspun circs and US8 Brittney Birch DPNs

I did get five washcloths knitted for mailing and gifting by Mother's Day weekend and have PLENTY of yarn leftover for some more cute little projects from Mason-Dixon Knitting. The pattern was very easy to learn, even the tricky eyelet round and bobbles. Also, it gave me the chance for more practice on my SSK stitches. Only complaint from me is that cotton isn't my hands' friend. By the end of a full on knitting weekend, my hands were pretty strained and didn't want to open from a
claw-like position.

Since Mother's Day knitting is finished, I picked up the Prairie Blanket project again. My hands are pleased to be working with the ginormous Addi-Turbos again. I've made some progress. No, really, I swear it's gotten bigger and the attached skein is smaller...


Blanket Progress


I must be coming down with knitter's ADD. Another project is brewing in my mind, scarily enough. The AC at work is set at freezy or peep-sicle, and I can't help but think a nice Clapotis from Koigu would be just the ticket I need. Yarn store trip for two more skeins of Koigu and some US5's may be in order. :)

Surprised

What a weekend! I'm shocked that my hands are able to lie flat. The majority of my weekend was spent knitting, no big surprise there :) Friday morning, I wasn't able to leisurely sleep in as I hoped. Bandit was on the early morning warpath. Apparently, my leftover Lorna's Lace sock yarn from my Olympic socks (almost a full skien!!) was in his warpath, too. Imagine my horror waking up to my beautiful sock yarn being strewn all about the living room, kitchen, and front entryway. *sigh* I spent four hours Friday afternoon and Saturday morning unknotting and winding the tangled mass of yarn that Bandit made. Most of it was salvaged though - whew!

New finished project as of Friday afternoon, too. I've finished knitting my first pair of Fuzzy Feet.

Ginormous Fuzzy Feet before shrinking

The Fuzzy Feet still need to be felted and have slipper bottoms sewn on. Sewing is not my friend, but this pattern sure was! I'd highly recommend the Fuzzy Feet pattern for first time sock knitters or for knitter's who want to improve their decreases. I realized on my first Fuzzy Foot that my SSK's were pretty fugly and took this pattern as an opportunity to try to improve my techniques.

Friday night, I had a fit of inspiration or perhaps a touch of madness. After pondering for a few weeks, I finally figured out what to do for Mother's Day gifts. True to my nature, it involves a lot of knitting. With next weekend's deadline looming, I started knitting gifts over the weekend. Many hours of knitting with cotton yarn left my hands pretty tired.

New projects with a narrow deadline require a trip to the local yarn store, right? Saturday after undoing Bandit's yarn mess, I ran to Stitches N Scones in Westfield to pick up some new needles. By chance, some Opal sock yarn in the Fish colorway just hopped into my hands and made me buy it :) Yeah, and the Opal Tiger and Owl sock yarn ordered itself for me, too.


Really, how could I not buy yarn named Fish??

Sunday, I joined a new knit along group, the Mason-Dixon Knit Along. The premise is a group of knitters blogging about projects we've made from the Mason-Dixon Knitting book. I've been very inspired by the designs in that book - log cabin knitting, knitting for the house, and unusual knitting mediums. Any recipients of Mother's Day gifts from me, please refrain from going to that site until after Mother's Day; no peeking at gifts allowed! :D

Busy week ahead for me knitting-wise, wish me luck!

It's Ginormous!

Finished Fuzzy Foot

Finished up my first fuzzy foot slipper a few moments ago. I took a few liberties with the pattern as I knitted it on DPNs instead of circulars. For the gusset and toe decreases, I followed the basic decreases given in Sensational Knitted Socks. Nice quick and easy knit to get my mind off the epic baby blanket and Hub socks. Tomorrow evening, I'll cast on the second fuzzy foot. I won't be felting them until I gift them so they can be felted down to the right fit. :)


Fuzzy foot compared to my mitt - see, it's big!


Fuzzy foot compared to semi-willing model, Bandit

Blackhole

Over the weekend, I opened up some sort of blackhole in the universe. Sorry if all your yarn is suddenly sucked towards Indiana into this insatiable phenomenon. A better description is an off-white hole really known as the Prairie Blanket.

Progress as of April 30th

This weekend I binged on the Firefly Series and Serenity DVDs while knitting on the Prairie Blanket. That's over 13 hours, and not a whole heck of a lot of progress sizewise. I realized I had to set it aside for a few days when I was hazily making errors and passing on fixing them because that would require ripping out eight bajillion stitches. Close approximation, really :) I definitely need work on my fixing flub-ups skill. I am on the decrease section now, yeah!

Instead of pulling out the Hub socks of doom, tonight I started a set of Fuzzy Feet in cheery pink! Since I dislike teeny tiny circular needles, I'm working them on DPNs.


Ahhh...44 stitches on big honking needles :)

After watching so much Firefly this weekend, I have a notion to add an item to my "To Knit" list.


I suddenly "need" a Jayne Cobb hat before GenCon (a big gaming convention in Indy) in August

Yeah, don't ask me why I want a bulky wool hat for an event in the middle of steamy hot August. It can be quite nippy in that convention center, you know? :)

Green Eyed Monster

Uh oh. Miles and miles of grey and off-white projects have me craving some color. On my daily perusal of knitting blogs, I've came across several finished socks from Opal Tiger yarn. I covet my blog neighbors' Opal Rainforest yarn. I must find a LYS that carries it...or find it online. Owl! Tiger! Fish! Too cute! Must Have!

Big Honkin' Heel

2,070. That's how many stitches went into the heel of the first Hub sock. Now I don't feel so bad for taking four hours last night to knit a single heel flap.

2,070 heel stitches and my uber technical row counter, a Post-it.

And I have another heel to knit after this sock is completed!

Lots of Knitting News

Wow, this was a whirlwind of a weekend! I was able to squeeze some knitting time in Friday. Unfortunately, most of that day was spent impatiently bugging the Sofa Express hotline tracking the non-progress on the furniture that was being delivered to my house. What furniture you may ask?? Oh, just the couch and end table to finish up my knitting lounge area of the office and a ginormous coffee table for
the living room. I grudgingly passed on my weekly Friday night D&D session to babysit the house in expectation of the delivery truck. Finally, they arrived after 9pm sending Bandit into a "must protect Mommy" mode from the confines of his crate. I'd like to think that his reaction was reflecting my crabby mood at the overly late
delivery. Everything was finished and set up the way I wanted after 10 pm, and the office refurbishing project is finally completed. Check it out!

New Knitting Nook

And here's my progress on the Prairie Blanket. One skein down!


Week's worth of knitting on the Prairie Blanket and still looks like a cream-colored stingray with ribbing :)

The Prairie Blanket pattern makes for great engrossing TV watching knitting with the miles of garter stitch in the middle. I'm still on the increases section though. I'm not sure how wide I should make it; the pattern calls for 38 inches diagonally, but that took less than a third of the required yarn yardage to get that length for me. My next project for Marcus and Jackie's upcoming little[scratchout markup] big
boy will be quite a bit more challenging for me. I'm going to be knitting him a baptism blanket. Wish me luck on my first intimidating lace project :)

In other knitting activity, I "swatched" for Fuzzy Feet last night. By swatching, I mean I grabbed some leftover Cascade Quattro from my Wavy scarf, grabbed my dpns, cast on 44 stitches as per the pattern, and knit a few inches. I'm using needles that are 2 sizes smaller than the pattern stated, but post-felting my swatch still slipped over my big honkin' ankles. Since my little experiment worked, I hope to
crank out several pairs for Christmas gifts for this year (lookee a head start on Christmas knitting!!). Now the question arises, what can I do with a 4" felted band of wool??


Fuzzy Feet swatch and mauve Cascade 220 Fuzzy Feet To Be

Last but not least, I've made progress on the Hub's socks. No, I didn't forget about it. It's just been in my purse for about a month getting a row done here or there. This morning, I saw that a few stitches had dropped off the needles in my purse. After fixing that, I started working on the heel flap tonight. I should have this nice pair of wool socks completed in time for summer, lol!


Start of Heel Flap on First Hub Sock

New Knitting

As I said in my previous post, I started on the Prairie Blanket Friday night. Using 40 inch Addi Turbos size 8 on Caron Simply Soft in off-white. Here's its premiere shot:

Kinda looks like an off-white sting ray

As surprising as it is for me, I'm almost halfway through this pattern. It's been pretty easy going overall. Well, except for the one screw up I have in it due to watching "Wedding Crashers" while attempting to knit :) I believe that I'm allowed a certain amount of flub ups per knitted item just to prove that it was handknitted.

I can now take back everything I ever said bad about K2TOGTBL. Meet my new fiddliest stitch, P2TOGTBL (Purl 2 Together Thru Back Loop). Yargh!


Close up of stitch work

I really enjoy seeing the quick progress on this project so far. Knitting diagonally keeps it a bit interesting for me, too.

'Twas the Night Before Easter

Yargh! What am I doing posting at midnight on a Saturday night?? Oh yeah, I have a major finished object to display publically.

Cozy blocking on the spare bed. For future note, don't have an overhead fan on while using the steamer, it causes strange puddles.

I finished knitting Cozy Friday night during some hella bad storms that came through Indy. Second learning point for me, don't attempt to knit during a bad storm. I was too preoccupied with watching the Fox 59 weather news making sure we wouldn't blow away that I accidentally knitted the same row about 8 times. Big nightmare there. I haven't used a lifeline in oh...the past 50 inches or so. Lots of ripping, cursing, crying, and tossing of Cozy across the room ensued. At least I wasn't preoccupied with the weather! After getting all 85 stitches back on the needle a few hours later, I called it quits and bound off while I was still ahead. :) Apparently, knitting lace and fixing errors in lace are to vastly different skills. I'm happy with the way it turned out though.

Now, my rush to put this on the web is that it won't be in my posession for much longer. It's going to its new home with my mom tomorrow night. She's been having a rough time with the loss of her dog last week, and I thought that it may help bring some comfort.


Up close detailed pic of the pattern


Me attempting to model Cozy...I'm a spaz tonight.


"What's this??? A picture without me in it?? Must fix this." - Bandit

I started on the Prairie Blanket for Marcus and Jackie's little boy last night, too. No pics yet of it, but I am enjoying the pattern so far. Except for the P2TOGTBL (purl 2 together through the back loop) stitches; that has to be the fiddliest stitch ever!

G'night all, time for me to hit the hay.

It's Here!!

I have been obsessively tracking my Webs order since it shipped last Friday. My yarn is well-travelled; it left Massachusettes, and its next stop was in northwestern Illinois! UPS kinda overshot Indy by about 170 miles.
Here's my haul:

The Haul


Donegal Tweed for Weasley Sweaters


Cascade for Christmas Fuzzy Feet

Spoke Too Soon

Just because my last post here was bragging that I felt much better, karma came and kicked me in the pants. I've had a migraine since Sunday morning and only started seeing the end of it tonight. Ugh! Not too much knitting as a result, just a lot of sleeping, meds, and ice packs.

Hubs and I had a bit of a disagreement over the weekend. By using my very precise measuring system of holding Cozy up to me, it's around 60 inches in length now with the pattern calling for another 7 inches. I still have a skein and a half left, but Hubs thinks it's quite long enough. Meh...I just can't give up knitting this Andean Silk and I've finally got the groove of the stitch pattern. Whatcha think?

Cozy and me, any negative comments about my comfy pants will be promptly deleted :)

I was able to get a few rounds on the Hub sock today while waiting for the anti-migraine shot to kick in at the doctor's office. It should be long enough for the heel turn now - progress! :)


Cuteness distraction from my comfy pants - Bandit relaxing

Much Better!

Woke up this morning feeling much better and with a Barnes and Noble coupon in my inbox. That paired with warm, beautiful spring weather meant a bit of a shopping trip for me. Well, ok, a rather large shopping trip...

From the right, Mason-Dixon Knitting book, Knitting Rules book, 4 skeins of Koigu sock yarn (KOIGU!!), and a skein of Cascade 220.


Extreme close-up of the Koigu


I can't wait to dig into these books; I love both the Mason-Dixon Knitting and Yarn Harlot blogs. I went to a new to me local yarn store this afternoon, Stitches N Scones in Westfield. Lots of selection including a HUGE shipment of Koigu sock yarn. Even though I had only stopped in for some size 8 dpns, I left with four skeins of Koigu for socks and a skein of Cascade 220 for Fuzzy Feet.

Top that all off with an email from Webs letting me know that my stash enhancement order was shipped today. I feel so far behind!

Now, don't think that Hubs didn't luck out today. I got him a new computer chair to replace the broken, wobbly one he has now.

Sick :(

Excuse my sporadic posting this week thus far. The flu came to visit me for the second time this year yesterday afternoon. I've been down for the count today. Hope to be back up and running (well, maybe not running, how about knitting?) tomorrow.

Whew!!

Whew! Not too often do I feel lucky for getting through the weekend, but this past one was just that busy! Lousy weekend for daylight savings time to kick-in for the first time in my life. I've never had to spring forward or fall back before, and my body's telling me that today. When the alarm went off this morning, I more or less grumpily oozed out of bed letting gravity do most of the work rather than springing.

I did some stash and notions enhancing over the weekend. As I mentioned in my previous post, I ordered a bunch of yarn from the sale at Webs Friday night. One skein of that monster-sized order is on backorder, so I won't get my loverly woolies for another week or two. Saturday night, I finally got off my duff and bought some Caron Simply Soft for the Prairie Blanket. After struggling with little cut-up bits of drinking straws as stitch markers for Cozy, I "splurged" and bought some Clover stitch markers. Can I just say that those were the best $4 I've spent on knitting yet??? Previously with fiddling around with the cut straws, it took me around an hour do complete an 8 row repeat. Now, I'm down to half an hour. NOte to self, it's not really saving you any time or money if it's a pain to use.

Caron Simply Soft for a Prairie Blanket


It's still growing!

Since I mentioned earlier that this weekend was really busy, should it be a surprise for me to say I didn't get that much knitting time in? We had some horrible stormy weather Friday and Sunday night, so I passed a bit of time working on Cozy. It's 48 inches long now and has outgrown its usual photo taking spot on my desk.

Thursday night, I joined the ranks of knitters who carry socks in progress with them at all times. I dumped out my purse, and after sorting through a ream of receipts, months old gum, broken pens, and four tubes of lipstick (can't remember when I last wore make-up!), I made room for Hub's sock. At least if it's not progressing quickly, it will smell of old cinnamon gum from my purse :D

In upcoming fiber arts events, I'm planning on going to Fleece Fair in Putnam county this coming Saturday. Being fairly new to knitting and natural fiber snobbery, this will be my first of such fairs. I'm looking forward to maybe finding some sources for locally grown and spun yarn. :)

After hearing some feedback this weekend that my stash flashing pictures were unreadable to Firefox and Mac users, some big changes for my little blog will be coming down the pike within the next month or so. Stay tuned; I'll keep ya'll posted.

Gah!

I wrote a nice long post in Notepad this evening, and it got eaten. Um...look for more knitting content and a nice big post tomorrow evening. Till then, daylight savings time STINKS. That is all.

Morning Flashing

Nothing quite like flashing your stash on an overcast Saturday morning. Here I present to you, what is quite possibly the saddest stash in all of blogland. :) For all intents and purposes, it's smaller than usual since I've actually finished up some projects lately and have made a few items from stashed yarn.

My stash sitting pretty in the office window


Bandit finds my Cascade Pastaza, I think he likes that llama wool smell or he can smell the shop dogs from the place I bought it.


From the right side of the pic, the Knitpicks Hollyberry and Harvest for my Gryffindor scarf, leftover Wool of the Andes and Andean Treasure in Fog and Mystery, and finally some Dalegarn, Fantasy cotton, and Brown Sheep Bulky destined to rot in my stash for being twisty, hard to use, and itchy. Oh, and Bandit's beloved Cascade Pastaza.


From the left, Knitpicks Essential sock yarn in grey for Hubs and navy for me,
remaining balls of Andean Silk for the Cozy in progress, Bandit's head resting on some leftover Rowan Soft Baby in Cloud, and the Cascade Pastaza.

Now, I haven't gotten in touch with my stash yet. I buy yarn with a specific project in mind and haven't yet bought yarn just to buy it. Last night, I did a bit of stash enhancing on Webs with their big anniversary sale. (Makes me feel better for missing the big sale at my local yarn shop!) I ordered 4 POUNDS of Donegal Tweed in Dark Blue Heather and Gold Heather for Weasley sweaters for me and my little sister and five hanks of Cascade 220 in colorways 2447, 7811, 8834, 9449, and 9456 for (get this!!) Fuzzyfeet for Christmas knitting!