two knits of ivory

A few months ago this beautiful aran throw showed up in a neighboring cube at work. I ogled it in secret for weeks, gathering bravado like so many days of the week, just so as to speak to my coworker about it. One day when she was out I even poked my head a bit into her cube to ogle it close up. It had at least one cable I never remember seeing before. It was fantabulous. Eventually, as these things usually are for me, out of nowhere I blurted out my admiration while walking past her cube. (Was it was the stored bravado that paid off, or just some wacky well of confidence from a convergence of hormones? Who can tell these things.) Said coworker was happy to tell me the story of the throw. Her mother made it years ago. When I inquired about the fiber, she told me in what I think was a wistful tone that it was made with acrylic yarn. I got a sense that she felt it's being acrylic threw a pall over it's obvious magnificence. I remember the dark ages of knitting, when t...

I've added some web tickers for the four works in progress (WIPs). The tickers are from The Ticker Factory .

I've decided to do a cardigan in this spectacular Summer Set yarn. I will be knitting from the top down for the body and then adding 2 x 2 ribbing, on a much smaller needle, to the neck, front, and bottom. Since my swatch doesn't match the the 4" guidelines, I'm winging it once again. I could have tried smaller needles, but I want this to be a loose knit sweater for spring and summer. My thinking on this is that a tightly knit sweater will not only be too warm, but too heavy weightwise, for the spring and summer. I've made a third cast on last night and have knitted about 10 rows. At the last minute I decided to incorporate some holes in the design. My brilliant, middle aged mind can't remember what the pattern is called when knitting has holes interspersed. And the Google isn't cooperating, either. Maybe I should keep the Harmony stitch guide at work, as well as start me some Senior Moment. Tonight I'll take it off the needles and see if it'...

Here is the Classic Elite Summer Set yarn all swatched up. I used a cable cast on, which I learned a week or so ago, courtesy of Knitty Gritty (and Tivo!) My crappy camera definitely gets the color wrong in these swatches. A much better reflection of this yarn's color:

I stated last week I had never worked with Classic Elite Yarns, but oops! this is one big lie! This first FO of the year was made using their Princess yarn in “ Top Turq ” back in March (or was it April?) Either way the set wasn’t finished until it was no longer needed. It took so long because I was knitting freehand and I couldn’t decide on a pattern. I loved this seed stitch diamond pattern hat I made with gray Dale Baby Ull (which I purchased at a great yarn store in Brattleboro, VT). I was trying to recapture the perfection with the Top Turq. Turns out perfection required frogging at least four or five times. Once I had settled on the checkerboard/thatch pattern, the project flowed. This is why I envy pattern people. Back to the point, the Princess yarn was a dream to knit and it may have been the first time I used a luxury fiber (fiber content: 40% Merino/28% Viscose/10% Cashmere/7% Angora/15% Nylon). It seems Classic Elite Yarns is my new best friend. First Princess, then LUSH ...

Lifes' tough at Chez Yarn.... :-)

I've finally cast on the Cherry Hill Tree "Brights." At this stage yesterday afternoon I was unsure if the colorway wasn't drowning out the cable pattern and I was all set to frog and design anew. But something stopped me. I remembered that the whole point of doing another CHT project was to improve upon the pattern I came up with on the fly for the "Blue/Green" xmas sock I finished last weekend. As I mentioned earlier, the sock was too big in the foot, and the cable and knit sections of the heel weren't proportional, which is probably the source of the too wide foot section. So I continued to plug away. Am I in love with this colorway now I've knit it up? Eh, not so much. The wine color seems to dominate, where I was really drawn to the apple greens, yellows, and rusty orange. But it is still a great yarn to work with.

Being a self-taught, self-contained knitter has been hard. I could have found many things out by doing what a great deal of knitters seem to do, and that is knit from patterns. But I hate following patterns. Hate, hate, hate following patterns. Did you get that? And before I really knew I hated it, I was stymied by not having access to knitting books and patterns. When I first tried to learn to knit 20 or so years ago, I was working off of needlework pamphlets from Woolworth’s. When I finally figured how to crochet, which was over 10 years before I learned to knit, Woolworth’s was gone and I was stuck going to the only wool shop that was accessible by public transportation back in those dark days, Woolcott & Co. , in Cambridge, MA. They didn’t have many books, but I was able to pick up a couple of stitch dictionaries, two “Harmony Guides,” one being the “100 crochet stitches” and a second, “another 100 knit stitches.” On top of this I was on the poorer side of the poverty curve and...

Jen's Christmas socks in the blue/green Cherry Hill Tree are done! Considering I didn't use a pattern, and was using a smaller gauge than ever before, and incorporated ribbing for the first time, the socks came out pretty well-proportioned. They are a definitely looser in the arch of the foot than they should be for a sock to be worn with shoes, but Jen'll be wearing these to sleep in so there was no reason to frog and restart. The next pair in ‘Brights’ will be for me and hopefully I’ll have worked out the ‘maths’ and get a snugger fit. I seem to be having a bit of a learning curve with the ball winder, specifically creating nice looking balls with the string coming out the center and the exterior not all a mess. (AKA, I know the pic is pathetic!) On the second of these two CHT ‘Brights’ balls I increased the tension. When I knit up the socks I’ll see if increased tension is good or bad or unimportant.

So we threw caution to the wind and trekked up to Patternworks in Center Harbor, New Hampshire in search of this 104" yarn swift/ball winder combo they sell in their catalog. Saturday was beautiful, the hubster was obliging, and Ripley's never been in the car that long, so hey, why not go to the source, rather than using mail order. (Yes, I am the only long distance purchase aversive person alive – and the result? It’s taken me two years to get up the nerve to purchase the ball winder and swift!) It didn't take long to realize there were more bikers on I-93 north than cars, but then again we rarely get into NH during the summer, and since it is the live free or die state, we first thought nothing of it. That is until we couldn't ignore it any longer. It's June, it's beautiful, and yes, it was a great day to take a long ride behind 20 bikers, with the one directly in front of us stowing a plush, stuffed penis. Yes, you read that right, a plush.stuffed.penis. ...

I spent last night trying to get some of my work on camera. Very little success. So I'm technologically inept and that doesn't auger well for a blog, but never thee mind. I've got two WIPs, a KFYOS blanket that was once going to be a cabled poncho and the above pair of xmas socks for my sister. This sock is my first foray with a superwash merino from Cherry Hill Tree in their colorway Green/Blue. It's like a dream, and a dream on size two bamboo dpns no less! For me, that's saying somethin'. I found this yarn a few weeks ago when I ventured, quite trepiditously, into a LYS I've never been in before in Wakefield, MA, Butterfly Yarns . The proprietor was very nice and very friendly and loves her dogs. What else can I say? For an anthrophobe like me it was near stress free. She was perfectly gregarious and I made it out alive with only a little bit of unease. Good day for a fantabulous yarn. So I went back two days ago and shuffled through what Cherry Hill Tr...

I've been dying to start a blog and even moreso a knitting blog. Not sure where this will lead to, I'm HEE HO excited. Hopefully this blogger site will get me up to speed with some of the technology in an easy non-confrontation way. My favorite blogs have pictures, so I'll start by introducing our family. The hubsters already made his debut, so below are 2 of our 3 cats and our two dogs. This formatting style is giving me ogida, so bear with my poor presentation skills!!! Ripley: our chi chi mix whom we adopted by way of an animal rescue group a week and a half ago Grissom: Our holy terror and a one cat neighborhood de-rodenting machine Hunter: The scarediest cat in the world, and way below, Atreyu, our Australian Shepherd

I christen my blog with one of my very first items knit truly and soley from a pattern. Lookee here, I done made me a[n] hallowig for my hubby!!!! Using leftover Pattons Classic Merino in an Armor (heather) grey (on size eight bamboo straights) seemed appropriate for the pattern. The husband wanted me to incorporate a little dangling thing knit off the brow and down to his nose to similate a medieval helmut. Yes, I am thankful it is I wielding the needles and not him. A little reality check: would a floppy nub in the middle of ones face be useful in a winter gale? Errr, not so much. Practicality ye were my only hope! Thanks Megan Reardon at Knitty and an unknown blogger who linked to it. My husband would thank you both if he had manners.