Knitting with Toothpicks

Have you ever looked at your knitting and thought it looked like you were knitting with toothpicks?

I have, so I made a little knitting magnet.

It's also available as a kit on etsy.

Summer Cap

We're still getting warm weather over here in Edinburgh, but the cold weather is creeping into the city, slowly.

So I might have a good excuse to wear my new hat soon.

It's a surprisingly warm hat, despite it's very open pattern.

Pattern: Spring Cap (ravelry link)
Yarn: Freyalyn BFL Aran, color Twilight
Started: August 21st, 2010
Ended: August 22nd, 2010

Two days at Knit Camp

The last two days have been fibre-crazy. I finally took a class at Knit Camp. On Thursday I took a Nordic Color class with Nancy Bush. The class started with some information about the cultural, historical, and fiber traditions of Estonia. This was obviously something she was really passionate about.

She taught us a really neat cast-on, and then the Estonian color technique. It's like embroidery, but with knitting.

My tension is pretty crap, and my needle size was too big (or rather it was the correct size, I just knit super loose) so I'm not too happy with the way it looks, but I still enjoyed the class. If you get the opportunity to take a class with her you should, she was lovely teacher - very enthusiastic and nice.

This morning I took a yarn dyeing class with Deb Tomkies. I had done kettle dyeing with natural dyes in the past, and played with kool aid dyeing a few times, but I was never really comfortable with hand-painting.

Here's a blury pic of the two skeins I did:
And here's the amazing yarns the class did:!


After the dyeing class I went over to the marketplace. The number of booths there was overwhelming! I passed by Annie Modesitt and Debbie Stoller, but I was too shy to talk to them. And then, after spending too much money, I sat down with some other knitters and continued working on the Jaywalker socks. So it was a lovely day.





I hear Jess and Cass are doing an Edinburgh meet-up thing, so might have an exciting knitting day tomorrow too! I hope you had a nice few days too.

Get those sleeves done!

Now that I've finished the glove I think I'm ready to take out my next long-term UFO.

I stopped knitting this nearly two years ago, when I returned to England. I had finished the body and much of the sleeves, and then left it with dad in America to put it up in the yarn store as a large "swatch" example for the yarn (though I think it was actually in a plastic bag that whole time). This past Christmas I got it back, and I think I'm ready to finish it! I've already ripped out the not very nice looking sleeves, and so it's just a matter of reknitting the sleeves and knitting the collar.

The pattern is Twist and Shout from Knitty Fall 08. The yarn is Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca D.K. Which means I'm going to be finishing yet another warm article of clothing in time for summer!

Do I look deformed in this sweater?

It's me! You know how I can tell? The flyaway hair.

I'm only about 6 inches tall and knitted. My sweater was hand-knit, pants were felted and then sewn together, shoes are needle felted onto my feet (à la ironfoot), knitted hat sewn onto my head so it wouldn't fall off, bits of yarn sewn in, and of course I have a little felted flower in my hand. BTW, I'm wearing so many layers because I'm always cold!

It's made for Stitch London's one night exhibit at London's Science Museum Late event where there'll be an army of little mini selves.

I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures! It sounds like a fun event.

Cabled Gloves are done!!

Woohooo.

The story behind them is that I had wanted to make J another pair of socks, and she picked out the Kristy pattern from Cookie A's Sock Innovation book.

My stockinette gauge swatch was correct, only I had forgotten that I knit my cables super tight, and I had already finished quite a bit of it before I found out it was too small. So, I decided to knit gloves instead. I had never knit gloves before, and couldn't find a pattern that fit my gauge, so I made things up as I went along (not recommended, you'd think I would have learned by now). Still, I'm mostly happy with them.

What: Gloves
Casted On: August 31, 2009
Finished: June 13, 2010
Yarn: Trekking sock yarn, dyed with black beans
Pattern: Kristi (ravelry link)

I didn't write down the pattern, but, I can tell you that the pinkie finger was 21 stitches and the rest were 24 stitches, and that for most of the fingers I decreased using:
Row 1: knit 4, k2tog, repeat
Row 2: Knit 3, k2tog, repeat
Row 3: Knit 2, k2tog, repeat
Row 4: K1, k2tog, repeat
Row 5: k2tog, repeat

At least I didn't finish during the hottest part of the year ...

New Projects - knits and felts

I'm doing a giveaway this week! Comment here and on yesterday's post for an entry.

More info here.

******

I've made two new little hats for the Innocent Drink charity sale.

I think this one looks a little like a sultan's hat.
This one is a bit more normal but still puffy.
I've also made two new things for my etsy store. This is Larry, the albino mole. I normally don't name my creations, but this somehow seemed to suit him.
Do you think it's weird when you see named things on etsy?And because I named the mole I named this one Nina.

My next project is a mini knitted version of myself for Stitch London's new project. Stay tuned for that :)

A little Saturday walk

This morning we went to the farmers market and bought some goodies.

Tomatoes, super friggin expensive asparagus, and



a leek so big it doesn't fit in our little fridge.


We walked around the castle hill,


to the front of the castle (no idea what the bleachers are for)


and started our walk. We've had the book "24 great walks in Edinburgh" since we moved here, but our Camond Island walk was the only time we used it. And this nice, sunny (mostly) day was perfect for another walk.

We followed walk 1 of the book, which went past the castle, through little alleyways,


and past Deacon's House, which was where we had lunch, and down the Royal Mile.



Deacon's House was once the workshop of the William Brodie, a respected cabinet maker who secretly copied the keys of his wealthy clients, and then at night burgled their houses. He was eventually found out, fled to Amsterdam, was captured and then hanged by the gallows which it's been said he helped to design.



Sadly the food in the cafe was mediocre (we didn't find out until after we had ordered that they served a drink of hot chocolate mixed with whiskey, so we might give the cafe another try). It did however have a few comical statues out front, and inside there was plenty to read about the history of the place and walls painted with scenes from Brodie's life.




And ...
When we came back home I finished off another finger of the glove! Woohoo. Only one more finger, and the thumb to go!

More little hats

I've been making more little hats for the Innocent Drink charity campaign.

A simple ribbed one.



This one is two rows of seed stitch to prevent curling, plain knitting, and then an i-cord.


And for this one when I cast on I used 7 provisional stitches for each of the flaps, and 8 normal cast on stitches for the front and back. The rest of the hat is knit normally.

When I went back to make the flaps there was a bit of a gap so I picked up an additional stitch on both flaps. Each flap is 5 rows long.

Knitting Charities

Since I started knitting little hats last week I've been looking into other organizations that welcome hand-knit donations.

Here's a short list of what's out there in charity knitting land.

Based in the US:
A long list of charities from Interweave Knits
Ravelry group for charity knitting in the US
Knit for Needs
Afghans for Afghans
Stitches from the Heart
The Mother Bear Project
Orgs collecting for orphans in Eastern Europe and Russia (on a ravelry group)

Based in the UK:
A long list of charities from UK hand knitting association
Ravelry group for charity knitting in the UK
Blankets for the elderly
Hats for Innocent Drinks
Little Hen Rescue (Jumpers for battery hens)
Teddies for Tragedies

And here's one for our Canadian friends:
pakcanada (preemie items)


What are your favorite charities?

Little Hats for Innocent Drinks

Sadly it's been a while since I've done charity knitting, so this week I decided to change that by making little hats for Innocent Drinks. For several years now, around Christmas time, Innocent Drinks adorns their bottles with hand-knit little hats, with 35p of the sale going to Age Concern and Help the Aged.





The hats are so quick to make, and better still I made them with leftover yarn scraps!

I'm not sure what my next little hat will be though, maybe one with earflaps ?....

Umm, ya

So, you know how I gave myself the deadline of Friday for finishing the gloves?

Well, turns out I had forgotten something important. I had forgotten that J was going to be at a conference for half this week and really, if I'm going to make a glove for her, I'd really like it to fit her perfectly, which means interrupting her every five minutes with whatever important thing she's doing so she can try it on and make sure it still fits. So, sadly, all I've really done is finish the palm and pinkie.
But, I do have good news.

Yesterday I finally made my light box!
There's a lightbox along happening on twitter for the month of March. Which is a good thing too because I've been meaning to make mine for ages. Ironically J has the camera right now so the picture is taken with a crappy webcam. I have a few more projects to share with you, but it will have to wait until Saturday because these webcam pics are not very flattering, and I like flattering.

Lovely Spring Day

I had a lovely day today. I went to the spinning and weaving guild's open house in the morning. I didn't get to speak to people who helped me learn last time I was there, I have a weird thing against interrupting two people in a discussion. But, I did buy this:

100 grams of lamb's wool. And I bought A LOT of other fibers too, but I'm most excited about the lamb. Last week I checked out the Beginner's Guide to Feltmaking by Shirley Ascher & Jane Bateman from the library and one of the projects in the book is a simple little 2D(ish) sheep, and the lamb's wool looks perfect for the project, not to mention an amusing choice. I'm a fan of the sheep.

In the afternoon Jessamy and I took a walk along The Water of Leith, which is actually not that far from where I live, but I hadn't made it over in that direction until today.


ummm, I thought I was in Scotland.

It was a lovely day for a walk, so lovely in fact that I actually took my coat off at one point (gasp). I guess it really is spring. Horrah!

Of course this means that I really should finish Jessamy's gloves, because it's going to be summer before I know it and J would probably feel a bit silly if, after all my hard work, I make her wear the gloves out into the outside world during the hot(ish) summer months.
So ... I'm giving myself a deadline of Friday to finish them.

I think I can do it. Probably. Maybe.

Anyone else have any self-imposed knitting deadlines coming up?

Can I make it?

The nice ravelympics volunteers have processed my Owl Cowl, so now I have another medal. Horah!

Two days ago I was certain that I wouldn't finish J's gloves in time, but I was able to more or less successfully withstand the call of social networks and the internet yesterday, and the prospects are looking a lot better now.Even more so because the rain and snow has come back to Scotland, so I might not want to go on my errands this weekend (art supplies, cheese, cabbage, you know the basics).

Owl cowl has eyes

I got my first ravelympics medal for the mittens today. Woohooo.

I ended up choosing a blue button for it, but decided to only put a the button on the right hand for a fully functional mitten, and keep the left hand button free because I think it looks prettier that way. So the best of both worlds, I think.

For a cookie bake along this weekend I made fortune cookies.
Yumm. The first batch didn't work out so great, most of them cracked and crumbled as I was folding them, but the second day's batch turned out much better, I think it's because the batter thickened overnight.

Next week's bakealong is scones. If you're on ravelry feel free to join in, you are on ravelry, aren't you?

M cowl owl is finished. The knitting was finished a few days ago, but and it was a very quick knit, but it was also in dire need of blocking. I put the eyes on just an hour ago.

My third and last ravelympics project is to finish a WIP, gloves for Jessamy. I've never made gloves before, and this is going sooo slow. The cable pattern is from Cookie A's book, Sock Innovation.

I hope I can finish them in time!

Just call me destructo

I used to think that invisibility (being able to walk in and out of rooms without anyone noticing) was my superpower, but now I'm thinking I have a knack for breaking knitting tools. Late last night, as I was completing the EZ sewn bind off for convertible Bella's Mittens (just found out that they aren't technically "glittens" because they don't have mitten-like fingers) I did this:

*

Broke a tapestry needle.

This is the third time in as many months that I broke a knitting instrument.

On Christmas day I broke my first 2.0 mm needle, but I was determined to continue knitting and succeeded in gluing it in such a way that it wouldn't catch on the yarn. Perhaps I was overly tense that day and knit tighter than normal, who knows. Last month though I broke my second 2.0 mm bamboo by accidentally leaning on it with my knuckle. I took the hint and bought another set of needles.

*I didn't actually realize until I took this picture that perhaps I don't have to save those broken needles.

Thankfully I have some metal tapestry needles, and was able to finish weaving in the ends. It's not completely done, I still need to add the buttons, which I'll probably do this weekend, but I'm glad to be moving on to my next ravelympics project, The Owl Cowl.

Day 3 of Ravelympics

Valentines Day 2010 has come and gone. And my lemon cake was baked ...

but is not yet entirely gone. But we did manage to eat about half of it last night, and I managed to not eat any of it today until the late afternoon. I'm sure we'll manage to eat the rest of it tonight. It was a simple recipe pattern, requiring mixing a bunch of ingredients then baking for an hour. It may not have tasted as superb as an expensive, pre-made one at a bakery, but it tasted sweet and was still warm, right out of the oven.

I'm into my third day of ravelympics. I finished one glitten around 1pm. Also known as a convertible mitten.

It's now 6 and I haven't started on the second glitten! I blame social networks and almost by extension random and interesting links (like this one about saving the gansey). I'm afraid that the wondrous thing that is the internet, without which there would be no ravelympics, will lead to my poor ravelympic scores.