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Showing posts from January, 2008

Diamonds...

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... are a girl's best friend. No, no real diamonds, just the knitted kind! I picked up the Diamond Lace Scarf the other day and it felt as if it was practically knitting itself. Suddenly, seemingly without much effort, I was halfway through the pattern. I'm hoping that blocking takes care of the unevenness, as it usually does. Argh to borders that don't quite match the width of the piece. I used to think nasty thoughts about garter stitch lace, but now I'm in love. It's fast, simple, flat, and mostly reversible. Just a few more quick repeats and i can do the other border - or maybe I will make it a bit longer, as it looks like I'll have tons of yarn left over. Hmmm, maybe I should have made the wider version... oh well, I like this one.

Spring Cleaning

No major changes here in blogland today, but if you're actually reading this on the blog itself and not on an RSS reader, you may notice a few tweaks to the sidebar. I decided it was time to start a new list of FO's for the new year, so that's there. I found a new knitalong for this year, 2klace. The idea is simple; for 2008, more than half your projects have to be lace or have a lace component or edging. Seeing as all but one project on the needles at this point is lace, I figured this would be a good thing. The ravelry group is here , and the full guidelines are here . Finally, I found a great group blog to watch called Destash! . If you have stash to sell, join up and add it! Or just watch to see if anything good comes up. In other news, the Interweave Knits Spring Preview is up! was up this morning and appears to have been taken down again. The link was http://www.interweaveknits.com/preview/2008_spring.asp and used to work and probably will work again soon. T

New Socks!

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There's nothing quite like a new pair of socks. Here we have, fresh off the blockers, a very bright pair. The stats: Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A. Yarn: Koigu KPPPM, colorway P837 Needles: #2 for the ribbing, #1 for the rest Modifications: I did extra rows of ribbing and made the heel flap in heel stitch and extra long to take care of my high arches. I've gotten to the point where I don't really read heel and toe directions in patterns anymore. I have some that seem to fit and hold up well, but sometimes I wonder if I'm missing out. I guess if it ain't broke, don't fix it! I love this pattern, I love this yarn. It all goes so quickly. And here's a closeup for you. I counted yesterday and came up with seven (!) projects already on the needles. I have a feeling I'll need to finish some of those before starting something new.

Let the Sun Shine In

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There is nothing to drive away the gloom of winter like a sunny day and the bright, fresh flavor of lemons. I found Meyer lemons at the supermarket last week and knew they'd be good for something special. A Meyer lemon is thought to be a cross between an ordinary lemon and a tangerine or mandarin orange. They are supposed to be less bitter, sweeter, and more aromatic than ordinary lemons. The ones I bought had thin orangey skin and did smell about halfway like a lemon and a tangerine. It took me a while to figure out what to do with them but I settled on this lemon skillet cake . I even cut out a paper snowflake to put a design on the top, and then we got carried away eating it before I could get a decent photo in. There is no leavening in this cake, just the slight fluffiness given by beaten eggs. All in all, it is good, very lemony, but not too rich. It might be a little dry (although I could have left it in a minute too long) but was very good with whipped cream. Here, hav

Too much time on my hands

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Okay, I obviously need something constructive to do. Oh wait, knitting is constructive, right? You're sure? Good. So I ripped out the pink and purple sock, because it was bugging me. Too chunky, too boring, too stripey. And re-knit it yesterday into a Monkey sock. I'm not sure why I chose Monkey. It may have been because I was wearing my other pair at the time, or maybe because the weird stitch pattern is satisfying. It does a lot in its weirdness... it's flat after it's blocked, it's interesting but really easy to knit, and moves the rows of stitches around a bit. It's still weird though. I've also been working on my bedjacket, which has some of the strangest construction I've seen in a sweater in a while. At least now it's beginning to look somewhat like a cardigan. I'm considering altering the pattern to use some different lace edging, but I'm not sure which one yet. I'm sure there will be something suitable out of Victorian La

Reference Post: 2007 Finished Objects

Mermaid Scarf Custom-fit Gloves M&M Baby Surprise Jacket Grannie Smith Cardigan Sidewinder Socks Argosy Scarf Pomatomus Socks KPPPM Socks Grad School (it counts!) Sockotta Socks and Victorian Lace Scarf Monkey Socks ... plus several other pairs of socks that didn't end up with their own entries. 2007 wasn't much of a banner year, but with grad school and two moves, knitting got replaced with some more important stuff. The way 2008 is going, it looks like I'll be producing a lot more.

Something for nothing

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One benefit of having a fairly substantial stash is that even though I may not have any income, I can still knit guilt-free. Even if all I did was knit, I think it would be quite a while before I really ran out of yarn (not that the stash is that big, only three plastic tubs). Anyway, this is what I did to keep my hands busy while watching lots of football this weekend: Just your ordinary sock, but the colors of Koigu really make it wonderful. On our trip to Trader Joe's yesterday I spied some sad potted trees resting with someone's trash and decided I would baby them on the patio for a while to see if they would grow for me. I don't know what they are. Unfortunately last night it was dark when I got the trees. I could tell they'd either been underwatered or suffered from frost damage, but what I didn't see was that they were infested with scale. Not heavily, but I'm going to have to decide how to treat them or whether to simply trash them... I guess you ge

Cakelets

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For Christmas, I got the lovely other member of my household a gift of a mini multi-bundt pan . We really like cupcakes, but these... these cakelets are beyond compare. They are just like fabulous mini cakes, and thankfully they come out of the pan perfectly, because I think there would be no digging them out without scratching the non-stick finish. I made chocolate cake from scratch (we need a new recipe, by the way) and it made 12 of these little guys and two extra little cupcakes. After they cooled, we glazed them and stuck a chocolate chip in each one. Just as simple as cupcakes and twice as much fun!

Quilting

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Every so often I get this urge to quilt. Usually I realize that quilting tends to stress me out, with all its precise cutting and sewing and hunching over the sewing machine. But my old quilt is a bit too loud for a certain someone, so I promised I would make an all-blue quilt instead. I gathered up all the blue fabric scraps in my mom's stash (ah, the joys of having a fabric stash to pilfer without the responsibility of housing it) and then bought lots of little packs of 1/8-yard assortments in brighter, deeper, more contemporary blues. Here are most of them. There are lots of different prints, some floral, some batiks, a toile, some stars, plaid, abstract, even a 30s-style print with little dogs that remind me of Asta. At first I thought I would do some very random piecing, maybe just squares all put together randomly, and then I realized that was going to be a complete disaster. So, like any good crafter lacking inspiration, I wandered through Google Images until I found s

Happy New Year?

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After a very nice Christmas with my family and a low-key New Year's at home, this week has come as a bit of a shock. I was laid off from my job but I am confident that I will find something else, and soon. In the meantime, I have caught an industrial-strength cold bug and am filling my new free time with a little knitting and scheming. In the spirit of catching up and starting new things, I have lots to show you! I finished the Kaffe Fassett Regia socks a while back. Admittedly the knitting was a bit boring, 3x1 ribbing all the way down, but I love the stripes and the ribbing means they fit my wide, high-arched feet perfectly. No more toe-up socks, I just can't get the heels positioned properly. I also knit a similar pair as a gift this Christmas, and it seems they were well received. Hooray stripey socks! There hasn't been much else in the way of socks lately, but lots of other knitting. This is about one ball into the Logan River Wrap, which I'm enjoying but I