K3tog: ILx Knitting 3

Euroflax hurt my fingers.

If I washed the hand towel I made with it a few times, I'm sure it would turn out nice.

I went to the big yarn sale at my local shop. Louisa Harding for $1 a ball!! I haven't knit anything with all the sale LH I bought last summer, oops.

I'm going on a yarn excursion tomorrow with a visitor - involves knitting on the ferry, so extra fun.

Tried to stave off the yarn buying urge by organizing the part of my stash that is hidden in the basement, but it had no effect - I used all my birthday $$ on pretty pretty handpainted laceweights from Etsy and ThinkBamboo laceweight from Amazon.

New yarn is pretty fucking hard to resist. Also it's an awesome birthday treat.
I bought myself a ballwinder and swift as a grad-present-to-myself, but I haven't used them yet. I told myself if I ever got one, I'd rip apart all the (embarrassingly large #) of projects I didn't finish because I fucked them up too bad (or worse, two sweaters I gained too much weight during the process of making to have the end product fit). And then rewind the yarn and reuse it. Sounds very virtuous but now that I have the object I'd been telling myself was the key to doing it, I realize it sounds like the world's biggest pain in the ass. I'm thinking of just mercy killing a few of them, esp. the sweaters.

Plus I recently reread the always great Knitting in Plain English and she makes it sound like the ripped apart, washed, rewound, reused yarn is not worth messing around with.

If it's inexpensive yarn, I wonder if it would worth the effort. I can see trying to salvage expensive stuff though. Except not mohair, which I just don't like.

There's some reclaimed heathery green cashmere on Etsy I am seriously tempted by.

what weight is it?

I guess it depends on the yarn and how much you like it.

I did rip out a sweater and make a blanket out of it. It was somewhat crappy yarn but the blanket is still good.

Abbs, it's like cobweb weight.

One of the women in my knitting group is a keen frogger - whatever she's working on, she will have ripped it completely back multiple times. Once we get back to a regular schedule, I'm going to talk about lifelines. Now I've finished a second diagonal garter lace shawl (vv simple pattern), I want to do some complicated lace, which seems to call for lifelines.

I am really, really fucking lazy about fixing my mistakes. Just the worst. I'll either leave in 10-20 semi-glaring ones or just give up and put it in my monument to sloth and rot, the unfinished objects graveyard.

In Las Cruces I had a friend who was very good about giving me a hard time about this and making me fix whatever, with a lot of laughter and bossiness, but on my own I'm just like 'fuck it.' I miss that friend. She'd untangle all my yarn for me, push me to be a better knitter.

I haven't tried to find a new knitting group in Tucson.

Thinking of lace - thanks superpitching! (if you are still around) I read all the way through this thread to find the lace shawl with the waves you posted, b/c it has haunted me since I saw it. I think my complicated next project will be this one from the same designer.

I'm pretty good about fixing things as I go, or figuring out if I can compensate for whatever I did wrong. Except with the lace, b/c man what a pain to unknit and I haven't sorted out how to use a crochet hook to fix things up like I can with garter or stockinette. I bought like a gross of unwaxed dental floss years ago, time to actually use it.

Oh man, this one lady at knitting, is always ripping out. "Seventh time's the charm!"

After the 100th "I can't do that" or "I don't know how to do that" I told her "you can do it, you just don't want to." The shop owner agreed with me, ha ha.

Going to a Stitch N Pitch game today. My friend likes baseball and I like knitting, so it works out.

Also, I think I have a project/pattern named after me.

TR I will bring my sad scarf project to NYC; we can knit and bra shop and FAP.

a project/pattern named after me

Oooh!!

Stitch N Pitch here is sometime in July. I might go this year, not with the group I went with the last time though.

Knit in Public is coming up! My ferry excursion today got squashed due to visitor misremembering when her flight was (9 pm, not 9 am). So i might KIP on light rail/ferry/bus or something.

I'm always k'ing ip

Like children's day, everyday is knit in public day.

Oh, now I really hope I have day off when you are here, quincie.

Me too!

It's taken me a long time to get used to k'ing in public :(

I found projects from five or six years ago that I never finished OOPS. And they are all fingerless mitts, so it's not like they are big projects. I reknit the thumbs on one project in the round. I didn't think they looked that good knit flat and seamed.

I want to finish my angora Louisa harding sweater, but I am not sure how to attach the lace (knit in ribbon yarn) to the edges of the sweater.

So, how about them Ravelympics, eh??

I've never participated - are you planning on doing it this year?

I'm headlong into lace knitting, to the point of making edging for my kitchen curtains:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7272/7414904620_a70ffaff17.jpg

That's rayon #10 crochet thread. I also bought some cording silk (used to string pearls normally, I guess?) to try out.

I have been making this same dischloth pattern over and over. Too hot to work with anything but veggie fibers.

Ravelympics controversy!
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/06/22/ravelry_olympics_usoc_apologizes_to_online_knitting_community_over_trademark_crackdown.html

After what happened to the organizers of the first ever Portland Sock Summit, people should know better than to piss off knitters.

I am probably going to be calling into a fellow knitter's Sportsy Talk radio show to discuss this next week.

And this after the Woolsack controversy

Knitters. You think they’re just sitting there, purl stitch, knit stitch, surrounded by wool, clicking away quietly. But really: these are people who have no idea, literally no concept, that there is any project so large they can’t finish it, no challenge too big to be overcome, one stitch at a time.

There is so much truth in this.

Finished off the lace and sewed it on today:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8164/7436661894_74306ed9e6.jpg

Gorgeous lace, but I'm also trying to figure out just what in the heck is in the tray below the curtain!?!

It's a crocheted pot scrubber :) A friend makes them. This house has the original plumbing fixtures from when it was built in 1940 - that's a little soap tray above the back of the faucet.

At first glance, I thought it was a SCONE and thought "oh how appropriate with the curtains" :)

They look excellent, Jaq!

yeah that's really impressive

Aw thanks - I'm really pleased with it and really enjoyed working with that rayon thread, which was unexpected. Mr. Jaq is worried I'll go lace-mad and embellish everything in the house.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7079/7372316392_28e74a675c.jpg

I can do jacquard flat. Dead easy to be honest. I also did the paper dolls FINALLY.

Beautiful! Your seams are gorgeous!

since i temporarily gave up on sweaters i am knitting all the cowls on the quince and co site because i love to knit cowls! then i will do all the scarves and all the hats. i'm a lamewad. i just love winter accessories. i need to switch to continental though, i'm just so lazy.

Nath, I love that sweater.

Something makes me think I originally learned to knit English, this memory of holding a straight needle between my arm and my side. But when I restarted knitting, probably 20 years later, I automatically went to continental for some reason. I did a lot of crocheting in between, so maybe that did it - hook in right hand and yarn in left? idk. All the ladies in my knitting group who I taught all knit English - why?

Tomorrow I am doing a course on jacquard knitting. TWELVE FREAKING COLOURS.

If anyone can tackle it, it's you!

LOL. Apparently I can. But it wasn't really as I expected. It was more about colours coordination. Guy was Brandon Mably (partner of Kaffe Fassett). It was a blast. But also VERY hot and no airconditioning so by the end I was just NAUSEOUS beyond belief. Anyway:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8287/7502774910_139216ff0e.jpg

At a distance it actually looked quite good. Brandon M even commented on it. :-)))))))))))))))))

But I have to say:

WHAT IS THE POINT OF doing stranded knitting FLAT. I MEAN FFS. Just do it in the round and cut. URGH. Typically English (and Rowan style): FLAT FLAT. Honestly.

Wow, that looks amazing!

You really do have to look at it from a distance Then the colours seem to blend more. Not a big fan of fair isle though. But I had fun anyway. And I learned a lot. Next up I would really like to learn intarsia. I know how but I want to really get the hang of it, y'know, like I do stranded knitting.

Man, the colors on that scarf are great!

Nicely knit, too, of course.

Nath, that looks really great - I can't imagine managing all those colors!

so i started this cowl pattern that begins with 3/4 inches of 1x1 rib over 228 stitches with size 2 needles. i then began the cable/lace repeat and realized i had cast on 238 stitches! but i didn't start over, i just dropped 10 stitches, continued the cable pattern and hope to rip that tiny part out and sew together the edges of the rib at the beginning and end. it's 7 repeats tall, maybe like 10 inches? i can do that, right?

It sounds like that would work, to me. Those 10 stitches will only be, what, maybe 3/4" wide?

I'm knitting quantities of baby shoes: https://www.etsy.com/listing/107817608/seamless-organic-cotton-booties I modified this eco booties pattern to seamlessly knit from the bottom up and am now playing with all kinds of cuff options.