KnitMe

Many many pictures

We have a day off today so I am catching up on all the things I haven't gotten taken care of around here. I forgot to post the mittens last week - they were done fairly quickly and finally have all the required parts.

To my surprise I find they are not all that warm. Maybe it's the fact that the yarn is very light and I am used to mittens done in heavier yarn. Fortunately this winter is not all that cold so it'll be ok, and next winter Emmy will get worsted weight mittens. Meanwhile, I bought a few more colors of the yarn (Knitpicks Palette) to attempt to recolor them in shades of pink and purple with an accent of grey. Since I am color impaired this will be a very interesting experiment. The yarn is a nice all-purpose fingering weight yarn that would make light-weight sweaters for those who do not live in an aran weight climate.

I finished up my feather and fan socks this week, too, and wore them immediately.

I really like this pattern (from the XRX book Socks socks socks) - it fits my leg very well and the pattern is much more elastic than I expected it would be. I didn't knit the heel flap as written and wouldn't recommend that to anybody - it's just ribbed, no heel stitch for durability. I suppose that is why it seemed to be so short - the pattern calls for 20 rows of ribbed heel, and 20 rows is usually the length of heel flaps I make for Emily. I lengthened it, but not enough, and I would lengthen it more next time I make the pattern.

The yarn is Fleece Artist sock (the 'fat' version) and it was perfect for the pattern.

I was thinking I would lay off sock knitting for awhile - I made 7 1/2 pairs for myself last year and 2 for Emily - but I have so much beautiful yarn and so many nice patterns that I started another pair right away. The picture didn't come out good so there isn't one, but the pattern is the 'Monkey' sock from the winter issue of Knitty, and the yarn is some Tessyarns sock yarn in beautiful shades of purple, medium blue, and blue-green. Oddly enough, it's bleeding blue dye on my fingers which I didn't expect from this yarn. I guess these will go into a vinegar and hot water bath before I wear them the first time. I love the colors and the way it's working up.

I also finished my Spinners Shawl (the new pattern by Evelyn Clark).

This was made from some of Lisa Souza's superfine merino in the color 'Wild Things', spun two-ply at a sort of dk weight.

It came out really big - it's almost four feet tall at the point. I tried to use up all the yarn, and came fairly close. The thing to know about this pattern is that the border is much deeper than you expect - the main pattern repeat is 10 rows, which you do as long as you feel like, but the border is almost 40 rows and eats up a lot of yarn. I knit the main pattern 13 times but it was clear about halfway into the border that I wasn't going to make it, so I ripped back the border rows plus two main pattern repeats and did it again and it was much better. I'd almost say the border alone takes half of the yarn. The border is quite pretty.

This is the softest, cuddliest thing. I seem to have a predilection for purple shawls. I have to say, though, that I think Flower Basket is her best all-purpose shawl pattern.

I continued knitting on the Trellis scarf with my cashmere yarn. I think it will be lovely.

The little maneuver where she decreases 7 stitches into 5 seems insane at first, but once you get the hang of it and knit the pattern repeat a few times, you can see how beautifully it works.

Emily has inherited my old 2 megapixel camera and is running around the house photographing me, cats, herself, furniture, etc. etc. This is her photo essay on mommy spinning.

"I wanted to take a picture of Mommy with the spinning wheel."

"I like to take pictures of Mommy because I like to see the yarn she's making."

"I like the spinning wheel."

"I like Mommy's spinning wheel because it's beautiful and I like the color of it."

Posted by Prudence at January 15, 2007 09:50 AM