Defying the Laws of Knitting

Guys! I did a knitting tutorial vid! A friend suggested that I shoot it again with yarn that isn't as bright and that I went off camera accidentally once, which I agree with. Does anyone else have suggestions for reshooting this? Any requests for more tutorials?

Spent most of my day today tabling/advertising for the knitting club on campus. Whee.
I'll have to rip out everything I did in the last week on the Pretty in Not Pink tank top. I can get it on and I could just line the boob-age part. but honestly it just doesn't look good to me as stretched out as the pattern wants it to be.
The fall knitty is up! Norah Gaughan (author of Knitting Nature) totally has my number. I see her patterns sometimes and, without knowing she designed them, I gasp in joy at the cleverness.

I've been meaning to blog about this for awhile now. This was supposed to have sleeves according to the pattern. But I have a short attention span and I decided to not force myself to make the sleeves, I live in a exceedingly warm place I don't need sleeves. The project kind of lost the thrill of the chase for me towards the end of the body. The lace pattern never really became automatic, but it wasn't complicated enough to hold my attention so I ended up doing something completely different about halfway through that just has holes in the right places. Normally that would drive me crazy, but it would seem that in bulky black yarn I could care less.

I still have quite a bit of the yarn I used left , discontinued Kool Wool, and I vaguely remember offering to make a much thinner friend a smaller version of this.

I felt so incredibly cool that day at school. The new black over shirt/ sweater vest whatever, I made it. That crystal bracelet I'm wearing, I made it. The purse I was carrying ( Via Diagonale), I made it.

In my history class this summer my friend who sits in front of me works on filing down her new metal castings. I'm not above admitting that I was trying really, really hard to out do her the day I wore all of this to class. She was kind enough to take this picture for me :D Wait, she does photography too?! Time to break out the underwater basket weaving!

Mom went to the hardware store and got the supplies a few days ago. Today, Dad and I built a lace blocking frame! I'll post pics when I can get someone to load them off the parents' camera. I've still got to put about 50 nails in to wrap strings around for blocking but it's almost done. This icon chosen because we nearly started fires several times in the process of building the frame.
Not only is the blocking frame almost done but today I finished the knitting on the Mystic Light Shawl. You're pictures of the blocking frame with probably have Mystic Light being blocked on it (and you non-Knitters reading this blog will have a better idea of what I'm talking about).

Some knitting is content to stay at home the entire relationship, maybe watch a DVD, a late night or two, just generally content in its own complexity that it doesn't need to be treated out in order to feel special.
Some knitting is more demanding, expecting walks, movies, dinners out with your friends, public displays of progress, and some even crave education alongside their knitter.
Socks and scarves especially tend to fall in this later category.
But there is a category of knitting that is more demanding still, the famous "traveling sock" is one of these. They require special locations where you don't take your "other knitting", to be entertained dramatically and constantly, and at some strategic point to become the center of attention for all involved in the trip knitter and non-knitter and non-tourist alike.
My mom's neighbor bestowed on me yarn that was to become one of the most demanding socks in progress that I have ever worked with.
This particular sock has demanded vacation with my family, Shakespearian theater, sightseeing, high tea, and a host of other refined and exciting treatments.
This is one picture of the sock that I have so far. I'll keep you posted as the pictures and adventures come in.

Since my mother won't let me have blue hair at a family wedding, I quickly knit up an adorable snood. I'm hoping that a cute hair covering will convince her to let me just hide my hair rather than having to cut the blue off. If not, I've lost nothing cause this thing is freaking cute and very comfy.

I've started a new blankie, made fun ice-cream yarn on my spinning wheel, finished a Jayne hat, finished a lacy scarf thing, worked on half a dozen socks, and started another lace project.
Where are pictures of all this you may ask? I am temporarily out of a camera, it was confiscated or something when I took it in my check baggage on a plane :( Though my last camera was really old, as digital cameras go, and kinda broken so I guess a new one was probably in order.

I was working for awhile on a shawl for a friend's birthday (no pictures until it's done), but then got to the point when I was going to change colors. The second color/yarn I picked out was a worsted weight while the rest is sock weight. Until I had the second yarn wound into a skein ready to start the second section, I didn't think about the two weights being a problem. Then after the advice of _purple_raven_ and rapunzellelafee  agreed with me (I gotta make sure I'm not paranoid sometimes), I decided that the birthday shawl is going to have to wait until I can get more sock weight yarn.
With the yarn that I was going to use I've started a quick new project.


Pattern is WWII Mittens #211 by Bucilla Yarn
More details on Ravelry.

When the parents were here, we took a sock in progress and some finished socks for a nice walk around the nearby lake.
The sock in progress wanted to show y'all the bat house.

The completed socks said "if we're hanging out at the lake, we should have a picture at the lake!"

The winter Knitty is up! Some of you know how the Clapotis shawl took off not too long ago... someone just crossed it with REVERSIBLE freaking CABLES!! *Squee* I'm thinking of making Jeanie with some very special sparky red yarn I bought off a friend. There are some really good looking sock patterns as well this issue, but they kinda got out shined.
Would I be a bad person if I let this get in the way of my Christmas knitting?
Speaking of Christmas knitting. Only a hat and 1.5 socks to go +however many dishcloths I can crank out.

wool after second bath, what a difference a little soap makes. (No pictures of baths 3-6). If you're really lucky I'll post pics of wool drying (better than paint! though maybe slower).



Isn't just the prettiest little thing? I used my favorite wood stain, I mean I'm going to be looking at this thing a lot. The double feet makes it 3x easier to control the wheel and thus that much closer to being able to spin mindlessly.


Roving I spun in in LYS to get a feel for new wheel. Blurry, but it really is a lovely, not solid grey. I think I'll be leaning towards spinning finer yarns, I can't see myself making anything out of wool that needs to be washed so any yarn I make will probably go towards shawls (which are already special care for the rare washing so it's not that big of a deal).

Washing Grease Wool. First bath (I plan to do this a couple times). *crosses fingers* please don't felt. please don't felt...


My Spinning wheel as of now. Hold your breath. I'm loading it into the box and taking it the yarn store for help with assembly.

Welcome to the new journal! I'm gradually moving all knitting post over here and deleting them from my other account (So far I've gotten through 2005). I'll have a proper layout set up when I get around to it.
Tonight I went to my first class of my spinning class. My spinning wheel is still spread out on my floor in unassembled pieces drying from the staining and polyurethane, so I had to borrow a wheel for this lesson. Tomorrow, I'll take the wheel over to the yarn store real quick for help with assembly.

my RA/roommate from last year is a RA in the grad student dorms this year as she graduated last year. she has to coordinated an event so she asked me to teach a 4 week knitting class. i'll be providing the materials out of the money they'll be PAYING me to teach! it'll be in january. i've already started working on a syllabus. (there will be diagrams...)

started making a tank top w/ the yarn i got at yarn works yesterday. went to walmart to get stitch counter & tape measure, ended up getting their last skein of simply soft black, two skeins of simply soft autumn red, and a cross stitch pattern for a DUCK.

i'm making a lot of progress on all my knitting projects, but i feel bad because they're all for me. i could be knitting for charity by making the red scarf thing or making stuff for the sale, i should e-mail the people who have offered to commission me to make things for them so i can make money off this crazy obsession of mine but no, i'm selfish. I love how my parents were mildly tolerating of the whole knitting thing up until now (with the constant hinting that it interferes with my HW) but i told my mom about getting paid to teach a class in January and suddenly i'm a "professional knitter" and they're all excited. honesty i wasn't going to tell them b/c i thought they wouldn't approve of me doing one more thing outside of class until my grades improve but now i'm glad i did.

finally called alpaca lady about yarn. i was supposed to make her socks but the yarn burns my hands. this upset her. she says they wash it with mild shampoo and it may be that. she's not charging me for the yarn i took out of a skein and put into a ball *WOOT*. i'll send it to her next week.

skirt of Masochistic DOOM is more than 11inches now. i'm thinking if i use up all the yarn i have i will actually be able to make it more than 17in long. this makes me happy as it makes wearing shorts underneath all the more easy. i think it looks really good. there will be a picture when i'm finally done.

am knitting the 6th row (for the second time) on the skirt of ruffled DOOM! i realized the first time that it was twisted and as i am knitting on the round that was a problem so i had to start over. i'm trying again but i can't tell if it's twisted or not yet, 650+ stiches don't like being crammed onto a 19inch kneedle even if the yarn is tiny (sport weight). pattern: http://www.creativeknittingmagazine.com/pdfs/fp1may.pdf it calls for 1008 yards of sport weight and i have 918 yards of the dark blue i was going to used to make a tank top, i'm hoping that will be enough if it's not i can use a different color for the top part as a pseudo belt.

Bwah hahaha! after i make a match for it i have to figure out how to tweek and play w/ the pattern