Neophyte Knitter

It's Halloween!

It's the best day of the year!  Happy 29th Birthday to me! 

Ponchos & Wraps: a knitter's dozen - Friday Review

Ponchos & Wraps: A Knitter's Dozen (April 2005)

The first in the "Knitter's Dozen" series from Knitter's Magazine.   And yes Lauren, apparently a knitter's dozen is 24.  Who would have known?   I have reviewed Bags and Scarfs previously and I still have to get to Hats and the yet to be published Kids.

This is another good book in the series if you are into ponchos and wraps.  For me, this trend is on the way out sure to return sometime in my late 30's.  I think most of these patterns bug me because they are too long, almost to the models knees!  Or they employ really small models.  I prefer cute little capelets (scarce in this book).  Still if you like humongous ponchos (and there are more of them than wraps), this book has a variety shapes, textures, and looks, all of which can be easily adapted.   

And with 24 patterns, you are bound to find at least one that you like.  I found two. An all-seasons poncho knit circularly from the neck down using simple fair isle that could easily be shortened and a lace cape thing that as a jacket that would look great over a simple dress.   

Fall Is Everywhere

I think I have already mentioned how much I love Fall.  It's the only thing I really miss about New England.  But today, I have my own little bit of Fall here in the office.  My Sugar Daddy (aka my pal Wayne) send me a wonderful bouquet of flowers for my birthday full of reds and yellows and oranges!  And it even has faux Fall leaves and a pumpkin gourd (peaking through on the bottom right corner).  I love getting flowers at the office....it makes me feel so special.  Especially after such a crazy week!

My quick trip up North went well.  It was a useful trip and provided some valuable knowledge for one of my projects.  And I got to have my favorite Chowder anywhere in the world (yes it is better than Boston) on the Wharf with the Golden Gate in the background on a sunny day.  Perfect.

I have started another felted purse project.  I bet you can guess what inspired my color scheme.  In the next few weeks, I will be knitting a lot of items destined for felting and to be gifts.  I want to take them back to Massachusetts with me over Thanksgiving and use my Mom's washer since I don't have access to one here.  One of the banes of apartment living.

Well I am gearing up for my busy November.  I am hitting USC homecoming on Saturday and then flying to Vegas that night until Tuesday.  The following week I head down to Puerto Vallarta for the wedding and then I am going back East to visit the family for a whole week for Turkey Day!  I haven't been back to Massachusetts since last Thanksgiving!  All this travel makes good knitting hopefully!

I Escaped.....Or Did I?

So I finished the sleeves.  Woo Hoo!  And eager to actually finish something, I started the seaming.

That's when disaster hit.  I knew from way back that I was two stitches off and I thought I was OK with that.  It would be slightly off center but who would be able to tell.  Unless of course, you know both sleeves are off-center in totally different ways!  This means when you attach them, the left side repeat is more towards the front and the right side is more towards the back.  And it looks flipping awful!!!  I couldn't even bear to take a picture and threw away in disgust.

To calm my nerves, I worked on seaming my one of the huge felted purses to be and got that ready for a washer.

So now, I don't know when I will want to touch Apricot again.  I have to rip the sleeves and re-knit.  I will probably do it sooner rather than later, lest I "forgot" about the edge stitches again.  But blech! 

Ah well.  I have started another simple felted purse to work on as I fly to Oakland for work tomorrow.  I have to be at the airport at 5am and will be back in LA by 7pm.   More on that on Wednesday!  Now it's time to go get my teeth cleaned! 

TV Exposure

As you all know my boyfriend and soon to be roommate is a card magician.  A damn good one who is known in the magic world.  Last night, he was on TV.  USA's Ready for the Weekend was at the Magic Castle for their schtick and Jon was the only magician invited to do a bit.  He was so cute on TV.  Of course he didn't like watching himself but who does. You can see a picture of him wowing the hosts on the website.  My boyfriend is so cool.

Friday Review - Great Knitted Gifts

Great Knitted Gifts by Andrea & Gayle Shackleton (March 2005)

Knitted gifts.  Everybody wants them as soon as they see you turning string into marvelous pieces of art but not everybody deserves to have a piece of our sweat and tears.  Still....knitter's tend to be generous folks and more often than naught, will find ourselves giving a knitted present to someone.  So books featuring knitted gifts are good.  Of course, anything can be a gift so this basically leaves you open to include whatever you want in a book, but I digress.  In this case it's hats, scarves, gloves, bags and kids sweaters.

The first thing to say about this book is the color combinations are wonderful (which stands to reason since they are knitwear designers...who knew!?!?).  Lots of crisp colors that seem elegant and fallish all at the same time.   Some of that has to do with the photography which is full of natural backgrounds and light.  None of that snapping pics on a solid background in this book. 

Book is divided a bit oddly, grouped according to the "source of inspiration" - circles and dots, flowers, stripes and squares and kids.  Makes sense right?  Well not to me but in a book that can contain whatever I guess semi-arbitrary divisions are to be expected.  I do commend them on not including a lot of extraneous information on knitting.  They head straight to some very interesting patterns.

Patterns are well put together with excellent pictures and clear directions but there are flaws.  One of my quibbles has to do with the yarn.  They only give a yarn weight and colors in each pattern, which I understand...encouraging substitution is good.  However they don't even give you an inkling of the yardage needed, a crucial detail when buying yarn for a project.  Another thing to note is that the patterns are super heavy on the intarsia.  I have never seen so many color charts in one pattern book.  And the graphs are strictly color coded so when you make a copy, the gray shadings will be meaningless.  And the note where it said to color photocopy the graph sections to help with knitting made me laugh.  How many of us have access to a color copy machine?  Not me.  And it's too much work to hit a Kinko's

Now this book visually pleased me but when I got right down to picking a project I would actually knit, I had to face reality.  Not a single one appealed to me enough to warrant a single photocopy.  And that's the truth. 

So I guess you can really like a knitting book without feeling the need to buy it.  This is one of those.  Perfect for flipping thought to admire the aesthetics of true artisans without any desire to reproduce them.   

 

Sleeve Island

Yes.  I am stuck on the damnable island. I feel like a character on Lost.  Not only does there seem no way off but the numbers are cursed!  Between finishing the body and casting on for the sleeves, I let over 3 weeks elapse.  So I forgot all the things I learned the hard way the first time! 

Like how to do a tubular cast-on.  On the front pieces and the back, I followed the Montse Stanley instructions and it appeared like magic.  This time I kept getting loops with no edge.  After three tries, I said fuck it.  For the sleeves, the long-tail cast-on would be stretchy enough. 

Then I forgot that the Rebecca instructions do not include the edge stitch in their numbers.  They expect you to add two more.  This little quirk did not bite me in the arse until I started doing the decreases and couldn't get it to match up.  After quite a bit of huffing and a few curses, I decided that symmetry was overrated and that once I seamed these suckers no one but me would be able to tell.  Well that''s my story anyway and I am sticking to it.

I am dutifully plugging away and entertaining thoughts of a new cardigan by Monday.  That's almost as nice as dreaming of winning the Powerball jackpot. 

Best Pattern Ever!

OK.  Not only is Tit Bits one of the coolest, most useful patterns I have ever seen, it has the best name hands down.  Once again, kudos to knitty for disseminating cool knits and to the amazing pattern designer, Beryl Tsang, an inspiration to us all. 

And is it wrong that I want to make one? 

Alive and Kicking

OK.  It's time to get back to blogging.  My break was nice and needed to combat my blahs but I realized this weekend, that I miss it.  And I don't feel right reading all the other bloggers who are sharing a piece of themselves without doing the same.  It's a weird sort of guilt. 

Now one of the reasons for the break was a bit of drama at home.  Not bad...just unexpected.  Sort of.  The first week of November my roommate is moving out and my boyfriend is moving in.  We had talked about doing it some hazy day in the future but the ball started rolling a bit early and there was no stopping it.  So on to a new chapter in my life and as with any major change, I am working through the myriad of feelings.  Excitement is definitely in the mix but also some trepidation and a bit downright fear.   

Knitting is happening again.  I seemed to have coasted to a stop for a while but I am ramping back up to full speed.  Of course I still don't have any damn FO's.  I just seem to be working on a few projects and getting no where.  It's the black hole of knitting!  Still eventually they have to get done.  Right!?!?! 

So I won't bombard you with knitting updates and pictures.  It's all in progress stuff and those pics are not all that exciting, well except for this one.  It's my lace of the moment, a Leaf and Acorn Scarf (Fibertrends) in Knitpicks Shimmer in Maple Leaf.  I love the Fall colors!!  Of course at the rate I am going, it will be Spring before I finish.

But I hope to have a FO before my birthday in two weeks (I hit the big 29 on Halloween).  Both Furz and Apricot are pretty close to being done. 

Friday Review - Quick Knits with Today's Yarns

WARNING!!!!  THIS BOOK BLEW CHUNKS (in my opinion).  NEGATIVE, SNARKY REVIEW AHEAD! 

Quick Knits with Today's Yarns by Jayne S. Davis (May 2005)

What in the hell does "Today's Yarns" mean?  Hasn't knitting been around for millenia?

And the designs in this book...anything but stylish and maybe fun in a clown sort of way.  For this book it's all about the "flare" (Office Space is one of the best movies ever!). Every design has something on it, beads, gold coins, or buttons.  Even a simple scarf design is turned garish with embellishments like "sensuous silk flowers" which looks like someone crushed a ribbon in their hand and stuck a pin it it.  The yarns are used to create hideous items like the "Jazziest Hat", a red, white and blue fur monstrosity.  Some of these are so hideous, I am embarrassed for the models (except the one with big-ass 80's hair with the bad highlight job, if she can carry that hair off, these knits are right up her ally).  The I-cord necklaces weren't half bad.  I always thought a skein of yarn around my neck would be the perfect accessory. 

Oh no.  I ...can't....seem....to....look....away.    This book is like a horror flick and I am morbidly curious to see what perversion of nature is eventually unveiled. 

This book is definitely aimed at new knitters with questionable fashion sense.  People who will think that tube socks, knitted flat and seamed up the back are cool.

And because, I am trying to say "nice" things, this book has the best step-by-step instructions with pictures of how to make a tassel and a pom-pom that I have seen.  Good job on that part.