Workin’ Girls

I love the girls I work with! They love watching what I’m knitting and whatnot.  One of them was just so cute today, she goes “Oh WOW can you knit me a sweater?”  I just chuckled and said “honey, I’m sorry, but those take MONTHS and months of knitting, and they can get very expensive!”  She seemed really impressed.  ^_^  Besides, I’ve already got two others wanting scarves! ^_^

To my Mother in Law

I hope you found my site alright, I know it can be a little tough to navigate the web sometimes.  I hope you enjoy seeing what I’m working on at the moment as well as what’s going on in our lives at the moment.  I didn’t want you to feel left out of the knitting world, so I wanted to explain some phrases I use now and then that are knitting related.

Frog, or Frogging= Ripping out knitting.  Often with me, this is to fix a careless mistake many rows back!

Needle size=  Basically, the bigger the number, the bigger the needle.  My new project is on size 17 needles, those are incredibly huge knitting needles.

Casting on, or Cast on = Beginning a new project.  Creating the very beginning “row” of stitches is called “casting on”.

Skein= Basically just a ball of yarn.  If I have 5 skeins, I have 5 “balls” sitting around somewhere.

Join=  The start of a new ball of yarn.  Where they’re “joined” together is called the “join”.

Felt, Felted, or Felting= Ever washed a wool sweater?  When you wash it, it becomes “felted”.  The fibers in the wool become tangled creating a solid fabric, and it shrinks.  The difference is, knitters do it on purpose. (Most of the time!)

Swatch = A test piece. We(‘re supposed to) knit a small piece of fabric in our yarn to test how it washes, and how it sizes up, etc.

Gauge= Can be a complicated concept to explain, but basically it’s a swatch that gets measured to tell you if your knitting will turn out correctly for the size you need.

Weight= Any time I say “bulky weight”, “worsted weight”, etc. I mean the thickness of the yarn.  There are many different weights going from the lightest (lace weight) to the heaviest, I’m not sure of the heaviest, but I think it’s like Super Chunky, or Polar weight, or something similar.   The Bulky yarn I’m using right now is quite thick.

Entrelac= To be honest, I don’t know what it means.  I think it’s French (?) for “Interlocked”.  If you look closely at my Danica scarf, it’s entrelac because the pieces look like they’re interlocked, or woven together.

KIP= I’ve met a lovely group of ladies in the Wichita area who get together to knit now and then.  KIP stands for “Knit In Public”, so I refer to them as the KIPers now and then. ^_^
Love you, hope you’re doing well, and enjoy the knits!

Holey Moley!

I’m so glad I finally found a project I like for my Rumour yarn. It’s so chunky that it’s really not a good yarn for a sweater or coat or anything, and I have too much for a small project (roughly 7 skeins). Enter Holey Moley, a really neat looking poncho. I think the yarn I have will do really nicely with it. I think it looks like a rather, erm.. “low brow” item in the picture, but I think it will do quite nicely when I’m finished with it! I have some pictures to share with you all of course, here is my Yarn Pr0n (even though it’s not Friday, that’s ok). This is my yarn I’m using that I’ve been going on and on and on and on and on about (sorry KIPers!) It’s Paton’s Rumour in Hibiscus Heather.

Well it’s a start! I’m knitting it on size 17 needles, so it is flying by. Last night I walked 3 miles on a treadmill and tried to knit a few rows. It turns out that I cannot walk, watch a Harry Potter movie, and knit at the same time, I messed up my stitch count! Please everyone, be careful when knitting on a treadmill, frogging is much more dangerous when walking rather when sitting!

I’m really pleased with it so far, but then again, that’s what I said about the clapotis! Hopefully I’ll finish this project! ^_^

Danica complete!

What a great project! That was so much fun, I’m thinking of doing a comforter in entrelac. Knitting each piece really kept my interest, and I really love the intricate “woven” detail. Here’s a picture of the completed Danica.

I can’t help but wear it everywhere! I haven’t gotten any “non-knitter” comments on it as of yet, but I certainly hope that one day someone will compliment me on it! I can’t help it, I love the attention! ^_^

Ribbit!

Yep, I did it. I couldn’t take it anymore! Sorry guys, but that monstrosity of a clapotis was really getting to me. Now I need to start the Holey Moley that I want to turn it into. Personally, I find the picture of the pattern quite loud, and not in my taste in the least, but I think with the colour of the yarn I chose, it will do very nicely. Want to see what’s left of the almighty clapotis?

Branching Out

It’s been done for a while now, but I thought I’d finally post a picture of the finished scarf done in Paton’s Lacette. This scarf is going to a lovely customer of mine who was a regular for a long time until she recently was placed into a nursing home. I wish her the best, and I hope she knows the Braum’s crew misses making her Biscuits and Gravy each morning.

P.S. Please excuse the water I spilled on the bed! I’m always spilling something or other.

Great weekend!

What a weekend! On the 14th, we celebrated my *cough*24th*cough* birthday. We got a new video card for my computer (yay!), wandered around Wichita for a while, and went out to dinner at the lovely Uptown Bistro in Old Town.  It was a lovely day off from work, though I had to work the 15th, my first wedding anniversary! I didn’t mind too much since I get off at 2:30 anyway. When I got home, I had a wonderful suprise with a very nice anniversary balloon, a Schwarzwald torte (black forest cake-ish), a wonderful card with a coupon for unending love ^_^, and lots of hugs! We spent the evening tracking down a Thai place that was open, and finally settled on Promise Thai, a very good Thai restaurant that seemed iffy since it seemed like it pushed christianity.  I admit, it was strange to see church business cards on the tables, and Jesus fish on the sign.

I really wanted to post an updated picture of the danica scarf, but *gasp* I left my knitting at WORK!  Oh man! Now I have to watch T.V. with nothing to go through my fingers!  Well that’s ok, maybe it’s better off that I pay attention to my husband on our one year anniversary.

4 hour car trip!

Last Thursday I took a long car trip to Kansas city to enlist for the Kansas Army National Guard. While in the car, and while waiting 13 hours for various tests, analyses, physicals, paperwork sessions and whatnot, this is what sprouted! Remember that tiny clapotis? It grew into a ferocious yarn beast! It’s very heavy to work with since I used bulky (doh!) Paton’s Rumour yarn in Hibiscus Heather. Note to self, there’s a reason that patterns come with recommended yarn weights!

Danica Scarf

Since I was out of yarn until payday, I tried the danica scarf in my baby blue acrylic yarn. It was turning out kind of neat, so I really wanted to try it with the recommended Merino yarn. Thank goodness I had some extra cash in my account thanks to Tim, so I bought 3 skeins of yarn at Michael’s, Paton’s merino Dark grey mix, and a blue one (I forget the name) since they were out of grey mix. I like the dark denim/almost navy colour with the grey anyway, the colours work very well together. I’ve heard the yarn felts beautifully, so I felted a swatch yesterday, the very first thing I’ve ever felted! ^_^ It didn’t come out well the first time, but with some soap and a pair of work pants, it came out really great!

Well here are some pictures of my danica scarf so far. I kind of wanted to felt it since I’m on a felting kick right now, but then you wouldn’t see the really neat directionals of the knitting. Here are some pics I’ve taken of it, please excuse my yarn ends.