Mikknit

Thank you to everyone who had kind words for me when I posted about my grandma’s failing health a few weeks ago. She passed away peacefully this morning at home.

We’re doing okay so far, although Arlo had a really rough night last night and a rough morning today - I think he knew something was up. He had a pretty strong connection to my grandma, and I was wondering in the back of my head if she was passing. Guess I was onto something there, eh?

I haven’t had much knitting of note lately, hence the lack of bloggage. I’ve mostly been working on the maroon and gold socks for Chris, and when you’ve already seen part of one maroon and gold sock there’s no need to show you the second one at roughly the same stage. I’m partway down the foot of sock #2, so I should have it finished during holiday travel time.

I’ve been feeling a little directionless in my knitting lately, since I only had a couple gifts to knit and otherwise it was just socks. I’ve been wanting sweaters more lately but of course I only have one cheapo store-bought sweater and one overly bulky Lopi sweater to my name. There are three stalled-out sweaters in various stages of completion in my stash - the orange Peace Fleece one, the teal Silky Wool one, and the red Nature Wool one. The Peace Fleece one is the most recently abandoned sweater and therefore was in the upper strata of the stash (oh yes, my stash has strata. Scary!) making it easy to find. I slipped it off the needle and onto waste yarn to try it on - I had a suspicion it’d be a bit big, and I was correct. It’d have comfortably fit at the 6 month point of my pregnancies, which is not the look I was going for. It turns out that as big as my gut is, it’s much smaller than my chest, which is the measurement I was basing the sweater on. Um, duh. I may be fat, but that doesn’t preclude garment shaping - there’s nothing that looks more schlumpy than a fat woman wearing a tent. Ripped it out and now I’m starting with the Seamless Set-In Sleeve sweater from Knitting From the Top, by Barbara Walker. I’ve scrapped her directions for the provisional cast-on since it doesn’t turn out right when I do it, instead going with the more failsafe crochet cast-on. I have high hopes for this sweater! I’m going to be more careful to get correct measurements and pay more attention to things this time.

To make up for the lack of interesting knitting progress, I do have some spinning to show you:

First off, some fiber I got from the lovely PippiKneeSocks. I think this was her Nightfall of Diamonds fiber - 70% wool, 20% nylon tinkle, 10% sari silk (or was it 20% sari silk and 10% tinkle?). This stuff spun like a DREAM! The whole time I was spinning the singles I was sitting here thinking “This stuff is so pretty, I want to lick it!” - I think I’ve been listening to Lime & Violet too much lately. I don’t know what I’m going to do with this yarn yet, right now all I’ve been doing is carrying it around the house with me and petting it.

2-ply, about 180 yards, 2.95 ounces

Next, the sample fiber that Pippi tucked into the box with the sparkly stuff. I spun this up as finely as I could and was THAT fun! I definitely need to do more of that. It came up at about 166 yards/oz, which looks like about laceweight or so. Too bad there’s only about 50 yards - I’m at a loss as to what to do with it.

2-ply, about 50 yards, 0.3 ounces

Yarn with a dime for scale. As you can see, I have some work to do on my spinning consistency.

Finally, I’ve got the wool/mohair mill end fiber that Kerry convinced me to buy at Detta’s sale last month. This spun up a bit more thickly than I’d intended, more like sportweight yarn instead of fingering, but still within the range of appropriate weights for socks. If you can believe it, I fit all of this on ONE bobbin. Yes, it was about 10 yards from leaping off the bobbin and wrapping itself around the post that the bobbin spins on, but it fit!

2-ply, about 480 yards, 6.2 ounces

And for kicks, a bonus picture:

Mmm, pile-o-yarn!

I doubt I’ll be back to update before Christmas, so let me wish you all a happy holiday! I hope Santa leaves something lovely and wooly in your stocking!

I’m not doing a ton of Christmas knitting this year, but I have chosen to do a couple things, just because it’s much easier for me to think of something to knit for someone than to think of something to buy for them. Plus, I’ve gotten into the habit of giving my mom and my sister something handmade every year for Christmas, so I guess maybe it’s becoming more of a tradition. Plus, I can’t just make socks for myself all the time - I need to knit for someone else from time to time.

So here is one of my Christmas knitting projects:

Oblique Openwork pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, using Silja in color 393

Silja is one of my favorite sock yarns - I’ve got two pair of socks I knit for myself out of it between 3-5 years ago and both are holding up wonderfully - no pilling, fading, or wearing through. I had to darn one pair, but it was because one ply of the yarn got snagged on a nail and broke. A little duplicate stitch and it’s as good as new.

Also, my package for the Knitters’ Coffee Swap arrived the other day! I am so glad I joined this swap - I not only got an awesome package of yarn & coffee, but I got to have a blast choosing things to send to my swap partner. Here’s what she sent me:

Two skeins of handspun yarn from a local spinner, a skein of handpainted sock yarn from RubySapphire Yarns, a nice big tote bag, some stitch markers that she made, some 100% Guilt-Free chocolate, and of course some delicious locally-roasted coffee (not shown because I’ve already started in on it).

Thank you so much, Sunne! And a big thank you to Knittymama for organizing the swap!

I’ll leave you with some teaser photos of my next Christmas knitting project, which is also my project for the Stranded Colorwork Knitalong. I can’t show the whole thing because I think the recipient may read the blog, but I can show a little bit of it:

As I said in a comment on a recent post of Vicky’s: Stranded knitting - it’s better than crack!

This is U of MN Golden Gophers colors - maroon & gold - hand-dyed self-striping yarn from Scout’s Swag. I’m doing the heel flap in the Eye of Partridge stitch and look how it’s coming out. Neat, huh?

I have a huge rave for Scoutj - I asked her to do this yarn for me a couple months ago and when I started knitting it up, it was purple and gold. Nice, but we’re not MN Vikings fans here So she offered to redye it for me, free of charge. It arrived last week or the week before and it is perfect! She’s already gotten a good amount of business from me (and significantly enlarged my sock yarn stash!), and she’ll continue to be on my shopping list.

The socks are for my husband. They were originally supposed to be a surprise, but I had to spill the beans when I got all excited about how they were turning out.

Well, two actually. It was difficult to choose a favorite among the stories you guys shared with me, but I read and read and read again, finally coming up with 5. Then random number generator took care of the dirty work.

So, the Nature Wool Atacama will be going to Amanda, who doesn’t appear to have a blog. With writing like this, I think she should maybe consider starting one!

The Cherry Tree Hill Supersock will be going to Beth, who also doesn’t have a blog. Again, someone whose writing would make for a nice read.

Thank you to everyone who participated! I’m looking forward to reading your blogs (oh yes, did I mention that this was a stealthy way to collect more blogs for the blogroll?) and getting to know you better.

I’ve got an FO to share, I think I’ll go get that and take some pictures while it’s quiet here.

One of the things I love about spinning and knitting is that it’s brought me into contact with a group of people who I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise. Up until I learned to knit and spin, I didn’t really have any friends here - the friends I had were either people I knew from high school (who lived far away) and friends who were my husband’s friends in college. I’ve always been socially inept - I think it comes from my preference to keep my nose buried in a book rather than working to make friends. Plus I was in the smart group and the orchestra in high schoool - two things that didn’t help much with social standing and building social skills.

When I picked up spinning and knitting, I started hanging around yarn shops and joined the Weaver’s Guild of Minnesota, where I met several people through the beginning spinning class I took and the monthly spinning group. I went to the spinning group last night for the first time in probably two years or more and it was like I had been going every month without a break - very comfortable and welcoming.

I got to talk to the women who taught the natural dyeing class I took, the woman who was inspired to take up spinning after watching me demonstrate at the State Fair, women I’d gotten to know at past spinning group meetings, and a couple new friends. I left the Textile Center relaxed, happy, and refreshed last night and despite a late bedtime and an early wake-up call I am in a pleasant mood and ready for the day. More proof that a regular evening out is necessary for my sanity! Coffee would help, though. Guess I should go make some.

I’ve chosen the prize yarn! I’ll get pictures of it up a little later - I still have to go dig one of the skeins out of my stash. Make sure you leave a comment here and share your favorite fiber experience with me before 5PM tomorrow evening!

The first anniversary of Mikknit is on Wednesday, December 6. To celebrate, I’m running a contest! The contest will open as soon as this is posted and it’ll end at 5pm on Thursday December 7 - I’ll choose the winners then and post them Friday morning.

I debated what sort of contest I wanted to do, and here’s what I came up with:

I want to hear about your favorite fiber experience - a favorite project, your favorite yarn, favorite yarn shop, how you learned to knit/spin/crochet/weave/etc., a favorite person you’ve met through fibery pursuits, you get the idea. I’m going to choose two of my favorite stories and the winners will receive some yarn (yarn to be determined) this yarn:

Araucania Atacama, 100% alpaca. Color 402

Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Potluck in Brights

Leave me a comment on this entry with your story! I’ll post my story tomorrow - I have met so many awesome people through knitting and spinning, it’s going to be difficult to narrow it down to one or two stories to share.

As I promised last Wednesday, here are the pictures of Arlo’s sweater (finally). It is SO difficult to get a good picture of this kid - he never stops moving!

Here’s the sweater unmodeled

(please excuse the funky sleeve positioning - I neglected to photograph this *before* he wore it and of course he got food on it)

“Reach for the sky!” - the only way I could get him to hold still

I’m pretty happy with the sweater, though I think I made the neckband too wide. I’ll have to undo the bind-off and rip it back a couple rows, maybe. He seems to like it, though it’s hard to tell since he’d really just rather be naked.

I’ve been craving some stranded knitting lately, so when my aunt offered to buy some yarn for me on a recent visit to Borealis Yarns, I grabbed a couple skeins of Cascade 220 to make a hat for Arlo, who was desperately in need of a nice warm hat. I pulled out my (very battered) copy of Hats On! by Charlene Schurch and cast on for the Danish Earflap Hat. I believe I started this on Wednesday night and I finished it Saturday evening. A nice quick little project, good to have when Chris was out of town all week for work. I had some difficulty with the earflaps, mostly because I apparently can’t count, read patterns, or do short rows. No clue why it was so difficult, but I think it took three tries before I got it right. After that, the rest of it went off without a hitch. Arlo won’t keep it on, of course, but that’s why it’s got ties! I figure he’ll figure out how to untie it ASAP, so I’m going to have to dig out one of the cord stoppers that I have kicking around the sewing room. That ought to keep it in place. Maybe.

Excuse the white blur - Mimi desperately wanted to be in the picture and I had to snap this quickly before she jumped up on the stool.

I enjoyed this project so much that I’m already planning my next stranded knitting project - a pair of mittens from Folk Mittens by Marcia Lewandowski. I’ve got red and black yarn for the Ullred Mittens and a plan for the matching hat in Hats On! in the future. I’m hoping to get the mittens done in time to use them as a Christmas gift, so I’ve got to finish up the sock I’m working on soon. I also want to make a stranded hat for Grace, though I’m not sure which one out of the book I want to do.

Oh hey, I promised a contest to celebrate my blogiversary, didn’t I? I’m going to make that a separate post so it’s easier to keep track of (for me, at least).