Saturday, December 31, 2011

A Bevy of Shawls: Cladonia

The final installment of This Year In Shawls Draped over My Sofa is a bright and colourful Cladonia.


Back in my self-striping sock yarn phase, I picked up a few balls of Knit Picks Chroma fingering weight. I knit one pair of socks with one ball, and had planned to do another variation of my Zauberball socks with the other two balls, alternating colours. When I was at this summer's Sock Summit, however, I attended a lecture by Clara Parkes on the properties of different types of yarns, wherein she mentioned how singularly unsuitable a single-ply yarn is for socks, as it won't tend to perform well under pressure and friction (i.e. exactly what a sock undergoes day after day.) So what to do with these two lovely balls of fingering weight single-ply yarn? Obviously a Cladonia shawl.


It knit up very quickly, partly because I was enjoying the colour changes so much. There are a few places where the changing colours clashed with each other, so by the end of the shawl, I was splicing sections out, to make some colours predominate while eliminating others.

I think it ended up pretty cute, though I have to admit that I haven't worn it a lot, yet. It takes a certain joie de vivre to pull this one off, n'est-ce pas?

Friday, December 30, 2011

A Bevy of Shawls: Not Your Granny's Shawl


Having completed the complicated Bridgewater shawl, last April, I was certainly ready for something quicker and easier. When I saw the release of the eBook What Would Madame Defarge Knit?, nothing would do but to make one of the Flatland crocheted triangle shawls. I thought it would be nicest if I used a self-striping yarn with long repeats, so I found some Wisdom Yarns Poems Sock on sale at Webs, and ordered two balls, with the intention of making a large dramatic shawl.


I decided that updating to a more contemporary colourway with the yarn, as well as using a glossier single ply yarn, would update the design and keep it from looking like a huge granny square shawl, like your own granny would have made.

Of course we all know how quick crochet is, so despite restarting a couple of times and completely changing the stitch employed in the pattern, I was still done the first ball of yarn by the fourth day, and ultimately decided not to use the second ball, as it seemed to be large enough for my plan, which was a cute little crocheted neck scarf.


In the end, it still sort of looks like a huge granny square, but I still like it. After a severe blocking, the fabric is quite crisp, and I've worn it a fair bit. I like how it looks, sort of retro, sort of not. And for only four days' work, who could complain?

Thursday, December 29, 2011

A Bevy of Shawls: Bridgewater


This beauty is one that I worked on throughout last winter, and finished last April. I suppose I was waiting to blog it until I could get some photos of me wearing it, but seeing as that hasn't happened, the sofa will have to be my surrogate.

Turns out that the last time I showed this off, I hadn't even started knitting it, but was still experimenting with kool aid overdying. Once I finally cast on, there was a long and enjoyable period of garter stitch, to create the square center panel of the shawl, followed by a stint of lace in the round, a long hibernation, eventually coming back to it and finishing the lace, and finally a long and drawn out slog through the knitted-on edging. This type of edging takes forever, but it always worth it, in the end.


After all was said and done, I took a big plunge and dunked my finished masterpiece into a bowl of grape kool aid. The end result is a bit patchy and not quite as dark a colour as I'd intended (I used 5 packets of grape kool aid, but perhaps twice or even three times that many would have been closer to the result I was after.) I pinned it out and decided that the patchiness added some visual interest and depth to the shawl, and opted to leave it as is. Someday, when I need to wash and reblock it, I might grab some more grape kool aid and redo the dye job, but right now I love it.


The overall texture is super light and floaty (it's once again Jaggerspun Wool/Silk, in case you didn't remember) and I usually fold the square into a triangle and wear it that way, as a neck scarf or a shawl. Added bonus: a subtle fragrance of grape whenever I wear it.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

A Bevy of Shawls: Holden


I decided to take some time today to photograph some old projects that I've never shown off. One of the ones I had on my list was this lovely Holden shawl. When I started uploading the photos onto Ravelry, I realized that I finished this over a year ago! I've worn it a fair bit during that time, because I love how it turned out - such a beautiful but simple neutral accessory.


Initially I bought this yarn (Viking of Norway Baby Ull, which is a fingering weight baby merino) to make a pair of socks. When that didn't exactly work out the way I hoped, it disappeared into the stash for a little while, before I pulled it out again to use it for this project. Holden is such a lovely pattern that I knew a simple yarn would work well and show off the lace. I love the feminine design in a basic elegant grey.


After blocking, the hand of this fabric is really great. The warm soft halo of this yarn makes the texture of the shawl just luxurious. It is quite warm and wraps around into a lovely scarf, too.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

A Year in the Planning


Okay, not really. I had it planned out and ready to go, way back when, but sometimes things just fall behind in the weaving queue, you know? So after making numerous showy towels and scarves and whatnot, throughout this whole year, I finally feel like this project's time has come. (I laughed when I read the bit in last year's post about "one more project before this one." A textbook example of the best laid plans, I think.) Perhaps the best impetus of all is that it's been a bit chilly of late, so why not prepare for the winter by weaving a toasty blanket?


I mentioned in that first post that I'm weaving it in two panels. This is the beginning of the first one, six repeats across and eighteen long. When I finish the second panel and attach them, the finished blanket will be twelve repeats by eighteen, which should be somewhere around 45 inches by 60 inches, the perfect size for napping on the sofa.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Pop Quiz, Hotshot

Does anyone want to hazard a guess regarding what this portends?

Monday, November 21, 2011

Revisiting the Kindergarten


The first pair of colours I matched up for the second series was some beautiful heathered Cascade 220, possibly my two favourites of all their many shades. There was a lovely sort of wheat yellow with green heathered throughout it, and a sort of greeny grey brown. They look lovely together, and have a bit more contrast to the naked eye than this photo would appear. What I love about this scarf, another version of Hopsack with a 2-colour warp, is that one side of the fabric has vertical stripes while the other side has horizontal stripes. I wish it was clearer in the photo, but nevertheless, it might give some little kid something to ponder.


The next pair of colours is also Cascade 220 -- I was planning to use the magenta with a dark wine red, but there wasn't enough contrast to show the pattern well, so I went in a very different direction and grabbed some more of the bright green. The two colours clash terrifically, which I think kids like, right? Anyway, I did a herringbone twill with some basketweave strips between. I saw a draft sort of like this one on Weavolution, and adapted it and cleaned it up a bit to use it for this scarf. I like how it turned out, and it certainly reminded me of how much I love a simple herringbone twill.


Lastly, I pulled bits of many of the colours I'd already used and wound a random little warp to weave in random stripes of plain weave. I decided to do plain weave instead of twill, because I wanted the various colours in warp and weft to intermingle and blend and create some interesting hues. I think it went pretty well, although I have to admit that I enjoyed this one the least, perhaps because I prefer having a bit of structure, rather than so much freedom. Is that weird? I also had to change the sett, to 8 ends per inch, which seemed maybe a bit loose on the loom, but fluffed up nicely once I soaked and washed and fulled it a bit.

A cute little stack of woolen scarves.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Kindergarten Scarves

One of the lovely ladies I knit with regularly is a kindergarten teacher. A purer heart you will never encounter. She mentioned a while ago that some of her kids can't really afford proper winter wear, which is obviously a must in Edmonton. I thought that the least I could do was contribute a few scarves from some random and/or leftover wool I had. Knitting makes great scarves, but so does weaving, and it's waaaay faster. So I paired up some colours and picked some drafts from my Handweaver's Pattern Directory, and started. Four days later, four cool scarves for kindergarteners.


Thursday: I started with a simple neutral zig zag in browns. This is some leftover Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, and when I took it off the loom and washed it, it fluffed up a lot and made a super air-filled scarf. It will be warm, for sure. This one set the standard for the rest, with 10 epi, and aiming for about 6" wide and 50" long.


Friday: I tied this warp onto the last one, since it used the same threading and the same number of ends. I just did a different treadling for this one, also out of Wool of the Andes, and it made kind of a cool polka-dot almost-stripe thing. In the photo, on the left and center panels, you are looking at the front of the fabric. On the right you are seeing the back of the fabric. Similar but different. When I finished this one, I put a little more effort into fulling it when I washed it, and it ended up a very nice cohesive fabric.


Saturday: For the third one, I put together two great shades of green Cascade 220 - a searing apple green and a mellow teal - and, after rejecting several design possibilities, decided that nothing would do but to revisit the zig zag. I love how it looks in these two colours. The whole time I was weaving it, I wished it was for me. It makes me grin every time I look at it. There is something Kermit the Froggish about it, I think.


Sunday: Lastly, I pulled out two more skeins of Cascade 220 and did a variation of Hopsack with a two-colour warp and weft. I don't know the name of this pattern, but I've been wanting to weave it for a while. It's sort of a minimalist houndstooth or something. Anyway, I love the effect of the two-colour warp and weft, and also love these two colours together. I bought them ages ago to make a pair of herringbone mittens, but just never got around to it.

So that's the end of my Four Scarves in Four Days series. Of course, after I finished the four I'd planned, I realized I still have enough leftover yarn for at least a couple more. So I pulled out the warping board and got back to work.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Woobu Scarf: Take Two


For the second iteration of the leftover Woobu scarves, I decided to revisit a fancy-looking twill design that I used for my very first ever weaving project. The Handweaver's Pattern Directory tells me that it's a variation on M & W threading. Me, I just did what it said to do, and hoped for the best.

If you compare this scarf to the original, you will see the similarities, as well as some differences. The original was done in a super-drapey bamboo yarn, which was quite fine. This yarn is of course a much fluffier wool and bamboo blend. After blocking, it does have a surprising amount of drape for a wooly scarf.


Unfortunately my indoor photo shoot washed out the colours a bit, due to the sheen of the yarn - the design does actually stand out quite a bit better than it appears to, in these photos.

Having finished that one, I am in a bit of a scarf-frenzy right now. More to show off, tomorrow!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Busy Bee


I've been AWOL for a bit because I caught a case of finish-itis. Unfortunately not also a case of taking-photos-itis.

Hallowe'en came and went and I'm particularly pleased with this year's costume: the adorable and beloved Bee Girl from Blind Melon's No Rain video.

Obviously I knit the armwarmers and the hat (from KnitPicks Palette), and just altered a yellow henley t-shirt for the top. Most of the effort went into sewing the tutu, which entailed me nearly drowning in 6 yards of black netting and yellow ribbon. Having never made a tutu before, it was a bit of a hack, but certainly good enough.


A lot of people didn't get the reference, and just thought I was a bumblebee, which was okay, because the people who do remember Bee Girl loved it and I made people giggle happily all day, and feel a warm golden glow of reminiscence.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Woobu Scarf: Take One

Although my yarn stash isn't yet taking over my home, it is slowly growing excessive. As most knitters do, I periodically pledge to make some projects from yarn out of my stash, rather than buying more yarn. Sometimes that's easier to do than others. In this case, it was an inspiration to dig out some gorgeous Woobu that I had left over from two projects (oops, that reminds me of two more Finished Objects I haven't yet blogged...) Once I dug it out of my closet, I realized that I have just tons of it. I decided to make two (maybe even three) woven scarves with it.


The Jengu yarn is the whiter one - I used that for the warp of the scarf, in a point threading. Then I wove a 2/2 reversing twill to match, using the Irish Girlie Green. The colours in the green look pretty fantastic, not least of which is because of the sheen of the bamboo in the yarn.


It was a challenge for me to weave this loose enough - after having woven so many towels out of cotton/linen, I am used to beating the weft yarn pretty firmly. Even while trying to be gentle, I still started this out with far too many picks per inch, and had to unweave a bit and try again. It was a very quiet and gentle project, and I enjoyed the beautiful colours for every bit of it. In fact, while I was weaving this scarf, I kept thinking that it must be the prettiest thing I've ever made. After weaving, I twisted some fringe for the ends, and then gave it a bath in some Soak and laid it out to dry.


Once again, the whole scarf took only two days (which ultimately means I finished two whole scarves, start to finish, in four days!) It seemed to take a bit longer to dry than the alpaca, and resulted in a firmer fabric than the previous scarf did. That might be due to the much springier nature of this yarn in comparison to the relative lack of stretch in the alpaca. I am planning a second scarf with the same warp & weft combo, but in a different twill design, and right now I'm considering whether I might want to make that one a bit looser, at maybe 10 ends per inch, rather than 12. The jury is still out on that.

End results: a pretty scarf, a smaller stash, another project out of my head and into my hands. Big win.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Grey on Gray Twill Scarf

The greatest part of finishing the towels is that I finally got to start working on the scarves I had in my head. The greatest part about weaving scarves is that they are so darn quick. I put this one on the loom on Monday and finished weaving and had it off the loom by Tuesday night.


I wanted to make a scarf for my HLM, since I have only ever made him one scarf (a rather impractical one I knit years ago, pre-blogging.) He mostly wears black and muted colours, like many guys, although he has started to branch out into colour in recent years. I decided to stick with a monochromatic scarf, to try to make it very wearable for him, so I chose two shades of grey in a luxurious soft alpaca. I made it nice and wide, so it can cover face and neck, and long enough to wind around the neck once and still hang down enough to tuck into his coat.


I wove it in a simple 2/2 twill, with both colours in both warp and weft, which creates a simple and masculine block design. It is similar to a gingham, but I assure you that I had this scarf planned out long before I decided on a whim to make a gingham towel. The sett is 15 ends per inch, which seemed great while I was weaving, but once I unwound the cloth from the loom, it felt so stiff that I thought I had woven it too tight. I washed it in a sink full of Soak (and was shocked at how filthy the water got during that wash) and laid it out to dry overnight. By yesterday morning, I knew it was okay.


Now that it's completely dry, the hand is great: it drapes well and has lots of movement on the bias. Some of the softness of the alpaca is constrained by the weave structure, but it will be interesting to see how the fabric changes with wear, as some of the guard hairs come loose to enhance the sensation of softness. As well, I expect the alpaca will begin to full together with use, as has been my experience in the past with alpaca garments.

In any event, my HLM seems pleased with it, and it will certainly keep him warm once winter comes again to the Great White North.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Allover Stars Towels


I have come to realize that one of my blogging problems is that I love the moment of the reveal so much that I often forget to post in-progress photos. Here we are again, with a project that I didn't get around to mentioning until it was already completed. Yes, it's another set of woven towels, but the last ones I'll subject you to, for a while.


After I finished the Striped Star towels, I folded up my loom and worked for a bit on a quilt top that I wanted to finish (oops, there's another work-in-progress I haven't shown off, yet.) I had several woven scarves bouncing around in my brain, but I decided to put them off until I wove one more set of towels. That's because I realized that I could just tie the warp for these towels onto the warp from the Striped Star towels (very easily because it is the same yarn at the same sett and threading) which saved me the effort of having to put 450-ish ends through the reed and heddles individually, and also saved a bit of length in the warp. Okay, that was probably greek to most of you who aren't weavers, but in simplest terms, it saved me a day or two (or four) of effort by tying the warp on. That way, I could get to the weaving part a lot sooner. I got it tied on with virtually no problems, and was weaving right away. They went quickly, with each towel taking about two days to finish.


When I mentioned to my sister that I was going to do towels with allover stars, rather than just intermittent stars where the stripes cross, she said: "Oh, won't that be awfully busy?" (She clearly takes after my mother, who says that every hexagon quilt I make looks awfully busy.) I knew it wouldn't, and thought that it would be sort of like a gingham, which isn't busy at all, but has a pleasing repetitive design. As I was weaving the first of the star towels, I realized that the threading for them was the same as the threading for gingham. The sett (how many threads are in one inch of weaving) was closer for the star design than I would want it for plain-woven gingham, but I decided to risk it, for one of the four towels, anyway. It did end up a little stiffer than the other towels, and I couldn't quite get the squares to be square (because the warp threads were a bit too close to let the weft thread push far enough between them.) Still: so cute.


I hemmed the four towels by hand and then threw them in for a machine wash and tumble dry. They shrunk a bit, and the weave collapsed in, like a waffle-weave would. I steam ironed them and they flattened out nicely and have a soft absorbent hand, like the previous set did. Oh, and did I mention that the back of the towels has the reverse design: white stars on a purple background?

Friday, September 16, 2011

Maddie & Molly


I've given you a couple of teasers on this project, mostly because I was confident that no one would ever guess the truth: that I was knitting a set of conjoined twins.

I hope you will agree with me that they are just the cutest things, and that everyone needs a pair. I have named mine Maddie and Molly, and you can see that, though they are so much the same, they have their own personalities, too. Maddie is clearly the more outgoing one, although wary of strangers. Molly is the shy one, and mostly only talks to her sister.

Revealing the dolls to people I know has been funny, because of the way they look confused and then astonished (and then mention that I'm crazy.) It's funny how everyone questions the anatomy of the dolls, wondering why there are three legs instead of four, for example. Like snowflakes, no two sets of conjoined twins are the same, and this duo happens to be joined throughout the torso, and have two arms and three legs. Nuf said.

I took a page from Ysolda when I designed these dolls. Having knit Ysolda's Sophie bunny a while ago, I realized how great it is to construct a doll completely in one piece, in the round, without having to sew pieces together at the end. That was my goal with these dolls, as well. It begins with knitting and stuffing the body, then you pick up stitches to add the legs, then the arms, then the two heads. You stuff it all as you go, so once the second head is done, your dolls are finished. Awesome.


The girls are wearing a pretty basic blue stockingette dress, with puffed sleeves and garter stitch trim. There is a single button closure in the back of the dress. They also have a white pinafore over the dress, with eyelet details and i-cord straps and ties. It would be great to make a bunch of outfits for the girls, to play dress-up, although the third leg would certainly make pants more of a challenge to knit.

I anticipate some people feeling that these dolls are, shall we say, inappropriate, but I disagree. I think it is always a good thing to show children that people come in all shapes and sizes and are just as loveable no matter how unusual they look.

Pattern forthcoming.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

It's a Bird, It's a Plane... It's a Chair

I found some supercool Superman fabric at the fabric store yonks ago, and picked some up with the intention of making my HLM some pj pants from it. When he saw it, his first thought was that I should use it to recover a stained old bucket chair we had in the living room. Let it be said that I don't know how to reupholster furniture, and let it also be said that this fabric is not upholstery fabric. He was adamant that I could do it (since I am crafty in many ways, he assumes I am crafty in every way) and I can't say no to him, so I put some thought into how to do it and one day tackled it.


I did the bucket part first, since I thought I knew what I was doing. My initial plan didn't really work, but I managed to jury rig something that more-or-less did. The seat cushion part eluded me for a long time, because there is actually a fabric apron holding the cushion to the chair, so a simple cover wasn't possible. Yesterday I figured out how to do it, and this morning I measured and cut and sewed the cushion cover and voila! Super chair.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Castle Stark socks


I've been wanting to knit the Yarn Harlot's Lenore Socks for years, really. Unfortunately Blue Moon isn't offering their patterns for sale as pdf files, yet, and I always forget to add one to my cart when I do a yarn order from them. They had some copies of the pattern at their booth in the Sock Summit Marketplace, so I happily snagged one. I poked around the booth to see if they had a nice skein of their Raven yarn to knit them, but Haida was what I had my heart set on, and there was none. I decided to use the opportunity to try out a new yarn. I looked high and low for nice black yarns at various booths, and came really close to getting a luxurious one at Fiber Optic, but ultimately I decided to try out Cascade Heritage sock yarn in a charcoal grey, instead.


As you can see, the top of the sock has these fantastic peaks that flow down into gothic arches. The sock was very simple to knit, particularly once past the design on the cuff. I used a few different needle sizes to change the sizing a bit, making it wider for my calf. The Heritage yarn knit up very nicely with the 2.25mm needles I used for the ankle and foot, and it seems to wear very well. I have one more skein that I picked up at the Webs booth at the Summit. It may well become my inexpensive ($12 a pair) go-to sock yarn.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Striped Star Towels


I did a couple of posts when I began these towels ages ago, and I actually finished the weaving and cut them off the loom in mid-August, but I finally got around to taking some photos of the finished product, so you can see them in all their adorableness.

As I have mentioned, they were woven in the cotton-linen blend that I still have too much of, in a 1/3 and 3/1 twill weave. If you look in the large white spaces between the stripes, you can see the classic diagonal lines of twill. 3/1 twill, incidentally, is the weave used for denim jeans, so even if you didn't realize it, you are very familiar with it.


The warp made four towels in total, but I gave one away, so there are only three in the photo. I am already planning another set, but this time with allover stars, in violet and undyed yarn. Finishing those might get my cotton linen stash down to a more reasonable amount...

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Hemp Produce Bag

As part of my ongoing effort to catch up on posting finished projects, here's one I finished just a couple of hours ago.

One of my friends recently came back from a trip to BC with a couple of skeins of Allhemp3 for me to play with. I decided to use one for a prezzie for her and to keep the other for my own selfish uses.


Since one skein of Allhemp3 isn't a whole heck of a lot of yardage, I tried to find some smallish useful projects for it. There were a couple of contenders (like nubbly exfoliating washcloths) but I decided to go for a mesh produce bag (free on Ravelry), instead. I made one of these a long time ago, using leftover cotton yarn, and knew it would be quick and simple (and a good palate-cleanser for me, between projects.)

I made it most of the way through the mesh part before I ran out of the red yarn. Luckily I had some orange Allhemp3 in my stash, left over from some older projects. I finished the mesh and did the handle in orange. I think the two-colour bag is pretty cute, in the end. I gave it a wash and hung it to dry, to soften the stiff hemp a little, but a bit of use and some more washing/drying will leave it as soft as it is durable.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Phase 2

I have successfully finished the first part of my latest project, which I showed you the other day. Just in case you weren't sure exactly what I'm making, here is another clue, as I start the second part.


I hope that helps clarify things for you. ;)

Thursday, August 25, 2011

More Socks


The final installment of my recent self striping stockingette socks binge is this pair, made from Knit Picks Chroma Fingering weight. It is a wool/nylon single, similar to the Zauberball. I didn't go through the fuss of alternating stripes on this pair, which means I got a pair of socks that is perhaps more fraternal than identical.

One of the lectures I attended at the Sock Summit was about different types of yarns, and it was mentioned that this type of yarn is not the best for socks (since wool singles don't stand up well to pressure and abrasion, which socks receive in abundance.) I had two other balls of Chroma which I was going to make into a striped pair of socks, but I decided that they might be put to better use, elsewhere. I'll show you, one of these days.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Work in Progress

I remember being a little girl, sketching and colouring dresses, and dreaming of having a career as a fashion designer when I grew up. There were times in later years when my dreams changed and I got sidetracked by other things, but I have always loved the idea of being a designer. (My obsession with the many incarnations of Project Runway is certainly indicative of that.) Of course, in recent years, I have begun to dabble in knitwear design, with some sock patterns, and some sweater ideas, etc. Never in all those years did I imagine that I might end up designing soft toys, and I certainly never imagined I would design one that started out like this:

Friday, August 19, 2011

Breaking News

Not merely knitting news, this time, but actual real news!

Some of you may be familiar with the case of the West Memphis Three, a murder case in which three teenage boys were convicted for killing three 8-year-olds, in West Memphis, Arkansas. The teenagers, now fully grown men, have been in prison for 16 years (one of them on death row) while a growing group of supporters have argued that they were wrongly convicted, and have fought to have them exonerated. After years of legal battles, and having many DNA tests performed on the evidence (which have found DNA that doesn't match any of the convicted men) today they are finally being released from prison. As always, the WM3 site has the latest news on the case.

At this time, it appears that the three men have entered an Alford plea, which is a type of guilty plea that means that they maintain their innocence while admitting that the prosecution may have enough evidence to convict them. I have to admit that I'm still a bit flabbergasted that the case hasn't been entirely overturned, based on the lack of evidence, but at least the guys are finally getting to go home and be with their families and friends.

If you would like more information on the case, there have been two documentaries released: Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, which covers the flawed trial and conviction and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, which follows up on the three men and their fight for freedom, several years into their sentences. A third documentary was slated for release next month, but I imagine the filmmakers will do some more shooting and re-editing, based on today's news.

Goes to show - what seems like an endless battle can be worth the effort. Sometimes the good guys win.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Simple Socks for Summit


Oh my gosh, it's been how long since I posted?! I guess I lost the blogging mojo for a while, there. My crafting mojo hasn't disappeared, but I haven't been taking photos, mostly, so there's been nothing much to show for it.

I went a little crazy just prior to my trip to Sock Summit 2011, obsessively knitting to try to finish my Traveling Sweater for the trip. I succeeded, but I was pretty burned out by it. Photos of that will have to be another day - suffice to say it was a hit: for me personally by keeping me warm on the plane (where I usually freeze my buns off) and also for my fellow knitters at the Summit, where it garnered a few compliments. For the record, my Honeybee cardigan was the most popular of all my knitted items at Summit - I was pretty proud to have so many compliments on that one.


Choosing a project for the trip was easy - I always choose simple stockingette socks for traveling, since they are mindless and small and portable. This time I grabbed another skein of self-striping yarn from Biscotte & Cie, and cast on. Nothing fancy, just a toe-up stockingette sock with afterthought heels. They were perfect for airport lounges, airplanes, and classes at Sock Summit. They are also perfect for sitting around, enjoying the last precious hours of my vacation.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Seeing Stars

Anyone who read yesterday's post might be wondering what I had up my sleeve with these towels. I have one word for you: stars!


If you look at the spot where the vertical purple stripes meet the horizontal purple stripes, you will see little four-pointed stars. Cool, huh.

Over halfway done weaving the first towel (and still enchanted by the way the stars appear, bit by bit, as I weave the purple rows.)