More Blue...

I've been collecting skeins of Trekking XXL for a couple of months now, and I've finally found a cause for them - here's my first post on Trek Along With Me - I'll be going on quite a few Urban Treks, I love socks - a perfect fit!!
Conveniently, I had color 108 - a lovely blue. Great for Project Spectrum!

Project Spectrum June - The Month of Blue

Knitting may fall by the wayside this month in light of moving cross country to our new home on the East Coast. In the process, we are inheriting not one, but TWO blue rooms. I'm not a blue room fan - although our kitchen is yellow with blue and white accents nowadays and likely won't change in the new place.
I always view my bedroom as the most important place in the house - a place of rest. Its color is carefully chosen, and I have to be just crazy about how it's decorated. I've been in love with our bedroom here since we moved in:


Our new bedroom is a 3rd floor loft, and it is BLUE. Bluer than blue. My first thought was to paint it ALL. And then I realized that it was blue over the stairwell leading up to it. Blue in the hallway, too. Boy, that's a lot of blue to cover up - and over the stairs, pretty dangerous. So, for June, I am embracing the blue. To begin this adventure, I am ordering new bed linens. I'll be spending the better part of the month, I'm sure, figuring out how to decorate in blue in a way that I won't be sick of in 5 seconds, LOL.

So, without further adieu - here are the "before" pictures of the bedroom:



Here's hoping the "after" pics do Project Spectrum some justice!

Knitting Philosophy

Four months into this whole knitting "thing," I find myself defining what, exactly, my knitting philosophy is. I've learned I'm not a process knitter - I love the feel of yarn, and I do thoroughly (obviously) enjoy knitting, but for me, it's about the project. The finished product - who it's made for, what it is, the end goal. As I'm growing my stash, I'm finding that every skein is purchased with a project in mind. The best I can do in the absence of an assigned project is determine that one good skein in a fabulous colorway would make perfect SOCKS. I have started a collection of travel yarn, though - when we were in DC buying a house a couple of weeks back I found myself severly stressed and in need of some wool therapy... Not only did I find a great store, but they dye their own yarn - so I got 2 skeins of it, just to have (although in my head I was thinking boot socks or a hat - see? Project knitter) .

So, now I return to the story about this little lace shawl beginning. I was reading Mason Dixon Knitting (the book) and while I became completely obsessed with the warshrags and the log cabin knits, the shawls just didn't do it for me. And I came back to this little shawl. I have no motivation to work on it. I love the pattern and I love the yarn even more, but really, at the end of it all - will I EVER wear a shawl? No, no way! Not my style! But I'm drawn to trying to knit up something lace weight - what a conundrum. Maybe a scarf. Or a tank top - yes, this yarn would make a delicious tank top. I SHOULD learn how to knit filmy lace, learn to block it, see the pattern emerge. But what the heck would I do with it after that? Give it away? No one I know would wear it, either! *sigh*

So, I frogged it. Rewound the yarn back into a ball. Put in back in the stash, with a new assigned project - tank top. And an acceptance of the fact that just because I can knit lace, that doesn't mean I should if it's not "my thing" and I wouldn't use or enjoy the end result. And so starts the development of my knitting philosophy - as a project knitter who needs to have a real, tangible, useful end product that I (or my loved ones) can use and enjoy.

I Heart My Noro Blossom Shrug

Seriously, the simplest project in the world. It's just a giant tube, broken apart in the middle, made with this nubby, yummy yarn. I initially intended to wait to cast it on, but the yarn came in the mail and I had to start...and then, it was downhill, mindless knit until the center, then just stockinette. I worked on it before classes. While DH was cooking dinner. In the morning (hides spilled coffee well). While watching TV. Skein after skein passed through my hands, and then, yesterday, I hit the last skein first thing in the morning. I knew my work was almost done, and decided not to shower and get dressed until I finished, so I could have the joy of wearing my new creation right away.


Somewhere around lunchtime, DH came home and saw me sitting there on the couch - "my butt got numb sitting in my usual chair in the kitchen" - and he said: "I thought it was almost done?"
Damn. I didn't escape it - that part of any large knitting project where you hit a certain point, and knit and knit, and it seems to just be stuck. Never grows. It's the knitting abyss. Everytime I checked the length of the second sleeve, thinking that surely this shrug would fit a monkey and that I should stop, it was still be 4" short.

At 2:30, the sleeves seemed to be the same length, and I blissfully bound it off and wove in the ends. Took my long-awaited shower, and put the glorious thing on. Well worth the wait!

April Project Spectrum Report...

Well, after making a sock yarn purchase in a stunning orange and yellow colorway with some lacey socks in mind, I barely managed to cast them on before the end of the month...I was unfortunately sucked in by this random Noro Blossom shrug pattern (7th one down) that I found online at a store somewhere in the UK. (The report on that one will be forthcoming - so easy, and SO COOL) With school wrapping up, knitting time was at a premium!
Alas, yesterday, I did finally manage to get them going - but my first month in Project Spectrum is a wash.

I decided immediately to get a head start on May - this month it's GREEN! And, since green is one of my favorites - orange and yellow were a challenge - I've got a whole darn afghan going with a green theme. This month's 16"x16" square is delicious cables, so I've got it started in a very yummy lime green. This month, Lolly, I promise to be victorious!

Worldwide Socks

I would have posted a picture sooner - I finished these Saturday - but I didn't realize I had to *format* a new SD card. Duh.
I made the first sock while I was in Paris in March, and rather than cast on the second one right away, I moved on to another project. I figured I'd better get moving because I needed the DPN to do my Project Spectrum socks, so the other sock came to Boston with me this past weekend. Finally, a matched pair!
They're Mountain Colors' Bearfoot in Elderberry, with a simple baby cable - nice and warm and fuzzy. Perfect for April (??) - well, maybe they'll be the first of the Fall 2006 sock stash...

R.I.P., Lil' Doodlebug

I would prefer to remember the sweater the way it *was*, not the way it is - now that I've followed the washing instructions and yet STILL had the pink bleed into the purple and completely RUIN my hard work for my cousin's little girl. I was so devestated on Friday when I brought the beanie down to put with it and saw the disaster. I tried everything. Nothing worked, and now I need to make a new one (god knows it'll be solid color this time!). But, alas, it won't be in time to bring to little Emma this weekend when we go to meet her. I'll bring the one we have, but I'm embarrassed to give her such a mess.

So, anyone using Heirloom Breeze in Musk Pink (019), in Dyelot 04, WATCH OUT! You can't handwash it AT ALL.

Rest in peace, little Doodlebug cardigan...


On a more positive note, my April afghan square is officially done, blocked, and folded, awaiting its partners.

With any luck, I'll actually get to cast on my socks for April's Project Spectrum - it's this fantastic orange, green, and yellow colorway that I picked up at Fleece Fair that I'm going to do up in a lace pattern.

April Afghan Square - #1

I am going to have a drink & a lie down...I have sewn and cut my first steek:

I was wondering what the heck that sewing machine I had in the basement in a box was for. My mother got it for me a couple of years ago, and I had all these ambitious plans to actually *make* things. It languished on the dining room table for a month, collecting dust, and then moved to its permanent home on a shelf in the basement. It took me 15 minutes to even figure out how to use the thing - let's just say I have never taken a Home Ec class in my life. At any rate, I somehow managed to run a line down each side, and then *snip snip*! I don't think I'm actually going to *pull* on anything, but at least the worst is done. Just ignore the mistakes in the pattern at the bottom, I'll fix those when I finish off the border.

I thought it would be much more dramatic than it was, that I wouldn't be able to bring myself to cut it....surprisingly, it was pretty painless.

I'm still going to have a drink & a lie down, though - Elizabeth Zimmermann says so, so who am I to argue with an expert?

Mmmmm....Fleece Fair....

Not too shabby a way to spend a Saturday...drove about an hour south and got to play with knitterly things all morning! I had never seen an alpaca before, or little lambs, or Angora and Chincilla rabbits....or people spinning. Or so much FIBER in one place! *evil laugh* I went with a specific budget, and let's just say I didn't quite make it, LOL....my goal was to get some Socks That Rock, which I did, but I also fell in love with some yarn from this great little place in Michigan - I think I did the most damage there!
Lots of yarn for my stash and for more projects I have running around in my head!

My First Scarf...

...with some of my favorite models. I did this super-simple K2 P2 scarf at the beginning of February, but didn't get around to taking a picture of it until this morning. My stunning models are Stewie (spotted) and Albert (black), who were mostly very tolerant of mommy chasing them around & trying to get them to wear a scarf!

Scratch That...

...I now have a single-sock second sock problem! I just finished the Regia pair - the right one was done on US2 DPN, the left on US2 Addi Turbos. I got a looser gauge on the circulars, so it's a little looser (fortunately, my left foot is a little bigger). Either way, I think I'm going to start using US1's instead with a 64 st CO, with US0's for the ribbing. And *definitely* both socks at the same time, if possible, LOL!

Another amusing note - I didn't notice until I had turned the heel on the second sock that I did k1 p1 ribbing on the first one and k2 p2 on the left. No WAY was I frogging this one - so at least now I can tell left from right, right?

An Update

Funny how life runs away with you- I haven't been short on knitting, only short on things to say about it. While I am Addicted, I haven't quite figured out what all to say about it all the time. I think that will come with time - it has been only 3 months, I'm a beginner!

I spent a week in Paris - I was sick the whole time, which made for a bad tourist but a good sock knitter. Thankfully, I chose an aisle seat in order to make trying socks on on the flight over and back easier. I now officially have two socks - Regia 4 fadig in Jubilee and Bearfoot in Elderberry using mini-cables from Sensational Knitted Socks (which I love because all patterns are already written for DPN and circulars) and a two-sock second sock problem. In my quest to alleviate this, I picked up Cat Bordhi's book and knit the other half of the Regia pair on circulars! YAY! Next step, finish Bearfoot and cast on a PAIR on circulars.

The Musee d'Orsay must have known I was coming:



Or so I'd like to think. I'm pretty sure she's knitting socks, which thrilled me to bits. I was honestly pretty taken by the fact that she was knitting these because she had to - someone needed to wear them. I knit them because I *like* to. She's also probably half my age and 3x times as skilled as I am. How times have changed, and yet, we knit the same items the same way as women 400 years ago.



I returned home from said trip, and promptly finished a chunky hooded sweater - my first sweater, and it even FITS!



I had my first moment feeling the "need" to create a "stash." Fell in love with a skein of Feza Premier (ooh, pretty, must have for stash)....but instead, made what felt like the world's longest scarf. It took me 2 1/2 hours to untangle all the sections, re-knot and wind them up (a ball winder was my next purchase), and then decided that I needed to wear said scarf to dinner on Saturday night. As in, 48 hours after having my wisdom teeth out, and 6 hours after winding the yarn. Ambitious, yes, but bed rest does wonders for knitterly pursuits! I wore the scarf with pride on Saturday night, and I looked good (at least) despite not being able to eat a thing....

Socks, Take Two

J picked out this yarn for a scarf, but at this point, I thought I could do better. He didn't want a sweater (something about not liking chunky sweaters), so I asked if he wanted socks. BONUS for me - more practice!

I think at this point, I've just about had it with Knitting Pure and Simple's Beginner Sock pattern - I modified this one with a full K1 P1 rib for the top, per DH's request.

This one skein was 220 yards, and I barely had enough...still knitting too tightly, LOL, but he seems to love them!

Socks, Take One

Beautiful, aren't they? Nevermind that they're too big - despite the fact that they measured what they were supposed to for my foot size, or that I have already snapped one set of size 1 dpn because I knit too tightly. (Someone said this was supposed to be relaxing. We're working on that.) That's 5 stitches/inch on size 7's!

They are the most beautiful things in the world to me right now. They are my pass to River Knits' Sock Club (you have to knit one to "get in"), and they have introduced me to sock crack. Sock Crack is a horribly addictive drug, let me tell you. It's why I'm here. The rest of my life? That's for another blog. This is actually my second project (the first was a pretty cool, chunky, 6' scarf with Reynolds Smile yarn [Color: 205] - gorgeous variegated bulky stuff), but I think my journey begins with socks. I have been knitting for officially 1 month and 8 days, and I am hopelessly hooked.

So here I am. And here are my socks.