Sunday, November 6, 2016
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Mid Week Check In
Wednesday's are for works in progress and there is a little bit that I can show you...
TOB has been plugging away knitting rabbits, camels, fingerless mitts and a pair of socks for the people he knows. But today, tragedy struck and the only pair of size 1 needles that he owns broke!
Actually it has been the week of breaking things.
A little while ago I noticed that my photos were getting blurry. Tried all the usual things (like using a tripod in case it was "she with the micro tremors" holding a camera results in not holding it still, cleaning the lens, using a newer memory card...) but to no avail. When the monster man arrived and had adjusted to being on East Coast instead of West Coast time we had him look at it. Nothing that he adjusted did anything to help.
(Little secret here..any time that there is something in my life that isn't the way I want it, for some reason TMM seems to feel that he has to fix it for me, which for some things is easy and ok, and others it is harder and/or shouldn't be fixed for me but rather by me...but I digress...)
So he helped by throwing money at the problem and this showed up on my doorstep!
Pretty huh?
It is certainly an added bonus that he also played around with a few other things that weren't working the way they should!
Next up will be chairs because we managed to break some of those too!
So, not a lot of knitting content today from me...what's on your needles?
~M
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Vocal Sunday
I know it is supposed to be Silent Sunday...but....it is really hard to have a blog post of just pictures when the auto focus of your auto focus camera decides that it just isn't going to do it any more!
Instead I will point you in the direction of the preview for next weeks issue of Knotions.
And some exciting news, with a very unique way of telling it, from The Yarn Harlot.
Along with an upcoming KAL with Unplanned Peacock and Criminal Knits.
~M
Instead I will point you in the direction of the preview for next weeks issue of Knotions.
And some exciting news, with a very unique way of telling it, from The Yarn Harlot.
Along with an upcoming KAL with Unplanned Peacock and Criminal Knits.
~M
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Nothing To See Here
One of the problems with designing and test knitting is that sometimes I get so focused on just a couple of projects that are all "secret" and have nothing to show you. But rest assured, there is knitting going on! A lot of knitting!
Instead let's talk about TOB for a minute.
The Other Brother is the only one of my children who knits. Which right now I am thinking is a good thing because....
He has started taking some serious commission knits from the people at the school he attends and it is seriously starting to damage my stash!
One of the students asked him to knit a camel, which he did, and got paid for! Which led another to ask for a rabbit, which, again he did and got paid for...but it started a trend and now a selection of students want rabbits in various colors for gifts for younger siblings or themselves.
The problem is, although I have what I refer to as a robust stash, I do not have every color in the rainbow in every weight of yarn...and....well that is MY stash darn it! What if I suddenly feel a need to knit myself a powder blue rabbit and he used up all my yarn?*
I keep telling him he needs his own Ravelry account to track what he has knit, but he would prefer to use my blog because...once you put something on the internet it is there forever and one day he will look back and say.....I knit how many rabbits? :)
Don't look for a finished object Friday post from me...I have 50k stitches in one project and about 45k in another before I will be finished anything, but who knows, maybe the purple rabbit will be done by then!
~M
Instead let's talk about TOB for a minute.
The Other Brother is the only one of my children who knits. Which right now I am thinking is a good thing because....
He has started taking some serious commission knits from the people at the school he attends and it is seriously starting to damage my stash!
One of the students asked him to knit a camel, which he did, and got paid for! Which led another to ask for a rabbit, which, again he did and got paid for...but it started a trend and now a selection of students want rabbits in various colors for gifts for younger siblings or themselves.
The problem is, although I have what I refer to as a robust stash, I do not have every color in the rainbow in every weight of yarn...and....well that is MY stash darn it! What if I suddenly feel a need to knit myself a powder blue rabbit and he used up all my yarn?*
I keep telling him he needs his own Ravelry account to track what he has knit, but he would prefer to use my blog because...once you put something on the internet it is there forever and one day he will look back and say.....I knit how many rabbits? :)
Don't look for a finished object Friday post from me...I have 50k stitches in one project and about 45k in another before I will be finished anything, but who knows, maybe the purple rabbit will be done by then!
~M
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Minimal Progress is Still Progress
I promised you yesterday that we would check in with my Colourmart Fall Contest piece....
It is progressing about as well as I would expect a piece of knitting that I haven't touched in days to progress - slowly! (And yes, that little voice in my head is still murmuring that she thinks it is bigger than I intend it to be, to which I have to whisper back - hush, trust the swatch.)
It isn't that I don't like it, I am still in love with my stripey chevrons and the yarn itself is a dream to work with, I've just had other things that needed my attention as well.
I have promised her that she will be my parking lot knitting for the rest of the week.
After all, my car has a handy cone holder for when I am knitting straight from the cone!
One year ago today I finished the shawl I knit for last years contest....Notice anything about the yarn?
I am nothing if not consistent.
~M
It is progressing about as well as I would expect a piece of knitting that I haven't touched in days to progress - slowly! (And yes, that little voice in my head is still murmuring that she thinks it is bigger than I intend it to be, to which I have to whisper back - hush, trust the swatch.)
It isn't that I don't like it, I am still in love with my stripey chevrons and the yarn itself is a dream to work with, I've just had other things that needed my attention as well.
I have promised her that she will be my parking lot knitting for the rest of the week.
After all, my car has a handy cone holder for when I am knitting straight from the cone!
~M
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Tools on Tuesday
I got tagged recently on Instagram to post what my favorite knitting tool was, and thought it was interesting to look at the other posts with the same hashtag. (Always on the lookout for a new favorite!)
I cheated and had two, my kitchen scales (not just for weighing fruit for jam or shrub...hmm I should check that it is probably just about the perfect black cherry and pepper shrub by now!) and a very basic calculator.
Other people picked things like their interchangeable needle sets. (I have to agree there, wonderful tools, which is probably why I have no less than four different sets along with assorted extra tips and cables in my "go to" sizes.)
Tape measures in various sizes and shapes. One knitter had this cute little red horse that a friend had made her that had a tape measure built in! (You might notice in my picture rather that a tape measure I have a steel tape....I knit some pretty big pieces and to get the most accurate measurements I like to use a measure that will not ever stretch, unlike the fabric one I used to use.)
Stitch markers galour! I have such a love-hate relationship with stitch markers. They really are useful and a great aid in counting large amounts of stitches when casting on, or to separate repeats of a pattern, but I find they get in my way sometimes too. But...there are so many really cute ones out there!
The Knit Kit showed on in several peoples posts. I actually made something similar as TOB's Christmas present last year, but I used a small plastic pencil box with a couple of dividers in it, threw in some stitch markers, a plastic tapestry needle, small stitch holders and a couple of other things. He does a good job of keeping his tools all in one place, and we color coded them so he knows when he is borrowing my tools!
Swifts and Ball Winders also showed up, some made by knitters families and some purchased. I know I would never be able to knit as many yards in a week as I do if I had to wind my yarn by hand and my ball winder has a permanent home on my desk, so I must use it pretty often! :)
Nancebell in the comments on Sunday asked about the program I was using to draw schematics, and I am not sure if it is going to develop into one of my favorite tools or not, but I am using Inkscape. Playing around with it has taught me how to do some of what I want, looking for tutorials on Youtube has shown me a lot of things that I will never use, but were interesting and helped me to figure out some of what I needed. As with many things, I am sure I will get better at it the more I use it.
So, what tools are in your tool kit that you would call your favorites?
I'll have an update on my knitting for WIP Wednesday....I am going to have to come up with a way of making miles of chevrons in fingering weight yarn entertaining!
~M
I cheated and had two, my kitchen scales (not just for weighing fruit for jam or shrub...hmm I should check that it is probably just about the perfect black cherry and pepper shrub by now!) and a very basic calculator.
Other people picked things like their interchangeable needle sets. (I have to agree there, wonderful tools, which is probably why I have no less than four different sets along with assorted extra tips and cables in my "go to" sizes.)
Tape measures in various sizes and shapes. One knitter had this cute little red horse that a friend had made her that had a tape measure built in! (You might notice in my picture rather that a tape measure I have a steel tape....I knit some pretty big pieces and to get the most accurate measurements I like to use a measure that will not ever stretch, unlike the fabric one I used to use.)
Stitch markers galour! I have such a love-hate relationship with stitch markers. They really are useful and a great aid in counting large amounts of stitches when casting on, or to separate repeats of a pattern, but I find they get in my way sometimes too. But...there are so many really cute ones out there!
The Knit Kit showed on in several peoples posts. I actually made something similar as TOB's Christmas present last year, but I used a small plastic pencil box with a couple of dividers in it, threw in some stitch markers, a plastic tapestry needle, small stitch holders and a couple of other things. He does a good job of keeping his tools all in one place, and we color coded them so he knows when he is borrowing my tools!
Swifts and Ball Winders also showed up, some made by knitters families and some purchased. I know I would never be able to knit as many yards in a week as I do if I had to wind my yarn by hand and my ball winder has a permanent home on my desk, so I must use it pretty often! :)
Nancebell in the comments on Sunday asked about the program I was using to draw schematics, and I am not sure if it is going to develop into one of my favorite tools or not, but I am using Inkscape. Playing around with it has taught me how to do some of what I want, looking for tutorials on Youtube has shown me a lot of things that I will never use, but were interesting and helped me to figure out some of what I needed. As with many things, I am sure I will get better at it the more I use it.
So, what tools are in your tool kit that you would call your favorites?
I'll have an update on my knitting for WIP Wednesday....I am going to have to come up with a way of making miles of chevrons in fingering weight yarn entertaining!
~M
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