Overdue for a post, that is. Things have been a wee bit crazy in Pins & Needles land lately, what with quitting a job (tougher than I thought it would be), starting a job (very exciting), trying to sell a house (frustrating in this market), moving into a corporate apartment (how do people actually live in 500sf?), searching for possible houses to buy (scary, for a number of reasons), and temporarily living in two cities once again (no fun at all). It’s a pain, and truth be told, things are not going as smoothly as I’d like with the transition. Pretty much everything outside of my actual job is completely up in the air right now. But all that is going to work out. Eventually.

I took a week of vacation in between jobs. While I was off, I managed to get half of a baby sweater knit for a good friend who just had her first baby. Initially, this was going to be a Dale sweater, but somehow in getting the house packed up and ready to sell, I managed to lose my Dale pattern book. Oops! I think it is for the best though, because the Dale sweater was knit on size 1 needles, and would have taken years for me to finish at the rate I’m knitting right now. This sweater (from Adorable Knits for Tots) is on size 8s - much faster! It seems larger than it should be for a 6-9 month size, but hopefully when it is all seamed up it will be the right size.

Now, I just have to figure out how to find time to finish the sweater!

It’s been an odd couple of weeks, and I haven’t felt like doing much knitting or blogging for various reasons. I did finish up a couple of quick dishcloths last weekend though.

I made these using the free Textured Slip Stitch pattern from the Dishcloth Boutique. Looks a lot like the Mason-Dixon Warshrag pattern, no? I’m pretty sure it is the exact same pattern.

I knit these after Amy told me about how much she loves using the linen dishcloth that she knit.  So, I picked up some Louet Euroflax linen to make a couple dishcloths for myself.  Hopefully they’ll be a good replacement for my kitchen sponges.  I’m not a big fan of the sponge.

Let me tell you, the linen yarn is not much fun to knit at all. It’s like knitting with twine or wire.  There’s no stretch whatsoever. But it knits up into a lovely fabric - much softer than I expected, but still rough enough to take on kitchen messes. I’ve got at least one more dishcloth worth of yarn to knit up from the skein, and after that it’s back to my regularly scheduled knitting - socks, Salina, and Sahara.

Lest you think this is going to become a quilting blog, it hasn’t been all quilting, all the time here lately - there has been some knitting too.

You see that? That’s a swatch. A swatch of Noro Cash Iroha, which is quite a lovely yarn. But. (yeah, there’s always a but…) I really, really wanted to use this yarn for Sahara. It’s not 100% silk, but it has enough silk in it to be drapey when knit up. Here’s the thing - I got gauge on size 6 needles (the top 1/4 of the swatch). The fabric was really tight though. I didn’t like it at all. So, I went up to size 7 needles. Ah, a much better fabric. Except my gauge is completely off now. Completely off.

So, what do I do? Recalculate the pattern for my gauge? This wouldn’t be too difficult, although I’ve never done it before. I’m hoping it might be as simple as knitting one size smaller than I’d typically knit, but it probably won’t be that easy. Or, should I save this yarn for something else? I don’t really want to do that, because I have no idea what I’d use it for. I don’t have enough to make an hourglass sweater. And I really want to make a cute short sleeve sweater or tank for spring. Also, I love the sequins that I bought to string along with the yarn for the trim.

Sigh. This is my least favorite part of knitting - trying to substitute yarn in patterns that I like without spending a bizillion dollars on fancy expensive yarns called for by the pattern. It’s especially frustrating when I buy yarn with a pattern in mind and it doesn’t end up working out. Like this Noro. And the Malabrigo. (In case you’re wondering what ever happened to SKB - it still looks like it did in that last picture. I haven’t the heart to rip it and I’m not sure it’s fixable)

There’s another new post up at what has become my favorite “technical” knitting blog - Jogless Stripes - A New Way. I’ve always avoided stripes simply because I hate the way they look at the color change… that darn jog! But now, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to knit pretty, jogless stripes! Yay!

This is great news, because I have a couple of mis-matched skeins of Louet Gems Opal that I was hoping to use to make striped socks. One skein isn’t enough for a pair of socks (as I learned the hard way), so stripes are going to be the answer. Jogless stripes!

Getting back to TECHknitting… it’s by far the best blog I’ve found for useful knitting tips & tricks with clear, concise explanations. Head on over and check it out!

Now… to finish Salina!

Can I finish these by Saturday morning?

I hope so! They are a belated Christmas gift for a friend who was overseas during the holidays. Like a good friend, she gave me her gift before she left, the Winter Knits Kit. (awesome, by the way - I should do a quick review of it on here sometime.) I, on the other hand, was not so prepared before the holidays, and have to finish these socks by the time I see her on Saturday.

In other news, I got some exciting mail yesterday:

Stitches confirmation and class homework! One month to go - I’m excited! Hopefully the class I’m taking (Norwegian Knitting) will be worthwhile. The homework for the class is extremely simple, but also kind of unclear:

“Part 1: With darker colored yarn and 4mm (US 6) 16″ circular needle, work back and forth as follows (do not join in the round). CO 76 stitches. [Knit rows 1-8 as instructed]”

Fairly straightforward, right? Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t EVER knit on 16″ circular needles! I don’t own a 16″ circular, and really see no need to use one. I’d use DPNs for anything that small in the round. The instructions say to work back and forth. So, theoretically I could use any length circular needle (or even straights) for the homework. But, they don’t say if we’ll be joining in the round later on during the class. My guess is that we might be doing some knitting in the round, since oftentimes colorwork is done in the round. And, 76 stitches could easily fit on a 16″ needle in the round at a gauge of about 4.5-5 st/inch or less. So, do I need to have a 16″ circular needle for this class or not? I’d much rather not purchase a 16″ circular just for this class, since I probably won’t ever use it again. What do you think?

Wow - it’s been a while since I’ve posted. It’s been a while since I’ve had anything worthy of posting! Needless to say, there has not been a lot of knitting happening lately.

I was hoping to wait and post when I finished Salina, but unfortunately, the end of that sweater is not yet in sight. Here’s where I’m at… about 1/3 of the way through the last sleeve. Sleeves take a loooong time to knit! Especially on size 4 needles. I’m not going to be knitting another sweater on size 4 needles any time soon!

Since Salina is one of those seemingly never ending projects, I thought I should start a quick-and-easy pair of socks so that I actually finish something sometime this winter.

This is a plain old 64 stitch stockinette sock on size 1 ebony needles. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill, in Wild Cherry. It’s not quite as electric pink in person. I started this on Saturday night, and got just past the heel on Sunday. Hopefully I’ll be done with the pair in a week or so, and can get back to the dreaded sleeve.

I’ve been enamored with the pomatomus socks since the first day I saw the pattern. The definition of the twisted stitches. The subtle curves formed by increasing and decreasing. The way the ribbing flows into the pattern at the top of the leg and at the heel. Love it. Love all of it. I knew I had to knit a pair of these socks, and soon. And, I wanted to knit them with yarn I already had.

Therein lies the problem. All of my sock weight yarn is either variegated or self-striping. Self-striping would just be bad for this pattern, so I tried to pick the most subtly variegated yarn I could find in my pile-o-yarn.

Turns out, not so subtle after all.

This is a skein of Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn that I picked up on sale a while back. The yarn itself is great… love the texture and “sproingy-ness.” But the color. Oh, the color. Look how the colors distract from the lovely pattern. The pattern is completely obfuscated by the horribly pooling colors of the yarn. Sigh. Even if I knit this yarn into plain old stockinette socks, I’m pretty sure I would still hate the colors and pooling.

I’ll probably knit the second sock at some point. For now, this is my train wreck sock. The one I knew was going horribly wrong just a few rows into it, but couldn’t stop because I just had to see what happened.

Lesson learned - no more purchasing variegated yarn for me! From now on, for patterned socks, I’ll be using solid colored sock yarn only, or perhaps a very subtly shaded yarn. No more variegated. None.

After seeing these in Knitty, I knew I’d have to make a pair. A girl needs something to keep her hands warm when the office is 55 degrees!

I wasn’t sure I’d have enough yarn using one ball of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. Turns out it was very, very close! When the pattern says you’ll need to use the gauge swatch in order to finish with one ball, it’s not kidding. I had about a yard of yarn left over total, all in pieces 4-6″ long left over from weaving in my ends. (i must confess, i didn’t even make a gauge swatch for this project!)

Project notes:

Pattern - Fetching from Knitty

Yarn - 1 ball Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in gray

Needles - Size 6 dpns

Modifications - I didn’t do the picot cast off from the pattern. In various pictures I saw, I thought it made the finished edge look messy. I used a plain old cast off, in pattern.

Thoughts - A quick, easy project. I finished these in under four hours total, over two nights of watching movies.

I love knitting scarves. They can be as simple or complex as you want to make them, but generally are just a single stitch pattern repeated over and over again until the scarf is as long as you want it to be. No shaping. No gauge/sizing worries. Most yarns will do the job. All in all, they are pretty worry free to knit. When was the last time you heard of someone frogging a scarf?

The downside to all of this is that I don’t live in a very scarf friendly area. It’s 70+ degrees (F) for 7 months a year, and in the winter, daytime temperatures are usually in the 50s, with lots of rain. Not exactly prime scarf wearing weather. So, instead of knitting scarves for myself, I knit them for friends in cooler climates.

This scarf, for example, is off to a friend in Idaho who works at a ski resort. She’ll make good use of it I’m sure!

I knit this over the last week, mostly while in various auto shop waiting rooms. It’s the second “My so-called scarf” that I’ve made. I love the herringbone stitch pattern.

Specs:Pattern - My so called scarf

Yarn - Manos del Uruguay, I’m not sure which colorway

Needles - Susan Bates size 11 circular. They aren’t my favorite needles, but they’re the only size 11’s that I own.

And about the Estonian Garden Stole… no modeled pictures yet. The stole deserves to be photographed properly, and these days there’s not quite enough light left in the evenings after work. Hopefully there will be some time next weekend to take pictures of it.