Overdue Update

I am so used to just updating Ravelry that i forget to add updates here.

I finished my Cable sweater which came out really nice but is a little...form-fitting. :) I guess its just incentive to keep losing weight (am doing really well with that, btw). Here is a of the cable sweater:


Next i started on a sweater from Knitscene Fall 2008 - also a hoodie sweater but i think i'm going to modify the hood into a long hanging collar. I started working on this and knit up 4 balls of yarn when i realized that the sweater was 4 inchs too wide! I was devastated but i had to pull all that knitting out. The one good thing is now i get to modify the hem a little so it doesn't curl up anymore like it was before. Here is a pic of it after about 2 balls of knitting - you can see the curling is pretty bad:


So i recast on and did a couple of rows but i put it down again. I was a little frustrated with it. I haven't touched it for a couple of weeks now. But i've had something else occupying my mind - RHINEBECK!!!

Last weekend was the NY Sheep and Wool festival at Rhinebeck, NY. It was full of yarn, fiber, yarn, sheep, llamas, yarn, food and YARN! I spent so much money (though when i counted later on, i realized that i didn't end up spending much more than my birthday money. I bought many many yarns and also lots of spinning fiber. That's right, I've got a new fiber addiction - spinning. I had tried to learn spinning a few months ago with that crappy, cheap spindle that was a complete deterrent to my learning process so i did some research on it and found out that spinning really should be learned on a good, well-balanced spindle. I invested in 2 Golding Spindles at Rhinebeck:


I started spinning with these and absolutely loved it! It was so much easier spinning with these - i didn't feel like i was in a battle with the fiber! LOL. I even made a baby skein of yarn which I still have to take pictures of and will post soon.

As i said, i bought lots of yarn and fiber at the festival. All of it is posted on Ravelry so i wont' repost here but some of my more "exotic" purchases included cashmere and llama yarns. I've already started knitting the Abby cowl from knitty.com with the cashmere. I haven't decided yet what i'm going to do with the llama.

Lastly, here are a few pics from Rhinebeck:

First Sweater

This is my first sweater. The pattern came from the Fall 2008 Vogue Knitting.

Spinning Yarn

Okay, so I ordered a roving from Etsy and its just been sitting there. I think after I finish my first sweater I'll once again try my hand at spinning. This roving is so beautiful, I'm afraid to touch it. I just want to order more and more practice roving before I get anywhere near this thing with my spindle.

Hedera Socks

I finished my Hedera Socks.

OTN Update

I haven't had any FOs recently except for the Absorba Bathmat from Mason-Dixon Knitting but it didn't come out to great. I think putting the mat away half done for a few weeks was a bad idea because my tension was completely different when I picked it up again so it looks discombobulated.

I'm working on the Hedera socks from Knitty which are knitting up very fast. I'm using 1 size larger needles and its only 60 stitches so it is going much faster than the Siren socks. I've already turned the heel and picked up the gusset.


The Simply Gorgeous Pi Shawl is also coming along though looks like a crumpled mess at the moment. I'm still on the first ball of yarn but i think i've used up about two-thirds. I'm thinking i might use one of Meg Swanson's lace edgings to finish this shawl so that will probably be about a half of the second ball of yarn.


I also started two new projects - a scarf for charity and the shawl i'd been planning for my mom. I was going to use the Feather and Fan pattern for the shawl but i found that the yarn didn't really show the pattern too well and looks just as beautiful with simple garter stitch. So I decided to use the Feather and Fan pattern for the charity scarf instead. The charity this scarf is for is OFA Red Scarf Project.



Lastly, i've decided to learn how to spin yarn. I keep seeing these gorgeous rovings and i just couldn't resist. I ordered a starter kit that has a drop spindle and some practice roving. I over-twisted the first piece i tried but i'm working on it.

First Socks!!

My first pair of socks are done! I am so happy with them. If anyone questions the reasons for knitting a pair of socks, let me just tell you - listen to the knitting gurus because they are right! Once you've donned a pair of hand knit socks, you will never want store bought socks again!

The heels and everything came out perfect. I make the leg part a little short because I always scrunch my socks down to the ankles anyway. So I have more scrap yarn left over than anticipated. Also, since I hadn't bothered to practice Kitchener's stitch on a swatch, I did create a couple of holes but those were easy enough to fix. I was planning on knitting the next pair of socks for my dad and the pair after for my mom...but they are probably going to end up being for me. LOL. I do love the fabric from size 0 needles and don't mind spending the extra amount of time on the small needles for myself but maybe if I decide to knit for others, I'll do it on size 2 because they are faster to knit.

Trip to Montreal and Projects update

My trip to Montreal was absolutely wonderful! The Jazz festival was on when I went so I had a great time there. We also visited Old Montreal which was gorgeous and the street performances were hysterical and impressive. I even had a caricature made. We also went to the church of Notre Dame, the BioDome and the Botanical Gardens. Unfortunately it was too hot and we were too tired to truly enjoy the Botanical Gardens but the rest of the trip was great. Since I still don't have a decent camera, we hardly took any pictures at all.

I ended up going to one yarn store while I was up there and got some beautiful hand painted baby alpaca lace yarn. It is so lovely. I am making a simple knit pi shawl with it:



As you can see, the yarn is so lovely that it doesn't need a pattern at all.

Speaking of shawls, I frogged my Mystery Shawl...I just picked the wrong charts from the clues from what kind of shawl I had in my mind. I looked at some of the other knitters' shawls and saw what I wanted my shawl to be and am going to change the charts around. I may actually wait to finish my Siren socks first before starting the shawl again. I have to check the measurements of my Siren socks today because though I cast on the correct number of stitches from my gauge, it seems the actual sock is much bigger with the scallop pattern. I'm going to have to confirm. Sherry from my knitting group suggested that I put a K3, P1 ribbing in the areas where it is just plain stockinette which I may end up doing after all.

I also have some really good news: I finished my Merletto Mitts!



They are full of mistakes and I absolutely love them! I used the wrong side leaning increases on the thumb of the second one - I got confused as to which increase leaned which way and then i just sorta continued with it. LOL. And the other fantastic thing about this project was it produced by my first ball of scrap sock yarn!



Look at the cute little ball of yarn! I have no idea why but I'm so proud of this ball of scrap yarn. I feel like I've accomplished something now that I have scrap yarn rather than just new, mostly unused balls of yarn.

I'm looking forward to having many, many more balls of scrap yarn to adorn my stash with.