Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Leaps and Bounds

I've learned quite a bit about working with two colors -- and now I can't graph what I really want to knit. I saw a lady at work today wearing a 'Nordic' black and white sweater. It had little metal frogs up the front. Across the back of the shoulders was a beautiful iris/fleur-de-lis motif that was so simple yet still so complex. I really want to find that pattern. I'm looking, but coming up dry. I tried drawing it a few different times. Husband says it is too thin, or 'what is that supposed to be'... argh. I want to make it simple enough that I can try it on the next 'mitten' or something small like that.

Brought my 'mitten' to work, laughed at myself with a few people. There were suggestions of a knitting party, hope we can do that soon! ;o) Now I have two days off and I am halfway through the first of a pair of brown house socks. I really like knitting on dpns, the work comes up so quickly. If only they made them three times larger and very light... I would dream for that. Circulars just hurt my wrists and it is hard to find the balance of the right number of stitches to fit on the needle and to fit your body...when not working with a pattern.

The sock is from Socks 101 though.. and I have just the heel turning part of that written on an index card. Making this brown pair a cast on 48 (instead of 45) in worsted Wool-Ease on size 3 dpns. That way J(Husband) can steal them if he is so inclined. Maybe its a good thing as well that the pair of shoes I bought on clearance last month were a bit big on me.. I can wear thick socks ;o)

thats all, *picks up dpns and sock*
~Rhe

Monday, February 14, 2005

Sheepfeeding Mittens

I finished one 'mitten'. It IS functional, but a lot of room for improvement. I didn't use any particular pattern besides my own hand. The decreases at the top of the fingers need to be improved upon greatly. Towards the bottom of the hand the wrist needs to be tightened and stitches from the thumb opening probably need to be passed to a holder instead of just picked up. The mitten might make a good hand-puppet, or, if I finish another somewhat similar one, I could use them to feed the sheep somewhere down the line here ;o)

-Rhe

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Two Color knitting

I did it!
I've seen it in books - and thought it was too hard.
Last night while we were watching a DVD I was starting to put a stripe in my sock on dpns... and everything just clicked. I now have a blue and white tube that will one day be an entire sock ;o)

Striping is easy --I got that a long time ago. Carrying the other yarn behind all the way isn't really as hard as I had guessed either - I did have to stop every round or two and untwine my two balls of wool though.. they were twisting together at a pretty fast rate.

Maybe soon cables will 'click' too... **hopes**

Collared Scarf - pic

The Collared Scarf

I bought some Moda-Dea "Dream". It was so soft and fuzzy I couldn't believe it was made of acrylic and nylon. My husband has asthma, which has kept me away from mohair. In two days I knit up a narrow scarf, 20 stitches knit all on size 10 needles. The yarn calls for 8 on the label, so I expected it to be a little looser than usual.

I've had trouble with some of my other 'small' scarves not staying up around my neck when I wear them with a coat. Pins didn't always work to secure them, neither did tucking them in. I made an extra piece of 'scarf' and sewed it on to the center of the original scarf, making a collar. I added three buttons and buttonholes and voila, a scarf that has a collar. And it is WARM. The fuzziness of the yarn holds all the heat in at my neck. I think now I'll freeze without it ;o)

Friday, February 11, 2005

My first blog

I've found myself reading other people's knitting blogs... so why not?
I'll post some of my advances, projects and dilemmas -- as well as some links.

I joined 'Knitter's Review' the other day, read posts, read blogs, and posted my own question about a type of yarn.

~RheLynn
***What is it.. can I knit with it?***