Wendy Knits: Adventures with sticks and string.: Page 2

Richmond Bound

By Wendy on June 25, 2009

I am not going to work tomorrow (Friday). Insert appropriate sounds of jubilation here. Instead, I’m heading down to Richmond, Virginia. I’ll spend Friday afternoon/evening with my good buddy L-B and other assorted knitting friends, and on Saturday I’ll be at The Yarn Lounge, signing books, from 11:00am til 1:00pm. I hope to see some of you there!

I did manage to find the time to turn the heel of my sock. See?

Said sock will accompany me to Richmond. As I mentioned yesterday, I do have another project I just started.

It’s a circular shawl of my own design, being knit from the Tilli Tomas Elsie yarn that I recently purchased. I like the yarn very much. My only beef with it is this:

Dye on the fingers! Since I began work on this I’ve been going around with blue fingers. Well, I can wash it off my fingers pretty well, but it’s not so easy to get it off the fingernails. I’ll just have to tell people that it’s a special new kind of French manicure.

The extent of my relief that this week is, for me, over, cannot be adequately expressed in words. Just sayin’.

Lucy appears to have had a rough week as well.

Posted in Wendy Knits | 39 Responses

On My Desk

By Wendy on June 24, 2009

What’s that on my desk? A new bag!

What’s inside? My sock-in-progress, of course.

I purchased this sweet little sock bag from OliviaKnits on Etsy. As I write this, she has a number of them for sale, in a variety of very pretty fabrics.

One of the things I like about this bag is that it is completely reversible. It’s like two, two, two bags in one.

I’m not making a lot of progress on my sock just now. My commute this week has been disrupted by the horrific metro accident that occurred Monday afternoon. I have been leaving home earlier in the morning (if you can imagine that) and changing trains at a different point to a different line so as to avoid the Red Line, which is a mess right now. The earlier train is more crowded than the one I take, so I can’t knit, and then I have a half-mile walk, during which I don’t knit.

Well, I could knit and walk (particularly since my new little sock bag has a strap that slips conveniently over my wrist) but in the morning I am more concerned about being aware of my surroundings and moving quickly (downtown DC before 6:00am — just sayin’). And in the afternoon, well, it is well upwards of 80 degrees out there. And humid.

And once I’m at home I’ve been working on something else . . .

Jennifer asked:

Inquiring minds want to know — Do you wear all your socks or do you give them away as gifts? Perhaps you have a small guest room that doubles as a handknit sock closet? (Ooh – that gives me an idea….)

Ooh, that gives me an idea too!

Remember the Jerry Seinfeld stand-up routine where he asks what’s the deal with those little hangers that socks come on? Like you have a little sock closet at home where you can hang your socks on their little hangers?

In answer to the question . . . I keep some, I give some away.

Lucy Sez

“More belly-rubs, please!”

Posted in Wendy Knits | 29 Responses

Nom

By Wendy on June 23, 2009

You may remember that immediately after Clara reviewed the new sock yarn from Alchemy, Juniper, in Knitter’s Review, I ordered some. When I got it, I wasn’t disappointed.

I just started a sock in some of my yummy yummy yummy Alchemy Juniper. Did I mention it was yummy?

I’m knitting a sock using my favorite Alchemy colorway: Dragon. This yarn is pure pleasure to knit. It is very very soft and nicely sproingy. Read Clara’s review, linked to above, for a description of the superfine merino from which is it made and the yarn’s cabled construction.

I’m knitting up a sock that has a similar design to my freebie pattern “Peace Socks” — a similar leaf motif, flanked by some traveling stitches. I wanted to see how Juniper did with both lacework and cable twists.

I’m executing k3tog and k3tog tbl decreases on this design and am having absolutely no problem doing so. The yarn is bouncy and resilient and very easy to knit. The traveling stitches are equally easy to execute. Although the yarn is a multi-ply, I’ve not snagged it anywhere.

Nom!

Girasole Q&A

Thanks for all your kind comments on Girasole. In answer to a comment question, I do not know how to pronounce it. Ask the designer.

And there a number of questions asking what I was going to do with it now that I’ve finished it. I do not plan to use it as a shawl, but a throw for over the back of a couch.

And in answer to another question, the way I’ve seen circular shawls worn the most is with about one-third of the shawl folded down and the resulting more-than-a-half-circle thrown over the shoulders.

Lucy Sez:

“Fluffy tummy available for scritches and kisses!”

Posted in Wendy Knits | 33 Responses

Girasole

By Wendy on June 22, 2009

I did indeed finish Girasole yesterday. Here it is, in all its glory:

Note that there is no small furry animal reclining on it. Lucy plopped herself down on it when I first laid it out, but by the time I was ready to snap a photo she had gotten bored and wandered off.

Project Specs:

Pattern: Girasole, by Jared Flood
Yarn: Indigo Moon fingering weight merino in the “MyroGreen Lite” colorway
Needles: 4mm (U.S. size 6)

I knit the pattern exactly as written and found no problems whatsoever with the pattern. It’s well-written and easy-to-follow and there’s nothing too difficult in any of the lace patterns. An adventuresome lace beginner ought to be able to knit it.

The fingering weight sized Girasole calls for 1150 yards. I purchased 4 skeins of my yarn at 370 yards per skein. I used exactly 3.5 skeins of the yarn, so assuming the yardage per skein was correctly stated (and I’ve no reason to believe it wasn’t), I used a total of 1295 yards for my Girasole, 145 yards more than the pattern called for.

Now, I am a loose knitter knitter but instead of going down a couple of needle sizes, I did use the recommended needle size for fingering weight yarn — the 4mm needle. I didn’t bother to check my gauge as it’s a lace piece. And my Girasole blocked out to about 60″ in diameter, rather than the 51″ stated in the pattern, so that’s likely why I used more yarn.

Speaking of blocking, I did not wet-block this. I steam-pressed it. I started in the center and worked my way out until I got to the edge, pulling out the tips of the edging as I went around. This worked very well and I got a nice even circle, even though it might look a little uneven in the first photo above, which was taken at a bit of an angle because I didn’t feel like climbing up on the coffee table to take a birds-eye view photo.

In Other News

I’ve decided to abandon (at least for now) the small gansey I have been working on. I’m not happy with it for reasons I can’t exactly explain and I can’t get enthusiastic about working on it, so it has been shelved.

I did start a new sock, but I’ll talk about that tomorrow!

Lucy Sez