Round 1

Emmybear has had a strong performance in the first round of 8 of her Knitting Olympics event, the Petal Halter top. If you don't know about this event, the first 6 rounds consist of making 6 identical petals knit one side at a time from the center-out, the 7th is joining the petals together into a top, and the 8th is making and attaching the straps.

One petal of the 6 is completed and even blocked! And only after 1.5 days. She really made the most of training (if you remember, she made a perfect swatch the first time). At this rate, she may be finished with the halter top long before the February 28th deadline. She had to learn a new skill for this event... the provisional Eastern Cast-on, but with her experience with the Figure-8-style cast-on it was a cinch, except that she tragically dropped two stitches off the cast on, which will probably negatively alter the final product, despite the fact that she made adjustments to make the final stitch count correct. That might be a cause for deduction.

A few times she got too much in the groove of knitting when on the WS selvage and kept knitting when she should have purled, and had to frog and do the row over, which cost her some time. She made up with that fabulous muscle-memory most knitters are known for, which increased her speed. At times she doesn't even need to look at the work as she is doing it. Her only spectator--her boyfriend--was shocked at the ability.

Interveiwed after the event, Emmybear commented, "after doing side one I really got the hang of the complicated shaping and short-rows, and was able to do the second side without looking at the directions too much." She hopes to memorize the petal pattern by the third petal. She also plans on altering the two top petals to add another selvage edge under each armpit. She learned this from Ravelry where others who knit this suggested an alteration there. In regards to the blocking process, she commented later, "I'm glad I opted for a cotton-wool blend rather than the simply plant-based yarn that was called for... It has more memory thanks to the wool while the cotton makes it good for summer."

She showed off her finished first round product to fans:

And for bonus points, while waiting for the petal to dry, she finished the Panel Jacket she made for her mother for Christmas 2009.

Stay tuned for more updates on Emmybear's knitting!

Finally I'm an Olympian

A knitting Olympian, that is. I joined the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics Athletic Team. I will be making the Petal Halter from the Spring 2009 issue of Interweave Knits:

I am using Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in a sort of slate blue. Here is my perfect swatch, completed on the first try after guesstimating that I'd need one needle size down to reach gauge:
I was going to choose the Central Park Hoodie or Swirl Scarf, but I didn't want to end up curled in the fetal position in the corner out of frustration.

Man, I am finding it difficult to wait until tomorrow night to cast on!

Best deal ever

So I've started my spinning expedition (pictures later...too lazy) and it's going pretty well. I read and read and then went to A Tangled Skein's monthly Sit n Spin, where I felt both part of the community and an outsider at the same time. Some would knit in between spinning and talk knitting terms, but then all of a sudden I would hear strange words like "draft" etc and would have to look them up briefly in the dictionary in my head. I sat there quiet for a while spinning nervously, as I hadn't manipulated roving around a spindle in about a year. I felt like a novice knitter. Whenever I made a mistake like a break in the yarn I felt like stopping and putting up my hands and saying "ahhh I made a mistake," fully expecting a spinning aficionado to come to my rescue, much like my students do with me. But I didn't, I kept on chugging quietly at the end of the table, occasionally watching others' rhythmic movements making yarn. I also listened to them totally supporting Jay and dissing Conan and thought...am I the only representative here from my generation?

A woman my age entered with her wheel, carried by her boyfriend, and parked it next to me. She wore this beautiful sweater that she had handknit, and which everyone fawned over, and whose pattern I have since bought and added to my queue. It's #396. It was around that time that I made a mistake and someone asked me how long I'd been spinning. I looked at my invisible watch and answered sarcastically, "how long have we been sitting here?" They were shocked not because of my quality of work, but because starting to spin is such a momentous occasion for a person, much like knitting is.

It was an overall successful night. I got some tidbits of advice without feeling that I pushed someone into a free lesson, which I wanted to avoid doing (the drop-spinning teacher was there). My new friend with the wheel let me try hers, but it was too overwhelming at the time. I'll try again at MDSW.

* ~~ * ~~ *

I have been inspired all month by craftzine's Make Space for Crafting theme. I decided to embark on the brilliant idea to use one of those cylindrical wine bottle gift boxes to hold my spindle and fiber. I thought Michael's would be a great place to look since I saw them there before and thought, "why the h e double hockeysticks would I ever need that?" Well now I do. I went there on Saturday morning, passing the Christmas merchandise in those metal cage bins outside; crap that they were practically paying people to take home. I circled the store 4 times trying to find those dang wine gift boxes and none could be found. I thought looking near the 1000 shoebox photo boxes would have been a good idea. Nope.

And then...



I remembered a Christmas item I had seen outside. An ugly wine giftbox that had a plush reindeer head glued on, as well as arms. I hurried outside and saw that they were only 49 cents! Jackpot! I grabbed two.

Here is a picture of the transformation from wretched to chic:

Yay :)

Fun fun fun

Over the past few days I been more creative and productive than usual. I present my three acts of fun:

Fun 1: I have been on Team Conan from the beginning and thanks to Vickie Howell's blog (via Craftzine) I can show my pride:


Fun 2: Also via Craftzine, I made my own gummy candy yesterday! This tutorial is from Skip To My Lou and requires only a small box of your favorite jello, 2 packets of plain gelatin, 1/3 cup of water, and candy molds:I will definitely leave my core gummy candy needs up to the masters, but this was fun, easy and cheap.

Fun 3: This will be a long-term fun project. In reading my new book, Respect the Spindle, I have been revisiting my small group of spinning and roving related crafting stuff that I have picked up from MDSW the past two years (which were my first two years). With knitting as my main passion I have ignored my spinning, a dynamic which I hope to be resolved with Abby's new book. I realized with help a few weeks ago that the yarn I had started spinning (on my $4 CD drop spindle) was in fact felting wool and not intended to be spun. This plus cheap spindle plus not really knowing what I was doing has produced the following--Ladies and gentlemen, I present what I will now refer to as "before":
My first and absolute only attempt at spinning. It's beautiful and totally unworkable at the same time. I will always keep it around, just like my first crochet project; the measly skein isn't enough to knit anything, really.

So at this point I'm reading the book, and have a new spindle and roving ready for when i am brave enough to start. Meanwhile, I am finally getting to some needlefelting that I bought from Thistletown Alpacas last year at MDSW, and am thinking up what I will use the rest of my needle-felting wool for now that I will not spin it.

Call me old fashioned...

So I have been waiting and waiting for a package to arrive and it finally did!

Background story: I have a Blackberry Storm (not bc I can afford it. i happened to stumble upon it when a family member partook in a buy one get one free sale)

Complete with a picture of my mom's cat taking a self-timeout.

So to help lighten up my purse I transferred the information from my Moleskine datebook into my Blackberry and stowed the obselete paper product away. The Blackberry calendar was ok but there was something about the moleskine that just drew me to Amazon.com to buy it for this year and undo my act of technology addiction manifestation. And finally it arrived!

I outfitted it with a Knitty sticker for a personal yet sleek touch.

Ahh...feels like home.

New danger zone

Today I went to The Yarn Spot, the new yarn store that opened up recently in Wheaton, MD near the intersection of University and Georgia. For those of you unaware, that is freakin up the street from me. I see empty bank accounts in my future.

It is in a new strip mall off of Georgia perpendicular to the road. The parking lot is a little tight. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was the subtle industrial feel; buffed cement floor, high ceilings. They also have the Expedit bookcase (comme moi) to organize all their yarn on. They just have a few more than I do. There were a handful of women sitting and knitting at the large table in the middle of the room. I think one person was a vendor. They were welcoming yet not too in-your-face, which was great (I'm saying this because a post on Ravelry said there were too many employees or something).

But of course the best part was the merchandise. Only about 10% had I seen before. All the rest were yarns and even brands that I had never heard of in a wide price range. I bought a beautiful skein of alpaca/wool superwash sock yarn from the Alpaca Yarn Company for $11 which comes with extra coordinating yarn for the heel and toe (called Paca-Peds), and when I want exquisite luxurious yarn for a special project I'll remember their wide array of Jade Sapphire brand yarn. Here were my purchases:
Said sock yarn in purples on top, 2 skeins of Classic Elite Jill Eaton 100% extra fine superwash merino, and a cotton tote with their cute logo. It's only $10 but is discounted depending on how much you buy. I got out with three skeins miraculously under the discount threshold, but I put out the ten bucks for the bag.

Great customer service, great selection, great location. I will be going back. And my credit card whines.

A neat trick

I'm no magician, but I wanted to share this neat trick that you can do it when working with natural, feltable yarn. It's called Spit-Splicing and can be used mid-garment when you have to add another skein of yarn. It replaces the knot and subsequent ends to weave it. You can also use it if you come across a knot made by the manufacturer.

Step one: Fan out the ends of the yarn you want to attach together.
This is a single ply but you can of course use it with muli-ply as well.

Step two: spit into your hand and put one of the ends right in the pool of spit. You heard me right. About 1/8 to 1/4 a teaspoon of spit should do. Don't do too much or it will be just wet and floppy and won't really work. If you mess up, you can just cut off that one or two inches and try again.

Step three: Lay the other end on top and sort of intermingle the strands. Then rub the bunch between your palms really fast. Some heat will be generated. This is essentially felting the two strands together.
Step four: Tug lightly on the two ends to make sure they are secure. Tada! Encorporating your new non-knot into your knitted fabric will secure it even more.

I used the method when making this cowl today. It is with my favorite yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Bulky. It is so very thick and squishy.
And no, this wasn't on my list. But it knit up so fast! I discovered another trick today while knitting this: when changing colors in seed stitch, knit the first row of the new color plain instead of in seed stitch and continue with the pattern on the next row. This will make the color change cleaner.

On a different note, since last May , I have been looking for a good starter book on drop spindling. Needless to say, I became interested in spinning while attending the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and therefore have the two basic supplies, but the difficulty of the craft has led to the spindles and roving gathering dust amongst my knitting stuff. I still am interested in picking up the skill and have had my eye out for a good book to get me started (I can't take a class at my LYS mentioned below because it happens to interfere with an obligation).

While at a Sit n Stitch at A Tangled Skein last night, I found the hand spinning book of my dreams: Respect the Spindle. I love that it not only tells you about how to spin on a drop spindle, but goes over the history, science, best practices, and more. I learned while reading it in my bath this morning that the author first learned to spin at 5 while growing up in rural Peru, where it was as expected to be a skill as being able tie one's shoes. I noticed that the book is by my favorite crafting publisher, Interweave. They really do come up with great stuff.