Tag Archives: knitting

fruit cup.

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Fruit for breakfast, in all forms. Soon the strawberry rows will be open for u-picking at the farm I belong to, and I can’t wait.

The professor I TAed for this spring invited me to join his neighborhood coed over 30 soccer team, and yesterday was our first match. (Nope, I’m not quite 30, but apparently being a woman trumps being old enough, and my “extreme youth” is not a problem.) Let me just say that I didn’t FEEL any younger than anybody else on the field yesterday! Despite today’s aches, I had a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to my weekly summer soccer game — something I haven’t done since I was a little girl.

I’ve made progress on legwarmer numero dos, thanks to a laid-back un-birthday bbq for a knitterly friend on Saturday night, and a This American Life listening gathering, complete with beer and dessert, last night.

And now, some Boh to help with Monday morning. I did not do this to him, but once it was done, I couldn’t help but take a picture. Poor Boh. Life is so hard sometimes. Time for more coffee and a little bit of knitting before I start today’s reading.  Hope your week is off to a good start!

smarter?

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Boh: Umm, do these make me look smarter?

Rooster: Most definitely.

I’m almost to the cuff of legwarmer numero uno, and if I can keep up this knitting pace, I should be able to wear these to yoga next week. (The class I like to go to on campus starts up again for the summer session on Monday, and the room is always cold. These will be perfect.)

from scratch.

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Time to stop petting my handspun and start knitting with it! Boh and I spent our lazy, rainy Sunday morning listening to podcasts and winding yarn into cakes. Well, and then taking pretty pictures of them. I have plans to cast on projects in all of these yarns…this week, even!

Following Adrian of Hello Yarn’s recipe, I cast on a legwarmer out of my Hello Yarn patchwork merino 2-ply handspun. This stuff is super soft and squishy, and I am obsessed with the way it is striping. (It has doubled in length since I snapped this photo.) I cast on 48 stitches to start, and will post my notes once I finish the pair.

Here’s another shot of those stripes, against a less busy (Boh) backdrop.

Making yarn cakes is exhausting, clearly. Alright, time for some coffee and morning knitting. I can’t wait to get back to my legwarmers — and then, back to work. Happy Monday!

FO: wurm.

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Swoon. This might be my favorite hat ever: just the right amount of slouchiness, so soft, and of course, handspun that seems as though it was made for this pattern. I cannot stop drooling over these color repeats. I know I say it all the time, but Adrian over at Hello Yarn works magic. Seriously. Magic. I had 201 yards in the first skein of this stuff, and I managed to use what looks like about 195 of those yards.

I knit the pattern’s size M on US 5 needles. The pattern called for 10 sections of knit/purl ridges, but I did seven and it seemed deep enough, so I began the decreases. In order to get to the final bit of yellow in my skein, I stretched out the decrease rounds by throwing in a few extra knit rows between them, and when I had enough yellow (if there is such a thing), I bound off.

Also, I’m making progress on the Hello Yarn corriedale in Seasick that I showed you yesterday. I’m almost done spinning all 4 oz, and I’m starting to lean towards leaving this as singles and making a shawl. What do you think?

all before eight.

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I went to bed before eleven last night, which was heavenly. I’m an early to bed, early to rise kind of person, and I function best first thing in the morning. I love to sleep with the windows open, shades up, so that I rise with the sun. The craziness of the end of the semester, paired with the fact that I’m currently dating someone with pretty much the opposite schedule means that I haven’t really been able to do this for several weeks. (Not that I’m staying up til 3 or anything, but I’ve been trying to compromise. Hard to be social and go out for drinks with folks who meet up at 10 or 11, when that is normally about when I’m climbing into my bed.)

Anyway, I went to bed before 11 last night, and woke up feeling rested just before six. I made my cup of coffee, and curled up with my wurm.

Note the brokeknits-esque nature of this photo. I think I’m going to knit a few more sections before beginning the decreases. I am in love with these color transitions.

The parritch targhee 3-ply is still damp, but I’ll have finished pictures of that soon. In the meantime, I decided to put something else on the wheel. This is Hello Yarn Fiber Club corriedale in Seasick, and I’m planning either to leave this as singles OR to navajo ply this, depending on how it goes and what I want to make with this stuff. It has been awhile since I spun any corriedale, and whoa, this stuff is awesome. Just sayin’.

Here’s a glimpse of some of yesterday’s organizational progress.

And an early-morning, rather drowsy, pouting pooch. He has no idea that in about half an hour we’re meeting a friend for a nice long walk. Tough life, big dog.

the future is bright.

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At least, that’s what my dear friend P. said last Friday night when she looked at that tray o’ dumplings and slipped on her shades. It has been a week of visitors — meaning lots of extra puppy love for Boh. See?

P. made a quick stop-over on a cross-country drive, and then D. pressed pause on his whirlwind of round-the-globe travel/work to spend a few days in my smaller-town life. We also made dumplings (an homage to the vast number of dumplings we used to routinely inhale when we were roommates on the other side of the world), curled up with the dog — and made blueberry pancakes.

It is just us again. Here is Boh’s response:

I think he misses our house guests.

Today I did lots of laundry and end-of-the-semester apartment cleaning. The books keep multiplying, and while I foresee adding another bookshelf in the very near future, I decided to spend some time making more room on my existing shelves. (This is clearly code for further compressing my stash into my yarn containers to shift the ratio of yarn: books on my shelves…) Also, I finally sat down and plied up that gorgeous targhee from Hello Yarn in the Parritch colorway.

This may be a bit overplied. I am giving it a nice warm soak right now, and I’m hoping it will relax into a squishy 3-ply.

I even have some knitting to share! This is my citron shawl. The first few sections have gone quite quickly, though I realize I’m going to slow way down as my stitch count continues to increase. I am having a great time with this project — it requires just the right amount of attention, and the Classic Elite Silky Alpaca Lace is lovely.

Happy weekend!

balcony knitting.

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So, the boy has a balcony. He is still working, but I am taking a few days off, which means that when he invited me to come work with him on the balcony, I knew exactly what “work” I would bring. As you can see, I’ve cast on my citron in the Classic Elite Silky Alpaca Lace, and I’m already past the set-up section. I’m going to have fun with this – I can tell.

FO: shalom.

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Boh is anxious about button selection.

And here’s what I settled on. (Boh’s anxiety was completely valid, by the way. Turns out I made four buttonholes. Didn’t realize that until I sewed on three buttons and tried on the sweater. I’m not sure yet if I’ll move the top button down, leave it as is, buy another funky orange button, or swap the buttons entirely. Thoughts?)

Here’s a full length shot, even though the brilliance of the sunshine puts me (and shalom) in shadow.

Have I told you lately that I love this sweater? School and life got in the way of me finishing this earlier in the spring. Despite the fact that it took me a few months to knit, this is actually a super quick, super rewarding knit.

Yarn:  2.75 skeins of Cascade 220

Mods: I followed the pattern, but I used worsted weight yarn and size 7 needles (thanks to all the shalom knitters on ravelry for their detailed notes). To account for my smaller gauge, I added a repeat of the twisted rib yoke section, and then pretty much knit until it seemed to hit me at the right spot. Oh — and I added a fourth buttonhole, even though there is not currently a button to pair it with.

Even though all of my decisions about sizing occurred totally on the fly, this might be my best fitting sweater to date. Go figure. The weather around here is spring-y, and not too hot, so I should have lots of opportunity to wear my shalom this week!

smart.

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Hello, friends. Rooster here, typing to you from the smartest phone I’ve ever had. It was time to trade in my trusty Razr, and while six months ago (when I bought that phone another battery) I was looking for something simple, this time around the lure of the internet (all the time) and the explosion of texting/social networking among friends old and new made taking advantage of this upgrade offer to get something shiny and fancy a no-brainer. And whoa – I can even blog from this thing!

I am attempting to add a photo, also taken by my new blackberry curve. Here we go! Regular laptop blogging will resume shortly. Happy weekend!