Daybreak Blocking!!

I couldn't think of a better way to spend New Year's Eve then by blocking my Daybreak Shawl between watching movies with Mr. SpiderKate.  Oh! And I'd like to include a quote from my sister who has complained about the lack of mentions about her in my blog, though her quote was more about how she hasn't received any knitted items from me recently - "I was checking out your blog today.  I saw a lot of items being made, none of which came to my home".   My other favorite quote from her is "You can never have enough hand knit items", which was in response to when I asked her if she ever got sick of me knitting things for her.

Final FO of 2012!

It's my final finished object of 2012!  I'm talking about my Daybreak shawl.  I realized just before Christmas that if I worked on it, then it might be possible to finish it before the end of the year.  Then I realized that the end of the year meant I had less than a week to finish it.  But I was up for the challenge and started knitting away.  Let me just say that some of those final rows were looooong.  Very long.  I may or may not have taken a couple of breaks in the middle of some of the rows.  It all paid off though when I completed that last row!  Though I did postpone doing the bind off until tonight when I really could have done it last night.  Oh well, at least it got done :o)

Yay for being done!!! Okay, almost done :o)

I still have the ends to weave in and it needs to be blocked, but I'm counting it as being done.  I used Ella Rea Lace Merino for my Daybreak in a pink/fuschia color & gray.  I ended up using 58 g (267 yds) of the pink and 73 g of the gray (336 yds).  I knit the medium size, which the pattern said would take 240 yds of color A and 270 yds of color B.  Since I haven't blocked it, I don't know my exact gauge, but I'm probably pretty off since my yarn usage differs from the pattern.  I also modified the edging by adding in those yarn overs, and while they were dropped, that might have slightly affect the amount of yarn used; though the differences in gauge is the real culprit.  I'll post more info about what gauge I got and my final measurements after I get this blocked (which, fingers crossed, I hope to do tomorrow!).

Getting into the Christmas spirit

I'd been feeling kinda blah about Christmas, but then it got cold here.  I mean it finally got cold and my Christmas spirit kicked into high gear, which resulted in Christmas exploding in my living room.  I went out shopping, I got gifts, I wrapped gifts, and I got a couple of packages out in the mail.  I was productive.  It also helped that I realized that I need to have all my Christmas shopping done AND mailed this week.  You see, next week we are traveling to Michigan for Christmas and I knew that if I didn't get things done this week then they were never going to get done.  I only have one more package to mail and at the beginning of the week I had 4, so I'm going to consider this week a success even if I don't get that last package in the mail this week (I definitely will get it out on Monday).

Christmas Explosion

Related to Christmas gifts, Mr. SpiderKate and I had a conversation regarding knitting scarves as gifts for his Aunts that went something like this:

Me: So, what do you want to get for your Aunts for Christmas?
Mr. SpiderKate: You are knitting them the scarves.
Me: No. You said not to knit them anything.  Maybe I could knit them something....if it was quick and easy.
Mr. SpiderKate: Anything with ruffles would be good.

Ah ha! I could knit them each a ruffle scarf that was all the craze awhile back.  Well, they are still a little bit of a craze, but it's calmed down now.  I will confess though - I almost gave up on the first scarf.  It just seemed really hard to get into any sort of rhythm when knitting them.  I persevered and once I was about half way through the first scarf, I got into a rhythm with pulling out the yarn, preparing it for knitting, and then knitting with it.  The first scarf was probably the "hardest" and by the end they were just flying off my needles.

The details:
Ravelry Project Page: Ruffled Scarves
Yarn: Pizzo Lux by Mondial (each scarf took one skein of yarn)
Colors: Various colors (teal/gold, rose/gold, black/gold, & white/gold)
Needles: US 11 (8.00 mm) straight needles (I found that straight needles worked better then using a circular as a straight needle.)
Scarf pattern: CO 8 stitches and knit every row. Bind off when approx. 8 "holes" to end of yarn.  Sometimes I had to fudge the bind off by combining a couple of stitches when I didn't leave enough holes for all 8 stitches to be bound off properly.  For the last stitch I pulled the remaining yarn through the loop and then if I had enough, I tied another small knot - normally I don't do that in knitting, but it seemed like the scarf need the extra knot.  The extra knot isn't noticeable as it gets hidden in all the ruffles.

If you find yourself in need of a very last minute knitted Christmas gift, then definitely give this scarf a try.  It really only takes a couple of hours (or less once you get the hang of it) to knit.

Bulky yarn + big needles = love

I'm not sure how it happened, but November is gone and December is here!  November was pretty busy for me, especially since towards the end of the November I decided that maybe I would knit gifts for Christmas.  Yes, I am that crazy person.  It started with a bulky scarf that I decided to knit for one of my sister-in-laws.  I figured that if I could finish the scarf in a reasonable time, then it wouldn't be that crazy of an idea to knit some Christmas gifts. 

The pattern I used was Lancaster by Kristin Spurkland.  I used the yarn the pattern called for, Baby Chunky by Twinkle/Classic Elite.  Coincidentally, I even used the same color as in the pattern.  I cast on for this project on Nov 18th and cast off on Nov 20th.  It was really that quick.  I'd estimate that maybe it took 5 hours to knit.  Maybe.   I haven't knit a scarf this quickly in FOREVER.  Bulky yarn + big needles might be my new favorite knitting project.   I used all of my skein, which made for a pretty long scarf.  My sister-in-law is tall, so I think it will be a good fit for her. 

There isn't a thing I didn't like about knitting this pattern.  The pattern is well written & easy to memorize.  I was equally impressed with the yarn and found it to be a lot softer than I thought it would be.  I'm fairly sensitive to wool and I think it's even something that I could wear around my neck without too much trouble.  Sadly, I've just gotten around to blocking this tonight, so I don't have any final pictures or measurements yet.  Also, I'm really hoping this doesn't take too long to dry since I need to mail it out this week so that it arrives in time for Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving & Black Friday Sale!

Just a quick note to say Happy Thanksgiving to all!!  Also, I'm running a Black Friday sale starting today and ending Monday night.  Buy any pattern (or patterns) from my Ravelry shop and get 20% off the total order!  No coupon code needed!!  In other news I've created a Ravelry group for my designs.  Check out the group here: SpiderKateKnits Designs.  It's a small group, but hopefully we'll grow and have some fun along the way!

AND in case you missed it, I have a new pattern out: Merlyn.  I did blog a little about it here, but neglected to blog about it again when I released the pattern.  This shawl is a sideways knit shawl with a border that is knit on as the shawl is knit.  If you're looking for a quick last minute Christmas gift, then look no further!  In my post I talked about how much ripping and reknitting I did for this design, so I can attest to just how quickly it knits up.  The shawl was knit with Vice Paradigm on US 5 (3.75mm) needles.  A big thank you goes out to Lizzy Inman of Vice (Yarns) for her generous support!

This shawl design in particular holds a very special place in my heart because it's named after my cat.  Now, I know that it might be weird to name a shawl after a cat, but during the designing phase of this shawl my cat became ill and eventually had to be put to sleep.  It was a very sad time in the SpiderKate household, but we believe that he's gone on to a better place now.  We still miss having the little guy around (he loved turkey day!).  In my mind this shawl was always named for him and I believe it's fitting for this fantastic shawl to be named after such a great cat.

Sleeve redo

I just might be crazy.  Today I ripped out the sleeve I completed in my Rocky Coast Cardigan.  Yes, you read that right.  I ripped it out.  It wasn't easy to rip out either - apparently EZ sewn bind off doesn't really rip out, you have to actually undo it.  Why did I rip it out?  I just wasn't happy with my decreases.  Essentially I was knitting along on the second sleeve and got to the point where I had to decide if I was going to follow what I did for the first sleeve or follow the pattern as written.  I looked at my first sleeve and realized that I really was unhappy with the decrease structure I did.  Basically, I had bunched all the decreases at the end of the sleeve, which just didn't look good. 

Newly ripped sleeve

The good news is that is was pretty easy to rip out and pick up the stitches.  Since I was in progress on the second sleeve and just coming up to the first decrease, I used that as a marker to figure out where to rip back to in the first sleeve.  I think that I got it pretty close to where it should be and if not, then it's close enough for me.  Now I have this crazy idea that maybe I can finish both sleeves by the end of the week....hmmmmm. Oh and perhaps knit a Christmas gift this week.  Actually, I'm pretty sure I am crazy.  Wish me luck!

Daybreak!

The shop is doing a KAL and the pattern is Stephen West's Daybreak shawl.  This is a pattern that I've had in my queue for awhile now, but haven't gotten around to knitting.  The hardest part of this pattern was picking out the yarn.  Let me tell you - I spent A LOT of time on Ravelry looking through all the Daybreak projects.  Probably more time than I should admit to.  Did all that research help? I'd like to say yes, but I think at the same time it just made me more confused about what colors I should do.  Or maybe I just need to knit a Daybreak shawl in every color combination!  Okay, that might be a little crazy.  In the end I decided to look through my stash to see if I had something I could use because at least that would help narrow down the color choices.  

So, I go looking in my stash and I see that I have two skeins of Ella Rae Lace Merino in a fuchsia color. Why do I have two skeins? Who knows!  But it was probably because I wanted it around for design purposes.  Well, since this yarn is actually a light fingering weight yarn and NOT a lace weight, I don't need to have two skeins around for design purposes.  Since I got this yarn from Park Avenue Yarns, I knew that I could find another color in Ella Rae Lace Merino to make my Daybreak.  After much debate and many color consultations, I ended up going with a grey color, which is more of a lavender/purple grey.  With my yarn picked out & wound, I was finally ready to start my shawl.

I finished the first section yesterday and got started on the stripes! Yay! I actually like the stripes part of the shawl better than the first part because the increases are really easy to follow - no counting involved!  I tried to use a marker in the first section to eliminate having to count to the halfway mark for the make one stitch, but it didn't really help out all that much.  I still had to count and check things even with the marker.  My plan right now is to knit the medium size, but I might be tempted to go for the large size...we'll see!

I'm doing one modification for this pattern.  I had to add a yarn over after the first two edge stitches (so before doing the first make one on the right side) AND I added the same yarn over before the last two edge stitches (on the right side).  Now, I can't take credit for this modification, but it's something that I came across in the research that I did when trying to decide on my shawl colors.  I didn't want to have to do this modification, but it was just too hard for me to complete the make one left on the wrong side without the yarn over there.  My edge was going to be waaaaaay to tight without it.  Okay, so what do you do with the yarn over on the wrong side? You drop the yarn over and then pick it back up according to which make one you are doing and then make that stitch.  It's really that easy and saves a lot of frustration when doing the make one left stitch on the WS where you need to purl through the back loop.

How would this instruction look in the pattern? It would look something like this:

All RS rows: K2, yo, M1L, (follow rest of instructions for this row until last two stitches), M1R, yo, k2.

All WS rows: K2, drop yo, M1L, (follow rest of instructions for this row until last two stitches), drop yo, M1R, k2.

Sneak Peek!

I've been pretty busy with design work lately and which means I've been neglecting my blog :o(  If it's any consolation, the blog has been on my mind lately...mostly how I need to do an update.  If this sounds vaguely familiar to you then you've probably talked to me in person about it or I've written it on here before.  Anyhow!  I've been charting my heart out lately.  Obsessively.  It's to the point where Mr. SpiderKate is starting to put his foot down to make me stop so that I go to bed and get some sleep.  It's just soo hard to stop when I'm really excited about this new lace shawl design!  I'd say at this point that I'm 80% finished with charting and just need to knit a swatch of two more charts and I'll have the design down.

In other news I've finished up the design for Vice Yarns Paradigm.  Even bigger news is that I finished writing the pattern yesterday and sent it off for editing!  Yay!  I feel soo good about having this pattern done. Seriously good.  A big thanks goes out to Mr. SpiderKate for taking time out on Sunday to help me with photographs so that I could get the pattern done.  He is seriously the best and most supportive force in my design work.  I think just being able to talk to him about the design process is really helpful because sometimes I just need to voice my concerns over a design and by doing so I figure out the answer.

Did I mention how happy I am with this design? Honestly, I love love love it.  Believe me when I say it was quite the journey to get to this point.  Let me clarify that.  I've always loved the design I had in mind for this yarn because the yarn is really what inspired me to use this particular edging pattern in a sideways knit shawlette.  The journey involved figuring out the best increase scheme for the shawlette.

The first time I start knitting the sample, I realized pretty quickly that my initial increase scheme wasn't going to work and I had to rip back to almost the beginning of the shawlette.  The second time I knit it, I went with a different increase scheme and about halfway through realized that it was going to use up too much yarn, but I forged ahead and kept knitting.  Yes, I knit the whole shawlette.  The good news on this one is that I didn't run out of yarn, but the bad news is that I was left with 1 gram of yarn.  

So guess what I did?  I ripped back.  But before I could rip back, I had to thread an afterthought lifeline.  I'm going to confess, this is the first time I've ever put in a lifeline after the fact, so I was little nervous that it wasn't going to work out.  It was a pretty easy lifeline to put in after the fact because there is a point in the knitting where the lace edging doesn't have any lace per se, but I still wasn't sure I'd gotten it right.  With my newly place lifeline, I starting the ripping process and low & behold the lifeline was in the right place!!!  I was beyond thrilled because it saved me 48 rows of knitting. Yay!  I must say that this yarn holds up BEAUTIFULLY to being ripped and reknit.  This pattern should be published sometime next week, so check back for a post with more details!

Pumpkin Spice Cowl

I have a new design and it's not a shawl!  Gasp.  I know!  While I love love LOVE designing shawls, I've been wanting to branch out to other knitted accessories.  I always thought my first accessory after shawls would be socks, but that turns out not to be the case.  It's a cowl!  This cowl was designed and inspired by both Park Avenue Yarns and the yarn itself.  Michelle asked me to design a pattern that would showcase a new line of yarn by Lang called Arenas, which is a super bulky yarn.

In a rare turn events, I knew what I wanted to name this cowl before I even knew what I wanted the design to be, which hardly ever happens for me.  Usually I have a design nailed down and then spend forever trying to name it.  Names are hard!  In fact, the first design I tried didn't end up working out and after ripping that out, I suddenly had a vision of what I wanted the cowl to look like.  Thus the Pumpkin Spice Cowl was born!   This cowl has the awesome combination of using super bulky yarn & big needles, making it a quick knit ideal for last minute gifts or for when a cold front is coming and you need something to keep your neck warm.  The pattern can be found on Ravelry or is free with yarn purchase at Park Avenue Yarns!

Pattern details:
Pattern: Pumpkin Spice Cowl by Me!
Ravelry Project Page: Pumpkin Spice Cowl
Yarn: Lang Yarns Arenas [53% Wool, 47% Acrylic] 100g; 71 yds/65 m
Needles: US 15 (10.00 mm) for cast on & US 13 (9.00 mm) 16" for body
Finished dimensions: Circumference = 20"/51 cm; Length = 7.5"/19 cm
A great pattern for beginners, you only need to know how to knit, purl and knit the round for this pattern!

My sample used 80 grams of yarn, which is 56 yds of yarn.  You could easily use up more of the yarn to make the cowl by adjusting either the height of the cowl by working more rows of the pattern (i.e. the length measurement) or by increasing the number of stitches cast on by 5 or 10 stitches, which would give a slightly larger circumference.  Or even better, buy two skeins and make two cowls plus a mini cowl with the leftovers!

Beware of the Knitting Monster!

The other night Mr. Spiderkate was messing around with the new camera and took this cool shot of my knitting bag, which we agree looks a lot like the knitting bag eating my knitting supplies.  Thus the knitting monster was born! Beware of the knitting monster, it's been known to eat any and all things knitting related without a second thought.  How cruel ;-)

CHOMP!

In knitting news - I'm working on a new sideways knit shawl design.  Actually, I spent the bulk of yesterday trying to make the stitches in the chart do something they didn't want to do.  I finally came to the realization that no matter what math I used, I couldn't get the stitches to do what I want.  I did fix another issue with the shawl, mainly where to place the increases for the body of the shawl, and as a result I'm pretty happy with it.  I'm knitting this shawl with the very lovely Paradigm yarn by Vice.  Seriously, this yarn is gorgeous and the color is out of this world.  I'm not ready to share a photo of the design yet (I will soon, I promise!), but I'll leave you with a photo of this beautiful yarn.

A year older, a year wiser (or at least I hope!)

I love birthdays!  It doesn't even have to be my birthday; I just love birthdays.  My birthday was last week and I think it was easily one of my top ten birthdays of all time.  I'm not even sure how to explain what made it soo awesome because it was just a good feeling overall, ya know?   Okay, so maybe I can figure out one reason why it was great - Mr. SpiderKate and I weren't going through any big life events.  You see, we have this funny habit of having big life changing events happening in the Fall.  Life events like moving, changing jobs, buying a house, being laid off (okay, so we can't control that one, but it happened one year the weekend before my birthday) - these things just always seem to happen to us in the Fall.  This happens often enough that it seems like we are never in the same state when the other's birthday happens.  Weird, I know.  

Mr. SpiderKate really went all out for my birthday this year.  This year he surprised me with not only one of the Barbara Walker Treasury of Knitting Patterns books, but he got me all 4 PLUS a stitch dictionary for Fair Isle Motifs.  I had been telling him how I keep checking out the first book in the series from the library and how invaluable it would be to own it or any of her 4 books.  In fact I was telling him that if he wanted to get me ONE of the books that I would like either the first or second book in the series.  Never did I think that I would be lucky enough to get all 4!

Taken with my new camera!

Mr. SpiderKate also surprised me with a new camera.  Since he is often the one taking photos of my knitting designs, he was beginning to see that our current camera just wasn't really getting the job done.    It also didn't help that the camera had recently taken a nose dive onto our tile floor courtesy of me.  Oops.  So, needless to say we'd been talking about upgrading the camera.  Well, Mr. SpiderKate did the research and got me the Olympus OM-D E-M5.  Let me just say that this camera is awesome and (I'm not gonna lie) a little overwhelming.  I have a lot to learn about taking photos, but I'm confident that with time I will get better at it.  Oh and I should mention that he also got me a camera bag to go with the camera (otherwise if/when he reads this he's going to say "how come you didn't mention the camera bag??).  So yes, there is a camera bag as well :o)

My family & friends also made this birthday extra special with their love and thoughtfulness.  Truly I don't even know how to express how loved I've felt this birthday.  I think I'm the lucky one to have ya'll as a part of my life and I'm thankful for each of you!

Belle Epoque Shawl

Yesterday Mr. SpiderKate and I went out and did a photo shoot for my new pattern, Belle Epoque.  Whenever I need (want) to take photos of a shawl it is guaranteed to be a wind day and yesterday was no exception.  It was very windy.  Ugh.  The good news is that Mr. SpiderKate was very patient and 180 photos later, we called it a day.  

For this particular photo shoot, we took a trip to a nearby park.  Neither of us had been to this park before, so it was nice to see that it was actually well kept and had a lot of walkways.  There was also a little pond at this park that apparently is home to a million turtles.  Okay, so it wasn't million but I counted at least 8 turtles.  Just sitting at the edge of the pond was enough to draw turtles over.  I'm guessing that people feed them so that's why they swim over.  We didn't have any food for them and thus the turtles quickly lost interest in us.

"Why didn't you bring us any food??"

Anyway, on to the shawl details!  This shawl is a twist on the traditional top down triangle shawl in that it is composed of 3 triangles instead of 2.  The extra triangle gives a lot of depth to the shawl and because of that, you can easily cover your arms for instant warmth on cool mornings & nights.  To me, the shawl looks like a mix of a crescent & triangle shawl.  I wasn't really expecting this when I started knitting it, in fact I was excepting the shawl to have a semi-circular shape, but I was really happy once I realized it was taking this crescent + triangle shape.

Belle Epoque was knit with 2 skeins of Manos del Uruguay lace weight yarn.  The actual amount of yarn used was 84 grams, which is 736 yards, knit on a US 5 (3.75 mm) 40" circular needle.  The shawl is not knit in the round, but by the end there are around 500+ stitches, making the circular needle a necessity.   This pattern is available for purchase in my Ravelry shop here: SpiderKate Knits Designs.

Cedar Shake Fingerless Gloves

Late last week I finished up the fingerless gloves I was knitting.  The pattern is Cedar Shake from the book JuJu's Loops.  I gave a very brief review of the book in an earlier blog post & about how I immediately cast on for these gloves.  I love these gloves and can't wait for cooler temps so that I can start wearing them.  Though maybe I just need to find some well air conditioned buildings and wear them around in there :o)

The Details:
Pattern: Cedar Shake by Juju Vail & Susan Cropper
Raverly pattern page: Cedar Shake Fingerless Gloves
Yarn: Madelinetosh Pashmina; color Gilded
Needles: US 3 (3.25 mm) DPNs (love knitting with DPNs!)
Glove #1: 29 grams
Glove #2: 29 grams
Total yarn used: 58 grams (180 yds)

I knit this exactly as the pattern instructed including knitted the braided edge as directed.  I'm not sure that it's worth the extra effort to do the braided edge, but it does give a unique edge.  
This edge creates extra ends that have to be woven in later; so if you really hate weaving in ends, then this isn't the edging for you.  I'm pretty sure you would get a very similar look by just purling the last two rounds and then binding off knit wise.  Overall, the pattern is well written, easy to follow, and easy to memorize once you get into it.  In fact, it was easy to forget to change over my row counter because I was just cruising along.  However, you can quickly figure out where you are in the pattern based on the yarn overs. 

This is my confession

Okay. Here it is - I've been collecting Plucky Knitter Yarns so that I can knit a Color Affection shawl.  Plucky Knitter Primo! Fingering weight yarn to be exact.  Before I divulge how many I have, I want to note that the pattern needs 3 colors.  How many do I have, you ask? I have 7 colors.  Yes, I have 7 skeins of this yarn.

The middle color is Vanity

It all started with the purchase of the At Last kit.  This kit comes with the following colors: Bisque, Bashful & En Vogue.  The colors themselves are gorgeous, but I just don't really like the look of the color Bisque with the other two colors in the kit for the Color Affection pattern.  There just doesn't seem to be enough contrast between Bisque & Bashful, at least for me.  

Bisque (top), En Vogue (left) & Bashful

Then I acquired another kit: Blue Bayou.  Included with this kit are the following colors: Early Light, Something Blue & Bohemian Blue.  I should have stopped here because I really love this combination of colors.  But then I was torn because I really do love the colors in At Last, just minus the Bisque color.  I decided that at the next Plucky Knitter update that I would buy a final color to substitute into the At Last kit.  That last color was Vanity.  

Early Light (top), Bohemian Blue (left) & Something Blue

That is story of how I came to own 7 skeins of Plucky Knitter Primo! Fingering weight yarn.  The kicker is that I still haven't knit the shawl yet.  My plan is to finalize colors this weekend and cast on for the shawl.  Part of me is leaning towards knitting the Blue Bayou kit as it is, but I think I'm more interested in combining skeins from each kit.  For example, I kinda like the combination of Bohemian Blue, Bashful, & Vanity.  Or maybe combining Something Blue, Bisque, & En Vogue.  Hmmm. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

The design process

I've had a design in the works for awhile now for a 3 triangle shawl.  When I first started designing & knitting this shawl, I had in my head that it would look have a semi-circle shape to it.  However, after working out the details to the cast-on, it looked like the shawl would end up a cross of a crescent, triangle, & regular shawl.  One of the reasons I got hooked on the idea of this semi-circular type of shawl is that I was really curious to see how it would "fit".  I just had a feeling that it would fit more like a cape, but without being an actual cape.  I'm not sure that makes sense, but it will once you see the photos (stay tuned for a post on that!).

After picking out my stitch patterns, I settled on a shawl that would not only have 3 triangles, but 3 sections of lace as well.  The first section would be stockinette, the second section the main body of lace and the third & final section would be the lace edging.  Next, I needed to chart the lace motifs as well as decide the order they would come in the shawl itself.  My favorite order to put lace motifs in is to have a more open motif follow a more closed motif (see the photo of the swatch to make more sense of this).  I got my first round of charting done and then decided to rearrange the order of the rows in the lace motifs.  Well, this took a little bit of figuring, but I finally got it to how I wanted it to look, which I confirmed with a knitted swatch.  

Swatch in the process of being blocked!

Now comes the fun part.  Taking those charted lace motifs and putting them into the format necessary to knit a triangle, top-down shawl.  I love this part because it's like a puzzle that needs to be solved and only I know the solution.  And sometimes I don't even really know the solution until I'm charting it and working out the math and various lace combinations.  I'm not gonna lie - I can become a little crazy and obsessive during this phase of designing and as Mr. SpiderKate likes to remind me "You aren't working against a hard deadline", but I just can't seem to rest until I've "solved" the chart.

Merlin says "Did you make this for me to sit on??"

Once I've solved the details of the cast-on & the charts, it's now time to pick out yarn and needles.  For me, this is a whole other ball of wax.  There are just soo many yummy yarns that I want to knit with, that I can have a hard time deciding what to knit with!  Usually I have an idea of yarn weight & the fiber content that I'm looking for, so that isn't a problem, but more so which brand of yarn & what color.  There are just soo many fabulous brands AND colors of yarn!  I will spend quite a bit of time looking at yarns online, at my LYS, and even in my own stash to see if something speaks to me.   Maybe I should make it a goal to knit every design with a different brand/type/color of yarn every time so that I can experience more of them....hmmmm....I might be on to something here.  

Well, after I finally settle on a yarn & needle choice, then all that is really left is to knit the shawl sample.  Depending on the yarn & intended size of the shawl and what else I have going on, this can take anywhere from 1 week to a month.  Sometimes even longer if I get distracted, but it's never the knitting itself that takes long.  It's more I'm not giving it the proper attention to get it done because I'm working on either another design or another knitted item.  I think that the quickest I've ever designed & knit something was in 2 weeks and the longest being 4 months from designing start to knitting finish.  

And that's a peek at the design process for my next to be released shawl pattern.  The pattern is currently being technical edited and should be available for sale at the end of the month/beginning of next month.  Stay tuned for another post with more details and photos!

Chicken & Pepper Stir Fry

Okay, I have a dinner recipe that I just have to share because it is super easy.  Mr. SpiderKate and I are typically early dinner eaters.  We are talking about eating dinner at 530 pm or so.  Sometimes earlier.  I know, we are crazy.  But with me now working until 6 pm three nights a week, our dinner times have been pushed back and I've been looking for dinners that I can prep ahead of time and Mr. SpiderKate can either pop in the oven when he gets home or cook on the stove top.  The latest of these dishes is what I call Chicken & Pepper Stir Fry.

This isn't a new recipe for us and in fact it's a Mr. SpiderKate original recipe, but we've never prepped it ahead of time to be cooked later.  Basically I prep everything and leave it in the fridge, then Mr. Spiderkate can start making it once I'm on my way home.  The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:
4-5 bell peppers
2 good sized boneless chicken breasts
1 bottle of Kikkoman Stir-Fry sauce
Canola or Vegetable oil (for coating the pan)

Prep:
Bell peppers: cut into approx. 3/4 inch cubes (or desired size)
Chicken: cut into approx. 1 inch cubes (or desired size)
--> These can be prepped ahead of time either the night before or morning of OR prepped just before cooking!  Do whatever works best for you!!  Just remember to refrigerate bell peppers & chicken if you prep them ahead of time.

Directions:
Using a large sauté pan (I use the largest one we have made of stainless steel), coat with canola or vegetable oil and heat pan on medium-high to high heat.  Cook chicken.  Once chicken is cooked through, remove from pan and set aside.  Now cook the bell peppers in the same pan (add more canola/vegetable oil if needed), stirring constantly.  If you have the heat up pretty high, the peppers only take a few minutes to cook.  You basically just want to cook them enough that they are heated through but not wilted or burned.  Once peppers are cooked, add chicken back in and reduce heat to medium, allowing the chicken and peppers to come to the same temperature.  Add approx. 1/3 of the bottle of Kikkoman Stir-Fry sauce (or to your taste preference) and stir.  Once all combined, your meal is done!

We typically serve this with rice on the side, which either is from leftover rice or cooked fresh alongside the Chicken & Pepper Stir Fry.  We used to add in crunchy noodles (like the ones seen here by La Choy), but we discovered they had trans fat so we stopped using them.  Oh!  We are only making this for two people, so feel free to add in more chicken if you are cooking for a larger crowd.  Also note that you can substitute sirloin steak for chicken if desired, it's good either way.

News + San Antonio

You have no idea how many times this blog has been on my mind lately.  More so that I feel like I've been neglecting it, even though it's only been a week since my last post.  Okay, so it was a week + 2 days.  A lot has been going on around casa de SpiderKate.   The biggest news is that I start working part time at my local yarn store!  I'm super excited for this new role and I'm not even sure that saying "super excited" really conveys how excited I am.  I started the last week in August, on the 29th actually, and will be working Wednesday, Thursday & Friday afternoons.  Since I haven't worked outside of the home since October 2010, it has been an adjustment back & doing all the things that I regularly do at home.  I'm happy to report that the transition is going smoothly and honestly I didn't expect anything less.

View of desk in our room complete with beta fish!

In other news, Mr. SpiderKate and I went away this past weekend to San Antonio.  We arrived on Thursday and left on Sunday.  My first impression of San Antonio was that it was hot.  Very hot.  I mean I know it's hot in TX because we live in Houston, but it was easily 10+ degrees hotter in San Antonio compared to Houston.  Wow.  We were putting on sunscreen like nobody's business and while we didn't get burned, we did get some sun.

Mission Conception

The first day (Thursday) we went to the Alamo and I learned that apparently I knew very little about the Alamo besides the basics.  Mr. SpiderKate and I opted to do the audio tour and while I think Mr. SpiderKate listened to each recording in perfect order, my listening was a bit more sporadic.  I started doing them in order, but then decided to skip around to what topics looked more interesting to me.  By the end I was ready to be done.  There were a lot of audio topics you could listen to.  I'm pretty sure I didn't listen to all of them.  That night we had some AWESOME Mexican food and margaritas for dinner.  Yum.

Part of Mission San Jose

The second day (Friday) we rented bikes and rode along the river to visit two of the missions within biking reach: Mission Conception & Mission San Jose.  Essentially this is all we did this day because it took up a good portion of the day.  We also got pretty tired of being out in the sun.  Nothing zaps your energy like being out in the sun in 100 degree temperatures.  At least being on the bike was a little cooler than just walking since you get a little bit of a breeze from biking.  I got some knitting done this day and cast off for the main portion of my fingerless gloves and started the thumb.

Cedar Shake fingerless gloves

On our last full day (Saturday) a "cold front" came through which dropped the temperatures to the high 90s and what a difference it made!!!!!!  I always forget how much a difference 10 degrees can make in hot weather until I experience it.  It was awesome.  I guess we should have looked at the weather because this would have been the day to do the biking.  Oh well.  Instead we took the bus out to the McNay Art Museum.  Everyone on the bus (including the driver) was really friendly with helping us out on where to get off for the museum.  The museum was awesome!  I would call it a  medium sized museum, which I think is the perfect size.  While I think that big museums are awesome, I tend to find them overwhelming.  Very overwhelming.  The McNay Art Museum was perfect sized, in my opinion.  Oh! Another awesome thing about this museum? The totally FREE audio tour available from  your cell phone.  Basically you call this number enter the exhibit number on the sign of whatever piece of artwork you are looking at and you get to hear a little blurb about it.  How cool is that??

Courtyard at McNay Art Museum & I'm dressed like a ninja

I am back logged on projects that I need to update here in the blog.  The big thing is that I finished up Mr. SpiderKate's socks.  My progress has slowed on my Rocky Coast Cardigan, but mostly because it's become too big to take out in public to knit on (though I'm almost done with the first sleeve).  I also have a scarf that is almost complete since it makes for good public knitting and of course I have the fingerless gloves.  I'll try to get a post about one of these knitting projects soon.

New book!

I think it was last week when I was talking to my mom on the phone she told me about a new knitting book she picked up: Juju's Loops by Juju Vail & Susan Cropper.  What do I do immediately while on the phone with her?  I start looking up the patterns on Ravelry.  The pattern that I came across first was the Cedar Shake fingerless gloves.  It was love at first sight!  After checking to see if my LYS had a copy of this book (they didn't), I asked my mom if she could have her LYS reserve a copy for me.  My mom then picked the book up on a Sunday, my dad mailed it out to me on a Monday and by Thursday of this past week I had the book in my possession. 

I've never seen a package say "carbon neutral shipment"

There are eleven patterns in the book consisting of mostly accessories (shawls, cowls, fingerless gloves, scarves) and a couple of garments - a child's cardigan and two adult cardigans - and one toy project.  There is also a section in the back that highlights some free patterns available on the blog for the shop where both women work.  The best way to locate those patterns is either via Ravelry, which has a link to the pattern on the site, or to go to the shop's blog and search for the pattern in the "search the blog" box on the left hand side.

I have the book!!!

Sadly, I didn't have time to cast-on for the fingerless gloves on Thursday, but found some time on Friday morning to get started.  I'm knitting these using some Madelinetosh Pashmina from my stash that was actually a present from Mr. SpiderKate for my birthday last year.  I'm knitting these using US 3 (3.25 mm) double pointed needles.  I didn't get a chance to knit much on them on Friday beyond casting on, but on Saturday I got through the first chart and am now on the second chart.

Progress as of Friday!

Build me up buttercup

Last week I finished a pair of arm warmers but haven't gotten a chance to blog about them.  The pattern is a Blue Sky Alpacas pattern called Arm Warmers by Sylvia Hager.  Mine were knit using Blue Sky Alpacas Sport Weight yarn in the Cappuccino (#540) and Buttercup (#537) colors.  I used Cappuccino as the main color (2 skeins) and Buttercup (1 skein) as the contrasting color.  This yarn was wonderful to work with (seems like I say that a lot) and softer than I thought it would be.  My only complaint is that it is a tiny bit splitty, but not nearly as much as some other yarns I've worked with.  Overall I'd highly recommend this yarn and I look forward to working with it again.

The pattern gives two sizes and after a bit of research, I opted to knit the smaller size figuring that the ribbing about be somewhat forgiving (it is!).  Another reason for knitting the smaller size? These arm warmers are meant to fitted.  If you don't want a fitted look, then definitely knit the larger size.  In fact, you could even knit a size larger than the largest size given in the pattern by casting on extra stitches in multiplies of 5.  Even though I knit the small size for the arm, I decided to give myself more room at the elbow.  When it came to joining the contrasting color, instead of following the increases as written, I opted to increase to the number of stitches for the larger size glove.  

A unique feature of this pattern is that it is knit from the hand to the elbow.  The thumb is actually shaped using a form of short rows instead of a traditional bind off X number of stitches.  The reason I say a form of short rows is because they aren't true short rows, but the concept is similar - you'll see if you decide to knit these gloves (which I highly recommend!).  My only complaint with the pattern is with the instructions for how to join after shaping for the thumb.  It's not entirely clear that you shouldn't be joining "backwards", which would lead to knitting these inside out (which you aren't suppose to do).  

The details:
Needles: US 3 (3.25 mm) DPNs
Glove #1 = 43 g
Glove #2 = 44 g

Yarn remaining of each color:
Cappuccino = 16 g & 15 g
Buttercup = 30 g

Currently these gloves are residing at my local yarn store (LYS), Park Avenue Yarns as a shop sample for an upcoming class on double pointed needles.

P.S. It's really hard to take a photo of yourself wearing gloves.  Here is probably the best one (which is actually just the least worst photo), so that you can have an idea of what these look like on.

It goes on & on & on

I am knitting with the skein that won't quit.  Seriously.  This Miss Babs Yowza - Whatta Skein! is starting to feel like the never ending skein.  I am ~11.5 inches from the underarm of my cardigan to the bottom edge and I have 23 grams of yarn (57 yards) left in the first skein.  I'm beginning to think that I'm going to be able to finish the cabling on the back before starting the second skein, which will put me in good shape to finish the arms & ribbing without running out of yarn.

Okay, so where am I at in the cardigan?  On 8/16 I finished all the instructions on page 37, which left me deciding if I should do the errata to increase the circumference of the sleeves & depth of the yoke.  After much hemming and hawing and of course Ravelry research (no joke, I read TONS of Ravelry project pages & threads related to the cardigan), I ultimately decided to follow the errata instructions.  My decision was influenced on my research, but also on the fact that if the arms did come out too big for, then I could decrease stitches more rapidly/easily then it would have been to add stitches.

Nerd alert! I made an excel spreadsheet for the increases!

On 8/17 I finished the errata and split for the sleeves.  Now here is where my progress slowed, at least compared to my initial progress.  I know what you are thinking, didn't you just cast on for this on 8/14?  How can you possibly say it's slowing down?  Well, I guess it just felt like I slowed down.  While I was initially pretty enthusiastic about knitting the back, it quickly began somewhat less appealing as the inches crept on.

This cardigan is knitting up pretty quickly and I'm already beginning to feel the itch to knit more garments.  Or at least more cardigan type garments.  As far as fit, I'm still on the fence.  When I try the cardigan on, the fit seems good, maybe even great, but I'm concerned that the ribbing is going to change how I feel about it.  The good thing is that it keeps me motivated to knit on it because I'm excited to see how the ribbing is going to affect the fit.

A cardigan?!?!

No, you are not dreaming.  As the title does suggest, yes! I am knitting a cardigan.   I posted back in January some 2012 knitting goals.  The #1 goal I wrote was to knit a garment.  There are some other things on that list, but I'll get back to those in another post.  Okay, so what garment?  Well, I am going to knit something that should be relatively easy - a top down cardigan with a forgiving fit.  The pattern: Rocky Coast Cardigan from Coastal Knits.  This book was written by Alana Dakos and Hannah Fettig and the Rocky Coast Cardigan in particular is one of Hannah Fettig's designs. 

I actually pegged this design to be my first garment sometime in the spring or at least before I knew I would be visiting my family in MD.  I originally planned to knit this shawl using the yarn that the pattern called for and it just so happened to be my luck that the yarn store I would be visiting in MD (Fibre Space) carried the yarn the pattern calls for: The Fibre Company Organik.  This yarn is absolutely lovely, let me tell you, but it retails for around $12 a skein.  I was going to need at least 11 skeins for this project which would make this a $120 cardigan, give or take.  Now, I'm all for knitting a cardigan with awesome yarn and ending up with a beautiful cardigan worth $120, but I wanted to buy more at the store than just this yarn.    The yarn budget only stretches soo far, if you know what I'm saying.  In looking around the store I came across Miss Babas Yowza - Whatta Skein! and knew I found the perfect substitute.  

Top swatch = US 10.5 needles; bottom swatch = US 11 needles

The pattern calls for a gauge of 16 sts & 20 rows in 4 inches in the Cable Stitch pattern on US 10.5 needles.  I swatched with the US 10.5 needles and ended up with 9 sts in 4 inches.  Since I needed less stitches to an inch, I went up a needle size and swatched with US 11 needles.  The US 11 needles gave me a gauge of 8 sts in 4 inches.  Spot on.  I kinda like the look of the 10.5 swatch more, but I decided to go with what gives the right gauge.

Back panel

I'm knitting the 43"size which should give me the 4-6" of positive ease that the pattern calls for.  I'm 11 rows in and so far I'm enjoying it.  I'm still not 100% on whether I like the look of the fabric that the US 11 needles gives, but I'm trusting in the gauge and knitting on.  Another new skill learned in this project: knitting cables without a cable needle.  I can't wait to get further along so that I can try it on!