First sock syndrome?!?

Most people know about second sock syndrome.  You know, where you finish the first sock and then either don't knit the second sock or take a long time to before you start knitting the second sock.  Well, I'm here to tell you about first sock syndrome.  Let me preface this by saying that I love socks.  Love knitting socks! But I think what it really comes down to is that I love the beginning of a sock.  I love starting out with a small circumference and watching it grow as I knit another round.  Then I get past the ribbing & part way down the leg of the sock and before I've knit any more I'll get distracted by another project.  My poor little sock will get left sitting in its bag waiting for me to return to it.  Often times the sock ends up waiting almost a whole year to get back to it.  

Now, don't get me wrong, I do think about the sock and check to make sure it's still there to make sure I didn't lose it.  I think I've averaged 1.5 years on each pair of socks I've made.  One year to knit sock #1 and then half a year to knit the second sock.  For some reason I tend to not get as distracted between the first and second sock - weird, I know.  All of this is to say that I've finally picked back up a sock that I start last June.  Yes, I mean June of 2011 and really it was at the end of June so it was more like July.  The sock is moving along (like they always do when I pick them back up) and I'm just about to the decreases for the toe.  I thought I was going to finish it up by this Saturday, but I've had some other knitting things to attend to, so it again got pushed aside.  My new plan is to have it done by next week so that I can start the second sock next week.

Knit Picks photos

Just got back photos taken by Knit Picks of my Wild Ivy Shawl.  Let's just say that they blow my photos out of the water.  Love the way they chose to photograph it!  Looks like the perfect way to wear this shawl. Without further ado, here are the photos courteous of Knit Picks.

What a day

Today has been interesting.  It started off waking up at around 3AM to sounds of a cat puking.  Now, normally I would ignore this and go back to bed, BUT our cat has decided lately that his FAVORITE place to hack up hairballs is in our guest bedroom that has brand new carpet.  Ugh.  I immediately spring out of bed and rush to the guest bedroom to see what awaits me.  Once at the bedroom I discover....nothing! Ha! Turns out I sprung into action for no reason.  But now I'm awake and must find the barf and clean it up.  Yeah, that is how my day started (it was on the stairs by the way, which I probably would have stepped in because I never pay attention to where I am walking when I first wake up).  I swear, this cat has it in for me - his whole goal in life is to prevent me from sleeping peacefully.  These are the things that I have to remind myself of when I see cute kittens and want to adopt them. 

I guess you could say that the rest of my day has been uneventful except that I got inspired for not only one but TWO different shawl designs.  Yeah, I'm pretty excited about that.  I'm already swatching one of them.  You see, I've been in a shawl funk lately.  I wasn't sure why I was feeling this way until it dawned me that I haven't knit a lace weight shawl in awhile now and I missed it!  Well, the only cure for that is to cast-on a lace weight shawl.  What shawl am I knitting? En Fuego Shawl.  Yes, I'm knitting another En Fuego Shawl.  But let me explain!  Next month my knitting guild is starting a shawl KAL and the pattern is En Fuego Shawl presented by yours truly.  I was going to wait until the meeting to cast-on, but then I realized that I was going to be busy at the meeting talking & helping other people cast-on, so I might as well cast-on for mine today.  I could feel my shawl funk lifting as I cast-on and boy did that feel good.  I think that is also what inspired me to look through my stitch books again to see if anything jumped out at me.  

What else do I have going on knit/design wise?  Well, I just finished the second prototype for the hat that I designed.  Now, I might be slightly biased, but this hat is pretty cool.  The first version was a solid color and the second was two colors.  So, now I know two things: 1. the hat looks good with solid color and 2. the hat looks good and works up well using two colors.  I still have some kinks to work out with the decreases, so I'm hoping that my third prototype solves those issues and then the hat will be pretty much set.  I didn't realize when I started designing this hat that it was going to be this involved, but I love the end result too much to give up on it now.  I wish I could share pictures of it, but I'm keeping it a secret for now since I think this hat would make a good fit for a magazine publication. 

Rodekool

What I really wanted to call this blog is "Rodekool and my obsession with brioche stitch" but for the sake of brevity, I shortened to just Rodekool.  What is Rodekool?  Well, it is a pattern by Nancy Marchant that was featured in Knitty Fall 2010.  This pattern was brought to my attention via the President of the knitting guild that I belong to.  She showed off her Rodekool scarf during our show and tell & talked of the challenge it provided.  I knew right away that I had to knit this pattern.  I even thought to myself "I bet I could knit that and I probably won't have too many problems since I'm already familiar with brioche stitch", but boy was I wrong!

When I initially looked up the pattern I must have glossed over all the cast on information and basically the whole pattern because it turns out there was quite a bit in the pattern that I was unfamiliar with.  First off, I have done an Italian cast on once.  ONCE!  This pattern starts with an Italian cast on using two colors!  It was at this time that I noticed the pattern I printed out had a bunch of video links and I started to wonder if I was in over my head.  So I head over to the computer to watch the video on Italian two color cast on.  Turns out that the video was awesome and I got the cast on down without any problems.  Then it was on to the set-up rows, which I also was okay with since I was already familiar with the brioche stitch.  

Right side of knitting

Now comes the fun part "Rodekool Brioche Lace Stitch Pattern" section.  Yeah, this was my downfall.  After my first mistake and subsequent ripping out, I realized that I really needed to watch the other videos (one of which was 10 minutes long and I initially swore off watching because "it was too long" ha!).  Turns out that the video showing showing the Rodekool Brioche Lace Stitch Pattern was extremely helpful!!!  Ha!  Who knew that watching a video of what you are doing would actually help you figure out what you are doing?!?!?!  I'm not sure if that sentence made any sense, but I think you get what I'm trying to say. Well, I still had to rip out another 2 or 3 times, but I finally got a hang of the lace stitch pattern and I've been knitting away ever since.  However, it hasn't all been smooth sailing since, but I've been fortunate enough to be able to catch and actually correct the couple of errors I've made.  Phew!  

Wrong side of knitting

Later when I told my mom about the pattern she looked it up and told me it was extraspicy.  In my blindness to knit the pattern, I didn't even notice this.  If you are unfamiliar with Knitty's ratings, extraspicy is their hardest rating for a pattern.  Had I known this, I'm not sure I would have attempted the pattern.  I remember wondering when I first started checking out Knitty if I'd ever be able to knit any patterns beyond mellow or tangy.  I'm glad that I didn't see the extraspicy rating because now I'm going to have the confidence to knit another extraspicy patttern should the fancy strike :o)

Stitches split for the keyhole section of scarf

P.S. For a great website dedicated to all things Brioche Stitch, check out Nancy Marchant's website: http://briochestitch.com/brioche/

Quick photo shoot

Today was a lazy Sunday until I remember that I needed to take pictures of my shawl outside before it started raining.  Luckily, I realized this in time to get ready, take measurements, unpin the shawl and then rope Mr. SpiderKate into taking pictures just before it started to rain.  By the time we got outside for the photos, we only had about 15 mins before it started raining, so we worked fast.  I was pretty sure that because of how rushed we had to be that the photos were going to turn out awful, but to my surprise they turned out reasonably well.  Here are a couple that I liked:

I'm back!

Last week Mr. SpiderKate and I went on vacation to the Bahamas to celebrate our 4 year anniversary!  I wanted to post from the Bahamas, but I refrained as we were on vacation aka no technology allowed.  Okay, maybe I used a little technology for the purposes of email, but that was the extent of it.  This was special trip for us because not only was it our 4 year anniversary but we had also gotten married in the Bahamas.  Oh and did I mention that we got married on leap day? How neat is that!  I can't take any credit for it because it was all Mr. SpiderKate's idea to get married on leap day, but once he planted the idea in my head, I was hooked.  So it as special to be back in the Bahamas to celebrate all of that.  We had a lot of fun while we were there just walking around, reading, eating (A LOT of eating) and just relaxing. 

Just before leaving I was in a rush to try to finish up not one but two shawls.  I only got to finish one of the shawls, which I posted about, the En Fuego shawl for my sister's friend.  I was also working on a sample of my Wild Ivy shawl for Knit Picks.  I really wanted to have the Knit Picks one done before I left as well, however I realized that I couldn't finish it AND block it AND photograph it AND mail it before leaving.  Once I (painfully) accepted these realizations, I shifted my focus to getting done the En Fuego shawl so that I could check at least something off as done before going on vacation.  

Well tonight I finished knitting the Wild Ivy shawl.  All that I have left to do is weave in the ends (which I will do as soon as I finish here) and block it.  The good news is that it will be blocked and ready to photograph this weekend.  The bad news is that it is going to be raining all weekend.  I seem to have the worst luck with weather + knitting photos.  As Mr. SpiderKate often says to me "well it is going to be (insert extreme weather condition not ideal for photographs here) so I know that you must want to take photographs of a finished shawl".  Yup, just check the forecast.  If it calls for high wind + little sun, then you can bet I'm going to have a finished shawl that I want to photograph outside.  Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket!  Okay, well here is an unblocked (and might I add hastily taken) photograph of the Wild Ivy shawl.  I can only hope to get out between the rain drops this weekend and get some blocked & better photographs.

P.S. This photo does not do the color justice.  The green is deeper and more like hunter green as the colorway name suggest (yarn is KP Capretta in colorway Hunter).

Baby Beanie

Prior to finishing En Fuego Shawl, I finished up my baby beanie.  But I hadn't taken pictures of it yet so I put off posting about it.  Well that turned out to be a bad idea because as of this morning it looked like I had lost it.  I wasn't really worried that it was totally lost, but I was concerned when after checking my usual knitting spots that the hat hadn't turned up.  I decided to not worry about it & go about my day.  Fast forward a couple of hours and I'm still wondering if I've really lost the hat.  I've never lost a knitted item!  Actually I hardly ever lose anything (except sunglasses, I perpetually lose sunglasses).   I began rechecking where I already checked only to look in my knitting bag to find it hidden behind another hat.  Phew!!!!!!   I can now present to you the baby beanie hat knit via magic loop on size 7 needles.

Finally something that isn't blue

A couple of weeks ago my sister posted a link to my En Fuego Shawl on her facebook.  This generated a bunch of very kind comments complimenting it.  Of course I loved the compliments or as I like to think of it "positive feedback to keep me going when I get frustrated designing" - yes, it's a long phrase.  One of her friends in particular wanted to know if I knit the shawls for people, which my sister explained to her that generally I don't and that she (my sister) was posting a link to the design where you can buy the pattern and knit one yourself if you do that sort of thing.  Well her friend isn't a knitter and my sister must really like this friend because she asked me if I'd consider knitting her friend an En Fuego Shawl.  My first thought was "NO" and then I thought well maybe so I asked what color she wanted.  Of course my sister said she (the friend) wanted black because everyone always wants things in black.  Then I thought "NOOOOOOOO" but asked my sister if she'd consider any other color because black and the response I got was dark grey which is basically like saying black again.

Now, Knit Picks had recently come out with a new yarn line called Capretta and of course it came in a lovely black shade (though how lovely can black be really, it's just black) and I really wanted to try out this yarn line.  The availability of this new yarn really sealed the deal for me.  So reluctantly (though not really) I agreed to knit the shawl for two reasons: ONE - I love my sister and TWO - to challenge myself to knit lace in the color black.  I have to admit that Knit Picks also prompted me, not by telling me to do it, but by posting a suggestion in one of their weekly emails that the En Fuego Shawl would look good in the Capretta yarn.  It turns out that Knit Picks knows their stuff because the shawl looks really good in the yarn.

I made sure to always knit in VERY good light and NEVER when I was tired.  I think it was sticking to these two rules that made the knitting move along mostly error free.  There were a couple of times on the purl rows that I missed the purl but still managed to move the stitch so I didn't lose the stitch but just had to fix it when I came to it on the knit row, which wasn't a big deal at all.  I blame this on the yarn being black for not realizing it when I did it.  I also didn't think that it would photograph well, but I think the photographs turned out okay.  You can't see the details all that clearly but it's good enough. 

About the yarn, well I really loved working with the yarn and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Knit Picks Capretta yarn.  It is really soft and just yummy to work with.  The 10% cashmere really adds something nice to the yarn.  The stitch definitely is good and it works up nicely (for me anyway) on size 5 or 6 needles.  I'm really lucky that I get to work with this yarn again for a sample that I'm knitting for Knit Picks and that's how I know it looks good on the smaller needles.

It should be noted that my sister has never asked me to knit something for a friend of hers and I think it's because she knows that I have certain rules about knitting for people, well for adults in particular because unlike babies who like everything, adults only like certain things in certain colors.  This rule applies to everyone I know - even family members.  I almost only knit for them when an item is specifically requested and in the color requested.  I will admit that a few times I've gone "rogue" and knit items form them that they didn't request, but usually it was with left over yarn from a project previously knit for them so at least I knew they would like the color.  I have these rules because it helps keep me from being disappointed when I've spent the time to knit something for someone only have to have it fall short of what they wanted or to hear "well I really wish it was in (blank) color".  With my rules, everyone ends up happy including me!

New needles

I've spent the last couple of days trying to figure out what to cast on for next.  Now I wrote recently that I was going to find  a certain pair of socks that I started *cough* last June, but what I really meant to write was that I was going to spend the next couple of days looking for a new group knitting project.  I thought that maybe if I wrote that I was going to work on the socks that then I would work on the socks.  Who was I kidding??? I love starting projects! Love it!  Now it took me a couple of days to find my next project, so what was I doing in the meantime? Well I was knitting of course!  I worked on my black En Fuego Shawl (which I've yet to blog about) as well as a new design (a hat) that I'm trying to figure out.  

During this time I also made not one, but two trips to the yarn store for yarn that I had to have.  It was on the first yarn store trip that I picked up a pair of needles that of course I don't need but really wanted to try out - Knitter's Pride dreamz in a size 7 40" circular.  Why a 40" circular?  I figured that this would be a good size to try out since I could use it for magic loop as well as other larger projects.  I also picked up some Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in the color Silver Fox, but that's not the point.  The point is that with the needles in hand I began to zero in on what I wanted to knit!

Going through my patterns I found a baby hat pattern that would work with the needles.  I decided on the Baby Beanie by Sylvia Hager (a Blue Sky Alpacas pattern leaflet).  I'm not exactly knitting the pattern as is - the pattern calls for using a sport weight yarn held double and I don't really feel like knitting magic loop holding yarn doubled, so instead I'm using some leftover Berroco Comfort (worsted weight).  I'm knitting the 0-3 month size, though I don't know anyone with a 0-3 month old right now, so I'm thinking that this hat will end up for donation.  I'm just about done with the ribbing and so far I am really enjoying the needles.  The points are nice and the needles are smooth & lightweight.  Right now the only criticism I have is that the cord seems a little "stiff" to me.  Overall I really like the needles but might need to reserve final judgement until I knit just a little more with them.  

Done!

This is going in the mail tomorrow to my nephew! I hope that it fits!!  Now I need to find a new group knitting project....maybe that pair of socks I start last summer and then forgot about.  Yes, I definitely need to get those done! Now if only I could locate them....