A pain in the neck

Ugh. I woke up with my neck in serious pain and ibuprofen has not helped it.  This has happened to me before, but usually by afternoon I'm all back to normal.  Not today.  Today the pain has lingered & lingered & lingered.  My only hope now is that by the time I wake up tomorrow that the pain will be gone.  But enough about that.  Where am I at knitting wise?  I have a myriad of projects going on! I got on a mission to finish up some of them, but no matter how many I might finish up there are always more that I want to cast-on.  

My most recent finished project is a pair of socks that I started last June, the Indian Corn Socks. The pattern is the Classy Slip-Up Socks by Betsy Lee McCarthy from the book Knit Socks!: 15 Cool Patterns for Cozy Feet.  I knit the fingering weight version using Farmhouse Yarns Fannie's Fingering Weight yarn in colorway Indian Corn. If you haven't checked out this sock book, then I recommend checking it out.  There are a variety of sock patterns from beginner to advance as well as options for fingering weight & sport weight for a couple of the socks. 

This is yarn that I inherited from my mom and spent time looking for a pattern that I thought would work well with the colorway.  Now, I don't have the sock book in front of me, but I believe that the description of the pattern says something about how the slipped stitch pattern is perfect for showcasing variegated yarns.  It was this description that hooked me and convinced me that this was the pattern for the yarn.  I was really curious to see how the color of this yarn was going to knit up because looking at it I just couldn't tell if it was going to come together.  Well, I had no reason to wonder or worry because the colors knit up beautifully.  I should also mention that this yarn was wonderful to work with and I'd recommend it if you come across it.

The details: I knit these using US 1 (2.25 mm) DPNs following the fingering weight version of the sock.  The only modification I made was casting on 64 stitches instead of 68 stitches.  This subsequently required me to modify other parts of the pattern  in the following areas: 31 heel stitches, 17 stitches after turning the heel, picked up 17 stitches on each side of the heel, and then decreasing back down to 64 stitches for the Gusset decreases.  I shaped the foot as directed in the pattern.  I'm really fortunate that I took good notes while knitting the first sock because I was able to replicate it for the second sock.  The fit turned out perfectly for me, so I'm really happy with my initial decision to cut out 4 stitches from the cast-on.

Yarn Party 5/14/12

We attacked the cheese plate. Yum!!!

One of my favorite parts of my trip to MD (besides seeing my family) was a yarn party that my mom arranged for us to have at Fibre Space.  Fibre Space has this unique program where as you spend money you move up a ladder of sorts of prizes.  The first tier prize is t-shirt and so on; well my mom was at the point where she achieved Space Commander level which meant that her "prize" was a private yarn party that included a cheese platter, sparking cider & use of a private room for 2 hours.  When my mom asked me if this was something I was interested in doing I of course answers "ABSOLUTELY".  She also informed me that we would a 10% discount that day as well!   Our yarn party was scheduled for Monday 5/14/12 @ 11"30 AM and it was awesome.  It was just a great time for my mom, my sister and myself to just sit and knit and hang out.  

Mary & Mom getting their knit on

Mary & me knitting!

Mary knits!!

Mom knits!!

I love this little guy

I've spent the last week visiting my family in MD and tomorrow is my last day.  I was pretty busy getting ready for the visit and I've been pretty busy while visiting, so my blog has been neglected :o( I can report that I've finished my socks (yay) and cast-on for another pair of socks (yay)!  For now I will leave you with my second sock when it was in progress with Arthur watching over it.

Why would you knit when you could pet me????!!?

A study in blocking

Blocking is something that I was always intimidated by until I actually tried it.  The first project I ever blocked taught me about gauge and how it matters if gauge is measured blocked or unblocked.  Yeah, I ended up with a hat that was too big for my head and being my naive self, I thought that drying could fix that - I think we all know how that turned out.  The time I first appreciated blocking was after blocking my first lace shawl.  It still amazes me to this day that blocking can take something like this:

And turn it into something like this:

Beautiful!  All that lace opens up and just tells a story.  Look at how those yarn overs opened up! Without blocking, the lace would just be this kinda crinkled, crumpled up looking piece, which might be nice in its own right, but the true beauty comes from blocking.  I also like blocking because I feel like I get a good stretch while I'm doing it.  I tend to pin out points on this side and then adjust on the other side and so on & so forth to the point where it's like I'm moving all over the place.  

Blocking is something that you can't hurry.  In this case, the shawl needs time to soak first.  Then it needs to be rinsed, rolled in a towel, and finally laid out flat on the blocking surface.  How long should you soak a shawl? At least 20 minutes, if not more, and it never hurts to soak it for a good long while.  It also needs time to completely dry as this is what will set your shawl or garment.  Once it's dry, then it's going to be stuck that way until you block it again.  The shawl pictured above is a pattern I hope to release in May and the working title is Silverbells Shawl.  It's knit using 2 skeins of Malabrigo Silky Merino on a size US 7 (4.5 mm) needle.  More details to come as I finalize the pattern this week!

Garden Garden Garden

This past weekend Mr. SpiderKate and I watched a segment on the Today show about having a raised garden.  We commented to each other that that would be a good way to do a garden and in fact we already have a place in a backyard that has a sort of raised garden.  That was all it took - we immediately knew what we were going to spend the rest of our day doing.  First we had to go running and then eat lunch (of course), but right after lunch we were off to first Lowe's (didn't have raised garden kit) and then to Home Depot.  So, we buy the raised garden kit from Home Depot along with like 5 bags of garden soil and gardening tools.  We get all this stuff home and then decide that we don't need the raised garden kit and instead are going to see if we can rehab the one already in the backyard that was left by the previous owner.  Well, after some work & elbow grease we had a plot ready to use, but no plants.  

You see, initially we thought that we were going to get the garden ready on Saturday and then do the planting on Sunday.  But apparently we are gluttons for punishment (who knew planting a garden was a lot of work) because we decided to head back out to the nursery and pick up all the herbs/vegetables/fruits.  We ended up with the following: cilantro (2), parsley (2), tomatoes (3), bell pepper plants (3), strawberries (2), basil (1), mint (1), & oregano (1).  Including the rosemary that was already planted in the garden, that makes 16 plants!  Yeah, we don't really even know if all these things can be planted together, but we are going for it and hoping for the best.  We figure that this year will be our "learning year" and by next year we will be pros. 

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: