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Category Archives: Knitting

Colour Lovers: All About Orange

April 23, 2012

This week I’m joining bloggers from around the world to participate in Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. Want to join in the fun? To read other posts on the theme, search the web for the tag “3KCBWDAY1″. If you have your own blog (or want to start one this week), click the cute banner for more information on how to participate.

Today’s theme is color and I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you about me and the color orange.

When it comes to knitting projects, I’m drawn to rich colors. I far prefer solid and semisolid colors to variegated colorways. And since starting this blog, I’ve discovered something really interesting: I get in color phases in my yarn buying. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. A phase may last anywhere from a few days to a few months, but I am simply drawn to the yarn in one single color over and over.

Longtime readers of this blog may recall my affair with pink. Well, pink, it seems I’ve moved on.

To orange.

I don’t seem to go for any of the super bright tangerine colors, but I’m a total sucker for any reddish, rusty orange. It doesn’t help that so few people in the world apparently like these shades, because I’m constantly finding unloved orange yarn in clearance bins and yarn closeout pages. It is hard for me to resist giving these orange orphans a good home.

Taking all my orange yarns out of their hidey holes to pose for these pictures made me realize how much I gravitate to the same shade. In the photo above, you see five completely different yarns, people! [left to right: Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light in Candied Yam, Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in Embers, Madelinetosh Merino DK in Terra, Cascade Heritage in Cinnamon, and Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in Sailor's Delight]

So what am I going to do with all this orange, you may be wondering. I like orange mostly for accessories, but I have recently taken the plunge into orange sweater territory.

This is White Pine, by Amy Christophers, which I’m knitting in Patons Classic Merino in Paprika (project notes). I’m up to the armholes and started on the first sleeve.

Now that school is winding down, I’m hoping to finish up this and a bunch of other lingering unfinished things. Then I can start some warm orange accessories for fall. In the meantime, I might have to just be content with orange shoes.

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Knitting, Works in Progress, Yarn Tags: 3KCBWDAY1, blogweek, orange

Brushing Off the Dust

April 22, 2012

Whew! That was a long, unintentional blog break!

I suppose if any of you are still out there following this blog you’ll want to know what happened to me all that time, no? It’s nothing very interesting, really. My final semester of graduate coursework suddenly became busier than I could have ever imagined.

I’m so sorry to disappear on you like that. And happy to report that I am finished with graduate coursework, hopefully forever! All that is left is my dissertation. While this is obviously no small matter, there should be more time for knitting and blogging now. I’m even going to participate in Knitting and Crochet Blog Week this week and I have another little surprise in store for you which I’ll announce in a separate post later today.

I’ll leave you with a photo of my only finished project since we last spoke. It’s an Annis shawl in Shibui Silk Cloud (Ravelry project notes).

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Finished Objects, Knitting Tags: lace, shawl

Principles of Knitting, Back in Print

February 15, 2012

I basically eat books for breakfast at this point in my career as a student, so yesterday’s heavy package from Amazon.com was initially no great surprise to me. Until I opened it up and found this goodness:

It is the second edition of The Principles of Knitting: Methods and Techniques of Hand Knitting, an encyclopedia of all things knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt. I preorded this last year as soon as I learned it was being published and then forgot to track the progress. What a nice surprise it is! There is enough knitting knowledge in here to keep me busy for a lifetime. No, I’m not exaggerating.

In case you are unfamiliar with this volume, a bit of background: Hiatt originally wrote it back in the 1980s. It became a classic for yarn addicts everywhere, but went out of print during the grunge years of the 1990s. I’ve actually only seen the first edition of this once, in a library reference section. First edition copies retail for $250-300—well out of reach for most of us.

The new edition is even bigger and better than the old. The author has added about 100 pages of content and gone carefully through every word (according to the preface, Hiatt had to retype the entire manuscript. Gasp!). There are over 700 pages to the book, including a very comprehensive index.

So what will you find in the book? Friends, an easier question might be what won’t you find in the book. When it comes to knitting info, it’s all here. From casting on, to how you hold the needles; from stitch patterns to pattern abbreviations; from choosing yarn to fighting stains in garments—you will find it all in this volume. Hiatt explicitly wrote this book to be suitable for beginners, but I can’t imagine even the most expert knitters not learning something new from it as well.

In short, if I could only have one knitting book on my shelf, it would be this one.

The publishers, Simon & Schuster would be morons to let this go out of print again, but just in case, you may want to get your own while the price is still accessible. You won’t regret it.

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Knitting Tags: books

The Probable Destiny of All Future Sock Yarn Scraps

February 8, 2012

Do I need to say more or is the photo enough?

This little cutie is one of the booties I made with the famous Saartje freebie pattern. I think I may be the last knitter on the web to join the love fest for these, but believe it or not, this was my first time making them. What took me so long?

I used my scale and some math to determine that these took only about 50 yards of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock yarn. This means you could squeeze about 7 pairs out of a skein. That makes them a very inexpensive gift.

These booties were made to go with the hat I made for the same newborn and blogged about earlier this year.

I spent about 90 minutes making the booties from the time I cast on the first shoe to the time I wrapped them up to deliver to their recipient’s parents. Finding and attaching the buttons took longer than the knitting. I was grateful to Ysolda for writing up such a great tutorial on sewn button loops, which made those a piece of cake.

Can you handle one last photo or is the cuteness already killing you? More? Ok, here you go.

Project notes on Ravelry

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Finished Objects, Knitting Tags: baby, gift

Don’t Call It a Comeback

February 6, 2012

Raise your hand if you were beginning to think I’d disappeared!

Nope, I’ve been here all along, just insanely busy and suffering from a minor loss of blogging mojo.

I’ve missed you, friends, and I have some good news and some bad news. The good: I am in my final semester of graduate coursework [she pauses to dance around the room].

The bad: my workload has now turned a corner from merely intense to totally insane. Nonetheless, in order to prevent myself from turning into a Complete Grouch, I’m committed to carving out 20-30 minutes of yarny time each day. This isn’t much, people. I must warn you that the pace at which I develop knitterly things to tell you about is going to temporarily drop off. My goal is going to be to pop in here at least once a week with an update (but more if I can swing it) until later this spring.

Enough of that drama. Let’s talk about knitting.

I’ve been making tons of gifts for kids! Today I have photos of two to share. These are hats I made for the adorable children of a friend.

Both are made from free patterns I downloaded on Ravelry out of basic wool-blend yarn I bought at Michaels. The red one used the High Line Hat pattern and Caron Naturally Country yarn. This easy, unisex pattern is sized from baby through large adult, so I doubt this will be my only time using it.

The pink hat used the Nottingham kids hat pattern and yarn from Martha Stewart’s new line of yarn in a shade of pink chosen to accommodate the fashion-sensibility of the 3-year-old recipient (read: not my first choice of color…).

This yarn worked okay for this project, but I was disappointed that the cables didn’t stand out more. It also has a very dense, non-wooly feel to it. I probably won’t use it again.

Kids hats seem to be a great way to quickly try new patterns. They are done before you know it. The only downside is that I have no sense of what size they should be. I’ll be eager to hear from the recipients if these fit.