I Luv Washcloths

The washcloth high continues.  This one was finished yesterday and a new one was cast on immediately after.  This pattern was good, but it wasn't my favorite.  Not sure why just wasn't for me.  Maybe it's the way my yarn striped out?  Or maybe it's just because I wasn't thrilled with the shape of it.  NO complaints about the pattern itself.  It was written well, and her patterns are easy to read.  I had a few difficulties but that was likely due to errors with my own reading. ;)

Pattern:  Leafy Surprise Cloth
Yarn:  Peaches & Creme - Pink Lemonade (50g)
Comments:  Good pattern, I had some difficulties with the problem, not sure if it was me or the way it was written.  I found it odd you never knit across completely to finish off each section.  I ended up with one stitch that seemed to be carried along throughout the project without being knitted.  Was weird especially when casting off.  I'm not seeing where I made a mistake in the pattern, but maybe it was something I did wrong.

New Yarn Totals for the Year:

Yarn Out:  136g

Yarn In:  0g

Yards Spun:  150y

Another Cloth for 2012

Well my holiday break from work is coming to and end.  Tomorrow will be back with all of the usual chaos and pandemonium that happens on a daily basis.  My goal is to get things done, and enjoy life with as little stress as possible.  Hopefully the new year will mean a better situation in work and home life.

Of course, back to work will also mean less knitting time for me, so posts may slow down a bit as my knitting slows down.  Hopefully I will still have time for my craft, but we'll have to see.

Early yesterday after finishing my blog post, I finished yet another washcloth that has been added to my "gift box."  I'm on a roll with the cotton washcloths lately.  They're quick, fun, and help with my stash numbers!

 

Pattern:  The Windmill Dishcloth
Yarn:  Peaches & Creme in Pink Lemonade
Comments:  Love this pattern.  It was very easy to follow and made a cute little cloth.  I still have a ton of yarn left on this cone so you will see lots of Pink Lemonade colored washcloths in my future. 

I'm really enjoying the variety of patterns I'm finding on Ravelry.  It's been fun to go through and queue about 10-15 washcloths at a time then work my way through them.  The nice thing about having a lot of one color yarn is that I get the chance to try out patterns, without running out of my "favorite color."  Once I find a few set patterns I like I'll be able to whip even more cloths out and use up all that cotton that seems to be lingering in my stash.  I bought this stuff ages ago with intentions to knit washcloths and it looks like I'm finally getting around to doing it!

The only bad thing about knitting washcloths is that after awhile my hands start to hurt from the cotton.  I am using a size 8 needle when I knit, so it's not a horribly tight stitch; however, I am a tight knitter and I've been knitting non-stop for the past few days.  I decided to give my hands a little break, and pulled out some BFL to spin that has been in the stash since 2008.

I started spinning after dinner last night and was done plying before I went to bed.  I did aim for a worsted and got pretty close.  I am amazed sometimes at how two skeins of handspun appear to be the same weight, yet one is 300 yards and the other is 150.  I really like a tightly spun and tightly plied squooshy kinda yarn and that does eat up the fiber when spinning.

This was 4oz - 150 yards of BFL handspun in the color Thermograph from the Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club.  I really enjoyed spinning it up, and I'm thinking I'll make a hat from it after the twist has been set.  One of my goals for 2012 was to knit 12 hats during 2012, so I have a need for some nice quality worsted weight yarn.  What better than my own handspun?

Finished items means a new count for 2012!  Yay progress!

Yarn Out:  86g

Yarn In:  0g

Yards Spun:  150y

Bring on 2012!

It's a new year, and I am one step closer to completing my knitting goals of 2012!  We're off to a great start already.

The truth, I needed something to knit last night while I was "celebrating."  There was no alcohol on my new years eve; however, I did have family over and it's hard to socialize and knit on an intricate lace shawl.  Because of that I cast on for a washcloth that I had been itching to make for a few days now.  I finished this just after midnight last night making it my first finished object of 2012!

Pattern:  4-Corners Dishcloth
Yarn:  Peaches & Creme - 42 grams
Comments:  I have knit several of these and I love the pattern.  It does have you slip the stitch as if to purl but make sure the yarn is held in back.  I was holding it in front (as if I was purling) and it left some gaps that I didn't like in the washcloth.  Apparently when I made it in the past I didn't read the directions, or I just slipped as if to knit.

As I said I will NOT purchase any yarn or fiber unless I've used up twice the amount.  So with each finished object I will be posting my current yarn status.

Yarn Out:  42g

Yarn In:  0g

Yards Spun:  0y

So as of right now I can buy 21g of yarn if I really want!  I think I'll start saving up now so I can make a knit picks purchase later in the year for a few Christmas gifts.

Also this is the first washcloth of 2012 to go into my "gift box" where I'll be storing finished objects to give out in years to come.

Happy New Years everyone!!!  I wish you all a safe and happy year.

Peachsicle Handspun

After the stash organizing project I had settled down to knit for the evening and work on some of my projects that I had begun back in 2006 and 2007.  I didn't want to knit.  Not.  At.  All.  So I took a field trip up to my fiber closet and pulled out some roving to spin.  I divided the roving in half, spun up my singles on Friday night and then this morning woke up and plied the singles together.

I ended up with this:

Approximately 208 yards that clocks in at 113 grams.  I do enjoy a worsted weight yarn and will probably be using this for a scarf or hat this coming year.  It's a 80/20 Merino/Tussah silk that was dyed by DragonFibers over on etsy.  I bought this years ago when she first opened her shop, and after spinning it last night decided to look her back up.  Unfortunately it seems like she may not be dyeing fiber anymore. :(  Sad because she had such a talent for colors.


I do have a few fiber goals for the upcoming year and I hope to stick to all of them this year.

• Knit from Stash! - I have a lot of fiber and yarn as you saw from yesterday's post.  I would love to say that I'm not allowed to buy any yarn, but I know that goal is unreasonable so instead I will say that I can only bring in half of what I use up.  If I knit up 1 pound of yarn, I can bring in 1/2 a pound of yarn to replace it.  This way, if I want to make any gift knits I can as long as I've used up some of my own personal yarn first.
• Finish all of those UFOs. - I have a shawl from 2006, an afgahn from 2006 and a pair of socks from 2007 that have been lingering for far too long.  I also have a scarf on the loom that I plan on finishing this year.  (I want to finish at least 2 of these 4 projects currently cast-on.)
• Knit Gifts Year Round. - I plan on knitting little items that I can gift, whether for birthdays or holidays and keeping them with my fiber stash so that when those deadlines roll around I'll be done long before.  This will also help me use up my yarn stash and hopefully some of those odds and ends that I have hanging around.

I did join a KAL on Ravelry to knit 12 hats in 2012 which should help with my gift box collection and use up my stash in the process. :)

I'm ready for 2012, are you?

Yarn Stash Revisited

It's December, and since New Years is just around the corner I decided to reorganize my stash and plan out my knitting goals for 2012.  I hit a bumpy start when I pulled out my yarn basket and as I began to organize it I ran into a few bugs.  Literally, evidence of carpet beetles.  Although I have been fortunate never to have any wool moths invade my stash, I have had carpet beetles.  Luckily the first time I found a few carpet beetles, they hadn't done any real damage to my yarn.  One little bit of roving was tossed and the rest of the stash was fine.  This time unfortunately there were a few casualties.  Two 50g skeins of knit picks memories that I had purchased years ago (it's no longer sold) had several holes chewed in them.  They immediately went into the trash along with some leftover Lisa Souza yarn that I had used when knitting a pair of socks years ago.  Overall it wasn't a huge loss, and I do still have tons of yarn left in my stash.  Although, taking photos of my yarn and roving today I realized I'm still missing a lot of fiber and yarn.  Things I know I haven't knit with, but have no idea where they are.  They aren't in my current house, so I'm assuming they're still back in my bedroom somewhere in Ohio.  Next trip home I'll dig through my stash and hopefully bring the rest of my supply home.  I miss my yarn.

This is the yarn stash currently living in my house with me.  Organizing it really made me realize just how much of my yarn I do not have.  Yes I have a lot, but there is quite a bit that is missing from this pile.  Sock yarn on the left, some cottons in the middle, and then on the right side there are some current works in progress and some leftover yarn from old projects that I plan on using in a fun scarf or something else.

My Roving stash is quite large too now that I take the time to go through it.  In the back left I have quite a bit of Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino that I plan on making some sock-hop yarn out of.  Once upon a time I used to spin sock hop for CMF so I do know how it is spun and I did horde it back when I used to spin for them.  There are my two Sheep2Shoe kits in the back, some louet fiber in the front which is just delicious, and several 8oz balls on the right side.  Of course, I have quite a bit of silk in the stash as well that I'll need to find something to do with.

Since I have quite a bit of roving I also have quite a bit of handspun in my stash as well.  It's kind of sad actually, I had forgotten I had the majority of this handspun.  I have a few ideas of projects I'm dying to make for myself, and my sister really likes some of the handspun I don't like, so she may get a scarf or shawl for herself.

Xmas Knitting 2011!

I wasn't planning on knitting anything for Christmas this year, and I was dead set against knitting Christmas gifts especially since I had already purchased gifts for all of the family members this year.  Well on the 20th I managed to finish the handspun scarf I had been working on for as a little thank you gift to our real estate agent.

As much as I really don't care for the color blue, I love the way this scarf turned out.  There are darker bits, lighter bits and of course all of the ones in the middle.  I did a basic, reversible, no curling kind of pattern in order to show off the yarn.  Believe it or not the mindless knitting was insanely addicting to do.

Pattern:  Beginners Reversible Scarf
Yarn:  Handspun  100% Merino
Comments:  I loved the pattern and I loved the yarn.  I did block it out, and it is incredible soft.  I was a bad spinner and didn't bother to set the twist prior to knitting (shame on me!) but it turned out just fine.

I am definitely keeping this pattern for future reference.  It was so much fun to knit and got me into a huge knitting high which made me want to knit other people gifts.  Yes, I who wasn't going to knit any gifts this holiday season decided on the 21st of December (after blocking the handspun scarf) that I wanted to knit my future sister-in-law and sister both little gifts for Christmas.

Insanity?  I think so.  First thing is first, I picked up the phone and called my sister to see what her favorite colors were, and had my fiance call his sister to see what colors she liked.  She said blues and purples, my sister chose greens.  Then I went into the stash and dumped all of my yarn onto the floor pulling out all of the blues, purples and greens I could possibly find.  I have a lot of purple.  A LOT of purple.  Blues I had a few of, most that were purchased with the intention of knitting gifts ages ago.  Green, is something fairly scarce in my stash.  I have some green, but again it was not green that I myself had purchased with intentions of knitting.  Then with my new collection of yarn I wanted to use, I rushed back to Ravelry to search for projects that would match their personalities and the stash yarn I had found.

For L my future sister-in-law I selected a skein of noro kureyon sock yarn that had been lingering in my stash for about 3 years.  Of course the original plan was to make me a pair of handknit socks but honestly living in South the chances of me wearing wool socks is pretty slim now.  When I lived in Ohio, it happened quite often during the winter or when just relaxing around the house.  So I took the sock yarn, and cast on for a Clapotis Scarf.  This was the first Clapotis I ever attempted, and now I understand exactly why the pattern is so popular.  Man was it addicting.  I started it on the 21st and finished it the afternoon of the 27th.

Pattern:  Clapotis
Yarn:  Noro Kureyon Sock - Color 188
Comments:  I did have one knot in the skein.  I HATE when there are knots especially with Noro since it throws off all of my color repeats.  I did remove the yarn after the knot in order to line up the color repeat, then used some of that removed yarn at the end to make the scarf a little longer.  In all I used 84 grams of yarn and got a decent length scarf!  I have definite plans to knit more of these in the future, they were easy carry along projects and were my travel knitting for a few days.

When I finished this, I immediately turned to the beret I wanted to make for my little sister.  She loves handknits and has always been one of my biggest supporters as far as my hobbies goes.  I have made her countless scarves, hats and socks over the years and she wears them until they fall apart.  I can't count the pairs of socks I've had to repair or scarves that have ripped due to her continuous wear.  (She will put a pair of socks on, and wear them non-stop until they have holes in the bottom.)  This of course means it is very easy to knit for my sister.

I found a little bit of green yarn in my stash.  Unfortunately this picture does not do the color of the yarn justice.

This yarn is a bright emerald green!  And when I say bright, I mean bright.  Once upon a time I found myself completely addicted to my craft, and it seems I've re-discovered my love of not only yarn, but knitting as well.  I don't know if it's the easy patterns, or the finished objects but I'm finding myself itching to crawl back into my yarn closet and pull out some fibery goodness.  This beret was a piece of cake.  The pattern was well written, easy to follow and was knit on BIG needles (10s and 11s) which made it a very quick knit!  I cast on late on the 27th, and cast off early on the 29th.  I think in total it took me only 5 hours to knit the entire thing from start to finish.

Pattern:  Star Crossed Slouchy Beret
Yarn:  Berella Muskoka in Green Clover
Comments:  This yarn was gifted to me years ago in a sock swap that was happening online.  Nice yarn, I wasn't crazy about the color and I had no idea what I was going to do with it since it's definitely NOT me.  Thankfully, it is my sister's color.  Only used about 70 grams of yarn (about 140 yards) so it was a quick knit and would be a great project for handspun!

Christmas Comes Early

Yes, it's that time of year again and this year I got my Christmas present a little early from the man in my life.  I jumped up and down, clapped my hands, and then did a little happy dance with the box.  I know, I'm way too easily excited.

Since I've recently got back into my fiber arts hobbies when he asked me what I wanted this year, my first response was "roving."  Of course, he isn't much of a yarn/fiber guy, so I did help him navigate through my favorite websites so that he knew what would be good to get.  Of course he got to pick out the colors, and ooooh he did so good this year.

Not one... but TWO Sheep 2 Shoe kits from Blue Moon Fiber Arts.  I've never gotten one of these before, so I was excited at the thought he may get me a kit for Christmas, I never actually thought he would get me two of them!  The color on the left is called Cattywampus and on the right is Dragon Dance.  My goal is to spin these with the directions included in the kit, a 3 ply yarn.  Only problem is my typical yarn I spin is 2 ply, one reason being because all my extra bobbins still live in Ohio.  Luckily for me, my mother is coming down to visit next week and bringing the rest of my roving stash down with her, and hopefully my other spinning heel (and lazy kate) with her!  So, I have two options, either spin it as a 2-ply or wait until she brings the lazy kate so that I can do a 3 ply for this stunning roving.  I do have plenty of other yarn and fiber to keep me entertained until next week.

Of course, I also have my 2 other Works in Progress laying around the house should I finish the  handspun scarf and need something to work on.

Speaking of the handspun scarf, I've made some progress over the last week or so since I've posted.  I've spent a lot of time lately listening to podcasts, and nothing better than mindless knitting while listening to podcasts or chatting with friends online.  Life is definitely good.



I'm definitely past the halfway point as far as yarn is concerned.  I plan on knitting until I run out of handspun, and then blocking it out.  Hopefully I'll finish with it tonight assuming my new kitty will let me knit.

On Saturday we went down to the local SPCA and I brought home one little bundle of love.  Nothing better than a cat that wants to be in your lap or at your side 24/7.  Even when I'm sleeping at night he feels the need to be either on top of me, right next to me, or under the covers with me.  It really is adorable.  My older cat is definitely not this snuggly, so I'm enjoying the little guy being around.

I think I'll leave you with a picture of the little guy before I get back to work on the scarf. ;)