Friday, June 20, 2014

It's Raining Babies! or Baby Shower #3 for Eastside Stitchers

Hello:

Another day in paradise. 

This morning, we had a little baby shower (the 3rd in a year) for another expected Eastside Stitcher.  Our own Schrike and ErikaRS are expecting very soon, and as they are Friday Fiber members, we decided to use our Fiber Friday time to celebrate.

Pam2 was knitting a cabled scarf for a friend.  Honestly, the yarn is black, but my camera jut wants to make it gray.
JulieMustKnit brought the cowl/scarf she is knitting with the yarn and pattern she got at Country Yarns on the 2014 North Sound LYS Crawl.
Schrike is working on a "nursing shawl"  It is Branching Out by TinCanKnits and is from their 9 months collection.
ErikaRS was hooking a baby blanket.
This is the Summer Stripes Baby Blanket.  Erika is using these gorgeous cones of yarn that she got down in Portland when she and Schrike made their own mini yarn shop crawl a few weeks ago.

We had flowers and yummy donuts from Top Pot Donuts.

The gifts were so cute.
(I made the bibs in the center)

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with more babies!

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Wednesday Meet up for Eastside Stitchers

Hello:

One of the fun things about meeting at Crossroads in Bellevue is that we support our local businesses by eating dinner there.  Ok, we are not showing what one of the Jr. Eastside Stitchers had for dinner (sweet potato fries), we are showing off new teeth!

I missed the Wednesday meet up last week because I was frantically knitting my last round of Sock Madness socks and was just too exhausted.  It was lovely to get together with the group tonight.  I brought the "swatch" I am knitting for the Steeking Class that Vanesa Polo is teaching on Monday evening (6:30 pm Crossroads Community Room) for the EKG (Eastside Knitters Guild).  More on that swatch, later.  But, who also made it to Crossroads for some knitting and company?

CathieC was also working on a swatch for the steeking class.  Vanesa has given us a few different suggestions for swatches to learn this technique.  We can knit a simple flat stockinette swatch, we can knit something in the round, we can knit something in the round with colorwork.  She has even provided the guild with a simple colorwork pattern as a possibility.  I can't wait to see just the swatches people bring.

Wajio brought some faux colorwork socks.  Super pretty yarn colors.


JulieMustKnit is working on a cowl/scarf.  The pattern and yarn are from Country Yarns, and she got them on the 2014 North Puget Sound Yarn Crawl last month.


 GwenS has started the first arm of the lovely Barley sweater she is making for the gorgeous Addie.  Hurry up!  Addie is growing up so fast, she will be knitting soon, too.
WireKnitter had a couple of projects.  I managed to get a photo of our Tour-de-Sock Stage 2 Socks.

I have yet to cast on a pair of the TdS socks, but since Stage 3 will start soon, I will once again be knitting socks.

I can't wait.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with knitting friends with dimples.


 

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

50% CoMC OWL Update

Hello:

I am "hatching a dragon egg" for my Care of Magical Creatures OWL (Ordinary Wizarding Levels).  How I managed to convince the OWL examiner that the dragons are Frost Dragons... well, let's just say that they are willing to suspend disbelief.

Anyway, my goal is to make 15 Christmas Balls and 15 Snowflakes.  I thought I could make the balls in about 3 hours or so, but wow, I really underestimated.  Each ball is taking me 5 - 6 hours of knitting.  But I don't care because I just love them.  Also, I have been using Cascade 220, so they are much bigger than they are supposed to be.  Here are the 8 balls that I have finished so far:








 I have been sharing the snowflakes here as I have finished them, so I will just do a group shot:
The top row are the ones that I designed.

Now that I am not frantically knitting socks, I have been able to focus on finishing up other important projects.  I need to get the afghan done for my nephew.  The Doc is headed to Las Vegas next week where he will meet up with some members of his family to celebrate a 21st birthday.  Since that nephew, my #2 Godson, will be there, Doc will deliver the afghan.  I need to actually have a finished afghan.... not just a bunch of squares.

Also, we are having a baby shower at the Fiber Friday version of Eastside Stitchers this coming Friday... in 2 days.  I have been finishing up the baby gifts I will bring to the shower.  They aren't anything huge, but I had fun making them. For obvious reasons, I'll post photos after the shower.

Tonight is Pookie's last night before heading out to Beijing for the summer.  Since he will be in China for his birthday, we are celebrating tonight.  I will try to head out for a bit of Eastside Stitchers' regular Wednesday meet up.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with Dragons' Eggs and breath...

Sunday, June 15, 2014

I designed the coolest afghan square today

so this is the single color version.  I brought this to Panera's this morning.  Then, I got an idea of how to make it with 2 colors.  You have to carry the yarn behind, and I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with that, but as I want to minimize the the weaving in, I think it works fine.
I left the background on this square a bit more open than on the red square.  When I write this pattern up, I might do it both ways, giving the hooker the option of choosing the background.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with a lot of afghan squares.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

What part of International Speed Sock Knitting Competition do you not understand?

This is a super ugly photo of some unblocked socks.

I am out of Sock Madness.  I was 2nd to turn in Round 6 socks by about 2 hours.  I worked every day this week, and sometimes went from substituting to tutoring.  On Tuesday, I subbed from 7 - 2, then drove straight to Bellevue College and tutored until 8:00 pm.  And I still managed to knit these socks in 5 days.

I stopped doing updates because I didn't want to spend any time doing anything but knitting.

So I will try to show you what these look like:
The cuffs are double knit.

The legs were so interesting to knit.  We knit the double knit cuffs together to reduce the number of stitches on the needles, then knit the legs.  The front of the legs is color work, but not necessarily in the round.
The back of the legs are ribbed in a single color.  I knit the front, then dropped the contrast color and knit the back.  Then, I knit the next row of the front, slipping all the stitches that were supposed to be in the contrast color.  The main color was then dropped at the end of the front. Then, I turned the socks, and purled all of the stitches that had been slipped in the contrast color.  The next step was (since I was using a single circular needle) to slip all the stitches around on my needle so I was ready to continue with the main color.  I knit another row on the back, and when I got to the beginning of the sock, I had both colors. and was ready to knit another row of colorwork on the front.  This continued for about 5.5 in.  If I had been using double pointed needles, it would have gone a bit faster, but it wasn't too bad.

At the end of the leg, you add stitches so the heels can be double knit.
The heel flap is a double knit Eye of Partridge heel.  I am amazed that I understood how to do it.

The foot was also a combination of double knitting (the sole) and colorwork (the instep).  This is the pattern on the double knit bottoms of the socks.
When I was ready to knit the toe decreases, I had to add more stitches to the instep (top) of the socks so the toes could be double knit.

I stayed up past midnight every night and woke up at about 5 am each morning to try to get in a bit more knitting.  I do wish I had not worked these days, because I would have won.  Pookie told me that making money is good, too, and perhaps a bit more important than knitting socks.  He also told me that a sock knitting competition wasn't as cool as playing croquet.

But, he did do the dishes, and he brought me a smoothie when I got hungry.  He also just sat with me and encouraged me, so I told him that if I won, I would dedicate the final round to him.  Oh well.

Peace.
f1bercat
shaping the planet with some super thick socks.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Round 6 Leg

Front:
and Back:
super interesting pattern.  A mix of double knitting and stranded. the cuff is double knit, the heel is double knit (I'm half way done with the heels), but the leg is stranded in front with a ribbed back. Really interesting construction.