one sock

i bought the yarn and needles and a pattern to knit a pair of socks sometime in the early fall and promptly started to knit.

and then i found out that #2 double pointed needles suck and big ol' hands make for a terrible sock knitting experience.

and then i learned that i had been knitting wrong all this time!

so i re-learned how to knit (i had been putting some weird extra twist in each stitch that was really ruining my cable work on that orange scarf and lead to me restarting that project as well). and then i learned to knit the magic loop (this tutorial looks pretty good, but there are tons of them on google). and then, after christmas, i re-started my sock.

the heel is blue, too.

it was slow going for a while as i worked through the once-knit (and thus all twisted and bad) yarn but things really picked up after that. i also used the countless rows of straight knit stitches to work on my technique. i can now form a stitch with fewer movements of my wrists and without dropping the yarn between stitches. the drawing below is the wrapping method that works best for me although i think i would drop the pinky wrap for a heavier weight yarn. unfortunately, i haven't gotten purls down nearly as well.

i went to art school.

the pattern also expanded my repertoire of stitches as rectangular scarves don't require reductions or the picking up of stitches. (i also got a lot of practice saving dropped stitches with a crochet hook.) huzzah learning experiences!

now all i have to do is make another one, the exact same way.

season's greetings

sarah and i teamed up for christmas this year and made gift bags for our families. though each was a little different, the basic idea was as follows: a jar of cranberry jam, a jar of pear chutney, a sample of maldon's smoked sea salt (the brown bottle) and a small plum wood cutting board (made from urban salvage lumber and a bit of corn and citrus oil). variations included a bit of honeycomb from the hives on the roof at bluebottle, a bag of coffee, a nice tall beer, and a few other odds and ends. my mama's bag came with a couple knit dishcloths:

she got the two basketweaves on the left. i gave the other two to sarah.

we wrapped them up in scraps of muslin, tied with a bit of rosemary, and a note in sarah's french cursive. a pretty pretty little gift if i do say so myself.

feliz navidad, y'all.

old new things

whoa man, holidays.

but now that that is over, some delinquent projects:

after thanksgiving, when the cranberries were cheap, my special lady friend and i made a whole lot of jam. i think the two batches used, oh, six bags of berries, total. some of it went into christmas gifts, but there is still plenty for delicious cranberry and almond butter sammiches.

there were also plenty of fiber arts this fall. i finally finished my new orange cable scarf and boy is it sweet. i've been wearing it for my bike rides to work and have found it to be the perfect knit size to pull over my mouth and nose- small enough to keep the warm air in but big enough to get good ventilation. (i'm not going to write out the pattern unless anyone is particularly interested in having it, let me know.)

and then there is this chambray work shirt. i used the one shirt pattern i own, but rebuilt the front to open with a three button polo-style placket instead of the full length deal. the pocket and the cuffs have mitered corners and i added rounded shirt-tails as well. the stitching is ecru and is a nice contrast to the light blue fabric. buttons are aluminum, hand-made with (now standard) three holes. as i tend to roll and unroll sleeves a lot, especially on a work shirt, i didn't add buttons to the wrist plackets.

the only issue with this shirt is getting it on and off. the slim cut isn't really suited to a pull over, so if i build this shirt again, i'll add small pleats to the back panel to loosen things up a bit.

i also built a dress this fall. a little grey number from a vintage pattern for sarah, but i don't have any pictures, yet. soon, hopefully.

oh, and the weaving moves slowly forward. with something like 7 yards of warp on the loom and plenty of other projects, it will be a bit longer before there is a finished product. but that finished product will be 4 or 5 stripey scarves. also soon, hopefully.

a shawl pin

while in washington several weeks back, allyce's awesome mom described to me what would be required for a very nice shawl pin. after leaving a little sheet of yellow paper with my notes on it next to the lathe for about a month, i finally whipped up this prototype.

the ring is of sycamore, my current favorite wood (for its honest, even grain and its gentlemanly way of not overpowering the colors and textures around it), and the pin is of walnut.

the pin is a bit heavy- just under a quarter inch at the thickest point- but i was still able to get it through my current knitting project, a cabled scarf knit on #8 needles.

i assume it has not been delivered to susan yet, so i don't have a review, but i think it is a solid start.

a blankie

so my brother and sister-in-law went and got themselves a baby, or, i suppose, they have one on order. it should be showing up right around easter. oh, and by "it," i mean "he."

in any case, i decided to knit the little bugger a blanket. i would have given some process updates but i didn't want to give away the surprise. so now that it is (more or less) finished and gifted, i'll show it to you:

more below!

knitting

the awesome allyce wood (http://allyceallyce.blogspot.com/) and the awesome allyce wood's mom taught me how to knit in the spring (the sentence, "allyce, what are you teaching this poor boy?!" was used).  then it was summer and it was too hot for knitting, but after that it was fall and i finally got back to it. 

the brown scarf is my first completed project which i was so excited to wear that i have yet to block it. the blue and gray is my current project. and i better get started on the green soon, as it is a gift for a birthday that was last week.  after i finish these up, i suppose it will be time to move past the comfort of the simple rectangular scarf and on to something a bit more complex.  say a hat.  maybe some socks?  more on the patterns and yarns after the jump....

oh, and, on a side note, i reinstated the "follow" tab at the bottom of the page.  if you're into that kind of thing.