Kitty: Socks by the fire

All the sockies were gathered by the fire with care! Ok, well just one pair of socks showed up for the tootsie toasting party. All the other socks were on strike!

I finally finished my pity party socks. I started these after I found out my Sockapaloza socks had been lost in the mail. I was so sad that no sock ever showed up in the mail. :'( The one sock had been done for awhile, but her mate was stalled as I finished the Brown Phildar Sweater. I have to say I am not convinced with the Lornas Laces yarn, they have already started to pill and I have never even worn them with shoes.

Ok, I have joined the bandwagon, check out what is on the needles. My hubby was offering subtle hints that if he knew a Knitster that she could knit him a Harry Potter scarf he would wear it. I haven't gotten to far since I showed him swatches and he opted for the 1*1 ribbing in the round. Ok.. I figure if I knit one ball a day I will be done in 2 weeks.

More Latter... Must go help the hubby install T1 routers.

Kitty: Thanks MG

Check out what my incredibly cool Christmas gift from MG was this year. All little treasures from Habu!!!! Thanks so much, MG.

AOS-43 Ami Ito
Linen w/Persimmon Extract

The yarn has been tied in little knots every 2 inches.

	A- 86 Silk mohair linen The yarn looks like old fashion rick rack tape.

 

A-113, 3/15 Silk Wool Colour 14

FQ-1 handsupun "fique"
(family of pineapple plant)

Kitty: Happy Holidays

print versions

Happy Holiday's from Knitbuddies. Have a wonderful new year.

Hope you enjoy the little cut out craft project above. I wish I could send you some snowflakes to put around your little house.

Kitty: A Little Christmas gift to all our readers!

printable needle inventory

Happy Holidays, I just wanted to do a little something to say thank you to all of our kind readers for all there support during the year.

Kitty: Yarn Porn

Lookie here! It is a finished brown phildar sweater just in time for the holiday gift events and parties. Sorry the photo has been edited, I didn't ask the other person who was in the photo if they minded being on the site. I just had to post the good photo of the sleeve. I am so proud of this little nightmare of a a project. I re knitted those sleeves far to many times, but they finally fit.

Here is some yarn porn for you. I have truly become obsessed with Habu Textile yarns. Spending countless hours while stuck on conference calls panting over there site and the links to there yarns on the internet. You can not believe how insanely jealous I was when MG, B, and M went and took cell phone photos and went shopping. Here is what MG picked up in the sale bin for me. I am such a happy girl. Thanks so much MG.

First though, check out the beauty of the Tsumugi Silk . 35 orange that I picked up over at Kpixie when they put it on sale the other week. I think the only reason it has lasted so long is that the tiny cone was, um a little intimidating.

item #: A-129 1/1 Poco
content: 90% wool, 10% nylon
colour: 7

item #: A-162 1/0.7 China twist hand-dyed wool
content: 100% wool

item #: A-93 2/22 shropshire wool
content: 100% wool

And I leave you with a winter wonderland of snow, since I don't think we will have a white Christmas. Just a month of snow on the ground it is suppose to be in the 40's tomorrow and sunday.

MG: eeeeeeeeee!!!!!

guess what i did on the longest (astronomical) night of the year? i spun ON MY OWN WHEEL! my ridiculously generous family blew me away with this (!!!) yesterday.

my little lendrum is a single-treadle (i learned on a single-treadle Ashford Joy, and my left foot enjoys being tucked under me). i love, luv, lurve my wheel; it's an amazingly well constructed piece of machinery--simple, smooth, and sleek. unscrew a knob, screw on two knobs, set two bands, and the wheel is ready to spin. i love the hinged back maiden mechanism: easy bobbin changing yet sturdy. i luuuuuuuuuuuurve my lendrum. teeheehee.

i've been traveling a bit. left berkeley two saturdays ago and just now getting comfy in ohio. photo access is not yet set up, so you are being tortured w/ eye-candy-less blogging.

last week was NYC, where, of course, a couple of yarn stores were involved. oodles of fun was had at Habu and The Point. Habu was conducting fancy photography with a whole basket of swatches. word is they are setting up an online shopping cart!

thank you so much for your comments about Karenina and for cheering on the little red footie. a special thanks to those who delurked; i was touched. i think you guys were right; it was just all the stress and pressure. therefore, i hate to confess... the very night after i wrote that post... in a fit of trying to feel like i have things in order... i frogged the footie. :( it will be reknitted, really, i promise.

when i can, i repsond to comments by email. i usually click on the links you leave and try to find email addresses (b/c blogger doesn't take email addresses. argh). however, i'm appallingly behind, so give me a little time and please excuse my rudeness. Anabel, thank you for all your lovely comments. wish i could write back directly. your blogger profile is diabled; do you have a blog i can visit?

off to catch up on blogs! and spin spin spin.

Kitty: The Painful Brown Sleeves

Why oh why Brown Phildar Sweater do your sleeves not fit, me? How many times do I need to rip them out, and re knit the caps? How many more stitches can I try to ease into the arms eye?

Uggg.........

From the small in this pattern to the largest size there was only a 17 stitch increase between the 5 sizes. Not really a huge increase if you really think about it. I have gone up an additional 10 stitches to a 27 stitch increase, but it still pulls awkwardly across my shoulder area.

Now if you do all the math for the sleeve cap it actually should have about 1 3/4 inch ease now. I followed the instructions outlined in the new knitty article, but obviously that didn't work. So the only thing I can guess is that it has something to do with the open cable in the middle of the sleeve.

Any one have any ideas? At this rate I may follow what one of the people who posted a comment said, "Oh... I know this pattern. That sleeve is hell! I ripped my entire sweater because of those sleeves. They look great in the magazine, but I couldn't get anything to work. Good Luck!

Heidi"

Kitty: Up the Cuteness Ante

One always need to up the ante on Cuteness on the web, but I think this site wins hands down. Cute Overload!

Thanks, J for sending me the link.

Kitty: A Perfect Date!

Hello,

I was so touched that a couple of people asked if I would mind posting a copy of the pattern I came up with for the green shawl I knit over Thanksgiving Weekend. You can not believe how happy I was that a couple of people liked it enough to ask for the pattern.

So here is a link to the pdf file for the pattern: Perfect Date!

Let me know if you run into any problems.

Thanks again everyone for your support. :)

Kitty Kitty

 

(click on any of the above for larger photos, go on!)
The Specs: Pattern: By Yours Truly Yarn: Rowan Chunky Cotton Chenille (Elann) & Maggie's Ireland Rag (The Yarn Shoppe) Needles: Lantern Moon US 13 Completion time: 5 hours

 

MG: deep breaths

research stress and deadlines kicking my butt. not much knitting. here is a footie i'm on the verge of frogging. i may or may not be displacing frustration:


proof i finished Karenina but had trouble getting good photos (lack of light, PJs, and all):




details and better pics (hopefully) later. take care.

kitty: Holiday New Project

Blech... The thrill of finding something new for all those Christmas and New Year parties. There are times when I wish the just through on a black suit option worked well for women as it does men. Yes, I know there is always the standard black dress, but really it gets old after awhile now doesn't it. And it is not like you can just wear the same black dress, people start to notice. (Ok... I hate to shop for clothing for myself. Others I am more than happy to find really good deals and awesome finds, but myself forget about it. I will end up crying in the store.)

So thanks to the gals at Kpixie and the wonderful Felicia from Sweetgeorgia it is all starting to come together for that holiday outfit. I still think I need to find a few other options for colour combinations for the sleeves. The Hemp looks a little out of place in its stripe. But lets be honest if I am going to pull this off I had best get my needles flying.

I got the idea to do the colour block combination inspired by Meiji Era Pieced Festival Kimono and Juban. Where they would take fragments of precious old garments of past loved one and piece them together into special garments to be passed down again.

So I have chosen precious yarns to substitute for the silk fragments. I even hope to topstitch the different section with white running stitches to give it that pieced appearance.

Kitty: Holiday Knitting

(click on any of the above for larger photos, go on!)
The Specs: Pattern: By Yours Truly Yarn: Rowan Chunky Cotton Chenille (Elann) & Maggie's Ireland Rag (The Yarn Shoppe) Needles: Lantern Moon US 13 Completion time: 5 hours

Happy Holiday Knitting!

I snuck in some much needed R&R this past holiday weekend. Not as much as I would have liked, but hey I will take any I can get. After looking back it does seem like I got in a lot of knitting.

First of all is my new winter shawl. I had been really inspired by Stefanie Japel's City Shawl, but something really wasn't me with her pattern. I didn't think I was really the triangular shawl type and I thought in the long run it was a little plain. With all the amazing lace shawl patterns out there I wanted something with a little more interest, but it also had to be fast and simple. I really liked the thought of finishing something I could wear by Monday.

So my shawl is a combination of the simple aspects of the City Shawl, with the stitch interest of Maggie Jackson, and a little bit of me thrown in.

I also finally got around to working on the brown phildar sleeve and starting the next sleeve. I just want to be done with the sweater. I just hope it works out in the end.