knitabit

Cute Little Poncho - Finito!

I spent the evening applying fringe (not a very fun job) and I recruited the princess to quickly model it (she's in her pajamas, late for bedtime, and it's before I had a chance to trim the long ends on the fringe tassles.)

She totally loves it ("Mom, can I sleep in it?") and it was fun to make (except, as I mentioned, for the fringe part.) All in all, a fun and happy end-of-summer project. And, of course, a fitting Herculean Effort! Thanks for the shout-out, Alison! Let's do the '06 Winter Olympics for sure!

But wait, what came in the mail today?

Woo-hoo! Won't this be fun? BTW, I'm making the cardigan, not the vest as shown on the instructions. Next post, I'll update on my first read-through of the instructions, shopping for supplies, and research accomplished on how to get started.

She Absconded with the FO

Last night during the closing credits of the Olympics, I finished knitting the cute little poncho. I can't say it was completely done; I still want to apply some fringe.

In the rush of getting the kids off to school this morning, I didn't get a photo, and my daughter loved it so much she wanted to wear it to school today, even without the fringe. I'll post a photo tomorrow.

Some thoughts on the Olympics:

• Favorite Athlete: El Geurrouj (winner of both the 1500m and 5000m)
• Most annyoying commentator remark: "Looks like they'll have to settle for the bronze." (Excuse me, but what I wouldn't give to be an Olympic participant - or even a spectator, let alone take home a medal of any color!)
• Major complaint about NBC coverage: We didn't learn a thing about Greece or the Greek culture, and we watched A LOT of their coverage. And Bob Costas is Greek, for heaven's sake! Maybe we missed the one time they showed something, I don't know.
• Another complaint about media coverage: Medal counts.
• Still rooting for: Paul Hamm, living what must be every Olympian's worst nightmare. Keep it and wear it proudly, Paul! And shame on the officials for making such a royal mess of the whole thing.
• Now anticipating: Beijing in 2008. What a fantastic venue, should be kewl.

Now back to our regular programming.

How 'bout some cheese and crackers...

...to go with that whine.

Whining about a head cold, that is.

No knitting progress to report.

For some reason, knitting is not joyful when you are forced to breathe through your mouth and all auditory inputs echo in your head and the cold medicine, while effective at unclogging that rogue nostril, makes you feel loopy.

My Summer, In Review

I sent the kids off to school this morning. Oh happy day!

How did I commemorate the day?

• I cleaned the bathrooms
• I fixed the archive and comment templates on this blog

What did I accomplish this summer?

• Well, most importantly, I spent quite a bit of time at home with the kids, which is something I wasn't able to do the previous couple of summers. So that was good.
• We had many excellent adventures and lots of summertime fun (camping, boating, etc.)
• I did not get my house in order as much as I would have liked, although some amount of progress was made.
• Not NEARLY enough knitting, people! Mostly socks, and a couple of aborted attempts at sweaters. But I should be getting the Virtual Yarn kit any day, now, and my big fair isle project will begin.

In poncho news, I found an error about six rows back and I'm wondering whether I can drop stitches, fix it, and pick up the stitches again, or if I will have to frog back. What happened was that the back centerline shaping got off one stitch when everything came off the needles and I put the marker back in the wrong spot. I'll let you know how the repair goes.

Cute Little Poncho

I made a stop at Hobby Lobby the other day. I feel I must offer a disclaimer here. Shopping at Hobby Lobby is as distasteful to me as shopping at Wal-Mart. I feel like I should be supporting my LYS, but when you need cheap acrylic, whatya gonna do? And to digress a bit further, our town is in the throes of a Super Wal-Mart controversy. My opinion on the evilness of Wal-Mart depends, I admit, on who I last talked to and what kind of a good price I might be able to get on whatever widget I might need at the moment. Do I support low prices? Do I support better jobs? Do I stand up against corporate bullies?

I am a conflicted consumer.

It reminds of the conflict I feel at the grocery store when they ask "paper or plastic?" And I think to myself, what kind of environmental damage am I in the mood for today; clogged landfills or deforestation?

ANYWAY...she picked some TLC Amore yarn, made by Red Heart. And you know what, it's a pretty nice yarn! It's a chenille - 80% acrylic and 20% nylon. It seems very sturdy and is much more dense and probably much more durable than the Colinette stuff I made scarves with for Christmas last year. The Colinette was mostly rayon, I think, and it tended to shed and fall apart pretty easily.

I used the poncho generator as a starting point, but quickly deviated from it when it started to not make sense. Too bad, she's go a nifty little program there but the pattern is not very clearly written. This photo gives you a little idea about what the neckline and the center front shaping looks like.

I'm going to alternate between solid and variegated to make wide stripes. And I'm also going to have to take back all the terrible things I said about Denise's Interchangeable Needles. They are enormously handy for a knit-in-the-round project that's growing steadily with each round.

Harder than it looks

My seven-year-old daughter expressed interest in having a knitted poncho. I spotted this cute one in the Land's End kids catalog.

Oh my. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that those are intarsia stripes, and the poncho appears to be knitted in four panels that are seamed together.

I spent part of yesterday afternoon browsing through Faery Crafty's Poncho Links and discovered the following:

• One popular type of poncho is the giant square with the hole in the middle of it. It will have a lot of bulk and looks kind of hippy-ish.
• Another type of poncho is comprised of two rectangles; each rectangle is positioned lengthwise over the shoulders, and overlapped and seamed together at front and back. These ponchos seem to have large-ish neck openings.
• The third type of poncho, and the type that seems to be most popular right now, is rather fitted and slim. The Lands' End poncho is a slim type of poncho. I found a pattern generator for a slim, fitted poncho.
• Finally, I think the poncho will replace the scarf this year as a popular use of novelty yarns and many, many ugly ponchos will be out there as a result.

I think I might try to make one similar to the Lands' End version, except that I'll do decreases down the center "seam" rather than intarsia stripes.

At the risk of offending, I might also use acrylic yarn from Hobby Lobby since I believe this might be on the fashion radar screen only briefly, and sure to be outgrown quickly anyhow.

Chuckle

Saw this link over on Michelle's blog, and felt compelled to pass it on. It made my day!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

I've Succumbed

I am weak.

I decided that this is the year for a big fair isle project. Accordingly, I've chosen Alice Starmore's "Roscalie" cardigan. Here is the finished product as knit up by the incomparable Wendy in June of 2003.

I placed my order with Virtual Yarns, a UK company which will ship here for free!

Not that the savings on shipping tipped the scales; I really can't justify this purchase except that it's coming out of my own clothing budget. That's my new rationalization for extravagant yarn purchases.

Olympic Knitting

I'm not as productive as I might have hoped in my Herculean Effort to complete a pair of socks. Why? Because I keep falling asleep! I missed Paul Hamm's big wipeout last night as I snoozed away. Woke up in time to see his high bar routine, though.

Our local station shows the Olympics from seven until eleven. Why they don't do it from six until ten escapes me. (But of course, they can't pre-empt Entertainment Tonight!)

My husband and I had fun with the kids reminiscing about the '72 Munich Olympics. Even though they were marred by the Israeli hostage tragedy, those Olympics included many memorable 'firsts.' (I found a good retrospective here.) We mistakenly thought that it was the first use of the trademark Olympic Fanfare music, but a little bit of googling set me straight on that.

Oh well, it's still fun to think back on Olga Korbut, Mark Spitz, Frank Shorter, and Jim McKay and what an impression they made on a twelve-year-old. (There, now you know how old I am.)

Knitting Hazards

This story about exploding knitting needles is circulating on my local knitlist. Who knew?

I frogged the Canal Du Midi sock back to the toe and am now knitting it as a plain-vanilla-boring-same-old-sock because it's so much easier to knit while watching TV.

And speaking of the Olympics, I have an open letter to swimmer Michael Phelps.

Dear Mr. Phelps,

Please pull up your pants. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Karen

And, as with every Olympics, I get annoyed with the ungrateful slobs who pout when they get the silver medal (yes, I'm talking about the U.S. Women's Gymnastics Team.) Maybe there should be a medals judge who follows along behind the awarding officials and takes away medals from the big whiny crybabies who cannot accept second and third place with grace. And nothing makes me more verklempt than a bronze medalist who's overcome with joy.

An unimpressive start

Well, it's good thing that the response to the "Herculean Effort" was not large. It wouldn't look good if the hostess couldn't get her own project off the ground!

I decided that a pair of socks might be do-able, and decided to venture away from the same old boring sock recipe. So I got out Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road and noticed that the Canal Du Midi sock would fit my gauge and size just perfectly!

The pattern makes use of traveling stitches. I actually didn't realize that when I started the sock; after a few rows in pattern, I thought to myself "hey, these look like traveling stitches!" Brilliant deduction there, Sherlock. I had a bad experience with traveling stitches a couple of years ago, and I had I known they were the basis of this pattern, I never would have attempted it. Anyway, they come much easier to me now and perhaps I will have another go at the sweater pattern I previously abandoned (it was called the Austrian Stitch Cardigan.)

Choosing the road less traveled, I'm doing the pattern toe-up and on circular needles - even though the pattern calls for neither. No matter - only minor modifications needed. I'm about halfway up the foot.

The problem is that this yarn is too busy for the stitch pattern, I think. The stitches would show up so much better with a solid color yarn.

I'm debating whether to continue.

And I'm asking myself, why am I continuing to pursue texture knitting instead of colors? I keep wanting to get going on a fair isle project. I'm going to start shopping around for a good kit, to save myself the hassle of color selection, which I'm no good at anyway.

Let's Put the Past Behind Us

Here is the crochet scarf, finished at last:

Sadly, the photo does justice to the obnoxiousness of the colors. And because it's crocheted and not knit, it has a rather stiff and thick texture and does not wrap and drape the way a knit scarf would.

It was beneficial to do a crochet project if for no other reason than to remind myself that knitting is the superior craft (sorry to offend the crochet crowd out there...) I mentioned in a previous post that the kids are counting on afghans when they go off to college. Fortunately, I can tolerate crocheting for home accessory projects (including doilies); it's when you try to crochet a garment or personal accessory that things get ugly for me. At least that's what I'm counting on.

The Herculean Effort

Hey, who would be interested in a fun Olympic knit-along? A "Herculean Effort", if you will?

You're going to be knitting while you watch anyways, so why not go for a medal?

Here are the rules:

1. You can knit whatever you want.
2. You can't start before the Opening Ceremonies.
3. You end by the time the Closing Ceremonies conclude.
4. You send me a photo after it's done.
5. We vote on the results. Greatest number of votes gets the gold medal, second place gets a silver medal, etc.

Opening Ceremonies are Friday, August 13 at 8:00 pm ET, so we've got a few days to put this together. I will email a few of my favorite bloggers to generate some initial interest (I don't think I otherwise attract very many readers.)

The web page and signup form are up and running at http://www.road13.com/herculean.

Note: As of 8/12, only three people signed up so I cancelled this knitalong. Maybe I'll revive the concept for the next Winter Olympics - I don't think August is 'prime knitting season.'

The Interminable Crochet Scarf

I would guess I'm 2/3rds done. Sheesh. Will the misery ever end? I will not buy variegated yarn anymore, unless it's a very subtly-done sock yarn. It's too hard to find a suitable project, and when you have to resort to crochet....bleh. I should mention that it's the short-repeat variegation that's so hard to deal with - when the repeats are so long as to result in stripes, the results are much more pleasing.

My camera battery is dead and my camera case, with the charger in it, is MIA - although I suspect it's hiding out at my office, the one place I haven't had time to check lately. Anyway, that's why I have no pic to share yet.

But what this blog entry is REALLY all about is a subject I have not seen on any of the other knitting blogs yet: What are we all going to be knitting while we watch the Olympics? It's a great swath of quality TV that's well-suited to knitting, and I don't have a project lined up yet! Of course, there is that Herringbone pullover that's sitting in a clump on the kitchen counter... But really, I think the Olympics are deserving of an exciting new project.

I foresee a visit to a yarn shop this week.

Slow Motion

I'd forgotten how slow the progress is when you crochet. It's painful. The scarf is turning out cute (will post pics after the weekend), but it's taking frickin' forever! Now I remember why it was so pleasurable to turn my yarn passion from crochet to knitting a few years back. And no turning back now! I'm glad I know how to crochet, for the occasional project or edging that turns up, but it's not going to make a comeback as an obsession.

Except that the kids overhead me say once, a long time ago, that I would crochet an afghan for each of them when they go off to college.

Oy.

Whimsy

I've had this ball of Interlacement's Toasty Toes for quite some time. As the name suggests, it's intended as a sock yarn but I prefer a finer-gauged yarn for socks. I wish I taken a picture of this yarn as I bought it, in a loose hank. The rainbow color pattern was really striking. Unfortunately, as you wind it into a ball, it becomes a jumble of very short sections of obnoxiously bright colors.

It just doesn't look nice knitted up.

So I decided to just go with the in-your-face attitude of this yarn and crochet a scarf. Several other knit-bloggers have taken up crochet hooks this summer, it seems, so I decided to join in the fray.

Crochet stitches are much larger than knit stitches of a corresponding gauge. So the variegated colors really pop out at you, instead of just turning into a mush of stockinette.

I was inspired by a free online pattern from Lion Brand Yarn. But instead of going diagonally with the post-crochets, I'm going verticallly.

Of course, my scarf won't be as wide as the Lion pattern, but I'm really liking it so far and I'm glad I've found a use for this difficult yarn.