Knitter Monkey

SP10: The End

2007-06-30T02:59:45Z

This week has been an excellent knitting/fiber week, but first things first - I got home from work today to find my final reveal package on my front step from my pal, Jennifer. Now keep in mind that I have already received three great packages that have included handspun yarn, handmade stitch markers, new yarns I've wanted to try, and monkeys galore (plus there are always treats - SP, you got my husband hooked on Fruitabu!), but she really completely outdid herself with this last one. Usually I refrain from postings photos of the box before I start unpacking it because it seems excessive, but look!

Each brown bag package had its own hand-drawn and hand-written note with a "Monkey See" theme!

Then I began unpacking, and every bag I opened up was even better than the last! There was so much in the box that I couldn't get it all into one decent picture, so I tried to take two, but every time I set up this stuffed monkey, Ruckus knocked it over like so:

so I only got a decent picture of the other half:

In this picture are special monkey pillow cases made just for Dan and I (!), and one of those cute baking kits where the dry ingredients are in the jar and you add the other stuff - the mix is for cocoa brownies and there is a monkey cookie cutter attached! I know my pal didn't know this, but I am a little obsessed with these kits! You can also see in the corner some candy bananas, which were a part of the other half - this included a sock monkey kit (I am so excited to try this - I'm hoping to start it this weekend!), the aforementioned monkey, and a wind-up monkey that does flips.

But wait, there was more!

This is the yarn that my pal spun (and named Monkey Knitter after 4 PM!) just for me. It is purple plied with brown and I can not wait to knit something with it; I just have to figure out something worthy of it. Currently stuck into the yarn is a pair of US6 knitting needles with monkey head ends, which it does not say but I am pretty sure are also handmade by my pal, because they bear a striking resemblance to these....

I love everything about this package, but I think these are absolutely my favorite because without actually knowing me or seeing my insane collection of monkey accoutrements, Jennifer somehow created exactly what I had in my mind as my perfect stitch markers. I've looked on eBay and etsy for months and found nothing even close - I want to use stitch markers for every project I have now! I'm knitting a washcloth, and I'm like "hrm I wonder if I might need stitch markers?!?"

I am in luck, though, because this afternoon I signed up for the Mystery Stole 3 Knitalong! I'm really excited about this - the last two years, I have stumbled across it on week three, when membership is closed already. Just by coincidence, I saw it today, the day it started, and was finally able to join. I just need to pick out some beads for it and I can get started on it this weekend!

In my other knitting excitement, after treating myself to a birthday facial at Natural Body (I don't know if I really need facials, but I am not allowed to get body massages due to my clotting disorder so I kind of milk the "decollete massage" that is part of a facial for all it's worth.), I went to my LYS and spent my birthday gift certificate on Blue Sky Alpaca Royal in the natural black color. I mentioned what I was about to do to my co-workers and how I had been coveting it for months because of its hefty price tag, and someone was like "so this is like the Cadillac of yarns?" And now I have it and yes, yes it really is. Given this little outing, I am probably a little insane for even thinking about it but my other LYS is having a sale this weekend where you go and get whatever you want and when you get to the counter to pay, you draw a duck out of a bucket (?) and the duck has anywhere from 10-100% off on it. So at worst, it is a 10% everything in the store sale, and it could potentially be anywhere in between that and 100%. I think they are doing the sale online too if anyone is in the mood for a gamble.

Finally (last paragraph I promise), I scheduled my birthday spinning lesson for next Saturday morning, and I can't wait to learn! Just what I need, I know, another hobby that involves amassing quantities of fiber. Oh well. :)

26!

2007-06-25T03:21:01Z

Saturday was my birthday, and my friends and husband planned two days worth of fun to celebrate 26. We spent Saturday in Chattanooga at Rock City and the aquarium, and when we got home I had a special birthday package from my Secret Pal! She sent me an adorable book called Doggy Knits and several skeins of a gorgeous blue handpainted mohair/wool blend. Thanks, SP! That was a fun treat to come home to and end the birthday festivities.

Also in knitterly birthday goodness, my husband got me a book called Spin to Knit and a gift certificate for a private spinning lesson! I don't have any idea how to spin but I'm quite excited to learn.

Wicked Awesome

2007-06-18T23:19:49Z

Actually doing appropriate math and gauge swatching is fun! Last night I cast off the body of Wicked with much excitement, and tried it on to find that I finally made a sweater that matches my exact measurement specifications!

It fits perfectly - not too loose, not too tight, it goes in where I go in and comes out where I come out, and the length is just right and the neck not wide, and even the arm holes are exactly the right size. The only problem of course is that it is 95 degrees, and thus even when I finish the sleeves this sweater won't be wearable for months! I'm working on them anyway, and maybe when it's done I'll take a lot of trips to overly air-conditioned restaurants or something.

Still Here...

2007-06-15T13:09:17Z

I keep meaning to take pictures of my knitting so I can make a post, but it's always that I'll wait until it looks more interesting, which it generally doesn't until it's done. I knit another pair of camo socks for Dan, this time in a more brown-and-olive-green colorway of Regia Stretch, which he has appointed as "the best ones yet." The same day that I finished them, the Cascade Dolce I ordered from the WEBS sale (for more than half off!) arrived, and as soon as I saw it, I wanted to make it into Wicked. I tried to talk myself out of it for a day, considering that it is 95 degrees in Georgia and will be for the foreseeable future and this yarn is mostly wool and alpaca, but I have been inexplicably drawn to it! So I am knit-knit-knitting away - and using the stitch markers my SP made me! - and am about halfway done with the body already.

Since I really need to knit something more summer-y while I have time, next on my list is going to be to use my blue Regal Silk to make this cami.

The sweater is going quickly too, so I might even get to it before July. My husband has been trying to figure out why he thinks this sweater looks so much nicer than the other sweater I made, which was over a year ago! I am guessing it is a combination of actually doing proper gauge swatches and measuring at this point plus an extra year of daily practice.

2007-05-30T23:08:45Z

I finished the first of the Interweave Spiral Boot Socks two weekends ago ... it looks funny off my foot since I have ginormous calves and slender feet (and I like my socks snug):

Instead of making the second one, I immediately turned around and cast on for the Lelah tank top, which I'd previously knitted but decided I hated so I ripped it and never went back.

This weekend, I finished Lelah Take 2, which I did with a surplice top instead of the strapless. The picture isn't particularly flattering (can anyone take good self-portraits that actually show an entire garment?), but it is the cutest most wearable garment I have made to date. It's in Rowan All-Season Cotton (four skeins), done on size 8 and 6 needles instead of 9 and 10.5.

SP10 Contest: Stash (as in Flash Your)

2007-05-19T05:02:44Z

Our SP hostess sent out an e-mail a couple of days ago with a challenge to post a photo of your stash. It also sounds like there have been other challenges (?) but this is the first e-mail I have received since the initial swap e-mail, so Kerry, if you are reading this, I am so sorry I have not been participating! If they went to my bulk mail, they are long gone, but hopefully this will make up for it because in trying to take a photo of my stash, I have determined that my stash can not be contained in a single photo. It is almost embarassing, the sheer quantity of not just yarn but pricey luxury yarns that I have accumulated with, in many cases, no real purpose. I'm guessing that I am not the only one though, and surely someone out there has a stash that puts mine to shame.

To start this off fittingly, tonight I received my order from the insane sale at Knit Happens. The sale kicked off while we were out of town, and so by the time I learned about it, all of my favorite yarns were long since sold out (hello, Koigu for $4.50/skein? Sheer insanity.) and for a while I refrained. Earlier this week though, I decided the prices on some yarns I was curious about were just too good to pass up, and I ordered, well, a buttload of cheap yarn. My husband was like, is that all yarn? When the box showed up. It was all yarn.

Specifically, it is RYC Soft Lux in a pretty green, Nashua Creative Focus Worsted in Goldenrod, and Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk in pink. 10 balls, 12 balls, and 20 balls, respectively.

What the heck, man, add it to the stash.

That is the yarn in my knitting room. It desn't include my WIP and orphan skein bags or my big tote filled with all of the KnitPicks Palette I'm using for Venezia, but you get the idea. That bag on the left? is just full of Malabrigo Worsted. And that's not even all of it.

In our bedrom is my main stash, organized in this IKEA storage unit by types of yarn - sock yarns, bags of yarn, "special" yarns, cotton yarns, etc. If you ever want to kid yourself, your significant other, or your family and friends about exactly how much yarn you have, get one of these. There is so much more yarn here than you even realize - before I got this, I had filled up an entire laundry basket and one of those kid's toy storage containers plus random bags of overflow that didn't fit, and then I got this and I had extra space.

Which didn't last for long ... There are also boxes above the unit with yarn for projects that are farther out or yarn I just don't feel the need to look at all the time once I had to start discriminating.

I am pretty sure I have another stash somewhere with mostly acrylics from when I was learning to knit and didn't even know LYS existed, and there is definitely a bag of Tahki Cotton Classic in like 12 colors for this kind of nutty Care Bears intarsia project I have been scheming about for a year now.

It is ridiculous, and so much of it is, well, kind of expensive. I have always been the kind of person who will pick the $800 shoes if you show me three with no price tags, and my yarn choices are no exception. I fear for the day we have to save for something - Dan will have to take the Internet away. I went on an Etsy spree a few months ago, buying gorgeous hand-dyed laceweight with no projects in mind:

I have enough Koigu and Lorna's Laces to knit nothing but socks for the next year:

But nothing even comes close to my enormous pile of Malabrigo - that bag in the the first picture was only about a third of my Malabrigo stash.

This post brought to you by the letter "S," for "Stash-tastic."

Secret Box!

2007-05-15T02:19:39Z

I came home to find a huge box of purple-y goodness on my door step, and yes, SP, purple is definitely my favorite color!

My Pal sent me so much good stuff! More fabulous monkey accessories, candy, notecards, crayons (I feel the same way!), plus she made me stitch markers (they're beautiful). That's not all though - I got my own handspun yarn, my first ever, AND (yes there's more), she knit me a purple Wavy scarf! I love all of it so much! And my cat quite enjoyed the box. :)

Socks and More Socks

2007-05-13T15:59:14Z

Last weekend I finished Dan's camo socks just in time for him to wear them ...

And immediately cast on for a pair of Spiral Boot Socks, from this Summer '07 Interweave Knits that arrived the same day:

I just turned the heel on the first one, and now I can't decide if I'll make another one. I had to modify the foot pattern to get it to fit so that it doesn't look quite as pretty in the foot, and I don't know if I really ever have occasion to wear knee-high socks. (Don't ask me why I was so drawn to them in the first place; who knows?) I am loving the yarn, though - KnitPicks Gloss. It would knit up into a gorgeous sweater.

Spring and Knitting Don't Mix

2007-04-28T14:50:07Z

I don't have any pretty pictures or news of real project progress to talk about, because spring and knitting just don't mix. It's the time of year when you want to be outside as often as possible, and I usually am, out at the park with our dog or driving around in the mountains or shopping because spring and shopping? They mix a lot.

I'm coming up with more ideas for projects, but the only knitting I've done in the past two weeks is a swatch for my planned felted bag and the camo socks for Dan (which are almost done). There is also the varicose vein debacle, but actually knitting is pretty good for that.

Aches and Pains and Chicken Wings

2007-04-15T16:11:59Z

I recently got a new laptop (a "free" one actually), so laptop time has been seriously infringing n my knitting time. The biggest downside of the new laptop is that I've been playing a lot of games on it, and using the little mousepad so frequently in my lap strains my wrist. When my wrist starts to hurt, I turn off the laptop and switch to knitting, which also puts strain on my wrist. Friday night, I did a lot of both, and my wrist has been sore ever since.

This is seriously impeding my progress on what was going to be a "quick" pair of camo socks for my husband. I found this yarn online that looked pretty camo-esque when it was knitted up, better than the "camo" colorways I've seen where the yarn frequently pools or stripes and doesn't really resemble camo at all. I bought some and showed my husband, who immediately decided the swatch looked nothing like camo and neither did the yarn when it came, but I am used to his nay-saying and forged merrily on. So, Friday night, when I get tired of computing, I pull out the yarn and some needles and cast on for this sock, and 30 minutes later ask him to try it on. Imagine his shock and surprise when he realizes that, hey, it really does look like camo!

Is there ever a point where your husband starts to trust that maybe sometimes you know what you are talking about, or is marriage just years of having the exact same conversation over and over and over again? Dan never liked chicken, growing up. He thinks it's flavorless. I love to make chicken, especially grilled chicken, with a delicious marinade that contains ginger, which Dan also doesn't like. The first time I made it for him four years ago, he was floored at how good it was. On and on about how crazy it was that I made chicken taste juicy and delicious. Yeah, I don't overcook it - I'm a cooking genius. So the next time when he asked what was for dinner, and I said grilled chicken, he was like "oh, I don't like chicken." The whole cycle repeats itself every time I make it, and you would think at some point he might remember that he likes it, particularly when I remind him that he's loved it each time, but so far, no luck.

First SP Package!

2007-04-11T04:07:51Z

A package showed up today from Kansas, my first package from my Secret Pal!

My pal sent me two skeins each of Mission Falls 1824 Cotton and Jaeger Trinity, both of which are soft and beautiful - I'm so excited to try them! Also in the package was crazy British candy (Rhubarb & Custard! You must know about my fascination with bizarre candy flavors!) and an assortment of adorable monkey items. Thanks, SP! Also, Kansas? That is pretty fabulous too, to the girl who'd never been west of Atlanta until our cruise two years ago.

Vacation Knitting

2007-04-06T23:33:57Z

I used my vacation to knit like a fiend, despite my plans to the contrary. I finished my shawl in time for the wedding - the whole shawl from cast on to pulling it off the blocking pins took just five days, and it's easily the most impressive-looking thing I've ever knit.

Then I took along some Cascade and KnitPicks wool that was my first dyeing attempt on the drive to Savannah. Around Macon, I decided to pull out my knitting and had an entire clog by the time we got to the hotel! It was such a fast and gratifying knit that I cast on for the second one right away, and by the time we got back to Atlanta, I just had to finish attaching and seaming the soles.

They started out like this:

Then, after twenty minutes in the wash (and four days to dry), they ended up fabulous, like this:

They're very cool looking, and surprisingly sturdy! The last thing I felted (Fuzzy Feet) was much more ... floppy.

I love them.

Shawl Attack

2007-03-27T20:16:35Z

On Friday, we went up to stay at a cabin in Blue Ridge, GA for our anniversary - for our honeymoon, we went up to a cabin there that was fantastic and secluded and beautiful, and that was where I really learned how to knit socks, though I'd made Knitty's Fuzzy Feet once before. I thought it only fitting that I tackle something challenging again on this trip, so on Thursday I picked up a copy of FiberTrend's Flower Basket Shawl pattern. Much like the socks, I'd knit lace on one previous occasion (my I Do shrug), but it wasn't really lace lace, and I didn't really understand what I was doing. As an added motivation, we are going to a friend's wedding in Savannah this weekend, and I recently bought some hand-dyed laceweight wool/silk that would make a perfect shawl for my dress.

This is how much shawl I can knit in three and a half days:

I only really messed up once in the middle, where for about four consecutive rows I would mysteriously find my stitch count was off. Since we were at this cabin, I didn't have a needle or thread or even extra yarn, so there was no lifeline, and instead I had to study my knitting, identify where I went wrong, and then slowly, painstakingly pick my stitches back. I'm actually glad I did - I have a much better understanding of how the pattern works now, and the stitches themselves. I'm also only about twenty rows away from having a beautiful shawl to wear this weekend, at which point I will get to experience the magic of blocking.

Cropped Cardigan

2007-03-20T04:09:55Z

During our epic battle against the gods, I decided to cast on for another easy project since I can't really work on Venezia and watch a video game at the same time. I had recently purchased Blue Sky Alpaca's Cropped Cardigan pattern, so I cast on for that Sunday morning.

The pattern says it is a quick knit, and it is maybe the first supposed "quick knit" I've seen that actually is. Before we beat the game last night, I was eight rows away from finishing the body, and in just a few hours tonight I've moved on from that to being almost halfway through with the second sleeve!

This was the best picture I could get unfortunately at this hour (and I don't think my bathroom mirror is actually as dirty as it looks), but I am so pleased with how well it fits and its cuteness!

Less Noble Leisure Pursuits

2007-03-14T23:37:47Z

Even though it didn't officially come out until today, we got our copy of God of War 2 last night, and it is fabulous. I anticipate not a lot of knitting getting done this week - we have been waiting for this to come out for a year and a half, since we beat the original game! It is finally here and it is everything we hoped.

I also watched the most recent episode of Engaged & Underage yesterday, and I'm about to give up on that show. I think it is pretty obvious by both the title and the fact that it is on MTV that this show is supposed to be trashy. Maybe that makes me a bad person, but I think trashy TV is pretty funny. My co-workers told me about this show, and it had so much promise, I immediately went home and set up a Season Pass.

Engaged & Underage is not nearly what it could be. First of all, probably due to legal restrictions, the people are really not underage! I mean, yes, they are young, and yes, they are a little immature, but they're all around 20 years old. It is only in my generation that 20 years old wasn't the normal age to get married, and that is because this is the first generation where it has been by and large "okay" for people to have sex and/or live together before marriage. And, no big shock here, these 20 year olds getting married are almost all fairly religious kids who do not believe in either of those two things. It's not trashy or abnormal at all, and when I sit down to watch a show called Engaged & Underage, I'm looking for both! The worst part is that most of the people on the show are just really irritating people, so I'm not entertained and I'm appalled that anyone is willing to live with these people 24 hours a day. The only exception was this past episode, which featured a nineteen year old who was pregnant already. You would think from that description that this could fulfill all my Engaged & Underage dreams, but in fact, they were by far the nicest and most together couple of the entire show and I think they will have a lovely long wonderful marriage.

MTV, you really fell short on this one. Maybe you should stick to Sweet Sixteen and The Hills.