Trish Knits.com

Category: Knitting

  • But I Already Know How…

    Knit Picks Learn to Knit Kit
    Knit Picks Learn to Knit Kit

    Today I received the Learn to Knit Kit from Knit Picks. It is fabulous! If you know someone who wants to learn, do consider getting this as a gift! The kits comes with three hanks of Wool of the Andes Bulky, in coordinating colors, size 10 Harmony straight needles, and the most fabulously complete knitting instructions I have ever seen in any Learn to Knit Kit of its sort.

    I thought sure I’d get them with the very first step. No way would they have instructions on how to wind the hanks of yarn into a ball in the booklet. But they did! It really looks like they thought of every detail to get a new knitter on his or her way.

    The kit includes instructions for a hat and scarf, including how-to’s for several different techniques, from stitches to decreases to finishing. Maybe even I’ll learn how to do mattress stitch yet! God knows Lea-Ann tried to teach me (over the phone!) years ago, and more recently, my good buddy L. showed me. In person. I’m still pretty bad at it, but I think I get the idea. Having the booklet with the explanations will help.

    It also has a section in the booklet on fixing mistakes! How cool is that? Knitting mistakes even happen to experienced knitters, as we know, but it is often those mistakes that will cause the new knitter to throw the needles across the room and give up. The detailed pictures and reassuring writing style throughout this whole kit are about as close to having a real knitting teacher sitting next to you as any booklet could be. Overall I think this kit is exceedingly well done!

    But wait! There’s more:

    Digital Scale
    Digital Scale

    Last week I complained that I needed to be able to split my yarn hanks into two balls each to work on a shawl project. I had seen this scale for a while on the Knit Picks site . It’s also available on Amazon, in a wider variety of colors. Now I can finally wind the yarn for my purple shawl and get going. Something new to work on… I think I needed this.

    Finally, I have to share the funniest kitten video I have seen in a long time:

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  • YouTube Yummies

    Not much knitting happening here, so I thought I would share a couple of really cool things I found on YouTube this week.

    The first is 12-year-old singer, Abby Miller, of Virginia. She’s been making the local press here this week because of a fundraising video/PSA she created to help a 4-year-old girl with neuroblastoma. Check out this amazing young singer:

    Abby has been featured on the TV news and in the Washington Post this week, and when I checked out her YouTube page, I was amazed! Enjoy!

    Next is a new videocast by Carin, AKA, Alcariel, who gained podcasting experience by guesting from time to time on another podcast, which I won’t mention, but the knitters all know which one it is. It’s called Round the Twist, and here’s a sample episode:

    I hope Carin doesn’t mind me posting this to her blog, but the “embed” feature on YouTube makes it handy, and I told her I’d help to promote her new adventure. Check it out!

    As for me, I’m still in the knitting doldrums, and I don’t know why! Sigh. I just need to cast on something new and be done with it. Once again I’ve knit about 5 rows all week. On a scarf. Where is my mojo?

    Sigh…

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  • The Dog Days of Summer

    This has been the longest knitting slump ever. All summer, I’ve been knitting this:

    Pink scarf in progress
    Pink scarf in progress

    It’s a pink scarf for my friend Jen, that I was hoping to have done in time for her visit IN MAY. So much for that! I take the scarf with me absolutely everywhere, but over the last few weeks it’s only made it out of my bag a few times. I took it with me to dinner at the pool tonight, and I got THREE WHOLE ROWS done. Whoop-dee-do. I really need to find my mojo and get this project done! I had such good intentions. Don’t I always?

    The sad truth is that my UFO pile is at least three times bigger than the pile of things I’ve actually finished. This has me wondering at times if I even like to knit! Oh, I know I do like knitting, but am I passionately in love with it? I don’t know. Probably not at the moment. I need to find a project that really excites me and makes me want to finish it. Heck, some projects even have road blocks to getting started! Such as:

    • The Lace Yarn Sampler Shawl from Knit Picks. It’s even purple, people! My most favorite color. What’s stopping me? It’s knit on two strands of each yarn throughout, so you can drop one and add another color, one at a time. So it blends nicely. Cool idea! Except I don’t have a yarn scale and the idea of winding two little balls out of each hank seems like a pain in the butt. Stupid, huh?
    • The Girasole Blanket by Jared Flood. I got some beautiful Eco-Alpaca to knit this in. It is SO soft, and so pretty,and I got it on a discount! But that ball winding thing again is getting in my way. Why oh why do I find ball winding to be a chore? Because my kitchen table is always a cluttered mess, that’s why. I seldom have enough room anywhere for my swift and ball winder to be set up. Sigh…
    • The Tam of Doom. I don’t know why I call it that. But I never got past the cast on before having to frog. I’m trying to learn Tubular Cast On and I messed up. I will get back to this…someday.
    • My conscience. This is my biggest roadblock of all. I have so many UFOs, so, so many, that really, honestly? I have no business starting something new. There’s a pink scarf to finish after all, and my February Lady Sweater, and let’s not even talk about last year’s abandoned afghan. It was for a sick co-worker. The co-worker is well now, thank goodness, and the afghan is just mocking me. It’s in my active project bin, snickering. Can you hear it?

    Sigh.

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  • Why I’m Not Meant to Do Tubular Cast On

    See this?

    Live knit stitch hanging loose
    Live knit stitch hanging loose

    Sometimes I wish my camera wasn’t so good at closeup photography. What you’re looking at is clear evidence as to why I should stay away from tubular cast on with small needles and fingering weight yarn. When joining the knit stitches with the live stitches in the waste yarn, I missed a few. They were SO tiny from being pulled and tugged that once in a while they got impossible to see. And I tried to think of a way to fudge and fix it, but I can’t. I’m sure there might be a way, but I think the safest thing to do at this point is to frog and go with a different cast on. Thank goodness I have the A Knitting Glossary DVD by Elizabeth Zimmermann and Meg Swansen where I can look for ideas on something stretchy and attractive for my tam. Wish me luck!

    So, my summer of knitting frustration and general slumpiness continues. Hopefully, things will get better soon. Until then I think I’m going to call it a night. Perhaps a fresh outlook and some sleep will do the knitting some good.

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  • The Joys of Summer

    It was a dark and stormy night.

    And a hot and sticky day. But hey, it’s August, in the DC area. Hot and sticky with air quality somewhere in the wheezy crud zone is to be expected around here. The thermometer hit 99 and I had to chew my air upon inhaling. I would have stayed home in my air conditioning but I’d be afraid my office would think I’m allergic to Mondays. So I toughed it out.

    But, even on the crappiest summer days, there’s always something about summer to appreciate. For instance, this:

    Summer garden salad
    Summer garden salad

    My dinner. Isn’t it lovely? One of the things I love about summer is the vegetables. They’re fresh and flavorful. And pretty to look at! There was not one bite of my salad left, and it made me feel so much better about the crappy weather and the otherwise mundane leftover slice of cheese pizza I was eating.

    And you know what else? I’ve decided to start a new project. I am bored, bored, bored with the scarf. It’ll still be my takealong project, but for at-home knitting, I’ve decided to take on a challenge.

    Tam book with yarn surrounding it
    Tam book with yarn surrounding it
    It’s a knitted tam. I’m using the book, Knitted Tams, by Mary Rowe, as my guide. It’s more of a guide book, than a pattern book. Normally, this would excite me. But this time, I’m feeling a little intimidated. I don’t really understand all of the steps, but I’m hoping it will all become more clear as I go. We’ll see! I don’t know if what I see in my head is what is actually going to happen. I guess I’ll find out! Wish me luck!

    For now, I’ve gotten this far:

    First few stitches
    First few stitches

    That’s the cast-on edge. The waste yarn cast on edge. Yes, I’m setting up for my first tubular cast on, too. Thank goodness for Lucy Neatby’s video on the subject! I watched it a couple of times, and decided to just dive in. Wish me luck!

    I leave you with this tad bit of wishful thinking, on a night when it is 85 degrees at 11:00 p.m.:

    Wind up toy snow man
    Wind up toy snow man

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  • Whole Lotta Yarn!

    Call me nuts, but there was a HUGE honkin’ box from Knit Picks on my porch today, and THIS is what was inside:

    Big pile o' yarn
    Big pile o’ yarn

    That’s what 72 balls of yarn looks like, people. SEVENTY-TWO. Am I crazy? Waaaaaait. Don’t answer that.

    Knit Picks introduced a bunch of new colors in their Palette line, and what can I say? I’m a sucker for having lots of yarn in many colors. The thing is, when I nonchalantly clicked to order two balls of nearly every new color, I had NO IDEA, and I really mean that, NO IDEA how much yarn I was actually buying.

    My name is Trish D. and I am a yarnaholic.

    Except I don’t want to be cured.

    Squee! This winter I AM going to learn how to do colorwork. I want to make tams. And selbuvotter mittens. And lots of other colorful things. Now I have a whole crayon box full of colors to play with.

    Did I NEED more yarn?

    Define need.

    I’m gonna go roll in it a while before I go to sleep.

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