Trish Knits.com

Category: Yarn

Victory!

Can you believe it?? It’s DONE!

Trish with navy blue yarn all balled up

I spent nearly all week working on the first of three balls of navy blue silk yarn, and I finally felt like I hit a breakthrough late last night, so stayed up way too late winding yarn. Then, by this afternoon, with help from the kids (who find my ball winder to be most fascinating) the first ball was done. Then this afternoon my good friend Steve came over and asked me why my ball winder and swift were out, and I showed him the remaining two hanks. Next thing I know, he had the twisted mass of yarn all straightened out and ready to go on my swift, and so the second ball went much quicker!

Trish winding yarn

Once Steve got it all figured out about which end was which, after a few times of untwisting the yarn from around the hank it was actually pretty smooth going. I sometimes wonder if it’s my eyesight and perhaps I can’t see where the yarn is going, so I set it up wrong in the first place? I don’t know… but Steve was able to get it all sorted out, so the rest of the yarn got balled up today! Yay!

Yarn on jumbo ball winder

I actually love my ball winder. It’s the Jumbo Ball Winder by Strauch. I got it last year at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, and I have loved it! It was so worth the money to have something so sturdy. I got it because even though it comes with a clamp to clamp it to a table, it’s not 100% necessary to use the clamp, as long as you don’t wind it at breakneck speed. All of my tables have aprons under the table top so none of the ball winder clamps work on my tables anyway. So this one is good and sturdy and as you can see, it winds HUGE balls!

After I did the second ball, my mom and Tony showed up and prepared dinner, so Steve settled on the floor to tackle the third ball:

Steve winds the yarn

Next thing I know, BoyZilla wanted to take a turn on the ball winder:

BoyZilla and Steve wind the yarn

So, the yarn has been conquered and tamed into balls, and soon it will be on its way to becoming the February Lady Sweater.

This week… I swatch.

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March 15, 2009
It Always Gets Worse…

navy blue silk yarn in a big heap of a mess
I’ve been balling this yarn for three days now, and I have two small balls of yarn to show for my efforts. Sheesh! At this point my February Lady Sweater might never see the light of day. I love this yarn and I so want to begin! But alas, this hank that’s giving me all the trouble? It’s only one THIRD of the total amount of this yarn I have. Hopefully the other hanks won’t be such a disaster. But I have such terrible luck! I must be doing something completely and totally wrong when setting up yarn on my swift.

But that’s not the worst of my problems tonight. I have a hot wire on my chair so it’s out of commission until I can get it fixed. I have a backup chair, but that chair feels so clunky and uncomfortable. Something tells me it’s going to be a long week. Being in the wrong chair makes me grouchy, so if you’re someone who encounters me in the real world, you might want to stay away this week! I have an appointment next Thursday to have my chair worked on.

pinky orange laceweight yarn
Perhaps this will make me feel a little better! I purchased this beauty from New York Yarns on Etsy. I love the pinky-orangey colorway that sort of reminds me of sherbet! It is superfine merino laceweight with silk. Now, if you know me, you know I’m not a lace knitter. But this ball of wonder totally called to me. There’s 1300 yards in here so I think maybe it has to be some sort of wrap for me. Someday.

Maybe tomorrow will be better. After all, it’s only yarn. It shall be a sweater. Someday.

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March 13, 2009
Doing Battle with the Yarn

navy blue silk yarn being balled up from a swift
You’d think I’d learn, but apparently not. Never ever try to ball up a hank of yarn you’ve had in storage for three years unless you have a lot of time on your hands. Or when you’re really too tired to do it. Either of those two factors are a sure bet that the hank will be a twisty, loose mess. In fact, the more rushed and the more tired you are? The worse it will be. Trust me. I know.

The mere mention of the February Lady Sweater last night got my heart all a-flutter. I could not stop thinking about the prospect of starting that project all day. But I know enough about myself to know that I just dread winding yarn. Every time I try, it never cooperates. I even thought maybe I should wait until a weekend when I can have a friend over to help me.

Patience, however, virtue that it is, is something that I lack. Not just lack. Patience? I no haz it. So there was no waiting for the weekend, no pleading with ~~some poor sucker~~ one of my good yarny buddies to help me with the winding. So, start out on my own, I did, and this tiny ball, representing maybe one tenth of the yarn yet to be wound (from this hank; I have two more) is all I have to show for an entire evening’s work. I am not surprised by this, but I am nonetheless disappointed. I wanna knit! And I have miles to wind (literally) before I stitch.

My fingers are blue with navy yarn dye. It is the mark of a battle not yet won. I do so love this yarn, and the color, and the way it feels in my hands. I can’t wait for it to become something more than a pile of stringed frustration. Someday this beautiful yarn will be transformed, and perhaps I will forgive it for the trouble that it gives me now.

But it’s a long way before I’m there. For tonight, UGH!

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March 11, 2009
Mine Enemy the Yarn

I am just about fed up with knitting right now. Do you see this yarn? It mocks me. I’ve been trying to make a mitered square a la Vivian Høxbro, and for some reason, no matter how easy it seems, I’m always messing up. Somehow one leg of my square is always bigger than the other. They’re supposed to be, well, square, which would, of course, imply that the sides must be the same size. Why, oh why can’t I seem to count?

I have this goofy idea of making a mitered square knitted version of the Babette Blanket, where, instead of crocheting individual squares, I’ll be knitting mitered squares and knitting them onto each other as I go. I’ll use the basic layout of the Babette blanket as my guide, and various colors of Noro Kureyon yarn. I can see it in my head. But this first square is going to be the death of me. I’ve started it, and ripped it out completely, twice now. I’d love to see this idea starting to take shape, but here I am, months into the project, and I still only have this yarn ball to show. Can you hear its maniacal laughter? Dr. Demento is running through my head right now. (“They’re coming to take me away, ha ha, ho ho, hee hee, they’re coming to take me away.”) Shut up. You know you hear it. Stop laughing at me.

My daughter, on the other hand, is having much better luck with her knitting. Tonight Diana knitted two more little hearts! Only this time, she got my huge bag of polyfill out of the closet (we call it, “monkey butt,” in honor of the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Sock Monkeys that I hope to knit and stuff their butts with it someday… ok, don’t ask). So she made this teeny little heart pillow as practice, because she wants to make a bigger one. I think she’s getting the idea of the heart shape down. Cool, huh? My daughter is a knitter!

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February 23, 2009
New Year, New Yarn

Wait, you didn’t actually think I’d have one of those silly “I won’t buy any new yarn this year,” resolutions, did you? Moi? Uh huh.

Well, ok, technically, it was last year when I bought it. And it came today! Yay! What is it? Why it is this pile o’ loveliness:

seven shades of Dream In Color Classy

When Sheri at The Loopy Ewe wrote last week that they had the Dream in Color Classy new shades of yarn in, I thought I’d click on over and check them out. As you can see, maybe I shouldn’t have! The colors are so yummy and warm and they looked so nice together that I had to have a bunch of them! These guys are destined to be a Tulip Baby Sweater. No, I don’t know of a baby to give them to. But eventually there will be one, and I will be ready. (Did I mention, sheepishly, that I actually have a Tulip Cardigan Kit waiting to be knit up already? Shhhhh…. we won’t talk about that.) At least this way with full skeins of each color I should be able to whip up some matching booties and a hat. Or maybe a whole other sweater with the stripes in a different order.

Ravelry Now a Household Word

My nearly 13-year-old daughter loves to make bottle cap art with Klutz Capsters, and asked for more bottle caps in her Christmas stocking. They arrived a little late (Santa was backordered) but she did find them in her stocking on New Year’s Eve and has already made a whole pile of new bottle cap art objects. “What do you plan to do with them, Diana?” I ask. I got a shrug and a giggle for an answer.

She dumped her collection of bottle caps on the floor tonight for me to see them all, and she said, handing me two of them, “Look, mom, isn’t this the Ravelry dog?”

Bottle cap art with Bob

Oh my! Bob is everywhere! Ok so maybe these aren’t as cute as the real thing, but hey, my kid knows who Bob is! I think that means I’m too obsessed with my knitting community. But, hey… there are worse things that could be.

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January 2, 2009
Knit Picks Goodness

It came! It came! I finally received the Andean Chullo Hat Kit from Knit Picks today:

Andean Chullo Hat Kit

I can’t wait to make this, but I do have a couple of other things to work on first. But I wanted to go ahead and get the kit now, because it seems that Knit Picks doesn’t keep it available all the time so I had to wait a while to get it. The kit includes 9 balls of Palette and a pattern, which I can’t recall whether it’s similar to a pattern that I bought several years ago but I’ll have to try to find that one and see. This one does appear to be more detailed, if I remember right.

Also in the box today were two hanks of WoTA Bulky in Blackberry:

Wool of the Andes Bulky Yarn

I thought I might use this in my afghan of domino squares, which is an ongoing, long term project. There were also some size 0 needles in the box, in about every cable length size available, because I recently learned how easily one of those toothpick-thin things can snap. There was also a book, but more on that at another time.

On the Home Front…

We had a glorious weekend with my DH’s family. They were here for Thanksgiving Dinner, which was a rare treat indeed. The last time all of my DH’s siblings were together for a Holiday, my now 12-year-old daughter was in preschool. (We were all together for a weekend in January of 2006, but there was another addition to the family shortly thereafter that some others in the family hadn’t even met!) So, it was a good time. Mostly the cousins all had fun playing together. The youngest, now two and a half, really enjoyed playing on my son’s train table. It was better than just about anything to him, except he did say last night that he wanted to sleep in his own bed.

Tonight he did get to do just that, because everybody parted ways this afternoon. Who knows when we’ll all be together again? I do hope it’s sooner than three years from now!

Before they left, though, the cousins all got together for a “grandchildren portrait” that my mother-in-law wanted. All of the kids did great! My DH and I decided that since we were taking our kids to the studio that we would dress up and have our own portrait updated:

Family Portrait, 2008

It seems strange to me that my little girl had to bend over so far to be near my head. Where does the time go, that she should be so grown up?

And me? I see a diet in my future.

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November 29, 2008