Craftiness

Ask the [Knitting] Hive Mind: What neck-thing would you knit with this skein?

ask the hive mind

TL;DR:

I have one (1) skein of Handmaiden Camelspin (70% silk, 30% camel), and would like to knit a neck-centric accessory with it and is soliciting suggestions.

 

So, I have this skein of yarn.

A single hank of Handmaiden Camelspin in Ecru, twisted for sale. Photo © Handmaiden Fine Yarns.Several years ago, I bought a skein of yarn at a shop in Worcester, Massachusetts.1 It’s made by Handmaiden Fine Yarns, the makers of one of my favorite yarns ever: Sea Silk (70% silk, 30% sea cell). As mentioned above, the yarn in question is Camelspin (70% silk, 30% camel). A dozen years or so ago, everyone was declaring that camel was going to be the Next Big Thing™ in the fiber world. To the best of my knowledge, that never really materialized.2 I remember finding some baby camel at a yarn shop in Delaware about a decade ago, and then have no recollection of seeing any more of it until I encountered a couple dozen skeins in Worcester. (more…)

Ask the [Knitting] Hive Mind: Favored edging for blankets?

[covert-ops] question mark (forest)TL; DR: I have knit the front of (what will be) a double-sided baby blanket. Please feel free to share your favorite blanket edgings with me!

Operational Parameters (or: Some Restrictions Apply)

I’m open to pretty much anything, but there are things that will definitely make me more or less inclined to jump with joy at your suggestion.

  • At least a marginal level of interesting. The blanket’s original pattern provides an edge pattern. It is boring. Thus my search for a new edging. 1
  • This is for a baby blanket. For some inexplicable reason, designers of baby blankets include a lot of lace or loops or the like. To me, that just screams “place to grab and hold onto a baby finger or toe.” 2

Blanket Mechanics

  • Yarn: The blanket is knit using eight colors of Cascade Superwash Sport.
  • Gauge: About 6 stitches per inch on US 7 needles. 3
  • Construction Details: As mentioned, I have just completed the front side of the blanket.
    • It is 164 stitches wide, and 397 rows tall.
    • I used a provisional cast on.
    • I have put the live stitches from the front onto waste yarn. This leaves both ends of the front and the back exposed in a manner ready to accept any matter of mayhem. 4
    • Essentially, I will have two pieces of 164 stitch x 397 row stockinette. The goal is to end up with a single fabric comprised of those two pieces joined together with wrong sides facing one another.

“Left to my own devices” == “brain run amok.”

3D humanoid holding a clear light bulb.“Sure!” says my brain. “The edging you’ve worked out in your head for this baby blanket will absolutely work!”

My brain starts using the voice of that one childhood friend. You know the one I’m talking about. Your parents can’t quite tell you not to be friends, because s/he never does anything wrong, exactly. But you do seem to get a statically significant larger amount of trouble whenever you spend time with him/her.

Got the voice? Let us continue.

My brain wheedles (in the voice of my own personal Eddie Haskell), “So what if you’re going to have to learn three separate new techniques in order to get this to work? You like to learn, you like to fiddle with things, you like to do semi-complex math where you can’t trust your solutions because you’re not quite sure if you even have the formulae correct. This will be awesome!

And this is how I have come to this point. The point where I am crocheting a chain of 1,250 stitches for a provisional cast on.

What could possibly go wrong?

It’s that time of year again.

Information about Christmas. Man in Santa hat leaning against a large striped (red and yellow) "i" (of the information sign variety).1If my math is correct, this past Saturday morning, we passed the tipping point between “days since last (2015) Christmas” and “days until this coming (2016) Christmas.”

Please don’t kill the messenger.

I’m not actually bringing this up to be cruel and annoying. I make this announcement because many of you are crafty people who give hand-made gifts for the holidays. For me, the mid-point of the year is my semi-official starting line. It’s when I really become aware of the holiday, and start putting serious thought into when I’ll need to start (and complete!) which projects in order to have everything ready in time for the appropriate gift-giving events. (As much as I strive to emulate Jordan in all things, I cannot actually knit a sweater in one night.2)

PSA: {Knitting geeks} ∩ {Gardening geeks}

I couldn’t really be bothered to make an actual Venn Diagram, so set notation will have to suffice.

Anyway, I know that I have friends who knit. I know that I have friends who garden. I do not currently know how much overlap actually exists between these two sets of friends, but I figure there’s gotta be some, right?

For those (currently theoretical) friends who both knit and garden1, KnitPicks has a pattern that might be of interest to you. Go! Go get cozies for your plants!

Knitting lessons for December 27th.

Today, in the world of knitting, I was reminded of one thing, and learned one thing.

I was reminded that the intersection of “knitting I actually care about” and “knitting I can work on while watching a movie in a theater” should be a null set. (I didn’t make any uncorrectable mistakes, but Mistakes Were Made™.)

I learned that trying to look at ones knitting whilst wearing 3D glasses is a good way to get a headache. I do not know if this was made better or worse by my yarn being a shade of red, but I did rather quickly stop trying to look at the project. Come to think of it, this may have contributed to the aforementioned mistakes.

Bonus hint: If you do take your knitting to the movies, make sure it’s on a circular needle. If you drop a straight or DPN, you will likely not be able to find it until after the lights come back up. This leaves you sans knitting for the remainder of the movie. Also, consider your average movie theater floor (especially the areas under the seats). Now imagine your needle after it’s been rolling around in that environment for a while. Ew.

PSA: For my knitting (and crocheting) peeps: Interweave / Knitting Daily $5 sale.

Really, the subject just about says it all, but in case you require more detail: Interweave Knits / Knitting Daily is having a “5-Star1 Products2 for $5″ sale. At the time of this writing, there are 32 items on sale for $5.

Free Tip #1

Be sure to check what format you’re actually getting things in! The sale includes eBooks; printed books (paperback and hardcover); magazines; VHS (!) and DVD content, downloadable video content, and I’m sure I’ve missed some other way things are being distributed. I adore the digital editions, but some people hate them. Some features I find alluring for the digital editions include, “not having to find a place to store another physical thing,” “not tripping on another physical thing for which I did not find a storage space,” “I can carry ALL THE BOOKS on my laptop,” and “not having to pay for shipping.” But, whatever floats your boat.

Free Tip #2

Before buying something about which you’re not certain, I recommend double-checking the item’s reviews elsewhere online (I used Amazon, but see above, re: your boat). In addition to some more reviews, you might be able to find additional (or even any, depending on the item) images of what’s inside the covers.

Footnotes

Help me plan an upcoming knitting project!

[covert-ops] light bulbSince half of the yarn for my planned Sanquhar Cowl seems to be on perpetual backorder, I’ve decided to work on another of Wendy Johnson‘s colorwork cowls: the Leftovers Cowl. Unlike Sanquhar, which I will be working in black and white, Leftovers pretty much calls for a riot of color. As luck would have it, I can do that.

There are a total of 13 motifs in the cowl, and each motif uses 2 colors of yarn. While the colors don’t have to be unique, I actually have 26 colors of yarn available for the project. What I don’t have is a good eye for pairing colors. (There’s a reason I wear black and/or white, you know.) This is where you come in. (more…)

ICD code for fiber fiends.

[covert-ops] medicalThis tidbit of information comes to you from a physical therapist I had back in Maryland:

Knitting and crocheting injuries have their own ICD code. “2015 ICD-9-CM Diagnosis Code E012.0: Activities involving knitting and crocheting.” This code will be replaced by the equivalent 2015 ICD-10-CM Code of Y93.D1 when the US makes the transition on October 1, 2015. (more…)

A new twist on the Spectral by Debbi Stone.

I’ve been working on Debbi Stone’s Spectral for the past few days. It’s coming along very nicely, I think. (Sauron picked the color scheme.)

Speaking of colors, that’s actually 4 different shades of grey [aside: as a huge fan of grey-scale work, I’m incredibly annoyed that the phrase ‘shades of grey’ has been permanently subverted in the public vernacular] yarn shown here. They’re all part of Miss Babs’ 5-color Pegasus gradient set, and are awesome. Eventually, the cowl will go from dark to light (there’s one more step down in intensity left in the set) to dark again. (more…)