NaKniSweMo Progress Update 1

I've been knitting for nine days and have made steady progress - Yay!

I manage to get one pattern repeat done a day, because I'm now also working on another project and because I have it memorized and it gets a little tedious. I've done two in one day or a little more than one.

Day 2

Day 2

Day 4

Day 5

As you can see above, I've used about a skein of yarn to get to that point. Now like a lot of knitters weaving in ends isn't a lot of fun. I'd recently seen a post by Knitted Wit about how to join yarns without ends to weave in. It's supposed to be fairly easy to let it blend in. Here's the YouTube video on how to do it.

Here's my knot:

Here it is all knitted in. It ended up at the point of the pattern. I can feel it. If I hunt for it, I can find it, but its not glaringly obvious. I'll see with the next one if I continue to use this.

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

So making progress. I want to get the sleeve/upper body done, so it looks like a cardigan rather than a shawl in progress. My row count will change with that though, so maybe I shouldn't be so eager? ;-)

Some Fall Color and a little bit about books

Have popped my head outside in the backyard a few times this last week, during the rain breaks. ;-)

The Sunset Maple, we got it for the colors for fall. Red-orange, or sunset colored:

You can see some of the leaves are their normal dark purple color, but then it turns yellow-orange. It's been fun watching it grow over the years:

I bought this at the Norm Thompson sample sale a few weeks ago. I love owls and this was quirky. Trying to get enough sun during the day to recharge the solar cells. Did you know that some solar cells don't charge on cloudy days? They truly need "sun" to charge. It's a little green light when it does come on at night.

Isn't he fun?

Looking over the roof to the front yard, you can see the two sweet gums on either side of the driveway. I think its funny how they change at different rates. This is the one on the left side of the driveway as you look at the house:

The one on the right side of the house. It's always behind the others in the cul de sac:

The nasturtiums went into hibernation when I forgot to water the box. With all the rains, they popped up and went green and have been throwing out blooms and being all cheerful. I love that they reseed themselves and return each year.

No comments about the sweater posts, but I have one or two that I'll write up and post along with another new project.

I have been an avid reader since grade school. Family will tell you that I was often found deep within the pages of a book. I've had problems reading the last couple of months. It's really weird. Authors that have usually sucked me into their world I've struggled to read their books. I'm at 75% for my goal of 100 books for the year. I've had books that I've had to return to the library unread because of struggling to finish a book. A couple of times I admit I just gave up and left it as something to possibly be read in the future. Others, have been put back on request to be read.

Have you ever had this problem? Does anyone pay attention to the little bookshelf over on the right? Read any of these books? Did you know if you hover over the book it will show the review I gave it?

NaKniSweMo 2013

Some of you may be familiar with November being a NaNoWriMo where people sit down and try to write a 50,000 word novel during the month. Well a knitter wanted a sweater and decided to use the same concept to knitting.

I had heard of this phenomena, but November is usually smack dab in the middle of Christmas knitting. I've been handmaking Christmas gifts for years. This year, there may be fewer hand knit and maybe some sewn things as well as jams and preserves.

We have two nieces and six nephews, so they'll get the focus of the handknit stuff. Well except for Logan. We had gotten him a book (other kids got books too) and I found out that he's definitely the reader in the family. He has gone on to get the books in hardback and will go back and re-read from the beginning of the series to prepare for reading the latest book. So I'm going to pick him up a book or two for his gifts this year. I'll handmake him a bookmarker so he has something made by me.

I have a start on the Christmas gifts as you saw with Bailey's hat yesterday. I have a pair of fingerless mitts also planned for her. The rest of the boys I've run into stumbling blocks with. I think they are due for hats, but what ones?

Selfish knitting is usually planned for January for most knitters. I can't wait until then this year. I need to satisfy a need to have something that I'm making stay with me. So NaKniSweMo seemed like a perfect way to accomplish this goal. I have yarn stashed for several sweaters and cardigans but gift knitting always seemed to get in the way, or it was the wrong time of the year to be thinking about wearing a sweater. It's actually the perfect time to do it, so its ready when the weather is, but we won't go there right now. lol

I posted it to Facebook as kind of a way to put myself on the hook. I had at first planned to do Tempting. I have the yarn that I thought would work for it, more than enough I think too:

It's some Arucunia Wool that I had bought at The Knitting Bee several years ago during a Super Bowl sale with the thought of using it to make a Clapotis. In the knitting world it seems like everyone has made one, but me.  Oh I know there are a few hold outs still. ;-) I didn't jump right in and start making it, so the yarn has been at the bottom of the stash bin, pulled out a few times and put back.

I even did a gauge swatch for the pattern! I was a little tight with the yarn and then relaxed and got gauge. Yes, I know the swatch should have been bigger, but I wanted to get started!

So through chatting about the sweater on Facebook I also mentioned that I had been thinking about doing a new pattern I bought. The pattern is called Hitofude and was just a few US dollars. I had been looking at clothing through different online stores and noticed that this style of cardigan is very popular right now, so seemed like a perfect time to knit one. I'm also all about the layering. I have a tendency to run warm, weight not withstanding, so wearing the Tempting might be a little warmer than I would like.

Now, if we ran to colder winters, I'd be totally into making one. Our more temperate weather here in the Portland area means I need to worry more about getting wet than bundling up.

So I'll still make the Tempting, with the cable modification at the neckline, but after I do the Hitofude cardigan first.

I cast on and got start on November 1st and have been knitting on it every day. I have pics for the first four days:

I had some Knit Picks Gloss in Woodland Sage planned to make a Thermal. It's nice but I don't think I'd ever wear it.

Day one. You do provisional cast on in crochet chains. Then do the setup rows. I got the first two done before going to bed. Why was I doing it so late? I'd started playing Lord of the Rings Online with Brandon and we played until after 10pm, so I had to do all that so I wouldn't be behind.

Day two I have one chart repeat and two rows into the second done.

Day three there are three chart repeats done and I'm one chart repeat ahead of daily stitch count needed.

How do I know I'm ahead?  Well I sat down and tried to come up with a spreadsheet to track numbers of stitches each day done and whether or not I was ahead or behind and if I was on track for the goal. I then enlisted Brandon's help with getting all the bells and whistles done through Excell. He helped me with it and I was using it and on day two he tells me that I had a mistake and so he was re-doing the spreadsheet for me.

Yes, it helps to know how many days are in the month you are working with. I had given November 31 days, it only has 30 days. So he was able to take all of what I wanted and create the new spreadsheet with some better programming and formatting.

Because Ravelry keeps track of progress by percentage I had to request that addition to the spreadsheet. It unfortunately does it in increments of 5s, so I've been at 15% for a couple days. (You should see that by the project pic in the upper right hand corner of the blog.)

I'll try not to bore you with daily updates, unless you really want to see them?  Let me know. ;-) I have 15 chart repeats to do of the current setup. This makes the arms and the upper back of the cardigan. I don't want to get close to the end of the month and be racing to be done.

Its not too late to get started on a sweater/cardigan for the month. Want to join in on the fun? The Rav group is here. As mentioned there are prizes, its going to be done on a random number generator basis on finished projects. One lady has donated $75 gift certificate to WEBS and that's going to be a grand prize, yet to be determined how to win.

So am I totally selfish in wanting to knit something for myself? Or recharging my creative box by knitting for myself?

Finished things

I now have pics of the hat with me wearing it:

So what was he taking a picture of?

I showed my recent stash acquisition from Friday, in there was a couple skeins of a sport/dk weight purple yarn that also happened to be superwash. My oldest niece, Bailey loves purple. So I pulled these two skeins out and started the Making a Memory hat for her. It's a slouchy hat style, she's got long hair so she can stuff it up into the hat if she wants.

I also got the superwash corriedale Knitted Wit yarn done. The roving was called Summer Fun. I had originally thought to do it chain plied, but wanted to see what it would look like as a 2-ply. I had read in Ply about matching the color sections, but since its a superwash, didn't want to fuss with trying to get all the joins back up. So just let it barber pole:

689.6 yards of lace weight. That's definitely shawl material! Yes, its still a little over energized.

I was in that spin thin flow, and had re-organized some of the stash bins. Moved fiber that was in two smaller bins, into one larger bin. Moved sock yarn that wasn't filling a bin into a smaller one. You know, reorganizing. ;-) I didn't want the little batt of one ounce cashmere-camel to get felted/bashed up. So divided it in half and spun it up on two bobbins and then plied it:

 In progress

Comparing to the finished Muted Summer Fun lace

 All done!

Having problems getting that good detail on the close-up. Definitely a lace weight and 135.4 yards of it. I haven't found a pattern that I want to use it with. I have more cashmere and other yummy fibers in my stash, so may be able to add it to those as a finished project to knit up. I think dyeing will also happen. :-)

Okay, I sat down over a week ago and caught things up and spread them over the course of days to publish. Tuesday's post was the last of them, so I'm going to do two to bring things current again. This one and the one that will publish on Thursday. ;-)  Hope you don't mind, but it helps me make sure I post things.

Mini Fiber Fun

Pearl Fiber Arts celebrated their third Anniversary the weekend of October 19th & 20th. It was also the same weekend as Norm Thompson Outfitter's Sample Sale. Brandon had volunteered to work it so got $100 in apparel to spend. I'm a very lucky girl. ;-) I have new dresses and pants and a couple pairs of shoes from it. That was before the public got to go in on Saturday. I invited Dawn-Marie and Brent to come and they had fun shopping too. I found a folding foam mattress and an owl yard decoration.  Here's the foam mattress:

I wish that I could have gotten two, but there was only one. So will be on the look out for another! We can use it for camping.

I took my Halloween Witches Cat hat with me to the shop:

Amazon Local had a coupon for Supa and so I got two of their Deluxes. One with tomato soup and the Country sandwich and the other with the peanut soup and the Radix sandwich. I didn't sample the tomato soup and should have. It had red peppers in it. Even William didn't enjoy it. The mushroom soup was a tiny bit spicier than I would have liked, or I would have gotten it. Need to go back to taste the clam chowder.

I used my Stash Sale money and a little bit to pick up some fiber from Alexandra's Crafts trunk show:

 BFL in Black Rose colorway

Merino-Silk in Wine

Sale yarns. I had thought about using them to make a Despicable Me hat, but the blue isn't blue enough. I did buy some cake dyes, so could possibly overdye it and try for something darker. 

I also got the second edition of Ply the magazine. It has a nice heavy paper and lovely paper. I might try one of the plying suggestions. Not sure that it was worth the $11 for it though for me. Wish I had been able to get down to the other magazine that there was a trunk show for. 

Finished the hat:

Yarns are all Knit Picks. The red and dark orange are leftover from the Jayne hat. The lighter orange was actually a DK. I have leftovers still of the non-black colors and just a couple yards of the black. 

I also bought some fiber from Paradise Fibers:

 Merino top - 8 ounces

Fake cashmere - 8 ounces

I mentioned the cake dyes I bought. I also have some natural dyes. I want to pull those and my undyed fibers in my stash and play with dyeing. 

Right now, I'm spinning up some superwash Corriedale called Summer Fun by Knitted Wit: