Binge

I’ve heard that a major problem with certain types of dieting is that when you stray from the diet you often stray very thoroughly, indulging in quite a bit that you shouldn’t.

My crafting diet has been circumstantial, not intentional, but I’m afraid that I’ve indulged in a knitting binge.

Last weekend’s knitting binge was about rewarding myself. I had some major deadlines in addition to student conferences over the course of the week, so I felt like I needed to relax with some knitting.

This week’s binge has been because knitting is all that I’ve been able to do. I’ve been on the verge of getting very sick all week. One of my office mates has succumbed to something suspiciously similar, and I’m trying to take care of myself so that I don’t get to that point.  I’m feeling well enough that I can’t justify missing out on any of my classes, etc. but sick enough that I haven’t accomplished anything beyond the essentials. This means that, despite the stack of papers awaiting grades, I’ve been spending a lot of time watching television and knitting. If it weren’t for the guilt it would be wonderful!

I’ve been knitting on quite a few different projects, so I’ll just show you what I’ve finished.

My iPhone case has been nearly complete for a while now, but I stalled when it came to sewing up the seams. When I finally did do the sewing, I decided to live dangerously and not pin before sewing. This gave me the angular result that you can see in the photos, which I like and decided to leave alone.

I also added in the sweet pewter button for embellishment. As you can see, I already have a protective case for my phone. However, I wanted something to protect it from scratches and to keep my headphones nearby.

Pattern: the best iPhone cozy EVER
Yarn: 1/2 skein Queensland Collection Bamboo Cotton #01
Needles: US 1 dpns
Made for: my iPhone
Timeline: October 12-November 14 2009
Modifications: angled pocket, added button
Worst Part: beginning. This probably would have been easier on two circs.
Best Part: keeping my new toy safe and stylish!

I’ve also just finished the Socktoberfest Mystery Sock in fall colors. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet, but Sweetie picked out the yarn for these socks. I was excited to cast on but couldn’t make it to the yarn shop. I told him to stop in on his way to work and pick up some sock yarn that looked like fall.

I had so much fun knitting these socks. Mystery socks are always a blast, and this was a particularly enjoyable pattern.

Pattern: Mystery Sock ‘09 by Kirsten of Through the Loops!
Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug #149 Windfall
Needles: US 1 Susan Bates dpns
Made for: Me
Timeline: October 8-November 18 2009
Modifications: None
Worst Part: I can’t say there was one.
Best Part: The toes. I love the way the leaf angles in to form the toe of the sock.

Since I still haven’t recovered, I’m sure there will be much more knitting to come. I’m almost finished with some secret contract knitting that I’ve been working on, and I’ve also picked up both Sweetie’s Dale of Norway and my Whisper cardigan again. Don’t tell Sweetie, but I’m hoping to work on his Dale secretly while he’s at work and surprise him with the finished product.

I think I’ll turn back to my knitting and film du jour. Send some good health vibes my way!

Twin Cities Crawl

It’s been such an odd week that I haven’t had a chance to tell you about my trip to the Twin Cities last weekend. It was definitely part yarn crawl, but we crawled to lots of other exciting places too!

Our first stop was Continental Clay, where Sweetie got  some new ceramics tools and we loaded up 100 pounds of clay to bring back to the University for his professor.

Then we were able to stop by the thrifty corner of an outfitters store, where I picked up my new winter coat for over $100 off the original price! It’s brown and orange, which is definitely not what I was expecting to end up with. Any color suggestions for accessory knitting would be much appreciated, as these colors have thrown off all of my prior plans! I don’t mind having to re-think my knitting plans, as Sweetie promises me that this coat will be very warm.

Our iPhones saved the day as we tried to navigate around Minneapolis to find some new-to-me yarn shops.

The first shop was Depth of Field, a beautiful shop with great selection. If I ever owned a shop, I would want it to have wooden floors and shelves like this one does.

Next was Crafty Planet, where I wished that I had some sewing projects queued up to buy fabric for–they had some really great prints. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to visit again with my mom and sister (both seamstresses).

Of course, I couldn’t leave these shops empty-handed! I bought a skein of Fibranatura Yummy sock yarn at Depth of Field and some Sublime Stitching embroidery patterns (Sexy Librarians, Roaring Twenties, Michael Sieben, and Julie West) from Crafty Planet. I was so excited to pick up the Sublime Stitching stuff. I’ve been going back and forth about ordering from the website for months, but I was much happier to buy these in person.

By the time we had finished our shopping Sweetie’s sister and her boyfriend were ready to meet us for lunch. We had some great white pizza at the newly-renamed Red Savoy, visited the Walker Museum, hung out at their chic apartment, and met up with their friends to go bowling for the boyfriend’s birthday party.

Knowing full well that my parents, unlike me, have a well-functioning oven, I brought along ingredients to make the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that I had been waiting for for over a week. I saw them on a blog, and they looked delicious. Turns out they were delicious!

Before leaving, my mom gave me the adorable skirt that she’s been making for me for the past few weeks.
She had picked up this pattern a while back thinking that the construction was interesting and asked if I liked it. When your fantastic seamstress of a mother offers to make you a garment just for fun, you don’t say “no”! We dug through the wool stash and came up with a tiny plaid in green, navy, and off-white. I wore the skirt to work on Monday and felt wonderful in it–I have to admit to admiring it in every reflective surface that I passed!

I should have some finished knits to show around here soon. As I said, it’s been an odd week. I’ve had research checkpoints in both of the classes that I’m taking and have been holding conferences with students in the class that I’m teaching. Thankfully, my schedule will be a bit more normal next week. I’m planning to take some well-deserved knitting time this weekend before I collect the next round of papers on Monday.

Well, it wasn’t Rhinebeck…

The rest of the knit-blogosphere may be writing about their woolie adventures at Rhinebeck, but I’m here to tell you about the amazing time that I had at the Colloquium on Modern Rhetoric!

Really.

It was fun.

You don’t believe me, do you?

Look at it like this: Rhinebeck, NY is the UMTC campus, the fiber-celebrities are prominent rhetoric scholars from top universities, and the sheep and wool are profound thoughts on rhetoric and modernity. See? It really is fun!

If that’s not enough to convince you, keep in mind that I got to experience the culture of Dinkytown, check out a new (to me) coffee shop, see the UMTC campus up close and personal, and make a pilgrimmage to Chipotle (seriously-a mile in the rain wearing new heels that gave me huge blisters, but so worth it).

And I did some knitting.

I worked through Clue 3 of the Socktober Mystery Sock in the car. I’ve since found out that I managed to miss the release of Clue 4, so I’m a little behind the game.

Once I decided to knit during the Colloquium panels, I really cruised on my ‘Hers’ sock. This has been sitting in my backpack since the beginning of the semester for those moments when I need some emergency knitting. Apparently I either haven’t required emergency knitting or haven’t had the time for it. Knitting during the panels had the added bonus of being a conversation-starter with some of the professors at the Colloquium. One of them said that he wished he had something to do with his hands so that his mind wouldn’t wander–exactly!!

This weekend will likely amount to very little knitting. I have a round of papers to grade and some significant strides to make in my research, as I’ll be out of town and away from my work next weekend.

Happy knitting!

Hemlock Ring

The Hemlock Ring blanket for my chilly new office has been done for a couple weeks now. D’you wanna see?

Isn’t she lovely? I chose the color by matching it with the two colors of chairs that we have in our office of eight–gray and electric blue. This way if I change to a different desk next year, the blanket will still match.

This was the perfect beginning-of-graduate-school-knit. I knit the center flower in one or two sittings and then it was on to the feather and fan pattern. Feather and fan is just right: enough of a pattern to be interesting, but easy enough that it’s never frustrating.

I went with a relatively relaxed approach to blocking. I didn’t pin out the hundreds of little loops; I’m happy if it lays flat and looks even.

It should be just the right size to wrap around my shoulders or drape over my lap. Since I spend so much of my time sitting still at my desk, it’s easy to get chilled. Being cold makes it hard for me to be productive.

Pattern: The Hemlock Ring Blanket by Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed
Yarn: 3 skeins Cascade 220 Heathers #2423
Needles: a variety of US 9 circulars
Made for: Me
Timeline: September 6-October 2 2009
Modifications: Note-knit to round 55 of chart
Worst Part: That bind-off went on forever!
Best Part: Inspiring other knitters–this knit got a lot of attention in the shop.

Happy Socktober!

I am not, strictly speaking, participating in Socktoberfest. However, I do plan on casting on for the Through the Loops Socktoberfest Mystery Sock as soon as I can get my yarn into a ball.

Since I needed to be able to cast on quickly and since the pattern is a mystery, I actually had Sweetie pick up this sock yarn for me-I told him to pick out any fingering weight yarn. It’s a fall colorway of Jitterbug (windfall) that reminds me of mustard, ketchup, and relish. The nice thing about Jitterbug is that even if the colorway doesn’t mesh with the mystery pattern, they’ll still feel good on my feet.

Unfortunately, we had some ball-winding complications today. I have a very fancy ballwinder but no swift, so Sweetie gets to be my “yarn b***h.” We hit some sort of tangle, had something funny going on with the winder, and ran out of time: all things that set me back on my Socktober knitting. Hopefully I’ll be able to cast on tomorrow.

In other knitting news, I’ve finished the back of the Nordique Swing Cardi and am past the ribbing on the first sleeve. I still love the pattern!

Our weekend trip was a blast. Lots of family time, a haircut, and shopping for teacher clothes (me) and records (him). Now it’s back to the real world. But with a better hairstyle and more professional wordrobe!

It’s raining here

In case you can’t see right through me, the photo above is there because I can’t take a decent progress shot of my knitting. And because the berries were so pretty that I actually went back out into the rain to photograph them.

I absolutely love knitting my Nordique Swing Cardigan! When I’m at my desk wishing that I was knitting, I’m thinking of this very project. It’s exactly what I need right now: a little lace to keep it interesting, but not so complicated that I become frustrated after a long day of studying.

Of course, I crave knitting even more when it is cold and rainy outside. Despite the graduate school business, I’ve been able to snuggle up with my knitting and some hot chocolate for at least a little while every night: self-care at its best!

I’m looking forward to even more knitting this weekend. We’re visiting my parents, so I’ll have plenty of time in the car to knit. That is, provided I finish reading for class and grade some student exercises before I leave late tonight. I’m going to over-pack in the knitting department so that I can take advantage of whatever type of knitting I crave at any given moment.

What was that? Still bummed at not seeing a proper knitting photo? How about a distraction courtesy of Evie?

She just hopped up there on her own-we walked into our home office and there she was, looking right at home.

The Optimistic Knitter

It’s starting to feel like fall, and you know what that means…

…time for fall knitting!

Now that just about all the fall knitting magazines seem to be out, I’ve managed to compile my master fall knitting queue. I’m warning you now, there are a lot of sweaters! That’s not because I’m completely insane, but because my new teaching position means I could use a bit of a wardrobe re-vamp. Also, I tend to prefer fall designs to winter designs, so I’ll likely be knitting off this queue for a while. Still, I know I’ll only get to knit some of these, but it’s fun to dream.

From Interweave Knits:

First up is Veronik Avery’s Nordique Swing. This one was love at first sight, as it’s teacher-y and suits my style. I’m going to use Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in a navy blue.

I also love the Frejya Sweater. I was skeptical about the colors with my skin tone, but the sweater looked lovely on a redhead in the IK gallery. We’ll see when I get to this sweater: I may stick with the original color scheme or I might do something completely different.

Finally, I think the Berry and Bramble Cardigan looks wonderfully cozy. It would be a comfortable weekend lounging piece, or I could dress it up to wear when I teach. Choosing the yarn may be a challenge, as I want something soft that still has nice stitch definition.

From KnitScene:

It was like Melissa Wehrle was designing just for me in this issue! Two of her sweaters (Carnaby Street Pullover and the Berkshire Dolman Sweater) will probably be next on my needles after the Nordique Swing. Both have a certain academic feel that, again, I could dress up or down.

From Debbie Bliss Knitting Magazine:

Have you been watching Glee? Emma, the guidance counselor reminds me (and everyone else…) of myself, minus the extreme germaphobia. I have to admit, I would wear every outfit that she’s been costumed in so far this season. Debbie Bliss’s Boat-Collared Jacket seems like something right out of Emma’s wardrobe, so it’s high up in my queue.

From Made in Brooklyn:

I would love to knit every single pattern in Jared Flood’s new book, but I’ve narrowed it down to my short list for the time being.

I could see myself wearing Stilwell on weekend outdoor adventures with Sweetie. I’ll have to find just the right tweed yarn for this project. Queensland Collection Rustic Tweed is the current forerunner, but I don’t know if they make the colors I’m looking for.

What swing dancer couldn’t resist Quincy? I love the idea of a flapper style for the colder months. I’ll probably make this one in a color to match my cranberry pea coat for a jaunty winter look.

I love both versions of Beaumont, but I think the Beaumont Beanie will be more flattering on me. Again, I’m not sure what color scheme to go with. I need to get a new winter coat this year, so I may wait and choose colors to match.

Willoughby was another case of pattern love at first sight. The lace, the nupps, the edging–all gorgeous! I normally like to make bright scarves to perk up the grey winter months, but I may make this one in a classic cream.

Everyone I’ve seen look through the book loves the Grove mittens. What more can I say? They’re lovely and I don’t think one can ever have too many pairs of mittens.

When I’m feeling creative, I’ll top off my outfit with the Laurel beret. The sheer amount of texture in this piece makes me want to start knitting it straightaway.

From Twist Collective:

I love throwing on a light, fitted cardigan when I’m wearing a dress or skirt, so Audrey in Unst fits the bill. In fact, I would love to have one of these little cardis in every color, but the amount of time it will take to knit a sport-weight cardigan means I’ll have to select my color wisely.

From Knitty:

And one last little scarf: Kernel. I think the main attraction I have to this scarf is the yarn. Since the LYS where I work doesn’t carry Hand Maiden yarns, I’ll have to substitute something equally stunning.

So there you have it. A long list, but, I think, a good one. Of course, I couldn’t just dive right in as soon as these magazines arrived. My office on campus is much too chilly for my taste, so my first order of business this fall was to knit up a Hemlock Ring blanket for my desk. I finished with the exceedingly long bind-off last night and now need to decide which floor space I’m willing to part with for a few days while the blanket dries. Once it’s blocked, you can be sure I’ll stop in here with some lovely FO photos.

Enough with the knit-daydreaming. It’s time to attend to my pile of student papers waiting to be graded.

Aeolian Shawlette

I’ve finally blocked my Aeolian shawlette! I’ve had this one off the needles for quite a while now, but I didn’t have either the time during daylight or the free floor space to block it until last weekend.

I thought I would save this garment for dressier occasions, but I ended up wearing it all day today despite the warm weather because I was in chilly classrooms (that have no windows–I’m really going to miss the sun!).

The beads are probably what make it feel dressy to me. However, I think it works with a more everyday look, don’t you?

This is the smaller size of the pattern, and I think it’s just the right size for my frame. Any bigger and I would be swimming in it, and certainly not wearing it.

Pattern: Aeolian Shawl by Elizabeth Freeman from Knitty
Yarn: 1.24 skeins Ella Rae Lace Merino #103
Needles: US 2 Addi Lace
Made for: Me
Timeline: June 7-September 7 2009
Modifications: change in yarn and needle sizes
Worst Part: Running out of yarn.
Best Part: Knitting with beads. It was a new technique for me, and I could see using it again in the future.

In non-knitting news, graduate school is off to a great start. Classes have begun and I’ve taught my first College Writing class. I’m still adjusting to this concept of being both student and ‘professor’ in the same institution. I should be pretty settled in after next week, as that’s when I start tutoring in the Writing Workshop. It looks like I have an exciting, stimulating two years ahead of me.

The knitting has suffered as I adjust to my new schedule, but I’m still fitting in some knitting breaks here and there. My current project is a small blanket for my chilly office, but I’ll share that another day.

Heima

“Heima means at home.” ~Heima by Sigur Rós

This sweater is all about being calm. I originally purchased the yarn to make a warm, comfortable sweater that I could wear around the house on my days off.

When the original pattern just wasn’t working out, I ripped out the project, chose new contrast colors, and started on a different pattern. This sweater is inspired by the film Heima by the band Sigur Rós. Their music is what I turn to when I need a calming presence.

Right now, I look over Lake Superior in my Icelandic sweater, but I would love to bring it with me to Iceland someday. Perhaps by the time I make it there, Sweetie and I will have a collection of Icelandic sweaters. They’re quick and pleasant to knit and are quite practical with our Northern climate.

In the meantime, this lake of ours will do.

Pattern: 6 & 7 from Reynolds Lopi #82228
Yarn: Reynolds Lopi 4 sk. #53 (MC), 1.5  sk. #85 (A),  1 sk. #421 (B), 1 sk. #87 (C)
Needles: US 7 & 10 Denise circulars and misc. dpns
Made for: Me
Timeline: July 18-August 5 2009
Modifications: Knit to a tighter gauge for a smaller fit.
Worst Part: Having to face the facts and rip out a project I didn’t love anymore.
Best Part: Finishing off my very oldest WIP and loving the result. That feels really good.

Bright Toes

Last April, one of my dear friends said the magic words. I was knitting away on a sock, and she casually mentioned that her sister had knit her a pair of socks once and she didn’t like them. They were big and uncomfortable.

Obviously, I had to set her straight.

I immediately measured her foot and had her look through Sock Innovation to show me what she liked. She also said that she would love purple socks. Supposedly you can’t find a good pair of purple socks in the stores.

Last night, we had one final evening of “family time” before she moves to Ohio for graduate school. It’s not goodbye forever, but it is goodbye for a long while. I hope the stitches I’ve put into these socks will remind her of her family up North while she’s gone.

Pattern: Sam from Sock Innovation by Cookie A.
Yarn: a little more than two skeins Brown Sheep Wildfoote SY-17 Purple Splendor
Needles: US 0 Boye dpns
Made for: Class sample/Jenelle
Timeline: June 18-August 17 2009
Modifications: None
Worst Part: The cables don’t look as intricate as some of the other patterns, but they felt like they took much, much longer!
Best Part: Sending some warmth with a friend.

I’ve also finished my shop sample of Sydney for Chrissy Gardiner’s upcoming visit, book signing, and workshop at Yarn Harbor.

Pattern: Sydney, a free preview pattern from Toe-Up! by Chrissy Gardiner
Yarn: half a skein Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock #222 Sweetie
Needles: US 0 32″ Addi Turbos
Made for: Shop sample
Timeline: August 2-16 2009
Modifications: None
Worst Part: The last few rows of the ruffle were really long.
Best Part: They’re adorable!