duchessofgravity

you may well remember that many many moons ago in a far off land called orlando i started... the blanket. no? let me refresh your memory... i knit a garter stitch wash cloth to teach a friend's child to knit... i decided hey that would make a neat blanket. and i knit a bunch of strips in garter. and i hated how it looked seamed up. so i frogged it. and i knit it up in stripes on the knitting machine my mom found for me at a junk sale. in it's most recent incarnation it looked like this and that is how it stayed for over a year. every now and then i would wind in a few ends but there are a lot of ends there. and i didn't want to weave in ends. that is such a waste of time. especially when i'd rather be knitting! well. i guess if you get me bored enough. and you finish all my projects. i can be convinced that old projects need to come to a close! so 24 episodes of dexter later. it is seamed. the ends are woven in. yes i had nightmares after seeing that much gore. but tha...

some yarn just doesn't want to be what you want it to be. the pattern isn't right. knitting them just doesn't make you happy. you try a different pattern and that just doesn't help. heck sometimes. you just don't even want the yarn to be yarn after a while. you just want the yarn. and the project . to just go away. so say goodbye. these are headed to the frog pond. anybody want some slightly used but perfectly acceptable sock yarn? i'm just over it. let me know.

lots of sugar in my cappuccino please. or maybe iced. it has been a hot day... i guess as long as it is caffeinated it shouldn't really matter right? i think i deserve it! cause these babies are done! the venezia socks. or cappuccino as i call them. i used the pattern charts and just knit these up. for my second attempt at stranded color work i think they turned out great! if i had it to do over again i would probably have used a different pattern for the sole. the stripe is a little too bold for the swishiness of the instep and leg pattern. but hey. you learn. the specifics: pattern: chart from the venezia sweater by Eunny Jang yarn: sock it to me 4 ply in coffee bean and latte needles: knitpicks harmony circs size 1. socks knit as 2 magic loops simultaneously (these needles are actually growing on me) details: magic cast on 16 stitches in coffee bean, increase at edges on every row to 26 then every other row to 36 stitches. move one stitch from sole of sock(35) to inste...

so there is a sweater in the works... i just don't know what it is yet. i've been doing research. i just haven't come to a decision. you see shirley gifted me with some of her stash yarn a while back. ok so it was almost a year ago. and i thought i would make her a sweater. crazy i know. why knit a knitter a sweater? well she weighs all of 95 pounds soaking wet so it will be a fast knit. and she did gift me the yarn. and i don't really need the yarn seeing as i can knit at least 6 sweaters from the stash right now. so shirley is getting a sweater. i'm leaning in a couple of different directions. i want to knit an interweave sweater cause well i have the subscription so why not right? so here are the candidates: 1) nantucket jacket 2) wheat-ear cable yoke 3) tangled yoke cardigan 3) climbing vines pullover 4) diminishing rib cardigan and i also figure the recipient might want a say in said sweater... so i'll keep you posted. but in the meantime. what do you th...

almost a year ago now i was working on my pomatomus socks when i realized that i had one sock with 67 stitches, and the other had 73...the pattern calls for 72 stitches around the leg. d'oh! these guys promptly went in the bad knitting basket to think about what they had done. when i cast on for the cappuccino socks last week i couldn't figure out what had happened to my size one addi's. then i remembered. so out they came. the 73 stitch sock was an easy fix. i knit two stitches together. switched to my contrast yarn. and knit up the twisted ribbing. the second sock, well that is going to take some frogging. i have to figure out where the last correct stitch count was and re-knit from there. in the meantime. check out that twisted stitch pattern. neat huh? gosh it sure is a pain to p1, k1tbl over and over and over again :) well i just could let well enough alone. i knit through the gimpiness and just held my bandaided finger out of the way and figured out that it wa...

so dave and i went to the farmers market. collected fresh eggplant, zucchini, and mushrooms. and brought them home for dinner :) but while i was slicing veggies i sliced my finger. oops. and it's my index on my left hand! you know what that means right? no knitting. at lease for a couple of days. dang-it. and i was doing so well on my socks. oh well. so after i washed the blood off what did we do with those veggies? well dave cubed up the rest (my chopping privileges have been revoked for a while.) and we tossed the pieces with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, some sea salt and fresh pepper, and some dry herbs. then, we roasted them at 400 degrees for 30 minutes (which was may have been a bit too long) and served them up with a box of celery, onion, and cornbread stuffing and a rotisserie chicken from the grocery. what can i say? sometimes i take shortcuts :) finish it off with a glass of what we like to call 2-buck-chuck* and you're done. so, what's a brok...

so the plan is to knit 2 socks before the end of september. first you have to make sense of the chart. i know there are mistakes in that but don't worry i fixed 'em. then you knit the world's smallest swatch. i realized i was carrying the pattern color in the wrong hand because it just didn't pop. so i switched for the socks. then you wind up 4 balls of yarn and cast on. at like midnight. cause it is finally july and you can. i learned the last time that 4 balls of yarn. 2 socks. and 2 circs. is a recipe for disaster. so i am working these socks one at a time. magic loop style. so that is still 2 socks on 2 circs. just separate. so i knit the toes together. why not. then i separated my socks and started the first sock. and then the second sock. leapfrog fashion. when one sock gets to half a pattern repeat then i set it down and knit a whole pattern repeat on the second sock. then i knit a whole pattern repeat on the first. so far i am 3/4 and 1/2 of a repeat in....

can i first just say that this is the best idea for a swap ever! everyone has a little ball of wonderful in their stash that they frankly just don't want or would be willing to part with so why not just trade it out? right? so i know get to the point already! i had a note in the mailbox today that they had a package for me at the office. the girl sorting through her junk mail in the mailroom looked at me weird when i squealed...so what if i'm thirty. i can squeal when i know there is yarn waiting for me! then i was at the leasing office to get my package and they handed me some media mail package for dave. and i saw in the teetering pile of boxes that there was a message on the side of another box saying "sock yarn swap." so i asked if i could have my other package too? they said that dave's stupid book was all i had. but i knew different. that yarn had to be mine! and it was! karen . my swap partner. is awesome! by the way. check it out! super cut...

i mean really. is it so much to ask that a product does what it is intended to do without crapping out on you? there i was knitting along minding my own business when... yup. thats a sock. half done with my first ever lifestyle heel. you know i don't like change. i am perfectly happy with my plain-jane ordinary short row heels. heck when i try something new something always goes wrong ... but i was willing to try. you know me i don't frog things. i just go with it. well i had frogged this stupid heel 4 times to get it how i wanted it...until disaster struck. yeah see there. here lemme help you out. the cable just popped out of the needle. the stitches just zipped off the cable. and the heel with to hell in a handbasket. stinking knitpicks circs . "durable fixed circular needles" my @ss. i had heard that this happens. but never to me. not til now. sigh. you'll be hapy to know that the sock was saved. the heel navigated without further drama and the second heel ...

a lotta bit fun a while back i joined the sock.knitters.anonymous. group over on ravelry. cause i gotta admit. i have a problem. they have these neat sockdown challenges that encourage you to stretch your knitting wings a bit. so far i haven't joined in, but the july challenge is to knit socks using fairisle, colorwork, or intarsia! now you may remember that once upon a time i did a little bit of this . and it was tough. but it was great. having conquered my fear of lace i think it's time to face a little more of my fear. i've wanted to knit the venezia sweater from interweave knits - well since it came out. but i just can't bring myself to do it. it's huge. but socks. now that's doable. my plan. knit a pair of socks using the charts from venezia i want to stick to two colors so i don't lose my mind. more than i already have that is. so here goes nothing! whadda ya think? good color choices? the color names are coffee bean and latte. hey, what can i s...

well, "finally" is what sue of mew mew's will say when she receives a package in the mail next week :) you see the thanksgiving before last i was in colorado. and i offered to knit up new store sample clogs for her when i stopped in to the shop. well. the yarn went into the suitcase. then into the stash. and i promptly forgot. because who thinks of felted wool clogs in orlando? right? well i just saw sue week before last. and guess what! they're done! and they're my colors. but alas i don't get to keep them. project specs: pattern: fiber trends felted clog women's size medium. yarn: kraemer yarns mauch chunky single stranded, mc - kiwi, cc - buterscotch needles: boye size 13 interchangeables (ick i know but i only use them for felting) modifications: i knit the inner sole from the cc. the upper clog from the mc. then the cuff in the cc. i then knit the outer clog (exceptt fo rthe last row) in the mc. I knit that last row in the cc. then attached th...

well on the return trip i didn't have a window seat and i guess it is just as well. it was cloudy the whole way back. i did get to finish up my colofornia socks though check them out! i have been reading cookie a's sock book. and i had been thinking about how to make stitch patterns do more than just cover an area knitted fabric. i played with several different ideas and came up withthe following: i started the stitch pattern at te top f the toe and created a diagonal triangle out from the center of the toe by tiling stitch pattern components. here i'm not explainin gwell check out the original pattern here . and take a look at my notes: see how the pattern lends itself to the modification i made? i really like the pointy toe. as i worked along i decided i had to change the heel up a bit too! i inverted the changes i made to the pattern on the toes for the heel. i wanted a longer stretch of stockinette on the heel so that the socks would wear a little more smoothly i...