The felted satchel (for a friend) went over great! He's been using it since he got it, and it seems to be holding up well. It was my first attempt at stripes and my largest felted project ever. The finished product is large enough to hold a legal pad and with pockets for wallet and keys, it's perfect for what he needs -- a writing bag. I miscalculated the amount of felting it would need and had to put it back in the washer after it had dried (which took almost a week!).
The two flower washcloths I completed were fun to knit, and pretty quick projects. I gave one to a friend in early December and the other to the baby I'm a spiritual parent for. The cotton chenille is so soft -- it's like a velvet washcloth. I hadn't ever knit with cotton before, and was surprised at how inelastic it is. I had to be much more careful with my stitches than I am with wool.
I'll try and get photos of the projects up soon.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Rogue, part 1
I haven't posted an update in a while, but that's partially because I haven't been doing much beyond getting ready for Buddha's Enlightenment (in early December) and Christmas. We had 10 people come to our house on Christmas Eve, and had plenty of work to get done.
I promised myself I'd get started on Rogue, the sweater I've been yearning for since March. I used my brand new swift and ball winder (which I love!) to turn my kilo of yarn from Ireland into a tower of five center-pull balls. The yarn is really vibrant red. My camera phone doesn't do it justice.
My sweetie is working today, so I had some time to do some knitting. I've never done cables before, so Rogue has me a bit intimidated. But I tried the cable chart out on some waste yarn, and it didn't go too horribly. Here's how it came out. I had some funky stuff happen at the start, but then I seemed to figure things out. We'll see how it goes with the red stuff.
In case you've never seen Rogue, you can find it here: www.girlfromauntie.com. The patterns are incredible. I bought the red yarn in March when we took a trip to Ireland. Sheep everywhere, but apparently, very little yarn. What gives?
I looked for yarn (which they called knitting wool) everywhere we went. I only saw one yarn shop in all the places we visited, and it was a Sunday, so it was closed. Various woolen mills, little towns, bigger villages, small cities, no luck. Finally, the last place we stayed there was an outlet for one of the woolen mills. They had tons of sweaters and all sorts of souvenirs. We were about to leave when I asked the very nice woman behind the counter if they had any knitting wool. She pulled a huge cardboard box out from beneath a window, and it was full of red and black yarns, packaged in kilo bags. That's 2.2 pounds of aran-weight yarn. And it was only about 25 euros ($40). I figure it's between 1,800 and 2,000 yards of yarn, plenty for a sweater!
I had only been knitting a few months when I bought the yarn, and all the sweater patterns I could tackle were pretty boring. So I held out, and am ready to swatch for Rogue. Wish me luck!
I promised myself I'd get started on Rogue, the sweater I've been yearning for since March. I used my brand new swift and ball winder (which I love!) to turn my kilo of yarn from Ireland into a tower of five center-pull balls. The yarn is really vibrant red. My camera phone doesn't do it justice.
My sweetie is working today, so I had some time to do some knitting. I've never done cables before, so Rogue has me a bit intimidated. But I tried the cable chart out on some waste yarn, and it didn't go too horribly. Here's how it came out. I had some funky stuff happen at the start, but then I seemed to figure things out. We'll see how it goes with the red stuff.
In case you've never seen Rogue, you can find it here: www.girlfromauntie.com. The patterns are incredible. I bought the red yarn in March when we took a trip to Ireland. Sheep everywhere, but apparently, very little yarn. What gives?
I looked for yarn (which they called knitting wool) everywhere we went. I only saw one yarn shop in all the places we visited, and it was a Sunday, so it was closed. Various woolen mills, little towns, bigger villages, small cities, no luck. Finally, the last place we stayed there was an outlet for one of the woolen mills. They had tons of sweaters and all sorts of souvenirs. We were about to leave when I asked the very nice woman behind the counter if they had any knitting wool. She pulled a huge cardboard box out from beneath a window, and it was full of red and black yarns, packaged in kilo bags. That's 2.2 pounds of aran-weight yarn. And it was only about 25 euros ($40). I figure it's between 1,800 and 2,000 yards of yarn, plenty for a sweater!
I had only been knitting a few months when I bought the yarn, and all the sweater patterns I could tackle were pretty boring. So I held out, and am ready to swatch for Rogue. Wish me luck!
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