I passed!

Woo hoo! Just received an e-mail confirmation that I passed Level 1 of TKGA's Master Hand Knitting course! Yeeeeeha!!

Second Time's a Charm

Just dropped my TKGA Master Hand Knitting Level I resubmission in the mail. I dropped it in quickly before I could second-guess myself, like ripping off a band-aid. I didn't even watch the door close.

Hopefully, this is what they are looking for and I'll be done! I purposely haven't marked it as a finished project in Ravelry because I don't want to jinx it.

When I was at the Gourmet Yarn Company the other day, Margaret asked me if I had finished it yet, and I told her it was going to have to wait until after the holidays. She asked if I had signed up for Level II yet, and I told her no, our group had decided that this course had pretty much sucked all of the fun out of knitting. But now I find myself wondering about the second level. I know I could do it, but I don't think I would have ever finished the first level had it not been for our Thursday group that worked on it all together. Looking back now, our agonizing over the seed stitch swatch is pretty funny, but it was all serious business at the time. Level II on my own would be a lonely business, but I'm curious about it...

Book Review: Seven Things That Can "Make or Break" a Sweater

Just bought a new book, Seven Things That Can "Make or Break" a Sweater. At first I was a little disappointed, because it doesn't have any new, startling, who'd-a-thunk-it information that I didn't already know. But then, I realized, it's all the little things, tips, tricks, techniques, that I've learned along the way all compiled into one book, into one place. I sure wish I'd had this book when I was doing the Master Level Handknitting course, it answers a TON of questions that we looked up elsewhere. So, instead of trying to remember which book has the method for, say, increasing evenly across a row in ribbing, I can just pull out this book. Pretty neat.

I have about 200 irons in the fire right now, including T-shirt and Hoodie orders for our elementary, my youngest son's birthday, Halloween, and too many WIPs.

Oh, and I got a knitting job, a pair of kilt hose for a fellow piper! Yippee!

I'll try to take pics of the WIPs tomorrow. Too much to do today.

Pining for Winter Knitting

I just watched a Berroco video on slip-stitch knitting and I am dying to try it. I absolutely LOVE playing with color and finding new combinations, but I STINK at stranded knitting. I checked a book on slip-stitch knitting out of the library, but was uninspired by the patterns. Maybe I'll go on Amazon later and browse the knitting books.

The dilemma? I am a mostly-serial knitter. I have a few WIPs that I haven't worked on in awhile, a winter sweater that I ran out of yarn and money for, a really long scarf that I work on in between projects until I get bored with it again, and of course, my TKGA Master course that is languishing for want of a report on blocking. Present project is a summer sweater on size 3 needles which is taking FOREVER. The sleeves and back are done, and I've made it up to the waist shaping on the front, finally, which gives relief from endless miles of stockinette.

And, I confess, I placed an order from KnitPicks yesterday. But it's for a Christmas present for my husband, completely justifiable in my opinion. Never mind that I added on a few goodies to get the free shipping (blocking mat!).

I really should be cleaning house right now instead of pecking on the computer. ;)

Non-knitting weekend

So far this weekend has been a bust for knitting. OKC is having their ice hockey travel team tryouts this weekend and not only has it been a nail-biter for the kids, but the Parents Causing Problems factor has reared its ugly head again. This year the Squirt team (ages 9 and 10) have a 3-time Stanley Cup champion as their coach, and we also have assembled some amazingly talented kids together who could easily play AA hockey (AAA is the best, then AA, A then B). We were an A team last year, so we are excited about the opportunity. However, Those Who Are No Longer In Control of the team are now trying their best to make everyone upset and miserable about this, because, of course, this team is about them, not about the kids. Sigh.

In REAL knitting news, I have managed to knit 6 pairs of mittens for charity. I still have a little matching yarn left but I'm sick of mittens, so I'm improvising a small scarf.

I'm still working on the TKGA Master course, have written my cover letter and typed up just the questions. I'll go back and write my answers when I have some quiet time (yeah, right!)

Still working on TKGA Master's Program

Yesterday Jo-Ellyn sent out an e-mail detailing the wonderful progress she's made on her program and I realized that I've procrastinated myself into lagging behind now. So I spent yesterday afternoon making the labels for the tags. I ending up entering the data in MS Excel and mail-merging it in MS Publisher. Then last night I pulled out each swatch, tied the tags on, and looked for rust spots from my evidently-not-stainless-steel T-pins. I ended up pulling out 4 swatches for rust spots. The Tide-on-the-go stain pen didn't remove the spots, so this morning I used Whink on a Q-Tip to dab at the spots. Worked like a charm. I didn't re-wet the swatches (since I don't have STAINLESS STEEL T-PINS, argh, and it's Sunday so Hobby Lobby is closed), just dropped little water over each spot to remove the Whink. I'll check later and see if it bleaches out. Hell, I've spent more time trying to get the rust out than it would take to re-knit the things. But then I'd have to block...

Today I'll tackle finishing the hat. We don't have any hockey today, so I might actually get to hang around my own house for a change. Tomorrow, it's another week of hockey camp.

Blocked swatches 10-16

Still working on the TKGA Master Handknitting Level 1 course. Finally got around to blocking swatches 10-16, I knit most of them a month ago.
Swatches 10, 11 and 12.

Swatches 13, 14, 15.

Swatch 16.

Log Cabin Baby Blanket

My husband's best friend in high school just became a grandfather. That rates a baby blanket, not just some quickie cap and sweater. I found several with techniques that interested me, but finally settled on the Valley Log Cabin Blanket in the interest of finishing the thing sometime before the little nipper graduates preschool. And of course, it was going to be a throw-in-the-washer and generally mistreat it sort of yarn. Vanna's Choice didn't have enough bright colors, so I settled on Caron's Simply Soft Brites in 7 colors bright enough to interest any baby that's been plopped down on it so that mother can go pee and get a cup of coffee. It's constructed of four panels with 14 strips in each panel. Here's 7 strips done in about 2 hours:

Should be good airplane knitting next Wednesday.

Have also made great progress on the Master HandKnitting Level I, finished up through swatch 15 and wrote up the pattern for it. All that's left now knitting-wise is to knit swatch 16, which is color work and not my strong suit, and the project hat. Then it's answering questions and writing a little report.

What has happened to Prairie, you may ask? She's languishing in unfinished sweater land. Front and Back are knit, blocked and dried, just need some kid-free time to figure out the crochet trim around the neck and armholes.

Knitting Progress

Since being essentially stymied by knitting mishaps the last couple of months, I have now managed to ACCOMPLISH something. The front and back of Prairie are now knitted and are drying (yarn faded somewhat, no longer that Aegean blue, but more sky blue now). Still plenty of finishing to do on it (must investigate crocheted crab stitch), but should be finished in time to take on vacation next Wednesday to ACTUALLY WEAR. Woo hoo!

Met with the girls today to work on the TKGA Master Handknitter Level 1 course. Am now on swatch 13, breezed right through the lace swatches already. We may fool around and finish this program by the end of summer!

Going to be going to South Lake Tahoe next week for Terry's stepdad's family reunion. Have never been, so of course have Googled yarn stores, one store in Lake Tahoe, 9 others in surrounding towns. Should be good shopping.

Educational Yarn

I was running out of my pale pink yarn for the Master's program and stopped by Gourmet Yarn and bought two more skeins of the Cascade 220 I'm using. When I walked in with the telltale Gourmet Yarn bag my husband, who knows I'm trying to de-stash by knitting for charity, looked at it and raised an eyebrow. I defended myself with, "it's for my Master's program, I ran out." To which he replied, "Oh, it's EDUCATIONAL yarn, huh?"

Prairie almost thrown out on the prairie

Finished the front, the double decreases look a little wonky, but it was that or huge armholes. I washed the front piece in Knit Wash that I bought at Hancock Fabric's and set it out to block. That's when the pain started. That thing grew and grew until it was absolutely huge. It could have wrapped around myself twice. I was so disapointed. So I set it on the top of the washer and went on to do other things. Changed it's status in Ravelry to frogged, added my 'angry' pic to it to designate it as a TOAD, put the needle back in the case and threw away the directions. Came back to it later and held it up to myself, and all of a sudden it wasn't huge anymore. Guess it contracted as it dried. I'm going to go ahead and knit the back (after going back into Ravelry and fixing that, and making new copies of the pattern after my kids dumped a wet paper towel on top of them in the trash).

I've also finally taken pics of my blocked swatches for the TKGA Master Handknitter Level 1 course. I have more finished, but ran out of blocking pins last night.



Sorry for the crappy pictures, it's cloudy today in OKC.

SSK is an ugly stitch

Well, the newness of Facebook is starting to wear off and I'm now returning attention to my other online interests.

I'm still working with Jo Ellyn Wheeler and Carolyn Faircloth on the TKGA Master course. Today we worked on the three swatches concerning decreasing. And I learned something that amazed me. I mean, really. I just sat there staring at it. I knit almost exclusively sweaters, which require shaping, a lot of it. I had vaguely heard of the term 'full-fashioned' but had yet to knit a pattern requiring it. Usually, your right-hand side of the garment decrease is an SSK (slip knit-wise, slip-knitwise, return both to left needle and knit the 2 together through the back loops), and the left-hand side is K2tog. These two are supposed to mirror each other but seldom do. Enter full-fashioned. This is the opposite, i.e. K2tog is on the right-hand side, SSK on the left. The regular way produces a vertical line up the side of the garment. Full-fashioned produces a series of 'slashes' pointing outwards at each decrease. Okay, to each his own.

Here's the part that amazed me. K2tog on the right-hand side MIRRORS K2tog on the left. I am NOT KIDDING. As soon as I take pics of my swatches, I'll point it out. Try it and see, I'll never do that ugly SSK again!

Also OTN, Prairie from Anny Blatt Timeless Classics from the Knit Collection.

Vacation Knitting

Well, the husband and I are driving to Dallas tonight to catch a plane tomorrow morning for 5 kid-free days in Jamaica! Woo hoo! Naturally, I have a cold. But the most important packing consideration for the trip is, of course, what knitting project or projects to take. I'm still in stash-busting mode, so I'm going to take that cheap, er inexpensive, acqua Sinfonia yarn and make a (silk purse out of a sow's ear) tank out of it, working in pieces.

Digression: everytime I get seduced to the dark side of knitting from the top down, I am reminded why I don't like that method. Sure the collar and yoke are fun, and it's exciting dividing for the arms and body. But after that the thrill is gone and you're left slogging through miles of knitting and having to constantly rearrange a huge mass of knitting in your lap. No fun and not very portable. And the stitches at the underarms stretch out forcing you to pick up more stitches than called for on the sleeves to hide the holes and then figure out how to decrease them away. End of rant.

So, back to the tank. I am knitting Prairie out of Anny Blatt Timeless Classics from the Knit Collection (I added the pattern to Ravelry, but there's no picture, since I'm not sure of the copyright violation of scanning in the picture published with it, although I've seen others on Ravelry do it). I bought this book when I first started knitting, but was so intimidated by it that it's sat on the shelf ever since. Anny, you're going down. I will conquer a pattern from you or die trying. Okay, not DIE, but the desperation of forcing two sticks and string into something beautiful sometimes approaches that emotion.

And what of the Master Level Handknitting course, have I flaked out on that as well? No, sir, I have finished swatches 4-6 and when I laid them out side by side, noticed swatch 5 was much shorter than the other two, due to the fact that I missed an increase. I'll have to completely redo it, so it's going into Time Out until I get back.

Master Hand-Knitting Level 1

Went to my group today, have decided to accept swatch #3 as is after having to purl clockwise to get rid of the extra holes. Started swatch #1. Realized my edge stitches on ribbing are crap. Managed to fix it by purling last st clockwise, knitting first st TBL, continuing on for a couple of stitches and then giving the edge a nice vertical tug. Seems to be working. Will continue on to increasing and the garter ending.

Master Knitter in Training

Today I mustered my courage and went to the new Master Knitter meeting that's to be weekly from 1-3 on Thursdays. This meeting I should be able to stick to since my kids will be occupied at school and no sporting events are held at that time. I met up with Jo Ellyn Wheeler and Carolyn Faircloth downtown over Java Dave's. I really expected to be totally lost and out of my element, but Jo Ellyn and Carolyn quickly put me at ease. Unfortunately I didn't read ahead on the TKGA website and brought the wrong yarn and needles. Plan to be prepared next time. Evidently, the scoop is that you should knit your Swatch #3 first, because if you can't get rid of the holes in your seed stitch and have to go down a needle size or two, you'd have to reknit your other swatches because all must be on the same yarn and needle size.