Jofrog is Knitfrog!
November 25 2003
Check Out My Body
After a bit of sock distraction I turned all of my attention to my Purple Ox and finished the body!
Ridiculously ambitious me decided that, not only did I want to do the
sleeves in the round, I wanted to try to figure out the "magic loop"
technique AND... I wanted to do both sleeves at once! Especially
because I'm not going from a pattern I thought that it would be the
easiest ay to produce two matching sleeves.
They don't look like much now, but I hope that by the time I'm blogging
again (next Monday after Thanksgiving) I'll have done the cuff pattern.
Enjoy your turkeys!
November 24 2003
Princess
I have started on the Beaded Ribbed socks
and I love them! I'm using Plymouth Sockotta yarn and the 45%
cotton content makes the yarn so soft. The beads are very subtle,
(and hard to photograph), but are transparent blue/green iridescent and
almost invisible against the yarn except for the wonderful sparkle they
give.
I paused to look at them while I was knitting and got an overwhelming
feeling that they were made for a princess, therefore they have been
renamed the Princess socks with possibly a pair of "Little Princess"
socks to follow for my 9 year old sister.
Beading is fun, I highly recommend it. Spruce up your Monday with some sparklies!
November 21 2003
Monty Monty
So, there is a lot of "Lets make a deal" that goes on in my home. Here are the scenarios:
Either:
I finish the first Opal sock, then I can start the beaded ribbed sock.
Or:
I finish the second Regia sock (which I've been totally lying about,
it's actually an Italian yarn "Lane Cervinia") and then I only have one
SIP and can start the beaded ribbed sock, AND start on the Opal yarn
that Sandy got me.
What do you think I did?
Look at how perfectly they match! I do love this self striping yarn, what fun what fun!
Tell her what she won...
This morning I strung the beads on for the ribbed socks and started the
begining of them. Pictures to come next week. Amber and I went to Crystal Blue Beading Company
in Watertown MA to get beads on Wednesday. I am horrible about
making decisions, so while Amber loaded her arms full of beads and wire
for a knitted project and then beads and thin thread for croched beaded
bracelets I went back and forth between colors of beads for my one
lonely little project. Finally I took them over to her and showed
her the choices, leaving the best for last which, of course, she
thought was the best also, thus naming these new socks the "Save the
Best for Last" (or SBL) socks. I'm hoping to have some good progress on
them this weekend which I will pass on to you, my devoted readers, on
Monday!
November 20 2003
Transportation
How is Santa going to get all of those presents to the children of the world? With a little help from this guy of course.
A goofy little reindeer to go along with a goofy Santa. I love
the way the right antler flops; I think this whole set has so much
character! It might be lost on the 18 month old recipient but his
mom is sure to love them and hopefully they will be around for many
Christmas celebrations.
All together now:
"Have a great day and don't slack on your holiday knitting!"
November 19 2003
Santa Clause is Coming to Town
Santa arrived here a month early! He stopped by last night to
check up on us, to see if we've been naughty or nice. Look at
what he found.
What a bad dog Naomi! Dogs are not allowed on the couch!
She was so pushy the other night that we couldn't resist, but now back
to the rules. So get off now, Santa's watching!
Santa is looking so tired. He's been working in his shop so hard
that he's delierious! Look at his goofy smile. It's a sure
sign of an overworked man.
He's the second in the Christmas Puppers set. More friends are on
the way, these work up so quickly and are so versitile, you can make
anything with them. Thank again Kerrie for the pattern!
November 17 2003
When Gauge Swatches Go Bad
I did a wonderful swatch for my Purple Ox sweater before I started...
calculated the number of stitches I would need to make it the right
size, not too tight, but still figure flattering... can you see where
this is going?
I had also decided, though I've never knit continental before, that I
wanted to knit this sweater continental, especially because it is in
the round. Quicker, smoother, great idea... Friday night I
decided that my stitches were too loose in some places above the
patterned section and I would rip back to there and start over being
more aware of my tension... I removed the needles, started to rip
back a bit and then tried it on... HUGE, not big, HUGE. Way way
too big. I checked my gauge and sure enough, I'm getting
5st/inch, not 6! A bit more ripping, a bit more calculating and
now I've started again. The current Purple Ox looks just like the
one from Friday. I'm almost at the same point again.
There wasn't much knitting this weekend because it was my birthday!
We had friends over for a wonderful dinner and evening on Saturday
night, and I got to see everyone at Knitsmiths yesterday. How
wonderful to have knitting group on my birthday! Yeah happy
day! I worked on my pink opal sock yesterday and hope to finish
the first one this week so that I can start on this...
I picked up this pattern and yarn for it this morning from Wild and
Wooly in Lexington MA. Click on the picture for the designer's
website and to order the pattern yourself. I'm going to buy the
beads on Wednesday (hopefully they will have what I want) and then I'll
start them soon too! Woo hoo, new and exciting socks. Check
out the designer at Heartstring Fiber Arts. There are many other cool designs that I'm thinking about doing in the future, especially the thong sock!
Happy Monday, happy knitting!
November 14 2003
Purple Ox
I've started on my newest project, a yolked sweater with purple and
white yarn I got from a yarn swap and a little pink for an accent in
the yolk. I'll be doing it from this pattern. Okay... so it's not really a pattern, but it's the best I've got.
I took the charted pictures from this book, (thanks again to Lisa for telling me of it.)
I swatched the larger motif and really like the way it came out.
...and I've started the body too! I'm about seven inches in and only have nine more to go until I join with the sleeves.
Maybe I'll be able to start on "Purple Ox"'s sleeves this weekend.... speaking of, have a great one!
November 13 2003
Calling all Boston area knitters
Check it out!
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/relationships/articles/2003/11/13/knitting_factories/
Perfectionist... me?
Since Amber called me out in the comments yesterday I feel that I must fill you in on my favorite and most frustrating sock experience.
I got my first ball of Opal sock yarn at a yarn swap a few monts ago
and was very excited about it. I started immediately on it with
my unmatched set of almost 3mm needles that I had used on my first pair
of socks and I was getting a beautiful <<< pattern... until it
broke!
Fast forward a few months and eight
more starts on US size 1,2, 2.5, and 3 needles with various stitch
numbers and you can see why some would call me a perfectionist!
I've finally settled with a satisfactory pattern and I WILL love these
socks.
I'm hoping to have better luck with Sandy's Opal yarn. One start per sock is the goal!
November 12 2003
I love my friends!
For those of you who know me well, you know that I LOVE self-patterning sock yarn... love it!
I've made big socks, little socks, and hats out of it. I've seen a baby sweater pattern with the Jaquard sock yarn that will be incredible for a perfect little baby.
I got to Knitsmiths Sunday and look at what I was given...
The wonderful, sweet, and generous Sandy
brought this ball of Opal yarn for me. Isn't she the best?
It's like and early birthday present, hopefully there will be more in
the future, especially after my Beaded Ribbed Sock Pattern gets to me. Thanks to Lisa for clueing me into this wonderful pattern.
Happy sock knitting to all.
November 11 2003
My Second Scarf
Here it is as promised, my second ever completed scarf, modeled by my new friend, Mr. Snowman.
He is the first in a set of Christmas finger puppets from Kerrie's design.
And here he is modeled by me!
Have a great day and don't forget to play!
(Here I am starting to rhyme like Kerstin, save me!)
November 10 2003
My First Scarf!
Here it is, in all of it's DNA, Watson and Crick base pair,
glory! After blocking it over the weekend it became the perfect
length. It falls just above the hip now. I'm definitely
glad that I didn't do the fifth pattern repeat on either end.
I also finished my second scarf this weekend! Stay tuned tomorrow for a picture!
November 6 2003
Got Buttons?
November 5 2003
Two Days... Two Repeats
I finished the ribbing section of the DNA scarf Sunday evening, and in
the last two nights I've done two full pattern repeats. Only two more
to go! I was reminded last night that I thought that this project was
going to take me forever and that I wouldn't finish it by the end of
the year, but here we are, begining of November and it might actually
be done by the end of the week at this pace! Who knew that cabling
could be so much fun.
Here's a more than half way done pic!
It's almost like the DNA is synthesizing itself!
November 3 2003
Welcome to the newly upgraded
"Jofrog is Knitfrog".
Jofrog has finally hit the bigtime.
I'm hoping to update this site more frequently than the old one,
but bare minimum you can count on monday updates reliably. A
large part of the reason I switched over was to have comments, so
comment away!
In knitting news...
The DNA scarf is coming along now. I chose to do only 4 pattern
repeats per half rather than five to make it a better length... I hope
that was a good idea! I just finished the neck ribbing yesterday
so now it's time to plow through the second half!
I'm startng to crave another large/intricate project. I have yarn
from the Knitsmiths swap that I want to use for a stranded/patterned
sweater. I started looking for a pattern Saturday at Wild and
Wooly in Lexington, MA (a wonderful store, well worth the trip), but I
didn't come up with what I wanted. I went home to my sketch pad
and drew up something I think will work well. Now I just need a
yolked pattern in sport weight yarn for the shaping and assembly... off
to my LYS tomorrow.
