I love Dolly Parton

As Dolly Parton once put it, "I'm busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kickin' contest."  Does anyone remember what movie it was when she uttered that line?  Anyone???

Also, does anyone else remember how Sesame Street had a character named Polly Darton?  Coincidence...I think not!

Anyhoo...take a gander at this:

I was fortunate to see some real live yarn bombing in Carrboro a couple weekends ago.  I didn't even catch all the tags, but you can see more pictures at the Great Yarns/Yarns Etc website (http://www.yarnsetc.com/). 

The yarn bombing will remain up for another couple of weeks...it has been so awesome to see it, and to hear everyone's glee, knitter or not, at beholding it.  My phone rang a few times with friends of mine calling to exclaim about it.  And these are non-knitters.  Isn't that cool?

Another bit of excitement was last week as well.

On in North Carolina can you have cold rain, sleet, and snow one night, and then warm into the 70s by the weekend.  But it sure made my son very happy to play in this, and it made me feel very happy that his mittens finally were not just "for show".  He wears them eeeeeeeverywhere.  Seriously.  

Another gem is also available at your friendly neighborhood yarn store:

Jane, ninja knitting goddess in residence at Yarns Etc, creates these beautiful bags, complete with gorgeous lining, warm wooden handles, and each are capable of inviting the envy of all your friends.  I can't tell which one I like best, and I have been giving them some serious attention. 

Bright colors are shining on needles...spring is coming our way!

And some lovely, bright, cheerful yarns made an entrance at Yarns Etc.

Oh, I'll just help you...um...sort through all that.



I'd like one of each, please.



Rowan, why must you taunt me, looking so glamorous on the shelf? We are destined to be together, oh yes....





Does anyone else feel like some Skittles right 'bout now?

And, last but not least, I have this to show you, too:

Viva La Sock!!!  All hail the mighty sock!!!

....

....pause....

....

Now I'm gonna knit the other one!

Right after the weather does another 180, my daughter's double ear infection (the sequel) dissipates, and my laundry either stops multiplying or becomes sentient enough to get a job and start contributing around here.  Ew, that's a weird thought.

Anyway, totally feeling like a one-legged man in a butt-kickin' contest.  Thank you, Ms. Parton.  You do turn a phrase quite well.  See you next week!





Blue Slip

 

When I was younger, I would forget things quite a lot.  Important stuff in the kid world, actually.  Library books, homework for fourth grade (I did that one a lot), the dreaded "blue slips" that the missed homework required me to take home.  I forgot stuff all over the place.  It didn't take much to make the old vinyl record in my head skip a track.  I would spend a fair bit of the time overcompensating by coming up with excuses.  Sometimes they were pretty lame ("I dunno where I left it") and sometimes they were a bit outlandish ("It's not my fault!  This huge wind came out of nowhere and my backpack was unzipped, and..."). 

"What does this have to do with knitting?" you ask.

Well.  Which would you rather hear? 

A) Lame:  I kept thinking I had more time this week for knitting than I really did, so I putzed around a lot with boring stuff like laundry and trying to "defrag" my computer so it wouldn't run out of disk space and therefore I didn't get to the toe of the Relevé Socks.

or

B) Outlandish:  I meant to do the socks all the way.  By golly, I was going to knit both of them and then I'd have TWO done and wouldn't that be great?  Except I still haven't finished knitting my son's preschool teachers' Christmas arm warmers and I'm dying a slow death from diffuse guilt over it so I finally cracked open that project and knit on it, even though I am so. over. them.  The arm warmers.  Not the teachers.  Don't be crazy, teachers are the future, guys.  So then I was behind on many things, not just the socks, and I decided that the best thing to do would be to watch a bit of TV, and maybe clean out the walk-in closet in my bedroom....and...um....sit down and have peace talks with the clothes moths.  They would learn to like tofu instead of wool and silk and stuff, and they could have my tofu and I'll take their woolly snacks.  But then the peace talks broke down and we busted out our laser guns and I just barely escaped with my life.  But hey, the walk-in closet is looking pretty dang spectacular.



Why do you taunt me, moth? 



Ugh. 

I confess, you got me.  Hand me my blue slip.  I'm in trouble.

I did not knit on the socks, and I cannot, for the life of me, come up with a reason other than the fact that my mental vinyl record skipped.  I really really really like them.  The color, the yarn (give me a rebel yell if y'all love some Shibui), the pattern is phenomenal, pretty, beautifully done.  The instep is going swimmingly.  It's just on pause.  I haven't hardly knit on anything else, either.  Knitter fail.  Give me a second blue slip, will ya?

So, bearing that in mind, I will now show you some pictures of something I have finished, blocked, and photographed.  So you can't yank my knitter's card, ok?  Ok???



Here is my Pi Shawl, knit in Kauni Effektgarn in (surprise, surprise) Rainbow colorway.  It sure does stand out on a gray, rainy day.

I feel like I just got done knitting a Starburst candy.  It's fun, colorful (to put it mildly) and was a nice, easy, meditative knit. 

Sometimes things like this happen.  Sometimes I do not get a chance to knit, and my mind ends up pining for it, turning around in circles like a dog chasing its tail.  Fortunately, knitting never decomposes, never drops its stitches and tinks itself (unless my daughter gets ahold of it).  It will wait for me, patiently, until I can get back to it, pick it up, and do what I love best.  It will not be resentful if I forget, willfully or accidentally.  I love that about this craft, and all things yarny. 

The Game Is Afoot!

I swear the weather yesterday made me feel like I'd been transported to London...cold and dreary. If some fog had rolled in, I would have donned some tweed, pulled out a pipe, and released the hounds.  Today looks much nicer out.

I'm boogying along, however, having done the heel flap and picking up the stitches along it for the gusset.  The heel flap is a nice one, with slipped stitches providing some extra sturdy protection.  It's so nice to have something soft and green to remind me that spring is coming soon.  Especially in North Carolina!  

One problem I used to run into when picking up stitches along a heel flap was that those particular stitches seemed extra stretchy and would lead to a "laddered" look around the heel flap.  Not exactly what I was looking for.  I now knit into the back of the heel flap stitches, which twists them and closes the spaces that gap between them.  If you're running into that problem, give this solution a try.

Turning the heel shows off a particularly nice "V" heel. 

In other news, I am slowly but steadily working on another project.  I have been hankering for a cabled sweater, so here is my progress so far on scratching that particular knitterly itch:

This is Gwendolyn, designed by Fiona Ellis.  I'm enjoying getting a crash course in allll kinds of cabling action.  I've almost completed the back, and I'm in love with it.  I'm also getting a fierce craving for pretzels every time I pull it out to work on it....can't figure out why.  Mmmm, pretzels. 

Where are the pretzels?  I put them around here somewhere....



Knit-Along Part One

How's it going out there, peeps?  Are you having fun on the Relevé socks?  I admit, when I first saw the socks, I thought 'oh boy, this is going to be so hard and I'm going to fail just trying to knit after the cuff ribbing is over.'  I've never knit anything other than straight vanilla socks.  I have been known to get Jiggy Wit It and do 1x1 ribbing all the way down the sock.  Just once, though, with size 1 needles, and I'm never doing it again!  So when I saw cables and lace, I thought I was toast, and I have been so very pleasantly surprised.  This pattern is a delight to knit. 

The Shibui sock yarn I am using, aptly named "wasabi" is also a delight to knit.  I'm having quite a lot of fun here, folks.  After years of only knitting one kind of socks one way, this is a breath of fresh air.  The color and pattern (and this gorgeous weather) are making me feel like spring is right around the corner. 



Wasabi.  Wasssaaaaaabi. 

Here is one helpful tip I'm going to throw out there (just in case you didn't know this...or maybe you do something different, or better, who knows?).  When casting on for a sock, you almost can't cast on too loosely, however, it's lousy when you cast on too tightly.  Lousy like a tight rubber band around your calf, am I right?  Not that I...um...ever did that...before.  What can a knitter do to combat this serious issue?  One tool I use is to cast on holding two double-pointed needles together, like so:





This insures that the stitches are nice and loose for the top of my sock, but not so loose that it will fall down my leg when I wear them.  Once I've cast on enough stitches, I remove the extra needle and reposition the stitches around three DPNs (some people like to use four, I just use three so I can pretend I have a "spare" DPN if and when I lose one). 

 I just want to say, to any people out there who are skittish about using DPNs, please don't freak out.  Seriously.  It may look like knitting trigonometry to you, and it did look like that to me before I tried it, but really this is super old school knitting.  This is what was used before circular needles were invented.  You may have more needles, and they may have two pointy ends rather than one, but you only use TWO at a time, not all of them at a time.  Just like regular knitting.  It's in the wording, I think.  You hear "double pointed needles" and think it sounds much harder than it is.  I felt the same way.  In fact, I was so worried about the concept of intarsia...because it sounds like a communicable disease (!), that when I finally sat down with Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book and a blanket I was working on, I was stunned at how easy it actually was.  It's all in how you perceive it....let go of your fear, young Skywalker, and you too can use the force....

In the meantime, here I am, cruising to the heel. 

And I tried to stretch it out over my hand to fully show off its gorgeousness:





What colors are you using?  What yarns?  Heck, what are you knitting on right now? 

Drumroll, please....

Welcome to the first ever Great Yarns/Yarns Etc SOCK Knit-along! 

It took lots of Ravelry window-shopping, blog comment reading, and an exciting seven coin tosses (like the World Series, to be fair) and, my friends, we not only know what article of clothing we are knitting, we also know what pattern we are knitting, and we are in for a real treat!

May I present to you the Releve Sock  from our local designer KT!



This is a top down sock, with cables and lace (never fear, we're all in this together), in a fingering weight yarn.  The yardage required (depending on foot size) is 375-425 yards (343-389 meters). 

KT is a local designer, and has had patterns published not only on Ravelry, but in KnitCircus, Interweave Knits, and 101 Luxury One Skein Wonders, among others.  Her blog is here.  She very kindly offered a pattern of hers up for our knit-along.  I feel so fortunate!  Thank you, KT!

In order to get the pattern, you will need to go to this link, and when you check out, use YARNSETC as the code in order to get the pattern for free.  I had a little trouble with the code this morning, so email me (ellarine23ATyahooDOTcom--replace the AT and the DOT with the @ and the .) if you also are noticing trouble.  I have shot off an email to KT to double-check whether or not I just maybe did it wrong.  We'll get it hammered out, no worries.   

So...I'm gonna go sock yarn shopping this morning.  It's all for educational purposes, right? 

Oh yes, that's very nice.  What else have you got?





Oooooh, me likey.  Got anything else?



Oh Mary, you speak-a my language.

In other news, I have a slightly embarassing story to tell you.  Yesterday I was super-klutzy, and ended the evening (after stepping on a few children's toys and saying bad words in many languages) falling down the stairs!  Not all of them, really only about 4 or 5, but I feel strongly that they were perhaps the pointiest and most brutal of all the staircase (wah).  As I lay there, stunned, at the bottom of the stairs, I realized I had hit my hands and wrists all over the place while I'd tested out gravity.  Since I have a slight dash of hypochondria, I immediately had a teensy freak out that perhaps I had hurt my hands and...(gulp)...might not be able to knit!!

I immediately set to doing in-air, invisible knitting gestures to see if anything hurt.  I am pleased to say that I've been cleared for playing with yarn, still.  However, my husband and children think I should be benched for obsessive knit/yarn-intoxication.  Game on!

PS:  Forgot to add!!  I took the liberty of setting up a discussion thread on Ravelry for the knit-along.  If you need help for a part of the pattern, or you want to share about how much you love it, or just want to chat, we're there.  Just look for the Yarns Etc/Great Yarns board, and the thread should be at the top.  See you soon!  

The Results Are In!

I was so pleased to see several comments from knitters after last week's blog post.  It looks like we're going to do a knit-along, folks!  I'm very excited, as it's my first knit-along.  Details are still coming together, and in a day or two I will present the pattern we will be knitting, along with some yarn options.  Seems like we're all split down the middle on the whole sock/shawl debate, but no one is threatening to unleash the clothes moths on us if we pick one and not the other (knock on wood).  Yet another reason why I love knitters, we're all pretty happy and laid back, so long as you don't take our yarn away!  I shall determine what we will do by scientific method.  Are you familiar with the Flip-a-Coin Research Institute?  Just kidding (sort of). 

In other news, have you been by your lovely local yarn store lately?  If not, you have got to see this:



Yarns Etc did a little shuffling of their chi recently, busted out the feng shui manual and aligned their chakras in a most pleasing manner.  Seriously, have you seen how gorgeously the yarns are displayed there now?  For instance:

I had to mosey through and appreciate all the yarns in their new cubbies...heck, I appreciate the yarns every time I go, new cubbies or not!  In one such cubby, there was a new kid on the block: 



Some people think I'm an enabler...I just laugh and laugh....

This is Malabrigo Arroyo, which is a sport weight, superwash merino from Uruguay and it is hand-dyed in batches of only five (FIVE!) skeins...which would make a beautiful project, as colorful and unique as a stained glass window.  

I also have finished another project here on the home front. 

This is the Landscape Shawl from Evelyn Clark.  I've had pictures of it up on the blog before, and while right here it isn't looking its best, try as I might to make the camera do it justice (it looks like oatmeal hurl here), it does look very nice in person.  Each band of the shawl is done in a different stitch.  Garter, seed stitch, stockinette, moss, etc.  It also has a lovely picot edging along the sides of the shawl.  I sized it down a little bit, since my mother-in-law, who requested it, did not want it to be overly large. 

I still am chugging away on my Pi Shawl as well.  It is much, much more colorful, thanks to the rainbow Kauni Effektgarn I'm using.  You may need sunglasses for this next picture:

I'm very close to knitting on a border, and then I will be faced with a quandary.  What am I going to do with this shawl?  Not exactly working as a blanket, too scratchy for my baby daughter (sorry, Kauni, but you know it's true), not sure if a circle shawl is my thing...I was drawn in by the slowly changing colors that make Kauni so cool though.   I'm a simple creature...some days I'd call my friend and say, "I was on yellow-green earlier today and now I'm almost to purple!"  It's the little things in life, I guess. 

So, to finish up, please feel free to add your two (or ten) cents in about the upcoming knit-along!!  I'd love it if we could get a bunch of us together working on something, helping each other along!  Keep coming back, too, since the pattern and yarn will be up in the next day or two!  See you soon!

A Choice And A Challenge

Is there anyone out there interested in shaking things up?

With the coming of the new year, my mind is trying to rev in about four (or so) different directions at once, knitting wise.  Of course, none of this pertains to any of the knitting projects I currently have on needles.  So what if I tell you what I'm thinking about, and you guys see if you want to play along with me?

Idea #1:  A knit-along.  For something that a lot of us maybe have not done before.  Perhaps a sock?  Are you guys all veteran sock knitters out there?  Maybe a cool patterned sock?  Something like this, or this, or some basic socks for first timers? Maybe we could be optimistic and go for a whole dang pair of socks?  If not socks, maybe something else like....a lace shawl?  This would certainly be challenging for me.  Have I told you all about my (multiple) attempts to knit the Swallowtail Lace Shawl by Evelyn Clark, only to go down in flames each time?  Am I nutters to think about getting back up on the horse again?  Maybe the Vlad Shawl?  Or Multnomeh, which seems slightly less intimidating, yet still beautiful?  Anyone??  Anyone??  

Idea #2:  This one is like "Fight Club" except, you know, with no fighting.  A secret, underground,
über-cool collection of knitters and crocheters, putting together scraps of knitting for the sole purpose of tagging/yarn bombing various stationary items around Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Carrboro. 

Bonus points to be awarded for originality, amount, and style.  Pictures are strongly encouraged.  Send them to me at the blog, and we'll revel in the fact that we are slowly making the area a bit more cushy and snuggly.  And colorful.  We could even make a contest of who can tag the most stuff in a day?  I could come up with a prize of some sort....Any thoughts?

In the meantime, life has ground to a bit of a halt here.  My son has been sick with a particularly nasty virus, and has been feverish and pretty much miserable since Wednesday.  Knitting time has been hard to come by lately, and can't wait for the usual grind to return so I can knit a bit more.  I've been knitting a little bit on a Pi Shawl, having some fun with rainbow colored Kauni Effektgarn.  I'd take a picture, but right now it's so bunched up on my circular needle that it looks like I took a rainbow and threw it in the blender.  Once it's off the needles, I will happily take lots of pictures, but right now it's just not the prettiest thing you ever did see. 

Please leave a comment and let me know how you want to shake things up!