WIP'ing Friday!

There's a long weekend coming up, and it's time to make a serious dent in some languishing WIPs!
My weekend will be split between epic all-day gaming sessions playing Ni No Kuni with Mr. Penguin and the cosy cat (well, he'll play, I'll knit, she'll lounge, it's the perfect trifecta of cosiness) and visiting family.
I expect to make some serious knitting progres.

Apart from taking hexipuffs on public transport with me, I also hope to get to the arm shaping on my Geodesic cardigan. I'd love to have it finished before next weekend, but we'll see how that goes.

I've also finally made it to the heels of my languishing Flaming Monkey socks (Monkey socks out of Another Crafty Girl's Strong Sock in Chimchar). I don't know why I neglected these. I love the yarn and I love the pattern. I blame lack of sock weather.

And then there's the Bayret. A twisted-stitch ebret out of Wollmeise in Himbeere. Every time I knit in Wollmeise, I want to drop everything else I'm working on and just knit that.
I love everything about Wollmeise yarn (as I've mentioned before), and I'm hoping this hat will be epic.

And I reeeeeaaaally want to cast on Pelotonner out of Tails DK in Poison Apple, but I'm holding off so I can  potentially count it for Nerd Wars.

My travel project-to-be, Pogona out of Wispy in Whedonistas is waiting for April for the same reason.

What's on your needles this week?

Product vs process knitting

I knit because I like it. I enjoy the simple, repetitive nature of making stitch after stitch, and I adore how with a little attention to detail, I can end up with a pleasing and interesting fabric.
The magic of lace, sculptural cables, texture, the relief of twisted stitches.

I also really love wearing my handmade goodies. My favourite hats are a combination of colour love, perfect fit, sensual yarn, and pleasing fabric. I have gloves and socks I adore, and most of my shawls see regular wear when it's cold enough.

But right now? Everything on the needles is not what I want to have, and what I want to knit is not an end product I want right now.

Aaah, knitter's choices. Does this ever happen to you?

Snow little knitting time

I've just come back from a week at the snow, which was awesome!
Unfortunately for my many, many WIPs and this little event called the Ravellenic Games, not a lot of actual knitting went on while we were making our way through blizzards and fresh powder snow.
Aaaah, the hardships.

But I did get some knitting in on the bus. in fact, I made two washcloths that I love very much. They're knit out of vintage stash, and so far, they're holding up great.

I didn't knit further on either the mitts or the mystery KAL shawl, because my brain wasn't up for it.
I did make quite a bit of progress on the Skew socks though.

Now that I'm back, it's time to seriously get into the dye pots for Sock The Vote. Are you ready to knit along, too?

Ravellencis! Go!

I hear there's some kind of athletics event happening over in Ye Olde England right about now. The term XXX got bantered about.
I have no idea.
But there's this event going on called the Ravellenic Games, where you knit and crochet and dye and weave for fun and glory and the simple joy of pretending you're competing.
Of course I'm knitting along!
I like pretend-competitive knitting. After all, I do Nerd Wars.
For my Ravellenic project, I'm double-dipping into my Camp Loopy project 3 and making opera-length fingerless mitts in two colours of the fabulous madelinetosh light, a fuzzy, soft, single-ply yarn so bright and cheery, the winter blues will never get to you.

I'm also making some socks out of the yarn I won last Nerd Wars tournament.
And some washcloths, because I love the one I have, and now I need more. It's also a great way to use up that cotton/acrylic I've had in my stash since last year.

Are you Ravellenicking?

Angostura - or: You can't win them all.

Sometimes, knitting goes your way. And sometimes, it doesn't.
I was knitting Angostura, a veautiful vest pattern by Ysolda Teague, for the Loopy Quarterly challenge. The challenge was to use a yarn containing cotton, and this was my chance to try Spud & Chloe sweater.
It's a lovely yarn, very soft, and nice to work with. it's wool and cotton, a good combo.
I adore the blue, too. I think of this as my maternal family blue. Both my mum and my grandma love this blue.

I love the twisted stitch detail on the vest. My gauge was off, but I thought I'd mathed it out. Thought.
What I hadn't accounted for was just how heavy the yarn knit up to be. Sure, on some level I knew that buying 5 100g skeins would knit up into something weighing half a kilo. But somehow it seems like a lot more when it's hanging from two shoulder straps.

I did swatch, for the record. And I tossed and stretched and stomped my swatch around. Things should have worked out.
But they didn't. The vest is too big.
Even though I went down a needle size and two sizes in pattern, it's still about 1-2 sizes too big on me. A very unflattering look overall.
And I'm not quite sure whether it's just the size of the vest, or the vest itself that's unflattering.
As a general rule, I don't wear vests very often. I'm short and stocky, and vests don't do great things to me.

I think I'll rip this one out and reknit it at a later stage. Next time, I'd knit it top-down and seamless to help with the fitting.
A shame. Those were great seams, too.

Knitting while Japan

 Happy leap Day, everyone!
I've finally gotten my act together after travelling to Japan.
I had grandiose ideas of how much knitting time I would have.
You know. A one-hour flight, one hour layover, then a mammoth 10-hour overnight flight, followed by two 1 1/2 hour train rides just to get to Nagano... I was feeling ambitious.
I packed my lovely fuzzy yarns I intended to use for my Deep In The Forest mittens, and a set of bamboo circular needles, just in case flying with knitting needles was on the no-no list again.
Turns out I can't count to 70 though, so I got to do the cast-on again.
And that was pretty much all I got done, since I managed to sleep for a surprisingly large amount of the flight, and once on the train, i was too busy taking photos of everything.

in the end, I got one mitten done. in fact, i closed the thumb while everyone around me was hustling for our waiting taxi.
I had to run, but hey, I can't just stop in the middle of kitchenering!

That wasn't the only project I had with me though. I didn't know how tiring/complicated doing a colorwork mitten would be (turns out, quite), so I had an easier project, too. A mainly-garter shawl called Clockwork, by Stephen West.
great pattern, but onca again, I failed at directions, and a bus trip's worth of progress was ripped back because I forgot to do increases when I should have.

I took some little birdies with me to take action shots in the snow. I also had ideas of taking more pics of my knitting and me knitting in the snow. Didn't quite happen. I only have this one shot.
there sure was a lot of snow...

Of course, once we got to Tokyo, I was on a mission to buy yarn. not just any yarn. i wanted Noro, and I wanted it in the colorway 95 that I'd seen in a knitting book a while ago and was in love with.
After I finally got the chance to duck into Yuzawaya, I found my Noro, and two little Melody skeins.
Success!

What have I learned form this first big trip with knitting?
It's good to pack enough knitting, but don't be too ambitious.
Chart reading and following directions may be harder than it looks.
Always take a garter or plain stockinette project for long bus/train rides where you still want to see what's going on.
Have a yarn plan to make sure you get some crafty shopping done while travelling with non-crafty people.

And finally, Japan = awesome. But we knew that already.

Points of Feeling Clever

Knitting on double-pointed needles makes me feel smart. It's a bit like juggling with toothpicks, but it's worth it.
Usually, when knitting in the round, I knit on one circular needle and magic loop* it.
When knitting hexipuffs, I use two shorter circulars because it goes a little bit quicker for me, and the cable of the needles I use (inherited from my maternal grandma, with love) are a bit stiff.

But for very small circular projects, like, say, the fingers of gloves, i find DPNs to be the best option.
I have a set of 5 bamboo DPNs in size 0 (2.00 mm) and they are slightly bent to my hands, making the knitting fly round and round and round.
Love.

*Fun fact, I was magic looping before I'd ever heard the term, and I felt incredibly clever for coming up with it. Then I started to read about knitting online and saw that I had just un-vented a thing that existed in book form. Go figure.

Snowboard Babe Purple B'day Hat

 A spin-off of the Baristafarian hat, this purple fuzz concoction is squishy, warm, floppy, and the perfect birthday present for my snowboarding girlfriend. She loved it, and oohed and aaahed appreciatively.
Good knitting gift receiver. Will get more.

This was a fun, fast knit on the bus, and the results couldn't have been better.
I should have taken more photos though. It has a massive pompom that I somehow forgot to photograph!