i hate it i hate it i hate it!

i just needed to vent some spleen regarding casting on. i can't stand it. not so much the casting on itself, but the dividing onto needles and joining in the round followed by a row of trying to knit or purl into annoyingly tight cast-on stitches (which seem to stay annoyingly tight no matter how loose i cast on). it sucks, and sometimes i just don't have the mental energy to start a project knowing i have that hurdle to jump first.

^^end rant^^

furtastic! (A.D.D. project#2)

i have to admit, i couldn't figure out what the big draw was supposed to be for using novelty yarns. and i'm a yarn snob--no nasty acrylic or polyster for me! and yet when i saw this yarn in the clearance bin at michael's i just couldn't resist. i knit this in a few hours, and i love it! it's so silly, i feel like a little kid playing with my feather boa or something.

intimidation

the whole reason i started knitting (other than to have something to do to while away those boring afternoon hours) was because art wanted me to make him a dale of norway sweater. well, yesterday i got my very first dale of norway pattern and all i can say is YIKES. after ilya's super-easy repeating pattern sweater, art's pattern looks like braille. it's knit with tiny yarn on tiny needles with very little repeats...i'm excited to start but also more than a little intimidated.

i was going to go with either heilo or falk yarn like the pattern suggests, but on second thought i decided to go with a less expensive version: knitpicks telemark. i'm sure die-hard dale fanatics would cringe at the blasphemy of using a non-dale yarn, but i figure at least if i mess up royally i won't be kicking myself for destroying 100 bucks worth of yarn.

ilya's sweater, ctd.

today i finished the body of ilya's norwegian sweater. still have to knit the sleeves and collar, obviously, but i'm pretty proud of this. it's my first sweater, and my first attempt at fair isle knitting, and i don't think it looks half bad. i might have pulled my floats a weensy bit too tight, but oh well.



i also used the kitchener stitch on the shoulders so i could avoid the bulky seams the pattern suggests. i have a love/hate relationship with this stitch already: it works great, looks great, but it's such a pain in the butt! or, should i say, it isn't difficult to accomplish IF you can keep from getting distracted and losing your place. which i find difficult with two little boys running yelling from room to room and asking me questions over and over.

now i have to decide whether to start the sleeves, or take a break and knit something quick and fun. not that this isn't fun. nevermind.

no knitting today, but...

i wanted a way to store my needles, as the jumbled pile in my sewing cabinet was getting out of hand. not wanting to spend a fortune (or any money at all, frankly) i decided to make a roll-up case out of leftover fabric i had. some blue corderoy, green velveteen, and yellow dupioni silk made a pretty garish case, so i decided to take it one step further in the direction of ridiculousness and added the embroidered admonition to get my knit on. pretty goofy, but then, i am not a serious person.

knitting with A.D.D. (aka: instant gratification)

so, after what has seemed like weeks of knitting my first sweater, i reached an impasse: i reached the neck and had no clue what to do next. after sending off a plea for help to the nice ladies at norgeknit, i decided to spend the time waiting for a response with some A.D.D. knitting. i needed something simple, something with only one strand of yarn, and something that would be done and finished by the end of the weekend. i consulted my ridiculously long list of pending projects, and selected these:




i love these! first of all, i've always had a thing for fingerless gloves, impractical as they may be. second of all--they lace up! how cool is that? i got the pattern from leigh radford's Alterknits book. i used a little less than two balls of mission falls merino superwash in lilac. these were so fun!

now, back to the sweater...

get knitty with it

alright, so as to not bore my less than crafty readers, i've decided to separate my regular blog from my catalogue of crafts. henceforth this shall be the site of all knitting, crocheting, painting, and sewing diatribes/discussion/desperate pleas for help.