Tax-Free Yarn Crawl

a.k.a. After Thanksgiving Trip to Portland

The day after Thanksgiving, Raj and I took the Prius out on its first big trip--down the I-5 to the Rose City. I'm happy to say we made it there and back plus around town driving on a wee 3/4 of a tank of gas (around 9 gallons). Woo hoo!

But back to the real reason I'm here tonight...

I took advantage of Oregon's status as a sales tax free zone to expand my stash a bit. We went to 3 or 4 different yarn shops, and they were each great in their own ways. I feel a bit deliquent for not paying attention to their names. One was near Pioneer Courthouse Square and two were out in the NW region somewhere. I guess we only went to 3. :)

My loot:

You might recognize this yarn from my previous post--this is the yarn I used for the fingerless mitts I made for Melisa & Tracie for Christmas. Pink and purple and sparkly--perfect for them!

I'm a sucker for self-striping yarn, what can I say.

I'm attracted to the gradual color change in this yarn. Not sure if I will use it for socks or a shawlette or something else.

The color in the pic is a bit off, the yarn is mostly darn and light gray with a slight red tint in some ares, i.e. relatively manly yarn, destined to become socks for Raj someday.

Some gorgeous Silk Garden Sock yarn.

Last, but not least, some worsted merino destined to become a hat for me!

Holiday Recap 1

Phew! Now that I've managed to come up for air after my frantic holiday crafting, let me catch you up on what I've been working on.

Melisa loved her belated birthday mitts. Apparently her knitting colleague was very impressed with the, as well, which is always nice to hear.

My first bit of holiday crafting was stockings for Raj and I. I made these out of felted sweaters and an old pair of red cords, and used a couple old Starbucks Aprons as the base. They helped add a bit of holiday cheer to our apartment. I had big plans to use the rest of the felted sweaters and cords for other holiday crafts, but decided to forego these other crafts in favor of things that needed to be gifted. But I saved all the stuff for next year!

I didn't craft very many gifts this year. Fewer than years past. I gave my mom my ketchup plant socks that I finished in November. I made Raj a vest (this gets its own post) and I made fingerless gloves for my sisters.

The pattern is Susie's Reading Mitts from Dancing Ewe Yarns in Ellensburg (note to self: visit this yarn store the next time you pass through Ellensburg). A fine, simple pattern--adaptable to yarns of variuos weights. The yarn was purchased during my tax-free yarn crawl in Portland the weekend after Thanksgiving. As soon as I saw it in the yarn shop, I knew it was meant to be mitts for my pink-and-purple loving sisters. The knitting was done largely while I was at work. Although I finished up the last one at about 11pm on Christmas Eve. Tracie saw me working on them and asked if I was making a Barbie dress. Hehe.

The pattern calls for aran weight yarn, but I used sock yarn. I wanted tighter fitting mitts than those called for, so I used the medium-sized numbers with my tight gauge to get the small mitts for Tracie, and the large pattern numbers for Melisa's medium sized mitts.

I made some holiday gift tags last week. I know the holiday's over, but perhaps you could use them next year. I had fun doodling them, coloring them in with colored pencils then scanning them into the computer. I'm using SkyDrive to share them, since I'm not too familiar with other hosting services. If anyone has recommendations of good (free) pdf hosting, I'd be most grateful!

In the next Holiday Recap, some little pjs, Raj's vest, and a glimpse at some of my loot. But first, a rundown of my Tax-Free Yarn Crawl.

Thankful

I have a lot to be thankful for this year. The pleasures of being back among family and friends.

My goofball cat who has adapted quite well to the move and now keeps the howling to a minimum.

My honey, who does the dishes and takes out the trash and rubs my feet when I get home for work and appreciates everything that I cook.

My phone, with its camera and the capacity to upload pictures to the internet.

(Fingerless gloves for Melisa, Collinette Jitterbug)

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Thank you, sleep deprivation

I burned my hand tonight while making dinner.

I made some supa-tasty roasted salmon with herbs for dinner. When it was time to flip the salmon fillets, I pulled the cast iron skillet out of the oven with an oven mit, flipped one piece, then before I flipped the second piece, I went to move the pan slightly and reached without thinking for the handle (which was just out of a 475 degree oven) with my bare hand. Yowza! There's a nice sized blister where my pointer meets my hand, and my entire thumb is red. It hurt a lot for a couple of hours, but with some lidocaine gel, it's feeling better now. I'm blaming my sleep deficit for this bonehead move.

Aside from the pain, I'm mostly concerned about how this is going to affect my knitting! I started the Hemlock Ring Blanket with the Cascade 220 superwash a couple days ago--and I love knitting it! Initially I started with US10 needles. The pattern calls for 10 1/2, but I didn't feel right about using a needle this big. But even the 10s were too big! The fabric was looking much too loose for my liking.

So I frogged after about the first 20 rows and went down to size 9s and I'm liking it much, much more.

This blanket is great because it combines lace knitting with worsted weight yarn--> it goes so fast! And the pattern is so beautiful, it's great to watch it come together. Doesn't the center look like a beautiful sunflower? I'll definitely be making more of these!

Knit Surgery

Remember those vests I made in August? This might jog your memory:

The red one for the 2-year-old needed to be lengthened and I thought I would talk a bit about how I did that. I did the bulk of the surgery two months ago late at night, so pardon the crappy late-night photos, thanks.

The vest pre-op:

I decided that I would add two cable repeats just above the ribbing at the bottum of the vest. To do that, the first step was to use my knitting needle to pick up stitches in the first row above the ribbing.

Next, I took some contrasting yarn on a tapestry needle and threaded it through the stitches two rows above where I'd picked up stitches with the needle.

Next, I snipped a stitch in the row between the yarn and the needle and unraveled the stitches all around in this row (what a pain!) so that I had two separate pieces.

Once I had knit two pattern repeats onto the ribbing section, I used kitchener stitch to graft the new section with the stitches that had previously been on the white tread--by far the most time consuming part of the whole bit.

Surgery complete!

I see a bit of bulging, perhaps my knitting was looser on the addition, and despite my best effort, the grafting was a bit wonky in places. But I'm still pleased with the end result. A few washes and I'm hoping the addition won't be noticable at all.

The red vest made it back to its destinee a few weeks ago, but last I heard, his mom couldn't get him to hold still long enough to try it on. I trust that the 2 inches that I added will be sufficient to get him through at least a couple of season's worth of wear.

Reveal!

My TTL Mystery Socks, which I have dubbed Ketchup Plant Socks.

Because they are just the color of ketchup! (And yes, I know the ketchup plant is really the tomato, but whatever.) The yarn is ShiBuiKnits merino sock yarn, which I have used a couple of other times. I like the softness of it and the vibrant color. It's superwash, but I'm not sure how well it actually holds up because I've never kept a pair of socks made from this yarn.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to keep this pair--my sock collection does need some serious revamping. These were fun to knit, and I'm very happy with the way they turned out. I knit them almost entirely while at work--only the toes were done at home.

The only thing that's holding me back from keeping them is the pattern. I think I'm more likely to wear plain ol' handknit socks than socks with a fancy pattern like this. Which brings me to my newest knit-at-work project! Some simple socks made from pretty self-striping Opal I bought last week at Weaving Works. Those machine printed stripes are oddly entrancing. I should be done with these socks in no time.

Fall colors

It's full-on fall here. I think I saw the sun once or twice last week, but we've entered the gray zone--those 8 or so months where it's overcast nearly every day.

Not that it matters for me. With the onset of Standard Time two weeks ago, by the time I wake up, the sun is already on it's way down. Despite the gray skies and early dark, I have had a few lucky moments to take in the fall colors. I thought I would miss the changing of the leaves once I moved back to the Evergreen State, but over here on the East Side of Lake Washington, where rapid sprawl (and its bff clear cutting) has led to the planting of many deciduous trees, I've gotten a few eyefulls of beautifully colored leaves. :)

And in time for the cooler weather, I've got a progress shot of the Buncha Squares Blanket!

(I swear the pink doesn't look so pukey in real life!)

I've made even more progress since that pic was taken and now have only 6.5 more blocks to put the single-color borders on. Not a small task, considering the solid-color border doubles the weight of the block, but I've started to see the light at the end of the tunnel on this garter stitch slugfest. One thing about this blanket, it has certainly reinforced my love for Cascade 220. To prevent any 220 withdrawal once I finish this blanket, I ordered some Cascade 220 superwash in a lovely stone color to make this blanket for a pregnant friend.

In non-knitting news, let me just say that I LOVE THE KING COUNTY LIBRARY. Since moving to Bellevue, I've joined this library, the 2nd largest library system in the country, and I must say I have been impressed by their music collection. In two weeks, I've checked out 14 CDs that have been on my Listen-To list for quite some time. Yea! I also check out a book, thought I haven't been motivated to read much of it yet. I think I need to start utilizing their audiobook services. We all know it's a challenge to read and knit.

Stay tuned, next on the blog, my TTL Mystery Socks--revealed! And a belated birthday gift for my sister.