Crafts

(Rant alert.)

So, I finally found a few minutes to call Alitalia to check whether I could bring my knitting with me on my flight to Italy next month. One guess what the answer is…

NO!

Can somebody tell me how 5-inch bamboo sticks on either end of a plastic cord can possibly be any more dangerous than a pencil? Please? Because I don’t get it.

18 hours of flight time, and probably at least 4-6 hours of waiting-in-the-airport time WITH NO KNITTING. This might very well kill me.

Yes, I know I could read a book, or do crossword puzzles, or watch the in-flight movies. But I want to knit. Maybe I’ll just bring a couple of pencils and a ball of yarn to knit a scarf…when you read about the crazy lady who held up an international flight because she was knitting with pencils, that’ll be me.

(Has anyone managed to bring knitting – bamboo or plastic needles, of course – on Alitalia? Are they just saying no to knitting needles because of those horrid 14-inch metal straight ones?)

Seven rows back?!?

I ended up ripping out 7 rows of two-color knitting this evening (two of those rows were actually THREE colors!) because I had somehow switched which color I was carrying on top… Well, OK, I know how. I worked on it yesterday morning before I’d had any coffee. Bad, bad idea. I realized yesterday evening after I’d done a couple more rows that the ones I had just done (the right way) looked different from the ones I had done earlier (the wrong way). I couldn’t decide if it was worth ripping, so I slept on it. (No, not the sweater, the decision!) And I had nightmares about the motifs sinking and floating randomly all over the sweater. No, not really, but I did decide that it wouldn’t kill me to rip it out and do it right. I did manage to rip out all those rows without losing a stitch, and I put three of them back in.

I’m sure I’m going to be really good at knitting this sweater by the time I’m done with it!

(Although I do have to apologize to all the Sit & Knitters, who I pretty much ignored while trying to put all 215 stitches back on the needles!)

I didn’t do much knitting this weekend…actually, I didn’t do much of anything! But I did make a pair of blue fuzzy mittens for Lisa. They were super-quick, and used up some unlabeled stash leftovers. I was going to follow the super mitten pattern in Weekend Knitting, but decided I was too lazy to bother swatching. Instead, I made up a pattern that involved knitting them from the top down, like doing socks from the toe-up. No swatching necessary!

(Of course, I was trying them on every few rows to check the fit, and with all those DPNs sticking out in every direction, I started thinking of them as Ninja Mittens of Doom!)

I made my first two-ply yarn on my spinning wheel! See?

I need more practice plying – it’s over-twisted in some spots and under-twisted in others (of course, so are my singles) – but all wrapped up in a skein like that, it looks like real yarn! I actually plied it last night. I probably should have washed and blocked it, too, but it just looks so darn cute wrapped in a skein!

Gosh, do you think I could have it bronzed? (I’m kidding!!!!)

I should have realized that when this book gets delivered, not much knitting will happen that night! The only way to describe this book is yummy. Seriously, I want to spend Saturday wrapped up in a blanket, with a cup of cocoa and this book!

I spent most of last evening flipping through the pages, thinking about warm mittens I could be making, or little sweater egg-cozies for my soft-boiled eggs…wait, when’s the last time I ate soft-boiled eggs?!? The interesting thing was, I didn’t think about going to buy yarn to make something out of the book, but I was thinking about what yarn in my stash would work for some of the projects. Hmmm. Have I matured enough in my knitting that stash acquisition isn’t the most important thing? Probably not, I’m sure it’s just a fluke!

OK, that was a much longer tangent then I’d planned. This entire post is supposed to be about….my new project, the Green Mountain Gardens Cardigan! Click the link or the picture to go to the project page, where there are a bunch more pictures, taken with the new camera (which I have – I think – made peace with.)

As for everything else, the dust bunnies haven’t taken over yet, but they’re not gone either! And I’m trying to be good about limiting my GameCube playing. I don’t have enough time to do everything I want/need to do as it is without wasting time playing silly video games. (Says she who spent two hours last night and two more tonight playing silly video games!)

(It’s like anti-matter for knitting projects. When there is anti-knitting karma present in the house, you just shouldn’t knit. Especially before coffee.)

I know I promised pictures and details of the latest project, but you’re just going to have to wait another day. I made a really stupid mistake reading the color charts yesterday morning before I had my coffee – one that required ripping out 10 rounds of two-color knitting and picking 215 stitches back up when I discovered it last night. That was fun. Really. Add to that getting sidetracked by a really addictive game (Animal Crossing) on the GameCube I got Denis for his birthday, and you get a very anti-productive knitting night.

I’m three rounds away from being back to where I was before I had to rip out, and then I might be persuaded to take a picture or two…unless I start playing video games again…

Will Sarah accomplish any knitting tonight? Will another tragic mistake doom this project before it starts? Will the GameCube put an end to all future knitting projects? Will the dust bunnies finally win the battle to take over the house? Tune in tomorrow to find out the answers!

Due to some interest, and the fact that I’d rather knit than try to market it, I decided to just go ahead and post the pattern for the Teeny-Tiny Felted Totes. It’s been test-knit by someone else (my mom!) so I’m fairly certain it’s error-free. If not, please let me know!

What else did I do this weekend? Yesterday was the monthly spinning meeting, and I managed to spin a bobbin of yarn while I was there…and buy a bunch more fiber…now my yarn stash can have some company: the fiber stash!

Right now I’m wrapping up the weekend by swatching for a cardigan for me. Pictures and details will follow, but right now I’m too busy knitting to go find the camera!

Hope everyone else had a nice, relaxing weekend, too!

What’s a girl to do when she’s somewhat bored with her current knitting projects, and overwhelmed with the number of unfinished projects she found while cleaning the craft room – and therefore unwilling to start something new and add to the madness?

Finish something! I don’t know exactly when I started this little square. I think it might have been as early as high school, but more likely it was my first or second year of college. (For those of you playing at home, that makes it 8-10 years old. If it were a kid, it would be learning long division by now.) It is pieced and quilted by hand – poorly. It really isn’t as crooked as the picture shows, but it is a little bit crooked. The neat thing, though, is that the center of it is folded like origami – but out of fabric. I do remember seeing the pattern in a quilting magazine and wanting to make it – if I could find the original magazine, I’d have a better idea of how old it is!

Anyway, all that was left to do, literally, was quilt one side of the outer square and sew on the binding. I spent all of an hour and a half finishing it up – I’m not entirely sure why I put it down with that little work left. (Wait, wait, I know – I started another project and forgot about this one!) I’ll probably sew a couple of little plastic rings on the back and hang it in my craft room, even though I have a hard time looking past all of my beginner’s mistakes. When I do look past them, though, it’s kind of cute!

I really have been knitting lately, although not as much. I hit a little knitting slump right after Christmas…I probably should have expected that, since I knit almost non-stop for several weeks straight! I have my first finished object of 2004: my multi-directional diagonal scarf! And I finished it just in time for the balmy spring-like weather to turn into something actually resembling winter.

I can also reveal another of the mystery projects, since it’s been given: I present to you “Henry’s Dragon (Dinosaur) Cardie”. (See, it started out being called a dinosaur sweater, because that’s what the pattern was called, but I really think it looks more like a dragon. So there.)

Of course, since almost all of my works-in-progress are finished, I had to start something new. But it’s just a pair of socks, and I’ve only gotten the toe done on the first sock, so it’s not all that exciting at the moment. Oh, actually, I just thought of something else I also started, but that’s a secret project…